Crafting, what it could have been

[Glenalth]

1. Remove levels as a requirement for creating recipes.

2. Increase the amount of essences needed to create higher level shards.

3. Use levels to give a discount on needed ingredients.

4. Use levels to give a chance at exceptional crafted items. Simple things like an extra point of damage, randomly larger guild augment slot, higher starting value for craftable +X, or minimum level augmentation.

[Fillivan]

Against removal of lvls O.o. I like the idea of it... having lvls is cool! In almost every game you need to lvl up your crafting skills in order to craft stuff... it makes sense, it's a good exercise and it makes ppl try to become "legendary crafters" (max skill lvl).

Against removing of unbound crafting! Unbound crafting allows the creation of the so called "Guild Crafters" who make stuff for newbies ^^. It's utterly helpful to them.

The suggestion for item upgrade rocks... it will be cool to be able to make that lame +1 Metalline wep of pure good into a +5 at a huge cost...

The increase of mats is a good idea... but only if it's for the mega rare shards! (like it was mentioned for greater stability).

I suggest the possibility of making "exceptional improved potential shards"... a.k.a. having a small chance (let's say 0.1% at lvl 50 slowly growing to 5% at lvl 100 for +6 shards and less for others) for getting bonus "slot" for prefix and/or suffix... let's say at lvl 100 you have 5% to get additional prefix bonus to the item on which the shard is used on a +6 shard, and 2% chance to add a perfix or a suffix, and 0.5% to add both on a +9 shard. But it will require 2-3 shards of the type to make it and the lvl doesn't stack. (a.k.a. make something like named loot) and binds it to your acc.

Example: You are mega lucky and you craft a improved potential +9 with bonus preffix. Then you can add 1 bonus (ex. Metalline), by using 3 Metalline shards. Then add 3 Good Burst shards(all 6 of them costing more than they do now... atleast 3-4 times and probably with some rare reagent), then adding something like stunning +8 1 shard for the suffix, and a +X shard. That way we get +X Good Burst Metalline Exceptional Wep of stunning +8 bound to your acc. In addition it might become named like... CHARNAME'S exceptional rapier or something

That way we can actually make some nice gear... which will make crafting more popular... of course it will be better if Turbine makes dungeons harder too >.>.

[EllisDee37]

All classes on equal footing from a crafting standpoint, the act of crafting itself should be (for all intents and purposes) 100% free to play but being able to enhance with TP if you so choose is fine, and it should provide the newer or more casual player a viable alternative to raid gear. It 100% shouldn't matter what powergamers can do with it, because powergamers are already so ridiculously overpowered that giving them a little more situational DPS is wholly irrelevant.

In other words, I think the ideal crafting system is 10.0.

[FrancisP.Fancypants]

[I]
I've been dreading the GS grind since I started playing back in '09 and I finally got there at about christmas just gone. And it was everything I dreaded. I've made 1 T3 and 1 T2 item for my monk. I'm still missing four Large ingredients even running it twice a week, and without ever finishing out before completion.

I stalled my altitis enough to level and run shroud, and I finally took a look at GS. And I can't think of anything less fun. I absolutely do not have the interest, no matter how good the items are.

Which is how I feel about regular crafting.
I wasn't too keen on it initially. I tried it for a day, and I was so annoyed with the interface that I swore off it until that got fixed. Instead I've just been banking essences and not thinking about it at all.

Read the update notes for U10 an thought I'd give it another shot- and then something nasty crawled into the crafting hall and shut it down. Honestly, I'm taking it as a sign- unless crafting becomes amazingly easy, or worthwhile (or, god forbid, fun), I'm just gonna auction essences and buy whatever I can't pick up, or hand em off to guildies.

The real kicker for me, and this is just the nature of the beast, is that I don't see a way to make crafting worth the time and effort without making it overpowered, at least to a degree. There's no scenario in which I'll take inventory management and button-clicking over running quests unless the rewards for the former are worth the grind and better than anything I might pull from the latter. Maybe not even then.

[Tocawe]

The one big change I would like to see is consumables (potions, wands, arrows, scrolls, etc) making up most of the level grinding.

[Kushiel]

Something more like the Asheron's Call crafting system would be much much better. With the ability to fletch arrows, make potions, and foods to heal. IMO that was the best crafting and tinkering system to date in any MMO.

And being able to incrementally improve an existing weapon. IMO that is a big flaw. Would possibly make crafting USEFUL if at lower levels you could ADD a +1 to a weapon. (Not make a +1 weapon, but to have a +3 and add the +1 to make it +4) At higher levels you can add greater bonuses, more prefixes and suffixes, etc. With a fail chance that would destroy the weapon and the essence the more times you added a bonus to it (with a max of maybe adding 5 bonuses) .......like the AC crafting system. So maybe there would be a high chance to add something the first couple times......but on your 4th attempt you might have a large fail chance, so do you risk adding holy burst to it and destroy that sweet weapon and all the essence, or do you just leave it with 3 craft upgrades.


I ramble. I just loved AC's crafting system. Start over with something more along those lines. Turbine.....if those guys are still on the payroll......get em over here!

Lets say maybe you find a +2silver khopesh of some garbage prefixes and suffixes.
Step 1: Disjunct the item's prefixes and suffixes, leaving the +2, your palette to paint on

Step 2: Gather enough essence to add a +1 to it. This is the first time you've crafted on this weapon, so even at low crafting level the chance for you is 98% to add a +1 to the weapon. You do.....success!

Step 3: Later you want to add holy to the weapon......you gather the essence and have gained a few crafting levels.......change to succeed....this is the 2nd craft on it......hmmmmm 78%.....oh what the hell, let's go for it......success!! So now you have a +3 holy silver khopesh

Step 4: Even later you want to add another +2 to it.......you've gained more levels......3rd craft........recipe is easier than holy so your success chance is 89%.....success, you add the +2 and now have a +5 holy silver khopesh

Step 5: You are uber leet crafter man now, and want to add GEOB to your super **** fine killer khopesh..........you're very high level, you have the ton of essence needed........chance to succeed for a high level recipe on your 4th craft on the item 35%......oh no....what do you do.....risk blowing up that khopesh? I can add pure good instead with a 68% chance to succeed......no hell with it.....I'm feeling lucky.......OMG I just blew up that +5 silver holy khopesh and lost the essence.

IMO, having a chance to destroy the weapon would keep the flood of +4 Holy Silver of GOEB from hitting the market since it would be very risky to make. Better solution than requiring ridiculous ingredients....and also make lower level crafting useful since you can incrementally upgrade your weapon.

Animate, Dig Up, Revive, Resurrect, Un-Box the old AC Crafting Dev's - whatever it is y'all did with them! ;-}

Current thing is unbelievably cumbersome and an accountant/bean-counters dream (or for someone who gets more joy from filling out spreadsheet cells than looting the bodies of the fallen).

AC - the harvesting of materials was reasonable; the inventory requirements were too. The methods used to craft were simple (miraculously simple in comparison to what now exists). And that *rush* of attempting gear augments with narrowing percentage chances of success was actually fun.

[WangChi]

Because its awful. Its very clever, true, but its possibly the worst crafting system I've ever encountered in any game, anywhere.

Its a horrible grind where you don't make any progress for run after run after run of the same quest, its completely random what you might get beyond knowing you might get small, medium or large ingredients from x y or z chest, there's no 'recipes' to view in game - if it wasn't for the wiki and other sites that the community has created (heaven forbid Turbine should document their systems or ever update their game manual for instance) it would just be a total crapshoot trying to make even a blank let alone apply any effects. By all accounts when it launched that's exactly what it was. And you want more of that?

I've been dreading the GS grind since I started playing back in '09 and I finally got there at about christmas just gone. And it was everything I dreaded. I've made 1 T3 and 1 T2 item for my monk. I'm still missing four Large ingredients even running it twice a week, and without ever finishing out before completion.

I very much doubt I will ever bother with another character. I take my sorc in there, but mostly I'm just hoping to get the ingredients I need to finish off my monk so I never have to go in there again. I'll dump the rest in the guild chest and be done with it forever.

Cannith crafting has its issues, but please. As far as I'm concerned nothing like the GS crafting system should ever be replicated anywhere, ever again.

*shudder*

I don't disagree that the GS grind is bad (1 quest, a raid no less, producing the bulk of ingredients), but that doesn't mean the PROCESS to craft (raw->manufactured->item/upgrade) can't be the same with a lesser grind spread out over all available quests for regular crafting and be just as effective.

Imagine actually DISCOVERING a recipe for a cool weapon or armor instead of just getting it handed to you in a big list, I can only imagine how awesome it was for the first player to actually make a Min II or Lit II GS weapon, or a 45hp item with earthgrab guard and summon clicky. Now we have the wiki, so nobody discovers, but imagine if Cannith Crafting was like that, where you had to actually QUEST to learn recipes?

And how in the world is clicking and dragging essences 80,000 times or more (I've seen the screenshots) MORE fun than running the same quest over and over with friends and PUGpals to gather ingredients and potentially pull great random loot? At least questing I get to PLAY the game and not be PLAYED by it.

[somenewnoob]

AC - the harvesting of materials was reasonable; the inventory requirements were too. The methods used to craft were simple (miraculously simple in comparison to what now exists). And that *rush* of attempting gear augments with narrowing percentage chances of success was actually fun.

lol it was fun.......the "Omg please don't blow up this 8th sword in a row I've tried to imbue with sunstone......." Many many good times!

I liked how you could harvest materials in the field and not have to lug a sack of loot back to some device too. If we could just deconstruct things we found immediately that would be a huge improvement.

But the system in AC was useful at EVERY LEVEL. Even if you first starting out the little health elixirs you could make were helpful. And the ability to improve a weapon incrementally was great. Again, since even a relatively unskilled crafter could do 1 tinker on something that made it useful at low levels.


^^ Someone up there also mentioned consumables being used to level, and that is a fantastic idea. If I could make something useful (Yes at low levels a clw pot is useful) to level my crafting I would be MUCH MUCH more inclined to craft. As I gained crafting levels now I can make cmw pots......perfect....right about the time I start needing them.....later.....great I can make csw pots......Arrows, consumable clickies, sp pots, etc etc.

[Altaweir]

I stalled my altitis enough to level and run shroud, and I finally took a look at GS. And I can't think of anything less fun. I absolutely do not have the interest, no matter how good the items are.

Which is how I feel about regular crafting.
I wasn't too keen on it initially. I tried it for a day, and I was so annoyed with the interface that I swore off it until that got fixed. Instead I've just been banking essences and not thinking about it at all.

Read the update notes for U10 an thought I'd give it another shot- and then something nasty crawled into the crafting hall and shut it down. Honestly, I'm taking it as a sign- unless crafting becomes amazingly easy, or worthwhile (or, god forbid, fun), I'm just gonna auction essences and buy whatever I can't pick up, or hand em off to guildies.

The real kicker for me, and this is just the nature of the beast, is that I don't see a way to make crafting worth the time and effort without making it overpowered, at least to a degree. There's no scenario in which I'll take inventory management and button-clicking over running quests unless the rewards for the former are worth the grind and better than anything I might pull from the latter. Maybe not even then.

Exactly my feelings. Except that I was so willing to induge in crafting that I readily accepted the poor interface, the awful loading time for recipes, the oddly steep shard pricing.

10.0 wasn't perfect, far from it, but it had merits. People could achieve something useful. But a few players reaching level cap in no time (perhaps using the exploit leading to Cannith shutdown, who knows) and boasting about it on forum was enough to convince the entire Turbine team that it was "too easy". They just killed it with 10.1 "train wreck" and 10.2 "400 favor + LDS". Like if anyone was going to burn Green Steel ingredients (and which ingredients!) on mere cannith shards. Like if I was going to purchase lame packs like Necro I-III and run them on Elite just to get now-required SF pots. No way.

I sank many, many resources in cannith crafting and I'm now being reaped of rewards. From the exponential shard cost and now insanely rare and expensive ingredients required for high-level shards, I know I'll never reach peak - I'll even stop crafting except for the couple utility shards I can already achieve. But that's life. I'm not resentful. At least I'm a lot wiser now regarding "Beta" crafting - and slightly more cynical regarding Turbine.

Some people have submitted very interesting crafting alternatives, like Asheron's Call one. But it'll never be implemented here even if it was the perfect system (and it isn't). Turbine just went too far in current system to do anything more than a few tweaks on recipes. Look how they seem eager to push their "Refined Eberron Dragonshards" down our throats. Or involving "ingredients" worth 800'000 plat on AH just to create a shard...

Meh.

[dougnugget]

Here's my current thoughts on the topic - many of these things have already been said and thanks to those that have already said it.

1) Change the system away from one where you have to craft a lot of shards that you have no use for, to level up to the point where you can craft what you do actually want. This is what makes crafting a time sink and (I suspect) puts a lot of stress on the server. I'm quite happy for this to mean that each item is a lot more expensive in terms of essences, but you can make it straight away.

2) This means that deconning shards shouldn't be necessary except as a way to correct mistakes - so don't give any rewards for deconning them. Gets rid of at least one potential loophole in the current system.

3) Continue to give essences and XP for deconning items - but don't give cash. Why not? There should be a meaningful choice between deconning for essences and selling for cash. Players who decon a lot will be relatively cash poor, and that's a good thing for the overall economy. The more people who craft, the more valuable plat becones - and the more people who sell, the more valuable essences become. This should act as a stabilising force.

4) Keep crafting levels and use them to award a discount to the base cost of the essences used in a recipe. As a quick and dirty example, 1% less essences for every 2-3 crafting levels, so a craftng level of 150 gives you a discount of 50-75%. Do not apply this discount to the number of collectables or other ingredients needed to craft something.

5) Retain BTA as the default for crafted items - this means that someone with a lot of alts (and who has spent TP for those alts) isn't penalised for this.

6) Allow unbound crafting, but make it cost more. For example, double the essence cost. Scale this so that the discount from high crafting levels still allows someone to craft something for a friend/guildie/paying customer for cheaper than that other person could. For example, if the unbound cost is twice that of the bound cost, but a Lvl 150 crafter gets a 75% discount on this, they can still craft items for a new player at half the cost that new player would have to spend.

7) Only include items that require specific adventure packs (for example, the new "mystical" items) if those items can also be traded in the AH. People with the packs still get an advantage (they can farm for them instead of having to buy them) and FTP don't get locked out of the best bits of the crafting system.

8) Don't take a massive dump on GS crafters by diverting large ingredients out of the market because they are now needed for Cannith crafting.

9) Similarly, don't take a massive dump on people who are trying to get named raid loot... by requiring it as a Cannith crafting ingredient. This undermines the social contract that you put loot up for a roll if you can't use it. Possibly the biggest mistake made in the last update.

10) Don't require favour rewards such as silver flame pots. I bet many TRs spend a lot of money in the store (on Hearts and/or XP pots) so this is a dumb business move as well as being somewhat annoying.

11) Get a bit more creative with the recipes. For example, more recipes that require essences of any type. Maybe items that require all four types of elemental essence.

12) Consider adding special crafting recipes (named crafting loot if you will). These should have a very high cost and (unlike standard recipes) require a minimum crafting level - and not be craftable unbound. Power level should be on a par with raid loot, but not epic items.

13) then take what you have learned and fix epic crafting so it's not the monotonous grindfest it is at present!

Thanks,

- doug

[dunklezhan]

I don't disagree that the GS grind is bad (1 quest, a raid no less, producing the bulk of ingredients), but that doesn't mean the PROCESS to craft (raw->manufactured->item/upgrade) can't be the same with a lesser grind spread out over all available quests for regular crafting and be just as effective.

Agreed. But I'm confused as to how that isn't the same process for Canith either. Raw (items), Manufacture (decon, essences + collectibles>shards), item/upgrade (apply shard to deconned item). Its identical if you break it down that far.

Imagine actually DISCOVERING a recipe for a cool weapon or armor instead of just getting it handed to you in a big list, I can only imagine how awesome it was for the first player to actually make a Min II or Lit II GS weapon, or a 45hp item with earthgrab guard and summon clicky. Now we have the wiki, so nobody discovers, but imagine if Cannith Crafting was like that, where you had to actually QUEST to learn recipes?

I have in fact suggested that very thing elsewhere in one of the threads as an alternative to such silliness as including raid loot and named items as ingredients. Even if they were one shot recipes which you'd have to reloot to make, it would really add to the system. They should do this with their precious EOB recipes if they're so unbalancing (not that I think they are, as it happens), I'm all in favour. /Signed.

And how in the world is clicking and dragging essences 80,000 times or more (I've seen the screenshots) MORE fun than running the same quest over and over with friends and PUGpals to gather ingredients and potentially pull great random loot? At least questing I get to PLAY the game and not be PLAYED by it.

I;m confused: what on earth would you be dragging essences around like that for? You just select the recipe, the essences get pulled in as long as they're in your backpack. Unless you mean to make lessers from greaters, in which case I do agree its not bloody fun, and I wish they'd hurry up and let you put stacks of them in at once, and while they're at it let us combine lessers into greaters. Sheer silliness.

Also - ingredients for Cannith crafting can drop from all quest end rewards, all random chests. So I *am* running with pugpals, and guildies. I'm also deconning most of my own loot. I'm also getting sent essences by guildies who don't want to craft but are grateful for the few bits I can pass their alts as they level. Cannith crafting is way more of a social enterprise than pugging a shroud. I've run shrouds where no one has said anything once its been established that no-one is new, except to announce who to keep alive in the final part. Its every bit as much a monotonous click-fest as Cannith Crafting, except you get equipment damage into the bargain and expend consumables!

The general crafting grind in Cannith is of course, not really 'enjoyable'. However its more enjoyable than GS (to me!) for one reason, possibly the most important reason: you can see progress as you go. Each thing you do gets you something, and you're in control of what that something is, not a random loot table.

You can see that you are getting better at the skill, you get an immediate reward (even if its useless to you if you're just levelling - but that's why as soon as unbound came out I never went back to bound. Now anything I make I can auction or give away instead of just vendor trashing or deconning again). You can choose not to make something that's of no benefit, with out losing out.

With greensteel you probably aren't even looking at what's looted, unless you're looking out for a particular ingredient. Its just run loot run loot run loot take a look in your bags no not yet run loot run loot. If you decide not to loot yet another gnawed bone, you can't get something else in return unless someone else is feeling very nice indeed. You might have a goal but you have literally no idea how long its going to take you to get there. Gah. So frustrating.

But look - I'm not claiming Cannith crafting as it is, is really what I want. Its not. What I actually want is what Fernando promised in his press breifings - you take an effect off one item, and you put it on another. That's what the man up top said, that's what I want.

Ditto armour appearance 'customisation' (though at least that's actually feasible via the Cannith system. I've certainly deconned a Docent just for its looks, am keeping it in the bank for the 'perfect' docent for a toon at some point).





Oh, and on the subject of the Refined Eberron Dragonshards. I'm in favor of such items in prinicple since that's exactly how the Eberron campaign setting fuels all its arcane-punk magical industries. That's entirely correct. Now, whether or not the way players get their hands on it in DDO is reasonable... different story.

[NytCrawlr]

Sadly, I don't think you could do anything casual-accessible that a hardcore player or vet won't be able to just dominate. That said, I would still go casual-accessible.

My crafting would use the current crafting as its base, but with some serious changes:

1) Abolish crafting levels.

2) Adjust Shard Recipes.

3) Consolidate Greater and Lesser Essences.

4) Abolish unbound crafting.

5) Deconstructing. The returns on this would have to be evaluated and adjusted based on what the top tier shards would cost. But, if there's only one type of essence (no greaters and lessers), then it could be a lot easier to regulate and estimate how many items with what abilities need to be deconned in order to make that great shard.

Another +1 to you! I offered some of this to Madfloyd already, so it is good to see that I am not the only thinking in these terms.

I haven't played a lot of MMOs, but the few I have that allow for crafting, either don't have levels or the levels are arbitrary, and it makes sense that the focus is turned more onto essences than leveling.

I also think increasing the drop rate and settling on one type of essence is a great idea as well. Unbound crafting I am in a mixed boat on, but ultimately I only craft for my toons and never really planned to use the unbound system. I suggested that we keep the more potent shards out of unbound, but maybe removing unbound altogether would be a better idea.

All in all I am in favor.

[NytCrawlr]

4. Named items abilities should be severely examined. Greater Stability or Blood belong to named loot, not random loot. It's not just a question of power but of consistency. As it would be slightly extreme to remove them completely ("songblade" enhancement is hardly game-breaking) they could stay but only in special recipes involving Rare collectibles or Rare Ingredients. Shards giving effect of what we find on "random junk loot" should be easily craftable, shards duplicated effects found on named could ask for more.)

Agreed.

I would like to take this one step further and allow for some, if not all down the road, named items to be upgraded within the crafting system, which is something else I suggested. Not able to be deconstructed, but instead able to be upgraded in order to keep them leveling with characters and keep them above normal, random loot. Also suggesting that if this is implemented that they find a good balance with non-epic vs. epic on some named items that are able to be upgraded already.

One example, and it's just one, but Midnight Greetings, in particular, starts at a +1 enchantment to +6 at epic, and I think it would be nice if you could at least upgrade the enchantment portion as you level, but not to the point where it devalues the epic item, maybe be able to upgrade it to a +3 at most before taking it epic, and obviously everything else with that particular item would stay the same.

Obviously this would be a case by case basis and certain items would have more recipes than others, but I still think it is a good idea to be able to implement this for those of us seeking better favor builds and the like and don't really care about epics much, or at least don't plan to be as hard core as some towards them.

[NytCrawlr]

Because its awful. Its very clever, true, but its possibly the worst crafting system I've ever encountered in any game, anywhere.

Its a horrible grind where you don't make any progress for run after run after run of the same quest, its completely random what you might get beyond knowing you might get small, medium or large ingredients from x y or z chest, there's no 'recipes' to view in game - if it wasn't for the wiki and other sites that the community has created (heaven forbid Turbine should document their systems or ever update their game manual for instance) it would just be a total crapshoot trying to make even a blank let alone apply any effects.

Yeah, I have one character nearing the time she needs to start doing that, and while I will run it at least a few times to get familiar with it, I have a feeling that I am not going to bother trying to make anything.

[dougnugget]

Agreed.

I would like to take this one step further and allow for some, if not all down the road, named items to be upgraded within the crafting system, which is something else I suggested. Not able to be deconstructed, but instead able to be upgraded in order to keep them leveling with characters and keep them above normal, random loot. Also suggesting that if this is implemented that they find a good balance with non-epic vs. epic on some named items that are able to be upgraded already.

+1 for this, great idea. Would also give us an upgrade path to make some of the weaker raid loot more useful - without requiring a change to items anyone already owns.

[NytCrawlr]

1. Remove levels as a requirement for creating recipes.

2. Increase the amount of essences needed to create higher level shards.

3. Use levels to give a discount on needed ingredients.

4. Use levels to give a chance at exceptional crafted items. Simple things like an extra point of damage, randomly larger guild augment slot, higher starting value for craftable +X, or minimum level augmentation.

Actually, I think I like this idea even more. I only have mid 20s across the board on one toon, so I wouldn't miss them much if they went away, but this would certainly give enough incentive for those that like leveling to continue doing it I think. Heck maybe I would continue doing it, but the jury is still out on that one.

Ultimately I do like the crafting system, and will go back to it even if it re-opens tomorrow with no changes and continue the grind, but I will also continue to put it aside for what I deem are more important things, like leveling a toon to cap (almost have my first one), and checking out all of the quests and getting familiar with them, because that grind I don't mind.

[barecm]

If the items you made were worth having, people would be more into it. As it is, it takes way too much effort and time to make the simpliest items that 1 run through STK or WW trumps. If there is to be a true crafting system, let us create all items and prefixes/suffixes in the game on ANY item.

If you have been playing since original release, you would have seen them change the raid loot system from something stupid (group leader hands out the guaranteed 2 pieces of raid loot... usually pocketing both items and dropping group) to some even more stupid (an elite run on xxx raid with NO raid loot). So, I am not shocked to see certain effects not working on the ugly stepchild weapons of ddo (bows, repeaters and handwraps) or that what takes days to grind to craft is only useable at a higher level than what you can get out of quests and bound to character. Dumb, yes..... par for the course.... yes.

[brian14]

I've been dreading the GS grind since I started playing back in '09 and I finally got there at about christmas just gone. And it was everything I dreaded. I've made 1 T3 and 1 T2 item for my monk. I'm still missing four Large ingredients even running it twice a week, and without ever finishing out before completion.

Maybe my experience is unusual, but it is very different from yours.

I have 15 or 16 Shroud completions, maybe 10 wipes; I finished out before completion on purpose only once. At present I have three Tier 2 items, one Tier 3 (single shard), Pure Essence and Superior Focus earmarked for my Bard 13, and 6-7 larges in the bag (no scales though). A lot of Vale and Shroud ings I bought/traded, especially during events.

[LucidLTS]

Some great ideas already here, but brainstorming is about getting the max ideas now and evaluating later so ...

1) Abolish crafting levels - what shards you can make depends on your character level
2) Have an XP and Plat cost for each shard commensurate with its power/value
3) Have a cool down commensurate with shard power/value. Like raid timers, it should be measured in R.L. days.
4) Unbound shards (if allowed at all) should have the same level but roughly double the XP, Cost, and cool down of bound
5) Similarly, for increased costs allow application to non-standard items (and costs stack with unbound so proof against poison boots cost 4 times as much as bound PaP belt)


And other miscellaneous thoughts ...

Why does Canith Crafting have to entertain and challenge the vets? They've got raids. They've got GS crafting. They want new content. Keep crafting a simple way for casual players to make gear good enough to get them into harder groups so they aren't sidelined when MyDDO shows them under equipped. Use the time you haven't spent overworking a crafting system to develop new high end content. You don't make PvP challenge and entertain vets, why hold Canith Crafting to that artificial standard?

The only ingredients required should be available from a variety of quests, even if with a very rare drop rate - Eberron Dragonshards are fine but Golden Swamp Pearls are not - so casual gamers (or at least moderately casual gamers) have a shot.

When choosing ingredients, use large numbers of smaller and more available collectables so lower level characters can farm and have something to sell to more powerful characters, who in turn sell them the loot they pulled from high level quests. Let each group need and appreciate the contribution of the other.

Great thread!

[Letrii]

Some great ideas already here, but brainstorming is about getting the max ideas now and evaluating later so ...

1) Abolish crafting levels - what shards you can make depends on your character level
2) Have an XP and Plat cost for each shard commensurate with its power/value
3) Have a cool down commensurate with shard power/value. Like raid timers, it should be measured in R.L. days.
4) Unbound shards (if allowed at all) should have the same level but roughly double the XP, Cost, and cool down of bound
5) Similarly, for increased costs allow application to non-standard items (and costs stack with unbound so proof against poison boots cost 4 times as much as bound PaP belt)


And other miscellaneous thoughts ...

Why does Canith Crafting have to entertain and challenge the vets? They've got raids. They've got GS crafting. They want new content. Keep crafting a simple way for casual players to make gear good enough to get them into harder groups so they aren't sidelined when MyDDO shows them under equipped. Use the time you haven't spent overworking a crafting system to develop new high end content. You don't make PvP challenge and entertain vets, why hold Canith Crafting to that artificial standard?

The only ingredients required should be available from a variety of quests, even if with a very rare drop rate - Eberron Dragonshards are fine but Golden Swamp Pearls are not - so casual gamers (or at least moderately casual gamers) have a shot.

When choosing ingredients, use large numbers of smaller and more available collectables so lower level characters can farm and have something to sell to more powerful characters, who in turn sell them the loot they pulled from high level quests. Let each group need and appreciate the contribution of the other.

Great thread!

I hate 1-3, but 4 and 5 aren't too bad.