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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.
Artisan professions (how many each)
HavocMason
Member, Alpha Two
Does 2 Grandmaster, 3 master, 4 Journeyman, 5 apprentice mean that you can have 14 total professions that are not novice, leaving only 8 to be Novice at endgame OR Does having the 2 Grandmaster professions count towards the lower tier limits meaning, your grandmaster would also count as 2 of 3 of your master meaning you would have a total of only 5 professions that are not novice. Please clarify this for me, I'm bad at comprehension.
1
Comments
These 5 would be (2) Grand Master, (1) Master, (1) Journeyman (1) Apprentice with (17) Novice leftover
wiki may help with this:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Artisan_progression
Grand master = 2
Master = 3
Journeyman = 4
Apprentice = 5
Novice = 8
22 artisan classes in total:
8 crafting
9 processing
5 gathering
If we do, someone please lmk too.
It's under review anyway, from the dev side, I think.
time stamp 37:14 if link not work
https://youtu.be/W6dhCycYAJQ?t=2234
That timestamp to me is still interpretable in either form, but I did find it!
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Artisan_progression#cite_note-roshen-profession-clarification.png-24
Roshen eventually gave a clarification in Discord that 'being Grandmaster in A also counts as being Master in A'.
So Caww is right, but the precise answer for us non-Discord people comes from Roshen, artisan progression page, note 24.
Yeah same thing. Just worded slightly different lol. Cant be a grand master without using up a master, journeyman, apprentice and novice token.
As I think I said in another thread, for you, that's 'automatically what it means' and I think that's very valid, but for me, with my prior experience, that's not guaranteed to be what it means, for many reasons.
I'm not saying I have a problem with it either way, but people like @HavocMason who 'suspect it is the way it is, but still have to ask', have a reason for asking. For crafter players this probably has a huge impact on how much they expect to enjoy the game, too.
Even with all my faith in Intrepid, the current implementation does make me a little more worried than the more permissive one (which worried me for other reasons). I'm sure they'll hash it out in testing, though.
GM--M--J--A--N
M--J--A--N
J--A--N
A--N
Remainder 8 for novice
I get it, I definitely considered it being the other way since they worded it about path focusing. It could've implied you needed to finish a GM path before you could get another master certificate.
It should be fine in my opinion because based on the other thread. you can still be relatively useful across the board even with a few alternative characters.
For people who hate alts, it's less fun, that's about it, I think. The key question would be 'how much does a person really need, in order to be having fun'. If I consider it for myself, that makes me cut down on some things I enjoy but don't always actually need to be able to do well.
Pretty sure I'd prefer 8 out of 22, '2 each all the way down', for a game that intends to have the systems that Ashes does, over 'needing an Alt to get a few more'. I believe this because whenever you encourage people to create Alts for crafting, they tend to 'go all the way', so you actually end up with more Grand Masters than you might seriously want.
Crafting incentivism is complex. So, Intrepid, from my studies, that's my small offer. 2 each is still 'not enough' for me to be comfortable, but it's enough for me to 'not even consider making an alt'. Yet, since this all really comes down to which ways you itemize Artisanship tier Products itself, for all I know it's completely fine (I just don't like the kind of game where being Journeyman is 'satisfying' beyond 'pretty much RP or filling a minigap for your guild or group).
If they allowed a single character to do more, it would be even worse as every player would be even more well rounded in crafting resulting less need to interact as they will become truly self sufficient. I for one dont play a lot of alts. Waste of my time if I am being honest.
If you're smart about what you spec into for artisan classes you can focus quite well on a single character or control a significant portion of it on 1 or 2 alts assuming one would want to.
Example:
pick two grandmaster professions that you can benefit from depending on your method of gameplay.
Self efficiency method such as as gatherer and processing, processing and crafting assuming you plan on fully utilising a free hold.
herbalism + alchemy
mining + stone mason or metal working
metal working + black smithing (weapon or armour)
If you plan on farming on one character and processing/crafting on alts
dual gathering (herbalism + mining)
dual processing ( stone mason + metal working)
dual crafting. ( weapon and armour smithing)
Having the options to be a master - journeyman and apprentice in synergistic options can provide lower end resource options. It's like majoring in something and minoring in a couple others depending how one specs their characters artisan classes.
Again, this depends on itemization. I'm just speaking from my experience with playtests from the few games I've had relatively large communities for, and some others that I've been involved in consulting/studying.
Limited self sufficiency leads to players 'mostly being in the mindset of enjoying their play loops and being social when they need things'.
Large self sufficiency leads to them 'generally disengaging from others except their small groups and viewing the game as a grind'.
Strongly limited self-sufficiency leads to them 'seeking it through other means such as alts, if available'. I agree that this is achievable purely through itemization, I'm saying that I don't like the itemization required. The 'method of gameplay' that I'm used to (again, from my players, not even from myself in this case) wouldn't be covered enough by '5 above Novice', they'd lean toward making Alts, which would result in 'more Grandmasters' in the end than '8 above Novice' would.
The thing one needs imo is 'gaps in capacity that don't constantly make the player feel like there's a hole in their play experience'. This could be achieved in a different way, but I think that considering Nodes, Freeholds, Families, and the limited Auction spaces, the 'play pressure' might end up being adjusted.
I'm saying that I want to do more things on one character but not as well, so that I don't have incentive to make an alt to get around the gap feeling.
If one starts from the assumption that 'crafters making alts is good', then current design is fine.
The artisan classes will have cross purposes in terms of itemisation like you mentioned
For example:
Hypothetically if arcane forging is designed for magical items like wands and staves etc then I imagine they'll still require woods, metals, jewels.
I personally don't see weapon smithing making those types of items since it require a lot of mouldings. You don't put a gnarl root staff into a mould haha
lumber jacking and lumber milling is going to cross into many things, paper for scrolls, wood for staves/wands, siege artillery, caravans, naval ships and node building etc.
I would like to do more on one character too but I get what you're saying haha.
They have to have the gatherable classes heavily utilised tangentially through various artisan usages
Processing will bottle neck but drive the market prices as they could make a lot more money than people think as a majority of players usually just do gathering for money and easy resource acquirement.
Any who, I could go on and on about tangential uses haha
told you :P
Also remember that you can craft only if you are citizen of that node.
And Grandmaster crafting stations will exist only in lvl 5 and 6 nodes:
1 station in level 5 nodes
2 stations in level 6 nodes
So a metro nation will have 4 crafting stations
So it can happen that servers will not have all max level crafting stations at all time.
to be honest, when I first heard them explain it, I thought it was 2 GM, an additional 3 master, additional 4 journeymen, additional 5 apprentice and a remainder of 8 novice.
I was like... wtf... lol
but ironically...
22 Novice (8)
14 Apprentice (5)
9 journeymen (4)
5 Masters (3)
2 Grand master (2)
the numbers still line up weirdly enough...
Since most other people had it right, I'm sure it's fine, feedback wise, and my group doesn't care a lot anyway, in the strict sense, until Alpha-2. Restricted artisanship is better than [literally everything we've got for the last 10 years]. Now just gotta wait for them to move from 'better' to 'definitely the best for their world'.
i was thinking how is that going to work, considering you can only craft in a city you are a citizen of. im curious if you will be able to use allied or vassal nodes stations. i hope we cant use other nodes t5 and t6 stations because the whole server would probs ally and live happily ever after. no conflict = no fun.
also, i wonder if in a t6 node, you will only have 2 crafting stations, or if all crafting stations will be available but only 2 can be promoted to grandmaster.
And indeed nodes might end up all allies
My guess is that the level 6 node will have more crafting stations but only two will be grandmaster.
Guilds will have crafters or make deals with them in different nodes and will transport materials between nodes to finish the very expensive high tier crafting.
Or some stations might be downgraded and others upgraded if it is not expensive to do that.
Which citizens can access the higher tier crafting stations is not clear.
Makes no sense citizens from one metropolis to be able to access all from the entire map.
But citizens in the high level nodes could become richer just because they are citizens there.