Why so restrictive Artisan system?

We do not know much about upcoming Artisan system, but most parts what devs have planned sounds quite good. Dividing artisan classes to three main category (gathering, processing, crafting) makes sense and it is actually quite standard system. Devs have also promised somehow complex system with recipes and stuff, and I personally hope it will focus more on quality than quantity.

I am still personally concerned behalf myself and others who loves lifeskills and professions in MMORPGs. Devs have stated, that a player can only master one artisan path, not the main category, but one individual branch like mining for example. That is a huge downside to those MMORPG players who focus on lifeskills and want to use a lot of time doing different kind of stuff related to professions. Current planned system will exclude a lot of artisan content from players.

I have seen the argument, that this restriction goals to interdependence between players. I guess devs have not thought, that this kind of restrction is not actually needed. If we think of sandbox games for example. Those usually have a total free progression system and you can focus on everything you want to without the game needs to restrict you. And guess what? The player-driven economy still works great. IS fears that people will be totally self-sufficient. That fear is vain. Of course some people tries to be, but even they can not get every ingredients they want by themself. BUT, most people will still focus on just one or few things and they will interact and trade with each other. So there is no need for so restrictive actions.

I am not asking, that we should have totally free choise to master all paths, but some kind of middle-road solution here would be more than welcome. That would show, that you to care more about those players who loves to do different kind of lifeskills and not just narrow their main content to something so small. Many players likes to gather and craft from example, so why to take that possibility away from them?

I guess this system can be go around with alts (at least a little bit), but why to force people to do so? Is there some kind of hidden agenda behind this? Lastly, I hope you still reconsider how you are going to build the artisan system, and you really think it also from player point of view. Thank you.

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Amist

I think professions in ashes would lose a lot of their charm if everyone could be good at everything. Dedicating time to 1 or multiple professions and needing help from others is going to be an interesting dynamic and really emphasize the MMO element of the game

Devorandom

WoW's economy is player driven. The players harvest the resources process them and craft items with them.

Ferryman

devorandom wrote: »

@Ferryman Theme park MMOs like WoW still have a player driven economy

I am speechless.. No, WoW does not have player-driven economy. In player driven economy all or most of the items are player crafted. So either you make those by yourself or you buy those from other players.

In most themepark games you get everything from the world, mobs, dungeons, raids.. and you do not need to buy anything from marketplace/auctionhouse. You can buy, but you do not have to. That is why in WoW people does not need to rely on each other.

Amist

Ferryman wrote: »

devorandom wrote: »

@Ferryman Theme park MMOs like WoW still have a player driven economy

I am speechless.. No, WoW does not have player-driven economy. In player driven economy all or most of the items are player crafted. So either you make those by yourself or you buy those from other players.

In most themepark games you get everything from the world, mobs, dungeons, raids.. and you do not need to buy anything from marketplace/auctionhouse. You can buy, but you do not have to. That is why in WoW people does not need to rely on each other.

For an economy to be driven by the players, the players should be able to dictate the price of items they want to sell, which will overall determine the value of other items when combined with each other. Wow has this

*Edit*

Now I don't know if there is a set definition of what player run economy is, but if we go off the word it should be players being able to determine the value of items through ingame currency, right?

Devorandom

A player run economy just requires the players to be the ones trading relevant items in the economy. In wow there are plenty of crafted items that are traded as well as bind on equip items all of which are relevant to the end game. But there are also cosmetics traded between players too. How is that not an economy run by players?

Ferryman

branegames wrote: »

I think professions in ashes would lose a lot of their charm if everyone could be good at everything. Dedicating time to 1 or multiple professions and needing help from others is going to be an interesting dynamic and really emphasize the MMO element of the game

No one have said, that everyone should have chance to do everything, at least somehow less restrictive system would be nice.

Amist

Ferryman wrote: »

branegames wrote: »

I think professions in ashes would lose a lot of their charm if everyone could be good at everything. Dedicating time to 1 or multiple professions and needing help from others is going to be an interesting dynamic and really emphasize the MMO element of the game

No one have said, that everyone should have chance to do everything, at least somehow less restrictive system would be nice.

The restriction of the ability to utilize a larger variety of professions on one character is what's going to make each "master" of each profession be useful in certain scenarios. If you take away the ability for people to master and have being masters of professions special, the usefulness of the professions will no longer be as large

Ferryman

branegames wrote: »

Ferryman wrote: »

devorandom wrote: »

@Ferryman Theme park MMOs like WoW still have a player driven economy

I am speechless.. No, WoW does not have player-driven economy. In player driven economy all or most of the items are player crafted. So either you make those by yourself or you buy those from other players.

In most themepark games you get everything from the world, mobs, dungeons, raids.. and you do not need to buy anything from marketplace/auctionhouse. You can buy, but you do not have to. That is why in WoW people does not need to rely on each other.

For an economy to be driven by the players, the players should be able to dictate the price of items they want to sell, which will overall determine the value of other items when combined with each other. Wow has this

*Edit*

Now I don't know if there is a set definition of what player run economy is, but if we go off the word it should be players being able to determine the value of items through ingame currency, right?

Yes, this is one part of player-driven economy.

Amist

Ferryman wrote: »

branegames wrote: »

Ferryman wrote: »

devorandom wrote: »

@Ferryman Theme park MMOs like WoW still have a player driven economy

I am speechless.. No, WoW does not have player-driven economy. In player driven economy all or most of the items are player crafted. So either you make those by yourself or you buy those from other players.

In most themepark games you get everything from the world, mobs, dungeons, raids.. and you do not need to buy anything from marketplace/auctionhouse. You can buy, but you do not have to. That is why in WoW people does not need to rely on each other.

For an economy to be driven by the players, the players should be able to dictate the price of items they want to sell, which will overall determine the value of other items when combined with each other. Wow has this

*Edit*

Now I don't know if there is a set definition of what player run economy is, but if we go off the word it should be players being able to determine the value of items through ingame currency, right?

Yes, this is one part of player-driven economy.

But how is wows economy NOT playerdriven?

Alpha Soul

I actually do like the Master of one direction this is going in.

Master anything you like, but you need to choose just how much you specialize. You can diversity as well, you just need to split up the points you gain.

To me that's like asking for the ability to master all classes from one char (Essentially like FFXIV ) which isn't bad but doesn't promote choice or being unique.

Amist

dracdoc wrote: »

I actually do like the Master of one direction this is going in.

Master anything you like, but you need to choose just how much you specialize. You can diversity as well, you just need to split up the points you gain.

To me that's like asking for the ability to master all classes from one char (Essentially like FFXIV ) which isn't bad but doesn't promote choice or being unique.

I completely agree with you

Nagash

I think the idea behind this was to make each craft type needed and to stop one person becoming Vulcan

Amist

If one person is master of everything, he or she would be able to control the economy themselves

TheCouchNerd

Ferryman wrote: »

TheCouchNerd wrote: »

Ferryman wrote: »

TheCouchNerd wrote: »

I like that they limit you to either master one or become decent at many. This way it encourages community interaction by making new friends but also force you to make a name of yourself.

You can make a name of yourself without this restriction.

If everyone can do everything most will just max the professions they need then do everything themselves.

Omg.. Do you really think that all people will automatically be self-sufficient if they have that chance? No they won't. Some will be, those who focus mainly on lifeskills. People value they playtime differently and we will have players who uses 0% to any artisans skills and those who uses 100%. Then we have every possible variations between those extremes. People will still trade and economy will be fine. It works in other games, why it would not work in Ashes?

Never said all will do it, I said most. And that's what I've seen in games that let you do everything. It takes away the charm of what Intrepid Studios is trying to make in my opinion. I like what the way they decided to do it.

Ferryman

@branegames

Ferryman wrote: »

devorandom wrote: »

@Ferryman Theme park MMOs like WoW still have a player driven economy

WoW does not have player-driven economy. In player driven economy all or most of the items are player crafted. So either you make those by yourself or you buy those from other players.

In most themepark games you get everything from the world, mobs, dungeons, raids.. and you do not need to buy anything from marketplace/auctionhouse. You can buy, but you do not have to. That is why in WoW people does not need to rely on each other.

Because WoW does not fulfill that ^^.

Nagash

branegames wrote: »

If one person is master of everything, he or she would be able to control the economy themselves

agreed, plus it takes away from the whole MMO part of the game

Amist

Ferryman wrote: »

@branegames

Ferryman wrote: »

devorandom wrote: »

@Ferryman Theme park MMOs like WoW still have a player driven economy

WoW does not have player-driven economy. In player driven economy all or most of the items are player crafted. So either you make those by yourself or you buy those from other players.

In most themepark games you get everything from the world, mobs, dungeons, raids.. and you do not need to buy anything from marketplace/auctionhouse. You can buy, but you do not have to. That is why in WoW people does not need to rely on each other.

Because WoW does not fulfill that ^^.

But is that a set definition on what a player driven economy is, or is it your perception of what it is? I haven't been able to find a set definition as to what it means. Only discussion as to what people consider it to be and what different criteria there are to fulfill being a player driven economy

Here's a link to a discussion I found: https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/79110/define-player-run-economy

Jahlon

The Rationale is this:

This isn't going to be like other games where the Artisan classes are added as an afterthought. They are, first and foremost at the front of what Steven has in mind.

So, when you clear a Raid, the end boss, it may not drop a crafting material. It may be a corpse. You will need an appropriate high level gatherer in order to extra that crafting material from the boss.

If everyone could do every craft, then you'd have a everyone able to do it. Max level PvE Raiders would also have max level Gathering Classes.

In this scenario, the end boss requires someone with Maxed Mining. If you don't have someone with that, then you don't get the crafting item.

If everyone could master every crafting you'd *always* have someone with you that could do it, because its easy to master all of them if you only have to do it on your main.

How many people are going to have different fully geared alts in order to be able to swap between them as needed? Not many.

And that's just a tiny way to put meaning back into the MMO part of MMORPGs

Alpha Soul

I think a lot of games have just thrown crafting on as an add on rather than truly thinking about it, and its relation to the game.

Devorandom

@Ferryman That sounds like a crafting based economy. But I'm pretty sure an economy like WoWs is driven by it's players buying and selling relevant items on the auction house, thus being a player driven economy in the literal meaning of the words.

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