Thoughts on Artisanship as a whole

onewingedangelo1

State of Artisanship

For a system that is supposed to be the main focus of phase 2, this is kinda embarrassing that it's in the state that it is. It's also upsetting that there has been 0 staff responses to this forum (at the time of this post) thus far from the entirely of Alpha 2.

Just because it wasn't the focus of last phase doesn't mean it wasn't being tested. There has been a lot of things talked about here that could really help the development of the game and what it seems like is we are being ignored. That's not to say that we are, it just feels that way when there is no response other than each other to these posts.

Right now, it's too difficult to do certain things, mainly make good quality tools, that I feel if they made this easier would help get people better eased into the most important aspect of Ashes of Creation.

What are the problems?

1.) Gathering is too inconsistent. Some are rather easy, like lumber jacking, where the only difficulty comes from finding higher tier trees. Where things like mining, it's next to impossible to focus farm anything other than granite and basalt. I haven't dived deep on herbalism but it only seems like there are daffodils and snow lilies that share a spawn. They don't really clash with their higher tier resources, I could be wrong here. Hunting is mostly in a good state. I wish the rate in which a tamable mob would spawn would be higher but with the ability for most things to have static spawns it's not that bad.

2.) Processing doesn't feel enjoyable at all. I actually don't mind the que up and wait style of it. It's a nice passive thing you can do, but HEAVILY leans on making it something you do in large batches rather than small doses. It's been parroted everywhere and will say it again for emphasis. Let us que up custom amounts. Please. Respect our time better in this regards. There also seems to be an inconsistency with Tanning exp. Generally 1 carcass gives you 5 hides. So by the time you are done just leveling through what you need those hides for you are left with a large abundance of hides left over. While yes you could sell them to other players or level another profession with them, it gets you in a state where you are having to grind out a processing profession for the sake of just leveling it more than you would for the purposes of using it. I don't know if just reducing the amount of hides you get would fix the problem, as getting carcasses can be a chore and a half to obtain to begin with, but it's a processing profession. You don't do anything special with it, so making us having to do nothing but grind it out seems more like a waste of time than a necessity. Think about increasing the amount of experience it gives. There is no advantage in having a higher level processing when you are bottle necked by crafting stations and crafts needing to utilize it. I'm not really going to touch on Animal Husbandry here as I know it's in a placeholder state and much more is planned for it. Although I do think the cost is too high. Reducing the price of it in half wouldn't even be a drastic thing. For honest people getting the money to afford leveling this is rather hard without having outside help. The prices on Vyra got to the point where every time you put an animal in it was a net loss regardless if it was a mount or beast of burden due to how competitive the prices got.

3.) Crafting is meaningless! Yup, I said it. Others have too. We are not in a state where crafting is the most important thing in the game. It was like that back in phase 1 towards the end, might get there in phase 2, but right now, it's a thing to do to prepare for content that might be coming later. Something to make high quality alt gear, but that's really it right now. I know that the phase just launched, but the point is, crafting doesn't stay relevant with the state of the game. The only one that really matters right now is Carpentry because honest caravaning is the best money maker outside of exploiting.

How can we fix this?

Let's not get all doom and gloom over this though. With such a low bar the only way we can go is up. Here's how I think we can fix things to make this much more enjoyable in all aspects of the game.

1.) Gathering fix: To fix gathering is quite simple in design, would take much more work on the developer's end. Ashes of Creation is supposed to be this living world that changes based on the actions of the players. Right now it feels like a static world where a town grows out of thin air after some time has passed. Based on the progress level of the node the resources found within should be HEAVILY influenced by what is going on there. I'm mostly going to talk about mining here as this is the only gathering profession that seems to have much variance in their spawns, but it should apply to everything that shares a similar mechanic.

First lets talk about the math behind a node's progression based on the materials that can spawn within. A node can spawn resources of it's tier plus one. Example a T0 node (freshly started server) can spawn only T1 resources, with the exception of static spawns that might be higher tier. So for Mining, you have Granite and Basalt, Copper and Zinc, and Rubies. After harvesting said node they have a chance to respawn as something else in it's category (stone/metal/gems). The chances for that are based on the node tier, which can never exceed node tier + 1. Once you upgrade the node to T1, Crossroads, the chances for higher tier nodes start to arise, but, the chances need to be low. Like... 15% chance low. So now your Basalt/Granite has a chance to spawn as Slate. This would also apply to Lumber jacking with Ash/Oak, Western/Eastern trees. Again Hunting is in a pretty good state, but the rate in which mobs spawn as huntable could use a slight increase. The one thing hunting does need is a rarity bump. Rare and higher carcasses seem to be a thing of myth and legend. Herbalism seems to be okay as is, I haven't noticed any problem getting what you'd be looking for. Only fix I could see for Fishing is stop having bored devs spawning dragons on top of the afk fishers engaging in the afk activity ... Also yes, I do mean as soon as Crossroads, please wait till I later explain crafting fixes to understand why. This will again progress as the nodes progress and make the game be in a state where people can gather materials needed to progress along with the node.

Tools also require way too much wood. I'm sorry but what axe are you making that requires the amount of wood of a caravan? Make this 1 so that the quality of your other materials actually has an effect on the outcome.....

2.) Processing fix: This one I really already talked about so will quickly reiterate for those of you skipping through here to the points they want to read. Let us custom input how much we want to process and increase the exp gained through Tanning, otherwise it's in a pretty good, yet boring, state.

3.) Crafting fix: This is where the most work needs to be done, which we realistically won't see the effects of for a while now (Devs feel free to prove me wrong here, I welcome it). What I propose for this to get us in a closer state to the "Crafter make the best stuff" feel is as follow.

First we need to change how nodes progress.

At the start when everything is in the Wilderness phase nodes need to have a base camp which is what you see at the crossroads phase. Just a collective of NPCs and a commission board. Gives us a basic vendor, and storage, which gives us the ability to have have to horde all our stuff for 7 levels or lose out on early money because we decided to move away from Lionhold early to progress a node.

Not much changes at the Crossroads stage. Make it look a little more organized, maybe having some of the land changing to look like it will in the coming phases but nothing new is introduced.

Once you reach the Encampment stage the town progress a bit. Not quite a full town like in the village phase but the NPCs have started to organize some things. Mainly the starting crafting stations and their npcs are there and you can start to do up to apprentice level crafting now. This opens up lvl 10 armor and weapons to people. While you could just buy them from the NPC, this gives crafters a competitive chance to stay relevant, and that's just the start. This also allows your crafters and gatherers not to be beholden to the 8 people who dictate how a server is going to progress. They can at least get a good 20 levels in their craft without having to hope that the server as a whole is playing nice with each other. What this doesn't give is the ability to que up more than one thing at a time like a normal apprentice station would though. More on that soon.

Not a whole lot will change at the Village stage. Obviously we get our mayors here, and things start to shape more of the node around us. But this is also where we start building things and mold what is happening where in the world. The first stage of buildings will now just add extra que's to the processing stations, maybe with a reduced or time buff for the node. Eventually this will allow us to go up to journeyman crafting here. Which won't take as long as it currently does because we have been able to gather and craft much more along the way. With the gathering fixes already proposed, materials are more readily available to make such upgrades possible. (Rubies Copper and Zinc should be easier to come buy to make the biggest hardship less hard.

Now to fix the items crafters make

The other thing that we need to update is the items we as crafters make. A rare crafted item should be equal to or better than any rare item found in game of similar level. Right now pretty much the best gear comes from PvE Grinding and the things we can make just feel like we only craft them for the ability to make heroic/epic/legendary versions. White crafted gear should be noticeably better than white vendor bought gear. I mean like... 25-50% better than the npc varity. Otherwise white crafted gear is just something to vendor to recoop crafting costs while leveling the craft and that feels bland and boring.

Tell me what you think.

Comment below how you agree or disagree and what you would change if you disagree. Share this with others, let's get our voices heard and hopefully we'll get some staff feedback on this soon.

Azherae

I'm semi-confident that someone is working on this, it's not that hard to do (as always, Intrepid, please let us know if this is somehow hard to do).

The issue is often knowing how and when to release different parts of these systems, and how best to attune them to the design goals.

A lot of it is probably still in flux, and highly likely to be placeholder, considering the original plans/ideals for the game's economy.

I guess the one thing I don't agree with, in your post, given that, is the idea that Nodes need to have either Storage or any way of undertaking Artisanal activities in the Wilderness stage (I have no issues with Storage existing, I just don't think they need it).

With the existence of Lionhold, and the inability to drop crafted items on death when not Corrupted, even considering the distances that must be traveled, I still don't see an issue if more of the lower level mobs around nodes drop semi-appropriate crafting materials (e.g. I have previously made a specific single suggestion of making Copper fragments in some way available from Goblins in Nodes, i.e. outside Lionhold perhaps).

Players would go out from Lionhold in the direction of the mobs that drop the materials they want, and this would result in Nodes leveling. They could return to Lionhold to craft and repair basic gear and gathering tools and use the storage in Lionhold. They would build up even larger stockpiles in Lionhold and eventually maybe have reason to try to transport them to Encampment nodes, which might at least have a Smelter or weapon/armor crafting station. There are also already some crafting stations out in the world around Lionhold that are usable regardless of the status of Nodes.

In some previous test, I believe we did have some stations available at the Encampment stage (I haven't bothered to test early-flow this Phase since I learned that nothing much changed economically yet).

I'm looking forward to adjustments too, I'm just 100% expecting them (even if only because of the relatively consistent 'negative feedback' the current state of the Artisanship system keeps receiving). The only thing I don't know is if they are going to 'go back on' the idea of crafting being truly important in the early levels (for progression and such). I hope they don't change this aspect of the intended design, but I don't think the current state is really a reflection of anything other than 'the build that is supposed to give us actual Artisanship and Itemization' not being ready yet.

Lucascp92

Nice feedbacks, i couldn't have said it better