Thoughts on current Artisanship

My thoughts:

Right now the Artisanship level progressing does feel relatively slow compared to just the main adventuring in the game. For what I consider a beginner in MMOs, it feels the level of entry into the Artisanship skills is very high.

Why:

Aside from a few Artisan tagged commissions in main settlements, I have yet to find any great way to boost my level for any specific artisan trait. I have also noticed that crafting higher quality items will provide the same amount of EXP as the base common for that recipe. There is no incentive nor reward for taking the time to make higher rarity items. All this together just turns most of the artisanship traits into mindless grinding with very little reward at the beginning which I feel can definitely turn away people who are just learning to use these skills.

My Suggestions:

Add new "Artisan Quests" to help boost a specific artisan skills. Let these quests start from people like the "Smithy Foreman" for Armorsmithing/Weaponsmithing/Metalworking. Have the quests progress with the artisan skills and be some type of "Deliver # of X Item of Y Quality". Gives incentive to try new recipes and learn how to make higher quality items.
Provide bonus Artisan EXP for gathering/processing/crafting quality items. I am not sure if this is already in game but a little can go a long way. I have seen firsthand that crafting the same item at different levels gave the same EXP.

Your Thoughts?:

Has anyone else felt the same? What other suggestions do you have that can help make this side of the game engaging and fun? I would love to see this area be so much more especially if providing resources to Settlements is a big part of the game.

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Comments

Izeranee

You already get more xp for gathering higher quality items. I assume it's the same on processing/crafting but I haven't actually eyeballed it to see.

srmudkip45

@Izeranee for gathering I think it depends on the node size for more xp, not the rarity of the item received. So larger rocks or aged trees. Either way, I still feel there can be more natural progression with leveling artisan skills. Have a “mento/mentee” line of quests to help the leveling feel more meaningful.

lamina5432

My immediate thought is they could layer in the destiny system they could separate out each artisan it own constellation per grade so novice and apprentice getting their own. Then have star so when you make your first novice T1, T2, and T3 craft it completes a star that gives artisan Xp for said class. They could also do this with rarity in each grade.

The other problem is progression is pretty nonexistent in crafting. You don't learn something easy in novice then build on it as you go up the tiers in it and then get to apprenticce. It's just kind of all the same level of crafting with more materials needed.

That and you don't really become a better gatherer, processer or crafter. You just get access to more and better gear.

srmudkip45

https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/comment/512689#Comment_512689

I do like what you are saying with the Destiny system.

To add to the progression in crafting, that is true. It would be interesting to see if there are recipes that require lower level builds of the items to get to the "next level". Again that just gives more reason to build more of the recipes and when building recipes that gives more XP.

Raiskye

I think lamina's idea of layering/expanding the Destiny Artisanship system can definitely be a way to help boost and incentivize using higher grade materials. One of the things working against using better rarity materials is if they don't provide any additional XP when using them in the processing/crafting portion. At that point, it becomes a matter of farming a large amount of the common materials and constantly queuing crafts to get the same amount of XP and then basically only selling the higher rarity variants for money just to cover the crafting costs.

~Caveat that I am still mostly working through Apprentice so maybe there are more apparent effects at higher levels. ~

I also agree that the progression is effectively nonexistent at the moment. I suppose the new/better gear is a progression to some degree but there is not really anything tangible or immersive to show a person getting better at their craft. Maybe there can be internal modifiers for the player when they gather/craft:

Example ideas (Higher levels can grant):

Probability to craft an item of higher grade (Emulating an artisan refining their skills resulting in higher quality crafts)
Reduced processing cost or can process more items with the same amount of materials (Emulating how a more experienced artisan is less wasteful compared to novices)
Higher probability to gather higher rarity materials. (Emulating how a more experience artisan can properly utilize their tools to focus/ensure proper gathering)

—Other potential items to consider:

The progression also depends on the Dev's expected rate of progression and if it's tied to any other systems in the game
- Maybe faster/better/cheaper processing can be bound to the level of the work station/town
  - this provides an incentive for players to contribute more towards developing their settlement
  - if towns become specialized towards specific branches of Artisanship (which some seem to already be doing), it would encourage more in-world traveling or at least inter-settlement trading
- It's also possible that Artisanship can have a steep "learning curve" where the initial levels are slow but then improvement (leveling) grows faster as you get higher.
  - As a more Solo/Smaller group player, my personal ideal rate of progression for Artisanship would match (or be close to) the growth rate of the player's combat levels.
  - That being said, I still think the overall leveling of Artisanship skills is a bit slow but that could also be more in relativity to production costs.
    - Ex: A Trained Horse (Mount or Beast of Burden) currently only sells for 1 Copper to a Vendor while the production cost is much higher (especially considering the worst-case scenario where a settlement's tax-rate can be 99% resulting a training cost of close to 1 Gold). In this scenario I would have to spend near 4 Gold just to level Animal Husbandry to Level 2 which is extremely costly profession for early-levels/first-time player experience.
      - At the moment the only incentive to train in Animal Husbandry is to provide better mounts for personal/guild use. There is a clear negative Return on Investment in terms of monetary costs and there is currently (with acknowledgement that it is in Alpha and the Devs said they plan on adding in more systems/development) no gameplay or passion incentive that a player can enjoy in terms of hunting or training.
Increasing the XP gains of Gathering/Processing can result in 2 potential options:
- For Solo Players:
  - Train in Artisanship when they need to upgrade their own equipment (currently it feels like the even the first jump from Novice to Apprentice in terms of pure stats is extremely large but the gap to be able to craft those yourself takes too long and thus risk getting overcharged for market prices or praying to the RNG gods that a mob drops a decent upgrade before you start falling behind content difficulty)
- For Cooperative Players:
  - If a Pure-Artisan can level up their adventuring levels (slower than Pure-Adventurer but still at a decent rate) then it can encourage a system where you can employ Adventurers to protect the Artisan in higher-level areas for higher-level materials without risking the Artisan-focused player being one-shot by a stray mob attack.

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