Profession Suggestions - What a Crafter Wants!

Zanafii

Hey fellow community members! I thought I'd put together a thread where we could put some crafting ideas out there for the development team to see and collaborate on. Please feel free to suggest some fun ideas or systems for the crafting system.

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To get the ball rolling here's some items I would love to see implemented and explored:

- Farming/Gardening: All the usual fruits and vegetables to make delicious food plus some fantasy varieties. Let the art team go wild! Plant breeding, seed trading or quality could factor in here. Who can grow the biggest pumpkin this fall and show it off at the town fair?
- Prevention of resource bloat: Implement mechanics that encourage "dumping" or refinement of surplus resources so the players still feel rewarded for gathering common materials. Have multiple recipes that use each resource to encourage item circulation. An example could be to compost low quality produce for a better harvest next season.
- Encourage exciting supply and demand: Ensure that regional and seasonal crafting materials are used in exciting recipes! For example if "green dye" can be found in the jungle biome only, then there will be a market for this item for those who wish to dye items in another region.
- Time and location based crafting: If you are looking for a powerful potion that turns you into a werewolf for a time - try brewing it under a full moon! Or to fully calibrate your telescope gadget you need to focus on each constellation during the seasons.

Garren

I really like the idea of keeping lower tier resources relevant. Whether that's through the commission board to aid your node, or by including some lower tier resources in higher tier crafting recipes. I like the idea of composting lower tier farmables to grow the next tier up. I like the idea of giving back lower tier resources in order to improve the land management score. I really don't know how their land management score system will develop but maybe by offering up your extra low tier farmables you can attract more mobs within the node for a time and improve the land management score.

Vospha

Garren wrote: »

I really like the idea of keeping lower tier resources relevant. Whether that's through the commission board to aid your node, or by including some lower tier resources in higher tier crafting recipes. I like the idea of composting lower tier farmables to grow the next tier up. I like the idea of giving back lower tier resources in order to improve the land management score. I really don't know how their land management score system will develop but maybe by offering up your extra low tier farmables you can attract more mobs within the node for a time and improve the land management score.

I vouch this idea, I hate it in games where I get a resource and think "this is worthless". I want them to be useful in higher levels as you have said, you can easily make the lower level ones just use more uncommon resource and then a mixed variaty for higher ones like 1 legendary resource, 2 rare and 1 common / uncommon etc. Love the idea.

arkileo

Agreed about the worthless resources. In WoW it was to the extent that you'd outright skip gathering certain resources even if they were right in front of you, or if two resources were tied to the same node, straight up deleting/vendoring the worthless one. It never felt good, but WoW's crafting system has always left a lot to be desired. At least with Ashes it sounds like you can use low tier stuff as fuel.

I do like that some materials will be exclusive to certain locations. I hope that some are extra exclusive to the point of only existing in high-risk areas, such as dungeons. Or at the very least, I hope these high risk areas are more likely to provide higher tier materials.

Zanafii

I'm glad a lot of us are on the same page with this!

Apok

For years there was always discussions in FFXI if the weather, day, and moon phase effected crafting. I don't think it ever did but I would like to see it be done.

the general theory was (sense each craft used a crystal with an elemental affinity) that crafting matching weather increased your success rate but lowered HQ rate and the opposite would be true for opposing elements.

Full moon would Increase craft chance and lower HQ chance where a new moon would lower craft chance while increasing HQ chance.

Also FFXI did a great job of keeping lower tier resources valuable. if drops we use for crafting come from mobs we also fight for XP they should have relatively low drop rates and have a somewhat broad range of uses.

Another thing NW dropped the ball on was their items and economy, either something is dirt cheap or overly expensive I really hate when MMOs end up like that.

Zanafii

With regards to the Farming profession - specifically crops - I would like to suggest the developers draw some inspiration from "farming simulator" games like Stardew Valley.

With seasons being an integral part of the world, as well as well as a diverse economy, I think seasonal crops would be a perfect fit. This would contribute to the ebb and flow of the market and create scarcity of goods during the off-seasons.

I haven't caught wind of a "freshness" system yet, but if that was introduced then a preservation/pickling system for long term storage could also be used. Fruit could be turned to jam, fish could be smoked or vegetables be dried then ground into spices. I'm personally not a fan of "freshness" systems, but I think these could be interesting regardless.

Weather is naturally the next topic I would like to highlight. With systems like rain and wind present in the world I was thinking this could affect crop growth rate and pollination. I would also love to keep bees on my farm! Think of how sweet life could be on Verra with a little honey.

That being said, it's very important to stress the balance of consumption vs. production of goods. The cooked/finished products must be desirable enough to want to use on a regular basis. Different playstyles could benefit from certain food types to increase performance or provide a small speed boost.

I also keep hearing of "item sinks" to prevent bloat of goods. For example a chance to "burn" your food could make finished products harder to acquire. The chance to burn your food could decrease as you level up your profession skills or use a better cooking apparatus.

ItsNoGood

Zanafii wrote: »

I haven't caught wind of a "freshness" system yet

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Cooking_ingredients
"A cook using a higher grade stovetop will be able to create food items with improved stats, such as an increased freshness period."

I think this could be cool because this could make certain foods more common or more meta in different seasons if their ingredients are only available in bulk during one of them. Though I hope that food doesn't "rot away" and instead just loses a percentage of its effectiveness when its no longer fresh.

Zanafii

Some more inspiration has hit me! I would like to explore the ways that each artisan class interacts with one another. I think it's obvious by now my passion for farming keeps me up at night.

Here are some possibilities as hopeful inspiration to the community and developers to get those juices flowing. I will split them into three categories bases on the artisan type, and then specify which artisan class. Keep in mind gathering, processing and crafting should have some overlaps if materials are going to be moving in a healthy economy.

The general flow is always Gathering=>Processing=>Crafting. As a processing profession farming will most likely have the most ties and enhancements to other professions. Save a Freehold for me! I'll try to throw in as many regional specifics since I would love the caravan system to be crucial to gameplay.

My main goals are to provide pathways for "item sinks" to keep things fresh and interesting. By the time the process makes it to a crafter it should have touched many hands and interacted with as many systems as possible.

Here are a few ways I could see the farming skill interacting with other artisan classes:

Gathering:
- Fishing: Aquaponics and ponds! Let players buy or catch animals to raise for products in a freehold. Koi, Snails, Seaweed could be common examples.
- Herbalism: Cuttings or rare seeds found in the wild could be propagated on a farm to yield more results, or keep an in-demand item in stock when not at peak season.
- Hunting: Waste not nature's bounties. Animal bones, organs or byproducts could be used to fertilize farming areas for better quality or higher yields.
- Lumberjacking: Do you know what farmed organisms love wood? Mushrooms! Maybe certain mushrooms can only be grown from a type of log harvested by lumberjacks.
- Mining: Different soil types in a region might require preparing or amending the soil with various minerals provided by miners.

Processing:
- Alchemy: An alchemist could concoct a herbal remedy to treat a nasty parasite, or help you produce golden apples through transmutation.
- Animal husbandry: A farmer's best friend. Rare animals make rare materials. Enough said.
- Cooking: Farming could end up being the main supplier for the cooking profession. Having the farming profession aid in the production of raw materials for the cook to process into usable items seems logical enough.
- Farming: This is farming silly goose.
- Lumber Milling: Looping back to the lumberjacking profession - the miller may have to process the wood into sawdust in order to set up the mushroom farm. Lion's mane, royal trumpet and oyster please. Fences, stakes and trellises could also require milled wood to construct.
- Metalworking: Farming tools, quality fences, stakes and trellises could piggyback off the previous mention in lumber milling.
- Stonemasonry: Farming structures or buildings should require masonry to construct. Freehold ponds would fit nicely.
- Tanning: Storage for farmed goods could come in the form of leather bags, or certain farmed items such as dyes or resins can be used by the tanning artisan class.
- Weaving: Sun shades or storage containers could be made by the weaver. Farming could also be a main supplier for fibers used in the weaving profession. Let's not forget wool!

Crafting:
- Arcane Engineering: Remember that golden apple from alchemy? Let's turn it into a trinket!
- Carpentry: Resins, dyes and fabrics made by other professions could have had their reagents cultivated on a farm. Furniture or tools used in farming could also be created by the carpentry artisan skill.
- Jewel cutting: I have to admit this one is a hard crossover. In reverse, some jewelry could help boost a farmer's chance at a quality crop yield.
- Leatherworking: Referencing the tanning section - storage items used to carry farmed goods or condense stacks of items.
- Scribing: Papyrus or wood used for pulp could be used to supply the paper market for scribes. Alternatively scribes would be the ones responsible for drafting the deed to your farm.
- Tailoring: Fibers come to mind again, with specific emphasis to cotton, flax/linen or other comfy fabrics. Animal products like wool could also be farmed.
- Weapon/Armor smithing: You need all those armor and weapons to defend something - why not a farm? Especially if it's mine!