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

[Deathdefy]

Crafting is almost literally skill-less. The sole prerequisites to crafting are some plat to buy deconstructors, etc, and being able to obtain an item from a chest to deconstruct.

I appreciate MMOs need grinds/time-sinks, but the ones that are raw time sinks with no skill component - like literally "how much did you play this week?" and "how much of it was spent clicking buttons on a crafting interface?" disgust me.

Crafting, unless there is some skill based element, like "do a raid to get a key component", should be bottom of the pile in terms of rewards and priorities.

I would use it solely as a mechanism to help new and casual players play with others in end-game-ish content, offering easy to get gear that's not close to the best of the best.

Making it a system with powerful rewards means adding some sort of treadmill - which can't be skill-based since it's intended to be a general a non-raid reward crafting system and therefore higher tiers must simply require more time investment.

Asking players to spend dozens of hours turning off their brains and clicking on nonsense interfaces is offensive and just rubbish design eliciting the worst of the worst in bad MMO design stereotypes.

I grinded up to ~130 divine, and ~100 arcane and elemental and feel dirty even thinking about that waste of my time - even within the context of a recreational game.

[spinks]

Crafting is an alternative way to obtain items, and thus it should not be restrictive i.e. you should not have to raid to make items. Crafted items should not be as good as raid items or raid crafted items, but should be at least as good as challenge items.

The grind is already considerable, so no need to make more tedious.

Crafting XP should not be awarded outside of crafting i.e. not in saga rewards etc, otherwise maybe they should add other choices to saga rewards like dwarven ingots, scales, phlogiston, greensteel, Cannith raid ingregients and so on.

For those that don't like to craft, you don't have to do it.

It should be viable in epic levels. 3.8 million XP to level 20 on 3rd or more TR, and 8.25 million xp from 20-30.

For any activity you undertake in a game, you should be rewarded. It is entirely up to the individual how they wish to spend their time.

Also, given that you can't put any shard on any item, there needs to be something in the crafting interface that tells you what it goes on. You should not need to refer to ddowiki and other crafting sites in order to make something.

I would like to see the same effects in crafting as there are in random loot and challenge loot, and also the ability to put shards where I want, given the nature of random loot now.

Any crafted item should be BTCoE. Another potential area for the game economy.

There should not be 2 tiers of crafting levels i.e. bound and unbound as there are now. If I want to make an item for someone else, then I should not need to be extra proficient. Someone still has to have collected the essences and other associated crafting ingredients anyway.

[mikarddo]

I think they should fully redo the way crafting is done to streamline the process.

Rather than craft shards you craft items. Pick slot, ML, prefix, suffix and bonusfix.
The available pre-, suf- and bonusfixes are those that can occur on random loot. No more and no less.

When you craft the value of each effect is rolled as for a piece of random gen loot, so you pick the effects but not the exact values. Loot bonuses do not apply.

Similarly there is a chance when crafting to get masterful, wonderous or augment slot(s) added as for random loot generation.

Basically, you pay the materials to pick the 3 effects and you are assured of getting a bonusfix but anything else is done the same way random loot is created.

Thus you can craft something with the desired combi of 3 effects with certainty - but getting top values, slots etc will take many tries and some luck thus adding a wow effect into crafting when you strike gold.

Enjoy.

[Kompera_Oberon]

I think they should fully redo the way crafting is done to streamline the process.

[...]

Thus you can craft something with the desired combi of 3 effects with certainty - but getting top values, slots etc will take many tries and some luck thus adding a wow effect into crafting when you strike gold.

You start off saying "let's streamline the process", but then you roll right into "let's add randomness to the process."

You can't have both. There are already many systems in DDO which include random elements. The Dragontouched Armor and Cormyrian/Spelltouched/Spellplague random rewards are two such systems. All lootgen items, new system or old, are another. Named drops from chests are yet another.

Cannith crafting has always offered a discrete reward for a discrete effort, and as others have said so eloquently before me up above in this thread, it already bears with it a heavy cost in terms of time invested staring at a crafting interface as opposed to actually playing the game. So let's please not try to drag the new Cannith system into some random reward system. Despite what you might think, people actually like to get a specific reward for a specific effort, and that's not a bad thing.

Crafting should not result in a random reward. No one starts out at the beginning of a project with a block of granite and doesn't know if they are going to end up with an elephant or a lion statue. There is (or was, until they broke it) already a random reward for deconstructing items. You'd get a random amount of small and large Essences in exchange for your item. And then you'd have a random chance of successfully making the shards you wanted to make to construct the item you wanted to craft. There's no need to compound that randomness by making the end result of a crafting effort have some random result. Adding randomness on top of randomness is a very sloppy way to build a system.

[EllisDee37]

My eyes glazed over somewhere in the second post of that novel.

The thing that jumped out at me was the emphasis on leveling through deconstruction. I think that's a terrible idea. Leveling through making shards is preferable as a primary mechanic because you can hold essentially unlimited essences and shards and just stand there at the machine as long as you can stomach it.

By contrast, decon requires an extremely precious resource: inventory and shared bank space. This makes it unworkable as a primary source (or even a significant source for many people) of crafting xp.

I have all 3 schools in the 140s. I would estimate that somewhere around 98% of all my crafting xp came from crafting shards, with around 2% coming from lootgen deconstruction. Further breaking that down, I'd say that around 75% of all my crafting xp came from various times where I set aside an hour to just sit in the crafting hall making and crunching shards for leveling, doing so once or twice a month. (After questing had replenished my essences.) This isn't possible in a decon-based system.

[Vanhooger]

I hope crafting will require new level separate from old crafting. Like epic crafting level. Too many people got to 150 while the dupe bug was available.

[EllisDee37]

I hope crafting will require new level separate from old crafting. Like epic crafting level. Too many people got to 150 while the dupe bug was available.

I don't. Not only have I never duped anything, I leveled past 100 back when shards were much more expensive and before I knew about crude vials. By the time I learned about crude vials it was too late to level with them, though admittedly I did stockpile potential shards with them.

Consider me /not signed to the idea of punishing players like me in order to deal with dupers.

[JosieLisbeth]

I hope crafting will require new level separate from old crafting. Like epic crafting level. Too many people got to 150 while the dupe bug was available.

I'm *still* not up to 150 (I'm around 100th level in all 3 realms), and that's after lots of time spent (and materials used). I'd be very unhappy about having all that go to waste.

I'm also a little skeptical about the theory that lots of people used duped materials to get to 150. Up until recently, my main crafting character was in a moderately large guild, and I was one of the better crafters.

[Gremmlynn]

Crafting is almost literally skill-less. The sole prerequisites to crafting are some plat to buy deconstructors, etc, and being able to obtain an item from a chest to deconstruct.

I appreciate MMOs need grinds/time-sinks, but the ones that are raw time sinks with no skill component - like literally "how much did you play this week?" and "how much of it was spent clicking buttons on a crafting interface?" disgust me.

Crafting, unless there is some skill based element, like "do a raid to get a key component", should be bottom of the pile in terms of rewards and priorities.

I would use it solely as a mechanism to help new and casual players play with others in end-game-ish content, offering easy to get gear that's not close to the best of the best.

Making it a system with powerful rewards means adding some sort of treadmill - which can't be skill-based since it's intended to be a general a non-raid reward crafting system and therefore higher tiers must simply require more time investment.

Asking players to spend dozens of hours turning off their brains and clicking on nonsense interfaces is offensive and just rubbish design eliciting the worst of the worst in bad MMO design stereotypes.

I grinded up to ~130 divine, and ~100 arcane and elemental and feel dirty even thinking about that waste of my time - even within the context of a recreational game.

I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of grind or skill. Loot isn't there to reward "winners", it's there to reward playing the game at all.

[Deathdefy]

I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of grind or skill. Loot isn't there to reward "winners", it's there to reward playing the game at all.

That's not good logic. I could equally say, "I see no reason players, aka paying customers, shouldn't have the choice of a fishing mini-game or questing".

The point is there are finite resources and every system that has merited some of those resources must be designed to reward a particular type of interaction with the player.

That isn't to say most systems aren't a hybrid of grind and skill - e.g. Busting out 20 EN MoDs is like 90% grind, 10% skill. TF Crafting from EH Deathwyrm was probably about 50% / 50% once upon a time.

Systems that reward clicking buttons involving no skill, no teamwork, no timely responses, no strategy, very very little thought, no long term planning like character design, and nothing but hours invested - like Cannith Crafting is, and probably will be again - are everything wrong with MMOs. Apart from lag and ladder bugs

I concede even these systems yield some enjoyment - heck everyone likes getting 'more powerful' regardless of how - and if good design MMO is considered to be providing an "hours invested = tier of reward" option for people who are really into that over a more interesting system, so be it.

For my mind, I know the designers can do better than the current system's mindless grind.

[Sikaril_Shadowblade]

Hey , I like most ideas for the crafting pass stated here but I really really HATE the "add Raid Runes" or other Raid Items to the cannith crafting cost
Not everyone raids so please stop with the wanting to make cannith crafting into something only raiders can do . Raiders already have Thunder-forged and
Green Steel and no I have NEVER been on a raid since I started playing back in 2010 and I should not have to.

Sikaril

[spinks]

It seems to me that a lot of what is being asked for here is more power. There is already far too much power in the game as it is. There are some interesting ideas but the last thing DDO needs is more power.

I think that Raid Gear and Raid crafted gear should be the highest power items, Cannith Crafted gear and challenge gear next, followed by random loot.

I have no idea how many players actually do Cannith Crafting, and I only know of two people with close to 150 in all three crafting skills. Mine are all sub 100.

Cannith Crafting allows me to make gear to fit specific gaps in my characters setup. I do not expect to be able to make the best gear in the game, and in a new / updated system, I would not expect to be able to make +15 stat items etc. that would totally invalidate raiding.

The crafting system as it is, is unnecessarily complicated and tedious, and as with various things in DDO is so extreme that I suspect the average player doesn't bother with it. The new / updated crafting system needs to appeal to the average player, not the extreme players.

I will never make a Tier 3 Thunderforged weapon. Quite simply farming up 1000+ dwarven ingots is not my idea of fun, so as an alternative I look to Cormyrean challenge gear, Cannith Crafted items, named drops, and I have a few level 24 Thunderforged weapons.

Cannith Crafting should have no randomness, should not require excessive quantities of ingredients, no raid ingredients or drops, no commendations of heroism or valor etc. it should be based around what the average player can get from normal questing and playing.

Perhaps the current system should have it's recipe list expanded to incorporate new recipes to allow the ability to make up to +10 stat items at level 30, speed and deadly etc. give us more flexibility with what we can put on different items. Don't invalidate what people have already accomplished.

There could be a Master Crafter set of recipes introduced which could be aimed at the extreme players, this could allow for harder to acquire ingredients, but this should not take away from the current system. This could be the system that allows you to make augments, or add property types and so on, the vanity items named after the crafter etc.

[EllisDee37]

Cannith Crafting allows me to make gear to fit specific gaps in my characters setup. I do not expect to be able to make the best gear in the game, and in a new / updated system, I would not expect to be able to make +15 stat items etc. that would totally invalidate raiding.

Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

[Saekee]

Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

I am sure there is some happy medium. In the past there was crafting Greater Banes with masterful and some nice prefix versus pulling that nice disrupter/smiter/banisher etc. That was a good balance IMHOP for heroics anyway.

I really support your idea of adding stuff to saga rewards like crafting xp. I would like to see more things in saga rewards that are appealing like CoH on elite lists.

I also suggested in a thread that Estar challenge gear should have a craftable (hence selectable) menu instead of the terribad random version--make it like the cloaks if necessary in terms of costs. Right now, I am sure people would be willing to grind some Cormyrian weapons as DR breakers, ooze smashers, etc. but not as a lottery as it is now. https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/468391-Estar-Challenge-rewards-Selectable-crafting-suggestion

[spinks]

Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

That would seem logical.

[mikarddo]

Crafting should offer the ability to make whatever appears on lootgen.

If lootgen power is out of whack compared to raid items, that's a separate issue. Ideally, cannith crafting would point to the same database as lootgen, so balance changes would effect both at once.

I agree. And to me this further enhances that we should not craft shards in the new system but full items.
In the old system the sum of the shards' power made up the ML.
In the new system the ML decides the level of power of all the effects.
Thus making individual shards and adding them to an item no longer seems logical.

[nokowi]

It seems to me that a lot of what is being asked for here is more power. There is already far too much power in the game as it is. There are some interesting ideas but the last thing DDO needs is more power.

I think that Raid Gear and Raid crafted gear should be the highest power items, Cannith Crafted gear and challenge gear next, followed by random loot.

I have no idea how many players actually do Cannith Crafting, and I only know of two people with close to 150 in all three crafting skills. Mine are all sub 100.

Cannith Crafting allows me to make gear to fit specific gaps in my characters setup. I do not expect to be able to make the best gear in the game, and in a new / updated system, I would not expect to be able to make +15 stat items etc. that would totally invalidate raiding.

The crafting system as it is, is unnecessarily complicated and tedious, and as with various things in DDO is so extreme that I suspect the average player doesn't bother with it. The new / updated crafting system needs to appeal to the average player, not the extreme players.

I will never make a Tier 3 Thunderforged weapon. Quite simply farming up 1000+ dwarven ingots is not my idea of fun, so as an alternative I look to Cormyrean challenge gear, Cannith Crafted items, named drops, and I have a few level 24 Thunderforged weapons.

Cannith Crafting should have no randomness, should not require excessive quantities of ingredients, no raid ingredients or drops, no commendations of heroism or valor etc. it should be based around what the average player can get from normal questing and playing.

Perhaps the current system should have it's recipe list expanded to incorporate new recipes to allow the ability to make up to +10 stat items at level 30, speed and deadly etc. give us more flexibility with what we can put on different items. Don't invalidate what people have already accomplished.

There could be a Master Crafter set of recipes introduced which could be aimed at the extreme players, this could allow for harder to acquire ingredients, but this should not take away from the current system. This could be the system that allows you to make augments, or add property types and so on, the vanity items named after the crafter etc.

Having a crafting system that requires you to do nothing more than you do now is a waste of dev time and resources. It will simply shorten the life of the game (giving players less things to do). If not balanced properly (this is a recurring problem), there are high risks to introducing such a system.

If I have nothing to do because crafting lets me make very item I need with no effort, I won't be playing DDO.

Please don't design the crafting system around casual players. There aren't enough of them to sustain this game.

[Gremmlynn]

Having a crafting system that requires you to do nothing more than you do now is a waste of dev time and resources. It will simply shorten the life of the game (giving players less things to do). If not balanced properly (this is a recurring problem), there are high risks to introducing such a system.

If I have nothing to do because crafting lets me make very item I need with no effort, I won't be playing DDO.

Please don't design the crafting system around casual players. There aren't enough of them to sustain this game.

Then what's the point in having it at all? Seems a waste of dev effort to make anything less than about what we have was when it was introduced.

[spinks]

... Please don't design the crafting system around casual players. There aren't enough of them to sustain this game.

I said average player, not casual player. I don't consider these to be in any way the same type of player. I would consider a casual player to dip into the game a couple of times a week, whereas an average player may play everyday, just not be into having to have the best of the best all the time.

[Gremmlynn]

Hey , I like most ideas for the crafting pass stated here but I really really HATE the "add Raid Runes" or other Raid Items to the cannith crafting cost
Not everyone raids so please stop with the wanting to make cannith crafting into something only raiders can do . Raiders already have Thunder-forged and
Green Steel and no I have NEVER been on a raid since I started playing back in 2010 and I should not have to.

Sikaril

Yes, that would be one of the silliest things they could do. Why tie a system to raiding that could be considered an alternative to raiding.