Feedback - Unbound Crafting

[Thoon]

Unbound Item and Shard crafting is open on Lamannia! Please take some time to review the new devices in the Crafting Hall and share your feedback here.

[Junts]

Hey Thoon, I was just looking through the lists. Here are my thoughts:

Using unbound crafting to level in the 40s and 50s and 60s will be dramatically cheaper than it presently is now. I don't know if this is intentional but the disparity is very large between the two.

I think +35 levels is a little excessive and the resulting unbound crafting options are unfortunately pretty poor. I was hoping to sell +3 holy/regular bane itemry (my crafting levels are in the 60s+ so i can make anything I wish in either altar) unbound, but both the unbound shard of potential +8 and all the regular bane shards are unavailable. This is unfortunate because the cost (especially if also using the unbound altar) of leveling up into the 30s to be able to make better items than that is very low. It would have been nice to see holy of regular bane sneak into the makable list. As another aside, I think that means that holy of greater bane won't be a makable unbound option even when the crafting level cap moves up to 100. That's probably intentional, but the cost of leveling up to be able to make those is probably only 1/3 to 1/4 of what it is on live right now with the use of the unbound altar. The drastic scaling in costs from level to level significantly outpaces the 3x cost effect of the unbound altar shards.

I do think its probably a bit too expensive on live right now to advance into the 60s crafting levels, but I suspect that the unbound altar costs are too far in the other direction. I would find a progression curve in between them and standardize it between the two, basing the progression on crafting level required to make the shards instead of their cost at the other altar. Leveling in the 30s with recipes that cost 12 lessers and 0 greaters (when the competition all cost 32 lesser/6 greater) or in the 60s with 36 lesser/3 greater recipes when the competition costs 15 greaters and 192 lessers is just kind of silly. One is too expensive, but the other is too cheap.

[tihocan]

Going to reply based on what I read (at work now, can't check it "live"):

1. If I understand correctly and the unbound recipe levels are twice that of bound recipes, then it'd mean we can only craft as unbound the recipes we currently have in the L1->50 range. I like it, because I was afraid unbound crafting may let people flood the market with the best crafted stuff... good to know it will be limited

2. I agree with Junts that such a discrepancy in costs of bound vs. unbound for similar level recipes looks bad... maybe this could be fixed by adjusting XP gains accordingly? (unbound recipes would give less XP, in a way that's roughly proportional to the reduction in cost)

[Junts]

Going to reply based on what I read (at work now, can't check it "live"):

1. If I understand correctly and the unbound recipe levels are twice that of bound recipes, then it'd mean we can only craft as unbound the recipes we currently have in the L1->50 range. I like it, because I was afraid unbound crafting may let people flood the market with the best crafted stuff... good to know it will be limited

2. I agree with Junts that such a discrepancy in costs of bound vs. unbound for similar level recipes looks bad... maybe this could be fixed by adjusting XP gains accordingly? (unbound recipes would give less XP, in a way that's roughly proportional to the reduction in cost)

It isn't even sub-50. Its pretty much sub-40. The level 41 shard of lawful outsiderbane is not available in the unbound altar. Not a single regular bane effect is. Holy (lv 37 shard bound) is barely available.

The +8 shard of potential is lv 40 baseline and it can't be made unbound.

I agree with Tihocan that yo ucould scale down the exp for bound shards. Better yet..

Cause crafting EXP to scale not only with your level and with recipe difficulty, but with what effect-level (1-5) the recipe is. Right now leveling crafting is an annoying exercise in identifying the cheapest recipe in your range and using it and trying to avoid most of the others which cost a lot more than that one cheap recipe. How about instead we standardize exp per cost, so the more expensive recipes are worth more and you simply level up with the resources you have instead of trying to deduce which has the best rate of return?

Doing this would probably involve lowering exp for those 'cheaper' recipes among much more expensive ones (look at elemental, levels 70-74, and tell me if you see the two you should level up on) while increasing the exp for the standard, more expensive ones (while looking at lv 70-74 elemental shards, tell me why you'd ever make that lv 73, 15 greater/192 lesser recipe).

[DustTheWind]

I disagree that unbound crafting is a problem for flooding the market. What is happening is all the items that would have been sold on the market that are nice are instead being converted to ingredients and are taking away from the market on AH. At the very least what needs to be done is offer crafters an actual profession. The ability to after having deconstructed all those items to craft what would have been sold on the market to compensate for the lack there of.

I take it eventually this will be done hopefully.

[Jahmin]

Regular banes not being available unbound at current cap is another development failure. What really are you expecting us to sell? Better yet, who do you think is going to buy the other shards that are available?

Sure there are a few that are decent (Holy, etc) and just barely available, but much of what is even maybe marginally useful now is unavailable unbound: Resists? 20 point Improved Resists bound is pretty bad, but unbound 10 point resists? Spell enhancement clickys? Nope, not really available either.

Worse yet is the implication that some shards will simply NEVER be unbound since they are currently unavailable at level 75 (to wit, Greater Evil Outsider Bane).

Fine, I can accept that perhaps I am missing some bigger picture, one that sadly is no doubt ‘super-secret’ & ‘vastly mysterious’ but frankly this strikes me as utterly underwhelming and if this is the indication of things to come makes me thankful that I have not wasted my valuable time on the live crafting. That strikes me as sad

[Zenako]

I suspect they are trying to serve many goals at once.

1) provide a route for hard core players to make what ever they want (up to a point)
2) provide another route for players to make useful items that they might otherwise be missing.
3) provide a way for novice players to see that they could get something that is just what they want instead of waiting for a lucky AH bid or chest pull.

Some of the low level stuff can be reasonably useful, especially when you are not overburdened with mules full of twinkage. Long time players clearly have those mules and as such, see little to no benefit in making those items, they already have good or better sitting around. (Like I have armor mules with pretty much excellent new armor for any given level of character and with variations of plain, adamantine or mithril to suit my needs.) New players do not.

So while trying to be something to all players, that also means that some factions end up being left feeling shortchanged a bit on the potential of the system.

I am sure everyone would love to be banging out nice new +5 Holy Burst Greater Banes of their preferred weapon type right now, but being able to do that would not be a good thing for the overall game. Quest and Raid loot should still have an edge, but you should also be able to fill in gaps in your gear with suitable crafted gear UNTIL you manage to get lucky and get better stuff.

[NeutronStar]

I don't think the BEST stuff should be unbound. Examples of the BEST stuff would be Greater Banes, Holy Burst, Greater Elemental Resists, +5 (and maybe +4) Resistance bonuses, +5 (and maybe +4) Natural Armor bonuses, +6 to a stat, +5 Deflection bonuses, etc.

Holy, regular Banes, 20 point elemental resists, etc. should all be allowed to be unbound.

[Seikojin]

I like unbound crafting in terms of cost and reward right now.

As far as recipies, don't worry about that. They can add or remove recipies just as easilly as they can turn on and off the system. I am sure the top end effects will stay out of crafting until the mechanics of the system are figured out, laid out, and ironed out.

[tihocan]

It isn't even sub-50. Its pretty much sub-40. The level 41 shard of lawful outsiderbane is not available in the unbound altar. Not a single regular bane effect is. Holy (lv 37 shard bound) is barely available.

Ah, that may be a bit too harsh then, given that leveling to L40 (in order to craft your own gear using L1-50 bound recipes) doesn't take that much time.

Another way to balance unbound crafting would be to offer more recipes, but increase costs *a lot*, so that one wouldn't be able to craft many great items / weapons in a short amount of time. It's probably harder to balance though than just making sure some effects are not available...

Note that although "holy of regular bane" is not the best, it's enough to be on par with Mineral II's, so it's still quite powerful.

[Cyr]

If it makes the crafting grind go by much faster good. Not going to pretend that an out of quest grind mechanic is ever going to be appreciated by me.

[pasterqb]

Well looking at what shards can be crafted that are unbound.. i wouldn't really call this unbound crafting.

Holy - Kinda cool but tier 1 green steel effect, and fairly common random loot item
Skills +7 - If i was level 7 ok i guess but very common for high crafting level
Stat +3 - Decent for level 5s
Resist 10s - useful if you dont have a ship or before level 6 when resist 20 potions are available
Elemental 1d6 - Not bad for a level 2 or maybe 4
etc etc

Looking at it i honestly cant say unbound crafting is even useful to any toon over level 7. And assuming that the crafting level might be capped at 100(?) i doubt it is even useful to anyone over level 11 or so.

Concerns would be why increase the cost AND raise the level to craft so dramatically. I would think players can handle say a 10-20 level increase on shards is acceptable assuming the essences stay the same or cost is double but level stays the same. Or even better let the player choose. If i remember there was a thread specifically saying something along the lines of dont doubledip nerf or double nerfs are bad or something that i think fits this.

Sincerely,
Thoroughly Disappointed

[Farzinz]

It is nice to see unbound crafting.

My Recommendations:
- Keep unbound shards the same level as their counterpart. At triple cost, they will not be used for xp farming and thus not flood the AH. The cost to make a decent item is already high enough that the AH price would need to be ridiculous to recover your costs. Increasing the level only hurts players that are not doing the crafting grind (usually newer players), do not force unto them the horrible pain of crafting grind.

- Increase the xp earned on higher level shards as currently the curve is way too steep at higher crafting levels. The current crafting system is simply not usable for your first character. The crafting grind is much longer than the ingredients you get by running quests. Since you cannot get ingredients without running quests, your first character can not make items useful for their level. Unbound crafting gives them a way to trade for what they want. With the above two systems a group of six friends new to the game, can dedicate their pool of ingredients to 1 character and have that character make items for the team.

[Crazyfruit]

My comments are only based on a quick look at the machines.
Are there any minimum level differences between bound & unbound crafting?

Likes:
- Increased cost for unbound shards.
- Greaters/lessers having a larger difference in the recipes.
- Looks like all shards may eventually be available unbound (45 pages of recipes in the last machine).
- Higher crafting levels required. On the other hand, with their steeper prices the same levels could work well.

Oddities:
- Holy shard is incredibly low priced for how often it'd be used.
- Many (most?) of the recipes would just be made for "easy leveling". Whether that's bad or good is up to you.
- Doesn't appear like a system that would support a crafting economy at all. As it is, you could just have a crafting bot/mule on the server who people mail stuff to then get a shard back.

A cost to the crafter would make an economy happen (as well as the higher level recipes, I'm assuming those are coming ). Small, but enough to discourage mass producing them without thinking about it & the easy leveling feeling a bit more expensive. And no extra cost for the weaker weirder stuff people might not use regularly, like Stench. A few examples of what I'm thinkin:

- BTA material that drops very often in any quest rewards. Uncommon in chests, but often seen in groups. Crafters would have to play to make unbound items & be given these by their party in chests. Just one per non-potential shard would do. I guessed those "mystic urn" materials would be used for unbound shards.

- Enhancement spirits. Some needing a +1, others a few +5s... etc. My crafter deconstructs these for the experience & there isn't much use for them.

- Combined dragonshard fragments used in recipes. Very popular (holy, outsider banes etc) could require more or a higher level dragonshard.

The last two probably aren't good ideas because they'd keep the "send stuff to a crafting character" feel going, /shrug.

edit: Hmm, maybe a timer on being able to repeat an unbound recipe, and a bit longer for the popular ones?

[dkyle]

Why is that every time we're asked for feedback, so many people act like the level cap will never increase, and complain about how terrible the system is because it's "missing" so many things? We've been told that crafting will go up to 150. That's plenty of room for unbound Vorpals, even.

That said, the cap really ought to be raised to 100 for U10, I think. The 75 cap makes unbound crafting look bad.

I haven't tried it out, but +30 or so CL and triple Greaters sounds perfectly reasonable to me. If anything, it sounds like unbound crafting might be too easy. I was certain that we'd get unbound Shards, but not unbound Items. Bound on equip items at most, but not unbound.

[Junts]

Ah, that may be a bit too harsh then, given that leveling to L40 (in order to craft your own gear using L1-50 bound recipes) doesn't take that much time.

Another way to balance unbound crafting would be to offer more recipes, but increase costs *a lot*, so that one wouldn't be able to craft many great items / weapons in a short amount of time. It's probably harder to balance though than just making sure some effects are not available...

Note that although "holy of regular bane" is not the best, it's enough to be on par with Mineral II's, so it's still quite powerful.

And its easier now that you can go to the unbound altar and rehash the lowest level recipes 20+ levels higher for only moderately increased cost.

At the same level you would ordinarily be making 6greater/32 lesser recipes or the like, you cna go to the unbound altar and create the unbound version of the level 10 junk - the 4 lesser recipes that instead cost 12 lessers and no greaters.

Leveling to 35 to maek yousrelf those holy of reg bane items costs virtually nothing on Lamannia.

[redspecter23]

My comments are only based on a quick look at the machines.
Are there any minimum level differences between bound & unbound crafting?

Likes:
- Increased cost for unbound shards.
- Greaters/lessers having a larger difference in the recipes.
- Looks like all shards may eventually be available unbound (45 pages of recipes in the last machine).
- Higher crafting levels required. On the other hand, with their steeper prices the same levels could work well.

Oddities:
- Holy shard is incredibly low priced for how often it'd be used.
- Many (most?) of the recipes would just be made for "easy leveling". Whether that's bad or good is up to you.
- Doesn't appear like a system that would support a crafting economy at all. As it is, you could just have a crafting bot/mule on the server who people mail stuff to then get a shard back.

A cost to the crafter would make an economy happen (as well as the higher level recipes, I'm assuming those are coming ). Small, but enough to discourage mass producing them without thinking about it & the easy leveling feeling a bit more expensive. And no extra cost for the weaker weirder stuff people might not use regularly, like Stench. A few examples of what I'm thinkin:

- BTA material that drops very often in any quest rewards. Uncommon in chests, but often seen in groups. Crafters would have to play to make unbound items & be given these by their party in chests. Just one per non-potential shard would do. I guessed those "mystic urn" materials would be used for unbound shards.

- Enhancement spirits. Some needing a +1, others a few +5s... etc. My crafter deconstructs these for the experience & there isn't much use for them.

- Combined dragonshard fragments used in recipes. Very popular (holy, outsider banes etc) could require more or a higher level dragonshard.

The last two probably aren't good ideas because they'd keep the "send stuff to a crafting character" feel going, /shrug.

edit: Hmm, maybe a timer on being able to repeat an unbound recipe, and a bit longer for the popular ones?

I honestly thought there would be an additional BtA item that would be required in order to craft unbound shards as well. I really thought that's where they were going with the Mystic Urn, etc. There is no real "cost" to the crafter other than materials used, which could be provided by the buyer anyway. Forcing the crafter to do "something" extra in order to craft an unbound shard would add some sort of economy to the system where it appears there isn't really one right now. Farming each vale quest once for a bound item to craft each greensteel item keeps the blanks from being essentially completely unbound. The greensteel crafter has to do some work on their end in order to make the blank. Something similar really should be added to standard crafting I think.

[Merrill_Greeneshade]

Pretty sure that based on the level increases for unbound, the +1, +2, and +3 enhancement shards should be craftable, but none show up. That means no base damage for weapons right, which may have been an oversight? I may have missed them, but I couldn't get them to show up in the unbound shard device.

[TPICKRELL]

- Enhancement spirits. Some needing a +1, others a few +5s... etc. My crafter deconstructs these for the experience & there isn't much use for them.

Not sure if everyone noticed, but.... I've started using my excess enhancement spirits to make the low level shards of potential. I had 75 +5 spirits and used 50 of them to craft 2X+6 Shards of Potential.

[Merrill_Greeneshade]

So the unbound system in its current state only allows us to craft twink gear for other people. Ok, I'm semi ok with that. I can see the downside to allowing me to do for others what I could do on my own account in terms of flooding the market with high end gear.

Here is the bigger problem (correct me if I'm wrong here)...

It probably takes about an hour or two to level up to 30 in all schools assuming you have the resources. Even a brand new player could probably get there relatively easily over the course of a week or with the help of a higher level friend. So unless you are supremely lazy or have a major major distaste for clicking the crafting buttons, where is the market for unbound shards going to be when anyone can and should craft their own account mule and just make the same stuff for themselves for half the mats?

Again if I'm not seeing the whole picture here let me know, but if I'm right, I think the unbound thing needs to be reassessed big time.