User blog:Cryptar/Beta Scrapnotes

Musings on things that will inevitably change throughout the development process, therefore this may be scattered and will be informal:

General

 * Time will pause when looking at the commission board, however when Higgins will still be able to interact with it while you are deciding, so there is a very limited window of time to get the commission with the best payout.

Skill
The artisan skill is a very useful one in that you can save yourself some rare or complicated crafting materials, but it has a sort of 'knack to it' in that it doesn't reduce the initial cost but the final "spend" of resources; I sometimes think of it like it refunds that much of the materials, and maxing it out is the most practical option right now so I will continue using the maxed out skill as a model, which is a 20% craft cost reduction. So another way of thinking of it is "buy five get one of those free" and therefore the current model means it's best to do crafts in sets of five. So let's take of an example of a side mission where I need 5 scarves; I already have one in my inventory and decide to craft five anyway because of that refund; this is a good strategy as I effectively have 7 scarves in the end. There was the one I already had, then the five I crafted plus the materials refunded enough to make another one. I know this is basic percentages and division but it's just translating it into game mentality, as rather than it being a 'cost reduction' it could be thought of as a production gained by that percentage with that strategy. Of course, the skill reduces material costs in sets of five so even when not crafting five full items at a time the 'perk' is in effect but the section above is mainly about using rarer materials and/or when less are required for each item.

Speculation
Currently I am getting missions requiring the porcelain plate relatively regularly, handing out about 800 gol for an item that is about 50 gol. I think this is unlikely to be an oversight an it is possible that the purchase of the plate is a placeholder and we can eventually craft dining objects.