Artisan issues and suggestions

[merin]

Hi,

All right, I know a lot of what I’m about to say has probably been brought up before, however, with the guild being under a new guru, I’m going to bring them up again.

I love my artisan. I love the crafting aspect of the game, and it’s something I enjoy doing. There, however, are a few mechanical problems with the guild that, honestly, keep me from enjoying it to its full potential – and this is a shame, because, if it wasn’t for these issues, I would probably be more excited to get him somewhere. As it stands now, he’s my second favorite character and I get frustrated playing him, and here’s why.

1. We have no place to store our stuff. The bank vaults are great for *my* stuff, however, for stuff related to my craft and a business its ridiculous. I have almost, if not more than, a hundred items stowed between towns, and half of that is simply a few chosen pieces of ore (cinnabar and iron). I am asking for a warehouse of some sort or a place designed to store and access multiple items easily. It’s ridiculous to not be able to collect 30 shorts words from someone because I don’t have the room for it and I have nowhere to store it. I don’t want to be one of those players that, once I get a house, it’s simple, easy, storage. I would like to be able to store the stuff I need safely and efficiently. For instance, I can’t hunt for bear pelts. If Kent brings me 200 of them, I’m not putting them in a bank vault because it’s unwieldy, makes accessing what I want a chore, and it’s frustrating. If I get 30 shorts words for tasks, it’s the same thing. I propose artisans can rent storage space in the warehouse for, heck, even a huge fee. I can make a lot of money, so, that shouldn’t be an issue. Charge me a 30000 rill deposit for the storage space, plus 10000 a month to have access to it. In there I can put all my stuff and have it displayed like the count command. I figure it looking something like this:
Find weapon
You sift through your storage and find…
3 well-crafted iron sabers
30 copper shorts words
45 blood glass stilettos
30 seconds round time.

Find gems
You sift through your storage and find…
30 chunks of cinnabar
300 chunks of crystalline quartz
40 chunks of tourmaline.
30 seconds round time.
Same for metals and other categories or items. I know we have wagon storage, however, that wagon is what we have to use to, well, get more stuff, too, so I don’t see this as an acceptable method of storage.

Next, every other guild can get guild points for performing something extremely vital to their tasks. Why can’t artisans? It has been argued that there should be some risk involved, however, I can sit on my monk in the infirmary all day, no risk, and get guild points out the ears for just sitting there tracing. I feel that it would put the artisans on par with the other guilds if we got guild points for swinging a forging hammer, sawing flitches, carving branches, leatherworking, and etcetera. Getting promotions is an outright chore, and the way the tasks are set up (due to not being able to store stuff I know I’ll need in an efficient manner. On top of the hours grinding for, say, master blacksmith, and then the multitude of tasks that I either have to reject or take and the time taken in order to complete the tasks, it’s the slowest progressing most tedious guild to advance in. Furthermore, some of their special stuff (appraisal specialist, merchant’s eye, shopkeeper, purchase orders), require multiple skills before they can be attained and it’s simply not worth the benefits to bother.

Next is the tasks themselves. I believe with a way to store materials that are task specific, this won’t be less of an issue, however, we’re artisans. Here are a couple of task ideas that I came up with:
The weapons master in Haiban is needing assistance filling a large order. He has requested ten average iron flails to be brought to him at your earliest convenience. If you brought him better, you would receive more guild points as if it were like an herbalism task.

A wagon was ambushed containing several necessary supplies. Please forge fifty copper nails and deliver them to Kath. Since this would be an assistance task, perhaps you wouldn’t receive payment, however, a higher reward in guild points.

The tanner at shadgard requests that you assist him in making 5 armor cruises. He has played out the supplies in the tannery, all you need do is tell him the coalition sent you. You would go in, see materials, and craft away. If you screwed up, it would be on you to replace the wasted items. To avoid issues, it could be a private room that would be there for that task, and once in if you left that’s it. You fail, no passing go, so, you might have to prepare to bring more leather if you screwed up.

A builder in Keth is under contract to construct a replacement wall for the inn. Please bring him 20 strait oak planks.

Another way to assist with guild points would be to allow artisans by default, since it is their job, to see purchase orders at Haiybn. The more of those you are able to complete, the better the reputation of the coalition, therefore, the better off you are for filling them.

That’s all I can think of for now. I really hope something can be done about the flaws here. It’s frustrating and the hardest guild to get anywhere in, and in my opinion, one of the most fun.

[Jirato]

Storage:
I would suggest utilizing the bank account system to open a secondary account for your crafting-related goods. See the account command in-game. I'll evaluate some alternatives though.

Guild points for non-task related work:
It's not our intent that every guild needs to be perfectly balanced with each other. There is really no comparison between Artisans and Monks. Even so, It's still far more efficient to do tasks in most of those guilds that have guild points on the side for performing guild-related actions. It's more of a little added bonus than intended as the primary means for ranking up. However, I'll look into some alternatives. It used to be that artisans simply got guild points for selling items on markets, but it was far too easy to advance.

Abilities:
I intend to evaluate ability prerequisites, but I can't promise anything is going to change at this point. My main concern is, I don't think an Artisan should feel they have to diversify in every single craft if they want to specialize in one or two instead. In fact, specialization should be encouraged, not penalized.

Tasks:
I plan on a pretty major overhaul of their tasks to more correctly fit the "Artisans" name rather than the "Traders" that they used to be. It's ranked a bit lower on my priority list right now though.

Right now, my main focus as far as Western Coalition goes is to make Mercenaries a bit more mercenary-like and less like some sort of military unit, however, I haven't forgotten about Artisans. They'll see some changes too.

[merin]

Wooo. getting guild points for selling stuff on the market would make it really easy to advance. I didn't mean to outright compare the two guilds -- simply point out that every other guild, risk or not, got a little something on the side while artisans got nothing. I agree completely that it's better to specialize, which isn't the problem for me. It's thanks to that specialization (taking all the blacksmith and mining abilities) that I can't do anything else, such as purchase orders.

Bank vaults...never crossed my mind. Thanks for that idea.

[Rias]

Getting points for selling at the market is yucky for two reasons. 1) You're now Artisans, not Traders. 2) As was the original problem, it was silly that people could advance ridiculously quickly by just selling whatever they found or were given, potentially without doing anything other than saying "Hey, let me sell your stuff for you so I can get points."

Suggestion: A small amount of points for completing crafted items, with some thresholds and cutoff points/cooldown times or something so people don't become a rank 5000 artisan solely from scripting the carving of walking-sticks all day.

[merin]

Yeah, that would work, too. I guess what I was thinking is, like skills, it be based off round time. a 30 second forging action will get you like, .3 guildpoints or whatever, as where a 5 second one would get you .05? But the crafting completed would work too.

[Skah]

1. We have no place to store our stuff.
Not sure I agree with this one. Can't you guys have a whole wagon of completely safe storage in Haiban when you store it? Plus, banks are actually pretty cheap storage as well. There's also hiding wagons, and player houses (within reason). If storage is too easy people hoard like crazy, which impacts the server performance. I'm pretty sure that's why Haiban burned down with those lovely workstalls! rented storage might be cool though.

2. Task stuff

I totally agree with this one. There should be a way to get at least a small number guild points from trading or crafting directly (there used to be), and the artisan tasks need an overhaul. I know the GMs aren't entirely happy with the artisan tasks based on posts Rias made on this board, so I'm sure that's on the list.

3. Purchase Order by Default

Again, I agree. Orders should be easier to see, either immediately by traders, at a certain guild level (say 5?), or merged with an existing skill (appraisal specialist, maybe). It's really not worth a separate ability point as-is.

[merin]

That's why I say to make the rented storage cost something that will be nothing to blink at. 30 k up front isn't anything to sneeze at, and 10 k a month or you lose it. But, Jirato suggested sepperate bankvaults which I totally forgot all about and, once I can get the desire to actually organize my crap, will make things easier. Also, that will negate the need for it if I set it up right.

The longer I think on the storage thing, actually, the less I agree with it, too, especially if you store your own wagon full of your stuff you wanna keep and rent one for your hauling around of materials for tasks/putting away for personal use.

[Enepttastic]

I feel weird thinking I'm "necroing" a post that's still on the first page but whatever. Had an idea about earning GP that may be doable.

What about having the guild have it's own, open to the public, store(s) that's stocked by the guildmembers. Members can "sell" their finished goods for points. Points would be based on the item's worth with points added/docked based upon quality and current stock(i.e. Shop already has 20 iron daggers, you get nothing for adding another to the pile but you'd get a bonus for iron spears if there were none in stock).

To keep from gaming the system via spending riln for GP, the guild will only allow unmarked items to be traded for GP and they're immediately stamped with the guild's crafting mark and the guild will seriously frown upon any members found to exploit the stores by buying marked items so they can earn points by selling their items(i.e. 10 daggers in store, buy them, make 10 more, buy them, etc.). Penalties given to those unscrupulous enough to try could involve fines or requesting the assistance of the Mercenary's Guild to teach the violator a lesson.