Craft Techs vs Adventure Techs

[Dhalin]

Am I the only person who thinks that all craft techs should be made purely out of crafting materials, and adventure techs should be made out of things mobs drop?

Makes sense, right?

I was thinking about this last night while leveling my Blacksmith. Since I have very low Adventuring, I have pretty much nil chance of ever teching my gear, and crafting with 0 techs is starting to get more painful as I am looking forward to having to go to Level 40+ before I can even start Tier Two stuff. I'm at 32 now, and a full diskload gives me about 9.5% of a levelup.

I was thinking "Gee, it'd be nice if I had more than 1 single line of techs that I could actually put on stuff" and then I was like "Why do I have to kill monsters for craft techs anyways? That's kinda dumb -- crafters shouldn't have to kill monsters to put crafting techs on their stuff." Especially when some of these crafting techs require things that are by no means easy to get, like WA drops, or Ogres/Pygmies.

And then, on the Adventure side, if you want to be a good adventurer, you need a godly craft skill compared to your adventure level, because sticking on techs requires a ridiculously high-levelled craft, by the time you get to T5, every tech you stick on a piece of gear greatly inflates the minimum skill it takes to craft the item.

So my suggestions are as follows:

1). Make all craft techs take crafted items instead of mob drops. For example, Mining I would take Dim Orbs, and 2 Mining Picks or maybe 50 Bars kinda like the Bounty techs (which there are none of for T1 that I saw).
2). Make Adventure Techs, Tech Kits instead so that an Adventurer doesn't need ridiculously high craft levels to make tech'd gear.

The above two suggestions would only apply through T1 to T4, as T5+ is supposed to be "Endgame" and hard, but at least the journey there wouldn't be so painful.

EDIT: Clarification for above: How the Adventurer suggestion would work, is that an Adventurer could obtain Formulas (Beginner and Jman) that produce the tech kits, but have no skill requirement. It would work a lot like quested Tech Kits do -- you drag and drop the item onto the one you want to apply the tech to. It'd be like you go out, kill a mob, use its body parts to enhance your gear. The forms could either be dropped by the same mobs that drop the body parts used in the tech (your character gets the inspiration from seeing the body parts, like "These fangs would make awesome arrowheads" or "This bone sliver has some odd magical power to it"?), or maybe put them on WA/Ogres? Not sure about that part.

EDIT2: Also, this would enhance the market -- imagine if all adventurers T1 through T4 had something to actually use money on, to actually buy from consigners? Make the Tech Kits attuned, but yet since the Adventurer would not require Craft Skill to tech his gear, people would sell more untech'd gear at the consigner, and they'd sell the components of the stuff. The adventurer would then buy the armor, the components, and then go out and kill the right monsters until the formula drops. Then he'd make the tech kit, apply it and viola! Tech'd gear, using both the Consigner/Market AND having to fight the mobs at the same time.

[Malicore]

problem being, you are talking about a complete overhaul of a system that has worked fine for 9 yrs. not likely they are gonna do a total overhaul. good thing about having adventurers and crafters in such a community based game is: you can hire adv'ers to gather comps you need to make your gear. and av'ers buy teched gear from crafters. so one hand washes the other. then there's the tech connies which adv'ers can place comps only, for you to purchase. I, for one, would not want to start relearning something I've done one way for so many years. pretty sure others would agree on this matter

[Dhalin]

Nowhere in that did I say the old system had to be gotten rid of.

You could easily keep the old system AND add the new system as another option of how to get tech'd gear, right?

Well other than perhaps the Craft: ____ techs. If we went along with my idea, those would need to change. But then, would anyone seriously feel bummed out if you didn't have to kill WA mobs for a Craft tech?

And the problem with "Adventurers and Crafters Helping Each Other" is that this only typically works at T5 levels -- very rare is a, say, T2 crafter going to find a T2 adventurer who have what each other needs, or are able to go get it. That's why I said to make this optional new system work for T1-T4 -- we don't have dozens of players at each Tier in the game.

You have, basically, two kinds of people:

1). Someone who has Rating 100+
2). Someone who doesn't.

#2 people find it incredibly difficult to get what they need so they have to resort to asking #1 for help. But... what does #2 have that #1 doesn't have access to? Not much of anything, really. Once you get your first craft to 100, the rest follow very quickly. Once you get an adventurer school to 100, you can farm your own comps with ease until at least T4. So what do you need some lowbie's help for? What could they offer you to make you want to do something for them?

That's why I suggest a system where people could stick stuff on connies -- Adventurers would stick comps on connies, crafters would stick untech'd gear on connies and they'd buy each other's stuff.

As to the "It has worked this way for 9 years" .....eh, I'm not sure I agree with you. People do it this way only because they must. But, if there were an easier way, I doubt they'd continue to farm WA mobs for craft techs if they had a way around it, or if an adventurer had a choice between hunting down a crafter to freshly make a tech'd piece of gear, or buying an untech'd piece of gear and dropping a tech kit on..... personally, I'd far more quickly choose the Tech Kit option; it'd be far less hassle.

[Azath]

You have, basically, two kinds of people:

1). Someone who has Rating 100+
2). Someone who doesn't.

#2 people find it incredibly difficult to get what they need so they have to resort to asking #1 for help. But... what does #2 have that #1 doesn't have access to? Not much of anything, really. Once you get your first craft to 100, the rest follow very quickly. Once you get an adventurer school to 100, you can farm your own comps with ease until at least T4. So what do you need some lowbie's help for? What could they offer you to make you want to do something for them?

I completely disagree with you there.
When i make scales and armor for anyone i don't ask for anything in return - only a thanks. When someone asks me to make them scales, i dont care that they might offer what i can already get - i care that they get the right armor, and i know it's not just me who thinks this.

[hallucin8]

Oh my gosh, NO NO NO! And Heck NOOOO! If you wish to be self-sufficient and not ask for help, then guess what, you're going to have to level adventure. I have never understood the gripe people have with getting comps, even when we had to somehow farm Blue Vexators for their comp drop for the Health 5 tech as it was way back when. It's not hard, time consuming perhaps, strategic even, but never hard (unless you're just fighting way above your level). With the large amount of things we all hoard, it's almost impossible to keep all comps on hand for sale, so asking in MP is not likely to get a positive response unfortunately. But posting on the forums, everyone can see that and then reply and start to help.

The boons/bounties/blessings already do partly what you want anyway, but limited to T1-3. There are plenty of people who can lend a hand getting comps, but if you want them then and there, right now, you're going to have to offer a significant premium. Otherwise, simply make a post on the relevant shard forum and your order will be filled.

I cannot even begin to imagine the work required and I don't see the outcome reflecting this at all. However, one part I will agree on is, if all techs could be made into tech kits. Same comps, maybe up the essence or something. So rather than having to go out and hunt 100 comps for a new set of whatever, you could do, for example:
- hunt the comps for one tech, health or armor as that is likely the most common,
- make the gear, then apply the first tech
- hunt the comps for the next important or easy tech
- make those kits and apply them
- rinse and repeat

This way if you cannot get all the comps, ie. some mobs still too high level, then you can still have the items you want, with some of the techs you want while working on the rest. If the idea of having techs and kits were feasible (whether it be 'instead of' or simply another option like the socket kits - drag-n-drop or apply on creation), then it might be possible that you could override lower versions of the same tech. For example, you could have T5 armor, with some T4 techs, some T5 techs, and then later apply the same T5 kits to replace the T4's. But I'm also pretty sure I'd read a comment in the past suggesting while this could be feasible and is even a good suggestion, the work required would be phenomenal and sits somewhere way down the bottom of the wish list somewhere (if at all).

But, as for the idea that craft techs not require mob comp drops... I'm not ever going to support that one personally. It just seems like you're trying to dumb it down (as the phrase has been used before). As though you've found a problem where there isn't one. But meh, that's my opinion and you have yours.

Happy huntings, see yas in Istaria

[Guaran]

Can't say I agree with this suggestion in any form.

You mention not replacing techs with some other "option", well that already exists as boons, bounties, blessings.

Not all gear has to be teched. Adventure or otherwise. None "has" to be teched.

You don't want to hunt comps? Use blessings instead.

[awdz]

Can't say I agree with this suggestion in any form.

You mention not replacing techs with some other "option", well that already exists as boons, bounties, blessings.

Not all gear has to be teched. Adventure or otherwise. None "has" to be teched.

You don't want to hunt comps? Use blessings instead.

Aren't boons, bounties and blessings only obtained by looting?

[Guaran]

I believe so, but they are quite common and cheap on the bristugo consignor on Chaos. Or he could ask someone to craft the items and provide all the materials, no animal bits required.

[Dhalin]

An update:

My suggestion that we allowed people to make Drag and Drop Adventure Tech kits was met with huge NOs by everybody in the thread...

But yet we already have a precedent in the game: The Dragon Tech kits like Deadly, Sharper, Battle-Forged, and the like.

They already act like this, as it is. Just kinda curious why it is OK for the Dragon Tech Kits, but yet not OK for the rest of the techniques?

[Northwind]

It was my impression that you asked for Tech Kits as drops or something similar that would take adventure skills to make and not crafting skills.
The Dragon tech kits you mention are like any other tech. They are made from dropped formulas, they require dropped and crafting components and a quite high crafting skill to make.

[Dhalin]

It was my impression that you asked for Tech Kits as drops or something similar that would take adventure skills to make and not crafting skills.
The Dragon tech kits you mention are like any other tech. They are made from dropped formulas, they require dropped and crafting components and a quite high crafting skill to make.

Well, my original idea might have been something like that, but then I saw the dragon techs, and I'm like "you know, it'd rock if all techs were like that, then we could just buy techs off the consigner and drop em on our items".

*shrugs*

[Guaran]

The idea to make all techs craftable into a drag-to-apply kit has come up before. It's a good idea, I can't recall why it wasn't pursued further, except that there is probably too much back-end work to achieve it, given the dev resources, for only a modest convenience.

And it isn't really necessary.

As far as tools go, players can just socket the tools and put cogs in that give a better increase than the techniques do, even given the level restrictions of the cogs. Stats come as tool crystals as well.

Weapons, it's not rocket science which techs someone would want. a 2 hand sword? +2hs and 2 sockets, for strength + health crystals, or strength + dexterity crystals, etc. More customizable and the crystals are far superior to the normal techniques for those stats.

They are a nice idea, but the end benefit would be pretty small.

On the plus side, after that old suggestion (which came about after we started getting drag-to-apply kits as quest rewards), they did make the new dragon claw techs in this manner, as well as convert all the socket techs to be drag-to-apply as well. So it wasn't completely ignored.

I believe the reason the claw techs are drag-to-apply is because after it is applied, the item became attuned (as soon as it was applied). So to be able to make them for someone else, they needed to be a kit. Recently they were modified to be attune on equip, not on apply.