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.

[dunklezhan]

That's pretty much the whole point of crafting: To grind away the lootgen lottery.

In a nutshell, the perfect description of what Cannith Crafting should be.

I'm not saying it shouldn't also be other things, but that's the core, and it already allowed people to make some basic stuff with minimal investment. 2 loot systems ago it allowed almost any effect in the lootgen system if you ground it out. The grind had clear, frequent progression which offset some of the grindy feeling unless you were sitting down to do a session just for the sake of levelling. And you could choose not to do it and play the lottery instead by questing, which you still needed to do if you wanted to craft things anyway. Put all that together and it was a good system. Not without its flaws in terms of bind statuses and very laggy interface, but a good system. Id still have loved the first iteration where it was going to be 'take and effect and move it' but I understand why it didnt' go that way, and the way it did go was better in the end.

But all it ever really needed was a way to maintain it's alignment to whatever the current lootgen set up was, a less laggy interface (plus the ability to do things in batches which was added later) and maybe the introduction over time of the nicer missing effects for very high level crafters only. And more or less, that's all I want to see the new one do.

Please update it and tweak it with that in mind, there's no need to fundamentally rethink it.

Or at least be sure it is better right out of the gate. We do not need it released in a half finished state like the current lootgen feels like it is. I will wait, if it means getting it right.

[Saekee]

valid thoughts everyone. I think everything should be craftable except Quality stats and yes--augments, everything. Clickies--maybe; but why not wands, scrolls etc. (to write scrolls, high arcane/divine levels needed--maybe even past life feat).

I cringe at grind now and will not do it--my crafting levels are 100 and staying there.

BUT I would like to see a portable decon device ('Otto's Intricate Analyzer') in which you can decon stuff in your backpack anywhere but with a penalty (like, 50% xp/essences value as compared to a big machine. Or even 30%). Hopefully something that is not laggy like the crafting halls. . . I would take it for deconning, make it purchaseable from House Cannith Favor, highest ranks. Otherwise, no way.

[Frogger1234]

personally I just want to be able to take and drag an entire inventory tab to the decon machine and click 'ok' and everything not locked is deconned for crafting xp.

or an interface like selling to a vendor with "add all", "add junk" and "decon" buttons

Though it might be hard to actually implement mass decon, since for every item there are a number of choices - decon for crafting, or which of the various properties (prefix, suffix, hidden/bonus and enhancement value) to decon. Mass decon might require a 5-way selector.

[SiliconScout]

Just return it to what it was when it launched.

Basically able to create everything lootgen could create. The most coveted / powerful items should require a special ingredient and away you go.

Don't craft clickies .. let THAT and the chance for the 4th property be the "advantage" of loot gen. Crafting should exist so that those who want to optimize gear or avoid having to look for a specific lootgen item to do so.

It used to be that the big advantage of crafting was that you could create "clean" items that just had the most powerful effect possible in say stat items or trap gear. If I understand the new system properly, the order that properties are generated will determine it's strength not the number of properties. This should still allow for that as well IMHO.

And please Turbine, for the love of the Twelve don't look at the maximized crafters and say "they need to take XXXX hours / days to max out" because if you go that route new crafters will look at that mountain to climb and just walk away. If you are going to spend resources on something (and we all know they are very limited these days) then you need to absolutely make sure that what you are building is accessible, useful and desired. If you just make it Mt. Grind then i sit not accessible and therefore unlikely to be desired regardless of how useful it may be.

[Vellrad]

1.
Man, they could to crafting items like GS augments, so you have your blank, 2 or 3 slots, and craft augments that you place into item. That would be very convinient.
2.
If I could make +15/+5 stats on 1 item, I would grind crafting lvl even to 300.

personally I just want to be able to take and drag an entire inventory tab to the decon machine and click 'ok' and everything not locked is deconned for crafting xp.

3. There would be problem with which option you chose from items, but then, they could make decraft give you everything not just 1 thing.

[Standal]

At a minimum, they need to update the items that can be crafted to equal lootgen. If you can find an effect on an item in lootgen at a certain ML, it should be craftable at that ML. The devs may decide that certain effects are not craftable, as they did before with paralyzing, banishing, vorpal, etc.

If you recall when CC was introduced, you could craft excellent Harry beaters with crafting levels below 40. If you were capped you could make the best devil and demon beaters in game. These items existed in lootgen, but they were essentially unicorns. You heard about them, but never saw them. Crafting really brought better items to even the most casual grinders. In short order, nobody asked you to link your Harry beaters, because everybody had them.

[somenewnoob]

Clickies would be great. Potions, scrolls other consumables should be able to be made.

But if they do one thing I will be happy......GET RID OF THE REPITITION XP PENALTY. Seriously, that's just like kicking someone in the balls after you already stole their wallet. It's just mean.

[RD2play]

Ugh.

If we can't craft the equivalent of pretty much any lootgen item in the game, I will be seriously ****ed.

If they set it up so cannith con only make 1 step below the max lootgen power for any effect, fine, I get it. But if they keep the ridiculous caps we have or something similar (+6 stat, +13 skills, +66 spell power) then I think they're off their rockers.

Here I don't entirely agree with you. Yes it should be possible to get equivalent to Ran-Gen but if allowed to both choose the effects and their power we will have instant loot saturation. And we will be back where we were before with ran-gen being vendor/decon only, as they will never drop in the exact combination/power you are looking for.

That's a non-issue, or at very least self-correcting. For those people who don't want the grind, they can play the lootgen lottery. That's pretty much the whole point of crafting: To grind away the lootgen lottery.

IMO Cannith Crafting up should reduce the lootgen lottery, not make Ran-Gen obsolete. They way I see this is that you "the crafter" gets to decide the effects you want, and you pick the level and item type you want. i.e. I want to create a lvl 10 helm, then I will decon a level 10 helm, and then I can add the effects I want, but the power of the effects will still be random (in the range set by Ran-Gen values) and the higher your crafting skill the higher the chance to get the "lucky" value. which means you might need to craft several "X helm of Y + Z" to get all 3 effects of the lucky power.
I do feel however we should be able to overwrite "single" effects without changing the values of the others. so I can add the prefix till I get the power value, then do the same for the suffix and then for the bonus effects. so in the end I will have my uber power item but it will take me many resources, crafting rounds, crafting level grind and a bit of luck to all 3 effects to top tier power for the level. (and then Ill add a MC or WC to reduce the level by 1 of course). This way there is a way to get the most powerful items but it takes a great deal of effort and materials to do so.

Mika is kinda in the same ballpark:

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.

I do feel however masterful and wondrous should be applied by the crafter (if off sufficient level), and simply reduce the ML of the item by 1 or 2 resp. so if you make a level 10 item with max power you can add MC to make it a level 9 item with level 10 item max effects !!!

But basically I think we are thinking in the same direction.

For the power of the effects, the range should be governed by the base ML of the crafted item, the chance for each value should be determined by crafting levels and boosts according a bell curve. So for example to craft a level 10 item at 100% success you would need a crafting level 100. this would for instance mean you have 20%/40%/30%/10% to get the values 4/5/6/7, if you would increase your crafting levels, or use a success booster to lets say 150 (or 50% booster) the bell curve will move up so the chances of getting the lucky number will become greater and getting unlucky gets smaller. 10%/30%/40%/20%.

(*I didn't do any actual math on this so all numbers are arbitrary and placeholder)

So in short if you are under the required crafting level, the chances of getting a "bad power value" are greater and getting the "highest" might not even be probable. But once you at the required crafting level you will be able to get lucky. And if you are over the required crafting level the chances to gain a "more powerful" value or getting lucky increases. A high level crafter will be able to make very good low level equipment reliably, but for the top level top tier gear he will still require some luck.

At a minimum, they need to update the items that can be crafted to equal lootgen. If you can find an effect on an item in lootgen at a certain ML, it should be craftable at that ML. The devs may decide that certain effects are not craftable, as they did before with paralyzing, banishing, vorpal, etc.

If you recall when CC was introduced, you could craft excellent Harry beaters with crafting levels below 40. If you were capped you could make the best devil and demon beaters in game. These items existed in lootgen, but they were essentially unicorns. You heard about them, but never saw them. Crafting really brought better items to even the most casual grinders. In short order, nobody asked you to link your Harry beaters, because everybody had them.

As I stated before, yes it should be available, but no it (max value effects) should not be handed to you. I have no problem with special effects like paralysing being in the crafting tables, I would ask tho if the recipe requires an item that has the property already as a material. (maybe crunch down a paralysing weapon into a paralysing shard and then be able to add it to another weapon).(also DC effects on weapons should scale with their ML and enhancement value but that's another discussion).

Yes when CC came out everyone started at level 0 in all schools, now we have people sitting on maxed crafter toons. which will lead to instant loot saturation if allowed to make it all at max power! So indeed its true CC brought us the devil/deamon beater (still love my ml20 +5HolyBrust Cold Iron<weapon>GEOB [vampire slayer]). But to get those we needed to grind a bit at least, this needs to also be taken into account when converting to a new system. I do agree with you however that it would be nice if there where things you could NOT craft, as well as things you can ONLY craft.

tnx guys

[der_kluge]

I'd prefer it to be an all or nothing kind of system. The lootgen stuff should match crafting and vice-versa. I've always found it odd that I could make melee/ranged alacrity items, but can't loot them. And that I can loot +15 skill items or spellcraft items, but can't craft them.

I'm happy to take it to 200 or even beyond. I've got a ridiculous amount of essences stacking up in my bag, so I'm happy to use them to grind some levels. And since I'm already at 150^3, I'm ready to go.

But I do have concerns about the power level, specifically the common inclusion of insight bonuses into all the items. For example, someone in my guild pulled an item that was +11 intimidate, +7 insight to intimidate (for a total of +18) and it had 10% threat generation effect. And it wasn't even masterwork, and I think ML 13 or something like that. I have a pair of boots that are ML 10, that have +5 Strength/+5 Dexterity on them. That's bonkers. They are also not MW. If they were, I'd assume I could probably get +6/+6 on two stats at about ML 11.

In this brave new world, all old loot becomes basically meaningless. I could craft dual stat items, resistance and insight resistance items, and items with more than +15 to important skills - maybe not UMD, but certainly all the rogue skills as well as intimidate, perform and spellcraft. That's going to free up slots for even more effects. That allows room for the "nice to have, but not critical" things like +false life, deadly, seeker, and other type effects that will just contribute even more to the power creep.

[Vellrad]

that's just like kicking someone in the balls after you already stole their wallet. It's just mean.

Well, that's nessesary, otherwise they will chase you to reclaim their wallet.

[IronClan]

Boy are the Dev's screwed... there's no way they can win no matter which path they take.

Just make it perfect for everyone, oh and no bugs...

[Cleanincubus]

Honestly, I see nothing wrong with how the basic idea of how the current system works. It should simply be updated for higher level crafting levels (200), higher level items (30), and effects should be scaled to that of current random loot.

Cannith Crafting should NOT include new ingredients. It should NOT require you to run certain quests/sagas/chains/raids etc to get ingredients to craft items. They already tried that, and it was a unanimous "No" from the community. Wasn't worth it then, and I don't see random loot as good enough now to try to include the idea into Cannith Crafting, to boost it to the quality of current random loot.

I've spent a lot of time and plat (700-800K, where my highest plat count ever was 1.6M) to boost my crafting levels to where they are now. If I have to run certain content to level further, and to craft items, I will be furious. If ingredients are added to older content, to entice people to run them again (and to be used for crafting), then there's a problem with the quality of the content that needs to be addressed. Simply adding ingredients to the quests will just make it harder to craft items in the long run, as any increase in certain quests being run will be very short lived.

[IronClan]

Possible design spaces for updated crafting:

1. Uber gear requiring uber rare ingrediants (but too much "grind")
2. Low power gear (vets get shafted, AKA about 90% of the player base get nothing out of it. You know like Risia the last 3 years)
3. A way to make perfect max roll versions of New random loot (so we can go back to ignoring random loot YEAH!)
4. Stuff that doesn't do anything that already exists in the game, thus doesn't step on Named, Raid, LGS, TF, OLD Cannith Crafting OR New Random loot... (POWER CREEP! OH NOES! AKA: new stuff to do )


In all seriousness: make the new crafting so it works like Random loot, falls just short of "max roll", however the affixes aply to 2 DIFFERENT item types than random loot.

So in random loot you can only get +15 CHA Alluring on a Cloak or (Helm? whatever it is) only allow CRAFTING up to +14 and only allow crafted CHA on Gloves and Bracers.

If you put it on the same stuff as random loot you devalue random loot by virtue of simply being able to make what you want instead of searching for that sweet item while playing.

Meanwhile max rolls on your crafted items require rarer and rarer ingredients.

1 Max roll = 500k plat Mysterious Urn from Litany 400 comms of valor or heart seeds and any BTA named item (sacrificed)
2 Max roll = 1ml Plat 500 Raid Runes, 10 comms of Heroism, 400 comms of valor any BTC Named item
Lucky Affix max roll = Same as 2 max roll but 1 raid item

There has to be a cost... Crafting uber stuff must have a severe cost or shortly there's no game to play. if you want there to be no raid stuff then something suitably impactful needs to be used, otherwise we're all walking around in max roll gear inside of a month.

No raid items as ings? Well maybe put new drops into saga's?

[UurlockYgmeov]

love the discussion so far!

couple of points: two-handed caster weapons need to have more effects (like Thunder-Forged).

why can't we have it all?

interesting idea - item minimum level survives decon. With that - maybe the higher the level of crafter you are - the more item blanks you can make - including specialized metals/wood/etc and those special 3rd/4th effects.

just thoughts.

[IronClan]

Honestly, I see nothing wrong with how the basic idea of how the current system works.

Me either, lets K.I.S.S

Update:
+5 enhancement bonus add +6 to +10
66 spell power add 78, 90, 114, up to 138
+15% lores, update to add up to 20%

Max roll is a little less than random loot because that's the compromise you pay to have the exact affixes you want.

Then streamline UI/Interface, and get the "pull from crafting bank storage tab" working better and we have the basic framework of a decent expanded system that doesn't reinvent or delete the old cannith crafting recipes.

Then it's just a wish list of new features for me:

Add ability to craft an augment or single affix onto an existing random lootgen.
Add ability to keep one random lootgen affix intact and craft around it
Add Relic quality (-3 ML +1W) with steep ingredient cost
Add Artifact quality -4ML +1.5W) with uber steep ingredient cost
Add the ability to upgrade a weapon's die to the next higher
Add the ability to upgrade a weapons Multiplier by one
Add mythical bonus

The cost of the last few should be massive, you're basically making a named item, 10,000 remnants, 500 COH's 10,000 COV's, 4million plat, one of every old unique crafting ingrediant...

Add the ability to name the item.

With this you get updated crafting and at the same time you're adding a new end game mechanic (making your own named weapon)

[Ligraph]

In all seriouesness: make the new crafting so it works like Random loot, falls just short of "max roll", however the affixes aply to 2 DIFFERENT item types than random loot.

So in random loot you can only get +15 CHA Alluring on a Cloak or (Helm? whatever it is) only allow CRAFTING up to +14 and only allow crafted CHA on Gloves and Bracers.

If you put it on the same stuff as random loot you devalue random loot by virtue of simply being able to make what you want instead of searching for that sweet item while playing.

Meanwhile max rolls on your crafted items require rarer and rarer ingredients.

1 Max roll = 500k plat Mysterious Urn from Litany 400 comms of valor or heart seeds and any BTA named item (sacrificed)
2 Max roll = 1ml Plat 500 Raid Runes, 10 comms of Heroism, 400 comms of valor any BTC Named item
Lucky Affix max roll = Same as 2 max roll but 1 raid item

There has to be a cost... Crafting uber stuff must have a severe cost or shortly there's no game to play. if you want there to be no raid stuff then something suitably impactful needs to be used, otherwise we're all walking around in max roll gear inside of a month.

No raid items as ings? Well maybe put new drops into saga's?

I like this idea, a lot actually. Think the costs are a bit high (who runs litany? and at 30, it wouldn't be hard, just meaningless grind). I do like the idea of using named items and CoVs, maybe use Raid Runes instead of CoHs though. Would also like it if you had to get a level of raid/named item that was near the level of the effect you were trying to craft, and maybe the same type of item. You shouldn't be able to use a Templar's Retribution or Envenomed Blade (they drop so much...) to craft a 15 Str 15 Con item.

I would still prefer a system where you had to find a similar effect on random loot to craft it (e.g. Material Stat (Str, Con, Dex), Caster Stat (Wis, Int, Cha), etc), but this would probably work well.

[Ligraph]

Then it's just a wish list of new features for me:

Add ability to craft an augment or single affix onto an existing random lootgen.
Add ability to keep one random lootgen affix intact and craft around it
Add Relic quality (-3 ML +1W) with steep ingredient cost
Add Artifact quality -4ML +1.5W) with uber steep ingredient cost
Add the ability to upgrade a weapon's die to the next higher
Add the ability to upgrade a weapons Multiplier by one
Add mythical bonus

The cost of the last few should be massive, you're basically making a named item, 10,000 remnants, 500 COH's 10,000 COV's, 4million plat, one of every old unique crafting ingrediant...

Add the ability to name the item.

With this you get updated crafting and at the same time you're adding a new end game mechanic (making your own named weapon)

Would also like more named/raid items with craftable slots, like runearms currently. The thing about artifact quality and above is that you're giving someone the ability to craft a raid item without involving skill of any kind, just grind. If the bonuses were toned down a little, to make raid loot clearly superior, then I would definitely like it more. This is a different thread, but... LE raid drops (and LR ones) should be slightly but significantly better than LN ones, same for LH. Then craftable items could be about the same power level as LN loot.