Which comes back to the issue of being a lesser gain for the settlement itself than manufacturing trade goods.
As far as the little unique items, they could make a nice levelling reward, or even a Dwarf Fortress “strange mood” type of thing.
Thinking of prototypes, it could be interesting to have some hidden recipes that need to be prototyped first, with a fail chance depending on the level of the crafter; it could kind of act like other games’ research.
I also agree with noghiri on levelling being far too quick.
Harder to unlock top tier things still wouldn’t be an issue for crafters, as their other goods would still be in demand for trade… especially if the higher level odd quirks added to various goods increase value… as they do in real life.
I agree with @Atreyu on the hidden recipes/prototype things – perhaps a crafter might find him/herself in a strange mood, and wander off into their workshop one day to try and invent something curious?
I still think that crafter training should come in the form of actual practice, not some arbitrary “training” action.
It’s also a matter of fitting in with the current mechanics - if training provides more experience than regular crafting, there’s no real reason to make a level 1 furniture item when you can just smash out a bunch of training and make a top level equivalent; if it provides the same or less experience, training becomes redundant for the same reasons I mentioned above.
Nice thought, would have to be well balanced otherwise the top tier wont be as rewarding. Possibly crafters of a higher level make more valuable items whilst “training”. Although I think the skill system shouldn’t be other done incase it draws away from other features, this is based on taste really. I think some awesome ideas could come of this !
I agree with 8bitcrab on training being more reasonable for combat and also agree with Atreyu and noghri on the fact that normal playthroughs level crafters enough without having to farm. Personally, I think the devs will stay away from a “grind” but still want a challenge for a worthwhile reward. Also the death of a citizen (A top crafter) should be a hard blow and not easily recovered from.
@Jimbob767 sums up my opinion quite nicely, with one exception.
I do not think training necessarily supersedes or fully replaces an apprenticeship situation – when practicing martial arts, you train on bags or a wood dummy but also under the tutelage of a far more experienced fighter… which speeds up your training in comparison to when someone is trying to learn it alone. More experience generally increases the ability of the teacher to teach, as well.
On the subject of training for combat units, what about a new class specifically for training?
It could have limited combat capacities, but be able to train other combat units more effectively than solo training; so when a combat unit works on a training dummy or an archery target, the trainer comes and interacts with them, increasing the rate at which they gain experience.
For combat units, it seems more fitting than apprenticing one on one.
Perhaps that could be the final evolution of the combat unit. the Grand Master, who exists primarily to train small groups of Hearthling footmen, and meditate. However, I disagree with making it totally combat limited – all the instructor grade martial artists I know
If we were to introduce a leader as opposed to a teacher the high end footman could buff men who are fighting along his side. Although this wouldn’t directly level the lower end footmen it would mean they are less likely to die. The same could go for crafts men, for example a higher blacksmith would mean lower smiths make things quicker or have a slight chance to use less metal on certain recipes etc. A miner who prospects the land making the chance to find ore more likely for lower miners. I’m not sure training would be as fun as seeing a positive increase in the workflow of your town. If you need to train your men progression will slow but if you have a top level guy progression will speed up. Again this all comes down to balancing though, don’t want to make that castle over night ← the variety in these emotes haha.
in regards to crafters and their leveling, i think a fair bit of it should boil down to the player being properly “incentivized”…
the player should have an incentive for ordering a given crafter to craft X number of Y goods… there should always be a reason for crafting any good, to be honest (from direct benefits to the more obscure)…
it may be something as subtle as “x% boost to happiness quotient when walking near a stone brazier after dark” or “y% boost to efficiency when farming within z distance of a birdbath”…
silly examples, but you get the point…
and i absolutely agree that a more robust trade interface would help address the stockpile surpluses, as i inevitably end up with a host of additional items i have no recollection of requesting previously… not to mention the loads of silk bundles that i will never get around to fully taking advantage of… might as well profit from all my workers hard labor!
The point of the limitation was a trade-off to discourage players from making all their units into trainers; I think the simplest way of doing this would be to make them quite slow, meaning they wouldn’t be able to respond to threats as effectively.
Otherwise, you have a unit that would presumably be quite dangerous in combat, that can also train other units - no downside means there’s no reason not to have an entire army of them.
Just for clarification, does that include military units? Because the way I see it, if they aren’t on patrol/lopping heads, they have nothing else to do, so training is speeding progress, not slowing it.
Perhaps make the training unit very slow moving, but do a lot of damage? I have an image of an old bald guy with a big beard and bushy eyebrows, wearing a simple tunic. A long-time practicer of martial arts who can do a lot of damage but can’t get to a fight quickly… and works best as a teacher of less accomplished units.
I dislike this idea,… it would simply make the game too easy…crafters do not eat materials, by training…you get…for example… a sword… note the game will take longer later on to play through…just allowing your crafters to autonomously grind/powerlevel…doesn’t seem like a good solution at all. I mean… it happens in df, but df obviously has more content… even if this is a valid solution it should wait… until we have a LOT more content to work with.
I agree that this should be added after more content, but surely with scenarios and ongoing randomness there will be enough content? suppose it’s down to balancing before release.
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← the variety in these emotes haha.
