Cannith Crafting More Info + Recap

[Faltout]

Any chance we could just get rid of % chances to fail and lose components? This may have made sense back in 2008 or whatever when games still had terrible mechanics like that but these days it's just a pointless frustration. There's no skill involved, no interesting gameplay mechanic, no strategy.

You're wrong. There is strategy involved and is tied to the question:
"Which shard should I make next to level my crafting?"
Make the low percentage shard with more xp or make the high percentage shard with less xp?
There used to be another factor: Make the shard with higher percentage because I have more of that essence and less of the other?
Usually the strategy was "1. Use large piles of essences before small piles. 2. Make the shards with the lowest chance of success. 3. Don't make the same shard for more than 1 crafting level."

[Faltout]

You just seem oblivious to the fact that lucky loot is about all people keep from your new random loot, 99.99% of random loot is sold deconstructed or not even taken out the chest. Making cannith crafting worse than random loot will always make cannith crafting less desirable in the long run. Maybe not immediately but in the long run if you can find better items in random loot that's what you'll end up with.

I don't know ONE person or seen ONE screenshot of an item anywhere (game, forums, auction house) that is truly a lucky random loot.
Let me define what is the LUCKY loot:
It's an item that has:
1. A 3rd effect on it
2. All 3 effects are relevant to your build
3. All 3 effects are in the masterful craftsmanship range
4. All 3 effects are at the max value of the range.

Those are the items that are better than cannith crafting. And they don't exist to my knowledge. Besides, even if they existed people would not be able to distinguish them from simple masterful craftsmanship items because noone knows what the max value of the lucky range is at each level.

[Mithis]

I genuinely do not understand the logic of keeping Speed as random gen only. Everyone has it so you are not limiting access by keeping in Random Gen.

(Plus if it gets a player like EllisDee, who has contributed so such to the community, back into the game I say add it to Cannith Crafting)

Throw us a bone here devs...little concessions like making speed part of CC have no impact on overall player power but have a big impact on dev/player relations. It makes us feel like you are making the game for us rather than for you.

[TitusOvid]

Removing flexible shards from the system takes away a big chunk of awesome from that system. Considering you have to work hard to get to that point in crafting pre-new system why not make it hard in the new system and stay with it?

2 questions:
1) how will augment slots effect the min lvl? same as now?

2) is it possible to change the min lvl of a crafted item AFTER i put an effect on it?

As I understand it, determing min lvl is the number 1 step in the new crafting. And if I craft a scaling effect on that item it will be automatocally scaled. Will it be possible to increase that min lvl without crafting a whole new item?
Nowadays I craft an item for low lvl and put 1 effect on it, so that I can later increase the potential and craft a 2nd effect on it. That possibility should still be possible after the overhaul.
That would mean ofc, that a scaling effect would scale higher after I increased then min lvl.

[Ballyspringer]

"It is important to us to have a system where Cannith Crafted, Random, and Named Loot is all usable by players."



Umm - if cannith is no longer flexible and has to follow all of the same rules as random for slot restrictions for stats/whatnot, it doesn't have the same top lucky stats as random items can get, but still takes years to level up in for it to be useful in anything but heroics (which who needs much to get through heroics anymore and anyone who says that grinding this much for a reward that's only OP in heroic levels is crazy) - how exactly does Cannith fit in with random and named loot? You can say all you want well you get the combo you really want without having to hunt for it, ya sorry to me that's not worth the grind of years to do to get to what the new max levels will be when in that case you've probably already found it on the AH, or in a drop, or from a friend which will also have better stats on it than what you can make for your end level toon since cannith isn't as good as random for lvl 30's and it has the same exact restrictions for what can go where. Flexible/being able to put whatever stat you want in any item was the last carrot making this worthwhile to do in my opinion. Otherwise without it named/raid is even harder to use and fit into your gear set ups since you could have to give up a key stat for your character to do so with the current rigid stat placement system that named doesn't follow.

~disappointed current max level crafter

[RD2play]

...
2 questions:
1) how will augment slots effect the min lvl? same as now?

2) is it possible to change the min lvl of a crafted item AFTER i put an effect on it?
...

1) They will not, only the slotted augment will have an effect on AML

2) NO, you put on ML first then apply your effects shards. To make a lower or higher ML item you will have to make one from scratch.

[TitusOvid]

2) NO, you put on ML first then apply your effects shards. To make a lower or higher ML item you will have to make one from scratch.

Consider a change here. Thank you.

[AnEvenNewerNoob]

Can you elaborate on whether the decision to not have flexible shards is a design decision or a system limitation with the new random loot?

[RD2play]

...
Flex Shards

The plan is to not launch with flex shards. We think there is a good balance that can be found between Random, Named, Crafted loot and flex shards will knock some of that out of the way. The Cannith system will be a bit different from before and some of the power and versatility is tough to see without getting your hands on the system.

...

And as always, anything and everything is subject to change for any number of reasons.

Can you elaborate on whether the decision to not have flexible shards is a design decision or a system limitation with the new random loot?

They are not going to launch with Flex, but it is not completely off the table. The Devs first want to see how the new system unfolds without them, then after they might look into it further.

[NoWorries]

You're serious now? So for 50 crafting levels all you will have to craft will be the same level of shards?

You must be aware that with the previous system leveling was a breeze because you made 3 shards of a level 9 higher than yours and you gained a level. Then you made 3 shards of 1 level higher and so on. Now you'll make shards 0 to 20 levels less than yours with declining xp? Meaning that when you're between levels 50 and 100 (around 70), it'll take hundreds of level 50 shards to level? How are you planning to ease the leveling process and not make it a painful grind?

With the changes listed in the OP and the fact that ML shards fill in a lot of the blank spaces.

[TPICKRELL]

With the changes listed in the OP and the fact that ML shards fill in a lot of the blank spaces.

Does shard XP still decline as you make them? If so, I'm struggling to see how the ML shards will be enough to fill the void left by the drastically reduced set of shards (i.e. Str 1/2/3/4/5/6 becomes Str. You really haven't mentioned how the XP works, so we are all shooting in the dark and it doesn't seem to line up based on the previous xp system.

[zehnvhex]

You're wrong. There is strategy involved and is tied to the question:
"Which shard should I make next to level my crafting?"
Make the low percentage shard with more xp or make the high percentage shard with less xp?
There used to be another factor: Make the shard with higher percentage because I have more of that essence and less of the other?
Usually the strategy was "1. Use large piles of essences before small piles. 2. Make the shards with the lowest chance of success. 3. Don't make the same shard for more than 1 crafting level."

All you do is multiply your chance of failure against the xp value for doing the combine and that's your average XP return for doing that combine. Then you find the combine with the least dumb resource requirement with the highest xp value and hammer that until you get a new tier of combines. That's not strategy, that's not compelling gameplay. That's homework.

And if the material requirements are as silly as it is right now that doesn't even enter into it since 99% of the time you're picking the combine that requires the least amount of materials and hammering that. Currently at pretty much every tier in the current system there's usually only one or two combines that doesn't take 50 large essences or something silly.

If you remove the % chance to fail you don't change how crafting is done at all and remove a source of frustration for new players that don't have huge stockpiles of essences (bad luck streak) and can easily replace it with a source of rewarding gameplay (critical success) instead.

I mean it's not a huge deal. I'd rather see Flex Shards remain in and them find a way to do mass deconstruction (ESPECIALLY IF THE UI IS STILL BUGGED AND I HAVE TO RELOAD THE CRAFTING UI EVERY 10 DECONSTRUCTS. ARE YOU LISTENING DEVS?! FIX THAT PLEASE. THANK YOU, I HAVE COOKIES FOR YOU IF YOU DO. I AM SHOUTING BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT.)

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, there are more important alterations that need making but it's a simply frustration that doesn't need to exist. It does not add to the experience, it does not make it more interesting or exciting in any way. It's not a challenge, it's not strategy. All other things being equal if you have a 50% chance for 200 xp or an 75% chance for 120 xp, you'll always do the 50% chance one because over 100 combines it will yield more xp. Law of averages and all that.

[zehnvhex]

how exactly does Cannith fit in with random and named loot?

Crafting will still be for twinking low level characters and have no business in any sort of high end capacity in it's current or planned format. I don't think there is much they can do about that truth be told.

It would be nice if once you get up to the max level range instead of focusing on making gear, it shifted focus towards making clickies. Let me make a Cannith teleport device that has 100 charges of teleport and has a slightly lower UMD then teleport scrolls. Let me make a Propulsion augment that I can apply to any boots that work like the Cannith Boots of Propulsion. Give me a bracer augment that has a small chance to proc a stacking haste buff for a few seconds. So on and so forth. I can think of no other way really to keep it competitive with named/random loot in terms of time requirements to acquire decent items vs. quality. So I'd rather see it complement end game loot instead of compete for slots.

[Eryhn]

They are not going to launch with Flex, but it is not completely off the table. The Devs first want to see how the new system unfolds without them, then after they might look into it further.

translate:
next update will have named loot with flexible crafting properties, we really would prefer as many players as possible to feel forced to buy that which they might not do if they can achieve the same effects in flexible cannith crafting. we are aware that this annoys a lot of people, as, in order to promote the new pack, we are breaking one of the really cool and universally liked properties of the old cannith crafting - to minimize the chance that some short fused folks quit game over this we decided to throw a bone of a red herring of a *maybe *soon TM.
in half a year when we could do this we will either have forgoten about this or not have the time to implement it, or run into some unsolvable coding issue trying to implement it, but hey then we can say we had the intention to try or say we never really promised we do it or we just silently sit it out.
in any case we are lately of the opinion that we have already managed to alienate all those players that would jump ship over grievances such as this and they already left, thus, it is likely the remaining population will moan and cuss a bit, but stay around no matter what BS design decision we make in accord with sad attempts to monetize or save maintenance costs.

in reply to this trend i would quote cordo's "DO NOT DO THIS", but alas ...

[QueenOfTheHook]

Is there an approximate eta on this update? Are we talking a lot of months or are we getting close (need to figure out how many more lives I have to max out my crafting lvls)?

[elvesunited]

No sign of mobility. One of my favorite things to craft into items.
Granted my mobility ring of electrical absorption with yellow and clear augment slot worn by my tank may be a bit of an exploit.

But speaking of that. How will augment slots mesh with the new system? It seems from what I've read that augment slots will no longer effect minimum level or costs at all. And as such all crafting will fall into the category that much of level 20 item crafting is in now. If you are crafting an item that doesn't have a (clear+yellow,blue,green, and red) slot then you are purposely making a lesser item then you could.

I also see that greater twilight seems to be gone as well. Another blow to armored mages if only the lesser twilight remains.

And no deathblock? I don't craft deathblock often, but on occassion I've had a character with that hole in his gear set up needing to be filled.

It looks like flexibility is being sacrificed in order to add more power to crafting. If you added power and kept flexibility it would overshadow normal loot. Though you could simply reduce the power level of flexible effects compared to non-flexible effects and achieve the same result without removing one of crafting's main benefits.

It seems that you are making even the highest crafting attributes available for unbound if the crafter is good enough. That may open the door for high level crafters to get rich quick. Especially as low level crafting looks like a lot of grind for little reward.

[Xgya]

You just seem oblivious to the fact that lucky loot is about all people keep from your new random loot, 99.99% of random loot is sold deconstructed or not even taken out the chest. Making cannith crafting worse than random loot will always make cannith crafting less desirable in the long run. Maybe not immediately but in the long run if you can find better items in random loot that's what you'll end up with.

Alright, you ARE right about this much: The BEST pieces of loot will remain named and ultra-rare randomgen loot. This is what it's MEANT to be. (correct me if I'm wrong, NoWorries)
So, farming for items and actually looking at what items do before deconstructing will still be a thing, at least until you can get a maxxed out gearset at all levels for all your characters, something that's more than likely NOT to happen.

Cannith Crafting will allow people and their guilds to flesh out builds, even when they couldn't reach the perfect best set of items. THAT's what Cannith Crafting will be.

I know I'll be maxing out crafting as much as I can, simply because I play with a lot of newbies I introduced to the game (some of which I introduced to gaming in general!) that will LOVE having those items already there and ready to use, while slowly learning to eke out the best items random loot can give them.

Of course, there will be quite a few things for older players in there, things unique to crafting, crafted weapons that don't have caster stats on them...

In conclusion, these items will let people get a bit better numerically.
It mostly increases the floor while doing almost nothing to the max. The max is what the devs use to balance the endgame quests, so no big change there.

[slarden]

I really liked the flex shards, but the difference is with the old gear only a few things were top-tier random loot stats (all main stats, protection, resistance I think and that was about it).

I understand the balance needed and I much prefer that crafted gear will have top tier stats matching a specific level.

But you can give us an example of what level 34 means in terms of #s since we don't see that on our gear.

Is +15 int level 34 or is +16? +6 insightful int? I guess it will be on Lamania now, but level 34 doesn't mean much too me since I don't see the level on my gear.

Thank you for the great work put into this. It looks like a winner based on what you presented so far!

[Nuclear_Elvis]

Crafting will still be for twinking low level characters and have no business in any sort of high end capacity in it's current or planned format. I don't think there is much they can do about that truth be told...

This is an inaccurate assessment of the future, considering NoWorries' post about their current plan. First, you must factor time itself that lends opportunity to loot more and more Random Loots. In my guild of 750+ players, why craft? We can loot Random Loots for better gear to collectively place in our Guild Chests, and players can round out with Auction House purchases and/or Named Items. The logic NoWorries and Dev's are using is to forcibly deny Cannith Crafting from achieving a pinnacle (do I need to say it - like a Troll on a Bridge...). And given that denial, if Random Loots remain on that pinnacle, it only takes time and opportunity to accumulate lots of gear that is "better" - so over time, Cannith Crafting has little to no use for lower levels in contrast to your statement.

The other part of your statement was toward higher level crafting - the Dev's are supposed to make CC viable into higher levels, but see my prior paragraph to logically understand how time and opportunity in questing lessens or nullifies the value in the grind of crafting.

These are really disappointing restrictions, and very odd to see the Dev's taking this stand on limiting Cannith Crafting to a lesser position than Random Loot, unless the bean counters behind them really think that some Revenue will be made in the longer run by selling "something" at the DDO Store. But again, even if you're a Bean Counter at Turbine, see my paragraph prior about Time and Opportunity nullifying the value of this new proposed Cannith Crafting.

So, we either have a leader at Turbine saying "It must be this way" or some Bean Counter saying "Keep it that way so we make revenue." There really isn't a logical explanation otherwise, for Turbine Dev's to be limiting new Cannith Crafting to a lesser position than Random Loot, and denying full Flexibility in the system.

[mikarddo]

You just seem oblivious to the fact that if people can get lucky loot that is a higher value, people will always keep the random loot especially if you cant get stats that aren't normally in those locations. If you aren't making it as good as random loot you need to make it so it's at least flexible. Making cannith crafting worse than random will always make cannith crafting less desirable.

Kindly post 3 random loots you own yourself (doesnt matter if you looted it yourself) that:
- Have 3 effects that go well together
- All 3 effects have a value that is at or above the max value for the non-mc range for that level.
- Have an augment slot
- Is Master Crafted (and thus is lucky)

I have zero such items, dont know anyone that does and dont believe I have ever seen such an item anywhere. If you dont have such items either your point is hypothetical. Claiming such items might appear in the future isnt an argument for the now either.