Second Look: U9 Crafting

[Lyetisha]

Fair warning: This is going to be long.

You can find my first look of the new U9 crafting here

There have been some adjustments made to crafting since my First Look post. I'll try to detail them as much as I'm able to do.

There has been a good amount of discussion regarding the viability of crafting, and regarding the current status of the Lamannia DDO Store and materials availability. Not only that but there have been discussions surrounding the difference between guilds and solo players being able to craft. I have read those discussions, and my observations in this thread are wholly independent of them.

Now I present to you Tisha's second review of U9 Crafting.

1) Crafting level.

As has been well documented, there are currently 75 levels in 3 different schools for the new crafting. We have been keeping the Wiki updated with the actual amount of xp needed at each level. You can find that here.

This progression seems fine.

It does not appear that any changes to the XP, or XP increase rate have been made. There have been no specific complaints regarding the xp per crafting level per school.

2) Crafting XP

From my own testing, it appears that if you make shards at the 50% success chance, this is the maximum possible xp to level up. There is an xp decay for each subsequent success. Not only that but there is an xp decay when you level up in a particular school. Each school is independent of each other.

Along with the xp decay, each success increases your base success by 5%. Starting at 50% and successfully making 4 shards will mean that your 5th shard has a 70% base chance of success.

It appears that the per success xp decay has been adjusted a little bit. The level up decay is a strange exponential calculation.

Having both xp decay per success *and* a level up decay is way too harsh for this crafting system. There needs to be one or the other.

3) Crafting Materials - Shard Creation
The following is based on the current Bound shard recipes only.

Each recipe below level 10 takes 4 Lesser Components, and 1-2 Other components. From crafting level 10 and up, each recipe takes Greater materials, Lesser materials and 1-2 Other components. These Other components are either Khyber or Siberys shards and, depending on the recipe, Collectibles.

The progression of Greater materials has been adjusted. I'm thankful that I was one of the voices that helped to influence the Devs to remove Greater materials from crafting recipes below level 10. At one point, level 1-9 recipes were requiring 16 Lesser materials but those have been adjusted down to 4. However...

The progression of Lesser materials is *STILL* off. The amounts of Lesser materials follows this rough progression:
Crafting Level 1-11: 4
Crafting Level 12-22: 16
Crafting Level 23-37: 64
Crafting Level 38-54: 256
Crafting Level 55+: 1024 & 2048.

Crafting level 10 adds Greaters to the recipes so the number of Lessers remains the same.

If you follow the numbers that is x4, x4, x4, x4 and x2. I'll do some math at the end of this post to show the futility.

Lesser materials need balancing badly. There have been individual adjustments to certain recipes throughout all the schools and across many of the levels. Kudos to the Devs for making those changes.

4) Crafting Materials - Item Deconstruction

As it stands now, when you "crunch" an item the amount and type of materials you receive are based on the prefix or suffix you are removing, and the school which that effect belongs. There is an increase based on the "effect level" of the prefix or suffix, and while we seem to have narrowed down the actual dice used to determine the essence generation the yield is still too low. You can view the proposed dice here.

At a minimum, the deconstruction of an item should yield the exact number of materials needed to make an equivalent shard.

5) Crafting Materials - Combining/Splitting

They have added a Transmutation option for Greater Essences. You are able to split a Greater into 5 Lessers of the same type. You are, also, able to transmute 2 Greater Essences into 1 Greater Essence of another type within the same school.

With the current materials needed for each recipe, Greater Essences should be allowed to be split into 10 Lesser materials.

6) Crafting Materials - Crafting Failures

As you craft, and especially as you try to level up, you are going to push your xp gain to the highest levels possible. This will mean crafting shards at the minimum success percentage which is 50%. When you fail, and you will fail, you lose a portion of the crafting materials you were using. The amount you lose scales downward the closer to 100% you get. The beginning amount is 50% of the cost of your current recipe you are attempting. So if you're attempting a 6/64/9 at 50% success and you fail, you are going to lose 3/32/4.

The failure loss is way too high. No other crafting in DDO asks you to lose your materials. Either the crafting fails because of a wrong ingredient, or you craft the wrong item (talking Green Steel here). If there needs to be an absolute risk involved, the failure loss should be a much lower percentage or a straight cost in materials: either 10% of the cost of the recipe, or the cost of a Crafting level 20 recipe (3/16/4)

As I've mentioned above, there are still some adjustments to the overall crafting experience to make it 100% viable.

The two main areas, that I feel need the adjustment are: Item Deconstruction, and the sheer number of Lesser Materials needed for crafting. Crafting XP needs to be adjusted as well.

Allow me to explain. To make certain Effect Level 4 shards, it takes 256 Lesser essences. When you deconstruct an Effect Level 4 item you will receive between 9 - 20 Lesser Essences. At the low end, it would take you crunching 30 items and at the high end it would take you crunching 13 items. Let's just say that it's right in the middle at 22.

There are other Effect Level 4 shards that require 1024 Lesser essences. At the low end, it would take you crunching 114 items and at the high end, it would take you crunching 52. Let's just say it's right in the middle at 83.

Item Deconstruction definitely needs a buff. The amount per Effect level should be at least double what it currently yields.

Lesser essences needed for crafting still needs to be adjusted. I absolutely believe and agree that as the Crafting Level increases so should the number of resources consumed. I disagree with an exponential increase. Not only that but 2048!! Two THOUSAND! is absolutely insane and those are for +5 Attribute shards. Yes, +5 not +6. I shudder to think how expensive a +6 Attribute shard is going to cost in materials.

Crafting XP per crafting success feels okay. What needs to be adjusted still is the XP decay. I can understand a per success xp decay. I can understand a level up xp decay. What I find difficult to wrap my mind around is both.

I give my hats off to the Developers for the sheer volume of work that has gone into creating this crafting system. The ability to refine and create items for every single character slot is a giant step. Now we just need to aim where the toes are placed when the foot lands. =D

[Beldain]

Also keep in mind, there are 4096 essence recipe(s) - I know Greater Twilight was set at that amount, cant remember if there were others right offhand

[Lyetisha]

Also keep in mind, there are 4096 essence recipe(s) - I know Greater Twilight was set at that amount, cant remember if there were others right offhand

You may want to go double check that. I was just on Lamannia about an hour ago and 2048 is the greatest amount of Lessers I saw. I'll go double check myself right now to verify your information =D

~edit~
Level 48 Arcane 28/4098/49

That's just ridiculous. =)

[Marten]

Lesser essences needed for crafting still needs to be adjusted. I absolutely believe and agree that as the Crafting Level increases so should the number of resources consumed. I disagree with an exponential increase. Not only that but 2048!! Two THOUSAND! is absolutely insane and those are for +5 Attribute shards. Yes, +5 not +6. I shudder to think how expensive a +6 Attribute shard is going to cost in materials.

I would currently point out that there has been no word saying that all shards that can be place on craftable items will be craftable. The ones that are missing may be missing for a reason, that being that they are quest rewards. I feel this will be the case but I hope not.

What I see for the future is something along the lines of this: Rare craftable loot item (lets say a weapon and since I play a monk, lets say these are handwraps)Wrap of the Shintao Masters: Craftable, ML minus 10, has one + slot, two Prefix slots, and two Suffix slot.

I also see the chance for a form of Life Stealing (once fixed) and other shards to be added not only as the level cap is increased from 75 but as 20th completion rewards and end quest rewards.

Back to my point, we currently can't be sure that just because it is in the crafting table means that that shard is something we will be able to make.

PS: +1 for your hard work and sharing it.

[Wurmwood]

I agree with part 2. One or the other is fine but the way it is now will almost guarantee a public backlash if it hits live. BTW thank you for taking the time to do this. I have seen you on a lot when I jump on to craft.
BTW I have extra collectibles if you need them. I have been running all the lowbie quests gathering them up.

As for the amount of crafting materials you get from deconstruction. Call me crazy but if it stays the way it is now, I bet you 5 dollars that there will be a "Crafting Deconstruction Bonus" potion for sale in the TP store that raises the amount of materials you get from deconstruction by 25%-35% for only 200 TP! (Best guess) This is a business they are running. Again, thanks for the time, It is appreciated.

[Beldain]

You may want to go double check that. I was just on Lamannia about an hour ago and 2048 is the greatest amount of Lessers I saw. I'll go double check myself right now to verify your information =D

~edit~
Level 48 Arcane 28/4098/49

That's just ridiculous. =)

=) as I said, thats the only one I remember specifically being that high, there may be a couple others hidden that I didn't notice... trying to stick to 256 or less components as I grind, at.. ummmm 63/47/43 now I think. =)

[Lyetisha]

BTW I have extra collectibles if you need them. I have been running all the lowbie quests gathering them up.

Absolutely!! I stopped gathering collectibles out of quests because of the crappy rewards. I guess I'll need to change my viewpoint on that, and the crappy rewards remark is my own personal opinion. =)

[Beldain]

Btw, that 4096 Greater Twilight shard can only go on actual armor - no shields, no docents... is -20% ASF tho. =) discussed in another thread after I spent 2k TP to make it yesterday

[Primalhowl]

Excellent review, both this and your previous analysis. I do have one point of disagreement...

At a minimum, the deconstruction of an item should yield the exact number of materials needed to make an equivalent shard.

No process is 100% efficient. It makes sense that you should receive less components back than it would take to make the effect in the first place. I also feel that the amount you get back should both be random *and* affected by the skill of the crafter.

[Lyetisha]

I'm meaning Effect Level, not Crafting Level. I was able to make Effect level 3 shards with 6/64/9 and 3/16/4, and Effect Level 4 shards with 6/64/9 and 10/256/16.

If the Devs choose the low end for Effect Level, that would greatly expand the ability for the system to work.

[simsiim]

wish my lil one that was born and being raised in Lama could get 2-20 lessors, but then I remembered he's still young and those drops he's getting are lucky to be ML4, most of the time less. I had thought I took a SS when he got a 64 lesser, 4 greater from a item he picked up from a quest, that was unexpected.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I would currently point out that there has been no word saying that all shards that can be place on craftable items will be craftable. The ones that are missing may be missing for a reason, that being that they are quest rewards. I feel this will be the case but I hope not.

Makes sense. but I thought most of the really nice rewards had more then just 1 Suffix/Prefix. But as you later mentioned from where I copied your quote from it could be later crafting will be upgraded to be able to craft in 2 Suffix's/Prefix's and the Slot.

But the one missing one which I did not expect to been missing was Heavy Fort, Since it's not in the Shard crafting device Unless the only place that Heavy Fort can be used in crafting is in Smuggler's rest

=-=-=-=-=-

I know now I have a third look now into the crafting with my Baby Casual Crafter, Specially now that they fixed the "Cannot Craft Shards below 50%" , it has changed his progression a lot. He's crafting without Boosters, or TP, and just from the loot he gets from Quest, the other night I had enough essences to up a couple more levels, with the now corrected what % you can craft it did Slow him down.

So during your Second look, did you ever crafted anything Below 50% ?
I am finding that did change my progression I had anticipated, but that's my fault for forgetting it's only supposed to be 50% +

When I get back in the game I'll get Xaat to +1 Ya

Oh and Marten, where have I heard that before "Known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns"

[Lyetisha]

So during your Second look, did you ever crafted anything Below 50% ?

Even when the crafting device was bugged, I wasn't touching any recipe below 50%. Though I did think that perhaps the point of the boosters was to get me above 50%.

So in a way yes but in a way no. Yes because they were below 50% but I boosted them above 50%.

Which reminds me that there is a portion of the review that I left off.

[Alabore]

The crafting system has a lot of potential, but it felt a bit cumbersome at times.

I would further streamline deconstruction.
Let players disjoint all parts of a given item, enchantment, prefix, suffix and base blank, and get ALL of them back.
Just chuck your random trash into the disjointing machine, pay some plat, and get your essences and blank back.
Current essence yield is low enough; being able to get essences from ALL parts would make levelling a bit easier, without wasting time wondering which part you'd like to deconstruct and sacrificing inventory space to disjointing materials.

Maybe modify the disjointing machine so you can buy back items just like a regular vendor.
Keeping it practical and easy should be the keyword here.
You can balance things out by delaying some effects or requiring rarer collectables, so crafting does not make questing and trading completely trivial.

The thing that makes me come back for more DDO is the ease of completing some quick contents in the time it takes me to go from place A to B in LoTRO.
Crafting should be easy to learn - and maybe difficult to master.
As it is, you're basically forced to devote one character, and a good chunk of its inventory, to it.
Not sure it was the whole point of the new crafting system.

[Seikojin]

I really agree with your points on the limitations in the crafting system. Good analysis of it.

[InSoNiAc]

Excellent analysis and suggestions.

I particularly agree with:

Having both xp decay per success *and* a level up decay is way too harsh for this crafting system. There needs to be one or the other.

and

Item Deconstruction definitely needs a buff. The amount per Effect level should be at least double what it currently yields.

[Lyetisha]

Thanks guys! I did the best I could with the tools I had available =)

[Seikojin]

Thanks guys! I did the best I could with the tools I had available =)

I would suggest that you copy your initial post and put it in the crafting feedback thread that was put as a sticky.

[brian14]

As has been well documented, there are currently 75 levels in 3 different schools for the new crafting. We have been keeping the Wiki updated with the actual amount of xp needed at each level. You can find that here.

Quote from "here"

Any prefix, suffix, enhancement bonus, and race restriction will be stripped away, but Metal properties, guild augment slots, previous eldrich rituals, and permanent damage will remain.

What about Risia rituals?

[Seikojin]

Quote from "here"

What about Risia rituals?

Any risia addons are treated like additional enhancements. If you disjoin, you lose them. Or you can break them off for their essence values.

[Alabore]

What about Risia rituals?

Depends on the Risia ritual.
Older rituals effectively add one elemental source to essences an item can potentially yield.
Newer rituals are simply ignored by the disjoint-machine.