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Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:50 am
by Skald Haldi
My main is primarily a crafter. Spending as much time as possible building stuff - adventuring is something to do on the side while waiting for those craft points to refresh.

I enjoy high-DC recipes. It's a challenge and it separates the one-focus masters from everyone else. There's nothing quite like working on a DC 60 item (repairs) to really make me smile. I wish there were more DC 70+ items.

In contrast, the long build times of some items makes them hard to justify. I can make the same profits (or more) just building bunches of DC 1 items. Worse, when someone requests one of these long-haul items, it's impossible to do it on the spot.

We might not be in the same timezone. That character may have moved on to other pursuits or found have a comparable item already. Something might happen to my character. Conclusion: it's either money in advance with responsibility to hold the items in escrow forever OR find a different buyer OR be a jerk and do both (not) :D

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:52 am
by CosmicOrderV
Some helpful clarifications:

Arelith is nowhere near MMO levels. My remark was to point this out. We're not even close, but people are still complaining.

Additionally, while everyone is crying inconvenience, there is also just the role-play aspect of actually being a competent carpenter.
Wood stabilizers? It's a chemical treatment to keep the wood malleable, such that it doesn't crack when bent or under pressure.
Natural gums and hardwood resin? Adhesives since shields typically have a bowed shape, such that they can deflect inertia across their surface.
Pine tar would be used as an overall finish to the final product, such that it can survive weathering longer.

All this stuff is super well thought out, and not just needlessly tedious. Maybe crafting points could be lessened? But the depth is great.

Even still, I imagine having vendors in the world as common NPC's to supply some of the more mundane crafting materials, would help a lot to make crafting less of a burden, and even add to the immersive nature of the world.

Glass, glass bottles and glass vials? That's the sort of thing you'd expect to see a whole shop for! I don't see why there wouldn't be one or two NPC's to sell these on arelith. It was a prominent trade for over a literal thousand years of human history (recorded all the way back to the Romans)

Carpentry would be another big one that should probably be represented via NPC's. It's been a part of our real history longer than even glass. So things like spare wood, resins, and stabilizers, would probably be something one could find.

Make these NPC's sell only a small quantity per reset, and for very high prices? Voila. For some folks, crafting has become a lot easier, but at a cost. Quantities are limited. Prices are high. Saves time. And those that craft these things themselves will still have the advantage.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:32 am
by TimeAdept
Additionally, while everyone is crying inconvenience, there is also just the role-play aspect of actually being a competent carpenter.
Wood stabilizers? It's a chemical treatment to keep the wood malleable, such that it doesn't crack when bent or under pressure.
Natural gums and hardwood resin? Adhesives since shields typically have a bowed shape, such that they can deflect inertia across their surface.
Pine tar would be used as an overall finish to the final product, such that it can survive weathering longer.
Meanwhile: adamantine longsword:

some metal, coal for the forge, and a hammer.

the minutae is weeded out for a more simplistic user experience.

the carpentry/alch/herbal ingredients exist *purely* to be middlemen for other, more complicated recipes. They themselve shave no use, no value, except to be CP sinks into these other more complicated recipes.

It sucks.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:29 am
by Volograd
I would love to see more depth in forging. On a previous character I always felt like I was gaming the system with the sheer amount of armour and weaponry I could produce using only a single skill with little to no interaction with other disciplines.

Even little things like needing leather torsos for full plate would help in this aspect.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:38 am
by Dreams
I think this shield is ridiculous. Many of the recipes are well thought out, but these incredibly nested ones are just needlessly complicated. They become so much effort that they're not worth the incredibly marginal gain you get by having one. On the other hand, some of these recipes are absolutely fundamental to characters that use them.

The prices are stupidly high in player shops, from a mixture of general overpricing, player effort in putting these together, and rarer materials involved. Recipes such as this shield and other nested recipes that went in roughly the same time should be reconfigured and simplified.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:43 am
by ReverentBlade
I don't care for crafting RP. It's not exactly good story fodder no matter how many ribbons you put on it.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:24 pm
by NauVaseline
ReverentBlade wrote:
Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:43 am
I don't care for crafting RP. It's not exactly good story fodder no matter how many ribbons you put on it.
Mercantile rp is not the road to 30rpr

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:29 pm
by The GrumpyCat
There are many roads to 30 rpr. Mercentile rp, when mixed with other sorts, can be one I think.

One thing it's good to remember is that people all have their different 'favorites' of rp. Mercentile, conflict, social, drama, political, all different sorts. Just because you do not like mercentile rp, doesn't mean that no one else does. Its good to allow and cater for all different types I think, so that there's something for everyone!

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:56 pm
by Kreindis
There's a bunch of things that irk me about this topic, particularly the "not encouraging RP" aspect.

If you do not want to go through the process of having a shield made, then go grind dungeons and just buy one from a store. At a minimum, there are 2 active shops that have Enchanted Shields.

Indirectly, you support crafting RP without ever having to interact with a crafter yourself. As far as I'm concerned, that's a win for everyone.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:16 pm
by Taerl
I like how it is and how a pain in the Snuggybear it is. To me is just means those not wanting to put the time and effort in for the high end gear won't have high end gear. Making the items more unique vs everyone having the same good stuff. Those willing to put in the time and effort are rewarded with something extra nice. While rolling a 1 is more than upsetting, I'd still be more than willing to start over again because THATS what I want my character to have. So my vote would be for this type of system.

And yes I played a master carpenter and made my share of high end gear. Probably the first one as I hit level 30 all the new craft able items hit the server so I was a busy busy ranger. Fun 😁. Did I mention I like it this way?!?! 😆

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 4:59 pm
by Gonagul
I also think the nested recipes are neat. I wish some of the other high end items, like swords and armors, took more components to produce, because I believe the contrast is the real issue-- that because some things require little to make, the nested recipes end up feeling like a hassle in relation. If it became the norm on all higher-tier items, I think the culture would shift, and that mercantile rp would become even more cultivated. More discussions about the island itself, as it relates to ingredients in question-- how the sands in such and such place have trace amounts of silver and thus the glass produced from it contain some added reflective beauty, or how so and so has been traveling to a secret location in the crags for years after discovering the ore there is especially pure and he'll never give away his secret, etc.

That's my belief at least. Maybe toy with the CP requires as others have mentioned, to compensate a bit.

Also, I'd hope it encourage more to customize item descriptions, even on the more basic materials-- yall come up with such awesome stuff.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:45 pm
by Aelryn Bloodmoon
The recipe itself is neat, and I'm fairly certain there is some other high end gear that has close to a thousand CP crafting cost. If not, then I agree the CP values should be looked at and brought into line, one way or another.

The problem I really have with what I'm looking at, is the unfortunately common lag that appears on the server nowadays. Sometimes, I play, and everything's fine. Other times, I have to click a crafting station four or five times to get it to open, then I have to wait ten seconds to load an inventory page, then I have to wait five seconds for the crafting fixture to acknowledge I've dropped the item or stack of items to be crafted into it...

In these circumstances, with a list of items this long, and the number of times I'd have to click the crafting station, navigate the menu (or even type in the ID #'s if I had all of them them memorized), navigate the choice menu, all while waiting through the lag, I might just shoot myself in the mouth.

Amount of clicks per conversation was reduced beautifully by adding things like option 5- proceed using crafting points until complete.

What I think would be amazing would be if when you selected an item from the conversation script, it checked your inventory for the required materials and then pulled them from you automatically, making the rolls necessary and converting base components into nested components and so on up the chain, and then nested components into completed products - if there's a failure at a particular step or you run out of crafting points, it spits out a % completed production until you secure the necessary components to resume, or in the case of a failure continues if you have extra of the components to work with and more CP.

I'm not certain how much more complicated that would be than what we have now, but if you reduced the amount of menu and inventory lag I had to go through in this way I probably wouldn't complain if everything suddenly cost double-CP, as navigating the menu is literally the most tedious hated aspect of all crafting for me.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 9:40 pm
by Nitro
The recipe could have 10x more CP cost and I'd still prefer that over the matryoshka doll recipe requiring a million sub-craftables with their own sub-craftables.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:02 pm
by Babylon System is the Vampire
Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Fri Jun 14, 2019 8:45 pm


What I think would be amazing would be if when you selected an item from the conversation script, it checked your inventory for the required materials and then pulled them from you automatically, making the rolls necessary and converting base components into nested components and so on up the chain, and then nested components into completed products - if there's a failure at a particular step or you run out of crafting points, it spits out a % completed production until you secure the necessary components to resume, or in the case of a failure continues if you have extra of the components to work with and more CP.

While it might be possible, you only risk the possibility of more lag by adding more scripts to the process.




As a side note, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who likes these recipes and wish all of the high end crafted stuff was like this. I feel a little less out of touch then I did when I made my last post :)

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 5:58 am
by Aelryn Bloodmoon
Babylon System is the Vampire wrote:
Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:02 pm
While it might be possible, you only risk the possibility of more lag by adding more scripts to the process.
Perhaps I've got this backwards in my head for some reason, but if each conversation and menu choice triggers its own script, wouldn't a single conversation with a single, longer script be more resource efficient than fifteen different conversations with scripts firing at varying points for each different item and component?

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 6:33 am
by Babylon System is the Vampire
Now that I reread what you wrote because you confused me some with your reply, I'm not sure I even know what you mean. At first I thought you just meant instead of putting the items in a crafting station it just checks your inventory, which while probably possible would be taxing unless you had a bag that held all of the potential resources like selling jewelry out of your box to the jewelers. If you are talking about a shortcut to the layered stuff, where it just makes it all at once...well, that sort of defeats the purpose of the layered stuff and if they were looking for a answer like that it would just be easier to skip the steps and make the crafting process longer and more resource intensive.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 10:46 am
by Skald Haldi
Off topic, but server cost is a strange beast. Consider that in NWN, every time you switch inventory pages, the server has to recalculate what to show and then send it to you (again)! A script to look through your character's inventory to take the appropriate items is WAY less taxing on the server than you manually moving the items one by one into a crafting station. In fact, this script to automatically consume already exists and already runs every time you craft something -> but it is running on the crafting station instead of on your character's inventory. Net gain.

I suspect the reason that you have to move things manually is to reduce player error. It's a lot harder to accidentally craft the wrong thing if you have to put in the ingredients manually. I'd still prefer automation, but... I can see the point. It's also really fun to have the crafting stations as temporary storage - they are great repurposed for parties and events.

Back on topic. The main complaint here seems to be the deeply nested recipes. Personally, I love those, because it breaks the recipe into stages. You can work on it in pieces, buy intermediate ingredients in shops, or farm out parts of it to multiple crafters.

What we need is MORE of these. Since these nested recipes are rare and strange, nobody is stocking the intermediate items. In contrast, you can find ingots, glass, glass bottles, and glass vials all over the place. That's because you need them for so many things. If the intermediate items for woodworking were more needed, they would be more common and everyone would stock them. Everyone would stop complaining and instead see the benefits.

Furthermore, recipes should be examined again for TOTAL craft point input. Some of these are just crazy because they don't consider all the intermediate craft points that went in. For instance, compare the Adamant/Mithril Shield to the Enchanted Shield? Adamant/Mithril is about 200. Enchanted is 500 plus? That is totally off the scale of reasonable.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:41 am
by Ecthelion
NauVaseline wrote:
Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:24 pm
ReverentBlade wrote:
Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:43 am
I don't care for crafting RP. It's not exactly good story fodder no matter how many ribbons you put on it.
Mercantile rp is not the road to 30rpr
I had not realized that 30 RPR was the achievement to reach on Arelith, thanks. Seriously, not a single clue what this sort of comment means.

The recipes are probably somewhat too nasty to craft, I suppose, more in terms of CP than anything else. Though godsaves are kind of cool in that situation - Probably being able to choose domains for each God would help.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 1:12 pm
by Babylon System is the Vampire
With the new crafting mastery rolling ones shouldn't be an issue until the last piece, and it would still be an issue even if it were one recipe. I don't think that factors in here at all. I took the time to look over what you need to make the shield and honestly nothing is hard (read resource intensive) to make until the last piece which would still be as hard if it were a single recipe.

This thread could just be boiled down to "alchemists and herbalists with stores, and even those without them start keeping the stuff that helps wood crafters in stock". You can make the two shields that are needed to level up before the last one in one crafting sitting assuming you have enough points in the skill to make the last one, since again crafting mastery is amazing.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 1:13 pm
by NauVaseline
Ecthelion wrote:
Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:41 am
I had not realized that 30 RPR was the achievement to reach on Arelith, thanks. Seriously, not a single clue what this sort of comment means.
I'm sorry that it went over your head.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 1:14 pm
by Ecthelion
NauVaseline wrote:
Sat Jun 15, 2019 1:13 pm
Ecthelion wrote:
Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:41 am
I had not realized that 30 RPR was the achievement to reach on Arelith, thanks. Seriously, not a single clue what this sort of comment means.
I'm sorry that it went over your head.
And I'm sorry if it seems like an overreaction ! :)

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 1:46 pm
by Gillesbreton
I think, if anything more powerful items certainly should be more difficult to put together.

Part of the beauty of the craft system is it creates trade between different characters. One character cannot be expected to be able to do everything on its own, meaning that one character will need the services of another to complete a difficult project, paying for that character's goods and services if needed.

Failure is a part of D&D, rolling a dice is in the nature of the game, getting a critical failure or critical success is what makes D&D what it is. Also, on Arelith there is already a crafting 'god' system in place to help stop so many critical failures in crafting.

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 2:23 pm
by Aodh Lazuli
Skald Haldi wrote:
Sat Jun 15, 2019 10:46 am
Back on topic. The main complaint here seems to be the deeply nested recipes. Personally, I love those, because it breaks the recipe into stages. You can work on it in pieces, buy intermediate ingredients in shops, or farm out parts of it to multiple crafters.

What we need is MORE of these. Since these nested recipes are rare and strange, nobody is stocking the intermediate items. In contrast, you can find ingots, glass, glass bottles, and glass vials all over the place. That's because you need them for so many things. If the intermediate items for woodworking were more needed, they would be more common and everyone would stock them. Everyone would stop complaining and instead see the benefits.

Furthermore, recipes should be examined again for TOTAL craft point input. Some of these are just crazy because they don't consider all the intermediate craft points that went in. For instance, compare the Adamant/Mithril Shield to the Enchanted Shield? Adamant/Mithril is about 200. Enchanted is 500 plus? That is totally off the scale of reasonable.
I just want to address this, because it's actually a considered statement.

When you say "We need more of these", I think you have perhaps misunderstood the problem. The problem is not that you have to farm out production of components to other crafters. The problem is not nesting. The problem is not those things... All of those are reasonable things to have in principle - And they already exist in things like alchemy (essence crafting in particular). Certain tailoring items (which require alchemists and smiths), certain productions within smithing... The need to engage with other player characters is already contained, in reasonable measure, in the crafting world. While perhaps it could do with greater variety, the amount of interdependence between crafters is for the most part already pretty well measured.

The problem is this specific item.

Now, just to point out, you've underestimated the total crafting point cost of this shield by around half. It's precisely 978 daily crafting points. NINE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT.

978, 978, 978, NINE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT


For an item which provides a lighter version of an addy tower shield. Requiring at least three people to construct... A dedicated carpenter, a dedicated herbalist, and a dedicated alchemist, needing a small splash of art and tailoring between them, and a list of ingredients which is more then double the value of the alternative gear.

What do you think is a reasonable price in gold for this amount of work in creating an item? Four hundred thousand? Half a million? Who do you think will use one of these? Melee characters.

Melee characters who already end up staring at around 1.4 million in gear to get fully geared - not considering any runes or 5%'s... Just in normal enchanted gear and addy cost. Melee characters who also have the greatest expenditure on consumables... heal kits, wands, potions, scrolls...

Then lets consider that this item is also probably more appealing to dex based characters, who have a harder time looting stuff (or carrying around the required components for making one of these shields, lol), due to their low carry capacity - and making considerably less money as a result.

The problem here is not a little craft nesting. The problem is the fact this is way out of proportion with the time people actually have to invest in the game, and has zero consideration for the means of the characters that will actually use the thing.

Putting hurdles between specific character archetypes and their endgame gear is bad. A wizard can literally churn out millions upon millions of GP while outfitted with a cheap rack of 1 con/1 int gear which they obtain at level 10 and then don't bother to upgrade until they're sitting on a mint... A melee character or an archer ends up with a lot of barriers between them and their required equipment, and that is poor balance.

The answer to this isn't in putting those same hurdles between every character and their gear, because that would just mean that you see greater disparity between new and old than already exists - Something that is bitterly complained about in some quarters anyway - and more people failing to have an enjoyable experience, due to a crushing lack of "unobtainium whatsitmcshieldos".

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 3:20 pm
by Bibliophile
I personally like all the different crafting recipes and the more difficult the more rp it takes. And yes I do think it gets some rp. My current character is a tailor. She hires smiths all the time. Pays alchemists frequently. Has hired on assistant tailors before to make the easier things the she always tries to keep stocked. And doing all this tries to keep the costs in the shop at or below all competitor shops. And I do mean she doesn't buy the components needed from other shops. She actively seeks out people and rps with them to arrange purchase.

And I get that most don't like the merchanting/crafting rp of the game then they don't have to partake. They can easily go about shopping with no rp with the owner. I personally like rping with the customers and working trades for things other than just gold. Not everyone likes the same things and that arelith caters to many different wants is a good thing.

Oh and don't forget having to rp with people to get them to either bring you the high end items you need from dungeons they run or getting them to take you out to said dungeons and keep you from dieing. Just my two cents that I'm sure will be ripped apart. : )

Re: Enchanted Shield, LOL

Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 4:07 pm
by Subutai
This topic really seems to be swinging to both extremes, without really finding a midpoint. There seems to be some really easy changes that could be made to accommodate both sides.

Remove the necessary previous shields. Enchanted Shield requires Hardened Shield, which requires Sturdy Wood Shield, which requires Large Shield (Wood). Which this makes for a near little upgrade system and would be fun to upgrade your characters shield over time from the first to the last, it makes it long and tedious if you're getting into it later, especially at the end.

Why do this? You don't need a mithril shield to make an adamantine shield. You just make the adamantine shield. Why requires so many extra steps for wooden shields?

Removing this alone could make the Enchanted Shield much less insane, CP wise, with a recipe like...

2 Hardwood
1 Emulsified Oil
1 Dragon Oil
2 Ashwood Stabilizer
2 Hardening Finish

If that's still too much, cut the number of stabilizers and hardening finishes in half for

2 Hardwood
1 Emulsified Oil
1 Dragon Oil
1 Ashwood Stabilizer
1 Hardening Finish

Both of these recipes still require help from others, and breed that nice mercantile RP, but also don't leave the person looking for the end product trying to pay for almost 1000 CP and tons of materials worth of costs for what basically amounts to an adamantine tower shield.