Change Epic Crafting to make it less Grindy

[HatsuharuZ]

Now that epic crafting items are no longer the only ones (or the best, in most cases) around at endgame, I think it's time to make it easier to aquire them. I have some suggestions for doing so, but please note that they are mutually exclusive, and only one of them should be applied to the game.

1) Greatly increase drop rates of seals and shards.

2) Make seals and shards unbound, so they can be freely traded.

[HunterjWizzard]

1) /signed

2)NOT SIGNED

I think the current setup is best: item/shard/seal BTA, scroll unbound. Adding unbound shards and seals would mean EVERYONE rolling on them instead of just the people that actually need something.

I'm not actually sure increasing the drop rate is even the right solution, but its better than unbound. Personally, I'd like to see them add universal shards/seals, or let us use say 20 Greater Tokens of the Twelve to take the place of one shard/seal.

I've currently managed to complete only 3 epic items(two of them from Lords, shockingly), but I am sitting on over a dozen incomplete shard/seal combos and its kind of driving me crazy.

For example: I have NEVER seen a shard of the Hellfire Crossbow drop in chrono, but I've seen 3 seals. And thats not even an item I want.

[Daemoneyes]

Make them Unbound or let us trade them in like the Scrolls.
But i would say unbound is the better solution,
especially since that would make player maybe again run old quests just to sell that SoS Shard/Seal.
And more player = more chances to get/buy it.

[nibel]

Or

3) Ditch the shard/seal/scroll combo, and drop the full item on chests.

Maybe allowing us to trade shards/seals/scrolls for one token each.

[decease]

1) signed.. yeah.. these old epic aren't much good.. they should be easier and less grindfeast
2)not signed.. it is bta already..

[Qhualor]

something tells me we will see a change to seals and shards in the near future. I have my theories.

[HunterjWizzard]

3) Ditch the shard/seal/scroll combo, and drop the full item on chests.


This is a terrible idea, why do people keep suggesting this?

[chrisgina39]

This is a terrible idea, why do people keep suggesting this?
1: how so?
2: they do that in the new epics

[Meretrix]

Get rid of shards

[Zarquine]

How about making an universal shard instead of a lot of specific shards, like Shard of the Desert, Shard of the Carnival, ect, with a little bit lower drop rate?

I tend to get a lot of shards that I will never use and nobody wants.

Or as has been suggested before, a shard trade-in with a 1:5 ratio?

The same would be nice for Seals.

[RobbinB]

Biggest problem I have is not having any clue what shards and seals I have on each character. I've currently made only a couple of the old-school epic items. It's quite possible that I have the materials to make a whole lot more, but I'm just not willing to track all these things with some massive Excel sheet on who's got what, or take the time to let's say transfer all desert items to character A, and all VoN items to character B, etc...

Since shards/seals are BtA, it would have (and still does) make sense that these things go straight into some separate account-wide stash area that can be viewed from any character, and not even be in regular inventory. It would also be helpful for loot decision making, eg. when the eSoS shard drops for me I could realize "actually, I already have 4 of those account-wide, it's the shard I've been waiting on for like the last 3 years", then I could let someone else who actually needs the shard take it.

Some individuals might like the whole "inventory management" mini-game that Turbine has set-up, personally I don't find it fun.

I also don't find the new collectibles minigame amusing, nor the "how many +x lesser reincarnations will it take to convert character x to something I might enjoy playing and is that worth it?" (hint...the answer is no)

And I'm so done with the "How many Fred respecs will it take to revamp this character's feats to what I want, and is it even possible given the order I previously took feats?"

(All the above examples have simpler formats possible which wouldn't preclude the selling of DDO store items and certainly remove some stupid roadblocks to character development - why Turbine doesn't want me to make my characters more fun to play is beyond me)

[Archangel666]

Biggest problem I have is not having any clue what shards and seals I have on each character. I've currently made only a couple of the old-school epic items. It's quite possible that I have the materials to make a whole lot more, but I'm just not willing to track all these things with some massive Excel sheet on who's got what, or take the time to let's say transfer all desert items to character A, and all VoN items to character B, etc...

Since shards/seals are BtA, it would have (and still does) make sense that these things go straight into some separate account-wide stash area that can be viewed from any character, and not even be in regular inventory. It would also be helpful for loot decision making, eg. when the eSoS shard drops for me I could realize "actually, I already have 4 of those account-wide, it's the shard I've been waiting on for like the last 3 years", then I could let someone else who actually needs the shard take it.

Some individuals might like the whole "inventory management" mini-game that Turbine has set-up, personally I don't find it fun.

I also don't find the new collectibles minigame amusing, nor the "how many +x lesser reincarnations will it take to convert character x to something I might enjoy playing and is that worth it?" (hint...the answer is no)

And I'm so done with the "How many Fred respecs will it take to revamp this character's feats to what I want, and is it even possible given the order I previously took feats?"

(All the above examples have simpler formats possible which wouldn't preclude the selling of DDO store items and certainly remove some stupid roadblocks to character development - why Turbine doesn't want me to make my characters more fun to play is beyond me)

That's why I have all of my Epic Shards/Seals/Scrolls in Large bags in my Shared Bank. Easily accessible by any of my characters. It also saves clutter on individual characters.

[HunterjWizzard]

Some individuals might like the whole "inventory management" mini-game that Turbine has set-up, personally I don't find it fun.


Man I'm with you: its frustrating as all get-out!

There is shared bank, of course, but 80 extra inventory slots for about $40 isn't really what I call a "solution". 1,000 slots in the shared bank, an option to organize and sort it, maybe a couple of tabs, that would be nice.

For me, I just keep all of my epic shard/seal/scrolls on a single character, then keep an excel spreadsheet of what I have. Of course, I can totally see someone not wanting to play that game.

I'm up to two mule characters and a seperate mule account.

[knockcocker]

This has been brought up many times since MotU. I've not seen Turbine comment
on this at all. They can barely be bothered to fix actual defects in older content;
I wouldn't hold your breath for them tweaking it.

FWIW, I think the best solution is to add in a 3:1 trader (as with Desert scrolls)
and possibly buff drop rates slightly. Having ~3-5% drop rates multiplexed across
several required components for several items isn't very fun. e.g. your chance
of getting a specific seal in most cases is much less than 1%. I'm now
overflowing two large ingredient bags with a mismatch of Epic components. yay.

[HunterjWizzard]

FWIW, I think the best solution is to add in a 3:1 trader (as with Desert scrolls)
and possibly buff drop rates slightly. Having ~3-5% drop rates multiplexed across
several required components for several items isn't very fun. e.g. your chance
of getting a specific seal in most cases is much less than 1%.

Thats all we'd really need to fix it. Be the best solution.

[nibel]

This is a terrible idea, why do people keep suggesting this?

Because that is how they handle every epic item after MotU?