Update 32 on Lamannia: Cannith Crafting Preview

[rmstevens]

WHY is this server down ?

[count_spicoli]

I, personally, don't think it's too high. Hit Lamma and get a gander at the amount of **** you need to craft some of that stuff--it's EXPENSIVE. This new system is very much a prestige system given the amount of work and ingredients you need to grind out to be able to make some of this stuff. If it were reduced SLIGHTLY I wouldn't go crazy, though. If it's reduced A LOT I will be very unhappy.

Seriously, even with a willingness to throw down a large amount of cash on DDO store items getting to cap is going to be SERIOUS work, FAR more work than crafting a wide array of Legendary Greensteel items.

If your gonna put the work in you should be rewarded with something that is above average **** loot. If you don't want to put the time in stick with average **** random loot.

[slarden]

If your gonna put the work in you should be rewarded with something that is above average **** loot. If you don't want to put the time in stick with average **** random loot.

Agreed, if they lowered unbound a small amount it would be ok, but bta is fine the way it is. If you can't make good loot with it nobody is going to bother.

There are always going to be people with no intention of crafting that will demand nerfs. It's nothing new, but my main 4 characters will be using 3 pieces of crafted gear and 4 pieces of random gear. The rest is named and raid loot. That seems balanced enough.

The game gives rewards for participating and accomplishing things. MMO 101.

[Elfishski]

There are always going to be people with no intention of crafting that will demand nerfs. It's nothing new, but my main 4 characters will be using 3 pieces of crafted gear and 4 pieces of random gear. The rest is named and raid loot. That seems balanced enough.

People with every intention of continuing to craft will ask for nerfs too, because they believe it would be more balanced, you don't have to insult us.

Honestly, if the strength of crafted items is toned down a little I'd probably make more than as is. Having items that are too powerful and too easy just makes me feel dirty like buying 100 meteoric star rubies for 10,000 platinum off the auction house at the height of the duping situation (and I chose not to).

[slarden]

People with every intention of continuing to craft will ask for nerfs too, because they believe it would be more balanced, you don't have to insult us.

Honestly, if the strength of crafted items is toned down a little I'd probably make more than as is. Having items that are too powerful and too easy just makes me feel dirty like buying 100 meteoric star rubies for 10,000 platinum off the auction house at the height of the duping situation (and I chose not to).

It's not an insult - not even close, but nice attempt to make it sound personal. Most of the nerf calls I heard are without basis and I believe it's mostly by non-crafters as well esp since most crafters are asking for cheaper costs and more power (flexible shards).

I haven't seen any indication that crafted items need to be toned down from where they are. As I've shown already I am currently using 7 random items on my 4 main characters at cap out of a total of 56 gear slots. Of those 7 random items 3 will be replaced by crafted items and the remaining 4 will not because random loot has higher stats available than crafted gear. Not sure how a few gear slots out of 56 is going to result in any significant power increase. It's mostly just fitting in a few things.

For leveling it's cost-prohibitive to use too many crafted items so again crafting will mostly likely be 1-2 pieces of gear and those will last for several levels as it's too expensive to craft new items for every stat change.

I've heard many reasonable concerns (cost of prefix/suffix shards on bta gear too expensive), but the calls for nerf on gear that is already below max possible values is somewhere between nonsensical and silly.

[Qhualor]

It's not an insult - not even close, but nice attempt to make it sound personal. Most of the nerf calls I heard are without basis and I believe it's mostly by non-crafters as well esp since most crafters are asking for cheaper costs and more power (flexible shards).

I haven't seen any indication that crafted items need to be toned down from where they are. As I've shown already I am currently using 7 random items on my 4 main characters at cap out of a total of 56 gear slots. Of those 7 random items 3 will be replaced by crafted items and the remaining 4 will not because random loot has higher stats available than crafted gear. Not sure how a few gear slots out of 56 is going to result in any significant power increase. It's mostly just fitting in a few things.

For leveling it's cost-prohibitive to use too many crafted items so again crafting will mostly likely be 1-2 pieces of gear and those will last for several levels as it's too expensive to craft new items for every stat change.

I've heard many reasonable concerns (cost of prefix/suffix shards on bta gear too expensive), but the calls for nerf on gear that is already below max possible values is somewhere between nonsensical and silly.

I would hope crafted gear doesn't fit into very many slots for end game builds. At cap, named gear still should be better than random and crafted gear. If crafted or random gear is a primary gear slot than that should say something.

From what I have seen of crafted gear, it is definitely surpassing a lot of named and random loot. We can't dismiss 28 levels of the game because I agree judging by pics crafted gear is going to be better than other gear. I'm not going to say in every situation, but it seems to be headed that way. Time will tell and I'm not convinced players won't worry about crafting more than a few while leveling if they know it's more powerful than random and named in a lot of situations. There are ways to twink out besides relying on yourself and your current storage of ingredients.

I'm not going to comment on the cost of collectibles since I don't craft, therefore I couldn't begin to know what is fair, but for years collectibles have had minimal use and mostly just specific ones. In my experience that does include myself, I've watched players run past a lot of collectibles. Usually don't see players going out of the way to grab them either. Now I'm starting to see more players actually stop to pick them up. I have no idea if drop rates will be increased or cost will be reduced, but I would keep it as is for now and revisit it in 6 months or so to see if collectibles vs cost is still an issue.

[slarden]

I would hope crafted gear doesn't fit into very many slots for end game builds. At cap, named gear still should be better than random and crafted gear. If crafted or random gear is a primary gear slot than that should say something.

From what I have seen of crafted gear, it is definitely surpassing a lot of named and random loot. We can't dismiss 28 levels of the game because I agree judging by pics crafted gear is going to be better than other gear. I'm not going to say in every situation, but it seems to be headed that way. Time will tell and I'm not convinced players won't worry about crafting more than a few while leveling if they know it's more powerful than random and named in a lot of situations. There are ways to twink out besides relying on yourself and your current storage of ingredients.

I'm not going to comment on the cost of collectibles since I don't craft, therefore I couldn't begin to know what is fair, but for years collectibles have had minimal use and mostly just specific ones. In my experience that does include myself, I've watched players run past a lot of collectibles. Usually don't see players going out of the way to grab them either. Now I'm starting to see more players actually stop to pick them up. I have no idea if drop rates will be increased or cost will be reduced, but I would keep it as is for now and revisit it in 6 months or so to see if collectibles vs cost is still an issue.

I didn't dismiss any levels. As I already stated I will at most use one or two pieces of crafted gear while leveling. It's cost prohibitive and I can get what I need from random loot.

At the moment I plan to make a max of 8 pieces of random loot from 1 - 28. maybe a belt and ring at level 7, 13, 18, 23. And my reason for doing it is to consolidate the things I want on all my characters to make it easy to fill the other 12 pieces with gs, random loot and a few named items. I already have con, ins con, sheltering, dodge, false life at all level ranges. I like that crafting will allow me to consolidate a few key things to 2 pieces.

Of all the power creep we've had in the game this one isn't even on the radar screen because it's not adding power, it consolidating a few gear slots as random loot can already be more powerful.

[Qhualor]

I didn't dismiss any levels. As I already stated I will at most use one or two pieces of crafted gear while leveling. It's cost prohibitive and I can get what I need from random loot.

At the moment I plan to make a max of 8 pieces of random loot from 1 - 28. maybe a belt and ring at level 7, 13, 18, 23. And my reason for doing it is to consolidate the things I want on all my characters to make it easy to fill the other 12 pieces with gs, random loot and a few named items. I already have con, ins con, sheltering, dodge, false life at all level ranges. I like that crafting will allow me to consolidate a few key things to 2 pieces.

Of all the power creep we've had in the game this one isn't even on the radar screen because it's not adding power, it consolidating a few gear slots as random loot can already be more powerful.

I wasn't saying you were dismissing levels, I was just pointing out that there is more to the game than level 30 which is common to see in any discussion. often people will talk about that last few levels when there is much more than that to the game.

consolidation is exactly one of the biggest issues I have about the crafted gear. consolidating 2-3 slots into 1 is a big leader towards power creep. it frees up slots you otherwise wouldn't be able to use for other things that benefit your build. I talked about this very thing when the new random loot was released doing the same thing, but the "gating" was relying on lucky rolls. at least there was something that prevented players consolidating their gear slots easily enough leaving it up to dice rolls. however, after the newness wore off and after players already had their "twinked out" random loot, it was more easily found on the AH and at vendors. we will see the same pattern with this crafted gear, except the "gating" is going to be how much time a player is willing to invest in building levels and cost. but, that can also be circumvented by paying a crafter that already has high levels to craft what you want.

[Elfishski]

It's not an insult - not even close, but nice attempt to make it sound personal. Most of the nerf calls I heard are without basis and I believe it's mostly by non-crafters as well esp since most crafters are asking for cheaper costs and more power (flexible shards).

I haven't seen any indication that crafted items need to be toned down from where they are. As I've shown already I am currently using 7 random items on my 4 main characters at cap out of a total of 56 gear slots. Of those 7 random items 3 will be replaced by crafted items and the remaining 4 will not because random loot has higher stats available than crafted gear. Not sure how a few gear slots out of 56 is going to result in any significant power increase. It's mostly just fitting in a few things.

For leveling it's cost-prohibitive to use too many crafted items so again crafting will mostly likely be 1-2 pieces of gear and those will last for several levels as it's too expensive to craft new items for every stat change.

I've heard many reasonable concerns (cost of prefix/suffix shards on bta gear too expensive), but the calls for nerf on gear that is already below max possible values is somewhere between nonsensical and silly.

It might not be an insult, but it is needlessly dismissive. It would be equivalent to say that nobody should listen to those asking for cheaper ingredients and more power* because they're just the greedy munchkins who always want bigger bonuses and easier to get, which wouldn't be entirely fair either. I've seen quite a few good discussions from both sides.


If the goal of cannith crafting is to be very powerful gear at all levels, and random loot to be the thing you use because you just can't afford to craft a better item, that's fine, it's a valid design choice, and it won't make the game a disaster - I just think it diminishes interest in random loot and would prefer to leave a gap between cannith crafting power and plausible random loot power, which is also the stated design goal, and I don't think it's being met presently. If all the bonuses you could get on cannith crafting were one lower than present, I think you'd make just as many items with just as much enthusiasm and interest (diminished only by having seen a preview of the current values), but also retain more interest in random loot.

Below level 30 the odds of getting a better random item than what you can craft are so astronomically low you're probably in with a better shot of winning the lottery. Of getting a +1 higher on just one value? quite possible (...though only at maybe half of the levels?) but very unlikely, and not with 2 other good bonuses at max level and an augment slot, certainly. At level 30 of course, it does flip and cannith crafting is a very strong item you use while hoping for a better random item (assuming you're the sort to run LE or scour the auction house with a massive astral shard bank at the ready).


*I also think the vast majority asking for flexible crafting would be content with a large reduction in power to go with it, they just care more about the flexibility, having more power and more flexibility don't have to be the same thing.

[slarden]

It might not be an insult, but it is needlessly dismissive. It would be equivalent to say that nobody should listen to those asking for cheaper ingredients and more power* because they're just the greedy munchkins who always want bigger bonuses and easier to get, which wouldn't be entirely fair either. I've seen quite a few good discussions from both sides.


If the goal of cannith crafting is to be very powerful gear at all levels, and random loot to be the thing you use because you just can't afford to craft a better item, that's fine, it's a valid design choice, and it won't make the game a disaster - I just think it diminishes interest in random loot and would prefer to leave a gap between cannith crafting power and plausible random loot power, which is also the stated design goal, and I don't think it's being met presently. If all the bonuses you could get on cannith crafting were one lower than present, I think you'd make just as many items with just as much enthusiasm and interest (diminished only by having seen a preview of the current values), but also retain more interest in random loot.

Below level 30 the odds of getting a better random item than what you can craft are so astronomically low you're probably in with a better shot of winning the lottery. Of getting a +1 higher on just one value? quite possible (...though only at maybe half of the levels?) but very unlikely, and not with 2 other good bonuses at max level and an augment slot, certainly. At level 30 of course, it does flip and cannith crafting is a very strong item you use while hoping for a better random item (assuming you're the sort to run LE or scour the auction house with a massive astral shard bank at the ready).


*I also think the vast majority asking for flexible crafting would be content with a large reduction in power to go with it, they just care more about the flexibility, having more power and more flexibility don't have to be the same thing.

Yes it was definitely dismissive because I thought and still think it's an awful idea that should be immediately dismissed.

I would not be content if they added flexible shards and lowered the power level. I can only replace 3 of my 7 items with cannith crafting. Lower the power level a few more levels and now it's 0. what is the point of making a system that makes flexible gear worse than random loot? "Hey I can put my bad stat on boots instead of a ring - amazing!" We effectively have that with augments already there is no need for a 2nd underpowered flexible system.

Looking at the tables with values I have alot of low level random loot with better #s I will be using. For me crafting for heroic levels is about condensing a few things I want on all m characters to a few gear slots making it easy to fill in the rest with random gear.

I get numerous masterful craftmanship items per day and it doesn't matter what level I am running. It's not as unlikely as you think. I have higher assassinate items for just about every level range than cc has.

If I just compare cannith crafting to greensteel, I think it's adding way way less power creep, but still is definitely providing value and I think many people will have fun with the system.

To me the system should be fun and should allow you to make better loot than you typically find in chests, but not as good as the best random drops. That is what we have today and I think all the dev explanations make sense to me. They thought it out well which is proven by non-crafters complaining it's too op and crafters simulataneously complaining it's too expensive and not flexible enough.

The high cost took me by surprise but I am ok with it and agree that it shouldn't be too easy to make these items which are better than average drops even if they aren't as good as the best drops.

[slarden]

I wasn't saying you were dismissing levels, I was just pointing out that there is more to the game than level 30 which is common to see in any discussion. often people will talk about that last few levels when there is much more than that to the game.

consolidation is exactly one of the biggest issues I have about the crafted gear. consolidating 2-3 slots into 1 is a big leader towards power creep. it frees up slots you otherwise wouldn't be able to use for other things that benefit your build. I talked about this very thing when the new random loot was released doing the same thing, but the "gating" was relying on lucky rolls. at least there was something that prevented players consolidating their gear slots easily enough leaving it up to dice rolls. however, after the newness wore off and after players already had their "twinked out" random loot, it was more easily found on the AH and at vendors. we will see the same pattern with this crafted gear, except the "gating" is going to be how much time a player is willing to invest in building levels and cost. but, that can also be circumvented by paying a crafter that already has high levels to craft what you want.

We've already seen over time the amount of top-tier random loot (better than crafted gear) continues to grow and this weekend it will be a loot bonus weekend so we should see even more of it. Yes over time the amount of solid crafted gear and top tier random loot will rise.

Turbine definitely needs to be more cautious with unbound gear. Unbound gear was weaker in the old system but not the new system. In the system it's extremely expensive. If they reduce power level at all it should be on the unbound and not the bound.

[Ebondevil]

If the goal of cannith crafting is to be very powerful gear at all levels, and random loot to be the thing you use because you just can't afford to craft a better item, that's fine, it's a valid design choice, and it won't make the game a disaster - I just think it diminishes interest in random loot and would prefer to leave a gap between cannith crafting power and plausible random loot power, which is also the stated design goal, and I don't think it's being met presently.

So, couple of things to chime in on here.

Random Loot vs Cannith Crafted

I have found various pieces of Random loot with 3 Effects on them, none of which was an insightful bonus, and various pieces with a single effect + 2 insightful bonus, WAI? Don't know, Cannith Craftable? I seriously doubt it.

Random Loot can be Masterful Crafted.

This alone would seem to provide benefits Cannith Crafting can't get, Just saying.

My level 20 Artificer/Epic 6 (first life) Character also finally managed to retire his Min Level 8 Heavy Repeating Crossbow yesterday, not with a new piece of Random loot but with named loot, cause there just wasn't any random loot available for 18 **** levels.

To my mind Limiting Cannith Crafting to preserve the 0.0000000001% of good Random loot is a joke which is in very poor taste.

These days I only look at random loot just before I toss it in the Deconstructer.

End reward lists I look for Named loot, then Guild Renown, if there's no guild renown I look for Commendations, if there's no commendations I look for the least worst piece of junk on the list.

I'd like Crafting to allow me to gear my characters up the way I want to, not have to rely on a broken randomization churning out thousands of pieces of rubbish to find one piece of barely passable loot.

Also if we can't alter the Min Level on Crafted items, we need to be able to Re-Craft them relatively easily so we can Craft Bound equipment while levelling, because the game is currently one big hamster wheel with a TR train riding around it, meaning a lot of players will be almost constantly levelling, and thus in need of new gear.


Regarding Named Loot and Flexible Shards

I think the Dev's are making the wrong design decision.

I'm not personally all that bothered about flexible shards, I could take them or leave them, but to leave them out based on supposed competition with Named loot is the wrong decision for them.

Cannith Crafting can have 1 Prefix, 1 Suffix, 1 Extra (as a Favour Reward)
While Named loot does not have and should not have that three slot restriction.

Named loot should have the possibility of 4 or perhaps more effects, Named loot should have interesting effects you can't craft, Named loot should have Set item bonuses you can't craft (I'm not saying all of these should be on one item), it should be these bonuses that set Named Loot above Cannith Crafted loot, not whether the item is flexible or not.

Flexibility on named loot is arguably the main reason why you need Flexible shards, as named loot tends to provide bonuses in unexpected places which you then need to be able to work around, and thus be able to Craft around.


TLDR: Random Loot nearly always Sucks, Bound Cannith should be easy to make once Skilled, Flexible Shards should be allowed, Named loot should be better than Crafted for reasons other than flexible shards.

[Elfishski]

The high cost took me by surprise but I am ok with it and agree that it shouldn't be too easy to make these items which are better than average drops even if they aren't as good as the best drops.

At level 15 I can cannith craft some boots with dex +8, dodge +8%, ins dex +3, and 2 augment slots (probably only 1 augment slot if using current random loot instead of old hoarded ones?)

If I get a random loot item with masterful craftsmanship and an effective level of 16, it can go up to - if I'm amazingly lucky - .... dex +8, dodge +8%, ins dex +3. But it's a 1 in a billion item. At half of the levels the ABSOLUTE max from random loot is the same as for cannith crafting. At the other half of the levels, it's mathematically possible to get a better item, just so improbable as to not be worth considering.

Below level 30 (please don't tell me about your 7 random loot items at level cap again, they're not relevant to this), cannith crafting just makes better items than random, full stop, all the time. Gated only by ingredients and your willingness to spend time in the crafting hall instead of completing another chain in the time it takes to find the right shard in the list because you don't need those big numbers anyway. So no, we won't make 100's of crafted items.

How do these boots compare in balance to named items, by the way? http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Treads_of_Falling_Shadow

If you're happy, if the devs are happy, then great, but please stop pretending this isn't more power creep at all those mid levels that sorely don't need more power creep.

[slarden]

At level 15 I can cannith craft some boots with dex +8, dodge +8%, ins dex +3, and 2 augment slots (probably only 1 augment slot if using current random loot instead of old hoarded ones?)

If I get a random loot item with masterful craftsmanship and an effective level of 16, it can go up to - if I'm amazingly lucky - .... dex +8, dodge +8%, ins dex +3. But it's a 1 in a billion item. At half of the levels the ABSOLUTE max from random loot is the same as for cannith crafting. At the other half of the levels, it's mathematically possible to get a better item, just so improbable as to not be worth considering.

Below level 30 (please don't tell me about your 7 random loot items at level cap again, they're not relevant to this), cannith crafting just makes better items than random, full stop, all the time. Gated only by ingredients and your willingness to spend time in the crafting hall instead of completing another chain in the time it takes to find the right shard in the list because you don't need those big numbers anyway. So no, we won't make 100's of crafted items.

How do these boots compare in balance to named items, by the way? http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Treads_of_Falling_Shadow

If you're happy, if the devs are happy, then great, but please stop pretending this isn't more power creep at all those mid levels that sorely don't need more power creep.

I am not too concerned about heroics if they want to reduce the level 1-20 stats a bit, but don't think it's needed and it might result in less interest in the system. I think it's fine at cap and don't really see any issues with 20-30. If they drop stats of level 30 gear I see no point in using it at all as the amount of top-tier random loot will just continue to grow over time. I've received several +17 items. 7/4 spell focus goggles are getting more common. I don't even get excited about +16 stat items any more - one dropped for me today in tempest spine.

Harper tree was way more power creep because it added dps for all builds and significant dps for int builds. Any power creep from this system is minimal compared to other recent sources.

My best benchmark is that non-crafters are complaining it's overpowered while crafters say it's too expensive and not flexible enough. Seems the devs are in the right ballpark with regard to power.

We can agree to disagree.

[Ebondevil]

How do these boots compare in balance to named items, by the way? http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Treads_of_Falling_Shadow

Comparing anything to Named loot at the moment is completely pointless as the dev's have said they plan to do a pass on Named items.

[Elfishski]

I am not too concerned about heroics if they want to reduce the level 1-20 stats a bit, but don't think it's needed and it might result in less interest in the system. I think it's fine at cap and don't really see any issues with 20-30. If they drop stats of level 30 gear I see no point in using it at all as the amount of top-tier random loot will just continue to grow over time. I've received several +17 items. 7/4 spell focus goggles are getting more common. I don't even get excited about +16 stat items any more - one dropped for me today in tempest spine.

Harper tree was way more power creep because it added dps for all builds and significant dps for int builds. Any power creep from this system is minimal compared to other recent sources.

My best benchmark is that non-crafters are complaining it's overpowered while crafters say it's too expensive and not flexible enough. Seems the devs are in the right ballpark with regard to power.

We can agree to disagree.

Yep, I completely agree this won't be the biggest source of power creep in recent times. Whether it's harper tree, crazy legendary feats, crit profile bonuses to nearly every single tree, loot number inflation, doubling the power or halving the cost of half the enhancement point spends, or something else that's the worst culprit it's hard to say.

At level 30 I don't understand why everything had to be rescaled to +15/+17 when it was perfectly good to +11/+12 as a reasonable max bonus to kind of level out at the same way +6 was the fairly hard cap on bonuses at level cap 20. But given that it's been done I agree, cannith crafting might as well go up to level 34 items or +15 stat bonus equivalents... as long as the devs don't then feel that all named items have to be +18 from the next update, and then random +20 the update after that... I hope they have the sense to NEVER (unless the game stays alive so long that level cap increases again) make another named or raid item higher than +15/+7 (and ideally lower than that), and leave a genuine and interesting niche for random items and a solid permanent value to endgame crafting. If they think need more stat inflation to keep people interested up the quality or profane or whatever bonuses, but it would be even better if they could get away from just bigger numbers of the same things and find more unique bonuses, such as bonuses tied to your destiny or enhancement trees.

There are a lot of things to like about the new system - I'm especially happy with collectibles being used and new ones being added into new content presumably. Just please don't ruin it by making crafted items obsolete the following update. I think if they just lost around 3 effective levels for cannith crafting items level ~10-29, which sounds a lot but only equates to 1 stat point behind, we could both be happy. Random loot better than cannith crafted with 3 good effects and an augment slot would still be very very rare, but you'd actually have a plausible chance then.

[MistaMagic]

I'm not going to comment on the cost of collectibles since I don't craft, therefore I couldn't begin to know what is fair,.

Then why are you commenting on something you know nothing about?

[Qhualor]

Then why are you commenting on something you know nothing about?

in what part of what I said was incorrect?

[slarden]

in what part of what I said was incorrect?

To me you are just coming across as someone that doesn't craft and has no intention of crafting. So you are arguing to reduce the benefits of a system you don't want to bother with.

Nothing is wrong with that, but it's easy to see it for what it is.

[dunklezhan]

My best benchmark is that non-crafters are complaining it's overpowered while crafters say it's too expensive and not flexible enough. Seems the devs are in the right ballpark with regard to power.

Well, I agree with what you've said here (admittedly I continue to chafe against the idea that CC shouldn't make the same power level as random loot, but since I think random loot's power level is too high in the first place overall I'm happy with the power level of CC if I take it in isolation, if you see what I mean). There's a few other things I'm not that happy with either, but they're also livable with for me.

My actual issue, i.e. 'I really think this is a problem' is not the power level or the expense. I'm fine with expensive. Its availability of just one ingredient - specifically PEBS for making unbound items for others.


Right now on Lam, to get a crafter to make you an item, you need to somehow pass them something that is almost always bound (or possibly they're always bound I can't remember - its been a while since I turned in any small/medium/large eberron fragments because they're so rare that I still haven't replenished any stocks of those since turning in the small stacks I'd built up since I started in 2009). The game has no way for them to do that, except in quest chests.

Heroic players can't run epic to get tokens of the 12. They can't even enter the quests and pike at the start so as to pass me their tokens so I can trade in for PEBS and make them something!

I just don't follow the PEBS inclusion for unbound loot at all - at least, not if their availability and binding status is staying the same. The idea I've heard some people posit - that only people who've been through a TR or two should have any expectation of usefulness from CC unless they level it themselves - is mystifying to me. This doesn't motivate new players to engage with the community, it doesn't incentivise existing players to level crafting in order to benefit anyone but themselves - and even then only if you're willing to endure the inconvenience of character hopping and passing loot around the apparently fragile mailing system* to crunch because crafting will still be character specific... none of it adds up to a positive idea, to me.


If Turbine just went as far far as providing a guaranteed way to get heroic turn ins which could be passed to me in chests to then trade in then this issue for me would go in my 'can live with it' pile and I'd be back to being excited about the CC update for more than personal power reasons.

As with Tokens of the Twelve, at least then we could quest together to get the thing the player needs so that I can be sure of being able to make them something at the end of that time.


*seriously, the new mailbox limits put in place to protect performance have meant that my crafter started bouncing mail to me the other day, and I'd only cleared out their mailbox the day before! I wasn't using him as a bank, I just only wanted to swap to crunch once that gaming session!