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Suggestion for Balancing Profession Gold Costs vs. Players' Time and Enjoyment
vorphied
Member Posts: 1,870 Arc User
Many threads have discussed this issue, so I wanted to create a separate thread with my preferred solution.
Current State: The gold cost of active, high-level participation in the profession system is unsustainable by normal gameplay. Completing quest objectives and defeating enemies does not come close to funding regular level 70 crafting needs, much less Masterwork tasks. The practice of creating unwanted consumables and blue junk to sell for a profit at the Professions Vendor the player is assumedly summoning with their sufficiently-ranked VIP status is extremely tedious. The other option is to use AD to purchase from the gradually (or rapidly?) dwindling supply of other players' gold. Gold has been next-to-useless for a long time, so draining off the excess can be seen as necessary for rebooting the gold economy along with this revamped profession system, but newer players without stockpiles of gold and AD are already suffering a disparate impact.
If the goal was to integrate professions with daily gameplay, this part of the design is failing due to gold generation supplanting normal gameplay for those who enjoy crafting and wish to continue doing so.
Suggested Future State: Dramatically increase the gold rewards offered by general quest completion, by defeating enemies, and/or introduce meta quests for Workshop owners for gold income similar in structure to what Strongholds offer for shard income (e.g. "Complete 3 Quests in Dread Ring"), perhaps scaling in difficulty and reward with Workshop level (a level 4 Workshop's bounties should pay much more gold and send the player to Chult, Omu, and Barovia since they are more likely to be engaged in Masterwork crafting). Reward players for completing content that they might otherwise ignore, getting them out of the workshop and participating in the rest of the game. If the player prefers to do little aside from crafting, they can continue manufacturing junk to sell to the vendor or buying gold from players (i.e. current state), but allowing them the option of funding their professions through actual adventuring would greatly alleviate the tedium that is bogging everything down and deterring many players from crafting because they feel that professions is a separate game from Neverwinter.
Current State: The gold cost of active, high-level participation in the profession system is unsustainable by normal gameplay. Completing quest objectives and defeating enemies does not come close to funding regular level 70 crafting needs, much less Masterwork tasks. The practice of creating unwanted consumables and blue junk to sell for a profit at the Professions Vendor the player is assumedly summoning with their sufficiently-ranked VIP status is extremely tedious. The other option is to use AD to purchase from the gradually (or rapidly?) dwindling supply of other players' gold. Gold has been next-to-useless for a long time, so draining off the excess can be seen as necessary for rebooting the gold economy along with this revamped profession system, but newer players without stockpiles of gold and AD are already suffering a disparate impact.
If the goal was to integrate professions with daily gameplay, this part of the design is failing due to gold generation supplanting normal gameplay for those who enjoy crafting and wish to continue doing so.
Suggested Future State: Dramatically increase the gold rewards offered by general quest completion, by defeating enemies, and/or introduce meta quests for Workshop owners for gold income similar in structure to what Strongholds offer for shard income (e.g. "Complete 3 Quests in Dread Ring"), perhaps scaling in difficulty and reward with Workshop level (a level 4 Workshop's bounties should pay much more gold and send the player to Chult, Omu, and Barovia since they are more likely to be engaged in Masterwork crafting). Reward players for completing content that they might otherwise ignore, getting them out of the workshop and participating in the rest of the game. If the player prefers to do little aside from crafting, they can continue manufacturing junk to sell to the vendor or buying gold from players (i.e. current state), but allowing them the option of funding their professions through actual adventuring would greatly alleviate the tedium that is bogging everything down and deterring many players from crafting because they feel that professions is a separate game from Neverwinter.
Sacrilege - Warlock
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
2