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Maximizing Artisan Festival Contributions

Frankly

Visitor
I've been poking about, looking for info on the Artisan festival, and want to make sure I am making the most of my meager resources to get max rewards, but I have questions I was hoping someone might be able to help with.

If I understand correctly, the "value" of a BOD turned into the elf near the tree is based on the banked value of the BOD. This essentially makes SBODs worthless, unless the tree gets maxed out, which means that even if you donated the cheapest of cheap SBODs, you would still get a reward, right?

Everything I've seen says you just have to drop a filled BOD on the elf to get an opportunity to get a reward. Does the character dropping the BOD need to have been the one to have filled it? I only have two crafters on my account, but could they fill BODs for the other 5 non-crafters, thus getting me 5 additional rewards (assuming they either qualify on that one BOD, or the tree maxes out)?

Are there any professions that are better than others for festival contribution? It seems like my carpentry LBODs are fairly easy to come by and fill without crazy amounts of bribing. Combined with not a lot of carpentry rewards that I would otherwise want, this is what I've been using, but is there any profession BODs that are more advantageous for one reason or another?

Is there any other advice some of you more experienced crafters would give to those of us who have more recently returned or maybe just started? I love the community-driven aspect of the tree and want to contribute as efficiently as possible and could use any info to that end.
 

dvv

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This year so far I have had my crafter complete some small tinker and carpentry BODs for other characters to turn in. I only turned in like 2 per character and some were able to collect a gift and some weren’t. Not sure exactly what the difference was but I was surprised any of them got anything with such a minimal contribution.
 

Cinderella

Babbling Loonie
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it depends on what level the tree is, when the bag appears

if it is a charlie brown tree

1638975666839.png
then only 8 people get a gift (this is what it was the first year, not sure the current amount)

if it is a green Charlie brown tree

1638975840604.png
then this is how many you get, when the bag appears
1638975939614.png

then the tree is a giant tree

1638976085347.png

then the tree will have bulbs
(don't have pic of it)

last stage, star on top of tree
(at this stage, every char that turned in a BOD will get a gift)

1638976266134.png
this is Sonoma's Jhelom tree
each of these boxes represent 1 char that turned in a BOD

==============

if no star on top of the tree
then it is a lottery system, for who gets a gifts
the more BODs your char turned in, the more chances you have to get a gift
but its no guarantee you will get a gift

only guarantee is if the star is on top of the tree

==========

i usually make lot of BODs before the festival, using my crafter
then hand the exact amount for every tree to each character.
(I gave them all a runebook for the Artisan festival rewards
so I wouldn't have to gate them. And I always log them out in an inn
or tavern near the tree... so I always know what tree I am working on)

I also made up LBods during Treasure of DieLoth
so I was ready for the Artisan Festival
 

Cinderella

Babbling Loonie
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I forgot to say what Large BODs I was using...

Fletching
Tinkering
Cooking (mostly these)
Tailoring
Blacksmith

the biggest thing for me, was finding time to fill them
between doing all of these awesome events, these past few months
 

Frankly

Visitor
All good info, thanks so much! The vets here put out such detailed posts with pics and stuff, I'm blown away every time I have to ask a question here.

If I'm reading correctly, it sounds like you are using non-crafters to turn in BODs, right? Then either playing the lottery or hoping for a completed tree to get rewards on all of them.

Is there any way to know when the bag will appear? I read that there's like a 17 hour delay until the next city starts, but it was a little confusing. Adding to that, the tree in Britain has been completed for almost a week, but the elf is still there with the bag and tree, so I'm guessing you can collect a reward as long as the event is going.

I think cooking is the only profession I don't currently have, of course. I'm still trying to build up a good library of BODs, as I've only been back playing regularly since February or March, so I suppose it's worth starting.
 

Basara

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Once the bag appears, BODs dropped on the elf don't count.

There's also something odd going on with Baja. When most of the other shards were on Jhelom, it skipped ahead to Minoc, THEN after Minoc, went back to Jhelom (while the others advanced to Minoc). If a city doesn't have the minimum amount in the treasury, it gets skipped, so Baja should have gone to Minoc if that was the case, then advanced to Moonglow (not gone back to Jhelom).
 

Cinderella

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Awards
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What types of rewards do you get from this event?

I was under the impression that you got nothing.
1639027602305.png
giftbox with your characters name on it
and a vice or virtue item (based on your karma, when its opened)

good karma (0 & up) is virtue gift
bad karma (-1 & down) is vice gift

gift is random
but you can get a sculpture, painting, pillow, lantern, blanket
or stained glass window
(blanket & stained glass window are newer items)
 

Pawain

I Hate Skilling
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If you give any BOD to the elf on a tree that has a star when that cycle completes, that toon gets a gift.

I go to shards that have stars regularly.
I buy cooking and tailoring. I give them 1 gold so I get .1 skill. For cooking I just hope for a flour BOD. For tailoring there are only 3 BODs you can get that can't be bought at my skill. Provisioners also sell hats.
I buy the items required to fill the BODs from NPCs.
 

Basara

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If you give any BOD to the elf on a tree that has a star when that cycle completes, that toon gets a gift.

I go to shards that have stars regularly.
I buy cooking and tailoring. I give them 1 gold so I get .1 skill. For cooking I just hope for a flour BOD. For tailoring there are only 3 BODs you can get that can't be bought at my skill. Provisioners also sell hats.
I buy the items required to fill the BODs from NPCs.
Slightly off on the Tailor BOD numbers, but not by much...

Tailor BODs that can't be filled by buying:
Surcoat, Full Apron, Body Sash, Bonnet
Also, either by design or glitch, only about 1/3 of tailors have "shirts" for sale. The others have a duplicate "doublet" or "Fancy Shirt" where the "shirts" should be.
You go to Cobblers for the footwear, and tailors also carry leather caps (so that you don't have to track down an armorer)

Smith: the hard to get is War Fork, and is only found on weaponsmiths, not blacksmiths.
 

Pawain

I Hate Skilling
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Slightly off on the Tailor BOD numbers, but not by much...

Tailor BODs that can't be filled by buying:
Surcoat, Full Apron, Body Sash, Bonnet
Also, either by design or glitch, only about 1/3 of tailors have "shirts" for sale. The others have a duplicate "doublet" or "Fancy Shirt" where the "shirts" should be.
You go to Cobblers for the footwear, and tailors also carry leather caps (so that you don't have to track down an armorer)

Smith: the hard to get is War Fork, and is only found on weaponsmiths, not blacksmiths.
I have never gotten a Full Apron BOD. But I did hear someone ask about buying them.

Clothing: Other than Plain dresses I have only got 1 BOD for Short pants. I do get Doublets, Tunics, and Jester Suits a few times. I have noticed a tailor or 2 with the duplicate doublet. I was able to take advantage of that a few times.

Seems that I primarily get Hats or shoes from Tailors, Clothing is not so common for me. The Surcoat, Sash, and Bonnet are mixed in.

I just do not like Smith BODs. Some are costly.

If more cities had mages, alchemists, scribes, bowyers. Those would be pretty cheap to fill.
 

Basara

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The only really cheap smith BODs are the helmets.

Tailor BODs have always been the odd system out. Their point system doesn't follow the pattern of the other skills (only 100 points for exceptional, instead of 200, lower material bonuses, and the bulk of the point value in the LBOD itself) - with the rewards topping at 700 points even though many LBODs would be worth 710-800. I've still never gotten confirmation if the BODs that should be over 700 give their full banked values of 142-160 for the festival, or if they get capped at 140.

Another quirk of the Tailor BOD system is that, even more than the other skills, your BOD pulls seem to be limited to (mostly) things you can craft, or are about to be high enough to craft (within 10 or so skill points) - that's why a 0.1 Tailor BOD runner tends to get hats, and specific shirts & pants. when you get up into the 50s and 60s, you start getting a few leather smalls, and most of the cloth smalls will be robes and cloaks.

Besides the odd Shirt/Fancy Shirt/Doublet bug affecting the the slot that should be Shirts only, there's a rarer one where a Tailor NPC will have 2 Kilt slots instead of 1 kilt and 1 skirt. I ran into that one last night trying to fill tailor smalls on one of the East Coast shards.

I did a LOT of BOD research when I was redoing the various crafting FAQs for Stratics ca. 2008.
 

Pawain

I Hate Skilling
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
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I just remembered.

If you use Luna as your home spot:

Last year we found that you can get .1 Alchemy and get BODs and Buy the items from the INN above the mage shop in Luna.

They are the cheapest BODs you can stand in one spot and collect then get gated to and from the tree. Log in another toon and repeat. The NPC never runs out of potions.
 

TrackStar

Journeyman
In the wiki it says you only get gifts at the end after building the tree but someone here said you get gifts right away giving low end BODs when theres a star on the tree? Is that right?
 

Pawain

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In the wiki it says you only get gifts at the end after building the tree but someone here said you get gifts right away giving low end BODs when theres a star on the tree? Is that right?
Yes, Gifts comes at the end of that city period. But many of us only go to shards that have Stars. So we are guaranteed a gift.
You put a BOD on the elf at the beginning, then go collect gift when the bag and presents are out. So, you have to go twice to the tree.

Right now these will probably have stars the rest of the way:

Great Lakes
Baja
Sonoma
Lake Superior
Chesapeake

Funny how Atlantic is not on that list. It takes dedicated crafters to make multiple trees have stars.

Collect gifts at these shards and find someone to bring them to your shard.

Positive Karma gets green Neg gets red. Kill a cat or dog to get negative on a new toon.
 
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