Feedback - Crafting - Update 10, Patch 1

[Ancient]

I want to be as vocal with my THANK YOU as I was with my 10.1 concerns.

As a software developer, I understand that Turbine may have some concerns about the impact of crafting on the item economy. If you can post the high level concerns in a feedback thread, the community would generate a ton of suggestions on how to balance. This would harness the brainstorming power of a large number of DDO experts, improve customer buy-in since they had a chance to provide input in how to address the issue and finally provide Turbine with the protection against criticism since the nerf/fix was suggested by the community.

I'm a casual player, I understand that the path to crafting raid/epic level items cannot be easier than raiding for them, especially since it can be done solo. The last part (can be done solo) is an inherent part of what I see as the benefit to crafting, and if raid ingredients are required for crafting then it becomes just a post-raid activity instead of an alternative.

[dkyle]

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.

Thank you. This is exactly what was needed, and I'm very glad you've delivered. I wish this had been what you said in the first place, but a day late is still better than never.

Now about those Astral Diamonds for Eberron shards...

[Jahmin]

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.

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.

While I am sure this will be pathetically purged like all the others, this is too little, too late

That sad ship has sailed, or rather that train has been wrecked as it were. Even making a public statement that Turbine is not and never will require BtC/Raid loot for crafting, still leaves the thought that ‘well they considered it once, they just might considered it again.’ After all DDO still holds the record for most development lead changes for a still active game – and many of the successors have reversed decisions of their predecessors.

Not to mention that this “whoops” really makes me question the general level of competence for this to even happen. In my industry we work on the principal that three errors must happen to kill people: no Mournlands; no Designer review; no Lamannia oversight… you very well may have killed your game – certainly the effects are already being felt within it


I am simply at a loss and it is heart crushing.

[TDarkchylde]

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"

Many thanks for listening to the playerbase. The proposed changes were way out of line, and completely unnecessary.

Raid loot has uses. Tomes have uses. Bound named gear has uses. Larges have uses.

There are plenty of things that do not have a use currently, or a marginal use, or just exist in such a quantity it wouldn't hurt to use them:

Gems (No current use)
Collectibles (Some used in existing crafting already - why not expand?)
Soul Gems (Only one type has a use currently and they're not that hard to obtain)
Smalls (And yes, those willing to pay real money will have their cherished easy button)

There's no need to reinvent the wheel when all you need is a tire.

[Beethoven]

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.

Agreed. I could even understand if they want to include additional fail-save procedures to prevent eventual mass production of specific items (ie: Greater Banes), but even there using existing systems (like you say) would be a better way to go. They really feel the need to add stuff, I'd much rather have them add things that are either:

* obtainable in specific content as opposed to make players grind the same quest or even same chest over and over again. We already got that with GS and epics. It's why I never had a real issue with the idea of Mystical Urns and Broccoli. The system also could be used to rekindle interest in content that is otherwise glossed over.
* are relative worthless now (ie: Large Horns, Soul Gems, etc.).

Things I would be less fond of are
* named loot along the line of Greaves. I feel less strong about named loot that drops as end reward (similar to Assault on Stormreach)
* items largely only obtainable through the store (ie: Astral Diamonds). However, that could be fixed by simply increasing the drop rates of those things.

[Cyr]

So you addressed two of the things horribly wrong with this patch.

How about pay to win through astral diamonds?

How about rare loot that is not bound such as stuff already in high demand like spectral gloves and large devil scales?

How about tomes in crafting?

How about insanely high costs for higher level recipes such as 15! +1 tomes plus all the normal essences that were required before?

[Pantsless]

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.

Should we be encouraging Turbine to insult/upset the player-base as a mode to garner goodwill?

[Postumus]

* obtainable in specific content as opposed to make players grind the same quest or even same chest over and over again. We already got that with GS and epics. It's why I never had a real issue with the idea of Mystical Urns and Broccoli.

You make some good points. The one thing I don't like about the broccoli/urn/fish end rewards are they are BtA. They should be unbound so we can trade them like other collectibles.

[Persiflage]

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.

As it stands, no casual gamer is going to be making those Purified Eberron Dragonshards. And I'm afraid even those collectables are way too rare, besides ALREADY being required for recipes.

I can say this with certainty because I've transferred all the collectables I have EVER found onto my crafting toon (yes, I've always kept them all, yes I'm the fool who forked out for Store bags because I thought they might be useful one day): I have pulled exactly 22 small eberron shards across all my toons in 8 months of playing, and 1 medium shard. And that's it.

On the Khyber AH, the current *cheapest* small shard is 22k!

[Darkrok]

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.

I do think we have to grant though that the shards of potential at the very high end (especially if they get extended even further) could use some sort of a limiting factor to their production. What that limiting factor should be is up to debate but with no limiting factor to the highest level of shards of potential then you have a situation where the market could be flooded with raid-quality items (especially as they further expand crafting). I've got a lot more faith though today that they'll eventually get this balance correct and the fact that they've explicitly excluded raid and bound named loot means that at worst the changes in the future could hurt the economy of the game. They've averted the disaster of harming the community and kept at least one customer that would have definitely left in the process.

[bigolbear]

thank goodness. powah to the people.

madfloyed, as a coder my self i hereby salute you for having the balls to stick it to the man(agement).

now, on to the question at hand - how to restrict items such as +5 silver holy greater evil bane that outclass curent raid gear.

Well first off id suggest soul gems as components.
Id also suggest shroud mats as components - and couple this with these mats dropping in ALL quests where devils or demons are present.

as the money maker allow bypassing of these components by using such things as astral diamonds - plz dont make them compulsory.

If all of this isnt sufficient to maintain the principle NAMED&RAID>CRAFTED>RANDOM then simply remove the offending recipies such as greater banes. Despite not having made any greater banes my self id be hapy to consider those that have deserve them as reward for participation in a beta test.

Id also be infavour of mimum lvl being limited to 20.

Over all i think an important point is that ALL CRAFTING MATS SHOULD BE INGREDIENTS OR COLLECTABLES. (or soul gems which also go in bags)

If you do decide to have named items as crafting mats it should be made clear in the items description (eg, rumors abound this item may be used by crafters to produce valuable items)

[Pantsless]

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

Not quite sure how much respect that warrants.

There was a serious breakdown in the QC process here. Recognizing that something had to be fixed is equivalent to someone figuring out that removing a nail from a tree with a flathead screwdriver is not a good idea after the loss of that first eye.

[markhoge]

"MudFloyd"

Your name is not Mud anymore Mad!
You saved it!

[Chazzie]

Tip of the hat,MadFloyd

Thank You So Much , for passing this info along....My heart is beating now...because it stopped in its tracks when I read the Ing. list

[EllisDee37]

I like the idea of focusing the bottleneck on shards of potential. I don't like the idea of it being super expensive to make them, though, since that serves no purpose other than widening the gap between the haves and the have nots.

What about a shard timer, like a raid timer? Isn't that already a tried and true method of limiting raid loot? How about any shard of potential that raises an item's level above the current level cap, you can only make one of them every x days, x being the difference between it's expected ML and the level cap.

Specifically, a +11 shard (ML21) would be on a 1 day timer, +12 (ML23) on a 3 day timer, etc... This would have the added bonus of being a self-adjusting system if you ever raise the level cap.

EDIT: I imagine all three "flavors" would be on a single timer, but hey, that's not even necessarily a requirement. It would still stop an uber-crafter from flooding the market if they had three timers per level.

[cdbd3rd]

After reading this thread I got the impression some people find the crafting changes to be less than desirable. Am I reading that right?

/Whispers to the group-

You'll have forgive him, folks. He's from Kansas...

[BoBo2020]

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"

It's very appreciated.
Thank you.

[Bladedge]

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

Agreed Soul Gems should be used in crafting.

[stainer]

/Whispers to the group-

You'll have forgive him, folks. He's from Kansas...

I went to North Carolina Public Schools. That is why I struggle so much. :P

[cdbd3rd]

Everyone,

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

I'm just glad I decided to skip a few... erm, a dozen pages before getting to that post.