Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

(Crafting) How would you define mastering a profession?

    • 1785 posts
    January 18, 2021 2:07 PM PST

    Hi everyone,

    I have another question I'd like to put out there for you all to discuss. 

    If it were up to you, what would it take to master a gathering or crafting profession?  What kinds of steps should there be in achieving it?  How would you define the concept of being a "Master"?  Should it be something that everyone can achieve just through normal progression or should there be more to it above and beyond just getting your skills or level up?

    Just like all the other questions I"ve posted, there's no right answer to this - I'm mainly interested in just seeing everyone's thoughts on this subject.  There's no design decision that depends on this discussion or anything like that either.  So, just talk about what you think the right answer should be!

    • 20 posts
    January 18, 2021 2:17 PM PST

    I would rather have 2 tradeskills you can master (not counting gathering). Gives a little more versatility.

    • 21 posts
    January 18, 2021 2:32 PM PST

    I'd like it to be more than just hitting max level in your crafting skill. I'd also like it to be something vague or varied. Maybe that's crafting certain items, crafting in certain climates, incorporating other tradeskills, building your craft-guild reputation up to a certain level, equipping a full set of HQ crafting gear for your trade, or obtaining the best tools for your trade. Give us several goals to work towards, each that gives its own sense of mastery in the profession.

    • 88 posts
    January 18, 2021 3:04 PM PST

    I would like it to include more than just a set number of gathers or crafts.  I would like to see it require numbers of crafts, and then at a certain point a quest that requires a certain item of a certain  quality to be crafted or gathered.  At each tier of crafting or gathering there could be a quest to get or make a certain item.  Improved tools for gathering and crafting could be included as well.  The questing just breaks it up a bit and makes it more fun than sitting in a dark closet making item after item.


    This post was edited by Valheru at January 18, 2021 3:18 PM PST
    • 76 posts
    January 18, 2021 3:07 PM PST

    I think there should be a challenge to reach the final stage in crafting. Working in the trades you often have to pass a test to become a master of that trade. There are usually 3 stages or levels in the trades 1st being Apprentice 2nd being Journeyman and 3rd being Master. Why not have the crafter going for Masters be involved in a challenge? Have that challenge incorporate everything they've learned to do leading up to max level crafting into one final Masterpiece, Mastercraft, Masterbrew. Only when the player passes the test do they become a true Master of their profession. This test shouldn't be run over to the forge and make a sword. It should be a test of ones skills in their craft. Becoming a master could open up new paths for the crafter to take and allow them to use better less available crafting items and stations.   

    • 1273 posts
    January 18, 2021 3:36 PM PST

    If it were up to you, what would it take to master a gathering or crafting profession? 
        It would take longer to master a profression than it takes to level a character from 1-50.

    What kinds of steps should there be in achieving it?
        There should be road blocks that stop progression for a time.  Maybe materials run out, or you need to find a certain material you don't have access to at the moment.  You can still do the craft of course, but       
        gaining more skill in that craft would not be attainable until that next thing is found.

        I think crafter should have to work with adventuruers to become a master.  Not necessarily having to be *IN* the raid, or be there when the boss dies, but have some forced interaction with the raid party.  Trading,
        or crafting alongside the person who does have the item you need, etc.

     

    How would you define the concept of being a "Master"?
         I think it would mean you have a decent chance of crafting the highest tier items successfully.  

    Should it be something that everyone can achieve just through normal progression or should there be more to it above and beyond just getting your skills or level up?
         It should be something that any player can achieve, but not through "normal" progression.  It should require dedication, time, challenge, possibility of failure, and maybe proving yourself at certain points along
         the way.  Maybe you reach "max" skill but to gain that last tier you have to achieve something, accomplish something, prove something.  

     

    (Edit:  Sorry, couldn't get formatting to stick for some reason)


    This post was edited by Ranarius at January 18, 2021 3:36 PM PST
    • 60 posts
    January 18, 2021 3:40 PM PST

    Difficult question.  I have to say I do like some fantasy tropes where individuals have to do some sort of epic quest for mastery or somehow otherwise seek out reclusive legendary masters of their craft.  I think mastering the crafting of a fine item by always staying in a city is one thing, but mastering magical or fantastical item creation may be another.  

    I would also be ok with some quests or tasks gating tiers of mastery - demonstrating skill before being shown more.  So perhaps the crafting of non-magical or fantastical items would be able to be accomblished in cities, with some tasks/quests to demonstrate your mastery.  These may not necessarily involve an adventuring requirement, ie maybe you can buy the items for it from adventurers at higher levels.  This would bring you to XXX skill, where you are a master.  If each race has some sort of magical crafting background, then being able to craft items with that attribute would require a journey to the dwarven capitol, where you would gain the trust of the dwarves to learn how to do dwarven magical imbuing.  At the grandmaster level, perhaps you seek out hidden grandmasters in the world to go through the epic journey necessary to create your own grandmaster item. 

    I always thought tradeskills should also adopt a more exp bar approach too, where you have a low %, say 5% chance to skillup as a base, and you fill an exp bar.  When the exp bar is capped, your exp then increases your % chance to skillup or learn how to make an item.  This lets various modifiers come more into play IMO.  

    • 52 posts
    January 18, 2021 3:53 PM PST

    It should be very difficult to be a master. As you have mentioned (Nephele), you want crafting to be a challenge and not be something you instantly achieve such as in the very simple basic system of wow. I would point to starting with EQ and how long it took to get up to the top level, but then add branches. While Breastplates may be a line you can pick to put your points into (so to speak), at a certain point you should be given the chance to branch out to Silver Breastplates and/or Breastplates with Cold resists. Crafting should keep fracturing as it gets further along and you should have diminishing returns to slow the process down.

    Much like in EQ and say WURM and a handful of other games, on a particular server you should be known for being a master at X, because it took so much work and time to get there. I have no issue with being able to master other branches in the same line, but it should incur additional time and attempts, so if you wanted to master 2 branches of a class, it may take you 1.5 years or some such time amount.

    Again, my focus is always on feeling like you achieved something and not having everything be hand-holding as it has been in BDO, WoW, ESO and pretty much any other MMO you can name in the last decade. Let's make being a master of a branch of crafting be meaningful.

    • 255 posts
    January 18, 2021 4:03 PM PST

    This depends on how VR see's crafting. Is a crafter like an adventurer, as in you don't need to be level 50 adventurer to be a crafter? Can you be a Master Crafter while your character is only level 10?

    If they see crafting as being separate to an adventurer, then having to get to a certain location in the world to create something to become a master crafter, may not be possible if it is a spot in a level 40 zone and the character is only level 10. 

    But if crafting is just an extension of an adventurer then the scenario’s that others have suggested would be fine. It could make certain materials become very expensive, if you need 5 Blue Diamonds as material to get your Master skill so you can then make higher tier crafting. Then every crafter in that profession will require those items, it could make a premium product for any mat’s that are required at that stage in a crafter’s progression.


    This post was edited by Boulda at January 18, 2021 4:04 PM PST
    • 2419 posts
    January 18, 2021 4:44 PM PST

    Nephele said:

    Hi everyone,

    I have another question I'd like to put out there for you all to discuss. 

    If it were up to you, what would it take to master a gathering or crafting profession?  What kinds of steps should there be in achieving it?  How would you define the concept of being a "Master"?  Should it be something that everyone can achieve just through normal progression or should there be more to it above and beyond just getting your skills or level up?

    Just like all the other questions I"ve posted, there's no right answer to this - I'm mainly interested in just seeing everyone's thoughts on this subject.  There's no design decision that depends on this discussion or anything like that either.  So, just talk about what you think the right answer should be!

    In MMOs, 'mastering' it just means you reach the highest available skill level, gained by grinding through everything below it.  You make things, your skill goes up, you make more difficult things...rinse, repeat.   You'll have nothing different in Patheon.  Oh, sure, we'll probably have a different whack-a-mole game to slow the whole thing down, but in the end it's all about a number in an equation that determines  your chances of making something.

    Everyone, putting in the an appropriate amount of time and effort should be able to do anything in the game.  Reach the highest level, obtain the best gear, kill the biggest baddest monsters and reach the cap in whatever tradeskills you want.  There should never be any artifical, developer imposed roadblocks that says this person can make it but that person can't.

    • 88 posts
    January 18, 2021 5:27 PM PST

    I still think that there should be tiered crafting and gathering , along with associated quests at each tier.

    • 2 posts
    January 18, 2021 5:28 PM PST

    Mastering a profession to me should be a pretty arduous task with a big payoff.  That's all anything in these games need for crafting.  I suppose what I'd like to see is that the time spent is worth it, with the ability to craft end-game gear at a high cost.

    And that's pretty much it--the journey should be long, but the payoff should be the way trade actually works, people pay you to make things for them.  Having the knowledge and the capacity to sell your services for a price seems like the ultimate endgame for a tradeskiller.  And I suppose, ideally, that's actually built into the game.  Scammers are pretty common in any situation that involves you having to trade items in blind faith.  I'd really love to see some mechanism explicitly designed for crafters to offer their services for a fee where one party enters the mats + a fee and it uses the crafter's skill to create the item.  The crafter gets the money, the customer gets the item.

    Dwarf Fortress has this mechanic where crafters would randomly become inspired--they'd run off, lock themselves in their rooms for days or weeks, and when they finally emerge they've created something truly legendary.  I think that'd be a really cool mechanic where, once you finally achieve mastery of the skill, you understand it so thoroughly, you begin to have your own ideas.  I'd imagine in an MMO, these would be randomly generated items that are quite powerful.  It would happen at random, and you'd be presented with a temporary recipe, something your character came up with in a moment of inspiration, and you can only make it once.  The stats and name would be random, but it would always bear your name.  I think this would be fun, you might get inspired at a low chance whenever you craft something.  The mats would be semi-random, or maybe somewhat standard plus a few extra hard to acquire / expensive items.

    I sort of envision the fantasy of some blacksmith, building out a suit of high end platemail, suddenly has a thought like "...what if I mixed fire salts, crushed diamonds, and an enchanted ruby into the smelting process for some boots?" and boop you get a recipe for platemail boots that require an assortment of some tricky to obtain items.  Or an alchemist like, "Yeah but hear me out, take the tooth of a dragon, grind it down, take some troll blood, melt the eye of a basilisk, and you get a dope regen potion." and then you get to go try and find all of that.

    Besides that, just crafting in general...things I liked from EverQuest: Somewhat believable item requirements to craft things.  I enjoyed this immensely.  To create a breastplate you needed plates, padding, water to cool it, etc.  Loved it.  The downside was the excrutiating number of combines it took to raise and the almost zero payoff at the end for a long, long time.  In World of Warcraft, almost the opposite, I hated how bland the crafting was but I loved that you had a clear progression path, combines couldn't fail, and you had combines that guaranteed skill ups.

    If Pantheon could take the best of both of those, a clear progression system, not failing combines, but a more believable approach to the items required, as well as items that actually kind of matter that people will pay for, I'm in.

     

    *EDIT* -- Should everyone be able to do it?  Of course.  What should it take?  Doing it a lot, make it a skill, doing the thing increases the skill.  I see no intrinsic problems with repeatedly creating something over and over to become better at making it.  Having a recipe book, knowing what gives you skillups and whats easy to make, all of that's fine to me.

    Don't overcomplicate that part.


    This post was edited by EchoLocation8 at January 18, 2021 5:36 PM PST
    • 8 posts
    January 18, 2021 6:09 PM PST

    Vandraad said:

    In MMOs, 'mastering' it just means you reach the highest available skill level, gained by grinding through everything below it.  You make things, your skill goes up, you make more difficult things...rinse, repeat.   You'll have nothing different in Patheon.  Oh, sure, we'll probably have a different whack-a-mole game to slow the whole thing down, but in the end it's all about a number in an equation that determines  your chances of making something.

    Everyone, putting in the an appropriate amount of time and effort should be able to do anything in the game.  Reach the highest level, obtain the best gear, kill the biggest baddest monsters and reach the cap in whatever tradeskills you want.  There should never be any artifical, developer imposed roadblocks that says this person can make it but that person can't.

     

    You forgot one important thing Vandraad.  In order to become a master of your trade you would require a cash shop item worth at least $50 as a combine ingredient to make your last item to become that master!

    • 52 posts
    January 18, 2021 6:10 PM PST

    I would also like to add that it is Ok and desirable that most people never master crafting. To be at the top should be something special and not the case of "Everyone gets a trophy".

    • 234 posts
    January 18, 2021 6:31 PM PST

    Nephele said:

    If it were up to you, what would it take to master a gathering or crafting profession?  What kinds of steps should there be in achieving it?  How would you define the concept of being a "Master"?  Should it be something that everyone can achieve just through normal progression or should there be more to it above and beyond just getting your skills or level up?

    Starting at the endpoint and working backwards to find the progression is a good way to look at it. So I'll take a crack at that and record my thought process on it.  Sorry if I'm a bit abstract, but thats how I think about problems when determining the best way to express a solution.

    Definition: To me a master is one that has great success most of the time when creating an item, for which the required scope(s) of knowledge, are ones the crafter is proficient in. 

    So, Rules/Tenants this might imply:

    -That an item's requirements can encompass one or more scopes of knowledge
    -That a master can still fail
    -That they could fail more often if the scopes of required knowledge, encompasses some area they are less proficient in for a given item.
    -That they could fail less often if if they are proficient in at least one of the scopes of knowledge required for the given item.
    -That when knowledge from a less proficient scope is required, while also using a more proficient scope for the same item, then this might result in faster progression of the less proficient scope.
    -That if you have no proficient scopes in your knowledge kit (Or if your not using any scope you are proficient in), then your going to progress more slowly in a single scope of knowledge.
    -That multiple scopes of knowledge might be required for more complex and wanted items
    -That many scopes of knowledge exist
    -That a crafter can have many scopes of knowledge
    -That a crafter can become proficient in many scopes of knowledge

    As per titles:

    -One can be a master in one or more scopes of knowledge
    -One can be a Grand Master if proficient in many or all scopes of knowledge.
    -Their might be lesser titles for partial proficiency
    -That titles are granted per scope of knowledge
    -That complex titles could exist for proficiency in multiple scopes of knowledge
    -That titles might imbue some earned benefit on the crafter

    Possible mechanics to progress:

    Experimentation
    --The system should encourage putting random, yet logically relevant together materials, to discover new items
    --The system should encourage adding additional materials to known recipes to discover enhanced items or variants of items

    Item Discovery
    --Via experimentation
    --Via training in a particular scope of knowledge
    --Via looting of rare documents
    --Via deconstruction of an item
    ---more complex items might not be discovered until several dis-assemblies have occurred
    ---some materials might only be found via deconstruction
    ---discovery might be easier if the crafter is proficient in one or more scopes required to create the item

    Knowledge Acquisition, Proficiency and Skill
    --Knowledge can be represented by the library of items you have knowledge of. 
    ---In other-words the crafter would have a cookbook where they have complied their gained knowledge over time into a set of known recipes.
    ---These recipes, to be valid, would essentially match some table under the covers that represents a discoverable item.
    ---Knowledge can be discovered via:
    ----Trainers
    ----Player to player trading
    ----Looted documents
    ----Deconstruction
    ----Experimentation
    ----Questing

    Proficiency
    ---This concept implies we need a skills system, in order to guage proficiency in a given area of knowledge
    ---I would propose a large set of skills to become proficient in
    ----so as to allow crafters to branch out into specialties and provide a long path to Grand Master.
    ----Being a Grand Master should be a very rare and prestigous title to have.

    Skills - Since proficiency guaging requires skill in my model, then I will outline that here.
    ---Skills are discoverable through the course of crafting items that require scopes not currently possesed by the crafter
    ----Skill discovery is enhanced though the perception system
    ----Crafting an item does not guarantee a skill discovery
    ---Crafting an item has a chance to increase skill
    ---Crafting the same item can only raise your skill so high
    ---In order to integrate the concepts of Knowledge, Proficiency and Skill together
    ----Skill can be some basic number that represents the crafter's experience in a scope of knowledge
    ----Proficiency can be expressed as a bonus applied to the skill
    -----Proficiency can be derived from the number of known items that require a particular skill

    So to sumarrize:

    -Knowledge is the volume of recipes aquired by the crafter over time, through various methods.
    -Skills are disocoverable through a variety of methods and are improved when items that require the skill are crafted.
    -Proficiency is a bonus applied to a skill when crafting an item and can be improved through the aquisition of knowledge.

    Thus the more items you know about for a given skill, the higher your proficiency in a given skill and the higher the chance you will discover that skill to begin with.  As you become more proficient in a given skill (scope of knowledge), you fail less often but always have a chance to fail.

    Now I know...people are going to say, "I don't want to grind". Ok I get that.  But I think by giving a bonus through proficiency, to gain more success via knowledge, will help the grind feeling out by encouraging you to seek out more knowledge and craft those items, instead of crafting the same item over and over again. Though you could accomplish pure skill advancement in that way too.

    In addition I would propose that skill is not capped via adventuring level, but rather that each crafting skill be its own XP bar as it were.  You then become capped by your adventuring level only because your access to materials and items required to gain skill and knoweldge becomes restricted by the possibilities of the death penalty.

    I would also propose a skill training bonus based on the crafters primary stat(s) - so the more adventuring the crafter has done, the more primary stat they will have and thus the greater rate of skillup they will achieve.

    I suppose I'll stop here, though I could keep going into a proposed UI to represent things, gathering system etc.

    So there are my 2 copper pieces of rambling thoughts on being a master crafter.

    I'm sure there are many other ways to look at this too.

    -Az

    PS - Just had another thought on group crafting - it would be really cool if players could help each other out by combining their proficiencies and skills to gain better success as a team - perhaps even some items would require the group crafting effort to make.

    PSS - Why does this forum hate bulleted lists?


    This post was edited by azaya at January 18, 2021 7:02 PM PST
    • 2 posts
    January 18, 2021 6:32 PM PST

    Spof said:

    I would also like to add that it is Ok and desirable that most people never master crafting. To be at the top should be something special and not the case of "Everyone gets a trophy".

     

    I think its fine if most people don't master it, but making it a tough journey with a clear and defined end that anyone who wants to can reach isn't the same as "everyone gets a trophy".

    • 2 posts
    January 18, 2021 6:37 PM PST

    I like the idea of tiered crafting and or gathering, that said 3 or 4 level tiers, with some sort of quests or questing to get to the top of the next tier. Maybe a final test at the end of the quest line that would be harder to craft with some chance at failure added into it. If you are going to have crafting in the game lets not make it easy mode, but on the other hand lets not make it into the only job you have in the game where it takes weeks to advance your gathering or crafting due to the amount you have to craft or gather to level it up.

    I also don't think you should be able to level your crafting 1-50 at level 10. So there should be areas that have the higher crafting or gathering mats in them that you can't get to due to NPC levels.

     

    • 1281 posts
    January 18, 2021 7:54 PM PST

    I think it would be neat if to reach certain milestones you need to craft certain set piece type items. These items could consist of requiring a variety of crafting skills to complete.

    • 52 posts
    January 18, 2021 8:58 PM PST

    EchoLocation8 said:

    Spof said:

    I would also like to add that it is Ok and desirable that most people never master crafting. To be at the top should be something special and not the case of "Everyone gets a trophy".

     

    I think its fine if most people don't master it, but making it a tough journey with a clear and defined end that anyone who wants to can reach isn't the same as "everyone gets a trophy".

     

    I just don't want to see wow, eso, bdo or any other casual game for crafting. None of those games were very good in crafting and reaching top levels were not hard, with wow being the most kindergarten example of crafting I can think of. As long as it is not something someone can master on multiple characters (different branches) in a year or less. Each one should be many months of grinding, which would make you a go to person for others.

     

    • 1315 posts
    January 19, 2021 6:40 AM PST

    I would like to see nonlinear progression.   Rather than just grinding out generic crafting exp to raise a generic crafter level make crafting a set of skills, knowledges and style masteries.

    Style Masteries:  Each schematic could belong to a specific subset of style masteries.  The easiest way to handle this is with a matrix of proficiency and gear slot.  Each slot in the matrix will keep track of the number of times and highest challenge rating you have completed that style.  The combination of values give a bonus to crafting said style.

    Knowledges:  Each raw material could/should have its own lore and challenges.  Each time to take a class from an NPC or practice with the material your knowledge about it increases.  Hitting certain cutoffs of knowledge will open up extra options, improved rates of success and visual artistry options.

    Skills:  Each schematic could have both material and skill techniques required in order to complete it.  Each technique would be a step in the crafting process.  Unlocking a technique could be a matter of finding a teacher, a tome of knowledge or maybe a reverse engineering opportunity.  Within each technique there could also be active subskills that modify the results of the step based on active feedback.  Both the base technique and the subskills could all have practice and challenge level trackers that work similar to what I outlined for style masteries.

    Combining all of these, masteries of anything takes a significant amount of time.  Mastering all of them for a single crafting discipline would take a tremendous amount of time.

    Rather than a hard limit to the number of crafting classes I would limit the number of schematics, knowledges, techniques and technique subskills a single character can progress on.  I would make that number expandable over time but with an exponential growth in the effort to unlock the ability to track a greater number of progressions.  Certain abilities could evolve such that you do not need to have low difficulty skills taking up slots from higher difficulty skills of similar effect.

    In this way no one character would ever be truly “done” but without artificial limits.  There would still be practical limits to how cross trained a single crafter can be so that advanced recipes will still require player interdependence.

    • 612 posts
    January 19, 2021 7:20 AM PST

    Question: "If it were up to you, what would it take to master a gathering or crafting profession?"

    This totally depends on the viewpoint of Crafting as an extention of adventuring, or as a replacement for adventuring.

    1) Extention to Adventuring.

    If we take the viewpoint that crafting is just an extention of the players Adventuring, it would mean that leveling up your Crafting would still require a player to go out adventuring to progress his Crafting skills from Apprentice to Journyman to Master. This means that a player would not be able to achieve higher skill levels in their Crafting without personally going out and adventuring. Like others have mentioned, this could mean crafting items in specific climates or hard to reach locations and/or using hidden or dangerous Forges, Ovens, Looms, etc... So while a player may be able to do much crafting in a town, in order to advance past stages of progression he must leave town and be an adventurer, at least to the point where he can forge a special tool at a hard to reach Forge or some equivalent. Then he can return to town and advance again, with the aid of this new tool until he reaches a point where he might need to go out adventuring again to advance again.

    2) Replacement for Adventuring

    Under this viewpoint, this would treat Crafting as an Alternative way to play the game. This would mean that a player could choose to forgo adventuring and simply stay in town and play the Alternate gameplay that is Crafting. The player could accomplish all his progression within the Town setting and would never need to travel or Adventure. He could attain even the highest ranks of his Crafting without leaving the comforts of his Crafthall. This would mean that any player who put in the time, could become a Master of his Craft without the need to be an adventurer at all. It is still possible though that certain items may require the above mentioned hard to reach or hard to use Forges, Ovens, Looms, etc... so any Crafter who wants to make those specific items would need to adventure to do so.


    Since the question is, how would I do it; I personally would rather the First choice: Extention to Adventuring.


    Question: "What kinds of steps should there be in achieving it?"

    As I mentioned above, I would attach Crafting to Adventuring in such a way that in order to reach new ranks in the Craft, the player must venture out. Perhaps in the early stages it may just mean finding NPC Masters out in the world who can teach you to master a set of skills that lets you progress. Then once your skill has improved more you are required to reach an out of the way, hard to get to Crafting Station to make a special tool or maybe attune your character in some way that allows you to progress into more difficult crafting stages. Then eventually to reach the highest progression in Crafting you maybe need to do a complex combine that requires you to travel to several different unique Crafting Stations in very dangerous places around the world; eg. Forge in the Fires of a Vulcano, Temper in the Chill Ice of a Glacier, Polish in the waters in the Deep Abyss, then Sharpen on the Stone of Uberness found in the Swamp of Bad Stuff.

     

    Question: "How would you define the concept of being a 'Master'? Should it be something that everyone can achieve just through normal progression or should there be more to it above and beyond just getting your skills or level up?"

    These two questions are basically answered in my previous answers. Basically if you have taken the above steps and completed the hardest stages of progression then you should be able to create anything your Craft has to offer as long as you have the proper recipie, pattern, or schematic to follow and the right components and combine them in the right place.

    Then you would be a 'Master'.

    • 18 posts
    January 19, 2021 8:56 AM PST

    In my eyes, "mastering" a profession means you've spent so much time doing it, that you've reached a higher skill in that profession than any others, and it required such a dedication that skills in other things fell by the wayside.

    I'm not saying that your skills in other professions would deteriorate (although that would be an interesting mechanic...) but that you could never get high enough in any OTHER skills as you did in the one you mastered, due to the sheer time and dedication to the one.

    This is also me saying that I'd love to see a single player character NOT able to "master" every craft or gathering skill.

    • 18 posts
    January 19, 2021 11:06 AM PST

    I consider crafting "Mastery" to be when a person chooses a very specific final path in their crafting knowledge and then reaches the pinnacle of knowledge in that area.  This process should require hard work but be sprinkled with mystery and excitement.  Something in the form of an Epic Tradeskill quest.  For example, if it were a Sage making spells for others, they could be required to locate specific, hard to locate/acquire books and/or scrolls from various libraries across the world.  They might also have to track down Sages who have committed certain recipes to memory only and that will part with them only after being helped in some way.  There may be fragments of scrolls or parchments lost throughout the world that need to be found to complete the final important parts of a spell (and possibly have to learn other languages to translate them).   This makes crafting fun and adventurous as well and not just about grinding out recipes.  It can also create interdependence in groups to help them reach these locations safely, lending further weight to the group tenet of the game.

     


    This post was edited by Luniss at January 19, 2021 12:00 PM PST
    • 18 posts
    January 19, 2021 11:22 AM PST

    GoofyWarriorGuy said:

    Question: "If it were up to you, what would it take to master a gathering or crafting profession?"

    This totally depends on the viewpoint of Crafting as an extention of adventuring, or as a replacement for adventuring.

    1) Extention to Adventuring.

    If we take the viewpoint that crafting is just an extention of the players Adventuring, it would mean that leveling up your Crafting would still require a player to go out adventuring to progress his Crafting skills from Apprentice to Journyman to Master. This means that a player would not be able to achieve higher skill levels in their Crafting without personally going out and adventuring. Like others have mentioned, this could mean crafting items in specific climates or hard to reach locations and/or using hidden or dangerous Forges, Ovens, Looms, etc... So while a player may be able to do much crafting in a town, in order to advance past stages of progression he must leave town and be an adventurer, at least to the point where he can forge a special tool at a hard to reach Forge or some equivalent. Then he can return to town and advance again, with the aid of this new tool until he reaches a point where he might need to go out adventuring again to advance again.

    2) Replacement for Adventuring

    Under this viewpoint, this would treat Crafting as an Alternative way to play the game. This would mean that a player could choose to forgo adventuring and simply stay in town and play the Alternate gameplay that is Crafting. The player could accomplish all his progression within the Town setting and would never need to travel or Adventure. He could attain even the highest ranks of his Crafting without leaving the comforts of his Crafthall. This would mean that any player who put in the time, could become a Master of his Craft without the need to be an adventurer at all. It is still possible though that certain items may require the above mentioned hard to reach or hard to use Forges, Ovens, Looms, etc... so any Crafter who wants to make those specific items would need to adventure to do so.


    Since the question is, how would I do it; I personally would rather the First choice: Extention to Adventuring.

    I cannot express how much I am against the concept of having to level your adventuring levels to further your tradeskill levels.  I very much was a crafter through and through.  That is to say that, I'd much rather spend my time harvesting and running from mobs that could destroy me, and take them home to craft, than I would grabbing some gear to go and fight creatures of the world.  I shouldn't be required to go adventuring if I can broker a deal with adventurers to go get the ingredients for me.  Some people find joy in crafting and only crafting and I think this is a great way of allowing those two systems to be separate.  Having them separate allows the crafting purists to enjoy the game and have a symbiotic relationship with the adventurers.  If a person wants to do both, then more power to them, that's still possible in a separated leveling system.  My quickest turn off to games like WoW was this concept that I had to go and level my character and grind out levels before I could craft a better bag, etc... I never got on that WoW bandwagon because the systems were tied together.  It's really kind of a deal breaker for me in the MMO genre.  If I can't craft without having to go out and grind kills for days on end, then I'm usually not giving that game any thought.

    I feel that a separated tradeskill and adventuring system allows both play styles to co-exist, have a great time playing, and encourages economic trade, bartering, and developing relationships between crafters and adventurers.  

    I guess to tie this all back to the original post, I would say that Mastering a tradeskill should not require a player to Master the art of combat.


    [edit] --- After reading over your comment again Goofy, I must extend my apologies.  I actually agree with the type of adventuring you mentioned.  I misread it as I must be a high level adventurer to also be a high level crafter.  This was not what you said...my apologies.


    This post was edited by Luniss at January 19, 2021 11:45 AM PST
    • 201 posts
    January 19, 2021 12:18 PM PST

    Mastery should involve top skill level PLUS having a wide variety of rare recipes that come from drops AND faction related methods so you have a wide variety of interesting gear options to craft PLUS having elite level crafting gear to give you superb skills and ability to make the best outcomes on gear.  Basically, mastery should be when you are known on a server as one of the people to be sought out for commissions of gear.  It should require a level of investment and dedication that few achieve it, but anyone COULD with the commitment.


    This post was edited by antonius at January 19, 2021 12:20 PM PST