At CLvl 50/endgame, what is the point of almost any Craft skill at Master level or lower? [long]

1) At endgame (or even at freshly-minted CLvl 50), other than selling equipment to alts, what is the utility of a Master-level Crafting skill?

1a) Let's say it takes 200 hours to level a Master level 30-40 to the cap. The market for that gear is for alts and new players. Is all that time and effort worth it for you personally? I'm sure that on paper it looks beneficial to the macro economy, but how does it benefit your own micro-economy, your personal risk/reward calculations when you could have applied those 200 hours to something else?

1b) Because even if you think you are going to do it for profit, the problem is that while you are capped at Master 30-40, you will be competing in the market with the people on the Grandmaster 40-50 track, who are selling their 30-40 gear that they don't want, that they only made because they need the crafting XP and enough gold to break even.
Of course, they would gladly TAKE more gold, but to achieve Grandmastery they don't actually NEED more than that.
They can sell at a loss at 30-40 because 30-40 is their journey, not their destination.

At what point can the opportunity cost for leveling non-Grandmaster Crafting skills not be justified? Because that point exists.
The point where that time and effort is better spent farming or running caravans, etc. Or if you're a "pure" crafter, simply selling your best crafted Grandmaster gear because it sells for 50x more than your Master-level gear but only takes 20x the work.
(Or even just exploring or socializing or doing non-profitable things you enjoy.)

Speculative Answer to # 1) You may end up with residual inputs that you can't efficiently put to use from your Grandmaster Craft track. So maybe you branch out to a Master Craft that can take those leftover inputs and turn a quick profit. You've already got the inputs lying around, so the opportunity cost lies only in the leveling of that Craft to Master 30-40.

2) Similarly--but not as pressing of an issue--what is the utility of a Master-level Gathering or Processing skill at end-game?

They aren't useful for the TWO Grandmaster-level Crafting skills that you can have, at most. Even with an alts you still can't effectively craft Grandmaster "solo."
(Which is fine! I'm just asking why my Grandmaster Craft G would bother with Master of anything (except see Note A, below)

A typical Craft production takes Grandmaster Crafting Skill G requires 6 additional Grandmaster skill inputs:
Grandmaster Gatherable A --> Grandmaster Processing B
+
Grandmaster Gatherable C --> Grandmaster Processing D
+
Grandmaster Gatherable E --> Grandmaster Processing F
+
(some other low-level inputs which would justify having those skills at EXACTLY that level but not 1 level higher--even then, at that low level you'd likely be better off just buying them where feasible, because your time is not infinite)

The overall point being that having a Master-level Gathering/Processing does not feed into your Grandmaster Crafting.

Probable Answer for # 2) You will almost certainly need to be leveling Gathering and/or Processing A, B, C, D, E, or F along the way [unless you have a LOT of gold] so that you can actually TRAIN Grandmaster Craft Skill G. So those input skills will be useful for leveling your Grandmaster G if for no other reason.

So you will incidentally/unintentionally/involuntarily end up with some of these skills capped at Master 30-40 rather than by pure "choice" to level them to the cap.

Which is fine for Gathering and Processing (#2), but it wouldn't explain why you would want to voluntarily level a CRAFT skill knowing that it's going to cap at 40 (question #1).

And I'm not talking about leveling it to Journeyman or something as you are using it at low levels here and there to supplement your own gear yourself as you play the game. Because the lower the Craft skill the less effort it takes.

But at some point the payoff will not be there. At some point the crafted gear will be WORSE than looted gear in almost all cases, because your Craft skill is capped.

At some point wouldn't it just be logical to quit doing Crafts that we 100% KNOW we can't take to Grandmastery and do something else with our time?

Very Important Disclaimer A: I say "almost any" in the title because I don't include consumables or destructibles.
I can understand why someone at endgame would be satisfied with good-but-not-great, or great-but-not-elite potions, scrolls, caravans, etc. Or if not satisfied, unwilling or unable to pay max price for something that they need to buy repeatedly.
E.g. a 500 HP potion for 500 gp vs a 400 HP potion for 50 gp. And then imagine needing hundreds of them at that price point!

Much More Technical Disclaimer B: I'm assuming that Grandmaster will work exactly like Novice, Apprentice, and Journeyman; but we don't actually know.

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Comments

MissionCreep

This is not rhetorical, by the way. I would be happy to be better informed. Very happy, given that I want to craft.

Dygz

Ashes is a dynamic game, rather than a static game.
Needed gear stats should be in fairly continuous flux - even at Level 50 Adventurer.

TopWombat

I hadn't really thought about it before, but yes I think you're right OP. There isn't a long term point to being just a master crafter. It's probably the same for processing, though that depends on how much master level processed goods are needed for GM crafting recipes.

Especially with gear not being soulbound, in the very long run there will be a lot of supply vs low demand for non-consumable non-GM crafted items. I don't know if there's really a fix for it though - in other MMOs it's the same thing where people are only interested in the top-tier items.

Azherae

That is a lot to unpack and a massive amount to explain, but the shortest answer is simply that you may not be really competing with the Grandmaster at all?

For that to be true, they would need to somehow be 'better' at the same Master level work, than you. And considerably so. We even know from games over the years 'what the gap needs to be'.

There are also different proposed systems in Ashes related to gear repairing and degradation that might tie into this. Simple example, what if you don't need Grandmaster Crafting to repair an item that only a Grandmaster can initially make?

This would actually lead to many 'useful' situations for both sides, where a Grandmaster can 'leave the repairs to their students/apprentices', and help smaller Guilds (or even large ones technically) by allowing them to not need a 'second' Grandmaster in some craft for 'insurance'.

The rest of the concerns seem to mainly apply to solo-ish players.

There are many ways to do this in serious MMOs though, in itemization terms. Ashes can join the ranks of MMOs with that level of itemization quite easily.

MissionCreep

Dygz wrote: »

Ashes is a dynamic game, rather than a static game.
Needed gear stats should be in fairly continuous flux - even at Level 50 Adventurer.

But why would a level 50 adventurer ever want level 30 or 40 gear?
The dynamism does not include us losing levels!
(Hopefully.)

Slipree

Imo the tier of equipment should never be tied to level. You should need to be max level to create best gear, but should be able to use any gear at level 1. Otherwise it’s pointless gating. If a level 5 char wants to risk best armor in the game as he levels, that should be his prerogative. If he loses it, then oh well. Risk vs reward.

Githal

Too long to read, but i got your idea.
And the answer is: Dont worry about this. The gear that the "Grand Master" will be making to level their profession, will be used as material for the Better equipment.

So if you are making some iron long sword at novice level, When you reach expert level, you will be using the iron long swords as material to make better gear.

You will always have demand for low profession items in the market. Because they will be needed as materials in the chain above

This way even new players that come into the game for example after 1 year of the AOC launch will still be part of the economy from day 1. Which wont force them to feel like they need to reach max level to experience the game

MissionCreep

Slipree wrote: »

Imo the tier of equipment should never be tied to level. You should need to be max level to create best gear, but should be able to use any gear at level 1. Otherwise it’s pointless gating. If a level 5 char wants to risk best armor in the game as he levels, that should be his prerogative. If he loses it, then oh well. Risk vs reward.

I have some bad news for you...

MissionCreep

Githal wrote: »

You will always have demand for low profession items in the market. Because they will be needed as materials in the chain above

This way even new players that come into the game for example after 1 year of the AOC launch will still be part of the economy from day 1. Which wont force them to feel like they need to reach max level to experience the game

Yes, of course there's demand in the market for things which sell for 1/100th the price (or worse!) of the best things you can craft. But why bother? You only have so much time on this Earth. I don't foresee Grandmasters idling the time cranking out a factory of noob equipment just for funsies.

New players will be crafting new player gear. Or buying from vendors because at low levels that's fine. So new players will be fine.

What I am specifically asking--and which no one has answered--is:

Why would anyone at level 50 with grandmaster Weaponsmithing want to put in hundreds of hours and thousands of gold/glint into earning level 40 Armormsithing?
Level 40 gear is useless at 50.

Yes of course if it took no time and money and just happened by happy coincidence, then everyone would do it. But that's not how AoC works--REALLY not how it works. Everything is hard that is worth doing.

And no one is making level 40 armor to feed into their level 50 weaponsmithing, I'm not sure where you get that idea. (Or even level 40 armor to feed into their level 40 weaponsmithing! Those don't feed into each other.)

Again I'm talking about Craft and Gear. (In the long post, that is clearly stated.)
I'm not talking about why you would learn lower level Gathering and Refining, it's clear that everyone will do that.

And that 50 grandmaster is not going to take a ton of time out of their day/life making level 20 armor to help out noobs they don't know so that they can make a couple silver. To help their guild...sure. Noobs in the marketplace, no.

But then again in the guild you can all just give away your low level items to low level alts. Demand for freshly minted level 20 stuff within the guild will not be that high because everyone at 50 should have that lying around in chests.(If it wasn't sold due to lack of storage!)

Also for level 20 you can have FOUR Journeyman professions (30 = 3) so that gear will be twice as readily available as Grandmaster gear, all other things being equal. Not that it's equal since Grandmaster 50 is 5x harder to achieve than Journeyman. OTOH the payoff is much greater so more effort will go to that.

SirChancelot

@MissionCreep
Have you ever played monster hunter?

I feel like ashes is going to be like that with gear having width and not just vertical growth. Yes lvl50 gear will be better than lvl40. But there will be multiple sets of level 50 gear that do different things, or supply different protections, etc...

I don't think you'll make it to master tier and create one of everything in a day... There will be a lot

Kilion

The most important cornerstones that Intrepid is aiming for to my understanding are:

Gear loses durability and needs repairing. Repairing requires slightly lower quality or equal quality components that can only be obtained by deconstructing gear of the respective level.
As gear gets repaired it loses a portion of its maximum durability.
When gear reaches 0% durability - it will be unequipped. This might make a spare gear set necessary.
It is not entirely clear (at least from the Wiki) whether the maximum durability of an item could reach 0% and therefore be only useful for deconstruction at that point. [Interesting side note: I guess if it does, this would be a way in which unique, legendary gear would end up "back on the market" for another player to pick up]
Steven said that the goal is that there is no universal best-in-slot gear piece, which would mean that for different things we can do, different gear would be necessary.
With no universal best-in-slot gear, it means when Node statuses, big quest line branches, events or just seasons change, the best gear may also be different. The same could apply with PvP factors, for example one server may have a lot of Rogues that constantly kill the summoners, clerics and mages. Players adapt go for more heavy armor while others may raise an Alt which is Tank or Fighter, to mince Rogues. This changes the "meta" and so the cycle would continue.

So in theory there are a bunch of systems that should keep crafting of all levels relevant at all times.

JudgeMentalOne

So I may have misunderstood your premise, you went into a lot of detail and provided a lot of examples to outline a question to which the answer (at least to me) is glaringly obvious.

There isn't one, and this is by design.

To stick with the example used above, If you decided you want grandmaster weaponsmith, then there would be almost zero point working on master armour smith due to the reasons you listed. I personally would hope that metal weapons and metal armour are both blacksmithing. leather armour is leather working rather than "weapon" or "armour" smithing but you get my point. Also you talk about 2 grandmater professions while I was under the impression we only get 1.

Essentially, whatever profession you decide to max, it would make the most sense to have one of the 2 professions you can have at the level below that be the main gathering profession for it. Before you can be grandmaster blacksmith you need to have master blacksmith and then can have 1 other master proffession (which would normally be mining). That is if you are going to max blacksmith the profession you take to master would be mining usually. This would hopefully reduce your costs in leveling blacksmithing untill you reached the truely top tier of it where you would need to seek grand master miners and other grandmaster gathering or even production proffessions to process the materials and/or craft the components you need to make the best gear.

At this point I am unclear on exactly how the system works, maybe after you take weaponsmithing to grandmaster you can level a 3rd proffession to master, but my interpretation of the information available is that 1 of the 2 master slots available would have been used by weaponsmithing which you chose to take to grandmaster.

In either case, there would be almost 0 point in leveling aroursmithing to master. Your other slot should be either a gathering proffession or a consumables proffession. I think you alluded above to the fact that maybe being able to make master potions/caravans/siege weapons might and probably would be a viable alternatitive that could help generate money to fund the main proffession.

Someone else gave the example of HP potions, if the master ones still give good recovery but can be made "cheaply" you could likely sell many even to top tier players looking for everyday use versions while they reserve the grandmaster ones for raids/castle sieges/ node wars etc. This would likely be a case of <reduce costs somewhat> verses <make more money to be able to afford the costs>.

The system is by all acounts being designed so only a few people will be grandmaster, to make almost anything those grandmasters will need each other, and everyone will always need what they craft.

So it turns out I have taken a whole lot of time and explanation to suddenly realise I should probably have just asked "does there need to be?", and if so why?

Mordune

I posted this in an enchanter post but I'll place it here as well since it is relevant to the discussion. This system would address many the concerns you voiced here.

A much more rewarding system is to cap the enchantment process at 5 total enchants per item. Back in the 90's a game called The Realm used a similar system to great success. This concept would also fit nicely into the risk reward system.

1st enchant 1 % chance the item is destroyed in the enchantment process.
2nd enchant 15% item destroyed
3rd enchant 30% item destroyed
4th enchant 60% item destroyed
5th enchant 90% item destroyed

If 5 is to many enchants per item you could do a similar system with 3 enchants.

In practice this system did several things .It kept items flowing as people always want to push the meta game and have the very best, thus risking what they have in the enchantment roulette. It kept enchanters VERY busy. it also smoothed out the curve on item power a little. People are less likely to risk higher tier gear with enchantments. So mid tier item that you have 5 enchants on would be a little closer in power to a higher tier item that a person is afraid to risk having enchanted. Lower/mid tier gear can have really good resale value if it has the max number of enchants on it.

It also kept the item scene from getting stale. Yes, a person might have an amazing legendary but do they have an enchanted legendary? Do they risk blowing it up and returning that item to the drop table for a chance to increase it's power?

It was a very fun game loop and really enhanced the other systems in the game. This system also takes into account player agency because they are choosing to risk, rather than being mandated cumbersome game play that diminishes their gear and hard work.

JudgeMentalOne

Mordune wrote: »

I posted this in an enchanter post but I'll place it here as well since it is relevant to the discussion. This system would address many the concerns you voiced here.

A much more rewarding system is to cap the enchantment process at 5 total enchants per item. Back in the 90's a game called The Realm used a similar system to great success. This concept would also fit nicely into the risk reward system.

1st enchant 1 % chance the item is destroyed in the enchantment process.
2nd enchant 15% item destroyed
3rd enchant 30% item destroyed
4th enchant 60% item destroyed
5th enchant 90% item destroyed

If 5 is to many enchants per item you could do a similar system with 3 enchants.

In practice this system did several things .It kept items flowing as people always want to push the meta game and have the very best, thus risking what they have in the enchantment roulette. It kept enchanters VERY busy. it also smoothed out the curve on item power a little. People are less likely to risk higher tier gear with enchantments. So mid tier item that you have 5 enchants on would be a little closer in power to a higher tier item that a person is afraid to risk having enchanted. Lower/mid tier gear can have really good resale value if it has the max number of enchants on it.

It also kept the item scene from getting stale. Yes, a person might have an amazing legendary but do they have an enchanted legendary? Do they risk blowing it up and returning that item to the drop table for a chance to increase it's power?

It was a very fun game loop and really enhanced the other systems in the game. This system also takes into account player agency because they are choosing to risk, rather than being mandated cumbersome game play that diminishes their gear and hard work.

Maybe just me but random chance to destroy great gear = not fun. I feel the existing durability loss mechanics fill the role your talking about, the gear is already a consumable that wont last forever. Sooner or later I will need new gear. If that wasn't the case your idea might have merit but both mechanics would IMHO just be overly harsh.

FrootLoopJunkie

My solution would be to make armor repair for common and below able to be done at a vendor but any higher tier gear must be repaired by a artisan.

For example, a level 10 green could be repaired by any novice blacksmith but a level 50 legendary helm would need a master armorsmith. Give it a material cost, use some of the metal used in the original recipe or whatever is closest if it's a drop.

This works as a sink for mats and a way for crafting professions to feel a use outside of just crafting from the grind. A constant use that is.

I know this was sort of mentioned here, but just wanted to say it in my own words.

Lodrig

As I mentioned in the other thread, I think item repair done by the original creator of the item sould have a bonus, such as lower or even no stat or durability loss. That would encourage long term relationships as you go back to 'your' armorer to get repairs.

It's going to also be interesting to see how they implement the interface for repairs, dose the crafts can repair stuff while it's on your body, or inventory. How do they set or negotiate prices if they intend to offer repairs as a service to strangers? NPC repair is really easy UI wise, so it's gonna be tough to compete with it if it's not easy.

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