Profession

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The player can practice all kinds of gathering and crafting professions by gathering and crafting most of the items in the game, but players can only gather the rarest resources and craft the best items if they focus on one gathering profession and one crafting profession.

In Corepunk, the profession system is used to keep track of a player's Gathering and Crafting skills. There are 8 professions in total, each one specializing in a different resource or item.

Gathering

See: [[Gathering]]

There are 4 different gathering professions:
Butchery
Herbalism
Logging
Mining

Progress bar for Herbalism. The item has not yet been identified.

To begin gathering a resource, a progress bar will appear. For the resource to drop from the node:
The progress bar must reach the end.
The item must be idenfitied.
The gathering attempt must not fail.

This process repeats until no more gathering attempts can occur at a resource.

Crafting

See: [[Crafting]]

There are 4 different gathering professions, all with very different mechanics:
Alchemy
Construction
Mysticism
Weaponsmith

Most items must be crafted at their profession's respective Workbench, or at the Synthesis machine. Using a workbench, crafting requires a recipe. However, the synthesis machine doesn't require a recipe. As a result, items are crafted using it are more expensive to craft. The synthesis machine can also be used to upgrade skins you have by adding upgrade kits and, optionally, some additional resources to increase the chances of acquiring rarer skins made with different materials.

Items have two main judgements of satus: tier, and quality. They are very similar and have different implications on the crafted item depending on the profession.

Tier

See: [[Tier]]

Tier 1 items are crafted from gathered resources only. Subsequent tiers are crafted using items from the previous tier in addition to rarer gathered resources.
In general, an item's tier represents how good its primary stats are.

Quality

See: [[Quality]]

There are five possible qualities of a crafted item: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary.
In general, an item's quality represents how many secondary stats there are. Most crafted items are of common quality, but there is a small chance of an item being of a higher tier.

Progression

Players can progress their professions by doing activities related to the profession. By doing this, players gain Experience for both their Character and the related profession. Upon gaining profession experience, 2 metrics change: Efficiency, and Mastery Level (not to be confused with Weapon Mastery).

In general, increasing efficiency usually increases the chances of getting better items, whereas increasing mastery level usually increases base stats (e.g. number of gathering chances).

Efficiency

See: [[Efficiency]]

"In terms of game design, we’re not always advocates of rigid distinctions. More often than not, we favor mechanics where there is a choice, and that choice has both positive and negative consequences."

Artificial Core's design philosophy includes the idea that in-game decisions are not clear-cut. Efficiency is an example of this.

A higher efficiency means:
A higher chance of gathering rarer resources.
A lower chance of failing the collection of a resource.
A higher chance of crafting items with higher Gear score. 100% efficiency on the corresponding profession is required for this to take effect.
Access to a profession-unique bonus which affects gameplay. Upon reaching level 40, 100% efficiency on the corresponding profession is required.

To increase efficiency in gathering professions, players must gather resources corresponding to the gathering profession they want to increase.
To increase efficiency in crafting professions, players must craft items with a gear score high enough for the current mastery level of the corresponding crafting profession.

However, 100% efficiency is shared among the gathering professions, and a different 100% efficiency is shared among the crafting professions. Therefore, upon increasing the efficiency of one profession, the efficiency of the least-used profession of the same type decreases in tandem.

Mastery Level

See: [[Mastery Level]]

There are three distinct mastery levels:
Beginner
Advanced
Master

A higher mastery level unlocks:
The ability to gather higher tier resource nodes.
Additional gathering chances.
A higher chance of finding a resource.
A profession-specific bonus to crafted items.

Unlike efficiency, mastery can never decrease.