A plea for crafting

[Lythos-]

I firmly believe imbuing needs an upgrade to weight and mods, reforging needs to be somewhere closer to artifacts and more viable armor drops outside of the main areas.

With the economy as is, it's almost impossible for casual players or new players to afford gear now.

Discuss:

 

[Stinky Pete]

The last thing we need is to upgrade crafting, what needs to be done is to downgrade loot. 99.999999% of loot should be the same weight or less as imbued to the max equipment but with higher property caps. With the chance to rarely... very rarely, find an item with 1-100 points over the maximum imbuing weight.

If we upgrade crafting to match loot, we have to upgrade loot again at some point. If we upgrade loot again we will have to upgrade crafting again until we are just one-hit-killing old content that hasn't been updated as well.

 

[MalagAste]

That and when you upgrade armor and weapon then well you have to upgrade Mobs... and then upgrade Mobs people complain they can't AFK/Script/Solo things and then they upgrade weapons and armor and it's a vicious cycle of seesawing... Which really is insane...

But the DEVs knew that when they started it with AoS... however that was not this group.

So who would be opposed to having them slash things back to far lower levels and caps? To make things far more "challenging"... ?

 

[EvilPixieWorks]

I agree fully.

Lets not forget the small soul-forage is massively too rare and a 3x3 common unit is beyond unreasonable. Most people just dont have the space.

I think we should also get a water supply update after all these many years. That is NOT a water trough. Call it "A Rain Barrel". And I'm not talking about those barrels you steal from a stable or the ones at Buck's Den smith. Something that will supply a house with water, that you can use for cooking, plants, just décor... or whatever. 1x1 items... not bigger.

 

[Lythos-]

That and when you upgrade armor and weapon then well you have to upgrade Mobs... and then upgrade Mobs people complain they can't AFK/Script/Solo things and then they upgrade weapons and armor and it's a vicious cycle of seesawing... Which really is insane...

But the DEVs knew that when they started it with AoS... however that was not this group.

So who would be opposed to having them slash things back to far lower levels and caps? To make things far more "challenging"... ?

I would have agreed to this fully pre pet advancements. Now, I don't think it would be fair to downgrade and leave the pets upgraded.

Imbuing, reforging and loot needs to have the gap closed and LEFT ALONE. Adding true arties and stat giving wearables is one thing but making competitive gear pretty much unobtainable to those that cannot play consistently and refuse to buy gold isn't right.

 

[Stinky Pete]

I would have agreed to this fully pre pet advancements. Now, I don't think it would be fair to downgrade and leave the pets upgraded.

I suppose you're right. Perhaps we could remove the ability for pets to consume scrolls and just have some extremely rare ones that can be trained to slightly over 100 in some skills. That would eliminate the need for tamers to have to get scrolls as well. I think people would like that.

 

[Pawain]

I agree fully.

Lets not forget the small soul-forage is massively too rare and a 3x3 common unit is beyond unreasonable. Most people just dont have the space.

I think we should also get a water supply update after all these many years. That is NOT a water trough. Call it "A Rain Barrel". And I'm not talking about those barrels you steal from a stable or the ones at Buck's Den smith. Something that will supply a house with water, that you can use for cooking, plants, just décor... or whatever. 1x1 items... not bigger.

Claw foot tub can be used for water. Also wash the mud off yourself.

 

[Mayhem_wushu]

Imbuing came out and gave power to the crafter, Then all this new loot came out and peoples suits became insane, then they nerfed loot back, but left all the old loot in game. 12 property rings with 100 skill with insane stats, and 10 mod armor plus resists. These ultra nice pieces are now only in the hands of early horders or those who have a platinum per piece.

I think that the higher loot tables should be brought back but imbuing should be tweaked to go along with it. I would love to have a maxed out suit on every toon I play. then player skill and character skill is all that matters. no more "if my suit was better" stuff. If you die in PVP or PVM it is either that you didnt scroll your toon or you cant play. No longer pay to win.

 

[MalagAste]

Imbuing came out and gave power to the crafter, Then all this new loot came out and peoples suits became insane, then they nerfed loot back, but left all the old loot in game. 12 property rings with 100 skill with insane stats, and 10 mod armor plus resists. These ultra nice pieces are now only in the hands of early horders or those who have a platinum per piece.

I think that the higher loot tables should be brought back but imbuing should be tweaked to go along with it. I would love to have a maxed out suit on every toon I play. then player skill and character skill is all that matters. no more "if my suit was better" stuff. If you die in PVP or PVM it is either that you didnt scroll your toon or you cant play. No longer pay to win.

Actually, I think they should nerf everything way back and hard cap it all ..... no more overcapping things and no more negating damages... and debuffs... make the game far more difficult back to when you needed others to help do most dungeons...

Be nice as well to go back to 700 skill cap... and make it a FIRM skill cap... but that's me.

 

[Lythos-]

Imbuing came out and gave power to the crafter, Then all this new loot came out and peoples suits became insane, then they nerfed loot back, but left all the old loot in game. 12 property rings with 100 skill with insane stats, and 10 mod armor plus resists. These ultra nice pieces are now only in the hands of early horders or those who have a platinum per piece.

I think that the higher loot tables should be brought back but imbuing should be tweaked to go along with it. I would love to have a maxed out suit on every toon I play. then player skill and character skill is all that matters. no more "if my suit was better" stuff. If you die in PVP or PVM it is either that you didnt scroll your toon or you cant play. No longer pay to win.

Closing the gap on gear alleviates the frustration by increasing and also reducing sub cancellations.

I have multiple accounts. I have downgraded characters to the point I could train a couple skills and consolidate my current characters onto one account. I only log on my crafters to make repair deeds now. Most of my special pvm/pvp characters have been made obsolete due to high end content changes and suit expenses. As a casual player only playing a couple hours a week, I know I cannot make the gold needed to adequately suit multiple characters. A newer/returning player will have no problem canceling accounts due to the frustration of not being able to do higher level content. That was the whole point of the Mythic token, to get people playing quicker. While there are a ton of things to do in junk gear, rarely does any of it involve anything that will upgrade your game situation in a reasonable time frame.

I leave you all with one last question. Would you be more likely to add or cancel accounts if you had the choice of paying a plat for a suit or had suitable armor readily available?

 

[GarthGrey]

The last thing we need is to upgrade crafting, what needs to be done is to downgrade loot. 99.999999% of loot should be the same weight or less as imbued to the max equipment but with higher property caps. With the chance to rarely... very rarely, find an item with 1-100 points over the maximum imbuing weight.

If we upgrade crafting to match loot, we have to upgrade loot again at some point. If we upgrade loot again we will have to upgrade crafting again until we are just one-hit-killing old content that hasn't been updated as well.

You just stated in another thread that you like to steal things and then destroy them with no thought for the owner, how then, do you think you have the right to opinions on how things are created, or the quality they receive ? Aren't you just going to trash them, after you snoop while hidden of course first ?

 

[Stinky Pete]

You just stated in another thread that you like to steal things and then destroy them with no thought for the owner, how then, do you think you have the right to opinions on how things are created, or the quality they receive ? Aren't you just going to trash them, after you snoop while hidden of course first ?

I have the right to hold whatever opinions that I want to hold. Not to mention that I have a crafter, it's just not as sexy to talk about him or any of my other toons for that matter.

Snooping while revealed would make it impossible to play as a thief. I tried explaining this to you once in game but you said nobody cares, yet you keep bringing it up. I could explain it to you but I feel like you just want to cry about it and truly don't care enough to understand. Also, this thread is about crafting and is not the place to discuss such things.

 

[Ikeelu]

My opinion,

Leave loot as is just add this loot to peerless and ML bosses

Allow reforging to look like imbuing but make it crafting skill specefic

Allow 100 more imbuing weight to armor. I think the weps and jewels are fine.

 

[Lythos-]

My opinion,

Leave loot as is just add this loot to peerless and ML bosses

Allow reforging to look like imbuing but make it crafting skill specefic

Allow 100 more imbuing weight to armor. I think the weps and jewels are fine.

I think all high end content should get quality armor with the chances increased on regular mobs. For example, the other night I killed a paragon Balron with the best piece coming in at a cursed major artifact. Peerless and named creatures which were top level seldom give anything usable.

Reforging should yield slightly below legendary with the chance at a legendary style perfect piece.

Imbuing is the red headed stepchild of crafting. It uses an enormous amount of resources while giving the least desirable results. Right now it's limited to not being able to add Dex/Int and can only give stamina/mana up to 8. Right now it's limited to not being able to imbue an eater or casting focus. Right now the mods are limited to 5 with a weight of 500.

If I were to change imbuing I would:
Add Dex and Int on the menu at a lower cap than reforging and loot.
stam and mana increased to 10
6 mods/650 weight and have base resists drastically increased. Put jewels at 6 mods/650 weight

Leave casting focus and eaters for reforging and loot.

I feel this would increase the resource gatherers and crafters while providing new and casual players with affordable and playable entry level gear while still keeping the demand for better loot pieces. I feel it would hurt no one and only increase the desire to play for all.

 

[Mahler]

My opinion is that crafting should get a boost. To me, UO essentially requires that players are able to become more powerful in some manner. That may be with more skills (seen with the +20 cap and + skill items), more stats (scrolls), above GM skills (scrolls), items, and more. I think the solution isn't to nerf things, but to add new content that is harder, which essentially requires the better gear. They need to strike a balance that allows casual players to obtain good gear, but also always the super dedicated to be rewarded for their time spent.

I think there should be new resources dropped that allow crafters, possibly using a system like the mastery system or something, to build higher level items most consistently. Additionally, they should release new dungeons which by virtue of the mobs in there, require the better gear. Nerfing items after the fact will annoy people who obtained it. I like what they've done with some of the Doom drops, which can be converted to generally more powerful items -- but the items that aren't upgraded may fill a niche roll in some instances. There is a balance in accomplishing something, like making an uber suit, due to rarity versus just spending 20 minutes one night and being maxed out. Ultima Online used to essentially rely on the sandbox portion without the treadmill of gear. That changed long ago, and while I didn't like it at the time, I think it holds people's interests longer.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Sadly this will never happen because all the loot farmers will scream their heads off that it isn't fair.

 

[Mahler]

Again, this is just my opinion, but I think a good compromise may be to allow the best stuff to still be loot drops (which I think is the right thing), but allow crafters, with some additional stuff similar to upgrading Doom artifacts, to upgrade drops to a certain extent.

 

[BeaIank]

Making reforging less random and improving imbuing weight a bit, maybe 50 to 100 points more and add one slot more for armour would help crafting a lot.
And let us reforge jewels to try to get SSI and over capped SDI and MAYBE (emphasis on maybe) FC on them.

 

[Lythos-]

Making reforging less random and improving imbuing weight a bit, maybe 50 to 100 points more and add one slot more for armour would help crafting a lot.

50 points is nothing in armor. 8 Mana 8 lmc 8 Stam all take 110 weight. For crafters to become viable there needs to be a solid 6 max stats with a partial 7th mod in imbuing. Reforging should be superior to imbuing 7max mods with a partial 8 while loot remains the top end.

Time and gold invested in resources and runics and forged metals should yield products remotely in the same ballpark as loot.

Base resists need to be increased as well.

 

[Swordsman]

I also agree the valorite hammers are too weak. There many ways to increase the power of crafter. A simple way may just give top end tools guarantee 6 mods and a chance for 7 or 8 mod. This will allow crafter a chance to grind high end equipments.

 

[Ender]

Yeah crafting definitely needs to be brought on par with upper tier loot.

 

[Mayhem_wushu]

Actually, I think they should nerf everything way back and hard cap it all ..... no more overcapping things and no more negating damages... and debuffs... make the game far more difficult back to when you needed others to help do most dungeons...

Be nice as well to go back to 700 skill cap... and make it a FIRM skill cap... but that's me.

The problem with group fights and content is, as others have said, the low population. Additionally unless you are in a large active guild there is no way for someone who plays shorter time periods would be able to get a group together.

While not discussed in this thread a group of 10 have a shared damage output, 1 person jumps out of party a second before the party is dropped and he is credited with half the damage and the other 9 people get to split that damage. I have not done it recently but have done this as a test with a group in a peerless before. If you leave party you should not get loot rights, and get removed immediately. All items on the corpse should be rolled on... similar to newer mmos.

As for pvm I can wear a crafted suit with a pair of library glasses and solo most things. in terms of pvp though... not so much. Besides ping and skills on a toon players skills, and 3rd party software it becomes super competitive. add to this a player with a suit made with jewels that pack 100 or more additional skill points, maxed out elemental damage eaters, over capped resists, and ci and dci, with weapons that might as well be called player slayers. How would a player that started today be able to play in fel?

Hard caps are a great idea, but lets say no over capped anything was allowed, resists, hci, dci, skills, nothing. how many players would we lose for that idea to go through? Most pvp players would be done. If We retroactively revert the old legendaries to new loot tables we would all be screwed, I might not own a ton but I have a few (my mage would be stuck in the house with either low skill or missing LRC.

We can't fix old stuff all we can do is level the playing field from here forward. Thats why I propose giving the ability to craft and loot better gear. I would be happy if we could just get a reforged piece to not count towards the imbuing intensity. A 5 to 6 mod reforge could add 5 addl properties with imbuing, then bumped up with enhancing. This gives a casual player a fighting chance of outfitting a toon to the top tier. Additionally this allows more serious players to be able to craft for profit again (a favorite past time of mine).

 

[Lythos-]

Let's keep this thread alive until we get Dev attention. We can hash out details later. Reforging was never my forte but I did and still do love imbuing.

I believe we're all in agreement that crafting should be bumped closer to loot.

 

[MalagAste]

The problem with group fights and content is, as others have said, the low population. Additionally unless you are in a large active guild there is no way for someone who plays shorter time periods would be able to get a group together.

While not discussed in this thread a group of 10 have a shared damage output, 1 person jumps out of party a second before the party is dropped and he is credited with half the damage and the other 9 people get to split that damage. I have not done it recently but have done this as a test with a group in a peerless before. If you leave party you should not get loot rights, and get removed immediately. All items on the corpse should be rolled on... similar to newer mmos.

As for pvm I can wear a crafted suit with a pair of library glasses and solo most things. in terms of pvp though... not so much. Besides ping and skills on a toon players skills, and 3rd party software it becomes super competitive. add to this a player with a suit made with jewels that pack 100 or more additional skill points, maxed out elemental damage eaters, over capped resists, and ci and dci, with weapons that might as well be called player slayers. How would a player that started today be able to play in fel?

Hard caps are a great idea, but lets say no over capped anything was allowed, resists, hci, dci, skills, nothing. how many players would we lose for that idea to go through? Most pvp players would be done. If We retroactively revert the old legendaries to new loot tables we would all be screwed, I might not own a ton but I have a few (my mage would be stuck in the house with either low skill or missing LRC.

We can't fix old stuff all we can do is level the playing field from here forward. Thats why I propose giving the ability to craft and loot better gear. I would be happy if we could just get a reforged piece to not count towards the imbuing intensity. A 5 to 6 mod reforge could add 5 addl properties with imbuing, then bumped up with enhancing. This gives a casual player a fighting chance of outfitting a toon to the top tier. Additionally this allows more serious players to be able to craft for profit again (a favorite past time of mine).

Oh I don't disagree ...... the thing is though the power creep is real and all the DEVs do to combat that is make the mobs have 100x more HP which takes ages to pound away at them and it's NOT fun... especially when you pound away for ages on end hoping to get some drop where you spent 2 hours building up to a 1/2 hour battle for No reward.

Grinding keys to get into Exodus comes to mind... can't just grind out your own set... no you gotta do it for 2 or 3 other people then beg and plead for someone to join you to fight him..... wait for everyone to be online at the same time... then hope none of the keys you ground out have timed out before you get a chance to go...

 

[Lythos-]

Oh I don't disagree ...... the thing is though the power creep is real and all the DEVs do to combat that is make the mobs have 100x more HP which takes ages to pound away at them and it's NOT fun... especially when you pound away for ages on end hoping to get some drop where you spent 2 hours building up to a 1/2 hour battle for No reward.

I totally agree on this but there's no going back. See the thread about the 8 mod jewels. People are already complaining there's still 12mod items in game.

I can't stand the quest/key grind and beating on something for 15 or more minutes is flat boring. Then you have other things you can kill faster but give nothing except gold and a pat on the back.

 

[MalagAste]

I totally agree on this but there's no going back. See the thread about the 8 mod jewels. People are already complaining there's still 12mod items in game.

I can't stand the quest/key grind and beating on something for 15 or more minutes is flat boring. Then you have other things you can kill faster but give nothing except gold and a pat on the back.

Exactly... everything is grindy... but the power creep will only lead to more and more grindy crap...

 

[Lythos-]

Exactly... everything is grindy... but the power creep will only lead to more and more grindy crap...

My purpose here isn't to increase loot but to bring crafting closer to it so players can be better suited. Pardon the pun.

 

[MalagAste]

My purpose here isn't to increase loot but to bring crafting closer to it so players can be better suited. Pardon the pun.

But everytime they do that then people whine and complain that there is no reason to kill stuff anymore... the loot sucks you can make better... etc...

 

[Lord Frodo]

Let's keep this thread alive until we get Dev attention. We can hash out details later. Reforging was never my forte but I did and still do love imbuing.

I believe we're all in agreement that crafting should be bumped closer to loot.

The DEVs do not play here anymore.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Time and gold invested in resources and runics and forged metals should yield products remotely in the same ballpark as loot.

This was the original idea when imbuing was introduced. What happened was that loot became more and more powerful (i.e., exodus, roof), while imbuing stayed the same. But at the time imbuing was introduced, relic frags were insanely hard to come by. The upgraded loot caused relic frags to be practically as common as garlic. So I guess if imbuing was changed to try to return that original balance, there would also have to be some change in the ingredients required for higher-end crafting. Are the developers really willing to take the time to figure that out?

 

[Lythos-]

So I guess if imbuing was changed to try to return that original balance, there would also have to be some change in the ingredients required for higher-end crafting. Are the developers really willing to take the time to figure that out?

They really should. It would be a shame to let imbuing die.

The best thing about imbuing is that it relies on every class to succeed. Ingredients come from resource gatherers, fighters and even white pearls from the fishers. It brought community back to the game for a while.

It shouldn't take much to figure something out. If they add in a Dex and int option that could be the new rare resource.