[2020] Changes to Crafting...

These values are based off the partially implemented values that went up on Test day 1 with as global profession based proc rate.
Over the past few days on Test we have changed it to a recipe based proc rate, so baseline recipes within a profession can have different proc rates, and we have been tuning the rates / finding recipes we missed with each Test update. (Ideally on vessels now you should see a 1 in 7ish rate)
As you craft more within a profession you will see more souls, those can be used to upgrade disciplines or upgrade belts.

The goal with this was to match the gameplay to the activity type to the advancement model; ie crafting gives you crafting advancement, harvesting gives you exploration advancement, combat gives you combat advancement. Once we have the proc rates tuned, it should just feel every few end item crafts you get a soul.
Which leads into...
The Belts stats are still in flux and have a quality upgrade path as well based on souls, which lets you choose between upgrading disciplines / belts. More than likely we won't enable the Belt uprade recipe until 6.300 however.

Those passives are part of the 6.300 belt progression, but it not a bad idea to have a few shrines available in the open world for those who haven't progressed as far.

The souls are essentially "crafting xp" if you look at it from a mechanical viewpoint. Craft something = chance to gain currency to make you better at crafting. When you reach the top of the progression tree, you can still use souls to sell or give to guildies to twink them. (tradeable crafting xp)
The largest complaint we have seen over the course of the project has been "I just have to wait to get better". With this model you can advance at your pace / guilds pace and aren't gated by the passage of time, but gated more by resource acquisition.

Well that is because combatants and harvesters act more as faucets and the crafters turn the resources from those faucets into sinks to be used to harvest/acquire more resources.
Advancement mechanics for crafting are pretty standard in any MMO, go harvest a bunch of stuff, make low level stuff to raise stats, make slightly better stuff to raise stats, make even better stuff to raise stats, etc. Pretty much the only thing slowing anyone down is how fast they acquire resources.

That would negate the purpose of them being progression items. If everything of value unlocks instantly, there really isn't any progression. After the proc rate tuning we have done already, ideally it shouldn't be too hard to get souls. (We will keep tuning as we identify specific professions with issues.)

Alternate way to get to AtD is the first belt upgrade, I will go ahead and enable the belt upgrade recipe so you can at least get to the rare belts in 6.200 if you want a different route to get the passive. Epic belts may not be ready in time, we will see.