Imagine If Professions Were Accessible...

Please visit >>THIS<< thread, this one is no longer in use.

 

taking this spot for a moment for future edits

 

For the purposes of Suggestion #2, I created this spreadsheet for people to use to get true examples of how much XP would be awarded/taken away.
The left column displays the total XP of that level, while the right column displays the total XP the player has gained so far. For example, say you achieved level 10 without the boost, and your total XP is 660. Applying the boost here would boost your total XP to 2640, putting you at level 18 and 13.2%.


edit: a person mentioned to me that you would be able to jump to level 100 from level 86.5ish, which would kill the value of level 100 mats. this is a good point, maybe decrease the boost's effectiveness the higher level it gets. or maybe cap it out at your level range so you don't automatically gain access to a new material

edit 2: currently working on the suggestion @btdmaster made

edit 3: i added @btdmaster's suggestion, it now shows the level you will be raised/the level you will drop to after applying/removing the buff

also, this just caps out at 132, assuming the max level remains at 132, and that the 4x xp buff is static across all levels, which clearly would be not great since you could gather level 100 mats by applying the boost once you reached 87, allowing you to effectively skip the level 90 materials. this could use some changes.
as you are all aware i am beyond lazy so i won't bother to implement more changes to this, someone else can.

 

Finally some legit suggestions instead of that other... rant thread.

Suggestion 1: Mostly Disagree
At a quick glace, the suggestion looks great. It allows those at low levels to craft higher level items. But the more you look at it, the more ways you can game the system:

• The feature of item flipping will cause lv 1 professions to be desired. Namely, the goal of levels in professions is to level up to get rid of that -% ingredient effectiveness if this suggestion were to be implemented. However, there are some cases where you will want a low level to get the maximum benefit out of -% ingredient effectiveness. Say I want to lower the skill point reqs of a jeweling item (Obelisk Core flipping Angelic Gem). The -200% ingredient effectiveness on the gem will cause the +12 in all reqs to become -12 in all reqs. Now with this suggestion, if you were to craft a lv 101+ jeweling item as a level 1 jeweler, you would get an additional -100% ingredient effectiveness on both the core and the gem. Ingredient effectiveness doesn't affect the core as that's how crafting works, while the gem would get a -300% ingredient effectiveness, causing it to giv -24 in all reqs. This loophole may cause items to be more powerful than what anyone intend crafted items to be, even if item flipping is a seldom-used technique.
  • An alternative suggestion to fixing this problem is to add the -% ingredient effectiveness to AFTER the ingredient effectiveness is calculated. Using the same example, the gem with now -12 in all reqs after the core is applied will then receive an overall -100% ingredient effectiveness to that ingredient as if it was never flipped, resulting in +0 in all reqs.
• More work for the Item Team to nerf a lot of items. The +% ingredient effectiveness could cause many crafted items to become even more powerful than it already is, which means nerfs will be in place to correct these. I already have a headache just thinking about how in the world the Item Team will balance these ingredients.
  • I would suggest removing the +% ingredient effectiveness all together and implement the alternative suggestion above only.

If you do not want to implement my alternative suggestions as stated above, another alternative suggestion is to also have this -% affect the total durability of the items as well. However, this will still cause some access to be lost for lower levels as many desired weapons cannot be crafted anymore, yet other items, even no ingredient items, can still be crafted.

Suggestion 2: Nuanced
I'm not sure whether to disagree or agree on this. Here's my points:

• Specialization is quite neat. Although that +400% should probably be nerfed to +200% or +300%, this specialization will allow players to be able to craft their desired items quickly without worrying too much about the -% ingredient effectiveness in Suggestion 1. Plus, bonus points for flexing rights I suppose?
• You can sort of game the system again, at least mostly for high levels through avoiding XP decay. Not many people will encounter this, but this thing called XP decay is applied when you use materials that are much lower than your crafting level. For example, say I were to specialize in Woodworking and I reached lv 120 through that specialization. At lv 120, XP decay kicks in when using any material, and I will start to earn less XP than if I was a lower level. To put it in perspective, when I was in the lv 110s in Woodworking, I only earned 95k xp per craft using lv 100 materials instead of 130k xp per craft when I was lv 100s. Now with specialization, if I were to REMOVE the specialization, then I would be around lv 100 (ish?), and now XP decay will not kick in again, at least for lv 100+ materials.
  • Alternatively, DO NOT allow people to change specializations (also put a warning/confirmation about this), and this won't be a problem.

 

I personally thought OP meant #1 like how you suggested it (so it isn't abusable, just a drawback) but he didn't so that needs to be changed.
As far as your #2, I agree that it probably should be locked (or maybe if you reset you go back to 0 or something harsher to discourage people from changing all the time) however my problem with this is that 2 of the gathering professions are used more than the others because shaman exists now. This leads to an unbalance in the force fact that you get more worth out of 2 of the professions than the other 2. I don't know if that's such a problem, but it gets on my nerves. (Really the only fix there is to make a new type of consumable or smth that uses the other 2 profs)
Also, this encourages people to level their other accounts to get the specialization in other profs. Idk if that's good or bad but seems good to me...
Edit: also I think I'll make a spreadsheet showing what level you'd reset to per change of specialization per level

 

Reading through this thread, I appreciate a more structured base for ideas rather than the previous thread I replied to that didn't seem to have much structure or idea giving, just blurred ranting. Nonetheless, my opinions on the given ideas.

Suggestion #1:

After reading and thinking about this for a good few minutes, I am going to refrain from throwing my opinions in, because I haven't gotten into crafting professions yet, and can't give an honest opinion based off experience.

Suggestion #2:

While I agree, to most the experience grind may be too much, or it could be a major turn off to some, I feel this sort of system could be heavily gamed no matter what regulations could be put on it, mainly targeting to hurting the value of materials of any level (not that low level mats have a real value). When dealing with temporary jumping of exp, what's stopping me from getting all my skills to certain level and just jumping, farming and removing specialization to get high level mats to try and sell? Doing this in my eyes, could and would kill the economy on basically all high level gathering mats.

As a reshaped idea I was thinking instead of the whole specialization, why not add a professions skill point like system? Not thinking of all the numbers for it now, just pure speculation of a rough idea. If there were skills for professions like we have current skill points now for regular character leveling, you could get a system that encourages leveling, while adding a way to keep your attention to keep going. What I mean; you have each of the professions skills, Mining, Woodcutting, Fishing, Farming, (all separately) Crafting. From leveling up your professions, you get prof skill points you can singularly put into any of these skills, which the points would add small amounts of exp bonus, gathering/crafting speed, and higher chance at gathering mats/chance of making it cheaper to craft a recipe (Less mats used). Along with this system, make it an ungameable system by limiting either A) You can't reset these points OR B) A system is made that basically makes it where you don't want to reset these points.

I like the ideas, always healthy for new ideas to make the game better.

 

See Ponto's reply above mine for the spreadsheet.

 

Nah I meant a sheet to show what level each level resets to if you reset 75% of your xp after switching prof specializations, and ponto's only has xp/level and total xp. (Unless he'll add it later?)

 

Ah, that can easily be done. Let me tell him now.

 

Take a look at how I specified crafting effectiveness is applied. -90% Crafting Effectiveness, means every item ID gets multipled by 0.1. The minimum here is 0, which would nullify it. Flipping is not possible, but apparently that was not clear so I will make it so.

For the specializations, 400% was an arbitrary value and not one I was actually suggesting be added. Just bonus XP is all. As for XP decay, I have no comments. It's obviously a problem, but not one I know how to fix. I'm not against people changing their specializations, I just didn't want people to start a profession then realize they hate it. Perhaps it would be better if they can't swap if they have a specialization in a class level 50+?

 

Oh cool thanks

 

It seems it was unclear, but in the initial method I said crafting effectiveness would be added, the minimum multiplier for IDs would be 0, and as such flipping would not be possible. I made an edit that makes that distinction more clear.

Regarding suggestion #... I'm not against resetting people back to level 0 if they don't like their specialization. The main point of allowing people to switch was if they put their specialization into a profession they didn't like, they'd have an out.

@Crokee what are your thoughts on resetting to level 0 if you remove a specialization? Obviously this would need to be communicated properly. Also, should I increase the maximum specializations to 3? This would allow a more smooth leveling process for those who choose to put 1 specialization into crafting and then 2 for the required gathering, but on the other hand the imbalance that having 2 specializations brings could lead to you having to lean more on other members of the profession community, which is technically what the whole update was meant to be about...

 

also possible change: don't let the specialization affect xp over lvl 100

 

Alright, make that more clear. Then I will mostly agree, barring the +% crafting multiplier. Perhaps even if you want it, a small maximum of 10% increase should be okay, but I still feel that incoming nerfs will make it harder for us to craft.

Actually this is a better suggestion, use this. Just wondering what happens if you change specializations when you are lv 100+ (maybe actually lv 103+ for dern mats).

 

You say you're not a fan of the +% crafting multiplier. Are you referring to the bonus crafting effectiveness you can get when you're a higher level crafting than the item your crafting's level?

Also, after some consideration I personally think it might be more elegant and effective to allow players to switch specializations at any time, but it would set them back to level 0. The only reason I wanted people to be able to switch without significant penalty was so that they don't get stuck into a profession they don't like. Thing is, those who are high level adding specializations already know if they like or dislike a profession. Those who are low level who start with a specialization in one thing will quickly realize they don't like it, and won't have any problems resetting and losing their maybe 10 crafting levels.

I definitely don't think it's favorable to continue the idea of getting bonus XP and losing XP every time you change... It's quite unintuitive and overall just seems like it would become a confusing mess. What are your thoughts on the solution I proposed?

 

Yes that multiplier.

That could work as well but I guarantee you, people will get mad that they lost their progress even if many warnings are in place (accidents anyone?).

 

Idk, maybe something like a different % reset depending on what level they are? this might be impossible to get around partially/fully as you said, but maybe we can make the loss less bad?...

 

What particularly are you against with the bonus multiplier? I have no problems with removing it, although I honestly thought profession tryhards might be quite find of it.

As for the specialization changing, I'll think of something that's more effective. How do you feel about the number of specializations though? Should it be 3 like I said in an earlier comment, or is the unbalanced 2 alright? Keeping in mind that you can put them all into one profession if you desire.

 

• "More work for the Item Team to nerf a lot of items. The +% ingredient effectiveness could cause many crafted items to become even more powerful than it already is, which means nerfs will be in place to correct these. I already have a headache just thinking about how in the world the Item Team will balance these ingredients.
  • I would suggest removing the +% ingredient effectiveness all together and implement the alternative suggestion above only."

I have no further suggestions on specializations, I don't have any more ideas. Not sure on 3 instead of 2 specializations either. I think the idea needs to be more fleshed out before I can decide further.

Edit: I see your point in +% crafting multiplier to give people some motivation to grind beyond lv 103. Perhaps durability would be better?

 

Mmm, I think that could be very good yes. Bonus durability for higher bonus. Will edit that now.

Edit: I changed the crafting effectiveness maximum to 100% since it changes durability, not ids. Definitely more of a reason to have high level crafters craft your items for you, and I don't think it would be extremely overpowered, since the durability increase you'll get at higher levels is like 30%.