Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Artisan Class Restriction.
worddog
Member
I don't really see a point in limiting the 2-3 master professions to the same artisan class.
All it does is force your mining and metalworking to be done on two different characters.
If it's not going to be account bound can we just have 2-3 master professions across all 3 artisan classes?
I don't mind forcing alts but if the only crafting profession I want is armor smithing than the other 2 professions I'm allowed to have are useless.
If I want to have a master miner, metalworker, and armor smith I need 3 characters.
But if I want a master miner, lumberjack, and herbalist, I only need 1 character.
It doesn't prevent me from doing it, it just requires more time investment.
All it does is force your mining and metalworking to be done on two different characters.
If it's not going to be account bound can we just have 2-3 master professions across all 3 artisan classes?
I don't mind forcing alts but if the only crafting profession I want is armor smithing than the other 2 professions I'm allowed to have are useless.
If I want to have a master miner, metalworker, and armor smith I need 3 characters.
But if I want a master miner, lumberjack, and herbalist, I only need 1 character.
It doesn't prevent me from doing it, it just requires more time investment.
1
Comments
As a Blacksmith you work for 20 years to master your profession. After 20 years of smithing anything from horseshoes to iron kettles you decide to try something new: Armor Smithing. Well, you are in your 40s already and can adapt to a different workflow pretty quickly, but you eventually will never be an Armor Smith as good as some guy who startet Armor Smithing in his 20s.
Thereby you'll never be able to be a great Gahterer or Processor since everything you've ever done was Blacksmithing. For me it is only logical that a person can only truly master one Profession within one Artisan Class and maybe become pretty good in the same field of work.
And I personally don't believe that Intrepid intended this as an alt-"forcing".
And yet I understand your point about alts.
Maybe the solution is to drop the restrictions, but make it so hard, so arduous, so tedious to become a top level master in any profession that it's really not practical or desirable for a player to do more than 2-3, even with alts. This would allow the people who want to spend 15 hours a day in Ashes to play without restriction, while still retaining the value of mastered professions.
I do: socialization, cooperation, dependency, basic economics and attrition.
Cheers
NW economy was and still is Hot garbage, lol the only way you can make it so that everybody can actually eventually do everything, and it doesn't affect the economy is you have to make crafting so hard and so long. that most won't bother and even those that do, most won't get halfway threw it.
Exactly it has a better chance of creating a much more diverse economy. Better communities, etc. And actually its gives every server a chance to have very different economies
Don't agree with this, if someone is playing more that is on them. Those types always exist in any mmorpg, what id rather see in some tie in of progression not limited to just being given mats from their other character. But actual investment that takes time to increase their artisan level.
If people are more casual because of work/etc it doesn't mean there needs to be some implementations to reduce other player gains. Not every player should expect to be the strongest in the game, what is more beneficial is proper teamwork between your guild.
Players who do this only circumvent money changing hands, at the expense of their own time.... but is it worth their time to do that instead of just buying the crafts and selling the product?
The time required to do that should still be huge and you'll obviously have to cooperate with a ton of other people due to how artisan interdependencies work, but at some point in time you'll reach a point where you're the master gatherer/processer/crafter of your node.
And if true nerds want to pay Intrepid more money to spend even more time on all the other professions - I say let them.
No doubt that was sarcasm but if the crafting trees are going to as laborious to become a master in, as they are implying, then why not? If it requires a very long time and loads of materials then what would they harm be in letting people do all professions? They would spend an insane amount of mats and time trying to cover them all to the point that none would achieve the end goal. The only caveat to this would be to limit the number of gathering professions. After that processing and crafting could be learned by all.
The crafting in New World is a bad joke from a bad design and isn't fitting to use as a comparison to, pretty much anything.
I could maaaybe agree with adding one mastery slot for each big expansion that adds new professions (if they ever gonna do that). This way people interested in that profession won't have to get another alt for it, while all the new players would be able to get more masteries in the long run.
Though, I haven't played OSRS so I dunno how its character progression goes, but from what I've heard you can do everything in that game but it takes you years to do so. And I'd be interested in learning how many people have achieved the mastery in all the things (if anyone even has) and what kind of impact it had on the game's economy/gameplay. But OSRS is also a fairly unique game in itself, so it'd be hard to compare its experiences to what Ashes wants to have.
But I can just do it with alts by myself... how does that add any of those things.
I'd say 3 months after launch most super hard core players will have at least one max level alt character that is a master of whatever artisan class their other character needs. After another couple months they'll have their second alt and be totally self sufficient with three characters mastering each artisan class.
Obviously most players won't do this, but for the players that will, my original post was wondering; how important we want alts to be.
It doesn't seem like processing or crafting has any major risks involved. If my main character is the gatherer he'll have my best gear. My alts will be protected in the freehold where they can process and craft. Obviously wars and events can damage/destroy freeholds but that has nothing to do with the general safety of processors and crafters.
Taking almost a year to have 3 chars that can craft a thing on one chain of the overall artisan system is as fair as it gets imo.
Because I'm fairly sure that any high lvl/value gatherer will have protection with him, because that gatherer will be in a guild or just in a group of people who leveled different artisans and now support their gatherer so that solo players like you can't do shit to him.
Maybe that's the misunderstanding then?
(ref: Artisan classes)
With at least 9 Processing professions, 8 Crafting professions, and 5 Gathering professions, you'd need no less than 8 characters (if they choose 3 subspecialties) or 12 (if they choose 2). There probably won't be 12 character slots per account.
Why would I be a solo player. Obviously my main character would be in a guild and be raiding. If the gathering meta required me to have other players protecting me than I'd have bodyguards, but I really doubt that would be the meta.
You don't need to master every profession, just the ones relating to each other.
Herbalism -> Alchemy has nothing to do with weapon smithing for example.
Your 2 characters are now self-sufficient.
Those 2 characters could also have Mining -> Metalworking according to how master professions are limited to their parent classes.
And if you're assuming that all the other time-hardcore players will also be in guilds, then how would them having artisan alts be any different from them just working together with their mates?
Alts are very useful for guilds. If I can harvest more resources that means I can supply my guild with more resources too. I'd expect basically every hardcore player to have a gathering character either on launch or soon after, whether it's their main or an alt.
And if people use their alts to gather during off hours, that only means that there's fewer protectors around to defend them from other guilds whose primetime is different from your guild's.
There will be players who do this in any situation. Even if they need multiple accounts to do so. While this may be additional discouragement to some, it will not be to others, and in fact tends more toward pay to win.
The current system prevents pay to win by allowing players to use their alts for this. Some players will choose to do this, and they should be allowed to. The time they invest in it is time they could spend doing something else that they prefer, make money from that, and pay for whatever else. That 98% of players will support the desired economy. If a particular person is really into crafting, there's no reason to stop them.
Yeah, so what I originally was asking is why even force it on alts. Why not allow one character to do it without making an alt. I'm not saying its better or worse just a simple question.
Totally agree. Restrictions of any kind are just anti-good.
Its not fair that I can't be a Master Gatherer, Master Processor, and a Master Craftsman, let alone a Master Carpenter and a Master Tailor!
Whom shall make the gingham tablecloths just so for my trellis tables and half top wall table?!
It absolutely would. If there is enough resources for 10,000 people than a single guild will always be able to work harder to obtain more. A guild where every member is a gatherer will gather more resources than a guild where some members are not. That's just a basic fact.