Alternative Crafting Changes Proposal

[DoctorMog]

If they keep beating the systems in this game down to their simplest forms, the game will be easy as hell, have no complexity and drive away players who WANT more than 1 button mashing mindless game mechanics.

Some complexity is NOT a bad thing.

[Esk]

@Mefit

You do know you sound like a ... meh not worth it...
Time management is also a thing most adults do or need to learn to do then.
Especially if they have kids, and a job, and a social life.

1st Your making massive assumptions implying people (and me) are not working as we like a system with depth that isn't a instant gratification fix..

2nd wholly missing the point that I would love and am promoting a system to be more casual friendly and less time consuming.
By proposing to reduce the number of items, improve the crafting system so its faster and cleaner and more intuitive, and will allow players to just drop in and out of it.
Unless they what that uber +3, then and only then to make them for work for it the same way DoW should have too.

3rd Your also assuming people will suddenly like the market wards, put those needed items on retainers, not still charge over the top prices, craft low level items, yada, yada, yada...
And if your assumption is right everyone will sell things then were likely going to see a massive devaluation of gear and make those people will large amounts of gill seem ever better off.

4th The problem is unless the new changes up SP and hugely cut down on time in the mini game, they wont change anything much for the casual gamer.
(those poor masses who have no time cos they have a job and a life, oh shi.. wait that means me but.. meh again...)
They still need to find mats off several classes (based on the example we have) or level all the classes needed for that item.
Then craft god knows how many items.

Edit:
Oh and i forgot to say, I hate how long it takes to craft anything atm, it puts me off..
But that's actually more the mini game then the components.. actually its totally that the depth is why i keep trying to have a go at it, i do enough building in EvE.
The changes were getting don't sound like they will do nowt to fix that, just free up some retainer space,

[Wynn]

@Mefit

You do know you sound like a ... meh not worth it...
Time management is also a thing most adults do or need to learn to do then.
Especially if they have kids, and a job, and a social life.

1st Your making massive assumptions implying people (and me) are not working as we like a system with depth that isn't a instant gratification fix..

2nd wholly missing the point that I would love and am promoting a system to be more casual friendly and less time consuming.
By proposing to reduce the number of items, improve the crafting system so its faster and cleaner and more intuitive, and will allow players to just drop in and out of it.
Unless they what that uber +3, then and only then to make them for work for it the same way DoW should have too.

3rd Your also assuming people will suddenly like the market wards, put those needed items on retainers, not still charge over the top prices, craft low level items, yada, yada, yada...
And if your assumption is right everyone will sell things then were likely going to see a massive devaluation of gear and make those people will large amounts of gill seem ever better off.

4th The problem is unless the new changes up SP and hugely cut down on time in the mini game, they wont change anything much for the casual gamer.
(those poor masses who have no time cos they have a job and a life, oh shi.. wait that means me but.. meh again...)
They still need to find mats off several classes (based on the example we have) or level all the classes needed for that item.
Then craft god knows how many items.

Edit:
Oh and i forgot to say, I hate how long it takes to craft anything atm, it puts me off..
But that's actually more the mini game then the components.. actually its totally that the depth is why i keep trying to have a go at it, i do enough building in EvE.
The changes were getting off don't should like they will do nowt to fix that, just free up some retainer space,

I like your whole attitude and approach to this, Esk. I also feel that crafting does take too long. I am not opposed to streamlining crafting. It needs it, badly. But what I'm so worried about right now is it sounds like they are gutting the system needlessly. It is like amputating to cure a broken bone. It doesn't make sense.

[Amineri]

Recipe book
A new interface to show components needed and how to make said components
i.e you click "Big Choppa" in the book, you get to chose:
- Craft (if you have th ecomponents)
- Components List (this takes you toa new page and the same applys again)

I agree that some form of in-game recipe list is needed. At launch, finding recipes was part of the game challenge, especially since all the recipes are stored server side to prevent them being dat-mined, but nowadays all the recipes are accessible through 3rd party websites, so what is the point of them not being accessible in-game?

Streamlines and fun(?) crafting interface
Components take 2-4 success (dependent on size/type)
HQ'ing an item is done after this, allowing mass production and quality crafting to be split so the masses don't need to worry (can still occasional get a random HQ in production)
R01-20 Items (average sucess needed to complete a synth 3)
R21-40 Items (average needed to complete a synth 5/6)
R40-50 Items ( Current system basically )

To be honest, there are synths rather like this already. I was making Blue Coral Arrows (at 6 ranks above me), which are a decent practice recipe, and something that I can sell for modest profit (which is completely my preference). Between the skills (Perfection) and (Assemble), it's not uncommon for me to take only 5 steps to complete the synth.

That said, a reduction in the number of steps for the simpler low level items would make sense, in my opinion.

Reuse of low level components in New Hi rank gear
- Using the copper/willow/hemp components along with some more gear appropriate ranked items in the crafting of new hi and mid ranked gear would stimulate the economy and hopefully get these less used lower items pushed into production and sale.
- Along with helping newer players giving them something to sell on into the market.
- The lower ranked items could also be needed in greater numbers for the higher ranked items keeping the cost down to help with low ranked gear/item production.
-It would also be a good route for SE to add more gear over time to push production within the economy onto low sale/production items

This is often a big issue. If lower rank gathered/hunted materials are only used for lower rank items, they quickly become valueless (see copper ore for example), but if they are used in high-rank synths, they become too expensive for the low rank items (see Sheepskin for an example).

The only way I see out of this is similar to how EVE does it : low rank-items use ONLY the low-rank mats, and far fewer of them, while the high-rank items use many low-rank mats and fewer high-rank mats. Balancing it all is tricky, but ideally very little gathered/hunted material should be going to the NPC vendors.

Rebalancing of item component Levels.
No more R30 items needed for R10 gear

My impression on this is that the recipes were created in order to match the physical look of the gear as much as possible. This is why early-rank MRD axes require Red Buffalo Leather straps, for example.

Designing recipe balance based on how an artist designed the look of a piece of gear isn't particularly good game design.

Huge improvements to the wards system (or the move to a AH)
I'd prefer to stay out of this one atm, but change would be needed to support this kind of move.

There are alternatives to trying to force more functionality in the markets. Functionality could be added to the crafting guilds, making them mini-markets dealing in the parts and materials related to their craft. The NPC merchants at the craft guilds already sell some parts and materials. However to not compete with player crafter/merchants, the prices are very high.

As an alternative, let the craft guilds post task order to players (could use the current task board) to supply parts and materials that are used in that craft. The player gets paid (and possibly bonus SP), and the items are then re-listed (at a slight mark-up) and sold to players. Players would then know that they could go to the appropriate crafting guild in order to acquire the parts and materials needed.

Finally, I'd like to plug my own little niche, a specialization system and re-purposing of the treatise system, located here.