The current crafting system is pointless.

[Ukase]

32 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Also not true in my experience.  I can almost always buy the recipe and craft it myself for quite a bit cheaper than just buying the pre-crafted version on the market.  The big exception to that of course is attuned stuff, as you can't buy an "attuned" recipe or get one to drop (wish you could).  And so then buying a catalyst on top of the recipe to then attune it does lead to it costing way too much versus just buying an attuned IO.   Catalysts becoming a lot cheaper would be another way to "fix" that, but not sure a good way to do that.

 

Back to the original post, as someone who dislikes crafting in almost every game, CoH's isn't bad at all and I think is one of the better done ones the way it stands.

It's much easier with two accounts, but you can sell a non-attuned IO and buy an attuned IO of the exact same type for the same price - but it requires one character to sell it at a price where someone else doesn't have a high enough bid for it, and your other character can bid high enough to get it. 

For example, the attuned Luck of the Gambler 7.5% global recharge. 

My farmer may get a few of these after each run, when done crafting and converting. I can log in another character, and bid lowball bids and determine just where the bid is actually at ...almost. Remember, I do want an attuned version, and I already have a non-attuned. So, worst case, I get one cheaper than I thought, and can simply list the non-attuned for a price that I think it will sell at. It doesn't have to the same, it can be a bit more, or a bit less. Totally up to me. 

Sometimes, I'll do this for a large number of them, just for convenience's sake and stash 50 to 100 of them in my base. With the rule of 5, and leveling a character usually once a week, every few months or so, I'll need more. There's no need to use a catalyst for this action, unless it's just out of convenience. 

[Redletter]

11 hours ago, Herotu said:

Isn't that market forces tho? That's how it's SUPPOSED to work - competition forces prices to the minimum possible (i.e. the COST to make it). If you still don't like the price, blame the arbitrarily pre-set prices of the components.

Well yes and no. I guess I wasn't clear, what Im kinda saying is some of them are super fucking expensive, and some are super fucking cheap, and the market is very inconsistent and it's interactions with crafted enhancements is kinda borked to me. Just as an example:

 

 

This is great. I can buy the IO I want from the market for a price that, even at a high ball, is at LEAST 100,000 LESS than just making it myself -- and that'd be the case if I actually HAD a recipe, AND the two ingredients on hand. I do NOT in this case, so my savings would be even MORE immense.

 

But, let's break this actual process down. First you need to check if you have the recipe for one? If YES then do you have the materials? If yes, do you have the inf to make the thing you have all the ingredients for? It feels like that last INF cost is kinda superfluous to me. Just my opinion, it just feels lame to have everything I need to make something then be gatekept because Im poor. Is it really necessary?

 

But... How about something a little LESS favorable...

 

 

Now, you can either make this yourself for a smooth 600k, or, you can buy it from somebody else for... more at minimum TWENTY TIMES that, but good luck, since that 12mil number is HIGHLY specific, to the point where it's far more likely a person selling a Hecatomb to an alt of theirs than it is a genuine bid.

 

This problem gets more exacerbated the more materials you need to check to see if youve got. Because SOME things are just a crap shoot to find, and that's where the market comes in AGAIN, to bump up the already often times absurd price to craft this thing I already have, even HIGHER. For instance, what exactly are we looking at if I DON'T have Hamidon Goo, Chronal Skip, and a Synthetic Intelligence Unit (the most expensive and hard to acquire resources in this recipe)...

 

So... you're looking at a minimum of 1.5million... PLUS the 600k... so that's 2.1mil? That's still radically LESS than what you'd be paying for if you just bought it made from the auction house... but I feel like that's still 600,000 more than I should be paying. I'd have less of a problem if I didn't already have to pay a crafting tax.

 

Also, where do I get these resources for crafting? Ya know, if I don't want to pay up to 150,000 MORE (per orange ingredient) than the recipe actually costs to make? Furthermore, can I get these resources reliably? I don't think so...

 

So, do we call the extra 17~ million the market value of the final product a 'convenience cost'? Because even at the absolute MAXIMUM, this price hike is ABSURD.

 

But, i've digressed. My point ultimately is that sometimes, it's cheaper to craft the thing you want. Sometimes it's not. This isn't reliable most of the time. And, the crafting system is fueled by an even LESS reliable resource gathering system. I don't really appreciate a crafting system that's founded on random chance. Ideally, the point of crafting is to OVERCOME the randomness. Crafting, to my mind, is something you should be able to RELY on. You can't rely on market prices being generous, you can't even rely on them being the bare minimum of FAIR. But you SHOULD be able to rely on the game's systems themselves. This isn't exactly what I would call "intuitive". I see a lot of room for improvement here, that doesnt force people to hop on a farm to participate in crafting culture.

 

I agree with the spirit of taking a look at the crafting system sometime (not anytime soon, it's not nearly that important). It's not "Pointless" as OP claims, not by a long shot, I literally showed evidence that, in the case of the BEST items in the game, you're better off crafting with your own resources than buying the finished product on the market. Like, it's almost hilarious how much more cheap it is to use the crafting system in those cases. Like, any enhancement MORE than 1mil on the AH is probably better off being made by you.

 

As another point in FAVOR of the system, I REALLY like that I can buy a recipe I don't have. Like, I don't need to go try to farm for a lvl 50 Damage IO if I want one, I can just open up a workbench and buy one. I really appreciate that!

[Andreah]

27 minutes ago, Redletter said:

that 12mil number is HIGHLY specific, to the point where it's far more likely a person selling a Hecatomb to an alt of theirs than it is a genuine bid.

That's not what it is. That's a low-bidder buying them up to relist somewhat higher (a flipper), OR perhaps a low-bidder buying them up to convert to another kind of purple that is in greater demand and has a higher price. Marketeers use these odd prices as a signature or point of randomness to maximize the chance they'll be high enough to snatch up an offered sale when buying, and low enough to be below everyone else trying to do the same when selling, while avoiding the round numbers, because smart listers post just above those for many similar reasons.

 

If a player wants to move an enhancement to an alt, they can just use their shared base storage or use the in-game email to mail it. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by Andreah
Because i'm tired and can't make the words come out right and should go to bed.

[Herotu]

When you're buying stuff off the Auction House, there are a few things to remember;

The MAX prices for salvage - the AH generates salvage if you bid over a specific amount;

• 10,000 inf for Common Salvage,
• 100,000 for Uncommon, and
• 1,000,000 for Rare.

So never ever bid over these values.

As for bidding, remember that prices aren't what they seem. They vary WILDLY over a 24-hour period. When America sleeps, prices drop - don't be afraid to put some bids on and go to bed. That way you're not participating in the stupidity spiral, "I want it now so I'll pay more than the next guy." - overall, it's more beneficial to bid the SAME as the last guy, so you're not fighting the other players. 

Prices vary wildly over a longer period, too. You can bid 12million for a purple, and it might not be filled for six months - it might not EVER be filled - but the longer the time you wait, the more chance it'll complete.

[tidge]

Catalysts end up being pretty cheap, in that every level 50 gets 1 every 24 hours, assuming that they are defeating enemies. After a a couple weeks every fresh level 50 should have enough to convert all of their ATO (if all 12 are slotted). Catalysts can also be put into SG storage. As further evidence of alternate ways of doing things: if I end up with non-catalyzed enhancements (<level 50) that I'll use in typical (future) builds, during respecs I will swap in the non-catalyzed pieces (for catalyzation) so that I can drop a previously catalyzed piece. Sometime I do this just with unslotters. I could get more "value" by using the AH to do the catalyzation (and selling catalyzers) and simply pay the vig, but I see no need to scrimp or accumulate more Inf.

[lemming]

The only thing I dislike about current crafting is the oddness with Attuned/Boosted/Exemplar and PvP/Purple sets.  It's needlessly complex.

[ForeverLaxx]

On 6/28/2022 at 9:31 PM, Redletter said:

But, i've digressed. My point ultimately is that sometimes, it's cheaper to craft the thing you want. Sometimes it's not.

Then pick whichever route saves you the most influence. Some people pick the route that saves them the most time. That's the beauty of a buyer-driven economy rather than a seller-driven one. If you don't like the forces at play or don't like the price of something, just don't buy anything and make it all yourself. If something "costs more" to buy direct than it does to craft, and it stays at that value long term, that only means more people prefer to save themselves the time of buying things piecemeal or that money is very easy to get and has a lower perceived value (this is most likely the case for most players -- getting influence in CoH is trivial).

 

Wanting some dev to come in and make direct changes to the market in order to favor direct purchases vs crafting (or vice versa) runs against the point of an auction house to begin with. At that point, just set up another NPC vendor with all the things you could ever want on it, or another tab on the P2W vendors with hard prices. I'm sure you'd hate whatever prices the devs come up with though in such a system, particularly because this already sorta exists with the Merit system and how much more expensive enhancements are to buy with Merits directly.

 

All I know is, I never want to see a crafting system that's more typical in Korean MMOs where you spend months gathering raw materials that have a chance to fail when crafting them into components, just for that chance to fail to keep climbing higher and higher as you try to create an actual usable item. It's even worse when you're trying to put enchantments on an item you've spent half a year farming for just for it to become unusable because that failure chance isn't just a failure chance -- it's a "break your item if it doesn't work" chance. That functionally makes certain power tiers not worth their time unless you have three separate lives to spend grinding and that system is terrible. I have no idea why people think this is a good thing; it was bad enough in original CoH regarding the combining of enhancements to make them last a little longer, but at least that wasn't too punishing since enhancements could be purchased and the failure chance was related to the level difference of the enhancements you were trying to combine. It wasn't like you spent 3 months farming up that Damage SO just for it to delete Power Burst from your bar if the 30% combine chance failed.

 

EDIT: Oh, and OP? Going back through the thread to "thumb down" everyone who disagreed with you and your most recent posts, even when their post isn't even about you and is in response to someone else, is kinda sad. It makes you look like you're unable to take criticism and are petty. This does you no favors and only makes people resent you, causing them to be less likely to bother listening to anything you say in the future.

 

I personally don't care if you don't like my post, even if it's not even talking to/about you, but the timing of your reaction is suspect considering the circumstances.

Edited July 1, 2022 by ForeverLaxx

[JasperStone]

7 hours ago, Herotu said:

When you're buying stuff off the Auction House, there are a few things to remember;

The MAX prices for salvage - the AH generates salvage if you bid over a specific amount;

• 10,000 inf for Common Salvage,
• 100,000 for Uncommon, and
• 1,000,000 for Rare.

So never ever bid over these values.

As for bidding, remember that prices aren't what they seem. They vary WILDLY over a 24-hour period. When America sleeps, prices drop - don't be afraid to put some bids on and go to bed. That way you're not participating in the stupidity spiral, "I want it now so I'll pay more than the next guy." - overall, it's more beneficial to bid the SAME as the last guy, so you're not fighting the other players. 

Prices vary wildly over a longer period, too. You can bid 12million for a purple, and it might not be filled for six months - it might not EVER be filled - but the longer the time you wait, the more chance it'll complete.

 I had no idea ...thank you

 

Gonna correct you on one thing.

Uncommon salvage has shot up from the usual 1,000-1,500 to 10,000 - 15,000

Have held steady there for a few weeks.

[Ironblade]

15 hours ago, Redletter said:

 

This is great. I can buy the IO I want from the market for a price that, even at a high ball, is at LEAST 100,000 LESS than just making it myself -- and that'd be the case if I actually HAD a recipe, AND the two ingredients on hand. I do NOT in this case, so my savings would be even MORE immense.

And there is a completely understandable reason for that - badgers.

In order to get all the crafting badges, you have to craft some of every type of enhancement in various level ranges.  So people are crafting enhancement that they don't need and dumping them on the market to recoup some of their costs.

 

 

 

15 hours ago, Redletter said:

Now, you can either make this yourself for a smooth 600k, or, you can buy it from somebody else for... more at minimum TWENTY TIMES that, but good luck, since that 12mil number is HIGHLY specific, to the point where it's far more likely a person selling a Hecatomb to an alt of theirs than it is a genuine bid.

 

No, that is COMPLETELY misleading and not at all comparable to the previous example.

In order to craft that item you must have the recipe.  There is NO OPTION to buy the recipe at the crafting table.  You have to buy it from the AH in the 10-12 million range.

 

These two examples have NO bearing on each other.

 

 

[Luminara]

40 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

And there is a completely understandable reason for that - badgers.

[biostem]

I much prefer how in CoH's crafting system, I can basically target specific items I want to create, and work towards acquiring them, without having to rely on "RNGesus"...

Edited June 29, 2022 by biostem

[Herotu]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Is that a badger? I thought they looked like this:

[Redletter]

8 hours ago, Herotu said:

Is that a badger? I thought they looked like this:

 

See, and I thought they looked like this!'

 

 

[Luminara]

5 hours ago, Herotu said:

Is that a badger? I thought they looked like this:

 

Mine was a honey badger, yours looks to be a European badger.  There are fifteen badger subfamilies in the Mustelidae family (which encompasses weasels, otters, wolverines and other similar carnivorous mammals), including these two.

[tidge]

Badgers or Baggers?

 

[The_Warpact]

Speaking of crap, y'all did notice that the OP hasn't responded...well to anything since the initial, right?

I can tell you peeps are getting old because you're just rambling on 🤣.

[TrelNargil]

3 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

Speaking of crap, y'all did notice that the OP hasn't responded...well to anything since the initial, right?

I can tell you peeps are getting old because you're just rambling on 🤣.

 

   Yes, some of us are old (and proud of it too), thank you very much...
   Now "Get of our damn lawn ya young whipper snapper, and let us old fogies listen to our Vinal's!" 😛  Hehehehe

   However, seriously, the crafting system and AH (generally speaking only) is just fine and doesn't need to be fixed as I said in my last post here. For example (only please)...
   Yesterday I went to T-Spy to check out the shard and once more try out the Psychokinetic Whip set (which I do love btw, but that's a whole 'nother different subject and not relevant here), and checking out the AH for a basic lvl 10 Panacea (chance for +health/endurance) I discovered this. The IO alone was selling for who knows what, because there was NONE in the AH, despite being told that it is seeded there by the GM's.
   So being curious, I decided to check out what it would take to craft the little guy, and this is what I discovered (sorry, I didn't think to take pics)...

   The recipe alone cost 10 mil, with the crafting salvage costing on the high end (only):

      Industrial-Grade Tech = 100

      Magic Trinket = 100

      Military-Grade Tech = 2000

      Magic Curio = 3000

      Bleeding-Edge Tech = 10 mil

 

   So to craft the lvl 10 Panacea, it would cost 20,005,200 Million Influence to do (not including the crafting it as well); and this is on a Shard where money is extremely hard to come by, where as here money is easier to get and/or earn (not including the fact that the Panacea only costs 8 mil to buy outright too), and the player base population is far less then here as well. So the moral of the story is this... While not perfect (nothing ever really is in life or gaming), the AH & crafting system here could be FAR worse than it is, and the GM's should be praised for making it not only a enjoyable experience, but one that doesn't make you want to pull your hair out (unless that's your thing of course, and if it is, I don't wanna know lol). So again...

 

   "Don't fix what ain't broken..."

 

Peace...

[Ukase]

On 6/28/2022 at 9:31 PM, Redletter said:

 

So... you're looking at a minimum of 1.5million... PLUS the 600k... so that's 2.1mil? That's still radically LESS than what you'd be paying for if you just bought it made from the auction house... but I feel like that's still 600,000 more than I should be paying. I'd have less of a problem if I didn't already have to pay a crafting tax.

 

Also, where do I get these resources for crafting? Ya know, if I don't want to pay up to 150,000 MORE (per orange ingredient) than the recipe actually costs to make? Furthermore, can I get these resources reliably? I don't think so...

 

So, do we call the extra 17~ million the market value of the final product a 'convenience cost'? Because even at the absolute MAXIMUM, this price hike is ABSURD.

 

But, i've digressed. My point ultimately is that sometimes, it's cheaper to craft the thing you want. Sometimes it's not. This isn't reliable most of the time. And, the crafting system is fueled by an even LESS reliable resource gathering system. I don't really appreciate a crafting system that's founded on random chance. Ideally, the point of crafting is to OVERCOME the randomness. Crafting, to my mind, is something you should be able to RELY on. You can't rely on market prices being generous, you can't even rely on them being the bare minimum of FAIR. But you SHOULD be able to rely on the game's systems themselves. This isn't exactly what I would call "intuitive". I see a lot of room for improvement here, that doesnt force people to hop on a farm to participate in crafting culture.

You raise some interesting points - but the one thing that you haven't mentioned is that the recipe in question is a very rare. 
Anecdotally, these are far less rare for me than they used to be. But, back on live, I didn't have a true farmer, I just had a fire/stone tank that could farm the dreck map, and did. But I had to be present, controlling my character. Burn on auto would have done the job, I think...but I'm not real sure, as it never occurred to me to try. 

In any event, if you take farming out of the equation, AND you take the Market Crash auto-purple drop out of the equation, I think it's safe to say, I might have gotten 5 purple drops in the past couple of years. Maybe 8. But, really, they're very, very rare as a drop. At least, they are for me. 

The rarity is why these are so relatively expensive. Think, back on live, a very rare recipe, uncrafted could cost you well over 250M! Even the Fortunata Hypnosis, the sleep set, arguably the least used would have cost you about 225k. And the salvage for it would be closer to 1-2M, with same crafting costs. So, the percentages on live were even more out of whack. 

So, I think it's about perspective. Yours is interesting. And I don't disagree with a lot of what you stated. But - ya gotta remember that purples are very rare. Scarcity means low supply. 10% global recharge means higher demand. And when someone gets one they can't use, they can craft it, keep it, store it, convert it or sell it. But if they do sell it, they want to get as much as they can. So, that will push the price higher. Eventually, there's a balance between what folks want to get for it, and what folks are willing to pay. 

Folks like me who are more frugal get annoyed at the high cost of these items. Other folks, not so much. It's just part of the game, I figure. I don't see a good way around it. 

Increasing supply through market crash and farming is probably the only thing keeping these items cheap. And they are cheap. Very cheap. At least, when you compare to 10X the price like they were on live. 

[Galactiman]

14 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

Speaking of crap, y'all did notice that the OP hasn't responded...well to anything since the initial, right?

I can tell you peeps are getting old because you're just rambling on 🤣.

The thread pretty well exploded into hostility and assumptions, and here you are calling me crap, so what kind of civil discourse is here in which to participate?

[Shred Monkey]

I agree a little with the OP.  The crafting system in this game is nothing like what I want in a crafting system.  All drops are random so there's no method of harvesting components or recipes it's just luck of the draw, craft and sell, then buy what you actually need.  I wouldn't say it's pointless.  I just don't consider it a selling point of this game.  Quite the opposite in fact.  One of the original selling points of this game was the fact that it's not a loot-focused game, for those who prefer not to mess with gear and crafting systems.

 

 

 

 

[The_Warpact]

20 minutes ago, Galactiman said:

The thread pretty well exploded into hostility and assumptions, and here you are calling me crap, so what kind of civil discourse is here in which to participate?

I didn't call you crap. I said speaking of crap meaning what a shitty thing to do, you didn't respond since your initial post and I made a joke to the old folks.

 

As far as the rest is concerned welcome to the internet, where differing opinions occur.

The responses you took personally and thats on you. You wanted to make a point and when you had differing opinions you gave up instead of standing firm, explaining your position, and debating it out. You're not going to have a "civil discourse " when you ask "agree or disagree " guess what not everyone is going to agree with you.

 

So quit railroading your thread with this, remove your emotion, quit taking it personally and start debating your position. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Galactiman]

Why are you so angry? Might want to take a moment to reflect and evaluate what in your life has led you to be so hostile. Probably not healthy to be so riled up all the time.

 

Anyway, the thread has gone pretty far off topic at this point. No one seems to dislike the current crafting system or have any ideas on how to make it better. Might as well close the thread. 

[The_Warpact]

6 hours ago, Galactiman said:

Why are you so angry? Might want to take a moment to reflect and evaluate what in your life has led you to be so hostile. Probably not healthy to be so riled up all the time.

 

Anyway, the thread has gone pretty far off topic at this point. No one seems to dislike the current crafting system or have any ideas on how to make it better. Might as well close the thread. 

I'm not angry I gave you an explanation. 

My question to you is why are you a quitter? You presented your case and when you had differing opinions respond you gave up because everyone was "hostile and assuming".

No they weren't they are a posts half agreeing with you, providing alternatives, and comparisons. Why haven't you responded to them? Instead of the ones you took offense to, because, you quit as soon as you got some flack on your position. This isn't a popularity contest and who cares if people disagree with you. Getting emotional and start assuming how people "feel" totally knocked the feet out from any argument you had. You railroaded your own thread with this.

 

Why should the thread be locked? Because, you railroaded it? You don't like it because it didn't go your way?

There's alot of good posts in here with info, and responses that provide substance for others.

Actually just lock yourself out of the thread since you obviously don't want to participate and just want to whine and project your emotions onto others.

[Andreah]

I suppose it's partly about style. The opening post staked out a position at one extreme, and basically dared people to disagree. And people did. It sets up a somewhat combative thread. I think the original poster could have posted more often afterwards, especially if the thread was going in a direction or was taking a tone that wasn't intended. Engaging along the way in a positive way can really help keep a thread productive; why wait for the moderators to have to take steps? 

 

As was said, there's some good content and productive discussion here. 

 

I'd like to see that continue.

[The_Warpact]

My thoughts on the crafting system are such. It could use work, too often there is confusion from new players in ones unfamiliar with the system. I'd like to see the University IO training mission be automatically unlocked as soon as a toon receives their first recipe.

Once this is completed then it unlocks across the global that way it doesn't have to repeated and players can now craft recipes into IOs.

 

As far as the rest is concerned it is a drag sometimes but, compared to other games it's just fine. I think drop rates need looked at, as I see the same salvage drops more often. Example, Ancient Artifact drops more than Ancient Bone, why is that? They are both common magic salvage. At least this happens to me.