The tale of the three forks : the Cannith Crafting Update pass

[UurlockYgmeov]

The Recipe Box:

Clicky Effect Recipes - HOME (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/470926-The-tale-of-the-three-forks-the-Cannith-Crafting-Update-pass?p=5794678&viewfull=1#post5794678) (posted)
Damage and Guard Effect Recipes (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/470926-The-tale-of-the-three-forks-the-Cannith-Crafting-Update-pass?p=5794681&viewfull=1#post5794681) (posted)
Special Damage and Guard Effect Recipes (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/470926-The-tale-of-the-three-forks-the-Cannith-Crafting-Update-pass?p=5794682&viewfull=1#post5794682) (posted)
Defensive, Saves, and Skills Effect Recipes (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/470926-The-tale-of-the-three-forks-the-Cannith-Crafting-Update-pass?p=5794683&viewfull=1#post5794683)
Spells, Tactical, and Turning Effects (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/470926-The-tale-of-the-three-forks-the-Cannith-Crafting-Update-pass?p=5794685&viewfull=1#post5794685)




The Tale of Three Forks – the Spoon Interjection Interaction - Part 1 - Introduction (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/470926-The-tale-of-the-three-forks-the-Cannith-Crafting-Update-pass?p=5771446&viewfull=1#post5771446)

Above is the link to the rough draft of the complete suggestion for the Cannith Crafting Update Pass.

Here is the opening, and yes, the actual proposal is almost 40,000 character long and was split up over numerous posts.


So this is going to be a long post. Nothing can be done about it. Have been mulling over how to write and express this in the most effective efficient way possible for days.

I have listened to all the great feedback and ideas. I can see why the Dev's might feel overwhelmed and or intimidated about updating Cannith crafting - especially since the release of LGS.

I want it all. I want something for everyone - and yes, the entire system does need a little less grind, but in different ways:
· Something for casual crafters with no desire to get high levels in crafting.;
· Something for those willing to endure the massive amounts of grind for that ultimate in convenience and power;
· There is new stuff, and old stuff that doesn't exist elsewhere;
· Random chances to fail when crafting at the cusp of ability;
· Randomness in the effect power, which can be mostly eliminated at the high end of crafting (mostly);
· Shifting SOME emphasis from earning experience from creation centric to learning from others (deconstruction)
· Adding mass deconstruction to eliminate most of the click intensive grind.
All of this under one umbrella, in effect several related crafting systems --- all using existing crafting levels and systems.

I don't believe everyone will be happy; but most people will be pleased.
PS- This is JUST MY IDEA - my concept - based upon my own thoughts and influenced by this thread and other things.


SO was listening to the Friday @ Five livestream and the discussion came up about the future of Cannith Crafting with the upcoming Update Pass.

IF I understood correctly, there seems to be a lively discussion among the dev's about how the updated cannith crafting should look and work.

The three possibilities -


More Grind -= More Power:
Personally, I want more grind = more power. At crafting level 200 (presuming that will be the new maximum), I want to be able to put pretty much any affect anywhere (complete flexibility) and have up to 4 effects per item and multiple slots. Yes, BtA, and uses something rare to limit the scope. IMHO Nothing, and I mean nothing else is as grindy as Cannith Crafting is: period. Cannith Crafting IS supposed to be the most grind intensive crafting in the game, with commensurate power. Cannith Crafting is supposed to be a many life process, and the high power end of the system needs to stay that way IMHO. More grind, more power, no randomness.
Middle Ground; Some Grind and some power:
At the same time I understand just how much grind level 150/150/150 is already, so can understand how off putting the grind is. Took me many lives to get Uurlock where he is now, and will probably take many more lives to max crafting if the max level is increased. This is on par with Green Steel crafting.
KISS - very little grind, but very little power:
Finally, there is something to be said about just streamlining cannith crafting so that everyone can enjoy - much like the augment gem system.


Why can't we do all three? Let me explain. What I'd like to see is essentially three systems in one - or under one umbrella.



Things anyone can craft
low level stuff like bolts, and arrows, and wands, and potions. Even the basic runestone. Minimum levels in crafting needed for this.
Clickiess and things that can not be scaled
These items require rare items of power to create, and would not scale to minimum level, but would have a minimum level.

First-level spells: Bless, Burning Hands, Cause Fear, Detect Secret Doors, Divine Favor, Grease, Jump (spell), Mage Armor, Protection from Evil, Ray of Enfeeblement, Shield (spell), Shield of Faith, Tumble (spell)
Second-level spells: Aid, Bear's Endurance, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Daze Monster, Eagle's Splendor, Fox's Cunning, Hypnotic Pattern, Invisibility, Lesser Restoration, Owl's Wisdom, Resist Energy (specific element)
Third-level spells: Halt Undead, Haste, Heroism, Protection from Energy (specific element), Rage, Prayer, Slow, Water Breathing
Fourth-level spells: Bestow Curse, Crushing Despair, Divine Power, Fear, Remove Curse, Solid Fog
Alchemical Spell Power clickies: Lesser Efficacy and similar
Not including any rare spells or effects. No teleport, no dimension door, no displacement.
Example of rare item needed to craft:

Resist Energy might require Potion of Long Lasting Resist (all types) and purified dragonshard essences and star sapphires.
Tumble Item and silver flame hymnal.


The basic shards. No frills, no chills or thrills.... Limited in both type and placement. Even more limited that random loot.


More Grind - More Power.
The ability to put pretty much any effect anywhere.

More powerful / rare items require rare items / raid named items / tomes to create.
Clickies that scale to minimum level of items. Yes, this would allow for level 30 haste, at a cost. Some higher level spells, but still no rares, teleport, raise dead, dimension door, displacement.
Major, Epic, and Legendary Runestones
Semi-returning ammunition (up to 75% returning)
Ability to put more 'oomph' into an item (masterful / wonderous) and multislotted (at a cost)



The one thing that does need to change no matter what is the elimination of BtC items; make them BtA yes - or BtAoE yes - but no more btc (except the most powerful powerful items maybe).

Just some jumbled thoughts. comments? suggestions?

So additional thoughts after spending the day questing with guildies and pugs.

Vanity Nameplating
As much as I know this is probably asking the night to be day, I still want to be able to put my name on the items crafted - even if it is just a vanity nameplate (Uurlock's Helm of Mighty Resplendent Halfling Glory) and reserved only for the max level possible of crafting. :P

Only the highest level crafters would be able to add their name to the name of the item. SO instead of being a Alluring Helm of Wizardry, it would be 'Uurlock's Alluring Helm of Wizardry'.

Material Crafting
Want Material Crafting as a part of new Cannith Crafting. Material Crafting allows the crafter the ability to modify / add base material to crafted objects. The more powerful / rare the base material the more powerful the crafter needs to be (higher level crafting).
Things like Magesteel, Planeforged, Spiritcraft, blueshine, would require something like level 30-50 (existing crafting levels).
More exotic would require 80-120, and the most exotic would require level 150-200.

Would need base 'ingot' to craft + crafting level. The base 'ingot' (ore) would be 'ingot' by deconstructing items made out of desired base material for the base material. Yes, another crafting ingredient - but would go into green bag, not be bound, and also go into shared crafting bank. Deconstructing items for the base material would give 1# of ingots (ore) per 2# weight of the original item, nothing else would be given back from deconstructing the item.



Adamantine
Blueshine
Bone
Byeshk
Cloth*
Cold Iron
Crystal
Darkleaf
Darkwood
Densewood
Dwarven Iron
Feyleather
Flametouched Iron
Flesh
Force (material)
Gem (material)
Glass
Ice
Leather (material type)*
Light
Magesteel
Mithral
Planeforged Steel
Rust
Silver
Spiritcraft Leather
Spiritforged Iron
Steel (material)*
Stone
Wood*


*base material types.

Clicky Crafting
As part of updated Cannith Crafting include the ability to craft clickies. Base level required to craft a ml:9, one use clicky of 1st level spell (from the allowed list) is crafting level 30.

What is required to craft a clicky is base crafting level + special ingredient; so as example an invisibility clicky needs 10 potions of invisibility per use (click).

Higher crafting levels allow for more uses per day, higher caster level, lower minimum level, and higher level spells.

An example would be:
so at crafting level 30: one click of level 1 spell, cast at level 1, with a minimum level of 9.

every 10 crafting levels higher - allows for increase of 1 step better


+1 per click per day
+1 per caster level
+1 per spell level
+1 per drop in 2 minimum levels


example (Protection from Elements(level 5 arcane), 3 uses per day, minimum level 1, cast at level 10):


+4 to drop to minimum level to 1
+3 for 3 uses
+5 for level 5 spell
+10 for 10th level caster
would require stack of 5x100 level 10 protection from elements potions (one stack of 100 for each energy type).
(4+3+5+10=22 *10 +30 (base)) = level 250 crafting level


NO rare spells like raise dead, teleport, dimension door, true seeing, displacement (except such as true seeing which would require a Stave of the Seer (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Stave_of_the_Seer) as consumable ingredient for)

Augment Slot Addition Crafting
As part of updated Cannith Crafting include the ability to add augment slots to crafted items. Low level crafting would be able to add a single colorless or yellow to an item.


Add 1st slot
+10 colorless
+20 yellow
+30 blue/red
+40 green/orange
+50 purple



Add 2nd slot
+50 colorless
+60 yellow
+70 blue/red
+80 green/orange
+90 purple



Add 3rd slot
+100 colorless
+110 yellow
+120 blue/red
+130 green/orange
+150 purple


examples:


to add a single colorless slot to a crafted item would take crafting level 10. A single yellow would be crafting level 20.
to add two colorless slots to a crafted item would take crafting level 60 (10+50).
to add a colorless and a yellow to a crafted item would take crafting level (10+60).
to add three purple slots to a crafted item would take crafting level 290 - so would not be possible if maximum crafting level is only raised to 200 (50+90+150).
most (based upon assumption that maximum crafting level would only be raised to 200) could fit would be something like green(or orange)+yellow+colorless or two blue (or red) and one colorless.


Rules:

none really.
would prefer to see this require something rare like gems (yes - those useless things) being required - something like 1000 pp per required crafting level. So to add a single yellow slot would require 20,000 pp worth of random gems. At maximum would require 200,000 pp worth of gems. This would actually make random gems worth something! :eek: :cool: Initially gems would be not very scarce, but given time maybe gems would become valuable random loot again.
Adding augment slots would not affect minimum level of the item!! Augment gems are already not as powerful at level already so this is already factored in.
2nd / 3rd slots might require something like purified dragonshard fragments.


3rd Effect Addition Crafting

As part of updated Cannith Crafting include the ability to add 3rd (and possible 4th effects) to crafted items. This would be available to only the highest level crafters. 4th effects would only be possible on two-handed items (quarterstaffs, etc).

Expanded Runestone Crafting
Existing Strengths:


Strength
Minimum level
Difficulty class
Level to craft


Minor
3
24
8


Lesser
8
29
38


Greater
13
34
68


Major
18
39
98



ADD:




Epic
23
65
150


Legendary
29
99
200

[EllisDee37]

Ugh.

If we can't craft the equivalent of pretty much any lootgen item in the game, I will be seriously ****ed.

If they set it up so cannith con only make 1 step below the max lootgen power for any effect, fine, I get it. But if they keep the ridiculous caps we have or something similar (+6 stat, +13 skills, +66 spell power) then I think they're off their rockers.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Ugh.

If we can't craft the equivalent of pretty much any lootgen item in the game, I will be seriously ****ed.

If they set it up so cannith con only make 1 step below the max lootgen power for any effect, fine, I get it. But if they keep the ridiculous caps we have or something similar (+6 stat, +13 skills, +66 spell power) then I think they're off their rockers.

I agree - More Power but corresponding More Grind. I want the Power, and willing to do the Grind.

I want to be able to put insightful stat with normal stat and exceptional stat on the same item - and am willing to grind the crafting levels to do it, and collect the rare ingredients to make it possible. I even want it to be wonderous and be more powerful that normal for the level, and even have slots!

At the same time - that level of grind isn't for everyone.

And IMHO the power level of item effect will be determined by the items minimum level. Completely reverse of what it is now. The new system should have you determine the minimum level of the item and then give it affects that will autoscale to the items minimum level. This is fantastic because it will reduce the complexity of the recipe box by a factor of 10 or more easily. Less complexity, less lag and less things to keep track of. So only need a shard of intelligence, not a +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 ,+ etc ad naseaum.

[Ligraph]

Ugh.

If we can't craft the equivalent of pretty much any lootgen item in the game, I will be seriously ****ed.

If they set it up so cannith con only make 1 step below the max lootgen power for any effect, fine, I get it. But if they keep the ridiculous caps we have or something similar (+6 stat, +13 skills, +66 spell power) then I think they're off their rockers.

Agreed.

[EllisDee37]

that level of grind isn't for everyone.That's a non-issue, or at very least self-correcting. For those people who don't want the grind, they can play the lootgen lottery. That's pretty much the whole point of crafting: To grind away the lootgen lottery.

[EllisDee37]

You do raise a fair point about the greatly reduced number of recipes. That might make the grind difficult to replicate. Just making up numbers, if right now it takes 1000 shards to get to level 100, and there are 400 different recipes in the game, there's no worry about running out of shards due to repetition penalties.

However, if the loss of individual shard values (only a single strength shard that auto-scales to ML, instead of individual str +1, +2, +3, etc... shards) there might not be enough different shards in the game to make the system work. The obvious solution would be to add a shard ransack mechanic similar to quest ransack. That way there would always be enough xp if you just give it a couple days between crafting sessions.

[EllisDee37]

Hmmm. Carrying that through to its logical conclusion, that could be problematic.

Right now on live, a brand new crafter starts up and can make weak items: Strength +1. They need to level up before they can start making +2, +3, etc... If it changes to only be a single auto-scaling strength shard, at what level should that be available? Seems weird if a new crafter just can't make any strength shard at all, but even weirder if a brand new crafter could make a +14 (or +13, whatever) strength shard right out of the gate.

If I were designing it, I would keep the individual shard values like we have now on live. That way you could add an AML to it to handle unusual rules elegantly. I suspect this specific example went away with U29, but consider pre-U29 lootgen rules for stats: +1 to +6 = 2x-1, meaning a +5 stat shard would be 2*5 - 1 = ML9. But +7 stat items only dropped on ML20+ gear. So you'd just add AML20 to +7 stat (and higher) shards and you're done.

[Brac]

I find crafting subgames very boring. DDO is no exception. Staring at an interface hours on end should not be encouraged or rewarded with an achievement. Update the system to work with new loot but leave the maximums close to the same. Crafted gear can stay at heroic levels. No need to make it viable in epic.

[MaeveTuohy]

I find crafting subgames very boring. DDO is no exception. Staring at an interface hours on end should not be encouraged or rewarded with an achievement. Update the system to work with new loot but leave the maximums close to the same. Crafted gear can stay at heroic levels. No need to make it viable in epic.

I am also not a crafter, but the game should offer something for different people with different interests. Staring at an interface after having gathered a great many essences and then working them into various shards and items is as much of an achievement as anything in this game. Reward those who want to put in the time at something that appeals to them.

If that's PLs for people who grind out quest xp, fine. If it's better craftable items for those who put the time in at the crafting table, also fine.

[Ligraph]

It's not the staring at the interface, it is using hard earned materials/loot, and to an extent, time. But it is boring, no getting around that. I would like to see a little a system where deconstructing or crafting an effect gave you xp for that effect, so to get good at making say Str shards, you would have to find/buy/craft a lot of Str shards.

[UurlockYgmeov]

That's a non-issue, or at very least self-correcting. For those people who don't want the grind, they can play the lootgen lottery. That's pretty much the whole point of crafting: To grind away the lootgen lottery.

agree.

as far as the simplification of recipes and the effect on the grind / xp - they can fix that. I would prefer fewer recipes that do scale into epics and changes to how crafting xp is gained than many recipes for different power levels.

what about clickies?

what about things everyone (with little effort (say 30 levels or so) should be able to make?

[Ligraph]

agree.

as far as the simplification of recipes and the effect on the grind / xp - they can fix that. I would prefer fewer recipes that do scale into epics and changes to how crafting xp is gained than many recipes for different power levels.

what about clickies?

what about things everyone (with little effort (say 30 levels or so) should be able to make?

I don't know about clickies, never used them, probably never will.

As for low-level recipes, with the new scaling, there kind of aren't any. The way I would implement this is the more you craft a shard/effect, the higher it can scale. So when you first craft a Str shard, it wouldn't be very good, maybe scale to level 5. After X more times, it will scale to level 15. Etc. This scaling should probably be caped by crafting level, too.

[Memnir]

I've become nearly allergic to grinding in this game. For **** near anything. As a result, I know there are somethings I will never acquire or be able to do. By in large, I'm okay with that. It's my choice, and I don't begrudge anyone who chooses the grind.


So, I'm fine with it being More Grind/More Power. If I find the grind to be odious, as I almost always do nowadays, then it's my decision and I can't feel bad when other folks put in the effort and time and are rewarded for it. More power to em - literally.

[EllisDee37]

I find crafting subgames very boring. DDO is no exception. Staring at an interface hours on end should not be encouraged or rewarded with an achievement. Update the system to work with new loot but leave the maximums close to the same. Crafted gear can stay at heroic levels. No need to make it viable in epic.I've also long been a proponent of adding ways to avoid staring at crafting machines. The two main ones:

1) Add crafting xp rewards to sagas, similar in scale to the current xp and renown rewards
2) Add "otto's box of crafting" (with xp stone similar to other boxes) to the store to generate more revenue


As for low-level recipes, with the new scaling, there kind of aren't any. The way I would implement this is the more you craft a shard/effect, the higher it can scale. So when you first craft a Str shard, it wouldn't be very good, maybe scale to level 5. After X more times, it will scale to level 15. Etc. This scaling should probably be caped by crafting level, too.I could probably get behind something like that.

[Brac]

I've also long been a proponent of adding ways to avoid staring at crafting machines. The two main ones:

1) Add crafting xp rewards to sagas, similar in scale to the current xp and renown rewards
2) Add "otto's box of crafting" (with xp stone similar to other boxes) to the store to generate more revenue

I could probably get behind something like that.

I do like the idea of a crafting xp reward for quest completions. If they had something like that so I had an alternative to staring at the crafting machine I would be all for it. Very good idea.

[Ligraph]

I do like the idea of a crafting xp reward for quest completions. If they had something like that so I had an alternative to staring at the crafting machine I would be all for it. Very good idea.

I would prefer it if you could get up to say 50% crafting xp JUST from deconstructing loot, same mechanic (loot drops from quests...), just a bit more lore-friendly. Would deffinatly be nice to see a way to get crafting xp other than staring at machines though.

EDIT: the decon machine should have a "add all" button like the sell interface. And not take forever to deconstruct stuff.

[UurlockYgmeov]

personally I just want to be able to take and drag an entire inventory tab to the decon machine and click 'ok' and everything not locked is deconned for crafting xp. :)

[Ligraph]

yeah

[DANTEIL]

This may be somewhat orthogonal to the discussion started here, but for me, my biggest problem with the current crafting system is NOT the accumulation of essences to craft with. For me, the biggest thing putting me off using the system is all the other doohickies you have to acquire separately and keep track of and keep going back and forth to the crafting station and vendor etc etc in order to do anything at all. I just want it to be streamlined such that you can combine essences to make X, 'destroy' random loot to make Y, then combine X + Y to make Z. I wouldn't mind if you had to repeat that multiple times to make an actual item, but I hate that you also need all this other stuff to do anything at all (solvents and the like). I also don't mind crafting tiers -- you should have to repeat X+Y=Z a certain amount of times to get XP to go to the next tier. BUT there should be an incentive for a level 4/6/8/10 etc. character to spend some (short amount of) time to do that as they level - but it should feel organic, like something you would want to do as you level. Right now, the whole process (in my view) is too burdensome to be appealing.

I guess I'm on the keep-it-simple end of the spectrum.

[EllisDee37]

the biggest thing putting me off using the system is all the other doohickies you have to acquire separately and keep track of and keep going back and forth to the crafting station and vendor etc etc in order to do anything at allThree years ago I bought 990 each of all three solvents (prefix, suffix, +) and put them in my communal green bags. I haven't had to buy from the vendor since then. Not everyone uses communal green bags, but I imagine it would work similarly if you use the shared crafting storage.

I also periodically fill up my potential and masterful shard stacks, also kept in a communal green, so I rarely have to run anywhere.

[Deathdefy]

Crafting is almost literally skill-less. The sole prerequisites to crafting are some plat to buy deconstructors, etc, and being able to obtain an item from a chest to deconstruct.

I appreciate MMOs need grinds/time-sinks, but the ones that are raw time sinks with no skill component - like literally "how much did you play this week?" and "how much of it was spent clicking buttons on a crafting interface?" disgust me.

Crafting, unless there is some skill based element, like "do a raid to get a key component", should be bottom of the pile in terms of rewards and priorities.

I would use it solely as a mechanism to help new and casual players play with others in end-game-ish content, offering easy to get gear that's not close to the best of the best.

Making it a system with powerful rewards means adding some sort of treadmill - which can't be skill-based since it's intended to be a general a non-raid reward crafting system and therefore higher tiers must simply require more time investment.

Asking players to spend dozens of hours turning off their brains and clicking on nonsense interfaces is offensive and just rubbish design eliciting the worst of the worst in bad MMO design stereotypes.

I grinded up to ~130 divine, and ~100 arcane and elemental and feel dirty even thinking about that waste of my time - even within the context of a recreational game.

[spinks]

Crafting is an alternative way to obtain items, and thus it should not be restrictive i.e. you should not have to raid to make items. Crafted items should not be as good as raid items or raid crafted items, but should be at least as good as challenge items.

The grind is already considerable, so no need to make more tedious.

Crafting XP should not be awarded outside of crafting i.e. not in saga rewards etc, otherwise maybe they should add other choices to saga rewards like dwarven ingots, scales, phlogiston, greensteel, Cannith raid ingregients and so on.

For those that don't like to craft, you don't have to do it.

It should be viable in epic levels. 3.8 million XP to level 20 on 3rd or more TR, and 8.25 million xp from 20-30.

For any activity you undertake in a game, you should be rewarded. It is entirely up to the individual how they wish to spend their time.

Also, given that you can't put any shard on any item, there needs to be something in the crafting interface that tells you what it goes on. You should not need to refer to ddowiki and other crafting sites in order to make something.

I would like to see the same effects in crafting as there are in random loot and challenge loot, and also the ability to put shards where I want, given the nature of random loot now.

Any crafted item should be BTCoE. Another potential area for the game economy.

There should not be 2 tiers of crafting levels i.e. bound and unbound as there are now. If I want to make an item for someone else, then I should not need to be extra proficient. Someone still has to have collected the essences and other associated crafting ingredients anyway.

[mikarddo]

I think they should fully redo the way crafting is done to streamline the process.

Rather than craft shards you craft items. Pick slot, ML, prefix, suffix and bonusfix.
The available pre-, suf- and bonusfixes are those that can occur on random loot. No more and no less.

When you craft the value of each effect is rolled as for a piece of random gen loot, so you pick the effects but not the exact values. Loot bonuses do not apply.

Similarly there is a chance when crafting to get masterful, wonderous or augment slot(s) added as for random loot generation.

Basically, you pay the materials to pick the 3 effects and you are assured of getting a bonusfix but anything else is done the same way random loot is created.

Thus you can craft something with the desired combi of 3 effects with certainty - but getting top values, slots etc will take many tries and some luck thus adding a wow effect into crafting when you strike gold.

Enjoy.

[dunklezhan]

That's pretty much the whole point of crafting: To grind away the lootgen lottery.

In a nutshell, the perfect description of what Cannith Crafting should be.

I'm not saying it shouldn't also be other things, but that's the core, and it already allowed people to make some basic stuff with minimal investment. 2 loot systems ago it allowed almost any effect in the lootgen system if you ground it out. The grind had clear, frequent progression which offset some of the grindy feeling unless you were sitting down to do a session just for the sake of levelling. And you could choose not to do it and play the lottery instead by questing, which you still needed to do if you wanted to craft things anyway. Put all that together and it was a good system. Not without its flaws in terms of bind statuses and very laggy interface, but a good system. Id still have loved the first iteration where it was going to be 'take and effect and move it' but I understand why it didnt' go that way, and the way it did go was better in the end.

But all it ever really needed was a way to maintain it's alignment to whatever the current lootgen set up was, a less laggy interface (plus the ability to do things in batches which was added later) and maybe the introduction over time of the nicer missing effects for very high level crafters only. And more or less, that's all I want to see the new one do.

Please update it and tweak it with that in mind, there's no need to fundamentally rethink it.

Or at least be sure it is better right out of the gate. We do not need it released in a half finished state like the current lootgen feels like it is. I will wait, if it means getting it right.

[Saekee]

valid thoughts everyone. I think everything should be craftable except Quality stats and yes--augments, everything. Clickies--maybe; but why not wands, scrolls etc. (to write scrolls, high arcane/divine levels needed--maybe even past life feat).

I cringe at grind now and will not do it--my crafting levels are 100 and staying there.

BUT I would like to see a portable decon device ('Otto's Intricate Analyzer') in which you can decon stuff in your backpack anywhere but with a penalty (like, 50% xp/essences value as compared to a big machine. Or even 30%). Hopefully something that is not laggy like the crafting halls. . . I would take it for deconning, make it purchaseable from House Cannith Favor, highest ranks. Otherwise, no way.

[Frogger1234]

personally I just want to be able to take and drag an entire inventory tab to the decon machine and click 'ok' and everything not locked is deconned for crafting xp. :)

or an interface like selling to a vendor with "add all", "add junk" and "decon" buttons

Though it might be hard to actually implement mass decon, since for every item there are a number of choices - decon for crafting, or which of the various properties (prefix, suffix, hidden/bonus and enhancement value) to decon. Mass decon might require a 5-way selector.

[SiliconScout]

Just return it to what it was when it launched.

Basically able to create everything lootgen could create. The most coveted / powerful items should require a special ingredient and away you go.

Don't craft clickies .. let THAT and the chance for the 4th property be the "advantage" of loot gen. Crafting should exist so that those who want to optimize gear or avoid having to look for a specific lootgen item to do so.

It used to be that the big advantage of crafting was that you could create "clean" items that just had the most powerful effect possible in say stat items or trap gear. If I understand the new system properly, the order that properties are generated will determine it's strength not the number of properties. This should still allow for that as well IMHO.

And please Turbine, for the love of the Twelve don't look at the maximized crafters and say "they need to take XXXX hours / days to max out" because if you go that route new crafters will look at that mountain to climb and just walk away. If you are going to spend resources on something (and we all know they are very limited these days) then you need to absolutely make sure that what you are building is accessible, useful and desired. If you just make it Mt. Grind then i sit not accessible and therefore unlikely to be desired regardless of how useful it may be.

[Vellrad]

1.
Man, they could to crafting items like GS augments, so you have your blank, 2 or 3 slots, and craft augments that you place into item. That would be very convinient.
2.
If I could make +15/+5 stats on 1 item, I would grind crafting lvl even to 300.


personally I just want to be able to take and drag an entire inventory tab to the decon machine and click 'ok' and everything not locked is deconned for crafting xp. :)
3. There would be problem with which option you chose from items, but then, they could make decraft give you everything not just 1 thing.

[Standal]

At a minimum, they need to update the items that can be crafted to equal lootgen. If you can find an effect on an item in lootgen at a certain ML, it should be craftable at that ML. The devs may decide that certain effects are not craftable, as they did before with paralyzing, banishing, vorpal, etc.

If you recall when CC was introduced, you could craft excellent Harry beaters with crafting levels below 40. If you were capped you could make the best devil and demon beaters in game. These items existed in lootgen, but they were essentially unicorns. You heard about them, but never saw them. Crafting really brought better items to even the most casual grinders. In short order, nobody asked you to link your Harry beaters, because everybody had them.

[somenewnoob]

Clickies would be great. Potions, scrolls other consumables should be able to be made.

But if they do one thing I will be happy......GET RID OF THE REPITITION XP PENALTY. Seriously, that's just like kicking someone in the balls after you already stole their wallet. It's just mean.

[RD2play]

Ugh.

If we can't craft the equivalent of pretty much any lootgen item in the game, I will be seriously ****ed.

If they set it up so cannith con only make 1 step below the max lootgen power for any effect, fine, I get it. But if they keep the ridiculous caps we have or something similar (+6 stat, +13 skills, +66 spell power) then I think they're off their rockers.

Here I don't entirely agree with you. Yes it should be possible to get equivalent to Ran-Gen but if allowed to both choose the effects and their power we will have instant loot saturation. And we will be back where we were before with ran-gen being vendor/decon only, as they will never drop in the exact combination/power you are looking for.


That's a non-issue, or at very least self-correcting. For those people who don't want the grind, they can play the lootgen lottery. That's pretty much the whole point of crafting: To grind away the lootgen lottery.

IMO Cannith Crafting up should reduce the lootgen lottery, not make Ran-Gen obsolete. They way I see this is that you "the crafter" gets to decide the effects you want, and you pick the level and item type you want. i.e. I want to create a lvl 10 helm, then I will decon a level 10 helm, and then I can add the effects I want, but the power of the effects will still be random (in the range set by Ran-Gen values) and the higher your crafting skill the higher the chance to get the "lucky" value. which means you might need to craft several "X helm of Y + Z" to get all 3 effects of the lucky power.
I do feel however we should be able to overwrite "single" effects without changing the values of the others. so I can add the prefix till I get the power value, then do the same for the suffix and then for the bonus effects. so in the end I will have my uber power item but it will take me many resources, crafting rounds, crafting level grind and a bit of luck to all 3 effects to top tier power for the level. (and then Ill add a MC or WC to reduce the level by 1 of course). This way there is a way to get the most powerful items but it takes a great deal of effort and materials to do so.

Mika is kinda in the same ballpark:

I think they should fully redo the way crafting is done to streamline the process.

Rather than craft shards you craft items. Pick slot, ML, prefix, suffix and bonusfix.
The available pre-, suf- and bonusfixes are those that can occur on random loot. No more and no less.

When you craft the value of each effect is rolled as for a piece of random gen loot, so you pick the effects but not the exact values. Loot bonuses do not apply.

Similarly there is a chance when crafting to get masterful, wonderous or augment slot(s) added as for random loot generation.

Basically, you pay the materials to pick the 3 effects and you are assured of getting a bonusfix but anything else is done the same way random loot is created.

Thus you can craft something with the desired combi of 3 effects with certainty - but getting top values, slots etc will take many tries and some luck thus adding a wow effect into crafting when you strike gold.

Enjoy.

I do feel however masterful and wondrous should be applied by the crafter (if off sufficient level), and simply reduce the ML of the item by 1 or 2 resp. so if you make a level 10 item with max power you can add MC to make it a level 9 item with level 10 item max effects !!!

But basically I think we are thinking in the same direction.

For the power of the effects, the range should be governed by the base ML of the crafted item, the chance for each value should be determined by crafting levels and boosts according a bell curve. So for example to craft a level 10 item at 100% success you would need a crafting level 100. this would for instance mean you have 20%/40%/30%/10% to get the values 4/5/6/7, if you would increase your crafting levels, or use a success booster to lets say 150 (or 50% booster) the bell curve will move up so the chances of getting the lucky number will become greater and getting unlucky gets smaller. 10%/30%/40%/20%.

(*I didn't do any actual math on this so all numbers are arbitrary and placeholder)

So in short if you are under the required crafting level, the chances of getting a "bad power value" are greater and getting the "highest" might not even be probable. But once you at the required crafting level you will be able to get lucky. And if you are over the required crafting level the chances to gain a "more powerful" value or getting lucky increases. A high level crafter will be able to make very good low level equipment reliably, but for the top level top tier gear he will still require some luck.


At a minimum, they need to update the items that can be crafted to equal lootgen. If you can find an effect on an item in lootgen at a certain ML, it should be craftable at that ML. The devs may decide that certain effects are not craftable, as they did before with paralyzing, banishing, vorpal, etc.

If you recall when CC was introduced, you could craft excellent Harry beaters with crafting levels below 40. If you were capped you could make the best devil and demon beaters in game. These items existed in lootgen, but they were essentially unicorns. You heard about them, but never saw them. Crafting really brought better items to even the most casual grinders. In short order, nobody asked you to link your Harry beaters, because everybody had them.

As I stated before, yes it should be available, but no it (max value effects) should not be handed to you. I have no problem with special effects like paralysing being in the crafting tables, I would ask tho if the recipe requires an item that has the property already as a material. (maybe crunch down a paralysing weapon into a paralysing shard and then be able to add it to another weapon).(also DC effects on weapons should scale with their ML and enhancement value but that's another discussion).

Yes when CC came out everyone started at level 0 in all schools, now we have people sitting on maxed crafter toons. which will lead to instant loot saturation if allowed to make it all at max power! So indeed its true CC brought us the devil/deamon beater (still love my ml20 +5HolyBrust Cold Iron<weapon>GEOB [vampire slayer]). But to get those we needed to grind a bit at least, this needs to also be taken into account when converting to a new system. I do agree with you however that it would be nice if there where things you could NOT craft, as well as things you can ONLY craft.

tnx guys

[der_kluge]

I'd prefer it to be an all or nothing kind of system. The lootgen stuff should match crafting and vice-versa. I've always found it odd that I could make melee/ranged alacrity items, but can't loot them. And that I can loot +15 skill items or spellcraft items, but can't craft them.

I'm happy to take it to 200 or even beyond. I've got a ridiculous amount of essences stacking up in my bag, so I'm happy to use them to grind some levels. And since I'm already at 150^3, I'm ready to go.

But I do have concerns about the power level, specifically the common inclusion of insight bonuses into all the items. For example, someone in my guild pulled an item that was +11 intimidate, +7 insight to intimidate (for a total of +18) and it had 10% threat generation effect. And it wasn't even masterwork, and I think ML 13 or something like that. I have a pair of boots that are ML 10, that have +5 Strength/+5 Dexterity on them. That's bonkers. They are also not MW. If they were, I'd assume I could probably get +6/+6 on two stats at about ML 11.

In this brave new world, all old loot becomes basically meaningless. I could craft dual stat items, resistance and insight resistance items, and items with more than +15 to important skills - maybe not UMD, but certainly all the rogue skills as well as intimidate, perform and spellcraft. That's going to free up slots for even more effects. That allows room for the "nice to have, but not critical" things like +false life, deadly, seeker, and other type effects that will just contribute even more to the power creep.

[Vellrad]

that's just like kicking someone in the balls after you already stole their wallet. It's just mean.
Well, that's nessesary, otherwise they will chase you to reclaim their wallet.

[IronClan]

Boy are the Dev's screwed... there's no way they can win no matter which path they take.

Just make it perfect for everyone, oh and no bugs...

[Cleanincubus]

Honestly, I see nothing wrong with how the basic idea of how the current system works. It should simply be updated for higher level crafting levels (200), higher level items (30), and effects should be scaled to that of current random loot.

Cannith Crafting should NOT include new ingredients. It should NOT require you to run certain quests/sagas/chains/raids etc to get ingredients to craft items. They already tried that, and it was a unanimous "No" from the community. Wasn't worth it then, and I don't see random loot as good enough now to try to include the idea into Cannith Crafting, to boost it to the quality of current random loot.

I've spent a lot of time and plat (700-800K, where my highest plat count ever was 1.6M) to boost my crafting levels to where they are now. If I have to run certain content to level further, and to craft items, I will be furious. If ingredients are added to older content, to entice people to run them again (and to be used for crafting), then there's a problem with the quality of the content that needs to be addressed. Simply adding ingredients to the quests will just make it harder to craft items in the long run, as any increase in certain quests being run will be very short lived.

[IronClan]

Possible design spaces for updated crafting:

1. Uber gear requiring uber rare ingrediants (but too much "grind")
2. Low power gear (vets get shafted, AKA about 90% of the player base get nothing out of it. You know like Risia the last 3 years)
3. A way to make perfect max roll versions of New random loot (so we can go back to ignoring random loot YEAH!)
4. Stuff that doesn't do anything that already exists in the game, thus doesn't step on Named, Raid, LGS, TF, OLD Cannith Crafting OR New Random loot... (POWER CREEP! OH NOES! AKA: new stuff to do )


In all seriousness: make the new crafting so it works like Random loot, falls just short of "max roll", however the affixes aply to 2 DIFFERENT item types than random loot.

So in random loot you can only get +15 CHA Alluring on a Cloak or (Helm? whatever it is) only allow CRAFTING up to +14 and only allow crafted CHA on Gloves and Bracers.

If you put it on the same stuff as random loot you devalue random loot by virtue of simply being able to make what you want instead of searching for that sweet item while playing.

Meanwhile max rolls on your crafted items require rarer and rarer ingredients.

1 Max roll = 500k plat Mysterious Urn from Litany 400 comms of valor or heart seeds and any BTA named item (sacrificed)
2 Max roll = 1ml Plat 500 Raid Runes, 10 comms of Heroism, 400 comms of valor any BTC Named item
Lucky Affix max roll = Same as 2 max roll but 1 raid item

There has to be a cost... Crafting uber stuff must have a severe cost or shortly there's no game to play. if you want there to be no raid stuff then something suitably impactful needs to be used, otherwise we're all walking around in max roll gear inside of a month.

No raid items as ings? Well maybe put new drops into saga's?

[UurlockYgmeov]

love the discussion so far!

couple of points: two-handed caster weapons need to have more effects (like Thunder-Forged).

why can't we have it all?

interesting idea - item minimum level survives decon. With that - maybe the higher the level of crafter you are - the more item blanks you can make - including specialized metals/wood/etc and those special 3rd/4th effects.

just thoughts.

[IronClan]

Honestly, I see nothing wrong with how the basic idea of how the current system works.

Me either, lets K.I.S.S

Update:
+5 enhancement bonus add +6 to +10
66 spell power add 78, 90, 114, up to 138
+15% lores, update to add up to 20%

Max roll is a little less than random loot because that's the compromise you pay to have the exact affixes you want.

Then streamline UI/Interface, and get the "pull from crafting bank storage tab" working better and we have the basic framework of a decent expanded system that doesn't reinvent or delete the old cannith crafting recipes.

Then it's just a wish list of new features for me:

Add ability to craft an augment or single affix onto an existing random lootgen.
Add ability to keep one random lootgen affix intact and craft around it
Add Relic quality (-3 ML +1W) with steep ingredient cost
Add Artifact quality -4ML +1.5W) with uber steep ingredient cost
Add the ability to upgrade a weapon's die to the next higher
Add the ability to upgrade a weapons Multiplier by one
Add mythical bonus

The cost of the last few should be massive, you're basically making a named item, 10,000 remnants, 500 COH's 10,000 COV's, 4million plat, one of every old unique crafting ingrediant...

Add the ability to name the item.

With this you get updated crafting and at the same time you're adding a new end game mechanic (making your own named weapon)

[Ligraph]

In all seriouesness: make the new crafting so it works like Random loot, falls just short of "max roll", however the affixes aply to 2 DIFFERENT item types than random loot.

So in random loot you can only get +15 CHA Alluring on a Cloak or (Helm? whatever it is) only allow CRAFTING up to +14 and only allow crafted CHA on Gloves and Bracers.

If you put it on the same stuff as random loot you devalue random loot by virtue of simply being able to make what you want instead of searching for that sweet item while playing.

Meanwhile max rolls on your crafted items require rarer and rarer ingredients.

1 Max roll = 500k plat Mysterious Urn from Litany 400 comms of valor or heart seeds and any BTA named item (sacrificed)
2 Max roll = 1ml Plat 500 Raid Runes, 10 comms of Heroism, 400 comms of valor any BTC Named item
Lucky Affix max roll = Same as 2 max roll but 1 raid item

There has to be a cost... Crafting uber stuff must have a severe cost or shortly there's no game to play. if you want there to be no raid stuff then something suitably impactful needs to be used, otherwise we're all walking around in max roll gear inside of a month.

No raid items as ings? Well maybe put new drops into saga's?

I like this idea, a lot actually. Think the costs are a bit high (who runs litany? and at 30, it wouldn't be hard, just meaningless grind). I do like the idea of using named items and CoVs, maybe use Raid Runes instead of CoHs though. Would also like it if you had to get a level of raid/named item that was near the level of the effect you were trying to craft, and maybe the same type of item. You shouldn't be able to use a Templar's Retribution or Envenomed Blade (they drop so much...) to craft a 15 Str 15 Con item.

I would still prefer a system where you had to find a similar effect on random loot to craft it (e.g. Material Stat (Str, Con, Dex), Caster Stat (Wis, Int, Cha), etc), but this would probably work well.

[Ligraph]

Then it's just a wish list of new features for me:

Add ability to craft an augment or single affix onto an existing random lootgen.
Add ability to keep one random lootgen affix intact and craft around it
Add Relic quality (-3 ML +1W) with steep ingredient cost
Add Artifact quality -4ML +1.5W) with uber steep ingredient cost
Add the ability to upgrade a weapon's die to the next higher
Add the ability to upgrade a weapons Multiplier by one
Add mythical bonus

The cost of the last few should be massive, you're basically making a named item, 10,000 remnants, 500 COH's 10,000 COV's, 4million plat, one of every old unique crafting ingrediant...

Add the ability to name the item.

With this you get updated crafting and at the same time you're adding a new end game mechanic (making your own named weapon)

Would also like more named/raid items with craftable slots, like runearms currently. The thing about artifact quality and above is that you're giving someone the ability to craft a raid item without involving skill of any kind, just grind. If the bonuses were toned down a little, to make raid loot clearly superior, then I would definitely like it more. This is a different thread, but... LE raid drops (and LR ones) should be slightly but significantly better than LN ones, same for LH. Then craftable items could be about the same power level as LN loot.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I cannot stand ANY randomness in a crafting system. Total purpose of cannith crafting IMHO is to avoid the random loot gen lottery.

[Ghoulstorm]

My biggest concern is with the grind I have already done. I'm in the 145-150 range and if that gets invalidated, then I won't even bother.

[nokowi]

We just got a random loot system in which most players at least look at their random loot before selling it.

It would be a shame to ruin this system by completely replacing it with a crafting system. The minute you do this, all random gear is junk and also most named loot (at least you have to get that rare find in the random loot system).

I can think of two types of crafting system that would work WITH our named loot and random systems.

Method A: Crafted Random Gen Items

1. You put in materials to make Str and Con Bracers.
2. You specify an item minimum level
3. You add special ingredients (quest rewards, store items, etc)

You get a set of Str + Con bracers that is a random roll based on your crafting skill, and the special ingredients. The Str and Con effects could also be rolled separately (This would be needed if the two effects were from different crafting schools). The advantage of this system is it requires little to no change in the way items are programmed/created. The formula for item level should be tuned to make decent low level items with a relatively small crafting skill, but should require much more crafting skill/special items for high level gear.

Example: Let's say crafting level now goes to 300.

To make a top min level 5 item, you need crafting skill 50. Having more than 50 crafting skill won't improve the item.
The desired item/effect is rolled at loot level 5, plus any bonuses for special loot.
If you have less than 50 crafting skill, you get a -1 to the loot table for every 10 skill ranks you are missing.

To make a top min level 30 item, you need crafting skill 300.
The desired item/effect is rolled at loot level 30, plus any bonuses for special loot.

The amount of base crafting ingredients should be based on min level squared, so that it is much more expensive to make high level items.

Level 0 items (arrows, etc) can be crafted by anyone (although there is still a roll for the quality of them item).

The top loot level from crafting (with special bonuses) should be about the same as the top loot roll from random items.

Method B: Improved Random Gen Items
Instead of the above system, crafting is used to improve existing items.
1. You put in materials to improve Str or Con on your Mighty Bracers of Constitution.
2. You add special ingredients (quest rewards, store items, etc)
3. The item's ability *might* be improved (based on crafter skill, special ingredients, and previous attempts to improve this effect)

Method A sounds more enjoyable, but method B has more replayability (constantly needing new high end random gen items to try and improve).

Either one of these systems could work, but the trick is to balance the effort so that random loot, named loot, and crafted loot are all still valuable. In method B, an item should probably be limited in the amount of attempts to improve it, as well as a cap of +1 per effect. This could mean having to find five or six +14 stat items, with lots of new crafting effort (a non-duped resource), before getting one to +15.

Whatever the crafting system is, there should be players choosing NOT to use it, because the effort is not worth the gain. There should also be players choosing to use it. There should be players who don't craft but choose to buy crafted items. They should be players who craft at low levels, but not at high levels.

[IronClan]

I cannot stand ANY randomness in a crafting system. Total purpose of cannith crafting IMHO is to avoid the random loot gen lottery.

That's a common sentiment around here, you want to have your cake and eat it. But that comes with a steep price that you will have to pay, either:

1. fill all slots with max roll items rapidly and no longer have loot as a motivator to log in and play DDO thus making "crafting" a very short term wish fulfillment system that harms the game.

Or

2. Pay a massive cost to create a "guaranteed max roll item" that basically replicates some of the play hours that would have been required to find the item with luck of the roll. If this cost is too easily paid then refer back to 1, this cost needs to be SO STEEP that most of the players can not afford more than a few crafted "max roll" items per year.

Or

3. Crafted loot is pretty sub par and is not desirable to veteran players (aka 90% of the existing player base). thus development effort directed mostly towards a minority of players that many will complain about (including me).

Pick your poison.. er "cake"

[mikarddo]

Current skill levels should be retained obviously. More levels will probably be added but care needs to be taken not to discourage new crafters too much so not too much extra should be added.

But using old ingridients of any kind which have potentially been duped in the millions would be very problematic and likely has to be avoided even if it means p....... off those with large stashes ready to max any new cap in hours.

BtCoE would be lovely but unfortunately also be so accessible that either the power would need to be much lower or the ings used far rarer - ceetainly not just basic ones for anything of value. Thus I dont see tradeable crafted gear as happening as thats the advantage of random loot.

The old system of crafting individual shards was very appropriate when ML was given by the sum of the shards. But now its the other way around and the ML determines the value of the effects rather than the effects determining the ML. Failure to acknowledge this by continuing to craft individual shards would be anything but keeping it simple.

Overall there are 3 options.
- some randomness
- low power
- rare ingrediences
I dont consider a large grind using basic ingrediences viable at all - certainty not if using the old compromised basic ings. I doubt anyone will be happy with low power so its either rare ings or some randomness of which I prefer the latter as that seperates crafting from questing or raiding better so crafting doesnt simply give better gear to those that already have the top raid gear but is truly a different avenue.

[nokowi]

I cannot stand ANY randomness in a crafting system. Total purpose of cannith crafting IMHO is to avoid the random loot gen lottery.

In that case, crafting with either suck or ruin random/named loot.
In either case, it would not be worth the devs efforts.

The only system that really works with your preferences is the one we already have (capped at lvl 20, subpar effects).

Dev's should not spend time/effort to develop a crafting system that will be ignored within 1 month.

[nokowi]

I cannot stand ANY randomness in a crafting system. Total purpose of cannith crafting IMHO is to avoid the random loot gen lottery.

What if you could buy a crafted item? Wouldn't you avoid loot gen lottery?

Let someone else do the effort. You pay the price.

[Ligraph]

Overall there are 3 options.
- some randomness
- low power
- rare ingrediences
I dont consider a large grind using basic ingrediences viable at all - certainty not if using the old compromised basic ings. I doubt anyone will be happy with low power so its either rare ings or some randomness of which I prefer the latter as that seperates crafting from questing or raiding better so crafting doesnt simply give better gear to those that already have the top raid gear but is truly a different avenue.

What if they combined all 3? Have 3 options:

Craft lower power items with no randomness and no rare ingredients. Not very useful, but idk, TR grinders might use it.
Craft higher power items (like +14 stats), with some randomness, using semi-rare items (like CoVs) to give failure on the rng a cost.
Craft higher power items with no randomness using rare and hard to get ingredients (like Raid Runes).


This wouldn't invalidate random loot, because crafting without rare ingredients would have a RNG cost, and crafting without the RNG would take hard to get ingredients (comparable to the cost/difficulty of getting named loot or LGS). But it would give people the option to get exactly the effects they want, at a (high) cost.

[MaeveTuohy]

I wonder if there might be a viable 4th option (see IronClan's post).

The new, additional, extended crafting would be primarily for item effects that are unique to crafting. Specifically affixes that have been discontinued from the past along with niche effects generated from the player base.

This would complement the lootgen tables and offer unique rewards for those determined to invest the time.

[mikarddo]

What if they combined all 3? Have 3 options:

Craft lower power items with no randomness and no rare ingredients. Not very useful, but idk, TR grinders might use it.
Craft higher power items (like +14 stats), with some randomness, using semi-rare items (like CoVs) to give failure on the rng a cost.
Craft higher power items with no randomness using rare and hard to get ingredients (like Raid Runes).


This wouldn't invalidate random loot, because crafting without rare ingredients would have a RNG cost, and crafting without the RNG would take hard to get ingredients (comparable to the cost/difficulty of getting named loot or LGS). But it would give people the option to get exactly the effects they want, at a (high) cost.

That could possibly work. Extreme care should be taken though with using old stuff like CoV which may have been duped to hell. Also, I would not call Raid Runes exactly rare depending on numbers used.

[Vellrad]

The only random thing that should be is % roll to see if you succesfuly created shard or wasted mats, not to see if you created +x or +y or what slot is it or whatever.

That's a common sentiment around here, you want to have your cake and eat it. But that comes with a steep price that you will have to pay, either:

1. fill all slots with max roll items rapidly and no longer have loot as a motivator to log in and play DDO thus making "crafting" a very short term wish fulfillment system that harms the game.

Or

2. Pay a massive cost to create a "guaranteed max roll item" that basically replicates some of the play hours that would have been required to find the item with luck of the roll. If this cost is too easily paid then refer back to 1, this cost needs to be SO STEEP that most of the players can not afford more than a few crafted "max roll" items per year.

Or

3. Crafted loot is pretty sub par and is not desirable to veteran players (aka 90% of the existing player base). thus development effort directed mostly towards a minority of players that many will complain about (including me).

Pick your poison.. er "cake"

Yeah, because current check random junk, nothing better that stuff we already have dropped, after each run, AKA current system 2 weeks after new random items were added is soo much better.
After 2-3 weeks of looting legendary random item chests, chance to get something replacing items already farmed is lower than winnin that billion dollar lottery, so why bother.

[nokowi]

The only random thing that should be is % roll to see if you succesfuly created shard or wasted mats, not to see if you created +x or +y or what slot is it or whatever.


Yeah, because current check random junk, nothing better that stuff we already have dropped, after each run, AKA current system 2 weeks after new random items were added is soo much better.
After 2-3 weeks of looting legendary random item chests, chance to get something replacing items already farmed is lower than winnin that billion dollar lottery, so why bother.

All you have to do with the current random loot system is find something someone else would buy, gain shards, and buy that rare item someone else found.

The real question are
1. Does anybody on your server find something better than what you have (someone wins the lottery, right?)
2. Are they willing to sell it
3. Are you willing to pay the price

You would be a fool to try and loot the exact items you need. Cannith crafting should provide a more focused chance on a specific item you need. Think of having a good chance of getting at least decent effects on an item you need, but a lower chance of uber stats. Crafting fills in the holes of your gear set-up, but requires grind to become the ultimate gear.

[Ligraph]

That could possibly work. Extreme care should be taken though with using old stuff like CoV which may have been duped to hell. Also, I would not call Raid Runes exactly rare depending on numbers used.

Yeah. No idea if CoVs were duped, wasn't here yet. With raid runes I was thinking 500-1k range for a +15 Stat, or something near that. It would be hard to balance though.

[mikarddo]

Yeah. No idea if CoVs were duped, wasn't here yet. With raid runes I was thinking 500-1k range for a +15 Stat, or something near that. It would be hard to balance though.

Using raid runes or indeed anything from raids could be seen as counterintuitive. If crafting is meant to be an alternative way to get good gear then asking for raid drops means whoever is crafting is also raiding heavily and thus already has good gear. And thus its not really an alternative. Mind, I am not entirely against the idea of using raid items for crafting - but it could go against the design plan.

[Ligraph]

Using raid runes or indeed anything from raids could be seen as counterintuitive. If crafting is meant to be an alternative way to get good gear then asking for raid drops means whoever is crafting is also raiding heavily and thus already has good gear. And thus its not really an alternative. Mind, I am not entirely against the idea of using raid items for crafting - but it could go against the design plan.

Agreed. But, there is always the RNG option. But also, raid gear != ultimate gear set. No raid gear has +15 stats (as far as I know), or +150 Spell Power, etc. Any gear set is going to have some random loot.

Maybe there could be 2 ways to reduce the RNG (better chances of what you want):

Raid Runes
An insane amount of CoVs (assuming they were not duped). If they were duped, add a new ingredient or something. Cost would be something like ~1k for an effect. Preferably, the CoV route would always have some inherent RNG, but it would be minimal (~5-10%).


I would also like to see CoVs (and maybe Heart Seeds, maybe not) drop from quests more than once per day, maybe 2 EN runs/day, 4 EH runs/day, 10 EE runs/day.

[Qezuzu]

There's no way they can make a crafting system that pleases everyone.

If it's as strong or stronger than lootgen then it just "invalidates" that.

If it's weaker than lootgen then what's the point?

My only wish is that it's not incredibly grindy, and that we don't have to sit in front of those crafting stations for hours on end to raise crafting levels... the primary focus in DDO should be quests and quests alone.
I'd rather have "gather rare materials strewn about the game world" than "craft a bajillion shards you later throw away."

[Sunnie]

Hmmm. Carrying that through to its logical conclusion, that could be problematic.

Right now on live, a brand new crafter starts up and can make weak items: Strength +1. They need to level up before they can start making +2, +3, etc... If it changes to only be a single auto-scaling strength shard, at what level should that be available? Seems weird if a new crafter just can't make any strength shard at all, but even weirder if a brand new crafter could make a +14 (or +13, whatever) strength shard right out of the gate.
One possible solution for this would be to tie the crafted item's possible minimum level to the character's crafting skill. So someone just starting to craft could only create ML 1 items initially, and then higher ML items as their crafting skill goes up. If 200 is the new maximum crafting level, you could only make ML 1 items while at Crafting levels 1-6, then gain access to creating ML 2 items at level 7-12 and so on. This would mean those who've gone through the trouble of getting their crafting skills up to 150 could start making ML 25 items already and be just shy of being able to create ML 26 items.

(Just to be perfectly clear, of course someone with a crafting level of 8, or 90, or 180+ would ALSO be able to create ML 1 items.)

[RD2play]

I cannot stand ANY randomness in a crafting system. Total purpose of cannith crafting IMHO is to avoid the random loot gen lottery.

The issue I see with this, is that Ran-Gen can now produce stronger items than some named/raid gear. Unlike the old system where raid>named>crafted>=random. So we cannot have a system that will 100% produce Top Tier gear or it invalidates everything else. That is what I mean with loot saturation, which at some point will be reached but we should hasten the demise of the new Ran-Gen just implemented.


One possible solution for this would be to tie the crafted item's possible minimum level to the character's crafting skill. So someone just starting to craft could only create ML 1 items initially, and then higher ML items as their crafting skill goes up. If 200 is the new maximum crafting level, you could only make ML 1 items while at Crafting levels 1-6, then gain access to creating ML 2 items at level 7-12 and so on. This would mean those who've gone through the trouble of getting their crafting skills up to 150 could start making ML 25 items already and be just shy of being able to create ML 26 items.

(Just to be perfectly clear, of course someone with a crafting level of 8, or 90, or 180+ would ALSO be able to create ML 1 items.)

I am still ok with deconstructing for crafting or rather all Ran-Gen be inherently craft able upon. This way you would still have to go look for a decent base item, so an accessory with a slot, or a weapon/armor with metal type and a slot. As now the ML of the item determines the possible values you would have to find a piece of the right level.

[Enderoc]

I returned around two years ago and have crafted diligently yet almost at the threshold of half max skill, some above some slightly under. That takes a lot of time, and a lot of resource. If you are to take so much time and effort, you should be rewarded with being able to complete even at least one Legendary item which should bare your personalized inscription. You could even say Thunderforged ingredients and Greensteel items would have to be used as part of the process. We live in a world full of magic, ancient dungeon relics should not be the only truly powerful artifacts found, and there should be some personalized diversity in which to make a more unique experience by allowance of a more free range crafting system viable up to end game.

[Aelonwy]

I'm in the middle. I'm for middle grind = middle power. I don't think Cannith Crafting should ever be able to make the best of the best/ star's aligned random loot. But I think we should be able to craft closer than what we can now. Whatever the top tier of random loot is, drop down by one or two points and that should be the cap we aim for with Cannith Crafting.

So if 21 enhancement(?) bonus is the top I've seen to a skill in random loot, allow us to at least craft +18 enhancement(?) to a skill. If XII is the top tier of random gen speed let me craft speed X. However, I DO want Cannith Crafting to be more flexible, that is If I need to fit Combat Mastery into my equipment array I don't want to be limited to only a few items that allow a Combat Mastery shard. (That is a completely made up example but you get the idea.)

I'm all for people playing the random loot lottery and getting something better than I can craft or raiders getting better stuff than I can make. I have always seen crafting as having the option to make something for myself that is Versatile, Flexible, and Convenient to my play time and needs, without requiring it be the best of the best available in game.

One final note. I'm fine with them choosing to use or re-use collectibles/ingredients from adventure packs all over the game to make rare or special shards or even to increase the cost of higher Potential shards. BUT I categorically refuse to agree to using named raid items as ingredients. For the record I am not talking about CoVs or shroud ingredients, I am talking about equip-able raid items. I have almost managed to get my crafting to 140's in all three fields and I've been crafting from the week they introduced it. I am not much of a raider. If you want raid quality gear, go raid. Please don't penalize Cannith Crafting because you're afraid someone might be able through ENORMOUS grind to make something close to your raid gear. Generally speaking by the time people will have maxed whatever the new level of Cannith Crafting becomes and made the newest bestest shiny - power creep will come along and put a newer better shiny in the newest raid.

[IronClan]

The only random thing that should be is % roll to see if you succesfuly created shard or wasted mats, not to see if you created +x or +y or what slot is it or whatever.


Yeah, because current check random junk, nothing better that stuff we already have dropped, after each run, AKA current system 2 weeks after new random items were added is soo much better.
After 2-3 weeks of looting legendary random item chests, chance to get something replacing items already farmed is lower than winnin that billion dollar lottery, so why bother.

Your post is so far along a fictional narrative that there's probably no use in replying. If you're not looking at loot that your own fault and I can't help you with your "woe is me the statistical chance of me pulling triple max roll items is not good enough to make me mouse over it" issue you have.

I pulled a Stunning item the other night that had 3 near max rolls which are all useful.. I've also made hundreds in shards selling decent items I've pulled. I consider this when i imagine you refusing to look at random items and I laugh. Of course you're only "refusing to look" on the forums to prop up your narrative... in the game you're mousing over stuff like everyone else is.

Sorry man the games not going to go back to only Named items being worth looking at, that was extremely unhealthy for the game, and populations appear to be healthier since they dropped that paradigm and put some Random loot exlax into this games constipated loot system.

[IronClan]

Note: cov's being duped or not is not important, most dupers get bored and leave in my experience (they have nothing to do) in any case, the reason why my suggestion has multiple stacks of stuff is that this makes duping or not less of a factor. Duped Fall of Truth COH's? Who cares you also need a thousand (or whatever) new raid runes and/or thousands of Remnants... For the same reason that TF crafting takes Ingots Scales and Phlogs, having multiple costs creates micro economies and more varied reasons to run content.

The added ingredients just make the opportunity cost higher and "sink" plat and COV's and remnants etc. out of the economy.

Coming up with "rare" and costly ingredients that people actually value is half the battle to making a crafting system that can make powerful stuff and keep it in check.

Using these rare drops to encourage running more varied content is also desirable, they did this with old cannith crafting and yes I've run Threnal because I needed the widget in the end reward, or Litany or whatever. So it does work, it's not much of a thing these days because almost no one uses Cannith crafting regularly.

[Ligraph]

Note: cov's being duped or not is not important, most dupers get bored and leave in my experience (they have nothing to do) in any case, the reason why my suggestion has multiple stacks of stuff is that this makes duping or not less of a factor. Duped Fall of Truth COH's? Who cares you also need a thousand (or whatever) new raid runes and/or thousands of Remnants... For the same reason that TF crafting takes Ingots Scales and Phlogs, having multiple costs creates micro economies and more varied reasons to run content.

The added ingredients just make the opportunity cost higher and "sink" plat and COV's and remnants etc. out of the economy.

Coming up with "rare" and costly ingredients that people actually value is half the battle to making a crafting system that can make powerful stuff and keep it in check.

Using these rare drops to encourage running more varied content is also desirable, they did this with old cannith crafting and yes I've run Threnal because I needed the widget in the end reward, or Litany or whatever. So it does work, it's not much of a thing these days because almost no one uses Cannith crafting regularly.

I get your point (especially about the duping), but I would prefer crafting ingredients for legendary level gear to be in legendary missions, epic in epic, heroic in heroic. Now if the devs make FoT legendary, or Abbot, then using CoHs and Litany drops would be awesome. But until then, it seems like just another grind, same as clicking buttons at a crafting machine.

If the only grind the devs were going to implement was "clicking on buttons at a crafting machine" or something similar, then this idea would work fine with me, but I would prefer crafting mats dropping from content be used to make gear which has a power level near the content the mats drop from. It also makes grinding for crafting mats a bit interesting, not just mass faceroll.

[Vellrad]

Your post is so far along a fictional narrative that there's probably no use in replying. If you're not looking at loot that your own fault and I can't help you with your "woe is me the statistical chance of me pulling triple max roll items is not good enough to make me mouse over it" issue you have.

I pulled a Stunning item the other night that had 3 near max rolls which are all useful.. I've also made hundreds in shards selling decent items I've pulled. I consider this when i imagine you refusing to look at random items and I laugh. Of course you're only "refusing to look" on the forums to prop up your narrative... in the game you're mousing over stuff like everyone else is.

Sorry man the games not going to go back to only Named items being worth looking at, that was extremely unhealthy for the game, and populations appear to be healthier since they dropped that paradigm and put some Random loot exlax into this games constipated loot system.

I made 400 shards during first 2-3 weeks.
Now apart from winning lotteries nothing sells.
Last item I managed to sell was +14stat (don't remember which)necklace of false life 50 or 54 (which is quite nice combo). It took 12 days to sell and sold for 4 shards.
So your server must be full of idiots overpaying for extremally popular items, or your 'I keep earning hundreds of shards on decent items all the time" is a fairy tale.
Good for you that ddo is now diablo clone, but I never understood why bother with clone instead of original stuff.

[UurlockYgmeov]

So additional thoughts after spending the day questing with guildies and pugs and discussing this topic.

Vanity Nameplating
As much as I know this is probably asking the night to be day, I still want to be able to put my name on the items crafted - even if it is just a vanity nameplate (Uurlock's Helm of Mighty Resplendent Halfling Glory) and reserved only for the max level possible of crafting. :P

Only the highest level crafters would be able to add their name to the name of the item. SO instead of being an Alluring Helm of Wizardry, it would be 'Uurlock's Alluring Helm of Wizardry'.

Material Crafting
Want Material Crafting as a part of new Cannith Crafting. Material Crafting allows the crafter the ability to modify / add base material to crafted objects. The more powerful / rare the base material the more powerful the crafter needs to be (higher level crafting).
Things like Magesteel, Planeforged, Spiritcraft, blueshine, would require something like level 30-50 (existing crafting levels).
More exotic would require 80-120, and the most exotic would require level 150-200.

Would need base 'ingot' to craft + crafting level. The base 'ingot' (ore) would be obtained by deconstructing items made out of desired base material (so a mithril chain shirt for mithril ingot(s)). Yes, another crafting ingredient - but would go into green bag, not be bound, and also go into shared crafting bank. Deconstructing items for the base material would give 1# of ingots (ore) per 2# weight of the original item, nothing else would be given back from deconstructing the item.



Adamantine
Blueshine
Bone
Byeshk
Cloth*
Cold Iron
Crystal
Darkleaf
Darkwood
Densewood
Dwarven Iron
Feyleather
Flametouched Iron
Flesh
Force (material)
Gem (material)
Glass
Ice
Leather (material type)*
Light
Magesteel
Mithral
Planeforged Steel
Rust
Silver
Spiritcraft Leather
Spiritforged Iron
Steel (material)*
Stone
Wood*


*base material types.

Clicky Crafting
As part of updated Cannith Crafting include the ability to craft clickies. Base level required to craft a ml:9, one use clicky of 1st level spell (from the allowed list) is crafting level 30.

What is required to craft a clicky is base crafting level + special ingredient; so as example an invisibility clicky needs 10 potions of invisibility per use (click).


Higher crafting levels allow for more uses per day, higher caster level, lower minimum level, and higher level spells.

An example would be:
so at crafting level 30: one click of level 1 spell, cast at level 1, with a minimum level of 9.


every 10 crafting levels higher - allows for increase of 1 step better


+1 per click per day
+1 per caster level
+1 per spell level
+1 per drop in 2 minimum levels


example (Protection from Elements(level 5 arcane), 3 uses per day, minimum level 1, cast at level 10):


+4 to drop to minimum level to 1
+3 for 3 uses
+5 for level 5 spell
+10 for 10th level caster
would require stack of 5x100 level 10 protection from elements potions (one stack of 100 for each energy type).
(4+3+5+10=22 *10 +30 (base)) = level 250 crafting level


NO rare spells like raise dead, teleport, dimension door, true seeing, displacement (except such as true seeing which would require a Stave of the Seer (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Stave_of_the_Seer) as consumable ingredient for)


Augment Slot Addition Crafting
As part of updated Cannith Crafting include the ability to add augment slots to crafted items. Low level crafting would be able to add a single colorless or yellow to an item.


Add 1st slot
+10 colorless
+20 yellow
+30 blue/red
+40 green/orange
+50 purple



Add 2nd slot
+50 colorless
+60 yellow
+70 blue/red
+80 green/orange
+90 purple



Add 3rd slot
+100 colorless
+110 yellow
+120 blue/red
+130 green/orange
+150 purple


examples:


to add a single colorless slot to a crafted item would take crafting level 10. A single yellow would be crafting level 20.
to add two colorless slots to a crafted item would take crafting level 60 (10+50).
to add a colorless and a yellow to a crafted item would take crafting level (10+60).
to add three purple slots to a crafted item would take crafting level 290 - so would not be possible if maximum crafting level is only raised to 200 (50+90+150).
most (based upon assumption that maximum crafting level would only be raised to 200) could fit would be something like green(or orange)+yellow+colorless or two blue (or red) and one colorless.


Rules:

none really.
would prefer to see this require something rare like gems (yes - those useless things) being required - something like 1000 pp per required crafting level. So to add a single yellow slot would require 20,000 pp worth of random gems. At maximum would require 200,000 pp worth of gems. This would actually make random gems worth something! :eek: :cool: Initially gems would be not very scarce, but given time maybe gems would become valuable random loot again.
Adding augment slots would not affect minimum level of the item!! Augment gems are already not as powerful at level already so this is already factored in.
2nd / 3rd slots might require something like purified dragonshard fragments.


3rd Effect Addition Crafting

As part of updated Cannith Crafting include the ability to add 3rd (and possible 4th effects) to crafted items. This would be available to only the highest level crafters. 4th effects would only be possible on two-handed items (quarterstaffs, etc).

Expanded Runestone Crafting
Existing Strengths:


Strength
Minimum level
Difficulty class
Level to craft


Minor
3
24
8


Lesser
8
29
38


Greater
13
34
68


Major
18
39
98



ADD:




Epic
23
65
150


Legendary
29
99
200

[EllisDee37]

That's a common sentiment around here, you want to have your cake and eat it. But that comes with a steep price that you will have to pay, either:

1. fill all slots with max roll items rapidly and no longer have loot as a motivator to log in and play DDO thus making "crafting" a very short term wish fulfillment system that harms the game.

Or

2. Pay a massive cost to create a "guaranteed max roll item" that basically replicates some of the play hours that would have been required to find the item with luck of the roll. If this cost is too easily paid then refer back to 1, this cost needs to be SO STEEP that most of the players can not afford more than a few crafted "max roll" items per year.

Or

3. Crafted loot is pretty sub par and is not desirable to veteran players (aka 90% of the existing player base). thus development effort directed mostly towards a minority of players that many will complain about (including me).

Pick your poison.. er "cake"Or, as was already mentioned repeatedly, have crafting be one step below max. Then crafted gear has a high value as placeholder loot, with lootgen having high value as the final loot. Simple solution, problem solved.

The value of "one step" would be a judgement call by the devs for each individual effect. Maybe Stat +12 insightful +5 as the cap for stats, for example. Now, if you plan on a +14/+7 int item for a wizard, you can at least easily craft up a +12/+5 to wear while you look for it.



If it's weaker than lootgen then what's the point?As a placeholder until you win the lootgen lottery.

[Ligraph]

lots of stuff

I really like the material crafting idea. Either Wood, Cloth, and Steel ingots should be purchasable from vendors, or material crafting should replace blanks.

I would prefer it if base ingots were purchasable, and deconstructing for base items was changed to work one effect/slot/whatever at a time.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Or, as was already mentioned repeatedly, have crafting be one step below max. Then crafted gear has a high value as placeholder loot, with lootgen having high value as the final loot. Simple solution, problem solved.

As a placeholder until you win the lootgen lottery.

randomness has no place in crafting, period. I cannot state my opinion (and the opinion of everyone I talked to over the last couple of days concerning this).

General Statement of Opinion to Thread:
If you want random - play the lootgen lottery. Otherwise, pay the grindmonkey his dues, and get some crafting levels. :)

[EllisDee37]

I cannot stand ANY randomness in a crafting system. Total purpose of cannith crafting IMHO is to avoid the random loot gen lottery.Agreed. This is why eveningstar challenge gear was a failure.

I want exactly the same randomness in cannith crafting as I want in greensteel crafting, for exactly the same reasons.



randomness has no place in crafting, period. I cannot state my opinion (and the opinion of everyone I talked to over the last couple of days concerning this).

If you want random - play the lootgen lottery. Otherwise, pay the grindmonkey his dues, and get some crafting levels. :)I can't figure out why you quoted my post with this response. It's unrelated to anything I said.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Agreed. This is why eveningstar challenge gear was a failure.

I want exactly the same randomness in cannith crafting as I want in greensteel crafting, for exactly the same reasons.


I can't figure out why you quoted my post with this response. It's unrelated to anything I said.

apologies, I must have misunderstood your last post. I thought (and rightly so) we were on the same page concerning randomness. :) edited post to adjust that. :)

[mikarddo]

An interesting debate here. It will be fun to see what the devs come up with.

Will we only see low power items that are easy to make or will high power items that are in some way harder to make be added?

Will things be dirt cheap as in adding 3 slots for. 200kpp or costs 1000s of coh, raid runes or whatever?

Will we continue to craft shards or change to crafting full items as ML determines the values of the effects not the sum of different power level shards?

Will crafting use existing ings that may be compromised from duping or new?

Will craftings be bound or unbound?

Lots of good questions have been raised with proponents on both sides.

[Ligraph]

Yeah. Thanks to Uurlock for starting this.

[mikarddo]

Agreed. This is why eveningstar challenge gear was a failure.


If Eveningstar challanges had given a known combination of effects with only the values of the effects being somewhat randomized it would probably had been a success though. The failure was more due to the rare odds of getting the *effects* you wanted at all. Thus the comparison is flawled in my opinion to the point of being misleading.

Being able to craft for example a ML 30 Prudent Helm of Deadly with Insightful Prudent and knowing that you getting 11-14 wisdom AND Deadly 10-13 AND Insightful Wisdom 3-6 for certain with a chance for Masterful, Wonderous, Slot(s) etc would be nothing like Eveningstar Challenge randomness. (Numbers may be tweaked as needed). Infact, its not that far from the "placeholder" idea except with a bit of variation and an actual chance for something good.

I prefer that to the pure "placeholder" idea where you know you are getting 12 wis, 11 deadly and 4 ins wisdom and nothing more ever which would be a short lived system as you craft what you need early and once and thats it compared to crafting something useful early but (almost) always being able to go back and trying just once more to see if you can get an even better crafting done to upgrade the one you are wearing. It keeps the system alive for much longer with much more activity. Heck, it might even make crafting about making items you actually want rather than making 1000s of shards you have zero intention of using to skill up and then making a relative few shards you do want to use. Blasphemy, I know.

I also prefer it to the idea of needing 100+ CoH, 5000+ Raid Runes, CitW weapons, 5000+ remnants or whatever is deemed "rare and expensive" to craft the good stuff as that makes crafting bound to raiding rather than being ortogonal to it.

[Gremmlynn]

Crafting is almost literally skill-less. The sole prerequisites to crafting are some plat to buy deconstructors, etc, and being able to obtain an item from a chest to deconstruct.

I appreciate MMOs need grinds/time-sinks, but the ones that are raw time sinks with no skill component - like literally "how much did you play this week?" and "how much of it was spent clicking buttons on a crafting interface?" disgust me.

Crafting, unless there is some skill based element, like "do a raid to get a key component", should be bottom of the pile in terms of rewards and priorities.

I would use it solely as a mechanism to help new and casual players play with others in end-game-ish content, offering easy to get gear that's not close to the best of the best.

Making it a system with powerful rewards means adding some sort of treadmill - which can't be skill-based since it's intended to be a general a non-raid reward crafting system and therefore higher tiers must simply require more time investment.

Asking players to spend dozens of hours turning off their brains and clicking on nonsense interfaces is offensive and just rubbish design eliciting the worst of the worst in bad MMO design stereotypes.

I grinded up to ~130 divine, and ~100 arcane and elemental and feel dirty even thinking about that waste of my time - even within the context of a recreational game.I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of grind or skill. Loot isn't there to reward "winners", it's there to reward playing the game at all.

[EllisDee37]

Being able to craft for example a ML 30 Prudent Helm of Deadly with Insightful Prudent and knowing that you getting 11-14 wisdom AND Deadly 10-13 AND Insightful Wisdom 3-6 for certain with a chance for Masterful, Wonderous, Slot(s) etc would be nothing like Eveningstar Challenge randomness. (Numbers may be tweaked as needed). Infact, its not that far from the "placeholder" idea except with a bit of variation and an actual chance for something good.

I prefer that to the pure "placeholder" idea where you know you are getting 12 wis, 11 deadly and 4 ins wisdom and nothing more ever which would be a short lived system as you craft what you need early and once and thats it compared to crafting something useful early but (almost) always being able to go back and trying just once more to see if you can get an even better crafting done to upgrade the one you are wearing.Fair enough.


I also prefer it to the idea of needing 100+ CoH, 5000+ Raid Runes, CitW weapons, 5000+ remnants or whatever is deemed "rare and expensive" to craft the good stuff as that makes crafting bound to raiding rather than being ortogonal to it.On this we agree.

[Deathdefy]

I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of grind or skill. Loot isn't there to reward "winners", it's there to reward playing the game at all.

That's not good logic. I could equally say, "I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of a fishing mini-game or questing".

The point is there are finite resources and every system that has merited some of those resources must be designed to reward a particular type of interaction with the player.

That isn't to say most systems aren't a hybrid of grind and skill - e.g. Busting out 20 EN MoDs is like 90% grind, 10% skill. TF Crafting from EH Deathwyrm was probably about 50% / 50% once upon a time.

Systems that reward clicking buttons involving no skill, no teamwork, no timely responses, no strategy, very very little thought, no long term planning like character design, and nothing but hours invested - like Cannith Crafting is, and probably will be again - are everything wrong with MMOs. Apart from lag and ladder bugs

I concede even these systems yield some enjoyment - heck everyone likes getting 'more powerful' regardless of how - and if good design MMO is considered to be providing an "hours invested = tier of reward" option for people who are really into that over a more interesting system, so be it.

For my mind, I know the designers can do better than the current system's mindless grind.

[Sikaril_Shadowblade]

Hey , I like most ideas for the crafting pass stated here but I really really HATE the "add Raid Runes" or other Raid Items to the cannith crafting cost
Not everyone raids so please stop with the wanting to make cannith crafting into something only raiders can do . Raiders already have Thunder-forged and
Green Steel and no I have NEVER been on a raid since I started playing back in 2010 and I should not have to.

Sikaril

[RD2play]

Or, as was already mentioned repeatedly, have crafting be one step below max. Then crafted gear has a high value as placeholder loot, with lootgen having high value as the final loot. Simple solution, problem solved.

The value of "one step" would be a judgement call by the devs for each individual effect. Maybe Stat +12 insightful +5 as the cap for stats, for example. Now, if you plan on a +14/+7 int item for a wizard, you can at least easily craft up a +12/+5 to wear while you look for it.


As a placeholder until you win the lootgen lottery.

For any gear below ML30 this would still mean instant loot saturation. I understand, I was in your camp earlier but We have a NEW ran-gen system and thus we need a new Cannith Crafting system that supplements, not replaces it. Don't underestimate the importance these systems will have for the longevity of the game.

[Vanhooger]

I don't like crafting much but it can be used to make raid popular again. Put rare crafring ing in raid with higher chance on harder difficulty, here you got a raid scene again.

[RD2play]

randomness has no place in crafting, period. I cannot state my opinion (and the opinion of everyone I talked to over the last couple of days concerning this).

General Statement of Opinion to Thread:
If you want random - play the lootgen lottery. Otherwise, pay the grindmonkey his dues, and get some crafting levels. :)

My opinion is that I would hate to see yet another new system put into the game being invalidated by a system added one update later. So where I do agree it should not be like ES challenge where its fully random. I am still an advocate for being able to control the effects you get and to some degree the power. but you should not be able to go and have 100% success to get the best values, even if the max is lower than the in-game max, as this only holds for level 30 items.

[cdbd3rd]

I skimmed the last couple pages, but the discussion is rolling along in fine fashion, so far.

One thing I've noticed mentioned a few times is the addition of items from raids or quest chains. I would dislike to see Cannith Crafting start down this path - and I will adamantly stand against the addition of RAID requirements. Raiders already have crafting systems (GS/TF/Alchemical) to keep busy. Cannith Crafting has been, IMO, the longer winding road alternative to raid-connected crafting.

For now - I'd just be happy if I could get back to deconning all my junk while waiting for the new system to land.

[spinks]

It seems to me that a lot of what is being asked for here is more power. There is already far too much power in the game as it is. There are some interesting ideas but the last thing DDO needs is more power.

I think that Raid Gear and Raid crafted gear should be the highest power items, Cannith Crafted gear and challenge gear next, followed by random loot.

I have no idea how many players actually do Cannith Crafting, and I only know of two people with close to 150 in all three crafting skills. Mine are all sub 100.

Cannith Crafting allows me to make gear to fit specific gaps in my characters setup. I do not expect to be able to make the best gear in the game, and in a new / updated system, I would not expect to be able to make +15 stat items etc. that would totally invalidate raiding.

The crafting system as it is, is unnecessarily complicated and tedious, and as with various things in DDO is so extreme that I suspect the average player doesn't bother with it. The new / updated crafting system needs to appeal to the average player, not the extreme players.

I will never make a Tier 3 Thunderforged weapon. Quite simply farming up 1000+ dwarven ingots is not my idea of fun, so as an alternative I look to Cormyrean challenge gear, Cannith Crafted items, named drops, and I have a few level 24 Thunderforged weapons.

Cannith Crafting should have no randomness, should not require excessive quantities of ingredients, no raid ingredients or drops, no commendations of heroism or valor etc. it should be based around what the average player can get from normal questing and playing.

Perhaps the current system should have it's recipe list expanded to incorporate new recipes to allow the ability to make up to +10 stat items at level 30, speed and deadly etc. give us more flexibility with what we can put on different items. Don't invalidate what people have already accomplished.

There could be a Master Crafter set of recipes introduced which could be aimed at the extreme players, this could allow for harder to acquire ingredients, but this should not take away from the current system. This could be the system that allows you to make augments, or add property types and so on, the vanity items named after the crafter etc.

[EllisDee37]

My opinion is that I would hate to see yet another new system put into the game being invalidated by a system added one update later. So where I do agree it should not be like ES challenge where its fully random. I am still an advocate for being able to control the effects you get and to some degree the power. but you should not be able to go and have 100% success to get the best values, even if the max is lower than the in-game max, as this only holds for level 30 items.Either cannith crafting or lootgen will be invalidated by the other. You would rather cannith crafting be invalidated. I would rather lootgen be invalidated.

If they add crafting xp to saga rewards that would take care of the "mindless fishing mini-game" issue. Get all your crafting xp from questing.

[EllisDee37]

Cannith Crafting allows me to make gear to fit specific gaps in my characters setup. I do not expect to be able to make the best gear in the game, and in a new / updated system, I would not expect to be able to make +15 stat items etc. that would totally invalidate raiding.Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

[Saekee]

Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

I am sure there is some happy medium. In the past there was crafting Greater Banes with masterful and some nice prefix versus pulling that nice disrupter/smiter/banisher etc. That was a good balance IMHOP for heroics anyway.

I really support your idea of adding stuff to saga rewards like crafting xp. I would like to see more things in saga rewards that are appealing like CoH on elite lists.

I also suggested in a thread that Estar challenge gear should have a craftable (hence selectable) menu instead of the terribad random version--make it like the cloaks if necessary in terms of costs. Right now, I am sure people would be willing to grind some Cormyrian weapons as DR breakers, ooze smashers, etc. but not as a lottery as it is now. https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468391-Estar-Challenge-rewards-Selectable-crafting-suggestion

[spinks]

Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

That would seem logical.

[mikarddo]

Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

I agree. And to me this further enhances that we should not craft shards in the new system but full items.
In the old system the sum of the shards' power made up the ML.
In the new system the ML decides the level of power of all the effects.
Thus making individual shards and adding them to an item no longer seems logical.

[Robai]

I have a bad feeling about this.

First, new random items = huge power creep increase (let alone bugs and wrong naming).

Now, if cannith crafting will be updated so that it at least give the power of new random loot, then well, loot designers should be fired.

Clickies? Why?
The non rare clickies like jump, striding, etc. won't change anything, but Invis clicky? Really?
Why would you want to make some named items even less special?

Keep in mind that this is BtC (not to mention it's a raid loot):

http://ddowiki.com/images/Cloak_of_Invisibility.png

There are invis potions (rare) and invis scrolls (easy to umd) - that's balanced IMO.
Also there are rare invis clickies on random loot (even BtA).

I dislike the flexibility in cannith crafting (it's too flexible, there is no loot strategy at all = boring, anyway there is random loot, also there are so many named items, it's easy to build around them).

But I wouldn't mind if they introduce some new effects in cannith crafting (those effects shouldn't be available anywhere else - a good reason for working on more crafting lvls) .

But first things first: fix the random loot, that is 1) proper naming, 2) bugs, 3) power creep

[mikarddo]

I am definitely against clickies as well. No need to expand like that. Simply add the loot you can get from random drops with the exact same slot options (so no flexible shards for now) and both cannith crafting and random loot can have its use.

[Altamedes]

The OP's ideas aren't bad at all. I like the versatility in crafting suggested.

Sadly, with the current design team, it's just too ambitious. They're better at tweaks and adjustments rather than significant redesign or original design (recent loot gen pass and lgs are prime examples). I think any suggestions to make major changes would just lead to more bugs and broken items.

At first I was thinking that a modest goal would be to simply expand cannith crafting to allow all the new loot gen item attributes/effects. Now I'm thinking that's going to end badly too. Not trying to be pessimistic. I just think discussions and our expectations in upcoming game changes should be grounded in the reality of "where" the design team is right now.

[N-0cturn]

In my Opinion random loot should always have the potential to be better than crafted loot. I just like the factor that you can find something really cool when opening the chest or take the quest reward.

For example you could find a Con 15 Belt with Insightful Con 7 and Stunning 15. It's unlikely but possible. However I don't think you should be able to craft it.
A Simple way would be to limit crafted gear to 2 effects and I would probably even consider not including some effects, like insightful stats.

Similar I like it that you can potentially find a great crafting blank, so I would not like a possibility to change the material and add augments.

And I say no to clickies on crafted items as well. I think it is already to easy to access spells on chars that cannot cast them.

With this the devs really won't be able to make everyone happy I guess.

[Feralthyrtiaq]

A system that ONLY includes effects from the U29 lootgen pass.

There are effects available from current cannith crafting that are no longer available in game.

[BurnerD]

I kind of like the idea of using a scaled system to add augment slots and also create augments. Drop the shards and suffix/prefix stuff altogether.

Adding more augments slots should have a steeply sloped increase in materials. After a certain number of slots the item should be BTC and not salable. Type of slot would also determine cost.

Augments could be treated the same way:

Attach a very steep material slope to the creation of better augments. Example: Acid damage - Each item crunched that has a acid effect provided a number of acid augment fragments. Augment fragments could be determined by item level maybe....
Fragments Result
100 1d3 acid damage
200 1d4 acid damage
400 1d6 acid damage
800 2d4
1600 2d6
3200 3d8
etc.......
Don't limit the damage... but make it crazy expensive to keep going. If someone wants to spend a couple of years crafting a weapon that does 1000 acid damage let them.

This could apply to most effects as well.
Allow the crafting of smiting for example, but make it expensive. Improve smiting? really expensive.

If someone wants to spend the time and effort the can craft an ultimate smiter, but the grind would be significant.

Some limits would need to be placed on things like untyped damage, but for most of the effects its situation specific anyway.

This would dovetail nicely with the current augment system.

[Vellrad]

You can have crafting system that allows you to craft same bonuses as random items, without invalidating random gear lottery.

It all depends on requirements to create certain items.

If new cap is for example 300 (and I have feeling new lvl cap is going up no matter what), +15 stat items are for example lvl320, so you have a tiny % chance to succeed crafting that item, and failure will consume ingredients anyway. What ingredients are those? This is also to be determined, but I'm going to guess they will add something to epic/legendary quest rewards, like they did once, or will require rare collectables, TF/LGS mats, +5 tomes (this idea give me creeps, but it can happen), or other stuff.

Or they can make crafting best shards easy and then just make maximum potential shards above certain level extremally expensive to make, so you can make that +15 stat item quite easily, but adding something else to it will be hard thing.

[bsquishwizzy]

Ugh.

If we can't craft the equivalent of pretty much any lootgen item in the game, I will be seriously ****ed.

If they set it up so cannith con only make 1 step below the max lootgen power for any effect, fine, I get it. But if they keep the ridiculous caps we have or something similar (+6 stat, +13 skills, +66 spell power) then I think they're off their rockers.

+1 (With the possible exception of “insightful” items)

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that they should make Cannith crafting more extensive than random loot. There should be available effects in Cannith crafting that you can’t get in random loot.

Likewise, you should be able to craft stuff like wands and pots in Cannith Crafting – that exceed what you’d get in the game. A lvl 20 potion of Haste anyone? Make them BtA or even BtC, so you’re not edging out trade-ins from other areas like the Mysterious Remnant vendors, and so on.

[Robai]

Btw, I hope that going beyond craft lvl 150 will require some new ingredients (that didn't exist before), so that dupers won't hit new craft lvl cap in one or two days.

[IronClan]

Or, as was already mentioned repeatedly, have crafting be one step below max. Then crafted gear has a high value as placeholder loot, with lootgen having high value as the final loot. Simple solution, problem solved.

The value of "one step" would be a judgement call by the devs for each individual effect. Maybe Stat +12 insightful +5 as the cap for stats, for example. Now, if you plan on a +14/+7 int item for a wizard, you can at least easily craft up a +12/+5 to wear while you look for it.


As a placeholder until you win the lootgen lottery.

Indeed that is one mitigating factor and in a post previous to that one I already acknowledged it, I am not getting the vibe that certain have their cake and eat it types want to be able to craft +12 +5 items though...

I like the idea of putting Crafted affixes on different items than lootgen (opposing tension) and maxing crafting out at just under what Random maxes out at.

I also like just keeping it simple and making all the existing Cannith crafting shards scale up into just below named/random max numbers. Many of the affixes in cannith crafting are now unique and no longer drop in the game as well as allowing crafting on totally different items.

You can't get a Specific +Lore % and Lesser maximize II trinket anywhere, if I don't need DC's (Litany) until my caster puts Epic Noxious Embers on, my crafted trinket (with whatever lore I happen to need for gearing on that life) is pretty dang good. And it exists no where else. At 28 I can get the lore +2% from Noxious and slot the Meridian fragment in a hand held item. But if I could make a similar higher level trinket I just might:

Lesser maximize III or even IV
Specific Spell lore 19 or 20 (if random loot goes to 21% which I think so far as I've seen is where it caps at)

I also would look at crafting with the following upgraded unique to Cannith cafting affixes that drop no more:
Mobility II
Sovereign Twilight
Keen II through V
Various DR breakers with Slaying affixes with updated damage at higher ML to make them relivant
+6 to +10 Enhancement bonus on armor and weapons
and many other affixes that currently only exist in cannith crafting

Add things Like Smiting, Disruption, Banishing, Vorpal and Greater and Sovereign versions of those old affixes...
along with some of my other wish list items and IMO this would be a great crating system that doesn't obsolete anything.

The key is, for the first time in forever; for the Dev's to NOT reinvent the wheel and simply upgrade what is already there add a few missing things and extend it into epic and legendary levels. I expect that's not at all what they will do because Dev's always feel like starting from scratch with their own system.

[HAL]

randomness has no place in crafting, period. I cannot state my opinion (and the opinion of everyone I talked to over the last couple of days concerning this).

General Statement of Opinion to Thread:
If you want random - play the lootgen lottery. Otherwise, pay the grindmonkey his dues, and get some crafting levels. :)

I completely agree. One thing I HATED about Ultima Online and EQ crafting was having a chance at random failure. How can I fail to make an arrow shaft? That's just stupid.

If you grind to get crafting ability, the only other limiting factor should be rare mats to make rare items.

[HAL]

I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of grind or skill. Loot isn't there to reward "winners", it's there to reward playing the game at all.

Nicely said.

[HAL]

Either cannith crafting or lootgen will be invalidated by the other. You would rather cannith crafting be invalidated. I would rather lootgen be invalidated.

If they add crafting xp to saga rewards that would take care of the "mindless fishing mini-game" issue. Get all your crafting xp from questing.

I actually disagree that lootgen will be invalidated if crafting can produce the items you want. It didn't happen with the old lootgen and current Cannith Crafting. There just aren't that many people willing to grind even if it guarantees them the gear they want. That is why we don't need any additional limiter like randomness - grinding is enough of a limiter.

[IronClan]

The truth is that raid items or ingredients that only come from raids are an additional way to allow the cost to be expensive, and keep "max roll in every slot in a month" in check. Now obviously when I suggested that I knew there were people who intensely dislike the idea of using raid related stuff because they don't raid. But sometimes games need to entice people out of their shells and get them out of their comfort zone. Some of this is very desirable.

The fact of the matter is people who are scared of raiding aren't really doing the game (or themselves) any favors they are limiting themselves arbitrarily to less content, and at the same time limiting the game in small ways (this "you can't have raid ingredients crafting is for non raiders" sentiment is one example, another example is the Dev team getting the completely cocked up idea that Raids aren't important (remember Purplefooze saying this?) because a contingent of DDO players are afraid to step out of the kiddie pool and learn to swim).

Raid ingredients will be dismissed out of hand by the Dev's I have no doubt about that, so this is all academic. But it shouldn't be. There are many ways to make it work. For example 10,000 remnants OR 1 raid item and 5000 remnants.

The truth is there are any number of ways to make crafting max affix items expensive the problem is that much like raid ings, they are all going to be shouted down by SOME CONTINGENT of people who care more about giving their characters easy power than making the crafting system work well within the game.

Put hard to find ings in and people with less time complain
Put raid ings in and people who don't raid complain
Put Random rolls into the crafting process and people who don't like surprises, tension or unpredictability complain
Put none of this in and people complain that the game is too easy
We could make each affix have a chance to fail or destroy the item, or consume ings without effect based on how ambitious the crafter is (if you choose the highest affix values you increase the chance to fail)
We could have new ings added to saga end rewards... the longer saga's get the higher value ings (people who hate grind hate this idea)
New ings in harder difficulties as quest/chain end rewards, casuals hate this idea
Old rare or hard to farm ings in high quantity... for example 10 Lightning Split soarwood... (newbies versus Vets with filled huge red bags)

There's no system in any MMO that doesn't have at least Grind, or rare/raid ings, or real money ings, or lotto chances, or item destruction/waste of ings (which are both the same thing except some people psychologically prefer one over the other). There's no free lunch, either the system sucks for 90% of the non new player base, or it has high costs and distinctive limitations that people complain about. Pick one.

[IronClan]

I completely agree. One thing I HATED about Ultima Online and EQ crafting was having a chance at random failure. How can I fail to make an arrow shaft? That's just stupid.

So you've not crafted much in real life I take it?

My grandfather was a master cabinet maker, his scrap pile usually had at least one failed component or another on it.

His scroll saw bound up occasionally causing the cut to overshoot, this was a $4000 dollar piece of equipment, and I have a nice footstool created from a larger piece of extremely expensive Zebrawood that had to become a footstool instead of an end table because of that saw.

The planer sometimes "chucked" boards that were the right thickness such that he had to start over (getting rid of the chucking would make the board too thin for the project).

Routers love to send corners flying across the shop, no matter how good you are at reading the grain, a weak spot and the router biting at the wrong place can take a chunk out of your work when a 15,000 RPM router bit is buzzing across it.

His carving work was renowned, he had a massive walnut desk in the Lobby of the CIA building in Langley, his chisel hand sometimes slipped, That desk had (has whereever it is these days) multiple examples that only an expert would see, no two ways about it, **** happens, he also lost a finger later in life... proving that random (AKA s***) happens.

No offense but sometimes people think things are "unrealistic" or "just stupid" because they don't actually know whats realistic... We saw this recently with a lot of people thinking Armor should not have MRR because they are unfamiliar with physics and armor.

[Hafeal]

I've become nearly allergic to grinding in this game. For **** near anything. As a result, I know there are somethings I will never acquire or be able to do. By in large, I'm okay with that. It's my choice, and I don't begrudge anyone who chooses the grind.


So, I'm fine with it being More Grind/More Power. If I find the grind to be odious, as I almost always do nowadays, then it's my decision and I can't feel bad when other folks put in the effort and time and are rewarded for it. More power to em - literally.

https://media.giphy.com/media/J5jmQF8IwNS6Y/giphy.gif



Uurlock -

I like the vanity nameplate. Not because I would ever craft enough to use it, but, I think many a high level crafter would LOVE to have the mark on the game in this way. ;)

[Vellrad]

https://media.giphy.com/media/J5jmQF8IwNS6Y/giphy.gif



Uurlock -

I like the vanity nameplate. Not because I would ever craft enough to use it, but, I think many a high level crafter would LOVE to have the mark on the game in this way. ;)

For me, custom names are awesome becaue this will help people to quickly find items.
(cough cough TR cahce cough cough)

[HAL]

So you've not crafted much in real life I take it?

I actually have, but we all know assumptions are a HUGE foundation of logical argument...:rolleyes:

I mentioned an arrow shaft. Not exactly a lot of skill going into that one nor a lot of ways to "fail" in making it.

In any case, we aren't playing RL. I simply don't support the inclusion of random failure in addition to grind.

[Frogger1234]

The fact of the matter is people who are scared of raiding aren't really doing the game (or themselves) any favors they are limiting themselves arbitrarily to less content

Unlike the people who avoid Threnal, or the Restless Isles, or the Titan raid, or VoD, or heroic HoX, or Reavers Refuge, or .... By that logic, the Devs should put special raid-only crafting materials in the raids that no one runs any more.

[changelingamuck]

what about clickies?

They dilute the uniqueness of classes by making class-specific abilities universally available and require no more opportunity cost or sacrifice than giving up inventory space. Even among people who are fans of them, that should be a consideration that's acknowledged.

I'm absolutely not a fan of them. Some of them are more horridly unbalancing and homogenizing than others though--- *cough* *ahem* displacement clickies.

[Gremmlynn]

That's not good logic. I could equally say, "I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of a fishing mini-game or questing".If that's something people are interested in, then why shouldn't they?


The point is there are finite resources and every system that has merited some of those resources must be designed to reward a particular type of interaction with the player.

That isn't to say most systems aren't a hybrid of grind and skill - e.g. Busting out 20 EN MoDs is like 90% grind, 10% skill. TF Crafting from EH Deathwyrm was probably about 50% / 50% once upon a time.I know you may find this unimaganable, but I have done neither raid as yet and haven't ground out any raid in this game. But I do have 150 in every crafting skill and don't really having gotten that to have been much of a grind. The games raid system on the other hand seems very grindy to me.


Systems that reward clicking buttons involving no skill, no teamwork, no timely responses, no strategy, very very little thought, no long term planning like character design, and nothing but hours invested - like Cannith Crafting is, and probably will be again - are everything wrong with MMOs. Apart from lag and ladder bugsThe game already offers those things, why should that be the only things it offers?


I concede even these systems yield some enjoyment - heck everyone likes getting 'more powerful' regardless of how - and if good design MMO is considered to be providing an "hours invested = tier of reward" option for people who are really into that over a more interesting system, so be it.

For my mind, I know the designers can do better than the current system's mindless grind.The only mindless grind in the game is the mindless grind we choose to put in it. Running a raid 20 times in a row is a choice. Spending hours at a time crafting is a choice. Running the same high xp quests over and over is a choice.

[Gremmlynn]

Hey , I like most ideas for the crafting pass stated here but I really really HATE the "add Raid Runes" or other Raid Items to the cannith crafting cost
Not everyone raids so please stop with the wanting to make cannith crafting into something only raiders can do . Raiders already have Thunder-forged and
Green Steel and no I have NEVER been on a raid since I started playing back in 2010 and I should not have to.

SikarilYes, that would be one of the silliest things they could do. Why tie a system to raiding that could be considered an alternative to raiding.

[Gremmlynn]

I agree. And to me this further enhances that we should not craft shards in the new system but full items.
In the old system the sum of the shards' power made up the ML.
In the new system the ML decides the level of power of all the effects.
Thus making individual shards and adding them to an item no longer seems logical.It would still work though, as the ML of the item would be ML of the highest shard. The shard system holds value in the gaining of crafting xp.

[mikarddo]

It would still work though, as the ML of the item would be ML of the highest shard. The shard system holds value in the gaining of crafting xp.

Sure, you can make it work - but it does go against the grain of the new items that you can craft something where the effects are of vastly unequal power. So, ofcourse it could be made to work but it would be much cleaner and much more in line with the way items work now not to.

As for gaining crafting xp - the system with shards is about as boring as one could imagine. I reckon I crafted easily and very conservatively 100 shards I didnt intend to use for each 1 I intended to use - simply to gain xp. So its not like the system at hand is anything to write home about. It would not be hard to make up a system where you instead get xp for crafting full items.

Mind, I doubt the devs will actually change the old "craft shards" system - but I certainly find it outdated with the way ML and values interact now as well as cumbersome.

[Lauf]

Wasn't the whole point behind cannith crafting being able to do away with lootgen you don't need, in order to create whatever random-loot equivalent you do need?

granted, it's been abandoned for ages and never updated, but that was the original intent behind it, and I have to admit it appealed to me.
rather than aimlessly looting in hopes of getting something, you can actually work to get it, if you're willing to put in the time, it's a finite effort.

for random lootgen, this seems like a reasonable deal all around.

I would like to see it restored in a way consistent with the original intent.

[Gremmlynn]

The key is, for the first time in forever; for the Dev's to NOT reinvent the wheel and simply upgrade what is already there add a few missing things and extend it into epic and legendary levels. I expect that's not at all what they will do because Dev's always feel like starting from scratch with their own system.I have a feeling that a certain amount of reinventing the wheel would be a good thing to avoid the problem the current system has in needing to be specifically updated to keep up with game changes and never getting around to doing that.

I'm thinking anything we see will mechanically look a lot like the new random loot system, in that it wont be a lot of adding things by hand to adjust it. I expect to see ML based recipes that follow a constant scale, so that adding any new recipes will just be a matter of adding one and setting it's scale. Not adding one for each gradient of the effect.

[Stoner81]

Let's go back a year or so before the lootgen update and what not...

Back then lootgen had a structure to it in that specific effects could only be found in certain slots (i.e STR on gloves), Cannith Crafting was a way round this to some extent once you got high enough to make the fleixible shards. But until then you could make really good gear and have it 2 levels earlier than lootgen, this in of itself was one of the main reasons that I started Cannith Crafting in the first place. Cannith Crafting allowed us crafters to make decent kit until we got named/raid items to replace them with and it also meant we could make platinum by crafting for others and selling the crafted shards for them to use on their own stuff.

These mechanics (for want of a better term) are in my honest/blunt opinion the core of Cannith Crafting and should not be changed in the way that it seems many are advocating, the problem lies in the fact that lootgen as it currently stands IS BORKED BEYOND RECOGNITION and needs to be fully fixed. Ages ago lootgen was altered in how minimum levels were calculated and now here we are 12-18 months later and things have changed again, but they (Turbine) have changed one tiny aspect of the loot system and it has broken everything. How many times do we see updates released where something is tweaked and it sends ripples out everywhere! It's like tossing a tiny pebble in to a pond, even though it is small the ripples will reach every edge eventually.

Once the loot system is fixed and updated with past effects then and ONLY THEN can the Cannith Crafting update be looked at...

Now with that said I am firmly in the camp that raid items/ingredients etc should NOT be anywhere near Cannith Crafting! They never have and nor should they ever be. If crafting levels are increased then a few things need to happen:


The XP needed to reach the maximum crafting levels needs to be reduced OR the amount of XP given per shard should be doubled or something like that.
Repetition XP penalty should be removed, currently it takes many many lives to reach the maximum levels and this is something that puts players off a lot.
If crafting levels are increased to 200 then existing crafters with maxed out levels should be put to the new levels, with everybody else moving to a similar place based on their own levels. For example if you were level 100 in all schools then you would jump to 150 since you were 50 levels behind the maximum.
Increase the amount of collectibles you get from a mushroom/fungus patch etc, instead of getting just 1 have a random chance of up to say 10 or something so it is a bit easier to get collectibles and especially the rarer ones. This should be the ONLY random thing in Cannith Crafting... period!

The recipes need to be heavily updated to include all the new stuff and all the old stuff that was removed for some insane reason only known to the Devs, and in the name of the Flame update Striding to Speed everywhere in the game especially on OLD NAMED ITEMS!!! Introducing new ingredients would be a possible thorn in the side but there how many different collectibles out there that nobody uses? LOTS! Now is the perfect time to include these in to the new system and heck even add some Gems so they have a use instead of being sold for a measly 500-1000 plat or whatever.

Streamlining the interface is also something else that needs to happen it is infuritating having to constantly switch between multiple machines to do everything, keep one for Bound Shards and Items, one for Unbound Shards and Items and one for Deconstruction. That is all that is needed, and make them easy to differentiate between them at a glance like a great big neon sign above them or something.

Above all else Devs please please please TAKE YOUR TIME with this! It is NOT something that can be just chucked out and hope it works, do it right the first time for a change! PRETTY PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!

Stoner81.

[Gremmlynn]

The truth is that raid items or ingredients that only come from raids are an additional way to allow the cost to be expensive, and keep "max roll in every slot in a month" in check. Now obviously when I suggested that I knew there were people who intensely dislike the idea of using raid related stuff because they don't raid. But sometimes games need to entice people out of their shells and get them out of their comfort zone. Some of this is very desirable.

The fact of the matter is people who are scared of raiding aren't really doing the game (or themselves) any favors they are limiting themselves arbitrarily to less content, and at the same time limiting the game in small ways (this "you can't have raid ingredients crafting is for non raiders" sentiment is one example, another example is the Dev team getting the completely cocked up idea that Raids aren't important (remember Purplefooze saying this?) because a contingent of DDO players are afraid to step out of the kiddie pool and learn to swim).Condescending much?

It's not about stepping out of the kiddie pool for me. It's mostly about not wanting to be limited to such a small pool of content that has 3 day limits (unless I want to pay extra) on running it and generally has mechanics set up for large group play. I don't want to be limited to just a handful or of instances or the availability of other people or being off timer to do what I want when I want to do it.

As far as what's good for the game. That's also something I'm not willing to pay for the opportunity to worry about any more than I'm willing to worry about what's good for MacDonald's when order a meal. I order what I want from what they offer or what's the point of eating there at all? If I like burgers but need to buy salads to keep them in business, they may as well close as far as I'm concerned. Same here, this game only holds value to me as long as it is providing me with what I'm looking for.

[Aletys]

Let's go back a year or so before the lootgen update and what not...

Back then lootgen had a structure to it in that specific effects could only be found in certain slots (i.e STR on gloves), Cannith Crafting was a way round this to some extent once you got high enough to make the fleixible shards. But until then you could make really good gear and have it 2 levels earlier than lootgen, this in of itself was one of the main reasons that I started Cannith Crafting in the first place. Cannith Crafting allowed us crafters to make decent kit until we got named/raid items to replace them with and it also meant we could make platinum by crafting for others and selling the crafted shards for them to use on their own stuff.

These mechanics (for want of a better term) are in my honest/blunt opinion the core of Cannith Crafting and should not be changed in the way that it seems many are advocating, the problem lies in the fact that lootgen as it currently stands IS BORKED BEYOND RECOGNITION and needs to be fully fixed. Ages ago lootgen was altered in how minimum levels were calculated and now here we are 12-18 months later and things have changed again, but they (Turbine) have changed one tiny aspect of the loot system and it has broken everything. How many times do we see updates released where something is tweaked and it sends ripples out everywhere! It's like tossing a tiny pebble in to a pond, even though it is small the ripples will reach every edge eventually.

Once the loot system is fixed and updated with past effects then and ONLY THEN can the Cannith Crafting update be looked at...

Now with that said I am firmly in the camp that raid items/ingredients etc should NOT be anywhere near Cannith Crafting! They never have and nor should they ever be. If crafting levels are increased then a few things need to happen:


The XP needed to reach the maximum crafting levels needs to be reduced OR the amount of XP given per shard should be doubled or something like that.
Repetition XP penalty should be removed, currently it takes many many lives to reach the maximum levels and this is something that puts players off a lot.
If crafting levels are increased to 200 then existing crafters with maxed out levels should be put to the new levels, with everybody else moving to a similar place based on their own levels. For example if you were level 100 in all schools then you would jump to 150 since you were 50 levels behind the maximum.
Increase the amount of collectibles you get from a mushroom/fungus patch etc, instead of getting just 1 have a random chance of up to say 10 or something so it is a bit easier to get collectibles and especially the rarer ones. This should be the ONLY random thing in Cannith Crafting... period!

The recipes need to be heavily updated to include all the new stuff and all the old stuff that was removed for some insane reason only known to the Devs, and in the name of the Flame update Striding to Speed everywhere in the game especially on OLD NAMED ITEMS!!! Introducing new ingredients would be a possible thorn in the side but there how many different collectibles out there that nobody uses? LOTS! Now is the perfect time to include these in to the new system and heck even add some Gems so they have a use instead of being sold for a measly 500-1000 plat or whatever.

Streamlining the interface is also something else that needs to happen it is infuritating having to constantly switch between multiple machines to do everything, keep one for Bound Shards and Items, one for Unbound Shards and Items and one for Deconstruction. That is all that is needed, and make them easy to differentiate between them at a glance like a great big neon sign above them or something.

Above all else Devs please please please TAKE YOUR TIME with this! It is NOT something that can be just chucked out and hope it works, do it right the first time for a change! PRETTY PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!

Stoner81.
While I agree with much of what you suggested, please, please, do NOT add gems to the crafting ingredients mix. I have enough crafting materials to keep track of & find storage for as it is now. Right now gems are just a way to get a little extra plat (very important when you're a new player), and that's fine with me (I'm no longer a new player, & have pretty much maxed out all my Cannith crafting levels). Definitely make use of some of the collectibles that are not currently used.

[Gremmlynn]

Sure, you can make it work - but it does go against the grain of the new items that you can craft something where the effects are of vastly unequal power. So, ofcourse it could be made to work but it would be much cleaner and much more in line with the way items work now not to.Huh? I see feather falling (a level one effect) on all levels of gear.


As for gaining crafting xp - the system with shards is about as boring as one could imagine. I reckon I crafted easily and very conservatively 100 shards I didnt intend to use for each 1 I intended to use - simply to gain xp. So its not like the system at hand is anything to write home about. It would not be hard to make up a system where you instead get xp for crafting full items.

Mind, I doubt the devs will actually change the old "craft shards" system - but I certainly find it outdated with the way ML and values interact now as well as cumbersome.What I see likely is a master recipe table with costs and crafting chance being based on the magnitude/ML of the effect one is trying to craft. Rather than the current system that has a specific recipe made for each level of an effect. So instead of the devs having to make a recipe for each level of, say, devotion, they can make one recipe for all spell power effects and we fill in the blanks as to what type of spell power and the magnitude/ML we want to attempt. It may not look that way to us when we access it, but that's the sort of underlying mechanic I expect them to come up with and what I believe the new random loot system is like behind the scenes.

[Gremmlynn]

Repetition XP penalty should be removed, currently it takes many many lives to reach the maximum levels and this is something that puts players off a lot.Heh, I missed that when I capped my single life crafter. No, it doesn't take multiple lives. It takes quite a bit of time, sure and that's what puts some players off. But, that's kind of what MMOs are about.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Yeah. Thanks to Uurlock for starting this.

:) been a pleasure to read and interact in this thread so far! Thank the Dev's, Patrick, and Cordovan for giving me the idea.


An interesting debate here. It will be fun to see what the devs come up with.

Will we only see low power items that are easy to make or will high power items that are in some way harder to make be added?

Will things be dirt cheap as in adding 3 slots for. 200kpp or costs 1000s of coh, raid runes or whatever?

Will we continue to craft shards or change to crafting full items as ML determines the values of the effects not the sum of different power level shards?

Will crafting use existing ings that may be compromised from duping or new?

Will craftings be bound or unbound?

Lots of good questions have been raised with proponents on both sides.

I think you are quoting the 200Kpp from my suggestion to use gems to power the augment slot crafting sub-system. 200Kpp in gems is not trivial. :)

one word on why gems - not platinum. Gems are immediate vendor trash, so using gems would give them value - and in fact would / could cause a severe shortage of gems. I like this. How many people have 200,000 in face value gems right now? LOL


I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of grind or skill. Loot isn't there to reward "winners", it's there to reward playing the game at all.

well said.


I skimmed the last couple pages, but the discussion is rolling along in fine fashion, so far.

One thing I've noticed mentioned a few times is the addition of items from raids or quest chains. I would dislike to see Cannith Crafting start down this path - and I will adamantly stand against the addition of RAID requirements. Raiders already have crafting systems (GS/TF/Alchemical) to keep busy. Cannith Crafting has been, IMO, the longer winding road alternative to raid-connected crafting.

For now - I'd just be happy if I could get back to deconning all my junk while waiting for the new system to land.

like your comments cdbd3rd, tend to agree with the raid requirements. I too would like to get back to deconning. :)


Either cannith crafting or lootgen will be invalidated by the other. You would rather cannith crafting be invalidated. I would rather lootgen be invalidated.

If they add crafting xp to saga rewards that would take care of the "mindless fishing mini-game" issue. Get all your crafting xp from questing.

I do not believe either will be invalidated by having a strong lootgen and cannith crafting system. There will always be a place for that magical '888' rolled random loot, and there will always be a demand for well constructed niche items that fill in just a little more that existing loot does.

I am not for adding crafting xp to saga rewards. IMHO only crafting should yeild crafting xp. On that note - should be relatively simple to get to say crafting level 30 out of 200, and progressively more difficult after that. Allows the basic to the most, and those who want - are willing to grind for the power are rewarded, just like everything else in this game and in life. IMHO it would be like going to the gas station to get fresh fish for supper.


Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

+1 agree. In fact as someone else says below - cannith should have some effects not available on lootgen.


I agree. And to me this further enhances that we should not craft shards in the new system but full items.
In the old system the sum of the shards' power made up the ML.
In the new system the ML decides the level of power of all the effects.
Thus making individual shards and adding them to an item no longer seems logical.

correct - now the minimum level of the item determines the effect strength - but they are still 'shards of effect' - unless they are renamed.

formerly it was a strength +1 or strength +6 shard - now it (if I am guessing right) just be a 'Mighty' shard.


Clickies? Why?
The non rare clickies like jump, striding, etc. won't change anything, but Invis clicky? Really?
Why would you want to make some named items even less special?

Keep in mind that this is BtC (not to mention it's a raid loot):

http://ddowiki.com/images/Cloak_of_Invisibility.png

There are invis potions (rare) and invis scrolls (easy to umd) - that's balanced IMO.
Also there are rare invis clickies on random loot (even BtA).

I dislike the flexibility in cannith crafting (it's too flexible, there is no loot strategy at all = boring, anyway there is random loot, also there are so many named items, it's easy to build around them).

But I wouldn't mind if they introduce some new effects in cannith crafting (those effects shouldn't be available anywhere else - a good reason for working on more crafting lvls) .
Cloak of Invisibility is so high a minimum level because of ghostly, the deflection bonus to ac, and a green slot. Remove everything but the clicky and it would be ml:3 or even 1.


A system that ONLY includes effects from the U29 lootgen pass.

There are effects available from current cannith crafting that are no longer available in game.


+1 (With the possible exception of “insightful” items)

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that they should make Cannith crafting more extensive than random loot. There should be available effects in Cannith crafting that you can’t get in random loot.

Likewise, you should be able to craft stuff like wands and pots in Cannith Crafting – that exceed what you’d get in the game. A lvl 20 potion of Haste anyone? Make them BtA or even BtC, so you’re not edging out trade-ins from other areas like the Mysterious Remnant vendors, and so on.

+1 - agree. still desire insightful / exceptional but not spooky or insidious. :P


I also would look at crafting with the following upgraded unique to Cannith cafting affixes that drop no more:
Mobility II
Sovereign Twilight
Keen II through V
Various DR breakers with Slaying affixes with updated damage at higher ML to make them relivant
+6 to +10 Enhancement bonus on armor and weapons
and many other affixes that currently only exist in cannith crafting

Add things Like Smiting, Disruption, Banishing, Vorpal and Greater and Sovereign versions of those old affixes...
along with some of my other wish list items and IMO this would be a great crating system that doesn't obsolete anything.

The key is, for the first time in forever; for the Dev's to NOT reinvent the wheel and simply upgrade what is already there add a few missing things and extend it into epic and legendary levels. I expect that's not at all what they will do because Dev's always feel like starting from scratch with their own system.

I like.


https://media.giphy.com/media/J5jmQF8IwNS6Y/giphy.gif



Uurlock -

I like the vanity nameplate. Not because I would ever craft enough to use it, but, I think many a high level crafter would LOVE to have the mark on the game in this way. ;)

AMEN! sorry - bad habit of answering MEME's ;p


Heh, I missed that when I capped my single life crafter. No, it doesn't take multiple lives. It takes quite a bit of time, sure and that's what puts some players off. But, that's kind of what MMOs are about.

Good point Gremmlynn.

General comments:

Concern has be raised that anyone would be able to crank out top notch gear at low crafting levels. I must disagree.


The most powerful shards in the existing system required very high crafting levels to make, examples were the flexible shards, and those were bound.


In the new system it should be the same - except make it bound to account rather than bound to character. Enough with the btc stuff already (except raid loot - which I agree on).


Randomness does have a place - when crafting at the very cusp of ones skill and ability there should be a chance to fail. This is something which the existing system did well. The randomness exists in a boolean way - I want this - and will I succeed in making it. This type of randomness is IMHO a very nice touch to the system. Randomness as to what exactly will the effect be that I just spent years working up the crafting levels in order to make is not.


As far as I know, based upon what the Dev team has been saying / hinting at - the random loot database and cannith crafting database are the same. Somethings not available in one or the other system, but that is fine.

Please, keep up the great thread!

[Robai]

These mechanics (for want of a better term) are in my honest/blunt opinion the core of Cannith Crafting and should not be changed in the way that it seems many are advocating, the problem lies in the fact that lootgen as it currently stands IS BORKED BEYOND RECOGNITION and needs to be fully fixed. Ages ago lootgen was altered in how minimum levels were calculated and now here we are 12-18 months later and things have changed again, but they (Turbine) have changed one tiny aspect of the loot system and it has broken everything. How many times do we see updates released where something is tweaked and it sends ripples out everywhere! It's like tossing a tiny pebble in to a pond, even though it is small the ripples will reach every edge eventually.

Once the loot system is fixed and updated with past effects then and ONLY THEN can the Cannith Crafting update be looked at...
Agreed.


The recipes need to be heavily updated to include all the new stuff and all the old stuff that was removed for some insane reason only known to the Devs, and in the name of the Flame update Striding to Speed everywhere in the game especially on OLD NAMED ITEMS!!!

I disagree. Random loot should never had Speed.
Only some named items should have all three effects in one place:
Striding, Melee attack speed, Ranged attack speed

Also the minimum lvl of Melee/Ranged Alacrity in the current cannith crafting is too low (it should be ML10 instead of ML1 IMO).

But I wouldn't mind if they add a recipe in cannith crafting for some stacking (maybe alchemical?) bonus to attack speed (up to 5%), but it should be separate recipes for Melee and Ranged attack speed, also it shouldn't be as part of Speed (movement speed should be yet another thing). This bonus should be available in cannith crafting only.

[nokowi]

It seems to me that a lot of what is being asked for here is more power. There is already far too much power in the game as it is. There are some interesting ideas but the last thing DDO needs is more power.

I think that Raid Gear and Raid crafted gear should be the highest power items, Cannith Crafted gear and challenge gear next, followed by random loot.

I have no idea how many players actually do Cannith Crafting, and I only know of two people with close to 150 in all three crafting skills. Mine are all sub 100.

Cannith Crafting allows me to make gear to fit specific gaps in my characters setup. I do not expect to be able to make the best gear in the game, and in a new / updated system, I would not expect to be able to make +15 stat items etc. that would totally invalidate raiding.

The crafting system as it is, is unnecessarily complicated and tedious, and as with various things in DDO is so extreme that I suspect the average player doesn't bother with it. The new / updated crafting system needs to appeal to the average player, not the extreme players.

I will never make a Tier 3 Thunderforged weapon. Quite simply farming up 1000+ dwarven ingots is not my idea of fun, so as an alternative I look to Cormyrean challenge gear, Cannith Crafted items, named drops, and I have a few level 24 Thunderforged weapons.

Cannith Crafting should have no randomness, should not require excessive quantities of ingredients, no raid ingredients or drops, no commendations of heroism or valor etc. it should be based around what the average player can get from normal questing and playing.

Perhaps the current system should have it's recipe list expanded to incorporate new recipes to allow the ability to make up to +10 stat items at level 30, speed and deadly etc. give us more flexibility with what we can put on different items. Don't invalidate what people have already accomplished.

There could be a Master Crafter set of recipes introduced which could be aimed at the extreme players, this could allow for harder to acquire ingredients, but this should not take away from the current system. This could be the system that allows you to make augments, or add property types and so on, the vanity items named after the crafter etc.

Having a crafting system that requires you to do nothing more than you do now is a waste of dev time and resources. It will simply shorten the life of the game (giving players less things to do). If not balanced properly (this is a recurring problem), there are high risks to introducing such a system.

If I have nothing to do because crafting lets me make very item I need with no effort, I won't be playing DDO.

Please don't design the crafting system around casual players. There aren't enough of them to sustain this game.

[Ligraph]

For the people who are saying raid ingredients should not be needed in crafting (to lazy to find the relevant quotes):

I agree and disagree. Raid level gear (presumably the best in game) should require raid mats. BUT, raid level gear should not be REQUIRED outside of (top level) raids.

So for someone who almost constantly TRs or eTRs, they will be able to get the gear they need from crafting. True, it won't be the most powerful stuff in game, but unless you are doing the toughest content in the game, you don't need, and arguably shouldn't have, top level gear.

I know that sounds elitist, read the rest of the post.


To illustrate what I am trying to say, a thought experiment:

Suppose that top level raids and missions are CR 35. Level cap is still 30.

Missions drop "mission gear", and raids drop "raid gear".

When in a raid, all effects on mission gear are reduced to Level 30.

Same goes for raid gear in missions.

By doing top level missions, you can get some kind of commendation that allows you to make your raid gear work in missions.

Same thing for raids.

That way, the more you raid, the better gear you'll have in raids.
The more you do missions, the better gear you'll have in missions.

Raid gear could automatically work in missions, since raids are technically missions, it would depend on how the raids and missions were designed.

This could also work for PvP, if it ever gets upgraded.


The point is that doing raids rewards people with better gear for raids, making them better at raids.
Same for missions.

In my opinion, you should not get top-tier gear for anything without actually doing that thing. For example, you shouldn't be able to get past lives by raiding:p.

With the game the way it is currently, there is no "raid gear" and "missions gear", and I don't think there needs to be (or should be). What differentiates raid gear and missions gear is, to an extend, power level. This works because raids are, in general, harder than missions. So "raid gear" is the best of the best gear, and "mission gear" is the stuff a few steps below. Since everyone wants to be uber, this leads to everyone wanting raid gear, which is why I would separate raid and mission gear. But since I doubt this will ever happen, since raids are (currently) the hardest content, they should have the best gear. Preferably, there should be multiple tiers of raid gear, where you need tier 1 to do the raid to get tier 2, etc., but that's another thread.


Semi-TL;DR.
I can't quite write this without is sounding elitist, but I guess what I am trying to say is unless you are doing the hardest content (which is currently raids), you don't need (and probably shouldn't have) the best gear.

The reason I feel you shouldn't be able to get the best gear for raiding (which just happens to be the best gear for anything) is because it takes away from the incentive for people to raid, and the reward for those who do. It would be like allowing people to get Past Lives by clicking a button (repeatedly) on a crafting machine. Or just giving PLs to everyone who started playing after a certain date (ok, that one is a bit extreme, but you get the idea). I know if either of these ideas were ever suggested, the PL grinder and TR group would push back hard. And they would be right.

The best way to test ideas concerning relative power levels is to imagine a situation where raid gear is NOT the best gear for everything, and see if your feelings still stand.

[IronClan]

Unlike the people who avoid Threnal, or the Restless Isles, or the Titan raid, or VoD, or heroic HoX, or Reavers Refuge, or .... By that logic, the Devs should put special raid-only crafting materials in the raids that no one runs any more.

What did you expect to turn my argument around on me and get disagreement? I would applaud putting new ings into old raids. Abbot is still an entirely failable raid with 12 level 30's, Titan while easy enough for most of it is long enough and fun enough and the end fight is still failable even if he doesn't bug out and knock pillars down himself. The rest are pretty much 100% success rate but fun for old times sake....

So bring it on, put rare ings in those raids, I'd love an excuse to run them again. BTW I don't avoid any content in the game, the people who only level using spies/von/mirror/wizking have my sympathy... Must be boring...


I have a feeling that a certain amount of reinventing the wheel would be a good thing to avoid the problem the current system has in needing to be specifically updated to keep up with game changes and never getting around to doing that.

stream line the current system, sure but reinvention seems pointless. I'm sure you'll get that, but I'm also sure that the old obsolete cannith crafting could have been the basis for adding and upgrading instead of reinvention.

The best part of doing it that way is that this has built in "niche" because the affixes in Cannith crafting when updated upto ML30 are in many cases completely harmonious and not stepping on the new loot gen, or allow crafting on items the new loot gen doesn't and vice versa... so all they need to do is stop shy of obsoleting the max roll random loot and we're in business.


Condescending much?

It's not about stepping out of the kiddie pool for me. It's mostly about not wanting to be limited to such a small pool of content that has 3 day limits (unless I want to pay extra) on running it and generally has mechanics set up for large group play.

Meh I apologize for being a **** there, it's just frustrating seeing people limit themselves for no good reason and lets be real here, most of that has to do with the perception of "drama" and expectations or the false belief that they will be watched like a hawk and expected to never die, or always do things perfectly. What people who don't raid don't understand is that most raids have 3 things for 3 people to do and then a lot of whatever the hell you want for the other 9 people. Raids like DoJ don't even have that. Almost no one watches other players, and frankly if they do it's probably because they aren't very confident and are poor raid leaders or just jerks. having run into those people myself I didn't stop raiding, I stopped raiding with those people.

Raids aint gonna bite you is what I'm saying, they aren't the Uber club some make them out to be. especially on EN, which absolutely anyone can join with zero expectations and get some shots at raid loot or eventually a 20th list. It's not the game designers fault that you choose not to raid, and in an ideal world they would not have to design around that.

[Gremmlynn]

Having a crafting system that requires you to do nothing more than you do now is a waste of dev time and resources. It will simply shorten the life of the game (giving players less things to do). If not balanced properly (this is a recurring problem), there are high risks to introducing such a system.

If I have nothing to do because crafting lets me make very item I need with no effort, I won't be playing DDO.

Please don't design the crafting system around casual players. There aren't enough of them to sustain this game.Then what's the point in having it at all? Seems a waste of dev effort to make anything less than about what we have was when it was introduced.

[IronClan]

I disagree. Random loot should never had Speed.
Only some named items should have all three effects in one place:
Striding, Melee attack speed, Ranged attack speed

I agree, I suspect the move to compact multiple affixes into 1 was an attempt to clean up the bloated loot, and make new intesting things instead of increasing the math but all it did was make it easier to get every affix you wanted.

Choices are gameplay.

Lack of choices are lack of gameplay.

Not to mention how much I cuss when I see Deathblock -27% negative energy on armor I'd like my Wraith form PM to be able to wear.

[Gremmlynn]

Meh I apologize for being a **** there, it's just frustrating seeing people limit themselves for no good reason and lets be real here, most of that has to do with the perception of "drama" and expectations or the false belief that they will be watched like a hawk and expected to never die, and always do things perfectly. What people who don't raid don't understand is that most raids have 3 things for 3 people to do and then a lot of whatever the hell you want for the other 9 people. Almost no one watches other players, and frankly if they do it's probably because they aren't very confident and are poor raid leaders or just jerks. having run into those people myself I didn't stop raiding, I stopped raiding with those people.Or maybe it's just not a lot of fun until one becomes one of those 3 people.


Raids aint gonna bite you is what I'm saying, they aren't the Uber club some make them out to be. especially on EN, which absolutely anyone can join with zero expectations and get some shots at raid loot or eventually a 20th list. It's not the game designers fault that you choose not to raid, and in an ideal world they would not design around such people. Precisely because dragging you and other raid abstainers out of your comfort zone is good for everyone involved.No it's not their fault some of us aren't into raiding. But it is a fact that we aren't and trying to "drag us out of our comfort zone" serves no real purpose other than to make the game more trouble than it's worth.

Raiding should be a stand alone option, the same way TR is, the same way Canneth Crafting is, etc. This makes the game appealing to diverse players with different interests. Trying to tie them all together just makes it really only appealing to those with all those interests.

Also, it's not, "OMG raids are to hard". They really aren't. It's "OMG raids are a PITA" with their 3 day timers and farming requirements for mats or 20th lists. Raids aren't about running a raid, they are about running the same thing over and over to see any results. I personally enjoy a raid every now and again, the same as any other content. What I don't like is to feel a need to run the same things over and over.

This would, to my mind, also go against what players would want to level crafting for in the first place. As an alternative to farming specific content for named loot. What would the point be if they have to farm the mats in the same way instead? One of the main reasons I like crafting is that most of the mats fall from any content and the rest offer some choice at least. Even if I'm short some special mat, I can just go get it. Most can't just hop into a high end raid as needed.

[Frogger1234]

What did you expect to turn my argument around on me and get disagreement? I would applaud putting new ings into old raids. Abbot is still an entirely failable raid with 12 level 30's, Titan while easy enough for most of it is long enough and fun enough and the end fight is still failable even if he doesn't bug out and knock pillars down himself. The rest are pretty much 100% success rate but fun for old times sake....

So bring it on, put rare ings in those raids, I'd love an excuse to run them again. BTW I don't avoid any content in the game, the people who only level using spies/von/mirror/wizking have my sympathy... Must be boring...


Actually, I posed the question to see how you would respond. I got the expected response. :)

Though I'm not sure I see as major a difference as you appear to between people avoiding raids and people avoiding quests. Either way, they are limiting themselves to less content.

[Gremmlynn]

Actually, I posed the question to see how you would respond. I got the expected response. :)

Though I'm not sure I see as major a difference as you appear to between people avoiding raids and people avoiding quests. Either way, they are limiting themselves to less content.Yes, limiting ourselves to just the content we actually like. Or, at least, don't find more trouble than it's worth most of the time.

When you go out to eat do you order what you don't like, or do you limit yourself to what you do?

[Robai]

Or, as was already mentioned repeatedly, have crafting be one step below max. Then crafted gear has a high value as placeholder loot, with lootgen having high value as the final loot. Simple solution, problem solved.

The value of "one step" would be a judgement call by the devs for each individual effect. Maybe Stat +12 insightful +5 as the cap for stats, for example.

I agree on "one step" idea, but the values are too high.
A plain +12 stat (without insightful at all) on random loot is fine. So crafting goes up to +11 stat.

Insightful +5 should not exist on random loot at all. I would compare it to augments: +1 is ML20, +2 is ML24. So, random loot should be "one step" lower, that is: +1 at ML19, +2 at ML23 (and +3 at ML27, and +4 at ML30 but only with masterful, i.e. rare). And crafting should have one minimum lvl higher: +1 at ML20, +2 at ML24, +3 at ML28, and no +4.

The reason for that is that future named items with +5 Ins bonus with be meh. So, in order for it to be impressive it should be at least +7 Ins bonus (I mean if current random loot won't be changed). And that results in additional powercreep increase (which could be easily avoided by just fixing the current random loot).



Cloak of Invisibility is so high a minimum level because of ghostly, the deflection bonus to ac, and a green slot. Remove everything but the clicky and it would be ml:3 or even 1.
It's a clickie on a named item, which has other things as a bonus (which is good).
There are very rare clickies on random items:

http://cdn.pbrd.co/images/2kOpbt02.jpg

Since this clickie is useful it should not be easily available. But it's easy to umd invis scrolls, which aren't rare, but since it's subject to ASF then on my heavy armor toons (especially Docents with the heavy armor feat) I use invis pots, and I do smash breakables for exactly that reason (it's fun when I see invis pots dropping).


I agree, I suspect the move to compact multiple affixes into 1 was an attempt to clean up the bloated loot, and make new intesting things instead of increasing the math but all it did was make it easier to get every affix you wanted.

Choices are gameplay.

Lack of choices are lack of gameplay.


Well said.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I agree on "one step" idea, but the values are too high.
A plain +12 stat (without insightful at all) on random loot is fine. So crafting goes up to +11 stat.

Insightful +5 should not exist on random loot at all. I would compare augments here: +1 is ML20, +2 is ML24. So, random loot should be "one step" lower, that is: +1 at ML19, +2 at ML23 (and +3 at ML27, and +4 at ML30 but only with masterful, i.e. rare).



It's a clickie on a named item, which has other things as a bonus (which is good).
There are very rare clickies on random items:

http://cdn.pbrd.co/images/2kOpbt02.jpg

Since this clickie is useful it should not be easily available. But it's easy to umd invis scrolls, which aren't rare, but since it's subject to ASF then on my heavy armor toons (especially Docents with the heavy armor feat) I use invis pots, and I do smash breakables for exactly that reason (it's fun when I see invis pots dropping).

While I am in total disagreement that there should be artificial limits to the power of cannith crafting - specifically because it takes years of grinding (by far the most grind of ANY part of the game (except uber triple completionist) to get to that level of crafting that allows you to make things that powerful.

Your screenshot of the invisibility clicky demonstrates my point - thank you. minimum level 3, 3 uses per rest - caster level 3 - would require 30 potions of invisibility as a consumable ingredient, but also would require a crafting level of 140 ((3+3+3+2*10) + 30 (base)) AND the 30 invisibility potions in order to make bta clicky effect shard. :)

every 10 crafting levels higher - allows for increase of 1 step better
+3 for 3 clicks per day
+3 per 3rd caster level
+2 per 2nd spell level
+3 to drop minimum level from 9 to 2

But to make a 1 use a day at ml:9 caster level 3
+1 click
+3 for caster level 3
+2 for 2nd level spell
0 to leave ml:9

so crafting level 90 and 10 potions of invisibility to craft.

I'd call that extremely rare - just because of the invisibility potions required to create!

Still low enough level where most people could create it.

[nokowi]

Then what's the point in having it at all? Seems a waste of dev effort to make anything less than about what we have was when it was introduced.

The idea would be to give players something else to do in return for the reward.

1. Go collect special ingreds to make a powerful item

[Robai]

While I am in total disagreement that there should be artificial limits to the power of cannith crafting - specifically because it takes years of grinding (by far the most grind of ANY part of the game (except uber triple completionist) to get to that level of crafting that allows you to make things that powerful.

Playing a class should have its benefits.
Meaning that arcanes have Invis spell and other classes should not have easy option for this spell (if at all).
It doesn't matter how hard it is to get craft lvls, you shouldn't have such an easy option.

If canntih crafting would give very powerful/very useful things then players would be forced to get high craft lvls. I don't think we want that.
So, yes, there should be limits in cannith crafting (so that it shouldn't be a mandatory grind).

[UurlockYgmeov]

Playing a class should have its benefits.
Meaning that arcanes have Invis spell and other classes should not have easy option for this spell (if at all).
It doesn't matter how hard it is to get craft lvls, you shouldn't have such an easy option.

If canntih crafting would give very powerful/very useful things then players would be forced to get high craft lvls. I don't think we want that.
So, yes, there should be limits in cannith crafting (so that it shouldn't be a mandatory grind).

mandatory grind? hardly. Personally I have chosen not to make LGS because I choose to at this point, even though under the logic you present it is mandatory grind.

Even so - invisibility is not rare, not even close. Under that same logic we need to petition the Dev's to pull ALL invisibility scrolls, wands and clickies in the game ! (except rare drops of course, and that includes mass invisibility).

I respect your opinion, it just is not my own. :)

[Gremmlynn]

Playing a class should have its benefits.
Meaning that arcanes have Invis spell and other classes should not have easy option for this spell (if at all).
It doesn't matter how hard it is to get craft lvls, you shouldn't have such an easy option.

If canntih crafting would give very powerful/very useful things then players would be forced to get high craft lvls. I don't think we want that.
So, yes, there should be limits in cannith crafting (so that it shouldn't be a mandatory grind).The fact that the UMD skill is in the game kind of refutes your point.

Also, why would it be any more of a mandatory grind than anything else in the game? I have yet to find any of the games grinds to be mandatory.

[Gremmlynn]

The idea would be to give players something else to do in return for the reward.

1. Go collect special ingreds to make a powerful itemUnless they drop from all content, no thank you. Grinding specific content is what I leveled crafting to avoid.

[Robai]

The fact that the UMD skill is in the game kind of refutes your point.

Also, why would it be any more of a mandatory grind than anything else in the game? I have yet to find any of the games grinds to be mandatory.

Yes, UMD skill is for that reason: to bypass the requirements (if you are able to).
If you could craft clickies then you would have less reasons to have UMD skill.

As for mandatory it's always a point of view. Nothing is mandatory, no gear is mandatory, no grind is mandatory, no past lives are mandatory, no knowledge of classes/quests is mandatory, raiding is not mandatory, grouping is not mandatory, even playing this game is not mandatory.

[cdbd3rd]

The truth is that raid items or ingredients that only come from raids are an additional way to allow the cost to be expensive, and keep "max roll in every slot in a month" in check. Now obviously when I suggested that I knew there were people who intensely dislike the idea of using raid related stuff because they don't raid. But sometimes games need to entice people out of their shells and get them out of their comfort zone. Some of this is very desirable.

The fact of the matter is people who are scared of raiding aren't really doing the game (or themselves) any favors they are limiting themselves arbitrarily to less content, and at the same time limiting the game in small ways (this "you can't have raid ingredients crafting is for non raiders" sentiment is one example, another example is the Dev team getting the completely cocked up idea that Raids aren't important (remember Purplefooze saying this?) because a contingent of DDO players are afraid to step out of the kiddie pool and learn to swim).

....

I bit back my initial response to this til i read the rest of the thread, and Gremmlynn's responses pretty much covered what I would've said.

That said, your later posts made it seem you think that non-raiders would somehow expect raid-level equipment from Cannith Crafting. Can only speak for myself in that I have no expectations of CC gear approaching raid quality gear any more than it has in the past. Thus I defend my stance against adding raid components to the CC system.

Trust me, that LAST thing I need from the place I go to escape the demands/expectations of RL is the game to require me to be pulled from my shell. I'm quite happy in my shell, thankya much. :p

http://lollaffs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/LOL-Do-I-have-to-come-out-of-my-shell.jpg

[spinks]

... Please don't design the crafting system around casual players. There aren't enough of them to sustain this game.

I said average player, not casual player. I don't consider these to be in any way the same type of player. I would consider a casual player to dip into the game a couple of times a week, whereas an average player may play everyday, just not be into having to have the best of the best all the time.

[EllisDee37]

That said, your later posts made it seem you think that non-raiders would somehow expect raid-level equipment from Cannith Crafting. Can only speak for myself in that I have no expectations of CC gear approaching raid quality gear any more than it has in the past. Thus I defend my stance against adding raid components to the CC system.He's essentially saying that cannith crafting shouldn't be able to craft the equivalent of lootgen because that would be better than raid gear. As in, lootgen is better than raid gear.

Cannith Crafting should be able to reproduce anything we can find in lootgen. If lootgen is stronger than raid gear, that's a separate, unrelated issue.

[nokowi]

Unless they drop from all content, no thank you. Grinding specific content is what I leveled crafting to avoid.

Whether or not crafting ingredients drop everywhere is completely separate from the points I have made.

I will repeat the argument.

If crafting is something done with no effort, it will either

1. Be less powerful than existing items and be largely unused (waste of dev resources)
2. Be of equal power (and thus invalidate all random gear)
3. Be of higher power and make the loot system of the entire game pointless

Unless you are arguing for a new resource that drops everywhere and requires some effort to gather, your preferences don't allow for a crafting system that works within the game of DDO.

[nokowi]

I said average player, not casual player. I don't consider these to be in any way the same type of player. I would consider a casual player to dip into the game a couple of times a week, whereas an average player may play everyday, just not be into having to have the best of the best all the time.

Casual refers to the level of effort a player will spend to improve their character.

Average refers to skill level.

People contrast power gamers (those who try to eek every last drop of power) from casual gamers who play to enjoy the experience without needing to maximize their character power.

There are casual players with above average skill.
There are power gamers with below average skill.

Skill has little to do with being able to craft or not. Play preferences (causal vs power) have a lot to do with design of a crafting system.

It simply doesnt make sense to design an entire crafting system around the casual gamer.

It would be fine if low level gear (1-12) was designed around the casual gamer, and high level gear (20+) was designed around the power gamer. This would meet the needs of both types of players.

[JOTMON]

He's essentially saying that cannith crafting shouldn't be able to craft the equivalent of lootgen because that would be better than raid gear. As in, lootgen is better than raid gear.

Cannith Crafting should be able to reproduce anything we can find in lootgen. If lootgen is stronger than raid gear, that's a separate, unrelated issue.

This is a good point.

In my opinion the at level crafting should not be as good as raid gear, but there comes a point where crafting should be able to achieve the effects of loot gear (just not at the same level)
Named gear should be unique and superior to anything at the equivalent level.. Tharnes goggles at level 13 are great, no random or crafted item should be comparable.. at level 18 sure, go ahead and craft it or random drop it..

As we get into the higher levels I am looking to find/build gear to build around my character, not build my character around gear.
This was the success of Shroud.. no matter what your build/flavour, you could get the named/static items you wanted and fill the gaps with shroud gear since the gear could be customized to suit your needs.
want HP on boots, NP.. want SP on cloak, sure... Greensteels filled that void iand enhanced the overall layout with stacking bonuses in the best way possible.

As we head to endgame we are looking to maximize all the benefits and minimize all the negatives, customizable gear fits this pretty well, custom crafting works, but there still needs to be incentive to get out there and run the raids for the best possible stuff.
I would always expect crafted gear to be good enough to fit my needs but not the best possible.

The challenge is hitting that benchmark of crafting cost to make it worthwhile to invest into but still leaving it short of best in game (for level appropriate).

I would love to see the ability to deconstruct raid items to isolate their unique properties and craft them into other items.
There would of course have to be some restrictions, and added level penalties and such.. but be able to do things like..reforging...make the eSOS a different weapon than a Greatsword..
Turn various armor into Docents..

Sentient weapons.. multiple slots use augments and to absorb traits of Consumed Named items, level the sentient weapon to unlock higher level augment slots and customizable trait slots.
Gives reason to continuously rerun raids to farm items to use and be consumed..

[spinks]

Casual refers to the level of effort a player will spend to improve their character.

Average refers to skill level.

People contrast power gamers (those who try to eek every last drop of power) from casual gamers who play to enjoy the experience without needing to maximize their character power.

There are casual players with above average skill.
There are power gamers with below average skill.

Skill has little to do with being able to craft or not. Play preferences (causal vs power) have a lot to do with design of a crafting system.

It simply doesnt make sense to design an entire crafting system around the casual gamer.

It would be fine if low level gear (1-12) was designed around the casual gamer, and high level gear (20+) was designed around the power gamer. This would meet the needs of both types of players.

I politely and respectfully disagree. Skill has nothing to do with crafting, skill has to do with your level of play. Crafting is an alternative option to obtaining weapons, and gear. The 'skilled' players will get it from raids and farming, the less skilled have an alternative option, Cannith Crafting.

I stand by what I said before. The system should be designed around the average or if you prefer typical player. I also suggested Master Crafter recipes for the power gamers, but these should not take away from the typical player. Cannith crafting should be viable from levels 1-30.

Designing a crafting system predominantly around power gamers would in my opinion be a waste of resource. The Master Crafter idea would be for the power gamer. Smallest part of crafting for probably the smallest portion of the player base.

[HAL]

Raids aint gonna bite you is what I'm saying, they aren't the Uber club some make them out to be. especially on EN, which absolutely anyone can join with zero expectations and get some shots at raid loot or eventually a 20th list. It's not the game designers fault that you choose not to raid, and in an ideal world they would not have to design around that.

In most MMOs (I suspect "all"), Raiding is separate from normal questing and many players (I suspect most) choose not to raid. There is nothing wrong with people not choosing to raid and devs who don't take those players into account are discounting a large portion of their player base. Which would be stupid.

[HAL]

He's essentially saying that cannith crafting shouldn't be able to craft the equivalent of lootgen because that would be better than raid gear. As in, lootgen is better than raid gear.

Cannith Crafting should be able to reproduce anything we can find in lootgen. If lootgen is stronger than raid gear, that's a separate, unrelated issue.

This.

[HAL]

Just FYI spinks:


Skill has little to do with being able to craft or not.


I politely and respectfully disagree. Skill has nothing to do with crafting,

[UurlockYgmeov]

I said average player, not casual player. I don't consider these to be in any way the same type of player. I would consider a casual player to dip into the game a couple of times a week, whereas an average player may play everyday, just not be into having to have the best of the best all the time.


I politely and respectfully disagree. Skill has nothing to do with crafting, skill has to do with your level of play. Crafting is an alternative option to obtaining weapons, and gear. The 'skilled' players will get it from raids and farming, the less skilled have an alternative option, Cannith Crafting.

I stand by what I said before. The system should be designed around the average or if you prefer typical player. I also suggested Master Crafter recipes for the power gamers, but these should not take away from the typical player. Cannith crafting should be viable from levels 1-30.

Designing a crafting system predominantly around power gamers would in my opinion be a waste of resource. The Master Crafter idea would be for the power gamer. Smallest part of crafting for probably the smallest portion of the player base.

IMHO, There is no such thing as an 'average' player, just like there is no such thing as black and white questions and answers to any poll in DDO.

IMHO, There is no such thing as a skilled player as per your description.

Raiding is not about skill. Any player can just pike* and ride the coattails of others to get that sweet, sweet loot.

The way which you describe 'skilled' vs 'unskilled' is actually quite detrimental to the game as it, IMHO, because it delineates players between have's and havenots - those with noses stuck in air, and those who don't have noses stuck in the air.

While I might be misunderstanding the connotations and denotations, some of the statements have validity, but in another way.

Raid loot is to be the best 'at level' gear in the game‡ At least the most recently released should be. Some items do survive the test of time, such as some ToD rings, silver longbow, heroic greensteel, cannith challenge gear, etc. There is no denying that LGS with its stacking set bonuses cannot (and should not) be beaten by random loot or even Cannith Crafted. The Dev's made it even a point that Thunder-Forged and Mortal Fear should not compete against LGS.

With that said having a ML:26 Cannith Crafted (+14 stat (enhancement) +7 stat (insight) +2 stat (exceptional) with a colorless slot for a +2 spooky and a blue/red slot) is still not on the same power level as the same LGS - but requires significantly more grind to make. (BTW - the LGS item has more effects and not to mention that if it is a weapon, it will blow the doors off anything made by Cannith Crafting.) The only advantage that the Cannith Crafted item has is when you spend the resources and where the item is equipped, along with complete (hopefully) flexibility in what goes where.

Anybody can make LGS gear providing they own the pack and pike* enough. Not everyone (in fact less than 5%) will spend the stratospheric resources required to achieve crafting level 200 in three spheres in order to make an inferior version of the same item (if at all possible). However, just like LGS, if you spend enough time plugging away you can reach the crafting levels necessary to make the item.‡‡


He's essentially saying that cannith crafting shouldn't be able to craft the equivalent of lootgen because that would be better than raid gear. As in, lootgen is better than raid gear.

Cannith Crafting should be able to reproduce anything we can find in lootgen. If lootgen is stronger than raid gear‡, that's a separate, unrelated issue.

Agree - Crafting is not about skill and is not about raiding - it needs to be as good, if not better than random generated loot because it takes time and resource investment not just random luck. Crafting can not, and should not be as good as the most modern, recently released raid loot / named loot at the same level.

Agree - The issue brought up about how the game as evolved past and forgotten existing raid/named loot is not pertinent to this discussion and is a completely unrelated topic. ‡‡‡


In most MMOs (I suspect "all"), Raiding is separate from normal questing and many players (I suspect most) choose not to raid. There is nothing wrong with people not choosing to raid and devs who don't take those players into account are discounting a large portion of their player base. Which would be stupid.

agree.


* hopefully with permission, preferably to actually play the content, but somepeople do fall asleep, drooling on their keyboards. ;p

‡ At least the most recently released should be. Over time and new content being released, the game evolves and adapts. The named loot does not. Hopefully with the release of the new the random loot and the hidden mechanics that power it, Named loot will somewhat 'autoadapt' as the content and game evolves.

‡‡ That is part of the beauty of DDO; anyone can get there if they spend enough resources to get there, just a matter of one specific resource (time). This isn't about skill of the player or the character - it is about the resources invested to eliminate 'random luck' based lootgen.

‡‡‡ Yes, I do wish that existing named and raid loot not keeping its relevance as the game has continued to evolve was addressed, but just accept that old is old and dusty and often tarnished, and not as valuable as it once was. Example - the EDNIAC computer vs an Apple IIe vs and IBM PC 30 vs a Samsung padphone.... should we as a society spend the resources to update the EDNIAC computer to be as powerful as the latest Cray supercomputer, or should we invest that mind-boggling amount of resources into creating the next generation o computers that are already more powerful?

[Stoner81]

Agreed.I disagree. Random loot should never had Speed.
Only some named items should have all three effects in one place:
Striding, Melee attack speed, Ranged attack speed

Also the minimum lvl of Melee/Ranged Alacrity in the current cannith crafting is too low (it should be ML10 instead of ML1 IMO).

But I wouldn't mind if they add a recipe in cannith crafting for some stacking (maybe alchemical?) bonus to attack speed (up to 5%), but it should be separate recipes for Melee and Ranged attack speed, also it shouldn't be as part of Speed (movement speed should be yet another thing). This bonus should be available in cannith crafting only.

Alacrity is only ML1 when you add Masterful to it, otherwise it is ML3 IIRC.

I sort of see what you are saying about Speed but the truth is that the Speed effect is already here and in place.

Stoner81.

[ColdBrewer]

Alacrity is only ML1 when you add Masterful to it, otherwise it is ML3 IIRC.

I sort of see what you are saying about Speed but the truth is that the Speed effect is already here and in place.

Stoner81.

Cannith Crafting is one of my favorite aspects of DDO. That being said, if I were to vote I would probably vote for option number one. It is a pain in the ass to grind out the levels, especially when the current system is broken, but in the end if Cannith crafting could be competitive with random loot drops and named item drops, then there would be enough incentive for many folks out there to get over it and just grind out the levels. The named craftsmanship is one of the best ideas that you all have come up with yet! In this way video continues to follow its pen and paper counterpart. Even more important than transparency is the fact that this could be an area of immense player pride.

[Brac]

Crafting should only be for items useful from level 1-20. A crafted item should never be best in slot for higher end content. If it is best in slot at level 14, no one cares. It has little effect on the game. That is how it should always be.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Crafting should only be for items useful from level 1-20. A crafted item should never be best in slot for higher end content. If it is best in slot at level 14, no one cares. It has little effect on the game. That is how it should always be.


so potions healing belong only in heroics? what about alchemical crafted stuff? also only heroics.

This is one game - not this half and that half. So spending time and resources to leveling crafting - while forgoing time spent on heroic or epic or destiny xp - should only be useful for half the game?

That is like saying platinum is only for epics, and astral shards are only for epics. That makes no sense.

'No one cares. It has little effect on the game.' - so basically you seem to really think crafting just should be totally scrapped. Just like everything before say level 30....

Cannot disagree more.

[Gauthaag]

‡‡‡ Yes, I do wish that existing named and raid loot not keeping its relevance as the game has continued to evolve was addressed, but just accept that old is old and dusty and often tarnished, and not as valuable as it once was. Example - the EDNIAC computer vs an Apple IIe vs and IBM PC 30 vs a Samsung padphone.... should we as a society spend the resources to update the EDNIAC computer to be as powerful as the latest Cray supercomputer, or should we invest that mind-boggling amount of resources into creating the next generation o computers that are already more powerful?

problem is that packs with loot u describe as EDNIAC (what the hell is that? It s maybe ENIAC u want to pick as reference) is still sold at relatively same price as at time it offered top notch loot. as reward loot is integral part of such pack I would either expect prices dropping down or polishing loot to recent standards.

what I d most appreciate will be ability to strip random generated item of one ability and replacing it with ability of my choice as it was advertised at very beginning of cannith crafting.

[Deathdefy]

1)
I'm worried some posters have convinced themselves Cannith Crafting was something it never was.

Cannith Crafting was never able to mirror the top effects of lootgen.
Every top tier effect, like:
- Vorpal,
- Smiting,
- Disruption,
- Paralyzing,
- Banishing,
and all of the super rare compound effects like Tempestuous, Obscenity, etc, were always unavailable through Cannith Crafting. Yes, most of those listed are garbage now, but they were the best there was in Cannith Crafting's heyday.

Similarly, even on suffixes and prefixes that were craftable, Wondrous Crafting was exclusive to the completion of quest chains and allowed the finding of more powerful items (both in terms of power for minimum level and power at max level) than Cannith Crafting could ever have made.

I am not a fan of the system as it stands (entirely obsolete), but one limit it has currently, in that the best gear is definitively only available through raiding or completing quests is a reasonable constraint.


2)
I think my objection to, "well yes, that's the status quo, but that doesn't mean it's an optimal solution - Cannith Crafting SHOULD be as powerful as lootgen" goes something like,
"Do you think completing Irestone Inlet on casual a sufficiently high number of times should potentially grant items as powerful as those potentially available from completing the most difficult quest in the game on LE?"

I know people will say 'yes' because this is an internet forum, but they're not the audience I'm trying to convince.

Ultimately it is a design philosophy question - 100% time investment, 0% skill investment reward systems are, in my opinion, disrespectful to players and will ultimately drive new players (grind appears too much) and vets (I am not clicking on that machine another half million times instead of doing one of the many things that makes ddo fun) alike away.

I don't buy that this is somehow an 'elitists vs non-elitists' thing either. The 'you need to invest a massive amount of time to see rewards from this system' is far harsher on casual players than 'this system will provide about the same rewards for you as people who do play much more often'. Necessarily those rewards shouldn't be too amazing since systems that don't require an abundance of skill or time shouldn't give disproportionate rewards.

I'd be happy to see craftable +11-12 stat items at the top end (potentially at ML 22-24 or something so it's SOMETHING lootgen can't/will rarely give (superior levelling gear), but isn't endgame gear), and just rescaled recipes over the 150 existing crafting levels.

[Xionanx]

What we "Get" when it comes to the Cannith Crafting update will likely be more of what we already have. While I would love to see the entire system revamped to make it future proof, something I suggested like 9 months ago in the suggestion forums.. I highly doubt any "major" changes will occur.

As a recap of what I would LIKE to see:

ALL Items have "Slots" (think FF 7, Diablo 2, Path of Exile, or even DDO's already existing augment system)

Each NORMAL item has:

1 Enhancement Slot for +1 to +10 (or whatever the current "Max" is)
1 Prefix Slot
1 Suffix Slot
Plus Random "Colored" slots for existing augments

Each RAID item has:
Everything a Normal Has
Plus Special "Raid" granted effect.

When you break down an item you choose to remove ONE "Augment" from a slot, the rest are LOST and the item is destroyed.
When you choose to "Cleanse" an item, you loose all "Augments" currently socketed in it and it becomes a "Blank" ready to accept augments. If you cleanse a piece of raid gear, it retains its special raid trait.

Example of how it would work:

You do "Raid Y" and get a "+5 Raid Weapon of Special Effect" but you dont like the prefix / suffix effects it grants. So you take the "Raid Weapon" to the crafter and have it "Cleansed", the craft person charges you PLATINUM for them privilege equal to the ML of the item squared x 1000 (1 x 1 x 1000 or 1000 Platinum for a ML 1 item, or 29 x 29 x 1000 or 841000 platinum for a ML 29 item). After you have "Cleansed" the item you decide you like the "Vorpal" effect, so you find a vorpal weapon from random loot gen and have its socket removed, removing sockets is "Free" since it destroys the item in the process. You now decide to place this "Vorpal" effect into your newly cleansed raid weapon... for, you guessed it, the ML of the item squared in PLATINUM.

This system does away with "Crafting Levels", you are an ADVENTURER, not a professional crafter who has the time to learn the intricate details of a highly specialize craft that isn't "Killing things".

What my proposed changes do:

1. Anyone can craft at any level, with the only barrier being "Money"
2. Makes Platinum useful again, people will no longer being sitting on 4 to 5 "Plat Capped" characters (best platinum sink ever)
3. Makes the auction house useful again, now there really might be a "Random Effect" on a random loot gen item that you need to buy to craft onto your weapon
4. Is "Future Proof" Any "New" prefix or suffix can be added to the loot table as an augment and the devs wont need to "update" the crafting system to accommodate it
5. Old "Raid Items" (if converted) can be useful again, suddenly no one is getting screwed when "new raids" come out.. there old items can simply be re-slotted to make them better.
6. Is "Modular" .. seriously, as the system ages new ways of "adding more sockets" could be added. Raid items could have "Double Prefix" slots, etc etc..
7. Can easily be integrated into the DDO Store by selling Augments, or "Cleansing" items that let you cleanse without spending in game platinum.
8. Gives players more freedom to outfit their characters how they "Want"
9. Doesn't add yet one more useless collectible system to the game that will become out dated in a year and forgotten about.
10. Uses PRE EXISTING CODE.. We already have the augment system for "Colored" augments, its not much of a stretch to make "Prefix" and "Suffix" augments.
11. Fixes the "Cant search the Auction House" complaint.. now players could simply strip augments out of items and sell the augments directly. Players could simply search for the augment.
12. Can be used to "Modernize" LEGACY gear.. I'm looking at you Titan/VON6/Reavers Refuge

More Grind/More Power, Some Gind/Some Power, KISS...

By elimination of the grind entirely, the only thing people need to grind for is the "Gear" itself and the "Money" to preform the crafting. Players can focus on playing the game rather then staring at a crafting window "Grinding" out crafting levels. The "Grind" serves NO PURPOSE, even in the current crafting system. Its simply an antiquated mechanic designed to fool you into thinking your special because you spent 10 hours of your life "Crunching" items for mats, making 1000's of "Useless" shards, then crunching them.. NO SKILL was involved, all it took was mindless monotony and frankly I find it insulting to players to expect them to do it.

The only "Problem" I can forsee if Cannith Crafting was switched to my proposal would be all the players who wasted their time grinding the old system *****ing and moaning and wanting some kind of reward or refund..

The "But its too powerful" complaint.. NO its not. I uses existing loot gen, if an augment is "Too powerful" then maybe it doesn't need to be in the current loot gen in the first place.
The "Its too easy" complaint.. NO its not. Its "Simple" enough that anyone can understand it, and complicated enough so players can have fun making strange combinations.
The "Its too cheap" complaint.. NO its not. AT THIS MOMENT when you look at your huge piles of platinum that have built up over years of playing DDO.. it might seem that way, but tell me that after you have crafted and slotted out 4-5 pieces of ML 30 gear and are BROKE for the first time in 7 years. Its expensive enough to make high end items a "Major Purchase" and cheap enough so that a new player can actually foresee crafting a level 8 item for their character.

HOWEVER.... Like I said at the start of the post. From Turbine I expect more of the same.. I fully expect the cannith crafting pass will just been the new prefixes and suffixes added to the current system, then.. in a year, the system will be outdated again and sit around being yet one more thing players just "deal with" because they have to.

[IronClan]

In most MMOs (I suspect "all"), Raiding is separate from normal questing and many players (I suspect most) choose not to raid. There is nothing wrong with people not choosing to raid and devs who don't take those players into account are discounting a large portion of their player base. Which would be stupid.

A system that has a few high end recipes that require raid loot as an ingredient is "ignoring" a large portion of the player base?

Come now that's not a remotely honest strawman you're trying the prop up.

I think it could easilly be looked as as a way to allow some limited powerful crafted items, thus throwing a crafting bone to raiders, while at the same time throwing out a little carrot for non raiders to try something new or step out of their comfort zone. If not no biggie it's not like someone who wont do an EN raid NEEDS end game gear.

All of which is completely besides the point, I already pointed out that they could also do "10,000 remnants or 1 raid item and 5000 remnants" if a crafting system is to have any powerful/rare/hard to achieve applications it must have high costs. I don't even care if this is raid items, it could be anything so long as it's valued and not plentiful. Something entirely new that drops in saga's or old raids (opps that might make some people feel compelled to do an Normal Abbot and experience a part of the game they probably have never even seen, such a horrific thought for some reason).. whatever.

[MaximumCharisma]

People seem to have forgotten that Cannith Crafting was very popular when it was introduced and still never produced the really high end gear for end game. Some few exceptions such as handwraps for LOB perhaps. Largely it was twink gear for leveling and people were quite happy with that.

With the addition of actual value in random loot, the idea that Cannith Crafting should produce everything that random loot can generate seems wrong to me. Random loot finally has a place in this game other than to deconstruct for essences.

DnD has always had a very strong random component to it that makes looting fun. The desire to twink out particular builds through crafting should be useful as far as epic leveling is concerned (up to 28 perhaps). Basically, leave out top tier stats so that nice twink leveling gear can be created.

[Gremmlynn]

Whether or not crafting ingredients drop everywhere is completely separate from the points I have made.

I will repeat the argument.

If crafting is something done with no effort, it will either

1. Be less powerful than existing items and be largely unused (waste of dev resources)
2. Be of equal power (and thus invalidate all random gear)
3. Be of higher power and make the loot system of the entire game pointless

Unless you are arguing for a new resource that drops everywhere and requires some effort to gather, your preferences don't allow for a crafting system that works within the game of DDO.Cannith Crafting has never been something done with no effort though. I put in a couple years of effort into it.

[Gremmlynn]

Casual refers to the level of effort a player will spend to improve their character.

Average refers to skill level.

People contrast power gamers (those who try to eek every last drop of power) from casual gamers who play to enjoy the experience without needing to maximize their character power.

There are casual players with above average skill.
There are power gamers with below average skill.

Skill has little to do with being able to craft or not. Play preferences (causal vs power) have a lot to do with design of a crafting system.

It simply doesnt make sense to design an entire crafting system around the casual gamer.

It would be fine if low level gear (1-12) was designed around the casual gamer, and high level gear (20+) was designed around the power gamer. This would meet the needs of both types of players.Because "casual" players never play above level 12? What then, reroll or quit because level 13+ is just for those with extreme stat obsession and insecurity issues?

[Gremmlynn]

I politely and respectfully disagree. Skill has nothing to do with crafting, skill has to do with your level of play. Crafting is an alternative option to obtaining weapons, and gear. The 'skilled' players will get it from raids and farming, the less skilled have an alternative option, Cannith Crafting.

I stand by what I said before. The system should be designed around the average or if you prefer typical player. I also suggested Master Crafter recipes for the power gamers, but these should not take away from the typical player. Cannith crafting should be viable from levels 1-30.

Designing a crafting system predominantly around power gamers would in my opinion be a waste of resource. The Master Crafter idea would be for the power gamer. Smallest part of crafting for probably the smallest portion of the player base.I don't even see a need for a "master crafter" system for power gamers. The game already has ToEE, crafting, Shroud crafting, Thunder Forged crafting, etc. for the power grinders... err...gamers.

[Gremmlynn]

Crafting should only be for items useful from level 1-20. A crafted item should never be best in slot for higher end content. If it is best in slot at level 14, no one cares. It has little effect on the game. That is how it should always be.If that were the case, then this whole thread would be pointless due to spending any dev time on the system being pointless. As would gaining levels in it.

[Gremmlynn]

What we "Get" when it comes to the Cannith Crafting update will likely be more of what we already have. While I would love to see the entire system revamped to make it future proof, something I suggested like 9 months ago in the suggestion forums.. I highly doubt any "major" changes will occur.I very much expect it to look a lot like the current system. But I expect it to follow the template used for random loot as far as how it actually works. No more X I,x II. X III, ect. recipes and just a master X recipe that scales with the ML/crafting level it is made at according to whatever scaling factor it is assigned.

[Gremmlynn]

A system that has a few high end recipes that require raid loot as an ingredient is "ignoring" a large portion of the player base?

Come now that's not a remotely honest strawman you're trying the prop up.

I think it could easilly be looked as as a way to allow some limited powerful crafted items, thus throwing a crafting bone to raiders, while at the same time throwing out a little carrot for non raiders to try something new or step out of their comfort zone. If not no biggie it's not like someone who wont do an EN raid NEEDS end game gear.

All of which is completely besides the point, I already pointed out that they could also do "10,000 remnants or 1 raid item and 5000 remnants" if a crafting system is to have any powerful/rare/hard to achieve applications it must have high costs. I don't even care if this is raid items, it could be anything so long as it's valued and not plentiful. Something entirely new that drops in saga's or old raids (opps that might make some people feel compelled to do an Normal Abbot and experience a part of the game they probably have never even seen, such a horrific thought for some reason).. whatever.What effects for example. Because I think any effects that need that sort of cost would be beyond the scope of the system and beyond what can be found on lootgen. If it takes raid mats to make, it should sure as hell be a raid loot level effect in scope. Why would one raid to be able to craft less than raid loot level gear? That would be like cutting down walnut trees to salvage scrap lumber caught in their branches.

[RTFM]

Look at the LGS debacle....total joke.

I can't imagine this being anything but another joke...on us players!

Look how much input was received from players with LGS before launch, they did not even allow a decent preview of the system let alone player input!

Then after launch the "nerf stick" turned into a "turd stick" as all the gear became worth of the toilet bowl.

And by the way...why Gnomes?

[EllisDee37]

Whether or not crafting ingredients drop everywhere is completely separate from the points I have made.

I will repeat the argument.

If crafting is something done with no effort, it will either

1. Be less powerful than existing items and be largely unused (waste of dev resources)
2. Be of equal power (and thus invalidate all random gear)
3. Be of higher power and make the loot system of the entire game pointless

Unless you are arguing for a new resource that drops everywhere and requires some effort to gather, your preferences don't allow for a crafting system that works within the game of DDO.Where do you get the "no effort" idea from? Leveling up cannith crafting takes a huge amount of effort.

I've made a ton of (heroic) greensteel items, and the amount of effort I put into leveling cannith crafting vastly dwarfs the amount of time I spent running shroud.

For that matter, the amount of thought and planning I put into leveling cannith crafting also vastly dwarfs the amount of thought and planning that was needed for all my shroud runs combined.

[Plantman81]

Regarding Cannith crafting, what most crafters with whom I've spoken want is the ability to craft the same enchantments that appear on random loot such as speed and deadly, etcetera. Still keep the more powerful enchantments, such as disruption, smiting, etc. solely in the domaine of random loot. Masterful craftsmanship must remain. BtA for masterful shards should, also, remain.

We crafters want to be able to craft items that mirror random loot and be rewarded for our grind with the ability to make flexible shards in addition to items like the runes we have now. Flexible shards would not be any more powerful for the level, but give the crafter an easier time when slotting desired enchantments in various gear slots.

As stated in the title, these are just general thoughts, but THE MAIN UPDATE DESIRED is the ability to craft enchantments equal to those found on random loot. An update is SORELY overdue. Furthermore, any updates to random loot should, also, include updates to the Cannith recipes.

[dsmwhiteknight]

Hmmm. Carrying that through to its logical conclusion, that could be problematic.

Right now on live, a brand new crafter starts up and can make weak items: Strength +1. They need to level up before they can start making +2, +3, etc... If it changes to only be a single auto-scaling strength shard, at what level should that be available? Seems weird if a new crafter just can't make any strength shard at all, but even weirder if a brand new crafter could make a +14 (or +13, whatever) strength shard right out of the gate.

If I were designing it, I would keep the individual shard values like we have now on live. That way you could add an AML to it to handle unusual rules elegantly. I suspect this specific example went away with U29, but consider pre-U29 lootgen rules for stats: +1 to +6 = 2x-1, meaning a +5 stat shard would be 2*5 - 1 = ML9. But +7 stat items only dropped on ML20+ gear. So you'd just add AML20 to +7 stat (and higher) shards and you're done.

All they have to do is make it so you need to be high enough level to add the shard to the item. Definitely different from how it is now.

[dsmwhiteknight]

Regarding Cannith crafting, what most crafters with whom I've spoken want is the ability to craft the same enchantments that appear on random loot such as speed and deadly, etcetera. Still keep the more powerful enchantments, such as disruption, smiting, etc. solely in the domaine of random loot. Masterful craftsmanship must remain. BtA for masterful shards should, also, remain.

We crafters want to be able to craft items that mirror random loot and be rewarded for our grind with the ability to make flexible shards in addition to items like the runes we have now. Flexible shards would not be any more powerful for the level, but give the crafter an easier time when slotting desired enchantments in various gear slots.

As stated in the title, these are just general thoughts, but THE MAIN UPDATE DESIRED is the ability to craft enchantments equal to those found on random loot. An update is SORELY overdue. Furthermore, any updates to random loot should, also, include updates to the Cannith recipes.

I agree. I spend the time leveling in Cannith Crafting because I want to be able to create the items I want in the combinations I want them. I want everything a random item can have and don't mind the grind to get that because then I can create what I actually want instead of hoping I can eventually find what I want on everything in combinations that will actually work. There should be a huge grind to get that for balance reasons. I do not mind if the items are bound to account so anyone who wants to be able to do that has to pay the price to do so in time and effort directly in crafting.

I want a system where I can make the items I need. Those random items were crafted by someone at some point. Historically in AD&D they just said the knowledge for building artifacts and really powerful items had been lost. So having named items that cannot be crafted fits just fine. But you were able to make magic items if you wanted to, you just had to spend XP to do so.

[dsmwhiteknight]

1)
I'm worried some posters have convinced themselves Cannith Crafting was something it never was.

Cannith Crafting was never able to mirror the top effects of lootgen.
Every top tier effect, like:
- Vorpal,
- Smiting,
- Disruption,
- Paralyzing,
- Banishing,
and all of the super rare compound effects like Tempestuous, Obscenity, etc, were always unavailable through Cannith Crafting. Yes, most of those listed are garbage now, but they were the best there was in Cannith Crafting's heyday.

Similarly, even on suffixes and prefixes that were craftable, Wondrous Crafting was exclusive to the completion of quest chains and allowed the finding of more powerful items (both in terms of power for minimum level and power at max level) than Cannith Crafting could ever have made.

I am not a fan of the system as it stands (entirely obsolete), but one limit it has currently, in that the best gear is definitively only available through raiding or completing quests is a reasonable constraint.


2)
I think my objection to, "well yes, that's the status quo, but that doesn't mean it's an optimal solution - Cannith Crafting SHOULD be as powerful as lootgen" goes something like,
"Do you think completing Irestone Inlet on casual a sufficiently high number of times should potentially grant items as powerful as those potentially available from completing the most difficult quest in the game on LE?"

I know people will say 'yes' because this is an internet forum, but they're not the audience I'm trying to convince.

Ultimately it is a design philosophy question - 100% time investment, 0% skill investment reward systems are, in my opinion, disrespectful to players and will ultimately drive new players (grind appears too much) and vets (I am not clicking on that machine another half million times instead of doing one of the many things that makes ddo fun) alike away.

I don't buy that this is somehow an 'elitists vs non-elitists' thing either. The 'you need to invest a massive amount of time to see rewards from this system' is far harsher on casual players than 'this system will provide about the same rewards for you as people who do play much more often'. Necessarily those rewards shouldn't be too amazing since systems that don't require an abundance of skill or time shouldn't give disproportionate rewards.

I'd be happy to see craftable +11-12 stat items at the top end (potentially at ML 22-24 or something so it's SOMETHING lootgen can't/will rarely give (superior levelling gear), but isn't endgame gear), and just rescaled recipes over the 150 existing crafting levels.

I know Cannith crafting did not allow crafting items as powerful as random items, but I think it should. I agree that better items, like named items, should be available through RAIDs and the like, but I want to be able to craft anything that can be found randomly. I also think these items should be BtA so that there is a place for random loot. It takes more than one character lifetime to build the kind of end game gear you are referring to, so this kind of system is not for casual gamers at all. And since there are more powerful items available than random loot can provide, then it does not even get you the best equipment. Of course they need to do some updates in that area with how powerful the new random loot is. Sorry, I respectfully disagree.

I will be happy though as long as there is a lot of flexibility in what I can make. I think we should be able to make items that are at least useful in end game, even if they are not the best possible. They should not be outshone by random loot, unless by that term you are referring to named items or items used in other crafting systems.

[dsmwhiteknight]

We just got a random loot system in which most players at least look at their random loot before selling it.

It would be a shame to ruin this system by completely replacing it with a crafting system. The minute you do this, all random gear is junk and also most named loot (at least you have to get that rare find in the random loot system).

I can think of two types of crafting system that would work WITH our named loot and random systems.

Method A: Crafted Random Gen Items

1. You put in materials to make Str and Con Bracers.
2. You specify an item minimum level
3. You add special ingredients (quest rewards, store items, etc)

You get a set of Str + Con bracers that is a random roll based on your crafting skill, and the special ingredients. The Str and Con effects could also be rolled separately (This would be needed if the two effects were from different crafting schools). The advantage of this system is it requires little to no change in the way items are programmed/created. The formula for item level should be tuned to make decent low level items with a relatively small crafting skill, but should require much more crafting skill/special items for high level gear.

Example: Let's say crafting level now goes to 300.

To make a top min level 5 item, you need crafting skill 50. Having more than 50 crafting skill won't improve the item.
The desired item/effect is rolled at loot level 5, plus any bonuses for special loot.
If you have less than 50 crafting skill, you get a -1 to the loot table for every 10 skill ranks you are missing.

To make a top min level 30 item, you need crafting skill 300.
The desired item/effect is rolled at loot level 30, plus any bonuses for special loot.

The amount of base crafting ingredients should be based on min level squared, so that it is much more expensive to make high level items.

Level 0 items (arrows, etc) can be crafted by anyone (although there is still a roll for the quality of them item).

The top loot level from crafting (with special bonuses) should be about the same as the top loot roll from random items.

Method B: Improved Random Gen Items
Instead of the above system, crafting is used to improve existing items.
1. You put in materials to improve Str or Con on your Mighty Bracers of Constitution.
2. You add special ingredients (quest rewards, store items, etc)
3. The item's ability *might* be improved (based on crafter skill, special ingredients, and previous attempts to improve this effect)

Method A sounds more enjoyable, but method B has more replayability (constantly needing new high end random gen items to try and improve).

Either one of these systems could work, but the trick is to balance the effort so that random loot, named loot, and crafted loot are all still valuable. In method B, an item should probably be limited in the amount of attempts to improve it, as well as a cap of +1 per effect. This could mean having to find five or six +14 stat items, with lots of new crafting effort (a non-duped resource), before getting one to +15.

Whatever the crafting system is, there should be players choosing NOT to use it, because the effort is not worth the gain. There should also be players choosing to use it. There should be players who don't craft but choose to buy crafted items. They should be players who craft at low levels, but not at high levels.

Or you just make the crafted items bound to account. Then I can make what I want and it works with random loot because you will used random loot until you get good enough to craft what you want. Or you never will because you don't want to pay that price.

[dsmwhiteknight]

I don't adventure to get random loot. I do it to enjoy the quest that has been created, like exploring and doing all the optionals., and to get specific items or ingredients I want. I also like leveling up and progressing and am excited to try out reincarnation. But random loot is mostly junk and annoying. Even this more powerful loot is still mostly useless to me. I want to be able to craft different combinations that I really want or even some to just try out. I want to create gear that fit the needs of my character, not try to randomly find stuff that will actually fit what my character needs.

[spinks]

Just FYI spinks:

My reading fail - thanks.

[spinks]

IMHO, There is no such thing as an 'average' player, just like there is no such thing as black and white questions and answers to any poll in DDO.

IMHO, There is no such thing as a skilled player as per your description.

Raiding is not about skill. Any player can just pike* and ride the coattails of others to get that sweet, sweet loot.

The way which you describe 'skilled' vs 'unskilled' is actually quite detrimental to the game as it, IMHO, because it delineates players between have's and havenots - those with noses stuck in air, and those who don't have noses stuck in the air.

All I was trying to say, and obviously did badly, is that the crafting system needs to appeal to the largest portion of the player base.

[Robai]

But first things first: fix the random loot, that is 1) proper naming, 2) bugs

Just an example of both:
1) wrong naming (since only 2 effects are shown in the name)
and
2) a bug (there is no armor-piercing):

http://cdn.pbrd.co/images/16FMyLF2.png

[JOTMON]

I agree. I spend the time leveling in Cannith Crafting because I want to be able to create the items I want in the combinations I want them. I want everything a random item can have and don't mind the grind to get that because then I can create what I actually want instead of hoping I can eventually find what I want on everything in combinations that will actually work. There should be a huge grind to get that for balance reasons. I do not mind if the items are bound to account so anyone who wants to be able to do that has to pay the price to do so in time and effort directly in crafting.

I want a system where I can make the items I need. Those random items were crafted by someone at some point. Historically in AD&D they just said the knowledge for building artifacts and really powerful items had been lost. So having named items that cannot be crafted fits just fine. But you were able to make magic items if you wanted to, you just had to spend XP to do so.

Indeed.

using XP was a good way to limit crafting abuse.
It required you to go run content to gain XP and then decide if you wanted to level or craft...
This allowed crafting of level appropriate wands, scrolls, potions but also limited any sort of mass production due to the XP factor.
Probably wouldn't take much to add a crafting XP pool like Epic Destiny Spheres..

[sk3l3t0r]

...BUT there should be an incentive for a level 4/6/8/10 etc. character to spend some (short amount of) time to do that as they level - but it should feel organic, like something you would want to do as you level. Right now, the whole process (in my view) is too burdensome to be appealing.

I guess I'm on the keep-it-simple end of the spectrum.

+1, many times over !!

Crafting would be nice if it integrated into the character development like Feats and Enhancements...implementing this aspect would allow for developers to integrate crafting optionals in quests and possibly even make a few quests with requirement for completion to a low level in crafting by performing something in the story line that was crafting related? Future House C quests could offer crafting experience as part of a quest as an alternative way of leveling your crafting for example. Might also improve the grouping aspect of the game if there was crafting experience up for grabs in the quests... thoughts?

[Stoner81]

This is the order of how things should be in my opinion:

1. Raid Loot - hands down the best you can get hold off!
2. Named items.
3. Cannith Crafting.
4. Lootgen.

Now with that being said there are some provisions to this...


Older named items are not even going to be as good necessarily as even lootgen simply due to it being extremely old and never being updated.
Raid loot should ALWAYS beat everything else, it is one of the main reason (if not the main reason) that people run raids.
Cannith Crafting should be just in front of lootgen as I previously mentioned. It should be of equal power in that what you find on lootgen can be made via Cannith Crafting, and be able to use stuff a couple of levels sooner (Masterful). This is how the current system is even though it is miles and miles out of date but that core should remain. By doing this it gives people a reason to Cannith Craft, you can make stuff how you want it and be able to use it sooner!
Lootgen is... well lootgen. Please fix it!

Stoner81.

[nokowi]

Where do you get the "no effort" idea from? Leveling up cannith crafting takes a huge amount of effort.

I've made a ton of (heroic) greensteel items, and the amount of effort I put into leveling cannith crafting vastly dwarfs the amount of time I spent running shroud.

For that matter, the amount of thought and planning I put into leveling cannith crafting also vastly dwarfs the amount of thought and planning that was needed for all my shroud runs combined.

From players saying they want to be able to make anything without doing anything.

You're judging based on your current amount of crafting, someone else expects the same with their level of crafting.

Players will complain if it takes level 300 and they only have level 90.
Players will complain if it takes level 3 and they only have level 1.

All of these should be ignored for the reasons I outlined. It should require NEW effort to make end game items.

[Vanhooger]

I would like to see named item like the one in cannith challenge that at t3 can be crafted.

[Gauthaag]

I would like to see named item like the one in cannith challenge that at t3 can be crafted.

yep, adding craftable potential as special ability of weapon would be great motivation for crafting. and some loot in game proves its possivble already (cannith tier3 items and some named runearms have this ability)

[Aelonwy]

yep, adding craftable potential as special ability of weapon would be great motivation for crafting. and some loot in game proves its possivble already (cannith tier3 items and some named runearms have this ability)

I don't think we will see that in the Cannith Crafting update. I seem to remember a dev saying that, that sort of code caused issues and that was why they developed or updated the augment system. But if they could do it so we could add an augment slot to a random gen item or a crafting blank that would be fine too.

[Vanhooger]

I don't think we will see that in the Cannith Crafting update. I seem to remember a dev saying that, that sort of code caused issues and that was why they developed or updated the augment system. But if they could do it so we could add an augment slot to a random gen item or a crafting blank that would be fine too.

I won't be surprised if they don't do it, when they revamp something they always left behind lot of old good stuff ever created in this game.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I don't think we will see that in the Cannith Crafting update. I seem to remember a dev saying that, that sort of code caused issues and that was why they developed or updated the augment system. But if they could do it so we could add an augment slot to a random gen item or a crafting blank that would be fine too.

I can confirm that I too also remember this statement, it was said with much regret as it seemingly caused endless headaches with the Devs.

[Gauthaag]

I don't think we will see that in the Cannith Crafting update. I seem to remember a dev saying that, that sort of code caused issues and that was why they developed or updated the augment system. But if they could do it so we could add an augment slot to a random gen item or a crafting blank that would be fine too.

cool, the augment system, that duplicates only most basic special abilities and not even to highest possible numbers, that's really cool substitute

[Gremmlynn]

This is the order of how things should be in my opinion:

1. Raid Loot - hands down the best you can get hold off!
2. Named items.
3. Cannith Crafting.
4. Lootgen.

Now with that being said there are some provisions to this...


Older named items are not even going to be as good necessarily as even lootgen simply due to it being extremely old and never being updated.
Raid loot should ALWAYS beat everything else, it is one of the main reason (if not the main reason) that people run raids.
Cannith Crafting should be just in front of lootgen as I previously mentioned. It should be of equal power in that what you find on lootgen can be made via Cannith Crafting, and be able to use stuff a couple of levels sooner (Masterful). This is how the current system is even though it is miles and miles out of date but that core should remain. By doing this it gives people a reason to Cannith Craft, you can make stuff how you want it and be able to use it sooner!
Lootgen is... well lootgen. Please fix it!

Stoner81.I could see named items being of two classes. As you have it and bottom of the barrel "starter" type gear (Think Eveningstar com gear) that's easy to get and ensures everyone has access to "at level" gear at various points in the game. I could also see lootgen fill a wider niche, as most is garbage, but a stars aligned item could be better than named, as it would be rarer (most named gear really isn't rare in DDO as it drops from know locations).

[Gremmlynn]

From players saying they want to be able to make anything without doing anything.

You're judging based on your current amount of crafting, someone else expects the same with their level of crafting.

Players will complain if it takes level 300 and they only have level 90.
Players will complain if it takes level 3 and they only have level 1.

All of these should be ignored for the reasons I outlined. It should require NEW effort to make end game items.I'm sitting at 150 waiting for the next 150. Frankly, I kind of miss the nightly deconning before quitting.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I'm sitting at 150 waiting for the next 150. Frankly, I kind of miss the nightly deconning before quitting.

*chuckle*

I almost do as well.

What I hope for is something that blows us away - in a good way.
What I actually expect is essentially what we had, just with the streamlined recipe box and more levels.
What we all should hope for is that what initially comes out is expanded upon and maintained with each new update.
*knocking on wood*

[EllisDee37]

From players saying they want to be able to make anything without doing anything.I don't believe this claim. Could you link to an example?

[UurlockYgmeov]

From players saying they want to be able to make anything without doing anything.


I don't believe this claim. Could you link to an example?

Agree with EllisDee37 :)

http://i.imgur.com/XowBNDE.png

[RD2play]

yep, adding craftable potential as special ability of weapon would be great motivation for crafting. and some loot in game proves its possivble already (cannith tier3 items and some named runearms have this ability)

I believe the idea should be to get rid of potential shards and disjunction, the Ran-gen items should be inherent craftable and the affixes should be able to be overwritten individually.

what to do with the CChalenge gear and those rune-arms, and trinkets from the festifult that are craftable trough the old system needs to be discussed yet

[Anoregon]

I think it would be great if the crafting overhaul included a way to actually craft augments. As it is right now, augment slots are largely wasted for a whole slew of players just due to how rare/expensive even moderately useful ones are. If I have decent level crafting, I should be able to use that to throw something into a weapon's red socket, even if it isn't something incredibly strong. 2d6 elemental damage at level 20 or something like that.

[cdbd3rd]

I think it would be great if the crafting overhaul included a way to actually craft augments. ...

And decon them. :)


Part of the crafting recipe could finally be a use for gems. Stacks of the appropriate gem type for the color/type of the augment.

*Pipe Dreaming* :rolleyes:

[nokowi]

I'm sitting at 150 waiting for the next 150. Frankly, I kind of miss the nightly deconning before quitting.

If you spend time/effort taking your crafting further, you deserve additional rewards that are useful to your character. The crafted items should not completely replace named items or random items, at least not without lots of time spent achieving this.

This is part of having a useful crafting system.

I would prefer if named>>crafted in general, but crafted let you fit effects into build slots for which you need them.

[Gauthaag]

If you spend time/effort taking your crafting further, you deserve additional rewards that are useful to your character. The crafted items should not completely replace named items or random items, at least not without lots of time spent achieving this.

This is part of having a useful crafting system.

I would prefer if named>>crafted in general, but crafted let you fit effects into build slots for which you need them.

agreed. The main streght of crafting system shoudnt be power but efficiacy and versatility

[UurlockYgmeov]

And decon them. :)


Part of the crafting recipe could finally be a use for gems. Stacks of the appropriate gem type for the color/type of the augment.

*Pipe Dreaming* :rolleyes:

SO you've been hoarding them too??? :P

I know a perfect quote: 'OOOOOOoOOOOOOOOO!!! SHiiiiIIIIiIiIiIIiIiiiineeyyyyY!'
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn5/Ikharo/SkrapyPNJ.jpg


If you spend time/effort taking your crafting further, you deserve additional rewards that are useful to your character. The crafted items should not completely replace named items or random items, at least not without lots of time spent achieving this.

This is part of having a useful crafting system.

I would prefer if named>>crafted in general, but crafted let you fit effects into build slots for which you need them.

Well, except for outdated named items - outdated as in from last patch! :P


agreed. The main streght of crafting system shoudnt be power but efficiacy and versatility

Power comes in many ways - and efficiency and versatility are two forms of it. Being able to fit in 2-3 extra effects in you gear layout is Power.

However, I still want POWER p0W3r on top of efficiency and versatility; along with legendary runestones, AND something that basically everyone can craft / use - ammunition (with returning ammunition for the master crafter).

Everyone should be able to craft underwater action with only a dozen or three levels in crafting. (how hard is it to make a pair of scuba goggles with a fluid reservoir filled with water breathing potions!) :cool:

[Gremmlynn]

If you spend time/effort taking your crafting further, you deserve additional rewards that are useful to your character. The crafted items should not completely replace named items or random items, at least not without lots of time spent achieving this.

This is part of having a useful crafting system.

I would prefer if named>>crafted in general, but crafted let you fit effects into build slots for which you need them.For me it's more about something else to do than what it gets you. I could make everything I have made, no fail, months before I finished leveling crafting.

As far as items go. To my mind, named items, while maybe having something different or extra here and there, shouldn't be more powerful than random/crafted items simply because they drop in known locations and are often always present as end rewards.

If they had gone the Flametounge, Frostbrand, Sunblade, etc. route with all named items, as in they rarely drop from any chest in a level range, I would agree with you. But most drop from chest X and/or end reward Y and thus are easy to find and have higher drop rates.

[Ligraph]

For me it's more about something else to do than what it gets you. I could make everything I have made, no fail, months before I finished leveling crafting.

As far as items go. To my mind, named items, while maybe having something different or extra here and there, shouldn't be more powerful than random/crafted items simply because they drop in known locations and are often always present as end rewards.

If they had gone the Flametounge, Frostbrand, Sunblade, etc. route with all named items, as in they rarely drop from any chest in a level range, I would agree with you. But most drop from chest X and/or end reward Y and thus are easy to find and have higher drop rates.

The reason people usually want raid named items to be better than random loot is because it takes skill to get them (hopefully), not just extra grind. With LN giving the same quality gear as LE this isn't quite the difference I would like, but it's there.

As for the named vs crafted argument, assuming crafting is as powerful as random loot, getting a good effect isn't random, it's just a matter of grind, like named loot.


For endgame named items, some of them kind of drop form any quests in the level range. Named armor/shields from HoX and TS at least. And kinda-sorta for t1 and t2 LGS augments/ingredients. I wish the devs had combined TS and HoX runes though, and have future raids share runes, unless the have special rewards (like LGS).

[Gremmlynn]

The reason people usually want raid named items to be better than random loot is because it takes skill to get them (hopefully), not just extra grind.The reason anyone wants any type of item to be the best is because those are the items they get due to their choice of play style. Period.

[Ligraph]

The reason anyone wants any type of item to be the best is because those are the items they get due to their choice of play style. Period.

Of course its a motive. But that makes for very bad design.

A better way to do it is for the items that someone gets from the most challenging content in a certain play style are the best for that play style, not any others. Since raids and quests are part of the same play style (PvE), and raids are more challenging than quests, raid gear should be better than quest gear. If LE quests were as hard as LE raids, I would be a proponent of LE quests dropping LE-level raid gear. But LE quests are much easier than LE raids.

[HAL]

From players saying they want to be able to make anything without doing anything.

I haven't seen any posts saying this - where are you hearing it?

[nokowi]

Honestly, I see nothing wrong with how the basic idea of how the current system works. It should simply be updated for higher level crafting levels (200), higher level items (30), and effects should be scaled to that of current random loot.

Cannith Crafting should NOT include new ingredients. It should NOT require you to run certain quests/sagas/chains/raids etc to get ingredients to craft items. They already tried that, and it was a unanimous "No" from the community. Wasn't worth it then, and I don't see random loot as good enough now to try to include the idea into Cannith Crafting, to boost it to the quality of current random loot.

I've spent a lot of time and plat (700-800K, where my highest plat count ever was 1.6M) to boost my crafting levels to where they are now. If I have to run certain content to level further, and to craft items, I will be furious. If ingredients are added to older content, to entice people to run them again (and to be used for crafting), then there's a problem with the quality of the content that needs to be addressed. Simply adding ingredients to the quests will just make it harder to craft items in the long run, as any increase in certain quests being run will be very short lived.

Here you go...

I could take ingreds out of my bag right now, be level 200, and make anything available from crafting, at launch.

Crafting life = 1 hour. Not worth dev time.

Expect MANY more complaints after launch (if players have to work to get something). Crafting shouldn't cater to this crowd. We don't need the additional power. We DO need additional things to do with our time. Give us a good reason to go run that often neglected quest, or some other objective besides XP/min. Crafting should not be for everyone.

[EllisDee37]

Crafting should not be for everyone.Crafting is not, has never been, and never will be for everyone. I don't even know what point you're trying to make. Are you trying to say that everyone on live has 150 crafting levels in all schools right now?

[HAL]

Honestly, I see nothing wrong with how the basic idea of how the current system works. It should simply be updated for higher level crafting levels (200), higher level items (30), and effects should be scaled to that of current random loot.

Cannith Crafting should NOT include new ingredients. It should NOT require you to run certain quests/sagas/chains/raids etc to get ingredients to craft items. They already tried that, and it was a unanimous "No" from the community. Wasn't worth it then, and I don't see random loot as good enough now to try to include the idea into Cannith Crafting, to boost it to the quality of current random loot.

I've spent a lot of time and plat (700-800K, where my highest plat count ever was 1.6M) to boost my crafting levels to where they are now. If I have to run certain content to level further, and to craft items, I will be furious. If ingredients are added to older content, to entice people to run them again (and to be used for crafting), then there's a problem with the quality of the content that needs to be addressed. Simply adding ingredients to the quests will just make it harder to craft items in the long run, as any increase in certain quests being run will be very short lived.


Here you go...

I could take ingreds out of my bag right now, be level 200, and make anything available from crafting, at launch.

Crafting life = 1 hour. Not worth dev time.

Expect MANY more complaints after launch (if players have to work to get something). Crafting shouldn't cater to this crowd. We don't need the additional power. We DO need additional things to do with our time. Give us a good reason to go run that often neglected quest, or some other objective besides XP/min. Crafting should not be for everyone.

First, "doing the same thing for more levels" is not the same as "doing nothing". (Just FYI) As far as leveling crafting goes, I agree with him. I don't see why it should be different to level from 150 to 200 than it was to level to 150. And as far as duplicating lootgen goes, I don't see why it should require raid ingredients or any ingredient specific to any content.

But if Turbine wants to add really rare / powerful things to Cannith Crafting, like a Thunder-forged ability, and have that recipe cost ingredients that also are used for Thunder-forged crafting, I wouldn't have a problem with that. Of course I don't think they would actually do that...

[UurlockYgmeov]

Other than preserving existing hard work - is there any solid reason to keep three 'schools' of crafting? (Arcane/Divine/Elemental)

[EllisDee37]

But if Turbine wants to add really rare / powerful things to Cannith Crafting, like a Thunder-forged ability, and have that recipe cost ingredients that also are used for Thunder-forged crafting, I wouldn't have a problem with that. Of course I don't think they would actually do that...This never occurred to me; agreed.

Adding raid ingredients as a requirement to craft raid effects would be pretty cool. I would love to be able to craft the torc effect. If one of the ingredients for that recipe is the actual torc itself, fine by me.

[Stoner81]

But if Turbine wants to add really rare / powerful things to Cannith Crafting, like a Thunder-forged ability, and have that recipe cost ingredients that also are used for Thunder-forged crafting, I wouldn't have a problem with that. Of course I don't think they would actually do that...

Not bad idea on the face of it but I think it would add far more complexity to the overhaul for it to be worth the time it may need imho.


Other than preserving existing hard work - is there any solid reason to keep three 'schools' of crafting? (Arcane/Divine/Elemental)

Different effects are based on a school so if you level up one school you access to the higher effects but you can't do others. This I think provides players with something to think about a bit before they start a crafting session (it is what I certainly did) and before they use up all their ingredients for said session. Beyond that I don't think it really matters though I do think they should be kept since it has been that way since always afaik :/

Stoner81.

[HAL]

Other than preserving existing hard work - is there any solid reason to keep three 'schools' of crafting? (Arcane/Divine/Elemental)

Probably depends on how the system was setup and whether they are completely scrapping the existing system and starting from scratch or not. I doubt they will completely scrap it so they might be forced to keep that aspect. Although I don't believe there is any good reason for it.

[Ligraph]

Other than preserving existing hard work - is there any solid reason to keep three 'schools' of crafting? (Arcane/Divine/Elemental)

Don't see a need to keep those schools, but I would like to see a school-like mechanic.


Maybe something like where "schools" are the type of effect. E.g.:
Stats and Skills, false life -> Material School
Spell powers, crits, other spell stuff -> Ethereal School
Weapon effects -> Artifice School
etc.

Would make sense from a leveling via Decon perspective: if you decon a stat item, you learn to make stats better.

Also, about the raid items in CC, it would kind of be to replace Shards of Potential or Enhancement Bonuses. For example, since +15 Stat items only drop from Loot Level ~35 chests, which primarily occur inside raids, it wouldn't be right to allow +15 stat items to be craftable with ingredients someone could find in a CR 20 quest. If there was something where you had to deconstruct an item of a similar power level to craft a +15 Stat, then no other items would be needed.

[Xionanx]

Other than preserving existing hard work - is there any solid reason to keep three 'schools' of crafting? (Arcane/Divine/Elemental)

No there isn't, I personally think crafting levels need to be dropped entirely, its a silly mechanic. (see my post a few pages back about just making it an augment system)

If they insist on keeping crafting levels then I would combine all three schools and average them to come up with a players "Crafting Level".

At the very least the entire system needs a complete redesign IMO. "Crafting" and "Random Loot Gen" need to use the same system, they should be a single unified system.

[Deathdefy]

These "crafted items should be as good as lootgen" arguments are so bad for the game.

Remember all the valid concerns about "We have no real endgame, there isn't enough content"?

Right, well lootgen that's otherwise unavailable ameliorates that. There was a period when people did the hardest quests on EE because they could drop the cool compound affixes like Tempestuous.

Again, after a long hiatus, people are running LE Creeping Death and LE Curse the Sky for the same reason. As we get more level 30+ quests (and raids I suppose though they'll have their own rewards), we'll get even more of an endgame that way.

It's a huge bonus to the game that randomly generated items, dropped only in the hardest content, are not replicated in other systems.



If the trade-off we pay for that is that Cannith Crafting is only for levelling gear - great!

I know I'll get some weird rebuttal about how mindlessly clicking buttons is actually just different than raiding or grouping or questing or designing good characters, and so should not be prejudiced as all activities are equal.

I, obviously, am not on board that train.

Neither am I aboard the train that levelling Cannith Crafting efficiently requires Herculean planning. Frankly, I suspect most people who levelled it to 150 did so in a rather crude manner.

EDIT: I'll explicitly state that I would bet anything that Gremmlynn did actually do it legit though and am not attacking him with that remark.

[Ligraph]

These "crafted items should be as good as lootgen" arguments are so bad for the game.

Remember all the valid concerns about "We have no real endgame, there isn't enough content"?

Right, well lootgen that's otherwise unavailable ameliorates that. There was a period when people did the hardest quests on EE because they could drop the cool compound affixes like Tempestuous.

Again, after a long hiatus, people are running LE Creeping Death and LE Curse the Sky for the same reason. As we get more level 30+ quests (and raids I suppose though they'll have their own rewards), we'll get even more of an endgame that way.

It's a huge bonus to the game that randomly generated items, dropped only in the hardest content, are not replicated in other systems.



If the trade-off we pay for that is that Cannith Crafting is only for levelling gear - great!

I know I'll get some weird rebuttal about how mindlessly clicking buttons is actually just different than raiding or grouping or questing or designing good characters, and so should not be prejudiced as all activities are equal.

I, obviously, am not on board that train.

Neither am I aboard the train that levelling Cannith Crafting efficiently requires Herculean planning. Frankly, I suspect most people who levelled it to 150 did so in a rather crude manner.

EDIT: I'll explicitly state that I would bet anything that Gremmlynn did actually do it legit though and am not attacking him with that remark.


Hopefully, if the Devs keep a "Shard of Power" mechanic in the system, to craft an item that is as good as a random generated item, say a +15 Stat item, they would have to first deconstruct one or more items of a similar power level, which would ONLY drop from those LE quests, like you mentioned. The only thing crafting adds is the ability to configure your gear as you want, you still have to run the content to get the mats (hopefully).


Note about running content to get mats: I don't mean special mats like the ones mentioned earlier in this thread, I mean something more along the enhancement bonus solutions, whatever they are called.

[Xionanx]

Personally, i gain all my "crafting levels" by just making stuff I needed, but I stopped getting xp around level 90 for the three types because:

A) none of the higher level recipes were worth it
B) all of the higher level recipes require some "rare" material
C) IMO its a complete waste of time to take cannith crafting higher then what you actually "need" to outfit your character.

And that, IMO, is why cannith crafting and crafting levels are a horrible system that needs to be completely redesigned.

Again, my "Augment" system opens up WAY more possibilities for devs.

1. They can have "Special" augments only drop in raids
2. They can remove or add augments individually, rather then needing to redo the entire random loot system
3. They can make "Special" raid only items with unique slots and augment
4. Offers freedom to players to customize gear, encouraging them to hunt for items with augments they want

Seriously, there are so many positive aspects to changing to an augment only system for crafting and random loot, and all the "Code" to make it happen already exists.

[Gremmlynn]

Of course its a motive. But that makes for very bad design.

A better way to do it is for the items that someone gets from the most challenging content in a certain play style are the best for that play style, not any others. Since raids and quests are part of the same play style (PvE), and raids are more challenging than quests, raid gear should be better than quest gear. If LE quests were as hard as LE raids, I would be a proponent of LE quests dropping LE-level raid gear. But LE quests are much easier than LE raids.Grinding is one style, high end challenge another and crafting a third. I'm sure the grinders want the best loot to drop from replaying the same content over and over, the high end challenge guys from completing the hardest content and the crafters from crafting. Hell, the whales could very well want it from the store.

There is no reason all of them can't be right.

[Gremmlynn]

Probably depends on how the system was setup and whether they are completely scrapping the existing system and starting from scratch or not. I doubt they will completely scrap it so they might be forced to keep that aspect. Although I don't believe there is any good reason for it.It triples the time sink. Or do you mean good idea from our perspective?

[Gremmlynn]

Personally, i gain all my "crafting levels" by just making stuff I needed, but I stopped getting xp around level 90 for the three types because:

A) none of the higher level recipes were worth it
B) all of the higher level recipes require some "rare" material
C) IMO its a complete waste of time to take cannith crafting higher then what you actually "need" to outfit your character.

And that, IMO, is why cannith crafting and crafting levels are a horrible system that needs to be completely redesigned. A) disagree due to some of the flexable and unbound shards available.
B) disagree due to the flexable and unbound recipes that didn't need them. I did it without using anything but normal mats and the odd mundane collectible for any shard I wasn't making to actually use. Add in that deconning items also gives xp, not a lot, but we do tend to get a lot of things to do this with.
C) see A.


Again, my "Augment" system opens up WAY more possibilities for devs.

1. They can have "Special" augments only drop in raids
2. They can remove or add augments individually, rather then needing to redo the entire random loot system
3. They can make "Special" raid only items with unique slots and augment
4. Offers freedom to players to customize gear, encouraging them to hunt for items with augments they want

Seriously, there are so many positive aspects to changing to an augment only system for crafting and random loot, and all the "Code" to make it happen already exists.It also doesn't add anything new to the game. Just expands what it already has.

[EllisDee37]

Hopefully, if the Devs keep a "Shard of Power" mechanic in the system, to craft an item that is as good as a random generated item, say a +15 Stat item, they would have to first deconstruct one or more items of a similar power level, which would ONLY drop from those LE quests, like you mentioned. The only thing crafting adds is the ability to configure your gear as you want, you still have to run the content to get the mats (hopefully).Why would someone need to run high level content to get high level lootgen? Is the ah getting shut down?

[spinks]

There have been many good ideas and thoughts in this thread, however, I am still of the opinion that Cannith Crafting should have no overlap with raiding. By this I mean you should not be able to craft raid item effects e.g. like the Torc that was mentioned, nor should you need to collect anything from a raid in order to craft.

They are distinctly different activities, and whilst there will be those that raid only, those that raid and do Cannith Crafting, those that don't raid but do Cannith Crafting, and those that do neither, it doesn't mean that you should have to raid in order to make Cannith crafted items.

There are some very unique raid items, and not being able to replicate them keeps their rarity, and also is a reason to keep running those raids. I know this could be argued the other way, as a means to encourage people to raid, but once you have got that raid item, why would you want to craft another version of it? If the answer is to get a more powerful version of it, really the last thing DDO needs is more power to the player.

Personally, I would like to see the crafting system brought up to date, whatever that may be, new recipes introduced to bring it in line with random loot or thereabouts, and more new content. I enjoy crafting, but it is not something I expect to spend hours and hours at a time doing, more in small doses as a wind down activity or a gap filler.

[Xionanx]

A) disagree due to some of the flexable and unbound shards available.
B) disagree due to the flexable and unbound recipes that didn't need them. I did it without using anything but normal mats and the odd mundane collectible for any shard I wasn't making to actually use. Add in that deconning items also gives xp, not a lot, but we do tend to get a lot of things to do this with.
C) see A.

It also doesn't add anything new to the game. Just expands what it already has.

Not really sure how it wouldn't bring anything "new" to the game. By switching all random loot to a slot system, the devs have the freedom to add "new" stuff to the game constantly. No longer will we need to wait years for a loot update, loot can be updated "on the fly" by simply adding/removing augments from the loot table.

Again:
1. Freedom to add/remove individual prefixs/suffixs without needing to redo the entire random loot system
2. Option to add "NEW" special raid or quest only augments
3. Option to add "NEW" special raid or quest only gear with more slots for crafting
4. Ability to integrate "Crafting" at every level of the game in a meaningful way
5. Ability to integrate "Crafting" into "Legacy" content and "NEW" content

By your standards, current cannith crafting adds nothing "new" either just "more of the same". :rolleyes:

on points A B and C I do not see your point at all. I TR constantly, by the time my character is level 14 I have maybe ONE cannith crafted item on, a "Ring" with some immunites on it. everything else is "Named" loot. This trend continues on to epics.. there is nothing "worth the effort" to grind in cannith crafting beyond crafting level 90. Please, by all means tell me about some amazing higher level shard that is a must have..

"unbound" shards are meaningless to me.

Cannith Crafting as it currently is, is a waste of developer time.. It was a ****** system when it came out, its a ****** system now. It was never as "good" as it could have been, or should have been. I am willing the bet we got the crippled system we did was because the developers were probably afraid that if they made it "Good" it would make green steel seem silly with all its "Mat collecting".

Thats what it really comes down to.. Someone at Turbine seems to be addicted to the idea that "Collecting Materials" is somehow a fun and rewarding experience, when in reality its a boring tedious task, and often just drives players to find an exploit/loophole they can use to get the mats they want super fast.. then, when the mats are collected, those same players stop running the content because why should they?

We have about 12 too many collectible systems, and it would be nice to see the "fat" trimmed back a little. In the case of DDO, I think its high time the dev's adopted a "Less is More" policy when it comes to these things and started streamlining and removing there collectible systems.. Starting with "Cannith Crafting". Who knows, maybe it would help lag if players weren't carrying around bags and bags of materials that take 10 seconds to "load" when opened.

[nokowi]

Thats what it really comes down to.. Someone at Turbine seems to be addicted to the idea that "Collecting Materials" is somehow a fun and rewarding experience, when in reality its a boring tedious task, and often just drives players to find an exploit/loophole they can use to get the mats they want super fast.. then, when the mats are collected, those same players stop running the content because why should they?


Kind of like rerunning the same quest for a material called XP?

The only difference with crafting ingredients is you might run DIFFERENT quests than you do while exploiting/loophole XP/min.



We have about 12 too many collectible systems, and it would be nice to see the "fat" trimmed back a little. In the case of DDO, I think its high time the dev's adopted a "Less is More" policy when it comes to these things and started streamlining and removing there collectible systems.. Starting with "Cannith Crafting". Who knows, maybe it would help lag if players weren't carrying around bags and bags of materials that take 10 seconds to "load" when opened.

This is true. I think you will somewhat less ingreds and time clicking than we had in the old cannith system.

[Chai]

Here you go...

I could take ingreds out of my bag right now, be level 200, and make anything available from crafting, at launch.

Crafting life = 1 hour. Not worth dev time.

Expect MANY more complaints after launch (if players have to work to get something). Crafting shouldn't cater to this crowd. We don't need the additional power. We DO need additional things to do with our time. Give us a good reason to go run that often neglected quest, or some other objective besides XP/min. Crafting should not be for everyone.

But it took you years to earn all those ingredients, so that time is counted when determining how long it took you.

So no, not 1 hour. much, much longer than that.

Furthermore, just like raiding is not for everyone, just like TRing is not for everyone, crafting is also not for everyone. So if not for everyone = Turbine shouldn't do it, then they shouldn't be in the MMO business, because there is no one play style which is for everyone.

[nokowi]

But it took you years to earn all those ingredients, so that time is counted when determining how long it took you.

So no, not 1 hour. much, much longer than that.

Furthermore, just like raiding is not for everyone, just like TRing is not for everyone, crafting is also not for everyone. So if not for everyone = Turbine shouldn't do it, then they shouldn't be in the MMO business, because there is no one play style which is for everyone.

I got my ingreds from my one character, and from friends who had no interest in crafting. I leveled to 150 long before dupapalooza.

You are not recognizing that there are now tons of duped crafting mats. Game decisions need to be made to discourage the shortening of the games life from duping. This means doing something new for the new crafting system.

I have argued in this very thread that crafting shouldn't be for everyone, so I'm missing whatever point you are trying to make here. Crafting should add more things to do, not easy access to more character power (players don't need this in the current game). Utility, such as fitting effects where you need them, or a large amount of time to gain a small amount of power are both fine.

[Gremmlynn]

Not really sure how it wouldn't bring anything "new" to the game. By switching all random loot to a slot system, the devs have the freedom to add "new" stuff to the game constantly. No longer will we need to wait years for a loot update, loot can be updated "on the fly" by simply adding/removing augments from the loot table.

Again:
1. Freedom to add/remove individual prefixs/suffixs without needing to redo the entire random loot system
2. Option to add "NEW" special raid or quest only augments
3. Option to add "NEW" special raid or quest only gear with more slots for crafting
4. Ability to integrate "Crafting" at every level of the game in a meaningful way
5. Ability to integrate "Crafting" into "Legacy" content and "NEW" content

By your standards, current cannith crafting adds nothing "new" either just "more of the same". :rolleyes:

on points A B and C I do not see your point at all. I TR constantly, by the time my character is level 14 I have maybe ONE cannith crafted item on, a "Ring" with some immunites on it. everything else is "Named" loot. This trend continues on to epics.. there is nothing "worth the effort" to grind in cannith crafting beyond crafting level 90. Please, by all means tell me about some amazing higher level shard that is a must have..

"unbound" shards are meaningless to me.

Cannith Crafting as it currently is, is a waste of developer time.. It was a ****** system when it came out, its a ****** system now. It was never as "good" as it could have been, or should have been. I am willing the bet we got the crippled system we did was because the developers were probably afraid that if they made it "Good" it would make green steel seem silly with all its "Mat collecting".

Thats what it really comes down to.. Someone at Turbine seems to be addicted to the idea that "Collecting Materials" is somehow a fun and rewarding experience, when in reality its a boring tedious task, and often just drives players to find an exploit/loophole they can use to get the mats they want super fast.. then, when the mats are collected, those same players stop running the content because why should they?

We have about 12 too many collectible systems, and it would be nice to see the "fat" trimmed back a little. In the case of DDO, I think its high time the dev's adopted a "Less is More" policy when it comes to these things and started streamlining and removing there collectible systems.. Starting with "Cannith Crafting". Who knows, maybe it would help lag if players weren't carrying around bags and bags of materials that take 10 seconds to "load" when opened.I'm not talking about new loot. I'm talking about new activities. All your system does is extend the rewards for the same activities. While you see it as a boring and tedious task, that doesn't make the opinion universal. Personally, I find the idea of farming "special" quest/raid specific augments as tedious and see the current system as a way of avoiding that tedium. Anyone who disagrees can feel free to simply ignore it as many already do.

[Ligraph]

Why would someone need to run high level content to get high level lootgen? Is the ah getting shut down?

I completely forgot about that... Even with the AH, it means that someone ran the content, and is willing to sell the loot. The alternative is to have LH/LE Raid and Quest level items being made from mats that can be found in Spies EN, which just feels wrong.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Will post it tomorrow - before the NDA kicks in (ok - it already has, but want to post my final thoughts before anything is released and maybe makes writing my final conclusion harder.)

I have listened to all the great feedback and ideas. I can see why the Dev's might feel overwhelmed and or intimidated about updating cannith crafting - especially since the release of LGS.

I want it all. I want something for everyone - and yes, the entire system does need a little less grind, but in different ways.

More tomorrow. Have a headache from laying it all out in a spreadsheet.

There is something for casual crafters with no desire to get high levels in crafting.
There is something for those that are willing to endure the massive amounts of grind for that ultimate in convenience and power.
There is new stuff, and old stuff that doesn't exist elsewhere.
Random chances to fail when crafting at the cusp of ability; randomness in the effect power, that can be eliminated at the high end of crafting (mostly).
All of this under one umbrella.

I don't believe everyone will be happy; but most people will be pleased.


Yes, it is a tease - but I need time to type it up and proof read it.

PS- This is JUST MY IDEA - my concept - based upon my own thoughts and influenced by this thread and other things.

[Ligraph]

Remember what happened (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468543-20th-Lists/page3?p=5736833#post5736833) when you theorized about raid runes on Lamannia?

At least now you have the PC as an excuse :p(gratz on that btw, well deserved).

100k pp on your suggestion/prediction being ~60% accurate, can't wait to see it.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Remember what happened (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468543-20th-Lists/page3?p=5736833#post5736833) when you theorized about raid runes on Lamannia?

At least now you have the PC as an excuse :p(gratz on that btw, well deserved).

100k pp on your suggestion/prediction being ~60% accurate, can't wait to see it.

*chuckle*

and

thank you.

I don't really believe that it will get implemented as I suggest - but can hope. Just another Windmill for Uurlock to tilt at! ;p

[UurlockYgmeov]

Am putting the finishing touches on the post(s) now. will post here and then into a new thread.

[nokowi]

Crafting is not, has never been, and never will be for everyone. I don't even know what point you're trying to make. Are you trying to say that everyone on live has 150 crafting levels in all schools right now?

People post that they wont use a proposed crafting system as if that means there is something wrong with it.

It's that simple.

[UurlockYgmeov]

So this is going to be a long post. Nothing can be done about it. Have been mulling over how to write and express this in the most effective efficient way possible for days.

I have listened to all the great feedback and ideas. I can see why the Dev's might feel overwhelmed and or intimidated about updating Cannith crafting - especially since the release of LGS.

I want it all. I want something for everyone - and yes, the entire system does need a little less grind, but in different ways:
· Something for casual crafters with no desire to get high levels in crafting.;
· Something for those willing to endure the massive amounts of grind for that ultimate in convenience and power;
· There is new stuff, and old stuff that doesn't exist elsewhere;
· Random chances to fail when crafting at the cusp of ability;
· Randomness in the effect power, which can be mostly eliminated at the high end of crafting (mostly);
· Shifting some emphasis earning experience from creation centric to learning from others (deconstruction)
· Adding mass deconstruction to eliminate most of the click intensive grind.
All of this under one umbrella, in effect several related crafting systems --- all using existing crafting levels and systems.

I don't believe everyone will be happy; but most people will be pleased.


PS- This is JUST MY IDEA - my concept - based upon my own thoughts and influenced by this thread and other things.

[UurlockYgmeov]

So let’s start by going through Cannith Crafting from the eyes of a virgin crafter. No essences, no levels, no shards. What would be the first thing that this person would do (besides possibly running the tutorial – which hopefully gets updated as well)?

The new ideal would deconstruct for crafting experience and for raw ingredients in one step, and allow for one or many items to be done at once.

Currently this is a very click and time intensive process, allowing only one thing to be deconstructed (ground) at a time, with multiple choices at every step. Let us fix this because streamlining this would go a long way in reducing the grind-fatigue many crafters feel.

So let’s break it down to four possible choices:

Deconstruct for the item:


Creates and returns a new blank version of the item, retaining augment slots, materials, and appearances. Strips everything else including binding status and permanent damage, and sets the items minimum level to 1.
This is a change from existing because nothing in the new system is Bound-to-Character, instead bound shards create Bound-to-Account items.
Haggle skill affects how much gold is earned when deconstructing items for their essences. Raising haggle by 15 resulted in 14% more money earned. The exact returns might differ with different base haggle skill.
Alternative:
Ideally would instead create an Item Token that could go into an ingredient bag; this token would be considered an ingredient and would retain only the appearance of the item in question. All other properties would be lost, including base material and slots. Unbound, and no weight. Could be double-clicked and a blank would appear in backpack.


Deconstruct for everything else:

New interface, like trader with add junk button. Like selling to a tavern.
Everything is deconstructed at once.
All effects return crafting experience, and essences.
So a +5 longsword of holy burst of greater undead bane would return a percentage of:

15 Greater Arcane Essence
70 Lesser Arcane Essence
Arcane Crafting Experience
42 Greater Good Essence
140 Lesser Good Essence
Divine Crafting Experience
The following would be lost:
1 +5 Enhancement Spirit (no longer used, the plus of a weapon is set by its minimum level)
25 Siberys Dragonshards
6 Purified Eberron Dragonshard Fragments
1 Soul Gem: Strong Undead
20 Undead Slaying Arrow
2 Lodestone
1 Mark of the Silver Flame
1575 Lesser Any Essence (from shards of potential)



Deconstruct for Gem Dust:

Creates Gem Dust, each Gem Dust ingredient is worth 1000 platinum worth of gems. (yes that junk)
Haggle affects the amount of Gem Dust returned for Gems.
Gem Dust can be stored in ingredient bags and crafting storage and stacks to 10,000.
Gem Dust is unbound
Deconstructing for Gem Dust also grants crafting experience
Gem Dust will be explained later in Augment Slot Crafting.


4. Deconstruct for Base Material Stock:

Creates Base Material Stock, each Ingot is 1# of a base material (adamantine, mithril, etc)
Every two pounds of item being deconstructed yields one unit of Base Material Stock
Base Material Stock can be stored in ingredient bags and crafting storage and stacks to 1,000
Base Material Stock is unbound
Deconstructing for Base Material Stock also grants crafting experience
Base Material Stock will be explained later in Special Base Material crafting.




So deconstruction now grants crafting experience (significantly increased from initial incarnation of Cannith crafting), base items, and essences. No longer will Enhancement Essences be needed, and a new item Gem Dust is also available. Much improved is the ability to decon(struct) or grind MANY items at once, with an additional use for ‘junk’ inventory selector.

Now that was the easy part.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Craft Effect Shards
With the random loot pass on U29, the power of all item effects are determined by the minimum level of the item. Masterful and Wondrous Craftsmanship allowed an effect more power than normal for the minimum level.

Cannith Crafting should do basically the same. When creating an item, the crafter should set the minimum level of the item and then apply generic effect shards. What and where these effects can go are determined by the crafters skill (crafting level). Masterful and Wondrous Craftsmanship could then be applied to one or more individual effects to increase the effects power beyond what is normal for the minimum level.

This new method will flatten the recipe box and reduce the number of recipes by a factor of 6 or even 10 (meaning up to 90% fewer recipes), which is a good – since there’s a direct link between complexity and bugs, and another directly link between complexity and lag. Simple systems lead to fewer bugs and faster performance of those systems. Reducing the complexity also should reduce the number of effect shards floating around in ingredient bags and shared crafting storages.

What would remain is four versions of a recipe: base (bound), flexible(bound), base (unbound), flexible (unbound).
So what was:

+1 Strength: (bound), (unbound), Flexible (bound), Flexible (unbound)
+2 Strength: (bound), (unbound), Flexible (bound), Flexible (unbound)
+3 Strength: (bound), (unbound), Flexible (bound), Flexible (unbound)
+4 Strength: (bound), (unbound), Flexible (bound), Flexible (unbound)
+5 Strength: (bound), (unbound), Flexible (bound), Flexible (unbound)
+6 Strength: (bound), (unbound), Flexible (bound), Flexible (unbound)
Becomes:
Strength: (bound), (unbound), Flexible (bound), Flexible (unbound) – scales from +1 to +15 (or more)
This is a 85% reduction in recipes and complexity for stat shards, even more for skill and spell shards.


Flattening the recipe box allows for more unique effects to be added. Yes, I support Fiery Detonation, Metalline and Disruption et cetera. One would hope that things like smiting, banishing, and disruption would be the high end of the scale for Bane effects, but one can only hope. Just like Holy would progress to Holy Burst then to Holy Blast then to Holy Detonation then to Holy ???.

Extremely rare and or powerful or even ‘fun’ effects should have rare ingredients, but not new items or things beyond most to obtain at low levels. Should never requiring raid items, but existing collectables, ‘chunks’ (mysterious remnants) or commendations of valor ( for epic only level effects) is good if not encouraged. I’d be even amenable for Runes from the Dragontouched armor system being allowed as rare special ingredients (set bonus item for armor for same set bonus for example).


Establish the minimum level for a set of Bracers to level 9; add a dexterity shard and a constitution shard. Item becomes Hardy 5 Bracers of Dexterity 5. Add masterful craftsmanship to the Dexterity and wondrous craftsmanship to the Hardy and the item becomes : Hardy 7 Bracers of Dexterity 6 (or something like that).

Another benefit of this is the reduction in required planning. Just have to think about what effects are desired, not if the effect and power (effect strength) will fit. Far fewer headaches, just grab the base item, slap on the minimum level and the effects desired and go. Removes much of the stress and anxiety new crafters experience when crafting.

Three changes would be required for the new recipes. Adding a minimum level, maximum effect, and randomness amount variables (maximum effect and randomness amount are both determined by crafting level, so in effect only one variable is stored).


Minimum level: Items like Vorpal, Disruption (et al) should have a minimum level they can be applied to, and the shard needs to not only store that information, but also display through inspection and tool-tip this information.
Maximum Effect: The shards creator’s crafting skill (crafting level) determines the maximum item level / slot it can be used in. If the shard’s user has better crafting skill (applicable crafting level) then the shard uses the higher. (just store the shard’s creator’s applicable crafting level)
Randomness Amount: The skill of the shard creator (or the shard user, whichever is higher) determines the amount of randomness in the effect strength. The higher the crafters skill, the less randomness there is in the effect. The most randomness allowed would be equal to random generated loot randomness. (just store the shard’s creator’s applicable crafting level)

[UurlockYgmeov]

FAQ:


What about crafting experience for creating shards?

Since more experience is being granted for deconstructing items this shouldn’t be as much of a factor. I am hoping that by moving the emphasis from creation-centric grind to a creation & deconstruction centric grind that the overall grind is reduced, especially since one can deconstruct many items at once
With that said, creating shards still should be a significant source of crafting experience. This also fits into the Lore since both reverse-engineering and learning and discovery all historically have been sources of learning.


What about experience ransack?

Since more experience is being granted for deconstructing items this shouldn’t be as much of a factor. I am hoping that by moving the emphasis from creation-centric grind to a creation & deconstruction centric grind that the overall grind is reduced, especially since one can deconstruct many items at once
There are two ways to adapt the ransack. Eliminate it (and the bonuses), or take into consideration changes in the crafters skill or …. This question is yet to be resolved, and should remain unresolved until numbers can be crunched and specific information about how much experience can be earned by deconstruction alone.


What about total crafting levels?

NoWorries (If I remember correctly) said the level cap would be going to 200 and I would hope that it would stay there for now
Because of the design of the system effects can and should go to level 211
Three schools of crafting should remain: Arcane, Divine, and Elemental.


What about the experience curve?

Should remain, and the new 50 levels should be just as steep of a curve if not a little more.


What about more effects than just two?

The system allows for up to three (3) effects on most items, and even a fourth (4) on two-handed items
The ability to apply effects into slots are determined by the crafters skill (crafting level)
The number of slots on an item are determined at the creation of the blank (or the applying of the minimum level)
More on this topic later.


What about fewer effects than two?

Possible alternative / addition that allows for more power in one slot, so a single slot / effect item having greater effect than normally found at that minimum level
e.g. Mighty Bracers: minimum level 11 and has Strength 10 or minimum level 30 with strength 20 as the solo effect
not included in the scope of this plan


Augment Slots?

The system allows for up to three (3) augment slots onto items.
The ability to apply augment slots and quantity is determined by the crafters skill (crafting level)
Augment slots do NOT affect the minimum level of the item
Augment gems DO affect the minimum level of the item but not the power of the effects.
Since augment gems (generally and mostly) are far less powerful at a specific level than the actual worst random loot, they do not add significant power
Additional limited factor is the new ingredient type: Gem Dust
More on this topic later.


Clicky?

The system allows for addition of one clicky per item
Clickies do NOT add power, but rather utility
Clicklies do NOT affect minimum level of an item
Actually two types of clicky’s
More on this topic later.


Special Craftsmanship:

For the sack of simplicity, apply to entire item rather to individual item effects
Would it be better if Special Craftsmanship had to be applied to individual effects separately. Maybe, but would add much complexity – ultimately up to Devs.
Exactly power of masterful and wondrous to be determined by Dev’s.


Craftsmanship - Weapons:

Existing randomly generated loot gains damage power based upon the minimum level of the item (+[W] effect) that auto scales with the level of the item
Cannith Crafted Weapons will also scale in this method, gaining the +[W] effect based upon minimum level set at time of item creation
Cannith Crafted Weapons Enhancement Bonus will also automatically scale in this method, the exact plus to hit determined by the minimum level of the weapon with a small amount of randomness in range (at lower crafting skills)
This would be in addition to the effects added to the weapon by the crafter
Future minimum level changes caused by augment gems cannot affect the existing +[W] effect.


11.Craftsmanship – Armor:

Existing random armor can come in several base variations (Battle, Mage, Mountain, Planeforged, Skirmish, Feycraft, Spiritcraft, and Celestial)
These variations affect the base statistics of the armor; the higher the level of the item the better base defense it provides
Cannith Crafted Armor Enhancement Bonus will also automatically scale in this method, the exact bonus to armor to be determined by the minimum level of the armor with a small amount of randomness in range (at lower crafting skills)
This would be in addition to the effects added to the weapon by the crafter
Cannith Crafted Armor will also scale in this method affecting:

Armor Bonus
Max Dex Bonus
Armor Check Penalty
Spell Failure
PRR (bonus / max)
MRR (bonus / max)

[UurlockYgmeov]

Create and Modify the Base Item:
Ideally take an item token and add to it slots, augment slots, base material upgrades, special craftsmanship, and a clicky. Item is created and remains unbound. Exactly what and how many of what that can be created is determined by creaters crafting level and specific instructions.

Requires interface for all options.

From Item Token:

Put Item Token into machine

Creates NEW item with number of effect slots
Exact number of effect slots based upon:

Highest level crafting. (see chart 1)
If two-handed item (quarterstaff, (handwraps maybe after handwraps pass), bow, falchion etc) or Armor, add one more slot IF crafting level high enough



If from Crafting Blank skip to next step


If Special Craftsmanship desired, put into interface and apply

Either Masterful or Wondrous Craftsmanship
Masterful makes the item’s effects one step more powerful (one or two levels)
Wondrous makes the item’s effects two steps more powerful (two or four levels)
Special Craftsmanship does NOT affect minimum level.
Masterful Craftsmanship requires Cannith Mark of Crafting
Wondrous Craftsmanship requires Mysterious Remnants? Or something yet to be determined
Crafting Special Craftsmanship does NOT grants crafting experience since experience was granted when Special Craftsmanship Shard was created.


If Special Base Materials are desired:

Put into interface
Selection of alternative base materials limited by:

Crafters crafting skill (level)
Base item type (Arms, Armor, Shield, Items)
Some base materials are purely decorative for now, up to future expansion for Dev’s to individualize.
Some base materials have minimum levels (like magecraft, celestial etc)
Some base materials (like Adamantine) are already in the system and hopefully are updated.


Required ingredient is 1 unit of Base Material Stock per pound of finished item.
See chart (Special Base Materials and crafting levels) for more information
Crafting Special Base Materials grants crafting experience
More information on this later


If augment slot(s) desired, put into interface

Augment Slots have restricted placement:

Colorless can go onto anything

Yellow can go onto anything (rand only goes onto Accessory items (Ring, Neck, Boots, Belt, Gloves, Eyewear, Helmet, Bracers, Cloak, Trinket))
Red can go onto Weapons, Shields, or other hand-held items
Orange : named only --- named Weapons, Shields, or other hand-held items
Blue can only go onto Armor, Robes, Outfits, Shields, or other off-hand items
Green can only go onto Accessory items or named Armor, Robes, or Outfits

Purple : named only --- named Weapons, Shields, or other hand-held items


Augment slots do NOT affect minimum level of the item.
First augment slot:

Select color (options limited by crafting level (see chart: Augment Slot Crafting))
Pay cost in Gem Dust which equals minimum crafting level for that color slot

30 : Clear = 30 Gem Dust
80 : Yellow = 80 Gem Dust
100 : Blue or Red = 100 Gem Dust
120 : Green or Orange = 120 Gem Dust
150 : Purple (any) = 150 Gem Dust



Second augment slot:

Select color (options limited by crafting level (see chart: Augment Slot Crafting))
Pay cost in Gem Dust which equals minimum crafting level for that color slot

100 : Clear = 100 Gem Dust
150 : Yellow = 150 Gem Dust
201 : Blue or Red = 201 Gem Dust



Third slot:

Select color (options limited by crafting level (see chart: Augment Slot Crafting))
Pay cost in Gem Dust which equals minimum crafting level for that color slot

180 : Clear = 180 Gem Dust
211 : Yellow = 211 Gem Dust



Cost in Gem Dust is 1 Gem Dust for every crafting level required to add specific slot
Cost is cumulative (slot one cost + slot two cost + slot three cost)
Crafting Augment Slots grants crafting experience
See chart (Augment Slot Crafting) for more information
More information later.


If Clicky desired

Spell Clicky:

Crafters crafting skill (level) determines what clicky and number of uses per rest

+1 per click per rest
+1 per caster level (requires minimum caster level required to cast spell)
+1 per spell level above 1
+1 per drop in 2 minimum level from minimum level 9
Add up modifiers

base is 2
1 click per rest = 1
Caster level 1 = 1


Multiply by 10 and that results in crafting level required to create
Crafting level is the amount of Gem Dust required to craft
Example:

+4 : Protection from Element (5th level spell
+2 : 3 uses per rest
+4 : minimum level 1
+10 : cast at level 10
Base is 20 (4+2+4+10)



No rare spells, and should include something like ‘chunks’ (mysterious remnants) to craft
Can craft first Spell Clicky at crafting level 20 (ml:9 level 1 spell cast at level 1 once per day)
Select list (existing clickies) and several select new ones
Subject to rare ingredients (ie invisibility potions for invisibility clickies)
Can increase item’s minimum level but not decrease below item’s minimum level
Crafting Spell Clicky grants crafting experience
See chart (Spell Clicky crafting) for more details
More information later


Spell Power Clicky:

Crafters crafting skill (level) determines what can be crafted

Is a percentage increase not a static increase in spell power

This is warranted/justified because is short duration increase
Not limited by minimum level because has same relative effect no matter the level.


Should include HAmp, RAmp and NAmp (Healing Amplification, Repair Amplification, Negative Amplification).
All spell powers including potency and universal represented, potency and universal at much lesser amount.
Minimum level determines number of uses per day
Provides alchemical boost to spell power (or HAmp, RAmp, NAmp)
Can craft first Spell Power Clicky at crafting level 2 (+5% boost for 20 seconds)
Spell Power Clickies divided into Arcane, Divine, and Elemental schools
Crafting Spell Power Clicky grants crafting experience
See chart (Spell Power Clicky crafting) for more details
More information later




Done creating new blank, unbound item ready for crafting.
Can be cleaned at any time back to this level

[UurlockYgmeov]

Set the minimum level:

Apply Shard (s) of (Minimum) Level to Base Item
KISS:

Convert Shards of Potential to Shards of (Minimum) Level
Require only one shard to set the minimum level
Continue using lesser essences to create Shards of (Minimum) Level, just scale the cost.
Crafting Shards of (Minimum) Level grants crafting experience, just scale the experience
This method also allows the Decrease of minimum level at this stage by just replacing with a lower minimum level.
Some might say this would be a nice thing to be able to craft over without destroying the entire item

Being able to raise and or lower the minimum level as you level
Might be overly ambitious, but should be on the wish list



Alternatively

Far from ideal – far more complicated
keep the stacking system,

where need to apply all previous levels in order to get to a higher level
e.g need to add a level 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 to get set minimum level of 8


Continue using lesser essences to create Level Shards
Crafting Shards of (Minimum) Level grants crafting experience



Craft Effect Shards
1) Select base Effect Shard to craft:

a) Four varieties of all Effect Shards:

i) Shards (Unbound) that create bound to account items
ii) Shards (Unbound) that create unbound item effects
iii) Flexible Shards (Unbound) that create bound to account items
iv) Flexible Shards (Unbound) that create unbound items

b) Base shards should not be bound
c) Crafting Effect Shards grants crafting experience

i) Crafting experience ransack should be applied,
ii) Scaled down crafting ransack because of fewer shards to craft

d) Some Effect Shards have a crafting level above 200, this is intentional as these are the most powerful shards and should be subject to some degree of failure

i) here is ransack comes to play in a favorable way
ii) the more you craft a specific shard, the less chance of crafting failure

e) Creator’s crafting skill (crafting levels) imbedded into shard determine

i) Maximum effect level
ii) Chance and Degree of Randomness in effect
iii) Maximum slot capable of adding effect to

2) Pay Costs
3) Craft Shard(s)

Apply Shards

1) Select base item
2) Select Effect Shard

a) KISS – first Effect shard goes into first slot, second into second and so on
b) The most restrictive binding status (bound to account) applies to entire item

3) Apply Effect Shard
4) Actual Effect Maximum Power (level) and Variance determined by:

a) Crafters or Shard Creator’s Crafting Skill (Crafting Level)
b) whichever is higher
c) Crafting Skill also determines amount and degree of randomness in end effect (Variance)

5) Continue adding Effect Shards until finished or all slots filled

Done. Final Item Created and Crafted.

Special Crafting: Ammunition and Runestones

1. Runestones

a) Existing Runestones stay the same
b) Strongly recommend shared cooldown be reduced to 30 seconds instead of existing 45
c) Add Epic

i) Requires Crafting level 128
ii) Minimum Level to use: 23
iii) DC: 70
iv) Same Duration of effect (in spite of Epic Wards)
v) Requires either commendations of valor or ‘chunks’ (mysterious remnants) to craft

d) Add Legendary

i) Requires Crafting level 158
ii) Minimum Level to use: 30
iii) DC: 99
iv) Same Duration of effect (in spite of Epic Wards)
v) Requires either commendations of valor or ‘chunks’ (mysterious remnants) to craft

e) Also higher crafting levels reduce shared cooldowns from 45 seconds:

i) Level 160: 40 seconds
ii) Level 171: 35 seconds
iii) Level 181: 30 seconds
iv) Level 191: 25 seconds
v) Level 201: 20 seconds
vi) Level 211: 15 seconds
f) Additional version could be AoE version
i) Level 165: Minor AoE
ii) Level 176: Lesser Aoe
iii) Level 186: Greater AoE
iv) Level 196: Major Aoe
v) Level 205: Epic Aoe

g) Also could allow these to be made Unbound at high crafting levels (base versions)

2. Ammunition

a) Expand to include arrows, bolts, shuriken, ax, daggers, darts
b) Stacks of 1000
c) Add Superior Craftsmanship (returning) at:

i) Level 48: Undead Bane
ii) Level 50: Good / Evil Outsider Bane
iii) Level 60: +2 Ammunition
iv) Level 65: Blunt
v) Level 75: Slow or Sticky
vi) Level 80: Sonic
vii) Level 85: +3 Ammunition
viii) Level 90: Aligned Transmuting
ix) Level 95: Metaline Transmuting
x) Level 100: 10%
xi) Level 105: Planar
xii) Level 110: 20%
xiii) Level 115: +4 Ammunition
xiv) Level 120: 25%
xv) Level 130: 30%
xvi) Level 135: +5 Ammunition
xvii) Level 140: 35%
xviii) Level 150: 40%
xix) Level 165: 45%
xx) Level 170: 50%
xxi) Level 175: combine two effects (holy of undead)
xxii) Level 180: 65%
xxiii) Level 190: 75%
xxiv) Level 200: 85%
xxv) Level 202: Slaying Arrow (create stack of 10)

3) See Chart: Special Crafting below

[UurlockYgmeov]

having issues posting the tables with the needed charts....

Google Docs Websheet of charts (http://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kQyUtIKAhyMRQTwGfobvU9iYrfv6S2iSMfRcbff8qOQ/pubhtml)

now to go back and clean up the previous sections....

sections cleared up... where's my brain ache tonic?

[Ligraph]

I like it. A lot.
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B0TvdaODes3MWUVtR3Y5SEhKbTg
I just couldn't resist it:o


Couple of things:

What is Dragon-dweamer?
What is the purpose of the "item token"? Why now just allow items to be crafted from a material, ML thingy, slot/effect adders, etc.?


And btw, never knew runestones existed till now... LOL, the problem with too many recipes.


My personal opinions/suggestions:

I think there should always be some randomness in the 3rd effect. 25-50% is fine. It is the "bonus effect" after all.
I would allow the extra (4th) slot on 2handers to be craftable at the same time as the 2nd slot. It essentially counts as a extra prefix/suffix, not as a bonus slot.
I would like to see different color augment slots need different "color" gem dust.
I would also like to see a way, in cannith crafting, to craft the basic augments. Probably using gem dust as well.
Also, I would like to see adding effect slots cost something. So making a item with 1 effect slot is cheaper than making one with 2. Maybe use gem dust for this too, maybe something else.



This is the only big thing I would change:
ML Shards are only craftable up to level 30! After that the "Legendary" ML shards must be found/deconstructed.

Add a deconstruction option: "Deconstruct for ML Shard *insert fancy name*"
When you decon that, you get 1-4 ML X Shard Dust
20 Dust = 1 Shard
Dusts and/or shards can be raised in level at a 2-1 Ratio. So 2 ML 32 Dust = 1 ML 33 Dust.
Dusts and/or shards can be lowered in level in some way, maybe 1-1, maybe 2-1, maybe 1-X, idk.

Reasoning: For someone who never plays above say level 5 content on casual to be able, with an enormous grind, to craft items that are only currently found in top-tier missions and raids (and the AH) just feels wrong (grind enough crafting levels and essences...). Unless I miss read something.

[Kompera_Oberon]

I think they should fully redo the way crafting is done to streamline the process.

[...]

Thus you can craft something with the desired combi of 3 effects with certainty - but getting top values, slots etc will take many tries and some luck thus adding a wow effect into crafting when you strike gold.

You start off saying "let's streamline the process", but then you roll right into "let's add randomness to the process."

You can't have both. There are already many systems in DDO which include random elements. The Dragontouched Armor and Cormyrian/Spelltouched/Spellplague random rewards are two such systems. All lootgen items, new system or old, are another. Named drops from chests are yet another.

Cannith crafting has always offered a discrete reward for a discrete effort, and as others have said so eloquently before me up above in this thread, it already bears with it a heavy cost in terms of time invested staring at a crafting interface as opposed to actually playing the game. So let's please not try to drag the new Cannith system into some random reward system. Despite what you might think, people actually like to get a specific reward for a specific effort, and that's not a bad thing.

Crafting should not result in a random reward. No one starts out at the beginning of a project with a block of granite and doesn't know if they are going to end up with an elephant or a lion statue. There is (or was, until they broke it) already a random reward for deconstructing items. You'd get a random amount of small and large Essences in exchange for your item. And then you'd have a random chance of successfully making the shards you wanted to make to construct the item you wanted to craft. There's no need to compound that randomness by making the end result of a crafting effort have some random result. Adding randomness on top of randomness is a very sloppy way to build a system.

[EllisDee37]

My eyes glazed over somewhere in the second post of that novel.

The thing that jumped out at me was the emphasis on leveling through deconstruction. I think that's a terrible idea. Leveling through making shards is preferable as a primary mechanic because you can hold essentially unlimited essences and shards and just stand there at the machine as long as you can stomach it.

By contrast, decon requires an extremely precious resource: inventory and shared bank space. This makes it unworkable as a primary source (or even a significant source for many people) of crafting xp.

I have all 3 schools in the 140s. I would estimate that somewhere around 98% of all my crafting xp came from crafting shards, with around 2% coming from lootgen deconstruction. Further breaking that down, I'd say that around 75% of all my crafting xp came from various times where I set aside an hour to just sit in the crafting hall making and crunching shards for leveling, doing so once or twice a month. (After questing had replenished my essences.) This isn't possible in a decon-based system.

[Vanhooger]

I hope crafting will require new level separate from old crafting. Like epic crafting level. Too many people got to 150 while the dupe bug was available.

[EllisDee37]

I hope crafting will require new level separate from old crafting. Like epic crafting level. Too many people got to 150 while the dupe bug was available.I don't. Not only have I never duped anything, I leveled past 100 back when shards were much more expensive and before I knew about crude vials. By the time I learned about crude vials it was too late to level with them, though admittedly I did stockpile potential shards with them.

Consider me /not signed to the idea of punishing players like me in order to deal with dupers.

[JosieLisbeth]

I hope crafting will require new level separate from old crafting. Like epic crafting level. Too many people got to 150 while the dupe bug was available.

I'm *still* not up to 150 (I'm around 100th level in all 3 realms), and that's after lots of time spent (and materials used). I'd be very unhappy about having all that go to waste.

I'm also a little skeptical about the theory that lots of people used duped materials to get to 150. Up until recently, my main crafting character was in a moderately large guild, and I was one of the better crafters.

[Vanhooger]

The sad part about all that is that we still don't know any details on how that will work, yet. I am not sure why they don't want us to know anything about it. Get early feedback could be very useful.

[nokowi]

The sad part about all that is that we still don't know any details on how that will work, yet. I am not sure why they don't want us to know anything about it. Get early feedback could be very useful.

I would suspect this is one of the first topics of the 2016 PC. They ARE getting feedback in this thread.

[Vanhooger]

I would suspect this is one of the first topics of the 2016 PC. They ARE getting feedback in this thread.

I'm not sure about that, cos it's already February and they should have the new crafting system almost working if they want to push it for update 30. I don't see big margin to make change while they take this thread as a feedback ( If they do read it )

[nokowi]

I'm not sure about that, cos it's already February and they should have the new crafting system almost working if they want to push it for update 30. I don't see big margin to make change while they take this thread as a feedback ( If they do read it )

1. They are probably locked into a system similar to random loot. (whether stats are random or fixed value)

2. They have probably already decided whether or not to simplify the number of schools/ingreds/etc.

3. What something cost to make (old ingreds, new ingred from quest/raid) is not heavily time consuming. This (along with crafted item power) will largely determine who will craft and who will not.

The only choices outside of the required design are likely
1. random values vs fixed values
2. cost
3. power

[redoubt]

And IMHO the power level of item effect will be determined by the items minimum level. Completely reverse of what it is now. The new system should have you determine the minimum level of the item and then give it affects that will autoscale to the items minimum level. This is fantastic because it will reduce the complexity of the recipe box by a factor of 10 or more easily. Less complexity, less lag and less things to keep track of. So only need a shard of intelligence, not a +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 ,+ etc ad naseaum.

That is very interesting and seems to fit with the new random loot gen concept.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I like it. A lot.
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B0TvdaODes3MWUVtR3Y5SEhKbTg
I just couldn't resist it:o

Thank you, took much reading and thinking, and even more typing, and then the PITA formatting.... but even if it helps with the future of Cannith crafting, then it was worth it.



Couple of things:

What is Dragon-dweamer?
What is the purpose of the "item token"? Why now just allow items to be crafted from a material, ML thingy, slot/effect adders, etc.?



And btw, never knew runestones existed till now... LOL, the problem with too many recipes.

Agree - and have posted numerous times in numerous places the power of the runestone. Heck you can even trade collectables (at outrageous prices) for them.

Ammunition as well. Think I forgot one or two types - but can always fix that.

My bad, spelling typo, it should be: "Dragon-Dweomer".

Item tokens allow the players to find items (specifically weapons, armor, shields, goggles(face), and helms(head)) that they find visually appealing and easily store those appearances. If just created a random blank, then this facet of customization would be lost.


My personal opinions/suggestions:

I think there should always be some randomness in the 3rd effect. 25-50% is fine. It is the "bonus effect" after all.
I would allow the extra (4th) slot on 2handers to be craftable at the same time as the 2nd slot. It essentially counts as a extra prefix/suffix, not as a bonus slot.
I would like to see different color augment slots need different "color" gem dust.
I would also like to see a way, in cannith crafting, to craft the basic augments. Probably using gem dust as well.
Also, I would like to see adding effect slots cost something. So making a item with 1 effect slot is cheaper than making one with 2. Maybe use gem dust for this too, maybe something else.

love how you have adopted Gem Dust so readily. :)

Interesting thoughts on the 2H slot.

I too would love Cannith Crafting to be able to craft augment gems, but didn't want to tackle that facet in what already turned out to be a nearly 40,000 word treatise.

Cost to add effect slots would be like charging for adding a prefix and suffix in the existing Cannith Crafting system. I can see for the 3rd slot maybe, but IMHO the cost was already prepaid by all the grind involved in leveling ones crafting levels.


This is the only big thing I would change:
ML Shards are only craftable up to level 30! After that the "Legendary" ML shards must be found/deconstructed.

Add a deconstruction option: "Deconstruct for ML Shard *insert fancy name*"
When you decon that, you get 1-4 ML X Shard Dust
20 Dust = 1 Shard
Dusts and/or shards can be raised in level at a 2-1 Ratio. So 2 ML 32 Dust = 1 ML 33 Dust.
Dusts and/or shards can be lowered in level in some way, maybe 1-1, maybe 2-1, maybe 1-X, idk.

Reasoning: For someone who never plays above say level 5 content on casual to be able, with an enormous grind, to craft items that are only currently found in top-tier missions and raids (and the AH) just feels wrong (grind enough crafting levels and essences...). Unless I miss read something.

So only to level 29 you mean. Maximum character level is 30 now and that is legendary. Is it very difficult to go to the auction house and find a minimum level 30 item and deconstruct it? Isn't that adding unnecessary complexity and steps?

The system already has limiters in place for that. In order to craft a level 30 effect shard with no variance is crafting level 151+ (depends upon slot). High level (epic and legendary) items might need 'chunks' or commendations of valor in order to make.

And for someone to 'assemble' a ml:30 item that has never played above (to use your example) level 5 is possible. Even a toddler can assemble a jigsaw puzzle, just might not be perfect, hence the inherent variance.

And for a level 5 character to craft the needed shards? Well those are called Professionals, not Adventurers (to take from some very old literature), who spend their entire lives being master crafters, bowers, fletchers, blacksmiths, barbers, healers, bakers, jewelers etc. So if a character wants to spend their entire career / life deconstructing / crafting for Cannith Crafting experience, then not only more power to them, but kudos for being part of the hidden economy that is in plain sight. :)


You start off saying "let's streamline the process", but then you roll right into "let's add randomness to the process."

The existing Cannith Crafting system already has the same amount of randomness in it, and just like the existing system this randomness (variance) is removed at higher crafting levels.

The existing Cannith Crafting system has a pass/fail random factor built into it - when crafting at the highest cusp of your crafting skill (level). It also has randomness built into it to determine how many of what essences are returned for deconstruction. Plus there is the random factor of collectible ingredients (undead slaying arrows anyone?).

Instead of success/fail there is now a little bit of variance in the effect power for the stated minimum level(sort of a success/success system). This is possibly a part of the mysterious remnants (chunks) spreading their random effects through the (new) random loot; and that bit of mystery has eeked into the very soul of the materials (base items) we use to craft. An experienced crafter has learned how to read the flux of the objects lay-lines influenced fields (ie the items specific dweomer ) and even harness this mysterious effect to benefit the intended and desired end effect.

All lore aside, the randomness you speak of is rather quite minor, and can be eliminated with enough crafting skill. Examples of how minor: range of 5-6 on a ability stat effect at level 11 (I suspect I understand the mathematic formula for stat bonuses, but it is not needed now to explain this topic). A variance of 1 is hardly random.

I did this after talking to a group PUG late last week. The topic of crafting came up, and how if the recipe box is flattened, how does one reward for the massive grind needed for crafting level 150, let alone level 300. This was the very apparent and suitably simple answer.

Now, if you don't have high enough crafting skills (level) you can ask a master crafter to create and supply your desired effect shards, because when you apply the effect shard to the blank, the crafting interface takes the higher of the two crafting skills (the character combining the effect shard with the blank vs the effect shards creator's crafting skill (level) at the time of the shard's creation.

This allows for you to have very little variance, even when you start crafting. This gives incentive for reaching the pinnacle of crafting kung-fu.

A hidden side effect is that as you level up in crafting, there can be milestones that 'reset' the ransack on crafting effect shards (say every 20 levels or so).

Another hidden side effect is that as you level you will want to clean out old effect shards (deconstruct for both essences and experience) because effect shards created at higher crafting levels are inherently better than those crafted previously with lower crafting levels. Now this isn't a fine grain process of every newly achieved crafting level, rather a rough grain of every 20-30 crafting levels. The benefit is that now the players have internal motivation to clean out the old shards in their green bags and crafting storage. The new deconstruction interface would allow for mass deconstruction with minimal clicks.

Finally I must ask back - did you read the rest? Yes, it is something like 40,000 words and was a PITA to conceptualize, let alone draft and finalize. Even now there are numerous typographical and grammatical mistakes that I will probably never get around to correcting.

Was there anything you liked?


My eyes glazed over somewhere in the second post of that novel.

The thing that jumped out at me was the emphasis on leveling through deconstruction. I think that's a terrible idea. Leveling through making shards is preferable as a primary mechanic because you can hold essentially unlimited essences and shards and just stand there at the machine as long as you can stomach it.

By contrast, decon requires an extremely precious resource: inventory and shared bank space. This makes it unworkable as a primary source (or even a significant source for many people) of crafting xp.

I have all 3 schools in the 140s. I would estimate that somewhere around 98% of all my crafting xp came from crafting shards, with around 2% coming from lootgen deconstruction. Further breaking that down, I'd say that around 75% of all my crafting xp came from various times where I set aside an hour to just sit in the crafting hall making and crunching shards for leveling, doing so once or twice a month. (After questing had replenished my essences.) This isn't possible in a decon-based system.

Yes, it is very --- long, but hopefully somewhat well written and reasonably easy to understand and read. I did try to break it up into several posts in order to help elevate reading exhaustion. :P

I think I answered above. Earning crafting experience currently is creation-centric, meaning the fastest, best way to gain crafting experience is through crafting shards at the upper cusp of your abilities (with a success booster and crafting experience elixir running).

This won't change (see above about ransack resetting every 20/30 levels or so). However, one can earn respectable crafting experience through mass deconstruction. Reverse engineering is a time honored and highly effective way to learn and master new skills and ideas.

All this does is help deconstruction be a more viable source of crafting experience. Does not change the emphasis, just makes the alternative a little more competitive. And since you often need to deconstruct mass quantities to make using those crafting elixirs economically viable, helps smooth out the decon and wait, then craft and level toil and grind.

I'd hope that instead of the 2%/75% (where did the missing 23% come from? :) )you state that the new would be more along the lines of 33/67 or even 40/60. Tell me, the lack of decon experience, was it caused by the click and time intensive process of deconstruction? If only the deconstruction process changed from one at a time to many at a time - would that change your statistics?


I hope crafting will require new level separate from old crafting. Like epic crafting level. Too many people got to 150 while the dupe bug was available.


I don't. Not only have I never duped anything, I leveled past 100 back when shards were much more expensive and before I knew about crude vials. By the time I learned about crude vials it was too late to level with them, though admittedly I did stockpile potential shards with them.

Consider me /not signed to the idea of punishing players like me in order to deal with dupers.
Agree. That entire conversation is now moot, and shouldn't have any bearing upon existing and future conversations and plans, providing those fixes remain in place and the situation that was, remains no more. ad hoc, ergo promptus hoc.


I'm *still* not up to 150 (I'm around 100th level in all 3 realms), and that's after lots of time spent (and materials used). I'd be very unhappy about having all that go to waste.

I'm also a little skeptical about the theory that lots of people used duped materials to get to 150. Up until recently, my main crafting character was in a moderately large guild, and I was one of the better crafters.

Existing crafting levels and experience should remain intact. The only directly related change would be upping the crafting level cap from 150 to 200 (with shards available to craft all the way up to level 211)

And agree. see reply to EllisDee37 above.


That is very interesting and seems to fit with the new random loot gen concept.

Thank you - and that IIRC and AFAIK was the intention / plan of the Dev's all along. To make it so that both systems use the same internal specifications and databases... that changing the internal specifications and databases would affect both systems automatically and equally; this was to make updating and maintaining both systems easy and to help speed named item creation (and updating).


This is possibly a part of the mysterious remnants (chunks) spreading their random effects through the (new) random loot; and that bit of mystery has eeked into the very soul of the materials (base items) we use to craft. An experienced crafter has learned how to read the flux of the objects lay-lines influenced fields (ie the items specific dweomer ) and even harness this mysterious effect to benefit the intended and desired end effect.

[Erdrique]

I like the thoughts in the opening post for sure. Cannith Crafting is quite grindy, I'm only just now getting just over level 100 in the three schools and I have been crafting for awhile (well at least up until Update 29 :P ). I would really like the ability to craft effects that we had when Menace of the Underdark was first released but I know those effects aren't coming back. In any case, I'm patiently waiting and hoping for good things to come with Cannith Crafting being updated!!

[Gremmlynn]

So this is going to be a long post. Nothing can be done about it. Have been mulling over how to write and express this in the most effective efficient way possible for days.

I have listened to all the great feedback and ideas. I can see why the Dev's might feel overwhelmed and or intimidated about updating Cannith crafting - especially since the release of LGS.

I want it all. I want something for everyone - and yes, the entire system does need a little less grind, but in different ways:
· Something for casual crafters with no desire to get high levels in crafting.;
· Something for those willing to endure the massive amounts of grind for that ultimate in convenience and power;
· There is new stuff, and old stuff that doesn't exist elsewhere;
· Random chances to fail when crafting at the cusp of ability;
· Randomness in the effect power, which can be mostly eliminated at the high end of crafting (mostly);
· Shifting earning experience from creation centric to learning from others (deconstruction)
All of this under one umbrella, in effect several related crafting systems --- all using existing crafting levels and systems.

I don't believe everyone will be happy; but most people will be pleased.


PS- This is JUST MY IDEA - my concept - based upon my own thoughts and influenced by this thread and other things.Nice theory crafting, but way to detailed to expect it to actually fit the game code, the budget, etc.

I do actually expect the recipes to work out about how you want though. With just master lists made and code that extrapolates the given recipe from that based on the ML. Though it wouldn't surprise me to see the whole data base still "stored in the machine" from our perspective. Much like I believe the new loot tables work.

[EllisDee37]

I'd hope that instead of the 2%/75% (where did the missing 23% come from? :)You misunderstand. 98% of my crafting xp came from making shards, 2% from deconstruction. End of this thought. New thought: 75% of my crafting xp came from dedicated "crafting sessions" where I just made dummy shards for leveling. The other 23% came from crafting actual shards I wanted, but happened to also get xp from.


the new would be more along the lines of 33/67 or even 40/60. Tell me, the lack of decon experience, was it caused by the click and time intensive process of deconstruction? If only the deconstruction process changed from one at a time to many at a time - would that change your statistics?No. Nothing would change my statistics. As stated, the reason I never got much xp from deconstruction is logistical, not mechanical. I only have 20 shared bank spaces, and no patience for or tolerance of the constant re-logging it would take to transfer meaningful amounts of lootgen to my crafter for deconstruction.

He can stand at the machines all day with the thousands of greater essences sitting in my communal green bags. Or I could run a set of epic dailies then switch back and forth 2 or 3 times just to transfer the items over for him to deconstruct. And my crafter, as a TWF, doesn't have much inventory space to hold it all anyway.

[Gremmlynn]

I'm not sure about that, cos it's already February and they should have the new crafting system almost working if they want to push it for update 30. I don't see big margin to make change while they take this thread as a feedback ( If they do read it )I don't expect they plan on making much change in the way it works from our end. I think most of the change will be on their end to bring it in line with how random loot works.