Surveying

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Surveying plays a key role in helping gatherers track down and identify resources that spawn in particular locations through the use of surveying tools.[1][2][3]

Surveying is something that we're trying to use for gatherers to really interact with the things that we want to do with our dynamic world... Surveying is a way that you can track that stuff down. It will help you find places, will help you find particular resources, will help you find resources at a certain rarity; and so it should be something you could do as a gatherer on your own, or group up with other people to bolster up the power of your survey, or the range or reach of it.[1]Kory Rice
  • Surveying can also identify the types of resources that spawn statically within an area and also provides information about the seasons and locations they spawn in.[2]
Surveying is a way that players can check out an area for resources. Players can learn where resources are that are static and that grow back in the same location; but we'll also have resources and Ashes that can spawn anywhere, so surveying will help players locate those those resources. So if they're looking for something specific they can hunt them down. Surveying will also allow players to uncover hidden resources that players wouldn't be able to see with their with their naked eye. Another thing that a surveying would provide is some of the information that we're talking about before, like for instance if you survey- and inside of your survey area there's plants, you might learn what season that plant likes to grow in. You might learn whether it likes to be watered during the winter versus how it likes to be watered in the summer.[2]Kory Rice
  • Surveying can help uncover hidden resources that are not visible to the naked eye.[2]
  • Artisan progression unlocks higher level surveying tools that enable better identification of gatherable resources within a location.[2]
    • Unlocking surveying pylons allows the gatherer to adjust the shape and extend the area of their survey.[2]
You'd work with a surveying tool; and you set the surveying tool down, and that tool would have a specific area in which it's able to uncover and extract information about the resources that are in the area. As a starting out gatherer you might end up with one of the tools, but as you as you progress and become more proficient with using the tool you might be able to set up additional pylons and extend the area of your survey. That allows you to start making shapes and having more strategic areas that you're surveying. If you could connect multiple pylons to create a shape, maybe you could follow the twisting caverns of the cave. Maybe if you're out in the open like we are here you could just try and make yourself a nice widened shape to scan as much of the area as possible. So it'll be up to the player to be tricky with their surveying tool to try and get the most efficiency out of their survey.[2]Kory Rice

Land management

Harvesting Oak Timber in Alpha-2.[4]

As you draw resources from your surrounding area- what type of effect does that have on the land; and then also how effectively can you draw those resources without having such a deleterious effect on the land, which might impact future resource gathering for some period of time: And it makes relevant the movement of these players who are collecting these goods from the environment, that they actually cannot always just do so in one particular area, as the land management begins to degrade. So it actually encourages movement across the world to discover new areas that might not be as perturbed as the ones you're coming from. It's a very interesting idea. It's something that we're going to be prototyping in Alpha 2 and getting feedback on and testing.[3]Steven Sharif

Land management mechanics are present for gathering artisans.[5][3]

It could be could be positive or negative, or both simultaneously. So the land health value ties into the health of a specific ecosystem; and the ecosystem can scale with different segment sizes of the world, or the world itself: A biome, maybe a node, maybe the player's freehold. And the things that a player does in those areas will contribute to health in a positive or negative way. So doing something like rotating your crops might increase the health of the land because that's considered something good to do; and maybe apprehending or removing poachers that are over hunting a certain species could be helpful to the health of the land. Maybe the mayor puts out a request for players to try and get rid of invasive species that are plants- maybe they're overgrowing weed and it's stopping other valuable plants from growing.[5]Kory Rice
There's a particular reason for why that inventory system is intended to exist within Ashes; and part of that is from the aspect of everything in the world is gatherable and there is a land management system that exists behind those gatherable things. The land management system takes into account how players are interacting with the environment: how many of the resources they're withdrawing from the world; and that decreases the spawn rate within certain localities as those things go too high. So there can be a degree of economic warfare by sending players out into zones where you want to mitigate collection of resources. You send your players out there to take all those resources and then that diminishes the land management score of that particular zone.[7]Steven Sharif

Resource tiers

Flanggler (Flower angler or Mimic flower).[8][9]

Resources will have differing tiers of quality for the same resource type.[10] This is somewhat similar to Star Wars Galaxies.[11]

You will have an opportunity to proc certain qualities based on your progression in the Artisan tree. So if you are a gatherer; and as you advance in your gathering, you'll have a higher opportunity to collect better resources.[13]Steven Sharif

Gathering tools

Crafting an apprentice herbalism gathering tool in Alpha-2.[14]

Different professions will have a number of quests available to introduce players to their first toolsets; and then, their toolset sustainability will be incumbent on the player to continue to gather the resources necessary to repeatedly create these tools, because they have a durability that gets expended when interacting with the resources in the open-world.[15]Steven Sharif

Gathering Halcyonite using a mining pick gathering tool.[16]

Each gathering profession will have three tools. The tools come online as you progress through the profession; and the different resource types for each one of the professions may require different tools. So, you basically want to carry around the right tool for the job. And tools along with artisanship gear will have stats on it, so you can itemize towards how you want to gather, how fast you want to gather.[16]Kory Rice

Gathering tools (also referred to as harvesting tools, artisan tools, and toolsets) enable the gathering of resources in Ashes of Creation.[16][17][18][19]

Tools do advance within the artisan tree, so your ability to either gather, process or craft will require the equivalent tools necessary at that stage of crafting in order to accomplish the task at hand. So, you could not mine copper and mithril with the same tool.[19]Steven Sharif
  • Tools will have durability and lifespans.[15][26][27]
    • The amount of usages of a gathering tool increases as the gatherer becomes more proficient in the gathering artisan tree.[26]
    • Tools may become non-repairable, requiring re crafting.[15][27]
  • Artisans will not need to rely on other trees in order to make their tools.[18]
  • The developers are considering the introduction of gathering tools that require two players, such as two-person saws that can fell larger trees.[25]
Your progression within the profession will take account what tools you can use. There might even be some opportunity to do some gathering with other players that . Typically in other games that I play you usually do the gathering alone. You're venturing around alone; and we wanted to take a look at maybe having a friend to help you with a two person saw on a larger tree. Maybe there's some panning that you could do as opposed to just hitting with the pickaxe. So, we'll have other tools that are part of that progression path and other activities that players can do if they would like to gather together.[19]Kory Rice

Artisan gear

Work-in-progress Alpha-2 character user interface showing three gear slots for artisan gear at the bottom right of the paper-doll.[28]

There's gear for all of the different crafting, gathering, and processing professions that'll help you do those different trades.[29]Kory Rice

Artisan gear boosts artisans in their gathering, processing, or crafting professions.[29][30][31]

  • Artisan gear and adventuring gear do not need to be swapped for either to be effective when they are equipped on a character, but players will be able to toggle gear visibility between their adventuring and artisan gear.[33][28][30]
If you want to be seen as wearing the herbalists outfit, you're still going to have your adventuring gear present and on the character, and benefiting from the stats that are conferred by them; and vice-versa.[33]Steven Sharif
Gear for artisans are going to live alongside your adventuring gear. So you will currently- the approaches, and we'll test this but currently- the approach is you'll have artisanship oriented gear. This might be beneficial for your gathering; it might be beneficial for your processing, or crafting, or whatever it is- your profession. Essentially you will craft that gear, you will equip that gear, it'll live almost as a undergarment slot so to speak; and then you can activate that and it will show the appearance if you wish during the activation when you gain the benefit from the from the gear itself; and then could disappear afterwards and go back to your adventuring gear. That's the current approach. We're going to play with that a little bit. There's some discussion and disagreement on the team about how we do that, but our hopes are for Alpha two, we will have I think a couple of sets at least. We're demonstrating all of the artisanship from gathering to processing to crafting in limited fashion in Alpha 2 want to have that gear present to play with this approach.[30]Steven Sharif

Artisan progression

Artisan progression.[34][35][36]
Artisan level Artisan certification Profession limit per character
1-10.[37][24] Novice.[34][38] 22.[34][35]
10-20.[39][24] Apprentice.[34] 5.[34][35]
20-30.[39] Journeyman.[34][36] 4.[34][35]
30-40.[39] Master.[34][36] 3.[34][35]
40-50.[39][40] Grandmaster.[34][36] 2.[34][41][35]

Artisan progression occurs based on experience (repetition of tasks) as well as achievements of certain benchmarks within each artisan branch (Gathering, Processing and Crafting).[43] Progression in each artisan profession is per-character.[44][45][46][47]

All 22 professions, the players get to be novice of; and then it starts narrowing from there. So, after that you'll only be able to be apprentice of five things. You can be a journeyman in four things. You can be a master in three things; and you can be a grandmaster in two things. So you'll need to narrow, but you can also diversify to support the professions that you want to first push further in.[35]Kory Rice
If you are grand master in that profession you can max out the entire tree. But you can only grand master 2 things.[54]Kory Rice
  • Choosing a specific path in the skill tree allows the player an opportunity to specialize in a certain area. This encourages player inter-dependency, enhancing the artisan experience.[56]
Q: In regards to character level and artisan level. We know that currently there are two separate things. That being said, what prevents a player from staying level one and partying up with a level 50 player to then gather level 50 resources in the high zones? That way, anyone who wants to take those resources will have to kill the gatherer who is level one and get a large amount of corruption for killing a level one as a level 50.
A: Gathering higher level resources requires significant advancement within a particular profession for that gatherable resource. So, if I'm a Miner and I want to access the highest possible mineral, I need to be a master miner; and in order to achieve the master minor status I am going to be gaining adventuring level experience through that process, because many of those quest lines, many of those achievements are facilitated through quest lines. Some of those quest lines interface with adventuring difficulties that are out in the wild at certain levels. So that's going to predicate me- that's going to be a predicate for me to achieve a certain level in order to complete some of these quest lines and achieve that master status. So you will you will likely not see the ability of a level one alt character having the access to high level mineral mining, or any other type of gatherable out there.[57]Steven Sharif

Timeline

Artisan classes (Gathering, Processing, Crafting) is expected to come online fully in Alpha-2 and the Betas.[61][62]

Crafting honestly will not come online in any sense of its true form until Alpha-2. Alpha-1 has essentially what are intended to be the core gameplay loop of crafting, meaning the collection of materials, the translation of those materials into processed goods, and the use of those processed goods into item acquisition. That's the core gameplay loop that is currently present in Alpha-1. But those are mostly facilitated piggy backing the merchant systems right now and not actually using the real crafting system; and that's because crafting hasn't been completed in a form that can be implemented in Alpha-1, but will be for Alpha-2. What's present in Alpha-1 doesn't even really scratch the surface for crafting.[62]Steven Sharif

Visuals

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Video, November 30, 2023 (28:22).
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Video, October 28, 2022 (10:52).
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Livestream, April 29, 2022 (25:16).
  4. Video, June 30, 2023 (21:05).
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Video, October 28, 2022 (14:33).
  6. Livestream, May 31, 2023 (42:06).
  7. 7.0 7.1 Podcast, July 15, 2023 (22:57).
  8. flanggler.png
  9. Livestream, November 17, 2017 (53:28).
  10. 10.0 10.1 Livestream, July 25, 2020 (1:04:50).
  11. resource quality.png
  12. 12.0 12.1 12.2 Livestream, April 30, 2020 (53:11).
  13. 13.0 13.1 Interview, October 20, 2018 (2:13).
  14. Video, November 30, 2023 (7:56).
  15. 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Video, November 30, 2023 (5:58).
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 16.6 Video, June 30, 2023 (3:14).
  17. Livestream, October 14, 2022 (32:38).
  18. 18.0 18.1 Interview, March 27, 2020 (9:00).
  19. 19.0 19.1 19.2 Interview, May 11, 2018 (38:25).
  20. 20.0 20.1 Video, November 30, 2023 (16:40).
  21. 21.0 21.1 Livestream, December 19, 2023 (1:53:02).
  22. 22.0 22.1 22.2 Video, October 28, 2022 (26:14).
  23. Podcast, December 3, 2023 (12:27).
  24. 24.0 24.1 24.2 Video, November 30, 2023 (9:36).
  25. 25.0 25.1 Video, October 28, 2022 (25:11).
  26. 26.0 26.1 26.2 Livestream, July 31, 2020 (1:05:58).
  27. 27.0 27.1 crafting tools.jpg
  28. 28.0 28.1 28.2 Video, November 30, 2023 (19:06).
  29. 29.0 29.1 Video, November 30, 2023 (5:47).
  30. 30.0 30.1 30.2 30.3 30.4 30.5 Livestream, June 30, 2022 (1:17:34).
  31. Livestream, March 26, 2021 (1:06:50).
  32. Video, November 30, 2023 (12:05).
  33. 33.0 33.1 Livestream, November 30, 2023 (1:37:49).
  34. 34.00 34.01 34.02 34.03 34.04 34.05 34.06 34.07 34.08 34.09 34.10 34.11 34.12 34.13 roshen-mastery.png
  35. 35.0 35.1 35.2 35.3 35.4 35.5 35.6 35.7 35.8 35.9 Video, November 30, 2023 (37:12).
  36. 36.0 36.1 36.2 36.3 Development Update with Freehold Preview.
  37. margaret-artisan-level-1.png
  38. Livestream, June 30, 2023 (50:07).
  39. 39.0 39.1 39.2 39.3 Podcast, December 3, 2023 (14:14).
  40. Podcast, December 3, 2023 (2:53).
  41. 41.0 41.1 41.2 steven-mastery-2-branches.png
  42. Video, November 30, 2023 (23:20).
  43. Interview, February 7, 2021 (36:38).
  44. steven-mastery-cap.png
  45. Livestream, April 29, 2022 (1:13:00).
  46. Livestream, July 26, 2019 (1:09:46).
  47. Livestream, May 24, 2017 (32:07).
  48. Podcast, December 3, 2023 (10:22).
  49. Video, November 30, 2023 (26:38).
  50. Podcast, December 3, 2023 (17:10).
  51. 51.0 51.1 Video, November 30, 2023 (36:00).
  52. artisan mastery5.png
  53. artisan mastery3.png
  54. 54.0 54.1 Podcast, December 3, 2023 (6:23).
  55. roshen-profession-clarification.png
  56. Livestream, May 10, 2017 (6:12).
  57. 57.0 57.1 57.2 Livestream, April 7, 2023 (1:00:55).
  58. Livestream, October 28, 2022 (1:32:38).
  59. Livestream, July 31, 2020 (1:31:11).
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  61. 61.0 61.1 Livestream, March 26, 2021 (42:28).
  62. 62.0 62.1 62.2 Interview, February 7, 2021 (35:30).
  63. Livestream, April 30, 2021 (41:18).