The Quality Randomess of Crafted item ... UGH

[saamu]

I have been crafting pretty much since I started this 'game', not being the blood thirsty enough to take the blood of fellow PSer .

I have made the 300Q when they were easy, I have stacked to 300Q when it was possible and I have hang on to the current crafting in hope. And I am beginning to HATE the current crafting system with the random end results. Why? Cos its an insult to the many hours standing at the anvil (while others are having fun).

Imagine this secenrio
Player:What is the quality of your swords?
Crafter:About 220 average
Player:Can you make me one?
Crafter:Yes I want 8 stocks and 20K trias
Player hands Crafter stocks and trias and waits
5 minutes later (approx) Crafter hands Player 180/180 Q sword
Player:What the f@#!$k, you said 220Q
Crafter:I can't control the quality.. thats the way its ... i can give a discount say 10K
Player:I don't want this SH%$, give me back my stock and 20K trias

I will leave it to your inmagination as to how this will conclude.

End result Crafter lose reputation and customer

You could suggest that the crafter keeps stock and sell from his stock. I know of Crafters who do this. Personally I am a crafter not a merchant who carry stocks of swords.

It is the same with metallurgy.. I am at level 45 and my stock ranges 60-170 and with many in the 80 range. In real life I would be the laughing stock of my faternity. making all those low grade stuff. In real life a master consistently produce the high grade goods with the occasional stuffup. The PS crafters mostly stuff ups with the occasional lucky stirke.

I was told that the random thing was introduced to make high Q weapons rare and hence more value. The only thing its doing now is creatring inconsistent quality.

I am suggesting that with weapons making the quality of the weapon tracks the level of the crafter say a level 10 crafter makes 100Q, 11 makes 110Q and so on or something similar like levels 10-14 makes 100Q. 15-20 makes 150, 21- 24 makes 200Q, 25-29 makes 250Q and only level 30 makes 300Q. ie remove the random thing. It feels so much nicer to say 'I made a 300/300 yippee" compare with 'I made a 299/299' (No diff in the use of the sword I am sure)

OK  maybe I am just the only unlucky crafter in the block who stuff up more than most *sigh*. Still I hope that crafting can be rewarding...

[saladasalad]

I am suggesting that with weapons making the quality of the weapon tracks the level of the crafter say a level 10 crafter makes 100Q, 11 makes 110Q and so on or something similar like levels 10-14 makes 100Q. 15-20 makes 150, 21- 24 makes 200Q, 25-29 makes 250Q and only level 30 makes 300Q. ie remove the random thing. It feels so much nicer to say 'I made a 300/300 yippee" compare with 'I made a 299/299' (No diff in the use of the sword I am sure)

This idea sounds fair to me except that I think a random +/- 10% quality penalty (or bonus) should be applied. I think that would make the job a little bit more interesting and luck would still play some part. You shouldn't be able to consistently produce 300/300 weapons.

[Zan]

I say remove the quality number completely, It's OOC.

[Kaityra]

Hello!

I say remove the quality number completely, It's OOC.

I second that. Replace the numbers with a description, e.g. "junk", "lowest quaility", "low quality", "average quality", "fair quality", "good quality", "very good quality", "excelent quality" and "mastercrafted". Or something similar.

With kind regards
Kaityra

[Tolol]

Yep, Yip, Yap, Yup, Yop ... I also have to second this !

One of the most interesting suggestions I've heard for a long time.

It would also be better (ICly) to auction such weapon.

A "master crafted dagger" sounds much better than "dagger 300/300"

[Rongar Elani]

I partly agree. The weapons already have a 2nd name. A 300/300 is called 'finest', so there is basically no need for the quality numbers. On the other hand though, without any numbers, how can you tell when your weapon need s a repair? There would need to be something, that tells you, how your weapon is, quality wise. Perhaps a morph would do it, meaning, that your 'finest' weapon slowly decreases to an 'inferior' one, like the lowest quality weapons are called.

But back on topic.

I also think that the randomness in the crafting system is somewhat annoying, but rememner that most, if not all skills will go up to 100 and above. Though, since steel as crafting material is most likely the easist one to handle, 'finest' weapons made of simple steel should indeed be possible to be created, with a level, much lower than the maximum level and without such a randomness to be involved. Actually, I don't even think, that the random factor gets lowered, the higher your skills are, I just remembered the steel stock with quality 4/4 I once made, when having a metallurgy level of 30

But anyway, the crafting system is far away from being finished, and I'm most sure the developers have their own plans on how the system should work in the end, and that they are already working on putting these plans into action.

[Rheos]

I have join in on this complaint, it's very frustrating spending a lot of time becoming a better crafter only to find that the outcome has such a large random element.  I hope whichever Devs are working on the crafting come up with an improvement soon.
I only wish I had enough coding skill to join in and help out.

Rheos

[Coneitic]

even the best crafters make mistakes. you must have left them in the oven to long or not long enough, something must have distracted you or you were tired after hours of crafting and no sleep. whens the last time you rented a room in kada's and took a nap? what happens when u play a video game for 12 hours straight you keep getting better? maybe the furnace was a little off that time not enough coal. maybe the weather was humid and water effected the crafting. maybe someone put a dagger in the furnace too and bumped yours over so it wasnt getting even heat. maybe the stock he gave you wasnt that great of quality.

arg so many variables!!! cursed the rp world.

[neko kyouran]

all well and good, but you also have to realize that if it is not made fun, hence a somewhat predictable crafting system, people won't do it.  i know i'm not going to spend time on something unless i have a good idea on what the out come is going to be.  working on something for a fair share of time, only to find out that the end result was a complete waste of my time is not my idea of a good time.

games are meant to be played for fun; if I'm not having fun, i go do something else.  so if the majority are in the same line of thinking, no fun = no crafting economy.

[Aiken]

It is the same with metallurgy.. I am at level 45 and my stock ranges 60-170 and with many in the 80 range.

This surprised me. I would have said the same with my level 12 metalurgy with sometimes a stock being as low as 20. If the stocks are not going to be any better is there any reason for training metalurgy except to be able to melt gold ore?

[Coneitic]

all well and good, but you also have to realize that if it is not made fun, hence a somewhat predictable crafting system, people won't do it.  i know i'm not going to spend time on something unless i have a good idea on what the out come is going to be.  working on something for a fair share of time, only to find out that the end result was a complete waste of my time is not my idea of a good time.

games are meant to be played for fun; if I'm not having fun, i go do something else.  so if the majority are in the same line of thinking, no fun = no crafting economy.

constant great quality the economy floods and it becomes cheaper than an ale right? kind of like sliverweaves back in the day? real expensive till the market was flooded with them then it wasnt worth a tria

[neko kyouran]

limit the ability to procure the patterns to make such great items, or make it so that the items required to make such great items are hard to come by, and those factors limit the amount of the items in the economy and still allow for crafters to have fun, crafting.

Case in point, my little mage tailor on a WoW server has the distinct ability to say she knows how to make a wonderful little pair of pants that I can safely say 1 out of 100 (and probably higher) only know how to make.  And even then, the required materials to make such a fine pair of pants are hard and expensive to come by.  These factors make it so that the market isn't flooded with this item, and the prices for this item are right where they should be, imo.

And for those not familiar with WoW, they handle quality a little different there.  Every item starts out at max quality when made, or obtained from loot.  Events such as death and wear and tear over use degrade the item until it is useless and must be repaired.  So as you can see, a stable economy can still be had without sacrificing the fun factor if done properly.

[Rongar Elani]

The market being flooded is a valid point, but a pair of crafted shortswords for example, I do not see falling below 100k at minimum, since most crafters do indeed dig the materials themselfs, and in the same amount of time it takes for digging 160 iron ores/coal lumps (for 2 shortswords), they could aswell go dig 160 gold ores, which would be worth 97280 trias after casting them to ingots. And even if the market is well feeded, there will always be clients to outfit.

[saamu]

constant great quality the economy floods and it becomes cheaper than an ale right? kind of like sliverweaves back in the day? real expensive till the market was flooded with them then it wasnt worth a tria

I disagree with this. Consistency has nothing do with prices. Its supply and demand as any economist will tell you. What you are saying is that by making the quality inconsistent, the quantity of High Q weapons is inconsistent. This holds true only if the number of crafters do not increase. So then should the System only allow a fixed number of crafters. Obviously no.

Inconsistent Quality will not increase the price on its own. Imagine what would happen to Armani or Intel prices if their quality is not consistent.

You are correct if the intention of PS is to driver players away from crafting by making it frustrating, thus reducing the number of crafters so that the few crafters remaining can demand high prices for their crafts. Then this sad indeed, that economics takes precedence over the joy of the game.

[bilbous]

What makes you think Intel quality is consistent? they have released any number of dogs in the past. I doubt it is different in any other manufacturing concern. Some production runs get tainted by a new employee or a failing machine. Consistent quality is a myth. Certainly though a master of the trade ought to have better results on average with both higher high end quality and rarer junk quality products.