A quick and easy fix for this terrible crafting system

[Yeshuah]

Today I wanted to craft. I got my crafting up to 100, costing me almost all my cannith essence (1500). I was excited to make my alt some items! Upon trying to make his item though I saw to craft potency I didn't have enough reagents. My first character is 23 now, played many many maps, got all collectibles I saw, didn't rush anything and I don't have enough? Upon seeing the ingredients I need there's only four maps with it and the content is 10 levels lower than I am. How is this good game design that I should have to go back and rerun content that yields no exp just to farm ingredients to craft? This makes NO sense! So here's a simple solution which everyone should be happy with.

All cannith crafting from now on requires 25 of ANY common ingredient, 15 of ANY uncommon ingredient and 5 of ANY rare ingredient. This way we still needs lots of bag space to hold all the different types, keeping the game happy trying to get people to buy bags, and it keeps the players happy cause we can craft anything we want as long as we have enough ingredients in that tier and can go play any content we like to craft.

So simple, so easy.

 

[Dragavon]

Farming collectibles have always been necessary in DDO crafting.
But I dare say it is less farming in DDO than other games.

 

[Mornyngstar]

Today I wanted to craft. I got my crafting up to 100, costing me almost all my cannith essence (1500). I was excited to make my alt some items! Upon trying to make his item though I saw to craft potency I didn't have enough reagents. My first character is 23 now, played many many maps, got all collectibles I saw, didn't rush anything and I don't have enough? Upon seeing the ingredients I need there's only four maps with it and the content is 10 levels lower than I am. How is this good game design that I should have to go back and rerun content that yields no exp just to farm ingredients to craft? This makes NO sense! So here's a simple solution which everyone should be happy with.

All cannith crafting from now on requires 25 of ANY common ingredient, 15 of ANY uncommon ingredient and 5 of ANY rare ingredient. This way we still needs lots of bag space to hold all the different types, keeping the game happy trying to get people to buy bags, and it keeps the players happy cause we can craft anything we want as long as we have enough ingredients in that tier and can go play any content we like to craft.

So simple, so easy.

My style of game play is that I stop and smell the fungus. Essentially, I stop for all treasure bags and collectable nodes.
From what you have written you haven't even TRed a toon yet. You have a 2nd toon that you are running even though your main is only lv 23 (haven't capped yet). You also leveled your crafting on a non-bonus weekend (on a bonus weekend you can achieve Crafting Level 351 in 15-30 minutes with 70k Cannith Essence, 1 Major Crafting XP Elixir (40 Store Points), 4X (25) Crafting Success Boosters (150 Store Points/each).
Since you leveled quickly, since it is your first life you probably skipped some quests in the given level range. On your next life you will need 50% more xp so will have to run more content to get back up to cap (3rd life will be 100% more compared to first life). That will give you plenty of time for getting the necessary collectables for crafting. For Cannith Essence I suggest getting to cap and Deconning any unnecessary items when you run cap quests/raids. That gives you the greatest amount of Cannith Essence for the least amount of effort (typically on full heavy days of questing at cap I get 10K-40K).

 

[Br4d]

The Cannith crafting system is actually very powerful for leveling, particularly in heroics. It will take a few lives to get the ingredients you need for various crafts and then you will be farming each life to maintain particular ingredients for common crafts.

I haven't crafted much below level 10 because the RNG loot is generally good enough to do what I need to do. At level 10 I started crafting filler pieces for the Ravenloft meta. Then at 14, 18, 20, 24 and 29 I have replacements.

As an example: I have gloves for my EK/PM builds that are always Nullification, insightful Nullification and Negative Healing Amplification. These turned out to be better at 10 than the gloves in the Beacon of Magic set. Replacing those gloves with crafted gloves allowed me to do the Knight of the Shadows set without conflicts alongside the Adherent of the Mists set. Crafting a trinket (which took longer for various reasons) filled in the Void Lore gap that not using the Beacon of Magic set created.

 

[Terpilar]

OP, I find your expectations of being able to craft anything you want or need after a single life are unrealistic, the system is as is by design.

When I started playing 3½ years ago I quickly discovered I very often wanted ingredients that I did not have, but after a few reincarnations and a few alts, I have dozens/hundreds/thousands of most everything without ever farming for anything in particular – just let it accumulate, craft what you can with what you have, and be prudent with the rarer ingredients.

DDO is, among other things, a game of patience.

PS : Of the VIP perks announced this year, the "choose your collectible" one looks like it could partly solve that problem.

 

[drjoans]

You can always buy ingredients from the auction house/ shard exchange, and I have seen some group postings of looking for so and so ingredient. There's lots of packrats out there that would be able to help out with a few missing ingredients if not sell them to you.

 

[ACJ97F]

You probably noticed that crafting unbound items is more expensive, requiring extra material. Don't bother making any of that unless you're
crafting for a partner or something. Use (%) and crafting XP boosters, and make the lower-chance gear. The higher XP from that will outpace
cranking out dozens of lesser items.

 

[Purr]

Voodospyce, if I recall, had some excellent cannith crafting tutorials on YouTube.

There are also a lot of good threads in forums and on wiki about best farming routes if you're shy of an odd ingredient.

Problem isn't with cannith crafting, it's already been simplified nicely (there used to be like 10 different types of essences instead of one)--it's arguably the only crafting system that gets used widely (and the most useful).

Oh, also, the cannith crafting planner (you can Google it) does a good job helping you see what you'd need before doing half the shards and realizing it won't work.

 

[Br4d]

The old system was a real slog and I didn't start taking Cannith crafting seriously until the change.

The current system is good with several "gotchas" built-in, mostly around the status of bound and unbound blanks and shards.

For farming it is often best just to run a particular quest up to the collectible node you want and then start over after farming it. Early farms for me were things like Silver Flame Hymnals (for Wisdom) and Bruised Spore Pods (for Strength.)

 

[Contessor]

Alchemical Rituals were the early crafting system. Lightning Split-Soarwood was a rare find back then.

 

[Purr]

Alchemical Rituals were the early crafting system. Lightning Split-Soarwood was a rare find back then.

Every time I pull a silver flame hymnal or luminescent dust I get excited, but I can't really remember why. I remember when I finally pulled a litany and posted it in a group chat later and the guy loot-shamed me by posting his with the resistance ritual

 

[Shear-buckler]

I get the frustration and that it seems like bad design. What you need to know design-wise is that the crafting system was designed to make use of the collectibles, not the other way around. For that purpose it is pretty well designed.

 

[drjoans]

Voodospyce, if I recall, had some excellent cannith crafting tutorials on YouTube.

There are also a lot of good threads in forums and on wiki about best farming routes if you're shy of an odd ingredient.

Problem isn't with cannith crafting, it's already been simplified nicely (there used to be like 10 different types of essences instead of one)--it's arguably the only crafting system that gets used widely (and the most useful).

Oh, also, the cannith crafting planner (you can Google it) does a good job helping you see what you'd need before doing half the shards and realizing it won't work.

On the note of the cannith crafting planner, you can also find what quests are best for farming the necessary material by hovering over the material on the site.

 

[Livmo]

On the note of the cannith crafting planner, you can also find what quests are best for farming the necessary material by hovering over the material on the site.

This is good advice and if you also use this DDO Wiki page you can dial in a few more spots to farm, https://ddowiki.com/page/Collectable.

--

I don't like some of the choke points in the system, which might have to do with lore. For example if you're a Wisdom build the ability shards require Silver Flame Hymnals. DEX builds get hung up on Polished Ores. Constitution is Glass Phials. Although CHA and INT mats are easier to farm, still a kick to the cod plate when you're trying to finish an item you really want and can't get the last few you need.

I've got the quests down to farm really good and know of a few choice spots not listed in the guides, forum or wiki, but I'm heistant to post those details here. If I told where I fished, the spots would get ruined. Keep your head up and always grab collectables as you level and you may find a few of these spots as well ; )

 

[flacracker0080]

In my opinion the only way to fix the Cannith Crafting is roll it back to the way it was originally. This current system is a dumpster fire.

 

[Purr]

In my opinion the only way to fix the Cannith Crafting is roll it back to the way it was originally. This current system is a dumpster fire.

Like, the 2010 version with all the different essences? That was terrible. This system at least makes collectibles worthwhile. Would be nice to have some kind of trade in option for the collectibles that are toooooo common, like the blades of the dark six

 

[Mornyngstar]

Like, the 2010 version with all the different essences? That was terrible. This system at least makes collectibles worthwhile. Would be nice to have some kind of trade in option for the collectibles that are toooooo common, like the blades of the dark six

According to the DDO Wiki page: Blade of the Dark Six can be turned in at Davyd Turner (near House Phiarlan Entrance in Market Place) for Elixir of Lesser Healing which does "Immediately heal 10 Hit Points, plus 2 to 4 additional Hit Points every 2 seconds for the next 10 seconds". I didn't know this until looking it up (I knew there were collectable traders but not the reward). While this is useful, like being on Cormyr currently, it is not what you were getting at. If Purr had gone with Brass Censer for an example it would have been more fitting (I have given away 5k+ and still have built up in my Shared Crafting Storage about 7-8K along with the 1k in my Huge Collectable bag and only 8 total recipes to use them in for Cannith Crafting).

I wouldn't mind having a turn in option to "upgrade" to the next rarity somewhere along the lines of 20-50 Common to 1 Uncommon, 10-30 Uncommon to 1 rare and 10-20 rare for a Purified Eberron Dragonshard (or an equivalent). Since there is an option to turn 1 Tokens of the Twelve into 1 Purified Eberron Dragonshards, there should be an option to turn 2-5 Purified Eberron Dragonshards back into 1 Token of the Twelve. Overall, this sounds reasonable but that would entail a lot of different recipes for the turn in which could be a cause of lag so would have to be approached with caution.

As to the original OP's idea, (imo) simply no. The current system is much better than the old multi essence types and lesser/greater.

 

[danzig138]

A quick and easy fix would be to add crafting feats like in the game this is based on.

 

[Dragavon]

A quick and easy fix would be to add crafting feats like in the game this is based on.

The Mark of making is in game.

 

[Solarpower]

A quick and easy fix would be to add crafting feats like in the game this is based on.

Crafting feats in 3.5 works like "You have "Craft Rings" Feat - you can now craft rings". How that can possibly help with the materials grinding ?
It would only result in creating "Crafting Alts" alongside our endless "Bank Alts".