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Professions Update
angles610
Member Posts: 2 Arc User
I must say that this modification to the professions is completely disgusting. There are so many people quitting due to this. Just saying that they should have never touched the professions but since they did then they to compensate those that completely maxed out all their professions like myself.
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I did the prime rewards thing, logged in yesterday and thought what I am supposed to do? so logged back out
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People are quitting because they don't like change. It is different, but i'd say streamlined. Fewer supplies and a more instinctual UI is a plus for me.
Please enlighten me where is the benefit?
Initially, yes you have to go to your workshop. No, you don't have to go to the "enclave" each time. Doors and sign posts will let you go directly to the workshop. If the issue is loading time, that is now a moot point as the workshop loads about as fast as any place people put storage toons for quick invocation rounds. I only go to the shop 2x a day to check on artisan applications. Once you hit workshop 3, you can start jobs and collect goods from anywhere when you get the sending stone. (5 morale to clean out your delivery box). Unless it is your main crafting toon (which is likely to go to the shop for ease of use anyway), the morale cost is minimal and probably doesn't affect your daily output.
Furthermore, I no longer lose profession time when I'm at work. I can start a job on every toon I'm crafting on, walk away, and make stuff all day. I LOVE this feature as I can upkeep my crafting supplies without logging in every 2 hours. Pre-update I was setting alarms every 2 hours, quickly changing characters in dungeon runs, and other obnoxious habits. I was losing ground on days I worked because I had to be gone for 8-12 hours where I could play. I now can let it go and get to it when I can while not losing the crafting time.
So there is the "Learning a whole new complicated system" thing, which I call "Change." The rest was taken care of for us. So I stand by what I said: people don't like change.
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The whole workshop concept is dumb.
Just...dumb.
There is an angry lady who shouts at everyone and lost the Workshop because she had most if not all of her artisans sitting on their collective butts while she ran it into the ground.
That's the general story right?
So now the Hero of Neverwinter steps in to run the place at a loss while most of the hired artisans sit on their butts drinking wine and playing cards, allowing the Hero to prove how good he or she is at running a workshop by going off adventuring to gain gold in order to subsidise the creation of stuff that only he or she has any interest in doing anything with.
That's just dumb.
I totally understand that it's meant to be a sink for Gold or whatever. But that doesn't explain why the plot couldn't reflect that and instead is, in fact, (as mentioned) really dumb.
What if the plot for the workshop had been (and OK, I spent a mighty five minutes on this and didn't have to spend time worrying about ways to sell Zen or find ways to convince people that Acquisitions Incorporated is any sort of funny, so I had an advantage)…something different...
For example.
You take over the workshop and all the artisans you hire immediately get to work. They start making the basic common supplies that keep the lights on. Buckets, horse shoes, cutlery, clothes. The stuff normal people need and buy. The stuff that pays the bills, the taxes, the wages etc. They could all have little animations instead of meandering about or sitting doing nothing. Making the place look and feel busy.
Then... when the player needs a task performing for themselves, by pulling a blacksmith away from his horse shoe duties
or an Adventurer away from finding wood or coal to keep the forge burning it costs money to perform that task because it's a personal commission that takes the artisan away from making the money the workshop needs to keep running. That's why it costs more to make than it does to sell.
So there is a LOGICAL rationale for why you as the player character have to pay more for one of your staff to make something than it would ever fetch in the open market.
The day to day business allows for loss leaders on the players personal requirements. So that when your guys are running the listed Hunt and Gather missions and Crafting commissions, the rest of the staff is busy at their own workstations doing stuff that they sell to the common folk of Neverwinter.
Everything else would remain the same. the game mechanics and interaction would be exactly the same. The artisans working on the normal stuff make no loss or profit, they simply break even.
It's not meant as a means to play the system just something that would make sense for those of us who think about that stuff. Because right now having a workshop full of dipso staff doing nothing except make stuff for me that costs more to make than it does to sell is the definition of completely stupid.
You could even keep every element of the shouty woman with anger management issues. In fact if YOU were actually running a workshop where the staff were busy, it would throw her failure into some level of relief.
It's been clear for some time now that the brains behind this game don't have a great grasp on economics. The concept behind the new Workshop shows they have a similar level of understanding of the principles of commerce.
And I know what's coming... I've heard the defence of irrational or lazy thinking in fantasy games many times "why worry about logic, common sense or rational story telling in a world with nonsense like wizards, dragons, faeries and Strom Kings Thunder, etc?" But I have to say in response to that argument, "Why allow something to be dumb when it doesn't have to be?"
Neither am I suggesting that everything make complete sense, (like why the hell would a tailor use a sewing needle made from something as soft as Gold? STEEL would make a far better needle,) and that's because there's less importance in minor details being a bit silly compared to a fundamentally flawed general premise.
This system has not been designed to benefit players, nothing lately has been any benefit for the players, changes to salvage, the ridiculous level 15 new campaign not even worth doing absolutely no rewards, changes to dungeons, I just want to choose which dungeons I do, random is not my thing which makes guild building impossible as you can't get the shards from another source, well you can buy 100 in a pack in the zen store but when you need 1000's just for one upgrade that is not really viable.
Added to that the whole ban saga means less players, there are more spaces in lev 20 guilds that can easily attract new members as they have plenty of boons, so lower guilds can't even hope to attract new members, so now I can't even craft a few things for my guild, it really isn't worth putting it on anymore, very depressing
The campaign, while not everyone doesn't share the sense of humor, is not completely unrewarding. Perhaps you haven't gotten to the rank 14 enchant at the end? I don't believe most of it is aimed at BiS level 70s who already have everything.
As for random queues - I personally feel they are a necessary evil, though they annoy me at times too.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
For those without a stockpile of gold, its not going to be the cake walk it is for those of us with many tens of thousands saved up in advance.
Likewise the millions of workshop credits for old materials and assets allows for very fast advancement for those who knew what was coming.
Once the sheen of "Ooh... new and shiny" wears off it will be less of a joy and more of a bind since Adventurers can't be activated remotely. Why do I have to go to the workshop to call Bob the Forrager back from the wilds before sending Jenny the Miner out to run errands? Why can't I do that from anywhere? Or even a mailbox? What is so special about that cork board that allows me to communicate across the expanse of the land? They aren't IN the workshop to call back. In fact why can't I use ALL my Adventurers at once? OK, the rationale for limits to active workshop lists can obviously be limited by space, but the Adventurers aren't limited by space... they are OUTSIDE the workshop, in the flipping wilderness, so why... oh forget it... it's just stupid. They built a zone and want us in it...
I have ten workshops at L3, and since the ridiculous quest I was given as part of the advance to 4 involved the idle artisans running out of wine, and rather than giving them work to do I had to source more wine, I've given up on it because it's just stupid time wasting filler.
It may be more "immersive" but there are some things that I wouldn't enjoy being immersed in. Certain animal by-products and the new Crafting campaign path are two I can mention.
I'm not sure who the standard L1-70 stuff is for. For new players, as with the old system, its too easy to out level the gear you are able to craft. The L500 gear is quickly bypassed by Barovia and is barely useful even for companions since the lack of a second enchantment slot renders it impractical. I suppose some may be useful as transmutes...
"Ooh... you can make RP..." try running round and doing stuff. RP falls like rain.
The biggest mistake was not making Mastercrafting more widely accessible.
Why is it only available to members of Guilds of R10 or higher?
The only thing I would say might need to be looked at is the AD commission costs for some of the items. Why is it AD? Should it not be all gold now? I ask because generating jewels for like AP costs 125,000 in AD and seeings how salvage has been removed that's a lot of AD these days. AD costs should scale more accordingly if they are going to be used in commission fees. But other than that I quite enjoy the new system.
Many of my Armor kits and Jewels only cost 62500 to make, with a fair chance of a +1 version if I commit extra resources.
Legendary tools and Forgehammer now make a very big difference in that corner of the marketplace. If you don't have something similar, the risk of losing a full commission cost will be off putting to a lot of people.
It won't be long before the price war kicks in and those items drop to the point where it will probably be cheaper to buy them on the AH with 100% chance of getting one, than risking making one and failing.
There's not a huge amount of things in sub MC crafting that are worth making to sell for decent lump sums on the AH, so those items will be farmed the most.
As with the old system this will see the prices drop as people rush to sell quickly and undercut one another.
I assume this is what they intended?
Given time, the profession workshop actually makes leveling professions a focus of a player instead of an unintended by-product. Players who don't find it beneficial will drop out, and choose to buy kits and other gear needs when they need it. No longer will players who don't profession regularly accidentally unlock things, but they will have to have the artisans necessary or attempt to hire them. There will be less people down the road as more won't put the initial leveling effort into the process.
So, what you are saying is... any character whatever IL, whatever their professions standard, level and workshop status can only be a "Master" if the guild they join is at least level 10? That no one in a sub R10 common guild would have the stoutness of heart to join the ranks of Master Crafting?
Ok.
Sounds a bit elitist but you seem confident...
Now explain why that makes any sense to anyone.
You could start by explaining why they get to keep their Master status if they leave the Guild in question and go join a "Common" guild of lower rank.
Doesn't that defeat the whole point of R10+ Guilds being Master and not Common?
It must be real frustrating for a Master of IL 12K who just joined a R20 guild to see some 17K Commoner leave to set up their own guild and take with them a Master status they had spent years helping the guild get to. that 12K Master must be real hacked off that such a commoner would be basking in their reflected glory... So, again... if I understand what you are saying... the pre MC, 1-70, system is designed to only be of long term benefit to people in guilds higher than R10?
Or "Master" quality players, not Common...
Doesn't matter on the character and their ability, just the notion that someone at some point worked to get the guild they are in to a certain level?
(Seems odd a game designer would strive to build a feature that is designed to slowly lose player interest and by built in inequity settings of "Master" and "Common" drive them out of the feature in question... but with these guys who the Hell knows.)
But... that actually does sound like they worked real hard to come up with a game mechanic reflects a medieval, feudal system where a person's value and status is based on the House or Clan they are in, rather than their individual merit or abillity.
OK, I'll quit with the sarcasm now and say... That's just stupid.
Use that time to make the items for the MW 1 phase and stock up on the rest of the supplies. Also stock up on guild marks and items from the vendors What exactly is it that you want from the system?
If everyone has access to make the premium items, then they are no longer premium. Everyone who can craft the top-end goods is one more competitor selling them and one less consumer buying them. Putting it simpler, every high-end crafter adds supply and reduces demand. The reason kits will go down is because more people will unlock the ability to make them, and more people post their wares until the profit becomes minimal or even a loss. The ONLY way the profession system is profitable is if less people can make the wares. It isn't a design flaw, it is capitalist economics which a player-based auction house naturally creates.
What you are saying is that my stable of IL15-16k (without the benefit of L20 guild boons) and all professions at L70 do not deserve Mastercraft after 4 years of play because I am not in a L10 guild/alliance?
But some 11K spod fresh out of Barovia with a couple of pre M15 fast tracked professions to 70 can join a 10+ Guild he or she had no part in building and BOOM! Marathon run and won! THEY can have MC because... why? What's that? because it's "not a sprint" errr… it is for that dude, and all those like him. What do I want?
A system that makes sense.
A system that gives everyone the option to put as much into it as they want to, and if they get bored they get bored, but not a system that's actively engaged in deterring a large number of them from joining in.
A system that doesn't let lazy people jump into the high end because of easy access to largely unfilled guilds, but rather base it on the actual work and effort that players put into the professions. (But that would be stupid...)
A system where its maybe just a little bit harder for the "Master" players to run roughshod over the "Common", which might just slow down the rate at which people lose interest in it.
I started playing when guilds were new. I joined one with my friends and we pootled along and it got to L5 and then joined an alliance. We eventually got to L8 before the Alliance joined a bigger Alliance that was mainly on the other side of the planet, and consequently some Guilds left. Reluctantly, my friends and I realised that, due to time zone issues, we weren't seeing much of the rest of the Alliance and decided that "What the hell...let's start our own guiild" We did, and with a small number of like minded players in the past 18 months we've got to GH9 and have a couple of smaller guilds in a tiny alliance and we like it that way. We don't make demands of members because we know how easy it is to lose people to GH20s, specially those Guilds who lost a load of players to bans over the past year... we keep it friendly and try to help each other out. We don't want to join a bigger alliance, or have loads of guilds in ours because we enjoy the way we play, and can really do without people telling us that our way of playing is wrong.
One thing I get sick to the back teeth of is people telling me that the way we play is wrong, that our guild or alliance is "Dead" because we don't have enough players or because we don't run it the way they do.
Now I have to ask this because it just sounds a bit silly.
Do you really think that in the current state of the game a new guild can get to GH10 in THREE MONTHS? You say it's "safe to assume" so... really?
I've really got to question that assumption.
I can't remember exactly but I'm sure its about 1'000'000 in INFLUENCE for GH10, and that's not taking into account ANY other structure building that you'd need on top. 1'000'000 divided by (lets be generous and say 2 of those months are 31 days) 92 equals.... about 11'000 Influence per day, every day.
For a guild starting from scratch.
You think its safe to assume that that happens? Does it happen a lot in this safe assumption of yours?
I think it's "safe to assume" you may have lost touch with the reality of the current state of Guilds. (e.g. When was the last time you checked in on Alliance members accessing MC through an ally's Artisan? You might want to run a refresher course on that out of date assumption.)
If I'm wrong and there's a bunch of new Guild Leaders who are ready to explain that they have set up new Guilds in the past year or so and they are all hitting GH10 in 3 months then I will happily stand corrected. I eagerly await their replies.
And since any lazy mope can just hop into a "Master Guild" gain the MC stuff without so much as a coffer deposit and then, (unlike with Boons, which require you to actually commit to the Guild) leave with no penalty whatsoever, what's the point?
Seriously... what is the point? It just punishes people who don't want to behave like HAMSTER bags and feed off other peoples hard work.
Why have a system that rewards a style of play that promotes bad feeling and resentment?
It's dead easy for people with the moral core of a leech to skip guilds and pick up what they want... they are "Masters", so why not just make MC available to all players who qualify for it without the stupid restriction of momentarily being in a "Special Guild" and allow those who want to actually EARN what they get do so without being regarded by people like you as being "Dead"?
And yes, I know it wont be long before our little Guild becomes an elite "Master" guild, so why the hell am I complaining?
Because I know there are other groups of players who feel the same way we do about EARNING your stuff rather than having it gifted to you for little to no effort.
As long as the other Guild leaders don't mind, I'll offer our alliance members short term membership with no need to donate in exchange for MC and then scoot back home. Which completely defeats any purpose in making it only available to GH10.
So why bother having MC even vaguely connected with guild level in the first place?
Completely. 100%. Agree.
With the entire post, but this line in paticular, because it's the perfect summary.
I agree with some of the grosser products. from what I can see th emarket for the l500 gear is in trading and using for levelling up your workshops to lvl 4. I was able to do some stockpiling of gold but not enough. I also misunderstood the saving of things for the new system and sold a bunch of things for gold before it hit. still have many thousands of credits though
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Gating the initial entry requirements behind the portcullis of a Guild makes it no more or less elusive than sticking it in a cardboard box on top of Icespire Peak. Or on available to people wearing a blue cloak, or riding a certain mount. It has no logical basis in granting access to Master Crafting.
Some people with the capability, artisans, assets and stockpiled wealth and materials to run Mastercraft should not be declined access because they don't want to guild hop and leech off other players work.
I know some people will need to Google these two terms, but some people still play Roleplaying Games with a degree of "courtesy" and "manners".
Having a crafting system that needlessly forces people to chuck that out of the window is NOT in keeping with the spirit of Dungeons and Dragons.
Please leave the mercenary "do what you have to" approach to playing games on your own doorstep. Don't insist that everyone be that way.
There's enough self centred narcissism displayed on a daily basis by people playing this game. I'd rather it wasn't a built in feature of the crafting system.
How about having MC access be a part of the natural extension of the (currently flat out STUPID) crafting mini campaign?
Get yourself a Workshop 4? Well done... Off you go... start the process to prove you are worthy of MC stuff.
No... of course... the common sense thing is to gate MC behind a stupid guild restriction, and have crafting "quests" be about doing a booze run.
Besides, getting multiple toons to WS 4 is probably more of an effort than spamming Port Nyanzaru for invites and treating Guilds like a free Airbnb.
You might know the answer to this actually...
I know a lot of people are caught up in the initial buzz of the new system and are all excited about getting to WS4 as fast as they can, but what is the end goal beyond that?
Does WS4 come with anything that improves the performance of your artisans? Do you get anything beyond 6 extra people to sit around your workshop drinking wine? More than some more space in the delivery box?
Do you NEED WS4 for anything special like master crafting?
I've already stepped off the WS4 bandwagon after the stupid booze run quest... what am I actually going to miss out on?
Cos if there IS something really cool on top of the extra slots for "stuff" I might have to revisit my stance, but if that's all, then I'm perfectly happy having fewer idle chumps sitting round the place getting sauced on my tab. It also means I don't have to deal with that stupid Begum person.
I now think the quests to become a mastercrafter should be available to the masses. Perhaps a questline given out in PE or even something incorporated in the workshop where the retainer gives you the quests.
With that said, under absolutely no condition should any other concessions be made available to people not in a guild.
No maps for seeking out materials should be made available.
No temporary vendors that would be accessible through a stronghold.
Absolutely nothing that you would have to be on stronghold property to access.
Then you can choose to proceed with mastercrafting as you please without feeling the need to join a guild.
This is no different than every other complaint people make when it comes to guilds. When DF armor came out people whined "oh i cant buy it cause i'm not in a guild". There's always something someone wants to get without doing the smallest prerequisite of joining a guild.
Guilds should provide access to perks and require a prolonged commitment to the guild to acquire.
DF gear took a lot of work with other guild members to get, the GMs, and Fangs needed took time and effort to obtain.
The Vendors need GMs, the Marketplace needs building, and if a guild has worked hard to get to the position where they have the means to summon temporary vendors, or sell maps, it should be AT THE VERY LEAST necessary for someone to have done enough to earn the Guild Marks to use them.
Not so long ago Master Crafting was seen as a rather pointless exercise for the masses. It was hugely expensive, ridiculously unreliable, and viewed as being something for those players who could solo Castle Never with no weapons equipped and who owned everything as BiS (Proper BiS…) When Chult came around it seemed that everyone wanted it. And at THAT point, the gateway should have been opened not narrowed. TBH I'm not sure exactly when they stopped the Alliance access to Artisan quests, but that's when they should have first considered making MC a part of the standard chain of Professions.
Now that the whole Professions system has been overhauled, MC should be part of that system.
Having it connected to Guilds is a relic of the days when end game players needed an extra "something" to do with their time and wealth.
Now it's seen as the natural progression of the crafting route, and any character with L70 professions can throw money at it, and many people are prepared to abandon their lower level guilds to chase it.
The fact that you need to have done nothing within the guild to gain it, and need to do nothing within the guild to maintain it is why it is should just be moved to the open access of the crafting system.
And I'm not suggesting it's free or easy to get.
Make it something like, rather than "join a guild, talk to the artisan, get the quest... leave the guild" how about an open world quest? "Go to X Zone and meet this NPC, they send you to Y and Z zones to do stuff in exchange for the secrets of the Craft".
I think the Devs sometimes need reminding of this, but this is supposed to be DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. There should be people sitting there thinking up ways to add adventure and excitement to the game, not bean counters throwing out constant changes to the flipping economy.
Oh, for the days when D&D alumni were called upon to write story based levelling campaigns like "Throne of The Dwarven King". Now we get nerds from the Internet and "Repetitive Basement Boredom".
Come on... Cryptic... stick Jim's Wand of Wonder up Jim's Appropriate HAMSTER and dig out your own Wand of Creativity.
You can do better. We've seen it.
The first is due to rounding and/or the display of the UI element. The second is either a bug and it shouldn't produce a +1, or it's WAI and the display is bugged.