Guilds are more or less balanced so far. But there are some significant flaws still:
- We have only 1 guild for increasing carpentry (hard metal rivets). Meanwhile, with the current forestry system it might be worth to add new guilds for carpentry + corresponding stat (dex, int). It could be an expensive guild that would require mammoth tusks, for instance. Like ivory pin.
- Farming is becoming more vital as the world progresses. Consider adding more guilds for farming to open 3rd slot for the clothing with farming (farming+cooking+dex combo). It could be an expensive guild that would require silk/something rare like foul notes.
- Consider making the Perfect Hole a guild. Easy and cheap content.
- The perception guilds do not have either MM or UC intersections. Meanwhile, hunters and archers need a guild that would give both mm+perc most.
- Surprisingly, charisma is the hardest guild to make due to the cost (silken ribbon requires silk / precious details require gold or silver). And it is the most needed one by the noobs that struggle to get high charisma for trade travels. Consequently, this affects the trades as well. Consider implementing cheap charisma guilds. It could be something related to boar tusks, moose antlers (like deer's antlers used for healing, bear tooth used for str and etc.). Animal products should have higher input.
- Intelligence the most high-cost guild as well (precious details, silken ribbon, foul smoke). However, it is needed less by the people who can afford to make the int. guilds. Consider adding lower-cost int. guilds for the noobs.
Meanwhile, the situation with clothing is much worse. Sometimes it feels like an absurd:
- There are 13 clothing types that provide sewing affinity. Heraldic items like tabard and heraldic cape give only the sewing affinity which is extremely weird for the clothing that is more suitable for battlefields. Additionally to the harness of making paintings and getting sketches, the capes are hard to gild for battle stats. Most of the people start wasting their exp after opening 2-3 slot on their items. Consequently, you won't see armies with uniforms or custom-made imagery on their capes.
-12 clothing types for charisma affinity, while the charisma guilds are expensive on their own (silken ribbon, precious details). Most of the hats provide charisma only, while the cost for them might be really high (cylinder hat). Chieftain's hat, Cylinder hat, LS hat, Merchant's hat provide charisma affinity only.
- 8 types of clothing that give agility. Only 4 of them suitable for gilding for PvP (leather coat, kozukh, ranger boots, leather boots). Fox hat, rabbit's slippers, fur boots, lynx capes are better to be replaced by actual armor.
- 7 types of clothing provide stealth affinity. It is quite a useless thing to gild for someone engaged in PvP (assuming you'd need stealth for hiding your scents). None of the gilds that provide stealth actually intersect with battle stats. Having something like mc+stealth, or ua+stealth and etc. could make it more usable in fighting gear. Items like ranger's pants, shirts, capes and etc. are way too expensive and not worth to invest, if you would like to open more gilding slots.
- Battle-stat affinities look quite bad in comparison to the previous stats: only 3 types of clothing that provide MC affinity (2 of them are quite expensive as well); 0 for unarmed combat, 0 for marksmanship, only 2 for str (1 of them is the bear cape that won't be used in battles), 8 agility (4 of them unusable in fights), 0 for constitution, 1 for perception.
- Meanwhile, there is only 1 clothing type for upgrading smithing, 2 for carpentry, 1 for cooking, 0 for int (bad for the noobs), 0 for dex.
So, we have some clothing affinities set way too high while having none of other stats and skills. The most neglected skills are carpentry, smith, and the marksmanship. The most neglected stats are constitution, dexterity, perception, and intelligence. Some things like stealth are detached from the battle stats and skills, which shouldn't be the case at all. Some gilds are too hard to get by the ones who need them while being unneeded by the people who are developed enough to make them (most of the guilded clothing sold on the market are leftovers from people's crafts. If you won't bother to gild the charisma gilds for yourself, there is a little chance for you doing it in purpose for the market). The battle gear could more more diverse and interesting in terms of choosing stealth or ranger path and etc.
Sidenote for recycling the gear:
From my experience, it is better to not to recycle the stuff you are making. The benefits are quite low, while you could just sell the leftover on the market. Imho, the chances of opening the second slot and etc. after recycling should be higher.
Google Doc used for the analysis:
