Creating Scrolls and Potions

EvilIguana966 · Post by **EvilIguana966** » Fri May 14, 2004 11:16 am

The ability to scribe scrolls and create potions is much appreciated and a very good idea, but it has a fatal flaw: Few casters are willing to take the xp loss associated with it. How do you compensate somone for losing the xp? Gold certainly isn't worth it. Everyone can get gold on their own and it's really only useful for buying kits and pots after level 13. So no casters are willing to spend their xp creating scrolls or pots for somone else.

There are 2 ways to solve this. The first is to make gold valuable, but NWN isn't Everquest.... and this is very difficult. The game may be PW, but it's not quite persistant enough to support a fully player driven economy. Make gold rare and you end up hurting the casual players while not bothering the power gamers at all. The second solution is to put the xp loss squarely on the recipient of the items. Its a bit more complicated, but perhaps a system where the person who wants some scrolls buys the imbued parchment for a gold and xp penalty then takes them to a player caster who can cast the spell as requested. Maybe even add a small xp gain to the caster for making the scrolls, adding an incentive. There are of course ways to exploit this system, but I do think it would make the create scroll/potion system more popular and useful.

Feedback from our friendly neigborhood devs appreciated )

Thanos · Post by **Thanos** » Fri May 14, 2004 12:00 pm

I think when they fix the economy players will buy and make potions. I also think they need to add some potions. Like see invis potions, true seeing, death ward, remove curse.

DrakhanValane · Post by **DrakhanValane** » Fri May 14, 2004 12:17 pm

I think you have a problem with the players, not the system.

AndrewCarr · Post by **AndrewCarr** » Fri May 14, 2004 12:30 pm

When there's lvl40 mages(if ever) i'd expect they'd spend their extra(and pretty much meaningless) xp on potions.

EvilIguana966 · Post by **EvilIguana966** » Fri May 14, 2004 1:16 pm

I'd expect most level 40 casters to be above making potions for us peons. At that point they have still have no incentive to make anything. Besides: xp is still lost on death and you CAN DE LEVEL meaning even at ultra high epic levels that xp is valuable (esp for planetouched). I am a pally/CoT, and one of my strengths is the ability to use a wide range of beneficial cleric scrolls: ie res/raise, restoration, remove curse etc. I'd like to make use of that for myself and for my groupmates. A pally with a few res scrolls and remove curse/restores can really ease the pressure on a cleric. All I'm saying is: who would trade their time and their xp for worthless money?

And as I stated earlier nerfing the gold drops and moving to a player run economy is not in the best interests of the mod. I also don't think the DM team has the resources to control such an economy. I have always personally been a fan of earning your gear through merit: ie killing powerful boss mobs and using the items rather than the EQ system where you sit doing boring money camps in order to afford overpriced gear from some high level schmuk who makes his daily rounds pulverizing mobs for valuable items.

Billiard · Post by **Billiard** » Fri May 14, 2004 1:40 pm

Maybe people should trade scrolls for other things of value then - like some of the upper end crafted items that are suppose to be uber?

EvilIguana966 · Post by **EvilIguana966** » Fri May 14, 2004 3:36 pm

And how often have you had something of the exact value of something else you want? And how often has that something been something the person you want something from wants? It's hard to base an economy on straight trading, which is why money was invented.

ATI · Post by **ATI** » Fri May 14, 2004 4:45 pm

Really, I think that as the beta goes on more and more mundane magic potions like true seeing, invisibility and so forth will be available. Which isn't too surprising to most people.

This is an exeprience issue however, not many people are willing to drain precious XP for making other people items. When you start making craftsman items, things get a little expensive to do the crafting xp wise. Since there is a lack of places to lvl up at this moment crammed xp areas like amazons, giants, haddon and so forth, are filled meaning less ability to lvl up for lvl 16-20's. This also means that with a scarcity of areas to lvl, that few people will go out of their way to utilize the crafted items.

The only way to solve that problem is tweaking the xp model, which has already been suggested on other forum topics. Increase synergy tactics bonuses (not too high) and just let the dev's naturally release more areas to lvl up at.

As beta comes to a close, I'm willing to bet an ork head that craft items, potions and scrolls will be more valuable and also more coveted by other players

Lework · Post by **Lework** » Fri May 14, 2004 4:49 pm

I make scrolls for people all the time, I often give them to people who help me out..

if your a fighter and you need say 10 scrolls of something. hit up a mage and ask him to make them for you, then take him out hunting to make up the xp loss....10 high level scrolls would be about 1200XP..doesnt take to long to make up the difference.

Now gaining arcane crafting levels..that costs some xp, getting to lvl 3 costed me 6k

Billiard · Post by **Billiard** » Fri May 14, 2004 4:59 pm

EvilIguana966 wrote:And how often have you had something of the exact value of something else you want? And how often has that something been something the person you want something from wants? It's hard to base an economy on straight trading, which is why money was invented.

Other online games I have played had quite extensive trading, often with forums dedicated to trading with auctions and such. Even some NWN PWs do this. Its just more complex than doing it for cash is all.

QuickLightning · Post by **QuickLightning** » Fri May 14, 2004 9:32 pm

want to stimulate the economy? RANDOM drops, i dont mean the stuff we got right now...i mean rare items randomly dropping and/or found in chests at very very rare instinces. Anyone who has played the WMW servers know what im talkin' about. They have items that are so rare that trading is a commonplace. The items are only obtainable in chests the respawn once every 30 minutes to avoid exploitation/people hanging out in one area. This also increases rogues effectiveness if the chests are made indestructable. (maybe knock immune?)

QuickLightning · Post by **QuickLightning** » Fri May 14, 2004 9:33 pm

erm @ the above, the only problem with that is the need for creation of hundreds of more items...and as all the items thus far have been made unique by the devs, that is a LOT of items to go through an create.