Feedback - Crafting - Update 10, Patch 1

[Cyr]

Conversation in the an unnamed developers office about one month ago transcripted for your viewing pleasure...

Dev 1: Okay that brings us to the attack bonus shards.
Dev 2: Oh yeah. I heard a player in the tangleroot pug I was in the other day say how cool those were. We really should make those cost a lot more.
Dev 1: Tangleroot. Is that the one that people keep on making me confused by using the abbreviation TR in the LFM and I think they are running a true reincarnation only group and I send them a nasty tell about how mean that is to not allow new players into their group?
Dev 2: I don't know. What's a TR? Just got to level seven myself.
Dev 1: Oh yeah forgot you are one of the new devs.
Dev 2: Okay back to that shard.
Dev 1: Yeah, attack bonus. Let me see if there are any items that have that on it normally would be a nice theme to require that.
Devs find loot dev and pull them into conversation...
loot dev: Okay, attack bonus...spectral gloves and epic spectral gloves have that on it.
Dev 1: Those any good?
loot dev: Uh yeah...
Dev 2: Okay any have higher then a +4?
loot dev: Epic spectrals have a +4. Normal ones a +2.
Dev 2: Okay let's require the epic spectrals then.
Dev 1: Sounds good.
loot dev: Uh guys what are you going to require these for?
Dev 1: Attack bonus +4 bound shard in Cannith crafting.
loot dev: Ah that doesn't really sound like a good idea. Those are incredibly hard to get in game.
Dev 1: Hmmm, okay normal spectral gloves it is.
loot dev: Those are pretty valuable as well guys...
Dev 2: That's the idea.
loot dev: Okay then, I think I'm going to get back to some work I have pilling up.

[SirShen]

The Crafting is in Beta - SO why make us use really money todo it? Like using astral diamonds or even selling the crafing ingredients in DDO store?

Also using Demons Blood in crafting is just silly - i cant even get 1 at the moment to make my boots. INCREASE the drop rate.

[Noelemahc]

This is probably the worst change I've see in the game thus far. I remember when Fernando was bragging about crafting that it would be a system new players could participate in, and the rest of the devs were preaching that this wasn't meant to be just another pointless grind. Not only is it exactly the opposite of what we've been hearing since it's inception, this just turned in to the worst grind by far and the silliest thing in the game. Before you know it, we'll start seeing recipes like:

Seeker +6 - 64 Greater Lawful Essences, 256 Lesser Lawful Essences, The Bloodstone, Epic Marilith Chain, 12 Siberys Dragonshard Fragments, 50 Astral Diamonds, Level 80 Guild

I can't believe a system that's not supposed to be another grind and available to new players is requiring some of the hardest items in the game as ingredients for recipes that even veterans have a hard time getting. Worst. Decision. Ever.

[Postumus]

An odd thought just came to me...

"Even if they fix this now, they'll break it later anyhow."

On the heels of that revelation, I have to agree that the horse is already out of the barn regarding players future willingness to share rare drops in raids and quests. This fiasco will certainly encourage more loot hoarding because "I might need this for crafting someday."

If my sorc crafter pulls a +2 tome of wis, I'm a LOT less likely to pass it to a cleric in a PUG since it has value as a crafting material.

I'm sure this feeling isn't unique.

[Asketes]

Can we use the Epic Spell Storing Ring to craft greater mnemonic elixers?

fixed

jk

[slothinator]

Much of the loot from older quests is quite useless, and I have no problem with those pieces being used in crafting if they are not going to upgrade the quest itself. For example, the lightning amulet from Reaver, much of the named loot from the necro chains, or the kobold trinkets that drop in the harbor quests. I would gladly use these for crafting, because none of my toons are ever going to use them. There would be grind involved because these don't drop often, and that would make the final product difficult to make.

However, assigning the still useful items to crafting just seems dumb, especially if the end result is going to be less powerful than the items used to craft in the first place. Why would anyone want to use Firestorm Greaves or Spectral Gloves to craft something inferior to the base items used? The plat from those items is more useful than the crafted piece; I just don't understand.

EDIT TO ADD - The only way this makes sense, and I use the term very loosely, is if they increase the drop rates on named items. Of course, that would be potentially game breaking all by itself.

[Postumus]

That's how it works in my job, at least. "Test" is "Place where we put code and have people run tests, then fix anything broken and redeploy until it's right", it's not "A holding place for code that will not be changed until we release to production."

That's how it is pretty much everywhere. It suspect it isn't that they can't make the code changes, it's more likely they are just unwilling to delay the patch in order to make the changes.

[Asketes]

The entire point of a beta server is to find problems and fix them before they go live.

If a problem of that magnitude is knowingly being put onto the live servers so they can keep a schedule or whatever... then that totally invalidates the reason behind having a beta, alpha, or any type of QA server.

[QuantumFX]

Our motivation to add these extra ingredients (which was only made to a subset of recipes that concerned us) was to preserve and not devalue the efforts made by players to obtain many of the existing powerful named items in the game.

Preserving the effectiveness of greensteel weapons is a terrible justification for nerfing the general crafting system. You would have been better off looking at why certain greensteel weapons aren’t being chased after and reconsidered the benefits they give. Did you guys happen to notice that Holy of Greater Undead Bane isn’t on top of the list of must make items with Cannith Crafting? There’s a reason for that.

Utilizing named items isn’t a terrible idea. However, no enchantment that’s available on the random loot tables should have these requirements. Also, it should generally be used to make a better weapon or provide some other benefit.

Example: the Giant Stalker’s Knife

• Use it as a component to make a Giant Slaying Shard. (Currently only on epic/named weapons.)
• Use it in a Greater Giant Bane recipie that requires half the crafting level of a normal Greater Giant Bane Shard.
• Use it in a Greater Giant Bane Shard recipie that generates twice as much crafting XP.

[Kourier]

Much of the loot from older quests is quite useless, and I have no problem with those pieces being used in crafting if they are not going to upgrade the quest itself. For example, the lightning amulet from Reaver, much of the named loot from the necro chains, or the kobold trinkets that drop in the harbor quests. I would gladly use these for crafting, because none of my toons are ever going to use them. There would be grind involved because these don't drop often, and that would make the final product difficult to make.

However, assigning the still useful items to crafting just seems dumb, especially if the end result is going to be less powerful than the items used to craft in the first place. Why would anyone want to use Firestorm Greaves or Spectral Gloves to craft something inferior to the base items used? The plat from those items is more useful than the crafted piece; I just don't understand.

If you have to make dozens of recipes to level up aren't you going to require dozens of these rare items too? What's the drop rate on raid loot from reaver? Even the silly lightning amulet

[Postumus]

On the contrary I got the strong impression that named loot and pay to win purified junk is staying and just some huge incredibly horrible mistake recipes will be modified based upon player complaints.

This as is will put a stranglehold on loot passing one of the best parts of the DDO community and that is just from being on Lamaland. When this goes live even the most obtuse player will realize that anyday their second chattering ring or third SoS on a toon could suddenly be used in crafting and it's no longer a stranglehold on loot passing it's the kill shot.

Yes, this is what I believe as well.

[cdbd3rd]

I don't raid.
I don't epic.

I will stop wasting my time crafting...



I hear the fish are biting over in LOTRO.

[simo0208]

If you have to make dozens of recipes to level up aren't you going to require dozens of these rare items too? What's the drop rate on raid loot from reaver? Even the silly lightning amulet

Excellent point. Considering to level I need to craft a bazillion recipes, now I'm going to need 5 dreamspitters just to level up to craft some other component like vampiric, which will the require multiple chaosblades to craft the next level. Way to go!

[jillie]

Gee, now I'm REALLY glad I went F2P this week. Planned for it, bought the packs I wanted (3BC, Threnal, and Restless Isles were the unchosen), filled up my shared bank and character slots just in time for this.

Even absent the use of extremely rare raid loot as crafting ings, using Tomes is a bad idea. Equating a +1 tome to an Epic Dungeon Token? Really?

Then there's a Dev (for whom I truly have a lot of respect) telling us that an as yet un-implemented (on live) patch can't be rolled back?

I may need to check out Rift

[Asketes]

Other people have posted conspiracy theories before where they say that the devs purposedly release a stupid system on Lamannia, then scale it back to what they really wanted to do, while "pretending" to listen to player feedback...

I always thought those people were nuts...

But now I actually wonder if that is what is happening here. They really just wanted to add Shroud ingrediants (and the Astral Diamonds/epic token/tome thing), and threw in all that raid gear nonsense so they could remove it later and we wouldn't be that upset about the other changes.

It's the only thing that makes sense... The only other options are the devs are completely clueless or ONE dev is completely clueless and no one was checking his work.

Help make sense of this change, devs.[/COLOR]

hi-lighted in red. wow this makes sense

[Kakashi67]

Excellent point. Considering to level I need to craft a bazillion recipes, now I'm going to need 5 dreamspitters just to level up to craft some other component like vampiric, which will the require multiple chaosblades to craft the next level. Way to go!

Not if you use the RUKrazy (TM) method...

[Beethoven]

When you're trading in a Chattering Ring for a Greater Halfling Bane Shard, "success" rate kind of loses its meaning.

+1. I couldn't have said it better. More than 3 years of DDO and this is the first time I read release notes and actually needed to step away, take a breath and digest things for a while. Now having done that, can I summarize the situation as?

* Crafting is out for only a couple of months and there already first toons who achieved maximum level and are /potentially/ in a position capable to flood the market with the best (random generated) gear there is?
* also, entire guilds (or other groups) could get the idea of dedicating one crafter who gets all the ingredients and in return equips the whole guild/group with top tier crafted item.

Both cases /could/ lead to devaluing specific loot. The solution: include rare, hard to get and/or expensive materials for high level crafting to preserve the value of those items. Now generally that doesn't even sound all that unreasonable except: You. Went. Too. Far. Many of those changes exceed the necessary to preserve a value, it makes the entire system obsolete as it becomes significantly easier to just grind for them the old fashioned way and purchase whatever you don't pull from the AH.

Requiring some hard to get items (ie: +1 and maybe even +2 Tomes) I can cope with.
Requiring specific items that drop only in certain quest chains (like certain ingredients or collectibles) might not be even bad and help rekindle interest in parts of the content that otherwise would remain unused.
Requiring specific items accessible only through certain systems (such as favor rewards) I can get behind, much of the favor rewards seem sort of outdated anyway - re-using the system to have specific Patrons provide with materials needed for crafting or even making some crafting easier I could see.

I can only echo: the patch has unified customer and playerbase in their hatred of it, you (the devs and whoever is in charge) already confirmed some/many of the changes in there are not meant to be/stay. No offense, but the whole thing starts to appear like people shouting to not shoot yourself in the foot because it will hurt. You agree that firing the gun while it is pointed at your foot is not something you want to do. So, why then would you still pull the trigger? I don't mean to offend. I am just trying to understand why you would roll out a patch we all already agree is bad.

[Grindor]

This is probably going to get lost in the noise, but if a dev is still reading...

There is a bug in deconstruction. Every time you deconstruct an item, you have to close the entire window and reopen it. I don't know about shards as I haven't tested those yet.

Is this the place to put bugs like this or is there somewhere else to post them?

[Postumus]

If you have to make dozens of recipes to level up aren't you going to require dozens of these rare items too? What's the drop rate on raid loot from reaver? Even the silly lightning amulet

Well if the point is to slow down the pace at which people are leveling, then this would do it.

Instead of making hundreds of shards you will never use just to get crafting xps, you'll have to pick and choose which shards are worthwhile for your character to use.

Your leveling will slow to a crawl. Especially at the highest levels.

The recipe changes are certainly a response to the players who leveled crafting at a much faster pace than Turbine expected.

[WangChi]

Do you know what's sadder?

This is really a melee nerf. Most, if not all, of these changes affect the banes and other weapon effects. I didn't see anything involving casting/skill/attribute effects.

Casters rule?

I was chatting with a guildie about this and they literally said to me, "Ha! It only affects melee's, good luck with your crafting."

I find this entire system to be utterly and hopelessly flawed. I'm 48/43/46 in crafting levels, and I would rather they scrap the ENTIRE system and do something different than what they are proposing with this update. I am NOT a well-geared toon, and I have only 1 toon at lvl 20, I'm not a TR. I don't have time to run every raid every single time I'm off timer for it.

This is a pure and simple cash grab, nothing more, nothing less. I've urged every one of my guildmates to get on the forums and read this and to just quit the crafting grind all together because it simply won't be worth it. Turbine is out for the $$$$$$ people, and your subscription dollars just aren't cutting it anymore. <semi-sarcasm>They want your blood and first born too. You want to craft a nice weapon Mr. Melee? That'll be 5,000 TP. Here you go, have a nice day. Oh darn, you failed on that 95% success recipe? Well, if you give me another 5,000 TP you can try again.</semi-sarcasm>

Have fun with crafting everyone, I'll enjoy making the loads of plat I'll need in order to buy the **** you'll make...eventually.