Crafting stations

Crafting stations (also referred to as Crafting benches and Workbenches) are workstations located on freeholds or within nodes.

• Crafting stations relate to specific nodes, areas, or buildings.
• Different tiers of crafting stations represent the quality of the items that can be crafted.
  • Higher tier crafting stations are unlocked with node progression.
  • Legendary crafting benches are present in the Academy unique building of Metropolis (stage 6) Scientific nodes.
  • Upper-tier crafting benches within a node are accessible by its citizens.
• Crafting stations can pull inventory from a player's personal storage and warehouse storage from the node that the crafting station is in.

• Crafting stations are distinct from processing stations, which are used to process raw materials into processed goods (crafting materials) at nodes or on freeholds.

Q: Can crafting stations be mobilized / moved and can they be placed anywhere in the world?

A: It depends on the crafting station. There are going to be different tiers of crafting stations that represent the quality of item you're looking to create within that specific profession. There's going to be crafting stations that can be utilized by players within their freeholds and then crafting stations that are resigned only to the development of particular nodes, within particular areas, or particular buildings... There's a wide variety of those things to make it a more dynamic experience and something that caveat how players decide to build the world and what the value of those things are. – Steven Sharif

List of crafting stations

• Blacksmiths

Crafting mechanics

First look at the work-in-progress Alpha-2 crafting UI by Colby Marchi.

This one is showing the base needs that we were establishing to get this system in-game and usable as soon as possible. So right now, our crafting does work in game and it's all functional and we're building out the functionality as we go to expand; and based on what we test. – Colby Marchi

The developers will be seeking testing feedback on the addition of a gameplay layer to crafting that determines the outcome based on the player's performance.

For example, if you're creating a sword, and you are crafting that sword, you will have an interface- a gameplay layer that you will see and you will begin to hammer actually that sword into an appropriate outline. And your performance there can help influence the outcome of that craft. – Steven Sharif

• It is likely that Star Wars Galaxies inspired crafting mechanics will be present in Ashes of Creation.

Without getting into too much detail I will say that it's likely that you will see some inspiration surface itself in that regard. – Steven Sharif

• Previously it was stated that repetitive skill-based crafting mechanics, such as mini-games, are not an intended part of the crafting experience.

We did discuss that type of a feature where the skill of the crafter would grant a greater window of skill-based type crafting. So the higher master level you have of crafting a certain item, the greater your potential to impact the quality of that item might be... The concern obviously that we have when going into developing this type of system is that we don't want what is a fun - you know for lack of a better term - mini-game to be something that becomes repetitive and kind of makes it monotonous... If when we start to flesh out the crafting system and we take a look at that interaction of melding crafting, the actual activity of making something, there is room in the design sheet for different iterations of that particular action; and we may see something come about that can be skill oriented, but that's something that's going to require a lot of testing and different iterations from a design standpoint. – Steven Sharif

• Players are able to specialize in focused crafting branches.

Recipes

Imposing Plate Belt recipe Alpha-1 screenshot. Image credit: Guild:Overlord

Crafting in Ashes of Creation is recipe (blueprint, schematic) based, not RNG based.

• There will definitely be rare recipes.

• Recipes that are obtained must be committed to a player's recipe book prior to that recipe being able to be used for crafting. This "consumes" the recipe.
  • Recipes can be traded or sold prior to them being committed into a player's recipe book.

• Within a crafting recipe, there are dials (based on artisan specialization) that are used to customize crafted items, such as:
  • Increasing one stat at the expense of another.
  • Making an item more magical versus more physical.

I think Star Wars Galaxies had a great crafting system... The resource gathering and the crafting system altogether as a whole really was I think way beyond its time. That's kind of the direction we want to go, where there's choices to be made in the crafting system and those choices change what you end up with... It's not just about doing X recipe to get Y item. You know, there's actually thought involved in it and there is you know a market to be captured based on those decisions. – Jeffrey Bard

The ability for players to create original recipes will not be present in the game at launch, but may be included at some point in the future.

• Crafting does not have mixing and matching (of arbitrary materials) in the manner of animal husbandry.

Crafted items

Crafting UI. Alpha-1 screenshot. Image credit: Guild:Overlord

Crafted items (also referred to as Finished goods, or Final products) are items produced by crafter artisans using crafting stations.

• Crafted gear is considered best-in-slot in Ashes of Creation.
  • Previously it was stated that crafted items will be on-par with boss dropped items.
  • Crafters will be able to assign different skills/abilities and stats on gear.
    • Master crafters will be able to influence several (but not all) stats on their crafted items.

Crafted gear in the game is the best gear... One thing that I'm not a fan of is that you develop a crafting system in a game and you've spent a lot of time making this from a material and resource perspective. All the tables that you can receive, all the connectivity in the economy and how crafting is associated with the game; and then you undermine the crafting entirely by presenting a separate route of gear acquisition that is on-par with the crafting efforts. So here you have these people who are acquiring all of the resources getting, all the recipes, leveling up their professions and then everything they make is less or equal to anything you could just have chosen the easier path of and gone down the questing and received the best gear. So what we do focus on is that crafters make the best shit. Excuse me, the best things. – Steven Sharif

• The rarity of crafted items will be commensurate with the effort required to gather, process and craft the items.
  • Stats on crafted items will vary based on the item's rarity.

That plays into our crafting system in and of itself. The idea is for those stats to be variables that can be kind of dictated based on the mastery level of the particular crafter; and the higher they become a master of those professions, whether it be for armor or for weapons or for accessories, they're going to have some agency and put their mark on essentially what items they're introducing into the economy. – Steven Sharif

• Crafters are able to influence what their crafted items will look like.
  • At the moment, harnessing corruption to warp items into demonic or decayed things is not on the cards.
  • A crafter's name is embedded in the items they craft.

We believe that every item that exists in the world should in some way reflect its creator. As such, there will be extreme versatility in our crafting system – giving crafters the ability to create unique items that represent their strengths and weaknesses.

Upgrading items

Enchanting is not an artisan profession in its own right. Scribes create scrolls that can be utilized by different professions to create enchantments relating to that profession.

• Enchantment scrolls can be sold on the open market.

• Enchanting does not increase an item's level requirement.

You don't really push a particular item's level requirement or the identity of that item. You can enhance it, you can add enchantments to it, but it's still the item it is. – Steven Sharif

• Enchanting weapons applies visual effects, such as glows and colors.

Repairing items

Blacksmithing concept art.

For example: if you have an iron sword and then the sword gets damaged from use, you have to use more iron to repair it; and what that does is... make sure that there's significant sinks in the game for base materials so that you are creating a scarcity and demand that's present on the creation of higher goods as well as supplying the necessary decay components for the world. – Steven Sharif

Item repair will cost crafting materials.

• 0% durability will unequip items, increasing its repair cost.
• Damaged gear can be reforged at a player stall using a portion of the materials that were necessary to craft the item.
• There may be additional constraints for repairing "very unique items", such as having a crafter and recipe to effectuate repairs. This is subject to testing.
• There is no limit to the number of times an item can be repaired.

There will be ways to repair destructible structures (such as walls and gates) and also repair (or re-craft) siege weapons that were damaged during sieges.

• This is a long term design goal that was not present during Alpha-1.

There's a lot of ancillary activities that can be had during sieges... It's obviously strategy and tactics and you know raid-versus-raid components, but also you want to have individual contributions where players can do things during the siege to aid in the greater effort so to speak; and it doesn't require you having 50 people by your side to effectuate that influence over something. So repairs are great ways to do that. Repairs for walls, repairs for gates, being able to spawn and essentially craft the designs for specific types of siege weapons to provide those to the team. – Steven Sharif

Crafting professions

• Arcane Engineering
• Armor smithing
• Carpentry
• Jewel cutting
• Leatherworking
• Scribing
• Tailoring
• Weapon smithing

Artisan progression

Progression within the artisan tree occurs based on experience (repetition of tasks) as well as achievements of certain benchmarks within each branch (Gathering, Processing and Crafting).

• 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.

When we reference not being masters of all that doesn't mean you're not a master within your own one of the three artisan types, which is you know crafter or gatherer, processor. You will be a master of one of those, you will not be master of the other two. – Steven Sharif

• Progression within artisan classes does not directly relate to progression in a character's adventuring class, but there are requirements that take into account dangers, locations, toolsets, and surveying options that are level dependent.
  • It is likely that characters will gain an amount of XP as they progress toward mastery of their profession, however it should be expected that some master artisans might be significantly lower than the level cap.

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. – Steven Sharif

See also

• Workstations
• Crafting
• Artisan classes