State of Crafting

[Arnhelm]

Just found an "interesting" item that will probably cause complaints if not addressed. Not really a bug.

Two Life Shield shards exist. One is described as Life Shield, the other as Life Shield (Weapon). Since I was crafting a weapon, I made the latter shard. After I'd made the shard, I went to apply it to a rapier I was crafting up. It would not apply, generating a No Recipe Found message in the Unbound Item Crafting Device. Come to find out after reading the shard description, Life Shield (Weapon) is ONLY for ranged weapons.

I suggest the name be changed to Life Shield (Ranged Weapon) if that's the only use for that shard. Lots of folks will see the two and craft the Weapon shard when trying to make a non-ranged weapon. You get the idea.

[Arnhelm]

Seems some of the shard ratings might be off. Already submitted a bug report. Can't apply what is rated as a +2 shard to an item with 2 points to got to maximum enchantment level.

Edit - Umm... Ardor shards, tried a couple of different weapons and shards of +1 and +2 ratings.

[Dragavon]

After review, we’re not that unhappy with the current state of crafted item minimum levels, but are considering adding a way for players to actively choose to reduce the minimum levels of certain items.

You cannot possibly be serious?????

I have in my posession a +1 acid of pure good rapier, race restricted human, that I have upgraded with festival icy burst. It is an awesome item for lvl 2 and upwards.

I have made a +1 acid shortbow of pure good for a new character I am levelling. It turned out to be min level 7.

There is no way anyone can say that makes crafting good. Compared to what you get on randomly generated weapons crafting is useless, until you can make high end weapon for use at lvl 20.

I am happy with the min level on items, but crafting weapons for chars below level 20 is useless. It needs to be changed, crafted weapons should also have a lower minimum level like crafted items have.

[Fomori]

It seems that certain effects are deemed by the devs to be more 'game breaking' than others, which is the intention of adding rare crafting materials. What about adding a non-crafted item with the property wanted as one of the component for specific high level shard recipes.

This way we are simply recycle what we think is a useless item into something closer to what we want for a final item. It does require getting an item with the property, which can be easy/hard depending on the item and what you are willing to pay/farm for it.

With that in mind I hope that a lot of these changes are not being done with unbound shards as the reason. If that is case I would prefer to see unbound shards go away instead. I have no qualm about only being able to craft for my toons and make money off it. It seems that if you wanted to limit the impact high level crafters have on the overall economy the easiest solution is dont let them make items for others.

[ShortRanger]

I was under the impression that crafting was not for Epic Items. If theoretical min level exceeds 20, would that not by definition be considered an epic Item?

If the crafting system needs adjustment because of very high epic type weapons, Why not just eliminate the higher Shards of potential?

With character cap at 20 we should not need shards of potential over +10 or +11 if they tweek min level.

It would not be unreasonable in my eyes to drop max shard of potential to +9 which would allow level 17 weapons. If you need above that go farm the junk you need for your epic weapon of choice.

If you want holy burst and greater bane, you only get it on a +1 or +2 weapon sorry.

Lets move this system back to the point where it mimics Random loot but can not exceed it by lowering the max potential that can be put on an item.

[ferrite]

I was under the impression that crafting was not for Epic Items. If theoretical min level exceeds 20, would that not by definition be considered an epic Item?

Technically, that's probably right.

But I find most epics have around 3 to 5 abilities, I know of no epic items that have only two, just a prefix and suffix. Not off the top of my head anyway.

That is where I think the balance comes in. The lack of multiple abilities means high level crafted items will never be as good as their named epic counterparts, no matter how high the crafted level goes.

[dkyle]

I was under the impression that crafting was not for Epic Items. If theoretical min level exceeds 20, would that not by definition be considered an epic Item?

The only ones who define "Epic" in DDO are the devs. It's just a label.

Lets move this system back to the point where it mimics Random loot but can not exceed it by lowering the max potential that can be put on an item.

Why should crafting be limited to mimicing random loot?

If anything, there are too few good crafted items possible, not too many.

[Full_Bleed]

There is no way anyone can say that makes crafting good. Compared to what you get on randomly generated weapons crafting is useless, until you can make high end weapon for use at lvl 20.

Well, to be fair, Crafting is good to make cheap boss beaters. But, it's best at level 20 boss beaters because the system is "broken" in that it basically allow players to craft weapons that exceed ML 20 but are still useable by 20's.

But, yeah, it's a terrible system for making all-purpose weapons (especially when compared to how much better an "inferior" random weapon with Festival Icy Burst usually is.)

I really do not understand why it's so difficult to make Cannith Crafted weapons equal to random loot gen weapon MLs. Personally, I think it should be 1 ML lower since the items are BTC and required an investment of time and money to make, but if they aren't going to make it equal to random loot gen, I haven't got much faith that they will make it better. RR random gen would still be the best even at -1 ML for Cannith Crafted (plus you can add Festival effects.)

[shawnvw]

It's been my experience that crafting an item that's useful for even a mid-level character requires a fairly high crating level. My crafter is in the 25-30 range and hasn't been able to make anything comparable to the loot my 11th-level character has, much less my 17th-levels.

Is there any alternative to grinding for crafting levels? Would you consider raising the crafting experience received so we can level faster? How about having Success Boosters drop in chests?

[ShortRanger]

Why should crafting be limited to mimicing random loot?

If anything, there are too few good crafted items possible, not too many.

Because if the game is balanced with random loot it stays balanced if crated is = to random (or close to =).

If crafted is better than random the better you make it the more it can distort the game.



On the topic of too few crafted items are you speaking of non available recipes like paralyzing and righteous?
If so I would say bring them in. Nothing that is random generated should not be able to be crafted so long as the highest min level for an item is less than 20.

[dkyle]

Because if the game is balanced with random loot it stays balanced if crated is = to random (or close to =).

If crafted is better than random the better you make it the more it can distort the game.

There's very little random gear that competes with Raid, Epic, and named gear, already.

There's plenty of room for crafted loot to exceed random without distorting the game.

The few Raid-quality crafted items would still be Raid-quality even with a +10 potential limit.

[blkcat1028]

After review, we’re not that unhappy with the current state of crafted item minimum levels, but are considering adding a way for players to actively choose to reduce the minimum levels of certain items.

Maybe one of the "Challenge Quests" alluded to in the SotG letter, perhaps?

[ShortRanger]

The few Raid-quality crafted items would still be Raid-quality even with a +10 potential limit.

If these are truly the ones that make crafting need to be adjusted, the devs should look at fixing the enhancements not mess up a good system to eliminate that one particular combo.

alternate choice would be to drop the grater bane shards till they figure out a real fix

So I would say let them flow without raid ingredients and fix the enhancements if they are that overpowered.

[wolflordnexus]

ok i'll add my thoughts on the present state of crafting...

i can understand the reasoning behind the high costs for crafted weapon like HB silver of GEOB but i don't agree with the implementation of this additional cost because of its negative effects on the leveling process.

hence my proposals:

1) Move purified ebberon shards to the shard of potential instead.
For example you could have 1 for the +11 up to 5 for the +15. This restricts the creation of powerfull items while not crippling the leveling process.

2) Move other rare ingredients like devil scales, deamon blood etc to the item crafting step.
That is instead of using such ingredients for creating a shard you need them to apply the shard to the item. This has several positive consequences: first it would be possible to use even these shards for leveling without lowering the cost of powerfull items, secondly it impacts (almost) everyone equally even those that banked hundreds of powerfull shards before U10.1, thirdly it removes the chance of losing a rare ingredient upon a crafting failure (that would be VERY annoying).

This

[shawnvw]

I had some ideas that I posted once before. I just expanded them to include crafting too.

- Collectibles: These tend to accumulate because there's only one way to tell if a dropped treasure bag holds somehting that I want: click the bag to put that item into my inventory, where it takes up space even in a sack.

- Special Ingredients: My character has no further use for Planar Shards or Shavarath Stones of Battle. What does he do with the ones he has left over? They're bound to him, but destroying them seems a waste.

- Gems: In p&p, characters like gems because they take up less space and weight than the same value in coins. In DDO, not only is the *opposite* true, but gems are lower in value than nearly anything else that takes up pack space.

Some solutions:

- Stone of Change Crafting recipies. Lets you crunch big stacks of collectibles, gems, or BtC items into crafting components, uncommon crafting ingredients, and my personal favorite: *success booters*!

- Other new Stone of Change recipies: Crunch common collectibles into a few rare ones, convert a three BtC ingredients into one BtA version

- For gems, make a few changes to the loot tables: When gems appear in chests, they should be in stacks of dozens or even hundreds. A stack should be similar in value to other items in the chest. Also, have only one or two types of gem appear in
each chest so they take up fewer bag slots.

- One more about gems: what if unusual gems were occasionally mixed in with the mundane ones? Maybe the previous owner didn't recognize the value of a Crushed Ruby, Black Onyx, or even a Soul Gem?

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

Q. Will I be able to make better items than raid loot?
A. Not at this time. Raid loot is currently has the highest level of items in the game. It is possible that in the future we consider including a crafting avenue to enhance existing raid loot, but we have no firm plans at the moment.

Q. Why do some higher level recipes require rare ingredients?
A. As designers, we have an obligation to balance the game. Some of the higher level recipes can result in very powerful items. Since players really only need one crafter for all their characters, we want to ensure that it's not just all about reaching the required crafting level, but having the appropriate ingredients so that making a number of these items isn't trivial.

In my opinion, these two can be a bit contradicting. We all know that, in some slots, a few of the rare items that were proposed to be part of high-level crafts are better than some raid loot.

Although it's probably already out of the question, I would like to have seen a crafting model more in the lines of what some people refer to as been said by Fernando, in the beginning of Cannith Crafting: you would remove a prefix/suffix/etc from an item, and with a given recipe (which could be more difficult than currently is) you could put together the item exactly as you wanted, with the exception of certain prefixes/suffixes/special abilities.

I think people wouldn't mind deconstructing a Paralyzer and a Pure good weapon, if they knew that at a given price, they would end up with a Paralyzing of Pure Good weapon (just an example).

Thanks for the effort, but I ask the Devs to not be affraid to rethink impartially certain aspects of crafting, think the community wouldn't mind waiting more if it meant a more enjoyable and less farming crafting experience. Some examples/suggestions:

• "Tier 3": Certain unique quests giving in the boss chest a unique component to make items.
  
  • Kill the Demon Queen in order to get crystal with Pure Good
  • Do the optional puzzle in Dream Conspiracy to get crystal to add +5/+6 Int to an item
  
  
• "Tier 2": Certain accomplishments like completing an explorer area, kill all rares, or at certain stages of the slayer objective, or other new acomplishments.
  
  • Explorers: Striding %, Feather Fall, Resistances
  • Rares: +3/+4 Str/Dex/Con, Elemental guards
  • Slayers: False Life, Power I-IX
  
  
• "Tier 1": Collectible turn-ins (this is already touched by the current crafting, but could be more generalized)
  
  • Holy Touch (+1 good damage): 20 string of prayer beads
  • Lesser Fire Resistance: 20 smoldering embers
  
  

These are obviously suggestions without much consideration with weighing the powers of each shard, but you get the picture. The theme of the quest could also play a part on the type of shards (Acid Wit for acid related shards, Necropolis quest for Undead/Divine shards, Stealer of Souls for each of the Elements and maybe a big shard at the end...)

But the big difference is that, people would be able to set themselves to go hunt a specific type (or at least, a smaller restrict group ) of shard. This means people wouldn't need to deconstruct (and therefor lose money which is dear to lowbies specially - high-levels deal in items anyway), and could introduce a new type of objectives in Wilderness areas, either paired up with the current objectives of rare/explorer/slayer, or as new objectives of mini-quests.

I hope you find this input valuable

[Khurse]

As I've said before. I like these changes. They (imo) strike a pretty decent balance between gear available to a casual player (ie relatively easily craftable Holy weapons) and rewarding players who play/explore more of the game.
(easier access to favor shards).
However there are two issues I'm still concerned about.
1) The minimum level - this is an issue. While I don't see a problem with not making crafted gear the equal level of the RR random drops, there is a fairly wide gap between what low level random items have for a ML and what your crafted items have as the ML.

2) Demon's Blood as an ingredient for GEOB and GCOB shards. This is one I was going back and forth on. I like the idea of having a large Scale as part of the GLOB/ GEOB shards, -but they drop in more places.
I really think that if the Demon's Blood is kept as an ingredient (which I kinda hope it is) that it should be added to the ADQ/DQ line as a potential end reward. With a lower than Amrath drop rate or elite, and a higher than Amrath drop rate on Epic.- Bye end reward I had meant the end chest, but i suppose it would work either way.

[sirgog]

2) Demon's Blood as an ingredient for GEOB and GCOB shards. This is one I was going back and forth on. I like the idea of having a large Scale as part of the GLOB/ GEOB shards, -but they drop in more places.
I really think that if the Demon's Blood is kept as an ingredient (which I kinda hope it is) that it should be added to the ADQ/DQ line as a potential end reward. With a lower than Amrath drop rate or elite, and a higher than Amrath drop rate on Epic.

I could get right behind seeing Demon's Blood drop from ADQ1 on Elite and/or Epic. That quest is actually tough enough on Elite that it's not cake for ungeared level 20s.

So my final thoughts on Demon's Blood:
Add it to Into the Deep Hezrou chest (elite/epic only), ADQ1 (elite/epic only), Into the Demon;s Den elite, and then keep it as a requirement for those two shards.

Preferably Bone + Blood for GCOB and Scale + Blood for the 'luxury' version, GEOB. (And Chain + something else for GLOB).

[Ungood]

There's very little random gear that competes with Raid, Epic, and named gear, already.

The point you seem to be missing is that it is not supposed to compete with Raid and Epic gear.

Q. Will I be able to make better items than raid loot?
A. Not at this time. Raid loot is currently has the highest level of items in the game. It is possible that in the future we consider including a crafting avenue to enhance existing raid loot, but we have no firm plans at the moment.

[oradafu]

I just realized something. It seems that all the steep costs for the crafting are against Melees. I don't play a caster or healer, so I didn't really think about it, but after looking up some of the costs for what I would think are pretty good effects on items, they just don't seem to scale at all when compared what Melees do.

Here are some examples to compare (leaving out the Sib dragonshards):
* Greater Banes cost 21 large essences, 192 small essences and a couple of special ingredients.
* Superior Potency IV needs 28 large, 224 small
* Superior Benevolence/Nullifcation/Radiance/Devotion/Corrosion/Resonance/Magnetism V needs 21 large, 224 small and 2 Purified Ebberon
* Superior Glaciation/Combustion/Reconstruction V needs 21 large, 224 small and 2 Purified Ebberon
* Superior Efficacy VII needs 21 large, 192 small and 2 Purified Ebberon
* Superior Ardor/Beatitude VII needs 15 large, 80 small essences and 2 Purified Ebberon.
* Superior Nihil/Brilliance/Impact/Cacophony/Erosion/Spark/Inferno/Freeze/Mending VII needs 10 large, 80 small and 2 Purified Ebberon
* Efficient Metamagics that need no special ingredients and cost 6 large and 80 small essences.
* Major Lores only cost 15 large, 192 small and 2 Purified Ebberon

So why is there a discrepancy between melee and non-melee shards?
Could it be because there are more schools of magic than banes? Maybe.
Could it be because melees will do alot more damage than non-melees? Chuckle...right...
Could it be because melee items will sell more than caster and healer items? This seems to be the only real reason for the change. If this is the reason for the change, then the bound shards for banes should not need any more special ingredients than the caster/healer shards. The item is going to the crafter of the weapon, not on the open market, so it seems even more heavy handed to penalize melees for wanting to craft their own weapons if these other shards don't have some higher cost to them also.

Maybe I'm wrong and I'm sure I'll get someone (or many) correcting me on this. But as I see it through my prism right now, it seems that melees have gotten hit with the hammer again.