So...crafting spec WONT be "choose your bonuses" ?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by kaeshiva, Jun 10, 2019.

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  1. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    I'm ok with not picking from the list. I would prefer to see new options as well increased number of options to pick from. This protects the market from being linear, as well addresses the issue of not enough options. / choices.
     
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  2. Jefe

    Jefe Avatar

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    So another option that would add power to specialization would be to give an efficiency per specialization level. I.E. -25% cost to masterwork or enchant at specialization level x. Thus there is a direct benefit apart from maybe more draws on the options list.
     
  3. Arlin

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    I will be very upset if this is true. If all specialization does is increase the number of choices we get and/or options we have- that's literally less than a day of work for one developer. I could crank that **** out in an hour. At this point, the only thing I'm hoping for is that Chris mans up and just admits they don't care about crafting and it's low priority. Stop stringing us along.

    And guys? The crafting economy has been dead for years. I've posted about this before, but the way to fix crafting is to take gear away from people. This should be a system like dropping gear on your corpse or something similar. This gives players agency is protecting their stuff (if you recover your corpse - or don't die - you don't lose anything) while still cycling gear out of the system, probably faster than it's leaving now. It also allows for named and legendary items like they want. Allow high level crafters to repair max durability, which creates a secondary market right there. And finally, remove all the RNG from crafting except failure chances on MW/Enchant(and bring back breakage on success), but make skill matter more in succeeding (possibly at an extra cost). This last part would drastically reduce the price of gear, cut down on the worthless trash cluttering the market, also removes all the worthless crafted vendor trash that keeps dropping off mobs, and get the economy moving. Maybe later you need a pass on high level gear. But currently there's no foundation to build on.
     
  4. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Wow, 100+ replies in 12 hours.. I'd call that a hot topic.

    Well I'm not reading all that but I have skimmed over the first few responses.. anyway.. my own personal, unprofessional opinion as one of the first players back in the day to start a discussion on the as of yet to be design crafting system.

    The basis of our current crafting system came hugely from players. From materials with different properties to using gems for enchanting. RNG based results was NOT among the player suggestions (or at least it certainly didn't come from me!)

    I wanted a system where results were heavily influenced by skill. (A little RNG for risk and variance is only natural).

    Take durability for example.. now you have what I call the exceptional multiplier. Basically an average of x4 cost on finished goods due to the roughly 25% odds of crafting an exceptional item. What *I* would have done.. is vary durability by skill. A GM crafter would always craft items with a durability ranging from 100% to say.. 125%.. it wouldn't always be a fixed result. Or to make it more comparable to exception.. maybe a range of 125-160%.. increasing skill further would narrow the range.. 140-165%... 160-170%... (just throwing numbers as an example).

    The point.. skill matters but you're never guaranteed an absolute result. Yet results are more often acceptable.

    Now I'm not interested in rehashing my perfect vision for crafting and economy yet again. As hot of a topic as crafting is, I think a lot of us have heard the same arguments enough times already. For now I'm going to restrain myself from commenting on some of the earlier posts that I have read.

    In either case, I just wanted to throw my hat in again with the 'RNG must go' crowd.
     
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  5. Vladamir Begemot

    Vladamir Begemot Avatar

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    Because the "Heat System" fix that saved combat never came to crafting.

    And now we've given up for the most part...
     
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  6. Bowen Bloodgood

    Bowen Bloodgood Avatar

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    I'm not quite ready to give up just yet but I don't want to get into the same old debates with players. I don't find it particularly helpful for anyone when there isn't really anything new. I think most of know from long experience that the odds of someone saying "yeah I guess you've got a point there, maybe your way is better" is very slim. :) I'm just not mentally prepared for that right now. Besides, I've a ballroom to decorate over the next 2 weeks and I don't want to get too distracted. ;)
     
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  7. Admiralloyd

    Admiralloyd Avatar

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    I just say
    If RNG still stay in Ench&MW this is so funny.
    They can make little change
    give me option to pick what i WANT
    but! i make Devil RNG with stats
    i can recive
    +1-20 dex\str\int
    1-1000 HP\MP
    1-20% weapon\magic damage
    and much another (this is in all games where i play, and ppls want find real good stats) and not look for somethi what the want in effects then look for stats the want.
    they can give 80+ 1 effect to choice 100+ 2 effect to choive 120 3 effect to choice. (we can recive 5 effect mw*ench)
    вместе с Devil RNG stats
     
  8. Vladamir Begemot

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    That's pretty much what I meant. Not given up on it all.
     
  9. amarious

    amarious Avatar

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    BOO HISS!! CRAFTING IS TEH SUX! YO YO DEVS! GO CHECK OUT CRAFTING IN CONAN EXILES THEN TAKE A HARD LOOK AT YOUR SYSTEM! FOR REALLY REALS, FELLAS!
    @Chris @DarkStarr @Lord British
     
  10. Bedawyn

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    Thanks! I'm actually not even at that point yet, until this weekend all my time and money went toward securing my PRT lot, so I haven't even been buying recipes very much, much less buying mats -- mostly just smelting everything I can gather myself. Now that I'm finally settled happily in a bone-quiet town with a shared shop in Fallin' Green, I can start working on things to stock the shop with. (Mind you, we wouldn't have opened the shop this early except it seemed stupid to miss the opportunity of the Welcome Quest this weekend.)

    Still, while I appreciate the advice, it doesn't solve the overall problems I was referring to. I'm less concerned with making money myself than with the overall effect of the crazy economy on potential players and how it contributes to the game atmosphere as a whole.
     
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  11. Rat2

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    For the game to be successful, anything that is done to crafting must take new players into account. New players aren't going to want to spend years gaining 50 times GM in any skill to be competitive. Taking recipes off of venders was horribly damaging to new crafters.

    That being said, and while I sit in the shadow of several museums, any real master crafter knew what they were going to make. It was always about cost. Cost of time, cost of materials. Is there a way to model that into the game?
     
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  12. Ryodin Stormwind

    Ryodin Stormwind Avatar

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    Right. We run a newbie guild. Literally every single player has no idea where to even begin shopping for new gear, and when we tell them, they are extremely put off. Then, when they see the prices, many give up hope. Even basic equipment costs thousands of gold, and newbies aren't making that kind of cash. Something has to be done to lower the costs of low-end and mid-tier equipment if SotA wants to boost the retention rate of new players. And it needs to be much easier to find gear than it is currently. New players don't even know where Brittany is on the map yet...and that's where most gear is found.
     
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  13. Vladamir Begemot

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    Congrats on your land and your store!

    Don't be too concerned, that's what we're all grousing about now. Do grouse, but don't let it scare you away from being a crafter.

    Hopefully by the time you get to that point it will be sorted.

    In the meantime, the short class on how work your way up to being a high level crafter:
    • First load up your Crafting XP Pool
      • Questing gets a bunch
      • Making an item for the first time gets a bunch
        • Getting an exceptional on that item gets you 5x the first craft bonus
          • Crappy carpentry signs will net you 15k per exceptional, and there are a bunch of them
    • Don't start crafting expensive stuff (bronze, crimson pine, enchanting, masterworking, etc) until you've got the big pool (A few million).
    • Once you have a big pile of expensive mats and that big pool, increase your pool -> skill XP per product by
      • Teaming up with a GM and
      • Drinking an Obsidian Potion of Guidance
    • Trick for Masterworking and Enchanting, watch Public Vendors for high end but cheap gear, throw it in a box until you have a big stack, then start
    • Trick for not going broke: Pick items that will sell, keep experimenting or asking until you find them. Unmodified noob gear in noob areas. Scrolls.
      • I would say furniture but be careful, wood is expensive right now
        • (and follow the market, or lead it)
    So yeah, don't be afraid to craft, do that for a while and you can increase your gold stack while also increasing your skills. Hopefully by the time you're a master blacksmith, the specializations will have been fixed and tweaked until they work.
     
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  14. Vladamir Begemot

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    I feel like people send noobs to get ridiculously high end gear (or give it to them, creating the expectation that they will always need +10 Bronze).

    Have them make or buy a basic copper or iron set. Most of the weapons are less than 1000 gold. Later when they save up 1000g more, they can slap on an Enchant. Later, a Masterwork.

    If they are able to handle an area without being in something expensive, advise them to do so.
     
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  15. Vladamir Begemot

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    Loven it so far.
     
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  16. Lars vonDrachental

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    I would like to add some ideas too. ;)
    Maybe they should change the system to recipe based masterworks/enhancements. (one recipe for intelligence enhancement, one recipe for attack speed masterwork,…)
    These new recipes could have max and min values...maybe even depending on your skills in masterworks/enhancements. The final values would still be a little random but within a known range. (E.g. using the "small focus" recipe at lvl 0 masterworking = +1…+5 focus, at lvl 100 masterworking = +20…+25 focus)
    The current needs stay as basics for all masterworks/enhancements but depending on the recipe you would like to use you need an additional individual reagent. E.g. 5 silver ingot + 1 trout filet = +focus masterwork, 5 gold ingot + 1 trout filet = +intelligence enhancement, …

    In this context the masterwork/enhancement skill lvl could also define the number of possible addable masterworks/enhancements to an item.
    E.g. at skill lvl0-39 = you can add 1 masterworks and 1 enhancements to an item, skill lvl40-79 = 2 masterworks and 2 enhancements, …
    And if we do it like that maybe even the loss of durability could be removed...maybe exceptional items could add a +1 to the possible addable masterworks/enhancements.

    Normally the higher your skills are the higher are the chances of success but maybe in this case it should be reverse. So to say you gain the power so add godlike powers to an item but controlling these powers is getting more and more difficult.
    This would mean an incredible masterwork/enhancement would need a lot of time and resources but would be this way quite rare and valuable.
    Basically a higher skill means a raising number of possible masterworks/enhancements you can add to an item, the possibility to add more and more powerful masterworks/enhancements to items but also lesser and lesser chances to perform a successful masterwork/enhancement.
     
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  17. Sway

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    What if specialization allowed you to remove options from the que. No more +10 health, +10 focus or +20 health now choose one. That or give me 6 slots to choose from. 3 to fill up with crap we tend to get often and 3 more with actual possibilities.
    Crafting now is often mindless. In the sense that you don't really choose your masterwork or enchantment. You are given 3 options yes but 2 are junk and your forced to take the one that isn't. Doesn't matter what it is. The biggest choice often made while crafting is, out of the 3 crappy bonus that you didn't want what one do you want? And you now have to decide if you want to go with the lesser health just so eats up less durability or greater health for idk 5 more health?(no point really)
     
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  18. Rowell

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    Personally, I'd like to see the crafting system change so that the effect on an item depends on the materials you use to make/augment the item (want more Strength, use Iron. want more Dexterity, use Copper. etc). Then have the maximum bonus multiplier be determined by the quality of the item (Low Quality, Medium Quality, High Quality, Exceptional Quality). And the actual bonus you get out of the item is some RNG determined by your skill level augmented by the quality level.

    So, if you're a GM blacksmith using low quality materials, you might make a +4 weapon... while a GM blacksmith using exceptional quality materials, you might make a +20 item. On the flip side, a beginning blacksmith using low quality materials would make a +2 weapon, and with exceptional materials, maybe a +6 or +7 weapon. That way, the type of materials used, along with the quality of the materials/components, guides the end creation of the item.

    Of course, you can mix material/components of different qualities...that affects the overall quality (ie Plus Count) of the end item. And the RNG comes into play when determining the quality of the item being created (so when combining two exceptional components to make an end item, there's a chance that the end item could end up being High Quality, instead of exceptional).


    it beats the current system that is literally "wack-a -mole" style of crafting.
     
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  19. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    Well, costs are tied to availability of resources. Unfortunately, all masterwork and enchanting uses two resources (silver and gold), which makes those the bottleneck in all cases.

    So, here is my thought on reworking crafting to be better, before we add specialization:
    • Change the masterworking/enchanting reagents to be based on the skill being performed. There are raw materials that drop with no current use, or new ones could be added with the proper drop rate to easily tie into this system. This then rewards players who engage in their associated gathering profession by earning them drops that are directly usable for masterworking, instead of requiring everyone to become a miner.
    • When presented with the masterworking/enchanting selection window, allow the user to cancel and not accept any of the choices. They would lose the masterworking/enchanting reagents, (hopefully with a specialization bonus to reduce the number), and the item would take no durability damage. Now the crafter doesn't have to accept a bad item, they just have to have the time and resources to keep trying to get what they want.
    • Add a GM-level (120 skill) recipe for each tree that uses a lot of resources, but removes a failed masterworking/enchanting attempt. Highly skilled crafters can now take something that was almost perfect, except for a bad RNG, and correct it; again, this moves the burden to resources and not luck.
    With those changes to the base crafting skill, it really doesn't matter what they do with specialization, but here would be my thoughts on what it should add (to the above):
    • Adds a number of new bonuses to the list of masterworking/enchanting possibilities
    • Increases the chance to crit during normal crafting (to ~80% at GM); exceptionals should be expected of specialists
    • Chance to preserve one (possibly two at GM) of the reagents required to perform/cancel normal masterworking
    • Adds a recipe to perform Specialist Masterworking/Specialist Enchanting, that takes both normal reagents and silver/gold. This will keep these in the circulation of crafting, without the hard requirement they are now. This recipe shows more options to select, based on skill, but eliminates "minor" stats and possibly other lesser effects. Basically, you pay more to have a better pool of choices. You can choose to be more RNG-based and still get these effects by using the normal masterworking/enchanting recipe.
    With these changes, players have more control over the output of their craft. RNG plays a smaller, but still important, part of the process. Gathering is more evenly used, with more direct ties to the related production skills. And the new specialization skills add functionality and benefit, without making the previous skills useless.

    Now, since this requires a HUGE change to the existing system, I don't think its likely. However, I do feel that this would be the best course of action for the game.
     
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  20. Browncoat Jayson

    Browncoat Jayson Legend of the Hearth

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    I really like this! Its basically the same as socketing gems, just using the other base materials as the triggering mechanism.
     
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