New One Step Combines have drive up cost of Crafting

[Maroger]

<div></div><div><p><span>The cost of crafting an item has now increased  probably by a factor of 6. With this new 1 step combine fuel costs have risen. If your new one step item costs 5 fuel which was the same quantity of fuel you would have spend on the variou subcombines. Let us say the fuel cost   0.14 CP  and that you need 5 fuel for all the combines you would have spent 70CP for the total products.</span></p><p><span>But as experienced crafter know there are times when it goes wrong at the start and you have to stop the crafting process which causes all fuel to be destroyed now as you repeat the reciped - the fuel costs for the total object are non 1Sp 40CP -- In the old methos you might lose 1 fuel at 14CP with a total of 28CP for the total project.</span></p><p><span>I consider this a bug in the design which needs to be addressed - say by only losing 1 fuel on a failed combine.</span></p></div>

[Thay]

"...<span>But as experienced crafter know there are times when it goes wrong at the start and you have to stop the crafting process which causes all fuel to be destroyed now as you repeat the reciped -:What is this "do-over" you speak of? I never "stop" unless i am "done".</span><div></div>

[skidmark]

Stop the creation process before the first progress bar is full and you cancel the creation process, keeping raw materials but losing your fuel. I do this a lot when I don't get off to a good start.

[Thay]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>skidmark wrote:Stop the creation process before the first progress bar is full and you cancel the creation process, keeping raw materials but losing your fuel. I do this a lot when I don't get off to a good start.<hr></blockquote>I was aware of that capability, I just never had to resort to it.I find that by starting off with a couple rounds of durability buffs I am better able to handle a combine that goes bad at the start and avoid having to stop. I can't remember the last time I had to stop a combine because of durability hits, and even when the durability bar decreases below pristine, I can get it back by judicial use of the durability buttons if I do them in the right order.There's truly no reason to stop a combine unless you want to. It may take longer to craft due to a slow combine or two, but it's possible to never "have" to stop.</span></div>

[masterche]

ya i do that stop and retry alot too.It's a life saver if my some freak chance you get one of those -100durability / -50progress, like at the start..Sometimes it can be hard to recover and when you lose most of the durability on the 4th bar, before the first bar is even complete. its easier and SAFER to stop and restart.Sometimes you will get alot of those -50dur through out your item, and sometimes you get alot of +100prog,if you start with to many -50s (lets say 2 or 3) just stop and try again.Alot of people think this is a waste. but heres your choices risk failing to get pristine on a rare item thats cost you a alot of coin or harvest time.or stop and restart and dramaticly increase your odds of getting pristine.im a 49.6 level crafter, i have only failed to get pristine on a rare item twice, and thats cause i had to get up and run to the bathroom half way through the item. When you gotta go you gotta go.PS both those times, it was subcombines, and in my class even if the subcombines arent pristine even if they are the primary component, i can still get a pristine finished product.<div></div>

[Tuppen]

<div></div><div>This may not be the most polite thing to say, but here goes anyhow...</div><div> </div><div>Regardless of luck, someone who has to stop so many combines that it becomes an issue with tradeskill costs is not the best tradeskiller.</div><div> </div><div>The best tradeskillers know how to use their buffs to pull of miracles regardless of a string of durability hits...and should only rarely need to stop and restart a combine.</div>

[Calthine]

<div></div><p>I still file it under the price of doing business.  I'm successful enough that I guarentee Pristine results.  If I fail, I eat the cost, even if it means having to acquire an over priced rare fast. </p><p>Ditto on this.  It does happen that we need to stop a combine occasionally, stupid Random Number Generator.  But that's the cost of doing business.</p><p> </p>

[Maroger]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Calthine wrote:<div></div><p>I still file it under the price of doing business.  I'm successful enough that I guarentee Pristine results.  If I fail, I eat the cost, even if it means having to acquire an over priced rare fast. </p><p>Ditto on this.  It does happen that we need to stop a combine occasionally, stupid Random Number Generator.  But that's the cost of doing business.</p><p></p><hr></blockquote><p>I don't do it often but it does happen and if I need pristine and I am using a rare componet I will stop if I get off to a bad start rather than risk not getting a pristine. I remember 1 combine where it happened to me twice in a row.</p><p>Now with the changes the costs of restarting are 6 times as high as they were -- due to the amount of fule.</p><p>So please add this to the list - I doubt if the developers ever gave this a thought and the price will go higher in the higher tiers when the cost of fuel goes up.</p><p>Message Edited by Maroger on <span class="date_text">02-06-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:40 PM</span></p>

[OperationsX]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Calthine wrote:<div></div><p>I still file it under the price of doing business.  I'm successful enough that I guarentee Pristine results.  If I fail, I eat the cost, even if it means having to acquire an over priced rare fast. </p><p>Ditto on this.  It does happen that we need to stop a combine occasionally, stupid Random Number Generator.  But that's the cost of doing business.</p><p> </p><hr></blockquote>Agreed, price of buisness AND price of being rediculously easy to craft. As long as you are getting 100% fuel costs back (think the 3% bonus will go away cuz of no subs) + raw value back your not losing much, if your losing money or think your not getting enough your not charging enough, simple as that.<p>Message Edited by OperationsX on <span class="date_text">02-06-2006</span><span class="time_text">09:49 AM</span></p>

[Eteocles]

We are lucky to have Tuppen around to tell us what the world should be.

[skidmark]

Sorry Tuppen, but that is a crock of [Removed for Content]. I can pull a lot pristines using durability buffs as well, but the random number generator is well random, and luck is involved. If you don't get a lot of events to counter in a combine, you have to be somewhat lucky. I am not saying I only use my buffs to counter events, but you can double up durability buffs in countering an event without repurcussion. If you do it just in general, it tends to backfire, not always, but most of the time.With that being said, I won't mind sacrificing the cost of some fuel since combines are going to be much less tedious.

[Thay]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>skidmark wrote:Sorry Tuppen, but that is a crock of [Removed for Content]. I can pull a lot pristines using durability buffs as well, but the random number generator is well random, and luck is involved. If you don't get a lot of events to counter in a combine, you have to be somewhat lucky. I am not saying I only use my buffs to counter events, but you can double up durability buffs in countering an event without repurcussion<b>. If you do it just in general, it tends to backfire, not always, but most of the time.</b>With that being said, I won't mind sacrificing the cost of some fuel since combines are going to be much less tedious.<hr></blockquote>No. It doesn't.</span></div>

[Marcuzs]

<div></div><p>If your skills are maxed out for your level then most of the time you will not get major drops in durablity, at least not alot of them in a row. All this means now, is instead of taking the easy route when things start off bad you may actually have to work for it to get it pristine. I've had to fight combines before but I have yet to not get pristine on anything rare. Now if its a regular combine then there is hardly any reason to stop a combine early, unless your almost out of materials. Otherwise just make the item crude and sell it to a vendor to get your money back.</p><p> </p>

[skidmark]

<span><blockquote><hr>Testicleese wrote:<div><span> I can't remember the last time I had to stop a combine because of durability hits, and even when the durability bar decreases below pristine, I can get it back by judicial use of the durability buttons if I do them in the right order.</span></div><hr></blockquote>Please, enlighten me on this right order.</span>

[Thay]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>skidmark wrote:<span><blockquote><hr>Testicleese wrote:<div><span> I can't remember the last time I had to stop a combine because of durability hits, and even when the durability bar decreases below pristine, I can get it back by judicial use of the durability buttons if I do them in the right order.</span></div><hr></blockquote>Please, enlighten me on this right order.</span><hr></blockquote>Not really much to say except that I find if I use my nuke durability button too often I get bad results so i like to use it every other round (or even every 3rd or 4th round, depending on the situation).Same as my nuke progress button...Try using them in a different order as you are crafting...you <b>can </b>see a bit of a difference.There was a post a while back (several months at least, back before September, anyway) where someone talked at length about it. I tried it out and it seems to work well and, like I stated earlier, I have to seriously <b>TRY </b>to mess up to not get pristine now...You can also craft nekkid, or at least <b>not </b>use stat enhancing armor and jewelry...Since your buffs(dirability & progress) use a <b><u>%</u> </b>of your power instead of a set numerical amount, having a smaller power pool is a good thing, because a high satiation drink will replenish your mana pool faster if it is smaller since it too replenishes a %.combine judicial use of buffs with no stat clothes and I can craft non-stop for hours without worrying about running low on mana if I have to spam durability buffs if I get a bad roll on the RNG <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></span></div>

[Tuppen]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Eteocles wrote:We are lucky to have Tuppen around to tell us what the world should be.<hr></blockquote>Indeed you are.

[TeflonS7]

The only time I've ever had to cancel a craft is if <b>I </b>was the one to screw up, not the <b>RNG.  </b>For example, if I started a resin with a root instead of wood.  I've gotten VERY nasty results from the start before (-100, -50; or whatever the heck it is) and have nearly ALWAYS pulled it back to pristine.  I'm fairly certain the negative region doesn't go that far as it's never taken a huge effort to fix. I use dura from the start, by using the 2 that DON'T require power and build up a bit of overflow (this isn't much either, but helps).  When I'm satisfied with my dura for the time being, or when an event comes up, I'll counter with the prog that uses power if I can (if I'm not waiting for it to refresh) and will usually supplement that with a dura buff of some sort and will ALMOST ALWAYS pull a + result with both factors.  Or if I need dura, I'll counter with one of those and supplement with a prog; with much the same results. I've crafted through 40+ lvls on 3 diff. toons doing this and can count my non-pristines on one hand.  T1 simply doesn't count as you only have the progress buff and takes MAYBE 15-20 min. to get through. <div></div>

[Jai1]

<div></div><p>The only time I haven't pulled pristine is when I haven't been paying attention.  Spamming durability always brings it back if your skills are maxed.  Even con or higher are done with the same results. </p>

[EtoilePirate]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Jai1 wrote:<div></div><p>The only time I haven't pulled pristine is when I haven't been paying attention.  Spamming durability always brings it back if your skills are maxed.  Even con or higher are done with the same results. </p><hr></blockquote>Except that it's not an "always."I actually had to quit tailoring because my tailor had such rotten luck with the RNG.  Paying total attention, and using progress and durability buffs, I still couldn't get more than one in four white recipes to come out pristine.  Ruined some guy's rare tunic at 29, on a pair of drastic failures *this close* to the end of the process and just called it quits.  It's like that toon rolled a negative three million on luck at character creation -- no matter what I do with her, I can't get most items up to pristine.My prov, on the other hand, just sails through life without trouble.  Using both sets of buffs I manage to make the vast majority of things to the pristine level, and have had no complaints with her.  And crafting on someone else's toons, I've been fine with too.So it can't be *just* a competency-of-player issue, if I can do everything fine <i>except</i> tailoring on my main.  The RNG sometimes just really, really, really does suck.  And on my tailor it sucked so often that I quit.</span></div>

[Pashta]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Maroger wrote:<div></div><div><p><span>The cost of crafting an item has now increased  probably by a factor of 6. With this new 1 step combine fuel costs have risen. If your new one step item costs 5 fuel which was the same quantity of fuel you would have spend on the variou subcombines. Let us say the fuel cost   0.14 CP  and that you need 5 fuel for all the combines you would have spent 70CP for the total products.</span></p><p><span>But as experienced crafter know there are times when it goes wrong at the start and you have to stop the crafting process which causes all fuel to be destroyed now as you repeat the reciped - the fuel costs for the total object are non 1Sp 40CP -- In the old methos you might lose 1 fuel at 14CP with a total of 28CP for the total project.</span></p><p><span>I consider this a bug in the design which needs to be addressed - say by only losing 1 fuel on a failed combine.</span></p></div><hr></blockquote> Agreed.  I noticed this myself but forgot to post about it.  Losing ALL the fuel when you stop creation is a very bad idea.  Please change this.

[Pashta]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Tuppen wrote:<div></div><div>This may not be the most polite thing to say, but here goes anyhow...</div><div> </div><div>Regardless of luck, someone who has to stop so many combines that it becomes an issue with tradeskill costs is not the best tradeskiller.</div><div> </div><div>The best tradeskillers know how to use their buffs to pull of miracles regardless of a string of durability hits...and should only rarely need to stop and restart a combine.</div><hr></blockquote> With that line of thinking, why even have a "Stop" button?  Maybe you should ask the devs to remove it.  :smileymad:

[DmZB]

<div></div><div></div><div>/Agree with the OP 100%.  Unfortunately, this is only one of far too many flaws in the new design, and even more unfortunate, they are going ahead with it anyway...flawed, broken, bugged, incomplete, and truely *messed* up...ship it anyway!</div><div> </div><div>oh, and to Tuppen above...it takes about 13 candles to make a fighter spell under the old system.  Tier 6 cost is about 5g.  If i have to stop once out of 20, and lose 5g worth of fuel (or worse tier 7 fuel) i am going to drop a brick.</div><p>Message Edited by DmZBaT on <span class="date_text">02-08-2006</span><span class="time_text">02:56 PM</span></p><p>Message Edited by DmZBaT on <span class="date_text">02-08-2006</span><span class="time_text">02:56 PM</span></p>

[Brazarik]

<div>I have 4 level 50+ crafters with well over 300,000 items crafted  between them and never once have i stopped while in the middle of crafting.  I have never not been able to get a pristine from tiers 2 - 6.  I admit  T1 is hard due to low abilities.  I agree with previous posters.  This should be added into your cost of doing business.  It is now easier to craft in general and faster.  So you dont use as much time to craft final product.  Time = money. So you should be making more items in same amount of time and if you craft the right items, then you will be making lots of cash.   This means profit on each individual item has gone up if you give a value to your time and you keep your prices the same.   I don't know, just my two cents worth.</div>

[sarsippi]

<div></div><p>It never should be neccesary  to use the stop button, its just more convenient sometimes. Only time you should have to use the stop button is if you want something other then pristine. Speaking of that, I wish they'd make writs able to give any tier of the item. Specially with the no subcombines coming in, it'd be nice to lvl up while doing writs, since your gonna be making alot of one item anyway and instead of flooding the market, make it reasonable to turn them into a writ.</p><p>I'll use the stop button if I want something other then pristine, or if I used the wrong component.. like I have a pristine item and a crude item.. the crude item will work just fine in one recipe, but not another and it automatically will select the crude item.. I've stopped cause of that many times, but thats my own fault. Or if I get several hits to durabilty early on, I'll stop, just for convenience, its not a neccesity, I could regen that durabilty if I wanted to.</p><p>If you actually /need/ to use the stop button cause you got hit with several durabilty spikes early on, then honestly, you're doing something wrong. I usually spam the Duribilty buffs til I have about 100-200 positive (over the begining start) of durabilty. Depending on the difficulty of the item. After that I just let it go and use progress buffs to counter the thingys. Sometimes I'll need to use some more duribilty buffs, but not to often.</p><p>Only time I dont get pristines is either by human error, or when theres alot of server lag and it messes up when I try to counter stuff, but the latter wouldnt even have mattered if I hit the stop button. </p>

[Khurghan]

If you've never had to abort because of the old 3-serious-failure-ticks-followed-by-2-catfailures-on-a-rare-combine-event then you are either the luckiest crafter in Norrath or you have just not done enough (successful) rare combines.(in response to obvious questions) -Yes all maxed.I have lots all level 60.Yes lots.Of course not - anyone who has had this *event* know's none occur during this otherwise it could not happen.<div></div>

[Tuppen]

<div></div><div>I have crafted over 150 rare items...nearly one of every type available to a carpenter.  I realize that this isn't a lot, but it shows I have some experience.   (I have an excel spreadsheet to keep track of customer orders and items crafted.)</div><div> </div><div>Typically, the only time I have stopped combines were on purpose.  For instance, when making subcomponents that didn't have to pristine.</div><div> </div><div>I have only had to stop combines on rare items THREE times.  I remember every time vividly, that's how I know it was excactly three times. </div><div> </div><div>Why did I have to stop those combines?  It wasn't because of bad luck.  It was because of ignorance on my part. </div><div> </div><div>When I first started tradeskilling, I didn't realize that there were dropped advanced geomancy, weaving, apothecary, etc. books that could be used in refining rare components. </div><div> </div><div>I was still trying to use the standard recipes for refining the rare combines....in otherwords...instead of using geomancy skills, I was trying to use metalworking to refine some ore I needed to make a chandalier. </div><div> </div><div>No matter how hard I tried, my progress was too slow and durabilty kept taking serious hits.</div><div> </div><div>Once I explained what was happening to a more experienced tradeskiller, I realized.  DUH!  I am using the wrong recipe's in my attempts to refine these items.</div><div> </div><div>Once I got the advanced geomancy, apothecary, etc, books for each tier, I have NEVER had to cancel a rare combine again.  </div><div> </div><div>I can ALWAYS bring it back from the brink of disaster with the right combination of durability and progress buffs, even though I have had a few close calls.</div><div> </div><div>Still, even if I HAD to stop a combine early even once every 10 attempts (my current ratio is 1 in 50)....that still isn't losing that much money.   Personally, I anticipate that I may fail occassionally.  I take this into consideration when I price my goods for sale on the broker so that I can cover the price of the occassional failure.</div><div> </div><div>I continue to believe that we should lose all fuel components when we choose to stop the process before the first level of success has been achieved.</div><p>Message Edited by Tuppen on <span class="date_text">02-09-2006</span><span class="time_text">03:58 PM</span></p>