Feedback - Crafting - Update 10, Patch 1

[MaxwellEdison]

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.

On the plus side, you only shot yourself once and will have to reload to fire the other two.

[perylousdemon]

Hey um buddy try reading Madfloyd's last 2 posts in here....more important the most recent one. or hell the 10+ times its been quoted.

MudFloyd :P please lock this thread and make an official front page notice about the changes to the update. So people will stop whining.

Edit: Here it's This post

I added an edit to my post as soon as I saw the patch had been halted (while I was working on my post, so I had no way of knowing until afterwards).

[Bodic]

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 <3 U. My favored soul is sad, but ok as she is strong of will. sShe is eager to not alwas be a menance to society.
Among many things that are great with this update it takes but 1 rotten egg to ruin the entire carton as they say.

[Aelonwy]

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.

Ok..... I can agree with this to some extent but only if they were strictly added only to recipes that could equate said epic quality items eg. the boss beaters everyone seems focused on. I would not want to see them on all recipes past a certain level or all greater banes (all greater banes not being equal in value) because we still need recipes to level our crafting skills. Please devs don't loose sight of the leveling purpose of recipes.

[LeLoric]

Glad to see that the ridiculous has been removed but now let's discuss some of the questionable changes.

1. Why items at all. You already use collectibles for many of the recipes why not keep it less complicated and still use collectibles. None of the recipes use the tier 3 collectibles so far. If you want to limit how many shards of a certain type that can be created use the harder to get collectibles. You also have the crafting special "mystical" collectibles use those, require multiples for some of the better shards if needed. I found it really a waste of time to add these special collectibles and only have them work for one item anyways. Using too many different types of thigs just creates a complexity to the system that doesn't need to be there.

2. Purified dragonshard things. Why? As before this is just creating more complexity and headache to a system that has enough already. It also makes levelling crafting much more tedious. Making these required for all high end recipes just means that people will use the shard decon method.

3. Epic tokens. No don't use these here. Epic tokens are for epic items. This makes the system extremely harsh on the new/casual players that haven't gotten into epics yet. Sure they can use a tome also but newer/casual players also have less of these and value them more as they may not have acquired other higher level tomes. Or let's just force these players to spend tp on astral diamonds, still a bad idea. If you are going to use epic tokens for crafting use them to make specialty augment crystals like the following 64 greater good essences, 750 lesser good essences, 30 epic tokens, 5 mystical broccoli = red augment crystal of pure good

4. Using specific items for recipes is not really making it harder to get these items. Using lower level items like golden greaves etc just means that players are either forced to run meaningless trivial content they don't want to run or purchase the item at highly inflated costs that the item has no reason being worth. Using rare collectibles again does the same thing but doesn't limit someoneto farming the same dumb quest over and over.

5. Most of the shards you attached items to are useless anyways. If you make greater halfling bane shards require expensive items it just means players wont ever make those shards. Same goes for most of the other shards you added extra item costs too. Sure the few chase items like greater outsider banes and holy burst still would get made but does that mean upping the cost of all the other meaningless banes is worth it.


So in short I really ask. Why make the system more complicated and more grindy and more inventory taxing by requiring single items versus using already implemented collectibles etc.

[good_ole_corwin]

(a hole in our process that we have identified and corrected to avoid for the future)

I hope Im not the only one whose respect youve gained by this simple statement.

[Postumus]

Good on Turbine for listening to the DDO community.

And kudos to the DDO community for coming together to make itself heard.

[mutilador]

And the real players wins!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now i have to go back to work....

[Failedlegend]

Good on Turbine for listening to the DDO community.

And kudos to the DDO community for coming together to make itself heard.

[ColsonJade]

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"

Thanks

[binnsr]

Have any previous threads generated this much shock and awe in such a short amount of time, or is this a new record?

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

From a general community outrage perspective, the Evasion-in-Heavy-Armor fix ranks up there too .. even though with that one, most of us knew it was coming.

...

[rvdvelden]

Thank you for listening to all the feedback from your customers (aka "the community"). As I stated earlier, I work in IT and I know how hard it is to stop a running train that is going forward under management pressure. Everyone that has participated on your side to help stop this patch going live deserves a big applause. I sincerely hope you get the time to weed out the rotten parts and keep the good parts in place.

[bradleyforrest]

This.

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

Agreed, but please make them drop into the creating player's inventory instead of on the ground. If they are used for crafting and they still drop on the ground, ninja looting of these will go through the roof.

[Beethoven]

Everyone,

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

I suppose with all the beatings you guys got the last twelf hours or so it can't be said enough:
Thanks for listening to your players.
Thanks for the willingness to take their input into account and act upon it.
I for one appreciate it.

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).

Emphasis mine. I know we are not supposed to go there but it makes it tempting to read between the lines and conclude someone made a boohbooh and got a spanking.

Glad to see that the ridiculous has been removed but now let's discuss some of the questionable changes.

I will update (probably via a separate thread) when I have more news, ...
Many ingredients, and the *amount* of some of these ingredients were out of line.

Biggest problem right now is that all we really know is raid items are out, bound and named items are out and many ingredients (and their amount) are out of line. From here I really all we can speculate what may or may not stay in. So, way I see it, we actually don't know what the changes are going to be at this point.

[Darkrok]

I'm going to make my attempt at actionable feedback here.

There are parts that in my opinion are wrong with crafting as it stands on Lamannia.

1) That it requires raid loot to craft
2) That it requires rare loot to craft
3) That it requires either tomes, epic tokens, or...
4) the pay to win Astral Diamonds to craft
5) That crafting shards themselves is being made much more difficult

I'd like to address these issues one at a time as they're distinct in their effect on the game.

1) That it requires raid loot to craft
This is the number one problem with the changes going live and the only one that I view as having serious non-crafting repercussions. Ignoring for a moment the difficulty that this adds in to the crafting game, something more appropriate to discuss in #'s 3-5, I feel that the effect of this change on the community in the game could be disastrous. Even the suggestion that raid loot will become crafting items will encourage crafters to put no raid loot up for roll. It adds a large disincentive to generosity because it encourages hoarding and greed. Most importantly, crafting is a beta part of the game. This change causes serious stress to the live portion of the game. As such, it simply can't go live.
2) That it requires rare loot to craft
This part does not hurt the community - only the economics of the game. Any item needed in sought after crafting recipes will become all but unavailable for its intended original purpose. For example, spectral gloves are a nice enough item. Many people use them. But they'll be so expensive as to be unavailable to most players if these changes go through. As I mentioned, this alone isn't fatal to the game...it just means that certain items will no longer be available for their intended purpose.
3) That it requires either tomes, epic tokens, or...
The tomes part of this has the same issue as #2 - it will make tomes highly expensive to the point of being unavailable or at least unreasonable for their original purpose. The epic tokens would actually be appropriate if this weren't on a per-shard basis (more on that in #5) but is highly inappropriate to make a single shard that in no way creates an 'epic' item. I can make a +1 longsword of greater lawful evil outsider bane with a dreamspitter (see #1), a large devil scale (see #2), and several tomes/epic tokens/astral diamonds (see #4). That weapon is nowhere near worth that and that issue will be covered in #5 but again - epic tokens and astral diamonds for epic level items...ok. Epic tokens and astral diamonds for shards...not even close.
4) the pay to win Astral Diamonds to craft
Not much to say here. If #5 and my suggestions were implemented this would be fine as the only time Astral Diamonds or Epic Tokens would be needed would be in the making of worthy weapons/items, not in the making of the shards. Because unless you're looking to mass produce epic quality weapons there's not a real problem with spending epic tokens to make the items. And I don't mind a bit of pay to win as long as there's a clear free to play path toward the same end. Grinding several epics to make one epic quality item? More than fair. To make one shard that could be used to make a ML:6 weapon? Not even close.
5) That crafting shards themselves is being made much more difficult
This is the crux of the problem and the spot for the solution.

The crafting shards being made as difficult to make as they are will mean anyone that didn't level their crafting pre-u10.1 will not be able to level at anything close to a reasonable pace. And you won't be able to level naturally through deconstructing/crafting what you get while adventuring anymore. That path will be cut off. It's only the people that powergame and play crafting instead of playing DDO that will level crafting.

Furthermore, there's legitimate reasons to make items like a +1 ghost touch greater undead bane weapon, or a +1 holy silver or greater lawful outsider bane. Both of those weapons serve a purpose and neither is even remotely 'raid quality'. But both would be extremely difficult to make because the difficulty was moved to the shards themselves even though the shards have more purposes than making high quality end-game loot.

Assuming these changes are to stem an expected flood of raid-quality loot into the game from crafting, the answer is not in making the shards much more difficult to create. The answer is in revising some of the rules for potential and making shards of potential exponentially harder to make at each tier. To get the potential to make an epic quality item it SHOULD take epic dungeon tokens and possibly even epic raid tokens. By placing the burden of the crafter on the potential end you solve two problems - you make it feasible to level without ever encountering this enormous burden while at the same time preventing the expected flood of raid-quality loot that brought this change into being. In addition, you remove the need for having a variety of items as crafting materials. The only item you need to tweak in any way then is the shards of potential which means you can leave shards being COMPLETELY crafted with crafting materials.

Now assuming Turbine takes this advice and puts the grind in on the shard of potential end there's the question of what is appropriate when it comes to crafting the shards of potential. I think they're really on to something with the Purified eberron dragonshard fragments (PEDF's). I don't like raid loot (see #1), rare loot (see #2), or tomes (see #3) being a part of this but I think there's definitely some other options that are not ridiculous. These are by no means exhaustive nor are they definitively balanced but they're ideas to use as a starting point.
a) Epic Dungeon Tokens - Returns a certain number of PEDF's balanced with the other methods
b) One of each of the rare crafting items - Rewards those that have those packs with another avenue to get the tokens, again with the yield balanced with other methods
c) VERY rare random on deconstruction of high ML items. Just a little bonus for people that tear down item after item on the high level stuff.
d) Drops from hard/elite shroud and possibly other hard/elite raids that have little incentive to run on hard/elite. These should be slightly uncommon (nowhere and unbound to create an extra facet to the economy.
e) Very rare drops from high level quests. Again, unbound to create more of an economy.
f) Uncommon drops from epic quests. Again, unbound to create more of an economy.
g) Astral Diamonds. As much as I dislike pay to win, this isn't pay to win per se. If you balance the other options it's 'pay to not have to waste my time getting this other stuff that I could get but don't feel like getting. I can live with that.
Again, this list is not intended to be balanced nor exhaustive. There's a lot of balancing to go into this. The key is in simplifying things. X PEDF's will be required per tier of high-end shard of potentials. X will be something exponential. Epic Dungeon Tokens should be balanced where it takes a similar number of tokens to make an epic quality crafting weapon as it would to slot a weapon. 1 Epic Dungeon Token should let you make a few sub-raid level items.

Again though the key is that it's the shard of potentials that need this bottleneck. Not the shards.

[LeLoric]

Biggest problem right now is that all we really know is raid items are out, bound and named items are out and many ingredients (and their amount) are out of line. From here I really all we can speculate what may or may not stay in. So, way I see it, we actually don't know what the changes are going to be at this point.

This is why I added my thoughts to any of the changes that might go through still. As I said the item use just screams of overcomplicating something that doesn't need to be done. Costs can be increased through methods already in place in the crafting system.

[karnokvolrath]

Ok..... I can agree with this to some extent but only if they were strictly added only to recipes that could equate said epic quality items eg. the boss beaters everyone seems focused on. I would not want to see them on all recipes past a certain level or all greater banes (all greater banes not being equal in value) because we still need recipes to level our crafting skills. Please devs don't loose sight of the leveling purpose of recipes.

Oh i completely agree, i dont know how it would work but paying a few epic tokens for a HB sil GEOB doesnt seem like a bad tradeoff

[SHOCK_and_AWE]

Everyone,

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

...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)...

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

Thank God, MadFloyd has reassured me that DDOcalypse will not occur any time soon! Good job, DDO community, for bringing this to light with such zeal.

[Aelonwy]

Again though the key is that it's the shard of potentials that need this bottleneck. Not the shards.

This is a very good point.

[WangChi]

I think we all appreciate the statements made by MadFloyd and the cancelling of the update. This was a great move on your part to garner good will with the player base and stop a horrible move in the process.

It's been stated before, and I just want to add my voice to it: Crafting in it's current PROCESS is wonderful. If you feel some recipes are out of whack in terms of ingredients, up the ESSENCE/KHYBER or SIBERYS SHARD/COLLECTIBLE counts as needed, but please, please, do not involve tomes, astral diamonds, or epic tokens into an already very complex system. I already have three different ingredient bags eating up slots in my inventory for cannith and shroud crafting, in addition to a medium collectible bag that is nearly constantly full.

I think this thread proves that the cannith crafting system you put in made the player base happy for the most part and they were working it as any player base would. Please let it alone for a few more months/years and let's see how it goes in the long run before more additional complications are added.