Goblin Squad Member
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Once a crafter maxes out a certain line, i.e. they are the best they can get at crafting weapons, armor, etc. What about a once per character ability to craft thier "Masterpiece" item. Something truly better than the best normally available. Not game breaking, just an item with one or two more neat features than are available on a top end item?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I had a similar idea where there would be a chance that a unique crafting recipe / pattern could be found, and once a crafter had reached mastery, he or she would be the only one that could craft that mastercraft item.
Each crafter could only learn one of these recipes / patterns. They would be seeded into the game world, randomly, and there would only be a total of two per items type in the world.
Sort of like hitting the lottery, but you could only hit it once.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maxing your chosen crafting speciality should allow you to make items significantly better than other crafters in that same field. After all, you have dedicated what is 10 (game time) years to one crafting skill. That should give you a large bonus to everything you make. Otherwise, what's the point of specializing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maxing your chosen crafting speciality should allow you to make items significantly better than other crafters in that same field. After all, you have dedicated what is 10 (game time) years to one crafting skill. That should give you a large bonus to everything you make. Otherwise, what's the point of specializing.
I don't recall seeing any mention that there is a "crafting specialty". I just took a quick glance through the Dev Blog, was there a specific post made to indicate that?
Otherwise, I would assume that you could eventually master more than one and eventually even all crafting skills, probably in a few years!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Commonmers will focus on gathering and harvesting skills, experts focus on refining and crafting skills, aristocrats focus on leadership and social skills. These are similar to the adventurer that will focus on class skills. With the change in the "20th merit badge allowing a capstone skill" which is now defunct (unless later revised).
In one of the interviews Ryan gave, that was the impression I had after it was over. It makes sense, but have not seen it in the blog. It should be equally difficult to master a crafting skill and a class skill....and leadership and social. They should all have a "skill portfolio" that, when completed allows the highest level. It would be silly not to have specializations in every type of major occupation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree, you will be sble to cap a skill tree in a particilar field. But, once you have done that you can then work on capping another field. In a classless, non leveled game there is no end to character progression. Example is Eve, I have a toon with 85 million skill points that is almost 8 years old and I don't have the end in sight.
As the years pass, GW will add new skill trees and this will add months of new potential progression for each that they add.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Capstone concept gone or the term "capstone" gone? Could someone point out to me where the Devs have said that there will no longer be some kind of little boost/bonus for pursuing an archetype to the top?
I am not sure that they ever promised something for crafters but I believe that they did for (basically) straight up fighters or wizards, etc...
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Goblin Squad Member
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The capstone concept is gone. It has been replaced by a "Devotion Bonus" for having all your currently slotted abilities from the same role.
The relevant post by Stephen is here
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Dario- Thanks Sir! The concept is still "kinda" there but the name has changed. I appreciate the link. These boards have really gotten too large and the topics often seem to get derailed, misunderstood, or outright hijacked. Makes for some difficult info gathering if you are new.
I know that I am guilty of it myself. =D
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's fairly different. It no longer requires that you pursue a single role all the way to the top, and it's no longer possible to be permanently locked out of it. It's effectively there to allow a single-role character to make up for the lack of synergy that a multi-role character can get.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Still though, it makes sense to reward players for dedication to one field. There should be bonuses that a dedicated crafter would get after achieving the maximum skill in one specific craft that a more diverse crafter would not get.
For example, a blacksmith could craft simple smithing items through the apprentice blacksmith skills (of however many levels are deemed appropriate), then journeyman blacksmith, then perhaps advanced journeyman blacksmith followed by a specialization, in this example, say swordsmithing, then advanced swordsmithing, followed by master swordsmithing.
Then the advanced specialization kicks in and our smith wants to craft two-handed swords, so the next skill would be two-handed sword specialization, followed by advanced two-handed sword specialization. The final skill level would be two-handed sword master smith.
The highest level would be where your multiple named bonuses kick in, and only crafters at the highest level have any hope of creating named two-handed swords.
Further specializations could follow, as the basics are already known, and goldsmithing and/or silversmithing could be learned to allow for elaborate decorations on that same weapon.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Still though, it makes sense to reward players for dedication to one field. There should be bonuses that a dedicated crafter would get after achieving the maximum skill in one specific craft that a more diverse crafter would not get.
The devotion bonus mentioned by Dario is (IIRC) supposed to scale with the highest-level ability you have slotted, so if you have a max-level ability slotted then you will maximize your devotion bonus.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am hoping crafting is at least this deep. In my example above I listed nine skills.....
Apprentice Blacksmith-craft simple smithing items (horseshoes, nails, barrel hoops, basic tools). First smith skill that every smith must learn. Only need to learn it once.
Journeyman Blacksmith-craft simple, but still a bit more advanced smithing items (bit and bridle, stirrups, specialty tools like planes and other crafting tools). Only need to learn it once.
Advanced Journeyman Blacksmith-craft complex tools and items (higher level crafting tools, locks, shackels, fancy hinges). Only need to learn it once.
Chosen Specialization-could be a variety of different weapons (sword and knife, mace and hammer, polearms, mounted, exotic) or armor (shields, armor, barding).
Advanced Chosen Specialization-same as above but allows for a higher degree of crafting expertise.
Master Chosen Specialization-same as above but allows for a higher degree of crafting expertise.
Specific Item Specialization-This is where the smith chooses one specific category of item to become a true master smith. In my example above it was the two-handed sword. Regardless of the choice here, the smith could still produce excellent items of all categories of previous skill levels, but he/she would only be able to produce true masterworks for this chosen item.
Advanced Specific Item Specialization-same as above but allows for a higher degree of crafting expertise.
Master Specific Item Specialization-A crafter must be at this level to have any hope of an epic quality item worthy of the highest enchantments. Only items of this caliber are named, or are destined to be of the level relics or artifacts are produced from. (This smith could produce "Two-Handed Sword Masterworks".)
None of the above skills preclude a smith picking other specializations, but would have to start at the "Chosen Specialization" level. For instance, this smith could jump right into "Hammer and Mace", with an eye on later being able to produce "Two-handed Hammer Masterworks".
Or he/she could branch off into minerology, mining, or goldsmithing to add beautiful gold filigree to his two-handed sword masterworks.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Having done some blacksmithing myself I know that if you are away from the forge for any length of time your skills start to get rusty (so to speak). I think that if the crafter takes too much time away from crafting (say, to adventure for rare materials) they should have some small decrease in skill which would require them to practice to regain.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The bottleneck for top quality goods is not going to be the crafter but the materials.
The quality system as described in the 'death by numbers' (?) blog essentially means that to craft a q300 weapon you need to
-find a place with appropriate ore, probably dangerous or contested
-harvest the ore with 300 mining skill (and guards to protect the operation from monster spawn)
-smelt the ore with 300 smelting skill in appropriate factilities
-find all the other components at 300 skill. Maybe on of the components is obtainable only from certain escalation cycle bosses.
-forge the weapon with 300 smithing skill
..all meaning that a single 'capstone' crafter cannot really do anything special unless there are also 'capstone' miners, smelters, leatherworkers and monster hunters around to provide the best materials.
The value of 'capstone' skill depends on how much better q300 gear is over q299 etc. gear. If q300 allows an extra keyword, the value difference is significant.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So maybe, say once every twelve months, a character that is maxed out in a crafting skill training queue can request a "Mastercraft quest" that would tell the smith what to craft, or what materials to gather in order to craft it. I agree the bottleneck would likely be in the materials. These level 300 mats would be the rarest of the rare.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Regarding the 'have to mine L300 ore at L300 skill': perhaps there should be a skill timer for the activity that has to fill to your desired skill level in order to achieve the highest quality.
I'm imagining the skill bar gradually climbing toward 300 when a goblin pops out of the bushes to interrupt: you can either accept the current quality level in your skill bar, harvest the ore, and then fight off the goblin or abandon your attempt and fight the goblem, and then restart your skill bar to achieve maximum success.
If you have guards with you then you don't have to be interrupted by the annoyig goblins and finish your process before turning to whatever the guards have left.