Cannith Crafting Discussion

[NoWorries]

This is an early look at the main proposal for Cannith Crafting. As such there isn't much in the way of specific numbers and comparisons, but is more focused on the overall general design of the system. That also means that there are things that could change from what has been discussed due to technical limitations, balance, or any number of reasons. But we did want to include players in an early look and discussion so that themes/directions could be adjusted before it is all in place and only minor changes can be made.

We realize this is a major system with a lot of viewpoints and that it carries a lot of importance with a lot of people. One main consideration for us, is that all three forms of loot (Named, CC, Random) must be useful and work together. We are not looking to make Cannith just plain better than Random loot for example. That is important and was the basis taken when we redesigned the effect system, random loot, and named item direction.

Being a big involved system it is tricky to balance how much information on the page, how easy it is to read and follow, but I'll do my best.





New Cannith Crafting Summary:

• Existing Crafting experience will carry over to the new system
• Existing Essences will be exchangable to the new system
• Cannith Crafting will be as powerful as normal Random Loot
• Marks of House Cannith will allow a 3rd effect slot on Cannith items
• There will be some effects unique to both Cannith Crafting and Random loot
• Ammo and Runestones that are currently craftable will still exist in the new system
• Cannith items will stil have options for Bound and Unbound
• Cannith Crafting will be streamlined to improve the crafting experience
• We may adjust the Cannith Leveling Curve
• We know Deconstructing is one of the most time consuming aspects of CC and will look into ways to reduce this, but I do not have answers as to how this will work yet.

Experience and Essences will carry over



All experience in Cannith Crafting will carry over when we update the system. The one thing that is being considered is we may combine the schools down to a single crafting school, in which case we would combine all of a player's existing experience into that one school.



We are also going to be reducing the number of Essences. Either 1 for each school for a total of 3, or just a single Essence. There will not be lesser and greater either. This is to reduce bloat in the system and simply a part of the crafting process that we feel does not need to be as complicated. As a side note, having a single essence could allow for us to simply have a Remover instead of a Prefix or Suffix Remover, simplifying that part of the process.



Existing essences will be able to be exchanged for the new one(s). And there will be exchange recipes of differing sizes so hopefully it is only minorly inconvenient one time.






Power of Cannith Crafting



Random Loot has a normal range of effect powers that can drop at a given minimum level. Then there is an extra lucky range of slightly more power. This is marked by having Masterful Craftsmanship on the item which indicates at least one of your effects is at the maximum of the normal range or slightly higher.



The plan is to have Cannith Crafting be the top of the normal random loot range. It is important to us to have a system where Cannith Crafted, Random, and Named Loot is all usable by players. We do not want a system where Cannith overshadows Random loot making it not a true consideration to be used. By holding onto the Masterful Craftsmanship lucky power ranges on Random Loot, it should help Random Loot continue to have a use.


Random Loot chests can go as high as level 40. Cannith Crafting is currently planned to top out at Level 33 Loot. There will be increasingly better Minimum Level 30 shards to be crafted (the recipe an item will state what loot level it represents).



Although Cannith will follow the slot restrictions of effects that Random Loot has, a player does get to choose which effects go on the slots of the item. This is a big advantage of random loot where you have to luck out in the RNG to get all of the effects you want at the powers you want. The system will still have a Prefix and Suffix. If a Mark of House Cannith is used, it will have a 3rd extra effect just like Random Loot.



Cannith will also have some effects that are not found in Random Loot where as Random Loot will also retain some effects, like Vorpal, which aren't craftable in Cannith Crafting. This will further giving both Cannith and Random loot purpose in outfitting a character.



Finally, there is a chance that some of the clickies that no longer drop in Random Loot could be added to Cannith in some form.





How will it Work



The current plan is that a blank item will have the minimum level crafted onto the item. Then effect shards will be crafted on which will automatically get their power set to the right amount for the minimum level. No longer will you need Strength +1 and Strength +3 shards, just a Strength shard and the power will be set for you. This is a cleaner system as there is no advantage to the player to putting on a lower powered effect at a given ML, and it reduces ways a player may mess up an item.


The + Enhancement value will also be directly tied into the minimum level and there will no longer be Shards of Potential.


Combined with the fewer number of Essences, this system should be much more streamlined to use.


Deconstructing is very time consuming and clunky at this point in time. We know this. The problem is what the crafting system is capable of doing. We don't know to what amount we can alleviate this pain, but it is something we will be looking into as we move forward with updating Cannith Crafting.




Leveling


Cannith has trraitionally been an extreme grind. The question now is how much of that should be reduced? We have the capability to reduce the grind in two ways: the XP per level of Cannith Crafting Schools, and the amount of XP gained by crafting.


Since we will also be adding in new levels of Cannith Crafting for new higher end recipes, it is likely also a good time to reduce the leveling curve. Existing crafters will hold onto all of their XP, therefore they will have head start on players new to crafting. And, depending on how the curves are adjusted, may find themselves with even higher levels of crafting than they had before the update. Meaning they may be able to craft some of the new higher level recipes upon logging in.



Other Considerations


Why not allow Cannith to put effects in any slot? In the new loot system, Named Items main advantages are that they don't have to follow the slot restriction for effects and get the Quality bonus type for effects. If Cannith also ignores the slot restrictions it takes a way a big aspect of what makes Named Loot special and goes a long way to making Random Loot useless.

[babarakus617]

I am very excited for the Cannith Crafting Update. I like everything you have down except for the part of being unable to craft master craftsmanship items and it maxing out at level 33. I understand the need to not make random loot obsolete, but I would love to be able to craft any random loot item as long as I spent the time leveling up crafting. I think you could make it super restrictive for making a master craftsmanship item such as requiring a super rare ingredient or requiring a lot of essences for the item to the master craftsmanship. It could just come down to being lucky and you have a small chance when crafting an item it is master craftsmanship. Overall I can't wait. Thank you!

[Drakestor]

I very much like where all of this is heading, looks very promising, and I am excited to get back into crafting again!

Deconstructing is very time consuming and clunky at this point in time. We know this. The problem is what the crafting system is capable of doing. We don't know to what amount we can alleviate this pain, but it is something we will be looking into as we move forward with updating Cannith Crafting.

Suggestion: Add a mechanic to the decon UI window that incorporates the same as other UI's that allow us to select the number of times we want that turn in to happen, and tie it to when we select the item in our inventory as junk.

Then, when we mark our inventory items as junk, go to the deconstruction station, we enter the number, and hit GO. Deconstruction occurs for all junk items. Is this possible?

Thanks!

[AnEvenNewerNoob]

Couple questions:

What will happen to existing BLANKS? I have quite a few with augment slots stashed. Will they automatically have a ML now?

Will a blanks ML correspond to the level of the item that was deconstructed? ie: if I decon a ML 20 item, will that blank me ML 20?

Will existing shards be useless?


(And it sounds pretty decent btw! Other than it capping at 33, not crazy about that.)

[Maudib_360]

My only concern is that you do not take away our ability to craft what we are currently able to craft. Do not remove the current affixes that are already in the crafting tables. Sure, remove some of the redundancies in the tables (I do like the idea of only having to craft a generic "Strength" shard as proposed), but DO NOT take away the effects that we can only still get through crafting after numerous loot passes.

For instance, after this new system goes live, I would still like to be able to make
invulnerability armor (ml 2)
holy of bleed weapons (ml 2)
water breathing items
blindness ward items
melee/ranged alacrity items (at the 10% speed bonus currently available)

These are great to have for TRing. I think a lot of people max out crafting just for being able to max some awesome low level items currently. There is no reason to take away what we already have. If stuff like this is no longer possible, my vote is to just leave the entire crafting system alone.

It would be nice if you actually added in the effects that people have been asking to craft for years instead or in addition to this new proposal: paralyzing, double affixes from before the ghost-baning of loot, deadly, etc.

[Eldried]

Sounds promising in general.

Some feedback:

To Deconstruct, how about just adding an option in either inventory screen to scrap stuff and get ingridients(Maybe make it not possible in a quest). Or in Taverns, instead of selling you can trade/or whatever for ingriedients.


What does Level 33 items mean exactly. Is +16 to a stat possible with that? I know In random loot you now can get +17 to stats loot. Could you tell us at what level of loot you need for example to have a chance of getting +15/16/17 stat items or stuff like +6/7 to DC items? And what will happen when you adjust the level(if that happens?) of the loot to a higher level, will CC be upgraded?



How about crafting Sockets onto items?
How about crafting Augments?(Some new ones would be nice to :P )

[Gabrael]

sound dandy and all, I would keep the 3 essence aspect, I do like how the options are divided in schools, and 3 kind of essence is simple enough, no need to overdo it. Arcane, Divine, Elemental is good enough...
although if ya feel fancy, ya could always go 4 essence, Arcane, divine, elemental, and physical?... nah, stick to 3, easier to convert the system.

named item done just have the slot limitation restriction lifted, it can literally have as many options as the devs want, so even if ya could put what ya want as prefix and suffix, ya still won't equal the good named ones...but true it would make genloot almost useless. (beyond using genloot as base for CC that is)

*flexible shard* allowed ya to put some options to a wider range of gear that normal, will those flexible shard still be a thing? or replaced with shards allowing some options to be put either as suffix or prefix? or allowing insightful bonuses?

as for deconstruction, I always felt it was a waste how ya had to choose which options ya wanted to extract essences from, so a deconstruction essentially wasted half the item in its returns, but if deconstruction would account to both options on the item and give ya essences worth both options? if the item was a arcane option item of divine option, ya get 2 kinds, if ya had that bonus 3rd option ya could squeeze out even more, or if it was say an elemental option item of elemental option with a hidden elemental option, ya get 3x an ammount of said essence

will those unique genloot options or CC options make use of the dual effect options we had a while back like crusader, or lacerating? maybe those could become a new form of flexible shard ya get at the opmost CC levels, maybe BtC even,

[Gabrael]

I very much like where all of this is heading, looks very promising, and I am excited to get back into crafting again!



Suggestion: Add a mechanic to the decon UI window that incorporates the same as other UI's that allow us to select the number of times we want that turn in to happen, and tie it to when we select the item in our inventory as junk.

Then, when we mark our inventory items as junk, go to the deconstruction station, we enter the number, and hit GO. Deconstruction occurs for all junk items. Is this possible?

Thanks!

or a new mark to apply on item, instead of junk (for vendors) ya mark them for deconstruction? it also would not accept items ya can't deconstruct?

[Enerdhil]

Isn't it "we've got few ideas, but totally nothing has been made/decided yet" thread? It was said cannith crafting will be in patch after up 29 what means it should be released like 4 months ago. So it's already 4 months too late and still it's only general, even not final, concept? I can understand datacenter changed priorities, but still from up 29 to datacenter move it was like 2 months without bigger problems and ideas brought here are maybe, maybe two days of thinking. It's like saying "next update tomorrow" and 4 months later "oh, we even not started working on it". I don't get it.

[Krelar]

Existing Crafting experience will carry over to the new system

As a quality of life change have you considered making crafting xp shared by all an accounts characters on the same server instead of individual? Basically to reduce the amount of toon swapping need to craft something for my non-crafter toons.

There will be some effects unique to both Cannith Crafting and Random loot

This seem reasonable to help keep them both relevant.

We know Deconstructing is one of the most time consuming aspects of CC and will look into ways to reduce this, but I do not have answers as to how this will work yet.

I hope you look into the possibility of doing something similar to the vendor interface where I could just hit a button to add every unlocked deconstructable items to the window and then hit a "deconstruct all" button to do them all at once.

The plan is to have Cannith Crafting be the top of the normal random loot range. It is important to us to have a system where Cannith Crafted, Random, and Named Loot is all usable by players. We do not want a system where Cannith overshadows Random loot making it not a true consideration to be used. By holding onto the Masterful Craftsmanship lucky power ranges on Random Loot, it should help Random Loot continue to have a use.

This seems reasonable to me.

The current plan is that a blank item will have the minimum level crafted onto the item. Then effect shards will be crafted on which will automatically get their power set to the right amount for the minimum level. No longer will you need Strength +1 and Strength +3 shards, just a Strength shard and the power will be set for you. This is a cleaner system as there is no advantage to the player to putting on a lower powered effect at a given ML, and it reduces ways a player may mess up an item.

It may not be as big a deal with the streamlining you're doing but how about being able to upgrade the ML, and thus all the effects on the item, without having to start again from scratch?

[Minezeye]

Great Start!

As a new player I find the current cannith system terribly confusing, ingredient bloated and way to time consuming.

I am really looking forward to some more simplified systems.

Some of my fav parts...

We may combine the schools down to a single crafting school, in which case we would combine all of a player's existing experience into that one school.
We are also going to be reducing the number of Essences, or just a single Essence, have a Remover instead of a Prefix or Suffix Remover, simplifying that part of the process.
The + Enhancement value will also be directly tied into the minimum level and there will no longer be Shards of Potential.

Combined with the fewer number of Essences, this system should be much more streamlined to use.

Great to hear! The current system is so bloated I don't have the space to even try to craft atm.

Deconstructing is very time consuming and clunky at this point in time. We know this. The problem is what the crafting system is capable of doing. We don't know to what amount we can alleviate this pain, but it is something we will be looking into as we move forward with updating Cannith Crafting.

The Vendor one button gem selling system comes to mind.
I like how I can click that one button on a vendor and sell all the gems in one click.
Maybe You can create an additional platinum type currency that breaks down items into crafting powder, dust etc.
Based on some sort of factors you get X amount. Items in your inventory can be marked similar to the "junk" or "lock" feature for deconstruction at the vendor. !
This Powder can than be used in varying amounts to add all the effects from cannith recipe book or machine....

My idea would also remove the need for most of those noisy lag ridden crafting machines.

[kmoustakas]

Introduction: I was a human dragonmarked artificer for max possible crafting ability until I reached maximum experience and tr'ed because I no longer needed the extra bonuses from the dragonmark or class. I can craft anything currently available.

Will dragonmark of making still give bonuses under the new system?
Will artificer class still give bonuses under the new system?

I personally dislike the idea of clickies in cannith crafting but love the way they exist in bta loot.

The way you guys make it sound, cannith crafting will result in a lot more powerful items than it currently has available.
If I understand what you are saying correctly what was so far a min level 9 (or higher if you wanted slots) masterful +6 intelligence item will now be a minimum level 9 astute +5 of spellcraft +9 masterful insightful intelligence +1? Possibly with a slot? Would we be able to craft 'hardy of charisma' necklaces or 'deft of deadly' googles like currently available in random loot? That sounds very very powerful. And scary. And exciting!

Will insightful seeker/deadly/skill/statistics bonuses be available or not? Will 'slaying' be available? What will happen to items with slots? Would those be cannith craftable and would they have a higher level like before or not like currently? What will happen to existing cannith crafted items? How will spellcasting implement work with the new system? All these are questions that need serious consideration.

The list of things available to craft and not available to craft should be disclosed to the crafters early enough for debates to rage.

[HuneyMunster]

Will the changes mean no more Purified Eberron Dragonshard Fragment used in crafting?

As of now its the only way I can dispose of the ability tomes I get from daily/weekly dice rolls. These are bound to account and I have no characters that need them so would this mean rolling 100 could be as bad as rolling a 1.

[HastyPudding]

Blegh. I hate crafting, and now you're making it viable again. >.<

It was such a horrible grind I just stopped and started giving my essences to a friend who crafting a few things when I asked for them.

[bracelet]

Your ideas are excellent. I think if you can get the system to work as described, there will be little to complain about.

Except possibly this one point:

Why not allow Cannith to put effects in any slot? In the new loot system, Named Items main advantages are that they don't have to follow the slot restriction for effects and get the Quality bonus type for effects. If Cannith also ignores the slot restrictions it takes a way a big aspect of what makes Named Loot special and goes a long way to making Random Loot useless.

One of the critical problems that I have run into with new loot gen is that you can only get attributes in certain slots. Intelligence only drops in helm, goggles or cloak. Unfortunately for my setup this makes it almost impossible to slot intelligence, especially when running a PM which needs those slots for other things.

This is such a hard problem to solve that I have actually used the existing Cannith Crafting to make a +6 int ring and have used that all the way to level 30. It's a crappy solution, but it is at least *a* solution. It sounds like the new system is going to remove that option. Cannith flexible shards were a God-send for fixing some very difficult problems (augments don't cut it since the MLs are out-of-line with the game). I would like to see flexible shards worked into the new system if possible.

Failing that, these two changes would help a lot:
1) any stat can drop on a ring
2) augment MLs could be reduced to more reasonable value. They don't have to be equal to loot gen, but they could be a lot better.

[Nyata]

thanks for the outline, really love the stream-lining aspect. it will free up so much crafting bank space for even more cra.... valuable crafting materials.

I do not really expect an answer at the current stage to my questions below, but I hope if there is an internal 'things-to-look-into-list' for this project, I hope these might make the cut...

The current plan is that a blank item will have the minimum level crafted onto the item. Then effect shards will be crafted on which will automatically get their power set to the right amount for the minimum level. No longer will you need Strength +1 and Strength +3 shards, just a Strength shard and the power will be set for you. This is a cleaner system as there is no advantage to the player to putting on a lower powered effect at a given ML, and it reduces ways a player may mess up an item.

How is the level of the blank set? can I change it every time I craft on the blank?
Example: In the current system I slot a master's gift augment into a ring, craft featherfall and a skill onto it at low level, and then just level by level increase the skill bonus as my character grows up. basically i use the same ring from level 1 to 14. if the blank however has a fixed level, I won't be able to recycle, and inventory clutterage will be a lot worse.

I may have missed it, but... was there any mentioning of collectibles? are they still going to be a thing, or should i better try to give goldscuttle that 1 million prayer beads just to get rid of them?

there is some properties that do not drop in random loot anymore, and have never made it into crafting either, like smiting, banishing, disruption, and I think we even lost ghostbane. have not pulled any ghostbane since the last loot pass at least. It would be nice if those made it into crafting as the 'special abilities', and please do not take away things like aligned weapons, metaline, everbright, and so on which are there now, but no longer found on random loot it seems. would actually make perfect sense if crafted weapons were DR breaker weapons...

Finally... what happens to my old loot crafted items which happen to have a load of augments? can I convert them to the new system? will I be able to get the augments out of them at least?

[Mirilan]

Only read the first few paragraphs and so if this has already been mentioned then oh well, I'd like to see everything concerned with cannith crafting do-able from one interface, that includes buying deconstruction materials, destroying items, crafting blanks, crafting shards, crafting items and so forth.

[apep1412]

Concerning deconstruction, could it be changed to a vendor-like interface, with an add-all-unlocked-random-loot button and deconstruct button? If the types of essence were to be reduced to one, there would be no need for the player to choose which affix to deconstruct. If it were one per category, it could give half, or slightly above half, of the essences that you would normally get for each affix.

Concerning the power level, it depends where the top of 'normal' power is and the effects that are being left out. The majority of random loot, especially at levels 1-29, won't have any purpose if people can craft 3 desired effects with consistently good values. Even if the first two effects are slightly lower than the maximum, the third effect will likely make up for it. It's hard to say if the cost of levelling and crafting or the different variety and maximum power of the effects is enough without seeing it implemented, though. Perhaps having the effect be a random power between mid to high 'normal' power each time it's slotted on the item could make it more costly to make a perfect item, but that would likely be annoying with the all-or-nothing deconstruction that Cannith crafting currently has.

A few question.

Will colored augment slots be retained when deconstructing an item as they were before? Would they reduce the power of the other effects added to the item, or would they be mutually exclusive with the third effect?

With the power of the effects on an item being based on the blank's minimum level, what types of shards are we to expect throughout the levels? Will higher level shards typically be insightful bonuses, or those that typically go in the third effect of random loot?

[arkonas]

can i add please make sure that all lores are present. kinetic was the only one not to be added to cannith. i don't mind cannith getting some special things. i don't mind if it is a little behind random loot because we all know it should not be more powerful. the thing about crafting in any game the good stuff always required a grind so there should be some involved. you want it you gotta earn it. can i ask what will happen to our current cannith items? will they increase or decrease when this comes out. i know that might effect some people. i know it would effect my items as well i made.

[ColsonJade]

To help reduce the decon process can you make it so we can do it from anywhere?

I hate running back to the ship or House C to decon. So I end up just sell the loot. If I could bring up the UI from my inventory screen I could decon while waiting at a quest enterance or in everingstar.

Thanks