Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Improving the Early Game: Crafting, Economy, and Certification Ideas
Running Wild
Member
Hi everyone,
I’m not saying anything new when I point out that the current version of the game still has several issues related to economy and crafting that need improvement. I won’t go into everything, but here are a few changes that wouldn’t require a full rework, yet would still help a lot.
1. Starter crafting questline
Each starting area should have a questline that guides new players through crafting basic armor and weapons. At an NPC, players could choose between light, medium, and heavy armor types, and craft weapons related to their class. For armor, only the chest, pants, helmet, gloves, and boots would be needed.
For every crafted item, the player would receive a reward equal to the item’s crafting cost plus XP. Of course, the player would need to gather the crafting materials themselves.
2. Crafting cost adjustment
Currently, crafting items is very expensive. I made an example of how costs could be reduced easily without overhauling the entire system. I took the three craftable types of the 2H Greatsword and reduced the Vendor-purchased material costs from 33 bronze to 5 bronze each:
Swords Final 33 → 5
Smoldering Ash 33 → 5
Sanding Powder 33 → 5
As you can see in the attached image, even this small change would make a big difference. (Not shown in the image, but it would also help to reduce refining costs by at least 10–30%.)
Why?
Let’s not forget that many players quit the game because their early experience is frustrating: they have no money, can’t craft anything, quickly outlevel craftable gear, and end up struggling in named or general areas with terrible equipment.
If players could at least get basic green-tier gear, it would greatly improve the gameplay experience — both for solo and group content.
3. Certification system
The current “run-around” certification system is practically meaningless. Its only purpose is to manage player professions. A better solution would be to allow players to assign certifications directly from their character sheet every 10 profession levels.
Players could manage which professions are more highly certified and which aren’t, right from their character page. This would eliminate a bunch of unnecessary NPCs on the map and save players from running back and forth constantly.
4. Material and quality improvement
Another problem is that too many materials leave the system because it’s more profitable to sell them to a Vendor than to use them. The current quality upgrade system is quite strict — it could be loosened a bit so that fewer high-quality materials are needed for upgrades.
Alternatively, the Enchanting profession could include a new coloring or essence system. For example, from Crystal Dust (ruby, halcyonite, emerald) and glint production, players could create an essence that, when mixed into raw material refinement, would yield higher-quality refined materials.
The image shows the current ratio:
5 epic + 5 common = 10 rare copper
This could be improved to something like:
2 epic + 8 common = 10 rare copper
There are certainly many other things that could be improved, but I just wanted to highlight these four points.
Thanks for reading — I look forward to your thoughts and feedback!
I’m not saying anything new when I point out that the current version of the game still has several issues related to economy and crafting that need improvement. I won’t go into everything, but here are a few changes that wouldn’t require a full rework, yet would still help a lot.
1. Starter crafting questline
Each starting area should have a questline that guides new players through crafting basic armor and weapons. At an NPC, players could choose between light, medium, and heavy armor types, and craft weapons related to their class. For armor, only the chest, pants, helmet, gloves, and boots would be needed.
For every crafted item, the player would receive a reward equal to the item’s crafting cost plus XP. Of course, the player would need to gather the crafting materials themselves.
2. Crafting cost adjustment
Currently, crafting items is very expensive. I made an example of how costs could be reduced easily without overhauling the entire system. I took the three craftable types of the 2H Greatsword and reduced the Vendor-purchased material costs from 33 bronze to 5 bronze each:
Swords Final 33 → 5
Smoldering Ash 33 → 5
Sanding Powder 33 → 5
As you can see in the attached image, even this small change would make a big difference. (Not shown in the image, but it would also help to reduce refining costs by at least 10–30%.)
Why?
Let’s not forget that many players quit the game because their early experience is frustrating: they have no money, can’t craft anything, quickly outlevel craftable gear, and end up struggling in named or general areas with terrible equipment.
If players could at least get basic green-tier gear, it would greatly improve the gameplay experience — both for solo and group content.
3. Certification system
The current “run-around” certification system is practically meaningless. Its only purpose is to manage player professions. A better solution would be to allow players to assign certifications directly from their character sheet every 10 profession levels.
Players could manage which professions are more highly certified and which aren’t, right from their character page. This would eliminate a bunch of unnecessary NPCs on the map and save players from running back and forth constantly.
4. Material and quality improvement
Another problem is that too many materials leave the system because it’s more profitable to sell them to a Vendor than to use them. The current quality upgrade system is quite strict — it could be loosened a bit so that fewer high-quality materials are needed for upgrades.
Alternatively, the Enchanting profession could include a new coloring or essence system. For example, from Crystal Dust (ruby, halcyonite, emerald) and glint production, players could create an essence that, when mixed into raw material refinement, would yield higher-quality refined materials.
The image shows the current ratio:
5 epic + 5 common = 10 rare copper
This could be improved to something like:
2 epic + 8 common = 10 rare copper
There are certainly many other things that could be improved, but I just wanted to highlight these four points.
Thanks for reading — I look forward to your thoughts and feedback!
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