Crafting Flaws - Item Crunching...

[WangChi]

First off, let me say that I really appreciate the Dev's work on the crafting system, has tons of potential and the crafting hall looks pretty cool and is in a great location. I'm not worried about leveling speed, or crafting experience gains or BtC or BtA, as I think all of those issues will get worked out and be fine in the long run, however, I see some flaws (my own perspective) that I think could be fixed to really enhance the player experience.

Now, for my suggestions to improve what I consider to be the core flaws in the system:

To much running around to crunch essences
To many clicks

Problems: Running around and clicks - I've got 3 bags of loot saved up, ready to crunch. So, first I run to the cruncher and painstakingly put each item in the box to see what kind of solvent I need to get the most essence off it, keeping a tally of how many green and yellow solvents I need. Then I count up all the items I want to strip the enhancement + from and tally those. Then I run to the vendor and buy all the deconstruction solvents. Then I run back to the cruncher and painstakingly put each item in, one at a time, crunch, wait for animation to end, crunch, wait for animation to end, rinse, repeat, etc.

Solutions: Replace the "deconstruct" button with 4 buttons "Strip Enhancement", "Strip Prefix", "Strip Suffix", "Create Blank". Allow the player to pull all the items he wants into the machine and press one of the buttons. This still requires the player to understand and control his own crafting decisions, but doesn't require him to have to put each item in individually. Have the machine act as a coin-operated machine that takes the appropriate plat for the number of items entered. Pull lever - get essence from all crunched items for prefixes/suffixes/enhancements or get blanks.

Done - no more running around, no more carpal tunnel from extraneous clickfest that is the cruncher.

Please Dev's, I'm begging you, as someone who really wants to buy into this system and enjoy it, make it more user friendly so that I can. It has a ton of potential and I want to be a part of it. But I keep finding myself running to the vendor to sell everything in one click rather than crunch everything in 50 clicks.

Thanks.

[DeathsApprentice]

Problems: Running around and clicks - I've got 3 bags of loot saved up, ready to crunch. So, first I run to the cruncher and painstakingly put each item in the box to see what kind of solvent I need to get the most essence off it, keeping a tally of how many green and yellow solvents I need. Then I count up all the items I want to strip the enhancement + from and tally those. Then I run to the vendor and buy all the deconstruction solvents.

Why do you count the number of solvents? I just bought a stack of each kind (they are really cheap) and used the one that gave most benefit.
If you would skip the counting, that would save you a lot of time.

[Teech]

Problems: Running around and clicks - I've got 3 bags of loot saved up, ready to crunch. So, first I run to the cruncher and painstakingly put each item in the box to see what kind of solvent I need to get the most essence off it, keeping a tally of how many green and yellow solvents I need. Then I count up all the items I want to strip the enhancement + from and tally those. Then I run to the vendor and buy all the deconstruction solvents. Then I run back to the cruncher and painstakingly put each item in, one at a time, crunch, wait for animation to end, crunch, wait for animation to end, rinse, repeat, etc.

Go to vendor, buy 100 stack of everything. These go into your ingredient bag. When you want to craft, remove the four stack so they're in your inventory (not in bag).

Now when you put the item in to deconstruct, you just need to pick which essence you want to strip and the machine will automatically use the appropriate vendor stack for you. Except for the one which makes crafting blanks. You still have to drag those. (Bug I assume).

Solutions: Replace the "deconstruct" button with 4 buttons "Strip Enhancement", "Strip Prefix", "Strip Suffix", "Create Blank". Allow the player to pull all the items he wants into the machine and press one of the buttons. This still requires the player to understand and control his own crafting decisions, but doesn't require him to have to put each item in individually. Have the machine act as a coin-operated machine that takes the appropriate plat for the number of items entered. Pull lever - get essence from all crunched items for prefixes/suffixes/enhancements or get blanks.

Personally, I don't enjoy your solution as I don't go around memorising which items will be deconstructed for prefix / suffix. I just put them in and decide on the spot.

[somenewnoob]

Yep, I just bought a bunch of stacks of each.

BUT, it would still be better if it just took the plat when you deconstruct instead of the extra step. Just makes it feel more like a grind having to buy and carry all the extra stuff, take it out of the bag, put it back in the bag.

[TheDearLeader]

Why do you count the number of solvents? I just bought a stack of each kind (they are really cheap) and used the one that gave most benefit.
If you would skip the counting, that would save you a lot of time.

I agree with the above statement. They're super super cheap - just buy 500 of each, and pull a 100 stack out of the ingredients bag each time.

That said, I also agree that current implementation is sloooooow. It is the new barter UI, but since there is a pause after each click at each station, it's just as slow as the Stone of Change.

[Diyon]

Why do you count the number of solvents? I just bought a stack of each kind (they are really cheap) and used the one that gave most benefit.
If you would skip the counting, that would save you a lot of time.

Ya they are really cheap. But that aside, I agree with the OP that the crunching is incredibly time consuming and boring and lots of clicking. I can deal with the rest of it, but don't make me sit there at the stupid device for an hour making blanks and breaking stuff.

[Diyon]

Except for the one which makes crafting blanks. You still have to drag those. (Bug I assume).

I have not had this issue.

[NUDS]

A trick that requires more clicking but gives faster de-constructing rates is to:

1. Click on machine
2. Drag item into tiny box
3. De-construct
4. Hit esc to close barter UI
5. Back to 1.

Repeat until RSI occurs :P

Also, a nice feature would be to a have a button that Unloads all items in a bag i.e opposite of the current Gather button. It is such a PITA to click and drag 30 items individually from the bag to the inventory.

[NinjaNeed]

Why not just instantly give everyone level 50 (or max level when it is raised) crafting? Would save so much hassle. I mean, I dont want to have to go to House K unless I am using the guild vendors (can we not just move them to the guild ship?). While in House K I dont want to have to buy stuff and loose valuable loot just to make components. Just give us all max level crafting in each school and a 500 stack of each ingredient which self replicates when used.



/sarcasm off

[porq]

I can get behind that, the need to buy potions in the first place is totally extraneous. They should have designed it with K.I.S.S. in mind. Adding 4 buttons to the deconstruction machine is much simpler solution. Less clutter in our bags, less hassle.

/signed


Would like to add a comment / suggestion about the crafting myself. I would really like to see a use for all of the shards we used 'for practice' while leveling. If DDO allowed trashed items to be dropped on the floor, the crafting hall's floor would be coated in low level junk shards right now. Either a solution like being able to deconstruct the shard itself without having to make an item out of it, or some sort of mechanism for combining shards to higher level ones, some solution like that would be greatly appreciated.


To OP, I would suggest you just buy a stack of each green and yellow potion and save yourself the headache of tallying everything you have. The leftovers can sit in your bag to be used up on the next round or two of loot deconstruction, and if you're in need of space while adventuring for other loot you can trash them without remorse due to how ridiculously cheap they are to replace

[NUDS]

-snip

Looks like someone loves clicking and dragging 500 items all day :P

This isn't Dungeons and De-constructing you know..

[Diyon]

Why not just instantly give everyone level 50 (or max level when it is raised) crafting? Would save so much hassle. I mean, I dont want to have to go to House K unless I am using the guild vendors (can we not just move them to the guild ship?). While in House K I dont want to have to buy stuff and loose valuable loot just to make components. Just give us all max level crafting in each school and a 500 stack of each ingredient which self replicates when used.



/sarcasm off

I think you missed the part where the OP said they didn't care how much it takes to lvl and the number of ingredients required. They just don't want to sit there clicking forever to use the stuff they already have. That's not giving anything they haven't earned already its just making the actual crunching process not take forever to accomplish.

[porq]

Also, a nice feature would be to a have a button that Unloads all items in a bag i.e opposite of the current Gather button. It is such a PITA to click and drag 30 items individually from the bag to the inventory.

Not really a solution and don't know if you know about it or not, but there are a couple arrows in the bag UI pane, that you can use to spit selected items out of the bag without having to manually drag and drop into each inventory slot. Less mouse movement if anything.

[NUDS]

Not really a solution and don't know if you know about it or not, but there are a couple arrows in the bag UI pane, that you can use to spit selected items out of the bag without having to manually drag and drop into each inventory slot. Less mouse movement if anything.

Yeah I use that, still it's a PITA when transferring essences and collectables from one toon to another. Even with the shared bank and multi-boxing, since most interactions involve clicking and dragging in one form or another.

[somenewnoob]

I think if USING the useless shards to make items gave more xp it wouldn't be so bad. As it is you have to strip a blank and apply the shard for next to nothing xp wise. I've got a couple hundred K plat, by no means rich, and to spend 25 plat for 5 xp is just a little too much.

[tihocan]

A simple solution to spend less time in the crafting hall is to deconstruct less items
Initially I started to deconstruct each and every item, then using the "club trick" to deconstruct my crafted shards to recycle components... and I got fed up with it pretty quickly.
So now, I just run to the guild general vendor every now and then, look into my buyback window for items that are worth deconstructing (at my current level, those giving at least L3 amounts), then go deconstruct them.
Once I have a big enough stack of some lesser essences, I go through them to make shards, and destroy the shards asap.
Sure, I'm not leveling super fast, but so far progress has been steady enough and didn't feel like a grind.