Confectioner Preview - Feedback Thread

[LaughingOtter]

The smart move would have been to look at the complete picture, come out with an outline of a plan to address all crafting classes, then start implementing one after the other.

Offhand, I'd say that's exactly what's going on. We have a general plan (core craft skills) that will be applied to all classes. Confectioner is the second class to get the treatment (DLSH being the first). Sounds like one after another to me....

[imported_tjl]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Bori Grimbattle wrote:

The smart move would have been to look at the complete picture, come out with an outline of a plan to address all crafting classes, then start implementing one after the other.

Offhand, I'd say that's exactly what's going on. We have a general plan (core craft skills) that will be applied to all classes. Confectioner is the second class to get the treatment (DLSH being the first). Sounds like one after another to me....

with only 18 more craft classes to go we may see this process finished in... 5 years.

[Bori Grimbattle]

Then, offhand, to prevent all the arguing and bickering, do you not think it would be better for TG to at least lay out a broad outline on how the other craft classes will be treated?

I am a Senior Long Range Planner by occupation and I have all my major components, to be replaced in 2006, already identified, costed, and laid out for my superiors and those below me to see, as well as delivery times and dates of said components and the time duration and timing of each job. (offhand over 200mil in component changeouts)That was done in 2005 due to budget reasons but it is a PLAN. Something TG lacks right now. They jump from issue to issue andnever really complete the one they just left.

Now, I know what my resources are in the upcoming year,money,manpower and parts wise. I then laid out my plan along those restrictions and said this is what we CAN do this year and what can CAN deliver on. If I went to my boss and said well, IMAY be able to get that job done andMAY be able to do it under budget IF I can get all the parts and IF everyone does not take vacation at one time, I won't have a job and our customers will look elsewhere for satisfaction.

I am not looking for pie in the sky wishes, just a detailed, well thought out plan on where the game is going and when those points can be met. And do not come back at me about not announcing deadlines. A properly laid out plan takes a deadline into consideration.

[Justa Mirage]

I simply want an "I WIN" button... :)

When I spoke with David Bowman, there were going to be more than just DP removal. He asked me what I would like to see in a confectioner food. I told him that due to low pop counts on the servers, most of the time (unless I uber-multiclass) I usually adventure with nothing filling my "Gift" slots as going around pan-handling for buffs from clerics or dragons to fill my 5 gift slots isn't me...

He liked the idea that a food could give a "gift" but that was about it, his biggest concern for confectioners is that the item that they create doesn't usurp the existing things already in game (such as spells cast by clerics, alchemy potions, etc.)

His biggest thing he talked about was food that will transport you to racial cities. This sounds like it's already been conceived and probably will be a reality in the later phases of the revamp.

[LaughingOtter]

He liked the idea that a food could give a "gift" but that was about it, his biggest concern for confectioners is that the item that they create doesn't usurp the existing things already in game (such as spells cast by clerics, alchemy potions, etc.)

His biggest thing he talked about was food that will transport you to racial cities. This sounds like it's already been conceived and probably will be a reality in the later phases of the revamp.

Iexpect the mystical foods to take some time to plan & deliver, since they have to be desirable without infringing on alchemy - which is very frustrating, because the ideas tossed around for mystical foods are some of the neatest ones in the whole revamp.

Which brings up another question: During the confectioner chat on Isle of the Drowned, one of the ideas that was mentioned was a wedding cake that created some kind of in-game relationship effect (vault sharing or house access, maybe?) when two people use it and agree to the effects. Is something like this, or other foods with social effects, still planned? Would those be mystical foods or another catagory?

[Kulamata]

I agree with Snowdonia above.

The approach to death was one of the unique, defining Horizons characteristics; what a relief after body hunting! Changing the death penalties to make confectioners a viable class is the tail wagging the dog.

The emphasis here is on increasing penalties, and then using confectioners to alleviate the penalties. This is where I think Hz is, and has been, going wrong; the game would be much more fun if they thought positively, and had confectioners' products ADD to the playing experience, instead of canceling a new negative.

[Vandellia]

Please everyone lets all get a grip and step back and think about the confectioner school as a viable trade let you give you a bit of history so you can perhaps get a bit of prospective on it.

1. at one point only ambrosia venders had ambrosia and if you were of the wrong level adv/craft wise you had no ambrosia avail and the only thng you could do is wait out the dp or seek out a confectioner and buy foods the foods at best if you set up a macro only removed aprox 2 hours of deathpoint time every 10 minutes, which is horrible. and that is only if you ate 1 each of all 26 (which should have been 50 different foods)

2. before the ambrosia 7 change i sold 450 of each of the 46 food items in game a week which required me 12+ hours in game to manufacture and even with t4 foods the average food item sold for less then 100 copper food when sold still sold for less then ambrosia of the same level. after the ambrosia change i sell zero a week except for the rare shining blades food quest thyp foods.

3.Tulga has to be very careful not to introduce any food/drinkitem that might be considered infringment on the alchemy school.

4. I have a hard time seeing how some of the conclusions are being drawn from the statments tulgahas laid out, most of it is simply speculation, not based on any exisiting statement by tulga, Bottom line realy is if/when we see them patch the first of the 3 planned changes to the confectioner school and actually see how they implement them then we have lots of provable facts to base our arguments on until then 99% of what is currently going on is simply personal interperation of statments, its not about what they state is how you chose to read them, all in all i think the best position to take is point out the flaws/errors/and make suggestions to fix it not just slam it offer solutions to the problem please, just saying it wont work if you cant offer up a counter solution is simply not going to be effective, take a stand pro and con but use logic fight for your belief system but if you dont like somethn offer a counter suggestion that appeals to you instead give them something to work with not a list of i hate this and that, that kind of thing wont accomplish anything

[Goriax]

A few observations which are neither rabidly for or against:

1. As it currently stands, ambroisa is in the optional category. My main is over two years old and he has yet to use ambrosia.I always consideredit too expensive for the benefit. I doubt I'm the only one. I presume that's why they want to extend the DP removal time to 24 hours -- so that people like me will be willing to shell out their hard earned silvers (it better not be golds) so as to remove DPs.

2. If confectioners have even ONE item which is in high demand they're ahead of a lot of people and have no cause for complaint. My dragon has zero items in high demand. If all they want is more items in demand, just introduce the DP reducing foods without changnig the timer. They'll still have the same demand as now only things like time to make it etc. could be tweaked. They could have a whole line with foods. Foods which aremight remove less then foods which are hard to make (and which would presumably sell for more).

3. If confectioners or TG are thinking of this as a way of confectioners making a lot more money from players then I've got a newsflash for you. Many players are not awash in money to give to you. If your foods are not affordable (perhaps 10 sp to remove a DP at level 100,no more then a couple hundredcpat level 10) then you'll price yourselves out of the market for many people. This also means that non-confectioners will have less money to spend on other things. Many will be unable to buy the foods and, if they average more then one death a day, their characters will gradually become unplayable.

It's very likely that the biggest purchasers of ambrosia now are those with all the money. If they try to bring in more customers, those customers will have less money and unable to pay such high prices.

So confectioners better not be expecting to make a lot of money off of this.


I agree that there are a lot of unknowns on this and the people pushing this. Just like many people against this change are making unfounded assumptions, so are the people who are for this change.

There is enough uncertainty that this could easily go either way.

It could end up as a great improvement to gameplay with little downside for anyone. People will fear death while converselythey will be able to easily get rid of deathpoints with affordable foods which they can get off of any consigner for petty cash.

On the other hand, it could be the death of the game with everyone except confectioners and their close friends watching the DP counts on their characters gradually climb into the stratosphere while their character become unplayable either because their DP count is so high they have a semi-permanent death penalty all the time; or because they're afraid to do anything which could get them killed.

I think both of those extremes are unlikely to happen. But I also think that something of this magnitude has to be introduced very very carefully, and they need to be ready to stopit's introductionat any time. Seriously ready. Not just saying they'llhalt the introduction to placate those who are genuinely concerned; but really and truly ready and wiilling to halt it if it doesn't work out while at the same time carefully watching the DP counts on active characters.Before anything even gets to Blight, they shouldhavedecided on some objective measurement of what constitutes too high. If those DP counts get too high, then theymust nothesitate to roll things back and go back to the drawing board while doing a one time reset of all death points to zero.

Because, while it's always nice to make someone feel wanted, it's not worth destroying the game over it.

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Oh yes:

thing he talked about was food that will transport you to racial cities. This sounds like it's already been conceived and probably will be a reality in the later phases of the revamp.

Nobody took that seriously but think about it. I think a lot of people would like a way of being teleported to a spot from anywhere in the game without using recall. Lairshapers working on lairs not near a teleport may find that very handy. Bind in your lair, then use a food which transports youto say, Kion which is near a lot of the resources you'd have to dig up. If priced reasonably I think such foods would be very popular.

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P.S. Since I was posting anyway I thought I'd correct the following:

I usually adventure with nothing filling my "Gift" slots as going around pan-handling for buffs from clerics or dragons to fill my 5 gift slots isn't me...

And you won't ever get any gifts from a dragon either. Dragons have one line of gift spell like abilities and they're self only.

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

Goriax,

(re: racial town teleport foods) Who didn't take that seriously? I sure did as DB sounded pretty confident it could be done and quite possibly would be done. It didn't sound too much like a joke and if it was then that should have been made clear but given his elucidation at the time on these, I doubt very much it was.

[imported_tjl]

Goriax,

(re: racial town teleport foods) Who didn't take that seriously? I sure did as DB sounded pretty confident it could be done and quite possibly would be done. It didn't sound too much like a joke and if it was then that should have been made clear but given his elucidation at the time on these, I doubt very much it was.

I think maybe from a lore standpoint, it's really pushing the envelope. food... that recalls you? spells maybe... but being moved thousands of meters to another location via a soup or something just seems odd.

[Senkeleron Fell]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Snowdonia Honeythorn wrote: Goriax,

(re: racial town teleport foods) Who didn't take that seriously? I sure did as DB sounded pretty confident it could be done and quite possibly would be done. It didn't sound too much like a joke and if it was then that should have been made clear but given his elucidation at the time on these, I doubt very much it was.
I think maybe from a lore standpoint, it's really pushing the envelope. food... that recalls you? spells maybe... but being moved thousands of meters to another location via a soup or something just seems odd.

Well, it is all magic food isn't it? We don't eat regular food (or if we do the game mechanics don't support it, carrot anyone?) So being as it is magic food it can do pretty much whatever it wants. I always assume that behind the scenes we eat regular food with the non-gifted of Istaria, but when weneed some magical effect, healing from death, a boost in our abilities, etc, we see a Confectioner (capital C, magic food making dude)

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

torvos,

That is why DB was slating the racial recall effect items for drinks. As an example, A Dwarven Fire Whiskey would recall you back to Aughundell, An Elven Fey Wine would recall you to Feladan, etc etc.

Of course these are just examples and prolly not what is going to be the exact item but they will be drinks specifically. I use food as a general term encompassing everything a Confectioner makes.

[Varangaard]

I always assume that behind the scenes we eat regular food with the non-gifted of Istaria, but when weneed some magical effect, healing from death, a boost in our abilities, etc, we see a Confectioner (capital C, magic food making dude)

I'm pretty sure it goes: while Gifted ones can eat, they don't need to.

[cattoy]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Senkeleron Fell wrote:I always assume that behind the scenes we eat regular food with the non-gifted of Istaria, but when weneed some magical effect, healing from death, a boost in our abilities, etc, we see a Confectioner (capital C, magic food making dude)
I'm pretty sure it goes: while Gifted ones can eat, they don't need to.

Given that nobody, even quartermasters, buys food, it can be reasonably assumed that nobody in Istaria needs to eat.

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

I'm gonna make a correction because after reading the logs again, there is no real mention of it and I can't for the life of me remember where I read it (if I read it at all lol).

DB did not say recall items would be slated for drinks. So my apologies for giving misinformation. :)

[Katscratch]

Last week Amon was on and I discussed a reduction in the Speed limit of 8 that is now on Gummi Maggots and he told me to post my suggestion here so here goes.

When the Gummi Maggots first came out there was no speed limit on them and Confectioners were able to sell them. Their advantages were that you could gather resource faster or damage mobs at a faster rate and still run away if needed, there were no disadvantages.

I agree they were too good to be true but the speed debuff is so much that now there are no advantages because if you are gathering resources you move so slowly between them that you end up gathering at a slower rate than you normally would and if you are adventuring you can't pull mobs because movement is far to slow.

My suggestion is that the speed reduction should be the speed of the fastest disk which is Tarbash Compact Marble disk at 50. Gathering resources would be the same as if you were a high level crafter unless you were dragging a slower disk and when dragging a disk through hostile territory where you get attacked detaching disk would only allow you to run slightly faster unless you remove Gummi Maggot effect. If you were adventuring you would have running disadvantage of some one dragging disk.

Thank you

[AA0]

If you've done some of the Tinkerer quests, you'll see Gangaf sure likes to eat a bit, and it kinda promotes a background story where you see people do eat in Istaria, but just isn't shown. There is a whole little community in Dalimond which is revealed, but remains silent, like so much in this game

[Azzerhoden]

As a dwarven paladin who has just recently returned to the game, I have to say that I am getting a might, thirsty.

What-ever you come up with regarding beverages, please be sure to include some good, dwarven ale. In addition to its normal effects of quenching a good, honest thirst, its always handy against the undead (used as holy water) and for cleaning (grease/varnish/paint/blood remover).

Thank ye

[JDavidC]

Well, I get the feeling that the people who see death as something that deserves to be harshly punished with death penalties that gimp your characters for ages are in the minority. Death penalties, IMO,should be like a short, sharp, PAINFUL shock that you will REALLY want to avoid (regardless of how many deaths you've had recently, even your 1st death in a blue moon should hurt). A nice change would be to have experience towards your next level get transferred into a pool, with food being 1 way of getting it back (AO does something like this). Death penalties with a long lasting effect are FAR too harsh IMO. People do NOT want to be rendered useless both in adventuring AND crafting for ages. That will just be a disincentive to play. To many people like me, it does not provide an uberadrenaline rush when I'm about to die, nordoes it make avoiding death that much more fun. Remember that this is a game advertised as NOT having hardcore penalties. Penalties that gimp you for ages are EXTREMELY hardcore. Could those of you that want uber death penalties please bear in mind that you may be in a minority, and the way this game is advertised may be different from what you want?

A point to bear in mind is that merely dying causes you to lose quite a lot of time if you need to get back to where you were. This is more serious than some people may think. More time spent travelling = less time spent getting xp/crafting/making cash. Another thing is that the DP system messes up crafting as well as combat. IMO it should be changed to apply penalties to damage you can inflict, healing you can do, the armour you have etc, but NOT to your abilities to craft. Gimping a character in all respects makes things worse.

Those people that want to have fun avoiding death can do so by setting challenges for themselves, they shouldn't need an uber death penalty system to have fun avoiding it IMO. If this current system is going to work, it needs to convert long periods of downtime into cash penalties. Also, this game does have issues with lag, or monsters appearing right on top of you causing you to die for reasons that have nothing to do with RP or player skill. Also, from an RP perspective, dragons will need a school that allow them to tackle DP. I cannot imagine Lunus dragons wanting to be forced to rely on bipeds, especially on a RP server. Although I don't really do roleplay, I don't want to see the game's lore get messed with by seeing some dragons being forced to sip a cup of tea made by bipeds, when those dragons may rather eat gnomes instead.

Sooooo... the only way this new system is going to have a chance of not being hardcore is for food to provide a $ alternative to long-term gimpness, otherwise a lot of players are going to be driven away. Not everyone is uber-leet at avoiding death with lvl 100/100/100/100.... characters, so just because the death penalty seems too weak to you, doesn't mean that it is. If you have the skills to avoid the penalties in the first place, then that doesn't mean it needs to be increased. Lots of players may be new to MMORPGs, or have little experience with the game. They do NOT need uber penalties that a few hardcore players seem to crave so much.

[HAG]

... Not everyone is uber-leet at avoiding death with lvl 100/100/100/100.... characters, so just because the death penalty seems too weak to you, doesn't mean that it is. ... They do NOT need uber penalties that a few hardcore players seem to crave so much.

Your above sentence brought me to think ...

Why not make the effect of a Deathpoint (DP) depending on the AR (Adventure-Rating)?
So a lvl 11 adv can easily live with this 2 DPs but an AR 200 will surely need some Ambrosia or food to get off his 75% penalty for 24 hours?

Would also be a money-sink for those "Ubers" (yes Hagen, my mainchar is one of those with AR 162).