Crafting At Night

[MAB77]

I certainly understand that people do not like the grinding aspect of crafting. It's tedious. Trust that I know. It is a true test of patience, and not for everyone. But to claim there is no value to it is a bit much. Last I looked most everyone from low to high levels are using crafted gears. There would be little value to it if anyone could easily craft everything, and thus the grind plays a very important and needed function. It keeps master crafters rare. I made fortunes selling my high-end armors and gilded wares, because few others could do it as well as my char. Sure it took a very long time before I could see the return on my investment, but it did payoff in so many ways. Not only in gold, but in roleplay aspects as well. I worked hard for my character's reputation. Opportunities came to me because I embraced crafter roleplay and it was well worth the grind.

As for my experience of crafting at night, the locked doors never have been a real issue, they are easy enough to open. Only the lack of a vendor at night is an annoyance, though as a player, I think it makes sense in some places. It is easy to plan for it if you intend to go on a nightly crafting spree. Also do not forget that some shops for all the crafts are still open 24/7. It might not be your local of choice, but with expeditious retreat potions and freedom of movement brews (to carry tons or ore and ingots) nothing is ever really that far.

[SardineTheAncestor]

There's not really a lack of vendors; almost all of those locked doors have a vendor behind them. In fact, the only locked door without a vendor behind it that I can think of is a tailor in Vallaki who also sells dyes. We know that by level 5 you can beat the DC for most of these locks. We're saying it's kind of absurd for most of the shops to have night-shift workers who hide behind a locked door.

If everyone is using crafted equipment at low and high levels, that doesn't have any relation to the value of how rare a crafter is. It relates to how useful the gear is. It would still be popular with more active/master crafters.

I know some of the crafters in this thread who have a reputation for being generous and quick about their work, but the truth is, it gets to the point where you have nothing else to do, and you have nothing else to spend your fortunes on-- which were obtained from participating in other activities. Yes, opportunities have come to us who support each other in the grind, but inconveniences like this do not add anything to the experience, they add only forgettable tedium. We are not asking for another rebalance to undo the changes that made crafting take longer to level up, we just want crafting stations unlocked at night, because:

these [...] behaviours shove players away and incentivize them going to more convenient places like Dementlieu for OOC reasons rather than IC reasons. In Dementlieu, it's already about a 2 minute walk to get to the dye vendor from the entrance of the city. Two transitions. Zeklos and Krezk have major low-level crafting hubs and dye vendors. To get to Krezk from Zeklos, you risk running into some of the most powerful outdoor mobs in the game which can be found patrolling when not in "sleep mode" idling, but still their spawns are very close to the road. You also have to spend around 5 minutes at a full running pace just to get to Zeklos from the Vallaki outskirts. This makes the region so unattractive [...]

To those in disbelief: I understand that it's Barovia, but why would tavern doors be unlocked at night, but other businesses lock, despite some of them having specifically designated night shift workers that appear in there as the sun sets ingame, but you can't access them without breaking and entering? The only way to do business in these places is to bash or pick your way in, or just log in on the interior while it's night time. Something is wrong.

...and the gate bug mentioned in that thread still hasn't been addressed, which inconveniences almost exclusively low-level crafters, since very few people are ever seen in Zeklos and Krezk for reasons unrelated to crafting.

I've seen people slapped with Chaotic points for breaking down doors or picking their locks to craft or access vendors at night. To ask players to take that risk just to do legitimate business is a confusing question.

[Dante101]

I certainly understand that people do not like the grinding aspect of crafting. It's tedious. Trust that I know. It is a true test of patience, and not for everyone. But to claim there is no value to it is a bit much. Last I looked most everyone from low to high levels are using crafted gears. There would be little value to it if anyone could easily craft everything, and thus the grind plays a very important and needed function. It keeps master crafters rare. I made fortunes selling my high-end armors and gilded wares, because few others could do it as well as my char. Sure it took a very long time before I could see the return on my investment, but it did payoff in so many ways. Not only in gold, but in roleplay aspects as well. I worked hard for my character's reputation. Opportunities came to me because I embraced crafter roleplay and it was well worth the grind.

As for my experience of crafting at night, the locked doors never have been a real issue, they are easy enough to open. Only the lack of a vendor at night is an annoyance, though as a player, I think it makes sense in some places. It is easy to plan for it if you intend to go on a nightly crafting spree. Also do not forget that some shops for all the crafts are still open 24/7. It might not be your local of choice, but with expeditious retreat potions and freedom of movement brews (to carry tons or ore and ingots) nothing is ever really that far.

Interesting to hear this opinion. I've understood the following, though I've never had it confirmed by a DM before:

A) I assume breaking locks to enter an occupied shop would be frowned upon, if not outright breaking the rules for ignoring NPCs.

B) I thought utilizing Freedom of Movement to move large loads of ore and equipment at walking speed was an exploit.

In any case, this is still very limiting to newer players that do not have access to such powerful, higher DC potions; or those who don't invest in Open Lock / strength for crowbars.

[Khornite]

I certainly understand that people do not like the grinding aspect of crafting. It's tedious. Trust that I know. It is a true test of patience, and not for everyone. But to claim there is no value to it is a bit much. Last I looked most everyone from low to high levels are using crafted gears. There would be little value to it if anyone could easily craft everything, and thus the grind plays a very important and needed function. It keeps master crafters rare. I made fortunes selling my high-end armors and gilded wares, because few others could do it as well as my char. Sure it took a very long time before I could see the return on my investment, but it did payoff in so many ways. Not only in gold, but in roleplay aspects as well. I worked hard for my character's reputation.

I agree with some of this. My character is a smith mostly and gilded wares were never really worth the investment considering how much mercury and acid cost to level the skill (This was pre-cinnabar), but that's changed now. I must have dumped half a million into getting to master smith territory just on templates alone and only AFTER adamantine was introduced did I ever start seeing a profit. Smiths who can 100% the adamantine bracket are rare and therefore highly valued. I must have had three factions IC come to me and ask me to craft adamantine for them exclusively. That type of stuff is great, but the vast majority of crafts don't have situations like that like herbalism (For things like Ethereal Visage and Heal potions) and smithing do. The problem that I think really needs addressed though is probably most visible with alchemy. I went from level 30 to level 60 in herbalism in the time it took me to go from 25 to 30 with alchemy. Even the master grade potion ingredients can be found with some ease and you can brew the potions in bulk. Alchemy on the other hand is kind of ignored. There's VERY few places to get certain ingredients  (Some of the higher tier alchemy stuff like the utter dark residue only drops from two monsters and is so rare that it might as well not even exist) and to make them into varnishes can take forever when you have to individually turn each essence into a varnish. Mindlessly clicking on the alchemy tool, then on the table 100+ times during a cram session is boring to the point where you can literally feel your brain cells becoming an hero. And you don't even get EXP off of that after level 25. It's mind break levels of boring and there's no reason why it can't be done in bulk.

This is one of those instances where "it's realistic" is just not fun. If something isn't fun in a game, at least streamline it so that it takes less time. I think most people just want to see the crafting process itself at the tables sped up a little bit so that we can get back to roleplaying and less time idly clicking at a table while we read a book or watch a movie. Leather working is another great example. It requires three whole crafts and again, while realistic, is just too much of a pain in the neck for most people. There's no reason why it couldn't just be merged into two skills like smithing is.

[SardineTheAncestor]

Interesting to hear this opinion. I've understood the following, though I've never had it confirmed by a DM before:

A) I assume breaking locks to enter an occupied shop would be frowned upon, if not outright breaking the rules for ignoring NPCs.

B) I thought utilizing Freedom of Movement to move large loads of ore and equipment at walking speed was an exploit.

In any case, this is still very limiting to newer players that do not have access to such powerful, higher DC potions; or those who don't invest in Open Lock / strength for crowbars.

Yeah, once again, rulebreak or not, asking a crafter to:

1) Suddenly go into a frothing Destructive Rage to barrel a door down
2) Turn into an Umber Hulk, Bear, or some other extremely strong animal to crash the door off the hinges
3) Pick a lock on the door
4) Use a crowbar to break the door open

to get in their chosen supply shop is just not ideal.

We've had many discussions about it openly in channels where DMs were talking about it with us. It does not appear to be against the rules. It probably should be, but then again, locking the doors for the sake of realism, while also allowing & suggesting players to commit illegal (and in some areas, like the Wachter lands, punishable by death, forget the Chaotic points!!!) activities, just so they can perform legal activities with willing, legal business-people on the other side of that door is what's not ideal and why we want to see a change made.

You have to understand my surprise the first time someone polymorphed and started bashing a door down in the middle of the night in Zeklos. I'm not condemning the player who did it, but imagine if I was a new player.

On the Freedom of Movement thing, I do not believe it is an exploit, but the sidestepping is. I think it may have been an exploit at one point, as there was a bugfix related to how Freedom of Movement works sometime during the year I've been here.

Mindlessly clicking on the alchemy tool, then on the table 100+ times during a cram session is boring to the point where you can literally feel your brain cells becoming an hero. And you don't even get EXP off of that after level 25. It's mind break levels of boring and there's no reason why it can't be done in bulk.

This is one of those instances where "it's realistic" is just not fun. If something isn't fun in a game, at least streamline it so that it takes less time. I think most people just want to see the crafting process itself at the tables sped up a little bit so that we can get back to roleplaying and less time idly clicking at a table while we read a book or watch a movie. Leather working is another great example. It requires three whole crafts and again, while realistic, is just too much of a pain in the neck for most people. There's no reason why it couldn't just be merged into two skills like smithing is.

100%. The bolded part especially, but the rest of the quote I left in too. 

[Iridni Ren]

Sidestepping to avoid slowed movement speed I am certain is a rulebreak. I've never heard any claim about Freedom potions being an exploit--although I don't think they can allow you to ignore encumbrance, just exhaustion. If they allow you to ignore encumbrance, that's news to me.

[Khornite]

Sidestepping to avoid slowed movement speed I am certain is a rulebreak. I've never heard any claim about Freedom potions being an exploit--although I don't think they can allow you to ignore encumbrance, just exhaustion. If they allow you to ignore encumbrance, that's news to me.

If you toggle search or hide mode you will be able to walk at normal speed with any encumbrance. Even if you are 2,000 lb over your limit. in my experience you still get exhausted, but you do not get the movement speed decrease from being exhausted. Just the negative to attack and arcane spell failure.

[Kamfrenchie]

How does crafting work in other servers ? do you need to invest feats into it ? There ought to be a way to at least make it consume less time. Why not make the axecompletely turn a tree into chunks after 10 seconds ? Give it an animation like using a crowbar, and Same for the mining pick ? I don't think we really need to see our chracters wail on each rock or vein for several minutes... or maybe a way to more consistently and quickly acquire the xp from a batch.

Right now, someone levelling smithing has to  go to the quarry south of vallaki, and hit the veins for a while, then pick every ore piece one by one, bring them back, smelt them, and then  do like 200 daggers of coppers at least, then swords, etc. Surely there can be a way to make it less long and repetitive.

Maybe have training recipes, requiring a lot of ingots, but with a low dc but decent xp ?

[StreetSamurai]

Crafting won't be valuable if you make it feasiable for people with jobs and a family to get to mastery.

So your solution is for us to all become NEETs?

No, it just means not everyone will get to the master tier of crafting and that's a good thing for the crafters especially for the ones that already did the grind.

Pertaining to this topic specifically, it's really a bit silly to have this night locking thing because nobody wants this - the player doesn't want it and the easiest soution is to ignore NPCs instead of just simply waiting until the day, the DM probably doesn't want to run a fabled 'five minute scene' of me crowbarring the door open or politely knocking on the door to be let in because we're not savages, devs probably doesn't want to deal with this and fix it despite slipping it in quietly because they have other projects, and the CC probably doesn't want to deal with reports of NPC ignoring if the previous groups started magically started caring about this.

But we achieved peak immersion.

[Khornite]

Crafting won't be valuable if you make it feasiable for people with jobs and a family to get to mastery.

So your solution is for us to all become NEETs?

No, it just means not everyone will get to the master tier of crafting and that's a good thing for the crafters especially for the ones that already did the grind.

It's such a war of attrition with your patience that it's the only barrier to entry.

The real "Grind" is gathering materials, making coin to pay for the templates, buying herbs and reagents from other characters. That's not the part that's separating people from being able to master a craft. Making it so you craft five daggers at once instead of just one isn't going to magically allow everyone to master a craft any faster. It just makes it so that people can get back to roleplaying faster instead of spending X amount of time going "I click the hotbar. I click the table. I click the hotbar. I click the table. I click the hotbar. I click the table." If you take gilding and merge the acid and mercury together into a "gilding solution" that costs just as much as both items combined, that doesn't make it easier to master the craft, it just removes a useless step that serves no actual purpose.

[StreetSamurai]

How big of a waste of a time it is what makes most people not be a craft-it-all. Those pointless steps, the fact that several parts do not contribute to the profession you're originally trying to level, and the fact that various professions are needed to have an end product that someone will pay for is the only, great filter we have.

Make it easier, you'll have more crafters. On the extreme end, you can also make it so painful that there's only grandfathered in crafters still lying around.

Would I love an Arelithian crafting system where it's so pointless that the only thing keeping it relevant is the repair system? Yes, because I hate crafting but it's no longer going to make crafters a noteworthy creature.

[Khornite]

How big of a waste of a time it is what makes most people not be a craft-it-all. Those pointless steps, the fact that several parts do not contribute to the profession you're originally trying to level, and the fact that various professions are needed to have an end product that someone will pay for is the only, great filter we have.

Make it easier, you'll have more crafters. On the extreme end, you can also make it so painful that there's only grandfathered in crafters still lying around.

Would I love an Arelithian crafting system where it's so pointless that the only thing keeping it relevant is the repair system? Yes, because I hate crafting but it's no longer going to make crafters a noteworthy creature.

You're missing the point. I'm talking about the actual crafting process. At the tables. Specifically why things cannot be made in bulk. There's filters in place already by the gold requirement. I've probably sank near a MILLION gold into smithing and gilding, there's no better filter than that. No one is saying crafting is useless, crafting is one of the most useful things you can do for a character on this server. If my character needs potions? I can brew them myself without having to HOPE a merchant has what I want. I need varnishes? I can make them myself. I need money? I'll go whip up some weapons and armor for people and go buy more herbs for more potions so I can dungeon.

You seem to be against the entire idea of crafting as a whole and want it to be bad so no one does it based on your final statement. If that's the case, why offer input on how to improve a system if you want to see the system made useless?

[SardineTheAncestor]

Agreed. It's that cookie clicker mechanic that I'm talking about too.

Khornite's already done the grind, so I'd think he would know. No disrespect intended but we both have invested well over 1,500 hours just into crafting. His character is a mundane and has at least 2 of the more tedious crafts tackled. We're not the ones who will benefit from this change. I'm personally closing in on the point where I only do special orders, and a lot of that success has been thanks to him and other generous crafters who have put in the time.

that doesn't make it easier to master the craft, it just removes a useless step that serves no actual purpose.

Make it easier, you'll have more crafters. On the extreme end, you can also make it so painful that there's only grandfathered in crafters still lying around.

Bolded for relevance.

I think we've been clear it's not about easy, it's about the tedium being unnecessary. Why would herbalism have bulk crafting but none of the other crafts, for example?

Yeah, we'll get more crafters if the system isn't tedious. And that's fine, because, as I said in a previous post, that will not reduce the power of crafted items. They will still be very useful. There will still be viable choices between them. If there's a direct correlation between crafting becoming less tedious and more about gathering reagents with a party, and more people becoming crafters, this means more people doing more things that leads them to RP with others openly, in an outgoing manner. That sounds great to me. It's fantastic, and I love it. That'll be my standpoint as final, because I like seeing people get involved, taking part in roleplay that involves mentorship, helping each other out, and you know what? I even like going into Perfidus "casually" for the sole sake of gathering materials with my friends who are enthusiastic about going and helping. Because there's nowhere else on the server that offers that experience, like I said. Yeah, it might seem out of character, and I certainly sympathize, there are much more "gothic" themed locales we could have chosen, but if we want to do something like that, that's the only adventure experience for it at a certain point. It's layered progression, not just slow progression in one direction, and it's really cool, even if it needs a tune-up in that area specifically and more places on the server should be built like that.

[StreetSamurai]

Coincidentally herbalism is widely considered one of the more palatable crafts that, at least anecdotally, seem to have more people that achieved mastery with them.

Herbalism is also the only craft that only requires the craft itself and everything you do in that craft contributes to the craft itself.

[Khornite]

Coincidentally herbalism is widely considered one of the more palatable crafts that, at least anecdotally, seem to have more people that achieved mastery with them.

Herbalism is also the only craft that only requires the craft itself and everything you do in that craft contributes to the craft itself.

There are four crafts that only require knowing one skill. Alchemy (100% self contained, like herbalism), enchanting (I've known loads of enchanters who require the customer provide the essence), and tailoring (several I know buy the patches from other crafters since they're not needed in great supply). Even when I was mastering smithing, I just gave the leather to someone else to turn into patches and I mostly made armor to level smithing. I had no problems whatsoever getting my hands on materials that I did not have the skills to create. And only AFTER I nearly mastered smithing did I go in and partially master hide curing.

[SardineTheAncestor]

I would say none of those traits are negative for gameplay that you mentioned. Having more herbalists to choose to buy from or supply is not a bad thing, same goes for all the rest. Getting people out of the AFK rooms and back to interacting with people should be the goal of all features implemented on a server about roleplay first and foremost. Getting them to spend long amounts of time barely paying any attention to their game, interacting minimally with other players, on the other hand, would not appear to be included in that vision.

[QDS]

Sidestepping to avoid slowed movement speed I am certain is a rulebreak. I've never heard any claim about Freedom potions being an exploit--although I don't think they can allow you to ignore encumbrance, just exhaustion. If they allow you to ignore encumbrance, that's news to me.

Regarding freedom of movement, some time ago I asked the devs about this since I thought I found a bug. They specifically told me that using freedom of movement for carrying large weights is not considered an exploit. To be honest, I do not remember whom I asked.

[HopeIsTheCarrot]

It is absolutely mind blowing for me to read opinions like “there is no point to mastering any of the crafts besides herbalism and alchemy” or “you will never make your money back in those other crafts.” I’ve had characters make millions, literal millions of fangs from smithing, leatherworking and woodworking. I mean high end smithing gear can be sold for as much as 200,000 fang per item. On an item that would you would spend about 1,000 fang to craft if you gathered the raw materials yourself. I fail to see how over a 99% profit margin and a net profit of 199,000 fang on a single item isn’t profitable. Don’t get me wrong, mastering any of those three crafts takes a great deal of time and investment up front. But the pay off is more lucrative then pretty much anything I’ve found. The only exception would be high level ninja looting, which also requires a huge investment of fang in order to gather all the high end stealth gear. In my opinion, we don’t have a lot of master crafters because people either give up on the tedious grind of crafting or they just don’t want to invest the time that it takes to master the crafts. The idea that they are pointless or a waste of time though is something I just can’t fathom. I went to a Red Vardo auction the other day and found myself sitting there looking at 80% of the items on the block and thinking “oh there are craftable options more valuable than that out there.” High end crafts are mechanically strong and can earn high end crafters ridiculous sums of money. Every single one of my characters over 12th lvl wield crafted armor, weapons, shields, helmets, bows, arrows, boots and often bracers. Not to mention all the consumables they use on top of that.

[Dante101]

Look man I just wanna be able to smelt ore at 8 PM in more locales.

[MAB77]

It has often been confirmed that using freedom potions (or the spell) to move freely when encumbered is not an exploit. It purposefully makes the drinker immune to the paralysis, slow, entangle, and movement speed decrease effects. This includes being slow down by weight. It does not ignores the other effects of encumbrance: it won't allow you to run, you'll be exhausted quickly and have massive penalties in combat and for spellcasting. It will however allow you to move around massive amount of of items at normal walking speed. A useful commodity for miners and looters alike. With the potion or spell, the player made the effort of using an in-game solution to somewhat alleviate his load. It is intended to work that way and therefore is not an exploit.

Sidestepping to circumvent weight effects is however cheating. It is mechanically exploiting a flaw in the game engine to avoid the effects of weight. Get caught, get warned until you get banned.

[Dante101]

Alrighty then. I'll start using that spell more often.

And I suppose I'll start carrying a crowbar around to shatter doorjambs so I can speak to the crafting merchant running the establishment 10 ft from said door indoors. To preserve immersion and realism, I guess.

[Alan Hunter]

Sidestepping to avoid slowed movement speed I am certain is a rulebreak. I've never heard any claim about Freedom potions being an exploit--although I don't think they can allow you to ignore encumbrance, just exhaustion. If they allow you to ignore encumbrance, that's news to me.

Find it interesting side stepping is a rulebreak although you move less than fullspeed and are still encumbered and effected by fatigue. Yet with freedom meant to avoid combat/status effect reduce movement spells etc. Isn't considered.
I mean i can see the detect search glitch as an exploit compare to side stepping which is in the game. I dont really see side stepping as avoiding encumberance since your still affected by fatigue. Though the description on Freedom does kinda make sense.

[StreetSamurai]

Pouring one out for all the lawful people that broke into merchant buildings instead of waiting 76 minutes.

How many times do you give poor barovian peasants blankets and food to balance out the chaos you incur?

[Iridni Ren]

From a certain perspective, a crowbar is just a very large key 

[StreetSamurai]

Ah, yes, this is basically extreme inn room renting and the crowbar is the elaborate gold sink.