Some ideas for speeding up and simplifying crafting

[Edowen]

<div></div><div></div>With news of a possible crafting revamp in the air, here is a suggestion to simplify crafting and make it more accessible to more players.  It is a moderately fundamental change, so I would not be terribly surprised if Beghn or someone else said it would be too hard to implement.  However maybe it can be done.  First I will list some observations.  Then I will make my suggestion. <blockquote><b>Observation:</b> Even though there are four qualities of crafting products, only two are used much in the economy.  People make crude items for use as non-primary subcombines when they don't care about getting exp and want to work as quickly as possible.  People make pristine items for finished goods, for the primary ingredient in a recipe, and for exp grinding (when there is no better way to get exp). <b>Observation</b>: The finished goods market is pristine quality only.  It is true that crafted items at less than pristine quality do have their uses.  For example, lower quality crafted armor can be used at a lower level than pristine.  However various factors combine to make the demand for such items very low. <b>Observation</b>: For most crafters, inventory space is at a premium.  The change to WORTs to make them all pristine quality was well received, as it saved room <b>Observation</b>:  For some crafters, the current system is easy to use, and obtaining a pristine product is not a problem.  For others, the system is more challenging and many times they end up with products that they end up selling back to the tradeskill basement npc.  The system may appear daunting to beginners, who may experience many outright failures.  <b>Observation:</b> As recipes gray out, they are still time-consuming to do but yield no tradeskill experience to the crafter.   Thus, higher level crafters are reluctant to take on commissions for lower tier products. <b>Observation:</b> TheSplitpaw Saga's introduction of player-chosen difficulty for instanced zones was very well received. </blockquote> Here is the suggestion.  It has several parts <ul> <li>Reduce the number of quality levels in the crafting system to two, average and pristine.   (They can be given better names than that, of course.)  Get all the way through to the end of the fourth bar and you get pristine.  All other results (except failures) result in average products.</li><li>Let the crafter choose a difficulty level at which to work each recipe.  (Possibly have a default setting that a player can set per tradeskill.)  The difficulty level determines how much exp you get for the combine and what you can get as a product:</li> </ul> <blockquote> <ol><li>easiest difficulty - one item</li><li>medium difficulty - for current recipes with potential multiple item products, however many products that is (this level of difficulty would be equivalent to the current system)</li><li>expert difficulty - you get more exp than medium difficulty.  My thought is to do this by adding points to the recipe, but it could also be achieved by adding a modest (NOT overwhelming) number of failure ticks.  (I don't think adding events makes a recipe more difficult unless the chance and/or size of the penalty for not countering an event is increased.)  Some form of the rumored batch combine system would fit here, as applied to subcombines.  (My current understanding is it would apply only to refining raws.  That might require medium difficulty in this system.)  </li></ol> </blockquote> <ul> <li>As the crafters skill level exceeds the level of a recipe, reduce the number of points required to complete it.  This will reduce the time it takes to do.  Recipes can gray out, as they do now, but if you increase the difficulty that can un-gray the recipe.  (Perhaps adding difficulty always un-grays the recipe.) </li> </ul> This system WILL allow a beginner to produce pristines at the easiest difficulty.  To me, that is a good thing.  If an item is in demand, someone will produce it, assuming the materials can be obtained.  So it is not a matter of flooding the market with pristines.  It already is a pristine-only market.  The question is, will it be a beginner or someone rising through the ranks, or a higher level crafter who will want to charge more and generally find the experience less fun than the lower crafter would?  Some other benefits that may be expected to come from these changes include: <ul> <li>People can work at a level of difficulty that fits their skill level.  Beginners can get some reward and a good feeling from their efforts.  Folks who are good at the system can get more exp as a reward. </li><li>Higher level crafters have more incentive to make lower-level items for their customers, since they can get some exp and it does not take so long.</li><li>Allowing the creation of multiple subcombines at one time makes it easier for crafters to really be in the business of crafting.  Reserving that ability to the expert level of difficulty seems appropriate, as folks who earn their coin by crafting should be... expert.  <span>:smileyhappy:</span></li><li>Fewer inventory slots are required to do crafting.</li> </ul> Anyway, there it is.  My ego is not tied up with this, so if people do not like it, that's okay.  But maybe, just maybe,  the suggestion can help make the game a little more fun... Edowen <div></div><p>Message Edited by Edowen on <span class=date_text>10-12-2005</span> <span class=time_text>05:09 PM</span>

[bcbroom]

<P>I think there are some good ideas here. One thing I'd like to know before we talk about things too much...how radically can we suggest revamping the TS system.  I would really like to see some dev input on what types of things are coming out, and where they want things to go.  My guess is that some things are already decided and some things are totally not up for discussion. It would be nice to know what those things are, otherwise we are not being very productive.</P> <P>I think the observations Edowen put down here are pretty close to the mark for 90% of the crafter frustration.  Addressing any of these issues would make the crafting system many times better. I will add two observations...</P> <P>Observation: crafting professions seem to break into two groups, lots of recepies and few recepies. The scholar types are in the lots category, with many recepies per level. The majority of their xp advancement is based on discovery xp. The few recepies category is things like armorer, with less than 20 recepies per tier. xp advancement here is based on subcomponents.</P> <P>Observation: finished stuff takes up a lot of space too. I make very little armor before hand, because I have no where to put it.  I know stacking is an issue, but is there some way finished goods could stack? (sages have this issue, too). How about a "Spell book" container, with 30 slots (or more) but can only contain crafted spells (not adept drops)? Or an armor case, inside which armor peices will stack (restricted however you want).</P> <P>Thanks     </P> <p>Message Edited by bcbroom on <span class=date_text>10-13-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:27 AM</span>

[Kuulei]

<DIV>Some good ideas here.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Something that needs to be looked into and adressed, is some way for the greyed out recipes to be easier or faster to make.  With high skills in your chosen profession, recipes that are considerably lower than your current abilities, shouldn't take as much time and effort to produce as recipes of the current tier you are working on.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Stacking of finished products is something else I'd like to see implemented.  From a sage's point ov view, the most I can have up for sale at any given time is 48 items (2 X 24-slot boxes) and that generally is only spells for 2-3 levels at a time and due to lack of space, I am unable to keep more than one copy of each spell.  It would be nice to be able to stack maybe 5 scrolls in one slot (of the same spell) simply for the fact there is more than 1 templar, mystic, warlock, etc. on a server.</DIV> <DIV><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> bcbroom wrote: <P>Observation: finished stuff takes up a lot of space too. I make very little armor before hand, because I have no where to put it.  I know stacking is an issue, but is there some way finished goods could stack? (sages have this issue, too). How about a "Spell book" container, with 30 slots (or more) but can only contain crafted spells (not adept drops)? Or an armor case, inside which armor peices will stack (restricted however you want).<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>I like this idea, let me also suggest that individual pieces of armor take up one slot, but perhaps a special box can be filled to hold a complete set of armor or just a BP and legs, and the box be placeable in a bag or box to sell as a 'set'.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Where are the batch combines! :smileytongue:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As it is, from a provisioner's look at tradeskilling, it is NOT for fun or accomplishment, but pure necessity to craft food and drink.  It basically takes one provisioner to feed 2-3 people. Any more than that and it becomes hopeless to spend so many hours gathering ingredients and slaving away in the tradeskill zone.  Do you think the armorer, tailor, etc., would spend up to 10 hours if not more, to gather enough raws then spend up to 5 more hours in the tradeskill zone to outfit ONE person?  Thats the life of a provisioner.  Its a mind-numbing time sink just to gather, then to sit for hours on end for ONE stack of food and ONE stack of drink that lasts one week!  Like someone once said (iirc it was Toralu) 'When iI bake cookies, I bake a cookie sheet at a time, not ONE cookie' (or something close to that).:smileyvery-happy:<BR></DIV> <DIV>Anyway just a suggestion to consider stacking of finished products or a better way to store them, giving some batch refines to my poor sage and finally saving provisioners from the slavery at the stove by letting them produce more than 1 final product for all that effort (I am sure the hungry n' thirsty of the server would appreciate it was well) and perhaps give a quantity of 4 when delectable, finished products are made</DIV>

[EtoilePirate]

<span><blockquote><hr>Kuulei wrote: <div> </div> <div>As it is, from a provisioner's look at tradeskilling, it is NOT for fun or accomplishment, but pure necessity to craft food and drink.  It basically takes one provisioner to feed 2-3 people. Any more than that and it becomes hopeless to spend so many hours gathering ingredients and slaving away in the tradeskill zone.  Do you think the armorer, tailor, etc., would spend up to 10 hours if not more, to gather enough raws then spend up to 5 more hours in the tradeskill zone to outfit ONE person?  Thats the life of a provisioner.  Its a mind-numbing time sink just to gather, then to sit for hours on end for ONE stack of food and ONE stack of drink that lasts one week!  Like someone once said (iirc it was Toralu) 'When iI bake cookies, I bake a cookie sheet at a time, not ONE cookie' (or something close to that).:smileyvery-happy:</div> <hr></blockquote> Actually, I get much more satisfaction out of my Prov than I do out of my Tailor, and even though I started Kella crafting back in March and just started Nimari this month, I guarantee Nim's going to hit 30 first.  The problem is actually what Edowen already described, very well.  Anything I make with Nimari, anything at all, is useful.  If I botch a batch and get a crude item, it's still something just about any player in the relevant tier would like to have,  Also, with so many recipes to make and so many ingredients to work with, I can get pretty far on discovery XP, and again, no matter what it is I make, someone, somewhere, will want it.  With tailoring... people want bags, mainly, and that reqires using the chem table to make WORTs, using the forge to make buckles, using the loom to refine and finish the product.  Then there's leather armor, and sometimes, but much more rarely, cloth.  People pretty much *only* take the pristines of those, and then only when they're either already imbued or can be.  Get higher up, and the tailor's market is pretty much entirely in hex dolls and rares.  Those things are a pain in the bum to make, and side skills are a pain in the bum to use, and I'd be happy never again to see another WORT.  Provisioning may take forever, but it's me and the stove and the food raws and sometimes a run back up to the Wholesaler, and that's much, much easier to do. I'm also one of those people Edowen mentions who apparently just can't use the crafting system.  Or at least, Kella can't.  Getting a pristine out of any finished item that isn't grey is like pulling teeth with my tailor.  I fight for every single one and lose half of them anyway.  Whereas I have no trouble making 5 hour foodstuffs with Nim... go figure. And storage really is awful.  There was a long discussion on EQ2Test.com recently about trying to find people to craft out of tier, or finding that crafters have leveled past your request... and honestly, I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to craft out of their current level.  Kella's entire bank is full -- mainly 24-slot boxes -- of raws harvested for various tiers, of pelts, of WORTs and four different kinds of fuel (need candles, coal, filaments, and sandpaper to be a tailor).  And, actually, on that note, all her spots that aren't full of crafting materials are full of poisons, which don't stack, which is a major pain for Scouts and the local alchemists who provide for them.  You know, as many things as are a pain about tradeskilling, making more items stackable would go a long, long way towards making the process better. And Tor's definitely right about the cookies!  Although to be fair, an average cookie doesn't improve my health or intelligence for three hours either.  And vodka drinks very rarely give me more energy...</span><div></div>