Feedback - Crafting - Update 10, Patch 1

[Dragavon]

Suggestion: USE SOUL GEMS, SO FAR THEY ARE USELESS.

Thanks

This.

Widespread use of soulgems in crafting should have been obvious from the start.

[Failedlegend]

Just what exactly was the "offer wall" ....I've seen it mentioned a couple of times but I have no clue what it was...please explain.

It was basically a giant advertisement thing that got you "free" turbine points for signing up for things but it turned into a giant sercurity risk i think it was up for like a day maybe two.

[Jandric]

Everyone,

The train has been stopped. The patch will not ship in its current state.

I will update (probably via a separate thread) when I have more news, but I can say this:

We will NOT require raid loot as ingredients.

We will NOT require bound named items as ingredients.

Many ingredients, and the *amount* of some of these ingredients were out of line.

These changed recipes should have been reviewed by various designers, but weren't (a hole in our process that we have identified and corrected to avoid for the future).

Mournlands did not have an opportunity to see or comment on these changes.

Again, I'll post more info when I have it.

Our sincere apologies for causing panic, and many thanks to all players who offered their well-thought out and constructive feedback on this issue and tried the changes on Lamannia.

"MudFloyd"

I know what it takes to go to management and stop a planned release- so thanks for throwing yourself in front of the train and for sitting through the soon to be scheduled post-mortem, as well.

[karnokvolrath]

Everyone,

The train has been stopped. The patch will not ship in its current state.

I will update (probably via a separate thread) when I have more news, but I can say this:

We will NOT require raid loot as ingredients.

We will NOT require bound named items as ingredients.

Many ingredients, and the *amount* of some of these ingredients were out of line.

These changed recipes should have been reviewed by various designers, but weren't (a hole in our process that we have identified and corrected to avoid for the future).

Mournlands did not have an opportunity to see or comment on these changes.

Again, I'll post more info when I have it.

Our sincere apologies for causing panic, and many thanks to all players who offered their well-thought out and constructive feedback on this issue and tried the changes on Lamannia.

"MudFloyd"

You sir, are full of win.

Im glad to see this was handled swiftly, maybe a little boot chewing is in my future

I also like the very clear answer, sometimes you guys can be vauge, this was about as clear as possible.....*cheer*

P.S. You still need to fix all the old borked stuff

[Kaldais]

Perhaps a better idea is to state what is the developer's intention in changing the current state of crafting? What do turbine see as the roll crafting plays in the scheme of things?

By the rolled back patch1 change, I get the feeling that Turbine thinks high end crafting is too overpowered. They want to limit the amount and difficulty level of acquiring those Greater Bane shards. Which in a way I do agree, once you hit the cap of crafting, those Greater Bane, Burst shards will be cranked out like they are mashmellows.

But requiring the use of tomes, astral diamonds, epic tokens(in the form of purified dragonshards), or any named items are just a poor design idea. The powergamers will still be able to crank them out like mashmellows, the causal gamers will be turned off to crafting.

Perhaps an better idea would allows the Purified Eberron Dragonshards to be transmuted from the small/medium/large Eberron Dragonshards we can get from the collectables. Or just simply use those existing dragonshards in the recipe instead of adding a new one.

Also add the soul gems to the crafting.

[Persiflage]

In my opinion, the line between the people that would loot a torq on their fighter 'in case they tr' and those that would loot it to craft is thin, at best. I would hope that most people that play enough to get that far in crafting (greater banes start at about 70 or so) would have the resources to run 3-4 toons through dq to get any undesired piece of loot.

I know the point is at least temporarily moot now, but why do people KEEP making wild assumptions about "people who get to high levels in crafting"? I'm at L90/85/86, I can make all these greater banes and whatnot, I have pretty much no cash left and I have exactly one toon flagged for DQ. I run it with a guildie whenever we're off timer and I've yet to pull a single piece of named loot I care about. I Am Not A Powergamer, I just worked really, REALLY hard to level my crafting because it looked like an *alternative* to powergaming that would keep my toons fairly relevant.

Elsewhere, we've had people saying "anyone who can craft Holy Burst must have enough Silver Flame favor for the pots" (mine is at 69, so no), "anyone who has levelled their crafting to that point must have spent millions" (I've never HAD millions, I've only been playing 8 months and I didn't abuse the Cove) and "people with high enough crafting levels for greater banes have multiple TR's with loads of tomes and scales and stuff" (I have NO TR'd toons, only 4 at cap, and I recently blew all the scales I've ever earned on my first ever GS item, a ConcOpp cloak for my caster).

I got to where I am through weeks and weeks of constant grinding... for an end to grinding, at least for normal gear. I'm HAPPY just levelling my characters. I'm only just dipping my toes into raiding, for crying out loud! It has been a huge mountain to climb for someone with limited resources, and was only possible by means of a LOT of concentration, divesting myself of all my meagre cash plus every vaguely-valuable unbound item I've ever pulled (including all my tomes, what an irony ), and huge quantities of sheer bloody-mindedness.

Maybe some people who are at high crafting levels DO fit the assumptions a lot of people seem to be making, but in my view, Cannith Crafting is FOR more casual gamers like myself, a real godsend for those who don't have the time or the patience (or the inclination) to go for the REALLY good stuff.

Let the truly "epic" recipes require hard-to-get stuff, sure (although STILL not raid loot), but the part of the system that can only make lootgen items should be left alone! It brings a smile to the face of non-hardcore gamers to know that all they have to do is run the content they want, whenever they can, and eventually be able to make nice things that they don't have to wait years for (or generate millions to buy off people who got lucky).

Just wanted to be the Voice of the Casual Gamer for a minute, I now return you to your regular programming

[brian14]

Just what exactly was the "offer wall" ....I've seen it mentioned a couple of times but I have no clue what it was...please explain.

Put "ddo" and "offer wall" into google... it's a worthwhile exercise!

[Spoonwelder]

Everyone,

The train has been stopped. The patch will not ship in its current state.

I will update (probably via a separate thread) when I have more news, but I can say this:

We will NOT require raid loot as ingredients.

We will NOT require bound named items as ingredients.

Many ingredients, and the *amount* of some of these ingredients were out of line.

These changed recipes should have been reviewed by various designers, but weren't (a hole in our process that we have identified and corrected to avoid for the future).

Mournlands did not have an opportunity to see or comment on these changes.

Again, I'll post more info when I have it.

Our sincere apologies for causing panic, and many thanks to all players who offered their well-thought out and constructive feedback on this issue and tried the changes on Lamannia.

"MudFloyd"

Your name isn't mud - it's Gold. It's tough to get kicked in the teeth 500+ times and come back to the arena and admit an error. That takes Cajones.

Thanks for listening - and for letting the thread run and letting us vent.

I would still like Turbine to publish an overall plan for crafting so we don't get blindsided again and so we can provide some input if necessary. I don't need a detailed plan but an ....this is where we are going with examples.....I think this is necessary so we as customers and users so you can avoid some of the you-make/we-break/you-remake cycle.

[Auran82]

To throw my 2c in.

I understand you don't want people getting to x crafting levels and being able to make uber items at (almost) no cost.

Its good you have seen some of the ways to NOT do this, but do not forget that any high level recipies are also there in order to level our crafting skills in the first place. I get (in theory) why you might want to have an extra cost attached to greater banes, holy burst etc, but please keep in mind the levelling aspect when attaching costs.

I also agree with what a couple of people have said since MadFloyd made his last post, if this was not seen by mournlands (and by the sounds of it, it was pushed through with hardly anyone actually seeing it) what the hell happened. I have to say while it sounds good that 'we will NOT require raid loot as ingredients' unless you come out and specifically say that raid loot will never ever ever be used at all as ingredients, these changes that never happened on live may have already done irreversible damage to the community (though I sure hope not)

Aside from raid loot and 'bound named items', I really don't think any named items should be used for recipies, unless it is a case where there are 2 possible recipies, one with a high essence cost, and one with a low/no essence cost, with a named item replacing the essences. If everyone suddenly needs 20 <named item here> to level up, the whole thing is going to be a nightmare.

TBH I dont really understand why crafting was done in the way it is now, the crafting system used in many other games (including LOTRO) is proven and works fairly well.

[Aelonwy]

It was basically a giant advertisement thing that got you "free" turbine points for signing up for things but it turned into a giant sercurity risk i think it was up for like a day maybe two.

Thank you for info.

[RTN]

Mournlands did not have an opportunity to see or comment on these changes.

I posted something to this point elsewhere, but what is the point of a test/beta server if they don't see the materials to test, especially when it involves major changes?

[Thrudh]

Everyone,

The train has been stopped. The patch will not ship in its current state.

I will update (probably via a separate thread) when I have more news, but I can say this:

We will NOT require raid loot as ingredients.

We will NOT require bound named items as ingredients.

Many ingredients, and the *amount* of some of these ingredients were out of line.

These changed recipes should have been reviewed by various designers, but weren't (a hole in our process that we have identified and corrected to avoid for the future).

Mournlands did not have an opportunity to see or comment on these changes.

Again, I'll post more info when I have it.

Our sincere apologies for causing panic, and many thanks to all players who offered their well-thought out and constructive feedback on this issue and tried the changes on Lamannia.

"MudFloyd"

Thank you. Especially thank you for the extra details like why it happened and why Mournlands didn't catch it... and for being super clear about raid loot.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[dunklezhan]

I'd say the closest is the offer wall...this one probably wins though.

In terms of damage to the company - this failed update isn't even close to the offer wall, which was to a security risk which could have exposed login credentials and therefore potentially credit card details once someone used the stolen login details to access the store.

This... this was an 'almost disaster' which would have been a Very Bad Thing in terms of losing people/credibilityfrom the user base - but wouldn't have resulted in lawsuits, criminal actions and a general kicking all over the blogosphere.

And I say this as some one reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally unhappy about the proposed crafting changes.

[BangsLiekWhoa]

Everyone,

The train has been stopped. The patch will not ship in its current state.

I will update (probably via a separate thread) when I have more news, but I can say this:

We will NOT require raid loot as ingredients.

We will NOT require bound named items as ingredients.

Many ingredients, and the *amount* of some of these ingredients were out of line.

These changed recipes should have been reviewed by various designers, but weren't (a hole in our process that we have identified and corrected to avoid for the future).

Mournlands did not have an opportunity to see or comment on these changes.

Again, I'll post more info when I have it.

Our sincere apologies for causing panic, and many thanks to all players who offered their well-thought out and constructive feedback on this issue and tried the changes on Lamannia.

"MudFloyd"

And there was much rejoicing!

We are glad that our voices were heard.

[Memnir]

Everyone,

The train has been stopped. The patch will not ship in its current state.

I will update (probably via a separate thread) when I have more news, but I can say this:

We will NOT require raid loot as ingredients.

We will NOT require bound named items as ingredients.

Many ingredients, and the *amount* of some of these ingredients were out of line.

These changed recipes should have been reviewed by various designers, but weren't (a hole in our process that we have identified and corrected to avoid for the future).

Mournlands did not have an opportunity to see or comment on these changes.

Again, I'll post more info when I have it.

Our sincere apologies for causing panic, and many thanks to all players who offered their well-thought out and constructive feedback on this issue and tried the changes on Lamannia.

"MudFloyd"

Zis is ze time in Stormreach ven ve dance!
.
.
.

.
.
.

[Mithis]

Thank you.

I am sure that was a hard decision to make but the good will it creates probably cannot be measured.

The only problem I see...

Update 11 probably just got pushed back. I just shot myself in the foot...now I have to wait for the repeater fix even longer.

[karnokvolrath]

But requiring the use of tomes, astral diamonds, epic tokens(in the form of purified dragonshards), or any named items are just a poor design idea. The powergamers will still be able to crank them out like mashmellows, the causal gamers will be turned off to crafting.

Kaldais i agree with basically your whole post, but one thing. Epic tokens - Its my personal opinion that these are prolly one of the better INGS for high end crafting. They are easy to farm, dont cost real money and lets be honest...in there indivdual roles crafted weapons are of epic quality.

[slimkj]

The train has been stopped. The patch will not ship in its current state.

Good stuff.

I'll still go add Raid loot will *not* be needed for crafting. No need to hoard stuff you don't need. to a .txt file for copy/paste purposes for now, I think.

[Riggs]

Nice.

Ah the power of focused dissent, when it doesnt drain down into personal attacks too far(which just distract from the message).

Must have been quite a few hasty meetings yesterday.

[maddmatt70]

Everyone,

The train has been stopped. The patch will not ship in its current state.

I will update (probably via a separate thread) when I have more news, but I can say this:

We will NOT require raid loot as ingredients.

We will NOT require bound named items as ingredients.

Many ingredients, and the *amount* of some of these ingredients were out of line.

These changed recipes should have been reviewed by various designers, but weren't (a hole in our process that we have identified and corrected to avoid for the future).

Mournlands did not have an opportunity to see or comment on these changes.

Again, I'll post more info when I have it.

Our sincere apologies for causing panic, and many thanks to all players who offered their well-thought out and constructive feedback on this issue and tried the changes on Lamannia.

"MudFloyd"

Obviously the likely most sensible solution, but the point of is crafting too easy right now that the devs were trying to address with these changes has some merit. Crafting is probably too easy especially if you continue to up the crafting level and add more crafting options for players. Likely crafting needs to be changed and tweaked in the future.