To the Dev at large.... a question on crafting.

[Lady Storm]

First off thank you for looking and to my fellow players who look and add in their 2 cents.

I dont know about how the rest of the crafters out there feel about the Dev's answer about not doing anything about the Bod Books.
But I wanted to give this a go where perhaps a compromise can be reached that both side might go for.
Originally I and many of my fellow crafters asked for bod books to have their 4/1 lock down count ratio removed.
As was done for the Blue and Pink deeds for skills.
Mesanna was clear no change was forth coming.
I would like to take this opertunity to then explain why we have requested this over and over.
A bod book holds 500 bods and that takes 125 lockdown/item count to hold for any player.
To place a bod up to that limit your character must strip every item they have in their pack, on their body, and then hope they have storage enough to hold all their belongings and then wonder how they ever will be able to pull out the bods once they all in there.
*The removal of the item count to 1 lock down would have opened up alot of storage for many players. Not to mention the cutback or complete removal in npc vendors to hold non-sale bods.*
This is no joke.
The request to remove the count was an honest need the crafting community has asked for.
The dream of my Tailor and Smith to be able to hold all their bod books and work in a more logical way seemed to have been busted when you declined any change.
So
Would you consider raising the count to a more manageable size?
The 4/1 ratio raised to say, 20/1 or 25/1 which would cut the books down at 500 bod full book to take up 2o item count in a pack making them both fillable to the max and eleviating the need for my crafter to strip out of her stuff to get a needed bod.
I would also request the abilitys to drop/remove bods on a locked down book, a menu for access to book as the other 2 books do.
Mesanna I am not alone in the fustration this has been for years.. many have thrown out their books and given up.
Ladys and Gentelmen add your 2 cents to this and perhaps we can have a dialog with the Dark Lady on a solution to this...

 

[Tina Small]

All I have to add is that I will be very, very annoyed if this goes in and the BOD book must be locked down in order to add or remove BODs. I agree that it would be nice to be able to add/remove BODs from BOD books that are outside of your backpack, which may mean they have to be secured like SoT or SoA books to become part of the housing inventory. However, I think it would be a huge step backward to make it so that you can no longer use BOD books in your backpack because many players have crafters on shards where they don't own a house and yet they still want to be able to collect a reasonable amount of BODs and be able to store them in their bankbox and/or in the backpack of a blue beetle. Although these players may not be filling BODs for a lot of the high-end items, they may still want to be able to collect and turn in low-end BODs to get shovels for their miners and/or reward cloth to help with training tailoring, at the very least. (I dye all the reward cloth I don't intend to use a neutral color and stack it together to use it for training. Cuts down a little bit on the time spent gathering wool or cotton to make more cloth on shards where my characters are being built up from scratch and don't have a lot of gold to spare.)

 

[popps]

I agree with Lady Storm and I add my voice to her's in a request for a different ratio.

If the hoarding of BODs might be an issue, we have to remember that, unfortunately, BODs collection can be scripted and there are players out there who actually script their collection of BODs..., perhaps a ratio of 20/1 could be acceptable (a full BOD book would count for 25 items). I would even be happy with a ratio of 10/1, not much higher than the current 4/1, with a full BOD book counting for 50 items versus the current 125......

It would still allow a player to hold a full BOD book in one's own back pack together with materials to work the BODs, combine then and blah blah within the 125 total items restriction....

Unfortunately, since the ratio must be a number that can be fully divided from 500, the only other ratio possible below 10/1 would be 5/10 (unfortunately 6, 7, 8 and 9 cannot be divided from 500 into an even figure...) but it would make the full BOD book count as 100 items which it too high a number for a backpack to have room for other items like spellbooks, runebooks, tools, materials and blah blah to work the BODs and combine them into larges.

So, as I see it, a ratio of 10/1 would be the least acceptable ratio possible....

As far as how complicated this change could be, coding wise, I have no idea, but I would guess that if somewhere BOD books have written in the code the current ratio of 4/1, would it be much difficult to edit the code and change that 4 into a 10, perhaps ?

 

[Longtooths]

I agree BOD books need some work.

 

[MalagAste]

The entire bod system needs updating.... outside of Bless deeds and powder does anyone care about any of the rewards anymore? Hammers and sewing kits maybe a little since the addition of Reforging which I'm willing to bet only a handful of people even do....

I quit doing BoD's years ago because I refuse to pay for 50 vendors to lag up my home just to store the 4 million bods it takes to have any worthwhile stockpile of them to work with. I would have to own a castle just empty to have the storage space to make them worth the lockdowns... and that would even have to be filled with the 30 vendors to hold them all. I don't have the storage required for that.

 

[Smoot]

First off thank you for looking and to my fellow players who look and add in their 2 cents.

I dont know about how the rest of the crafters out there feel about the Dev's answer about not doing anything about the Bod Books.
But I wanted to give this a go where perhaps a compromise can be reached that both side might go for.
Originally I and many of my fellow crafters asked for bod books to have their 4/1 lock down count ratio removed.
As was done for the Blue and Pink deeds for skills.
Mesanna was clear no change was forth coming.
I would like to take this opertunity to then explain why we have requested this over and over.
A bod book holds 500 bods and that takes 125 lockdown/item count to hold for any player.
To place a bod up to that limit your character must strip every item they have in their pack, on their body, and then hope they have storage enough to hold all their belongings and then wonder how they ever will be able to pull out the bods once they all in there.
*The removal of the item count to 1 lock down would have opened up alot of storage for many players. Not to mention the cutback or complete removal in npc vendors to hold non-sale bods.*
This is no joke.
The request to remove the count was an honest need the crafting community has asked for.
The dream of my Tailor and Smith to be able to hold all their bod books and work in a more logical way seemed to have been busted when you declined any change.
So
Would you consider raising the count to a more manageable size?
The 4/1 ratio raised to say, 20/1 or 25/1 which would cut the books down at 500 bod full book to take up 2o item count in a pack making them both fillable to the max and eleviating the need for my crafter to strip out of her stuff to get a needed bod.
I would also request the abilitys to drop/remove bods on a locked down book, a menu for access to book as the other 2 books do.
Mesanna I am not alone in the fustration this has been for years.. many have thrown out their books and given up.
Ladys and Gentelmen add your 2 cents to this and perhaps we can have a dialog with the Dark Lady on a solution to this...

there is no reason to have that many bods unless you are hoarding. DO the bods. Throw away the extras away you know you wont need! theres only a handful of "good" bods anyway. no reason at all to have over 500 bods at any given time. i think a couple hundred lockdowns is fine to support a character.

if it was an easy fix, id say make bodbooks count as only 1 lockdown, but if its not, if its problem that would take a few hours of coding, then there are more important things to work on.

 

[Lady Storm]

All I have to add is that I will be very, very annoyed if this goes in and the BOD book must be locked down in order to add or remove BODs. I agree that it would be nice to be able to add/remove BODs from BOD books that are outside of your backpack, which may mean they have to be secured like SoT or SoA books to become part of the housing inventory. However, I think it would be a huge step backward to make it so that you can no longer use BOD books in your backpack because many players have crafters on shards where they don't own a house and yet they still want to be able to collect a reasonable amount of BODs and be able to store them in their bankbox and/or in the backpack of a blue beetle. Although these players may not be filling BODs for a lot of the high-end items, they may still want to be able to collect and turn in low-end BODs to get shovels for their miners and/or reward cloth to help with training tailoring, at the very least. (I dye all the reward cloth I don't intend to use a neutral color and stack it together to use it for training. Cuts down a little bit on the time spent gathering wool or cotton to make more cloth on shards where my characters are being built up from scratch and don't have a lot of gold to spare.)

No No Tina thats not my request for the books lockdown at all.
This is to ADD the ability to lock the books down and have access also through a menu like most lockdown items. Never to replace what we have. Just to also be able to come in the house and drop bods on a book for many is fantastic idea LIKE the pink and blue books.

 

[Lady Storm]

there is no reason to have that many bods unless you are hoarding. DO the bods. Throw away the extras away you know you wont need! theres only a handful of "good" bods anyway. no reason at all to have over 500 bods at any given time. i think a couple hundred lockdowns is fine to support a character.

if it was an easy fix, id say make bodbooks count as only 1 lockdown, but if its not, if its problem that would take a few hours of coding, then there are more important things to work on.

Dear Sir or Madam:
I do bods by the hundreds on nearly a daily basis across some 16 shards.
But I seem to add more to the books even doing large bods!
Oh and to answer your future question on what do I need to do so many for.
I own a shop on Atlantic which sells high end bods, Hammers, sewing kits, blessed deeds, and yes the cloth too. My miner goes through shovals and picks so thee are greatly apreciated.
Many on shards I have no home.
The friends I play with are kind enough to give me a place for me to log.
I do not wish to burden them with a lag monster vendor which they have offered many time and I thank them for it.
My Request is set for all to gain off this in LOWER LAG, Ease of use, and the ability to have multi account use and not take up lockdowns to do it.
As this would reduce the need for the NPC vendors to hold the books in the first place.
AS MalagAste said quite clearly the lag around homes filled with bod holding vendors is bad.
She is also correct the reward for doing bods needs a bit of work.
Though I will say the cloth is used for doing more bods.
I for one can see changing out a few things or rotating in new and different items would liven up use.
Smith and Tailor reward table could be something better with this new stuff.
I can think of a few dozen items we could use and find homes for if added.
I am willing to even come up with a list of suguestions for the reward table.

 

[Smoot]

i have a solution.
throw all bods except val hammers, barbed kit, and horned kits in the trash
that should cut down on numbers

anything else you need leave it to the scriptors (assuming you do not script, if you do script then yes keep all your bods )

 

[Lady Storm]

I do the bods by hand and no script used.
I shall be honest and say I wouldnt have a clue as to how to do one that can do what I do.
Smoot you would be surprised the players who buy up ALL the different hammers, sewing kits, and bless deeds.
I cant keep the high end bods in the books on the vendors as it is.
I dont ask outragious prices I guess is the answer to why.
In fac I just went through the vendors to see what should go in the next shipment....every vendor was barren!!
Why do I see my homes raided for their stock.......
I can tell you my son will be working my characters in shipping and recieving department this week to full power.
But for the most parts I do bods because I like doing crafting as a whole.
Call me weird but I enjoy UO.

 

[Landicine]

I would get back a good number of secures with this change, but honestly, I should toss out 80% of my bods. For me, it is worth keeping bods that produce any runics, powder, or bless deeds.

Sturdy shovels aren't worth keeping, so those bods aren't worth doing. Mining gloves should be consolidated into just +5s; I do like how they can be imbued. Still, I don't need more than a pair or two. I use prospector's tools and pickaxes from time to time, but I don't do bods for them anymore.

I like ancient smith hammers, but the large bods that produce them are actually hard to fill. I'd rather get copper and bronze runics at this point. Reforging is actually rather nice, and it uses a good number of charges on lesser runics. It can create a nice item to start imbuing, and it can add properties that aren't added easily.

 

[Smoot]

I would get back a good number of secures with this change, but honestly, I should toss out 80% of my bods. For me, it is worth keeping bods that produce any runics, powder, or bless deeds.

Sturdy shovels aren't worth keeping, so those bods aren't worth doing. Mining gloves should be consolidated into just +5s; I do like how they can be imbued. Still, I don't need more than a pair or two. I use prospector's tools and pickaxes from time to time, but I don't do bods for them anymore.

I like ancient smith hammers, but the large bods that produce them are actually hard to fill. I'd rather get copper and bronze runics at this point. Reforging is actually rather nice, and it uses a good number of charges on lesser runics. It can create a nice item to start imbuing, and it can add properties that aren't added easily.

agreed. i dont do bods but i do crafting. i would Love to fill 2000 lockdowns with just base resist pieces. but you have to know what is worth keeping. So i throw them all away and just craft them as i need them. I have enough lockdowns filled with valuable armor / jewelry ( about 350 right now, and i only keep stuff that is worth about 5mil or more)

Hoarding is a plague to UO. i guess its not a terrible sin cause its just a game, but you just have to learn how to keep what you need.


So... To help UO players not be hoarders this is what i am suggesting.
All bods will now take up 2 lockdowns each. This will further encourage players to throwing out what they dont need.

 

[Lady Storm]

I can see you have not gone mining of late...
I take out 10 to 25 of the shovals or picks and enjoy my trips to my favorite spots... and I dont come back till they are gone..
The packies and my bug are happy too as I feed them and they toddle right behind me.
My haul of ore sometimes calls for multi trips if I am super lucky a spot has changed to a colored ore(this is rare to get verite or val).
This in not just one shard and I have on occasion had to buy more to help with my fun.
YES I have used the vendor search for them.
I take out both my packies and my gold bug and fill one packies with shovals, picks, prospecting hammers, and lunch.
I return most times with all the different ingots, gems, and the black rock that many friends egerly grab up when I offer it to them.
I have a good time, my pets get exersize to keep slim, and my day seems a bit more productive.
As I said before IF the bod reward table was inhanced with new items to supliment the current table or out right replace many with more usefull things the bods would go right back to full production and need for those "homeless" bods would soon end.
But First WE NEED to change the bod item count to lock down ratio.
IF the Dev wont go to 1 lock down for the book full or not, then the other they might go for.
In the process make that valuable room and keep the crafting going.

Smoot then you say toss out the whole system? Its got no place.
Or is it only when you need one of the rewards to do your crafting that it becomes usefull?

 

[Lady Storm]

Smoot my son once thought as you and took it apon himself to clean up one of my homes when I was on a trip...
I came back to a nearly empty house! He tossed out chest after chest of what I had been holding in that home.
Folded sheets, Broken chairs in all directions, well lets just say just about every server snagable the game had went in the trash can.
To this day he regrets touching that home. He didnt think even that did I have some of this at the other houses...
The value of things I kept have rizen over the years... go price a folded sheet kiddo... then you tell the dev to make it out of reach for others what they need. Selfish actions have their payback..

 

[Landicine]

I can see you have not gone mining of late...

I will admit that the GM tinkering on my mining character makes carrying too many shovels pointless. I make 1-3 as I need them. I would probably also use more prospector tools if I was focused on ingots or stone, but I've been going after saltpeter more. I only wish I'd learned that luck affected that sooner...

 

[Lady Storm]

With as many accounts and characters as I have at my fingertips I can be a bit more selective in the crafter's skills. I have some with and some without what others would do when faced with a single account worth of slots.
Its also how I have so many bods.. outside of gathering them each day I also invest in what I need for keeping business in the gold zone.
Oh as for luck, you dont need to go over board on it too much for saltpeter... so you dont need to max it out to do the best digging.

So back to the topic at hand.
Mesanna all I and others ask if you cant see your way to eliminate the item count down to 1 per book.
Then can we at the very least have you consider dropping it to 20/1 or 25/1 ?

On the side for 1 lock down/count per book no matter the bods in book are:
1. Less Lag around homes using npc vendors to hold books. Less Vendors = Less Lag.
2. Less yipping from the p-nut gallery about storage, as this would do alot to cut that by the public. 500 bods in a book =125 lockdowns...
3. Increase the player use of the system, *with a up scale change in the loot table also would go a long way*
4. No more of me or others bugging about the bod book situation... at least as far as the books are concerned.

IF you cant see your way to the first option can you go the second offered route?
With a reduction its less in the lockdown for many smaller crafters who dont have the room.
It would be possible to have the books at hand for many working the craft promoting more game play and enticing new players to get into the crafting phase and staying around to become regular players.. This woudl go for all options as we all know by the farm games out there.
A great many people like to craft....

 

[Smoot]

I can see you have not gone mining of late...
I take out 10 to 25 of the shovals or picks and enjoy my trips to my favorite spots... and I dont come back till they are gone..
The packies and my bug are happy too as I feed them and they toddle right behind me.
My haul of ore sometimes calls for multi trips if I am super lucky a spot has changed to a colored ore(this is rare to get verite or val).
This in not just one shard and I have on occasion had to buy more to help with my fun.
YES I have used the vendor search for them.
I take out both my packies and my gold bug and fill one packies with shovals, picks, prospecting hammers, and lunch.
I return most times with all the different ingots, gems, and the black rock that many friends egerly grab up when I offer it to them.
I have a good time, my pets get exersize to keep slim, and my day seems a bit more productive.
As I said before IF the bod reward table was inhanced with new items to supliment the current table or out right replace many with more usefull things the bods would go right back to full production and need for those "homeless" bods would soon end.
But First WE NEED to change the bod item count to lock down ratio.
IF the Dev wont go to 1 lock down for the book full or not, then the other they might go for.
In the process make that valuable room and keep the crafting going.

Smoot then you say toss out the whole system? Its got no place.
Or is it only when you need one of the rewards to do your crafting that it becomes usefull?

i prefer to let the people being tortured in third world countries by UO mining get all my crafting needs for me yes : )

 

[Lady Storm]

Third world is so yesterday, thought it was eastern europe these days.
But yet again we digress from the porblem....
Bod books and the storage and use there of.

 

[Landicine]

So back to the topic at hand.
Mesanna all I and others ask if you cant see your way to eliminate the item count down to 1 per book.
Then can we at the very least have you consider dropping it to 20/1 or 25/1 ?

On the side for 1 lock down/count per book no matter the bods in book are:
1. Less Lag around homes using npc vendors to hold books. Less Vendors = Less Lag.
2. Less yipping from the p-nut gallery about storage, as this would do alot to cut that by the public. 500 bods in a book =125 lockdowns...
3. Increase the player use of the system, *with a up scale change in the loot table also would go a long way*
4. No more of me or others bugging about the bod book situation... at least as far as the books are concerned.

Miner builds/outfits and how much luck is ideal for saltpeter mining are interesting, but you are right they are for another thread.

I think 1:20x or 1:25x will result in too much bloat in the bods people keep. While electronic storage is cheaper, it still isn't free and probably factors into dev decisions. Though you are correct about the vendor issue causing similar issues. I think even an increase to 1:5x or 1:6x would be helpful. If they went up to 1:10x, I would expect a change to the vendor trick as well.

That said, I think this would only be a worthwhile undertaking if other improvements to the system were done at the same time. I would like to see a revamp to the rewards and possibly the interface.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Yes a revamp of the bods would be sweet indeed!!! It chaps my rear when my Legendary smith goess to get his three bods, two of em are swords and the other one iron ringmail...

When you hit the max skill allowed, you should be getting bods worthy of that skill, stuff you can fill to get powder of fort. The rest of it is useless to most of us.

I mean, seriously, when is the last time you heard someone shout in chat, "YAY!!! I finally got that 20 pc exceptional broadsword bod I been wanting!"

 

[Lady Storm]

Uriah your right at most at what level you crafter is you should get something close... but i have noticed in tailoring it somewhat does to a small extent.. I did an experiment with 1 account and made 5 tailors of different skill levels and noticed a change in the bods offered to each when they obtained a new plateau. But this was not the same to the extent in smithing. Oh , thats not to say there was not a difference to a point. Beginner smith's get bucklers and dagger bods up the kazoo... and higher in say 10 point junps the bods did change from the low end bucklers to bigger shields and from daggers to more substantial weapons. I did notice you needed to get above a set point to get more armor bods... and colored bods as expected didnt arive till gm.(100) After that the bod getting takes wild swings up and down the whole bod range.

Landicine..the change would not effect no other player other then crafters ....
Even todays bods dont effect others unless you say the lag from vendors holding them.
So to say the change would promote bloat...sugar we have had bloat in that area from the beginning of bods use.
I know it will do the opposite.
We have a bloat right now because we cant juggle the books as you should.
If the total removal of the bod count in a book was removed so it was 1 item this would change the whole way players do bods.
Example:On one shard my entire tailor and smith bods would fit in hand on my crafter..
There would be no need for the struggle to balance equipment or storage.
The lag around my home would deminish greatly.
I could sort and do them more efficently and going to the tailor shop to work would be so much more easer!
My bug woud be able to hold more mats to work from and the making of set bods would reduce the bod count significantly.
Right now on over 8 shards vendors hold my bod books.
And on the other 10 shards my accounts less used hold the books for my tailor and smiths.
Its a never ending struggle to even make a bod set because to do so.
I have to go through a comedy of searching each vendors books for the ones I need (yes they are sorted and in marked books).
To have even the reduction in the item count for a book would give my crafter some what of a leeway to work.
How you feel this will effect any others in the game is beyond me.
We already have the problem you state this would encourage more work on them and with a reward redo this would be a viable system again.

 

[Tina Small]

We have a bloat right now because we cant juggle the books as you should.
If the total removal of the bod count in a book was removed so it was 1 item this would change the whole way players do bods.
Example:On one shard my entire tailor and smith bods would fit in hand on my crafter..
There would be no need for the struggle to balance equipment or storage.
The lag around my home would deminish greatly.
I could sort and do them more efficently and going to the tailor shop to work would be so much more easer!
My bug woud be able to hold more mats to work from and the making of set bods would reduce the bod count significantly.
Right now on over 8 shards vendors hold my bod books.
And on the other 10 shards my accounts less used hold the books for my tailor and smiths.
Its a never ending struggle to even make a bod set because to do so.
I have to go through a comedy of searching each vendors books for the ones I need (yes they are sorted and in marked books).
To have even the reduction in the item count for a book would give my crafter some what of a leeway to work.
How you feel this will effect any others in the game is beyond me.
We already have the problem you state this would encourage more work on them and with a reward redo this would be a viable system again.

I honestly believe that the reason some people are hanging on to so many BODs is that they really hope someday that the "worthless" BODs they are saving will either (1) offer new and more appealing rewards if filled and turned in; (2) will be able to be exchanged ((unfilled, of course) for more valuable BODs, perhaps at a ratio of 5 to 1 or something like that; or (3) they'll eventually be added to the cleanup system.

I don't really think people are hanging on to so many BODs just because they can't fit them into the BOD books. That doesn't even make sense! If you've run out of room to collect BODs, you just stop getting them and/or you fill some of the large ones. You don't just keep getting more of them, thinking that's going to ease your problem. Being able to store more BODs in any one book might temporarily solve some storage problems. However, if people keep collecting BODs and not filling them because filling them isn't worth the time and resources, then the real answer to the "BOD bloat" issue is providing better incentives for filling the BODs.

Maybe we should just ask the devs to add BODs, filled or otherwise, to the cleanup system. Considering how many other items they have had to evaluate and program into that system, adding BODs to it should be an easy task.

Edited to add: If adding BODs, especially unfilled ones, to the cleanup system is a little too scary because it might promote people creating scads of unskilled characters just to collect them, maybe an alternative would be to allow filled BODs to be turned in to the Britain Library's community collection system. That particular system requires the completion of a quest, so that adds at least a small element of difficulty to the process, and only accepting filled BODs would get more resources out of the system.

 

[Uriah Heep]

Tina, that last line is such a great idea. Have em give points based on filled or empty, and if filled base it on a difficulty rating. If that's too much programming, then at least let the picks and crap be worth enough points to invest the time to do it.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

I agree the BoDs system and BoD Books need an over haul....If they simply changed the B-book ratio I'd be giving away an extra castle! Seriously my sis loves bods and idocs.....>.<*** so you can guess what her bod collection is like! Hence why she has a WHOLE castle devoted to them! Please, please, please Devs do fix this. I know the Devs generally think we are a whiny, bitchy lot that doesn't know what it wants but this is a good change. Please Devs hear our Plea!!!

 

[Santos]

I bet this is an issue of can't, and not won't.

 

[Fridgster]

Didn't realize what all the fuss was about BODs and storage space however, one would be surprised how quick they eat up space. Only thing that saves me is that I'm on a shard were bribing is fairly inexpensive.

 

[Lady Storm]

While I agree Tina's idea has merrit, Tina alot of players have thrown out their whole collections because they dont see the dev doing anything for the system. I have had my thief come home with near full books and tons of loose bods that end up in the trash heaps.
I dont think many know they can up bods if needed to get those coveted ones... just by bribery.
I went around a small patch of homes on one of my shards and nearly every house that had npc's were for bod books..
One house owner had a very nifty way of subcatagorizing them.
I like the idea of adding to the reward table a bigger variaty of things for the smalls that would be usefull like the fabric.. perhaps washes for the smithing or tailoring.
Also the gifts couldbe stackable depending on what it is.
Deco items for shop and home.
Oh, I know...like that dungeon thing with the forge that can guarantee you 100% and stuff like that added would jaz it up.
But We Do Need The Books Knocked Down in Item/count ....

 

[Theo_GL]

First off thank you for looking and to my fellow players who look and add in their 2 cents.

I dont know about how the rest of the crafters out there feel about the Dev's answer about not doing anything about the Bod Books.
But I wanted to give this a go where perhaps a compromise can be reached that both side might go for.
Originally I and many of my fellow crafters asked for bod books to have their 4/1 lock down count ratio removed.
As was done for the Blue and Pink deeds for skills.
Mesanna was clear no change was forth coming.
I would like to take this opertunity to then explain why we have requested this over and over.
A bod book holds 500 bods and that takes 125 lockdown/item count to hold for any player.
To place a bod up to that limit your character must strip every item they have in their pack, on their body, and then hope they have storage enough to hold all their belongings and then wonder how they ever will be able to pull out the bods once they all in there.
*The removal of the item count to 1 lock down would have opened up alot of storage for many players. Not to mention the cutback or complete removal in npc vendors to hold non-sale bods.*
This is no joke.
The request to remove the count was an honest need the crafting community has asked for.
The dream of my Tailor and Smith to be able to hold all their bod books and work in a more logical way seemed to have been busted when you declined any change.
So
Would you consider raising the count to a more manageable size?
The 4/1 ratio raised to say, 20/1 or 25/1 which would cut the books down at 500 bod full book to take up 2o item count in a pack making them both fillable to the max and eleviating the need for my crafter to strip out of her stuff to get a needed bod.
I would also request the abilitys to drop/remove bods on a locked down book, a menu for access to book as the other 2 books do.
Mesanna I am not alone in the fustration this has been for years.. many have thrown out their books and given up.
Ladys and Gentelmen add your 2 cents to this and perhaps we can have a dialog with the Dark Lady on a solution to this...

Here here. It is pretty clear that none of the Dev's play a crafter. At all. Its too bad Hanse, Leuro and the others that understood crafting are no longer around.

Yes - Bod books should work like scroll of trans books. 500 bods. 1 lockdown.

On Great Lakes alone I have over 20,000 bods and it takes me somewhere around 45 vendors to store it all. I am NOT going to pay for castles to store them. Yes, it is complete PITA to remove/add them because you pack fills and it takes more time than it should to sort them.

A few other things I asked for in the Dev suggestion thread that got some of the most likes in the entire thread :

1 - Option to sort ALPHABETIC in the bod book. One checkbox. Simple enough. It would make it so so much easier to sort.
2 - Agree on being able to add/remove while locked down.
3 - Price all button - everything shown in the current 'sort' on the book would get same price. My god this would save so much $#$# time.

The whole turn in a bod get a bod thing basically made it so that bods never go away. The more you do - you get them right back. Yes, if you turn in a large - you get only one small back but honestly many of the bods you do are turn/in fillers or bods for POF that are single bods. So in general my collection grows no matter if I'm doing bods or not. The idea of trading is dead with bribing.

What they really should have done is still keep bods on the 6 hour timer but make it such that bods all give you points for completing. Then you spend the points on rewards. SO you don't have to bribe or hit the bod lottery to get a val hammer - you just have to turn in alot of smalls or a collection of big bods. When you turn the bod in - you get points and not another bod. Then we could actually get bods DONE and get points and the number of bods would decrease.

Lets say a val hammer costs 1m points. A val 20 ex plate lbod gives you 1m points. A val 15 ex plate lbod gives you 800k points. A shadow 20 ex plate lbod gives you 50k points. If you do 20 shadow plate ex you can get enough points for a val hammer - or 40 vials of POF or whatever. This would make the system so much more rewarding because EVERY bod would help you to your goals and you could amass the points without having to store the rewards or the completed bods.

As it is I have a book of 250 completed larges for Spined Kits. It is easier to store the completed bods than the kits. If I had the points - the bods would be off the servers and out of the databases. Simple as that.

Really - put me in charge of the game. I could run this game better in my spare time.

 

[Theo_GL]

there is no reason to have that many bods unless you are hoarding. DO the bods. Throw away the extras away you know you wont need! theres only a handful of "good" bods anyway. no reason at all to have over 500 bods at any given time. i think a couple hundred lockdowns is fine to support a character.

if it was an easy fix, id say make bodbooks count as only 1 lockdown, but if its not, if its problem that would take a few hours of coding, then there are more important things to work on.

Please. If you aren't a crafter - get your butt out of this thread.

Here is the deal with bods - you do a bod, you get a bod. Thus they only way they leave the system is if you do a large bod and then only get one back. However, every bod has value since you can either recycle it or bribe it up to something useful.

So while I probably get 200-300 bods done a week. My collection KEEPS growing. I have over 20,000 from 12 years of playing. The very bod system is a mess with bribing and turn one in get one. No one is 'hoarding'. They simply pile don't go away when you do them. You get another one back.

See my other thread - they should have NEVER given you a bod back for doing one - instead you should get points to spend. Then you can do the bods, get the points, spend the points. Yes you can script it but you are still limited to your 3 bods per character per day. Done. Simple.

 

[Lady Storm]

Theo_gl...............My Hero!
You understand!!!!!!!!!!
You have captured the whole mess in a nut shell.

 

[The Old Man]

Theo_GL - I can't imagine that such a change would be made now,But...I So Like yr idea of 'Points Make Prizes' That would be much nicer and solve so many problems.

The Old Man

 

[azmodanb]

we can only hope. i let a keep that was dedicated to bods fall... before the bribe and turn in and get one days
..

keep maxed out in them... of course setup like a giant smith shop.

....

now i run my operation out of four books. ill never look back. i have a system now of what to toss and what i can use...

keeping so many dupes is pointless.

 

[Ludes]

The packies and my bug are happy too as I feed them and they toddle right behind me....

I thought that was pretty funny.. mine get all frisky when they know we're going out as well.. for the same reason they get fed a lot

 

[Promathia]

Hammers and sewing kits maybe a little since the addition of Reforging which I'm willing to bet only a handful of people even do....

You are so off base with this.

 

[Lady Storm]

Hehe I use to have the fattest dragons and WW's on shard.. when we use to go leather shopping in the dungeons..
I do hope the Dev read this and understand I and others really do need this change.
Like Theo I too have tried the do all the bod larges even to get rid and get better routine.. for the most parts it works... but the bods my characters who get the bods its right back up if not over what i just nailed in the other bods... Throwing out bods is not the answer..
Sorry guys I started this game in fel....and you can take the girl out of fel but you cant take the fel out of the girl. Thrifty comes to mind.
Mesanna, Kyronix, Misk...and who ever sits up on the Dev cloud......
Give the crafters an inch please. It would be a total win win. us we would get to do bods the right way..you less lag and complaints from the p-nut gallery. I'd even help with ideas for added rotation of rewards!

 

[Veldrane]

I'd be willing to guess that the current ratio will be kept until they can figure out a way a better way to keep the people that are hording BODs in check. Changing the ratio on BODs without adding a way to actually take them out of circulation will solve the storage issues to be sure, but those BODs still take up database space. If people aren't limited in the number of BODs they can hold on to those database tables will balloon even larger than I'm sure they already are - I'd love to know how much of the database per shard is in the BOD tables.

I really think something needs done with BOD storage, it's a huge pita, but just changing the ratio won't change the underlying issue the ratio is keeping in check. Moving to a points style turn in system and removing the "turn in one, get one" mechanic would be decent way to encourage folks to turn in their BODs instead of hanging on to them. If the Dev team can solve the BOD bloat, then maybe we'd get our adjusted book ratio.

 

[Swt Lippy Hippy]

I think the bod system is fine the way it is. I quit doing bods a year after they came out. When they changed the system I started back up and love doing them. I don't script either. If you are worried about storage of bods, use the vendor thing or stop and take time to fill the ones you have. When I sit and home with my bods and start filling, I do not put more than 300 bods in a book at a time so that I can carry them when I am filling an order. Another handy item is the vet reward Garden shed. Yes I am saving some junk lbods so that the hopes some day those cheezy rewards can be changed to something cool like 5 use dyes. hehe

 

[Lady Storm]

Veldrane we are NOT hording bods...
I just did over 200 bods for PoF.. and a bunch of kit bods.. and am about to go do bods for hammers.. We are not sitting on bods.
Where the hadies do you think the pof, hammers, kits, oh and the bless deeds come from ??
Air??
Reduction down to the Alcrity blue book and the Pink Transendance Book of 1 lockdown/ item count would allow just about all crafters to manage to the max their bods and reduce the over all stress of players doing them. Meaning more productivity and use of a system.
Theo said it best when it comes to how the current bod accumulation is being done. But to answer your querie on the "GLUT" of bods might I remind you that the system IS RANDOM. meaning we dont get the bods we need at the drop of a hat. You have to have a base of bods to make the bigger bods that give those little things that others need and buy. Yes there are some bods that are considered junk and tossed out like flossum to the waves. That can be changed and I have a few ideas on it that just might help in that area.
Tailor:
1. The cloth is still in demand and used for making bods, I use it and you still cant get the dye tubs to make gold cloth. I can see grouping it under 3 tiers if you look at Tower of Roses Chart. The Sandals are in a glut but lumping htem in the cloth as a alternitive reward might help cut back on the shoe pile.

2. *new item* 5 use random color bod book scroll. This could be anything from the ore colors to the leather 3 shades. But also add in a few of a new hand full of shades... Pink , Baby Blue, White, Grey, and Magenta. This wil help in sorting out the cloth books and give a new life to the bod books look.

3. Power Scrolls... While the scrolls can be made into a 120.... it still takes some time to scroll up there. So why not cut it down to just the 120 which is what most players go for in the first place. Leave the smalls for the Champ spawns.

4. In place of the 2 hide chances which well....... so not to get rid of them totally I suguest a grouping of them with the cloth. As for the polar and brown bear rugs lump them as one collum and rotate in say a tiger rug and lion rug too. *new art* As for the Tapistrys perhaps a few diferent shades of them? and make it 1 collum too and random as usual.

5. New ideas of a Golden Spinning wheel and loom that grants the user once a month a chance at (a) 10 piece of a rare cloth, (b) a sewing kit *spined, horned, or barbed. To get to try for one you must use the item. It ill be good for 3 months (90days). Timer

6. The sewing kits... remain the same. We all use them..

The smith list I am still thinking on but have some ideas that might go over...
Are you listening dev?????

 

[Voodoo Bad Mojo]

this game has always had risk vs reward.
you need to risk something to get the reward.
if you like to do BODs and you like to do the crafting then you must risk something to do so.
in this case its storage space.

i know this wont win me any friends here but i think they way they have it done now is just fine the way it is.
if you want to horde 5000 BODs then you need to pay the piper with storage space.
i dont see the people selling the runics complaining about storage space when they make 100 mill off the people wanting runics for refining or the people selling powder of fort complaining because their venders are sold out every day and they are buying up every rare at the rarefest with their profits.

if your on a shard you dont have a house on then use your bank and buy a couple boats.
its unfortunate but until such a time that the housing system is revamped to allow us to have houses on every shard this is what youll have to do.

sorry i couldnt back you guys on this one but someone has to take the other side of the coin.

risk vs reward.
you want the rewards BODs offer then eat the risk -> storage clog up

 

[Tina Small]

Here are a couple of ideas for new tailor BOD rewards that might offer some incentive for people to fill and turn in the BODs they've acquired:

- A tailor's dummy that you can dress like a mannequin, but it would display the totals of all properties on the armor the dummy is wearing. (Would be a nice alternative for mannequins for people who missed out on receiving the tickets for mannequins, but maybe would irritate anyone sitting on those tickets hoping to sell them.)

- A set of shelves for displaying BOD reward cloth. Would show a folded pile of each color of reward cloth stored in the shelves.

- A quilt/blanket stand.

- A pile of yarn in one of several rare colors.

- A pile of embroidery thread in one of several rare colors.

- Canvas for embroidery.

- Rare recipes to be able to create the following types of new items: (1) several types of colorful quilts (to display on the quilt/blanket stand), made from 2 or 3 stacks of BOD reward cloth; (2) several types of woven blankets (to display on the quilt/blanket stand) made out of the rare colored yarn mentioned above; (3) several types of wall hangings and pillows embroidered from the canvas and thread mentioned above.

- A basket to display the yarn mentioned above.

- A box like the seed box for displaying the embroidery thread mentioned above.

 

[Veldrane]

Lady Storm - I'm not arguing against a ratio change to BOD books. I'm agreeing with you that I'd like to see the ratio on BOD books change, they're a pain to move around and work with, but a ratio change only fixes the player's half of the equation.

You and I are not hording BODs but you can't tell me that nobody is hording BODs. Look at how many folks in this thread alone have said something along the lines of "I have a <type of house> at the limit of storage, number of vendors, etc just for holding BODs". The ratio limit is the artificial limiter on BODs at the moment, remove that limit without doing something to cut the number of BODs in the system and the database will balloon. Which is where the push back from the Dev team is most likely coming from if I had to guess.

So if we want our ratio change, then we'll also need some changes to the BOD system as a whole to address the Dev side of the equation. The pinks & blues scroll books work because there are other factors limiting the number of them introduced into the system at any given time and there is a reliable exit for those types of scrolls from the system as well. The BOD system needs an overhaul to help limit the number of them floating around the system to fix the other half of the equation in addition to have the ratio on the BOD books changed to help the player side of things.

The reward changes you've suggested are a great start, but I think the only way we're going to sell this change to the Dev team is with a strong limiter on the number of BODs in the system and more reliable exit. This is where I agree with Theo that the complete one / get one mechanic is part of the issue as it never decreases the number of BODs in the system and the randomness of the rewards does not encourage turning in of the low-end BODs for the average crafter.

 

[Lady Storm]

Tina you have some very nice ideas too...I like them! Add them to the Want List!! hehe
Veldrane I understand your point... undoubtedly there are some who just sit on bods because they gave up on doing them in the firt place.
I can tell you in the last few months my thieves across the shards have broght home quite a few bod books filled with all sorts of bods. Some I might add were exactly what I was missing for a greater bod reward. But more then known have been dumping the bods on every shard house fulls rotting away unless the Idoc'r has a hankering and room for them... Yes even there the books more then not are left on the ground.
Like I said before in the tailor list..there is some things we use up like the cloth... others we dump like the hides.
I challenge you all to list a few new items for both the Tailor and Smith Reward table.
Tina has some excelent ideas... try your hand and just maybe we can get Mesanna to listen and pile more work on the crew in the dev for a later publish..
I'd love to see that idea of a abc sort to the bod book itself.

 

[Uriah Heep]

I cant believe some of you are worried about server space if we keep more bods, with population being what it is I dont foresee that being a problem...

 

[Lady Storm]

Exactly.
If the dev were to go so far as make the books like the blue and pink scroll books it would be like any other item in my crafters bag or bug.
Every crafter would benifit from this.
Uriah is right I cant see any draw on server space... have you looked on most shards of late?
Malas is almost barren of homes outside luna.
If there is one or two homes in Ter Mur your lucky.
Fel and Tram have hundreds of home spots open under a keep size.
And on one I know there is room for castles and keeps both facits!
Outside Atlantic the rest of the shards would not have any problem with server space.

I would like more ideas for the smith side and tailor bod reward system.
Think people if we can give the dev a hand in thinking up changes they just might consider the request.

 

[Smoot]

Exactly.
If the dev were to go so far as make the books like the blue and pink scroll books it would be like any other item in my crafters bag or bug.
Every crafter would benifit from this.
Uriah is right I cant see any draw on server space... have you looked on most shards of late?
Malas is almost barren of homes outside luna.
If there is one or two homes in Ter Mur your lucky.
Fel and Tram have hundreds of home spots open under a keep size.
And on one I know there is room for castles and keeps both facits!
Outside Atlantic the rest of the shards would not have any problem with server space.

I would like more ideas for the smith side and tailor bod reward system.
Think people if we can give the dev a hand in thinking up changes they just might consider the request.

Only the crafters that do bods would benefit. keep in mind that only a small percentage of crafters actually do bods, or would ever do them. nice ideas, but the dev team is just too small for minorities to be catered too anymore. sad but true.

 

[FrejaSP]

I always feeled BoDs was a pain to do and they need to redo the whole system.
Do it like the fishing quests, where you have to own reputations and will get small orders with 1 x 10, 15 or 20 items depending of your skills and reputation, this can be exceptional or not depending of your skills.
Then changes the large orders to be like the fish quests. an order of 2-6 orders of 10, 15 or 20 items.

I don't think you should be able to trade the orders, make a BoD book with only one stone weight, you can keep on your char, when doing them and use the quest system to control how many quests you can have at one time, maybe increase it to 20.

Now like with the fish quests, you get a name of a crafter in a town, you need to turn it in to.

The rewards should be somewhat like now, but with a few new items useful for crafters and some stuff worth selling.

Make quests for carpenters, fletchers, alchemists, scribers, tinkers and imbuers too and if the crafter did read the books for stone, glass, baskets or dyes, let him get a few orders including this stuff, same if he have some of the booster packs, include this stuff in his orders with a little chance for rewards that came with the booster.

Maybe the Crafters Quest we will get is something like that or better, I can't wait to see.

My head hurts when doing the BoD's we have now and eat to many lockdowns. I want to play, not standing in my house trying to sort BoDs

 

[Uriah Heep]

Exactly.
If the dev were to go so far as make the books like the blue and pink scroll books it would be like any other item in my crafters bag or bug.
Every crafter would benifit from this.
Uriah is right I cant see any draw on server space... have you looked on most shards of late?
Malas is almost barren of homes outside luna.
If there is one or two homes in Ter Mur your lucky.
Fel and Tram have hundreds of home spots open under a keep size.
And on one I know there is room for castles and keeps both facits!
Outside Atlantic the rest of the shards would not have any problem with server space.

I would like more ideas for the smith side and tailor bod reward system.
Think people if we can give the dev a hand in thinking up changes they just might consider the request.

LOL you know there is plenty of server space, when a castle goes up for sale for 2 million and doesn't sell...

 

[Veldrane]

I cant believe some of you are worried about server space if we keep more bods, with population being what it is I don't foresee that being a problem...

While the population has decreased dramatically, we've also been shifted over to cloud hosting as well. Database bloat is always a concern for any good project manager no matter if it's a hundred users or a million. Database size effects server performance and also impacts operational costs and you're looking at a database that has been growing for sixteen years - the storage costs must be a decent sized number. Am I personally concerned about database space? No, not at all but what I do want to know is WHY there is such push back from the Dev team on this issue and see if we can come up with an acceptable solution to what's holding back this change. There are four reasons that are plausible.

1) Infrastructure Concerns - The Dev team is concerned with people hording BODs and the database size increasing therefore increasing operational costs and impacting server performance
2) Broadsword hates crafters - The Dev team doesn't like crafting so they're not inclined to do anything about the mechanic
3) Broadsword lacks the knowledge to mess with the BOD code - The system is old and all the Dev's that worked on it are gone. So the programming is so jacked up that to change this issue would have unforeseen consequences
4) Broadsword is too busy - no explanation needed

I doubt it's number 2 for no other reason than, I've never gotten the feeling from the team that they're the type to go "yeah, I don't do that in game so screw it". Number 4 seems like a likely answer but with every other item that players have suggested with merit the answer has been "we'll add that to the list to look at" while the answer to this suggestion has always been met with a very quick and decisive "Not happening". Number 3 is possible, not because I don't think Broadsword folks have the knowledge or skills, but rather because the system is so intertwined that it's not as simple as changing the ratio and would require an entire mechanic overhaul. That leaves, number 1 seems to be the most likely culprit.

Just begging "change the ratio, we need it" and stamping our feet isn't going to get the job done. Finding out why the team doesn't want to do it and finding a solution to that reason is the way to get us our change.

 

[Lady Storm]

Smoot....
Why do you think there are not many crafters out there?
Every imbuer uses a crafter to make his basic building mats unless a fortunate drop in the dungeons happens.
Most LRC suits my son sells are hand crafted by Lily.... every jewelry bit Longfellow made the blank Grumbles uses for his craft of imbueing. Every Barbed kit forsale came from a Crafter, as did every PoF...
Second.. go on any shard including Balhea which is pretty much the smallest population we have and you will find a good handfull in luna alone of npc vendors holding bods and I can bet the owner is not idle in their crafting.
The reason you dont see the coffee cluches of crafter/tailors or smiths going at it is quite simple.
Its no longer viable to carry books of bods when you constantly have to pop home for another bod to fill up a large and return.
It's much more easer to stay home and fill bods alone.
Every thing is there at your fingertips too.
Including the npcs holding the books if you get stuck needing another.
I miss the coffee cluches, made good friends that way.
With this change in both we might be able to bring back the coffee cluch.

 

[MalagAste]

You are so off base with this.

I know more people are buying hammers and sewing kits.... but... I know of only ONE person that bothers with Reforging and that is also the only person I know who bothers learning about the augmentation things either. But honestly outside powder and tools and the Bless deed... we could use more newer items ......

PS are easy to get and super cheap for smithing and tailoring... the deco stuff is old... needs a refresh. And metal needs to be brought up in line with leather, wood and stone... they all give decent property bonus over metal.