Soul Gems and other rare ingredients: how they double-whammy

[waterboytkd]

So, I've come back to crafting after a forced hiatus known as 10.1. Gotta say, pretty annoyed. Why?

Because the rare ingredients (Soul Gems, shroud mats, slaying arrows, etc), that are meant to mitigate shard construction, are also mitigating leveling. Couple that with the original mitigating factor for shard creation, crafting levels, is still around with the same xp requirements, and we are getting hit twice as hard by the new recipes.

My crafter is currently 78-78-48, and it was a pain to level before the changes were introduced. But, looking at the unbound recipes, it seems like I lost about half of the recipes that were once viable for helping me level. Why did I lose them? Because things like soul gems and slaying arrows got added to the recipes. I don't have these ingredients because, first, I, like many/most others, was not collecting slaying arrows, and second, I don't have an arcane character, so I don't have access to soul gems. I could go to the AH, but the cheapest soul gems needed for crafting on there are going for 10k plat a piece. That wouldn't be an issue if I was just buying the soul gem to make a shard that I was going to put into a weapon. But I'm not. I'm trying to mass produce shards for leveling purposes, and 10k plat per shard just for the soul gem is pretty brutal. Also, Soul Gems aren't unlimited on the AH. Currently, I could spend 45k plat to get 3 Soul Gem: Orc. That's all. Which means, unbound Orc Bane, a shard that was worth less than dirt anyways and was only good for leveling, is no longer a viable shard to level with.

Effectively, any of those recipes that require "special" ingredients are no longer viable for leveling. This is going to make leveling in crafting even more expensive, time-consuming, and grindy--read: unfun--than it already was.

Yes, I get it. Some shards (holy burst, greater evil/lawful/chaotic outsider bane) were very powerful and the old system allowed players who got to the necessary levels to make near unlimited quantities of them. Something had to be done to limit their creation. But why on earth were the same limitations put on mid level shards? Were those same shards so abused? Were shards or Orc Bane completely unbalancing the game? Elf Bane? Halfling Bane? Gimme a break.

Also, remember that the original limitation to shard creation, your crafting levels, is still around, and is impacted by these changes. These changes didn't just make it more of a commitment to make shards you wanted for weapons, they made it so that you had fewer options for leveling your crafting levels. Which is brutal since there were no changes to crafting level xp requirements or gains. It is not only more costly to make the shards you want, but it is more difficult to get to the point where you can even attempt to make the shard you want.

Oh, yeah, the min level to make a shard, too...Before, it was 10 levels below the shard's level. For instance, I am looking to make a Greater Evil Outsider Bane shard (shard level 93) for some handwraps for my Shintao. In the old system, I would only need 5 more divine levels (currently, divine level 78) to attempt it, and could expect to expend about twice the recipe's ingredients doing so due to failed attempts--which I'd do. Now? I would have to have eaten lead paint chips as a baby to attempt any recipe requiring a LDS and Demon Blood with anything less than 95% chance at success, and have even been told that that's too risky. So, to make that shard, I'm going to have to be somewhere around level 88-89, and then use one of the store bought crafting boosters, or get to levels 92-93...

So, again, the new recipes not only make it more costly to create the desired shard, but they make it much more difficult to level in crafting just to be able to spend the money to make the desired shard. It's to the point where I definitely feel it's less grindy to just do GS crafting.

Some ways they could fix this perceived problem:

1) Reduce xp requirements to level in crafting by a significant margin. It's hard to say by something like half, as the low level recipes are largely untouched. But the higher levels, which already had problems with enough shards to level with, could stand to have their xp requirements decreased.

2) Introduce new "practice shards". These would be bound shards, and there would be 12 of them at every crafting level divisible by 5. It would be one practice shard for each essence type, so Practice Shard of Arcane, Practice Shard of Mind, Practice Shard of Fire, Practice Shard of Good, etc. As for pricing the recipes on these, it would probably be for the best if they were set to being the second most efficient leveling shard for their range (about 2-3 levels around the shard, in either direction), counting both bound and unbound crafting. I say second most efficient because that still leaves some shards their vaulted position as most efficient, making the practice shards something you go to after the others.

Of course, since nearly all shards made for leveling purposes are just being deconstructed immediately, maybe it doesn't matter if they're the most efficient shards for leveling, meaning we wouldn't even build other shards unless they were something we actually wanted to make an actual item...

3) Get rid of repeat penalties for crafting a shard. Keep the formula for determining the xp of a shard based on the level of the shard and the % of success, but get rid of diminishing returns for repeats. Basically, the lowest xp a shard of your crafting level or higher would give is that shard's level (shards lower level than your crafting level would be whatever that formula works out to be, but would have no additional penalty based on repeats). That would at least leave us enough shard recipes to reasonably level our crafting, and, of course, as we leveled we would have to find new recipes to level with because the old leveling recipes would become too low level to get xp from.

4) Abolish crafting levels...that's a pretty major change and would require so much more work from the devs than anything else. Probably not happening. ;P

5)And, of course, there's always to option of going back to the way crafting was pre 10.1. Maybe target the VERY FEW problem shards and make them cost extra ingredients (I'm actually ok with things like an LDS or Demon Blood in a recipe, as long as that recipe isn't a friggin leveling recipe). BUT this would require a delicate touch, as not every Greater Bane requires extra costs, because not every Greater Bane is even good. A quick list of problem shards:

Greater Evil/Lawful/Chaotic Outsider Bane
Greater Construct Bane
Greater Undead Bane (maybe)
Greater Elemental Bane (maybe)
Holy Burst
Holy (maybe)
Attack +4
Fire Absorb 33%
Electricity Abosrb 33%

EDIT: 6) Get rid of the failure chance on shard, but institute a cost multiplier. Basically, your chance to craft any shard would be 100%, but the cost in essences on that shard would vary based on the difference between your crafting level and the shard's level. Maybe something like +20% per level difference. So, if you were 10 levels below the desired shard, the cost of that shard in essences would be +200%. If you were 40 levels below, +800%. The only drawback is that, given enough essences, anyone could craft any shard. However, the costs would be exorbitant for regular shards and downright prohibitive for shards of potential. BUT, this would alleviate the NEED to level crafting somewhat. Not altogether, but somewhat. For example, in my Greater Evil Outsider Bane case, I could just start storing essences to make the shard (I'm level 78 versus GEOB's 93) until I had +300% Greater and Lesser Goods, then make it. It would be quite a bit more costly for me, but I could at least obtain it, whereas currently, I need 10 more levels is divine before I even attempt to make it, which in all honesty, I don't think I have the stomach for. NOTE: the increase would only be in the essence cost, not the dragonshards or purified shards or special ingredients.

[SiliconScout]

would be better to put the rare ingredients on the actual construction recipe.

Something like 3 soul gems and a couple LDS or heck even a Ring of Feathers or something. I really don't care what you wanna pick at that point so long as it's something that is reasonably attainable. Hell toss in 100 Golden Swamp pearls if you really want to.

4 muckdooms, a ring of spell storing and 2 bloodstones would NOT be reasonably attainable for example.

That way you can still level on the shards AND the guys who used the previous power leveling method will have to still pay the increased rare item costs that the rest of us are expected to.

I can honestly say that I am around 30 or so in each and I personally don't see myself putting in the time to get much past 35.

Crafting is now a tool to equip your lowbie and mid level toons with geared equipment. That is about it.

[waterboytkd]

would be better to put the rare ingredients on the actual construction recipe.

Something like 3 soul gems and a couple LDS or heck even a Ring of Feathers or something. I really don't care what you wanna pick at that point so long as it's something that is reasonably attainable. Hell toss in 100 Golden Swamp pearls if you really want to.

4 muckdooms, a ring of spell storing and 2 bloodstones would NOT be reasonably attainable for example.

That way you can still level on the shards AND the guys who used the previous power leveling method will have to still pay the increased rare item costs that the rest of us are expected to.

I can honestly say that I am around 30 or so in each and I personally don't see myself putting in the time to get much past 35.

Crafting is now a tool to equip your lowbie and mid level toons with geared equipment. That is about it.

This is also a very good idea. Especially since it wouldn't serve to widen the gap between the haves and the have nots that the current crafting situation does.

MORE THOUGHTS ON THIS: I also like this idea because it not only addresses the problem with a limited number of viable leveling shards becoming even more limited, but it also deals with the problem of attempting a shard containing rare/expensive mats with <100% success rate, as the rare/expensive mats would be used on the step that always has 100% success rate. This is a good idea.

[Xenostrata]

I like 1-3, but am mildly ambivalent about the rest.

#6 sounds like it could be interesting. Whether that interesting means "Great Success" or "Total Disaster" is debatable.

I really, really like the idea of having "practice shards" be the main tool for levelling. Have them cost nothing but essences, and then you only end up spending the large amounts of platinum making the things you actually want to use instead of just the ones to get there. I'd like them even more if they could be constructed en masse, so that crafting is only a plat sink and not a time sink (this game does NOT need another grind, especially in a system advertised as one that makes grinding unnecessary).

I also think that the prices of the current shards are excessively high. I think that any recipe with a rare ingredient (Larges, Boot mats, etc.) should have a reasonable percent chance (somewhere between 40-60%) of NOT using up the rare item that was used, effectively making the recipe worth half a LDS instead of a whole one.

[puget]

Like I stated in another thread, the 10.2 changes to crafting have done more to make people quit crafting than it did to encourage it.

[MrkGrismer]

would be better to put the rare ingredients on the actual construction recipe.

Something like 3 soul gems and a couple LDS or heck even a Ring of Feathers or something. I really don't care what you wanna pick at that point so long as it's something that is reasonably attainable. Hell toss in 100 Golden Swamp pearls if you really want to.

4 muckdooms, a ring of spell storing and 2 bloodstones would NOT be reasonably attainable for example.

That way you can still level on the shards AND the guys who used the previous power leveling method will have to still pay the increased rare item costs that the rest of us are expected to.

I can honestly say that I am around 30 or so in each and I personally don't see myself putting in the time to get much past 35.

Crafting is now a tool to equip your lowbie and mid level toons with geared equipment. That is about it.

This has been mentioned (repeated) on the Lam threads and I fully support the idea (not the Ring of Feathers part, or any other ultra-rare item). Adding actual construction recipes for specific combinations would also allow the granularity of being able to make a specific rare ingredient being need for specific combinations, rather than specific shards. So a Holy Burst shard might not be so difficult to make on its own, but if you want to put it on a Silver weapon along with Greater Outsider Bane then you need the LDS and the Mystical Fruit and the Soul Gem of Virgin Unicorn.

[Ookami007]

Greater insanity has rarely been uttered in the forums.

would be better to put the rare ingredients on the actual construction recipe.

Something like 3 soul gems and a couple LDS or heck even a Ring of Feathers or something. I really don't care what you wanna pick at that point so long as it's something that is reasonably attainable. Hell toss in 100 Golden Swamp pearls if you really want to.

4 muckdooms, a ring of spell storing and 2 bloodstones would NOT be reasonably attainable for example.

That way you can still level on the shards AND the guys who used the previous power leveling method will have to still pay the increased rare item costs that the rest of us are expected to.

I can honestly say that I am around 30 or so in each and I personally don't see myself putting in the time to get much past 35.

Crafting is now a tool to equip your lowbie and mid level toons with geared equipment. That is about it.