The tale of the three forks : the Cannith Crafting Update pass

[Gremmlynn]

What we "Get" when it comes to the Cannith Crafting update will likely be more of what we already have. While I would love to see the entire system revamped to make it future proof, something I suggested like 9 months ago in the suggestion forums.. I highly doubt any "major" changes will occur.

I very much expect it to look a lot like the current system. But I expect it to follow the template used for random loot as far as how it actually works. No more X I,x II. X III, ect. recipes and just a master X recipe that scales with the ML/crafting level it is made at according to whatever scaling factor it is assigned.

[Gremmlynn]

A system that has a few high end recipes that require raid loot as an ingredient is "ignoring" a large portion of the player base?

Come now that's not a remotely honest strawman you're trying the prop up.

I think it could easilly be looked as as a way to allow some limited powerful crafted items, thus throwing a crafting bone to raiders, while at the same time throwing out a little carrot for non raiders to try something new or step out of their comfort zone. If not no biggie it's not like someone who wont do an EN raid NEEDS end game gear.

All of which is completely besides the point, I already pointed out that they could also do "10,000 remnants or 1 raid item and 5000 remnants" if a crafting system is to have any powerful/rare/hard to achieve applications it must have high costs. I don't even care if this is raid items, it could be anything so long as it's valued and not plentiful. Something entirely new that drops in saga's or old raids (opps that might make some people feel compelled to do an Normal Abbot and experience a part of the game they probably have never even seen, such a horrific thought for some reason).. whatever.

What effects for example. Because I think any effects that need that sort of cost would be beyond the scope of the system and beyond what can be found on lootgen. If it takes raid mats to make, it should sure as hell be a raid loot level effect in scope. Why would one raid to be able to craft less than raid loot level gear? That would be like cutting down walnut trees to salvage scrap lumber caught in their branches.

[RTFM]

Look at the LGS debacle....total joke.

I can't imagine this being anything but another joke...on us players!

Look how much input was received from players with LGS before launch, they did not even allow a decent preview of the system let alone player input!

Then after launch the "nerf stick" turned into a "turd stick" as all the gear became worth of the toilet bowl.

And by the way...why Gnomes?

[EllisDee37]

Whether or not crafting ingredients drop everywhere is completely separate from the points I have made.

I will repeat the argument.

If crafting is something done with no effort, it will either

1. Be less powerful than existing items and be largely unused (waste of dev resources)
2. Be of equal power (and thus invalidate all random gear)
3. Be of higher power and make the loot system of the entire game pointless

Unless you are arguing for a new resource that drops everywhere and requires some effort to gather, your preferences don't allow for a crafting system that works within the game of DDO.

Where do you get the "no effort" idea from? Leveling up cannith crafting takes a huge amount of effort.

I've made a ton of (heroic) greensteel items, and the amount of effort I put into leveling cannith crafting vastly dwarfs the amount of time I spent running shroud.

For that matter, the amount of thought and planning I put into leveling cannith crafting also vastly dwarfs the amount of thought and planning that was needed for all my shroud runs combined.

[Plantman81]

Regarding Cannith crafting, what most crafters with whom I've spoken want is the ability to craft the same enchantments that appear on random loot such as speed and deadly, etcetera. Still keep the more powerful enchantments, such as disruption, smiting, etc. solely in the domaine of random loot. Masterful craftsmanship must remain. BtA for masterful shards should, also, remain.

We crafters want to be able to craft items that mirror random loot and be rewarded for our grind with the ability to make flexible shards in addition to items like the runes we have now. Flexible shards would not be any more powerful for the level, but give the crafter an easier time when slotting desired enchantments in various gear slots.

As stated in the title, these are just general thoughts, but THE MAIN UPDATE DESIRED is the ability to craft enchantments equal to those found on random loot. An update is SORELY overdue. Furthermore, any updates to random loot should, also, include updates to the Cannith recipes.

[dsmwhiteknight]

Hmmm. Carrying that through to its logical conclusion, that could be problematic.

Right now on live, a brand new crafter starts up and can make weak items: Strength +1. They need to level up before they can start making +2, +3, etc... If it changes to only be a single auto-scaling strength shard, at what level should that be available? Seems weird if a new crafter just can't make any strength shard at all, but even weirder if a brand new crafter could make a +14 (or +13, whatever) strength shard right out of the gate.

If I were designing it, I would keep the individual shard values like we have now on live. That way you could add an AML to it to handle unusual rules elegantly. I suspect this specific example went away with U29, but consider pre-U29 lootgen rules for stats: +1 to +6 = 2x-1, meaning a +5 stat shard would be 2*5 - 1 = ML9. But +7 stat items only dropped on ML20+ gear. So you'd just add AML20 to +7 stat (and higher) shards and you're done.

All they have to do is make it so you need to be high enough level to add the shard to the item. Definitely different from how it is now.

[dsmwhiteknight]

Regarding Cannith crafting, what most crafters with whom I've spoken want is the ability to craft the same enchantments that appear on random loot such as speed and deadly, etcetera. Still keep the more powerful enchantments, such as disruption, smiting, etc. solely in the domaine of random loot. Masterful craftsmanship must remain. BtA for masterful shards should, also, remain.

We crafters want to be able to craft items that mirror random loot and be rewarded for our grind with the ability to make flexible shards in addition to items like the runes we have now. Flexible shards would not be any more powerful for the level, but give the crafter an easier time when slotting desired enchantments in various gear slots.

As stated in the title, these are just general thoughts, but THE MAIN UPDATE DESIRED is the ability to craft enchantments equal to those found on random loot. An update is SORELY overdue. Furthermore, any updates to random loot should, also, include updates to the Cannith recipes.

I agree. I spend the time leveling in Cannith Crafting because I want to be able to create the items I want in the combinations I want them. I want everything a random item can have and don't mind the grind to get that because then I can create what I actually want instead of hoping I can eventually find what I want on everything in combinations that will actually work. There should be a huge grind to get that for balance reasons. I do not mind if the items are bound to account so anyone who wants to be able to do that has to pay the price to do so in time and effort directly in crafting.

I want a system where I can make the items I need. Those random items were crafted by someone at some point. Historically in AD&D they just said the knowledge for building artifacts and really powerful items had been lost. So having named items that cannot be crafted fits just fine. But you were able to make magic items if you wanted to, you just had to spend XP to do so.

[dsmwhiteknight]

1)
I'm worried some posters have convinced themselves Cannith Crafting was something it never was.

Cannith Crafting was never able to mirror the top effects of lootgen.
Every top tier effect, like:
- Vorpal,
- Smiting,
- Disruption,
- Paralyzing,
- Banishing,
and all of the super rare compound effects like Tempestuous, Obscenity, etc, were always unavailable through Cannith Crafting. Yes, most of those listed are garbage now, but they were the best there was in Cannith Crafting's heyday.

Similarly, even on suffixes and prefixes that were craftable, Wondrous Crafting was exclusive to the completion of quest chains and allowed the finding of more powerful items (both in terms of power for minimum level and power at max level) than Cannith Crafting could ever have made.

I am not a fan of the system as it stands (entirely obsolete), but one limit it has currently, in that the best gear is definitively only available through raiding or completing quests is a reasonable constraint.


2)
I think my objection to, "well yes, that's the status quo, but that doesn't mean it's an optimal solution - Cannith Crafting SHOULD be as powerful as lootgen" goes something like,
"Do you think completing Irestone Inlet on casual a sufficiently high number of times should potentially grant items as powerful as those potentially available from completing the most difficult quest in the game on LE?"

I know people will say 'yes' because this is an internet forum, but they're not the audience I'm trying to convince.

Ultimately it is a design philosophy question - 100% time investment, 0% skill investment reward systems are, in my opinion, disrespectful to players and will ultimately drive new players (grind appears too much) and vets (I am not clicking on that machine another half million times instead of doing one of the many things that makes ddo fun) alike away.

I don't buy that this is somehow an 'elitists vs non-elitists' thing either. The 'you need to invest a massive amount of time to see rewards from this system' is far harsher on casual players than 'this system will provide about the same rewards for you as people who do play much more often'. Necessarily those rewards shouldn't be too amazing since systems that don't require an abundance of skill or time shouldn't give disproportionate rewards.

I'd be happy to see craftable +11-12 stat items at the top end (potentially at ML 22-24 or something so it's SOMETHING lootgen can't/will rarely give (superior levelling gear), but isn't endgame gear), and just rescaled recipes over the 150 existing crafting levels.

I know Cannith crafting did not allow crafting items as powerful as random items, but I think it should. I agree that better items, like named items, should be available through RAIDs and the like, but I want to be able to craft anything that can be found randomly. I also think these items should be BtA so that there is a place for random loot. It takes more than one character lifetime to build the kind of end game gear you are referring to, so this kind of system is not for casual gamers at all. And since there are more powerful items available than random loot can provide, then it does not even get you the best equipment. Of course they need to do some updates in that area with how powerful the new random loot is. Sorry, I respectfully disagree.

I will be happy though as long as there is a lot of flexibility in what I can make. I think we should be able to make items that are at least useful in end game, even if they are not the best possible. They should not be outshone by random loot, unless by that term you are referring to named items or items used in other crafting systems.

[dsmwhiteknight]

We just got a random loot system in which most players at least look at their random loot before selling it.

It would be a shame to ruin this system by completely replacing it with a crafting system. The minute you do this, all random gear is junk and also most named loot (at least you have to get that rare find in the random loot system).

I can think of two types of crafting system that would work WITH our named loot and random systems.

Method A: Crafted Random Gen Items

1. You put in materials to make Str and Con Bracers.
2. You specify an item minimum level
3. You add special ingredients (quest rewards, store items, etc)

You get a set of Str + Con bracers that is a random roll based on your crafting skill, and the special ingredients. The Str and Con effects could also be rolled separately (This would be needed if the two effects were from different crafting schools). The advantage of this system is it requires little to no change in the way items are programmed/created. The formula for item level should be tuned to make decent low level items with a relatively small crafting skill, but should require much more crafting skill/special items for high level gear.

Example: Let's say crafting level now goes to 300.

To make a top min level 5 item, you need crafting skill 50. Having more than 50 crafting skill won't improve the item.
The desired item/effect is rolled at loot level 5, plus any bonuses for special loot.
If you have less than 50 crafting skill, you get a -1 to the loot table for every 10 skill ranks you are missing.

To make a top min level 30 item, you need crafting skill 300.
The desired item/effect is rolled at loot level 30, plus any bonuses for special loot.

The amount of base crafting ingredients should be based on min level squared, so that it is much more expensive to make high level items.

Level 0 items (arrows, etc) can be crafted by anyone (although there is still a roll for the quality of them item).

The top loot level from crafting (with special bonuses) should be about the same as the top loot roll from random items.

Method B: Improved Random Gen Items
Instead of the above system, crafting is used to improve existing items.
1. You put in materials to improve Str or Con on your Mighty Bracers of Constitution.
2. You add special ingredients (quest rewards, store items, etc)
3. The item's ability *might* be improved (based on crafter skill, special ingredients, and previous attempts to improve this effect)

Method A sounds more enjoyable, but method B has more replayability (constantly needing new high end random gen items to try and improve).

Either one of these systems could work, but the trick is to balance the effort so that random loot, named loot, and crafted loot are all still valuable. In method B, an item should probably be limited in the amount of attempts to improve it, as well as a cap of +1 per effect. This could mean having to find five or six +14 stat items, with lots of new crafting effort (a non-duped resource), before getting one to +15.

Whatever the crafting system is, there should be players choosing NOT to use it, because the effort is not worth the gain. There should also be players choosing to use it. There should be players who don't craft but choose to buy crafted items. They should be players who craft at low levels, but not at high levels.

Or you just make the crafted items bound to account. Then I can make what I want and it works with random loot because you will used random loot until you get good enough to craft what you want. Or you never will because you don't want to pay that price.

[dsmwhiteknight]

I don't adventure to get random loot. I do it to enjoy the quest that has been created, like exploring and doing all the optionals., and to get specific items or ingredients I want. I also like leveling up and progressing and am excited to try out reincarnation. But random loot is mostly junk and annoying. Even this more powerful loot is still mostly useless to me. I want to be able to craft different combinations that I really want or even some to just try out. I want to create gear that fit the needs of my character, not try to randomly find stuff that will actually fit what my character needs.

[spinks]

Just FYI spinks:

My reading fail - thanks.

[spinks]

IMHO, There is no such thing as an 'average' player, just like there is no such thing as black and white questions and answers to any poll in DDO.

IMHO, There is no such thing as a skilled player as per your description.

Raiding is not about skill. Any player can just pike* and ride the coattails of others to get that sweet, sweet loot.

The way which you describe 'skilled' vs 'unskilled' is actually quite detrimental to the game as it, IMHO, because it delineates players between have's and havenots - those with noses stuck in air, and those who don't have noses stuck in the air.

All I was trying to say, and obviously did badly, is that the crafting system needs to appeal to the largest portion of the player base.

[Robai]

But first things first: fix the random loot, that is 1) proper naming, 2) bugs

Just an example of both:
1) wrong naming (since only 2 effects are shown in the name)
and
2) a bug (there is no armor-piercing):

[JOTMON]

I agree. I spend the time leveling in Cannith Crafting because I want to be able to create the items I want in the combinations I want them. I want everything a random item can have and don't mind the grind to get that because then I can create what I actually want instead of hoping I can eventually find what I want on everything in combinations that will actually work. There should be a huge grind to get that for balance reasons. I do not mind if the items are bound to account so anyone who wants to be able to do that has to pay the price to do so in time and effort directly in crafting.

I want a system where I can make the items I need. Those random items were crafted by someone at some point. Historically in AD&D they just said the knowledge for building artifacts and really powerful items had been lost. So having named items that cannot be crafted fits just fine. But you were able to make magic items if you wanted to, you just had to spend XP to do so.

Indeed.

using XP was a good way to limit crafting abuse.
It required you to go run content to gain XP and then decide if you wanted to level or craft...
This allowed crafting of level appropriate wands, scrolls, potions but also limited any sort of mass production due to the XP factor.
Probably wouldn't take much to add a crafting XP pool like Epic Destiny Spheres..

[sk3l3t0r]

...BUT there should be an incentive for a level 4/6/8/10 etc. character to spend some (short amount of) time to do that as they level - but it should feel organic, like something you would want to do as you level. Right now, the whole process (in my view) is too burdensome to be appealing.

I guess I'm on the keep-it-simple end of the spectrum.

+1, many times over !!

Crafting would be nice if it integrated into the character development like Feats and Enhancements...implementing this aspect would allow for developers to integrate crafting optionals in quests and possibly even make a few quests with requirement for completion to a low level in crafting by performing something in the story line that was crafting related? Future House C quests could offer crafting experience as part of a quest as an alternative way of leveling your crafting for example. Might also improve the grouping aspect of the game if there was crafting experience up for grabs in the quests... thoughts?

[Stoner81]

This is the order of how things should be in my opinion:

1. Raid Loot - hands down the best you can get hold off!
2. Named items.
3. Cannith Crafting.
4. Lootgen.

Now with that being said there are some provisions to this...

1. Older named items are not even going to be as good necessarily as even lootgen simply due to it being extremely old and never being updated.
2. Raid loot should ALWAYS beat everything else, it is one of the main reason (if not the main reason) that people run raids.
3. Cannith Crafting should be just in front of lootgen as I previously mentioned. It should be of equal power in that what you find on lootgen can be made via Cannith Crafting, and be able to use stuff a couple of levels sooner (Masterful). This is how the current system is even though it is miles and miles out of date but that core should remain. By doing this it gives people a reason to Cannith Craft, you can make stuff how you want it and be able to use it sooner!
4. Lootgen is... well lootgen. Please fix it!

Stoner81.

[nokowi]

Where do you get the "no effort" idea from? Leveling up cannith crafting takes a huge amount of effort.

I've made a ton of (heroic) greensteel items, and the amount of effort I put into leveling cannith crafting vastly dwarfs the amount of time I spent running shroud.

For that matter, the amount of thought and planning I put into leveling cannith crafting also vastly dwarfs the amount of thought and planning that was needed for all my shroud runs combined.

From players saying they want to be able to make anything without doing anything.

You're judging based on your current amount of crafting, someone else expects the same with their level of crafting.

Players will complain if it takes level 300 and they only have level 90.
Players will complain if it takes level 3 and they only have level 1.

All of these should be ignored for the reasons I outlined. It should require NEW effort to make end game items.

[Vanhooger]

I would like to see named item like the one in cannith challenge that at t3 can be crafted.

[Gauthaag]

I would like to see named item like the one in cannith challenge that at t3 can be crafted.

yep, adding craftable potential as special ability of weapon would be great motivation for crafting. and some loot in game proves its possivble already (cannith tier3 items and some named runearms have this ability)

[Aelonwy]

yep, adding craftable potential as special ability of weapon would be great motivation for crafting. and some loot in game proves its possivble already (cannith tier3 items and some named runearms have this ability)

I don't think we will see that in the Cannith Crafting update. I seem to remember a dev saying that, that sort of code caused issues and that was why they developed or updated the augment system. But if they could do it so we could add an augment slot to a random gen item or a crafting blank that would be fine too.