Cannith Crafting Complaints

[ramses1002]

I am sure a lot of people with disagree, but here is my two cents worth. I have been playing DDO for five or six years off and on, and I had a character who did a fair amount of crafting under the old system. It was complicated with all the different types of essences both greater and lesser, but at least I could make things. For the last couple of months I have been trying out the new system and while it is simpler I find it to be more frustrating than anything else. Here is the main, but not only, example. My crafter is now nearly level 13. Since about level 4 i have been trying to craft a magnetism shard. The shard requires wave crasher cargo manifests, a level 2 collectible found in quests from lvl 6-8 or so. I have three characters and a couple guild mates and between all of us over the course of seven character levels, I was able to find three. Last week I started a grinding experiment and began a short quest that was recommended on the forums for just this purpose. So four or five days later, after running that quest two to four times a day, i now have four wave crasher cargo manifests. So five separate characters have spent a couple of months looking, and I still do not have the necessary components to make a simple magnetism shard. And some of these recipes need 15 of those things? As I said, this is only one example. I do not consider myself a "casual" player. I come and go, but when i am playing I am in game virtually every day for a few hours. It seems like if I want to do any kind of serious crafting I have to devote my entire time online to grinding for ingredients. I can think of few things that would be more monotonous. And yes, I check the auction house regularly and I have never once seen a cargo manifest for sale. So I guess the bottom line is I really dislike the new crafting system. Some of the specific collectibles are just way too rare. I can't make more than half the items I want for my own character (let alone guild mates), not because difficulty or a lack of crafting levels, but because I don't have enough of the needed components and don't want to spend almost literally all of my game time grinding. Just my opinion. If you like the new system, great, more power to you. If you have any suggestions as to how I can scrounge up 11 cargo manifests in an hour or two of playing I would love to hear it. So I am giving up on crafting as a total waste of effort. I would rather explore the new Ravenloft expansion then spend all day grinding a short, monotonous level six quest.

[C-Dog]

While I don't disagree with your points, I will point out that at the high end the old system was worse. There were rare items that you couldn't farm, you had to just wait and hope for a lucky random drop. At least this way you can target your search for that luck.

(And the old system wasn't that confusing imo - you needed fire essences for Flame effects, holy essences for Good effects - easy.)

[Zretch]

I am sure a lot of people with disagree, but here is my two cents worth. I have been playing DDO for five or six years off and on, and I had a character who did a fair amount of crafting under the old system. It was complicated with all the different types of essences both greater and lesser, but at least I could make things. For the last couple of months I have been trying out the new system and while it is simpler I find it to be more frustrating than anything else. Here is the main, but not only, example. My crafter is now nearly level 13. Since about level 4 i have been trying to craft a magnetism shard. The shard requires wave crasher cargo manifests, a level 2 collectible found in quests from lvl 6-8 or so. I have three characters and a couple guild mates and between all of us over the course of seven character levels, I was able to find three. Last week I started a grinding experiment and began a short quest that was recommended on the forums for just this purpose. So four or five days later, after running that quest two to four times a day, i now have four wave crasher cargo manifests. So five separate characters have spent a couple of months looking, and I still do not have the necessary components to make a simple magnetism shard. And some of these recipes need 15 of those things? As I said, this is only one example. I do not consider myself a "casual" player. I come and go, but when i am playing I am in game virtually every day for a few hours. It seems like if I want to do any kind of serious crafting I have to devote my entire time online to grinding for ingredients. I can think of few things that would be more monotonous. And yes, I check the auction house regularly and I have never once seen a cargo manifest for sale. So I guess the bottom line is I really dislike the new crafting system. Some of the specific collectibles are just way too rare. I can't make more than half the items I want for my own character (let alone guild mates), not because difficulty or a lack of crafting levels, but because I don't have enough of the needed components and don't want to spend almost literally all of my game time grinding. Just my opinion. If you like the new system, great, more power to you. If you have any suggestions as to how I can scrounge up 11 cargo manifests in an hour or two of playing I would love to hear it. So I am giving up on crafting as a total waste of effort. I would rather explore the new Ravenloft expansion then spend all day grinding a short, monotonous level six quest.

This post is my crafting bible. Are you sure you need 15 of them? Wavecrasher is an uncommon, I thought you normally only needed 5 of the uncommon ingredient (unless you're trying to make unbound).

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...em-Efficiently

snippets from the post regarding wavecrasher cargo manifest:

—T2 Lore: Mirra's Sleepless Nights HN, Tomb of the Unhallowed HC, The Church and the Cult HC, Caged Trolls HN, Tangleroot, The Prisoner HC

—Mirra's Sleepless Nights (6)
Rightside room after 1 short fight has a Bookshelf (Lore). Recall & reset.

—Tomb of the Unhallowed (11)
Kill north for Bookshelf (Lore) & Bookshelf (Arcane). 1 min farm, ddoor & reset.

—The Church and the Cult (9)
Use True Seeing. Rush to the Bookshelf (Lore) ~ 1 min in. Ddoor & reset.

—Caged Trolls (6)
Alchemy Table (Arcane) right after lever, Bookshelf (Lore) upstairs north. Recall & reset.

—Tangleroot
In First Strike chain, proceed in a U-shape to get to a Bookshelf (Lore). Very fast. Recall & reset. Yarkuch through Doom can cover Tiers 1 & 2. Alternative: Fungi (Natural).
Alternative 2, from FranOhmsford: "1 Mushroom to right of first junction by Oozes in Pts 1-3 and 2 Mushrooms there in Pts 4,5,7 and 9 {Pts 6, 8 and 10 are Dungeon 2}. 1 Adventurers Pack to right of second junction {by Rare Spider} in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9. 1 Bookshelf in the alcove immediately after 2nd Junction in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9. 1 Adventurers Pack in Spider Pit in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9. 1 Cabinet in Main Boss Room. 1 Mushroom After boss room turn left and go down 1st off tunnel - usually ignored but is there in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9 too. 1 Mushroom by Second Shrine and Blade Traps. 1 Mushroom by Whisperdoom. {Again always there but usually collected in Pt 4.}. 1 Mushroom beyond Blade Traps up by the 3rd item you need to collect in Pt 3 {This Mushroom is there in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9 but most people only go to it during Pt 3.}"
Note: Tangleroot wilderness flower nodes drop non-crafting collectables only.
T1 Lore, Natural
T2 Lore, Natural

—The Prisoner (8,21) <shelf is sometimes Lore, sometimes Arcane>
Rush to maze, early Bookshelf (Lore) there then go in water to Rubble (Any). Less efficient alternatives: Mushroom (Natural) near Arcane Ooze fight, Rubble (Any) near Memnos Blossom. Recall & reset. Assuming you do the maze & water part only:

[Zretch]

Personally my beefs with the CC system are twofold.

First, the amount and variety of ingredients needed to craft a useful item pretty much guarantee that new players won't have run the quests enough to have collected the ingredients they need to craft anything. The base crafting system in any MMO shouldn't require grinding multiple quests multiple times through multiple lives just to get started. You can tell the crafting system was based on the assumption that everyone would already have bag-fulls of the materials just sitting around.

Second, the lack of the ability to trade ingredients means that it's far too easy to be sitting on stacks of hundreds of some mats, and are constantly having to farm others. Torn pages from a research notebook, fragrant drowshood, and cryptmoss worms are a few that spring to mind. They're used in some very useful shards while I'm down to destroying things like brass censors because my bag won't hold more than 1,000 of them.

[ramses1002]

This post is my crafting bible. Are you sure you need 15 of them? Wavecrasher is an uncommon, I thought you normally only needed 5 of the uncommon ingredient (unless you're trying to make unbound).

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...em-Efficiently

snippets from the post regarding wavecrasher cargo manifest:

—T2 Lore: Mirra's Sleepless Nights HN, Tomb of the Unhallowed HC, The Church and the Cult HC, Caged Trolls HN, Tangleroot, The Prisoner HC

—Mirra's Sleepless Nights (6)
Rightside room after 1 short fight has a Bookshelf (Lore). Recall & reset.

—Tomb of the Unhallowed (11)
Kill north for Bookshelf (Lore) & Bookshelf (Arcane). 1 min farm, ddoor & reset.

—The Church and the Cult (9)
Use True Seeing. Rush to the Bookshelf (Lore) ~ 1 min in. Ddoor & reset.

—Caged Trolls (6)
Alchemy Table (Arcane) right after lever, Bookshelf (Lore) upstairs north. Recall & reset.

—Tangleroot
In First Strike chain, proceed in a U-shape to get to a Bookshelf (Lore). Very fast. Recall & reset. Yarkuch through Doom can cover Tiers 1 & 2. Alternative: Fungi (Natural).
Alternative 2, from FranOhmsford: "1 Mushroom to right of first junction by Oozes in Pts 1-3 and 2 Mushrooms there in Pts 4,5,7 and 9 {Pts 6, 8 and 10 are Dungeon 2}. 1 Adventurers Pack to right of second junction {by Rare Spider} in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9. 1 Bookshelf in the alcove immediately after 2nd Junction in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9. 1 Adventurers Pack in Spider Pit in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9. 1 Cabinet in Main Boss Room. 1 Mushroom After boss room turn left and go down 1st off tunnel - usually ignored but is there in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9 too. 1 Mushroom by Second Shrine and Blade Traps. 1 Mushroom by Whisperdoom. {Again always there but usually collected in Pt 4.}. 1 Mushroom beyond Blade Traps up by the 3rd item you need to collect in Pt 3 {This Mushroom is there in Pts 1,2,3,4,5,7 and 9 but most people only go to it during Pt 3.}"
Note: Tangleroot wilderness flower nodes drop non-crafting collectables only.
T1 Lore, Natural
T2 Lore, Natural

—The Prisoner (8,21) <shelf is sometimes Lore, sometimes Arcane>
Rush to maze, early Bookshelf (Lore) there then go in water to Rubble (Any). Less efficient alternatives: Mushroom (Natural) near Arcane Ooze fight, Rubble (Any) near Memnos Blossom. Recall & reset. Assuming you do the maze & water part only:

I have seen this thread. I have been farming Caged Trolls. It takes less than seven minutes to run. So three times a day, times five days, times six minutes per run to get one wavecrasher? That's about 7.5 hours of play for one magnetism shard? If i have fifteen of the other component? Not worth it. The magnetism shard needs five wavecrashers and fifteen of something else. I thought other recipes need fifteen wavecrashers but i could be wrong. But as I said, that is one example. My character is an artificer. I would like to make shards for concentration, open locks, and disable device as well but I am in the same position. As I said, I am unable to make half or more of the items I would like because the ingredients are too difficult to obtain. Grinding is boring in the best of times, no way am going to spend the majority of my playing time hunting for crafting ingredients.

[ramses1002]

While I don't disagree with your points, I will point out that at the high end the old system was worse. There were rare items that you couldn't farm, you had to just wait and hope for a lucky random drop. At least this way you can target your search for that luck.

(And the old system wasn't that confusing imo - you needed fire essences for Flame effects, holy essences for Good effects - easy.)

I never really reached the high end of the old system. After level 20 or so I tended to limit myself to feather fall or underwater action and that kind of stuff to fill in holes in my outfit. But I remember some of the weird end quest rewards that were supposed to be rare crafting ingredients. I don't know if those were for exotic effects, or a simple high end skill bonus or what but I do see your point. The new system, however, requires targeted grinding from the word go. And the old essence system wasn't overly complicated just needlessly so. I remember spending endless amounts of time converting essences to get the kinds I needed. But at least they were available. On the auction house if nowhere else, and regularly if not constantly. In two months I have not even seen five wavecrashers.

[NemesisAlien]

And then there are stuff like stinky fish, kept in our bags for years waiting for the day they need to be used, but now its useless, cant even trade in, cant sell off for some plat to merchants.

And then stuff like that is still given in quest chain end reward, if they no longer in use, should be swapped for something useful.

[Zavina]

..... If you have any suggestions as to how I can scrounge up 11 cargo manifests in an hour or two of playing I would love to hear it.

What server are you on?

..Second, the lack of the ability to trade ingredients means that it's far too easy to be sitting on stacks of hundreds of some mats, and are constantly having to farm others. Torn pages from a research notebook, fragrant drowshood, and cryptmoss worms are a few that spring to mind. They're used in some very useful shards while I'm down to destroying things like brass censors because my bag won't hold more than 1,000 of them.

Don't put them in crafting storage?

As for CC gripes, I'd like to see more work at the high end for actual level 400 crafters (excluding those with the artificer boost), so we can craft Mastercrafted, etc onto a item. Also specialized effects like vorpal or paralysis (and similar types); something else for equal quality for divine/arcane weapons, and wearables. It would give the weapon component a more decent usage to have this capability as an extra. We encounter these vorpal weapons (as an example from level 1 upwards), so it's a doable option as it were.

[HungarianRhapsody]

If you have any suggestions as to how I can scrounge up 11 cargo manifests in an hour or two of playing I would love to hear it.

Tomb of the Unhallowed

Kill north for Bookshelf (Lore) & Bookshelf (Arcane). 1 min farm, ddoor & reset. I don't know why my text looks like this after copy/pasting. But cargo manifests are the worst for gathering because so many are needed by so many different recipes.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

What I noticed is that Cannith Essences drop so sparsely. Turning a thing into essences isn't that great, either. And I'm speaking of the lowest levels. Getting even 10 essences as a casual player is not that easy. And at the lowest levels (5 and below), turning in weapons gives usually only 1-2 Essences, in rare cases 3.

Levelling in Cannith Crafting takes so insanely long time with that.

[HungarianRhapsody]

What I noticed is that Cannith Essences drop so sparsely. Turning a thing into essences isn't that great, either. And I'm speaking of the lowest levels. Getting even 10 essences as a casual player is not that easy. And at the lowest levels (5 and below), turning in weapons gives usually only 1-2 Essences, in rare cases 3.

Levelling in Cannith Crafting takes so insanely long time with that.

Don't turn your low level items into essences. That takes forever and gives you very little in return. Instead, sell it to vendors since that's super quick and gives you very little in return.

[C-Dog]

What I noticed is that Cannith Essences drop so sparsely. Turning a thing into essences isn't that great, either. And I'm speaking of the lowest levels. Getting even 10 essences as a casual player is not that easy. And at the lowest levels (5 and below), turning in weapons gives usually only 1-2 Essences, in rare cases 3.

Levelling in Cannith Crafting takes so insanely long time with that.

If you're only getting loot from Level 1-3 quests, yes. There is no simple formula for how many essences drop from items - it's based on the Minimum Level of the item, but it also has a high degree of randomness. At lowest levels, as you say, 1 is guaranteed and you're lucky to get more (altho' it's not impossible to get essences close to = ML). At mid-Heroic ML's (say 5-15), it's ~about~ half, maybe a bit less. Once you hit ML 20 and higher, it suddenly jumps to be close to the ML, or more. And while sometimes you can "fail" and get a number much lower than those, you can also "critically succeed" and get a much higher return, 1.5x ML or more.

Point is, while, yes, lowest levels are a tough grind, once you're dissolving ML 10 or so you're getting somewhere near 100 per pack-slot full of items, and by ML20 they start raining down.

Until then, you can also look on the AH - rarely essences are sold cheaply, but more often higher level trash is sold for less than its listed "base value", and that's when you can get a good deal for deconstructing. Decide how much essences are worth to you, sort the entire AH by "buyout", and then start playing w/ the Level Range. For Heroic ML's you can rely on maybe a little less than half the ML in return and a little more for Epic ML's, so you can take a safe guess how many essences you'll see, and know how much you'd be willing to pay for them. Maybe start with ML 20+ and work backwards. Happy hunting!

[EllisDee37]

I have seen this thread. I have been farming Caged Trolls. It takes less than seven minutes to run. So three times a day, times five days, times six minutes per run to get one wavecrasher? That's about 7.5 hours of play for one magnetism shard? If i have fifteen of the other component?

Caged Trolls is a poor farm for wavecrasher cargo manifests, and the "How to farm efficiently" thread doesn't always list the best farms. (I can think of several "best available" farms off the top of my head that aren't in that thread: Repossession for T2 Lore, Assault on Summerfield for T3 Natural, Enemy Within for T3 Arcane, Schemes of the Enemy for T4/5 Lore.)

My farming data (used by my crafting planner) is available in thread form (no download required) here: Collectable Farms.

For a Wavecrasher Cargo Manifest -- Tier 2 Lore -- the best farm is Repossession, where you get 2 lore and 1 arcane per 35-second run, for an average of 18 seconds per lore pull. Factoring in the pool of all Tier 2 Lore collectables, that translates into just under 3 minutes per Wavecrasher Cargo Manifest, meaning 15 minutes-ish to pull 5.

My thread data gives you the "18 seconds per lore collectable" number, which you can then use to manually calculate the time. If you download my tools and look it up that way, the tool calculates it for you, and in this example it says "2:55 to farm one Wavecrasher Cargo Manifest."

[PurpleTimb]

I'll +1 EllisDee's suggestion to use his thread or better yet his crafting planner as a reference for where and how to farm for collectibles. Grinding is never fun, but his tools make an unpleasant task bearable.

I decon literally everything. Even the ML 1 items still give one essence and +1 crafting XP. I was very (pleasantly) surprised at how high I was able to get a character's crafting level without crafting a single shard simply by deconstructing everything I looted during a TR. It takes a little bit more time to run to the crafting hall then to just vendor everything but all those +5 XPs add up.

[HungarianRhapsody]

If you're still looking for Runic Parchments, try Mad Tea Party. There are two bookshelves behind the locked door off the room where you first meet Fiona Wachter. No fighting required, less than one minute run.

[bsquishwizzy]

If you're still looking for Runic Parchments, try Mad Tea Party. There are two bookshelves behind the locked door off the room where you first meet Fiona Wachter. No fighting required, less than one minute run.

I second this.

If you take your epic toon into heroic, and venture down into the caves, there are a load of essences down there. I'm ALWAYS needing Romantic Sonnets. I take my lvl 30 PM, throw on a couple of death auras, and just farm. Rinse and repeat.

Secondly - when I raised this issue back when CC first came out, I was roundly denounced by the CC fanbois about the very same criticisms leveled in this post (and others). And now - fast forwarding to the present day - I'm proven to be right more and more. The collectable cost is too high. Some stuff, like Polished Ores, seem impossible to find. Glass Vials is another one. And I consolidate on one toon. You either relentlessly farm, or you just forego crafting. Then you're left with "fish rotting in the fridge" - rares and collectables not used by crafting. Plus, collectable distribution is arguably worse in Heroic, which is where the lion's share of collectables for crafting reside.

CC can be very useful. Unfortunately, they nerfed some items, and made stuff you buy in the DDO store (hello Trinkets) more flexible. Yes, I know you can get shards from Shroud and DA. That's not the point. Rings were nerfed.

One of the quests I regularly farm is Sinister Storage. Go invisible, something like three or four essences in a matter of seconds, no fighting. Quick farms are out there, but you almost need a caster to farm them efficiently.

A collectable trader, along with reducing the collectable cost would go a LONG WAY to fixing the problem. But that requites a) acknowledging there is a problem, and b) listening to the players on a solution to fix the problem. It's just much easier to listen to the fanbois about how awesome CC is, and how its perfect in every way...