Author Topic: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating  (Read 2082 times)

Winter83

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Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« on: July 16, 2012, 09:29:23 AM »
Crafting is tiresome, expensive, and punishing in the beginning. The process is slow and the future advantage is far away as one progressess in crafting. (Exception is herbalism and alchemy, every other craft's output can be substituted with better equipment from loot)
Also it usually takes me out from the RP, no XP neither, hard to find anyone who would join me in hours long terribly boorring crafting sessions. So little gain for much pain.

But this can be allright, if not for the little annoyances that come with crafting.

Namely:

1. The constant loading and unloading of crafting materials. For instance smithing and woodworking often comes with a ton of material easily gathered. Bringing ore or wood from the  inventory to the crafting workshop is just meh.. Some auto-loading would be awesome-sauce.

2. The purchase of templates or additional material like bottles. Often one has to purchase more than 20 or 40 of these. Wish there was a possibility to purchase larger batches. The constant clicking on the item then on the "okay" is maddening on large quantities.

3. Constant clicking on the crafting workshop to initiate the crafting action. Again in large quantities it brings no joy, just consumes attention. For instance myself when on a crafting sessions (which takes RL hours!!!  :? ) I would love to read a book (RL) in the meanwhile, but I always need to click again on the work station after a moment. Some way to automatize it would be nice.
Not to mention if that keeps me occupied (the constant clicking) I can RP with more difficulties. I either type or click to get some progress but both does not work.

Crafting would still remain time consuming, but these little improvements would just help to make it less annoying. A little sugar-coating on bitter medicine always help, no?  :D Perhaps we would see more craftsmen and crafting RP that way.


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Daboomer

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2012, 10:25:47 AM »
it's alright as those times as you get somebody to RP with, smithing appears to be particularly tedious. The system is fair at some parts but other things like having to sit and click the entire time really isn't giving you much i agree. Except for a headache, boredom and a numbness spreading trough your head causing your IQ to drop several numbers.

Winter83

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2012, 10:58:38 AM »
it's alright as those times as you get somebody to RP with, smithing appears to be particularly tedious. The system is fair at some parts but other things like having to sit and click the entire time really isn't giving you much i agree. Except for a headache, boredom and a numbness spreading trough your head causing your IQ to drop several numbers.

Yeah something like that. It is fun when there's someone to Rp with. But even then clicky-clicking and text writing to RP just slows down the generally slow levelling progress in crafting.  :cry:


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BalorVale

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2012, 01:44:46 PM »
I know it has been said about a BILLION times, but I am a strong advocate for gaining even just a little exp for crafting not much, but we spend our time away from RP and away from dungeons and monsters and stories to raise tedious proffessions with usually very little gain when some merchant lays down his +2 Longsword in his pile of merchandise. We should at least give crafters a tool that lets them "Dump Iron" and place it into a smith, there could be a tool for each craft, herbalism has too many materials to use this for but for woodworking and smithing? This could really help the tediousness. Right clicking this tool would open a radial menu, offering to dump the selected crafting material into a selected container, it would detect the amount of the material inside your inventory and move it to the smelter, or allow smelters and such to be equipped with a script that will allow the tallied material to appear inside the smelter or workstation and the others(In your inventory) to dissapear

I wanted to see what the big fuss was about when people complained about crafting, so I made my NCW character Florian Bravossi level smithingand smelting from Apprentice to Master, I am beginning to work on steel. I now understand the woes that people place on these forums, it is INCREDIBLY time consuming, lugging my heavily encumbered pack ox over and over and over. . .  and over. . . to the smelter only to have to drag my mouse to click each material from the ox to the smelter. . then to move the ingots to the anvil. . I nearly went mad. But I did it.

I like that this new trap system gives the proffession new life, and we are definatly moving in the right direction, but once more a simple "Dump" Tool could make the difference between spiraling madness of the clickity click click of my mouse button to a quicker less stressful crafting experience.

EberronBruce

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #4 on: July 16, 2012, 01:55:44 PM »
I know all about crafting, particularly smithing. It took me 6 months to make my character a master smith. It is really really hard to do at lower levels. Also, not to mention the issues with gilding.

However, with that said about the about the time consuming drudge of it all. Lugging things around. It eventually was able to open up some RP with others, as well as, several DM events that revolve around some sort of crafting, fixing, or repairing. So, crafting can open doors to RP.

But it is tedious. Not to mention loot drops tend to be better. Though the enchanting is an equilizer in one way but cost a bucket load of xp.

Maybe add minor enchanting and blessings to making some crafting to par with loot drops.

HellsPanda

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #5 on: July 16, 2012, 02:01:50 PM »
The best items are crafted. Nothing can come close to completely crafted gear

BalorVale

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #6 on: July 16, 2012, 02:48:20 PM »
The best items are crafted. Nothing can come close to completely crafted gear
I would have to disagree, There is a +2 Katana out there for anyones use, I can't craft a Katana better then that. There are many in these cases, and not everyone uses "Completely Crafted" gear, if it WAS the best, everyone would be wearing it; This of course is off-topic, because what I am arguing is that we give Crafters a "Dump tool" and a little exp for all thier hard work, Crafted gear is not so strong and most of the AC bonuses are Deflection which don't stack.

Vaku

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #7 on: July 16, 2012, 03:03:55 PM »
The best items are crafted. Nothing can come close to completely crafted gear
I would have to disagree, There is a +2 Katana out there for anyones use, I can't craft a Katana better then that. There are many in these cases, and not everyone uses "Completely Crafted" gear, if it WAS the best, everyone would be wearing it; This of course is off-topic, because what I am arguing is that we give Crafters a "Dump tool" and a little exp for all thier hard work, Crafted gear is not so strong and most of the AC bonuses are Deflection which don't stack.

I believe that what he's attributing "Best" to, are both crafted and enchanted items (and enchanting can only be done to crafted items). Nevertheless. As it stands, smithing, from experience has been immensely tedious, and the only thing that has kept it amusing to me has been trying to construct a company that would supply metals.

Crimson Shuriken

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2012, 05:02:03 PM »
I would prefer that crafting be done with eye on how it can further the characters goals and/or how it can aid their allies who depend on them, which are both basically the same thing.
Rather not see crafting as an XP source, it makes little sense how it would help someone get more innately powerful anyway, nothing like learning from combat or conversations.

And crafted gear is far and away better than items found and its not even remotely close either, crafting is totally worth it in the long run, but if it was easy then everyone would do it, and I am unsure that is a good outcome either.


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Winter83

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2012, 05:10:21 PM »
Some aid, like resource dumping and auto crafting wont make it any less easier, just less annoying. One would still need hell of a time to advance in craft which is fine. It is just the awful lot of clicking that does not add to the experience, just makes one's brain blow.

I spent many many RL hours doing nothing just crafting, which is fine, I choose it as it has meaning to my chars. But I could just RP and dungeon instead, so I sacrifice much just to practice the trade. Which is dull, even among friends. A little tool to make it less straining would not take away from the difficulty.

Best bows are woodworking, yeah, as well as many good armor and weapons, (still there are insane good loot to be found that beats most often leather working and weapon crafting)

t has a potential. But once one reaches a level to be able to craft useful things the player's hair grow all white and falls out and the fingers from the insane clicking just  start to hurt.


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MistJumper

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #10 on: July 16, 2012, 06:46:30 PM »
the crafting system is at best, old. Seen it before on various servers. While there is a PotM flavor to it, it is still the same ol' click, re-click slowly go numb system. Yes, it takes away from Rp, unless of course you find someone to go insane with you as you click away. There are a few things that could be changed to make crafting less of a pain. Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

1st. allow crafted items to be sold for value, rather than 1 gp. First, crafted Weapons are by far the best, shame the merchants of PotM don't know it.
Second, because crafted potions are devalued, you have now 2, to 3 instances of potions, even though they are the same. They do not stack, and its annoying as hell to sort it out in the inventory. 3rd, and probably the most interesting is that a player has to wait for some Player merchant to sell it at whatever cost they pull out of their posterior. Usually said cost is rounded to 1000ish for convenience, and after finding the player selling it, and seeing that the cost is above what is had, or worse paying out the "sum" you find it at the Vistani for 1 gp. Silly.

2nd, Give xp for crafting. it doesn't have to be for everything crafted, tie it to the crafting level and at each craft level achieved, give a fair amount of actual XP.

3rd. Switch over to all crafted gear, including what is dropped from spawns. this makes the most sense, overall. Whats the point of making some nice magic weapon to fight a shape shifter, if a better one is available constantly from the same old drop. From the module point, its less resources that need to be there. From the DM point, its less stuff to shift through when handing out rewards. from the build team point, its less stuff to deal with.

4th. Sell multiple crafting items. a item that turns into 10 bottles on use. or 50. or 100. Add extra component drops. why is it that after years of collecting herb, my char can only get 1 usable part from a plant? or the miner can only get one piece of ore? shouldn't he know how to hit it to get it out? isn't that more realistic?

5th. Change the trees to a invisible small object and place the way-point that spawns them in a tree. The trees are a pain to fight, or walk around as they tend to suck the cursor into a bogus click.

6th Add portable crafting to the game. why can't a character set up a cauldron? they can set up a fire.. same with smelting.. for hundreds of years humans smelted on a open fire, near where they mined the ore.

7th. Potions, potions, potions. With all the unique scripted systems here, why are all the potions the standard bio spell scripts? Why not add potions that boost skills for a limited time (for lower levels) Potions that protect from paralysis, fear, and disease, rather than just remove it. How about potions that boost your stats by 1-2 for 100 seconds? or potions that turn you into "normal" animals that you cant turn back from until it wears off? many untapped possibilities here, that could greatly enhance RP.

8th. Probably the most important.. change one of the metals that is used in crafting weapons to be useful against undead. Allow multiple metals to be crafted together. A weapon could be good for undead and shapeshifters, and still within the "item power limits" of PotM.

While my ideas/suggestions/rantings above are my strong opinion, I fully understand that I am not a member of the build team, nor on the staff, so take it as you will. If said builders or staff have questions feel free to PM me.. I am always glad to help out, or explain further. that being said, I am enjoying PotM. The players, and the staff are the best I have come across in MP. See you in game.

Winter83

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #11 on: July 16, 2012, 07:02:39 PM »
If stack templates would exist I would be happy already. Buying 100 dagger templates one after another, or bottles...not only it spams the chat window considerably, but it is nonsensical and time consuming. Why cant you just ask a trader to sell you like 50 bottles at once?  :lol:

It's click-purchase, click-purchase, click-purchase x 100.



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HellsPanda

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Re: Crafting aid - Some sugar coating
« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2012, 07:04:44 PM »
Because of the way NWN works, and the way the crafting scripts function
Stacked templates you are likely to end with a bug that makes all of them into the item, for the cost of 1, especially if lagg strikes
Its a flawed system, but crafting takes time