Poll: Thoughts on profession books?

[x4000]

Personally I was never much in favor of the profession books, but for the various crest-related stuff (that are not yet available in the game) they make excellent sense.  For the various kinds of crests, and spellshaping gems, sure -- I think we need the profession books, clearly.  And this is what Keith originally added the profession books for, and it's not something that comes until later in the game, yadda yadda yadda.  That part of the mechanics should work well.

But when it comes to the three main kinds of crafting -- spellgem, spellscroll, and outfitter -- I'm starting to really hate the profession books.  It's confusing to new players in all sorts of ways:
1. Where do I get them?
2. Why do I stop finding them after a certain point?
3. I unlocked the recipe, why don't I now see a spell of the sort I just "created" (lack of clarity there compared to crafting).
4. How do I turn them in, especially assuming I didn't read the tooltips?
5. How do I get higher-tier versions of spells if I am not finding more profession books to unlock them?


And so on.  Speaking specifically about the main three kinds of crafting only, I think that profession books really need to go.  I don't think that they add anything fun to the game, and they increase the complexity for new players substantially and pointlessly.  They also increase the literal difficulty even if you understand them, because you need to go to some higher-than-level-1 regions to find them, usually.  And as we add lots more spells, the randomization and so forth of what four you can unlock at a given time is going to get increasingly frustrating (and I already find it frustrating).

We could put more time and effort into trying to educate new players on how to use them, find them, and so on -- but I think that's really just mitigating the problem rather than solving it.  You already have to find the materials to make spells, and you have to go through the step of crafting them, and I think that's complex enough for the basic three kinds of crafting.

I'm really leaning extremely strongly towards ditching them, but I'm curious about the thoughts of players on it.

[Echo35]

I really don't think they need to be there for anything other than the stuff you mentioned (Crests and the like). All they seem to do is make the start more tedious, and the stuff they add isn't really necessary for a separate item (Shouldn't I just sort of already know how to make wooden platforms at this point?).

[tigersfan]

IMO, it give me more reason to actually enter a few more of the buildings I wouldn't otherwise. That said, they have been the source of a lot of confusion.

[x4000]

Well, the one thing to remember is that the buildings being empty isn't something we have to solve in this particular way.  Ultimately there should be a better reason to go into every building, but that's a much longer-term thing and not a reason to add a complex new mechanic in, to my thinking.  It would be better if the buildings had rewards that you could get because you want to get them, rather than some macguffin that you have to go get from really specific buildings in order to keep playing at all (or even really get started properly), is all I'm saying.

[zebramatt]

They do create certain bottlenecks. But there is something I like about them. Then again, it's not that intuitive. Hm.

Let me ponder it further and come back to you. 

[x4000]

I should also clarify: my ultimate goal for the game is for it to start out so dead simple that people can just pick it up and go without needing to do a lot of background reading or whatever.  But that as they play, over time it gets increasingly complex in a way that is fun and rewarding.  But each mechanic that the player has to learn right at the start of the game is something I scrutinize really harshly at this point, and if it's something that's borderline that really means it should probably go, in my mind.

[Terraziel]

My question is more about the unlocking side of it, if you remove spell books do we automatically get access to all the spells? or do you have to create a better system for gaining spells

[x4000]

My question is more about the unlocking side of it, if you remove spell books do we automatically get access to all the spells? or do you have to create a better system for gaining spells

You'd automatically gain access to all the spells.  Presuming, of course, that you have the materials -- which is and always has been the big blocker.  In the current system, if you wanted to set aside an hour or two to just go find all the tech books in level 3 abandoned towns while you're level 1, you'd get everything unlocked as it is, very "quickly" and without that much effort.  So it's just a time tax at present anyhow.  The real challenge is actually going and getting the various materials, when it comes to spells that are intended to be rare.  All the stuff that just costs a gem or dust and/or some very common commodities isn't meant to be rare anyhow.  All the more interesting stuff will require getting some interesting drops from rare commodity towers or whatever, and a lot of those drops don't show up until certain region levels, too.

So there's already one very effective gating system in place, and that's the gating system I really use for them anyhow, but the tech books add a fake gating system that only affects new players or players who don't bother to go to the abandoned towns enough.  I think that one gating system is enough, honestly.

[relmz32]

I dont think profession books do anything useful in and of themselves right now.

I would like to clarify though, while they don't add anything useful by themselves, buildings need some kind of yellow room in them to make exploring buildings useful.  Also, needing to unlock spell levels would not fix things.  I just don't think they are that fun.

I would like some way to combine spells, and using crafting books for that could be interesting.  Or using them for crests would be fine as well.

We already have a system at the low levels for spell ingredients only appearing after some certain level, that could be used to limit access to specific spells by tier. ninja'd by Chris.

[KDR_11k]

I don't like how you can get all of them right from the start and just need to farm the right buildings until you have all spells, there's neither the impact of an ARS from AI War nor some sort of progression needed to get these.

[TechSY730]

Haven't played much of the game (), but I can say that the unlocking the recipe and then crafting the recipe reminds me of the silly licensing system of Final Fantasy XII. Not only did you have to buy a skill, you had to spend what were effectively skill points to use the skill. In other words, a very silly two step unlock process. Note, I don't have anything against two step unlocks, but one should STRONGLY thinkabout whether it is a good idea for a core, essential unlockable mechanic to be one. (IMO, most of the time it is not)

However, I will refrain from voting due to my ignorance of the game.

[eRe4s3r]

I actually think a lot about spells, and am going to post a LONG rambling post tomorrow about that, but for now lets just mention this

#) As KDR_11k correctly writes, you have to farm specific buildings (specific rooms even) which is 0 impact and 0 progression, it feels like mindless grind ;/

#) Even if we unlock all spells, finding the right 2 spell veins takes a long, long time of grinding through caves and follows again the same procedure, specific room in a cave.

#) Too much grind # The leveling up, aka, progression of the player strength is something that should never depend on grinding and luck.

Both gems (finding the right ones) and spell books however, do exactly that, require grinding and luck.

Somehow i think this means the spell system needs revising, but before the crest system isn't detailed fully i can't really say what rubs me wrong about the spells without shooting in the dark. But i think spells and their progression should become a lot less dependent on grind (and luck)

I guess i am being slightly off-topic ;P

Edit: Also, they are spell-books ;p 

[x4000]

eRe4s3r -- finding the right gems requires no grinding or luck.  Simply look at any gem's tooltip, and it tells you what region has a ton of them.  Then go to that region, enter the caves, and open your dungeon map.  Go to the gem room in question (there are six per cave), and you have a 3/4 chance of each one being the one you're there for.  It's pretty quick to pick up several.

At any rate, I'm not remotely considering general revisions to the way that the gems and such, and the general progression of player skill, at this time -- that's one of the things that seems to be working really well.  The only way it depends on luck is if you just go into random regions rather than the ones that actually give the gem types you're specifically looking for.

[mrhanman]

I say kill them.  The Ilari already gave you the knowledge of how to use magic.  It makes sense that they would also give you all the recipes.

[superking]

+1 ditch, I never felt it made any sense.