Thread: Future of Crafting In 3.0 - Trends and Value

Since there seems to be a decent number of people watching this thread, I want to present a "prototype" idea for how to address at least some of the issues from the above lists.

The central concept is that we change the benefit of HQ ingredients, from adding quality to "reducing" quantity.

This goes back to my question on the Live Letter thread regarding whether we could substitute a larger amount of a more common item for a single rarer item, but extending that idea to crafting as a whole.
Let me provide an example to illustrate.

Suppose we are making an Iron Ingot. This recipes calls for 3 Iron Ore. If you use 3 NQ Ore, you start with 0 quality. If you using 3 HQ Ore, you start with 50% quality.
My suggestion is to make it such that instead of an HQ item adding quality, it simply requires you to use less of it for the synth.
Under this method, you can use 3 NQ Ore, and start with 0 quality. Or you can use 1 HQ Ore, and start with 0 quality. This assumes a general NQ:HQ value ratio of 3:1, so any HQ is worth 3x as much as its NQ counterpart.
However I did remove the quality bonus from the HQ Ore. Compensating for this is rather simple, all we do is cut the total quality for, well every item, by half.

Here is the end result.

Total quality required for all recipes is halved, making it "seem" like we are starting with all HQ materials every time, though really we just have less quality to crank through. This means that the end result is entirely dependent on the crafter's gear, melds, abilities, and "crafting skill". Everyone starts at 0, whether you are dirt poor and gathered things yourself, or are filthy rich and have an FC that just showers you with HQ everything.

For gatherers, this means that the NQ items you find ARE NOT WORTHLESS! They are just "worth less" than an HQ item... 3 times less... but that are still worth something!

And for adventurers (Tomes, Ixal Items, and Desynths), since these items are generally not available in an HQ form, then the number of items required will stay roughly the same.
Generally available items, such as Tome Mats and Desynth items will stay at the current levels. Time gated items, will require less, and perhaps come with an alternative item that could be used (in a higher quantity) to compensate.

Originally Posted by Kenji1134

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I don't understand how this would help with anything. It'd probably make it worse because the % HQ rate does not increase linearly. Example.

3 star crafting is typically 4980 quality max, and usually you can only get up to 1500 in quality from HQ materials.
>This is roughly "32%" of the total quality, but it only translates to 9% rate to HQ the item. As for your iron ore exaple, while you do start with a 433/866 quality, or 50% of it's total quality, this only translates to 15% actual HQ rate. You can see this for yourself with any crafting recipe.
>You still need to build up 3480 quality from the crafting process to reach 100% quality (100% actual rate)
>The above requires the stars aligning; 8 stacks of IQ + GS with a good condition, or at least 5 stacks with an excellent. Otherwise, the maximum quality you'd get is around 2300
Now comparing; (2300+1500)/4980 quaility, or 3800/4980 quaility. Using the power of simulation...

Reaching 78% of your total quality leads to 69% as your actual HQ rate. This is what I typically get with 7 or 8 stacks of IQ out of the 10 I can possibly fit... on average anyway.

Now let's take your idea. Instead of starting with 1500/4980, we start with 0/3480..
>Assuming the same scenario as above, let's add in 2300 quality from crafts alone.
> 2300/3480 leads to 66% of your total quality, which translates to roughly 23-25% actual HQ rate.

And just to validate the above screenshot, 2233/4980 is roughly 65% total quality, which translates to 23%

All this would do is just make HQing harder for people who cannot cap quality (whether it be through stats or RNG, which is definitely the case for most of hte 3* and 4* crafts) or for recipes that have incredibly diluted quality pools due to impossible-to-HQ-materials (which is also the case in many of the recipes), which is especially the big issue of trying to HQ those goddamn master II books that can only have a max of 1100/8900 quality with possible HQ ingredients.

Suppose I should emphasis this part.
"Compensating for this is rather simple, all we do is cut the total quality for, well every item, by half."

So that 4980 quality recipe (Forager's Sledgehammer) would now be a 2490 quality recipe.
You gained 2300 quality from the actual crafting, not the ingredients, which is 92% of the maximum available.

My idea is that we cut the quality required to reach 100% HQ by half, and remove the influence of HQ materials on initial quality.
Instead, the use of HQ materials will allow you to spend 1 HQ mat instead of 3 NQ of the same mat, for a given recipe.

So instead of coupling your final HQ rate to the starting materials, we would couple your throughput to the starting materials.

Using the Master 2 Books as an example. Right now you need 8900 total to have a guaranteed HQ, and if you magically had all of the ingredients in an HQ form, you'd need 4450 total.
Under my system, the maximum quality required would only be 4450! But you would always start at 0 quality, so whether or not you succeed in the HQ depends entirely on the actual crafting process.
The other difference would be that the recipe would require say 1 HQ of whatever the base component is, or 3 NQ of that same component.

Originally Posted by Kenji1134

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Now I see where you're getting at, though I'd still disagree with that sort of implementation, if only by the principle of us somehow "making more out of less." Not to mention with our current system of crafting, it wouldn't work because of how some of the recipes are designed. Nearly all CUL recipes require one of each recipes, rendering your implementation moot.

Or maybe you can do something like "Having one of each ingredient in HQ will yield you x3 of that craft"...well now then it rolls to making certain equipment, that is, crafted weapons such as Inferno Axe (which requires Iron War Axe). The prospect of being able to make 3 axes out of one because you used a high quality one sounds absurd even by WoW standards... not to mention this would severely bug the crap out of me (since I'm a culinary major) that I could make 3 bowls of risotto magically from one cup of rice... Or if we go back to the first example...we forge together three axes into one super axe?

The way it is right now, NQ ingredients have a place for people who have "mastered" their craft, that they can HQ something 100% without needing HQ ingredients, or even materials that are in constant demand (specifically toad leather/skin, among other things)

Somebody recenl mentioned camping Uraeus for Uraeus Leather. /dream. One of the most engaging things I ever did was camp Dodore Spawns to solo Dodore as THM. took me quite a few ties to et it down, and there were always people around waiting to finish off that kill once I died. At least the Dodore Doublet is still in the game. Too bad it's not Super amazing or anything.