Crafting an Initial Look - Two Thumbs down - WAYYYYY DOWN!

[Matsu_Ieyasu]

To preface my comments I consider myself slightly more than a casual player but not yet an UBER God that some other posters consider themselves. DDO is not my primary game, but I play a few hours during the week. I have played several games with crafting systems and while I would prefer to not compare DDO new crafting system to other games you really cannot stop but make comparisons.

I spent a few hours on Saturday raiding the auction house and trying out crafting. I spent several ten's of thousand of plat (maybe a couple hundred thousand) on generic stuff.

Deconstruction
Regardless of my level and expertise I only failed at one or two of the item deconstructions that I attempted over the weekend. I found this fairly disappointing, I mean stripping a +5 stat off an item as a level 1 (in all three) was shockingly easy. I assume there was supposed to be a failure and finally I got one (one like a +2 stat) and there may have been one later on as well, but dang was it simple to deconstruct things.
I was never sure however how successful I was, I kept wondering was I supposed to get more Earth Rocks and less Earth Sand.
I dislike the recipes for deconstruction didn't let me know more information on what I was supposed to get or potentially could get.
I don't think I received any crafting XP for Deconstruction, but I am not 100% positive.

Shard
I made a fair number of shards, about 25 in each of the three categories. That however does not include the number of failed attempts.
I found from an experience point factor (crafting) that working or attempting to make something with about a 50% success factor gets you the most XP per buck. So if you are level 7 Arcane making a shard of Spot +3 (with a 50% chance) netted you the most XP.
The recipes don’t seem to be equal, which left me wondering why. I mean a Spot +1 calls for a 1-4-1, spot +3 3-16-4 (why not 3-12-3), spot +5 6-64-9 (?). There are a lot of inconsistencies in the progressions on many recipes.
I don't understand the level requirements for +X enhancement bonus 13, 20, 30, 45, 70. Seems to be all over the board.

Item upgrades
Okay another way to easy process. I didn't fail anything, but everything was at or near level because the amount of time I spent crafting shards in the first place.
I dislike I had to strip everything off an item to craft it in the first place. I have a +4 Shocking Silver Shortsword of Pure Good and I can't upgrade it to a +5 shocking ... without striping everything off and reapplying it.

Things that I wasn't sure about
I ran out of ingrediants but I had intended to try and upgrade from a +1 Enhancement to a +2 Enhancement, in looking at the system it seemed to indicate I need to strip everything off again.
Why everything was bound to character after being crafted.


Opinion
I realize this is a new system and some bugs need to be worked out, however that doesn't change my opinions.
It seems to me the developers looked at all the successful crafting systems, including Lord of the Rings Online, and went we need to do something so entirely different it can't be compared to anything else. Well yeap it is so entirely different peaople are going to be asking why didn't you do ....
I do not like the system. There are too many things that make me go mmm. I mean the Dev's obviousily had a reason to do some of the things but... Why all the wierd progressions? Why so easy to level, why...
I dislike that I can't upgrade exisiting items, +4 to a +5 and so on and so forth.
I do not like the fact that I can controll everything for my own character, basically if I am willing to put in the time I can achieve level 75 in each catagory and one character can outfit the rest of my characters every need. I also dislike the fact I don't lose everything when I TR a character. It is not the fact I like harder but this is so easy, I mean it is beyond easy.
I would have preferred to have a system more like Lord of the Rings Online than what you have presented here.

[WielderofGigantus]

Wait. You can FAIL on an item deconstruction!? I thought that was 100% success since it doesn't give you crafting xp or anything.

[Lyetisha]

I believe the failure was actually attempting to place a named/unusable item in the deconstructor. =)

[Kushiel]

To me it seemed another thing for those who like administrative tasks, spreadsheeting datapoints, and tracking multiple (MULTIPLE!!) types of things through limited inventory spaces that may be (May Be) useful... once one really has a grip on the system. [Or was the designer of the system and already knows what pieces have value, can be combined with which other pieces, and which is the best choice to yeild from utterly destroying something of value that otherwise could have been sold for okay Pp at a vendor - or AH'd with a little risk of getting even better Pp.]

I stepped into the crafting hall with a full pack (I had no empty pack spots) of random stuff to start playing with the system. Fairly quickly discovered that various things I had could not be deconstructed in any fashion... but that there was no vendor near by to unload "junk" on.

[Suggestion: In the Crafting Hall at least make the existing vendors capable of simple junk for cash transactions, or add a general vendor.]

I didn't destroy a great many things (or types of things) before quickly becoming annoyed with the seemingly random accumulation of types (and pitiful quantities) of 'base' materials I was getting. Once I thought maybe I had a goodly spread of things from which to build a *better* something than I'd already had in my packs, I tried... and found that I didn't. This was probably about an hour of running between vendors, stations in the hall, and trying to discern the differences between what the stations did as I dropped items/materials onto them.

Annoying. Cumbersome. Different Flavored Grind. Tedious.

The effort involved in destroying "good" items to end up with a *potentially* "gooder-but-not-Greater" item simply, for me, equates to another aspect of the game/world I'm not going to mess with on Live. ::Sigh:: I had hopes of it being fun; I have (faded, maybe even with some sort of broken nostalgia) memories of being able to accomplish meaningful augmentation by direct and simple means using crafting as what Turbine provided in Asheron's Call.

[MrWizard]

well, the good thing is you do not have to craft if you do not want too.
And you can throw away all your gear when you TR.

I think the crafting seems interesting and I may bite...however, I would never TR if I do not keep anything..there would be no reason to do so in my book

[steelblueskies]

already addressed in multiple places. the dev comment said one won't lose craft exp on tr. i don't trust any note blindly and tr'ed to check it, and my levels in crafting remained. gonna have to make a distinct thread stating this and get someone to sticky it i think.

[Aeolwind]

While you and I dislike it for different reasons. I'm with you, I did like LOTRO's crafting system. It was far too grindy though with material cost escalations, etc however. (Seriously, why escalate qty? 70 steel BARS for a sword?? How many times am I folding this thing, and why am I not getting strength bonuses for it?!)

[MrWizard]

maybe a crafting bag that allows use while things are in the sack could alleviate a room issue for sure....

[steelblueskies]

getting the pull from bag thing working should be a hot item for them, i agree. otherwise as i said elsewhere, this equates to major repetitive stress strain and grief. worse the mats now pop into both ingredient and craft bags, although they tend to be Sticky as to where they choose to go at least.
mixed bound and unbound and the crafting system refusing to use partial stacks of each is an issue as well.

now as to the slightly better item, there are some mods, and more important for a few classes, where those mods can be placed, that would make this capable of changing best in slot. if i can throw a +2 school focus on a ring with any other useful mod for example this opens up options that have been fairly fixed for some time.

the level draining and vampiric effects for weapons seem like they could be powerful, and the absorbs as well.

not to mention potentially being able to put death block, feather fall, or striding in more configurable locations would remove a great deal of nuisance.
it's still a long way from ready or usable in a production(read:live) environment, but given madfloyd's comment, both they and we know that all too well at present. that means the real issue is list what makes it a pain to use, followed by what makes it usable and useful, and let them sort the making it happen to meet their intents bit.

[Rinnaldo]

mixed bound and unbound and the crafting system refusing to use partial stacks of each is an issue as well.

Just discovered this and was quite annoyed. What's the pointing of having both types if you can't "combine" the stacks outside of a bag - using a machine that won't pull from inside the bag? You want to DETER people from buying components from the store? Really?

now as to the slightly better item, there are some mods, and more important for a few classes, where those mods can be placed, that would make this capable of changing best in slot. if i can throw a +2 school focus on a ring with any other useful mod for example this opens up options that have been fairly fixed for some time.

the level draining and vampiric effects for weapons seem like they could be powerful, and the absorbs as well.

not to mention potentially being able to put death block, feather fall, or striding in more configurable locations would remove a great deal of nuisance.

Exactly. I happened to discover a couple of cool effects that I've never seen on items before, or only on specific types of items, and was pleasantly surprised by that. For example, Arcane Dexterity (or something) that I could put on a ring to reduce spell failure from armor. That's awesome! I tested it on my multiclass caster, and it worked great. So, kudos on some of the effects, but certainly not on the means of building the shards.

Which reminds me: As I was perusing the forums about crafting, it occurred to me that if you can yank the +5 off of an item and have it as a raw component to make a shard, why not the paralyzing effect? I get that I can make a billion chaos sparks or whatever, and recombine them into something good at some later date when I have a million of them, but why not this: I get the "essence of paralyzing" or something, maybe even a "depowered shard of paralyzing" and then I can combine it with some (less than a billion, though) chaos sparks to charge it. I use the charged shard to add paralyze to something else, and done. I am a good enough sorcerer to remove the ephemeral "+5" from something and reuse it, but not the "paralyzing" without breaking it into tiny bits? I... don't get it.

[Lyetisha]

~snip~Which reminds me: As I was perusing the forums about crafting, it occurred to me that if you can yank the +5 off of an item and have it as a raw component to make a shard, why not the paralyzing effect? I get that I can make a billion chaos sparks or whatever, and recombine them into something good at some later date when I have a million of them, but why not this: I get the "essence of paralyzing" or something, maybe even a "depowered shard of paralyzing" and then I can combine it with some (less than a billion, though) chaos sparks to charge it. I use the charged shard to add paralyze to something else, and done. I am a good enough sorcerer to remove the ephemeral "+5" from something and reuse it, but not the "paralyzing" without breaking it into tiny bits? I... don't get it.

What you said here is what I was expecting as well. =)