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Crafting

iuliandreiiuliandrei Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 143 Bounty Hunter
edited February 2014 in General Discussion (PC)
I don't know about other people but crafting is a big aspect for me in a game, i played quite a lot of MMOs and explored crafting to the fullest so naturally when i started this game i aimed for a crafting profession as an important goal and it kept me playing even though i wasn't doing anything else in the game.

However compared to other MMOs maxing out your crafting skills took VERY LONG, the amount of time you have to put in crafting here is unparalleled and for such effort it's reasonable to expect equal reward right? I know this game lacks content and everything is made as a time sink but at least after you're done you should feel good about it right?

So after months of leveling and about 2 months of gathering astral diamonds for the sole purpose of buying tools, that's about 4 million AD, everything i gathered, everything i sold at AH was for 1 purpose, maxing out my crafting ability, i realized that i just build a freaking slot machine. Do devs actually know what the purpose of crafting is?
I mean if i want to gamble i buy keys right? i don't understand why everything in this game must be a gamble, do you have any idea how frustrating must be to put this much time and effort into something and after you finish to just blow up in your face?

Yeah i started crafting shirt and pants because pretty much everything else is complete <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> and after 4 attempts i couldn't even unlock a profession slot because i had no rank 3 result, i know it's RNG but it could be even 99% chance the question is WHY? why after all this investment there is a possibility to lose even more AD (those eggs are quite expensive) because you are unlucky.
Was it game breaking if tools increased your chance by 50% instead of 40%? I mean i was better off selling the eggs and buying a shirt from AH.
Why invest so much in crafting if it's no better than opening a lockbox? I don't know but this is a core part of a game for me and after such experience i kinda lost all incentive to login anymore.
Post edited by iuliandrei on

Comments

  • adinosiiadinosii Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,294 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Well, leadership is very useful and highly profitable.... Alchemy is not bad, and can be (slightly profitable), but the crafting professions are...well, only borderline useful.

    I have Mailsmithing at maximum level, with 4 purple tools - now, this used to be a profitable profession - what I would do was to buy the DC and GWF T2 gauntlets at the AH, make the reinforced version and resell them for a really, really nice profit.

    However, after the reinforced gauntlets became BoP, the only way to make any significant amount of AD from crafting is to make the Gemmed Exquisite shirts and pants. However, even with 4 purple tools, you only have a 60% chance of success - 40% of the time you will get the rank-2 result, which barely sells for more than the AH price of dragon eggs.

    I did get a really nice stockpile of dragon eggs when the market was flooded with them - had over 50 in my inventory, but those are all gone by now, and the AH price of eggs has been rising recently - and the profit from making shirts and pants is shrinking.

    I would really like to see crafting get a bit more attention, but unfortunately I doubt that will happen.
    Hoping for improvements...
  • kemi1984kemi1984 Member Posts: 849 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    So unfortunately I need to disappoint you, crafting is NOT a core element of the game.
    Not THIS game, gemmed stuff + crafted weapons from MC & VT are all the items you will be crafting, all the rest is just <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>, period.
    Nancy - Dragonborn, SM Guardian Fighter
    A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"

    1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
    2). Yes. I am panzer!
    3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
    4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
  • ryugasiriusryugasirius Member Posts: 996 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Crafting in this game is only marginal, an afterthought ("hey, we forgot crafting, every MMO has crafting, let's put something together quick!") rather than something designed and integrated in the gameplay (chances are you won't ever need anything from most crafting professions except shirts, pants and the extra AD from leadership).

    It will receive an overhaul further down the road, eventually, but it will never be a pillar of this game.
  • iuliandreiiuliandrei Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 143 Bounty Hunter
    edited February 2014
    Well, leadership is very useful and highly profitable.... Alchemy is not bad, and can be (slightly profitable), but the crafting professions are...well, only borderline useful.

    Initially i wanted to name the topic "professions" but renamed it "crafting" for the sole purpose to exclude Leadership.
    Regarding alchemy i think the potions are cheaper at AH, because they drop (except heroic potion), than crafting it, i see Aqua Regia is quite expensive so you would be better off selling that to people who want to level the profession.
    However, after the reinforced gauntlets became BoP, the only way to make any significant amount of AD from crafting is to make the Gemmed Exquisite shirts and pants. However, even with 4 purple tools, you only have a 60% chance of success - 40% of the time you will get the rank-2 result, which barely sells for more than the AH price of dragon eggs.

    I got mailsmith as main profession aswell and out of the 4 shirt/pants i made i got only rank 2, yes with 60% chance. Unlucky i know but i don't understand how making the process of crafting chance based the game is improved.
    Can anyone actually argue that after months of leveling and 4 mil AD investment the game would be WORSE if you have 100% chance to craft the desired item?
    So unfortunately I need to disappoint you, crafting is NOT a core element of the game.

    Fine, i can live with that BUT if the devs decided that crafting is not a core aspect of the game (even though it would greatly help since content is generally lacking) then why not make it banal to level and maximize? If nothing good comes out of it then why does it require so much time and effort out of you? Why give the impression it's important and rewarding and then leave a very bad taste in your mouth?

    edit: probably i overreacting calling it a "core" element since this term is quite arbitrary but based on the time and effort required i was expecting to be AT LEAST as useful as it is in other MMOs
  • kemi1984kemi1984 Member Posts: 849 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    And I agree with you man...4m to get the crafting tool to give yourself a 60% chance to get the money back looks stupid to say the least.
    But...that's the way it is :/
    Nancy - Dragonborn, SM Guardian Fighter
    A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"

    1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
    2). Yes. I am panzer!
    3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
    4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
  • adinosiiadinosii Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 4,294 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    iuliandrei wrote: »
    I got mailsmith as main profession aswell and out of the 4 shirt/pants i made i got only rank 2, yes with 60% chance. Unlucky i know but i don't understand how making the process of crafting chance based the game is improved.

    Well, the chance of your first 4 attempts only giving rank-2 results is 2.56% - yeah, unlucky, but it should average out in the long run. I have probably made around 100 shirts/pants and the success rate is pretty close to 60%.

    So, while I aim to break even 40% of the time, I make a nice profit 60% of the time ... enough to pay for the tools and give me a steady income - but yeah, it took many months to get to that point.
    Hoping for improvements...
  • rashylewizzrashylewizz Member Posts: 4,265 Bounty Hunter
    edited February 2014
    I prefer it to be very long. It gives players alonger goal.

    I just hope they buff all the other professions not named leadership. Alchemy is useless for example
  • majorlazer13majorlazer13 Member Posts: 21 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Greetings iuliandrei. I too wish more for profession uses/viability. I think truly this game has massive potential, but much of it is not realized. I've scanned the forums and in general you only get a favorable reply from the CMs or DEVS if you add a constructive note to your wants. So in this regard I have been thinking about professions a lot too. In WoW and Elder Scrolls one of my favorite aspects of the game was crafting/professions. It's challenging, fun, and profitable. In this game, you level your character too fast for prefessions to help, then when your level and professions are maxed they are generally not that useful.
    So I propose a few ideas for the devs:

    1.)make some or more consumable items from each profession. Example: Level one/two runes or enchants from artificing. Injury kits from alchemy. Temporary Armor enhancement style buffs from all the armor crafts. Cosmetic or costume items-TONS of potential there.

    2.) Like you said, tone down the gambling factor after achieving purple tools.

    3.)Be able to tweak or move around stats with professions that pertain to that item. Not huge numbers, but little balancing percentages depending on your tools/mastery.

    4.) Have daily crafting chores from the king or his staff :-) ;-) Not huge rewards but enough that you actually pick up your blacksmith hammer and make some plate for the palace guards or something for some potions/companion leveling/AD/gold etc...

    5.) Factor professions into campaigns. This idea might generate a lot of hate, but what I mean is don't make it mandatory, just a small bump for having maxed professions. Like Artificing can make a few fey wild sparks or maybe leatherworking can make armor for the elves so they trade you fey wild sparks for them.

    Anywho, these are just a few ideas in making professions more viable for end game content :-)
  • playfair2playfair2 Member Posts: 9
    edited February 2014
    Same here. I spend lots of AD to get the tools for platesmithing. Bought about 30 eggs of which 8 left. I recently wanted to craft a dread weapon for my other character and noticed (just in time) that this cannot be done anymore, because of the change to BoP where it was before BoE.
    So you need to get all your characters to lvl20 weaponsmithing... this is reallya bad decision. The same for the reinforced gauntlets it also changed from BoE to BoP. Then counting the 60 % success ratio, this makes crafting really worthless in this game.
    I'm going to sell my remaining eggs, because the price in AH is almost doubled since a week.
    Then I sell my crafting assets to some new guys who still think this crafting is interesting to do.
  • iuliandreiiuliandrei Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 143 Bounty Hunter
    edited February 2014
    So I propose a few ideas for the devs:

    1.)make some or more consumable items from each profession. Example: Level one/two runes or enchants from artificing. Injury kits from alchemy. Temporary Armor enhancement style buffs from all the armor crafts. Cosmetic or costume items-TONS of potential there.

    2.) Like you said, tone down the gambling factor after achieving purple tools.

    3.)Be able to tweak or move around stats with professions that pertain to that item. Not huge numbers, but little balancing percentages depending on your tools/mastery.

    4.) Have daily crafting chores from the king or his staff :-) ;-) Not huge rewards but enough that you actually pick up your blacksmith hammer and make some plate for the palace guards or something for some potions/companion leveling/AD/gold etc...

    5.) Factor professions into campaigns. This idea might generate a lot of hate, but what I mean is don't make it mandatory, just a small bump for having maxed professions. Like Artificing can make a few fey wild sparks or maybe leatherworking can make armor for the elves so they trade you fey wild sparks for them.

    Anywho, these are just a few ideas in making professions more viable for end game content :-)

    Thanks for you input, sounds like really decent ideas that can keep the player engaged after maxing out professions however depends on the implementation, alchemy had potential too.
  • l3g10nna1rel3g10nna1re Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 372 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    I would very much also like to see *Spears* Added to weapon Smithing for Guardians :)
  • elzig4elzig4 Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    yeah, it IS kind of the worst of both worlds. You can't make alot of useful stuff AND it takes forever to level; except Alchemy, of course.

    Most importantly, the crafting becomes useless for the character you're levelling, as it can't keep up with your level as you advance. An extreme example: My GF was levelled to 60 almost entirely on Invocation and non-stop Leadership XP months ago, and I just got to lvl 18 in Leadership! Yeah I know it's the slowest to level, but the others aren't that far behind.

    Logically, a major rule for any crafting concept is that, should a player invest regularly in it, it should level at about the same pace as their main advancement. That way, they can craft the stuff that they need as they advance. As of now, it's pretty likely that you'll hit 60 and only be able to craft level 30 greens.
  • ashnvfashnvf Member Posts: 294 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Sadly there are a LOT of bad decisions being made in this game. As time goes on it is getting more and more unfriendly to new players. From my perspective, despite the fact that they merged 3 servers into 1, there are far fewer folks on this one server than we had on Beholder back when it was separate.

    This trend is only going to continue as they nerf the drop rates of tarmulane trade bars, make Dragon eggs rarer, severely nerf the drop rate of coalescent wards from boxes and don't make any improvements to crafting.

    It's truly mind boggling. None of this makes sense from a marketing perspective, attracting new player perspective or retaining existing player perspectives. I truly don't see any new players sticking with this game anymore.

    I do have to agree, a 40% failure rate which requires a huge AD investment in the first place is just not user friendly. Why would anyone want to deal with that. It's the same with the new enchantment refining system. It's far easier and cheaper to just buy what you want on the AH than subject yourself to their unfriendly system.
  • tinukedatinukeda Member Posts: 499 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    The pants/shirts crafting is actually a very lucrative business. I bought my tools ~4 months ago and have earned back (via profits) probably all of the AD I spent buying them. Even with the rank 2 result, most of the time you can sell the result for a large portion of the egg price (sometimes you can even profit on a rank 2 sale).

    As for eggs, the price is actually gradually going down (currently in the mid 50k's). There seemed to be a bit of a buying spree last week that drove prices up significantly (to around 70k), but the supply of eggs has recovered and the price should keep going down (especially if people reduce their buying and they go unsold).
  • iuliandreiiuliandrei Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 143 Bounty Hunter
    edited February 2014
    The pants/shirts crafting is actually a very lucrative business

    Obviously for me it's not, i could have sold the eggs and bought a shirt from the AH and have some leftover AD to buy a rank 6 gem. And these items have quite low stats, the important thing about them is the socket, i mean you're way better off buying a blue gemmed shirt than buying an epic rank 2 one.

    Still gambling like this has no purpose in crafting, if these items dropped from a box where an egg was the key i could understand it's a risk but not after this kind of investment.
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    If you're just looking at buying the tools and eggs to make shirts and pants for personal use, then of course it's a losing prospect. It's an investment that must be made up in volume, and if you're not going to go that route, then you're far better off buying from someone else who has.

    It's not a market I'm interested in getting into, so I'm happy enough to pay tinukeda (and I have) for the convenience of just buying off-the-rack.
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

    Neverwinter Census 2017

    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
  • iuliandreiiuliandrei Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 143 Bounty Hunter
    edited February 2014
    If you're just

    No, i'm not ..even though it has nothing to do with the issue.
  • beckylunaticbeckylunatic Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 14,231 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Yes, ok, I re-read the OP after the fact.

    But, the RNG factor is another of those things that has to be made up in volume. It's like when one person complains that upgrading their one enchantment used too many wards and that means the entire system must be broken. But another person got theirs on the first try. Over multiple attempts, over time, it balances out to what the % chance of success is said to be.
    Guild Leader - The Lords of Light

    Neverwinter Census 2017

    All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
  • iuliandreiiuliandrei Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 143 Bounty Hunter
    edited February 2014
    But, the RNG factor is another of those things that has to be made up in volume. It's like when one person complains that upgrading their one enchantment used too many wards and that means the entire system must be broken. But another person got theirs on the first try. Over multiple attempts, over time, it balances out to what the % chance of success is said to be.

    Yep i'm aware how RNG works except there is a difference between upgrading an enchantment and crafting an item, anyone can upgrade an enchantment but crafting an epic item requires an investment of time and AD (a lot of both) as i already mentioned, so from this PoV not even a 99% chance would be satisfactory. It's about effort vs reward, not the good and bad side of RNG.
  • ashnvfashnvf Member Posts: 294 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    tinukeda wrote: »
    The pants/shirts crafting is actually a very lucrative business. I bought my tools ~4 months ago and have earned back (via profits) probably all of the AD I spent buying them. Even with the rank 2 result, most of the time you can sell the result for a large portion of the egg price (sometimes you can even profit on a rank 2 sale).

    Not anymore. Eggs have gone up beyond what folks are paying for non gemmed.
  • tinukedatinukeda Member Posts: 499 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    It's not a market I'm interested in getting into, so I'm happy enough to pay tinukeda (and I have) for the convenience of just buying off-the-rack.

    Is that a literal statement? Shoot, next time pm me and I'll craft you a set for a much better price :) (fellow forum users discount applies!)
  • tinukedatinukeda Member Posts: 499 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    ashnvf wrote: »
    Not anymore. Eggs have gone up beyond what folks are paying for non gemmed.

    Yes, they've gone up a bit more than that but rank 2 prices have also started trending up to match that (low 30's now vs mid 20's before); that still covers at least half the price of an egg. And the rank 3 results still net a substantial profit (at least 100k) so they subsidize the losses of a couple 10k on rank 2's. Definitely still lucrative.
  • maxilockheartmaxilockheart Member Posts: 43
    edited February 2014
    after playing some time and getting 1 profession to 20 and some others a bit lower, i figured out that professions in this game lacks a lot... i would like to write some feedback :)

    leadership is standalone category itself, it produces RAD and some materials which can be sold on AH, thats good, profitable, interesting, best profession in the game i think :) at least for now

    alchemy is another category... it is quite interesting and original... but it lacks good content imo, it would be good to add something exclusive and interesting to it, e.g. some way to really produce rare crafting materials, not just transmute one into another, this should be more time/material consuming to make it equal to moneymaker as crafting shirts/pants or making AD in leadership, another way could be add more dye crafting options, class dye packs are good, but its not enough imo, its not neccessary to add more dye packs, but at least some single dyes, maybe some standard colors, keep the best/cool colors for ZEN shop...

    those two professions are more or less ok, with some tuning to alchemy as said, but overall its ok, this cant be said about next professions...

    armor crafting professions are quite usefull, because shirts and pants cant be dropped, they have their place on the market, thats good :) this includes tailoring, leatherworking, mailsmithing and placesmithing

    last category are weapon crafting professions, thats weaponsmithing and artificing, from all i know, they dont have anyting really profitable or exclusive so they are almost useless, not good...

    for two categories mentioned above also applies this... 1) they offer upgrading one end game item to better quallity, thats awesome, selfish, but it is a reason to level that profession and profit from it... at the other hand 2) those professions produces surplus of items while leveling which absolutely degrades their value on the market and due to point 1, there are many people who level them and that produces even more surplus items... bad concept...

    how to fix it?

    receipes for non consumable items should be more material and/or time consuming and give proportionately more XP, this would keep the time/money for leveling the profession on the same place, but it would make items it produces more desirable and valuable, because AH wouldnt be full of them for almost no money, producing tons of items just to level up a profession isnt right imo, there should be more reasons to use crafting than just use one level 20 task, you cant even keep profession level appropriate to your level while playing, so you cant make yourself weapons/armors, not right way, profession should be fun to do, you should be happy you can make something usefull for yourself or others
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