Crafting Pass is a failure

[Matsu_Ieyasu]

I have sit hear all day staring at the screen wondering what to say beyond the cannith crafting pass is a failure.

The system that NoWorries and probably other developers have worked on for the last several months (hundreds if not thousands of hours) will in a relatively short time sit unused and ignored by almost the entire player base. It has to be disheartening.

Yes a few players will jump to the new systems defense, I mean three players are responsible for just under 30% of the posts in this section of the forum, always proclaiming how great the new system is, how awesome this feature or that feature is.

A year ago if I was leveling up a new character and I need a item I could generally find something close enough on the auction house or craft something capable enough to get by. I really didn't have much issue until I got into the Epic levels, mostly because I had to stop supplementing my gear with crafted items.

With New Random Loot, suddenly the number of items on the auction house disappeared, and my ability to find gear for new characters I was leveling up was gone. Over the weekend I looked at a level 10 and 13 characters that I had started in the past few months and I was still wearing gear from Korthos because I couldn't find anything better for that build, unless I was willing to spend either Astral Shards or boku platinum in the auction house. 400,000 plat for a level 13 search item, get real. But I still had Crafting to supplement what gear I couldn't get.

I will have a crafter at at least level 232 when this new system goes live. I have thousands of many of the common collectables and hundreds of the many of the rare collectables. But how much gear can I craft for my characters. I figure I can make about 100 pieces give or take a few. I have been playing DDO for nine years, rarely not taking the extra couple of steps to get a collectable, and yet I couldn't outfit ten characters with all the items I could craft because I don't have enough resources in my bag.

You made items BTA, I know there are some players doing handstands. Big Deal, you are talking one or two items a player that might get passed around at each level range, the problem is we don't have enough bank space know for the gear and it isn't going to change the fact for most players that are crafting items for multiple characters players are going to recraft the same items time and time again on characters. We don't have 1000 of bank spots.

I feel sorry for the new players who think crafting is an integral part of the game. For players with no or limited crafting levels to even start making level appropriate gear you need 90 plus levels in the new system. That may not seem like much, but that's character level 15 or 16 worth of crushing materials and making throw away shards before you can start and then its on the low end.
Many games with decent crafting systems have end game players with 1/3 crafted gear, 1/3 looted and 1/3 raid gear. Yet with this system it will be an odd ball piece here and there.

I dislike the new scaling of effects because I don't know when I will see a significant jump.
Now if I have a CON +2 item, I know I need a CON +4 to make a difference, but where exactly does that change occur in this system. Where does it occur if I also have another effect on the item.

Lets not forget we have a horrible UI, players are consistently seeing improbable results in rolls, and ...

In the end I just look at the system and sigh as I can think of half-a-dozen better ways this could have been done. Yet we are stuck with it. Warts and all.

[Greantun]

I dislike the new scaling of effects because I don't know when I will see a significant jump.

I am sure this will be on the wiki soon enough, as someone is already making a spreadsheet with this information in it here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[changelingamuck]

I mean three players are responsible for just under 30% of the posts in this section of the forum

Unfortunately, there is no such concept in these forums of 'monopolizing the conversation' or 'over-posting'. Because they really bear a stronger resemblance to being the personal blog of a small group of 'colorful characters' than they do to being a community of gamers. Personally I think there should be limits on how many posts one can make over a certain period of time for that reason.

[slarden]

Yes a few players will jump to the new systems defense, I mean three players are responsible for just under 30% of the posts in this section of the forum, always proclaiming how great the new system is, how awesome this feature or that feature is.

Well I presume I would be included in that small handful since I do like the system and have posted about it alot because crafting is very important to me. Crafting is my favorite part of the game and yes this update exceeded my expectations. I wasn't involved in the design or player's council.

Please note I was the first to sign this thread asking for lowered costs although I am perfectly willing to live with the current system, but I also understand the concern about high collectible cost and have mentioned that in SEVERAL threads.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5857963

The system that NoWorries and probably other developers have worked on for the last several months (hundreds if not thousands of hours) will in a relatively short time sit unused and ignored by almost the entire player base. It has to be disheartening.

This describes the existing cannith crafting system as it stands today

With New Random Loot, suddenly the number of items on the auction house disappeared, and my ability to find gear for new characters I was leveling up was gone. Over the weekend I looked at a level 10 and 13 characters that I had started in the past few months and I was still wearing gear from Korthos because I couldn't find anything better for that build, unless I was willing to spend either Astral Shards or boku platinum in the auction house. 400,000 plat for a level 13 search item, get real. But I still had Crafting to supplement what gear I couldn't get.

To me if crafting invalidated random loot or named loot it would be a fail for everyone. Due to the collectible ingredient cost I will use a combo of crafted and random gear when leveling and a combo of crafted, random and named gear at cap.

I will have a crafter at at least level 232 when this new system goes live. I have thousands of many of the common collectables and hundreds of the many of the rare collectables. But how much gear can I craft for my characters. I figure I can make about 100 pieces give or take a few. I have been playing DDO for nine years, rarely not taking the extra couple of steps to get a collectable, and yet I couldn't outfit ten characters with all the items I could craft because I don't have enough resources in my bag.

You made items BTA, I know there are some players doing handstands. Big Deal, you are talking one or two items a player that might get passed around at each level range, the problem is we don't have enough bank space know for the gear and it isn't going to change the fact for most players that are crafting items for multiple characters players are going to recraft the same items time and time again on characters. We don't have 1000 of bank spots.

I feel sorry for the new players who think crafting is an integral part of the game. For players with no or limited crafting levels to even start making level appropriate gear you need 90 plus levels in the new system. That may not seem like much, but that's character level 15 or 16 worth of crushing materials and making throw away shards before you can start and then its on the low end.
Many games with decent crafting systems have end game players with 1/3 crafted gear, 1/3 looted and 1/3 raid gear. Yet with this system it will be an odd ball piece here and there.

I dislike the new scaling of effects because I don't know when I will see a significant jump.
Now if I have a CON +2 item, I know I need a CON +4 to make a difference, but where exactly does that change occur in this system. Where does it occur if I also have another effect on the item.

Lets not forget we have a horrible UI, players are consistently seeing improbable results in rolls, and ...

In the end I just look at the system and sigh as I can think of half-a-dozen better ways this could have been done. Yet we are stuck with it. Warts and all.

You seem in relatively good shape - alot of mats and crafting levels - much like myself. I am really suprised our views are so different, but yeah I totally get that with the new system collectibles are more precious, but if as you say nobody will be crafting because it's so bad you will have so many people competing to sell which will lower prices. I expect the opposite - a higher participation rate and really high collectible costs as a result. I mean the reason collectibles are rarely even listed on the AH is because nobody buys. That will change with U32.

I was able to get 6 fragrant drowshood and 1 silver flame hymnal from tangleroot in 10 min plus a bunch of other collectibles and it would take me much longer on average to get a named item I want.

My opinion is what it is - I won't be complaining if they lower costs or keep it the same.

But I think it's unfair to get angry at people that have different opinions about the crafting system. The costs ARE high for me, I accept it because I understand the balance reasons behind it. For me the biggest unknown is the new mats and whether they will drop in content I run most frequently.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Like Slarden, I guess I am one of those supposedly 'over-posters'.

I have written volumes about crafting over the years, because I like crafting, and always have; from pnp to Ultima Online to ....

I do personally think that the new system is leaps and bounds better for numerous reasons (including the fact that it is tied into the RGL/Named/Raid loot system and when one gets an update, they all get updated, which means CC should remain current and relevant).

There are several things I do not like about the system and also have been very vocal about it.

Thankfully we are weeks if not a month away from the CCUP going live. Plenty of time to finish, polish, test, and adjust.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

So post more.....

I could care less if someone says they do or do not like anything in this game.

...if I am interested, I read what they say and judge for myself.

A million posts won't convinve me something is good or bad.
Telling me facts that sound good to me (or bad to me) is what might....may...maybe influence my thinking.

Actually, I usually have to go see it fo rmyself in game to be sure.



Now... are you saying the Devs are influenced by your three people?
I hope not.

Worse thing you can do for people is give them what they ask for.

In fact, just about everything bad in this game is exactly for that reason......
(IMO, it all started with the AH)

[slarden]

Now... are you saying the Devs are influenced by your three people?
I hope not.

Worse thing you can do for people is give them what they ask for.

lol, well just enjoying the irony that you are hoping the devs don't give me what I asked for when I didn't ask them for a single thing.

I simply looked at the system and evaluated how I could make it work for me and at the request of guildies how it would work for them. I am fine with it. I agreed with some others that bta costs should be lowered a bit to help out casuals so that is the only thing you could be saying you hope the devs don't give.

[Mindos]

Thankfully we are weeks if not a month away from the CCUP going live. Plenty of time to finish, polish, test, and adjust.

I think this thing's going "live" next Monday, the 22nd!

[slarden]

I think this thing's going "live" next Monday, the 22nd!

Sev said it was scheduled for late August, but if moved back it would probably move back to the 2nd week in September.

[cdbd3rd]

.... Because they really bear a stronger resemblance to being the personal blog of a small group of 'colorful characters' than they do to being a community of gamers. ....

I think the difference between your two examples may not be as wide as you're presenting them as.

(at least in RPG gamer terms.)

[Matsu_Ieyasu]

No solution, to the problem with crafting, will make will make everyone happy. The problem with this solution it will make only a small minority of players happy. After the newness of the system wears off the crafting halls will return to the empty state they were only a few weeks ago. In the past year plus I rarely if ever saw other characters in the Khyber crafting halls, those that were there were looking for easy access to the auction house bank, and the mailbox opposed to crafting.

Why only a small minority of players?
Crafting is currently a huge grind, the new system while streamlined is still a huge grind, far more grindy than most players are willing to accept.

We have two crafting halls in game, that means you have to run from where ever you are questing to either house k or house c to get to the crafting halls. How long does that take before it becomes a pain in the bottom?
I have long advocated to a minimum of deconstruction workstation through out the game, we have been told flat out no by the Devs as they worry about the effects of crafting on the game performance.

For characters without an existing decent level of crafting (say level 75 or 90) it takes a lot of crafting of "worthless" items before you can start to craft useful items.
This is made worse for new players who may not have a bag full of essences and collectables. A lot worse. A new player can expect 8 to 12 essences per quest before level 10, 1 common collectable for every 6 mobs and 1 uncommon collectable for every 30 mobs, and 1 rare collectable for every 100 mobs (taking into count things like mushrooms or are they doorways). Characters that starting from near zero if they grind every item for crafting and grab every collectable can expect to be ready for crafting useful items somewhere around level 16.

The UI has always been the problem, it was slow, clunky, lag filled bugged out.
The new UI is still slow, clunky, laggy, but at least it hasn't bugged out.

Many decisions on Crafting were made by Devs as much as 18 months ago when they decided to redo the back end of loot generation, long before even mentioning it to the player base.
The "New Random Loot" system is a major problem to game. First lucky loot drops are rare and when they do occur over powered. What is Lucky, getting a prefix and a suffix on an item that go together coherently to support a build. I am not talking masterful crafted items one level higher, I am talking getting Search and Int on the same item or Accuracy and Seeker on the same item.
New Random Loot is too powerful, players uused to have to make choices and tradeoffs, whats more important that extra point of Str or the level of Fort on on an item, now every item has two (or more) effects and in comparison to former items way more powerful at level. An Item that was level 10 before is now level 6. That's not good for the game as that level of power creep is invalidating lots of content. And Content is king, not loot.
So now that those decisions have been made, regardless of whether they are good for the game or not, we have to accept, period. The Devs are not going to redo New Random Loot because it is their baby and we cannot call it ugly.

The new recipes are expensive in terms of collectables. Yet have virtually no other cost in terms of essences or dragonshards or ...

I am still not sure what happened to the collectables from "adventure packs" that were supposed to supplement crafting in the new system.

So in the end we have a system a few players will use to create high end filler gear, that because it is crafted will be more powerful than the random gear because it is so rare to find the right combination of prefix and suffix on the right item.
Players will not fill in their leveling characters because the cost is to high.
Power creep continues unabated.
Players who have not invested into the existing crafting system will look at the new system and wonder why should I spend hours running back and forth to the crafting hall so I can make nothing, until they realize how late it is.

Complete failure.

[Aelonwy]

I don't feel the new system is a complete failure neither do I immediately feel it is a complete success. IMHO it has excellent potential, but needs a few tweaks to make it more accessible, a tiny bit more flexible, and I still need to see where the static effects fall and how costly they have become.

The tweaks I think will make the difference as to whether the crafting experience is enjoyable or frustrating:
Slightly reduce costs of bound effects in terms of collectibles I'm thinking from 15/5 to 9/3
Slightly reduce costs of PEDs across the board, or add a couple more venues for acquiring them such as Mysterious Remnants or Comms
Either open rings up to take effects like trinkets or open the extra slot (on rings) to take some (not all) prefix and suffix effects
Armor in particular seems to be missing quite a few of random gen effects and therefor is overly limited in this new iteration of Cannith crafting, this needs to be remedied.
Amp in particular is limited to just gloves and trinkets, this does not play nice with trying to gear around named items.
I'm waiting to see what is being done with ammo, runestones, runearms, challenge gear, how will the new essences effect making collars?

As to not seeing people in the crafting houses... I personally have not stepped foot in the House K or House C crafting areas since getting them on our guild ship. All my characters log on/off on the ship and its one loading screen to the devices, easy peasy.

[dunklezhan]

I don't feel the new system is a complete failure neither do I immediately feel it is a complete success. IMHO it has excellent potential, but needs a few tweaks to make it more accessible, a tiny bit more flexible, and I still need to see where the static effects fall and how costly they have become.

The tweaks I think will make the difference as to whether the crafting experience is enjoyable or frustrating:
Slightly reduce costs of bound effects in terms of collectibles I'm thinking from 15/5 to 9/3
Slightly reduce costs of PEDs across the board, or add a couple more venues for acquiring them such as Mysterious Remnants or Comms
Either open rings up to take effects like trinkets or open the extra slot (on rings) to take some (not all) prefix and suffix effects
Armor in particular seems to be missing quite a few of random gen effects and therefor is overly limited in this new iteration of Cannith crafting, this needs to be remedied.
Amp in particular is limited to just gloves and trinkets, this does not play nice with trying to gear around named items.
I'm waiting to see what is being done with ammo, runestones, runearms, challenge gear, how will the new essences effect making collars?

Agree with all of this.

[slarden]

No solution, to the problem with crafting, will make will make everyone happy.

......more stuff

Complete failure.

Your first statement is true, your last statement is not.

The sky is not falling.

[Greantun]

For characters without an existing decent level of crafting (say level 75 or 90) it takes a lot of crafting of "worthless" items before you can start to craft useful items.
This is made worse for new players who may not have a bag full of essences and collectables.

Not true. You only have to craft ML Shards to do well in leveling and none of those shards takes collectables.

Read this thread on leveling and you can see you don't need any collectables: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ssences-needed

[Matsu_Ieyasu]

I don't feel the new system is a complete failure neither do I immediately feel it is a complete success. IMHO it has excellent potential, but needs a few tweaks to make it more accessible, a tiny bit more flexible, and I still need to see where the static effects fall and how costly they have become.

The tweaks I think will make the difference as to whether the crafting experience is enjoyable or frustrating:
Slightly reduce costs of bound effects in terms of collectibles I'm thinking from 15/5 to 9/3
Slightly reduce costs of PEDs across the board, or add a couple more venues for acquiring them such as Mysterious Remnants or Comms
Either open rings up to take effects like trinkets or open the extra slot (on rings) to take some (not all) prefix and suffix effects
Armor in particular seems to be missing quite a few of random gen effects and therefor is overly limited in this new iteration of Cannith crafting, this needs to be remedied.
Amp in particular is limited to just gloves and trinkets, this does not play nice with trying to gear around named items.
I'm waiting to see what is being done with ammo, runestones, runearms, challenge gear, how will the new essences effect making collars?

As to not seeing people in the crafting houses... I personally have not stepped foot in the House K or House C crafting areas since getting them on our guild ship. All my characters log on/off on the ship and its one loading screen to the devices, easy peasy.

No amount of small tweaks to the proposed system will solve its largest failing. Because of how the system is designed it will never appeal to a wider base of players. A very small group of players will craft a few specific items to complement their gear at high levels and a few small handful of items for leveling up characters for both themselves and "guildies".

To be successful you have to expand the player base using crafting over the long term. This system as it is designed will never do that.

How many guild do you think have the Cannith Crafting Hall on their guild ship. Sure you may be a part of a guild that has four / five staterooms on their guild ship and it make sense to put it on the ship, but you have to be what guild level 130 or better. On Khyber most guilds aren't that high, over 75% are below level 100.

[Matsu_Ieyasu]

Not true. You only have to craft ML Shards to do well in leveling and none of those shards takes collectables.

Read this thread on leveling and you can see you don't need any collectables: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ssences-needed

You don't need collectables to level, you need collectables to make shards.

Slarden spent 1540 TP to level to 313, something several other players tried to do and could not duplicate his success, with an abundance of existing essences.

New to crafting characters don't have 50K essences, they earn on the order of 8 per level of the quest. Level 8 quest they should earn 64 essences from my experimenting. How many quests are you going to need to run to get to level 75 where players start having the opportunity to have a chance to craft items that might start to fill holes in their new random loot. They really need to get to level 90 and/or 100.

[Gremmlynn]

No solution, to the problem with crafting, will make will make everyone happy. The problem with this solution it will make only a small minority of players happy. After the newness of the system wears off the crafting halls will return to the empty state they were only a few weeks ago. In the past year plus I rarely if ever saw other characters in the Khyber crafting halls, those that were there were looking for easy access to the auction house bank, and the mailbox opposed to crafting.

Why only a small minority of players?
Crafting is currently a huge grind, the new system while streamlined is still a huge grind, far more grindy than most players are willing to accept.

We have two crafting halls in game, that means you have to run from where ever you are questing to either house k or house c to get to the crafting halls. How long does that take before it becomes a pain in the bottom?
I have long advocated to a minimum of deconstruction workstation through out the game, we have been told flat out no by the Devs as they worry about the effects of crafting on the game performance.

For characters without an existing decent level of crafting (say level 75 or 90) it takes a lot of crafting of "worthless" items before you can start to craft useful items.
This is made worse for new players who may not have a bag full of essences and collectables. A lot worse. A new player can expect 8 to 12 essences per quest before level 10, 1 common collectable for every 6 mobs and 1 uncommon collectable for every 30 mobs, and 1 rare collectable for every 100 mobs (taking into count things like mushrooms or are they doorways). Characters that starting from near zero if they grind every item for crafting and grab every collectable can expect to be ready for crafting useful items somewhere around level 16.

The UI has always been the problem, it was slow, clunky, lag filled bugged out.
The new UI is still slow, clunky, laggy, but at least it hasn't bugged out.

Many decisions on Crafting were made by Devs as much as 18 months ago when they decided to redo the back end of loot generation, long before even mentioning it to the player base.
The "New Random Loot" system is a major problem to game. First lucky loot drops are rare and when they do occur over powered. What is Lucky, getting a prefix and a suffix on an item that go together coherently to support a build. I am not talking masterful crafted items one level higher, I am talking getting Search and Int on the same item or Accuracy and Seeker on the same item.
New Random Loot is too powerful, players uused to have to make choices and tradeoffs, whats more important that extra point of Str or the level of Fort on on an item, now every item has two (or more) effects and in comparison to former items way more powerful at level. An Item that was level 10 before is now level 6. That's not good for the game as that level of power creep is invalidating lots of content. And Content is king, not loot.
So now that those decisions have been made, regardless of whether they are good for the game or not, we have to accept, period. The Devs are not going to redo New Random Loot because it is their baby and we cannot call it ugly.

The new recipes are expensive in terms of collectables. Yet have virtually no other cost in terms of essences or dragonshards or ...

I am still not sure what happened to the collectables from "adventure packs" that were supposed to supplement crafting in the new system.

So in the end we have a system a few players will use to create high end filler gear, that because it is crafted will be more powerful than the random gear because it is so rare to find the right combination of prefix and suffix on the right item.
Players will not fill in their leveling characters because the cost is to high.
Power creep continues unabated.
Players who have not invested into the existing crafting system will look at the new system and wonder why should I spend hours running back and forth to the crafting hall so I can make nothing, until they realize how late it is.

Complete failure.

I'll be making items for all my characters... when I feel they are needed. I also expect to have to specifically gather materials when doing so. That's simply part of the cost of using that option and has been in every game I've ever played.

Frankly I'm having little trouble keeping the 21 characters I play on a regular basis geared up now, mostly with random loot as i generally find something better before current items become to long in the tooth to be considered functional.

I think this system will work for anyone who doesn't feel a need to always have best for level gear in all slots, or that doesn't think once they get their crafting levels the work is all done.

[Gremmlynn]

No amount of small tweaks to the proposed system will solve its largest failing. Because of how the system is designed it will never appeal to a wider base of players. A very small group of players will craft a few specific items to complement their gear at high levels and a few small handful of items for leveling up characters for both themselves and "guildies".

To be successful you have to expand the player base using crafting over the long term. This system as it is designed will never do that.

How many guild do you think have the Cannith Crafting Hall on their guild ship. Sure you may be a part of a guild that has four / five staterooms on their guild ship and it make sense to put it on the ship, but you have to be what guild level 130 or better. On Khyber most guilds aren't that high, over 75% are below level 100.

Guild level 41 for the crafting hall. Guild level 1 for the best ship available.

[Gremmlynn]

You don't need collectables to level, you need collectables to make shards.

Slarden spent 1540 TP to level to 313, something several other players tried to do and could not duplicate his success, with an abundance of existing essences.

New to crafting characters don't have 50K essences, they earn on the order of 8 per level of the quest. Level 8 quest they should earn 64 essences from my experimenting. How many quests are you going to need to run to get to level 75 where players start having the opportunity to have a chance to craft items that might start to fill holes in their new random loot. They really need to get to level 90 and/or 100.

7,313 xp for level 100. Really not that much when we consider it will no longer be split into 3 different schools.