My One Issue with Trade Skills

First of all, let me say how much I love the ideas in AoC. Gathering is fun and exciting due to a chance of getting ganked. Nodes leveling as people gain experience in their trade skills is great. So on and so forth.

However, there is one issue that I foresee with both gathering and crafting: you're locked into mastering only a handful of either. I believe that if a person puts in the time and effort, they should be able to level as much as they want in any way they want without the concern of arbitrary limits.

Now, I know why skill levels are limited. It's so one person can't do everything on their own. And this is the wrong way to go about it in my opinion. When people play MMOs, they like to see the potential for infinite progression as if their journey will never end. However, by limiting how much they can progress, there is a sense of an invisible wall that makes it feel like they're burning through content and that there won't be anything to shoot for anymore. Even if a player never masters a single skill, they want to feel as if they could master them all with effort.

I suggest that instead of artificially limiting progress, introduce soft balancers that allow the mastery of multiple trade skills. For example, if I have mastered blacksmithing, siege weaponry crafting, and alchemy, I should be able to master a forth skill but at a large cost.

Here are some potential ideas of how this can be applied:

1) Make mastering each skill require a guild license from a metropolis. The first license can be free, but with each skill you master, licenses become exponentially more expensive. This discourages mastering many skills, but also provides a massive goal for the dedicated so they don't quit once they hit an arbitrary maximum. You also have the benefit of a currency sink to prevent inflation for whenever it eventually comes.

2) With every trade skill mastered, other skills on the road to mastery receive exponentially less experience. For example, if I have mastered mining, to master felling as well, I'd need to spend three times as long as someone without a mastered gathering skill. This provides a massive wellspring of 'content' for those who enjoy grinds.

Any thoughts?

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JustVine

Aerlana wrote: »

BaSkA13 wrote: »

However, correct me if I'm wrong, you will be able to reach a certain level in every trade skill, but only a couple of them will each character be able to master. That is, for instance in gathering, the same character will be able to cut trees, mine ores, go fishing and harvest plants, however only one of those will you be able to master.

With what we have from wiki, it seems it will be this.... but a little more complex

You will go or gathering, or processing, or crafting.
then mainly with freehold, you will have to chose one specific thing in it. for example, for animal husbandry, you will have to go "process" and then turn your freehold into stable . And other gather/process/craft also needs the freehold.
Because you are limited to 1 freehold per account, you can't do all without changing all time your freehold purpose

Yep, what the mayor chooses to develop for city services is definitely going to be a huge topic for crafters due to this. It is one of the things that excites me most about the current plan to make crafting community centric.

Heruwolf

My honest concern so far when it comes to crafting in general in this game is that I really don't want to be exploring around the world just to come across 8 Freeholds near each other that are very obviously owned by the same person who owns 8 accounts. It will most likely happen, it's depressing though. I understand that IS currently has a policy of no multi-boxing, but I can't help but feel like that's just very much a half measure.

Tangent:
I can't help but wish that to sign up for games it would require your Real-ID like in South Korea. Issues like what Archeage had wouldn't even have become a problem, same thing with WoW, specifically talking about multi-box bots. Whales is an entirely different discussion. But it would lock players out of being able to play or even have multiple accounts in any way and also make banning players who break TOS/EULA way more impactful.

George_Black

That a totally different topic

Heruwolf

Not entirely. Many people stated that if people want to do all of the crafting then they would have to create alts, but the alts will be limited do to the freehold limit, so the next step is to create and pay for more accounts. I disagree with OP about allowing the ability to master all trade skills, but as many mentioned, while it may not be possible for only one character to master all, it is possible for one player to master all, which is ultimately the same thing especially in terms of economy, however, it may be even more harmful to the economy because it doesn't require other players and the transfer of goods is no longer there because all the freeholds are right next to each other. Though that will probably happen for many families. There are few differences, and that's that IS gets more money for it this way and some players feel compelled to do it, while others feel that it's unfair entirely.

The tangent was exactly that, a tangent.

Azherae

Heruwolf wrote: »

Not entirely. Many people stated that if people want to do all of the crafting then they would have to create alts, but the alts will be limited do to the freehold limit, so the next step is to create and pay for more accounts. I disagree with OP about allowing the ability to master all trade skills, but as many mentioned, while it may not be possible for only one character to master all, it is possible for one player to master all, which is ultimately the same thing especially in terms of economy, however, it may be even more harmful to the economy because it doesn't require other players and the transfer of goods is no longer there because all the freeholds are right next to each other. Though that will probably happen for many families. There are few differences, and that's that IS gets more money for it this way and some players feel compelled to do it, while others feel that it's unfair entirely.

The tangent was exactly that, a tangent.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Freehold limit. Not to say that it won't be worth it to some people, but there are so many negatives and dangers involved, not to mention citizenry situations, taxes, 'salty people who aim to tear down the entire node because you do this', that it's probably fine at least to some extent.

Intrepid has left multiple paths open to themselves, to step in and try to handle players who pay for 6 subscriptions so as to get 6 freeholds, without having to take that into the realm of 'explicitly preventing people from having multiple subs' and risking issues within families.

No guarantees, but as you said tangent...

/me flies off at 90 degrees perpendicular to the current radial axis.

Heruwolf

Azherae wrote: »

Heruwolf wrote: »

Not entirely. Many people stated that if people want to do all of the crafting then they would have to create alts, but the alts will be limited do to the freehold limit, so the next step is to create and pay for more accounts. I disagree with OP about allowing the ability to master all trade skills, but as many mentioned, while it may not be possible for only one character to master all, it is possible for one player to master all, which is ultimately the same thing especially in terms of economy, however, it may be even more harmful to the economy because it doesn't require other players and the transfer of goods is no longer there because all the freeholds are right next to each other. Though that will probably happen for many families. There are few differences, and that's that IS gets more money for it this way and some players feel compelled to do it, while others feel that it's unfair entirely.

The tangent was exactly that, a tangent.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Freehold limit. Not to say that it won't be worth it to some people, but there are so many negatives and dangers involved, not to mention citizenry situations, taxes, 'salty people who aim to tear down the entire node because you do this', that it's probably fine at least to some extent.

Honestly, I never even thought about that! I would absolutely be the type of person who would get a large group together to delete a node solely because there was a multi-boxxer at it... Hmmm.... Yup, no longer concerned. Thanks!

Ramirez

I mean Albion online have this and works really well because is really hard to get specialization in one crafting, so, usually people focus in one or two, but you have the choice to specialize every tree if you have years of invested in the game

BaSkA_9x2

Aerlana wrote: »

BaSkA13 wrote: »

However, correct me if I'm wrong...

With what we have from wiki, it seems it will be this.... but a little more complex

You will go or gathering, or processing, or crafting.

Huh, that's a bummer. I wish I could do a bit of everything (gathering, processing and crafting) if I wanted to, but I understand it values each profession even further, so it's all good.

Heruwolf wrote: »

My honest concern so far when it comes to crafting in general in this game is that I really don't want to be exploring around the world just to come across 8 Freeholds near each other that are very obviously owned by the same person who owns 8 accounts. It will most likely happen, it's depressing though. I understand that IS currently has a policy of no multi-boxing, but I can't help but feel like that's just very much a half measure.

I asked some people and apparently you won't be able to have level 1 characters blacksmith masters. You'll need to level up and progress in quests and societies to become a master in a trade skill, i.e. spend a lot of time.

So, if some dude spent 500 hours in each character on different accounts to become a master without breaking the rules set in place at some trade skill, as much as I dislike it, I guess he deserves it.

Heruwolf

BaSkA13 wrote: »

Aerlana wrote: »

BaSkA13 wrote: »

However, correct me if I'm wrong...

With what we have from wiki, it seems it will be this.... but a little more complex

You will go or gathering, or processing, or crafting.

Huh, that's a bummer. I wish I could do a bit of everything (gathering, processing and crafting) if I wanted to, but I understand it values each profession even further, so it's all good.

You will only be able to master one artisan class, that being Gathering, Processing, or Crafting, but you will be able to master multiple within the class you choose. However, you will also be able level up the other classes to a determined level, but not master them. At least that is what we know at the moment.

Dygz

It's theoretically possible to have a Level 1 Adventurer be a Master Artisan.
People would have to be bringing that Master Artisan resources.
Artisan and Social Org quests don't necessarily progress Adventurer levels.

You are correct that you will be able to dabble a bit in all of the Professions if you wish, but the more you do that, you decrease the ability to be a Master in any of them.

Fairtale

How about allowing players to learn any skill, but have secondary professions de-level over time when they aren't used enough?

That way everyone has in theory the ability to learn multiple professions, but in practice it becomes impossible.

Similar to how nodes go up and down over time and the same could (should?) be applied to weapon skills. You can learn all of them but you only master the one you are using the most.

JustVine

Making crafting casual unfriendly is bad. Any thing minor enough to not effect them is meaningless at curtailing no lifers. The current dev proposed system /is/ the middle ground system.

Dygz

In Ashes, choices are meaningful.
Possible the devs might -might- do something similar Secondary Archetype respec. But, seems unlikely.
One character being able to do everything is not a design goal, AFAIK.

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