Cannith Crafting Discussion

[arkonas]

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:



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.

there is an int ring and int gloves. named of course.

[Grinn]

Hopefully we'll be able to deconstruct our hoarded supply of shards of potential and other prefix/suffix/enhancement shards that we may have stockpiled.

Bracelet, there is the Belt of Braided Beards from DoJ.

[Elfishski]

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.

...

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).

I'm actually cautiously optimistic about this, inevitably and hilarious bugs aside. I think you've found the perfect philosophy in general. Out of curiosity, what stat bonus does "level 33 loot" equate to?

Remember you can always adjust up later with new higher possible crafting levels if it's not enough to be useful. You can't easily adjust down if you realise it's made random loot irrelevant again without a lot of outrage. The flexibility to craft exactly what you want in the slot you want it is enough without it being even all that close to 'highest possible'.


The way I see it every type of item has a purpose in the game if you follow a couple of simple principles:
Random Loot: highest possible bonus at a given level, but you'll have to be lucky to get what you want, and at most 3 effects.
Cannith Crafting: high enough bonus to be useful but not exceptional at a given level (on par with named items), at most 3 effects, flexibility to get exactly what you want.
Named Items: often with synergistic bonuses, bonuses of different types e.g. quality, bonuses in different slots, sometimes many effects on each item, not as high.
Raid Loot: as per named items, but a little better and with more interesting unique effects to make them worth a little extra effort and BTC. Still not the highest possible bonuses.


The approach to cannith crafting here sounds pretty good in keeping with that. Good planning and good work!

The problem is you've already seriously damaged the possibility of keeping everything relevant with your first named items after updating random loot, and their MUCH higher bonuses of the same type as random loot (e.g. +185 spellpower). How does this continued number inflation fit with your view of keeping all items relevant? What use is the highest possible random gen sonic spellpower item to anyone now?

You should be aiming at a stable level 30 at this point, just like level 20 was once fairly stable in terms of max possible bonuses. If you really need new shiny things with higher numbers for people so they can sprint through LE slightly faster lag permitting, that's fine, use new bonus types. That way you're not making anything irrelevant. Is it too late for that?

[NoWorries]

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.)

Blanks will still be blank. ML will be crafted on.

Essences and blanks will be as they were before patch. Essences will be exchangeable to the new ones. Current shards won't work with how the system will work going forward so will likely be useless upon patching, but either way we will put out info on that as we get closer so people know either to use them up or to save them for some kind of exchange.

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

Not currently planning to have craftable Sockets onto items. As it is currently, if you find an item with an augment slot, it will stay when you blank.

The augment system as a whole needs some work. So for now, no Cannith Crafted Augments, but who knows what the future could hold.

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?

I don't think that will happen with this system. Not that I'm opening the discussion up to it in this thread, but somewhere on the table for a possible future feature is Sentient Weapons which would probably be levelable and would fill that niche.

[NoWorries]

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?

Collectibles (including possibly some new ones) and Dragonshards will still be used.

[Krelar]

Collectibles (including possibly some new ones) and Dragonshards will still be used.

Will you make sure the collectibles used have a possibility of dropping out of any level quest? I really shouldn't have to go back and run a level 10 quest chain on a level 30 toon so I can craft an item. (If you want to make some collectibles more likely to drop in certain chains that would be ok.)

EDIT:

Also remember that forgotten realms quests currently don't drop any collectibles.

[donblas]

Collectibles (including possibly some new ones) and Dragonshards will still be used.

Are they going to be a useful thing? Or should I just dump most of them?

[btolson]

With regards to Masterful Craftsmanship and 3rd affects...

I would really like it if this was an either/or for Cannith Crafting. You've said that Marks of Cannith will grant a 3rd affect, please let some other ingredient grant Masterful Craftsmanship.

These options would be exclusive with one another for Cannith Crafting, which gives Lootgen a leg up (Lootgen can stack both on the same item, instead of just one or the other). This would allow Cannith Crafting to continue doing what it currently does, if the player wishes.

[Nyata]

Will you make sure the collectibles used have a possibility of dropping out of any level quest? I really shouldn't have to go back and run a level 10 quest chain on a level 30 toon so I can craft an item. (If you want to make some collectibles more likely to drop in certain chains that would be ok.)

hmmm to be honest I always thought it was a good thing that there is a bit of a level spread (though I squint every time i pick up a bag of prayer beads on epic or a blade of the dark six.) I remember as a new player i made my first chunks of platinum by posting collectibles on the AH. so I'd vote to leave it as is, because it's actually beneficial for trading.

[Grandern_Marn]

Please let us be able to deconstruct unusable skill tomes!!

[Krelar]

hmmm to be honest I always thought it was a good thing that there is a bit of a level spread (though I squint every time i pick up a bag of prayer beads on epic or a blade of the dark six.) I remember as a new player i made my first chunks of platinum by posting collectibles on the AH. so I'd vote to leave it as is, because it's actually beneficial for trading.

I was talking mostly about things like the Mystic goblet that only drops from the end rewards of Ruins of Threnal and is BTA so you can't trade it.

[NoWorries]

Are they going to be a useful thing? Or should I just dump most of them?

It would be rare for us to ever tell you to dump anything because different things have different uses and who knows what the future holds.

In other words, I will not say dump them and instead wait to see how Cannith turns out and decide which items you find worthwhile or not at that point.

[Alistina]

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.

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.

My favorite things/uses of the present cc are:
- Ability to craft masterful craftsmanship items, on the exact slot & item property I need.
- Ability to craft any properties on any slot, as per my requirement.
- Ability to craft properties that don't exist in the game any more, like invulnerability, banes, everbright etc.
- Ability to craft lowbie gear such as ML1 ranged/melee alacrity or invulnerability armors.

It seems, from what you have said so far, that all of the above is being removed from cc.
I would very much still like to see masterful craftsmanship exist in cc. It is grindy enough, and if you are willing to spend the time & resources you should be able to do it.

Same goes for flexible shards. They are at the very top of each school. It takes a lot of time & effort to get there, and not easily, considering you need ebb shards to get there. Keep the flexible shards as high as you feel right, even 33 if you want, so not even those with maxed out schools can craft them from day one. But please, no not remove this big awesome feature of cc.

An idea/suggestion:
- Retain the current function of mark of cannith. There are a a couple of top house favor rewards that are empty - PDK, twelve and gatekeepers. Introduce a new mark (Mark of insight?) that will allow you to add a third property on a crafted item. It can also be a store purchase item, & a rare chest drop along with being available with a vendor that would sell the mark after you unlock it with favor (could be like current cannith top tier, where you need to unlock it afresh each life to have access to it)

Things I like about what you have suggested:
- A lot less complicated system
- No more ambiguity on the final ML of a crafted item
- Players retaining there existing crafting xp
- Easy decon (hopefully)

[Alistina]

A couple of questions:

- Will the already crafted items retain their ML?

- You mentioned a trade in system available for the currently crafted shards. But will it be possible to craft some of your old shards if you wish so?

[Glenalth]

If I'm remembering correctly, the initial reason that we were given for gems and most collectibles not being used in Cannith crafting was that people may have already had an enormous stockpile of them and they wanted to make sure everyone was on even footing at the beginning of the crafting system.

If the system is being revamped and will allow for trading the old greaters and lessers for the new essences anyway, please use the existing collectibles system instead of adding a new type or more crafting specific ingredients to the system. Just remember to add collectible nodes to the Forgotten Realms side of things. That will give you plenty of options for making "rare" crafting suffixes using existing rare collectibles without having to resort to "Mystical Fish" and other silly patches.

[Ebondevil]

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.

My Personal thoughts on this are:

• That you should generally be able to craft any and all Randomly generated loot.
• You should not be able to Craft something that Matches Named Loot (with the exception of rare and very special circumstances).
• Crafting Systems takes time and effort to make it work, while random loot is just luck of the draw. Therefore Crafting should be better in potential.
• Allow players to Craft Blank Weapons/Armour
• Allow Players to Craft Augment Slots (limited by crafting Skill)
• Allow Players to Craft Augments
• Allow players to upgrade Crafted items instead of rebuilding them each level

Preferably I'd like to see the Crafting system negate the need to carry around huge quantities of items from previous lives which you might want during levelling and thus free up inventory space, if I can craft it I don't need to carry it through multiple lives.

Include the possibility for quests/raids to drop items (similar to the proposed Mark of House Cannith mechanic) that increase the potential of Crafted items, adding an extra slot bringing them nearly but not quite to the levels of Named items.

Some Ideas:
Consider having the potential of the items limited by crafting skill, so someone half levelled in the crafting system could create items for level 15 characters, while Max Craft Levelled Characters could create for level 30 characters.

Consider a Slider to allow the player to adjust the Min Level outcome of the item, so a character with Max Crafting Skills can easily craft an item intended for a level 10 character.

Consider allowing Effects to go in the wrong slot on the wrong items but reduce the power of the effect, e.g. 100% fortification in the correct slot could be reduced to 75% fortification in the wrong slot (Include a warning of reduced effectiveness). Allow Higher than required Crafting Skills to negate this penalty.


Some possibilities to counterbalance the benefits is to consider are that specific classes could be needed to craft specific items:

For example:
Divine Caster Levels needed for Positive/Light/Healing Amp items
Arcane Caster Levels needed for Elemental items
Arcane/Divine Caster Levels for Negative items
Artificers due to being Artificers, possibly a bit less restricted

[NoWorries]

A couple of questions:

- Will the already crafted items retain their ML?

- You mentioned a trade in system available for the currently crafted shards. But will it be possible to craft some of your old shards if you wish so?

Existing crafted items will remain as is.

When the new system goes in, the old system won't be available any longer.

[Lerl]

Would it be possible to have a M/C shard allow maximum level stat if only one shard is crafted onto an object?

Like, if I were to craft a ring for a level 9 character, and put ONLY a stat, like Charisma, could it do a +6?

If not, what are the break-downs for stats going to be by level? At what level could my character wear a +6 stat item?

How high of a stat bonus are we going to be able to craft?

Are we going to be able to craft insightful/exceptional/quality bonuses as well?

Will we be able to craft, say, a melee alacrity 20% item?

Will vampirism shards be able to be crafted after the update?

[NoWorries]

Consider having the potential of the items limited by crafting skill, so someone half levelled in the crafting system could create items for level 15 characters, while Max Craft Levelled Characters could create for level 30 characters.

Consider a Slider to allow the player to adjust the Min Level outcome of the item, so a character with Max Crafting Skills can easily craft an item intended for a level 10 character.

The ML shards will be based on skill so that will happen.

Our system doesn't really have the capability to do a slider like you suggest. But since the ML will be the main limiting factor, once a player crafts the ML shard they want, the rest should be as simple as dropping in the effects they want for the different slots.

[Livmo]

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).

This is good news. Here are 2 versions of the same ring with different yellow topazs in them. The topazes are ML 16 and 24. These were great before new random loot. You can now get much better spell DCs from random loot at both levels (16 and 24). In fact some new random loot items have +2 or +3 to all spell DCs.

It would be great if we had the option with the new CC to make a general +2 or +3 spell DC item that applies to all spell schools. And keep specific spell DCs in CC, but make them +1 higher than a general +2 or +3 to all DCs. With the new random loot you can get spell school specific items like +4 necro or evo googles.

I would like to see spell DCs from Cannith Crafting go live and be at the top of the normal ranges at all levels if possible.