Crafting Engine Over Haul

[Sendo]

I like crafting just as much as the next person but this Dragontouch armor is not crafting it’s more like playing the lotto. Would be nice to see a “real crafting” engine in the game. Where you can pick 1 of the following: Skinning, Gem cutting, potion making or Ore mining and start working on mastering your crating skill. Make it so you can start crafting at lower lvls too i.e. starting lvl 4. By having the ability to start early would give the game a entire new look and feel to the game. The shroud is a nice start but even that does not feel like crafting. Like I said I think the crafting engine needs a new over haul to make crafting in the game better. Well, what your thoughts?

[negative]

If we were going to go this route, I'd rather see DnD style crafting (feats and all) rather than generic MMO crafting.

[Aspenor]

For the sake of balance, I'd rather see "instance based" crafting.

I'd also like to see them ignore the XP costs for crafting, as I find these costs prohibitive in PnP, and prohibitive pre-cap in DDO, and frivolous at cap in DDO.

I ignore the XP cost to craft when I DM a tabletop game, and it works fine, so it wouldn't break the game for Turbine to do it.

[negative]

For the sake of balance, I'd rather see "instance based" crafting.

I'd also like to see them ignore the XP costs for crafting, as I find these costs prohibitive in PnP, and prohibitive pre-cap in DDO, and frivolous at cap in DDO.

I ignore the XP cost to craft when I DM a tabletop game, and it works fine, so it wouldn't break the game for Turbine to do it.

I agree re: the xp cost, it would be either be pointless or excessive. Heck, I'm not even sure 'by the books' crafting is the way to go, but I'd prefer it over the OP.

[Baltire]

If we were going to go this route, I'd rather see DnD style crafting (feats and all) rather than generic MMO crafting.

Unfortunately, IMO, to add the feats and skills needed to do most PnP based crafting NOW, would almost be unfair to the people who have been playing from the beggining of the game, UNLESS there was a free skill respec that was put in along with it....

I'm not asking for either of these, just my opinion on the way to do it fairly if it was ever thought of to be done.

[Impaqt]

We dont have Crafting in DDO.

We can make our own Raid (And Psuedo Raid loot since SOrjek isnt a Raid) Loot.

The Random armor is terrible. Its like Turbine got to their Deadline and said "Hey, we need this done in 3 days, Why dont we just take a whole bunch of effects we already have and throw a random roll into it to see what they get!"

The Crafting is one thing that I realy like in LoTRO. Its something to do besides kill kil kill all the time.

Seems to me Turbine could incorporate the Crafting into the Enhancment system somehow. That would certainly allow many, if not everyone, the opertunity to craft or not regardless of thier feat selections.

[ArkoHighStar]

We dont have Crafting in DDO.

We can make our own Raid (And Psuedo Raid loot since SOrjek isnt a Raid) Loot.

The Random armor is terrible. Its like Turbine got to their Deadline and said "Hey, we need this done in 3 days, Why dont we just take a whole bunch of effects we already have and throw a random roll into it to see what they get!"

The Crafting is one thing that I realy like in LoTRO. Its something to do besides kill kil kill all the time.

Seems to me Turbine could incorporate the Crafting into the Enhancment system somehow. That would certainly allow many, if not everyone, the opertunity to craft or not regardless of thier feat selections.

the problem with going the enhancement route is the availibility of spare action points. What we need is a whole seperate set of action points or crafting points to build a crafting build on the side somehow

[negative]

the problem with going the enhancement route is the availibility of spare action points. What we need is a whole seperate set of action points or crafting points to build a crafting build on the side somehow

With where the game is at now (or heck as combat focused as its always been), a separate set of crafting points on the side might be the best way to mimic something vaguely similar to pnp crafting.

[Missing_Minds]

For the sake of balance, I'd rather see "instance based" crafting.

I'd also like to see them ignore the XP costs for crafting, as I find these costs prohibitive in PnP, and prohibitive pre-cap in DDO, and frivolous at cap in DDO.

I ignore the XP cost to craft when I DM a tabletop game, and it works fine, so it wouldn't break the game for Turbine to do it.

While I agree that in PnP, the xp debt is rather very annoying. But in DDO... shesh, xp is so freaking easy to get, I'd not only keep the "cost" but ramp it by character level, or at least have a better ratio for the item created than what by the book cost value.

[Aspenor]

While I agree that in PnP, the xp debt is rather very annoying. But in DDO... shesh, xp is so freaking easy to get, I'd not only keep the "cost" but ramp it by character level, or at least have a better ratio for the item created than what by the book cost value.

Then why would you ever craft pre-cap?

It's not that it's hard to obtain XP, it's that mechanically speaking, XP is pointless to use as a currency for crafting.

[Missing_Minds]

Then why would you ever craft pre-cap?

It's not that it's hard to obtain XP, it's that mechanically speaking, XP is pointless to use as a currency for crafting.

Because say.. you wanted a particular item, or you got a armor that you wanted to modify to say.. change from puke green leisure suit to some rocking black goth skull heavy metal look. Also, baring DDO... where is there a cap? There isn't. Now also, don't get the wrong idea. if the book said it would cost 50 xp, I'd make the cost something like 500 to 5000 or something. Low level character rarely ever crafted unless they were doign something like crafting their own arrows. (I don't think that took xp. I could be wrong.)

Why is XP pointless to use? That is something I don't quite get. In PnP, for me I saw it as a way for a DM to not have to make up a reason why player A couldn't make that ring of uberness that he wanted and the DM, being a jerk, wouldn't let him have. Why? the cost to the player's character's own uberness.
But as a non irked player, I always considered crafting to be a 3 (or 4) part system.

1. materials. You have to have something to make something. Even with magic. (energy conversion if you want to claim other wise.)
2. knowledge. This comes in the form of XP. (let alone the proper feats) Most of crafting in PnP was based about creating magical things, hence I always saw the XP cost as part of the cost to enbue that time with energy, your essence as it were.
3. Gold. This pays off the use of tools, rent, random common materials, etc.
4. Time. This is the debatable one as some systems "boom", you are done.

[Tuney]

Well I don't think they should remove that penaltiy. Means you have to think about what you are crafting and not just get the best you can then do it for the next item slot.

[Pyromaniac]

Charging xp to craft would be a great idea. It would give meaning to xp again. Only issue to deal with would be having to remove the penalties for doing the same quest multiple times.

[ArkoHighStar]

Charging xp to craft would be a great idea. It would give meaning to xp again. Only issue to deal with would be having to remove the penalties for doing the same quest multiple times.

Xp already has meaning to those who do not have 6 capped characters, and while many of us do, you have to create a system , that is


Usable at all level ranges
Does not penalize non capped characters


Weapons, armor and items, are basically all screwed in terms of a useful crafting system, because in order to make crafting useful, you would have to be able to craft something more powerful than a dual shard tier 3 weapon/item or DT armor, which most people agree just will not happen. Theonly thing crafting will be good for is crafting consumables, like wands, scrolls, potions, clickies to boost weapons, arrows etc.

In order for it to be viable, you would have to remove all scroll, potion and wand vendors, above say the Rusty Nail. The you would replace them with crafted items in the AH. Prices would be controlled by demand, and the fact that somebody will always undercut your price to sell some scrolls. ingredients could come from loot deconstruction and collectibles.

Clerics

spell scrolls
spell wands
potions
one use clickies


Casters

scrolls
wands
weapon enhancing clickies(use clicky weapon in hand gain icy burst for duration of quest)
one use buff clickies


Fighters

enhanced repair shop
ability to remove perm damage
hardening weapons
armor enhancements make +1 into +2 etc


Rogues and Bards

skill enhancement potions or one use clickies
potions and scrolls(cheaper but with chance to fail due to the fact it was created via UMD)
bard song clickies(magically recorded music)
flasks like the sun flask, but ice, fire, holy water, etc
poison clickies to temporarily add poisons to weapons


These are just rough thoughts, but using a crafting action point system, whereby you spent points to be able to either specialize in say scrolls, or be less effective but do both scrolls and potions. Spend more points in your scroll speciality, and you get more scrolls for a given amount of ingredients etc.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I agree that XP debt doesn't work in a world where you keep grinding at cap XP so XP is virtually free. I don't want a grindfest typical MMO system either. So how about we look to the D&D alternate rules for craft point based crafting:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/craftPoints.htm

Basically everyone gets a supply of craft points as they level. They can either make a bunch of small stuff, or one uber thing, depending on their needs. They can also use their points to assist another in making something.

While the exact craft point formula would probably need refinement, the concept is sound. It allows people to craft, but puts a fixed upper limit on how much they can craft, and that means you can let them build what they want without creating any real balance issues, especially if you made the completed items bind on equip.

For those who don't want to craft, or classes where crafting doesn't make sense, you could even allow them to package up the craft points they have earned while levelling and make them tradable/sellable to simulate the "assist" feature (and you could bar sales/trades of less points than say what a L5 char would have to prevent mule points from being sold)

It's a nice little compromise...

[Missing_Minds]

Charging xp to craft would be a great idea. It would give meaning to xp again. Only issue to deal with would be having to remove the penalties for doing the same quest multiple times.

Actually I really really wish they'd remove that aspect of the game. Just because we may run the quest more does not necessarly mean it gets easier. I mean they removed the xp death penalty, but kept this.
Yes, XP is easy, BUT should the "you have run this quest to many times".... I find it can hinder the game more than help it.

I'm of the opinion that there should be no penalty for running a quest X number of times in total. Ever. Instead, treat the XP like chest ransacking. If you run a quest, once a day, no penalty. 2 twice? Start taking a penalty. 3 times? Start taking more of a penalty. For every time you run it in a day, you must wait one day to receive full xp again.

What would this help to do? You know all of those players who have been here a long time? It would make them less hesatant to reroll as they could level faster in this method to get back where they once were (level wise) Heck, they already know the quest so big deal. Granted, should this happen, I'd make crafting xp cost go up a bit more also, but that is just me.

[rimble]

I play alot, but I'm not very uber. I've had a 16 Drow Sorc for a while now and never bothered getting him anything nice. Even with just normal chest drop junk he can solo the Vale and Reaver's Refuge explorers to replenish cash (slowly) when I need him to. However, after struggling through Stealer of Souls with a (great) group, I decided to buckle down and work on setting him up right.

So, of course I had just defeated SoS, so I went to get armor. Being a Drow, I figured I'd try the Leather and then maybe try my hand at getting a little AC on this guy. Sure, he won't be able to stand there and tank, but it'll help from all the random hits when I'm out soloing for loot.

By the time it came to use the runes I had 3 Eldritch, 1 Tempest, and 1 Sovereign and about 120 dragon runes. I was actually pretty excited about FINALLY getting a piece of 'high end' gear. This was going to launch me ahead to the next tier of gameplay and totally reshape how I think about my gimpy squishy Sorcerer.

Yeah, until I crafted the stupid thing...got Greater Resists twice, +1 Int skills...I forgot what else...nothing at all even vaguely useful...it thrust me back into being disenfranchised with the whole thing.

Of course I've read about the whole lottery thing, but after going through it, after seeing that tiny glimpse of hope of finally getting a nice piece of equipment just to be teased by it all has left me very disappointed. I think I'll just stick to the Shroud, I can at least envision a finite goal reached there, whereas I could be rolling on this stupid Dragontouched armor for all eternity.

That's just a long way of saying the Shroud, at least, is okay-ish. The Dragontouched system I do not like.

I think it's too late to introduce a full-fledged traditional crafting system. The 'find stuff and combine in an altar' works well enough, however I'd like to see it more generally accessible outside of specific quests. I'd like to see ingredients for various things drop anywhere in level appropriate content, and you could then go to the Stone of Change to craft something. That way we can play the game more, rather than run the same few quests over and over and OVER...in my opinion, that is by far the crafting systems greatest failure...

[~mazrad]

I personally would love to see more crafting in DDO. (and I really do not feel like the shroud or refuge is crafting, one is a mess with all the "possibilities" being posted by other players, who, although I appriciate the hard work they do, get it wrong sometimes. and the other is like stated, a lotto..) I have two capped toons on LOTRO simply because of the crafting. I mean the grind for ingredients is kinda intense for some, (I mean 2000 hides for tailor..lol) But I would personally love to Craft my own longbows, and be very happy to have my Barb friend wielding the great axe I made for him. As well as critted items making an income for me as well as awesome gifts made for in-game friends. And yes, it would be cool to be able to dye my Baby-blue vestments black or sometning (I mean really, Baby blue, what where you guys thinking.. lol)
And it would also be a nice change of pace.. Alot of times I group with people while doing maintnence on my toons just to chat, and would like to be able to do more during down times than solo'ing..

[Krago]

Instead of using xp debt, maybe use a magical item of the same ML value and type in its place. You want the level 15 ring, ok, find a ML15 ring and use its magical essence to transform it into the one you want.

I agree that the crafting system should be expanded on, but not how DT armor is done. You should be able to choose the effects you want. I do not know of a good way to implement a crafting skill set though.

If you use Feats, Enhancements, or Skills, most people will roll up an Artificer of sorts, much like Hagglebots. Which would then unfortunately limit the number of people able to craft, or craft well enough.

The crafting points is a good start, but it would not limit the number of points as I could see lots of toons being deleted once their points were used or sold. So again a balance issue could arise depending upon how "uber" the crafted items could become.

I think crafting should be limited to consumable items, like wands, scrolls, and pots. This limits the "uberness" of items while allowing repeatable crafting. The crafted item materials could be used up by collectables and gems to give them more of a valued function than currently exists.

As for the skill set needed to craft, that becomes the issue. We would all have to brainstorm on a way to allow everyone to craft, not just a select few classes or require the rolling of a "crafting toon."