A question for discussion: Crafted item quality levels (crude, shaped, regular, pristine)

Jalathan@Lucan DLere wrote:

The problem I see with this is that those that know how to work the crafting system will essentially never need resources beyond a small batch to start each tier, since they will almost always get them all back.

Prognostication: The above will be received as a nerf, especially if "pristine" is the only level that generates XP. A compromise: [ul][li]Crude level --> returns 1 goldstone.[/li][li]Shaped level --> returns 1 goldstone and the most commonly used secondary.[/li][li]Regular level --> Rotating Golden Meat Bucket (with XP) [/li][li]Pristine level --> Rotating Golden Meat Bucket + 50% fuel reduction (with XP)[/li][/ul] Just my 2 cp

[p]Personly i like the tinkering/transmuter system but would like to see it with the difficulty of nest crafting. And forget the counter system from Tinkering ..that is bad,no challenge in it at all (nothing to counter)[/p][p]Making the pristine something you really need to be skilled to uptain(and a little lucky perhaps)[/p][p]just dont wanna se the big amount of raws needed as in the tinkering recipies :evil: Let them stay as they are and use the return to adjust the time spend foraging[/p][p]If the pristine result was very hard, the return on the pristine could be great..like for provisioner 2 turnouts for normal but 5 for pristine ..potions 10 for normal 15 for pristine for non stack return (armor/weapon/spells/skills) return full raws exept primary on a pristine combine[/p][p]And the idea of returning some of the fuels i kinda like too..it is expencive to craft as it is in tier 7...dont even wanna think what tier 8 pricing wil be if following the present curve[/p][p]For crude and and shaped just return main ingredience,that way LDs get there rare back(seriously how many times are we going LD in a rare combine) and the botters cant do there thing as easyly as present.[/p][p] [/p][p]Swunder ..70 provisioner/350 tinkerer Bandor 70 alcymist/350transmuter bandot 70 carpenter...and a lot more crafters in there 30 and 40[/p]

Obviously, at least since LU 24, this has been reflected in the design of Pristine items. Therefore, restoring Pristine to "rare" status would be justifiably seen as unworkable. What could be done instead is to add a new, rare quality point above Pristine, with some sort of bonus for attaining it. Better stats than the Pristine may not be feasible due to the way itemization works, but some other sort of bonus might work. As for how to make it rare, that's tricky too; as it stands now, anyone over level 9 can just spam nothing but durability buffs and be essentially guaranteed of eventual pristine (even if it takes forever); any attempt to make a quality level rare must take that into account (and why the original TS designers didn't is beyond me). For example, to reach the "enhanced" quality level, the crafter must have over 100% durability on reaching "pristine" completion, as well as having reached this point in less than 30 seconds. I suppose that's tangential to the subject at hand, though. On the specific question, it seems very reasonable to want to avoid the bother of creating crude and shaped versions of armor, weapons, jewelry, etc. As has been pointed out, however, there is some marginal value in furniture with lower status reduction and in runes, essences, and scrolls at Apprentice III quality (they still sell if priced appropriately). There's also the question of what to do with recipes that already return a secondary, or that return varying amounts based on quality level (thus requiring no extra "item-creation" development time). I don't have a solution, unfortunately. Powers &8^]

not if crafting was made sufficiently more difficult to get the fourth tier, which was part of my statement...

Jalathan@Lucan DLere wrote:

Even making it difficult, some of us are going to hit pristine 90% of the time. How about returning some fuel instead of resources? At high levels, it's the only expense. Removing roots, ores and pelts from the economy
will have some ill effects, I think, and find that fewer non-farmers can afford to purchase the wares available.

Jalathan@Lucan DLere wrote:

The bolded part is the only real question I have when all of these changes come about. My concern is that, even if you are "skilled," how can you guarantee that the RNG won't ruin your combine? This is the part I don't understand when people mention that they want to see crafting get harder. How, with the current system, is it possible to make crafting harder without becoming frustrating and at the same time reward those that actually know what they are doing? If crafting relies completely on the RNG, this doesn't seem feasible.

If you're skilled, you're probably looking at a less than 1% chance that the RNG will bork your combine.

NO! Please do not do it like the Nest. As another poster pointed out fuel costs are the primary concern. Even when paying attention and doing your best, it is not always possible to get a Pristine version. So, now, you are saying that we loose some resources, loose fuel, and get Zero Tradeskill experience in the process. This is a step in the WRONG direction. Too many penalities and no payoff. The Nest shouldnt be the model. In the Nest, you are crafting LEGENDARY items. Items that are better quality than mastercrafted. If there is an urge to change crafting, the model should be tinkering. If you are taking the time to gather the resources and spend the coin on the fuel, you should get some reward. The method you are describing in the Nest will penalize players twice. Besides, it is better that crafting professions and subprofessions be consistent throughout.

In the example I placed, the intent is that you get the same quality for the combine regardless of the tier level, only by advancing to the fourth (although, this is strickly leaving the system as it is not, not including what I'd really like to see) would see a return of materials (including primary), but in my head, it shouldn't happen but maybe 5% of the time at the best. Think of it as something like a reward for pushing your skill (sorta like treasure chests are for adventuring, only here you get your materials back).

[p]If you know how to work the system (use 3 well chosen buffs every tick, not just on reactions) you can pretty much guarantee pristine every time, unless you get distracted or go AFK or LD. I've had 3 crit fails in the last bar and still made pristine, though it was hell on power going max duration for about a dozen ticks after, to squeak by to pristine. If it were going to be harder, it would need to be more predictible. Personally I like the difficulty of the system as is - the randomness hurts bots or anyone not paying attention, but you can always overcome and get the best if you give it your best.[/p][p] A side note request for a change that is really only slightly related and probably not in Domino's bailiwick but I'm going to ask here anyhow in this terrible runon sentence, is could we please have it so mastercrafted items are 'not for sale' by default, the way containers are? Just last week I vendored 2 cambric items made for a guildie, while I was hastily grinding with a tradeskill potion. Thanks! [/p]

Please do not use tinkering as a model. That would indeed be 'dumbing down' tradeskills the way I see it. Oh look! No need to do any work and you can still make the item! The resources returned in tinkering honestly weren't worth the effort for me to strive to make pristines in most cases. So everything could be crude and be just as good as someone who put work into it to get a pristine. *grumbles* I still kinda wish the subs were still in the game... though maybe with a bulk refine/sub system. But i know that's not happening. The method being described by Domino seems like an excellent choice given what we have to work with.

I'm all for this if it means that there can be more effort made to increasing the recipes for the professions. I think a lot of the 'combine the classes' talk could be eliminated by having more recipes. I'd rather have 4 different recipes than 1 recipe with 4 different qualities if that's how it would work out.

I definitely prefer the Tinkering/Transmuting system where there is one quality of item, and spending more time crafting it results in a more efficient craft in terms of resources. I like being able to "hammer" out crafting items quickly. I don't care if I have to spend 50 more gold on raws if it saves me 30 minutes of crafting time. My time is worth more than that. I also think the EXP should be the same, regardless of quality tier. To give an idea on where I'm coming from - I'm a maxed out armorer/transmuter. To level armoring I made first time pristines, and I did writs. Some levels I made over 120 items, it took FIFTEEN WRITS past what I got off first time pristines in the 60s. When it takes about 7 minutes to do a writ, and you're doing fifteen a level, it gets excruciatingly boring. 2+ hours per level. By the time I had hit 70 armorer, I was well over 40,000 faction with Ironforge. This alone should be a testament to how much raw grinding had to be done, and how much time it took. At minimum I did 267 writs, at 7 minutes each, at minimum thats 31 hours doing writs. I gladly would've paid 4-6 more plat along the way to cut that time spent to 10-15 hours. On the flipside, I levelled transmuting using a minimize my time investment in exchange cash investment, making many of my items only to the first quality level because fighting for durability with such poor crafting skills was futile and unenjoyable, but at the same time the skillgain was much more "fun" because I didn't have to pristine every item zombie-like. It gave me choice.

Mysteran@Antonia Bayle wrote:

You can use tinkering as a model but still have the counters and tradeskill abilities mean something. I do agree that the actual crafting process for tinkering is boring. It just amounts to hitting the monkey with key over and over again until a 4th tier item pops out. when I say using tinkering as a model, I mean have it such that it is just pristine throughout (as that is what the intent of the change is) and depending on what tier you make it to, you get a portion of the resources back. So, Magical Golden Meatbucket takes 1 Goldstone, 8 raw wood, 4 raw metal, 12 fuel Tier 1 - product Magical Golden Meatbucket and no resources back Tier 2 - product Magical Golden Meatbucket and no resources back Tier 3 - product Magical Golden Meatbucket and 1 raw wood back Tier 4 - product Magical Golden Meatbucket and 2 raw wood back You would have counters and tradeskill abilities that mean something like the current system but the production would be like the tinkering system. So, if you are really good then you have some resources left over. IF you rush through, you get the item but have no resources left. My concern with the Nest method is that when you are just starting out on a level, it can be challenging to get a pristine(tier 4) item. If we are forced to get that to gain experience and we are loosing fuel, it sounds like more of a nuisance than a challenge. Likewise, not all crafting professions are created equal. It is harder to get pristine for some more than others. The tinkering production method would be fair to everyone.

AbsentmindedMage wrote:

That's my point though. Someone doing the least amount of work possible gets the same rewards as someone who strives to get it pristine? Yea, it's not difficult to get pristine, but it does take more than starting up crafting and walking away till it's done.

If you know how to craft it really isn't difficult at all to get a pristine... I have more than a few crafters.

I'm not in favor of the "nest" system, since typically only a crafter of considerable skill can reach success in a given crafting session. I am concerned that lower level crafters won't be able to reliably craft items (i.e., what we now call pristine). I am, however, in favor of not having 4 quality stages of a final product. Nobody uses anything unless it's pristine, so what is the point?

Nest style sounds good to me, as long as you only get experience for actually finishing the combine, not for hitting one of the other levels in the bar. Since tradeskills were changed so that you get the same stats, just better the higher quality you go rather than different stats on different grades (for some items long ago) it does seem a bit pointless to have 4 different levels of it. It would also make it harder for the AFK crafters, which is a very good thing.
My question would be how would AD3 recipes be affected? Would they go perhaps to the nest style and you would still get the 2 powders for pristine? Or stay as they are currently?
And to those worrying about the 'normal' crafter at lower levels (30 and below I'd assume you are speaking of), I don't think that would be much of a concern. It would only require people to look at their trade buffs. After I discovered there WERE tradeskill buffs (I was in t3 with my first crafter at that point lol) I never had any issues getting pristine if I wanted it.
The only times I find these days that I muck up my combines and no get pristine are if I have to afk with the kid or get particularly unlucky with the RNG and get a massive critical failure just as I was going to finish the combine, so it immediately completes at the next lowest quality (peeves me to no end when that happens, luckily it really doesn't happen that often).

Varied amounts of product, as seen now with the production of potions and poisons by alchemists for example, seems a very fair way to "weight" quality levels. The vast majority of crafters would try for pristine to get the biggest bang for their buck as it were.

Mysteran@Antonia Bayle wrote:

I have many crafters as well and they are level 70. And no, you cannot be ensured of getting pristine. It isnt the same reward either as they get only the product and will be forced to go find more resources. They could also make it varying experience with tier 4 being the highest.

Again, the Nest items are LEGENDARY items which are better than the Mastercrafted items of their tier. So, it is fine if the Nest crafting is more difficult. However, the Nest crafting shouldnt be the basis of the normal crafting system.

Using the Nest system will not make crafting harder, it will only make it annoying. As people will be loosing fuel, resources, and gaining no experience when they fail to make it perfect. How does it make any sense that a person is going to start off in a new level and in order for them to gain experience in that level, they must make the new items perfect. If you are going to use a Nest method, it should be modified with the 3rd level producing the product and the 4th level giving some bonus experience.

By the way, not everyone just buys their resources off the broker. So, some of us go out and gather them. Having a resource kickback for making better quality is a legitimate reward.


EDIT: You realize that by getting rid of this, you will be getting rid of Apprentice 2(except for the merchant bought) and 3 versions of spells. You might as well get rid of Apprentice 2 versions from merchants while you are clearing up the database.