Lower Minimum Levels to Something Reasonable!

[ThunderCraft]

I am peeved at Turbine for the way they keep ratcheting up the minimum levels for various types of items. It's getting to the point where - in certain cases - nobody (not even DDO devs) can deny it makes the item practically unusable. It's upsetting a lot of players.

I suggest they lower some of these to reasonable levels. And by "reasonable" I mean something that makes them worth the effort of obtaining or crafting and worth using - as compared to similar random loot. (It's bad enough that, with recent updates, they ramped-up the difficulty levels of many dungeons. Traps are a lot more lethal now! And enemies are somehow smarter and do a lot more damage! Which is also ridiculous, considering that most players now have to play most quests at a difficulty level significantly below their character level, sometimes sacrificing experience and other rewards in the process.)

Similarly, they should consider the named items players get and the difficulty levels of the quests they are obtained in. By that, I am referring to how frequently the minimum level of the named loot is either at or below the difficult level of the quest. For instance, one may be hoping to get a named item with a minimum level of, say, 10, but the quest itself may have a difficulty of 12, 13 or higher. Another words, one would need to level their character to at least 12 (if not more) in order to run the quest in the hopes of getting an item that's... no longer appropriate to their level.

It's completely backwards. Rather, if one is running quests with a difficulty of 12 (on Normal), then the named items should be one or more levels higher than this; such items should be minimum level 13 or higher (and appropriately powerful/useful).

But, now, I understand their thinking. It's simple:

"Moving the Goalposts" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts)

To keep players coming back and pumping more moolah into the store, one simply needs to keep the goal just out of their reach - like dangling a carrot in front of the donkey pulling your cart. Except... it's backfiring - it's just upsetting players and alienating them.

[ThunderCraft]

The most prominant example of this disparity of level requirements is, of course, how they ratcheted up the min. level requirements on Cannith Crafting (http://ddowiki.com/page/Cannith_Crafting) stuff. The following (very appropriately-named) thread gives some inkling of how messed up Cannith Crafting is now and how these changes upset players who were using crafted items at the time:

Cannith Crafting Left Me Naked and Afraid! (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/379879)

If you look at the date of the OP (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/379879-Cannith-Crafting-Left-Me-Naked-and-Afraid!?p=4543872&viewfull=1#post4543872) (June 25, 2012) and compare it with the Modules and updates (http://ddowiki.com/page/Modules_and_updates) list, you'll see that this coincided with Update 14: Menace of the Underdark expansion (http://ddowiki.com/page/Update_14). (Perhaps they wanted to nerf crafted items to encourage players to buy their new content?)

Before this change, Cannith Crafting was fairly popular. It was like a gimmick that got some players interested in DDO again. Sales of greater and lesser essences through the DDO store must have generated quite a revenue.

But sales of essences must have slacked after a while. They seemed to have gimped the deconstruction returns in terms of Greater essences.

Then they jacked up the min. levels of crafted items and completely changed the random loot system to drop stuff like Deadly/Accuracy items and Acid III/IV. These days, hardly anyone seems to use Cannith Crafting. The crafting halls in both House K and House C are eerily quiet most of the time. What used to be a buzz of activity is now often populated by maybe 3 or so players per server during peek gaming hours.

There's no question: There are no longer many players bothering to deconstruct their items for essences. If they bother with crafting essences at all, they might see it as a way to sell something they don't use to generate some plat. It's such that I've actually had players give me essences. As in, for free. One friendly player - whom I had never met before - gave me 1000 of each lesser essence. I just had to provide the Small Ingredient Bag to hold them.

Even before they jacked-up the minimum levels Cannith Crafting wasn't all that useful. There are many restrictions, it is quite expensive (in terms of money and time), and it takes long time to grind for crafting levels (http://ddowiki.com/page/Cannith_Crafting/Level_Progression). To be fair, Update 11 did actually reduce the experience needed to advance in Cannith Crafting. However, it wasn't nearly enough to make it practical for most players. For example, to reach level 107 used to require 54848 points, but is now 40636 points. That's not really a lot of difference when one considers how difficult it is to get those points, especially since crafting shards returns lower and lower points until they don't give any. (And after a dozen levels or so deconstruction returns no points.)

I've played a few Artificers and - to this day - my friend and I grind much (if not most) of our stuff for essences. Yet, to this day, my friend has not crafted anything for himself as he doesn't have nearly enough essences to practice and gain the crafting levels required to make anything useful. Myself, I've crafted a few things, including Holy and Pure Good shards. But after spending nearly a million plat in buying Greater and Lesser Essences to craft and deconstruct shards just for the crafting experience - the highest crafting level I have on any of my toons is less than 70. And that's after using a variety of Crafting Experience elixirs I picked up through the Daily Lotto and the Daily Dice. So I usually end up begging certain guildies and friends to craft the high level stuff when I feel the need. (Which is not very often.)

And lets not forget three very significant shortcomings of Cannith Crafting:

1) Risia Ice Games (http://ddowiki.com/page/Risia_Ice_Games) recipes will NOT work on crafted items!

2) Cannith Crafting + Alchemical Crafting (Stone of Change) = +2 to Minimum Level (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/349394)

3) Cannith Crafting is missing a lot of functionality. The types of shards available to craft and the types of items they can fit on is extremely limited when compared to what can be found in random loot and on named items.

A good example:

To this day, you can not craft on to a deconstructed Companion Collar (http://ddowiki.com/page/Companion_Collar). Oh no! The only solution, which both Artificers and Druids rely on for their pets, is to convert handwraps (http://ddowiki.com/page/Handwraps) at device workstation (http://ddowiki.com/page/Device_Workstation). And, of course, Monk players need good handwraps of their own. As a consequence, decent handwraps are snatched up and prices remain among the most expensive items on AH. Have you priced silver-threaded handwraps lately?! (Silver-threaded handwraps are extremely rare to drop. Or so I'm told. And it doesn't help any that DDO devs refuse to add Green Steel (http://ddowiki.com/page/Green_Steel_items) handwraps.) Actual Companion Collars tend to be pretty rare, too, as both Artificer and Druid are rather popular classes. Before the recent change to random loot (where Holy got nerfed), finding a good Holy companion collar was very difficult. And obtaining Holy handwraps was even more difficult/expensive.

I'm getting sidetracked...

As such, the only value of Cannith Crafting (as most experienced players will tell you) is to fill in gaps or holes left in your equipment set. And even that usefulness has been gimped by recent changes to random loot drops. In most cases, players can obtain either random loot or named items that are just as good or better. That, or they could craft something better via eitherGreensteel (http://ddowiki.com/page/Green_Steel_item_crafting_steps) or Alchemical Crafting (http://ddowiki.com/page/Alchemical_Crafting).

If DDO cared about keeping it useful or player feelings, then they would resolve some of these issues. At the very least, they should greatly expand the craftable shards to include more of the stuff now available in random loot. And they should definitely ease up on min. level requirements, restrictions on the kinds of equipment a shard can fit on, and the crafting experience (i.e., "grind") needed.

Which brings me to another point:

For a long time, Greensteel (http://ddowiki.com/page/Green_Steel_item_crafting_steps) items had a min. level requirement of 8. That made it more useful to TR'd toons and mid-level toons in general. But before I managed to get any of my characters to a point where I could run The Shroud (http://ddowiki.com/page/The_Shroud), they ratcheted up the minimum levels. Now Greensteel accessories have a min. level of 11 and Greensteel weapons have a min. level of 12.

[ThunderCraft]

Aside from the crafted stuff, I also see a lot more random loot with ridiculous level requirements. For example:

1) I have a Proof Against Disease +2 Necklace of False Life (1/1 Charges; Recharged/day:1) that I obtained some time ago. It used to be minimum level 2 or 3. Now? It's minimum level five.

(Never mind the fact that you can't find an item with charges of the False Life spell anymore. They don't drop in loot anymore and you can't find them on AH. And you can't craft such items. Note: Not to be confused with "False Life" items that merely increase your max hit points. The False Life spell effect / clicky stacks with that.)

2) A few months ago (after the random loot drop changes) one of the items I got which caught my attention was:

http://i.imgur.com/MDVizAU.jpg

:( This is a pathetic +2 item with a pathetic +5 extra HP. And it is "Masterful Craftsmanship", meaning is should have a lower level requirement. And it’s minimum level is ten?

3) With a recent update they recalculated the minimum levels on a lot of different items. Among these:

http://i.imgur.com/2plAJRK.jpg

This used to have a minimum level of 16! When it was bumped up to 18 my Arti who was wearing it at the time was no longer able to put it back on. 18? It's not even that impressive.


Finally, my coup de grâce (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_de_grâce):

http://i.imgur.com/yTxIwQh.jpg

SERIOUSLY, TURBINE?! https://www.ddo.com/forums/images/icons/icon8.png You've got to be kidding me! You can’t imagine how mad I was when I logged in to this toon for the first time in years. At first, I couldn't figure out why I was moving slower than molasses running downhill in January! Apparently, it was because I had something "inappropriate" equipped.

Originally, back in 2009, this was just a +4 Shock Rapier of Pure Good. It had a minimum level of either 9 or 10. (The character was level 10 at the time.) And I worked my butt off to add an Icy Burst kit and Greater Glaciation VIII. I thought it was pretty cool at the time. Back then they didn't have any of the strict minimum level cr@$ we see today.

Level 26? Come on! No level 26 toon would be caught dead with this weapon!

Aside from the grind I did to obtain the Winter Motes and Recipes for the Icy Burst, it took a long time to gather enough recipes and motes to craft Greater Glaciation VIII! According to the Glaciation Recipes (http://ddowiki.com/page/Risia_Ice_Games#Glaciation_Recipes) list on the wiki, it took Recipes 6-13 and 1,071 Motes.

Now? :( All that time and effort has been WASTED!

[Chaios]

SERIOUSLY, TURBINE?! https://www.ddo.com/forums/images/icons/icon8.png You've got to be kidding me! You can’t imagine how mad I was when I logged in to this toon for the first time in years. At first, I couldn't figure out why I was moving slower than molasses running downhill in January! Apparently, it was because I had something "inappropriate" equipped.

yup.

[biggin2]

Although I do hate nerfs and moving of min levels, I never thought you should be able to craft what you find randomly. To me it's on par with being able to make your own lottery tickets with winning numbers. Random loot should always have an edge over crafted otherwise there is never any hope when you open a chest which is a core (IMO) element of the game.

I agree with named items having their min levels dropped......like through the floor. There is almost no reason to even keep BtC raid loot items since the random loot gen far outweighs it in almost every way except for a few special effects like Freedom of Movement....which also got nerfed.

[FranOhmsford]

Gonna add Detect Secret Doors Wands and Scrolls to this thread.

A Basic Detect Secret Doors Wand or Scroll is Min Lvl 1 and has a DC of 5!

FIVE!!!

Seriously!

Said wand can't even find the Secret Door leading to the Troll in Redfang on Elite!

This is Ridiculous!


I've complained previously about the Min Lvls on Wands being higher than the basic usability of the spell on said Wand But now I find that a DSD Wand with a Min Lvl of 1 is basically worthless past Lvl 4!


Look - You can easily get a Search +7 item at Lvl 5
Add 1 for 12 Base Int
Add 2 for Fox's Cunning Pot
Add 2 for Heroism Pot
And you've got a far better chance of finding a Secret Door without the Wand than With!

[JOTMON]

Feather's Loot revamp screwed loot across the board.

All my squirreled away rare and unusual non-standard level goodies that I bought, traded, or farmed were all screwed in one fatal sweep.

There is no going back from this.

Even adding levels because an item has an augment slot or two screws the level of the item.

It is pretty much all garbage vendor trash now except for a few endgame items, better off Cannith crafting specific low level stuff and gear endgame specific items.

[ThunderCraft]

Although I do hate nerfs and moving of min levels, I never thought you should be able to craft what you find randomly. To me it's on par with being able to make your own lottery tickets with winning numbers. Random loot should always have an edge over crafted otherwise there is never any hope when you open a chest which is a core (IMO) element of the game.

Consider all the time and effort required to repeatedly run The Shroud (http://ddowiki.com/page/The_Shroud) and/or trade rare ingredients in order to build a blank Green Steel (http://ddowiki.com/page/Green_Steel_item_crafting_steps) item and imbue it with the enchantments desired. It's a very complicated process. One has to plan ahead and research what you want to build and the ingredients and steps necessary to build it. There are multiple "phases" to The Shroud, with several different altars and several steps at each. (It's so complicated that most players use a program to tell you what ingredients to use and the steps necessary.) Even then, there are restrictions on what enhancements can go with each other and what "tiers" they can be added at. And, after all that work, such items will be BTC!

Further, to be able to wear more than one green steel accessory one has to cleanse each with an Essence of Cleansing (http://ddowiki.com/page/Essence_of_Cleansing), which can only be obtained on every 20th completion of the raid.

Are you saying that random loot should always "have an edge" over Green Steel items? Should it be impossible to craft a Green Steel item with abilities equivalent to a random item, let alone superior?

If you did that, then nobody would bother to create Green Steel items. Nor would anyone be willing to buy depleted energy cells and other ingredients from the DDO store. And players wouldn't be nearly as willing to purchase The Vale of Twilight (http://ddowiki.com/page/The_Vale_of_Twilight) adventure pack, either. (It was the main reason I bought it!)

Similarly, Cannith Crafting (http://ddowiki.com/page/Cannith_Crafting) is rather complicated and, often, exceedingly expensive (in terms of time, plat, and/or actual money). Granted, it's nowhere near as complicated as Green Steel crafting. And the ingredients are much easier to obtain. Essences can be found even in chests on Korthos Island. (Though, essence drops become progressively more common and generous the higher the quest and difficulty level.) But it does require several steps and countless game hours of crafting shards to gain the crafting experience needed for better shards. One could have someone else with the crafting levels make shards for you. Except, creating "unbound" shards is a lot more expensive in terms of essences. (Often, it costs about twice as many Greaters.) And, on top of this, the crafter often charges a crafting fee of extra Greaters. It's such that some crafters make a profit by selling certain unbound shards on the AH for tens or even hundreds of thousands of plat. (Shards of Haggling +13 come to mind...)

Further, unbound shards are usually much weaker than bound shards of the same crafting level and ingredients. Indeed, some shards are impossible to create unbound and you must create them yourself. And, despite being called "unbound", items crafted with them become "bind on equip."

In addition, certain crafting ingredients are exceedingly rare. Some of them are so rare or difficult (such as Dragon's Blood for Dragon-Bane) that many players are willing to buy them from the DDO store. Want to create a Holy Burst shard (the kind that does 2d6 + extra on crits)? That requires a Mark of the Silver Flame, which can only be obtained by earning at least 400 favor with the Silver Flame.

Cannith Crafting wouldn't be quite so bad if it was easier to create/obtain Shards of Masterful Craftsmanship (http://ddowiki.com/page/Bound_Shard_of_Masterful_Craftsmanship_I) and if they had more of an effect. But these require Marks of House Cannith (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Mark_of_House_Cannith), which requires earning at least 50 favor with Cannith. One would not think earning 50 favor would be too difficult. But it's nearly impossible to obtain a 4 or 5-star rating in each and every one of the 12 challenges in Vaults of the Artificers (http://ddowiki.com/page/Vaults_of_the_Artificers) (says someone who actually bought the pack). I also have Secrets of the Artificers (http://ddowiki.com/page/Secrets_of_the_Artificers). But it was only very recently that I managed to level a toon to 20, which might be able to handle these difficult quests. And that's just on one server.

In any case, you shouldn't worry. Random loot will always be a "core element of the game", no matter how much they mess up the various types of crafting and named items. In fact, it's now a more important element than ever before. As I said, crafting takes a big investment. And, with level restrictions the way they are, low level toons can't often use the stuff.

[Chaios]

Consider all the time and effort required to repeatedly run The Shroud (http://ddowiki.com/page/The_Shroud) and/or trade rare ingredients in order to build a blank Green Steel (http://ddowiki.com/page/Green_Steel_item_crafting_steps) item and imbue it with the enchantments desired. It's a very complicated process. One has to plan ahead and research what you want to build and the ingredients and steps necessary to build it. There are multiple "phases" to The Shroud, with several different altars and several steps at each. (It's so complicated that most players use a program to tell you what ingredients to use and the steps necessary.) Even then, there are restrictions on what enhancements can go with each other and what "tiers" they can be added at. And, after all that work, such items will be BTC!

I get what you're writing and I agree to point, but I like the idea of there being certain stars-aligned lootgen items that can't be created through crafting, an adamantium anarchic khopesh of smiting, for example. Many people probably wouldn't even care about that item or even consider it better than a greensteel. My point is that the possibility of random items appearing with interesting and uncraftable effects only diminishes the value or utility of crafted items when the random items are easier to get than the crafted items and are more generally useful than the crafted items... I miss going through the AH looking for perfect or at least interesting lootgen weapons. I miss the loot table of around update 14. I also miss race restricted umd items, now umd is only useful if a toon has enough of it to scroll-heal :/

[biggin]

A) You don't have to explain Greensteel crafting to me, I've probably thrown away more Greensteel items then you will ever make.
B) Again, Greensteel is BtC. You can't make Conc Op boots and put them on the Auction House. You can make a blank and put all the ingredients on the AH (minus the shards), but let's try not to forget that Greensteel is a very powerful item. I know I still wear mine even up to 25 until I put an Epic Blue Dragonhelm on. With the power creep being what it is we don't need more Greensteel type items, at least IMO.
C) Very rare items to make should come with very hard ingredients to find and be next to impossible to craft. Let's take a Holy Burst Silver Khopesh of Pure Good. It should be just as hard if not harder to craft then it would be to find in random loot gen and there are probably only a handful of them on each server. No, I don't think that everyone should be able to make that without as much or more time invested then it would be to open that many chests and find one.

I will say that I do agree with you in that Turbine opened the door to this and should stop moving min levels. You made the item, you invested time and sometimes RL money into it, you should be able to keep it. And I do get that crafters probably look at chests as I do, just differently as they are looking for things just not the same things. But honestly we have crafters that are in the 150's in our guild, people we dropped everything to in order for them to get the very highest ratings and it was a group effort. Sorry, but since you said you haven't even reached 70 in any crafting class leads me to think that you haven't invested nearly as much into it as you think you have. It would be on par with everyone in a guild dropping all GS mats to one person in order to make an item.

Again, not trying to say you are completely off base with the entire post, you hit on some very key points. But personally I just don't see any need to keep pushing the envelope with items. We went from a relatively magic reduced DDO to a fireworks display in every quest from level one on up.

[CaptainPurge]

So don't craft.

Less QQ more crafting.

[CaptainPurge]

Gonna add Detect Secret Doors Wands and Scrolls to this thread.

A Basic Detect Secret Doors Wand or Scroll is Min Lvl 1 and has a DC of 5!

FIVE!!!

Seriously!

Said wand can't even find the Secret Door leading to the Troll in Redfang on Elite!

This is Ridiculous!


I've complained previously about the Min Lvls on Wands being higher than the basic usability of the spell on said Wand But now I find that a DSD Wand with a Min Lvl of 1 is basically worthless past Lvl 4!


Look - You can easily get a Search +7 item at Lvl 5
Add 1 for 12 Base Int
Add 2 for Fox's Cunning Pot
Add 2 for Heroism Pot
And you've got a far better chance of finding a Secret Door without the Wand than With!

Overpowered and off topic is overpowered and off topic

[Flavilandile]

Your Items have been Feathered by the Great Ghostbanning of Loot... like many other items.

Sadly there's not much that can be done about it.
There's already numerous threads about that.

[Chai]

The hilarious thing about this is we were told that items might gain a level or two tops, and that pure good was actually "bugged" as being ML +2 when it supposedly should have been ML +4 the entire time - all the way back to 2006, lulz.

Then when they are shown items that gained 8-10 ML they simply shrug and act like nothing wrong was said or done.

Hey farvah, whats that place we go to with the cheese sticks and the stuff all over the walls?

Shenanigans!!!!

[skaught78]

Although I do hate nerfs and moving of min levels, I never thought you should be able to craft what you find randomly. To me it's on par with being able to make your own lottery tickets with winning numbers. Random loot should always have an edge over crafted otherwise there is never any hope when you open a chest which is a core (IMO) element of the game.
.

You're wrong. Anybody who puts the time and effort in to grind out the crafting XP needed to make something, deserves to have an edge over the 99% of **** loot that is randomly generated.

3 years of playing, and I think I've kept maybe 2 or 3 things that have randomly dropped. And I really can't remember yet once having decent named loot drop.

[FranOhmsford]

Overpowered and off topic is overpowered and off topic

Thread title is "Lower Minimum Levels to Something Reasonable!"

So yes my post was ON Topic!

The Min Levels of DSD Wands {and frankly most Wands with DCs of any kind!} are stupidly high!

By the time you can use them they're Non-Viable!

As for Scrolls - A Standard Scroll of DSD is completely and utterly worthless to anyone other than a Wizard who forgot to take the spell when levelling up!


God Knows where you got Overpowered from or have we just found out who asked the Devs to Nerf the Hell out of DSD and True Seeing?

[oradafu]

Although I do hate nerfs and moving of min levels, I never thought you should be able to craft what you find randomly. To me it's on par with being able to make your own lottery tickets with winning numbers. Random loot should always have an edge over crafted otherwise there is never any hope when you open a chest which is a core (IMO) element of the game.


You are completely wrong about this. If crafted items weren't equal to random loot, the number of people who spent time getting their crafting numbers up would have been quite small. In fact, there was a whole discussion about the topic of ML of crafted and random loot when Cannith Crafting was introduced and the Devs conceded that players were right.

The only way I see random loot having lower ML than crafted loot is via the Masterful Craftsmanship that replaced Racial Restriction and BTA gear. In fact BTA gear used to have a lower than use ML until the total FUBARing of the loot tables recently. Unfortunately, since the tables are completely FUBARed but the Devs like it, I doubt we'll ever see the un-FUBARing of the loot tables.

[biggin2]

You are completely wrong about this. If crafted items weren't equal to random loot, the number of people who spent time getting their crafting numbers up would have been quite small. In fact, there was a whole discussion about the topic of ML of crafted and random loot when Cannith Crafting was introduced and the Devs conceded that players were right.

The only way I see random loot having lower ML than crafted loot is via the Masterful Craftsmanship that replaced Racial Restriction and BTA gear. In fact BTA gear used to have a lower than use ML until the total FUBARing of the loot tables recently. Unfortunately, since the tables are completely FUBARed but the Devs like it, I doubt we'll ever see the un-FUBARing of the loot tables.

I'm not 'completely wrong' about this, just a different opinion on the matter than you. As a matter of fact, if we look at what happened to crafting ML it seems I would be right and you would be wrong, correct?

Again, I am not nor ever will be in favor of moving ML of anything unless it's down, not up. People should not have been allowed to spend RL money on something only to log in the next day and find they could no longer wear it. Trust me, I benefited greatly from crafting with getting some nice twink lowbie gear made. But all more powerful gear does is move the bar even further toward a power creep. Look at end game where EE content has mobs in the +300k HP range. I don't want to see the end fight in STK turn into a 30 minute fight because everyone is swinging Icy Burst Acid Burst Greatswords of Pure Good with Lightning Strike, ML 2. It just isn't good for the game, no matter if I am for crafting or not.

[Jasparion]

Although I do hate nerfs and moving of min levels, I never thought you should be able to craft what you find randomly. To me it's on par with being able to make your own lottery tickets with winning numbers. Random loot should always have an edge over crafted otherwise there is never any hope when you open a chest which is a core (IMO) element of the game.

Really? I would say random loot is killing this game.

Why bother running dungeons or levelling crafting when you can be completely kitted out and raid-ready with stuff you can buy on the Auction House?

[biggin2]

Really? I would say random loot is killing this game.

Why bother running dungeons or levelling crafting when you can be completely kitted out and raid-ready with stuff you can buy on the Auction House?

And I agree, I think we are both saying the same thing just in different ways. The power creep is now a full out power sprint. If you've seen the new loot coming out, if it doesn't change, isn't that big of a jump. I think the devs see what has happened and may at least be trying to stick a few fingers in the already leaking dam. The problem, as I see it, was the implementation of the TR system as far as loot goes. Before we had a linear progression and when you got to end game, that was it. They could make the raids harder and harder because the gear stayed at end game. Now with people TR'ing in a constant loop the 'end game' gear has now become low-mid level gear.

And I agree that running quests has become pointless for gear purposes for people with multiple toons who've played for a bit. They should just have leveling circles we stand in and just gain XP. The gear has become so OP for the quests as they were originally designed that people who have kitted out toons are just going through the motions.

I don't have a problem with people who craft items for themselves. I always thought crafting should be for the ones who spend their time doing it. What I don't want to see is even more overpowered items flooding the market. I get that in other games that's what draws people. They like to craft and sell. Seems pointless to me, like doing nothing but buying and selling on the AH but to each their own I guess. What I don't want to see is a way to craft items that are even more powerful than the ridiculous overpower stuff that is already out there. The game is losing the challenge at every level. What I think sets this game apart from the rest is the deep level of custom characters to build and that is where the 'power' should stay.

[ThunderCraft]

The power creep is now a full out power sprint.

Agreed.


The problem, as I see it, was the implementation of the TR system as far as loot goes. Before we had a linear progression and when you got to end game, that was it. They could make the raids harder and harder because the gear stayed at end game. Now with people TR'ing in a constant loop the 'end game' gear has now become low-mid level gear.

Agreed.


And I agree that running quests has become pointless for gear purposes for people with multiple toons who've played for a bit.

Granted, if someone's been playing on the same server for long enough, especially after the end game and TR once or twice, then one would not expect better gear to become available from quests - especially if it's the same quests they did the previous life. But there are other reasons to run quests. And there's always the possibility of finding unusually nice random items or rare stuff like tomes or portable holes (even on low level quests). But if you're reincarnating over and over and doing the same quests over and over then, yeah, it's going to get repetitive after a while.

But, I don't see how running quests could be pointless. Completing a quest gives multiple types of rewards:

1. Favor. After you TR, your favor starts over and you'll need to do it again.
2. Experience. After you TR, you'll need more XP to level.
3. Loot. (Including plat, stuff to sell for plat, equipment - possibly named, items - possibly rare)

Anyway, there is one obvious way of avoiding this problem: Just start over on a new server. When you don't have access to millions of plat, an excess of tomes, toons with multiple lives and the best equipment in the game, I guarantee the challenge will be back. (As I said, they've recently amped up the difficulty of quests. All quests. And traps are more likely than ever before to kill you.)

Another way is to build toons for "flavor" or play a new class or interesting combination, rather than what you're best at or carefully building toons to max DPS and survivability.


The gear has become so OP for the quests as they were originally designed that people who have kitted out toons are just going through the motions.

The game is losing the challenge at every level.

I wouldn't know: I've never been able to equip a toon like that, much less be able to TR multiple times. And while I have purchased just about every adventure pack available and various account upgrades (bank slots, 32-point build, monk, warforged, etc, etc), I certainly can't afford to regularly buy buffs and special items or equipment from the store.

And, for the record, I've been playing DDO since sometime in 2009. Thing is, I haven't played it to death like some. I'm more of a casual weekend player. (Off and on, at that.) What's more, I have multiple toons on all servers. And, especially lately, I've been playing on two different servers (with guilds on each). But now that I've managed to level some toons to try my hand at raids and epic stuff.... I find the difficulty to be not merely "challenging" but way over-the-top. And that's with multiple tomes and what I consider to be a good build, but mediocre equipment.

Some may find the game to be a "pushover". But some of us mere mortals are finding it quite difficult just to survive high level quests when played at or near level! Granted, with MMO's it's to be expected that free-to-play will find it difficult or downright impossible, whereas the paying customers have all the benefits and perks. But some of us paying customers (on a fixed budget and limited free time) are still struggling to manage. I guess the trick is to find a balance that satisfies the majority, or at least the most paying customers.


I don't have a problem with people who craft items for themselves. I always thought crafting should be for the ones who spend their time doing it. What I don't want to see is even more overpowered items flooding the market.

Most of the crafting stuff in DDO is about crafting for oneself. Yes, there are "unbound" shards for Cannith crafting. But these are noticably less powerful/effective (and more expensive to make) for a given ML compared to bound shards. And there's no way Cannith Crafting could be considered "overpowered." (Not even close.) And aside from some of the ingredients, I thought greensteel/alchemical and the like were pretty much bound to account or character. Indeed, some of the ingredients are bound, too (such as for dragontouched armor and epic crafting).


What I don't want to see is a way to craft items that are even more powerful than the ridiculous overpower stuff that is already out there.

IMO, I don't see any danger of that happening.


What I think sets this game apart from the rest is the deep level of custom characters to build and that is where the 'power' should stay.

Agreed.

[Stoner81]

Although I do hate nerfs and moving of min levels, I never thought you should be able to craft what you find randomly. To me it's on par with being able to make your own lottery tickets with winning numbers. Random loot should always have an edge over crafted otherwise there is never any hope when you open a chest which is a core (IMO) element of the game.

I agree with named items having their min levels dropped......like through the floor. There is almost no reason to even keep BtC raid loot items since the random loot gen far outweighs it in almost every way except for a few special effects like Freedom of Movement....which also got nerfed.

I disagree with this whole heartedly!

Levelling up Cannith Crafting takes an insane amount of time, effort and resources. Anybody who has spent all of that to reach the high/highest levels should be able to make pretty much everything in the game except for certain things which go on raid loot only. Random lootgen has its place sure since it's all free just by questing but Cannith Crafting gives you the ability to make specific things for specific characters.

TL;DR - Cannith Crafting should always beat lootgen imho.

Stoner81.

[General_Gronker]

I agree that the minimum levels are messed up.


I never thought you should be able to craft what you find randomly. To me it's on par with being able to make your own lottery tickets with winning numbers. Random loot should always have an edge over crafted otherwise there is never any hope when you open a chest which is a core (IMO) element of the game.However, this is not something I agree with. Why? Because it isnt' true to the game upon which this is based. In 3E you absolutely should be able to craft as good as, if not better than random loot. Denying that is just silly. The problem is that they went and designed a terrible crafting system that any character could invest in. What they should have done was simply lift the crafting system straight from the books (including requiring the various feats), or the Crafting Points system from Unearthed Arcana. Frankly, even though I have a crafter with all three categories in the 140s, I'd still like to see them scrap the current system and adopt the one from Core or UA.

[Ungood]

To address the OP:

I have to agree that Crafting, like Cannith Crafting, should yield a better product then loot gen, either via lower level, or better effects, or even just unique effects.

The failure of the Cannith Crafting can't be under played here, it should have replaced loot-gen in it's entirety for those that were willing to invest in building the skill, but it fell flat with higher ML's, and even then got totally surpassed when the Loot-gen changes happened in MotuD, and then again with the Ghostbaneing.

Truth is Loot-gen should never be more then a "make due" item, and Cannith Crafting should have provided a better product.

The other crafting systems suffered as they fell behind as the game progressed, like the Lordsmarch, and the Reign of Madness crafting.

[Daze]

Let's not forget that cannith crafting is broken up into 2 different ML systems.

Bound - Customizable gear that should have a lower ML than dropping gear for use on the crafters own account. A reward for hard work and dedication crafting gear that has a base 2 levels below a similarly dropped item to be further dropped with masterful crafting.

Unbound - Customizable gear that has the same ML as dropping gear but replacing the 'luck' of getting that item out of a chest with the hard work of getting crafting levels. With enough skill/favor/plat can be reduced by 2 levels with masterfull craftmanship.


IMHO that should remove Cannith crafting from the conversation. The crux of the discussion is about ML in general and while that effects Cannith crafting it is by extension and not as a main point.

Raid items, especially items from old raids, are going to have lower ML and rightfully so due to the difficulty to obtain. Shroud items .. are raid items ... customizable yes but again require a fair amount of work. Yes Biggins2 I have made a lot of greensteel myself through my main characters 28+ lives. I don't see being elitest as a valid argument though. So bottomline on raid items ... they are where they are supposed to be (so far). Just my 2c.

The following 4 points are what I believe to be relevant to the current fubar status of the game's loot system:

1) When it comes to random dropped stuff ... the minimum level is screwed. I run an elite waterworks on one of my TR's and I see a bunch of red loot that I can't use ... granted that makes no difference to me seeing as I generally have enough loot already prepared to squeak on by but for the average gamer that has got to be rough to see. After eeking out a win against overinflated mobs and traps of doom to see a bunch of loot you cant use yet? That doesn't get better after waterworks either fyi. Mind you I am generally soloing ... but groups can do it just as well (if not easier) with 1st life toons.

2) An icy burst kit (or similar special crafting onto random gen loot) shouldn't add anything to the ML. You cannot add it to named or cannith so the overpowered-ness is already mitigated. Hard work should not be penalized.

3) Where is the reward for having an epic elite item go up in level over the epic normal version? With the serious difficulty of succeeding at an EE quest and the luck needed to pull a named item that effort(and luck) should be rewarded as opposed to penalized by not being able to use said item until capped (and for some of us it is a whole 30seconds of usage) which brings me to my final point.

4) What exactly is the point of a ML 28 item? The endgame is about past lives. Whether you are a hardcore past lifer completionist or a casual gamer that occasionally Epic TR's when they have the commendations of valor for it. These ML28 loots just take up bank space when you need to clear out a TR cache. Speaking of TR cache's ... make them roll over from life to life already!

[Irenae]

Indeed, crafting should always beat lootgen but at the same time require items from lootgen to make things. This is one of the ways I love greensteel crafting and something that mixes greensteel crafting with cannith crafting would be interesting to say the least.

[fmalfeas]

I have to agree with the sentiment that the core crafting system should be brought in. It's what the artificer class was /made for/ in fact. On top of it, unlike the mighty Wizard (who can rival, and sometimes exceed an arti in crafting - Craft Portal and Craft Contingent Spell are not on the arti lists) the Arti is supposed to get craft points that let them make some items with no xp cost every level. Be they potions or wands or scrolls or even a magic sword for a party member, the artificer is a walking, talking factory.

And we can't forget the Forgotten Realms prestige class Master Alchemist. They, once maxed, can make a potion out of any spell they know, instead of just up to 3rd level spells. They're the people who make Deathward and Heal and Tenser's pots.

Plus, the wizard Scribe Scroll feat is /not/ supposed to be the ability to put spells in their spellbook. It's supposed to be the ability to make scrolls of spells they know. :(

Back to the main point at hand, regarding raidloot, I'd say knock 4 off the ML of all raid items. That means heroic chrono items at level 1, yes, but that /is/ a reward for TRing. It also means that people would be much more interested in the stuff from ToD, VoD, MA/LoB and Hound of Xoriat, since they could use it for a few levels before epic gear obsoletes it.

[Ungood]

I have to agree with the sentiment that the core crafting system should be brought in. It's what the artificer class was /made for/ in fact. On top of it, unlike the mighty Wizard (who can rival, and sometimes exceed an arti in crafting - Craft Portal and Craft Contingent Spell are not on the arti lists) the Arti is supposed to get craft points that let them make some items with no xp cost every level. Be they potions or wands or scrolls or even a magic sword for a party member, the artificer is a walking, talking factory.

And we can't forget the Forgotten Realms prestige class Master Alchemist. They, once maxed, can make a potion out of any spell they know, instead of just up to 3rd level spells. They're the people who make Deathward and Heal and Tenser's pots.

Plus, the wizard Scribe Scroll feat is /not/ supposed to be the ability to put spells in their spellbook. It's supposed to be the ability to make scrolls of spells they know. :(

Back to the main point at hand, regarding raidloot, I'd say knock 4 off the ML of all raid items. That means heroic chrono items at level 1, yes, but that /is/ a reward for TRing. It also means that people would be much more interested in the stuff from ToD, VoD, MA/LoB and Hound of Xoriat, since they could use it for a few levels before epic gear obsoletes it.

I was going to say 4 levels is a bit excessive, but you do have a point.

[Noctus]

Finally, my coup de grâce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_de_grâce):

http://i.imgur.com/yTxIwQh.jpg

SERIOUSLY, TURBINE?! https://www.ddo.com/forums/images/icons/icon8.png You've got to be kidding me! You can’t imagine how mad I was when I logged in to this toon for the first time in years. At first, I couldn't figure out why I was moving slower than molasses running downhill in January! Apparently, it was because I had something "inappropriate" equipped.

Originally, back in 2009, this was just a +4 Shock Rapier of Pure Good. It had a minimum level of either 9 or 10. (The character was level 10 at the time.) And I worked my butt off to add an Icy Burst kit and Greater Glaciation VIII. I thought it was pretty cool at the time. Back then they didn't have any of the strict minimum level cr@$ we see today.

Level 26? Come on! No level 26 toon would be caught dead with this weapon!

Aside from the grind I did to obtain the Winter Motes and Recipes for the Icy Burst, it took a long time to gather enough recipes and motes to craft Greater Glaciation VIII! According to the Glaciation Recipes (http://ddowiki.com/page/Risia_Ice_Games#Glaciation_Recipes) list on the wiki, it took Recipes 6-13 and 1,071 Motes.

Now? :( All that time and effort has been WASTED!


They got me in exactly the same situation with their minlevel raising and bringing out new randomloot that put old named and even raiditems into shame. I had BTA stuff, icykit stuff, crafted stuff, rare named items, you call it. My little treasurechamber filled 3 full-storage-mule characters. -- Could throw away 2/3 of my highly valued items collection. Especially the trashing of my best twinkweapons infuriated me. I Icy-kitted my best low and midlevel weapons with a significant amount of work, and it felt really good. Then they got turned into utterly useless trash.

Nowadays i just dont trust them again, after they did such stuff 2x. I dont fall for their itemcarrot any more, i even deleted 2 of my 3 item mules, because i wont be tricked any more to invest effort and emotional investment into acquireing a new "cool-and-shiny" item collection, just to have Turbine trample all over it. Again.

They can keep all their ghostbanes for themselves.

[danotmano1998]

I would agree that this system needs to be fixed...

From comments I've read from the supposed developer himself, Feather was not allowed to fix things the right way.
Then we got a partially broken system when he came in and refixed the loot tables himself on his own time against the wishes of his bosses.

The results of what we are dealing with now is the aftereffects of a conflict that happened on a few levels.
As with most things, it's a bit more complicated than it appears on the surface.

Turbine, it would be great if you guys still had the manpower to go over this stuff and take a serious look at the minimum level formula. It does appear to be quite questionable.

[Seikojin]

Here is the thing. We have a large number of crafting systems competing for the same meta-thing. They all want to be best in slot. Cannith segmented that into best in slot, and utility in slot. The changes feather did condensed what random could do, so now best in slot was segmented into junk in slot, best in slot, and utility in slot.

Sure the ML's are all sorts of wrong. It will be that way all this year. However, if you take the crafting systems and lootgen and look at them all together, you can start piecing what they could do to fix it.

Random lootgen: Leave as is for the most part. Perhaps tweak the base formula (like reducing the level mod from + enhancement by 1 down when combined with other enchantment prefix and suffix; or have those carry a minimum + enhancement with them without a min level penalty. Reintroduce racial restrictions to lower ML more. Or at least make a racial/bind option at the alchemical alter/ritual to bind to you; dropping the ml.

Cannith Crafting: this needs expansion. More prefixes, more suffixes, more ways to combine to stack bonuses into items to compete with lootgen on the power level.

Everything special: periodically beef this up to keep with the power creep. Or at least make a per level plan to have craftable items obtainable through paid content that makes them enticing. Introduce a korthos crafting special that will hook new players into the 30 tiers of quest crafts and get them buying those packs!

I think the festival games addons: I can see why they added ML's, but they should add a alchemical option to undo the enchantments down to the ingredients/recipes so people who are out of luck get their twink gear back and rebuild with the ml changes in mind. And also add a tooltip explaining ml changes from those add-on boosts.