It always bugs me in crafting-heavy games when players need to rely on NPCs to provide materials instead of players crafting things for others. Ryzom is sufficiently complex enough that we shouldn't need NPC vendors of anything except basic mats for convenience purposes. Some of the biggest offenders are the basic tools: we all need them, we all buy them, and without them we can't dig or craft. We also have a woefully under-utilized tool-crafting action that so far is used only for crafting outpost tools.
Allow players to create basic tools. The only useful stats need to be lightness and durability, and they can pick up those stats from whatever mats are used to create them. Grade and quality level of the tools indicates the mats used, similar to other items, and they determine the thresholds for lightness and durability values, the same as now with weapons and weapon damages. The current durability and lightness of the tools should be consistent with what you'd get from a Choice Q150 item; lower grade and quality levels should have lower values, and higher grade and quality levels should have higher values.
Each civ would have a racial pattern for each of the tools, and they would each vary slightly, based on a variation of the civ faction picks (much less detailed, of course). The Outpost tool patterns would need to be updated to reflect required mats. They would have the same appearance and sparkles that they do now (picks should gain sparkles with this change), and like other outpost/generic patterns, would accept mats from any region. This would allow nationalism for even the crafting tools (Fyros or Tryker using a Matis pick? I don't think so!) =)
A new Crafting sub-tree could be added that branches out for each tool.
Add one more step to the crafting mission chain before the Amp-crafting mission: create your own tools. By that point, you've demonstrated the ability to gather materials using the provided pick, and you've demonstrated prowess at basic crafting using the provided armour crafting tool. To progress further, you need to know how to be self-sufficient and craft your own tools. The mission-giver provides you with a generic tool crafting tool.
Then remove NPC-supplied tools from the game, except perhaps for very poor quality picks and tool crafting tools that cannot be traded.
This would provide real items that players could grind on that would actually be useful for anyone and everyone. It also wouldn't matter THAT much the relative stats, since there is only Durability and Lightness to worry about. A Q250 Supreme Rubbarn tool would last longer and be lighter than a Q10 Basic Rubbarn tool, but they would both have the same exact Rubbarn special ability.
This also gives a (minor) benefit to those high quality level Op tool mats over lower quality level Op tool mats, and would open up various quality level Op tool mats to be used as rewards or gifts from events and actually be useful.
This could inspire special faction tools on the faction vendors as well, particularly Focus-boosted jewel crafting tools.
To still provide a reason to purchase faction picks other than the fancy versions, maybe not allow stat boosts to be added to the tools? Or increase the boosts available on the faction tools by 25-50%?
Allow players to create basic tools. The only useful stats need to be lightness and durability, and they can pick up those stats from whatever mats are used to create them. Grade and quality level of the tools indicates the mats used, similar to other items, and they determine the thresholds for lightness and durability values, the same as now with weapons and weapon damages. The current durability and lightness of the tools should be consistent with what you'd get from a Choice Q150 item; lower grade and quality levels should have lower values, and higher grade and quality levels should have higher values.
Each civ would have a racial pattern for each of the tools, and they would each vary slightly, based on a variation of the civ faction picks (much less detailed, of course). The Outpost tool patterns would need to be updated to reflect required mats. They would have the same appearance and sparkles that they do now (picks should gain sparkles with this change), and like other outpost/generic patterns, would accept mats from any region. This would allow nationalism for even the crafting tools (Fyros or Tryker using a Matis pick? I don't think so!) =)
A new Crafting sub-tree could be added that branches out for each tool.
Add one more step to the crafting mission chain before the Amp-crafting mission: create your own tools. By that point, you've demonstrated the ability to gather materials using the provided pick, and you've demonstrated prowess at basic crafting using the provided armour crafting tool. To progress further, you need to know how to be self-sufficient and craft your own tools. The mission-giver provides you with a generic tool crafting tool.
Then remove NPC-supplied tools from the game, except perhaps for very poor quality picks and tool crafting tools that cannot be traded.
This would provide real items that players could grind on that would actually be useful for anyone and everyone. It also wouldn't matter THAT much the relative stats, since there is only Durability and Lightness to worry about. A Q250 Supreme Rubbarn tool would last longer and be lighter than a Q10 Basic Rubbarn tool, but they would both have the same exact Rubbarn special ability.
This also gives a (minor) benefit to those high quality level Op tool mats over lower quality level Op tool mats, and would open up various quality level Op tool mats to be used as rewards or gifts from events and actually be useful.
This could inspire special faction tools on the faction vendors as well, particularly Focus-boosted jewel crafting tools.
To still provide a reason to purchase faction picks other than the fancy versions, maybe not allow stat boosts to be added to the tools? Or increase the boosts available on the faction tools by 25-50%?