Crafting system/Master Crafters Review

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by ShurTugal, Jul 22, 2020.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. ShurTugal

    ShurTugal Avatar

    Messages:
    423
    Likes Received:
    754
    Trophy Points:
    43
    I am aware that this horse has been beaten to death but I want to beat it some more and give some of my observations. I will start by telling about my experience. Over the last many months, I have brought various items to who would most clearly be a "master crafter" with the notion in my head that with the amount of exp they have dumped into their crafting, I would be a fool to not let them masterwork/enchant them for me and instead do it myself. I don't like being a fool.

    Each time I did it, I left with the finished product unsatisfied, with the thought in my head, "I could have done that". Nothing of what they were able to do stood out as the actions of a "master crafter". The other day, I bought a bunch of coto's from the store and converted them into gold so that I could buy 8 ember wands and a bunch of gold and silver ingots with the idea I would take these to the "master crafter" and let them make and then enchant/master work two rare ember wands (all 8 wands were uncommon)

    Once again I left the experience unsatisfied with the idea in my head "I could have done that" for context, my crafting skills are mediocre at best. I have a number of gm's but most skills are still in the 90's. At this point I was so turned off of what a "master crafter" looks like in shroud that when, later on in the day I bought more coto's to convert to gold to buy 2 vex wands, I chose to enchanted and masterwork them myself with results that from my experience are no greater or worse than these "master crafters" could pull off (I watch one of shrouds master crafters daily, Fzol and I rarely see him make gear that really stands out to me as the work of a master). Bear in mind, I don't blame Fzol or any of the other "masters". they are working within the system that YOU created and as such are doing the best they can.

    This right here is a glaring problem with our current crafting system in my opinion.

    A person who is a "master crafter" should ALWAYS be producing superior goods than those produced by less skilled crafters @Chris . That's not how things currently are and quite frankly I don't think I will be taking things to these people to do for me if I can just do equivalent quality work myself.

    My opinion is you seem to be so scared of a crafter actually able to successfully make great items with confidence, repeatedly and your trying to control that process so much that your ruining what could be a great system. This seems to be a common narrative in a number of system "control" that you drive people away and make the game unfun..

    There is another game I play that also has a fantastic crafting system, Crowfall. In that game a Mastercrafter ALWAYS produces the better product. A person just getting into crafting has no chance of making something equivilent to the Master and as such, people seek out their goods and services.

    Have you ever been around a "master of a trade"? If you haven't, maybe you should seek one out and spend some time with them. watch how a master works, the quality and skill that they can successfully and consistently put into their trade so you can see what you need to do with shroud.

    Final take way. In my opinion, the uncertainty with crafting should become less and less the more skilled you get in a trade to the point that you rarely if ever fail if your a really, really, high level master. stop trying to control players and the outcome. all your doing is ruining the game and driving people away. Also, the quality of masterworks, enchants should become better, more powerful the more skilled a person gets at a trade. At precent, I don't feel much incentive to increase my own crafting skill because my experience is it really doesn't matter.

    Finally, a mediocre crafter should NEVER EVER be able to produce products equivalent to the master, EVER. thanks for listening @Chris
     
  2. Charon

    Charon Avatar

    Messages:
    114
    Likes Received:
    238
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Gender:
    Male
    But it gets worse ..

    I haven't confirmed this myself but I was told yesterday that minor enchants now cost 20 durability on 1h swords. What this means, assuming masterworks have been changed as well, is that anything that isn't exceptional will only accept 2 masterworks and 2 enchants and will have 20 durability left assuming there are 0 fails.

    To be fair anyone that crafts already knew that there was no point at all in wasting silver, gold and mandrake on non exceptional items unless you were skilling up or just making a "beater" that you were going to use 2-3 times and salvage but changing the durability cost of minor enchants just raises this to a whole new level of bad/stupid.

    Just another straw for the camels back ..
     
  3. Boris Mondragon

    Boris Mondragon Avatar

    Messages:
    1,332
    Likes Received:
    3,938
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Docking at your port soon
    Brother; It’s actually worse when you realize that the item you either MW/enchant yourself or have someone else do for you wears out faster now as well as artifacts. They have painted themselves into a corner. R/Boris/El Pirata
     
    FrostII likes this.
  4. Boris Mondragon

    Boris Mondragon Avatar

    Messages:
    1,332
    Likes Received:
    3,938
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Docking at your port soon
    Soon, I will be using some beater equipment in the form of that rusty chain I get from the Rise elves and make some simple copper or iron longswords. May just do one MW with one Enchant. The solution is simple yet they refuse to see it. Melee using chain/plate and body slam may be an extinct species soon. R/Boris/El Pirata
     
    FrostII likes this.
  5. Charon

    Charon Avatar

    Messages:
    114
    Likes Received:
    238
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Gender:
    Male
    Agreed.

    If what I was told is accurate, and I have no reason to believe it isn't, then I can't imagine what the thought process was that lead to changing the durability cost of a minor enchant. If anything the durability costs should've been lowered.

    I dual wield and with an Obs potion of preservation active my swords will take 7-9 durability hit per ERG run. If I also grab the blessing of maintenance that'll drop to 3-5 durability per run. I don't live in ERG but use it as an example because I'd presume most people have been there at least once. Without potions or the blessing those beater swords that I mentioned above would either break or have, at best, 2 .. maybe 3 durability left and lets face it the sword glyph's damage has been nerfed so hard that you really need to have at least 2 of the masterworks devoted to +damage % on your active attacks.
     
    FrostII and Boris Mondragon like this.
  6. CatherineRose

    CatherineRose Avatar

    Messages:
    1,069
    Likes Received:
    4,030
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Resting in Devil's Lair in Mistrendur
    I can hear the excitement when making those kinds of decisions: Look!!!! I made it worse....isn't it great. :) !!!
     
  7. that_shawn_guy

    that_shawn_guy Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    1,409
    Likes Received:
    3,738
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Location:
    earth... mostly
    I'm all for making it difficult. But, punishing is another story.

    I have up my dreams of selling custom built 4x4 sets long ago. Besides the lost time waisted trashing 95%+ of the items created to achieve such a goal, there is no way some one is going to pay what it would take in materials to attempt such a thing. Forget about profit.

    Any guesses for how many people make it to top 5% of crafters and are still productively crafting a year later?
     
    FrostII, Charon and Boris Mondragon like this.
  8. Scoffer

    Scoffer Avatar

    Messages:
    905
    Likes Received:
    2,651
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Yesterday i was masterworking some chainmail gloves, my skill level is 140 in chain masterworks and I was getting 1.7 strength.
    After looking at my producer pool I decided this could be better.
    87.4 million xp later I'm now 150 in chain masterworks (a total of 142 million xp on this single skill)
    Still getting 1.7 strength on those gloves.

    I get that skill progression is a curve but at this point I'm beginning to believe those flat earthers.
     
  9. kaeshiva

    kaeshiva Avatar

    Messages:
    3,054
    Likes Received:
    11,752
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Female
    Yeah, 87 million in a skill for 'no noticeable difference' - that's enough experience to what, grandmaster all the crafts? Into one skill, for nothing?
    We've been beating this horse since day 1 though, and its easy to get a bit jaded with it all. I'm in the same boat, with all of the enchanting skills at or higher than 140. It makes so little difference that I have no motivation whatsoever to continue to crank out experience (and therefore little reason to log in and play...buy things, etc.). Again, I understand the 'curve' system philosophy but there needs to be some other reason to progress - linking higher skill level to reliability is an oft suggested idea. A grand master of a craft should not fail routine tasks at all, its muscle memory at this point. A grand master should be able to influence/control what they are making instead of it being determined by random chance. Someone who has invested enough experience to grandmaster a skill 80 times over should be a paragon of efficiency. It makes sense, I guess, that a lower level enchanter trying to imbue mystical forces into an item would have less than perfect control over those forces and there be a random element. I can get behind that. But at some point, there needs to be payoff for skill (and persistence, dedication). We were promised this with specialization and, less than one release later, new 'rare' choices were added to the pool, putting us in a worse situation than we were before rerollability. If we want to keep an element of RNG for gamification purposes, I can cope, but having your chances be the same garbage at level 50 as at level 150, is beyond absurd. Those levels need to count for something, else be pointless. Level 150 in a producer skill, even at the current 4x original progression rate, is still a significant time, money, etc. investment. You really should be nailing it by then.
     
    ShurTugal, FrostII and Charon like this.
  10. Charon

    Charon Avatar

    Messages:
    114
    Likes Received:
    238
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Gender:
    Male
    I can't imagine why anyone that wanted to primarily be a crafter would ever stick with this game.

    I do it because A. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and B. I have a thing about making my own equipment but I'd never recommend to anyone that they play SOTA because the crafting is fun and rewarding. It's neither and getting worse.
     
  11. Boris Mondragon

    Boris Mondragon Avatar

    Messages:
    1,332
    Likes Received:
    3,938
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Docking at your port soon
    So let me see if I can try to decipher this vicious circle of frustration. 1) Weapons and armor wear out faster to coerce you to buy stuff from crafters who spend zillions of xp points to get that maybe extra .01 to something. OK, got that. Melee fighters have their armor trashed since they have to get up close and personal, OK got that too. So to sum it up: Angry melee and angry crafters, many will use trash gear or store bought that does not take permanent dmg with no bonuses or garbage gear we pick up mobs. Hmm not much fun in that either. I have presented this solution before with mixed reviews so here it goes again for what its worth:

    Figure out the cost of materials both to make and enchant/masterwork gear/weapons. Add 10% to it and have NPC merchants pay the crafter the cost of that item. Crafters can make a bit of money with all things crafted and make more money for special orders. Result; Crafters have a reason to craft, gatherers to gather and feed crafters with much needed mats and you can now reduce armor/weapon dmg. Not too difficult of a formula regardless of how many flaws people can find and I know at least one will scoff at it. Does @Chris have anything better to give at the moment. I don't' think so. So there it is from the Pirate who will be using trash gear soon as I cycle through all the stuff I have still left. Oh Artifacts will wear out faster too and become what? Essence for as of yet an unknown reason/use. It does not look good from the way I see it. Time to fix this and put all this bard/taming stuff on backburner if you ask me. R/Boris/El Pirata/soon to be wearing trash gear and weapons.
     
    ShurTugal and Charon like this.
  12. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

    Messages:
    1,277
    Likes Received:
    4,028
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Crafters Town
    Wait... What ???

    Last time i made a post like this i was shunned and clobbered for asking the same things ....

    Wheres the pitch forks ? oplek , Gia2 , Restless , Illiaro , Gustach , Mishikal .. cmon guys assemble the army and get him ... i hate getting all the attention .

    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...progression-for-crafting-needs-fixing.160762/

    [​IMG]

    Its funny now reading back to that post how half of the crafting community stabbed me in the back , the other half ignored me and i was left battling an army of alts in the forum , it was obvious what Darkstarr reply would be back then, when asked to fix this issue '' We cant do that players would be up in arms '' so one year later were debating the same issue again , maybe this time crafters will stand together ..and maybe Chris will finally do something about it ..but thats alot of maybe's .

    And these are for posterity replies to my thread '' Crafting leveling Progression needs to be fixed'' :)

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    This guy was right .. just didnt see it at the time ..

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2020
  13. ShurTugal

    ShurTugal Avatar

    Messages:
    423
    Likes Received:
    754
    Trophy Points:
    43
  14. Pifester

    Pifester Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    205
    Likes Received:
    427
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Middle of No-Where Alaska
    You will still be getting that 1.7 at 165 skill. Keep in mind, this is on QA, but here is a look at what effects and strengths are at that level. The base effects of boots and gloves are the same, so ya... 1,7 still, after almost 600m xp

    sorry for the formatting, but I was am having a hard time figuring out how to add and keep spacing

    XP used 594807549
    165 Cloth Masterworking Ring +9(2x)/Table+5/no devotional Blessing +5
    1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
    95% 92% 53% 17% 9%
    Sprint Power 8.6 8.9 9.1 9.4 9.6
    Move Rate 2.6 2.7 2.7 2.8 2.9
    Minor Armor Defense 8.6 8.9 9.1 9.4 9.5
    Armor Defense 12.9 13.3 13.7 14 14.4
    Minor Avoidance 1.7 1.8 1.8 1.9 1.9
    Minor Focus 8.6 8.9 9.1 9.4 9.6
    Focus 17.2 17.7 18.2 18.7 19.2
    Major Focus 25.8 26.6 27.3 28.1 28.8
    Minor Int 1.7 1.8 1.8 1.9 1.9
    Int 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8
    Major Int 5.2 5.3 5.5 5.6 5.7
    Durable (+15 Durability)
     
    Sole likes this.
  15. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    I remember that thread. I didn't understand the hate, either. Nothing wrong with the soft cap, but the progression linked to it is garbage.
     
  16. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    5,884
    Likes Received:
    11,033
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Pacific Northwest
    You went to an awful lot of trouble - just to say "I told you so"....
    Doesn't add much to the discussion...
     
  17. Elrond

    Elrond Avatar

    Messages:
    1,277
    Likes Received:
    4,028
    Trophy Points:
    125
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Crafters Town
    Not to you maybe..for those interested the link i posted reveals all the testing ive done to show just how '' non existent '' crafting leveling progression is .
    Contrary to the rumours im only human ( no elf here ) ...to date no human can resist '' i told you so '' ;)
     
    Xiones, Anpu, FrostII and 2 others like this.
  18. CatherineRose

    CatherineRose Avatar

    Messages:
    1,069
    Likes Received:
    4,030
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Female
    Location:
    Resting in Devil's Lair in Mistrendur
    So many good, medium and excellent crafters and players for a time now, which will continue, have been trying over the years to continue with hope. These comments and many more have "I have reached my last straw" written in the posts.
     
    ShurTugal likes this.
  19. Brent S

    Brent S Avatar

    Messages:
    731
    Likes Received:
    1,138
    Trophy Points:
    105
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    DFW, Texas
    @Chris
    Real word example:
    Nobody pays for a sword made by Brendan Olszowy of FableBlades.com and expects to get something that looks like it was made by Windlass Steelcraft or Hanwei-Tinker. But that is exactly what this crafting system gives us.

    Edit to add: Brendan Olszowy's swords start at $2000. before a scabbard.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2020
  20. Xiones

    Xiones Avatar

    Messages:
    215
    Likes Received:
    276
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    Dark Side of the Moon
    I am pretty sure oplek , Gia2 , Restless , Illiaro , Gustach , Mishikal don't play anymore........
     
    Anpu likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.