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Suggestion to Limit Characters to One Max Profession
Xenantaya
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
So the background for this post is the description of artisan classes and professions described here: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Artisan_classes
Currently, one player can master all the professions within one of the three artisan classes (gathering, processing, crafting). While I understand that mastering all professions within an artisan class will be time consuming, one can imagine a few years down the road where there will be a significant number of players who have mastered all the professions within an artisan class, such as gatherers who are max level in every gathering profession.
I suggest considering limiting each player to getting max level only in one profession (such as mining), instead of an entire artisan class (such as gathering). This will make each character more unique; encourage trading and other interaction among players since one player will not be able to do everything within an artisan class; create risk and reward in choosing which profession to max out (instead of one player being able to gather whatever is in demand at a particular time); and generally make the professions more valuable.
Currently, one player can master all the professions within one of the three artisan classes (gathering, processing, crafting). While I understand that mastering all professions within an artisan class will be time consuming, one can imagine a few years down the road where there will be a significant number of players who have mastered all the professions within an artisan class, such as gatherers who are max level in every gathering profession.
I suggest considering limiting each player to getting max level only in one profession (such as mining), instead of an entire artisan class (such as gathering). This will make each character more unique; encourage trading and other interaction among players since one player will not be able to do everything within an artisan class; create risk and reward in choosing which profession to max out (instead of one player being able to gather whatever is in demand at a particular time); and generally make the professions more valuable.
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Does that mean if I pick crafting as my tree to 'master' .. that I can master every single crafting profession in the game, eventually?
Yes, this was clarified on one of the streams this year though i do not remember which one exactly.
If you pick crafting as an artisan tree you can master every profession under it, BUT that is a serious time investment and would require a lot of work and a lot of materials, so if you want to master something it's best to focus on 1 profession at a time. Remember that you need at the very least people with mastery in the other 2 trees so you can find the necessary materials to master the crafting professions.
That's why most people say they will start with their main character in gathering and have 2 alts - one for processing and one for crafting. It will take a humogous amount of time to master every single profession in a single tree, what's to say about all 3 trees.
This is the main quote: Players must choose a path in the artisan skill tree for each character. Within each of the three parent artisan paths (Gathering, Processing and Crafting) there are different professions. A character may only ever master one of these paths.
It is possible to master every profession within a parent artisan path, but this will be a long and labor intensive feat, requiring many resources.
Gathering, Processing and Crafting are the paths and there is a very clear distinction made between choosing only 1 path per character and being able to master every profession in an artisan path. Paths =/= Professions
I'll probably be going 'crafting' then as the main one, because I've always found that a fun and rewarding experience.
What i've read and heard is that you can purely be a crafter, gatherer or a processor without needing to level up your character's archetype level (you class - Fighter for example). So you can just go around picking herbs or sit in town, craft items and sell them. The archetype and artisan progressions are separated. That being said, it would be quite dangerous for a level 1 character to go around looking for ore etc in high level zones :-)
I, personally, hope this doesn't change in the future.
What exactly are you referrencing with 1 character per server? You will have many character slots to fill in, but i do not have an exact number.
True, but don't forget about all the scary monsters and stuff!
Well, you say that, but other players are not the only thing that can kill a player. Monsters don't get corruption from killing you ;-)
Some classes are very good at weaving in and out of mobs without getting aggro in most games. I expect the same here.
Take FFXIV for example. A single character can not only master every crafting profession, but can also switch into any class and max lvl it should they wish to. It takes an insane amount of time, but its doable if you decide to invest the time and it is still to this day a hugely popular MMORPG. It hasn't broken the game economy either.
So if I understand correctly (I might not) a player cannot master every gathering and crafting profession. I think you can only master every profession from the 1 tree you master (gathering or crafting or processing) and you can still be good at everything else, but not a master.
At least that's what I 'think' is being described as the system. Pretty unusual but interesting!
However, I think allowing a player to max out all the professions, in a single artisan class, is going too far.
I think they should limit it so that you can only master like half, 3 or 4, of the professions under a single artisan class. This would be a nice midway point between not being able to find players that specialize in a certain profession and finding too many that specialize in one.
They can’t outpace the resource-gathering speed of someone who’s mastered every gathering profession, and so late in the game those mats won’t be worth nearly as much. They’ll also start at low levels, meaning the valuable gatherables are out of reach.
A prospective crafter will have no market because a small handful of maxed crafters will be the go-to players for crafting needs. Making lower level gear only works so far when there’s no easy Auction Houses.
At a point, it won’t be worth investing into crafting as a new player because no one needs you and there’s no market to be had except for the few who’ve maxed everything.
But if mastering Crafting was limited to two or three professions, then suddenly you do have a potential to get in the market. If your node has one Master Crafter who knows everything, you can’t get in there’s but if your node only has a Master Jewelrycrafter and Master Armorer, then you could go into Clothier or Bowyer, or Alchemist or Enchanter. The less overlap among players, the more viable crafting is as a playstyle for new players.