Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Because there are too many crafting/profession skills for each to have its own forum.
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Irylia
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Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Irylia »

This might be a bit radical but I was thinking there are a few skills in professions that might have similar techniques or concepts behind them and might therefore be able to be used across multiple materials without necessarily needing a full different skill. This might be helpful for those skills which currently have very little diversity of use or only a few recipes and might not seem as "worthy" of point investment for players, and which haven't had much investment put into them either by players or development for various reasons. Essentially they could be tagged in with one of the most (seemingly) common profession sets which is a woodworking/construction combo.

So here's what I'd like to propose as a potential workaround. Instead of Glassworking, Masonry, Pottery, Woodworking each having a separate skill - they might be combined into a single skill with affinities.

For the purposes of this discussion I'll suggest one skill:
- Sculpting (or some other alternative name)

Instead of four:
- Masonry
- Pottery (Which I suggest gets renamed to Ceramics.)
- Woodworking
- Glassworking

And there will be two skills with affinities allowed: Sculpting and Construction.

Sculpting affinities will be:
- Stone
- Ceramics
- Wood
- Glass
*Note: Glass may seem to fit far less than the other three, but since it's so limited, I think it would be a nice affinity to be able to specialize in for this and I don't think it's entirely unrealistic for someone that infested into this type of craft-work to branch out into multiple fields.

Construction affinities will be:
- Wood
- Stone
- Glass
- Metal
*Note: These do not exclude the use of components of various materials in a project if the main resource is the type you already have an affinity in. So a wood project can have hinges of metal or a glass project can add a lever to open/close a window, but to make a project which uses a large quantity of materials from multiple affinities, all relevant affinities need to be obtained.

With this method a player with sufficient skill in Sculpting or Construction can choose affinities in multiple fields, but can only choose a second affinity after reaching at least 400 skill points (aka "fine" quality level). So if you go up to 600 you could become proficient in all areas and still have room for those at 700 skill level to master something special on top.

Sculpture Example: Penny Potter can start out really good at ceramics but then decide, I want to try my hand at masonry too. She already knows basics of sculpting and modeling with clay. Transitioning to stone or wood isn't that big of a leap. The material is harder and requires different tools, but the shaping techniques are fairly similar and you're either adding or subtracting material to get the desired end product. She takes up the Stone affinity in Sculpting and now she can carve idols or trinkets or tools with stone as well as making them with clay. Later, she decides it's time to progress into using wood and takes the Wood affinity. Now she can carve wooden bows or charms or other trinkets as well.

Construction Example: Conway Carpenter goes into Construction. He's great at building things out of wood, but he wants to be able to add a glass window to his display case or maybe build a greenhouse. He takes an affinity in Glass so he can learn how to properly set a pane without shattering it.

Why I think this might be a good shift:
- It allows players to unlock several materials-specific skills for the price of one.
- It gives players incentive to branch out into areas currently lacking in diversity or large recipe pools.
- It makes skills overlooked for more "useful" or "profitable" opportunities more appealing.
- All of these skills can potentially have very similar recipes or processes with just a different material.
- Having a tiered gate on adding affinities means that when a character has achieved a certain degree of "mastery" they have somewhere to progress that's more than just quality level of the finished product.
- Being able to more easily work with multiple materials unlocks a whole slew of new recipe opportunities with combined material types.

I'm sure I could come up with other ways this would be a good change, but I'll leave it here for now. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts or ideas on how to help out these lesser-used professions.
Agelity
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Agelity »

I actually really really really love this idea, though I wouldn't envy the efforts required to implement it.

Using the glassworking example, it's something I could see being really useful for creating vials for alchemy or sorcery, fancy drinking glasses, neat sculptures to decorate your home, or even very specific components for engineering oriented projects (I could see Khaldeans getting involved in optical lenses for expensive telescopes to better understand astronomy). However, I'm not sure how profitable it'd ultimately be, nor how many skill points it'd be worth it to "invest' in it. A super awesome skill to undertake and I'm sure a fun glassblowing process, but limited in overall scope compared to something like woodworking (which there are more recipes available than skill points I'm ever willing to personally invest in).

Perhaps certain recipes could require a specific skill while others could be taken by either (if it's a super basic recipe that anyone who works with the material would be able to naturally comprehend). Others perhaps require a bit of a different understanding, either that of the more artistic variety (sculpting) or that of the more engineered variety (construction). Maybe lapidary could also be incorporated into these skills as well, though I'm not sure if there are other plans in mind for that.

Having access or proficiency in different affinities be locked behind a skill tier would make it worth it for those wishing to invest to be able to have both greater depth AND breadth (though perhaps only mastery or extra proficiency in one or two affinities), while those wishing to have a more narrowed focus can consider how they both spend skill points and available recipe points (which I imagine may be one of the bigger limiters with this change). A creative Artisan could benefit the most, but a Giganti warrior could still find some benefit in taking the skills for both professional reasons (ie, riln) and personal reasons (ie, to honor the Mountain Father) while not feeling as though they're totally missing out because they didn't go full crafter, nor feel limited in combat scope because they wanted a more fleshed out character than a strict combat specialist.

I might even go so far as to suggest something similar for metalworking and metallurgy. The former could be primarily used for creating particularly different or finer items, but the latter could be fleshed out to also have some intricate smelting capabilities that a strict metalworker might not have knowledge in (but still only create average items via metallurgy proper). Invest in a single skill to access both, but depending on the affinity could determine the availability in certain recipes or ability access. The more you work on one the less availability you have to work with the other unless you invest more in that particular skill (perhaps an ability to unlock additional recipe options once a new tier has been reached).

A bit off the cuff with that last paragraph that I'll think about fleshing out more in a separate post, but your idea had me feeling extra inspired.
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Irylia
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Irylia »

Oh, neat! I'm glad this is inspiring you to think about other crafting areas that might benefit from a similar or alternate treatment and that you like the general concept. I really appreciate the feedback :)
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Rias
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Rias »

I'll definitely need some convincing on this.

I feel like the varied crafting skills and the frequent requirement for components from several different ones has been decently successful in sort of fostering a community that works together and interacts often. So when I hear about making it possible for individuals to be able to do more with less, I worry that it will diminish what, from my perspective, appears to be working fairly well at accomplishing what I'd hoped it would. I'd really worry about setting the expectation toward "I'm going to handle everyting myself" when I feel at the moment it's a given, and even a positive, that people depend on each other.

When it comes to skills that don't seem particularly tempting to invest in, I think I'd rather make them more useful and tempting to invest in, rather than make them require less of an investment to utilize.

So certainly not a hard "no", but again: I'd need further convincing.
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Rias »

And for possible clarification, I've envisioned affinities as fairly fluid. So basing or gating things based on affinities would go back to the same problem of skill unlearning that I'm trying to figure out. That problem being that I don't want it to be possible to go down a line of specialization, produce what you need, and then un-specialize so you can move into a different line of specialization and produce other things you need, and essentially game that to (again) do everything yourself.
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Maina
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Maina »

It's a sort of a balance between gameplay, population, and realism, but I've always preferred games that largely restrict people to a single craft. It makes no sense when players master a handful of crafts in weeks or months that, in real life, often took a lifetime to master. I agree that more specialization works to foster cooperation. People that can make everything themselves often end up doing just that, which limits a lot of potential roleplay. The main concern is leaving an avenue for if there simply aren't players playing a given craft.
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Karjus
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Karjus »

It's possibly something that should just be observed for now. Fact is, unless the skill is useful, people won't take it unless it's for flavour for their character and with the hard limit on points don't expect them to sink a lot.

If you run out of steam making a skill "useful", maybe it can be placed as an affinity under another skill as an added subsection? Affinities may be fluid, but perhaps they take a lot longer to move around than practicing skills to counter balance it. Like, a lot longer. So. Someone with 700 X crafting who wants to go from say forging 900 X blunt to 900 X bladed has to take a month or two to move over. Is that so bad?

Like glassblowing that was brought up recently. I personally can't see it as being hugely useful, but seems people want it. Is there enough there to make it a different skill? Yes/No/Maybe. Go with worst case if you're not sure, and go from there.
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Irylia
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Irylia »

Yeah, the main point of bringing this up is there are some profession skills right now with only a few recipes, and even of those few only some are "useful" and the rest might be accessory/RP items. I would consider these professions to be mostly RP-based and I don't know if people would want to sink points into them just for that aspect when skills are already so limiting. If they are, then that's awesome. But I also feel like some of these haven't gotten much attention or development. Part of that might be because it's hard to come up with ideas for how to give them enough uniqueness or impact to be their own skill. This would be a way to take off some of the pressure of really fleshing out these professions since they would then be able to piggyback off another that already sees a lot of use. The other thing I've noticed is that even the people who have put points into some of these areas and offered to make things often don't have the time or aren't around to fulfill orders. So this would give those with more time to invest in the game an opportunity to help fill that need while availability remains scarce. But I mean, if you think these professions are going to have enough to offer to stay separate skills, that's great too. I just wanted to propose this as an alternative or maybe an "in the meantime" kind of solution.
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Rias
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Rias »

After further discussion and consideration, I've warmed to some aspects of this. I do still want to keep several of the crafting skills their own. However, some of the skills that I've just never really been able to think up a whole lot for, I could see falling under a "Minor Crafts" skill or something, which can then use the proposed affinities idea to branch into things. The crafts I'm considering to bundle into this singular skill are things like:

- Glassworking (mwa ha haaa!)
- Pottery? Maybe? Possibly? I don't know. Probably.
- Candlemaking
- Soapmaking
- Cobbling or something? For people who want to just do non-armor footwear and not all of leatherworking.
- Other stuff I can't think of right now, but you get the idea. Stuff that doesn't have a particularly wide range of mechanical possibilities.

To be clear: It wouldn't just be you put skill points into this skill, and you can do all of the above equally well. You'd put points into the skill, then as you work on any particular category of craft, it starts raising that affinity (and quality of related crafts only) and as you reach your overall affinity total base on how much skill you have, it starts lowering the affinities of any other crafts as what you're working on increases. So you'd still have to choose what to specialize in, or just juggle it and be more of a dabbler in a bunch at once. The more skill you have in the Minor Crafts or whatever we end up calling it, the more total affinity you can have at once without lowering other stuff.
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Agelity
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Re: Proposal - Consolidation of Lesser-Used/Non-Used Professions Skills

Post by Agelity »

I actually like that proposed solution as well! Was curious if we could do more stuff with beeswax and fitting it under a separate skill there would work. To use an example of an existing skill I've worked on, I do like pottery but training it can be quite the pain and there are only so many available recipes, a few of which require a higher skill to even be capable of selling on the market. I'd rather just have some basic capability of making some cups or bowls for myself out of clay I find, but not much more than that. Hard to justify heavily investing in the skill just for that, and even now investing 100 in the skill leaves me uncertain.

Perhaps there could be an ability that grants some recipe points (provided you have enough skill) to grab a small assortment of "hobbyist" recipes. A homeowner's "bushcrafting" (homecrafting?) or simpler DIY ability. To have some of the crafts be even be average quality (given the plethora of potential affinities) I suspect a modest skill investment of something like 200 would be needed at minimum. For those willing to invest further, it allows them to have their preferred affinity be their focus, but maybe still able to dabble in something that could normally be taught in a 1-2 hour class. Something like glassworking would take some extra work, but making a simple mug out of clay probably within the realm of proficiency for anyone that has enough knowledge to create a fancy wine glass.

Thoughts of lapidary or masonry going into something similar or keeping those as a similar skills? I'm admittedly not sure what future plans are for those, but I do recall those not having a ton of options right now (with the former not yet being implemented).
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