Would a profession system like this interest you in an OT server?

[Cygnus Server]

I've been working on a profession system for Cygnus and wanted to show how it currently works.

Cygnus has eight professions, for now:

• Alchemy: Creates potions and elixirs using herbs and other materials.
• Herbalism: Collects plants found throughout the map.
• Mining: Mines ore veins placed around the world.
• Blacksmithing: Turns ores into metal bars and uses them to create heavy equipment and weapons.
• Enchanting: Creates magical items such as wands, rods, rings, necklaces and special runes. These are not regular Tibia runes, but more powerful items created through the profession system.
• Skinning: Collects leather, hides, fur and similar materials from dead creatures.
• Leatherworking: Uses leather, hides and fur to create light equipment for vocations such as Hunters, Rogues and Feral Druids.
• Tailoring: Creates cloth and magical equipment, profession recipe scrolls, outfits and other items.

A player can have two active professions at the same time.

Professions can be changed whenever the player wants, but replacing one permanently resets its level and progress. This means players need to decide which professions they want to focus on.

Each profession has its own level and experience system, with a current maximum level of 150.

The level cap will be expanded through future updates as new areas, materials, creatures and recipes are introduced.

As the profession level increases, the player can gather rarer materials and create more useful and valuable items.



The system is also connected to the server economy. Profession materials and crafted items can be bought and sold through the market, allowing players to make money through gathering and crafting instead of depending only on hunting.

Most recipes are not learned automatically.

Recipe scrolls can drop from monsters as rare loot. The player learns a recipe by using the scroll, which permanently unlocks that recipe for the respective profession.

Recipe scrolls can also be traded and sold through the market. A recipe that one player does not need may still be valuable to another crafter.

There is a crafting interface where players can see their unlocked recipes and select what they want to create.

The interface currently shows:

• The recipes the player has unlocked;
• The required profession level;
• The required materials;
• Whether the player has the necessary ingredients;
• Whether the item can currently be crafted.

Profession levels are also displayed in the Skills window. This allows the player to check the level of every profession and see which two are currently active.



To learn a profession, the player speaks with its respective NPC and pays a fee of 250 gold. The profession then starts at level 1 and can be trained by gathering materials or crafting items.

The main goal is to make professions part of exploration, progression and the server economy, rather than having them exist only as an optional side activity.

For example, a player may find a rare recipe while hunting but need the help of another player who has the correct profession and level to craft it.

Gatherers can sell materials, crafters can sell equipment, and hunters can sell the recipes they find.



Do you like having gathering and crafting professions in an OT server?

Would you focus on gathering and selling materials, crafting equipment for yourself, or collecting rare recipes to sell on the market?

Which of these professions would you personally choose?


If you like what you see, please consider joining our Discord server. I’ll be posting more updates there, and we'll soon be looking for people to test the Alpha. I also set up English channels so everyone feels welcome!

Discord Link: Discord - Group Chat That’s All Fun & Games (https://discord.gg/9eHJsCccY)

 

[Berciq]

Do you like having gathering and crafting professions in an OT server?
I do love gathering and crafitng, but as an addition to my character

Would you focus on gathering and selling materials, crafting equipment for yourself, or collecting rare recipes to sell on the market?
gathering but not selling. crafting but to show off in house, collecting and hiding in depo bp or house xD

Which of these professions would you personally choose?
I would dislike that i'm obligated to choose and if i want to switch i loose all the progress. I would rather want to disable mining but keep progress if i want to play a little herbalism alchemist and if i don't like i would like to go back but to the point i switched not to begin from 0. There is option to transfer progress to new proffesion but i think it is pointless as probably it is not something you want to give in gameplay.

TL,DR:lol: I would rather try everything than have to choose two proffesions.


PS1: I would turn all other disabled proffesions red so you can see that having 2, disables others in skill window.
PS2: I made description to item when and who crafted it, and it is reeeeeeeeeeeeealy rewarding seeing you made it
PS3: Maybe when you turn proffesion level 100 you could start new proffesion?
PS4: If having more proffesions doesn't disbalance gameplay then i would allow players to have more ^^

 

[lukatxd]

I dont think reseting it would be a nice thing, and whats the way to train blacksmithing? Flooding the market with weapons à la skyrim?
I wanted to give you my opinion based on two games that I played a lot and had professions:

• Angels Online (I was invited by a friend, please dont laugh) and there were dedicated professions. Like, you had a tank, a few dps options, a healer and then: the cook, and the smith. IIRC smith could use a battle armor, and he would spend the time just gathering ores and creating items but I dont remember what difference the smith armors could make.
• Imagine Online, and what you could achieve was limited by a total points for your level, and then where you would grind/train those points, so you could have a defensive gunner that could synthesize clothes with dodge optionals, weird combination and far from optimal but you could do it. The thing is that having a lot of points in smith would leave you with few points in damage/whatever.

In AO I could roam the map and see all cool materials around, but could never pick them up because gathering was exclusive to smiths. In IO I could gather all the materials but could not make anything because I didnt spend points in that, but I could make money selling materials, and those who could make armors with lots of optionals would make A LOT of money back.
So in a way I think being allowed to level up all the professions at the same time is better, because I in real life can: cook, do woodworking, sew and code. It doesnt make sense if I decided to learn to play an instrument I would forget how to cook entirely.
Most players wouldnt even want to try secondary professions if its too much work for little return, or some return that would come too late in the game.
In my mind, having freedom to try things without having to create multiple characters/having a hard reset is the better option. But if you wish to restrict the professions, you could tie them as a secondary job for the vocations: Knights can mine, druids can enchant, sorcerers can... idk, paladins can tailor and skinning, etc.

 

[Cygnus Server]

@Berciq

I’m very happy to hear that you liked Cygnus' profession system.

Yes, professions are an additional feature for your character. You will not receive any penalties for not having one, and choosing a profession is not mandatory. It is simply another activity players can focus on instead of only increasing their character level.

I found your point about gathering being useful for making money, while crafting could also offer show-off rewards, very interesting. In the next round of profession system updates, I will take this into consideration and add rare decorative house items that can be created by the crafting professions.

Regarding losing your progress when changing professions, I understand your point. It can definitely be frustrating to be unable to change without such a significant penalty. However, Cygnus is heavily focused on replayability.

For example, a player who enjoys mage classes can choose between Druid, Sorcerer, and Priest. Let’s say you choose Sorcerer. At level 30, you can choose between two distinct promotions. You can focus on elemental damage and become a Master Sorcerer, or follow the summoning path, allowing you to summon elementals and arcane clones to fight beside you.

It is one vocation with two very different promotions that significantly change how the character is played. Because of systems like this, I expect many players to create more than one character in Cygnus, and that was one of the main considerations behind the profession reset.

For example, if you enjoy playing a Knight, Mining and Blacksmithing might make the most sense for that character, although this is not mandatory. You could then have a Druid focused on gathering plants and creating potions, and a Sorcerer with Tailoring and Enchanting.

I would prefer not to have “supreme” characters who are masters of every profession at the same time, since that would weaken the identity of each character and profession. Professions are inexpensive to learn, they do not require a specific character level to progress, and players can focus almost entirely on them if they choose to.

Regarding your PS points:

1. Yes, this prototype still needs some improvements. Displaying only the active professions may be better than showing all of them. My original intention was to clearly show players which professions exist and which ones they can choose.
2. I agree. Adding the crafter's name to an item is a great idea. Imagine a player becoming famous for their craftsmanship, with half the city using equipment made by them, haha.
3. The current maximum profession level is 150. This limit will be expanded as more content is released, giving everyone a fair opportunity to progress through the new levels. As for allowing players to begin another profession after reaching the maximum level, it relates to what I mentioned earlier: I think it would be less interesting if one character could eventually master every profession, since that would reduce the identity and specialization of individual characters.
4. I think two professions are enough because many of them naturally complement each other. Allowing every character to learn all professions could also flood the market with both crafted items and materials. It might also allow the market to become heavily monopolized by the strongest or most established players.

Thank you very much for your feedback!

Post automatically merged: Today at 03:42

@lukatxd
My original idea was basically that: the player would need to craft several items to level Blacksmithing, similar to Skyrim, but hopefully with far fewer iron daggers, haha.

For Blacksmithing, I think repetition makes sense because the character is practicing and improving their craft. Making the same item several times would train the profession and eventually make the player capable of producing more difficult equipment.

Regarding what happens to all those training items, they can simply be sold to NPCs. Items commonly used for leveling would probably become very cheap on the market anyway, so selling them to other players might not be worthwhile. Still, the actual effect on the economy is something that can only be properly evaluated through testing. If it becomes a problem, the experience values, material costs, NPC prices, or the number of items required can be adjusted.

About the games you mentioned:

Angels Online reminded me a little of Ragnarok, grafic-wise. From what I understood, the profession worked almost like a main class: you could be a Knight or a Smith, rather than being both at the same time. Is that correct?

In Cygnus, you have your regular vocation plus two professions. For example, you could be a Knight who explores a cave, kills monsters, mines the ore veins found along the way, returns to the city, smelts the ores, and then uses them to craft weapons and armor. I think combining combat and professions this way makes the gameplay more dynamic.

I had not heard of Imagine Online either. From your explanation, it seems to provide much more freedom when building a character, although investing in one area reduces what you can invest elsewhere. Did I understand it correctly?

I found that system interesting, but my goal for Cygnus was to create something intuitive and not particularly complex. That is also why I focused on making the profession interface easy to understand. The general idea is to collect a relatively small number of ingredients and craft items through a straightforward system.

I understand your point about gathering. In Cygnus, a character can be a Miner and Herbalist at the same time. Gathering professions are also different from crafting professions because their resources are visible throughout the map. You can explore the world while collecting plants and mining any ore veins you find.

You can then transfer those materials to another character who specializes in crafting potions, weapons, or armor. Character level does not directly limit profession level, so even a low-level character can focus heavily on Blacksmithing. However, that character would still need the materials, recipes, and time required to actually train the profession. The level 1 character would not instantly become a master simply because another character gathered the resources for them.

I also liked your comparison between learning an instrument and knowing how to cook. In the future, I plan to add secondary professions such as Archaeology, Cooking, Fishing, and First Aid. These would be separate from the main profession limit, so a character could learn all of them.

My main concern with allowing every character to master every primary profession is that the professions could lose some of their identity. It could also result in a much larger supply of both materials and crafted items, making specialization feel less valuable.

There is also a possible economic concern. A strong and established character usually has more speed, better access to dangerous areas, and more resources. If that same character can gather everything and craft everything, they may have a considerable advantage over players trying to specialize in only one part of the economy. I cannot say for certain that this would create a monopoly, but it is something I would like to avoid.

That said, I think there are two separate decisions here. Limiting a character to two active primary professions is important to the identity I want for the system. Completely deleting all profession progress when changing one of them is a different matter, and based on the feedback here, that is something I may reconsider or make less punishing.

Does this reasoning make more sense to you?

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your experience and feedback!