Artisan classes

Artisan classes and their professions.

Gathering professions	Processing professions	Crafting professions
Fishing Herbalism Hunting Lumberjacking Mining	Alchemy Animal husbandry Cooking Farming Lumber Milling Metalworking Stonemasonry Tanning Weaving	Arcane Engineering Armor smithing Carpentry Jewel cutting Leatherworking Scribing Tailoring Weapon smithing

Artisan classes (also referred to as Artisan branches) allow a player to specialize in one or more of the three artisan skill trees: Gathering, Processing, and Crafting.

We want players to interact with each other. We want the professions to make stuff for the other professions that are useful. I am influenced quite a bit by the Star Wars Galaxies style crafting; and just having people in your network that could supply the metal that you need to make your armor, and the flowers that you need to make your potions, and maybe the potions that you need to make your enchantments. That to me was really interesting; and part of the economic gameplay of being a good crafter, being a good gatherer, is having that system; and it really plays into the economic field of a particular server. You can come in and be like, I want to be the the potion mogul here; and having good sources and having a guild that supports you is just really interesting. And without narrowing down what you have access to yourself, it takes away from the ability to achieve that. – Kory Rice

Within each of the three artisan classes lies different professions.

• Characters within a single account (Alts) may have different professions.

Q: How do you feel about players creating alts that allow them to cover every profession?

A: I think that's fine and I think that when we design the game, we design with that in mind as well; and that's why we have certain restrictions on the number of Grandmaster professions that one particular character can do. – Steven Sharif

• There are profession-specific quests.
• Professions will be balanced based on testing.

• Ambachtelijke vooruitgang in each profession is per-character.
  • Progression within each profession requires the completion of certification quests.
  • There are limits to the number of professions a character can achieve certain tiers of progression to.
  • Artisan progression does not directly relate to progression in a character's adventuring class, but there are requirements that take into account dangers, locations, toolsets, and surveying options that are level dependent.
  • Characters gain XP as they progress their artisan professions, but it should be expected that some artisans will have significantly higher artisan level than their adventuring level.
  • Choice of profession does not affect a player's stats.
  • Artisan classes and their professions are not affected by a character's religion, or class.
  • Race likely won't affect the artisan system. Certain influences may instead be housed in a background selection that isn't intrinsically tied to race.

When it comes to balancing a system that's something that we do during testing phases. When it comes to architecting the system itself and identifying the areas in which certain certain professions excel, where they interact with ancillary systems, their interconnectivity across the artisanship system as a whole, the important part there is to identify how that the interconnectivity lives with the other professions in the artisanship system. And what type of reliance you have on particular professions to complete the path of crafting or introduction of new items into the economy. – Steven Sharif

• A work order system is planned that will help players find artisans in nodes.

Ambachtsklassen staan niet toe dat een character een meester in alles kan worden. Een speler moet voor elk character een pad kiezen in de ambachtsvaardigheidsboom. Het vertakken in specifieke paden staat de speler toe om zich te specialiseren in bepaalde vakgebieden. Dit moedigt een spelers inderdependentie aan, wat op zijn beurt de ambachtservaring verrijkt.

• Beroepskeuze heeft geen effect op de statistieken van een speler.
• Characters binnen een account, ofwel alts, mogen verschillende beroepen hebben.

Wanneer we refereren naar het niet-zijn van meesters van alles, betekent dat niet dat je geen meester kunt zijn binnen jouw eigen ambachtstype. Dit type kan maker, verzamelaar of verwerker zijn. Je zult een meester zijn van een van die drie, je zult geen meester zijn van de andere twee. – Steven Sharif

Gathering professions

• Fishing
• Herbalism
• Hunting
• Lumberjacking
• Mining

Processing professions

• Alchemy
• Animal husbandry
• Cooking
• Farming
• Lumber Milling
• Metalworking
• Stonemasonry
• Tanning
• Weaving

Crafting professions

• Arcane Engineering
• Armor smithing
• Carpentry
• Jewel cutting
• Leatherworking
• Scribing
• Tailoring
• Weapon smithing

Artisan tools

Crafting an apprentice herbalism gathering tool in Alpha-2.

Different professions will have a number of quests available to introduce players to their first toolsets; and then, their toolset sustainability will be incumbent on the player to continue to gather the resources necessary to repeatedly create these tools, because they have a durability that gets expended when interacting with the resources in the open-world. – Steven Sharif

Gathering Halcyonite using a mining pick gathering tool.

Each gathering profession will have three tools. The tools come online as you progress through the profession; and the different resource types for each one of the professions may require different tools. So, you basically want to carry around the right tool for the job. And tools along with artisanship gear will have stats on it, so you can itemize towards how you want to gather, how fast you want to gather. – Kory Rice

Gathering tools (also referred to as harvesting tools, artisan tools, and toolsets) enable the gathering of resources in Ashes of Creation.

• Each gathering profession has three gathering tools. Each tool allows gathering of different resource types.
  • Each profession has quests that introduce players to their first toolsets.
  • Gathering tools and artisan gear have stats that affect gathering rates and yields.

• Gatherers must meet the required artisan certification to utilize tools of that level (or lower).

• Gathering tools are equipped to a character's artisan tool slot.

• Progression in the gathering artisan class unlocks higher level harvesting tools that enable gathering of higher level resources.
  • Artisan progression unlocks higher level surveying tools that enable better identification of gatherable resources within a location.
  • Higher level of progression can also speed up gathering times, resource yields, and may allow access to resources at earlier growth stages.
  • A gatherer at maximum proficiency will unlock master toolsets that will grant them access to the highest quality gatherables.

Tools do advance within the artisan tree, so your ability to either gather, process or craft will require the equivalent tools necessary at that stage of crafting in order to accomplish the task at hand. So, you could not mine copper and mithril with the same tool. – Steven Sharif

• Tools will have durability and lifespans.
  • The amount of usages of a gathering tool increases as the gatherer becomes more proficient in the gathering artisan tree.
  • Tools may become non-repairable, requiring re crafting.

• Artisans will not need to rely on other trees in order to make their tools.

• The developers are considering the introduction of gathering tools that require two players, such as two-person saws that can fell larger trees.

Your progression within the profession will take account what tools you can use. There might even be some opportunity to do some gathering with other players that . Typically in other games that I play you usually do the gathering alone. You're venturing around alone; and we wanted to take a look at maybe having a friend to help you with a two person saw on a larger tree. Maybe there's some panning that you could do as opposed to just hitting with the pickaxe. So, we'll have other tools that are part of that progression path and other activities that players can do if they would like to gather together. – Kory Rice

Artisan supply chain

Artisans within Ashes of Creation must choose a path in their artisan skill tree. This inter-dependency establishes a supply chain from raw materials to finished product. Each stage of the chain may require caravans to transport goods from one artisan to another.

1. Obtaining raw materials:
   • Using the Gathering profession.
   • By killing mobs and bosses.
   • From deconstructing weapons or armor.
   • By purchasing them from other players.
2. Refining the raw materials with the Processing profession.
3. Crafting the finished product using its crafting recipe.
   • Recipes are also obtainable from boss drops.

As a crafter you're going to want to know where certain recipes can be fulfilled; which nodes have the capability of creating what you've processed material that you've gathered for; and then you're going to want to plan out your route to either transit the goods there or make sure that you're situated in the area so that you can go out collect and build in that area as well. So there's a lot of planning that's going to be necessary. – Steven Sharif

Recipes

Alpha-2 Nightblade recipe.

When players are looking to create different items in the game they're going to need to go out and either purchase, or get drops of recipes, or trade with other players; and when they acquire that recipe, like I have here: it says Nightblade. I can use the recipe and I will learn a Weaponsmithing recipe for the Nightblade. So, I have a recipe book that I get to keep. Essentially I learn these recipes once. – Steven Sharif

Crafting in Ashes of Creation is recipe (blueprint, schematic) based, not RNG based.

• Recipes that are obtained must be committed to a player's recipe book (by right-clicking on the recipe item). This "consumes" the recipe item and unlocks the ability to craft the item in question.
  • Artisans must have the required artisan certification to learn recipes at that level (or lower).
  • Recipes can be traded or sold prior to them being committed into a player's recipe book.
  • In most cases learned recipes are permanently added to a character's recipe book, but in certain unique cases there will be a "charge count" where learned recipes will disappear from the recipe book after a number of uses.
  • Once a recipe is learned, it cannot be shared with other characters, including alts.

• Recipes have slots for required and selectable crafting materials. Adding higher rarity selectable materials increases the rarity of the crafted item. Choosing different selectable materials can also result in crafted items with different statblocks and unique properties.

These are the things we want to explore on [the] crafting side, where we introduce maybe new stat lines, or a different proportion or ratios of stats at certain tiers; and when you craft these items using better materials, the rarity of the item increases. For demonstration purposes we're using legendary, but basically when you use a higher tier than the recipe is intended for- so we could technically build this item with common copper and zinc fragments, then that would produce an uncommon item. But, since we're showcasing this at legendary tier, you can move up the tiers and have the stats increase. – Mike Han

• Recipes have differing rarities and may be locationally dependent.

• Recipes may have an XP component, where crafting that recipe multiple times can level up the recipe and unlock better results.

Something unique in our crafting system [is] where we want to have recipe XP of some sort; and then those sub-recipes could [be] earned by leveling up your recipe, which means that you have to craft the Nightblade multiple times to level it up to have a better result. The sub-recipe could be from a vendor recipe or world drops like we said earlier, but the idea is one type of item can have potential to be multiple different outcomes. – Mike Han

• While selectable materials offer a wide degree of customization, crafting results must lie broadly within the realms of the recipe's definition; and so cannot be arbitrarily customized.

Q: Will players have the ability to innovate within the crafting system creating unique items or designs? If so, how much customization can players expect when it comes to crafting their own gear or items?

A: There are statically defined an array of results that can come out of a particular recipe; and your ability to unlock those results is predicated on what composition of resources you contribute to crafting that particular weapon type; and so in that sense, yes crafters will have the ability to uniquely create certain types of the recipes results, based on how they're contributing resources to it. The result has to have a corresponding recipe definition; and so in that sense it isn't completely customizable to the point where the player gets to uniquely create these particular items, but rather they are discovering what creations are possible with each recipe type. – Steven Sharif

Freehold professions

• Artisan buildings on freeholds enable placement of processing and crafting stations.
• Business buildings on freeholds allow freehold owners to provide services to other players.

Freehold progression

Freehold progression unlocks new bonuses, abilities and capabilities for freeholds.

• Freehold buildings are able to be levelled up based on the length of time and productivity of the freehold.

We want there to be progression in many systems and part of the freehold progression is that when you establish these base buildings the longer and more productive you are and exist with that freehold, the more opportunity those buildings will have to both level up: offering new bonuses, new abilities, new capabilities; and just surviving in this world is a feat in and of itself, so it's rewarded by allowing progression with those things. – Steven Sharif

Business chains

There's no reason why you couldn't license your name to somebody else who also has a freehold and who also has an Inn and work together. – Jeffrey Bard

Taverns

The longer a tavern is in business and the more patrons served, the faster the tavern will level up.

Q: What benefits do players receive for taking on the role of a tavern owner?

A: You will get noticeability with regards to your creations because that will be displayed to the characters that consume those things; but, in addition, you can get certain types of itemization rewards depending on the number of patrons that you serve. You can also reap economic rewards, such as gold from the inn that you are selling your goods at. And then you can unlock access to certain types of recipes and or vendors based on the level of reputation you build up in that particular node. – Steven Sharif

• Taverns have tech trees that allow the tavern owner to specialize and upgrade specific bonuses and services provided by the business.

Sommige van de volgende informatie is niet recentelijk bevestigd door de ontwikkelaars en staat mogelijk niet op de huidige ontwikkelingsroutekaart.

• There may be quests that can only be gathered from player-owned taverns.

Timeline

Artisan classes (Gathering, Processing, Crafting) is expected to come online fully in Alpha-2 and the Betas.

• Approximately 10 percent of the artisan system was online in Alpha-1.

Crafting honestly will not come online in any sense of its true form until Alpha-2. Alpha-1 has essentially what are intended to be the core gameplay loop of crafting, meaning the collection of materials, the translation of those materials into processed goods, and the use of those processed goods into item acquisition. That's the core gameplay loop that is currently present in Alpha-1. But those are mostly facilitated piggy backing the merchant systems right now and not actually using the real crafting system; and that's because crafting hasn't been completed in a form that can be implemented in Alpha-1, but will be for Alpha-2. What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting. – Steven Sharif

Zie ook

• Archetypes
• Classes
• Progression

Community guides

• The AOC Dungeon - A look at Crafting in Ashes of Creation.