Crafting Viability

[dkyle]

You still need collectibles.

Trivial to acquire collectibles. They're in small quantities, and very plentiful. Essences are clearly the limiting factor in crafting.

This is like saying selling Large Devil Scales is OK, because you still need to get energy cells.

Turning the question on it's head, what do you expect to be for sale in the store?
Just content, cosmetics and the like?.

Yes.

[Arctigis]

Trivial to acquire collectibles. They're in small quantities, and very plentiful. Essences are clearly the limiting factor in crafting.

For crafting the final item, agreed. For leveling, I think you're underestimating the amount you'll need.
I don't mind this so much as it's a good way for new players to make money. A deferred grind is always good!

This is like saying selling Large Devil Scales is OK, because you still need to get energy cells.

Not exactly. LDS are only available in a few places and are reasonably rare drops. Crafting materials
can be made from virtually any random drop. The problem is the sheer quantity of items you are going
to need to crunch to make progress. I don't object to the store providing a method to bypass some of this
for those who have the $$. None of the materials are store exclusive. I agree that the trinket is a bad idea.
Random thought: Anyone tried to deconstruct a Pearl of Power?

Yes.

Fine, but I don't think it will happen.

[dkyle]

We're selling top tier gear for money now? Not to my knowledge. Maybe I'm missing something though - my thread skimming skills vary from day to day.

I posted a thread about this here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=310081

In short: by selling the primary limiting ingredients of the crafting system in the store, a crafting system capable of generating top-tier gear, you are effectively selling said top-tier gear. It's even worse for the Trinket, as there is no way to earn it in-game, short of boring and mindless favor grind.

I'm hoping the ingredients in the store are Lamannia only, to facilitate previewing, and will not be available on Live.

Think about this: would you be comfortable selling Large Devil Scales in the store? Why are the essences any different?

[Seikojin]

You still need collectibles. Turning the question on it's head, what do you expect to be for sale in the store?
Just content, cosmetics and the like?. Personally, I like the store making available materials which obviate grinding
content. All the crafting materials seem to be available from loot or from deconstructing items. All the store is
doing is providing a short cut to those whose time is worth more to them than the $ replacement. They do have
balance issues with this IMO but the fundamental principle is sound.

I think having the comps to craft on the store is fine too. But I think having a glaring disparity between what you get when you invest time versus TP is the thing to look at.

I think a good solution would be to offer an increasing gain of comps from decon based on your crafting level. At least here, there is a measurable goal that gives you something noticable in game. Like earning TP; people can do it if they invest all the time to do the quests over and over... On every server... With as many slots as they have... The TP gains from doing so seem reward enough to encourage the grind.

They need the rewards from deconning to encourage grind, yet the goal of craft to be high enough to warrent people to buy into it with their TP if they don't want to invest in the grind. Just like everything else in the store.

I would love it if all levels of GS was makeable from the store. I know it would cut down on the shroud runs, but by how much? Some people don't want to put their tp into the store for components.

When you go to mmorpg.com and look at ddo in its big list, one of the options for the payment is free/item mall. For an item mall, ddo is slim compared to other mmos. I think their complex system is very unique and has many advantages for revenue that other f2p games don't have.

All that said, I think having more options available from the store is better for the game, never worse. I just think that it all has to be carefully balanced and tuned so no one feels like they are getting the short end of the stick.

[dkyle]

For crafting the final item, agreed. For leveling, I think you're underestimating the amount you'll need.
I don't mind this so much as it's a good way for new players to make money. A deferred grind is always good!

Why would you level using those recipes? There are plenty of recipes that do not require collectibles.

Not exactly. LDS are only available in a few places and are reasonably rare drops. Crafting materials
can be made from virtually any random drop.

Rare drops in limited places required in small quantities, can be equivalent to common drops in many places required in large quantities. It's all about supply and demand, not the magnitude of the numbers.

Fine, but I don't think it will happen.

It's how the game is currently.

Yeah, there's a little loot selling, but I consider it inconsequental given how lousy/common they are. Nothing that has any impact on the endgame.

To be clear: I'm fine with the store as it is now. Not fine with adding important crafting ingredients to it.

[Trillea]

Turning the question on it's head, what do you expect to be for sale in the store?

I will answer this with my personal opinions, so take this with a grain of salt - Yes I expect content and cosmetics; I also expect convenience items (but not BTC ones - looking at you, huge bags). What I do NOT expect and highly disapprove of is any item whose effects cannot be duplicated or easily replicated. Personally I do not like the anti-beholder trinkets and anti-mummy elixirs: the anti-beholder trinket trivializes the necklace from Invaders, and puts it in a much less competitive spot. The anti-mummy elixirs I would be all for if they were put in as plat-buyable as well, even for an exorbitant amount, maybe similar to the Amrath potions. Saying "The store loot can drop in chests" is not sufficient, unless they raise the drop rate very substantially, like making the chance to get any piece (not a specific piece, but any piece) of store loot approximately the same chance as getting a mana pot in a chest.

As for the crafting ingredients, this to me is really at the line. They are not selling anything that you could not get through enough ingame grinding (I consider the XP booster and percentage booster to be convenience items). But the AMOUNT of convenience that they are selling here is teetering on my personal borderline. In order to get your crafting up to levels high enough to reliably create high-level recipes, you currently have to do a LOT of crunching - either getting the weapons through questing, the AH, or donated through your guild/friends. The easy way around this is to buy the ingredients on the auction house. This, combined with the XP boosters and percentage boosters, are what have many people nervous about the new system - myself included.

[Setin_Myways]

Why would you level using those recipes? There are plenty of recipes that do not require collectibles.

I believe people have said that each recipe has some level of diminishing returns for the exp, i.e. the more times you do a recipe, the less exp you gain... so if this is the case, a greater variety in the recipes you do, which will require more collectibles, will have a better return on exp for leveling.

[Seikojin]

I will answer this with my personal opinions, so take this with a grain of salt - Yes I expect content and cosmetics; I also expect convenience items (but not BTC ones - looking at you, huge bags). What I do NOT expect and highly disapprove of is any item whose effects cannot be duplicated or easily replicated. Personally I do not like the anti-beholder trinkets and anti-mummy elixirs: the anti-beholder trinket trivializes the necklace from Invaders, and puts it in a much less competitive spot. The anti-mummy elixirs I would be all for if they were put in as plat-buyable as well, even for an exorbitant amount, maybe similar to the Amrath potions. Saying "The store loot can drop in chests" is not sufficient, unless they raise the drop rate very substantially, like making the chance to get any piece (not a specific piece, but any piece) of store loot approximately the same chance as getting a mana pot in a chest.

As for the crafting ingredients, this to me is really at the line. They are not selling anything that you could not get through enough ingame grinding (I consider the XP booster and percentage booster to be convenience items). But the AMOUNT of convenience that they are selling here is teetering on my personal borderline. In order to get your crafting up to levels high enough to reliably create high-level recipes, you currently have to do a LOT of crunching - either getting the weapons through questing, the AH, or donated through your guild/friends. The easy way around this is to buy the ingredients on the auction house. This, combined with the XP boosters and percentage boosters, are what have many people nervous about the new system - myself included.

Exactly. I hope we see a questionairre about the store offerings for crafting ingredients so we can chime in with some reasonable feedback.

[Cyr]

We're selling top tier gear for money now? Not to my knowledge. Maybe I'm missing something though - my thread skimming skills vary from day to day.

It's pretty hard to miss the largest thread in this section.

And to answer your question. Yes, Turbine is selling top tier gear for money now on Lamaland.

The crafting system does allow for the crafting of top tier gear and you sell the crafting materials in the Turbine Store.

Unless your contention is that the crafting system can only create inferior junk or that the Lamaland store is wrong and all this crafting stuff will not be available in the live store?

[Seikojin]

It's pretty hard to miss the largest thread in this section.

And to answer your question. Yes, Turbine is selling top tier gear for money now on Lamaland.

The crafting system does allow for the crafting of top tier gear and you sell the crafting materials in the Turbine Store.

Unless your contention is that the crafting system can only create inferior junk or that the Lamaland store is wrong and all this crafting stuff will not be available in the live store?

Here, from my experience, this is what I see:
Lam is test. The items available on the store will not be there due to negative outcry from the playerbase.
After a while, when people get out of their waambulance, the store will get some updates that include ingredients, relative to the low average of mined values from actual gameplay logs. This way the amount per tp is what would be considered a 'sweet spot'. High enough to attract some purchases from many people in the community, but not enough per tp to make the people who hate item malls to complain too much.

Again, that is from my experience.

[Arctigis]

I will answer this with my personal opinions, so take this with a grain of salt - Yes I expect content and cosmetics; I also expect convenience items (but not BTC ones - looking at you, huge bags). What I do NOT expect and highly disapprove of is any item whose effects cannot be duplicated or easily replicated. Personally I do not like the anti-beholder trinkets and anti-mummy elixirs: the anti-beholder trinket trivializes the necklace from Invaders, and puts it in a much less competitive spot. The anti-mummy elixirs I would be all for if they were put in as plat-buyable as well, even for an exorbitant amount, maybe similar to the Amrath potions. Saying "The store loot can drop in chests" is not sufficient, unless they raise the drop rate very substantially, like making the chance to get any piece (not a specific piece, but any piece) of store loot approximately the same chance as getting a mana pot in a chest.

As for the crafting ingredients, this to me is really at the line. They are not selling anything that you could not get through enough ingame grinding (I consider the XP booster and percentage booster to be convenience items). But the AMOUNT of convenience that they are selling here is teetering on my personal borderline. In order to get your crafting up to levels high enough to reliably create high-level recipes, you currently have to do a LOT of crunching - either getting the weapons through questing, the AH, or donated through your guild/friends. The easy way around this is to buy the ingredients on the auction house. This, combined with the XP boosters and percentage boosters, are what have many people nervous about the new system - myself included.

I agree. I'm also not happy with the balance at the moment between store and in-game acquired.

[dkyle]

Lam is test. The items available on the store will not be there due to negative outcry from the playerbase.

Hopefully, but I'm frankly shocked at how many people actually disagreed with me on this. I never expected the kind of response my thread got.

After a while, when people get out of their waambulance, the store will get some updates that include ingredients, relative to the low average of mined values from actual gameplay logs. This way the amount per tp is what would be considered a 'sweet spot'. High enough to attract some purchases from many people in the community, but not enough per tp to make the people who hate item malls to complain too much.

Hopefully not. I don't think there's a possible "sweet spot". What would the sweet spot be for Large Devil Scales?

[Arctigis]

Why would you level using those recipes? There are plenty of recipes that do not require collectibles.

I have only have my experiences to go on but this is tough to do because of the crafting XP decay and
extents of recipes which all require some other materials. i.e. the next recipe which doesn't require some
random collectible may be at a success rate which is prohibitive. My leveling on Lammania has, essentially,
stalled a little because of this issue.

Rare drops in limited places required in small quantities, can be equivalent to common drops in many places required in large quantities. It's all about supply and demand, not the magnitude of the numbers.

Right. This is what I meant by balance. At the moment, the deconstruction rates suggest to me that I'm
going to be needing to spend TP in the store if I want to craft. As I don't want to spend TP in the store
on this stuff, I won't be crafting on live.

It's how the game is currently.

Yeah, there's a little loot selling, but I consider it inconsequental given how lousy/common they are. Nothing that has any impact on the endgame.

To be clear: I'm fine with the store as it is now. Not fine with adding important crafting ingredients to it.

Sure. As someone else mentioned, I'm more peeved about the Mummy and Beholder nerfs they sell...

[MadFloyd]

What people are saying is that they can buy everything needed to make top tier loot with the new crafting system. Also, the fact that the trinket is store only doesn't help your position.

Who said the trinket was store only?

[MadFloyd]

Who said the trinket was store only?

Cutting to the chase, the store will not be the only way to craft a trinket.

[Trillea]

Who said the trinket was store only?

OK, where else can you get it? We can't disjunct any trinkets currently ingame, and I have not seen anyone post either ingame on in forums that they have gotten one any other way.

[dkyle]

Cutting to the chase, the store will not be the only way to craft a trinket.

Glad to hear it. I think the description might need an update. Last I knew, it said "Craftable trinkets are only available in the DDO Store!"

Any comment on the crafting ingredients being available in the store?

[Thoon]

Posted elsewhere also:

There is an item in the loot table that drops that can equip to the trinket slot. This is a moderately rare item, but it is one that many of you have used, though in a different context. That should be enough of a hint ...

[Mistycball]

Stone of good luck may be?

[dkyle]

Posted elsewhere also:

There is an item in the loot table that drops that can equip to the trinket slot. This is a moderately rare item, but it is one that many of you have used, though in a different context. That should be enough of a hint ...

Hmmm... anyone tried a Shard of Power?