"Professions are not for everyone"

I gotta say I really hate this take. Whenever I complain about the professions people say "The idea is that the professions are not for everyone".

What they mean by that is that the professions are purposefully made convoluted and monotonous IN ORDER to disincentivize players from engaging in the system. Only the most elite people will bother wasting their lives trying to "discover" how to use them...

This is probably the stupidest idea for a game I ever heard. Might as well make a game called, "Lets stab ourselves in the face!" - Look, no one else is doing it! Aren't we so elite?!?! Hey how come this game has a hard time getting new players? Bunch of crybabies, we don't want them anyways!

Games are supposed to be fun. Activities in games are supposed to be fun. Gathering should be fun, so should processing and crafting. In fact, all of the systems in the game should be so fun that it is hard to decide what you want to do. Not, "I'm only doing this stupid activity to get X result". That shit is lame as hell.

They managed to do a good job in the class design and fighting styles. I love my bard. IT IS FUN!

Please continue to iterate on the professions and find some way to make them pleasing and appealing. Right now its like we are being given a bowl of raw carrots for dinner.

Yes, it's alpha 2. So... cook this shit.

Or is the "professions are supposed to suck" design idea going to last to launch?

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Comments

GrayingGamer

Fun, like beauty, is very subjective.

And for games, like politics, it is impossible to please all the people all the time.

I won't even be interested in AoC if the profession system is mickey mouse. I'm not interested in something that everyone can do easily - that just makes for a boring (at best) economy.

Xeeg

GrayingGamer wrote: »

Fun, like beauty, is very subjective.

And for games, like politics, it is impossible to please all the people all the time.

I won't even be interested in AoC if the profession system is mickey mouse. I'm not interested in something that everyone can do easily - that just makes for a boring (at best) economy.

Sure, yeah, fun is subjective. But "most" people would agree that watching paint dry is less "fun" than playing mario kart.

I'm fine with complicated, I like complexity, in fact i seek it out.

I'm not fine with convoluted and monotonous in order to weed out the player base.

When people say things are "hard" in this game, what they really mean it that it just takes a lot of travel time to figure out. That ain't "hard"... It's not "hard" to be a lumberjack in this game; you go up to a tree and click it, then watch paint dry. And the reward for getting better at the craft and getting more items is you watch paint dry faster...

Nerror

You're not really saying what you think is bad about the current system, other than it sucks, it's boring and convoluted. Some specific examples would help.

Noaani

Nerror wrote: »

You're not really saying what you think is bad about the current system, other than it sucks, it's boring and convoluted. Some specific examples would help.

I have to agree here.

I completely agree with the OP's general statement of monotony not being fun, but examples would be good.

Edit to add; I am also of the opinion that with the number of professions we have, if they do a good job of them, there should be something that everyone enjoys doing.

Flashfirez23

Yeah Ashes honestly has one of the worst crafting systems in an MMO I’ve ever played. Got to be honest. And yes I’ve played MMOs in the alpha stage with far superior crafting systems. I really hope they give the crafting system a major overhaul before launch. Because it is not even close to being in a good state.

TheDarkSorcerer

+1.

unknownsystemerror

Xeeg

Nerror wrote: »

You're not really saying what you think is bad about the current system, other than it sucks, it's boring and convoluted. Some specific examples would help.

I don't know what to say exactly, but here was my experience:

I tried to do a play through with a fresh char and see what it would be like to craft my own stuff instead of mob grinding for gear, which i already did on my main. Around level 8 i figured I should start working on the idea of trying to craft a bow for level 10. I had no idea what kind of materials i needed to craft a lvl 10 bow, so I went to Ashes Codex. It said there should be a brass bow using beeswax, brass ingot, western larch, and bluebell thread.

These materials appeared to be a mix of novice and apprentice level. I figured that brass is usually copper and zinc, and western larch i had seen already at novice level. Bluebell was apprentice I think, i had seen it in the open world. At any rate, if I wanted to make a bow at level 10, it seemed that I could go gather a bunch of western larch, some copper and zinc, and then buy the rest of the materials from someone else.

No point making just a common bow as that can be store bought. Uncommon, you can get from monster drops easily... so I was hoping to get rare or better. At this point my goal at level 8 was just to gather a bunch of copper/zinc and western larch and see how long it would take me to get enough rare+ mats for the bow.

Now my experience progression completely stalled. I spent probably at least 10 hours or more at level 8 trying to farm this western larch. I mean, it wasn't the worst game play i ever experienced, but it really wasn't that great. For most of the time i spent chopping trees, I was pretty bored, just hoping it would be over soon. Trying to avoid monsters as most of them were above my level, and besides, if i died i would lose 1/4 of the stuff I spent gathering so why risk that?

Sure, I could quit, and go do something more fun, but then I might as well start leveling again and then why even bother with this system? I was here to test this shit and so i was determined to keep going!

As I am doing this, my storage starts to fill up. I also realized that since lumbermilling is a timed duration thing, I should be lumbermilling 50 stacks while i go out farming. OK thats fine, good synergy, im ok with this. However, it costs money every time i do this and i am broke as hell. So now I start solo mob grinding again just to get enough glint to sell to do the lumbermilling. OK, again, this is also fine. I like that we need to do a mixture of activities, no problem. Still, it was pretty slow going. Only critique here is that both the lumbermilling and carpentry items were completely useless. Crafted like 100 boxes that i didnt give a shit about.

I hit level 9 trying to get glint and then decide to quickly do some commissions to get more glint. I ended up killing some named mob with a group that was doing commissions in the same area and got a level 10 uncommon Flayer Fleshripper (2h phys) randomly. Sweet, now I had a weapon for level 10, but it still wasn't crafted and further proves the point of this post.

Around this time my storage is so packed and I am so broke that I just decide to grind out mobs to level 10, make some glint and become a citizen so I can get some more storage space. Find a few level 9s nearby and quickly mob grind it out to 10.

OK, finally, level 10 and still somewhat broke. I had just a few more trees to go to hit apprentice with lumberjacking. Finish that up and straight sell the wood because of storage space. Realizing that I cannot get my carpentry to level 10 and lumbermilling to 10 without some serious cash, I decide to run a caravan. I was in New Aela at the time, and I saw that Winstead had the Apprentice level carpentry station. Hey, lets kill 2 birds with one stone, I can load up the caravan with glint stuff and carry the best copper/zinc/larch I had at the time in my materials bags. Something like 10 rare larch, 5 rare copper and 5 rare zinc, a bunch of heroics and some epics, and the rest uncommons.

My Plan: Take the caravan from new aela to winstead, become a citizen of winstead, upgrade my lumberjacking, and finish getting my carpentry to 10 so I can craft the bow.

I do the hour and a half trek and LITERALLY right at the end, 5 mins from winstead, some rando starts attacking the caravan. He cant do shit. He starts mage balling it, and the AOE is hitting my char! He kills me and I drop my stuff, I lose all my heroics and epics. Apparently 50% of 2 epics is 2, so I had nothing left and the guy took it all. He didnt even go corrupted because of the caravan. Its about 12:30am and time for bed, I was pissed tbh. Felt like total ass, reminded me of why this game might not be for me...

In the morning I decide, fuck it, at least make this damned bow so I can see what it takes. I prolly dumped like 20 hours into this project from level 8-10 at this point.

I get to Winstead, go check out the apprentice carpentry and see that I cant craft a brass bow....

I can only craft a tin bow..........

Honestly, this is the stupidest game play I have ever experienced. I aint doing this shit again. Fuck that. 20 hours to "explore" the game and find out everything I did was fucked and none of it worked? All because the only way of planning anything at all is relying on Ashes Codex? So fucking dumb. Maybe people are right when they say this game isnt for me. All i felt was like total ass after this experience.

The worst part about it was, I wasn't having fun for that 20 hours. If I was having fun the whole time, then whatever, you win some you lose some. But almost all of that time was just hitting trees and traveling, not exactly fun, really.

Compare that experience to my level 23 bard that I did a big mix of mob grinding, finding parties, soloing, duoing, trios, 8 mans, the works. Had a blast all the way to 23.

Azherae

Your experience is an unfortunately necessary feedback type for this game type (I'm only making the most BASIC of econ assumptions here).

There must be a point in ANY profession where a player goes 'this isn't for me, I'm bored/annoyed' and stops. If this doesn't happen, then the economic velocity grinds to a halt just as much (if not more) than the situation where absolutely no one is enjoying anything.

Xeeg

Azherae wrote: »

There must be a point in ANY profession where a player goes 'this isn't for me, I'm bored/annoyed' and stops. If this doesn't happen, then the economic velocity grinds to a halt just as much (if not more) than the situation where absolutely no one is enjoying anything.

Hard disagree. The stop on professions is that you can only have 2 master level, etc. Not that these core game systems suck so bad that people quit doing them.

It should be that the game is so fun, but there is too much to do so you specialize on a few things. Not that the game sucks so bad that there is only 1 thing you like to do but you have to do all this other lame shit most of the time.

Azherae

Xeeg wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

There must be a point in ANY profession where a player goes 'this isn't for me, I'm bored/annoyed' and stops. If this doesn't happen, then the economic velocity grinds to a halt just as much (if not more) than the situation where absolutely no one is enjoying anything.

Hard disagree. The stop on professions is that you can only have 2 master level, etc. Not that these core game systems suck so bad that people quit doing them.

It should be that the game is so fun, but there is too much to do so you specialize on a few things. Not that the game sucks so bad that there is only 1 thing you like to do but you have to do all this other lame shit most of the time.

I understand your wish, and I also understand how that could work in a more ideal world, but this isn't how humans work, in the end.

For this very specific interaction, you need it to be this way. I guess there's not much point in going into it if you disagree really stringently, just... take the data if you trust my data, I guess...

CROW3

I’m hoping player stalls will be able to help with acquisition of the cross-dependent components necessary to craft within your vertical.

I’ve enjoyed the gathering / processing / crafting loop so far. But I also think my server has been relatively free of griefing so no forced drop of mats.

I basically process everything I’ve gathered, so lumbermilling is just behind lumberjacking. I level carpentry in bursts as my bank fills up with timber. My only issue so far is the rate of xp gain versus the sheer amount of material, but that’s going to be calibrated later.

Sorry, Xeeg sounds like a crappy experience on your side. Glad you wrote this up for the devs to read.

Taleof2Cities

Echo the other comments that this is the crafting “experience” the devs need to hear, Xeeg.

The Verra Periodic Table of Elements is quite unique … starter bows can be fashioned out of tin.

Azherae

Xeeg wrote: »

Now my experience progression completely stalled. I spent probably at least 10 hours or more at level 8 trying to farm this western larch. I mean, it wasn't the worst game play i ever experienced, but it really wasn't that great. For most of the time i spent chopping trees, I was pretty bored, just hoping it would be over soon. Trying to avoid monsters as most of them were above my level, and besides, if i died i would lose 1/4 of the stuff I spent gathering so why risk that?

Sure, I could quit, and go do something more fun, but then I might as well start leveling again and then why even bother with this system? I was here to test this shit and so i was determined to keep going!

I think this is the part I'd like to highlight, if anything, I guess.

If you weren't enjoying the lumberjacking, I'd say that 'you stopping' would lead to what I consider a better game than if you continue just because you can.

It's a question of if it's appealing to someone like @CROW3 or @SongRune. Sure, there should be some effort to make it more interesting overall, but 'wandering around avoiding monsters and chopping trees' is like, the core gameplay loop of lumberjacking, it's not a matter of 'this is tedious and doesn't match the concept of the profession'.

What you described being bored by is the profession...

Ludullu

Having read your big comment explaining the process - it simply sounds like you're not an artisan. So as Azherae said above - it's not for you.

I spent dozens of hours just grinding lumber and mining. Then spent even more time hunting mobs in the same spot, while killing some mobs on the side. I caravaned my glint from those mobs for money to get a few dozen gold (which woulda allowed me to buy whatever I wanted).

And all of that was super fun for me, because I love that shit. You, Xeeg, sound like you like to grind mobs. So just do that, use that money to drive a caravan to multiply yout money (ideally with the same people you were grinding mobs with) and then simply buy whatever you need/want.

So no, artisanry doesn't have to be for everyone. Let alone the kind of artisanry Ashes is going for, where you're supposed to specialize in a specific branch and just do THAT thing.

And, of course, all of this is in the context of "this is an alpha, so nothing is finished". Processing and crafting are non-existent as a mechanic, they're simply a "press a button and wait" bs. Gathering is pretty much the same, on top of being a luck meter, due to how rare some resources are. All of that stuff is expected to get better and fleshed out, but in late P2 at the earliest.

Yet none of that fleshing out will change the fact that chopping wood will still just be chopping wood. Or that flower gathering will be just flower gathering. If you dislike those actions - you'll still dislike them.

I've already seen people create spreadsheets of where's the best regions to grind specific mats and what's the best way to progress through professions. I learned myself that the best way FOR ME to play is to level up literally everything to lvl10, because that's a free apprentice crafting all by yourself. This will require a shitton of time/money investment, but I'm all about that shit.

Also, on the topic of losing stuff due to death - yep, it's shitty. I lost several legendary and epic wood that I wanted to use for a caravan to a war enemy. Something that literally shouldn't have happened, cause the only penalty is supposed to be gear decay. I also rage quit after that moment. But you know what I did next week? Went back to grinding wood, made that caravan and did this

Had my palms sweaty knees weak arms spaghetti throughout the entire ride, cause I was scared shitless for my big time moneymaking.

But all of it was fun as hell, because AoC's artisanry and general economics are FOR ME. They simply might not be for you. But once player-crafter stalls are in and proper trading is in - the game could still be for you, just as L2's "crafting" was for mob grinders, cause they could simply get money from mobs, come to a market, buy everything they needed, pressed one button in the player stall (or traded those items to their crafter-friend) - and they got their item.

Otr

Xeeg wrote: »

Or is the "crafting's supposed to suck" design idea going to last to launch?

I've not seen much concern about making the crafting feel good from Steven and IS side the last 2-3 years. I noticed once a reaction from Steven which gave me the impression that he lacks the intuition about how to do it. Also people posting on forum don't seem to find good solutions. Now might be too late.

Xeeg

Ludullu wrote: »

And, of course, all of this is in the context of "this is an alpha, so nothing is finished". Processing and crafting are non-existent as a mechanic, they're simply a "press a button and wait" bs. Gathering is pretty much the same, on top of being a luck meter, due to how rare some resources are. All of that stuff is expected to get better and fleshed out, but in late P2 at the earliest.

This is all I want to know really. There are so many ways that they could turn "gathering" into more of a game.

Here is how they should think about it: What does the player want to be doing, and how can we make that more engaging and rewarding to do?

For example, in Rust (a first person shooter/survival/gatherer/builder game) you can macro an auto swing for hitting trees. Basically it can act just like AoC where you walk up to the tree and just click a button and wait to chop down the tree. But there is also a red "X" that appears on the tree, and moves around the tree every time you hit it. If you hit it, you chop down the tree twice as fast.Since it is a first person shooter, people playing this game love aiming at things in the center of their screen and clicking on them. The minigame of gathering wood takes the same basic concept of an FPS and applies it to aiming at the tree. Maybe its not THAAAAT fun, but its still more engaging and fun than walking up and auto hitting. It also synergizes with the core gameplay of PVP full loot and paying attention to your surroundings. While you are trying to hit the red X, you are less aware of the guy sneaking up on you with a spear. So this gathering method has multiple ways of intertwining the mini game with other aspects of the game beautifully.

If you expand this way of thinking to AoC's lumberjacking, we might think about what players like most about this game so far. The combat and class abilities might come to mind. Basically, people like using abilities and doing combos and feeling clever about how they are using their character. Maybe we could have some lumberjacking skills and cooldowns we can use? Maybe we can have some ways to combo off of hitting trees, like if you hit 5 in a row while an ability is in effect, you get a higher chance of quality and a new tree spawns right beside it. Or there could be another ability effect that if you chop 2 trees and then kill a monster, you get bonus exp, which also helps to resolve the exp stalling effect of trying to gather. At least some way to turn the act of lumberjacking into more of a "game" that still stays true to the elements that people like in this game so far. I dunno, get creative!

Now take the issue of players complaining about "Not enough copper". Steven's answer was - yeah there is enough, its just not circulating through the realm, so we will introduce player stalls. Great! I like this idea and am happy they are introducing it. But this solution still misses the fundamental problem. People are not having "fun" trying to go get copper, because they cant even find the damn shit. Likely because everyone else is farming it and they are stripped clean as soon as they spawn.

Now you may say "yeah, but the reward of finding copper feels so much better when you do find it!". OK there is some valid point to that, but riding around looking for copper for 2 hours and not finding anything is still a crappy player experience. Perhaps you were just behind someone else doing the same thing and didn't even know it. That guy got loaded and you got nothing, and there was nothing you could do about it. So much for player agency.

If that was your 2 hour session for the night, you probably would have had more fun washing dishes and folding laundry as at least you got to accomplish something. The players are complaining about not enjoying this aspect of the game, and the solution doesn't solve that. This game was supposed to have some kind of "dynamic world". Why not use a "dynamic world" to help players accomplish what they are trying to do?

It could be something like at mining 3, you get a passive "find copper" that sends a pleasant "ding" whenever there is a copper node within 50m, and then goes on cooldown for 10minutes. Maybe at mining 5 you get "dig copper" which is a 20m cooldown that spawns a node within 50m, but you still have to find it.

Each of the 3 gathering professions can have their own lane of abilities, tricks, combos, sound cues, visual cues and things that help make the act of gathering more enjoyable and interesting. Especially if we are going to be spending hundreds of hours on these activities. They can always have an option that appeals to people who just wanna chill and gather and not have to be too active.

Xeeg

Azherae wrote: »

'wandering around avoiding monsters and chopping trees' is like, the core gameplay loop of lumberjacking, it's not a matter of 'this is tedious and doesn't match the concept of the profession'.

What you described being bored by is the profession...

OK, I can understand that. My point would be to expand on these concepts to make them more interesting. Perhaps you get a lumberjacking activated cooldown ability that de-agros all monsters for 3s if you are in the process of hitting your 3rd+ tree in a row at the moment. Since, currently, you stall out your player leveling when working on gathering, it might be quite common for players to be underleveled for the areas they are trying to gather in? Shrug.

I would still like to see some kind of abilities or more interesting ways to gather than "click and wait" on repeat for hours. And these abilities should take into consideration the gameplay experience of people who are actively using these professions at various stages in the game.

Ludullu

Xeeg wrote: »

This is all I want to know really. There are so many ways that they could turn "gathering" into more of a game.

Then you're ultimately complaining about "alpha being an alpha".

We're supposed to get party gathering somewhere in P2 iirc, which means that the gathering mechanics will undergo some kind of change. When we were shown mining on a stream, they talked about "you can find rare mats in common rocks" and I think surveying was meant to increase your chances of that as well.

So, while, yes, the feedback of "this unfinished design feels shitty cause it's unfinished" is somewhat valid, it's also nothing more than "alpha is alpha".

If by the end of P2 we don't at least get concrete plans for what artisanry will look like on the gameplay layer - I'll agree that Intrepid are strongly fucking up. But that's 5 months from now. And that's if there's no delays.

Xeeg

Ludullu wrote: »

Xeeg wrote: »

This is all I want to know really. There are so many ways that they could turn "gathering" into more of a game.

Then you're ultimately complaining about "alpha being an alpha".

We're supposed to get party gathering somewhere in P2 iirc, which means that the gathering mechanics will undergo some kind of change. When we were shown mining on a stream, they talked about "you can find rare mats in common rocks" and I think surveying was meant to increase your chances of that as well.

So, while, yes, the feedback of "this unfinished design feels shitty cause it's unfinished" is somewhat valid, it's also nothing more than "alpha is alpha".

If by the end of P2 we don't at least get concrete plans for what artisanry will look like on the gameplay layer - I'll agree that Intrepid are strongly fucking up. But that's 5 months from now. And that's if there's no delays.

If that's the answer then we are good.

My complaint is when people say "nah this is the game design, professions aren't for everyone"

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