[Opinion] At 100x, Mass Production is over-powered

[Harzel]

<p>I'm a bit surprised no one else has commented on this.</p><p>Whether or not you agree with my assessment, 100x Mass Production is a <strong><span style="color: #339966;">drastic </span></strong>game changer.  For consumables made from common harvests it effectively makes supply infinite.  In a few minutes, one crafter can create more of an item than will typically be bought on the broker (by all buyers) for at least a week, possible a month or more.</p><p>For example, with a Potion of Progress (of which I have plenty), my WW can currently produce 4400 arrows in 10 minutes.  Mass Production turns that into 440,000.  At least on my server (Butcherblock) I would estimate that that is at least 10x the number of T9 arrows (of all kinds) that are bought in a week on the broker.</p><p>In addition, it is my experience is that there is generally at least one crafter around who likes to be a "volunteer" and sell common consumables at or near the cost of fuel.  Currently, the supply they put on the broker sort of comes and goes.  Mass Production will mean that with the same amount of time they expend currently, they will probably be able to supply the entire demand on the server, more or less constantly.</p><p>Depending on your sensibilities, you may think that this is a good thing.  And admittedly, 100x Mass Production is will be a huge relief for folks who are, for one reason or another, obliged to produce consumables for friends, guildies, etc.</p><p>However, it certainly would have been my preference to see a more modest change, say a top rate of 10x, to see how that worked out.</p><p>H.</p>

[Opeij]

<p>I actually agree with you. I think instead of going 1/5/10/25/50/100 it should be more like 1/2/5/10/15/20 or 1/2/4/8/12/16.</p><p>Also, when producing 100 of something, it won't fit in a single sales container (unless i'm crazy and didn't know there were containers with more than 96 slots?) which just creates needless clutter. And, with the new thing of ammo only using 1 ammo for each autoattack *round*, the demand for ammo goes down significantly. Suddenly there's a HUGE supply and <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">very little</span> fixed demand. Simple economics means that prices for anything are going to be dirt cheap (read: price of materials).</p><p>However, for combines requiring rare components, the bottleneck comes at the supply side, while demand remains relatively the same. This makes these combines come out to be the price of the rare and the fuel (which is what it is somewhat already)</p>

[Deveryn]

<p>I'm all for making it a little easier for WWs and the like to make their vast supplies of goods, but I agree that this is a bit extreme.</p>

[Rattab]

<p>Cureently i cannout agree with the original posters way of thinking.</p><p>For me on a raid night i can use somewhere around 37 stacks of arrows (no im not a ranger) in 3 hours around 50 of each type of cure pot, and heaven forbid i was a poison user. on many servers people ask why price are so high it comes down to two reasons its time and people dont like to make them. this prestige alleviates that problem  </p><p>crafters wont have to spend so many hours some times days doing just one thing so many hours on occasion i have been accused as being a bot cause i was trying to keep up with arrow demand</p>

[Geothe]

<p>On top of this.</p><p>Arrow consumption is going to DROP drastically.The beta patch a few days ago changed Ranged Auto Attack so that MA/Flurry/AE autos do not consume extra arrows.It is 1 arrow per attack, no matter what your MA/Flurry etc is.</p>

[Whilhelmina]

<p>I agree with those that think it's too extreme.</p><p>As someone who crafted for profit, I used to make money crafting arrows, cure potions and food. Food economy was killed with tradeskill assistant and Withered Lands. Now every type of crafting for profit will be gone.</p>

[Maroger]

<p>I disagree - the more we can product at one time the less we have to craft for alts. I like the idea of doing 100 of stuff - especially arrows, totems and food, and potions.  Leave it like it is.</p>

[Opeij]

<p>From a purely for-profit crafter, this change sucks. One or two crafters can flood the market with more stuff than anybody would ever need, and if they set the price at-cost, then everybody else looses out on any idea of making a profit. For consumables, a lot isn't neccessarily so bad, however 100 of a combine is just ridiculous. For me, without any potions going, it takes about 24-30 seconds per combine of totems/arrows. So to produce 100 combines of totems/arrows, it would take me 2400-3000 seconds (40-50 minutes). Going from 2400-3000 seconds (lets average it at 2700) to an average of 27 seconds is a HUGE reduction of time. Now, in the normal 2700 seconds, you can make 100 of these 100-combine combines. Now you're sitting on a pile of <em>10,000</em> product. And that's if the product only produces one thing at the end. For totems, you'll have 200k totems (10k "combines" x 20 totems per "combine") or 2 <em>MILLION</em> arrows. <em>Who the heck needs 2 million arrows?!?!</em> </p><p>However, if this crafting is just for alts (I think the most alts i've heard of on an account was 20ish), then it's great. Take those 200k totems, split among 20 toons, and now you have 10k totems per toon. Wait, that's still a hellishly large amount of product!!</p><p>From this train of thought, the only way somebody would ever use so much consumable is arrows, because you use like 7 arrows per autoattack round, which adds up to be a lot over the period of a few hours (a standard raid). <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2old/posts/list.m?topic_id=524039" target="_blank">Wait, no, you only use one arrow per autoattack round now, no matter the class!</a>    </p><p>So if arrows aren't being used as much, why is there the need to make one hundred combines at once? Totems? Those only need to be used once every 30 minutes (runspeed/regen) or 1 hr (escape). Potions? Ok, cure potions and heal/power potions would be useful to have 100 combines at once. Those get used pretty darn often. Food? Good food lasts anywhere from 2.5 hrs to 10 hrs! I've been using the same stack of food/drink for the last 2 weeks with no problems! If you have alts, this is even less of a problem, because you'll be splitting time between people eating/drinking! Armor, spells, and weapons are all pointless to make 100 of. I bet you could make 100 full sets of equipment, and maybe half of them will get bought.</p><p>Overall, the only thing whose broker price wouldn't get drastically affected is cure potions, as they're the only ones that actually <em>can</em> be used so quickly that enough people would have a great enough demand to match the giant supply increase.</p><p>In conclusion, 100 combines at a time is way too much. IMO, 50 at a time is still too much. 25 at a time is the borderline. Even with 25 combines at a time, you'll be making product 25x as fast as you did without this prestige.</p><p>Solution:A) Cut the amount of combines at a time to be 2/5/10/15/20, at 1/2/3/4/5 points spent, respectively.</p><p>-OR-</p><p>B)Make the prestige a 5-point prestige, that allows you to craft 10-20 combines at a time.</p>

[Illmarr]

<p>I agree that this completely will destroy crafting as a way for crafters to make money.</p><p>The problem is that the investment into it will become so negligable that all it deserves is a negligable return. Ponies, Goblins and Guild Harvesters mean no time invested in harvesting common materials. Making 100 combines at once means no time involved in the actual crafting process. Crafters, like everyone else, already viciously undercut each other. I have a max level of each crafter in the family between my wife and I, but I make enough plat to where I don't make my own consumables because crafters canibalize their own profits a few silver at a time and are willing to sell cheap enough that I don't have to spend my own time doing it. A stack of Rhenium arrows that currently sell for 2P will quickly drop to selling for fuel cost when so many flood the market</p>

[Deveryn]

<p><cite>Maroger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I disagree - the more we can product at one time the less we have to craft for alts. I like the idea of doing 100 of stuff - especially arrows, totems and food, and potions.  Leave it like it is.</p></blockquote><p>100 of an item as the result of a craft is one thing. This is 100x 100 or 200 items in one shot. Then you have to move that all to the broker.</p>

[RandomWalk]

<p>I also agree that this will completely destroy crafting as a way for crafters to make money.  One of the aspects of the game that I really enjoyed in the past was finding a niche market for my crafters to make money regardless of their adventure level.  Over time this has been steadily eroded - for example I no longer make mastercrafted armor or weapons as there is little demand for them.  As Whilhelmina writes upthread even the market for consumables is drying up.</p><p>Whilst I will appreciate the reduction in time spent before each raid making arrows in particular (and the changes to arrow use would reduce that time in any case) I agree that 100 combines at a time is too extreme.  I would prefer to see the progression be 2/5/10/15/20 at 1/2/3/4/5 points spent or, as suggested by Opeij, make the prestige a five-point prestige which allows you to craft 10 - 20 combines at one time.</p><p>Aeriel</p>

[Ogdinmar]

<p>The idea itself is great i would like to make pots and stuff for all my toons faster tbh though the concern of flooding is a true one.   If there is a dev listening i might suggest maybe make half of what is produced heirloom that could cut down and possibly deture a person from makeing too much stuff then they would waste half of it and thats not profitable at all. </p>

[Cyliena]

<p>Not sure if this is possible, but maybe flag items made by mass production as NO-BROKER?</p><p>Personally, I'll be thrilled with having this skill, but I rarely craft items for broker.</p>

[feldon30]

<p>I'm shocked that Mass Production allows the creation of more items in the same amount of time AND basically unlimited (100 stacks) crafting. I would have either:</p><ul><li>You complete one crafting cycle and immediately get the one set of items you created. Then a timer starts and you don't get the rest if the items until after (20 seconds x # of items you crafted). So sure you can craft 100 stacks, but you will get 1 stack upon completion and won't get the other 99 stacks until 33 minutes later.</li></ul><p>or:</p><ul><li>You can create up to 100 items, but then a debuff is put on you so you can't do Mass Production again for 10 minutes. That would limit it to 60,000 items being crafted per hour, which is still a very high number.</li></ul><p>Yes rangers were using 30-40 stacks of arrows per night, and crafting all those arrows was a pain. But a 100 fold increase in crafting ability is using a bulldozer when a spoon will do.</p>

[Senya]

<p>I'm thrilled with mass production making x 100, but I'm probably biased.  I like to decorate and it's not uncommon for me to use 100+ of various building blocks or tiles.  I never craft consumables for the broker and only fill up what my guild bank needs (my guild being me and hubby).  I have all 9 crafters, but when I'm looking to craft for money I'm looking for commission work on mastercrafted/researched recipes. </p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>Opeij wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I actually agree with you. <strong>I think instead of going 1/5/10/25/50/100 it should be more like 1/2/5/10/15/20 or 1/2/4/8/12/16.</strong></p><p>Also, when producing 100 of something, it won't fit in a single sales container (unless i'm crazy and didn't know there were containers with more than 96 slots?) which just creates needless clutter. And, with the new thing of ammo only using 1 ammo for each autoattack *round*, the demand for ammo goes down significantly. Suddenly there's a HUGE supply and <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">very little</span> fixed demand. Simple economics means that prices for anything are going to be dirt cheap (read: price of materials).</p><p>However, for combines requiring rare components, the bottleneck comes at the supply side, while demand remains relatively the same. This makes these combines come out to be the price of the rare and the fuel (which is what it is somewhat already)</p></blockquote><p>Either of those suggestions would be great for me I"d still make my arrows and shuriken to sell and at a reasonable price more often then I do. but with this and the change in auto attack round use of ammo it might not be worth even teh short time. I need to be able to make enough to pay for my own arrows as well as a little profit. Don't get me wrong I'm thrilled with the change in ammo use but lets be more reasonable about the mass production. and before this goes live.</p>