Buying Buildings

[Maina]

Might be a controversial one.

Recently, I had a character take up farming with the primary goal of animal handling and a little bit of farming to support it.

Building requires metal working, woodcutting, woodworking, and building skills.

My character is banned from Shadgard. There is maybe one character up in Mistral Lake who can do all of those, and they rightfully find doing it all themselves a miserable experience.

My character has tried to hire a few other people to assist with materials, but it can take days for an order to be filled if it isn't forgotten, and often the market is bought out very quickly when they deliver materials there. Storing the materials for larger constructions when you can only find a little at a time is also prohibitive.

All-in-all, I have gone a couple weeks into farming and haven't even begun to start working on animal husbandry and half of my farm is unfenced.

I would like to suggest a safeguard for farmers when there is a lack of builders and crafters willing or able to perform the work: a shop at the stockade that lets you buy buildings at a large markup, to encouraging having PCs do it but without blocking progress when there aren't. A similar philosophy to allowing NPC healers to treat fractures.

These buildings could avoid using components (maybe just customize a wood type) but produce nothing when demolished (I don't know if demolish provides materials, but it shouldn't for these.)

[Gorth]

I like this, a lot.

Building is one of those things that goes in and out of fashion. Mostly because it sucks and it pretty much exclusively is not fun.

[Rias]

Construction is a skill I'm frequently wondering about regarding whether it has a good place in the game or not. It can feel really good to put a big complex project together, but on the other hand it can feel like more trouble than it's worth, and then we end up having a shortage of a role that's required for other roles. If we have a building NPC service, it should probably have some limitations (beyond just not producing materials when demolished) if we want to keep the construction skill as something useful and relevant. In the meantime, it might be worth going to a middle area and asking on ESP if any builders can come help you out so that the ESP reaches the whole game area (including Shadgard, which may have some builders lurking).

Building is one of those things that goes in and out of fashion. Mostly because it sucks and it pretty much exclusively is not fun.

There are a lot of good ways to give constructive negative feedback and bring about a desired change or improvement to something you don't like about the game. This was not one of them. A good rule of thumb is to employ basic tact when offering criticism, include details as to why you feel that way, and, when possible, offer ideas or suggestions for alternatives even if they're not fully-formed concepts.

[artus]

Isn't there a plan for constructions to accept partial materials until they're done somewhere? I think it'll help a ton when it's a thing, really. No need to be negative about it.
*I just saw the topic. Can't deny the level of involvement in construction is quite hefty though especially when you have limited space to store items and require a hell ton to get one building going. I just abuse woodsheds like crazy, albeit mine or someone else's when I can for this purpose. It's not a big deal, just a fuss some people may not want to bother much with because of all the materials required which take a lot of manpower and a lot of storage. I hope it gets better when the plan is in place, however.

[Gorth]

There are a lot of good ways to give constructive negative feedback and bring about a desired change or improvement to something you don't like about the game. This was not one of them. A good rule of thumb is to employ basic tact when offering criticism, include details as to why you feel that way, and, when possible, offer ideas or suggestions for alternatives even if they're not fully-formed concepts.

It's taking a lot of my energy to write a post that isn't very, very rude. All I'll say is, I was trying to agree with Maina. I wasn't trying to add any great revelations to the topic. I wasn't insulting your game, or your players, or your process, or anything. Forgive me for not enjoying a small part of a game that I have been playing for two and a half years, and making a small comment about it on a public forum. A game, I feel the need to mention, that I have been attempting to help grow and balance for just about the entire time of my playing. I've played every combat class (except Guardian), and learned the deep mechanics, talked to the new players and the old players, suggested thing after thing.

I'd like to think I know you, Rias, at least a little. We've sat on voicechat for a good chunk of time, and laughed, and talked about the game, and traded ideas. I know you're not the kind of guy, and maybe I'll look at it from a different angle later, but that felt deeply personal. I really should have taken my own advice and stopped posting here, because now I'm just sad.

[Maina]

Thank you for taking the time to comment, Rias.

Considering your comment about needing some other drawbacks, I offer a few additional possible ideas:

1. As mentioned, a large markup to the cost.
2. No customization, so people (like me) who are picky in materials are limited to materials the NPC provides, much like weapons/armor shops.
3. Materials shops instead of building shops, since it's the production of parts that seems to be the main bottleneck. Again, big price markup. There is precedent here already with nails in general stores.
4. Timer. Like repairs, have it take 24 bells for the structure to be complete. Maybe it takes up the plot space the whole time, instead of just when finished.
6. Timer mk 2: Can only buy one building per X amount of time? Weekly seems good?
7. Simplified construction. Instead of a dozen different parts, have one 'construction materials' object. Maybe you get one by attaching a plank and a nail or something like that. Or you could have separate "wooden construction parts" and "metal construction parts." So a cart might take 100 "pine construction materials" and two "bronze construction materials" instead of a dozen different minor parts in various quantities. Might be good for database, too? if you want certain flavorful parts, like wheel rims, could still have those, but many of the parts could probably just be a generic "construction parts" object.

[Gorth]

I know we talked about having buildings need periodic repairs, which would really suck for when there aren't builders about, but I'm just splashing ideas. We could make NPC provided buildings take more damage. Not a huge amount. Also, we could tag them with, 'rough', or, well, I don't think it ought to be something like 'crude', because the towns definitely don't have crude builders. Unless we want to flavor it more as sort of, 'whatever damn hobbiest handyman I can find will do.' That'd be cool.

[adresin]

As someone who has a character that can actually do all of these things, I get why most can't. The game seems to actively discourage someone having so many crafting skills and it sounds like that's going to continue, which I do understand logically. I do think most times it's something that requires more than one person to help, to get all of the required parts, and with storage limits understandably being tightened up it's making things more difficult.

Whatever the plan is to allow beginning a building without having every required part there seems like it would make a huge difference in situations like this. The other issue can be transportation of items. Workhorses are expensive, and getting required lumber for, almost, any building from Shadgard to MIstral would be incredibly frustrating without one or preferably a team of them. On the other hand, a woodcutter could chop a tree down near Mistral instead, but if it's just one or two people, or someone with incredibly high skill, that's going to take forever.

I do think construction is a valuable skill and those who do it don't need to necessarily be able to make all of the parts, but it's going to be difficult until whatever Rias's new thought is for material use is put in place. Meanwhile, other than the ESP suggestion Rias made, could you ask someone else to post on Shadgard's board for you to see if you can get interest in helping with materials? Fences aren't that hard, for example, you only need woodworking and very low construction skill for that and the materials are easy enough to get. What I don't know is if you can give farm access to someone who isn't a citizen of that town.

I'm not particularly opposed to an NPC backup, especially for materials as opposed to the building itself, but I do think a better solution could be found to make it less painful getting PC help with projects like this.

[Rias]

Sorry my response felt personal and made you sad, Gorth. It's my standard "effective feedback and criticism" soapbox material I tend to give whenever I see "this things sucks" comments or posts, regardless of author or recipient. It's been my perception and experience that comments with phrasing such as "this thing sucks and is exclusively not fun" don't trigger a feeling of "this person is just trying to help and I should listen to them", but rather puts a person on the defensive at a perceived insult. That's why I recommend tact when giving feedback - it'll help avoid turbluence and get everyone to a more productive place more quickly.

It sounds like the partial production idea without requiring every piece and component at the start is one that could alleviate a lot of construction woes, so we'll start there!

I think another thing that could help would be tasks or some market demand bonus to incentivize making basic components and selling them to the market for a little extra money and some experience. People will - understandably - naturally focus on making the stuff that's immediately useful instead of some basic component some other unidentified hypothetical crafter might happen to possibly need for some other hypothetical project at some indeterminate future time. And it's just not as enticing to make things like hinges and wheel axles when you could be making swords, right? So yeah, incentive for some of those boring but practical components.

Moving logs around is another issue that could use some attention. Logging sleds could stand to be better than they currently are, as a specific-purpose transport item.

I like the idea that some NPC-built smaller animal shelters could be acquired and provide lower capacity, and a player character with Construction skill could come by at some future point and upgrade them to increase their capacity to full. Then animal husbanders could get started easier but construction skill people would still be desired to get the full capacity out of the things when available.

[sapphire]

I think what could help too is if there is a middle ground board somewhere too. Maybe New Emberlight could be a place where Mistral citizens on a market board can request a builder's help. I think enough people go there that word could be spread to builders in Shadgard?