Introduction to the CAN Professions

Everyone,

I'm going to be working on getting the gang total coverage in the professions. From what I can gather, the professions are mutually supporting--this means that your gang mates can help you advance, and vice versa. And it seems like you should be able help the gang w/donations of gear that you make (and the gang can improve the vault).

One tip that pichoss (I think it was him, anyway) came up with is to SELL YOUR HOUSE. If you do this, your training will be useless. However, your awakes replenish at a set rate (# of points), and your ability to train is directly related to your ability to stay awake. For higher levels, you drain your awake very quickly and it will take a long time to replenish. This may be painful for the really high levels--and you lose 7% of a lot of dough if you have an island chain . . .

What this means is that some people will be really good professionals but poor fighters and others will be needed to defend the gang (and will be poor professionals). Of course, there is the middle road, but for higher levels, it's not that attractive.

The first thing we need to decide is whether or not we want to get some bunnies back in the gang. If they are homeless, it doesn't matter. In all likelihood, the designers did the professions to give the bunnies something to do other than gather points--and they gave us something to do other than fight each other.

We still need to recruit lower levels for professions. L5 is required to get to Baliquasag, which was thoughtful. Otherwise, a gang could protect all its assets on the Loading Docks. . .

Another thing I've noticed is that the survivalist is the toughest profession right now . . . I can't even catch a shrimp.

I'm going to set up a page for each profession to discuss their progress. As you specialize, let me know, and I'll set up a page for each specialization. The gang goal is to have a specialist in each area.

I'm also going to set up a page that asks you to let me know which profession you are going to pursue. I'm going to propose to Aero that we give bonuses to those who go into professions that may not be individually satisfying--but that may really help the gang.

Mail me with questions, but please post discussion points here. My inbox is full enough! <grin>

A question was posted earlier about whether it was wise to sell your house. My answer?

That depends, but don't be a liability to the gang (get to the end of this message to see what that means).

The game has been the equivalent of a hack and slash. Sure, there were bunnies out there or folks who specialized in seamanship, but basically, you get awakes, you get points, you train up. At a certain level, everyone has the same items (basically) and everyone at the same levels have stats that are somewhat similar. In order to maintain your abilities, you needed the best house money could buy in order to train daily.

Here's the thing, though. When you train daily at a high level, it takes longer to regenerate awakes. This is not the case with energy or crime, which replenish based on a percentage from what I can tell (i.e. it takes ~5mins to get 25% energy back). I think the replenish rate on awakes is a set number, so the more awake capacity you have, the longer it takes to fill.

This was what kept the really high levels from being even more powerful than they are stats-wise.

Now that professions are here, there is a different track. If you sell your house, you can train in your profession multiple times. If you are homeless and have 5 awake, that replenishes in less than an hour instead of a day or more. Remember, awake replenishes at a set rate rather than by percentage. All the squawking heard earlier by the higher levels in the forums was because people didn't have this figured out (or they didn't apply it to professions).

Now, you have to choose between being a bad-ass pirate or helping bad-ass pirates with their gear (or being some hybrid).

The answer to the question "Should I sell my house?" is as follows: If you intend to pursue professions aggressively, you should sell your house. If you don't, you shouldn't. I think it would take (literally) years or a lot of RL money to have a Caribbean Chain, train, and gain levels in two professions. It would also take (literally) years, to have 5 awake, gain a ton of levels in professions and maintain bad-assability . . .

One thing is clear, though: if you sell your house, you should not level as long as you are competitive with people of a similar level. Don't be a liability.

Here's what I did. I trained until I could regular beat people my level or 100 levels higher (I'm level 640 or so). That means in a gang war, I'm not a liability. So now I could sell my house and work on the professions.

The same applies for our lower-level members. Nobody expects an L100 member or an L25 member to be able to take someone who is L200. So train until you can consistently (75% of the time) beat people of your own level--then feel free to sell your house.

That's my thoughts, anyway. Anyone else care to chime in?

Dang...ya covered it all. Very well put!