Greetings!
I have been perusing the AoC wiki and forums recently, mostly due to my insatiable curiosity and anticipation of the game.
When I did a bit of digging with regards to the Artisan Classes system, I came across the flow chart listing the different types of professions available to the community. This has been expanded upon with information regarding some intended interdependencies between the 3 main classes. (Original can be found on the AoC wiki under Artisan classes).
I wanted to put forward some suggestions with regards to some changes to this flow chart.
I will explain my reasoning for this below.
As can be seen in this amended chart, some professions have been added to the Processing tree and some have been removed/combined in the Crafting tree. I felt that the Gathering tree was perfect and did not need any changes. I have used color-coded lines to relay the dependencies these professions would have, trying to remain true to the original intent that all professions should be dependent on others and not self-sufficient.
Going from left to right, I will explain my ideas with regards to these changes.
First and foremost, I felt there was an imbalance between the amount of professions in each tree when compared to the others - the crafting tree being the most robust with most professions. I also felt that some professions did not seem as dependent or as desirable as others at first glance. I.e.
Fishing did not seem to have as much of an implementation, aside from potentially
Cooking, while
Lumberjacking seemed to be useful for
Carpentry, Caravan, Ship and Siege Weapon building. The existence of cases such as these, combined with the limitation of
only being able to master 2 (or 3) professions within the
same tree poses a question:
"Why would I pick Fishing instead of, say, Armor smithing, considering the implications of the impact one would have compared to the other(in terms of late game/character/etc)?".
Thus, here are my proposed changes:
1.
Refining in the Processing tree: this profession takes raw gathered materials from the
Fishing and
Herbalism Gathering professions and processes them to prepare them for use by the
Alchemy, Cooking, Jewel crafting and Scribe professions.
Example(s): Processing fish through
Refining could result in new materials, such as scales, bones, fish oil, etc, which may then be used by
Alchemists, Cooks and maybe even
Armor smiths(if fish oil was used for purposes such as tanning leather). Maybe processing a squid caught by
Fishing produces ink for
Scribes to use when making scrolls. Herbs could also be processed in some way to provide a prepared product for
Alchemists to use in their potions(i.e. drying/extracting/etc?). Perhaps gems found by
Miners could also be
Refined to provide ready-cut gemstones for the
Jewel Crafters.(There will, of course, still be dependencies between
Gathering and
Crafting professions where one directly supplies the other in the case of
Fishing and
Farming supplying gatherables to
Cooking.)
2.
Woodworking in the Processing tree: this profession takes raw gathered materials from
Lumberjacking and produces prepared materials for some Crafting professions. I.e. wooden planks/posts/etc which supply the
Carpentry and
Caravan & Ship building(placeholder name as I could not think of a name that combines both professions well enough - maybe Vessel building?
). Saw dust, which could be a by-product of producing wooden planks, can be used by
Scribes to craft paper for scrolls from.
3. Change to
Blacksmithing to combine both Weapon and Armor smithing into one profession. This, once again, stems from the limitation to a maximum of 2 (or 3) mastered professions, all of which have to be in the same Artisan Class tree. Personally, I would not want to have to use up 2 of my (potentially) 3 mastered professions to be able to craft weapons and armor (and nothing else if the limit ends up being a max of 2 mastered). The
Smelting and, potentially,
Refining Processing professions would then supply
Blacksmithing with necessary materials.
4. Removal of
Siege Weapon crafting: because most people would likely pick a profession to master which either benefits the progression of their character - i.e.
Blacksmithing, provides them with a mount - i.e.
Animal Husbandry or is marketable for profits - i.e. any of the professions(aside from Siege Weapon building). I doubt many people would think of the node's safety and needs over their own, meaning it is highly unlikely many, if anyone, would master this profession. Due to this, I thought it might be better if there was a way for Mayors of nodes to craft siege weapons at an NPC forge, which require materials produced by
Carpenters and
Blacksmiths as it makes sense conceptually.
5. Combining
Caravan and
Ship building into one profession: because it makes sense conceptually, as a craftsman able to build a ship should be able to build a caravan. Both are transportation/hauling vessels and it would make sense if the same crafter could build them without having to expend 2 of (potentially 3) max mastered professions on it. As mentioned in "2. Woodworking" - this, along with the
Smelting Processing professions would supply
Caravan & Ship builders with the necessary materials to work their trade.
Now that all changes have been explained, to add some more context for the connections between the remaining professions:
Farming and
Animal Husbandry are interdependent and each supplies the other with necessary "materials". I.e.
Farmers provide
Animal Husbandrists with animals to breed. In return,
Animal Husbandrists provide
Farmers with potentially better farming animals.
Tamers' connection to
Animal Husbandrists is self-explanatory.
I look forward to hearing everyone's (and if I'm lucky - someone from the development team's) thoughts on this change. Please let me know if anything is unclear needs more elaboration. Apologies for the extremely long post!
~Devlina
