A suggestion

[SHOPlanB]

There was an MMORPG I played about 13 years ago that had a fantastic system for both crafting and professions. There were 32 professions total and you could master 2 and still have points to dabble in others. Obviously, 32 wouldn't work here but if it was toned down to say 10-15 that might work. The number would have to be adjustable based on the professions. What was nice about the system was that there were hybrid professions that in order to master you had to fill one tree of a skill box and perhaps fill a lower leveled skill tree. For instance, to become a commando (hybrid profession) you had to master marksmen which was a set of skill trees that comprised of pistols, carbines, rifles and what they called Combat XP. You also had to take a tree up to the max in brawler (which was a set of skills composed of unarmed;which was needed for commando, polearms, and mauls along with Combat XP). Combat XP a huge gate in term of progressing too fast which was what was great. You'd get all your 3 basic skill trees maxed, and by that time, the final combat XP box was almost filled so you had to grind just a bit more. This whole process took the average player about 1 month. They also had it so that you could surrender skills and learn other ones instead. So if you got bored with being an armorsmith, you could drop it and pick up rifleman, with the understanding that you were starting a grind yet again. I'm sure this could be adjusted to fit the game stages. They also had crafting which was absolutly amazing. There were a plethora of resources that were gathered from ores to gems to flora to fauna and all had a part in crafting as certain professions required them. Chefs and doctors and combat medics all needed flora and fauna to make their items which in turn, enhanced the game for the players via food,medinces and poisons and diseases. The armorsmith and weaponsmith needed their ores, gems, gases and such to make armor and weapons to equip the players. It was a natural progression. What made it special was the way resources spawned. You couldn't get every one thing right off the bat. They spawned in phases, and different locations with different qualities that affected each profession's use. And they were there for a roughly set period of time (usually 2-3 weeks IRL). So you didn't see the gear that REALLY made the difference in both PvP and PvE until almost a year plus into the game. Again the time frame could be scaled to fit the game. For proffessions, specialization was key there, just like it seems the vision to be here. Shouldn't be hard to balance the aspects of SP and MP in terms of professions so that a person on single player could easily do what a group does in multiplayer but at a slower aspect because he'd learn his proffessions, make what he wanted and then have the ability to drop those professions and try something different.

Here's some suggestions for "professions" that would seem to make sense in an apocalypse

 

Tailor leads to Armorsmith leads to Weaponsmith : Tailor fixes and makes clothes. Through this, he learns to sew on leather strips there by starting to become a armorsmith. The armorsmith needs to make sure his armor is up to snuff, so he starts experimenting to see how it stands up by using weapons that he has to make thereby starting the WS trade.

 

 

Scout leads to Chef leads to Medic : Scout checks out the surroundings looking for things to gather like food resources and plant based resources to in order to craft the foods that will give buffs. Being outdoorsy you learn to keep healthy through nature's bounty so starts the medic tree.

 

 

Scrounger leads to Tinkerer leads to Builder : The scrounger scrounges around finding all sorts of goodies. After getting his little stash, he starts to tinker around by building things. As he progresses, he becomes better and better and finally becomes quite skilled at building.

 

 

Street Brawler leads to Tactical Genius leads to Weapon Expert : Basic street brawler knows how to go toe to toe with the best of em and will learn you in the art of street fighting. As he continues his beatdowns he gets smarter about it. Studying the enemy, learning his moves. Learning the art of stealth and ambush...death from afar or death in your face is the final outcome from this master of melee, this ranged Ragnarok.

 

 

 

Nerd to Genius to Professor : He knows things. Like basic chemistry. He knows how to identify rocks. As he experiments with things, he gets smarter. Now we're talking advanced chemistry. Gas. Gun powder. Things that help the WE make things go boom! He even knows how to build vehicles.

 

 

 

Hayseed to Green Thumb to Farmer : Pretty easy to figure this one out.

 

 

These are the professions I came up with for now. By giving a bonus to said professions abilities, that'd make the investment pay off. For instance, the chef could craft something that anybody else could, but you'd get a bigger bonus off the buff be it in terms of strength or length of time than a non chef made. The weapons expert could get a bigger damage multiplier with weapons than could the professor. Again, by having enticing choices, decisions become more difficult. Are you going to become a chef so you can get a bonus to what foods you make? Are you going to become the WE so that your a one man army?

Give enough skill points so you can master a profession, and dabble 3/4 of the way fully or spread out amongst the other ones. Add in some risk/rewards to each profession also. If you're repairing a weapon and your not a WS, there's good chance the repair might fail rendering your weapon useless. If you're making a complex food item, if your not a chef, you run the chance of getting food poisoning. You're trying to fix your armor but your not a AS? Quality degradation and possibility of it being a fail. You wanna play farmer in the dell but your a crack shot? You might run the risk of crop failure or diminished harvests.

 

This is just a suggestion. If it sparks a discussion, that's great. If its just glossed over, that's fine too. But at least its out there now.