Crafting Question

[Astarii]

Just curious, now that it has been out for a bit who likes the new crafting changes?

With your answer feel free to briefly provide information such as
-how long you played and/or game experience
-If you used to craft, and if so how much / prior level
-Is it better/Worse/Indifferent
-What do you like better/worse
-Was it what you where expecting

[J-2]

I have played since January of 2015, though I did not really become a crafter until August of 2015.

I spent LOTS of time and essence to get my levels up. I was very near completing my levels when the new update was implemented. (There were 6 shards I was not yet capable of attempting to make.)

I personally feel it is worse now than before.

I like that the lag has been removed from the crafting hall. That is by far the best of the new enhancements.
I dont like the deconstruction gui bug, but thats a somewhat trivial matter.
My main issue is the cost. Cannith essence and the collectable ingrediants are too rare, making the shards too expensive.

Yes, its what I was expecting in the performance category, but it missed totally in the costs.

I would like to see an in game vendor that sells the collectable ingrediants as well as cannith essence for platinum.
It would go a long way to curb the outrageous prices for them on the auction house as well as minimize the amount of farming required.

I kinda wish I hadn't TR'd in November, and would now like to have spent a few months farming cannith essence. I exahusted my supply after only a few items.

All in all, its not a game breaking thing for me. I am at level 269, and will be complete soon enough.

[Astarii]

I totally feel your pain, and agree with everything you've said. Its exactly why I wanted to ask others.

[LeoLionxxx]

I personally feel it is worse now than before.

I like that the lag has been removed from the crafting hall. That is by far the best of the new enhancements.
I dont like the deconstruction gui bug, but thats a somewhat trivial matter.
My main issue is the cost. Cannith essence and the collectable ingrediants are too rare, making the shards too expensive.


Indeed, recepies are now WAY TOO EXPENSIVE, particularly in terms of collectables.

I got into Cannith crafting soon after it initially came out, and was well on the way to maxing out my levels. I used to craft all the time to make bane weapons and skill items. I would help guild-mates put together stat-items to get them going.

I love the way it was changed, to be a much simpler system that lets me easily craft good gear; that part of the pass was fantastic. But now that every recepie requires so very many resources, some of which I can't even obtain at my current character levels, I'm barely crafting anything. Yesterday I wanted to tell my new guild-mates that I was the guild crafter, and that they could shoot gear requests my way, but with all the recepies being so expensive, I felt it more likely I would disappoint them and have to say I didn't have the needed materials.

To get me seriously crafting again, collectible costs would need to be drastically reduced OR a (non P2W) method of obtaining collectibles reliably be added; personally, I prefer the former.


P.S.
For anyone looking to grind out their collectibles, I point you to this handy thread:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/478811-This-is-How-To-Farm-the-New-Collectables-System-Efficiently

[Mofus]

I have been playing since 2009, I remember when there was no Canith crafting in game. That being said, I like the recipe costs for the old system better, but like some of the new recipes in the upgraded system. For those of us who have been saving collectables for years, it's not too bad in the new system. But if you are a new player or someone who has only been around for a year or so, you may not have many ingredients to craft with. Having to hunt colectables in order craft simple things is not good. I hope they can make some adjustments to the system that make the recipes friendlier to new players.

[J-2]

Yes, that is an excellent thread, and compliments to the poster and maintainers.
However, even the most efficient way can be totally frustrating.

It stinks farming grim and barrett for 4 hours just to get 5 silver flame hymnals.
I did get my 5th one today, and I got enough runic parchments and romantic sonnets to throw myself a ticker tape parade.

[Gremmlynn]

Personally, I like the new costs better than the old, though think they may be a bit high (as opposed to ridiculously low as the old system was).

If this new system was as cheap to use as the old, it would make 99% of the loot dropped in game into nothing but deconstruction fodder, or vendor fodder for most named items. At least until our bags are full and we become plat capped, when looting chests at all would become pointless.

I much prefer a system where we have to question whether a crafted item is enough of an upgrade to be worth the mats. Which may well be what the devs were aiming for.

[skorpeon]

Yes, that is an excellent thread, and compliments to the poster and maintainers.
However, even the most efficient way can be totally frustrating.

It stinks farming grim and barrett for 4 hours just to get 5 silver flame hymnals.
I did get my 5th one today, and I got enough runic parchments and romantic sonnets to throw myself a ticker tape parade.

Yeah I like this comment! I am always after those bookcases!

Still I have been crafting for a few years now, I never did much in the way of unbound crafting.

I find the new system much better for me as now I pretty much use random loot for essences and build sets of gear that all my characters can use.
Lvl 7 set, lvl 13 sets are done, a number of lvl 18 and lvl 21 things a few weapons. I am not an end game player and have only so many hours to spend playing in EU evenings (So I don't do many raids at all and no farming LGS for example).

So I find CC accessible for the casual player like me. Gives me guaranteed items in the right slots that are better than random loot.

I think the system is expensive but much better than the old one as it caters to higher level also, with some nice insightful slots added.

[cru121]

I miss the ability to craft cheap throwaway stuff.

I think Everbright should be easier to craft via Cannith Crafting or in some other way.

I would like to have some kind of collectable trader/exchanger. Perhaps involving Marks of Yugoloth / Mystical Dried Fish etc. Or some kind of once-per-day, allow using Marks / Mysticals to replace one stack of collectables in a single recipe.

[Dandonk]

I'm at 392 in the new system. First, some thoughts on the new crafting.

1) BtA items is teh awesome.
2) Can make good items for most levels. Have made sets for TRing at levels 8, 13, 18 and 23. Also made a couple of level 30 items. Level 4 weapons seem very decent.
3) Collectable costs is extremely limiting, and since effect shards cost the same no matter what level you put them on, this in particular limits newer players who cannot farm high level quests for those tier collectables.
4) Stacking of essences. Since we now have only one essence, even with 10k to a stack I have a fair number of stacks floating around in bags and shared crafting bank.
5) Very limited slot choices. This is extremely annoying.
6) Decon and crafting much much faster. Yay, happy Dan.
7) Minor issue: There's no in-game way to see what you're getting. Sure, I'm making a level x strength item, but... what exactly do I get in terms of bonus sizes? Would it be better to wait a level, or to make it a level earlier for faster access while TRing? Yes, the CC crafting planner is awesome, but for new players it must be daunting.

Overall plusses: Works better and nicer, BtA items are awesome, sub-level 30 power is good.
Negatives: Extremely restricted in slots, new collectables used for many lowlevel/old effects... and what was it you said about power at cap? After seeing the U32 craftable items (+17 stat, +4 quality for instance), I'm not sure what the problem is - those items are extremely powerful, pretty flexible, and don't take a prior investment.

That said, with a loosening of restrictions and a little lower on costs, this could be a good system. As it is, I'll rate it meh.

[Franghasea]

Greetings!

I've been playing since around Update 9. I have always been an avid crafter. Under the old system, I was able to craft everything without being quite capped at 3x150. I did cap before the changeover, however. I was not a named loot player until the game moved into epic levels and crafting fell behind in power. Even then I still crafted niche items. I usually made an entire gear set every four levels, starting with level 1 up to 17, then another set at 20 which used to include the Epic Abishai set, when it was relevant. I am capped at 400 under the new system. The general plan is to craft an entire set for each level 2, 6, 10, 15, 20, 24, 28 for a given alt. For example, a complete set (15ish items including goggles for DD/OL and SE) for a melee cleric at all those levels. To date I have crafted 13 sets, or about 600 shard thus far.

The positives with the new system include:
* Crafting is relevant again and caps at the right power level of 34.
* Removal of audio and lag during crafting
* The inclusion of many new affixes
* The addition of the Extra Slot
* The simplification of shard creation
* The reduction of different types collectables required (no more arrows, strong soul gems etc...)
* BTA instead of BTC


The opportunities with the new system include:
* The lack of a deconstruct all option
* It has been my experience that I never need to farm rare collectables. I do often have to farm uncommon collectables. This is unfortunate for DDO store sales, unless of course they put in an uncommon box, and I felt lazy
* I wish that the crafting levels were server wide for all alts. It's minor but it would be a great QoL if I didn't have to quit the game twice to move over to a crafter then back to the alt using the gear. (I do not alt without completely quitting because of the character swap lag)
* The lack of nameable green bags
* It would be great with we could purchase craftable trinkets from the DDO store that had a green augment slot on it
* The elimination of flexible shards
* Even excluding Flexible shards, the on average 1.5 less slots that a given affix can be applied to as compared to the old system for slotting augments
* It would be great if when deconstructing, having a dissolver already in the machine, when you drop rangen in window to get essences the option was automatically highlighted (Saving clicks). It is wonky and doesn't always work
* Weapons tend to significantly fall behind in power versus named loot as opposed to accessories/equipment. Perhaps needing a second extra slot
* The elimination of the dual augment slot rengen items

A side note about collectable farming
This is amazing: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/478811-This-is-How-To-Farm-the-New-Collectables-System-Efficiently . Thank you for this :) I enjoy the mindless farming when I feel like playing DDO, but don't feel like being really engaged. Like when I'm watching hockey. Running Bringing the Light repeatedly doesn't seem a chore that way. Shrug. For me the effort spent farming is well worth the fact that I only have to create the set once, and I can pass it to any alt going forward (DDO store traveling containers that can be labeled and hold up to 20 pieces of gear!)

[Franghasea]

Yes, that is an excellent thread, and compliments to the poster and maintainers.
However, even the most efficient way can be totally frustrating.

It stinks farming grim and barrett for 4 hours just to get 5 silver flame hymnals.
I did get my 5th one today, and I got enough runic parchments and romantic sonnets to throw myself a ticker tape parade.

Greetings! I highly recommend running Eyes of Stone on normal. Yes you have to flag if you aren't already, so pick an alt that isn't TRing. Run into the library and there are 3 potential hymnal giving bookcases, along with two other nodes. I average 1 hymnal every other run. No fighting required. Run you clever boy and rememeber!

Thanx,
Frang

[Kriogen]

New is better then old. By alot. I didn't bothered with old system, but I do with the new one.

Its much easier to levelup.

Items cost more. This is not so good. But as long as I don't craft one-and-done disposable junk, its not that bad. What you craft will last forever. So I crafted 1(one) HP item for all my alts that are at level lets say 10-15, one STR item, etc ... don't need unlimited number of items, just a couple.

Im a bit more on the casual side. Because of that(less play time), I don't have lots (if any) named or quasi-crafted(shroud, slaves) uber toys. With new crafting system I can make items that are usefull, not that far behind.

With combination of new CC, some lootgen items and an odd named items its not that hard to equip you char with solid, not the best, but OK gear even if you are not a 24/7 farmer. New CC plays a big part in this.

Its a good anti-zerg mechanics. Hard to pick collectibles if you are running at warp speed.

Can be a good source of money (collectables). Also a good plat sink.

[EllisDee37]

I love the new cannith crafting, and consider it a massive improvement over the old system. Started playing just before Update 9, and I started using the original Cannith Crafting when it was first introduced in beta. Eventually reached low/mid 140s in all schools, which meant I could craft everything. I'm now level 320-ish, which means I can craft anything bound.

Most of my crafting has been 10-piece gearsets, with 2 named items filling the last two slots. So far I've made the following complete 10-piece sets:

ML10/11 universal melee set
ML20/21 universal melee set
ML34 custom set for my Kensei Warpriest
ML34 custom set for my Evasion Paladin
ML34 custom set for my Tempest Trapmonkey

Plus three sets of trapping gear (goggles of search, goggles of disabling, gloves of open lock, all include insightful): An ML15 set for leveling, then two ML34 sets, one each for the paladin and ranger.

And finally, I've probably made a half dozen or more weapons, ranging from low level undead beaters (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/480991) to ML34 specialty weapons, like ooze beaters. My ranger even uses an ML34 crafted khopesh as his standard offhand weapon, paired with a thunderforged: Force of Aligned w/Insightful Deadly, silver in a red slot, admantine from weapon type and cold iron from fury of the wild. Breaks just about all DR, and at +13 4[W] it's a perfectly viable weapon.

Each time I've crafted a 10-piece set, I've typically had to spend around two hours farming collectables. Obviously, two hours of farming collectables is boring and unfun. However, two hours for a complete gearset is trivial compared to trying to farm up slavers gear, legendary greensteel, maybe thunderforge armor, etc... After two hours trying to farm all that I would barely have made any progress at all.

For me, the killer collectables I always seem to have to farm are:

Archaic Logbooks (mildly annoying)
Blister Beetles (easy enough)
Fragrant Drowshood (annoying)
Ornate Charms (painful)
Pages torn from a Research Notebook (easy)
Silver Flame Hymnals (brutal)

The blister beetles and archaic logbooks aren't much of a problem anymore; it was right after the revamp when they were first introduced I needed to actually farm them. Now having done a fair amount of epic questing I have a decent supply of both. Conversely, I had around 25-ish silver flame hymnals that I've now run out of, and haven't been doing any heroic questing so farming those has become an issue.



Under the old system I used to craft lots of customized leveling gear for each alt. Under the new system I can take care of all four of my melee characters (and any melee past lives on my wizard) using all BTA crafted gear. This is a vast improvement. I recently just sold off or deconed a metric ton of old named gear and crafted items for all of them: sora kell sets, cove hats, mire sets, commendation gear, dragontouched armor, cannith named items (fabricator's etc...), the list goes on. All my character banks are now virtually empty, compared being virtually full before the crafting pass. As in, maybe 20 of 60-80 slots used.

All told I'd grade the crafting pass as a solid A-. It would be an A+ except for the following issues:
Can't craft "Speed"
Unbound crafting is so expensive it may as well not even exist
Static effects are almost universally way too expensive and high level (almost all of them are "new player" effects, like everbright and underwater action)


My alt account is even leveling up a crafter (since unbound is so expensive) and is currently in the 190s. Once I get her to 275 I'll consider her finished, so figure, what, 20-30k more essences? That's fairly trivial compared to the grind in the old system, where leveling a crafter on a dualbox account was near-unthinkable.

[cru121]

for an alt account and heroics, one can craft a surprising amount of good stuff with crafter level 50 or 100. Those are trivial to reach. ML shards can be supplied by main crafter.

[Rykka]

Just curious, now that it has been out for a bit who likes the new crafting changes?

With your answer feel free to briefly provide information such as
-how long you played and/or game experience
-If you used to craft, and if so how much / prior level
-Is it better/Worse/Indifferent
-What do you like better/worse
-Was it what you where expecting

*see join date. I've been gaming for about 35 years and find DDO to be a pretty easy game to not be terrible at.
*The old system was obsolete before I started playing DDO, but was good for creating twink starter gear. I leveled it up a bit (to about 50each) at the end of the first life on my main about two months after I started playing. Was still at about 70 in each before the system change.
*It's a mixed bag. The new system produces gear that is worth using at any level. It's much more useful for making a strong character with basic gear. The utility stuff (static effects) is gated by investment in leveling to 250, I lost a lot of crafting utility with the change. Creating gear for noobs or people that hate crafting is dead. Leveling is pretty easy and straight forward though.
*Better: It's worth crafting. Worse: It's relevance encourages me to farm collectables, which is tedious and boring.
*Nothing useful.

[Rykka]

for an alt account and heroics, one can craft a surprising amount of good stuff with crafter level 50 or 100. Those are trivial to reach. ML shards can be supplied by main crafter.

This is especially true now, as the main account crafter can make unbound ML shards lvl 1-20 without PEDF requirements.

[Ulfo]

Unbound crafting is so expensive it may as well not even exist

It's gravely expensive, correct. But now we can do real unbound stuff, not BtCoE as with old CC.

For the rest I completely agree with you. 8)

[dunklezhan]

I'm actually pretty happy with everything* except PEDS for unbound crafting, which still just makes it feel like Turbine didn't really want to include it at all, quite honestly.

*any remaining typos and bugs go without saying I want fixed, and obviously there are things I'd like to see included like some kind of appropriately balanced/interesting wand/clickie making. But I'm not unhappy without them.

[Lonnbeimnech]

I like it much more. Much simpler. The items are better with a few exceptions.

for example. I used to use a bta moderate fort belt at level 3 and a bta heavy fort belt at level 7 with a ring for false life and a necklace for con, I still have them, but instead I use a ml4 con + false life belt with a green slot for mod fort, and a ml8 con + false life belt with a green slot for heavy fort.

The one down side is that I can't decrease the ml of rune arms by 2.


*It might be worth noting that I had maxed crafting levels before the update.

[cdbd3rd]

I have been playing since 2009, I remember when there was no Canith crafting in game. That being said, I like the recipe costs for the old system better, but like some of the new recipes in the upgraded system. For those of us who have been saving collectables for years, it's not too bad in the new system. But if you are a new player or someone who has only been around for a year or so, you may not have many ingredients to craft with. Having to hunt colectables in order craft simple things is not good. I hope they can make some adjustments to the system that make the recipes friendlier to new players.

They won't be able to drop the collectibles cost now without angering the folks who have dumped their life savings worth of collectibles into the machine already. :(
I agree the costs are too high, but also feel that it's too late to lament that free-roaming cow now.


My recent issues have been deconning low-level junk. Level 1-2 gear gives 1 essence. Okay. But by the time one is deconning level 6-8 gear, the essence drops should be better that 1-3 essences. The low end of the essence ROI curve needs looked at.
(edit: Logged in and deconned a couple AH returns. Level 6 items, got *1* essence each on them. :( )

There is also still that bug where some things aren't giving the plat for the decon. (Not a debate for pro/con whether it should or not. Currently it is *supposed* to, so it should be WAI).


I still decon every piece of junk I get my mitts on, and have made a couple pieces of gear for my fresh TR. But the drive I had before to push the levels on my skills? My heart just isn't in it any more. Not entirely sure why, but is partly due to the eventual need to hunt for the new high-level collectibles.

[EllisDee37]

There is also still that bug where some things aren't giving the plat for the decon. (Not a debate for pro/con whether it should or not. Currently it is *supposed* to, so it should be WAI).The some things that don't give plat are accessories. Only weapons, armor and shields give plat for decon. Apparently it was always supposed to, but never did, ever since they first added plat to decon 5 years ago. (Or however long it was when they added it; it wasn't part of the initial beta.)

[Astarii]

So far, really great answers here. This is exactly what i was looking for... I to see pros and cons for this new system. I personally think that things are way over priced, and like the prior system which allowed you to craft and item how you liked (with far less troubles / materials / and for me time).

I hope the developers still do work on this system, and make things better / cheaper and recognize some of the things we really liked on the older system.

[Bob_of_QF]

I prefer the old system, it was more useful for low-level toons. Yes, it quickly became obsolete for toons over about level 12-15 or so, but that's okay, there used to be lots of cool loot to get at the end of a long quest-chain that sort of evened it out.

Under the new system? It's too much of a grind for low-level stuff, and at higher levels, it's not that woopie. To be sure, I've not messed with 20+ stuff, as I have no materials to make anything up there.

I do miss being able to craft a +1 or +2 stat bonus item for a newly rolled up toon.

Now? It's way-- WAY too tedious to grind out the materials for ANY stat boost item, so unless you go for high level boost? It's not worth it.

The new system is grossly unbalanced, with regards to level. That aspect was seriously not thought out very well, and low level crafted stuff is simply too expensive.

I bit of tweaking? Shift the minimum level shards to be *combined* with the other effect shards-- which would affect how much materials the effect-shard required to make.

In short? All shards require 1 additional shard/thingy: a minimum level + materials-- which would be scaled (in quantity) to match the minimum level thingy.

Or? Tweak the menu to make you select the minimum level *first* -- which would automatically scale the quantities-- and also suppress shards that are too powerful for that level selection.

Non-scalable shards, naturally, are unaffected by the level selection-- unless it is set too low.

This would actually be a minor tweak and could really fix the majority of complaints people have about the new system.

[Isolani]

New crafting is better in almost every way imo.

The only real downside is the ingredient costs. I don't know how new players could even craft anything for the amount of ingredients required. I have obsessively picked up collectibles for the last 7+ years, and never spent them on much of anything, so I had a lot of ingredients to begin with. If I had to ingredient zerg + reset quests for hours on end to make something, like new players probably have to do, I might not like new CC as much.

If ingredients scaled with ML, I think people would be much happier with new CC.

[Blastyswa]

Indeed, recepies are now WAY TOO EXPENSIVE, particularly in terms of collectables.

I got into Cannith crafting soon after it initially came out, and was well on the way to maxing out my levels. I used to craft all the time to make bane weapons and skill items. I would help guild-mates put together stat-items to get them going.

I love the way it was changed, to be a much simpler system that lets me easily craft good gear; that part of the pass was fantastic. But now that every recepie requires so very many resources, some of which I can't even obtain at my current character levels, I'm barely crafting anything. Yesterday I wanted to tell my new guild-mates that I was the guild crafter, and that they could shoot gear requests my way, but with all the recepies being so expensive, I felt it more likely I would disappoint them and have to say I didn't have the needed materials.

To get me seriously crafting again, collectible costs would need to be drastically reduced OR a (non P2W) method of obtaining collectibles reliably be added; personally, I prefer the former.


P.S.
For anyone looking to grind out their collectibles, I point you to this handy thread:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/478811-This-is-How-To-Farm-the-New-Collectables-System-Efficiently

Agreed. I used to use Cannith Crafting every. single. life. to make gear as I leveled. I used it once and used all of one type of collectable I've collected over the years to make basically a single item, and I was instantly not a fan. Personally collectible costs should be scrapped for all but the most powerful enchantments, and reduced for those. I get that the Warner Bros overlords probably were looking for another avenue for revenue and selling cannith crafting collectables in the DDOstore was the route developers went, but changing cannith crafting to be the beautiful system it used to be would be a huge win for turb- SSG.

[Blastyswa]

New crafting is better in almost every way imo.

The only real downside is the ingredient costs. I don't know how new players could even craft anything for the amount of ingredients required. I have obsessively picked up collectibles for the last 7+ years, and never spent them on much of anything, so I had a lot of ingredients to begin with. If I had to ingredient zerg + reset quests for hours on end to make something, like new players probably have to do, I might not like new CC as much.

If ingredients scaled with ML, I think people would be much happier with new CC.

Oh agreed. The issue is that that only downside is a massive one. Either having ingredients scale with ML or getting rid of collectables completely for most or all recipes would make cannith crafting a massive improvement from before. It's just that one massive overwhelming glaring issue that ruins the system for so many people (And when I say so many people, I mean myself, my 200 person guild, and most people I've talked to on my home server, (ironically) Cannith.

[SpartanKiller13]

Just curious, now that it has been out for a bit who likes the new crafting changes?

With your answer feel free to briefly provide information such as
-how long you played and/or game experience
-If you used to craft, and if so how much / prior level
-Is it better/Worse/Indifferent
-What do you like better/worse
-Was it what you where expecting

I've been playing for 3 or 4 years now. I used to deco sometimes, but it was a huge pain so I didn't much. Crafting was out of reach in the old system.

I love the new system, generally speaking. I do have a few gripes however, many of which have been mentioned earlier.

I think a lot of the static bonuses are too high level. Most new players who want to craft something are looking for like everbright. I think this should be more accessible.

I agree the collectible costs are high, but I think they're fairly reasonable. If they were lower, everyone would always craft everything. This way, you have to consider a bit first - or farm for a while. I'm fine with that.

I love how you can spend a few TP's and rocket from lvl 1 to lvl 300 for ~50k essences. That alone sold me on the system.

I have so far only crafted weapons; I've made a force/bludgeoning maul, a metaline/aligned maul, and a force/everbright maul at lvl 14-15.
I wish archaic logbooks were easier to obtain, or purchasable (via AS or TP) but I'll make do.

I will probably craft a bit more before my next HTR, get a few key pieces of gear.

I wish that there was more collectible trading. It's really hard to find useful purchases on the AH, or even ASAH.

[Cantor]

Just curious, now that it has been out for a bit who likes the new crafting changes?

With your answer feel free to briefly provide information such as
-how long you played and/or game experience
-If you used to craft, and if so how much / prior level
-Is it better/Worse/Indifferent
-What do you like better/worse
-Was it what you where expecting

Playing since soon after ftp.

Was maxxed crafter on a TR character before change, 400 now on a dedicated crafter so I can build success rate on over 400 shards. Rarely crafted before change since I already had a general BTA set of gear. Mostly only weapons for new builds.

Way better now. Except for 1 or 2 effects and those effects only at specific levels every effect is better. Even without MC there is only one level more to get +6 stat.
Loss of flexible hurts, but I can see it needed to be done because it was too good, I could see making rings a freebie slot like trinket though.

Ditto on collectible cost, it's so good it needs to cost. The problem as I see it is not the cost, but the way to obtain them. Mob bags were never fixed, and some node types are rare or in limited content at certain levels. If you could get a more varied and complete supply during normal play I'd have nothing to say against it. I'm not even saying more, just a better mix. I guess this goes along with people asking for traders. Though I'd rather see a good balance of drops, a trader is mega easier to implement.

It was what I expected and I'm happy enough with it. I had a supply of old collectibles, and most new ones are easier to farm than old. The low levels are clogged with bigger loot tables, making certain high demand collectibles a pain even for old types.

As for peds, I think it's close to the right balance for crafting for other established players. It really only hurts new players. As far as on unbound item taking bound ingrs, I think they could have put the ped cost on the item imbue recipe instead of shard recipe. That would have made it user side instead of crafter side when making shards for people or the crafter could still make a whole unbound item for same cost as current.

[EllisDee37]

I think they could have put the ped cost on the item imbue recipe instead of shard recipe. That would have made it user side instead of crafter side when making shards for people or the crafter could still make a whole unbound item for same cost as current.Unfortunately they did both. Unbound ML shards ML20 (?) and higher cost PEDs when you apply them to an item.

[Gremmlynn]

Unbound crafting is so expensive it may as well not even existI'm thinking that's the point. Or at least to make it something of a rare occurrence rather than the default gearing method across entire guilds.

[Arathendir]

Just curious, now that it has been out for a bit who likes the new crafting changes?

With your answer feel free to briefly provide information such as
-how long you played and/or game experience
-If you used to craft, and if so how much / prior level
-Is it better/Worse/Indifferent
-What do you like better/worse
-Was it what you where expecting

1. Sometime in early 2006, whenever farming the giant caves outside Threnal for +3 weapons was "end-game."

2. Max in all 3 categories before the update.

3. Better in some ways, worse in others (see below).

4. Improvements:

Crafted items being bound to account is probably the best change.

Augment slots no longer increasing the minimum level of the item is also great.

Crafted shards scaling up into epic levels was also badly needed.

It seems to be much easier to level up the lower levels of crafting now, and the amount of essences you receive from deconstructing high level loot is greater than before the update. So, overall easier to level, although the very high end is a grind.

Things they still need to work on:

Some of the shards are horrendously out of place, like everbright. It should be a level 1 shard, not a level 250 shard.

The "new" essences are actually more annoying for me than the old ones, since you can only have a single stack of 10k in your ingredients bag. The rest of the stacks are now filling up my crafting storage. I have a colossal bag, so it was never an issue for me having multiple kinds of essences.

The collectables cost is insane. There's really no nice way to put it. Having to farm desecrated temple of vol till my eyes bleed isn't even remotely fun. I spent roughly an hour grabbing the 3 nodes in the right side, using wings and ddoor, so it was about as fast as possible, and I ended up with enough mats to make 3 items. That includes all the other collectables I grabbed while playing normally through multiple epic reincarnations. I'm not willing to do that again, so I simply won't make anymore items for a very long time. There simply is no way to collect the required number of materials during "normal play" if you're expecting to craft numerous items for reincarnating.

The unbound cost is even worse. I haven't seen a single high level crafted item for sale during the few dozens times I've checked the AH and ASAH on Khyber. I'm sure that I've missed some that have been posted, but I've checked enough times to get a fairly good idea about how many people are actually trying to make and sell these items: close to zero. I have no interest in this until the costs are drastically reduced. I already don't have enough mats to make more bound items that I would use for my main/alts, so I'm certainly not going to waste even more trying to sell items. Before the update I made hundreds of items for new players over the years, and I really don't see that happening ever again unless these costs are changed. This is coming from a semi-hardcore old-school vet. If I was a new player I wouldn't even try, ever.

5. I didn't really have high expectations, so for the most part, yes.

[dogsoldier]

- I have played DDO off and on since 2007
- I crafted on the old system, don't remember what level before, but 225 now, and have not yet started leveling it again.
- Some things are better some worse.
Great stuff p1: Bound to Account Trapper gear with Green slots is amazing (Seeker +6 Goggles of Spot 14, Sheltering aug slotted, ML12 BtA) and (Disable 14 Gloves of Deadly 5, Deathblock aug slotted, ML12 BtA).
Great stuff p2: You can make nice DR breakers that can be passed from one character to another since they are BtA. And the new ML10 stuff would be about the same as the ML14 stuff in the old system.
Great stuff p3: You can take something that you had slotted with a nice augment (say heavy fort) that was BtC in the old system, and re-craft it, making that nicely augmented item BtA!
Terrible stuff p1: Low level stuff is pointless to make because it costs the same in materials.
Terrible stuff p2: Some of the new scaling effects are totally pointless. You get Heavy Fortification at ML18 in the new system, of course you can get that in a ML8 Augment, and it was ML6 with masterful in the old system, glad I made some BtA items into ML6 Heavy fort before the changes.
Terrible stuff p3: Most of the things that people think about making, they simply decide against it once they see the collectible costs.
- It was mostly what I was expecting regarding the scale out into epics. I was not quite expecting how badly they made many mid-low level items that had been quite useful, and reasonably cheap to make.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Generally I find the new system to be an improvement over the old system, when discussing the process.

The power creep aspects have benefitted me personally, especially as a long-time player with hoards of old gear, but as general rule I feel a move in that direction has long-term detrimental effects. Just a few adjustments with numbers would have made everything better IMO.

I dislike the lack of transparency regarding some effects (vampirism comes to mind). The lack of information about the information in the system is another.

On a purely mechanical level, the lack of mass dissolution/decon makes crafting a painful process. If there was one thing from the old system that should have been changed, the single item action is it.

Since introduction of the new system, there has been some outstanding work done by the community. I think that work should be put together as a collection of links and made a sticky in crafting section, and added to the SSG page for Cannith Crafting. As a process, SSG should look at where the community stepped up to see where SSG can improve in the future.

That said, the most glaring issue is adjusting some recipes to make it easier for new players and their low level characters. Effects like Undewater Action should have recipes that are easily acquired at low levels.

Edit: adjusted recipes should also include Unbound. Helping new players has become much more difficult with the new system. If there is a concern about crafting high level unbound gear, then tier the recipes by ML, e.g. 1-10 0 PEDS, 11-20 1 PED, 21+ 5 PEDs

[HAL]

Each time I've crafted a 10-piece set, I've typically had to spend around two hours farming collectables.

Just curious: do you have to farm collectibles because you don't collect them as you quest, or you need collectibles that you haven't done the correct quests/levels to get, or do you just go through too many as you craft for regular questing to keep up?

[EllisDee37]

Just curious: do you have to farm collectibles because you don't collect them as you quest, or you need collectibles that you haven't done the correct quests/levels to get, or do you just go through too many as you craft for regular questing to keep up?For an example, the last gearset I crafted (last week) was for my tempest trapmonkey (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/423116-Tempest-Trapmonkey-for-new-players?p=5072832&viewfull=1#post5072832):

Head: ML34 Intelligence 15 Helmet of Resistance 12 w/Ins. Fortification 79 (Water Breathing)
Eyes: ML34 Seeker 15 Goggles of Accuracy 23 w/Ins. Seeker 7
Neck: ML34 Constitution 15 Necklace of Spot 22 w/Ins. Constitution 7 (Deathblock)
Back: ML34 Wisdom 15 Cloak of Dodge Bonus 15 w/Ins. Wisdom 7 (Charisma +6)
Wrist: Greensteel Smoke
Hand: ML34 Melee Alacrity 15 Gloves of Deadly 12 w/Ins. Accuracy 11 (Feather Falling)
Waist: ML34 Doublestrike 17 Belt of Strength 15 w/Ins. Strength 7 (Fear Immunity)
Feet: ML34 Dexterity 15 Boots of Sheltering 38 w/Ins. Dexterity 7 (Striding 30%)
Ring: Epic Ring of the Stalker (Heavy Fort, Vitality)
Ring: ML34 Wizardry 310 Ring of False Life 57 w/Ins. PRR 18 (Blindness Immunity)
Trinket: ML34 Spell Saves 12 Trinket of Armor Piercing 23 w/Ins. Dodge Bonus 7
Body: ML34 Devotion 159 Celestial Leather of Healing Amp 61 w/Parrying 7 (Good Luck +2)

Weapons

Mainhand: Thunderforge Tier 2: 1st Degree Burns, Dragon's Edge
Offhand: ML34 Force 7d6 Adamantine Khopesh of Aligned w/Insightful Deadly 5 (Silver)
Longbow: Pinion

I used my crafting planner to aggregate the total costs for the gearset, then manually added in the aggregate costs for a full set of trapping gear (+22/+11 goggles of search, goggles of disable and gloves of unlock) plus the offhand weapon of "I break your DR!" (it also bypasses cold iron via destiny), and then wrote down my on-hand totals next to each to see what I needed to farm. Here's what that spreadsheet looked like when I finished tallying, just before I farmed the collectables I needed:


Have Cost Ingredient
---- ---- ----------
16k 9970 Essences
185 30 Amber Vials
764 15 Amulets of the Lost Empire
18 15 Ancient Texts
892 15 Blades of the Dark Six
81 15 Brass Censers
80 15 Bruised Spore Pods
170 15 Caravan Logbooks
341 15 Ceramic Bowls
97 15 Chipped Bone Talismans
110 45 Crypt Moths
149 30 Cryptic Messages
75 30 Cryptmoss Worm Larvae
188 45 Funerary Tokens
139 15 Glittering Dust
159 30 Mortar and Pestles
196 15 Mystical Formulas
23 45 Pages Torn from a Research Notebook
16 15 Romantic Sonnets
33 30 Ruddy Fungi
35 15 Runic Parchments
98 15 Singed Soarwood
631 30 Skull Fragments
227 15 Slime Mold
218 15 Small Planar Crystals
170 30 Sour Darkcaps
629 15 Strings of Prayer Beads
784 15 Sweet Whitecaps
254 15 Zygomycota Fungi
47 10 Academic Treatises
191 5 Amulets of the Six
19 5 Blister Beetles
79 5 Bloodfeast Fungi
50 5 Cryptmoss
22 10 Cryptmoss Worms
214 5 Deadly Feverblanches
67 5 Fractured Femurs
1 10 Fragrant Drowshoods
57 5 Glass Phials
59 5 Glowmoss Spores
11 10 Hairy Trumpet Mushrooms
21 5 House-Sealed Letters
20 5 Intact Spore Pods
48 5 Ivory Scorpion Icons
36 10 Khyber Prayer Pamphlets
144 5 Marks of the Keeper
6 10 Ornate Charms
15 5 Polished Ores
56 5 Pouches of Bone Fragments
309 5 Research Diaries
16 5 Scholarly Notes
212 10 Signets of the Devourer
34 5 Silver Bowls
3 5 Silver Flame Hymnals
140 5 Small Wooden Idols
196 5 Sparkling Dust
20 10 Stone Fetishes
41 15 Vials of Pure Water
245 10 'Wavecrasher' Cargo Manifests
78 60 Purified Eberron Dragonshards


Since I always farm at least 1 extra collectable to preserve its bag presence, that meant I needed to farm at least:

23 Pages torn from a Research Notebook
10 Fragrant Drowshoods
5 Ornate Charms
3 Silver Flame Hymnals

Except for the Silver Flames Hymnals, these are all collectables I've had to farm before because I've crafted a bunch of items that use them and I had very few (or none) of each when the crafting pass went live. Silver Flame Hymnals was a new farm to me; I think I had around 30-ish when crafting got updated. But I do loves me some Wisdom items, so now it's joining the usual suspects. (Looks like Romantic Sonnets will also be joining soon.)

IIRC, it took around 45 minutes each to farm the drowshood and ornate charms, maybe 10-15 minutes to farm the pages, and I lucked out and got the hymnals in under 10 minutes. (Seriously, it was like 5 sprints total to that one dispenser in Church and the Cult, tops. Very lucky.)

I haven't done a heroic TR in a year or so, which means I've just been using my years-old stores of low level collectables to this point. I've run a ton of epic dailies, and actually leveled several characters from around 15 into epics, so I've had a steady stream of tier 3, 4 and 5 collectables over the past month or so.

I greatly look forward to the next tr to finally get a surplus of "pages torn" built up. It always feels almost embarrassing farming those since they're common and readily available.

EDIT: I estimate I've crafted almost 100 items so far. Someone in another thread essentially called bull^%& on that claim, so I captured video of me examining 79 different crafted items (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/482542-Suggestion-for-collectables-to-generate-revenue?p=5920343&viewfull=1#post5920343) I've made. Add in a few items I forgot to capture, plus 10 I made and then remade after realizing the gearset didn't support my desired gear swaps, and the total is somewhere in the 90s.

[J-2]

As a new gripe i've just discovered, I was making some level 12 gear only to be short of ingrediants.
The ingrediants I require are Tier 5 and only found in epic level dungeons.
This is an example of extremely poor planning in my opinion.

I am level 12 and by the time I am level 21-25, I will no longer desire level 12 gear.
I refuse to pay the exorbitent price of (3) astral shards per (1) ingrediant on the auction house.

There should be an in-game vendor from which you can purchase ingrediants for platinum.
It would improve the usefullness of cannith crafting while ending the joke that has become the shard exchange.