Professions and speciality crafting

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I went to bed thinking about three threads:
sandbox-crafting-concept
quality-crafting-materials
crafting-items-n-stats

Upon waking I found I’d been dreaming about crafting, professions, and gaming systems while I slept…
So here goes… While posting I also came across this which also fits in nicely…

Basically, the notion just boils down to “what if there were speciality infrastructure items, as well as the basics?”

So there are skills, those skills progress. As a skill progresses, one “unlocks” customized tooling that helps with the profession:

  1. a general workbench exists, and oven. anyone can discover the recipe and make them, with them they can craft more complex items: arrows, sling bow, or smelt ores. The basics…

  2. However, there is a skill for bow making, and smithing (at higher levels weapon smithing and armouring specialities), Now these skills, unlock specialty tools/infrastructure: a bowyer’s workbench (which combined with skill could confer a range bonus, or damage bonus, or specialty effects (with a proper recipe) to items crafted on it. a smelting furnace (higher quality ingots) to craft more durable items. an anvil, weaponers anvil, armorers anvil… I think you see where this is going…

This would tie crafting, into skill progression and naturally create professions without needing an artificial “class” system. In addition. Each professional would be unique. One smith may specialize in just sword making and become a “Master”, another may choose to scatter levels around in general smithing, maybe some armouring, a little weapons crafting.

Other’s would choose to specialize in baking: foods that convey healing or stamina bonus’ and sell them or others as a Healer, some baking, but also potion making, herb lore, etc.

Artisans to create swag…

A warrior may specialize in his fighting skills, dodge, attack, defend, (translated as fighting bonuses) and know enough to repair or make a basic weapon, but would want to seek out a weaponsmith or armorer to properly equip themselves.

Merchants could decide to sell the wares of many craftsmen for coin, and travel to seek out the best craftsmen’s wares an bring them back to their city.

The specialty infrastructure also would make cities and houses grow organically. Not every house has just a bed, a storage room (with chests), a workbench, and a few ovens. there’d be speciality rooms for the making of “specific items of quality”. Anyone could learn to craft a healing potion, or a bow, or a hammer, etc. but the “good stuff” comes from the specialty benches.

The possibilities are almost endless.

What do you think? I think it would add depth, and provide for unique cities, in-game culture, Role-playing, and diverse groups. Not a bunch of “adventurers” (a paladin, ranger, cleric and mage join together to quest for artifacts of the Oort, which they sell to get money to buy better equipment, so they can go find some more stuff to sell…), instead you may have a merchant, weapon smith, and healer, hire some body guards to seek treasure for greater knowledge or to sell for profit.

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i die a little on the inside everytime i see that word

it basically sounds like this

i find it interesting though tthat you mention skill progression but still mean there is no ‘‘classes’’ or somewhat crafting professions, i would assume there is, from what you wrote, but i guess thats a matter of definition.

worth mentioning, due to @KuroKuma constant complaining that limits would be bad i basically dropped the pick two and made the one i linked above, a ton of progression meaning it will be hard as hell to try and use only one.

Never the less, since its basically a reflection of a few of a my 15 different posts on crafting, it would be weird for me to agree with it :smile:

Question though: you keep using the word ‘‘infrastructure’’ which by definition is this

which i feel is none of the above, so can you go deeper into that and ‘‘tooling’’?

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First off all this is a good sugesstion and i agree in many points.

this sounds interessting but also problematic at the same time. is the “Merchant” a human or a bot in this scenario ? if it’s a human and a profession is “merchant” (trader) this could be a game-breaker if some parts or some worlds are never visited. on the other hand it could serve as the nucleus for town foundation. but what would the abilities of a merchand be ? carry more stuff ? be faster ? … dunno but that are only the first things i got in mind.

What distinguishes this from classic professions like in other games ? there are weaponsmiths and armorsmiths and they have skill points too … how does your system make it necessary to trade ? if i have time i may max out all professions or trees by myself (as long as there is no automated generation of new weapons, materials eg.)

@Zouls could you for god’s sake please stop editing your posts all the time :smiley: this drives me crazy if i see new things in your posts everytime i look on them :smiley: or make it at least evident (EDIT)

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I sometimes do that, sometimes dont, depend on how fast i edit it, most of my posts would be edited 10 times each.

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Yea, I hate it too, but it is much easier than saying “jewelry, hats, personal decorations, pottery, paintings and stuff”.

Nope. A skill is just a skill. You can start progression on as many as you want… but if you take too many… you become “jack of all trades, master of none”. so to get to the really awesome stuff you’d want to specialize, but what you choose to specialize in is completely up to you.

No artificial class system. The skills provide a bonus in a specific area, and a “tech-tree”.

Almost everything, can be crafted by anyone (just not with the same durability, bonus’ or attributes). a gun put together with pipe, and a stock may blow up in your face, but I see no reason you couldn’t make one…

As for “infrastructure”, in a sandbox game you craft stuff. To do that you need other things that really just help you craft… so a “sword” is an item. but what is the crafting table/workbench? or the chest? door? I am referring to those items that help you make other items (not raw materials) as “infrastructure”, definition #2ish: the fundamental facilities and systems serving a profession/game system. A workbench, forge, anvil, and bowyer’s workbench would be “infrastructure.” A speciality armorers hammer would qualify as “tooling” (to help convey bonus to armour: though I don’t know that both a speciality hammer and anvil are ended… may they convey specific bonus’ the hammer durability and lighter weight maybe, the anvil better protection bonus… dunno).

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how about a punishment if you do something else than your main skill ? like you say “jack of all trades, master of none” … if you used to be a weapon smith and you change your mind for no reason and start making farm-machines, you loose skill-points in weapon smith so you have to regain tham. i think this is a realy natural approach “use it or lose it”.

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No. NO! not this again. one of the sentences i hate most

also no, tooling and infrastructure are not words used in the way you think they are used. so please. make the post again in english.

Disgusted noise

No penalties if they do it properly, look through the post i linked above, it explains it, either it should take insane amounts of time to progress through crafting skills, meaning that the time taken is the limit after all, or there should be a hard limitation. but if it isnt number two, there shouldnt be any loss of points, (this was discussed in great detail in some other post)

i think the problem with you Heuraz is that you have played so much GW2 since you are referring to it all the time, which as you mentioned had a way too easy system to level through, i would recommend of you to buy the repopulation on steam and see how they do it, there is simply so many things to level through that punisment isnt needed, it isnt like gw2 where you can just steamroll through crafting. (sorry the phrasing is really arrogant, wasnt intented like that)

Edit1:

whut. that is literally the same thing. just whut!

Im frustrated right now, i cant even disagree with your post, because i simply have no idea of what you are trying to convey or talk about.

EDIT2:

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I was talking about a player. By “merchant” I didn’t mean someone decides to take on a class of “Merchant” and then receives a tech-tree to progress. Rather, they choose to play a merchant and so take the skills that would help them do so. a little fighting, perhaps some other specialities, or rather, since they have a base of operations, an are exploring anyway choose to gather goods and bring them back to base to sell while they are at it. Depend upon the economy system if it would be worthwhile, but I can see it being lucrative… the question is why collect coin? Do you ned to may taxes to the Bacon owner, because they need the coin to maintain the beacon and keep roads/buildings from degrading? Dunno. It was just a thought.

I think I answered this above, and in reply to @Zouls, but there are no “classic professions” here, just labels one might choose to use for yourself/others, and the skills themselves.

yes you could, if there were a limited number of useful skills, and you lived long enough. But if you had 1 point a “level” and had to choose between many many skills, progress to that point would be slow, and in the meantime, you’d need to get your “other” equipment elseware, or make due with the quality you can make yourself. Also, if dying means you become your heir then you’d have a reduced skill set until you built it up again (just winging it here). Again, this harkens back to balance.

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Great. so your argument is ''its not the same because its not a ‘‘profession’’ called blacksmithing but rather ‘‘a tech tree with skills, precisely like a profession but i call it a skill line instead of a profession so its not a professsion’’

Dargh. oh well, semantics. i give up on this thread, this dude is impossible to understand. i dont even agree or disagree on what he is saying, i literally have no clue as to what he is saying.

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maaaan … could you stop beeing that misdrilled ? first of all, this game is not “made only for you”. secondly you do not have a monopoly on the truth and maybe some people see some things diffrent than you. last but not least there may be people out there having problems with english (i count myself to them too), but at least they / we try it … don’t put every word on the gold scales (this is a german matapher, don’t know how to translate it correct) … sorry, no offense but after a few arguments with you, this has to be said!

feel free to link my name @Heurazio. In this way it is much clearer whom you mean and i get notification that you refer to me … i realy don’t know what you do with that lot of free time that you gain safing 3 letters :slight_smile: back to the topic … i NEVER saw a crafting system that was realy worth the time to look longer at it than a few seconds. nearly all of them are much to abstract and far from reality. that’s why i like the idea of @Havok40k (it sounds complicated and funny).

yep, maybe i’m burned from GW2 because they made nearly everything wrong and from many others that don’t do it better (TES, LOTRO, WoW and many others more). I’ll take a look on “the repopulation”. thanks for the tipp :smile:

last but not least thanks for “EDIT” :slight_smile:

i don’t see your point here sorry mate. maybe @Zouls can help out but i think he don’t see it either :smiley:

ATM we don’t know (or at least i do not) if we get more than one character, if we get more than one why don’t max each “profession” (or how you like to call them) on different characters ?

in most MMO’s i saw that it’s only usefull to trade if you are 1: new to the game and don’t maxed professions 2: there is someone you gives you Friendship discount or 3: someone who is stupid and don’t know the worth of something.

never seen the essencial need for trading because it would be a big disadvantage if you don’t do it. i never saw someone getting “rich” with his profession and that’s sad because why max it if you can’t use it with profits ?!

@Zouls: sorry if i sounded rude in the begining. just had to be said.

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Not at all, i just want you to know something. im rude and arrogant, however. i am not so arrogant as to say ‘‘people wants this’’ or ‘‘people thinks this’’ i’m not going to argue on behalf of other people, that would just be insanely dumb, which is why all my arguments are ‘‘I think’’ or ‘‘i wouldnt want’’ which does seem egoistical, indeed, but to me its better than saying ‘‘people dont want this in the game’’ you see? i wouldnt know dang about what people want from the game, so it would be bitchy as hell to argue ‘‘for’’ them. it would be the same as saying ‘‘Me and @Heurazio wants for the game to works like this’’ would you think that was fine?

Edit

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Repopulation and SWG. they are insanely complex and crazy, for me while being too complex, they are sort of the groundstone of ‘‘good’’ crafting system in the way they are done, because you dont just become a master instantly, it takes time and a ton of dedication. sadly most mmos has turned casual like wow and gw2 where its just a sort of ‘‘we have the crafting because it is there’’ which is what i personally would like to avoid, i would like for crafting to be a playstyle rather than crafting just being a tool to a playstyle (for example crafting is only used for people to create better weapons for themselves, rather than the crafting process itself being enjoyable)

PS: you also get notified when i quote you, meaning you would get notified anyways.

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? If you are talking about your view that “everyone should have the same access”, I disagree. In this case especially, everyone COULD make the speciality items, they’d just need to invest in the skills. If they just want them, search out a professional that can make them. On the other hand, I can walk outside right now and cut a tree limb, tie a string to both ends and have a bow. It won’t work very well, but it will work. It’d also likely break very soon if I keep using it.

Maybe not where you are from. But I am part of an “infrastructure team” those sole role is to enable other developers to write product code, I write code too. I don’t build roads or run a utility, but what I do IS part of the development infrastructure for the team. If you have a better suggestion for labelling “helper items”, suggest it, and I’ll consider editing the post to reflect it.

No they aren’t. In a class system, you have a class you choose. For example: paladin, or mage. Then you progress in that class and perhaps gain skill points to spend on skills, or just receive class benefits. You are limited to what you can learn and how you can progress. Some allow you to “multi class” at penalty… All artificial, arbitrary and restrictive.

I’m talking about simply making the skills themselves available. You can chose to level up “bow making”, or “pottery”, or “smelting”, or dodge, or herb lore, or all of them. Each skill has many levels that tie into bonuses and the skill’s tech tree. There are no “class” specific skills. Anyone can learn anything. They prioritize what is important to them/their character.

I personally would want to specialize in a particular area. or just a few. At least to start out. It doesn’t mean others won’t want to try to be the best at everything. But it would take them quite a while, and heck if they put that much into the game why not?

I don’t think an arbitrary punishment is necessary. Yea perhaps skills would get rusty with disuse, but I’m not certain if a mechanic to reflect that in-game would be useful, and choosing to not focus in a specific path has it’s own natural consequences (and perhaps benefits).

Edited: to fix auto-correct having fun with the words I’m trying to type.

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Thank you! makes much more sense then, much appreciated :smiley:

also sorry for the reaction, its just that so many people come from minecraft and say ‘‘well if you have the materials for it you should be able to make everything’’ which somewhat ruins the point of a crafting system in my eyes.

for me professions and classes are literally just classifications, not limitations, or somewhat limitations, forexample instead of saying ‘‘crafting’’ meaning if you make a staff you somehow also gets better at making metal armor, i prefer to split it into ‘‘professions’’ so if you make an axe you might get some experience in axe making and a bit less in other melee metal weapons but you wouldn’t get for example exp in staff making, since those two arent really connected. i never said that meant you could only make metal weapons (or i did in my pick two, but as i said i changed that for a newer idea)

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I’l see if I can illustrate what I’m talking about in a picture… 1000 words after all.

You have a point and as an MMO, Boundless may need artificial limitations to keep everything from blurring together… this is the first MMO I’ve bothered to invest in. Lots of time and effort in pen and paper RPGs, and single user computer games. So perhaps the genre does force certain decisions regarding rule-system modelling.

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So you are also tying the xp earned to the skill you used to earn it. I do like the notion, but in practice I’ve often found it too restrictive, and/or unbalanced. It may have been the implementation however. Does creating 100 axes make your really good at axe making? Not really. It does make one really good at making that particular axe, but I don’t think it directly translates to EVERY kind of axe (I may get really fast at carving a wooden axe, but that doesn’t fully translate to carving a stone axe, or forging a metal one).

Still in the context of a broader skill, it may have merit depending upon how complex a system the developers wanted to go for. For instance “wood carving” could give befits to manipulating anything wood, so having no “axe crafting” skill wouldn’t mean there would be no benefit when creating a wooden axe, and you’d still “learn” more about woodworking, but you may also learn a bit about axe making.

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Runescape has what you mean. While very very grindy and not really creative, you have the freedom to level what you want and if you really want to be a jack of all trades you have to invest massive amounts of time. I played if for years and couldn’t do it^^

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There are quite a few examples, some pen and paper… and they ARE tedious. With most of the admin handled by the system though, it shouldn’t be too bad for things like combat progression. The “professions” to me are RPG flavour, a means to add depth. A way to get some equipment benefits, but mostly the post was about the specialty tech.

One of the things that hooked me about MC was the sandbox… building “whatever”, and in survival. I like the same things about Boundless but there is so much more possible…

However, one of the drawbacks of MC was that every “house” ends largely with the same functional setup. Got a room close to the entry for the bed, got your crafting table, and furnaces for smelting, a room for the chests to hold all the stuff you collect as raw materials, as you advance you add a spell table, bookshelves, brewing room. Maybe you sink a mineshaft. Now you might add a farm and stable. Somewhere you have a portal to the nether… details change but the basics are the same, and with every update you pretty much start over… until… well, it gets old.

A major appeal to Boundless is it won’t disappear, but if everyone progresses in-game the same way then once again, each base (house) will likely follow the same basic pattern, though style and arrangement may vary. Everyone basically needs everything to one degree or another.

With the notion of speciality crafting though, it could mean that each player would build in a way that suites their play style: those who like to get in close to hack your foe, would likely start working toward building up their metal smithing. They may only do enough to get a decent sword. Others who like distance work best would build the skills for a specialized bow. or magic. Then you have your sword but the bowman would like one too, so you trade. It could even become your focus. etc.

Others who don’t go in for the hack-and-slash, may focus on other things. Like Farming. Or just go in for crafting, or building. The idea was that character’s bases might become more diverse… there is a reason for multiple different types of buildings (besides aesthetics), and for grouping together into a single area (for mutual logistic support as well as defence).

And it fits right in to Skill tech trees, advancement, economy, city building, professions, and things like specialized recipes. Taken together each facet supports the others in an organic whole. I’m sure I’m not explaining it very well, as I said I’ll try to find a way to draw it.

Anyway, I have little experience in MMOs, so while it may be cool in theory, rule loop-holes and human nature may prove it to be a fanciful notion not suited to the genre or too difficult to pull off.

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As soon as I see images before my inner eye I know an idea has at least a good core. And that description definitely did the trick^^ I hope Boundless becomes a game where things like that are possible.

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pie in the sky: what if instead of making skill trees or classes, you just make crafting different items require skill from the player? with practice, a player could craft anything he wanted to, but not every player has the same strengths.

for example: to craft a bow, you get a branch. it needs to be green and springy, and someone who’s been making bows for a while will know what to look for. then you take your string and you tie it. tie it too tight, and the branch will break, but the looser you tie your bow, the lower quality the end product will be.

don’t ask me how that would work for swords and armor. I have no idea what makes one sword/chestplate better than another.

that way you don’t need to keep track of your character’s skill level, it’ll be the same as your player’s skill level, perhaps coupled with the tips and tricks he/she has picked up in the duration of their playtime.

thoughts? good idea? bad idea?

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