New Players (and others) would like to craft arrows but NPC's are 5x cheaper

Economics of arrows are screwed up, and since it's one of those "early recipes" that new players love to craft, I think it should get some consideration soon.

(Forgive me if output has been increased and slipped through the release notes, I didn't see it there so I'm assuming it's the same as last time I crafted them.)

At wood for 30g, copper/iron for 45g, you get 500 arrows for 173g. If you were to instead sell the materials and go buy from the NPC, you would get 2076 arrows for that amount of gold.

With this model, wood would have to cost 1 gold, metal 5 gold, and scraps .1 gold, or the equivalent in non-scrap prices, in order for crafted arrows to ever be competitive with NPC prices. So basically never.

Spoiler: But there is no such thing as opportunity cost, everything is worth 1 gold

Rather than derailing this thread with "Oh, nothing is worth anything because you loot it yourself, and there is no economy, that's just a figment of our collective imagination, and thus everything is redic overpriced" please start another thread specifically about your complaint.

Then see this thread if you still need some outlet: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...n-accurate-cartoon-about-forums.107488/page-2

So my thought is that rather than nerf (raise) NPC prices, perhaps bumping up arrows created from 500 to 2500 is the way to get us making arrows without taking away our cookie.

Or if it's a major gold sink for the game, then raise the NPC prices and throw some rotten tomatoes at me. That works too.

One way or another, crafting your own ammunition is a great feeling that we are missing out on because buying from NPC's is far, far cheaper.

 

I agree with what you said, however, I believe Chris has called arrows "reagents" for bows, so I think on some level there is a desire for them to be used as a gold sink. I'm no mage, but I understand that it is very difficult to sustain yourself with only gathered reagents and so you end up having to buy a certain percentage of what you use. Of course, arrows are so cheap (and were made cheaper at one point) that the sink isn't huge, but it's there.

To me, the Arrow recipe would be MUCH more helpful if there were carpentry tables deep in dungeons where there are no NPC merchants and we could possibly refresh our supply. But alas, the dungeon designers only seem to drop alchemy and blacksmith tables down there. Crafting arrows is probably one of the best examples where portable crafting stations would come in handy, but I digress.

 

I think the best thing ever would be to give player made arrows buffs based on materials, just like all the other weapons. That's what makes a player-made longsword better than one you can buy from a vendor, even though the vendor's is probably a lot cheaper. I suspect that maybe that was planned, and just hasn't happened yet?

 

And I could see this being the long-term answer as well, based on Starr's comments during streaming events about types of arrows. Perhaps players would buy arrows from the merchant, but then enhance them with poison and other modifications to give them specialized use.

 

Hopefully when they do add it they will use a recipes for special arrows that requires crafted basic arrows. That should stop people from only using store bought arrows.

 

I like the ideas, but lets not forget the ever important "New Player," who would like to be able to make arrows AND buy that new piece of leather armor. It's a tiny cost for veterans (who probably all buy their arrows after the first couple of times, and doing a bit of math,) but the wood and ore is a big chunk of a new players loot.

 

A simple solution would be tiered crafted arrows. The higher your skill the better your arrows are. Lower tiers would need less materials. No idea how that would translate into damage though.

 

or just buy arrows if its cheaper. There are other things to craft outside arrows.

 

I share your frustration with the arrow-crafting pointlessness. I know the easy solution is 'buy them' but modifying the recipe to actually make arrowcrafting a viable thing would make sense.
Or perhaps making crafted arrows ever so slightly 'better' than the npc fodder alternative, much like crafted gear is better than the crap off the merchant.

Perhaps something as simple as making arrowheads take stone (granite) instead of metal ingots would be the qualizer here. Stone arrowheads are a thing. Metal arrowheads should be 'better', no>?

 

I remember the devs saying that refining would be tweaked so that, for example, a higher smelting skill would enable you to create more ingots from the same amount of ore. Maybe the same principle can be applied to the milling skill for timber or boards?

 

Id go the other route and simply make the crafted slightly better than the NPC basic arrows.
This would both stop them competing on price but it would also introduce the choice to the player of quality vs quantity.

my old proposal is to introduce "bundle of arrows" which can be crafted which weighs a fraction but that when one unpacks it gives a bunch of arrows.
So add a strap to the recipe, but let it produce a "bundle of arrows" instead.

Since weight management is a major part of the archer experience this would add more fun with minimal change. Also that "argh need to run to unpack the reserve" feeling.

That would make crafted "better" from a utility point of view without affecting combat balance.

 

Yeah, I'd like to have the option of using purchased arrow most of the time, then switching to the bronze/maple arrows for a boss fight.

 

Most new players I think will assume it's cheaper to craft arrows than to buy them from a vendor. I think there is a bit if disappointment involved in finding out that is not true. I think the best solution is to just raise how many you receive from crafting to ensure that you get more that way, especially considering the amount of time crafting can take.

 

Yes, this disappointment is the worst part, it then cast everything in an incorrect light. For all other items, it's better to craft than buy, but the VERY FIRST ONE you do, the one there is literally a quest to do on the Love path, is a let down.

 

@Sannio
This might be one of those things you wanted to get a nudge on?
There is nothing wrong with the quest itself, but rather with the recipe used in the quest which is making the quest giving new users a bad experience.
Thank you

 

Or just make crafted arrows better by adding 1 more base damage when used ?

 

I think maybe the issue is that this early quest leaves the impression that what you craft isn't going to be as good as what you can buy, which for the most part isn't true. It might be better to craft a dagger instead?

 

@Sannio

I liked the touch and the light crafting nudge of that quest. I think it was a good intro. So nothing against it.

However if the "system design" devs won't change the recipe then you as the side quest dev need to switch from that recipe to something else. Maybe the wolf hat or leather gloves or something like that.

That since new players shouldn't start with the feeling of being tricked/swindled by their first crafting experience. Instead we want them to feel that crafting is a nice feature so the quest recipe needs to be something nice/cool/good.
Please check the metrics, almost no one except new players use the arrow recipe. (Due to NPC pricing).

Thank you.

 

Yes, I think @Spoon is hitting the nail on the head here. I love that there's a crafting quest, but arrows are actually the only thing in the game that is a net loss 100% of the time (after the quest) when you craft them. I would really love for them to be a viable craftable item, but they aren't, and so we are misleading the new players.

Here's my line of thinking on their line of thinking (supported somewhat by their comments on Steam)

• I'm an archer I want to make arrows
• Sweet there's a quest to make arrows
• Cool I've crafted arrows
• (later) Wow, making arrows is super expensive, I should have been buying them, I wasted so much gold!
• If arrows are broken, the whole crafting system must be broken

And this is not a correct final thought, they are better off crafting than buying in almost (or all?) cases other than arrows.

I don't expect you to fix the arrow issue, but it might be a good idea to have them make a leather quiver instead, or a short bow? That would be a pretty great start, something they could keep using for a while, until the graduate to a long bow.