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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
How deep should professions be? How long should it take to level?
Marzzo
Member, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Do you want your profession adventure to be a long and memorable one? Full with quest chains, rare resource hunting and a bit of hard work? Should professions be something that spans the whole lenght of the expansion to max out? Should it even be possible to max out a professions?
Or do you want it world of warcraft style? Should it be something that takes a couple of hours to max out? Should professions just be a minor feature that you level super fast and find materials for it super fast?
Share what you think!
Or do you want it world of warcraft style? Should it be something that takes a couple of hours to max out? Should professions just be a minor feature that you level super fast and find materials for it super fast?
Share what you think!
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Comments
Truthfully, I want a lot more depth than WOW. I don't want quest chains, but I do want hard work. I want professions to take as long as possible to max out.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
also in regards to quests, i could easily see you had to find some legendary/mythical tome somewhere of great significance to that proffession, wasn't it the elves that was known as the master smiths in the lore, if so you could have to find a lost elven city where they kept their knowledge of the crafts in order to reach "master" tier
For professions, I would like something where they are extremely deep but specialised taking longer to level than class levels.
However, even were the Artisan skills level up fast, or at least faster, you would then still be reliant on what recipes you can get your hands on.
So, you might reach max level quick, but still be unable to craft some of the best gear, until someone defeats a raid boss who drops an epic recipe, then sells it to you, to craft them a weapon.
Since gathering in this game will be far different as resources will be depleted from areas and then you will have to find them elsewhere and never in the same location, it will make gathering a more tedious and profitable job. And I believe their will be far fewer people doing it, because it's harder.
Crafting should be the same, long process but enjoyable,., not super repetetive making the same things over and over.
When I reach a master in my profession, I want to be super proud to see my signature on that item and am really looking forward to a rewarding crafting system.
I don't necessarily agree with connecting one system to another. Even though sieges might be opened, it shouldn't have any relation or influence on the artisan leveling system itself. Whether, players choose to grind out levels is one thing, but the system should be strong enough that it's leveling system isn't reliant on other factors.
As someone who "mains" gathering/crafting in other MMO's for profit/guilds I've always found it's much more fun and beneficial in the long run when it takes a good chunk of time to get to the high level things. It separates the artisans who do it on the side, versus those who will be dedicating the majority of their time to their mastery. However, it shouldn't be so long/difficult that only a handful can do it, but it should be challenging enough that it's a noticeable time-sink. If it's too short then everyone will be a "master" and it lessens the meaning of the term and would weaken the market as you wouldn't need to travel to the next town over to find a master XYZ because there's probably 10 in your own node.
I can't give a number since it'll be hard to judge until testing as I don't know how much EXP is given per item, does EXP drop off or stay at a flat rate and just the EXP threshold increase, what's going to be the max level and how much EXP would it take for each/each milestone/in total, would you be able to just set up a huge queue and walk away (etc etc).
Basically, it should be challenging enough that not every player wants to dedicate the amount of time it would require to become a master. The population of master's will increase as time goes on, but may fluctuate based on people leaving the game, or not online as often etc, so it should still be a fairly sought after bunch.
I actually really like quests in regards to crafting/gathering BUT not in terms of gaining EXP or such. One game I liked how they did it was FFXIV. Every 10 levels or so they'd have you talk to someone knowledgeable in the field you were working on. They followed a little story as they had you gather a few materials and teach you new skills/some basics and would reward you with a basic tool you'd probably be outleveld for anyways. It was a nice blend between tutorial/lore. Unfortunately, they made it mandatory for some aspects, such as learning new recipes and such.
I would actually love a lore"ish" questline teaching you about how your artisan profession impacts the world and why it's important/how it started up in the new land. Perhaps they'll even teach you things you didn't know before, or have you visit a place you didn't realize would have such good resources. I think these kinds of quests should definitely be optional though.
There will be people who hit those requirements in time, whether they still exist then or not. As long as it stays only one of each needed, it should not be that much of an influence to all but a few leveling artisans in upper guilds.
What I am really nervous about is allowing players to master too many things. My ideal vision would be if you choose to go down the gathering profession, you get to access ALL gathering paths BUT could only master 2 of them. I very much hope that we aren't able to be self sufficient as this directly impacts the social aspect in a negative way.
How to get there? Certainly a lot of crafting experience as well as quests ~ perhaps with a choice of quests rather than a single path of them. But that is secondary, what matters is that experts be unusual.
Just going by the info that is currently available which says you'll need one of each to even start a siege on the fourth week. 45 days of 4-6 hours per day to hit max level is the current estimate. So unless they lock them out for longer or make the gear requirements very high some are going to probably get taken at the end of the first month.
Not just sitting there crafting stuff because I need to level it, but making it so that I'm crafting because I will be selling that stuff soon, allowing me to buy new mats for my next crafting.
If I understand correctly mats should be scarce, therefore crafting just to level wouldn't make sense. This will apply for most of us except those in hardcore guilds where everyone will be dropping all their resources on 3-4 guildies to make them master asap.
That's what I was attempting to say in my post. There will be people who grind day and night until they hit the requirement, but outside systems, like siege timing, shouldn't influence the actual system of how fast it takes to progress through the artisan levels.
To clarify with an example: if it takes 1 million EXP to hit master artisan and based on player behavior it should take 8 weeks to hit that mark. It shouldn't then be lowered to 500,000 EXP just so it can hit that 4 week threshold.
Basically, how fast it should take to level an artisan class shouldn't be reliant on when a siege could take place, or any other system for that matter.
I'm hoping that crafting will be slower and more meaningful vs checking a crafting wiki and seeing you need 600 "x", 1400 "y" and 72 "z" to get to lvl 75 cooking type of thing.
I agree.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Leveling
The fourth week siege I can't find on the wiki so and video is nearly two years old, could well be out of date, but I havent seen anything disputing the timing myself yet.
On the matter of the declaration flag/scroll for castle sieges.
Guild registration opens for the siege.
Once a guild registers for the siege a scroll creation quest is initiated that guild members may participate in, and it becomes possible to lay the declaration scroll down as soon as the quest is completed. Multiple guilds may register to attack and the first to complete the scroll and lay down the declaration may begin to have their members register to attack (there will be a cap) The siege scroll deployment is a 5 min cast that alerts the region at the cast initiation and names the caster that must be the guild leader.
--Steven, June 2020
I'm not finding anything about master crafters being required to create a declaration flag/scroll.
Other than what Jahlon states in his video. I can't find his source for that.
And those who has conquered hell should be rewarded accordingly.
Like, so hellish that most regular raiders & pvpers won't even want to touch it (beyond the beginner level).
For lengthy discovery, there should be new recipes that can be found and obtained through many different ways: Boss drops, reverse-engineering, game events, NPC guilds, Node building progressions, etc. Don't be Blizzard levels of lazy and have everything locked behind an NPC with a rep grind. I hate rep grinding so much...
Agree 100%.
I hope they make recipes also locked behind Node levels. So unless you level a node, you won't get access to recipes.
Also, maybe some recipes are never discovered because X event didn't trigger. So even after a year playing you can still get surprised.