Changing The Profession System

Here's a suggestion of mine considering the profession/crafting system. I've done a test run where I would (mostly) rely on crafting to acquire gear. I've done this run until I reached level 30, and here is my general impression of the current system.

1. Grinding isn't fun
Of course, crafting and grinding is a very common aspect of a lot of (mmo)rpg's, but Wynncraft has always felt more casual and laid-back. Going out of your way to find quarries, wheat fields and fisheries can be very tiring. It feels more like homework or a job you don't enjoy. Not only that, but it also isn't a very memorable event when playing the game. I can remember times where I venture into areas I haven't seen before, got stuck with a difficult boss or did a really unique quest. Grinding, however, isn't very interesting.

2. It isn't explained properly
This has been mentioned a lot already, but the tutorial only shows how to craft weapons. How do I craft armour, rings, potions, food and scrolls? Players need to discover and learn these themselves, which isn't something bad necessarily. Besides, if the tutorial takes too long it can be tiring for people who start another character and give a bad impression on new players. But again, this has been mentioned in other threads as well and I'm not going any further into this. One last thing I want to mention, is that there should be an explanation for new players on why dyes can't be used in crafting.

3. It isn't very rewarding
I can remember grinding myself a spear with high-quality materials. First I had to unlock the new type of wood and stone, then I kept hacking and chopping until I got three-star materials. Then I crafted a ton of low-tier weapons to increase my smithing profession. Then, when I had everything ready, I crafted the spear and thought I just made a high-tier spear that I don't have to replace any time soon. I was pretty happy with the spear, so I went back to doing some quests and exploring. Then, an unidentified spear dropped, I identified it and it was just as good, if not better than the spear I crafted 20 minutes ago.
From personal experience, this really made me think if crafting was worth it. I could've got a better weapon if I spent all that time killing mobs and finishing quests instead. This also comes back to my first point; grinding isn't fun, while doing literally anything else is.

4. The required profession levels are ridiculously high
Seriously, jeweling level 31 just to put +1 to 2% Loot Bonus on a ring, that will even give a damage nerf to melle classes? Or level 34 for just +1 dexterity? That is ridiculous! Of course, these are 0-star items, so it makes sense that maybe a 3-star version of the same item makes sense. We're talking about low-tier items however. Why should I have such a high level profession to make a ring that will result in me being nerfed? Not only that, but even if I reached that level, I would've found better gear by then (back to point 3, I would have probably found another ring that I can just identify).

These were my main 4 reasons why I think crafting and professions are being neglected in Wynncraft. I could be wrong about certain things, but this is my experience from playing ~30 levels (New character to level 30) with the update. Here's how I think crafting/professions could be improved:

1. Combine Cooking/Scribing/Alchemism
They don't have many differences. They all come down to gives you heals, mana or a temporary buff. The materials needed are also usually similiar. This could all go under one category so there are less professions that need to be grinded.

2. Lower the required profession levels
I have already explained why I think the levels don't make sense as of now. I think lowering the required levels would make it less of a grindfest and could make crafting reliable. It is now also less of a big deal if you can replace your crafted item with an unidentified item.

3. Force new players to craft armour as well
This is part of a tutorial rework, so I won't go too far into this. But if new players also understand the essence of armour (and maybe rings and such as well) there will be less confusion, and maybe even motivate those players to try and craft some.
(side note; please let players that already have done the tutorial the option to skip it. This could be done with a certain command that asks the player if they want to do the tutorial, maybe if they already have a level 10+ class or something)

I think if these changes are tried out, the profession system could improve. I don't want the developers to make a complete overhaul, as that can cause more confusion and upset players.

What do you think about the current system? What about the suggestions? Please let me know by answering the poll below or by posting a comment!

P.S. I've tried to do a run where I craft most of my gear until level 30, if the system is more reasonable in later parts of the game, let me know. Sorry if I misunderstood something. (Kinda goes with how the system is confusing...)

 

Jeweling is intentionally because of how accessories are designed. Have you seen some of the accessories at your level? The IDs are trash compared to armor, yet they are still relevant. Trust me, there are some good low-level high-tier ingredients. 0-star ingredients also intentionally suck compared to 3-star ingredients. The ingredients may look bad but some of the stuff you can make is really good. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

Oh trust me there are differences.

Yes, the game may move too fast at early game for crafted items to be good, but they start having a lot more value at late game.

 

If there are challenges that are worth the time on making consumable crafted items, then i can see them becoming less useless more useful. It's probably because of Minecraft limitations that there aren't big challenges yet.
Probably the way to solve the problem with crafted items becoming useless in low and mid levels is to make leveling up harder in these levels. If they got stuck in low levels, they'll probably craft or buy crafted items to level faster. Also, if it was harder to level up then they can add more content on those levels, and high-level quests will return their rewards because leveling class up will be harder.
The idea above is probably not the way to solve the problem.

 

Way to much grinding.

 

Getting everything to level 30 probably took you less time than getting one profession to 100. That's not an exaggeration, it's a serious estimate.

While you are fully right in saying professions are (way) too grindy, you give exactly the wrong reasons. It's simply too time-consuming and monotonous at the same time, especially with crafting only really getting good once you can use all 6 ingredient slots. It certainly is supposed to be more of an end-game grind (which is fine), but even getting to 104 can take less time than getting a profession to 100. Y'know, the easter egg ment for nolifers.

The current tutorial is already far too focused on professions already, and although mentioning everything you can craft could be pretty useful, it's not really going to help out new players. They shouldn't even try leveling professions anyway.

Like I said before, it takes until you can use at least 5 ingredients for crafting to be worth it, until 6 for crafting to be actually strong. I've seen some weapons stronger than mythics, armour with incredible boosts and still lots of hp, scrolls with 30% xp bonus and more. Crafting is very rewarding, it just takes a while until it is.

That's because you 1. can only use up to 2 ingredients, 2. are using weak ingredients at best, literally filler ingredients at worst, and 3. jeweling simply gives the least amount of boosts, whether it be crafted ones or just normal rings.

Although I can understand why you claim this, there are a few very important differences. Scribing has low duration and low boosts (looking at the ingredients you can use with that profession), but can affect all nearby players. Alchemism has moderate duration and high strength, and is mostly ment for big power-ups for fight some kind of boss. Cooking has very high duration (it got changed, but i heard about effects lasting up 30-45 minutes at times) and is ment for grinding. They do seem kind of similar at first, but they all have distinctly different uses.

I'd say lowering xp requirements between levels or letting xp gear affect profession xp would be a far better solution, as profession levels more or less scale with combat levels. People have also already gotten high levels in professions and to just lower profession levels entirely would be a big middle finger to the most dedicated players.

Like I said earlier, the tutorial has too big of a focus on professions already, this is just making it worse. New players already sometimes think it's the only or only viable way of getting gear, and we really don't need more of that.

tl;dr your reasoning isn't very good but professions are way too grindy uwu

 

reeee professions doo doo
if they made them slightly faster to do i wouldnt be reeing :(

 

Good suggestion

 

I got to level 30 in my professions, then realized that the gathering times, the refinement chance, and the size of the experience bars were going to keep working against me (They increase dramatically every 10 levels). Other than the grinding, I like the crafting system.

 

add a poll option

“this post isn’t very good and has bad explanations/changes for professions”

 

Crafting is more for endgame lol