Cannith Crafting changes needed

[lastseer]

First off I don't think Cannith crafting is a failure. I like the addition to the game. I don't have to save every last piece of marginally equipment on some mule on the chance it'll be useful when leveling a new toon or a TR. It allows me to throw these half useful items in the guild chest for our new players. It also potentially allows for me to fit some marginally useful crafted item into a particular slot until I eventually put that elusive epic item there.

However before Cannith crafting comes out of "beta", certain things need to be fixed. First what I see as easy bug fixes:

Fix the minimum levels on crafted items

unbound items should be the same ML or one lower than random gen depending on the target balance.
bound items should be one or two ML lower than random gen
Stone of change and festival rituals should both be available and not affect ML.

Fix the description on shards

Shards should say whether they are prefixes or suffixes - already possible to figure out from the name
Shards should say what they return when deconstructed - e.g. tier 3 earth
Shards should say what bonus they are considered - e.g. +1, +2, etc. - already there
Have the shards say what items (e.g. gloves or weapon) they can be applied to -Ungood

Airship changes are needed to reflect crafting

Add a Cannith crafting station as a airship buyable hookpoint
Add a new crafting NPC, or
Add a +10% stacking success bonus to the airship drawf NPC
add a +10% stacking crafting xp bonus to the airship phiarlin NPC - new NPC good enough

The interface need improving

We don't need multiple crafting stations; just have one with tabs on the same window - e.g. AH
Shards need to be searchable at the stations by the bonus they provide - not just name
Allow greaters to be converted to lessers in batches

Other miscellaneous stuff

Disjuncting an item should strip BtC/BtA properties
Add a crafting pawn shop for essences and shards - just like weapons and armor
Add some shards as end/chest rewards - they can even be shards that aren't available to be crafted through the crafting station but only as drops
Fix crafted handwraps - lolz
Crafting machines should take items directly from bags -Standal
the crafting shouldn't close every time you close another window -DMslaher
Another "niche" they could add could be lots of more different "clickies" maybe -Kza


And aside from the improvements above what I view to the biggest problem is the huge expense of crafting. Right now achieving 100 in all three levels of crafting requires more than 10mil plat (?). I can't imagine what 200 would require (100s of millions of plat?) with the exponentially increasing costs. Is high level crafting (150ish) meant to be available only to 5 year players with 40+ million plat spread over 10 toons? The costs are prohibitively expensive. Many players hit 30ish or 40ish and give up. Only the most stubborn and rich are sticking it out past 70.

Do one or more of the following

Eliminate the jumps in increasing costs for greaters by tier (1,3,6,10) and just go (1,2,3,4) and likewise for lessers . -probably not necessary - it keeps the cost of crafted high compared to random loot
Increase the drop rate of all essences by a factor of at least 5 -too radical

5x as many essences in chests
5x as many essences for end rewards
5x as many essences from deconstructing items
5x as many essences for the purchase price in the DDo store
shard deconstruction can be left alone

Or make shard deconstruction return 90% of the essences cost to craft it -Ungood
Decrease the cost of unbound crafting - 2x or 1.5x probably good enough. Crafted stuff should be expensive if it's lower ML than lootgen
It's enough that unbound are higher ML and higher crafting level and therefor more expensive to achieve. 3x cost is too much. Make it 1.5x or even just 1x
Make unbound shards at +50 crafting levels instead of 2x the bound shards
This will make skilling up cheaper and cap crafting at a lower level (currently 150 instead of 200).


What else needs to be fixed? Add to this thread or fisk this post please.

[EllisDee37]

Wow, count me as voting for almost all that. Thoughtful and practical suggestions, kudos. I particularly love the outside-the-box ideas like combining all the machines into one. heh.

Another suggestion to add to the list: Add "10 to 50" and "100 to 500" recipes when transmuting greaters to lesser in addition to the standard "1 to 5." (Ah, I see on reread you did include this in general terms.)

For the ML fix, the cleanest, easiest and quickest way to address most of the weapons and armor issues would be to simply drop the enhancement bonus potential by 1 each, so instead of +1 to +5 they become +0 to +4. This fixes the ML on almost all weapons and armor without affecting any other part of the crafting system, it has to be easy to implement, plus it has the added bonus of giving us the the ability to "zero" the enhancement bonus while upgrading weapons and armor.

One quibble:

5x as many essences in chests
5x as many essences for end rewards
5x as many essences from deconstructing items
5x as many essences for the purchase price in the DDo store
shard deconstruction can be left alone
Doesn't work as written. If this were implemented, there would be a strong incentive to create low level shards, attach them to clubs from the Hammer & Chain, then deconstruct for ~4x profit on the essences used.

[lastseer]

One quibble:

Doesn't work as written. If this were implemented, there would be a strong incentive to create low level shards, attach them to clubs from the Hammer & Chain, then deconstruct for ~4x profit on the essences used.

Easy enough to fix. Only increase the deconstruct by 5x for items that don't have the "craftable" property - i.e. weren't crafted but were random drops.

[Lithic]

Easy enough to fix. Only increase the deconstruct by 5x for items that don't have the "craftable" property - i.e. weren't crafted but were random drops.

So basically you want to gain 5 crafting levels for every item you deconstruct?

[lastseer]

So basically you want to gain 5 crafting levels for every item you deconstruct?

I want the deconstruct to return 5x as many essences. I want essences in general to be 5x as prevalent to reduce the cost of skilling up. That way max crafting might only cost 20mil plat instead of 100mil plat or 40mil instead of 200mil. I'm not sure if max level will be 150 or 200, but every level costs much more than the last.

[Doomcrew]

I think the crafting levels are good where they are, one shouldn't
get to the top overnight or cheaply. If someone has the plat, time
and determination to cap their crafting, good for them. Not everyone
should get there quickly.

Crafting is another grind-carrot to be chased, once cap is attained,
then what?

[dmslasher]

First off I don't think Cannith crafting is a failure. I like the addition to the game. I don't have to save every last piece of marginally equipment on some mule on the chance it'll be useful when leveling a new toon or a TR. It allows me to throw these half useful items in the guild chest for our new players. It also potentially allows for me to fit some marginally useful crafted item into a particular slot until I eventually put that elusive epic item there.

However before Cannith crafting comes out of "beta", certain things need to be fixed. First what I see as easy bug fixes:

Fix the minimum levels on crafted items

unbound items should be the same ML or one lower than random gen depending on the target balance.
bound items should be one or two ML lower than random gen
Stone of change and festival rituals should both be available and not affect ML.

Fix the description on shards

Shards should say whether they are prefixes or suffixes
Shards should say what they return when deconstructed - e.g. tier 3 earth
Shards should say what bonus they are considered - e.g. +1, +2, etc.

Airship changes are needed to reflect crafting

Add a Cannith crafting station as a airship buyable hookpoint
Add a new crafting NPC, or
Add a +10% stacking success bonus to the airship drawf NPC
add a +10% stacking crafting xp bonus to the airship phiarlin NPC

The interface need improving

We don't need multiple crafting stations; just have one with tabs on the same window - e.g. AH
Shards need to be searchable at the stations by the bonus they provide - not just name
Allow greaters to be converted to lessers in batches

Other miscellaneous stuff

Disjuncting an item should strip BtC/BtA properties
Add a crafting pawn shop for essences and shards - just like weapons and armor
Add some shards as end/chest rewards - they can even be shards that aren't available to be crafted through the crafting station but only as drops
Fix crafted handwraps - lolz


And aside from the improvements above what I view to the biggest problem is the huge expense of crafting. Right now achieving 100 in all three levels of crafting requires more than 10mil plat (?). I can't imagine what 200 would require (100s of millions of plat?) with the exponentially increasing costs. Is high level crafting (150ish) meant to be available only to 5 year players with 40+ million plat spread over 10 toons? The costs are prohibitively expensive. Many players hit 30ish or 40ish and give up. Only the most stubborn and rich are sticking it out past 70.

Do one or more of the following

Eliminate the jumps in increasing costs for greaters by tier (1,3,6,10) and just go (1,2,3,4) and likewise for lessers .
Increase the drop rate of all essences by a factor of at least 5

5x as many essences in chests
5x as many essences for end rewards
5x as many essences from deconstructing items
5x as many essences for the purchase price in the DDo store
shard deconstruction can be left alone

Decrease the cost of unbound crafting
It's enough that unbound are higher ML and higher crafting level and therefor more expensive to achieve. 3x cost is too much. Make it 1.5x or even just 1x
Make unbound shards at +50 crafting levels instead of 2x the bound shards
This will make skilling up cheaper and cap crafting at a lower level (currently 150 instead of 200).


What else needs to be fixed? Add to this thread or fisk this post please.

i agree and you left out that craftin windows close every time you close another window.
and the shard replacement is bugged see this post http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=327398

[Ungood]

However before Cannith crafting comes out of "beta", certain things need to be fixed. First what I see as easy bug fixes:

Fix the minimum levels on crafted items

unbound items should be the same ML or one lower than random gen depending on the target balance. (Why ?)
bound items should be one or two ML lower than random gen (Why?)
Stone of change and festival rituals should both be available and not affect ML. (No way, that would Over Power them, this has been proven in other topics)


Fix the description on shards

Shards should say whether they are prefixes or suffixes (They do already, Shard of X is Suffex, X Shard is Prefix)
Shards should say what they return when deconstructed - e.g. tier 3 earth
Shards should say what bonus they are considered - e.g. +1, +2, etc.


Airship changes are needed to reflect crafting

Add a Cannith crafting station as a airship buyable hookpoint
Add a new crafting NPC, or
Add a +10% stacking success bonus to the airship drawf NPC (why?)
add a +10% stacking crafting xp bonus to the airship phiarlin NPC (why?)


The interface need improving

We don't need multiple crafting stations; just have one with tabs on the same window - e.g. AH (I believe this would be a nightmare, I like the obnoxous natire of the way it works now, less room for mistakes)
Shards need to be searchable at the stations by the bonus they provide - not just name (No idea what you are talking about)
Allow greaters to be converted to lessers in batches (This would be handy)


Other miscellaneous stuff

Disjuncting an item should strip BtC/BtA properties (This is WAI, and is meant to be this way, also, this allows for a Lower ML on RR Crafted Items, iircc)
Add a crafting pawn shop for essences and shards - just like weapons and armor (Since we can now Decon Shards, there is no point to sell them)
Add some shards as end/chest rewards - they can even be shards that aren't available to be crafted through the crafting station but only as drops (Nice idea, but sounds like another way to make a pointless grind for rare shards, and the crafting system seems to be designed to get away from that idea)
Fix crafted handwraps - lolz



And aside from the improvements above what I view to the biggest problem is the huge expense of crafting. Right now achieving 100 in all three levels of crafting requires more than 10mil plat (?). I can't imagine what 200 would require (100s of millions of plat?) with the exponentially increasing costs. Is high level crafting (150ish) meant to be available only to 5 year players with 40+ million plat spread over 10 toons? The costs are prohibitively expensive. Many players hit 30ish or 40ish and give up. Only the most stubborn and rich are sticking it out past 70.

I just hit 64, today. And while I am stubborn I am not rich.


Do one or more of the following

Eliminate the jumps in increasing costs for greaters by tier (1,3,6,10) and just go (1,2,3,4) and likewise for lessers .
Increase the drop rate of all essences by a factor of at least 5

5x as many essences in chests
5x as many essences for end rewards
5x as many essences from deconstructing items
5x as many essences for the purchase price in the DDo store
shard deconstruction can be left alone


Decrease the cost of unbound crafting
It's enough that unbound are higher ML and higher crafting level and therefor more expensive to achieve. 3x cost is too much. Make it 1.5x or even just 1x (Irony is that I have read other posts asking for the Devs to increase the cost if unbound, because it makes leveling too easy and cheep)
Make unbound shards at +50 crafting levels instead of 2x the bound shards
This will make skilling up cheaper and cap crafting at a lower level (currently 150 instead of 200). (I like the x2, it makes sense then just adding an arbitrary number to the system)



But I can get behind getting more essence available, or getting more back from decon shards, that would be handy, but, as it stands I read all kinds of posts about people fussing that it is already too easy to level in Crafting as it is.

Just no one way win huh?


What else needs to be fixed? Add to this thread or fisk this post please.I think things are working well with Crafting, I would like a higher return form Decon in all forms, but if I could have any one thing fixed, it would be the way shards are applied.

Have the shard say what it can be added to: IE: armor, goggles, gloves, bracers, trinket, etc, so we are not playing a hit and miss game with what we can do with the system.

[Iwinbyrollup]

I think the crafting levels are good where they are, one shouldn't
get to the top overnight or cheaply. If someone has the plat, time
and determination to cap their crafting, good for them. Not everyone
should get there quickly.

Crafting is another grind-carrot to be chased, once cap is attained,
then what?

I generally agree with this. Update 9 came out a bit over two months ago. There have been many people who have capped their crafting levels before every level increase since then. There are people who are capped at level 100 now. We're talking about people who have capped in weeks here. And currently, once someone caps, they are done. Until they bring out crafting TRs (start over from level 1, only a (5*current level)% experience boost needed! :D ) there won't be much else to do other than profit. It should take time to cap your crafting levels.

The cost for leveling is overstated, because we're using the costs of people who have capped. A lot of the people who have capped have paid a bit of a premium to do so by buying a lot of essences. It is still expensive, but for other reasons; crafting carries an opportunity cost in the form of deconstructing useless loot rather than vendoring it. Of course, if you're leveling up a TR and are looking at making garbage plat, deconstruction is a much more friendly option. And there are smart ways to minimize this cost as well, if one wants. The most straightforward way is to just never deconstruct weapons, which can be vendored for more plat than armor or items.

I do also note that you can already tell whether a shard is prefix or suffix before crafting the shard. Mouse over the name or image of the shard in the upper left corner of the box and you'll see the box that would normally pop up when you select the "gear" button while looking at someone in the focus orb. It'll either be called "[Effect] Shard" or "Shard of [Effect]". Unless this is inaccurate (I've never had any problems with it), it already tells you what you need to know.

I'm not sure that we need crafting experience boosts made available from guild airships. This just increases the issue of guild farming and I'd also expect to see people constantly spamming for guild ship invites to get the buff. I think that's exactly the kind of change that we don't need.

Shards also say what bonus they are considered, same as where it says prefix/suffix. In terms of figuring out what you'll get back...if a shard is +2 and takes Earth essences, deconstructing it will lead to +2 Earth.

The problem I see with only one crafting station is a) it's crowded enough already (although that will die down when the shiny ends), and b) it's already laggy enough without having more menus to work with.

[lastseer]

I think the crafting levels are good where they are, one shouldn't
get to the top overnight or cheaply. If someone has the plat, time
and determination to cap their crafting, good for them. Not everyone
should get there quickly.

Crafting is another grind-carrot to be chased, once cap is attained,
then what?


Update 9 came out a bit over two months ago. There have been many people who have capped their crafting levels before every level increase since then. There are people who are capped at level 100 now. We're talking about people who have capped in weeks here. And currently, once someone caps, they are done.
You make it sound like getting to cap is it's own end. It's just a means to an end.
To start crafting for your alts. To start crafting for you guild. To start crafting for you friends. To sell things on the AH for profit.


No one has reached the final cap yet. Because the final cap hasn't been attainable in beta. And pretty soon you're going to have to be skilling up on unbound shards at 3x, getting even more exp per level, and make the higher level shards to boot. You can basically take your costs to hit 100 and multiple them by 10 to get an idea of the cost to 200.

Additionally why should crafting take any longer to reach cap then level 20? People do that quicker.



But I can get behind getting more essence available, or getting more back from decon shards, that would be handy, but, as it stands I read all kinds of posts about people fussing that it is already too easy to level in Crafting as it is.
Just no one way win huh?

Yeah there is. Ignore the people who are wrong (them) and listen to the ones who are right (me). :-)

The people who get there first always try to make it harder for the up and coming to reduce competition. It's called rent seeking.

[Doomcrew]

Additionally why should crafting take any longer to reach cap then level 20? People do that quicker.


.

Why shouldn't crafting to cap take longer?

Crafting is a time/plat sink, making things for your in-game friends is a commendable
trait. But there is still no reason for a cap to be hit without effort.

Sometimes the most satisfaction one can attain is through the long haul, not a two
week sprint.

[lastseer]

I'm not sure that we need crafting experience boosts made available from guild airships. This just increases the issue of guild farming and I'd also expect to see people constantly spamming for guild ship invites to get the buff. I think that's exactly the kind of change that we don't need.

The only ones who can afford to craft today are the least likely ones to be spamming for ship invites. But any guild buff for crafting should be at relatively low level (e.g. 20-30) and you won't see that much spamming as opposed to tier 3 shavarath altars available (non-gold seal) at 70.



The problem I see with only one crafting station is a) it's crowded enough already (although that will die down when the shiny ends), and b) it's already laggy enough without having more menus to work with.
If crafting stations are available on airships then it won't be as crowded or laggy. but you can't do that if it's 8 different stations.

[lastseer]

Why shouldn't crafting to cap take longer?

How about because they don't their game to be more grindy? How about because crafting is more boring than running a quest?




Crafting is a time/plat sink, making things for your in-game friends is a commendable
trait. But there is still no reason for a cap to be hit without effort.

Sometimes the most satisfaction one can attain is through the long haul, not a two
week sprint.
Some people are masochists. Most are not and are avoiding crafting. I think your direction leads to a less fun game. I'm guessing more people who play DDo would agree with me too; although this early into the beta only the hardcore who are less deterred by the costs are likely to be reading this board.

[Doomcrew]

How about because they don't their game to be more grindy? How about because crafting is more boring than running a quest?



Some people are masochists. Most are not and are avoiding crafting. I think your direction leads to a less fun game. I'm guessing more people who play DDo would agree with me too; although this early into the beta only the hardcore who are less deterred by the costs are likely to be reading this board.

A less fun game to me, would be a game without any goals left.

As for Turbine wanting a less "grindy" game ..... once folks have
done everything, what is left?

[lastseer]

(I like the x2, it makes sense then just adding an arbitrary number to the system)

Sorry but x2 is just as arbitrary as +50. There is nothing special about multiplication. The advantage to +50 is that the lower level unbound shards that are cheaper to skill up on are delayed until later in crafting.


Why?
Why fix the MLs? The devs have already stated that MLs on crafted items were intended to be lower than random drop loot, not higher. Why fix it? because it's broken.


I did want to mention that the minimum equip level on the crafted items is indeed not working properly. The min levels on crafted items are supposed to be lower than they are currently, and in most cases, lower than random loot



Why?
Why add crafting NPCs to ships? Why add any other bonus to a ship? -> because it's now part of the game and that's the whole purpose of the ships.


(No way, that would Over Power them, this has been proven in other topics)
You think that crafted loot should be the same or higher ML than random drops, which can get force rituals and festival icy burst, but that Cannith crafted loot shouldn't be able to get those bonuses?



(Since we can now Decon Shards, there is no point to sell them)
Yes there is. I can buy a shard I can't make and apply it to my item, instead of having to buy a finished item, I can pick and choose my shards. I don't even have to be a crafter to do this, since making final items is not by crafter level.

[bigolbear]

fix the freaking lag and ill be happy. move the recipie list client side or jsut have it load once, not every time you interact with a machine.

[lastseer]

A less fun game to me, would be a game without any goals left.

As for Turbine wanting a less "grindy" game ..... once folks have
done everything, what is left?

So what crafting is there to keep people who are ready to quit from quitting and it needs to take as long as possible to drag money out of them? No. Crafting is there to enhance parts of the game that people already enjoy, not add a click, 5s, click, 5s, etc. time/money sink.

The more grindy games don't always get people to stay longer to grind it out. Sometimes they get people to quit earlier when they stop having fun.

Again, capping crafting is not the end point of crafting. It's the starting point of crafting. People aren't trying to reach cap just to say they did it. They are trying to reach cap because of all things it allows you to make.

[Doomcrew]

The more grindy games don't always get people to stay longer to grind it out. Sometimes they get people to quit earlier when they stop having fun.



True.

And sometimes when a game becomes too easy, folks tend to leave as well.
As its no longer fun.

[Iwinbyrollup]

Additionally why should crafting take any longer to reach cap then level 20? People do that quicker.

If you were completely done with the game when you hit cap, would you think it a good idea to take longer to get there?

There's a HUGE difference between capping a character and capping your crafting levels. Next to no one is going to turn around and level an alt's crafting levels just because they've finished with one character; it doesn't make sense. Likewise, there's no TRing and no extra gearing towards making your crafting ability better after you cap. Once you hit crafting cap, as long as there isn't experience decay, you are able to craft anything you want so long as you have the essences, which isn't going to be an issue (they build up enough that if you're only crafting as needed it wouldn't be a problem, it's using them for leveling and crafting what you want that clears them out).

As it currently stands, crafting makes it remarkably easy to make really powerful items. A few hours of crafting can easily net you +4 Holy Silver Weapons of Lawful Outsider Bane or pairs of Attack Bonus +2 Goggles or many other very nice items. And once you can make one of those, you can make as many as you have essences and crafting blanks. I'm about to hit the point where I'm making Holy Burst and Greater Lawful Outsider Bane (already got +5) and it's ridiculous to think that a few months ago I was contemplating making piles of Min IIs and all sorts of other weapons and I just cut my GS list in half. With not much effort in the past two months, I've lowered the number of Shrouds I'd need to run to gear all of my current characters by around 100 runs--and I keep making new characters. The difference between GS and Cannith Crafting is that Cannith Crafting is a front-loaded grind while GS is a constant grind. Once you hit the benchmarks with Cannith Crafting, you've bypassed the grind.

The other great thing about the crafting system is that if you don't like the grind, you don't have to participate in it and you can still get great stuff out of it. It's really great like that. Sure, it'll take you a bit longer than the rest, but two months is hardly a long time. And we're already seeing people popping up offering really nice equipment for a pittance. If you were on Khyber, for example, you could get Ayspam to make you just about anything that is currently available unbound, all you'd need to do is send along the necessary essences plus an additional 30% essences. You could also pay plat to have it done if you wanted to go that route. This ends up costing up to 120k, likely less if you send essences, for several nice items including weaponry around dual shard Green Steel quality.

[lastseer]

If you were completely done with the game when you hit cap, would you think it a good idea to take longer to get there?
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. If I were completely done with a MMo, crafting alone would not hold me there. And those players who do play a MMo solely for crafting do not stop when they hit cap. That's when they start.


There's a HUGE difference between capping a character and capping your crafting levels. Next to no one is going to turn around and level an alt's crafting levels just because they've finished with one character;
Why not? In every MMo I've played before I started crafting once I hit max level on one toon. In DDo I'm trying with only two max level toons, and would have started earlier had crafting been available earlier. In almost every MMo I prefer to make gear then to try to farm rares.


Likewise, there's no TRing and no extra gearing towards making your crafting ability better after you cap. Once you hit crafting cap, as long as there isn't experience decay, you are able to craft anything you want .....

I said it earlier. Hitting cap in crafting is not the end of crafting. It's the beginning. Once you hit cap you can make the crafting items on your wish list. If you don't hit cap (or your goal) you can't do that and all your grinding to date was pointless. Cap is just the means to the end. Once you hit cap, that's when you start crafting. If you don't plan on making some higher end stuff, maybe you can set your personal goal short of cap. But that is the START point to a crafter, not the end point. Anyone skilling up just to hit the max crafting level and then not craft anything, is missing the point of crafting and is not a crafter.

Almost every MMo that has crafting has a crafting community of people who play for this purpose alone. This community is not a group of players who enjoy the skilling up process of crafting. This group of players is a group that enjoys collecting ingredients, making things for players, setting prices on the AH and creating a name for themselves as a supplier / dealer. Their enjoyment of the game comes after they hit cap and that's when they start to fill that niche.



As it currently stands, crafting makes it remarkably easy to make really powerful items. A few hours of crafting can easily net you +4 Holy Silver Weapons of Lawful Outsider Bane or pairs of Attack Bonus +2 Goggles or many other very nice items.

If crafting didn't do these things, it'd be nearly useless. The things you can craft once you have a capped toon with some epics are for the most part marginally better or worse than the raid/epic loot you have. Crafting offers you flexibility and faster leveling for alts/TRs. Maybe the ability to help out some friends (but that's why unbound stuff is higher crafting level).


The difference between GS and Cannith Crafting is that Cannith Crafting is a front-loaded grind while GS is a constant grind. Once you hit the benchmarks with Cannith Crafting, you've bypassed the grind.

Cannith crafting is a front-loaded grind. Once done it's just buying essences. Shroud is no grind at all. You can just buy ingredients. Cannith crafting is more grindy and at current costs to skill up it's not even cheaper in the long run. For the cost of getting to cap in Cannith crafting you could make GS items for every slot you wear. And grinding shroud is not the best way to make cash. Your better off grinding other stuff and selling it for cash to buy shroud ingredients if you need to make 1 or 2 GS items for your EQ build.


The other great thing about the crafting system is that if you don't like the grind, you don't have to participate in it and you can still get great stuff out of it.
If it's broken I don't plan on leaving it to a small group of people who don't mind that much. Instead I plan on asking for it to be fixed so everyone who plays can enjoy it.

[steelblueskies]

i agree and you left out that craftin windows close every time you close another window.
and the shard replacement is bugged see this post http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=327398
Quoting yourself as proof of a bug? When your argument in the quoted post is that the machine cannot do math, as opposed to coming to the realization the rest of us have that it adds the new shards value, compares to potential, then balks, requiring use of a zero out shard... As far as we know, this is wai. No dev commentary one way or the other. +0 potential shards exist, just not for both pre/suffix on all slots.

Probably simplest for them to provide craftable on any itemtype +0 blank effect prefix/suffix shards specifically for more versatility in blanking either mod for overwrite, as opposed to only having a prefix or suffix. Same deal on enhancement bonus, we need a +0 shard.


-----------------

as to the presumed cost according to op. Depends largely on how you go about things. If you are buying essences at current market values you are paying for your haste.
Generally I find a few thousand exp for a few thousand plat is what I'm experiencing, and I'm now up to 82/76/84 and climbing. Granted I'm chronicling a climb via the slow Grundy shard decon leveling route, so I find I replenish any losses and then some essence wise about every two quests run, and am constantly fluxing around 50k plat on the relevant toon. Big tradeoff there is time. Massive amounts of time.

The way I see it, 500pp on average for greater esence on the market versus 290pp per 100 xp and minimal essence losses is a good deal. When the essence market drops them to the 50ish pp per greater range the standard method would be superior. Of course if you can loot and scoot like lithic you should have enough plat per hour and deconnables to do pretty much whichever way you want and not notice too much pain or loss. <3 lithic.

As a mere mortal I am however very concerned with progression requirements beyond 100, when exp per level will be 1000 or more.

I am also fairly concerned with seeing some more freedom of craftable effect>item slot, and more effects in general.

pretty much only leveling at this point for two reasons:
1- crafting currently bound only bits for guildmates when the cap increases.
2- hopeful speculation on added versatility and effects with a cap raise
neither of which are really for using what we have offered now.

Larger essence returns flat out, probably aren't a stellar idea.
I would posit however that bonus essence events might be reasonable to shoot for, and beyond that the relative rarity of certain effect classes(meaning high level divine of certain types, ditto for some elemental affixes, and to a significantly lesser extent arcane mind essence affixes) might consider rewarding slightly higher amounts.
Law for example has no lesser only recipes for shards. Divine also has 5 types diluting the pool, and the 2>1 trade rate that runs in a circle instead of 2>1 any divine is fairly painful compared to say arcane where the circle is only 3.

Aside from earth, high value elemental affixes are relatively uncommon.
Body essences could actually reward slightly less then they do presently, and arcane type affixes actually seem way too prolific on random loot.

Shrug.

[Postumus]

As it currently stands, crafting makes it remarkably easy to make really powerful items. A few hours of crafting can easily net you +4 Holy Silver Weapons of Lawful Outsider Bane or pairs of Attack Bonus +2 Goggles or many other very nice items.

If 10-15 hours = 'a few,' then I guess that is correct.

[EllisDee37]

Divine also has 5 types diluting the pool, and the 2>1 trade rate that runs in a circle instead of 2>1 any divine is fairly painful compared to say arcane where the circle is only 3For transmuting essences, each school has four essences in a circle. Where it gets confusing is that divine as an essence is in the arcane school instead of divine.

Arcane: Divine => Mind => Arcane => Body => Divine
Divine: Law => Good => Chaos => Evil => Law
Elemental: Earth => Air => Fire => Water => Earth

[Ungood]

Why fix the MLs? The devs have already stated that MLs on crafted items were intended to be lower than random drop loot, not higher. Why fix it? because it's broken.


This is incorrect, they only said, it is currently higher then intended, not that it was supposed to be lower then Loot Gen items.


Why add crafting NPCs to ships? Why add any other bonus to a ship? -> because it's now part of the game and that's the whole purpose of the ships.

Personally, I would, not a good enough motive to justify the development time.


You think that crafted loot should be the same or higher ML than random drops, which can get force rituals and festival icy burst, but that Cannith crafted loot shouldn't be able to get those bonuses?

It has already been proven that putting rituals on crafted gear would make them way over powered and bork pretty much the entire gear balance of the game.


Yes there is. I can buy a shard I can't make and apply it to my item, instead of having to buy a finished item, I can pick and choose my shards. I don't even have to be a crafter to do this, since making final items is not by crafter level.

The AH fills this role

[Dendrix]

Fix the minimum levels on crafted items

unbound items should be the same ML or one lower than random gen depending on the target balance.
bound items should be one or two ML lower than random gen


Absolutly and utterly not. If crafted items are better than random lootgen items then everything becomes about making crafted items and lootgen items are simply cash. You are 100% wrong.

D&D should be about killing the toughest mobs and getting their loot.
What you suggest is tantamout to "kill as many easy mobs as possable to get loot that I can make stuff out of"



Airship changes are needed to reflect crafting

Add a Cannith crafting station as a airship buyable hookpoint
Add a new crafting NPC, or
Add a +10% stacking success bonus to the airship drawf NPC
add a +10% stacking crafting xp bonus to the airship phiarlin NPC



Adding new things or NPC's is fine. The existing ones do NOT need to be improved.

[dunklezhan]

I was with you, I was cheering, I was /signing, and then this:



And aside from the improvements above what I view to the biggest problem is the huge expense of crafting. Right now achieving 100 in all three levels of crafting requires more than 10mil plat (?). I can't imagine what 200 would require (100s of millions of plat?) with the exponentially increasing costs. Is high level crafting (150ish) meant to be available only to 5 year players with 40+ million plat spread over 10 toons? The costs are prohibitively expensive. Many players hit 30ish or 40ish and give up. Only the most stubborn and rich are sticking it out past 70.




What you talking 'bout Willis?

I'm up at 40ish and the only expense I've had has been dust of disjunctions (which I only use when I actually want to craft something and currently I'm just levelling rather than actually making) and other decon ingredients.

What, exactly, am I going to need to spend ten million plat on to get from 40 to 70?

Everything *else* you said is a 'big' problem. This isn't. If you're spending that sort of cash its because you're choosing to because you don't want to level up 'naturally'. No-one is forcing you. Relax chummer, what's the rush?

[sweez]

Just give us the option to splice multiple greaters into lessers at once and I'm happy.

Come to think of it, do the same for the epic raid token > regular token conversion as well.

[Ungood]

Yeah there is. Ignore the people who are wrong (them) and listen to the ones who are right (me). :-)

The people who get there first always try to make it harder for the up and coming to reduce competition. It's called rent seeking.

Everyone thinks they are right.

I personally do not want to make it harder for the next person, I just want my effort to be recognized. If they make crafting too easy to just level up, then what is the point? Where is the sense of accomplishment?

Crafting should have an element of challenge, and right now it is impossibly easy to pop up those first 40 ranks, it seems fair to make the higher levels noteworthy. And that means making them somewhat daunting to obtain.

And the x2 Seems fitting, (I also expected something like that as what they were going to do) as it strikes a balance between the shards, low level shards, remain low level in both unbound and bound, and higher level shards, remain higher level, if I just slap a +50 to them, the low level shards become mid level for no reason.

All in all. minor twinkling of the return from Decon (which has gotten much better! Thank you Devs!) I personally believe that 5x return would be way too much, what should be done is have the decon return match what the shard costs, (Minus a little loss)

IE: if it costs 21 Greater and 192 lesser to make a Death Block shard, I should get close to that (maybe minus 10 - 20%) when I decon a death block item. That to me. would be reasonable and an understandable change.

[lastseer]

as to the presumed cost according to op. Depends largely on how you go about things. If you are buying essences at current market values you are paying for your haste. When the essence market drops them to the 50ish pp per greater range ...

As a mere mortal I am however very concerned with progression requirements beyond 100, when exp per level will be 1000 or more.

At current deconstruct/drop rates the market value is probably going to remain close to what a +5 item costs to purchase divided by the number of essences returned. I don't think it's going to change as much as you suggest any time soon (next 6 months).

But I think you're not too far away from me on this.


Larger essence returns flat out, probably aren't a stellar idea.
I'm not married to this idea. I think lowering the progression of costs could also achieve my goal. I gave several suggestions each of which could be partially implemented.

[lastseer]

>>>Disjuncting an item should strip BtC/BtA properties
(This is WAI, and is meant to be this way, also, this allows for a Lower ML on RR Crafted Items, iircc)

I'm talking about taking a BtC +5 silver Khopesh of Greater Construct Bane. If you strip it down back to a basic silver khopesh, it should remove the Btc. You can craft Btc shards on it later if you want the lower ML. But "Disjuncting" back to the base item should remove that property.


This is incorrect, they only said, it is currently higher then intended, not that it was supposed to be lower then Loot Gen items.
>I did want to mention that the minimum equip level on the crafted items is indeed not working properly. The min levels on crafted items are supposed to be lower than they are currently, and in most cases, lower than random loot - Tolero





It has already been proven that putting rituals on crafted gear would make them way over powered and bork pretty much the entire gear balance of the game.
citation please? Since most of the items available to be crafted are also available as random loot drops then the game must already be broken? I may be able to craft a +4 Holy Silver Greatsword of Greater Lawful Outsider Bane, but I can also find a random generated one and put force ritual and festival icy burst on it.
Besides on the weapons most likely to be crafted (Greater outsider banes or construct banes), you are targeting the mobs most likely to be immune to icy burst.
If icy burst kits can't be applied to Cannith crafting then who's going to bother any more? Just new players who don't have a guild to help them with crafted items? During the limited windows the festival is open, it should be fun for all.



>>Add a crafting pawn shop for essences and shards - just like weapons and armor
The AH fills this role
You argument applies not only to crafting but to weapons and armor too. Are you advocating deleting the existing pawn shops? Why do you not want a pawn shop vendor for shards?

[lastseer]

>Add a +10% stacking success bonus to the airship drawf NPC
>add a +10% stacking crafting xp bonus to the airship phiarlin NPC
Adding new things or NPC's is fine. The existing ones do NOT need to be improved.
You may be right. I was just thinking hook points are limited.





I'm up at 40ish and the only expense I've had has been dust of disjunctions (which I only use when I actually want to craft something and currently I'm just levelling rather than actually making) and other decon ingredients.

What, exactly, am I going to need to spend ten million plat on to get from 40 to 70?

Getting to 40 is fast. You can do it in a few hours for under a few hundred thousand plat. You are making shards that require 1, 3 or 6 greaters and only need crafting XP in the low hundreds.

Getting to 100 is not. And yes it will cost you close to 10mil plat. Even if you farm all the essences and deconstruct loot yourself. So instead of spending the plat out of pocket, you use items you have, your opportunity cost will be about 10mil plat. As that's what you could have sold all those essences and items for over the 6 months it'll take you to get the existing cap (not the final cap) without buying stuff. Sorry about the bad news. But it's why a lot of people give up in the 40s or 50s.
Getting to the eventual final cap.... lolz. I think something needs to change.

[lastseer]

I personally do not want to make it harder for the next person, I just want my effort to be recognized. If they make crafting too easy to just level up, then what is the point? Where is the sense of accomplishment?

I was just starting to think we'd never agree on anything when I find maybe we're not that far apart. I'm not concerned about how hard it is. I am concerned about how expensive it is.




[COLOR=Lime]And the x2 Seems fitting, (I also expected something like that as what they were going to do) as it strikes a balance between the shards, low level shards, remain low level in both unbound and bound, and higher level shards, remain higher level, if I just slap a +50 to them, the low level shards become mid level for no reason.

"Just seems fitting" isn't a logical argument as I can't dispute your aesthetic values. There was a reason to the +50, and it was to make them mid level for the purpose of pushing their lower value crafting value further into leveling process - because they are unbound. Additionally it has the added value of making the eventual cap lower.



All in all. minor twinkling of the return from Decon (which has gotten much better! Thank you Devs!) I personally believe that 5x return would be way too much, what should be done is have the decon return match what the shard costs, (Minus a little loss)

IE: if it costs 21 Greater and 192 lesser to make a Death Block shard, I should get close to that (maybe minus 10 - 20%) when I decon a death block item. That to me. would be reasonable and an understandable change.
I would have have no problem with this. The above example costs roughly 55 greater essences and returns ~8 when deconstructed. An unbound version would cost 165 greater essences and still return about 8.

5x prevalence of essences is one way to go about changing the costs. Another would be to make shards return 90-95% of their essences cost back. This would still leave your achievement (and similar amount of time/work) in tack while drastically reducing the cost. Another way would be to make costs of greater essences involved not follow the (1,3,6,10,15,21) progression it currently does and change it to (1,2,3,4,5,6).

I gave about 5 ways to reduce the cost of leveling in the OP and suggested that one or more be done. You just happened to jump on the most radical one. :-)

[dunklezhan]

You may be right. I was just thinking hook points are limited.



Getting to 40 is fast. You can do it in a few hours for under a few hundred thousand plat. You are making shards that require 1, 3 or 6 greaters and only need crafting XP in the low hundreds.
Getting to 100 is not. And yes it will cost you close to 10mil plat. Even if you farm all the essences and deconstruct loot yourself. So instead of spending the plat out of pocket, you use items you have, your opportunity cost will be about 10mil plat. As that's what you could have sold all those essences and items for over the 6 months it'll take you to get the existing cap (not the final cap) without buying stuff. Sorry about the bad news. But it's why a lot of people give up in the 40s or 50s.
Getting to the eventual final cap.... lolz. I think something needs to change.

Ah I see what you're saying. Oh well. I have never bought into this 'opportunity cost' business model. If I haven't physically had the cash in my hand, then as far as I'm concerned I never had it.

I loot an item which previously I would have Brokered/Auctioned for plat if i wasn't going to keep it. Now it's an item which I can take the time to get cash for by running around the brokers (or spend even more time passing it to a haggle bot to go do the same), or playing the AH game and either way get plat with which to buy essences. Or I can instead choose take the time to decon them and get essences directly.

Either way, from my perspective I end up with some essences and a net profit/loss of 0 from where I was before I looted the item. I have not spent any of my plat reserves so as far as I'm concerned I haven't lost anything, and crafting is free.

You have a much more business oriented perspective than I do. For me Crafting is something I can do between quests or if I'm on with no quests to do for whatever reason, and ultimately it will let me kit out guildies/lowbies/alts. Don't really care if it takes me months or means I don't end up with millions of plat in the bank. I never had that to start with, so I'm not missing anything. I take the same view with levelling. Been playing two years or so, got one toon to cap, another at 17 and the rest at 10 or lower. No rush, its my leisure activity, there's enough pressure at work.

Whichever view you take though, I don't consider it 'expensive'. What else were you going to spend your imaginary money on? And if that's better, why aren't you doing that instead?



Edit: I still agree with the rest of your OP. I think we're just coming from two very different philosophies when it comes to filthy lucre :)

[Iwinbyrollup]

Call capping in crafting "the beginning" cannot be farther from the truth. That would suggest that until you cap, you can't do anything, and that is completely untrue.

The point is, there's no reason to not have it be a significant grind because even if you don't finish the grind you still get a massive amount of stuff out of it.

The problem is you're comparing capping crafting to making Green Steel. But you don't need to cap crafting to make Green Steel quality weaponry or great equipment! I have spent up to 600k on crafting, including the opportunity cost of deconstructing loot instead of vendoring it. For 600k, you could not make a single completed Green Steel weapon or item--you probably couldn't even get a blank. I have made many weapons of GS-quality, and the only thing preventing me from making more is that I haven't decided how to distribute my remaining silver weaponry. And I was able to make most of that weaponry probably after spending 100k. Everything additional has been in pushing toward the +5 Greater Bane level, which I am nearly up to.

Will I end up paying much, much more to cap than I currently have? If I do cap, probably. But I don't need to. With the crafting system as it is, I've already won, no cap required. All I'm doing now is reaping the benefits and working to make even better stuff.


If it's broken I don't plan on leaving it to a small group of people who don't mind that much. Instead I plan on asking for it to be fixed so everyone who plays can enjoy it.

It's not broken and I didn't say it was. I said if it's something that you don't like, you can skip it and still easily gain the benefits from it. That is not the case for the other crafting systems in the game and it is a fantastic change. What this means is that you can choose to not craft and not be gimping yourself in the progress.

Before Cannith crafting, if someone said to me that they weren't going to run Shroud, Reaver's Refuge, ToD, or epics, I'd probably conclude that they were going to have pretty bad gear (although it wouldn't really matter because what would they be running anyway?). If someone said that they weren't going to level in Cannith crafting, the most I could conclude right now is that they might only have weaponry equivalent to Min IIs and some nice additional equipment.

Again: capping is not required to enjoy the crafting system. Using the crafting system is not even required to reap the benefits of using the crafting system. As you note, you can get Green Steel without running the Shroud, but look at the expenses and compare that to the crafting system. First, you need to get lucky and pull all the Shards you need for the GS. Then, you need to buy all the ingredients or get them from Amrath quests. Buying all the ingredients would be very expensive, getting them from Amrath quests is spotty and would take a long time. On the other hand, if you just play the game, you're likely to end up with a pile of essences. The only other step is to find someone willing to take those essences and give you shards back, which turns out to be not that difficult. Then throw in the weapon you want to change and poof, you've got it.


If 10-15 hours = 'a few,' then I guess that is correct.
This was not my experience. Getting to mid-30s was enough and took well under 10 hours. Likewise, I believe it was Star that leveled a huge number of levels in 15 minutes while an experience pot was running.

EDIT: I was thinking about it, and the best argument for having Cannith crafting altars available for airships is the fact that there is a Stone of Change available for the airship. The Shroud altars make sense because aside from the Altar of Devastation you can't access them except when you run Shroud. The argument against crafting altars on the airship would be the same as the argument against the Stone of Change, but that's already there. So really it's a question of whether or not the devs think it's a pressing issue.

[Ungood]

Since you did not cite source, I have no way to validate if what you said was true or not, and I'm a gamer, screen-shot or it did not happen.


Since most of the items available to be crafted are also available as random loot drops then the game must already be broken? I may be able to craft a +4 Holy Silver Greatsword of Greater Lawful Outsider Bane, but I can also find a random generated one and put force ritual and festival icy burst on it.

This it true, but rarity of the item in quest is what keeps the balance in check, with crafting those weapons flood the game, as opposed to being that one in a thousand item that exists.


You argument applies not only to crafting but to weapons and armor too. Are you advocating deleting the existing pawn shops? Why do you not want a pawn shop vendor for shards?The pinnacle difference is that Shards are made by players.

Will you then advocate a place to sell my prayer beads, after all, they should be brokered too!

Sorry. but /Not signed.

The AH fills the role you said a Broker would fill. IE: Finding good shards. Since they would be player made and the "bad" shards would just get deconed anyway. No point to make a broker for it, it would be a waste of development time.


Besides on the weapons most likely to be crafted (Greater outsider banes or construct banes), you are targeting the mobs most likely to be immune to icy burst. Good point, so not putting it on should not be an issue. In other words, the same people that used it before, will use it again now as always. Nothing will change and no point in worrying about it. It is a non-issue.

[Ungood]

I gave about 5 ways to reduce the cost of leveling in the OP and suggested that one or more be done. You just happened to jump on the most radical one. :-)

Actually I have been suggesting this from day one in the crafting system, and have been following the topic and issue.

My plan may reduce the cost of leveling, but it does not have to, it simply equalizes the cost to manufacture shards based on what was deconed.

They could add a additional exp needed to counter the extra essences in the game, of that I care not. The cost of level is not the issue, I expect it to expensive and grindy to some extent, I was rather pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get workable levels to be honest.

But that did not change the fact that I think it is unfair that I decon a death block robe and get something like 32 lesser and 6 greater (on a good decon) and it cost me 21 greater and 192 lesser to make it.

[Standal]

I'm in agreement with any suggestion that improves the process of deconning, crafting shards and crafting items.

The thing I'd most like to see is the crafting machines take items directly from bags. I spend a lot of frustrating time fiddling with inventory management of essences and shards. I don't want to unload my entire ingredients bag into my inventory every time I try to craft/decon something. If it's too hard to have the shards gathered from the bags and inventory, I'd rather just have them pulled from the bags.

I don't have any problem with the cost of crafting. It is front loaded, but I'm high 30s low 40s in all schools and I'm able to make some nice stuff. I no longer need any Min IIs unless I'm playing a toon that can't fit Imp Crit. I can make some nice twink stuff for my lowbies for pretty much nothing.

I'm also OK with Cannith items being worse than lootgen. I craft weapons and items to be exactly what I want. Even though I could get lucky and pull a RR +max awesome x of perfection and Risia it up, that's never happened to me. With Cannith I can make very functional things that are exactly what I want. The grind to achieve medium good gear is miniscule in my mind. The grind to make the very best items is pretty rough and I think it should be.

[Ungood]

I'm in agreement with any suggestion that improves the process of deconning, crafting shards and crafting items.

The thing I'd most like to see is the crafting machines take items directly from bags. I spend a lot of frustrating time fiddling with inventory management of essences and shards. I don't want to unload my entire ingredients bag into my inventory every time I try to craft/decon something. If it's too hard to have the shards gathered from the bags and inventory, I'd rather just have them pulled from the bags.

I don't have any problem with the cost of crafting. It is front loaded, but I'm high 30s low 40s in all schools and I'm able to make some nice stuff. I no longer need any Min IIs unless I'm playing a toon that can't fit Imp Crit. I can make some nice twink stuff for my lowbies for pretty much nothing.

I'm also OK with Cannith items being worse than lootgen. I craft weapons and items to be exactly what I want. Even though I could get lucky and pull a RR +max awesome x of perfection and Risia it up, that's never happened to me. With Cannith I can make very functional things that are exactly what I want. The grind to achieve medium good gear is miniscule in my mind. The grind to make the very best items is pretty rough and I think it should be.

This is exactly what the system is about! I am glad to see you are having fun with it.

It is very easy and cheep to get to functional levels, and only if you want to go after max levels does it get costly. Which is the way things should be.

The top levels should either take a lot of work/funds/effort to get to fast, or a progressive game of a little here, a little there.

So far, I am happy with the way this works, I would just like the exchange to be a little better.

[Kza]

/not signed

If the ml of crafted gears ar same or lower than random generated items, random generated items will be dead. For me its a quite decent niche crafting has right now: best of the best weapons at endgame vs specifik mobs.

And it will be more of that stuff im sure.

Let this crafting mainly be for endgame, and some oddballs up towards that. And let random drops + risia crafting be for twink gear.

Another "niche" they could add could be lots of more different "clickies" maybe, or something else. But just lower mls so all random drops can be recreated are not a good way to go imho.

[lastseer]

Absolutly and utterly not. If crafted items are better than random lootgen items then everything becomes about making crafted items and lootgen items are simply cash. You are 100% wrong.

Let's try this counter argument: If lootgen items are better than crafted item then everything becomes about lootgen items. Crafted items are simply cash. You are 100% wrong.

Seems to have the same validity.

You make assertions without arguments.



If the ml of crafted gears ar same or lower than random generated items, random generated items will be dead. For me its a quite decent niche crafting has right now: best of the best weapons at endgame vs specifik mobs.

And it will be more of that stuff im sure.

Let this crafting mainly be for endgame, and some oddballs up towards that. And let random drops + risia crafting be for twink gear.

Well random generated items are much much much cheaper (4-20k) than the cost of crafted items (100k+) except when you're lucky enough that they're exactly what you would have crafted. I don't they'll ever be dead.

[lastseer]

Actually I have been suggesting this from day one in the crafting system, and have been following the topic and issue.

My plan may reduce the cost of leveling, but it does not have to, it simply equalizes the cost to manufacture shards based on what was deconed.

They could add a additional exp needed to counter the extra essences in the game, of that I care not. The cost of level is not the issue, I expect it to expensive and grindy to some extent, I was rather pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get workable levels to be honest.

But that did not change the fact that I think it is unfair that I decon a death block robe and get something like 32 lesser and 6 greater (on a good decon) and it cost me 21 greater and 192 lesser to make it.

Of the suggestions at the end, I think you have probably hit on the right one. Fixing the return of deconn'd shards is probably the best solution. It reduces cost removing the funding roadblock to a lot of players, without reducing time to cap too greatly.

[lastseer]

The point is, there's no reason to not have it be a significant grind because even if you don't finish the grind you still get a massive amount of stuff out of it.
...
I said if it's something that you don't like, you can skip it and still easily gain the benefits from it.

We can all agree that having a buggy crafting system is bad. I think having an unbalanced or unfun grindy crafting system limited to a few elite rich players is almost as bad. Most of the readers of this message board are more likely to fall into elite category than the population at large and have a vested interest in keeping it to themselves. I think crafting should be expanded to those players (who may or may be p2p) to enjoy the game they are playing (and possibly paying for) rather than just leaving it to other players.

I don't think the answer is to say "love it or leave it". We should try to make it better.


Everyone thinks they are right.

I personally do not want to make it harder for the next person, I just want my effort to be recognized. If they make crafting too easy to just level up, then what is the point? Where is the sense of accomplishment?


I have gone back and udpated the OP to add other good ideas in the thread in green and to put the ones that I now think are probably a bad idea in red.

I can re-evaluate my positions. And I'm hoping the thread will continue to provide a good discussion on the merits of changing things to fix the balance in crafting and not just bugs (although I'll include that too).

[lastseer]

Ah I see what you're saying. Oh well. I have never bought into this 'opportunity cost' business model. If I haven't physically had the cash in my hand, then as far as I'm concerned I never had it.
...
Edit: I still agree with the rest of your OP. I think we're just coming from two very different philosophies when it comes to filthy lucre :)

I'm glad you agree with most of the OP. Thank You. I've updated it because some people have other good suggestions and some of my ideas are little bit off.

As to the "opportunity cost' idea in microeconomics, it doesn't matter too much whether you buy into it or not. If you spend out of pocket you will have spent 10mil. If you only use what you loot, in the end you'll have 10mil less of loot. It's the same difference.

[lastseer]

Call capping in crafting "the beginning" cannot be farther from the truth. That would suggest that until you cap, you can't do anything, and that is completely untrue.

The point is, there's no reason to not have it be a significant grind because even if you don't finish the grind you still get a massive amount of stuff out of it.

....

Will I end up paying much, much more to cap than I currently have? If I do cap, probably. But I don't need to. With the crafting system as it is, I've already won, no cap required. All I'm doing now is reaping the benefits and working to make even better stuff.


I still disagree. Just because you can sell or make things as you're leveling up doesn't mean it's not the beginning. You still have a long career as a crafter ahead of you when you hit cap. Hitting cap is not the end of crafting (as some detractors of the original post implied). It is indeed just the start of what lies ahead.

And maybe your goal is not to set up shop and be a crafter taking orders from all players and making all things. But many dedicated crafters like to fill that role in a game. Their start point is a little further than yours and should be achievable short of HUGE expense. But I'm glad that you're getting some benefit out of the lower level stuff.

[lastseer]

This it true, but rarity of the item in quest is what keeps the balance in check, with crafting those weapons flood the game, as opposed to being that one in a thousand item that exists.

You are right about the rarity. But I don't think crafted high-end loot will flood the game. Take a look at the cost (i.e. how many essences are required) to create an unbound +4 Holy Silver Greatsword of Greater Lawful Outsider bane (ML20?). It is very much not cheap. Even getting the potential up that high is extremely expensive. And how many percentage points better is it than GS level 12 litII weapon against trash or a GS level 12 minII weapon against bosses?



The pinnacle difference is that Shards are made by players.
Will you then advocate a place to sell my prayer beads, after all, they should be brokered too!
Sorry. but /Not signed.
The AH fills the role you said a Broker would fill. IE: Finding good shards. Since they would be player made and the "bad" shards would just get deconed anyway. No point to make a broker for it, it would be a waste of development time.

Maybe, I'm not sure I'm convinced. But it's a minor issue at best, that should probably at least be moved down way near the bottom of my list.




Good point, so not putting it on should not be an issue. In other words, the same people that used it before, will use it again now as always. Nothing will change and no point in worrying about it. It is a non-issue.
Here I don't agree. People like participating in Winter festival. People like putting icy burst on weapons just so they don't always have to swap it out if they bang on something else. Icy burst on a GEoB weapon isn't unbalancing and keeps people in the content for the marginal benefit. Certainly you're probably not suggesting the force damage from the Stone of Change (1 point of post multiplier damage) is unbalancing for the game? Suulomades is not quaking in his bare feet.

[Gkar]

Disjuncting an item should strip BtC/BtA properties

I agree with most of what you are saying, but this one in particular I'd like to jump all over and support. This alone would turn crafting from somewhat interesting to a "must do" activity for me

Crafting machines should take items directly from bags -Standal

Just noting that this one they have already said is only a couple weeks from going Live.

And aside from the improvements above what I view to the biggest problem is the huge expense of crafting. Right now achieving 100 in all three levels of crafting requires more than 10mil plat (?). I can't imagine what 200 would require (100s of millions of plat?) with the exponentially increasing costs. Is high level crafting (150ish) meant to be available only to 5 year players with 40+ million plat spread over 10 toons? The costs are prohibitively expensive. Many players hit 30ish or 40ish and give up. Only the most stubborn and rich are sticking it out past 70.

I agree, the system is boring and front end loaded. I would rather that you be able to advance your crafting more easily, but that items cost more to produce.

[lastseer]

I agree, the system is boring and front end loaded. I would rather that you be able to advance your crafting more easily, but that items cost more to produce.

Which is why I'm leaning towards Ungood's suggestion of only increasing the return on disenchanting, but leaving the progression of large essences in place.

[paraplegic]

my 2 cents.

if i deconstruct a metalline item. i expect more Essences . because 1) its level 100, 2) because it cost and 3) because if i deconstruct its not on the AH, which means a good price.

[Ungood]

I just feel that they should balance the decon with the shard cost. If they fixed that, I would be very happy.

[KrEstoF]

Well, here's my opinion on the crafting system. It's a good concept and has a great potential, but it's annoying. The problem is, the grind and leveling up of crafting is 100% unnecessary. The whole process of building up crafting levels is a huge, monotonous time/money sink. It doesn't really feel like you're playing DDO, but rather one of those little kiddy games on ads where you fight traffic and bake cookies instead of dragons. Overall, while there are obvious benefits to this system... gameplay is greatly detracted from in order to reach them.

The bottom line is, crafting is not useful to new/poor players, and this is generally because at those levels, it is most optimal to have gears with only one enchantment on them due to the way bonuses do not stack. The time and money needed to get to the levels where you can actually start making gear better than your current set is too high. A new player starting out could never hope to make +3 stat items or moderate fortification until they are well past level 10.

And the disparity just gets worse for the higher-level recipes. Say that you just wanted a solid greater bane weapon to thwack those annoying hobgoblins in tangleroot. You'd think that the crafting system would open up so many possibilities and help you achieve that earlier, at SOME expense. Well the sad news is, BOUND greater bane shards are lv 83ish ... and the weapon they make is only level 7.

Even if it is expected that they should have to spend MORE time and money trying to buy up additional essences or gears to get essences from... the fact is, long-standing players got them beat in buying power. The price of everything gets driven up by people who have a few extra million plat to throw around... hell, I've even noticed that most times, the shelves of the low-level pawn brokers are completely empty, save for named items.

So yes. I know a lot of you rich guys must be having a ball spending hours crafting shards you don't need... you at least can actually start reaping the benefits and deck out your low level toons and TRs -- even though, for the most part, they were probably already decked out. But what about the other 90% of the population?


Here's what I think should happen. Remove this god-awful leveling system for crafting. Let every shard be craftable regardless of "experience" so long as you have the needed materials. Then we balance this out by making it so the only shards you can make are bound and bumping up their ingredient requirements to around that of the current unbound costs. Hopefully if this is done, things might settle down without everyone constantly throwing essences into a black hole trying to get something useful out of the crafting system.