Crafting Specialisation - Just Rerolls ?

Scroll up a bit and read Shawns, that's pretty much my thoughts on it exactly. I (and many others) have been proposing similar ideas like that for years in these crafting discussions.

 

Again, through Specialization, add the ability, for a very high cost (not gold, materials/ressources cost) to MW/Enchant a SPECIFIC one.

My idea of this, is lets say I absolutely want a Puncture MW on my spear, in that case I would need X amount of something pointy (Arrow heads maybe, Bear tooths, anything really that would make some sort of sense). Then, when I would do my MW, Puncture specific MWs would appear and I could chose the one I want.

Why is this a decent option? Because you inflate the cost, so not everyone will do it this way, they would do it when crafting for themselves, or when filling out a custom order (which they will be able to put an exact price on!)

I don't mind the reroll as an extra benefit, but at least add more choices as your level goes higher, not JUST rerolls...

 

Ok, you ppl and I obviously have a very different approach to stuff like that.
That's fine. Don't get me wrong.
Hence, as I really don't care enough, I am not going to act as detractor for this topic and gone from here on.

 

And 5gp of that goes to your bank ;-)

 

I do not disagree with you on certain crafting professions, such as carpentry, blacksmithing. For these professions where the xp invested only produces a slightly better chance for an exceptional item there is no issue really for new and advanced players, the gap is basically negligible. But for professions such as enchanting and master working where the real power of a weapon/armour is produced it does. Most players want the best in a specific stat, even if this in only a few percentage difference, they will still go to the ones who make the best, generally the price of the item is a secondary thought.

In my world, crafting specialisation would give big results, and only one crafting specialisation allowed on each account, not on individual characters. Say for Blacksmithing, and in its narrow form, Shields. If you are shield crafting spec, then you get something like a 50% chance at gm to craft an exceptional item. What this would do would encourage new players to specialise in something, and then sell that product onto others for enchanting, masterworking. Sure, some players will have more than one account and will still do the whole process themselves, but they would at least have to get the xp required on each account and not share from a main producing character.

I don't want crafting spec rushed else it will just be a mess and not worthy. The WHOLE crafting system from gathering/refining/producing needs major changes and each area needs a specialisation. For refining much greater refining amounts maybe and maybe only way to produce new types of ore/components. Gathering, produces greater results and maybe only way to gather certain components/resources.

The problem with the game in my eyes is everyone can do everything, with enough time. We need specialisation to encourage a proper economy and something ALL players can contribute to. Maybe we still will go the present top 5 people to get a finished product, maybe they the ones that have invested the most in the power specs enchanting/masterworking as they have a shedload of saved xp from 3+ years playing to inject into it, but they will be fed by an army of other players to produce the finished product which has got to be better for the game than themselves doing it all and reaping all the benefits.

 

I like the new re-roll concept, the costs will be worth it I think rather then a crappy item. As to Spec stuff beyond the reroll they are adding new GM+ options so not sure what is not special about it. I prefer this to the pick what you want. I can see why some of you wanted the pick what you want, as you are the top crafters and it would make your market explode. Having the re-roll is a good option. I don't think my costs will go up much depending on what they purpose the costs will be and if they scale up each re-roll. I love the current system as is so this is a perk to me. the grind pays off in the end for those that do it. its just a long hard road is all.

 

Sure ..it just looks like another unfinished system we will be talking about for years ... like the obsidian trials ..lets add something that gives nothing ..

 

Can I hear an Amen Brethren?

 

I agree with everything you said, except I am not in the reroll hater camp...I love it as a feature...

I am hoping that the inability to enchant current combined artifacts is a temporary glitch as opposed to a methodology to further handicap crafting efforts...

@Elrond Do you know if the inability to enchant combined artifacts is actually intended as a new limitation on variation?

 

Which part lead you to think im in the rerrolls hater camp ?

Enchanting / Masterworking stuff are not Chris turf ..... theyre on the crafting side of the game... things move really slow on that department so i expect to be talking about this again in a year..if they dont abandon the proccess entirely till then... Bzus is currently working on tiered deco stuff ( so he said on his last stream appeareance ) so... dont get your hopes up about being able to ench/mw arties very soon.

 

Points that IMO are paramount :

THIS:

AND THIS:

 

Unfortunately the point I was trying to make covers not only exceptional chance but also masterworking and enchanting, there is a soft cap where leveling it becomes almost pointless and the gap is so tight between a low level and a high level crafter that its almost negligible.

To carry on the example with blacksmithing:

Exceptional chance 28% gained at level 112 for 3,805,106 xp
Exceptional chance 29% gained at level 128 for 17,484,366 xp
Exceptional chance 30% gained at level 145 for 88,374,208 xp

Masterwork Chances:

For 1, 2, 3 and 4 masterworks at level 100 In blacksmithing masterwork (1.2 million xp)
95% / 85% / 48% / 15%
For 1, 2, 3 and 4 materworks at level 140 in blacksmithing masterwork ( 54.8 Million xp)
95% / 90% / 52% / 17%

In terms of the power of the mastwork I took a look at Masterwork Chain Armor and found someone who was level 80 to compare them with.
On chainmail boots they could add 1.3 Strength or 1.3 Avoidance at level 80 (180k xp)
On chainmail boots I could add 1.7 Strength or 1.7 Avoidance at level 140 ( 54.8 Million xp)

Just to put that into context, if you tell a new player that they should go to Elysium and mine 180 nodes they will be able add 1.3 strength to their chainmail. Then tell them that if they go and mine 54,800 nodes they will be able to add 1.7.....

In fact, since you get a slight bonus for the order you apply the masterworks if the level 80 did his as the 3rd masterwork and I did mine first the result would be 1.5 vs 1.7

Level should mean something with specialisation. At the moment it doesn't (other than the additional chance to get durability at level 99) and if specialisation is only adding re-rolls level will still be almost worthless.

 

Oh and while I have the soap box this putting recipes in loot bags is complete bs.
I have put in over 9,000 hours into Shroud according to Steam. I've been playing almost 4 years, most of that time was spent Mining and crafting.
I have a total of 1004 levels in blacksmithing. That's over 212 Million crafting xp.
I can't make a Meteoric necklace.

On the other hand here comes bob, he has been playing for 20 minutes. Bob kills a bandit in the outskirts and loots a bag. Bob can now make Meteoric necklaces. F*** off.

 

TLDR? I put it in blue (and now that blue song in my head)

Agree totally @Scoffer , I was trying to explain this in universal the other night and some idget was whining about exploits, another goes oh the drop rate for recipes is 1 in thousand which isn't bad, to which I said how long does it take you to get 1000 bundles to maybe get a recipe, much less one you need as a new player. Non crafters just don't get it. And again we have the dilution issue of recipes now in bundles, and it keeps getting worse, just like when they add new mw/enchants to those processes.

A special staff recipe or something as a boss mob drop .. okay that makes sense. All the sub components being in there and now new base slot items wtf? It goes against all the other armor slots which you can get from Blacksmiths, Carpenters and Tailors. The rings/necklaces should have been on an NPC like all other ones.

T2 subcomponents should not be gated by RNG bundle BS, crafting has enough money and time sinks as it is (provided you don't have a magic box with all the materials in it with which to test)


What I hear no one talking about, is what I have brought up several times, is the inability to teach new player recipes of the ones flagged teachable or re-teachable. After I think it was R38 a flag was put on characters about how they obtained a recipe. (Pre 38 you could diso all) So if you didn't pay gold for a recipe you could not teach it to others even if it was teachable/re-teachable. We are in R67, years later. This flag should be removed from those that discovered pre38 so they can teach to the community. Its been years, let us help the new players out by removing this character, recipe flag from the veterans.

We talk hard about end product, but how about some gatherer love. Survey for field dressing really? Is the body of the deer I just killed going to move? Do I really need my hand held to see the outline of an ore node on a wall? (it does help on garlic and other things hard to see on ground I will admit that, but that is artwork issue not something I should have to train to do) Survey skills should be meaningful. Survey should mean I know how to carve that deer and get the best out of it. Survey should mean that if I chop this tree well I can find that resin without destroying it in the process. Survey should mean that if I don't shake that cotton bush too much I can get the hopper, or beetle out of it before it runs away. Meticulous should work hand in hand with survey, as it stands now meticulous only adds base things, never a chance for the T2 things or other sub components associated with gathering. This math should be looked at.

All combine and final product skills in crafting net albeit sometimes a small amount, experience for the crafter. You learn from doing so to speak. Masterwork and Enchanting only cost xp. Masterwork and Enchanting should reward xp like the rest of crafting.

Gathering should reward more xp in the form of meticulous. For example a T5 node is 1k flat even if you hit it 7 times. Your reward for training meticulous or buying a potion for it is the extra mats .. well they are only the base mats not the T2 things so its not much considering the time spent waiting for it. If base is 1000, then each meticulous should net some percentage of that for each additional swing. This would need to be balanced but even just 10% would be nice. You get 4 meticulous you got 1300 instead of 1000 (First was 1k each additional 100). You got rewarded for your extra time and patience in fully harvesting that node. As it stands right now for xp building its best just to swing once, that is when you are rewarded the T2 if any and saves you time waiting for meticulous which is of course not in the spirit of the game.

Now for the elephant in the room, Specialization. Before specialization is put in, a pass needs to be made to evaluate cost vs reward on the existing mw/enchants. Why do we need specialization because some of the choices are crappy and no one wants. Also I have said for years the gem proc costs in durability are way out of whack -- think @Elrond also mentioned this. All mw/enchants are base cost by slot type, fix the crappy ones to be worth the durability, or adjust the durability they take.

Before putting in new things, lets evaluate what we have.

I am sure there are other things I have mentioned in the past repeatedly, but this was just a summary of things I have been saying for years.

Edit
Oh yeah exceptional. Years ago (don't lawyer me bro) they put in the exceptionals on the sub components, ingots, blades, handles etc. The plan then was the more exceptional sub components you used the better chances for exceptional end product. Can we have that done please? I know the inventory item doesn't show this only the exp rewarded so I am sure this would be complicated, but it would surely make sense with what we have going on.

Salvaging should provide pattern and scrap. It makes no sense to only get a pattern and not scrap with it. Patterns for shoddy bows, and rusty weapons just took another swing at getting the scrap you need, better to sell those now and generate gold, which messes with economy. I feel that salvaging really doesn't net much especially where t2 components are involved, I think these chances for subs from salvage were upped in starter areas, um why not across the board? (and I am talking about crappy rolls on a crafted item we have to scrap cause no one will want, we get nothing back from thousands of gold and time invested into the attempt) Oh boy I got a copper hilt, now if I had 50 more I might be able to make one decent weapon as a new player. I don't think you folks realize how much time it takes to make things cause you always use the magic dev box. @Chris did the NBNN scroll challenge and finally got a look at what it takes to craft and he didn't even have to spend the time gathering, and from that pulp got some love.

Lets make Bzuz go out and gather the mats to make 1 decent sword (he can have gm ranks in crafting we wont make him do all that work too, (this wont happen cause port would have to pay him for 2 weeks of work just playing the game, to get the money to buy the mats, or gather them himself, but you get my meaning)

 

hum at this point I might as well just skip crafting spec and just craft stuf for myself if they arn't really going to improve crafting i all ready spent a lot of time and mats on raising 3 more alts in the hopes that crafting spec would actually be usefull

 

I still plan to specialize my alts, because they're roleplaying characters, not gear merchants. But no, I don't expect any benefit from it. After listening to most of the streams in the past month, I don't expect them to do anything useful for crafting any time this decade -- and probably not in the next. :-( And since offline characters have to do their own crafting, that means the offline game is also screwed.

 

AMEN!!!!!

I would like to personally invite @Bzus to take 2 weeks, on a non- dev client, and actually try the crafting system as a PLAYER. Spend a couple of hours a day and see how far you can get.

We have lost way too many great players to the punishing crafting system.

 

Agree. The chance of bag drop (completely dependent on FIGHTING not CRAFTING) and then the chance of ANY recipe dropping and the fact that there are far too many recipes in the option pool makes the likelyhood of getting a particular one ridiculous. I have never met a crafter who doesnt hate this. It puts off people getting into crafting, and the only people who seem to like it are people who farm them to sell to crafters who have no way to generate income and bear the brunt of all the cash sinks already.

Crafting recipes should be gotten from crafting. Period. Add some sort of crafting quest/progression/workorder/daily whatever, have players learn recipes by earning favor/reputation with different npcs in different cities for different types, make crafting progression about crafting instead of 'got lucky fighting something'.

What makes more sense?

I learned how to make this by:

• Experimenting, ie I can make bronze so lets try different ingot types (old discovery system, worked great, no clue why it was gotten rid of)
• Learned it from a blacksmith NPC by doing a task/quest/job for him
• Got it from a random crafting task/bag/reward
• Found a particular piece of paper in a bandit's pocket, that I immediately destroyed after reading and refuse to teach anyone else what I've learned.

Which of the above makes the LEAST sense?

 

Even though the recipe market is my main thing, I did not like them becoming drops. Just after that happened there was a guy trying to get meteoric binding recipe for over 2 months. That is why I started to consolidate recipes and try to get them onto my vendors so people didnt have to run around all over the world for hours to find those few recipes they needed.

 

LOL

Lets make Bzuz go out and gather the mats to make 1 decent sword (he can have gm ranks in crafting we wont make him do all that work too, (this wont happen cause port would have to pay him for 2 weeks of work just playing the game, to get the money to buy the mats, or gather them himself, but you get my meaning)[/QUOTE]

Edit, bad quote insertion. (Lace quote)