What kind of (artisan) processing system do you want in AoC?

Inspired by the crafting thread, what kind of systems would you like to see for processing? Animal Husbandry is processing, and I would say worth a topic on its own, so I am thinking of stuff like Smelting for example.

What I would not like to see is a simple system where you just load ore and coal into the smelter, and out comes the expected amount and quality of steel. And that's it. That's not worthy of an entire profession, IMO.

I want to see different grades of steel or mithril or whatever is cooking, depending on a mix of the characters skill and extra ingredients added. Want flame resistant mithril armor? Well, you'll need to get the get the heart of a Frost Golem and add it to the mix to make frosty mithril ingots.

Or just straight up different grades of ingots. Super, premium A grade stuff that gives a small base stat bonus, and perhaps a better chance at overenchanting, and more run of the mill stuff that still makes a decent piece of armor.

The crafters will have a recipe for a mithril breastplate, and depending on the type of mithril ingots they use, the base stats of the breastplate will change also. Hopefully the crafters can further tweak those stats with gems and runes and whatnot.

Animal Husbandry is a great example of an exciting processing profession. Please make all the other ones more than simple "put stuff in, get stuff out" bots.

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maouw

Taking inspiration from Silicone Silicon Processing, it would be cool to have "Purity" as a measure of the quality of ingots produced.

If a smelter has 90% purity ingots, they can re-smelt the ingots to 99% purity, and once more for 99.9% purity.
When used as a crafting ingredient - Purity can then directly affect the stats of a crafted item

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

I'm very interested in this discussion as I love the final step of the process, the crafting!!

It's a great idea that processing skills and other factors can affect the purity of the ingot, and that the creation of alloys with additional materials can add value.

For example, if I were to specialize in creating armor with high magical defense, I would ask a familiar processing expert to sell me a suitable ingot for that purpose.
And perhaps he would ask a gathering expert to gather the materials for it.

The creation of such a beautiful supply chain would allow the series of tasks to be elevated to roleplaying itself, rather than "just a task to give the player the equipment he requires"

Noaani

I'd like to see two types of processing.

The first is small batch refining, used to make actual worthwhile items that people want.

The second is large scale mass production, used for all other needs.

For the first, you should be able to refine a material much ad the silicone example above. Each stage of refinement should require more expensive reagents and such, and produce less and less of the final product. 100 units of a material should - after all this processing is done - produce 1 unit of finished material. This is something that I fully expect to be in the game.

The mass produced option should, imo, require large scale investment in a plant specific to your process. You should need to spend a fairly large sum of money on equipment, which should take up a significant portion of a freehold. From there, you should be able to place many stacks of a raw material in, set everything up and come back the next day to it all having been processed for you - but only in to the first, most basic level of that processed material.

Favst

For my part, I will add that it would be nice to add some identity to the things we created, e.g. if the system could inform us who created the item, e.g. blacksmith's nickname, etc. I mean the epic/legendary items.

Songcaller

100 to 1 is too extreme. If 1 log costs 1 gold, you would spend 100 gold on 100 logs, then you would have to sell your 1 basic produce above 100 g for 1 if you want to make a profit. If the demand is high, then 1 log might cost 10 gold, which is 1000 gold for 100 logs. Then you would have to sell 1 basic produce above 1000 gold to make a profit.

If a crafter requires 10 planks then at a base level it would cost over 1000 gold for 10 planks. At higher market prices it would be 10,000 gold for 10 planks. The crafter would then have to sell the finished item above 1000 gold or above 10,000 gold just to make a profit. The economy would see very high rates of inflation.

I do not think it will be a fast process to make 1 million gold. But a legendary item could cost over 1 million and even beyond 10 million if such drastic disparities exist between basic or more advance produce. That is on a good day with no inflation, low demand and ample availability of components/produce. Market volatility could push legendary items to 100 million gold or 1 billion gold if the right parameters (or wrong parameters) are met.

Repairing an item shouldn't require 10,000 gold just for materials. A full item repair of 8 Items would be nigh on 100,000 Gold for refined items which could be acceptable for 8 Legendry Items but nothing less. The nigh on 100,000 Gold for 8 Items assumes only 1 refined component is required for each item. For all we know you might need multiple resource components to repair an item. It would mean everyone would have to be a 'crafter' just to maintain PvP or PvE without inflation.

Edit: I've assumed the refinement process will relate to resources required to repair items. I've also assumed refinement reagents will have to be gathered by a gatherer. I've also assumed refinement would be present in all metals and some composite compositions though I have used logs as an example. I have not assumed multiple refined materials would be required for a particular item, though I consider Legendries will require more than one 'refined' or 'enhanced' component.

maouw

I think it's way too early to comment on the value of gold in Ashes - and inflation rates will depend entirely on how Ashes handles gold sinks.

Songcaller

Inflation will happen dependant on PvP Actions, Node destructions and the general parameters of supply and demand. My suggestions were theoretical dispositions based on 100 to 1 Refinement Parameters. It does not need to be so extreme. I assume it is 100 to 1 because of percentage of refinement 1% to 100%. The issue need not be so complex.

The request is a severe request because Processors are the Middle Men of the whole crafting part of the game. It makes no sense to pay a pittance for base materials and then create materials with high resource sinks. It limits the amount of resources which can be sent to Crafters and creates even bigger bottlenecks despite 100 times the amount of resources being collected.

This assumes no resources are lost through caravan raids. I do not believe Mini Games and RNG should be in crafting at all. Steven pledged there would be no RNG in crafting. Steven recently stated RNG will be in Animal Husbandry which is already a reneg.

maouw

In a free market, the prices will figure themselves out appropriately. If it's 100 to 1, then crafted gear will be incredibly valuable and everyone will treat their gear with great care, and purchase what they can afford.

If it's 3 to 1, then people start throwing away gear that isn't 'above average'.

I'm more concerned about how this ratio will affect the distribution of players in the artisan tree.
A material ratio of 100 to 1 would mean that a blacksmith would need a heap of processors if he plans to craft more than 1 item per day.
In turn, a processor would need a heap of gatherers if he plans to produce more than 1 ingot in a day.

So at this rate you're left with 10,000 gatherers required per blacksmith on a server.

But gatherers cannot meet that level of demand simply because: in-game gathering is a laborious manual process, whereas processing is a mass-production process. (It's like trying to rely on small farms to supply the world's milk cravings)

Songcaller

You've stated my issue. Some people will not want to gather, process or craft at all. Some people would want to purchase the end product.

I keep coming up against issues which will limit progression. Some players will struggle to have the money to repair the weapons and armour they have. How will these players progress in weapons and armour if so few items drop from Mobs?

50,000 People Per Server and all will need crafted items at one point or another. 50,000 People all requiring maintenance of weapons and armour through Material Sinks and Gold Sinks. The economy will cycle through these Material Sinks and Gold Sinks.

If 10,000 gatherers are required to craft 1 Item, 50,000 items would take 500,000,000 gathering actions. To cover all 8 items for 50,000 people it would require 4,000,000 gathering actions. At what tier of item would refined resources be required? How many man hours would 4,000,000 gathering actions take? How many resources will Repair Material Sinks require out of 4,000,000 gathering actions?

I would assume based on 5 tiers of items:
Tier 1 - 20% Refined.
Tier 2 - 40% Refined.
Tier 3 - 60% Refined.
Tier 4 - 80% Refined.
Tier 5 - 100% Refined.

All tiers in such a parameter would take refined materials away from craftables through maintenance. Which means, to substantiate the requirements, more resources would need to be collected than those required to craft an item.

In my mind, refinement should be inherent to the initial production. If you want complexity, then compositions should be produced instead. Like Spring Steel or White Gold. All Gold is 100% Pure after extraction process. Processors reduce the purity for Carat Classes. It is a reverse process to starting from 1% going to 100%. For a fake substance, perhaps 1% to 100% would be viable.

Edit: It is obvious multiple ores could be gleaned from one gathering action. Not sure on the amount but even if we reduce it to 1,000,000 gathering actions, it is a ton of work and would take a long time.

McMackMuck

My preferred approach is as I mentioned on the crafting discussion.
1) if the (processing) task is well below your skill level then you get a simple processing status bar that saves you from tedious repetition. Maybe you get a processing speed bonus based on how much your skill exceeds the requirement?
2) if the (processing) task is near your skill level then there is more involvement required on your behalf to achieve success or a good yield.
3) if the (processing) task is above your skill level then you must be involved to even stand a chance of success or any kind of yield.

As to whether 2) and 3) consist of a mini game or observation based task, I don't know what would work best.

WhitneyHagasMatsumoto

Yes, you're right!
Balancing the in-game economy is very important, and no one wants to have to spend significantly more man-hours on collecting.

However, since we don't have a crafting system in place, we'll have to trust the folks at Intrepid Studios to do any in-depth balancing at this stage

At the end of the day, I think what we're doing is like a factory improvement project, where we're trying to improve the quality of the product and the efficiency of the work from the "current state".

I have actually been engaged in improvement activities at my workplace. I have actually engaged in improvement activities at my workplace, moving from the material storage area to the work site with a stopwatch and counting my steps to find out what I could do to reduce the number of seconds.
However, this was also possible because of the base of the "current environment" built by our predecessors.

I believe that the process of creating this game is similar.
In other words, the base was prepared by the people at Intrepid Studios, and we will continue to sharpen it.

My personal feeling is that there is a self-deprecating myth that Japanese people like to have useless meetings, and I believe it is true, so I try to have "discussions for improvement" rather than "discussions for discussion's sake.

Well, in the end, as someone who has a love for making things, I'm looking forward to the day when I can test my crafting system! That's what I'm saying lol

kusaa

Jewel crafting

I think it's interesting and I think I'll focus on that..
everyone knows how important jewelry is in mmorpgs, and I hope the creation process won't be easy.

I'm especially interested in gems, the types of gems and how to process them to craft the best jewelry, and I see positive that it goes through several people before ending up being the final product.

we will have to wait to know how complicated the whole process is, from gathering to the final crafting.

mobtek

I was thinking about this from a freehold perspective. I wonder if they have plans to have a Barn or type of warehouse where freeholders can store materials for their crafting? So you can concentrate on gathering and then crafting. Ooh and can I take mules with me gathering and send them on home ahead of me?

Sathrago

mobtek wrote: »

I was thinking about this from a freehold perspective. I wonder if they have plans to have a Barn or type of warehouse where freeholders can store materials for their crafting? So you can concentrate on gathering and then crafting. Ooh and can I take mules with me gathering and send them on home ahead of me?

The current idea for artisan classes is that you can only be a gatherer processor or crafter and you can eventually master each sub type of your chosen parent tree if you put a ton of hours in.

Now if you mean having your freehold with these specifications so you and your friends can do what you just said, then just forget I said anything lol.

arsnn

mobtek wrote: »

I was thinking about this from a freehold perspective. I wonder if they have plans to have a Barn or type of warehouse where freeholders can store materials for their crafting? So you can concentrate on gathering and then crafting. Ooh and can I take mules with me gathering and send them on home ahead of me?

This got me thinking a bit.
If that is the case and people will have to build out their freeholds components matching with their artisan profession and if those profession are actually that specialized like some people indicate in this thread, we might actually see a complex supply chain.
Would be funny to observe when regional clusters of freeholds emerge, which are all part of a crafting chain for boats , or some dwarven mountain cluster that is tasked with mining ore and refining it and subsequently
shipping that stuff to the next node. Caravans would also play a big role then.
Would patterns like clustering of activities, outsourcing, onshoring and stuff like supply chain resilience and shifts play a role then?

Kionashi

mobtek wrote: »

I was thinking about this from a freehold perspective. I wonder if they have plans to have a Barn or type of warehouse where freeholders can store materials for their crafting? So you can concentrate on gathering and then crafting. Ooh and can I take mules with me gathering and send them on home ahead of me?

Confirmed I think is only a chest with infinite space were you keep your stuffs, but I would LOVE to see some specialized containers for specific kind of items....that would help give more personality to your freehold.

mobtek

Kionashi wrote: »

Confirmed I think is only a chest with infinite space were you keep your stuffs, but I would LOVE to see some specialized containers for specific kind of items....that would help give more personality to your freehold.

yeah I was thinking that but now @arsnn 's reply is the logical conclusion, organic and planned player crafting chains would would add some interesting complexity to the economy.

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