Cannith Crafting Discussion

[EllisDee37]

If we end up with a single essence, set up some sort of trade-in system like heart seeds so we can combine large stacks of essences into smaller, consolidated stacks. Let these combined ingredients go in bags, and let the trader we use to make them also allow splitting them back into regular essences.

And some of us are fighting that. We propose flexible shards with the power set lower. Because even if the power was at the lowest scale of the power range, having flexible shards would be more valuable.

You're not going to get flexible shards, but you will be getting weaker crafting than lootgen. So, yeah. Congrats on winning the fight to make sure Cannith Crafting ends up being weak.

I personally think it's a terrible idea to make crafting weaker than lootgen. What nobody seems to understand -- including the devs -- is that crafting can only invalidate lootgen FOR CRAFTERS. Unless you're going to argue that everyone playing the game has a maxed crafter, there will always be a sizable percentage of the playerbase for whom lootgen will always be relevant.

It drives me up a wall to hear complaints of crafting invalidating lootgen. How does this work for the countless people who don't craft? How is lootgen invalidated for them?

Better would be to make crafting exactly the same as lootgen, and make masterful/wondrous persist through deconstruction. There, now lootgen is even still quite valuable for crafters, too.

[AnEvenNewerNoob]

Just because you mash a bunch of meaningless bs numbers together doesn't make it viable math.

He needs to get started on the math for how he was getting the xp/min to get to level 140 crafting in 8 hours!

[AnEvenNewerNoob]

No Worries I'm hoping you see that it seems like the majority of players want CC to be EQUAL IN POWER to random loot.

Please take this into consideration as you go forward. If CC is weaker than random loot, not many people will do it.

[Ebondevil]

Sure, go where we discussed it:
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5824188

Crafting is already stronger than random loot by design. Crafting is not random.
Let me say that again: Crafting is not random. And again: Crafting is NOT random.
So, crafting is 3 times more powerful than random loot because: 1. You get to choose a suffix that goes with your prefix, 2. You get to choose a bonus effect to go with your prefix and suffix and 3. You get all 3 effects at the maximum non-lucky level range.

So, 3x more powerful than the random loot you frequently get. Now, there are some rare cases where random loot is more powerful (when you get 3 effects that suit you and those effects are all in the lucky range). But: Do you know how often that happens? Let's say you can do with 5 effects out of the 15 possible for each slot (prefix/suffix/bonus). So, 0.33 (for relevant prefix) * 0.33 (for relevant suffix) * 0.33 (for relevant bonus) * (chance that the item has a bonus effect) * (chance the prefix is in the extra lucky range) * 0.25 (chance that the value of the prefix will be the maximum) * 0.25 (chance that the value of the suffix will be the maximum) * 0.25 (chance that the value of the bonus will be the maximum) * (chance the suffix is in the extra lucky range) * (chance the bonus is in the extra lucky range).

The chance of you getting something more powerful from random loot is: 0.00056 * (chance the effect is in the extra lucky range)^3. I don't know that chance, but how many times do you see the masterful craftsmanship pop up? I'd say 1/10 optimistically? So, 0.00056 * 0.1^3 = 0.00056 * 0.001 = 0.00000056 = 0.000056% = 1/2000000 = 1 in 2 million items will be more powerful than what you can craft.

And you're saying "Nah, I can find that 1 in 2 million items easily in the AH. Why would I craft? I want crafting to beat even that 1 in 2 million items". I say 1 in 2 million is far too low and crafting should be made less powerful so that random loot does not become completely obsolete.

As for the cost you're saying you pay for such an item? You pay the cost ONE time (leveling) and then you can craft infinite items. This means that the cost per item is much less than the 2 million random items you need to acquire to find the one more powerful.

Now factor in the chances of finding that item in a chest or on the end reward list when there's say 5-6 chests in the mission and 6 party members with you who are willing to share that loot, then the 1 / 2 million figure suddenly drops significantly. Now factor in that during the course of a single level you will be running multiple quests and that number drops even further.

The Numbers you have provided are only really valid in a very narrow perspective on loot, as it does not factor in how much loot is potentially being generated over the course of a level.

You are also assuming Infinite generation of Crafted items for no cost, when that should not be the case as Randomly Generated Items should need to be deconstructed for Materials, as well as plat required, to create those items,

If I put effort into the crafting System I would expect to see some benefits from that, those benefits being the ability to craft the items I want instead of having to rely on fickle luck.


If anything a viable Crafting System which surpasses the capabilities of Randomly generated loot actually makes the Randomly generated loot broadly more valuable, as all the trash loot serves an additional purpose.

Giving items a score from 1-100 for how much use they will see over the lifetime of a character to showcase how useful piece of Randomly generated loot is:

Without a viable Crafting System:

1,999,999 pieces of Trash Loot: 1 Sold for Plat, 1 Used by new players until better replacement can be found

Total Score: 3,999,998

1 Perfect Item: 100 Used 99% of the time for that level and frequently for later levels as well if no better can be found, -1 Takes up inventory space on other lives.

Total Score: 99

With a viable Crafting System:

1,999,999 pieces of Trash Loot: 1 Sold for Plat, 1 Used by new players until better replacement can be found, 1 Deconstructed to serve crafting

Total Score: 5,999,997

1 Perfect Item: 1 Sold for Plat, 1 Used by new players until better replacement can be found, 1 Used instead of Crafting

Total Score: 3

Yes the 'Perfect' Item looses a lot of value, but the Trash Loot gains significantly more than what is lost by the 'Perfect' item. You could even give the 'Perfect' Item a score of 1 Million, and the Random Loot would still be more valuable with a viable Crafting System.

[Faltout]

I'm sorry to say this, but I don't believe you. Or maybe it got easier after I started, hmm...

Even my decon sessions have taken me more than a hundred hours, not to mention my crafting for xp.

Oh well, believe what you want. However, the data adds up.
You need 3-4 shards to gain a level if you have an experience potion active (the free one that you get every life). To decide which shards to craft next you may take half a minute after each level gained (or you can simply decide that beforehand). So, 9 minutes for arcane, 1 minute for arcane shard deconstruction, 9 minutes for divine, 1 minute for deconstruction, 9 minutes for elemental, 1 minute for any extra shards in arcane or divine to round the levels. 1 minute for deconstruction after the xp pot is over.

Levels went faster at 0-70 so I gained 20 levels per session. Then at 70-90, I only gained 10 because the cost of each shard was high and I had to remake cheap shards for more than 1 level, making xp go at half speed. Then at 90-110 pace picked up because of all the 100-120 cheap recipes. Then at 110-140 only 10 levels per session because of cost. I believe to get from 140 to 150 I would need much more resources and time because I'm no longer crafting at the optimal xp that a shard 10 levels above provides. However, no need to reach lvl 150

[Faltout]

Giving items a score from 1-100 for how much use they will see over the lifetime of a character to showcase how useful piece of Randomly generated loot is:

Without a viable Crafting System:

1,999,999 pieces of Trash Loot: 1 Sold for Plat, 1 Used by new players until better replacement can be found

Total Score: 3,999,998

1 Perfect Item: 100 Used 99% of the time for that level and frequently for later levels as well if no better can be found, -1 Takes up inventory space on other lives.

Total Score: 99

With a viable Crafting System:

1,999,999 pieces of Trash Loot: 1 Sold for Plat, 1 Used by new players until better replacement can be found, 1 Deconstructed to serve crafting

Total Score: 5,999,997

1 Perfect Item: 1 Sold for Plat, 1 Used by new players until better replacement can be found, 1 Used instead of Crafting

Total Score: 3

Yes the 'Perfect' Item looses a lot of value, but the Trash Loot gains significantly more than what is lost by the 'Perfect' item. You could even give the 'Perfect' Item a score of 1 Million, and the Random Loot would still be more valuable with a viable Crafting System.

Wait, with all those numbers that I don't completely understand you're saying that we should have a viable crafting system because that makes random loot more valuable as it can be used in deconstruction for essences?
I won't even comment on that. (besides, I've never deconstructed items for essences. Too much of a hassle, I sold them instead and only used essences found in chests for crafting)
And I will mention that you also implied that the crafting system is viable if and only if it is as powerful as you propose. Without any actual facts to support that like I've been providing for hours now...

[DYWYPI]

Since some people were asking; I happened to have a screenshot handy of the Character (that isn't my main Crafter) when she was: 120/102/114, and basically crafted most of those items for Cannith Crafting XP only.

So essentially in the low 100s, it took her: 1,262 Crafted shards, 712 Deconstructed (Total Crafting XP: 134913).

I'll have a Screenshot of my main Crafter at: 150/150/150 somewhere since it took a few years... Albeit she'll have made thousands-upon-thousands of Potential shards, etc. Thus Crafted shard figures will be inflated on my "main Crafter".

Though of course it was trying to acquire or purchase 'Eberron Dragonshard Fragments' and any other Collectable/Ingredients that caused it take that long not so much the Essences needed (even though in the Level 100+ range Recipes just gleefully guzzle Essences).

However, we're risking slightly veering off-topic but no; you cannot get to Level 150 within a handful of hours, if you don't have tonnes - excessive amounts - of Crafting resources.

[Ebondevil]

Wait, with all those numbers that I don't completely understand you're saying that we should have a viable crafting system because that makes random loot more valuable as it can be used in deconstruction for essences?

Apply any value you wish to items for how useful an item is, not just for you, but in general, I went for a scale of 1 to 100 so I could give the so called 'Perfect' items a significantly higher score than trash.
Then I used your own numbers of 1 Perfect item in 2 million to total the scores, meaning 1,999,999 items of trash.
It's pretty simple maths.

I won't even comment on that. (besides, I've never deconstructed items for essences. Too much of a hassle, I sold them instead and only used essences found in chests for crafting)

I guess your experience of the current Crafting systems differs considerably from mine: I rarely find Materials as loot and even with Deconstructing every Random piece of treasure I didn't want, I ran out of essences for crafting while trying to level up the schools. These days I mostly just deconstruct these days to insure I have a supply on the off chance the crafting systems becomes useful.

And I will mention that you also implied that the crafting system is viable if and only if it is as powerful as you propose. Without any actual facts to support that like I've been providing for hours now...

I believe a Crafting System is only viable if it can provide enough returns to the majority of the playerbase that is interested in using it, to make the effort that goes into it worthwhile.

If the crafting system can only be used to create gimmick items for a minority of the playerbase, and/or Random loot is better, then I do not believe the crafting system would be viable.

[Ballyspringer]

Also because myself and others have spoken out very loudly about the opposite and that crafted items should have less power than normal random loot (not only lucky random loot that appear once in a million).

Sadly, the devs have ZERO interest in listening to that idea and reducing the power of crafting (and eventually the power of random loot, because it sucks).

So if I'm getting what you are saying correctly and I apologize if I'm not .....You don't want the crafting system to be as good as what you can find randomly because what makes the game fun for you is putting in time and effort to try to find that perfect random drop. So we can't have something we put time and effort into to avoid just that (as trying to get that perfect drop with no guarantee's it will ever happen is not fun to me in the least, so I would rather use a system that can guarantee it with enough time and effort) because it will somehow lessen the joy you get finding that perfect drop?

It's kinda like raid loot (which I think almost everyone can agree should be the best stuff) - there's a 20th list. So at some point you will get that item you want. It might take your 3rd, 4th, or 5th 20th list to get that encrusted ring, but you know you can and will get it. Getting that perfect random drop is like hitting the lotto, it could happen and I'd be extremely happy if it did, but I can't count on that happening ever. Raid loot I can count on actually getting if I run the raid enough. Crafting is that bridge between hitting the lotto and being able to put time and effort in so you're not stuck with extremely sub-par gear for getting what you want for what raid loot/named loot misses for your build.

And yes I'm not arguing your math, if you had enough essences without deconning items each life to get your levels up to 150's good for you - but that's not the experience of anyone else I know who has topped out crafting levels (although everyone I knew who did that did it prior to them giving out elixers so it may have changed and become easier).

[Faltout]

So if I'm getting what you are saying correctly and I apologize if I'm not .....You don't want the crafting system to be as good as what you can find randomly because what makes the game fun for you is putting in time and effort to try to find that perfect random drop. So we can't have something we put time and effort into to avoid just that (as trying to get that perfect drop with no guarantee's it will ever happen is not fun to me in the least, so I would rather use a system that can guarantee it with enough time and effort) because it will somehow lessen the joy you get finding that perfect drop?

What I'm saying is:
Crafting remains valuable and most of your gear will come from crafting even if crafting is 2 attribute points less than what is the max of random loot. If random loot can provide max +4 attribute at level 2 and cannith crafting can only provide +2, isn't a cannith crafted item better than the standard +1 attribute items that come from random loot usually? You've never seen a +4 attribute at level 2 right? Only 1 poster said that another poster had once linked such an item. So, it's far from the truth to say that +4 items are flooding the Auction House. +2 attribute items may appear more frequently in the AH, but how many of those items also have 2 other relevant effects at the same power level? So, again it's far from the truth to say that the items that you can craft are already flooding the AH. Even if the items that you can craft have 2 points less.
Now imagine that you could craft the +4 at level 2 (which is what the other side has been asking). While running quests, you open chests and see the usual trash items of +1 attribute and some melee/caster effects combined. Then you open that chest that is glowing blue and you see a +4 attribute item with relevant effects and an augment slot. WOW! Only this item is pretty common in cannith crafting and you can ask any crafter to craft it for you (even if you're a newcomer and have spent nothing in CC). So, what's the point of random loot? NONE (oh wait, to have things to deconstruct...)

If you are one of the people that NEED the best loot out there, then yes you will need to farm billions of items to find one instead of being able to craft it. If you are one of the normal people that can do with GOOD loot, then you will never bother to loot more chests and just craft your items. I don't enjoy running quests and hunting for items. I get what I get and then for the rest of my needs I run to the crafting hall. It's rare that any piece of loot will invalidate my crafted gear, but most people like that there is a slight chance that random loot will invalidate your crafted gear. (please read loot threads before the random loot pass. You'll see that ALL the posts say they want random loot to have the chance to be sometimes useful and not insta-trash while never saying they enjoy hunting for random loot gear)

you're not stuck with extremely sub-par gear

You consider gear with slightly less power than max but still better power than most random loot has now extremely sub-par? For real?
Maybe you need an example?
I have this sword that has devotion +70 and healing lore something at ML11. Now, getting devotion and healing lore together is rare, but happens. Now with cannith crafting I can do devotion 100, healing lore something and spell penetration III for bonus. At level 11. You consider this sub-par? Compared to WHAT exactly? The years-old quests? The random piece of gear with 3 masterful effects that does not exist? The raid loot at that level (devotion 70 at GH gloves and healing lore 15 ML13)?
Cannith Crafting will never be sub-par gear as long as it has 3 effects you want no matter the power level. It will be better gear than you already have.

[LT218]

140 in about 8 hours. Half an hour for 10-20 levels in each school using the free experience pot you get for completing the crafting tutorial each life (lasts for half an hour).
3-4 shards per level.

Hundreds of hours huh? That should be an interesting story...

Pretty sure the quoted statement is a classic example of the saying that 90% of statistics on the internet are made up and biased towards the point the submitter of the statistic is trying to prove.

As someone who maxed out their crafting levels within the last 18 months, it takes 10s of thousands of lesser and many thousands of greater essences to craft enough shards to cap out. To level in 2-4 shards per level, you have to craft shards that you have a fairly low success rate on which means you fail and waste essences somewhat frequently. If you craft recipes that have better success rates, you get less XP. No way around burning tons of essences.

Wait... You are not counting the excessively rare bonus weeks that give a boost to crafting experience combined with a Pay2Win crafting XP potion from the store are you? That would be pretty disingenuous of you to claim that as the "standard" for leveling crafting. Beyond the Pay2Win xp potion + bonus week, the only way to shortcut the massive essence requirements to go from 1 to 150 in all three schools was to abuse an exploit with vials or some such thing that was available for a bit and that was fixed a good while ago. Additionally, unless you use the Pay2Win potions from the store, you run out of xp giving recipes before you can cap out in a single life which means you have to spend time leveling to at least 20 and then TR to reset the diminishing XP returns on the recipes.

So with that in mind, there is no legitimate way you could possibly have acquired enough lesser and greater essences as rewards from chests in quests to cap all three crafting schools in 8 hours total time. It's not possible even if you did deconstruct every RNG item you got while questing in 8 hours. If, as you claim, you didn't deconstruct RNG items for essences and instead just purchased them in bulk from the AH and ASAH, it still took you more than 8 hours to acquire the platinum required to buy that many essences. Any way you look at it, your claim of 8 hours total time spent to cap crafting is completely bogus.

If you took the actual average amount of time most people spend capping crafting skill in DDO farming missions and raids for named items instead, you could have a full set of better than RNG and better than crafted gear for every 4-6 levels. That's why crafted gear should be just as good as RNG gear. Personally, I think the best compromise is to include the Masterful shards and make any Masterful crafted stuff BTA. Leave the non-masterful crafted items tradable and keep their quality on par with RNG.


The TL;DR version of crafting in DDO is that it is a laggy, boring grind that requires 10s of thousands of essences, many hours of time and/or in-game resources where you repeatedly make things that have little or no practical use use in the game simply for the sake of leveling crafting. Any sort of grind that is as unentertaining and resource and time intensive as crafting is in DDO better have a pretty damned nice payout at the end.

[Faltout]

Pretty sure the quoted statement is a classic example of the saying that 90% of statistics on the internet are made up and biased towards the point the submitter of the statistic is trying to prove.

As someone who maxed out their crafting levels within the last 18 months, it takes 10s of thousands of lesser and many thousands of greater essences to craft enough shards to cap out. To level in 2-4 shards per level, you have to craft shards that you have a fairly low success rate on which means you fail and waste essences somewhat frequently. If you craft recipes that have better success rates, you get less XP. No way around burning tons of essences.

I agree. I usually made shards that had 50%-60% chance of success (usually 54, unless the 60 was really cheap). I had success boosters though (from cannith favor...) and when you fail you don't lose all your ingredients but rather a small part. So it's better to try 2 times for double xp than making 2 shards for half the xp.
I don't disagree with the thousands of greater essences. Not sure how many thousand because I never had more than 500 greater in my bags and not head to the crafting hall.

Wait... You are not counting the excessively rare bonus weeks that give a boost to crafting experience combined with a Pay2Win crafting XP potion from the store are you? That would be pretty disingenuous of you to claim that as the "standard" for leveling crafting. Beyond the Pay2Win xp potion + bonus week, the only way to shortcut the massive essence requirements to go from 1 to 150 in all three schools was to abuse an exploit with vials or some such thing that was available for a bit and that was fixed a good while ago. Additionally, unless you use the Pay2Win potions from the store, you run out of xp giving recipes before you can cap out in a single life which means you have to spend time leveling to at least 20 and then TR to reset the diminishing XP returns on the recipes.

Nope. Even though I'd like to craft during bonus weeks, usually when I had enough essences to go on a crafting spree, there was no bonus week. As I said, I used the xp potion from the crafting tutorial that you get every life... Is it pay2win? I dunno. I know that I didn't pay...

So with that in mind, there is no legitimate way you could possibly have acquired enough lesser and greater essences as rewards from chests in quests to cap all three crafting schools in 8 hours total time. It's not possible even if you did deconstruct every RNG item you got while questing in 8 hours. If, as you claim, you didn't deconstruct RNG items for essences and instead just purchased them in bulk from the AH and ASAH, it still took you more than 8 hours to acquire the platinum required to buy that many essences. Any way you look at it, your claim of 8 hours total time spent to cap crafting is completely bogus.

LOL, I play 4 years. I have gathered enough essences to level to 140 from chests alone. The 8 hours are the hours I spent doing crafting and only crafting. Half an hour each life (and each life took some months). So, 8 hours over the span of 4 years. But 8 hours nonetheless devoted to crafting. The rest of the time I was playing the game.

P.S. Here is the guide I wrote for crafting leveling... https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5703032

[glmfw1]

I want crafting to work (i.e. no more "it's a prefix, but the system will think it's a suffix if there is already a suffix there").

I would be happy to just have "essences" rather than "greater/lesser", but I like the current divisions within each school... If I deconstruct a weapon with fire powers, I shouldn't be able to create one with ice powers from the materials I get. So, I say keep Mind/Body/Arcane, Good/Evil/Law/Chaos/Divine, Fire/Water/Earth/Air, so that crafting has an internal logic to it. Otherwise you might as well overhaul the spell system and Monster Manual too {i.e. it's not Fireball or Lightning Bolt... it's Elemental Ball and Elemental Bolt; It's not a Fire Elemental or an Earth Elemental... they are both Elemental Elementals} and remove any alignment from the game.

Power of Cannith Crafting should be equal to that of Random Lootgen... after all, where does Random Lootgen come from, apart from NPCs doing Cannith Crafting behind the scenes. Of course New Random Loot seems to be made by spellcasters who are mainly insane, given some of the power combinations that drop. The grind of creating shards for experience should have a payoff of being able to create meaningful effects of items. I'm happy that Unbound might not be as powerful as Bound... e.g. If Unbound correspond to middle of lootgen table power levels, while Bound correspond to top end power levels.

If a power can be on New Random Loot or in a regular Augment, it should be able to be on Cannith Crafted items. Shards should be either prefix shards, suffix shards or prefix/suffix shards, and have this shown in the name. Flexible shards should be able to go on any item, and should be a high level benefit. Higher level crafting could also allow a power normally available as a suffix or prefix to be available as a prefix/suffix shard. New random loot has done away with grammar in names (e.g. "of Deadly" rather than "of Deadliness"), so a Suffix Item of Prefix which would have had an odd sounding name using old conventions would now sound no worse than items that drop every day. A possible alternative to flexibility is that if crafting levels are high enough, a prefix or suffix shard can be put in either slot and item-type-specific shards can be put on other items by default - no need for specific flexible shards, but your ML3 cloak prefix shard can now be used as an ML3 ring suffix, because your crafting lvl is high enough.

Keep varying levels of shards (str +1, str +2 etc). If you are a low lvl crafter or you don't have the essences needed to make a stronger item, you should still be able to craft something. Each Shard can have a Minimum Level, and if the shard is put on a base item with a lower ML, the item's ML gets used and if the shard is put on a base item with a higher ML, the shard's ML gets used. The interface could give a warning when shard lvl is higher. Shards of Potential should still exist, but as items are now tied to Minimum level, SoPs should relate to ML rather than overall power. I don't mind needing to step up the power level a shard at a time, but it would be simpler to just say "I want power lvl X on this item, so I will craft a single SoP that gives me that power level".

I personally don't mind having to go to the ship/crafting hall to break items down. I think being able to break down direct from inventory invalidates the logic of crafting. Why should crafters be able to effectively ignore inventory size restrictions by deconstructing from inventory, while people who sell for PP can't? Personally, I would leave all the Cannith Crafting stations as they are namewise... just improve the lists in the shard stations.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Inventory space, stack sizes, and how bags are used are important decisions that we will have to look deeper into before we can comment on what might happen there. Since the exchange from old to new essences will be done manual, there won't be any risk of the bags exploding on login.

So much for "only inconvenienced by exchanging once" *g*

No, seriously, just put the new essences at 10K stacks like Lessers instead of 1K stacks like Greaters, and IMHO everything here would be cool. I don't know why you need to "look deeper into" this. You clearly have the technology to stack at 10K so IMHO there's no good reason *not* to. (I'd also like this applied to collectibles, Cannith ings, ammo, spell components, scrolls, and potions... but I won't be greedy, I'll accept it just happening for new stuff... like the new essences *g* ) (...Though maybe someday for the collectibles? *g* )

[zehnvhex]

I really like how 40% of the posts in this thread are people worried about the stack size of the new ingredient. Really goes to show that despite our differences...everyone can agree that inventory management is the biggest PITA this game has to offer. "I don't care if it's one essence or 15, just so long as I don't have to spend a 20 minutes every gaming session playing SIM CLOSET SPACE because you guys haven't consolidated all your mini-crafting systems in over 9 years."

[tarrith_dourden]

What I hate is the duel system for bound and unbound crafting. If I can craft an item for myself, why can't a craft the same item for someone else?
Make it craftable, or do not. A duel system is bollocks.

TD

[Inanout]

The game is about trade off. Some people are puzzle solvers and some are not. Dungeons and dragons is about thinking.
Crafting should be complicated and close to random.
THANKS FOR HEADS UP, MY NEXT TR ON CRAFTER WILL BE HUMAN ARTY

[Ebondevil]

What I hate is the duel system for bound and unbound crafting. If I can craft an item for myself, why can't a craft the same item for someone else?
Make it craftable, or do not. A duel system is bollocks.

TD

In 3.5 PnP (yes, yes, I know PnP) it was possible to apply a Gold/Experience cost reduction for applying limitations to an item, like Race limitation, Class Limitations, Skill limitations, which could stack up to quite considerable discounts on the items. And UMD allowed characters to bypass those limitation.

The older Loot system factored this in somewhat with Random loot having Racial Restrictions, with UMD bypass.

I always considered the Bound shards to be the DDO crafting equivalent of that system, making it with the limitation that it's only yourself that can use it, makes it easier to craft.

I guess it's really how you perceive the system, I choose to perceive it in the Light of: I can make this sooner if I make it just for myself. And from that perspective I would prefer to keep it, but if it goes, it goes.

[dunklezhan]

What I hate is the duel system for bound and unbound crafting. If I can craft an item for myself, why can't a craft the same item for someone else?
Make it craftable, or do not. A duel system is bollocks.

TD

Well no, because the limited power you can craft for other people is how you maintain the incentive for them to put the time in, because the alternative is that they do the lootgen lottery or live with slightly less power for the level range in the form of an item a crafter made for them.

In the new system the choice of loot goes, in order of ascending power:

Usual lootgen
Crafted by someone else
Crafted for yourself
Best Lootgen

Named loot is scattered throughout that range, and really only quite rarely is more powerful.

Personally I see no reason for 'crafted for yourself' and 'best lootgen' to be on different lines. Especially since you could get 'best lootgen' your first time out - its a lottery. Equally you might wait years. With CC you should have to have worked for ages to get the option to get the top level power item, and you can't make 'infinite' items because you need materials which should limit how many you can actually make.

Thematically though I do agree with you - I mean who is making all the lootgen that drops if it can't be made unbound?

But if you chip away too much at the barriers to getting the good stuff out of Cannith Crafting (for example shortcutting the lottery or the work by getting someone else to jsut make you something - although the counter argument is that nothing stops them doing that with random loot), then you basically do come to the conclusion that it is invalidating random loot, at least on some level.

So yeah - there is a line where that happens, what we're all arguing about I think is just where the line is.

For me, you balance a system like this with rarity of ingredients and the ability to make better stuff for yourself than you can for others, and you don't actually need to limit the power it gives directly to the skilled crafter if you do that right. How much better is a question for sure, I'd say about 4ML of potential lower than you can make for yourself at the relevant level seems about right... but I do not have all the data.

I don't think Turbine have the resources to strike that balance - because the probability driven maths involved is hard, complicated and takes a lot of time to work through and is still easy to get wrong - and that's why they're leaning towards nerfing CC compared to random loot, because that's a lot easier. I don't buy this 'invalidating' argument at all, I think its just a question of having enough resources to spend on it to get the balance right in terms of ingredients and relative bound/unbound power.

[Dandonk]

For me, you balance a system like this with rarity of ingredients and the ability to make better stuff for yourself than you can for others, and you don't actually need to limit the power it gives directly to the skilled crafter if you do that right. How much better is a question for sure, I'd say about 4ML of potential lower than you can make for yourself at the relevant level seems about right... but I do not have all the data.

I don't think Turbine have the resources to strike that balance - because the probability driven maths involved is hard, complicated and takes a lot of time to work through and is still easy to get wrong - and that's why they're leaning towards nerfing CC compared to random loot, because that's a lot easier. I don't buy this 'invalidating' argument at all, I think its just a question of having enough resources to spend on it to get the balance right in terms of ingredients and relative bound/unbound power.

Yeah, agree completely. Instead of getting it right, they're taking the simple way out, and making CC less powerful than randgen. I'd wish they'd do it differently, but the proposal seems pretty definite on this point, sadly.