Do you like the current crafting system ? ( Vote)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Elrond, Apr 16, 2019.

?

Do you like the current crafting system ?

  1. Yes

    15.0%
  2. No

    42.1%
  3. Yes and No

    42.9%
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  1. Aurelius Silverson

    Aurelius Silverson Avatar

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    Randomness in results of higher level crafting is overdone, expertise should allow much tighter results in the range the maker wants than currently seems to be the case.

    There's precious little in the process that is 'intuitive', if I'm setting out to make a wardrobe but forget to put the right number of boards on my real life workbench, I don't end up making a chair instead....

    The amounts of raw materials used often seems completely crazy, I understand the need to 'balance' rarity of items but looking at the components for several craftable items there's absolutely no in-game sense at all (easily available example since I have the numbers in my head from making these two, giant rough stone paver needs 23 granite, an entire four-storey row house needs 50? Sure it also needs a load of wood and glass, but the stone component of a four storey house surely is more than to make a couple of 'giant' pavers that barely seem to cover even the space equal to the house footprint ). The gathering time for many items is maybe OK, but when the manufacturing process needs hundreds (or on occasion thousands) of those items, it becomes tedious and not even slightly fun. Rather than items needing huge multiples of existing materials, a different component (quarried stone rather than just 'granite'?) might be better, rare to find and in fewer places, but needing less than the 1000+ granite resource many dungeon pieces want.

    Overall, the ability to make so many things is a plus for SotA's crafting system - it's the clunkiness and time-draining processes that are what I consider downsides to the experience.

    Related though, the crafting book is a pain in the neck to use, and trading recipes is frustrating and often time wasting (as is emote trading) - please let us see what the other person already knows!
     
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  2. Feldon Grimshaw

    Feldon Grimshaw Avatar

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    I haven't read any of the other replies (yet), so this may have already been covered. Here's what i like and don't like about crafting.

    LIKES:
    • it's incredibly fun and satisfying when you finally get a really nice item, crafted by you.
    • i love that you can choose the direction of your item based on what masterworks and enchants you pick (this will be much improved when specialization finally arrives).
    • i enjoy trying to salvage items for crafting components (elven hilts, mossy handles, patterns, etc). it's like pulling a slot machine lever. and i'm glad that the odds were greatly improved for materials and patterns a few releases ago.

    DISLIKES:
    • having to either be rich to buy components or having to spend hours a day for weeks in order to get enough materials to craft a decent item (seriously, it might cost upwards of 1M gold or more of materials, or 2 weeks in the mines to get enough if you want a really top notch item).
    • the fact that if you get a failure, you lose 25 durability. why not consider either lowering this amount, or have some other type of penalty (spend some xp to recover and try again, with increasingly large xp drains the further you take it?). i'm sure other people would have better suggestions for this.
    • the fact that i can only create 20 at a time of something. Why limit it? If i have enough material to make 100 of something, let me make 100 of that thing.
    • biggest dislike: it's so much harder to get crafting xp. I can get adventuring xp till the cows come home, and attenuate every hour if i want (and all that without ever setting foot into upper tears), but aside from a few first time craft bonuses, it's incredibly difficult and time consuming to get crafting xp. if you spend all day grinding away (mining, harvesting, and crafting), you're lucky if you pull in 500-1m xp.
     
  3. Rowell

    Rowell Avatar

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    I voted Yes and No. My main crafting currently is deco, with some dabbling in metal weapons and leather/cloth armor.

    Dislikes:
    - The batching size for many components. It's so time consuming to make secondary items needed in recipes. There really has to be a better way to do the menial task of making Iron Binding, or Pine Poles than batching 20, then batching another 20, then batching another 20. If anything, make the crafting system smarter. Say I want to make a Large cabinet. Have the system check to see if I have all the components needed to make the Large Cabinet, including all necessary components. When I click "CRAFT", the system automatically takes the raw materials and converts them into the components, then it builds a Wardrobe, then it builds a Large Cabinet. One click, time is wasted doing the menial tasks, and the end product is made.
    If you want to waste time in crafting (instead of watching a progress bar move hundreds of times), make the time enjoyable with a mini-game. The mini-game will not result in failure, just in differing qualities of product depending upon how well you do. For example, a dot is placed randomly on a grid and you have 2 to 5 moves (random number) to move that dot to the center of the grid. Sometimes you get lucky with the dot near the center (yielding a High Quality item). Sometimes, you don't get lucky (yielding a Low Quality item). Or somewhere in the middle (yielding a Medium/Regular Quality item).

    - The RNG nature of enchanting/masterworking. I go through periods of stockpiling gold/silver, then blow through the pile making armor and weapons (to raise skills). I sell everything at a big loss, +6 to +9 items for under 2k, and even at those prices, it takes weeks (if not months) to sell (I have a shop in Novia Market, so I'm not in some backwater POT).

    - Item Value when selling to NPC's. Almost never is worth it to sell to an NPC. They give you fractions of copper on the gold piece in value.

    - The tediousness of gathering raw materials almost invites botting. (mind you, I've NEVER botted, nor ever will). It's so tedious and mind numbing that people selling raw materials make more money than the people selling finished items. (ie, the raw materials are more valuable than the finished product). Economically speaking, that doesn't work.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2019
  4. Duke Gréagóir

    Duke Gréagóir Legend of the Hearth

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    Online and offline- need to make merging a necklace and a taming whistle possible.

    Offline - make artifacts more enchanted as not every adventurer in offline mode wants to craft.
     
  5. ErikRulez

    ErikRulez Avatar

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    I voted Yes and No. I think the framework is there but I am not a fan of how random the MW/enchant can be. This is what I would like to see:

    1. MW/Enchanting options based on crafting level, the higher you are the more and stronger options you get. This allows more dedicated craftsmen to offer options for items that may not be normally available.

    2. MW/Enchanting strength based on crafting level and add the RNG here to let this be variable. As the crafter gains skill the min/max values they can achieve grow. This allows more dedicated craftsmen to have stronger masterworks/enchantments on average than most.

    (These first two fix the randomness that has always bothered me about crafting. I tried to make a one thing but oops, I made something different. This lets me make what I want but the scaled RNG tells me how successful I was at making it.)

    3. MW/Enchanting based on components. If I want to add strength attribute to something maybe use 5 troll blood, if I want to increase durability use 3 dragon blood, ect... This would give us something else to put in the loot tables that is worth something. So instead of finally killing that dragon and getting a bit of gold and a lot of disappointment, you might get some dragons blood, dragon scales ( not sure where serpent scales will come from now... serpents?), and/or dragons teeth that can be used in crafting. These ingredients should be placed to encourage avatars to hunt for a variety of mobs instead of focusing on a very few sweet spots. We should also have to get a number of them to craft an item and have the mob only drop a few, similar to essenses now.

    (This makes crafting some items pretty complex but, if you want to give incentive for players to buy instead of craft, you need to make the items more time consuming to make)

    4. Very rare components, have rare components attached to rare boss monsters that appear for a short period of time. These will give advantage on the RNG and/or increase the power scale for the effect.

    5. Crafting quests that allow those who are primarily crafters to have something else to do to gain crafting xp. Variety is needed here to make crafting more appealing. Especially with "homesteaders" coming in.


    A possible problem with this is that the worth of basic crafting materials (maple, copper, iron, pine, ect...) might take a dive because we won't need as much of them as we do now with the random system. A solution might be to add this to the masterwork/enchanting materials needed. I am not totally in love with that but it is a possible option.
     
  6. golruul

    golruul Avatar

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    I can deal with the grinding, gold sink, and all that, but something needs to be done about the RNG.

    The other week I wanted a longsword with thrust+double slash masterworks. So I crafted 10 longswords and only rolled thrust twice. Of those two, I didn't get double slash. I'm a GM in blacksmithing masterwork as well as GM blades and I just made 10 pieces of garbage.

    There needs to be some way of rerolling the choices or such mechanism. It's okay if this costs more materials (like number of current ingots used + 1), but there shouldn't be sooo much garbage getting produced.

    The idea of a experienced Grandmaster producing 10-20 pieces of garbage just to get one decent item is... stupid, to put it lightly. Someone making garbage 10-20 times in an attempt to get something decent is called a (really incompetent) beginner.
     
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  7. Brass Knuckles

    Brass Knuckles Avatar

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    There as aspects I really like and stuff I don’t like. The enchanting and masterworking RNG I like a lot but I want to find good gear as loot upgrades.

    Combining the two would satisfy both sides for me. Crafters could sell something akin to a work Oder where you could apply say a masterwork from Elrond could show data like ur chances and skill on said work order.

    I find a sword I like and I buy the work orders from you, with ur skulls attached to them. Then apply them with your success chances built into it.
     
  8. Gravidy

    Gravidy Avatar

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    I voted Yes and No. I'm in agreement with most comments above...

    PROS...

    The recipe system is great. I love that all materials are used throughout the power curve (e.g., iron ore is always useful). I love the specific recipes for more advanced components produce results that get used in generic recipes (several "hilt" recipes, but only one "longsword" recipe).

    CONS...

    RNG output sucks. This isn't what crafting should be about. I don't have an issue with RNG placing my "strength" bonus somewhere on a curve, but we should be able to pick our properties (and have luck affect the degree of those properties).

    Crafting is mostly combat. Masterworking is largely about fighting Satyrs and Ghosts, not actually about masterworking. While working on masterworking I've gained 1000 of skill points in combat trees, and only a couple dozen skill points in crafting trees. Combat shouldn't be required at all for the crafting system (although, I do like the idea of some rare components coming from combat play).

    The rare component recipes (bronze wire, meteoric iron plate, etc.) should be acquired through crafting, not through combat.

    Please make crafters crafters again.
     
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  9. majoria70

    majoria70 Avatar

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    Also with our crafting system if GM is not GM let changed that once and for all. GM is suppose to be best but in this game it has no realistic meaning and you can fail again and again at GM. We need a better way to define our progress in crafting and also in many things in this game. Some examples and just examples.

    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]
     
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  10. Admiralloyd

    Admiralloyd Avatar

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    No and no!
    Sota
    Craft = Best Armor\Weapon in game
    Craft time = Over9k for 100 items
    Any Another game
    Epick Armor Arts and much another give real good stats and much better what ppls can recive from bosses and only from bosses
    Craft time = few sec for 1000000 items


    Any another game have
    real best Weapon\Armor Arts
    SOTA
    ton piece of cake...... arts with out any real good stats


    Sota
    Ton Arts drop from any mob's
    Any another
    Only epic bosses and mini bosses drop Arts

    Sota 1000 +-500 gamers
    Any another game 10000 +-5000 gamers

    draw conclusions.....

    What i see in SOTA when playing. This is a bad bike with 150 wheels.
    Many of these wheels are not necessary for him, but rather 148.


    I can not list all, but!
    Bank to do such as in any game. With any item you can pick up in any city.
    This is the most stupid wheel that they drank. But there remained a huge process from this wheel that does not allow stacked items stacked in different cities.

    and we continue sawing off these wheels trying to remind how a modern game should look

    Time to Open eyes ppls......
     
  11. Rada Torment

    Rada Torment Community Ambassador (ES)

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    There are some top quality feedback posts in this thread, gj.

    For me its really simple, when I played and saw MMOs ten or twenty years ago with better crafting, I know devs can do it better. Better is equal to fun, without fun there is not any good system or mechanics. Some good examples; SWG, Vanguard, EVE... many old MMOs with really fun and challenging crafting systems.

    Hopefully Bzus will read this and realize we need something better, this game needs something better.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2019
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  12. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

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    The premise of the crafting system and material bonuses and customization is a great foundation and always has been.
    We keep saying we want choice to matter, what better way than to allow such granular customization? The masterwork/enchanting slot machine (and resulting frustration and waste) has always been the issue - solving this problem with "specialization" I personally think is the wrong move - specialization could offer so much more than just being the bandaid fix to a system that should just be...fixed.

    The original system, discovering recipes, and having crafting be about crafting - was great. More and more, crafting is only a measure of how much money (earned through other means like adventuring) one is willing to dump into it. The reliance on adventuring for funding as well as recipes, as well as making even the harvesting process be combat focused, the addition of best in slot artifacts for nearly every gear slot, has marginalized the crafting system considerably. And you simply can't make money doing it (over selling the raw materials) because the final gear products are far too costly to make, and disposable.

    Recipes should be earned/unlocked through crafting.
    Levelling crafting skills should make a more meaningful difference. The % increases are a pittance for millions of XP spent. The refining speed for example, at grandmaster (from lvl 1) makes less difference in refining time than simply crafting in a basement with less lag.

    There is simply no good reason to require tedious hours and hours of refining and component crafting - it isn't adding anything to the system.
    There's no reason to force players to waste materials fighting the RNG - I'd rather see the costs of recipes raised to the level deemed appropriate than continuing to make it 99% about luck.

    There is no good reason to have crafting be so adventuring-dependent. Supply bag only recipes is a major obstacle to players getting into crafting and it simply isn't necessary. Crafting has no cash faucets but a myriad of cash sinks, this should be addressed. Let being an artisan be a viable way to play the game instead of something people do 'in their off time' while streaming netflix since the only interaction required is to click a button and type "20" every few minutes.
     
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  13. Time Lord

    Time Lord Avatar

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    I've said this a million times o_O
    [​IMG]
    :eek: ">It needs to be linked with astrology<" :confused:
    Take luck out and put timing in!

    Everything in our world is magical, "except our astrology"...
    and that's the most oxymoron thing about the world we play in o_O~TL~
     
  14. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

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    Maybe in 2003, but today just no. It is antiquated and fundamentally flawed.

    The core problem has always been XP for use, that is the unstable foundation that system is built on and is either directly or indirectly responsible for virtually everything wrong with the system.

    Stupid amount of grind? Needed to balance XP gain.
    Metric tons of worthless junk produced? Natural result of the grind.
    Infuriating levels of RNG? Grind means that lots of components need to be handed out, leading to RNG needed to balance high end crafters.
     
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