Civilian Artifice: One for All, All for One?

[JohnCarver]

Greetings Salemites,


Due to the tremendous effort we have been placing in combat balance it seemed a bit silly to let it all go to waste without careful balance of combat artifice. Once we got deep into that adventure we realized that we needed to make adjustments to the civilian system as well. We hope to have ALL three systems revamped for the August patch (Combat, Combat Artifice, Civilian Artifice). However, we have hit a small roadblock and are looking for your opinions. We are quite positive that we want each civilian artifice to add a healthy amount to the category it specializes in, as well as a small side amount of common Combat D (Civ artifice have no offensive bonus). What we cannot decide is if players feel it would be more fun if their artifice had offsetting values to the other civilian trades so that they at least have "some" bonus in everything they do in one set of clothes. Or if players feel civ artifice should ONLY add to their primary civ attribute, and thus have different clothing sets for different jobs or get no benefit on the off-jobs at all.


What you are looking at here is a Tier2 Weaving Artifice Vs. a Tier1 Culinary Artifice in our test server design space so don't worry yourself as much with the values themselves. More with the feel of it. Should you get that many bonus' categories form a single artifice? Should you have to switch clothes between all jobs considering that we are now specializing more towards Professions.

I see good arguments either way but am looking for the community to tip us over in one direction or another so vote away.

[RonPaulFTW]

Why not just 1 or 2 secondary professional bonuses.

Adding in every single secondary profession seems like a cop out.

[lach]

I think the first example is a bit odd, in that it's just simply too all over the place. Perhaps have some pure artifice that only improve one profession while having a few mixed backups for people that want to become jacks of all trades? The fun would be the choice, not so much the end result. I feel that implementing any one option of the two you've given us will pretty much strip people of any sort of choice and everyone will be slotted the same, which will end up being boring.

[JohnCarver]

Why not just 1 or 2 secondary professional bonuses.

Adding in every single secondary profession seems like a cop out.

This limits the design space for future growth. It also hugely limits the specialization as the higher and harder items "Secondary" professions then outpace some of the lower value items primary ones. We were not fond of the previous implementations where things were very much randomized in what they added and why. The new system follows categories and specific levels of quality in the items you choose to socket. This leaves no room for "lets just add a few points of this over here, and a few points of that over there" mentality.

[fox]

Can't understand the idea about it.

[DarkNacht]

Having at least a small bonus to other civ trades is better, it helps noobs that have not built full perfect sets yet and even for characters will full sets its nice to have a small bonus to other things if you want to do a small task without swapping cloths out. It can also sometimes be nice to have a more versatile set.

If we are going to have a lot more specialized gear options are you going to give us a wardrobe?

[JohnCarver]

If we are going to have a lot more specialized gear options are you going to give us a wardrobe?

Already ahead of you.

[RonPaulFTW]

I think the first example is a bit odd, in that it's just simply too all over the place. Perhaps have some pure artifice that only improve one profession while having a few mixed backups for people that want to become jacks of all trades? The fun would be the choice, not so much the end result. I feel that implementing any one option of the two you've given us will pretty much strip people of any sort of choice and everyone will be slotted the same, which will end up being boring.

Better put than me.

This limits the design space for future growth. It also hugely limits the specialization as the higher and harder items "Secondary" professions then outpace some of the lower value items primary ones. We were not fond of the previous implementations where things were very much randomized in what they added and why. The new system follows categories and specific levels of quality in the items you choose to socket. This leaves no room for "lets just add a few points of this over here, and a few points of that over there" mentality.

I personally don't see what's wrong with the secondary profession on a T5 item being better than the primary profession on a T1 item. You can avoid the "little bit of this and that" mentality by grouping them somewhat intelligently. Digging and Mining seem like similar professions.

An item for only one profession is boring.

[Thor]

I like the idea of having different kind of clothing sets for certain jobs. This, however encourages alts. That being advantage or disadvantage is completely another subject. I personally think being a jack of all trades kills teamplaying in a game that is supposed to be played with others.

[JohnCarver]

I personally don't see what's wrong with the secondary profession on a T5 item being better than the primary profession on a T1 item. You can avoid the "little bit of this and that" mentality by grouping them somewhat intelligently. Digging and Mining seem like similar professions.

This then devolves into situations where each time we want to add a new profession we must go through and readjust the values of all other artifice in the game, as well as consider the implications to the gear choices players have made when they find out this new profession has secondaries that make their previously perfect gear obsolete. This is in addition to the problem of determining which sister professions the new civ artifice category should have as well as which previously existing categories should add it as a sister profession. There is a very good reason why your "3rd choice" is not actually an option as it would bring the addition to new content to a halt in this area. Our design choices are flexible in their balance choices for the specific reason that we can then add content to them with much greater ease.