Confectioner Preview - Feedback Thread

[Guaran]

I would prefer that all items be gatherable or lootable though. I don't buy tech comps from the Vielo and I am not going to buy food ingredients from them either. If they have to be rare you can scatter things like nutmeg or cocoa plants at random over the whole of Istaria with a long respawn time or just an automatic respawn in a random (land) spot. That would make finding them an interesting surprise.

I agree that there should be rare single node spawns of the rare spices say like cinnamon. That can be just about anywhere within reason. And for the fun of it put a whole pack of nodes on Isle of Lost Machines, or Aiden, someplace we know bipeds cannot go ( on purpose). To exemplify the serenity of the place that ancient dragons will be calling home =) [just a little rp idea tossed into the post for flavor]

Nice changes [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-2.gif[/img]

Since dragons need bipeds for yet another thing.
Can we now please get the option to eat animal mobs we kill? [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-1.gif[/img]
for a much lesser effect to the dp then cooked food would give offcourse.
and no effect lessening at all if we eat deer or sheep, only stuff that fights back should shave a wee bit of time of the dp's.
Would add some flavor to the game.

I'd also suggest a radius of effectiveness around the taverns, after all if its a sunny day who wants to eat inside? + Many dragons dont like going khutit,sitting outside the tavern is much more natural for a dragon.
(that and a dragon who forgot going khutit walking into a tavern is rather detrimental to the structure [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img])

ALso, how about adding a tavern cave to lairs and the dragon towns.
Lore wise a lunus wouldnt be caught dead eating a friendly meal WITH bipeds. (a friendly meal consisting OF bipeds is another matter entirely offcourse [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img])

Some good suggestions. If we could "cook" say a wolf, and then eat it, that could be a huge RP element, more flavor, to the game. The tier of the wolf could determine the tier of the food. This could also go A LONG WAYS towards relieving some of the tension between Dragons and Gnomes, which currently have a rather strained relationship, thanks to Lunus who like to scare them with stories of gnomesnacks (which are greatly exxagerated)

Festival foods were a start. They are indeed a semi-source of demand. However, their cost is daunting. You can get potions for 400c each while some of the resources for festival foods COST more than that. Then there is the stacking issues. I'm not going to purchase Chocolate spiders because they conflict with True Grit. They made ONE fix to their desireability by moving them out of the gift slot.
Since they added immunity, it would make no sense to reintroduce it unless it was changed.

The stacking issue is an excellent point that I hope is addressed soon. Food effects, especially ones using the purchased ingredients (relatively expensive ones) should COMPLETELY stack with all buffs, potions, and abilities. Anything else simply makes them worthless for anything other than a novelty item.


Overall I think the direction of the changes is in the right direction. the 75% penalty sounds pretty harsh.. I'll reserve judgement until I've seen this change in action. If the 5% steps per DP are maintained, then it's probably safe to say that this many DP's can be avoided at one time. Even the 20% penalty I find annoying and restrict what mobs I fight while under its influence.

I also like the idea that Dragons get a tavern structure equivalent for lairs at some point. A special room where food has the double effectiveness buff. Maybe call it a "Meditation Chamber" or something. Make it nice and pretty to look at too. :)

One final suggestion: Don't take out Amb7, or increase the DP penalty capandreduction timer,until the final phase of foods is rolled out. Since there is a likely possibility that months, or even a year could pass before the Confectioner revamp is complete. I would make those changes a part of the final rollout.

[PJ]

And for the fun of it put a whole pack of nodes on Isle of Lost Machines, or Aiden, someplace we know bipeds cannot go ( on purpose).

Make that somewhere bipeds with hangups about exploiting cannot go[:@]

[Rawdge]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Guaran wrote:
And for the fun of it put a whole pack of nodes on Isle of Lost Machines, or Aiden, someplace we know bipeds cannot go ( on purpose).



Make that somewhere bipeds with hangups about exploiting cannot go[img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-12.gif[/img]

Nevermind.

[Justa Mirage]

Cobol Wrote:

"Since dragons need bipeds for yet another thing.
Can we now please get the option to eat animal mobs we kill? [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-1.gif[/img]
for a much lesser effect to the dp then cooked food would give offcourse.
and no effect lessening at all if we eat deer or sheep, only stuff that fights back should shave a wee bit of time of the dp's.
Would add some flavor to the game."

I envisioned the scene from Ice Age, when Manny tells Diego, "Drop that, you don't know where it's been." as Sid is hanging from Diego's mouth.

[Helcat]

Do the Vielo have to be the monopoly on all special supplies? If it keeps up, they'll be the richest dandies in the game as they will have allthe crafters'money, and soon they will rule the world!

too late.. they already do!

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

Tzael,

Given Brewing is a Confectioner only skill, a 10 point earner, and that we will eventually be getting drinks (final product), it best be made a primary skill. I can lose Earthencraft, fine. But Brewing is and needs to be a primary skill given it will become a finished product producing skill.

Guaran,

If they complete all DPTR foods in one round, there is no need to keep ANY Ambrosia around. I DO hope that is their plan while releasing this first round of foods. Here is how I envision the food rounds to go...

All DPTR foods released + All Ambrosia removed from game with exception to drops (possibly keeping any ambrosia currently in players inventories and storages) + All tavern bonuses established in game = first round

All drinks (and possibly all mystical foods) released = second round

All mystical foods released (if not done so in second round) = third round

With of course HIGH hopes that this process takes no more than 4-6 months. Least, it would do if proper focus was given to it.

[Rawdge]

Tzael,

Given Brewing is a Confectioner only skill, a 10 point earner, and that we will eventually be getting drinks (final product), it best be made a primary skill. I can lose Earthencraft, fine. But Brewing is and needs to be a primary skill given it will become a finished product producing skill.

Guaran,

If they complete all DPTR foods in one round, there is no need to keep ANY Ambrosia around. I DO hope that is their plan while releasing this first round of foods. Here is how I envision the food rounds to go...

All DPTR foods released + All Ambrosia removed from game with exception to drops (possibly keeping any ambrosia currently in players inventories and storages) + All tavern bonuses established in game = first round

All drinks (and possibly all mystical foods) released = second round

All mystical foods released (if not done so in second round) = third round

With of course HIGH hopes that this process takes no more than 4-6 months. Least, it would do if proper focus was given to it.

That's pretty much the plan.

And just to quell everyone's concerns about the purchased ingredients - There aren't any purchasable ingredients for Tier 1 at all. Tier 2 might have 2 dishes that call for 1 purchased ingredient. Tier 3 might have 3 dishes that call for 1 or 2 purchased ingredients. Tier 4 might have 4 dishes that call for 2 purchased ingredients. Tier 5 might have 5 dishes that call for 2 or 3 purchased ingredients.

These dishes are by no means *necessary* to make. An entire tier is not comprised of purchased ingredients. Also, there might be alternative means of obtaining some or all of these purchasable ingredients, however, it will be very difficult to have a reliable source for these ingredients aside from purchasing them.

One of our goals is to make all schools viable, and interesting to play. Players will always have different play styles from one another, and we couldn't possibly try to account for all players' play styles within one school (which is why we will also be adding Dragon Schools in the future as well.) It may turn out that it is indeed be a process that some players find tedious when it comes to gathering (or searching for) the different ingredients and rare ingredients for these foods. Especially if a player is not gaining any experience from gathering them.

It may turn out to be more worthwhile for a Confectioner to hire a Gatherer to fill a silo or other storage structure full of a certain ingredient or resource. This way the Confectioner can focus on cooking, and the Gatherer can focus on gathering.

Hopefully this will help shed a little more light on the subject.

[LaughingOtter]

These dishes are by no means *necessary* to make. An entire tier is not comprised of purchased ingredients. Also, there might be alternative means of obtaining some or all of these purchasable ingredients, however, it will be very difficult to have a reliable source for these ingredients aside from purchasing them.

"It's only a few foods" - irrelevant. If you are asking confectioners to accept this because it's only two or three ingrediants that appear in a handful of recipies, then the reverse applies: it's only two or three resources - it should be no problem to create assets and place spawn.

If these were tech comps, I wouldn't have as strong an objection. For example, say meat dishes could be teched for extra time reduction by adding black truffle sauce. Black truffles are a T5 tech componant that can only be purchased from a farmer who raises bloodnout truffle gruok at the edge of the Spiritous Swamp. Something like that would be fine, because tech componants are rare and expensive.

What's being presented, though, is food being most effective when consumed as a meal. A meal consists of different kinds of food. In order to present the most effective DP reduction, different foods have to be consumed or the effect is lost if multiple identical food types are consumed too close together. Therefor, at T5, if five foods require purchased ingrediants, confectioners will have to choose between paying for the resources needed to get the required food variety, or not paying and having a product that is less effective than it should be.

Again, this is a requirement that no other crafting school is faced with. Why are confectioners, alone of all the craft schools, going to be required to buy basic resources from an NPC if they wish to explore the full range of their school?

[Rawdge]

Again, this is a requirement that no other crafting school is faced with. Why are confectioners, alone of all the craft schools, going to be required to buy basic resources from an NPC if they wish to explore the full range of their school?

Because we haven't gotten to the other schools yet. "Only a few foods" is perfectly relevant. The foods that are requiring purchased ingredients are *additional* foods included in the tiers, not replacing other foods. These formulas are available, but not required. The ingredients that will be purchased are being considered, at least in regards to how they function, as tech comps.

If you want to make an Iron Mining Pick of Mining, tech comps are required as part of the formula, otherwise, you can always make a regular old Iron Mining Pick. Food that requires purchased ingredients requires these ingredients as part of the formula, otherwise, you can make other food.

[LaughingOtter]

The ingredients that will be purchased are being considered, at least in regards to how they function, as tech comps.

Thank you for providing that clarification. If that is indeed the case, I withdraw my objection.

If you could provide some specific examples of these food techs and how theyare usedto modifythe mundane food forms, that would be very helpful and much appreciated.

[Senkeleron Fell]

I have no problems with some of the exotic food ingredients be treated like tech comps. What that should mean is that ALMOST ALL OF THEM are available somewhere other than from the Vielo, and that the ones that are only available on the Vielo are things you haven't gotten around to providing yet on mobs or resource nodes. Why it takes so long to provide a tech comp on a mob is beyond me, but whatever.

[Nalrach]

[quote user="Amon Gwareth][*]Confectioner should be a necessary part of the Horizons system. That is, the products that are created should be in demand by the player-base.[*]Confectioners should be a source of social interaction for the Horizons player-base.[/quote]This afternoon when a friend pointed to me this topic because of the change to DP my reply to her was ....

Extracted fro game log : You tell xyz, 'First sentence they wrote, they get me angry... "should be a necessary part of horizons system". Again they want to force a trade system that does not work, because of high player that can farms gold like crazy, it makesany economy useless. Tulga seem to think they have the player base to have an economy based on players, we see that this is not so with buildings and it enup with evryone learning trade so they could build their plot.

Now that said .. Itry looking at the confectionner and my second taught was ... 'They making harvesting hard for confectionner, and slow crafting requiring multiple ingredients and multiple processing, have they not learn from the whine of metal processing.'

So to expend on my first feeling ....

Honestly can someone tell me we have enough players to supply the food items at a reasonnable price, and at a constant supply chain. This is the same issue as the vielo (Dawna or what ever he name is). Why do you insist that for something I have to depends on nother player, when the player base does not support the said system.

You should try to find things to help raise the interest and get people in the games, instead of finding more ways to restric players and encourage them to go somewhere else because they tired of all the nerfing's.

I guess that is enough to get myself flamed .. but that's my feeling about this announce change.

[Pharcellus]

Let's phrase the ingredient question another way...

In any one tier, for most crafted items, there are multiple kinds of items at different skill levels that can be crafted to obtain optimal XP.

For example: Tier 2 potions. the formulas will vary in their "optimal" skill from 325 to 505 Alchemy, with 16 products falling at various points in-between.

With Tier 2 foods, let's say that one of the ones which requires purchased ingredients falls at skill 405 Cooking. Are there other products at 405 cooking to allow unfettered levelling at optimal when skill reaches 405, or will someone have to level at less than optimal to get to a product at 425 Cooking which doesn't require a purchased ingredient?

If the only choice for optimal levelling at a particular skill point is a purchased-ingredient product, then that is wrong, and should be scrapped as a bad idea. NO ONE ELSE has to buy their levels with purchased ingredients for standard products; Confectioners should be no exception.

[imported_Zayin]

Would it not be possible to let Confectioner's do some kind of quests in exchange

for these ingredients instead of being purchased? Seems a fairer way than making

them buy them.Tired of seeing the Vielo as a stop gap for everything .

[Barnaby Gump]

No offense, but not having this fleshed out isn't reassuring, nor is the fact that we have to go through the Vielo for resources.

Currently there are too many things that remain unfinished from their original release. We still have no master cloth spool, no tier 6 steelsilk, adamantium, or radiant essence resources (bonuses don't count). There still isn't a crystal gear implementation.

So forgive me if a promise of "somtime in the future" is less than comforting. I realize that TG is tight on resources, but the goals stated in the letter from Mr. Bowman dated December 3, 2004 are not yet even complete. Blight anchors don't seem as important of a goal perhaps as they were a year ago, racial quests are no longer even being mentioned, and the new tutorials are still in progress. And that doesn't even include the "What we are working on next" portion of the e-mail.

I can fully appriciate that for the game to survive there is a need to improve the introduction to new players. At the same time you also have a large number of loyal customers that have wated for over a year and a half now for school improvments in areas other than dragons that everyone has agreed have been lacking since release.

[Dragoniade]

Nice to see some change. it look good so far, but lets play the devil's advocate here

* Confectioner should be a necessary part of the Horizons system. That is, the products that are created should be in demand by the player-base.
* Confectioners should be able to create all foods through Tier5 (and eventually Tier6).
* Confectioners should be a source of social interaction for the Horizons player-base.

I do hope the other class are going to get the same love. By that, I mean the social interaction. The Horizons economy need some boost, and the right type of boost. This cannot happen with only one class. Dragon Lairshapper, so far, didn't bring anything to the social interaction of the player base. Maybe if TG would give them weapon Crystal working, but the point is that the game need more than one social class to be able to bring the economy to a working state. Only allowing one class to be social only push everyone to take that class, which, in the end, simply kill the idea behind it.

Within each Tier foods are divided into parts of a meal. You have Appetizers, Side-Dishes, Main Dishes and Desserts. Each part shares a timer so you will not be able to consume five Appetizers in a row. Rather, you will be encouraged to consume "meals" to reduce your death point timers.

The amount of time that each unit of food removes from your DP timer will be greatly increased. These numbers will be greatly increased over the current foods because of changes with the death point penalty as well as the length of time it takes to lose a death point. To ensure that there is demand for food at all tiers and to also not force players to eat certain tiers of foods, we're going to introduce a scaling to the amount of DP that food reduces. As you progress to the higher tiered food, the effectiveness of lower-tiered food is reduced. So if you are over level 80 then consuming a Tier 1 food will result in an 80% decrease in its effectiveness.

Finally, to encourage the more social aspect of confectioner and food consumption in the game, Taverns are being beefed up. We're lowering the fees for items sold at taverns as well as a significant increase in the effects when eating food in a tavern.

Limited to five in what interval? An hour? 6 hours? A day? About tavern, like someone brought up, will dragon will have their own version of Tavern Hall, where dragon would gather? It's totally out Lore wise to have dragon turn khutit and go into a tavern.

I can't believe dragons never ate in the last few centuries. I sure hope Dragon get their own Conffectioner class, Tavern hall in the future. Gruok pie? Eww. Give me that full boar roasted with dragon breath over a nice Gold Golem charcoal!!

Will Confectioners use the Primary Skill System like the Lairshaper school?
Yes, the Primary skill system will be implemented with the revamp of Confectioner.

Glad to see TG is keeping their word regarding the Skill System. Now if all school could be rewamped to get experiences from their primary skill only.

Will the length of time that death points last and the death point penalty be increased?
Yes, the length of time it takes for a death point to decay will be increased to 24 hours. And the death point penalty cap (the highest it can reach) will be raised to 75%.

That is what frighten me. Is this going to affect other schools abilities? As a dragon, if DP get increasted to 24 Hours, I better see Primal Rebirth increased to 24 hours too. Otherwise, that ability would not be worthing the already ridiculously high hoard value is cost. Same would go with the mastered Resurection that are now removing death point.

Already that dragon would once again have to rely on biped for food (I though dragon were supposed to be a stand alone class). Now losing our our reward for another class only waiting 2 years for it seem a bit unfair.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

My reasoning behind longer DP time:

Bottom line: Make food more important to spur economy growth but compensate for the inconvenience by increasing food effectiveness. This way, the amount of food you need to buy in the new system to remove X number of deathpoints should be about the same as the amount of food you'd need in the current system. The difference is simple, you need to buy food to get rid of deathpoints, and via that actual give the game more of an economy. The difference is that waiting off dp's right now is too sweet a deal. Unless you /really/ die a lot you never need to purchase any food.

To cite a personal example, I find myself never dying more than maybe 2, 3, 4 at most in a typical night of hunting things I can't quite kill very well. In the current system you lose 3 deathpoints a day, that's enough to pad out any player from having to buy large sums of food to avoid a painful (and still relatively short) death penalty.

Even if you are accident-prone, the new foods should be effective enough that with purchasing across all tiers you can remove many deathpoints at a time. To cite Amon's post, you should be able to consume a different meal withing a fairly small amount of time. If one were to obtain just one of every type of food (which was a fairly common thing to do back when 80+ players couldn't use ambrosian) your rate of death point removal would be around this:

Without eating the same food item twice, you can remove almost 3 24-hour death points. The only waiting time would be between meals, which should not be nearly as long as the time between eating the same thing twice (I think).

[Levity]

I hope that one part of the revamp will remove the every-few-seconds spam of "Delicious, delicious! Player X eats Food Y."

Once everyone has to eat all the time, the sounds of chomping and chewing will become overwhelming in any public area :) I still remember that time in New Rachival when I was trying to review my inventory and vault while someone macroed food consumption. Gah! Good thing I wasn't trying to talk to someone at the time, it would have scrolled away.

Perhaps just have the food info float up over their head as with buffs and spells?

-Levity Merrel

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

What we need is a /gobble !

[Guaran]

One thing I would propose is that some sort of simple combining of saya "meals"
worth of say 1 of each of 5 to 7 foods, and make a single item (the meal) that can be eaten 1 time with all the benefits added together.

Like to create a T1 Meat meal:
T1 beef foodu min dp timer reduction
t1 soup foodv min
t1 beverage w min
t1 salad dish x min
t1 desert dish y min
t1 second compatible course (etc) z min

Combines into the single meal, which has a dp timer reduction of say (u+v+w+x+y+z + bonus)

So the conf sells 6 foods in a single item, single stack. easier for players to manage, and even has a bonus to the dp timer reduction (say an extra 10%)

When we had the Conf chat I got the point across about the tavern's granting a bonus, but not sure I got this idea conveyed (lots of people talking, taking turns, etc.)