Crafting/Gear System Overhaul

Enurihel

To the developers, the game is coming along quite nicely. But there seems to massive gaps and issues
The current system is not really broken. But there is quite an uproar on how the system currently is. A lot of people are finding that crafting is extremely expensive, and it's only going to get worse as we get access to higher tiers of crafting.


Big issues with crafting right now and gear drops. Some of this is based off what I've read on discord, and in-game.

• 1)Reagents are extremely expensive, especially for a novice craft (30 copper per 1 item) is a little over-the-top. This didn't make for a good economy. it made for an exploited economy..... Lets exploit a couple quests to bloat our gold.... These people should have been permanently banned, and all gold obtained via this method removed from the game. But instead it seems that most of the players remain, and the gold persisted.
• 2)Volume of Mats needed it is mind blowing crazy to think about how many mats will be needed at Grand Master to make 1 item... i get that we want crafters to rely on other crafters, but needing 30-40+ mats is WAY OVER THE TOP
• 3)Gear drops A lot of people are extremely upset with the mobs dropping gear. And i do have to kind of agree with them
• 4)Economy without having a market place it's kind of hard to get an economy going. And it took a little over week before we got our first town in the River Lands. And the economy was jump started by people exploiting the game. I think even more issues would have been seen if this didn't occur.
• 5)Anvils Area Needs a ton of work still. No one up there to promote skills, have to make a massive journey to river lands just to promote your skills. The vendors are selling River Land recipes which also can't be crafted in the Anvils area. Due to these issues a lot of players that started in the Anvils migrated to the Riverlands, leaving the Anvils area to suffer. The towns are still at best cross-roads, but mostly just encampments. I don't understand why so much is missing from this area. Said it was ready, but but feels like it was extremely rushed and then ignored.

How to fix some of these issues (my opinions) The goal here is get more people into crafting, but still provide a satisfying money sink system. We want to engage and maintain player enjoyment, but also not have the game only last 2-3 months once the newness wears off. I would love to see a very robust player driving economy that is thriving and ever evolving.

• 1) Gear Drops - All gear dropped by mobs should be of common rarity and be damaged. IE Damaged Breastplate of Highwaymen.
• ---> a) All dropped gear should be 80% of the power/stats that the crafted variation is. The mobs should also have a chance of dropping armor pieces for said gear as well. IE Metal coating for said Breastplate.
• ---> b) The player can then take this to a crafter and they can repair the armor. IE upgrade from damaged to normal IE common and then get 100% of the stats the crafted version has.
• ----> c) Once the piece has been repaired by the appropriate crafter it can be further upgraded 1-2 more time. Allowing the crafter to increase the gradient of the piece yet again giving further stat boosts. This step should require several additional reagents and drops from the mob types plus region items.
• 2) Reagent Cost - Lower this to 10 copper per reagent, and do step ups as the artisan level increases. IE something like the following
• ---> Novice Reagents cost 10 copper and can used for 10 items
• ---> Apprentice reagent cost 40 copper and can used for 8 items
• ---> Journeyman reagent cost 2gold and can be used for 5 items
• ---> Master reagent cost 6gold and can be used for 2 items
• ---> Grandmaster Reagent cost 25 gold and is a 1 for 1.
• 3) Mat Quantity i'm not really certain, i feel like this just needs a reduction overall. Maybe 2-3 for novice and apprentice, for Journeyman 4-6, master 6-8 and grandmaster like 10. i think it's extremely unreasonable that breastplate should require 100 ingots to make when realistically it's like only 3 or 4. but we also need to be careful not to swing the other way to far and mess up the drive for the need of raw materials.
• ---> a) also believe that we should build upon previous mats. IE Copper Fragments are required to make ingots, Next Tier of ingot requires Copper ingots + a second ingot to make. and so on and so on. This way we can try to reasonably keeps mats to a minimum, but still need to have a steady supply of all previous tiers of mats.
• 4) Selling items Provide a basic marketplace in all of the starter towns. Lionhold, Samia's hope, Hammer rest, Bonfire. Where a player can only list a set maximum of items at a time. IE limit to like 10items.
• ---> a) once people move on and towns start to sprout up, have an option so that the marketplace can be linked to the player storage. Where they can list Iron and have it pull from their warehouse. Have this as a separate tab in warehouse that costs a certain amount of gold to unlock then more gold to expand. IE to purchase 1gold, first expansion 2gold, then 4 then 8 and so on up to a set maximum. As for town tax purposes have the player pay the tax on deposit into said storage

For the Anvils area, i think this needs to be looked at and focused on. Kind of sad that this area is seemingly being ignored by a lot of the updates. and only gets looked at when a SW stops working. Really sad that Riverland recipes are sold in the Anvils area, and then can't be crafted there.

Caww

one of the most common and widely used criticisms of any MMO is "do the Devs actually play their own game?" and given the current state of play, alpha or not , one does wonder if they enjoy their own self-induced masochism...

lamina5432

Solid rework idea, I do think they need to look at what they want reagents to be even after they reduce the price. because something that's just needed for every craft forcing a visit isn't really a fun game loop. They could have some effect as a bonus on the craft is the easiest thought, either time reduction or quality increase. Also having more interesting ways to acquire reagents then every single vender.

As for the material quantity completely agree it's way to much especially for the level of crafting available. I don't think if a GM piece needed like 50 wood to make it would be terrible as that's the endgame gear but by JM having over 1,000 is pretty terrible feeling.

The idea that as you go up tiers the previous tier is required i.e. a tin ingot needs a copper ingot is much more compelling to me then just having copper in higher level recipes.

Last for now is the gear drops, Having things be damaged is one of the options I've seen, it would be an easier fix too for right now over some of the other ideas I've seen though not my favorite of what I've discussed in discord.

Azherae

Caww wrote: »

one of the most common and widely used criticisms of any MMO is "do the Devs actually play their own game?" and given the current state of play, alpha or not , one does wonder if they enjoy their own self-induced masochism...

In order to experience and understand most issues of this type, the problem in my experience is always the same...

A person who is doing the work doesn't have enough time to play enough to hit the point of understanding the problem except academically.

Maybe I just tell myself that to justify all the time I spend playing and criticizing games instead of building them, but I've been on both sides of that. So, in short, nah, Devs don't have time to play their own games, to gather data from other games, etc. They count on us for that, I hope.

nanfoodle

I have spent allot of time crafting for Phase 3. Early crafting not good enough. Time put in for coin return is way too low and the cost to craft is way higher then what people can pay at the start. I get that it won't matter 3 years after launch. But that is not a good way to keep new players. Still needs balance IMO.

Still think the crafting is not fun and too much clicking. Seems to be designed around trying to make something complex first over fun first. How they messed up SWToRs crafting systems. It was so fun to play with.