I thought I would start a thread and ask for some opinions on the future of crafting and what may be in the works for an upcoming patch - or for an expansion.
I found it curious that in patch 1.0.7 the drop rate for all crafting recipes was greatly increased. What is the purpose of this?
Logically it seems that the intent is simply to help all the players get as close to full crafting potential sooner rather than later. But given the state of crafting as it is right now and the general lack of use for it, I'm starting to suspect that a change is coming for the crafting part of this game. The question I ask is what do you think is coming AND OR is there a better reason/theory as to why the drop rate was increased?
My thoughts if you want to read on:
So many players complain that WoW is a giant influence to D3. Specifically with crafting - folks feel that crafting in D3 is heavily influenced by WoW and will see more of that influence come about in the future of the game. What I've never understood is why is that such a problem for a game like Diablo 3? I know that the purpose of the game is PvE and the loot hunt - however, to be able to craft a decent set of starter gear would not be a detriment to that process, imo.
Recall, if you will, the original Inferno and how many of us slapped our faces against the Act 2 wall. It started so many complaints (myself included) that it eventually led to the nerf of Inferno - which made the general masses happy and the hardcore players unhappy. What if in Act 1 Inferno, as it was at release, we found a crafting material like Demonic Essence. That material was unique to Act 1 and it lead you to be able to craft a chest/shoulders/pants set of gear that had affix control to automatically give you a roll on your main stat and vitality - plus two to three random affixes. People would have been able to craft themselves a start to some decent gear to be able to farm Act 1, find what they needed to fill in the blanks and move on slowly through Act 2.
And in Act 2 - a new crafting material like "Really Demonic Essence" for instance, would lead to crafting a helm/boots/wrists that would further enhance your characters ability to progress. Rares found in the game could roll to be better than crafted gear and you could always farm for better than what you crafted. But what you crafted could let you farm and progress. Would that be so bad and break the PvE/loot hunt of this game?
I could then get long winded as to WHY they didn't do anything like this, so that you would be incentivized to use the AH/RMAH - but I don't want to make any of the fans of Blizzard nervous.
I think a system like that would have let the general community be okay with a long progression through Inferno and the system could have stayed the way it was. Crafting, i.e., would have been useful and fun. Would that be so bad for this game?
The way I see it, is that the new crafting recipes can be seen as "Crafting 2.0". This makes the old crafting system "Crafting 1.0" obsolete more or less. But since it is already in the game, they cannot remove it and leave it in place. "Crafting 1.0" really has no use anymore at the moment when compare to "Crafting 2.0", because the rolls are much, much better and also ilvl63.
I'm very happy that they introduced "Crafting 2.0", because I love crafting. But I must admit that it feels a little bit overpowered since I have crafted three upgrades for myself (gloves, shoulders, bracers) with only about 50 tries. These upgrades are now replacing gear slots that were worth tens of millions!! And it seems that "a lot" of people are easily upgrading their expensive gloves and Vile Wards but also amulets.
Just imaging that we had this "Crafting 2.0" back in May/June when the game was just released. You could easily craft items that you would consider godly when compared to the expensive items back then!
I don't think that they will change anything from the old "Crafting 1.0" system. and I don't understand why they buffed the drop of crafting recipes with 400%, because now they recipes costs have gone down untill almost nothing. The legendary recipes are still legendary (and hard to find) and are still giving you plans for completely useless items compared to the "Legendary 2.0" items and the "Crafting 2.0" items.
In the end I think the designers finally made crafting worthwile and a cool and good component of the game, the account bound type is a great solution to allow good rolls, but the downside is that items that were costing hundreds of millions 2 week back, will soon drop to a fraction of that prices (especially shoulders, gloves, amulets).
Personally I think they added 1 or 2 items too much in the "Crafting 2.0" system.
Recall, if you will, the original Inferno and how many of us slapped our faces against the Act 2 wall. It started so many complaints (myself included) that it eventually led to the nerf of Inferno - which made the general masses happy and the hardcore players unhappy. What if in Act 1 Inferno, as it was at release, we found a crafting material like Demonic Essence. That material was unique to Act 1 and it lead you to be able to craft a chest/shoulders/pants set of gear that had affix control to automatically give you a roll on your main stat and vitality - plus two to three random affixes. People would have been able to craft themselves a start to some decent gear to be able to farm Act 1, find what they needed to fill in the blanks and move on slowly through Act 2.
And in Act 2 - a new crafting material like "Really Demonic Essence" for instance, would lead to crafting a helm/boots/wrists that would further enhance your characters ability to progress. Rares found in the game could roll to be better than crafted gear and you could always farm for better than what you crafted. But what you crafted could let you farm and progress. Would that be so bad and break the PvE/loot hunt of this game?
One of the main mistakes of the Inferno design at release that the entire playerbase plus Blizzard themselves agreed on was to have certain gear (item level 63) only drop in later acts of the game, but you needed that gear to progress. That's why people wanted to get in act 3 (and not just because of monster density, because seriously, VoA in act 2 falls nothing short with this regard). That's why people AH'd the hell out of D3 and why people tried to get to act 3 even if their gear was not even remotely good enough to go there.
Now, what you propose is exactly the same just with crafting. You would feel like there is this stupid gear check, but in order to get past it I need gear from the next act, which I can't access because my gear is not good enough - vicious circle. This worked by the way in games like WoW, where many encounters were gear checks, and once you killed them you could proceed. In Diablo, you can essentially complete the game on Inferno MP10 if you try hard enough even with low gear (my first Inferno Diablo kill was with my tank barb and ~8k DPS). Well, except for 2-3 enrage timers before that, but you get the point. Everyone can access any act on MP10 right now, but only very few people can farm the high MPs efficiently.
Therefore, your idea (which sounds nice initially) is just the same problem that we had at release and not a solution at all (unfortunately).
But, to answer your question where crafting is headed: Blizzard already said that they like the new recipes introduced in 1.07, so I'm pretty sure we'll see more fixed-stat recipes in the future (hopefully with other stats than main stats), but also some more BoA stats (though they won't introduce too many of them since they don't want to kill trading completely).
They could improve crafting tremendously by simply removing the gold cost on all old recipes. There is already a cost on the mats (w/e you lost by salvaging instead of vendoring) and adding a gold cost on top of it makes it so that nubs can't afford to craft and people that have money don't want to craft because the best reward is never remotely worth the risk.
They could improve crafting tremendously by simply removing the gold cost on all old recipes. There is already a cost on the mats (w/e you lost by salvaging instead of vendoring) and adding a gold cost on top of it makes it so that nubs can't afford to craft and people that have money don't want to craft because the best reward is never remotely worth the risk.
Its a means to dump gold. That part is fine imo. It sort of like gambling, and it can pay off. Best part is inflation has no bearing on the prices to make the gloves.
In D2 the process of gearing was really organic; you would play through the game, farming as you went along, and stuff you found in NM would still be useful in Hell, due to the nature of loot in that game. This led to a gearing process that was, well, organic. It was ongoing.
In D3, you yourself talk about "starter gear" - what the hell is that? Starter for what? You already played three difficulties, and you need "starter gear"? You played through the game thrice, but all your previous gear is now useless.
First let me say that I agree with you that it would be a let down to have the gear you worked for in levels 50 to 60 be obsolete when you go into Inferno Act 1 - but that was what happened and is not necessary now because of the changes to Inferno since release. But this thread was not meant to talk about those changes to Inferno - but rather to show that Crafting could be an organic, progressive thing because the gear that you are making can continue to evolve as you progress through the Acts. Right now we farm one Act for the best in slot gear as either a drop or drops to sell to get the funds to buy it. Crafting is meant to give players an alternative to that process - so while they are farming, they can find materials to assist with building a set of gear that can constantly be improved upon as they work each Act.
The "starter set" idea is to suggest that you can get some of the basics in Act 1, with a relatively low materials cost and time. Lets say you get to craft Chest/Pants/Boots/Helm in Act 1. Then in Act 2 you can craft Bracers/Gloves with materials that you find, only in Act 2 and the cost goes up a bit. Act 3 you get Rings/Ammy with a significantly higher cost and materials that only drop in the act and then finally in Act 4 Weapons/Offhands with materials there and large costs. Of course you can organically find some of these necessities in Rare and Legendary that you find in the field or buy off the AH - but in this model crafting lets you progress and do more with your time than just mindlessly hoping for a jackpot.
I guess I missed the theorycrafting part of this thread. Maybe I should look harder.
The theorycrafting part was asking the community input on their thoughts to what will happen with crafting in the future - since they increased the drop rate for ALL patterns by 400%. That suggests to me that they want you to have all of them. And the question/theorycrafting was why.
That's why people AH'd the hell out of D3 and why people tried to get to act 3 even if their gear was not even remotely good enough to go there.
Now, what you propose is exactly the same just with crafting. You would feel like there is this stupid gear check, but in order to get past it I need gear from the next act, which I can't access because my gear is not good enough - vicious circle.
Therefore, your idea (which sounds nice initially) is just the same problem that we had at release and not a solution at all (unfortunately).
Yes there were gear checks with the original Inferno. There are gear checks now in the form of the desire to farm higher mp levels. But there is only one viable way to get to either of those goals - farm in a place where your sub-standard gear will allow you until you get lucky enough to trade, sell or buy your way to progression. As you stated, you were able to kill Diablo in Inferno with low dps and several tries. Is that the point of this game - to say you beat the final boss. Sure - its one of the points. The point that I think most people sign in for day after day is to find amazing loot and use/trade/sell it. The higher MP levels are incentive to accomplish that goal. Its a gear check. I have to disagree with you - this system would allow players to work toward a goal with materials that they find, while they are out farming for the means to an end. The gear checks already exist - a crafting system is another way for them to progress past those checks.
They could improve crafting tremendously by simply removing the gold cost on all old recipes. There is already a cost on the mats (w/e you lost by salvaging instead of vendoring) and adding a gold cost on top of it makes it so that nubs can't afford to craft and people that have money don't want to craft because the best reward is never remotely worth the risk.
Its a means to dump gold. That part is fine imo. It sort of like gambling, and it can pay off. Best part is inflation has no bearing on the prices to make the gloves.
It isn't a goldsink if nobody uses it and nobody will use it unless the risk vs reward becomes remotely balanced.
The theorycrafting part was asking the community input on their thoughts to what will happen with crafting in the future - since they increased the drop rate for ALL patterns by 400%. That suggests to me that they want you to have all of them. And the question/theorycrafting was why.
My guess is that they have a single drop rate for:
It's pretty obvious to me that BS patterns are more common (and have far greater numbers) than JC patterns. I probably get 8-10 BS patterns per 1 JC pattern, both pre-1.0.7 and post-1.0.7. I really don't think this is all that uncommon as it makes perfect sense - if the BS patterns were as rare as the JC patterns you would have next-to-no chance of ever accumulating them.
I would take a stab in the dark that Blizzard realized the 1.0.7 patterns would be a massive failure if they were as rare as the pre-1.0.7 patterns, and then they realized that one of the reasons people don't really craft is because they don't necessarily have access to the things they would even want to craft - hell, I still don't have all the rare BS (or JC) patterns yet. Ultimately this just led to an across-the-board buff to the drop rate.
It isn't a goldsink if nobody uses it and nobody will use it unless the risk vs reward becomes remotely balanced.
Correct. There's just no point in dumping 17k + materials into an item that has next to no chance of even being worth 100k (or being equippable). It's a financial loser in every way imaginable for people looking to make some AH gold. It's an untenable situation for self-found people.
I would like to see the gold cost of these dropped to an outright-trivial amount (100-500g). They don't produce high-quality items, they shouldn't require any significant amount of gold, or materials, to craft.
The patterns were very useful and profitable in the past and blizzard simply haven't touched them since. They could lower the crafting costs, but not as low as you suggested, because some of them still have the potential to produce high-quality items (weapons). Personally i feel like the old patterns should simply be forgotten. Just like the 1st comment said, its something like 'crafting 1.0' and it's outdated.
Even the best crafted ilvl 62's are still only worth a few million at most and the cost of materials alone seems about even with the odds of getting any reward (especially when you consider the TIMEsink it is to craft it all vs farming) but blizzard could analyze all their numbers on AH sales and figure out a more precise cost that balances risk vs reward.
Correct. There's just no point in dumping 17k + materials into an item that has next to no chance of even being worth 100k (or being equippable). It's a financial loser in every way imaginable for people looking to make some AH gold. It's an untenable situation for self-found people.
I would like to see the gold cost of these dropped to an outright-trivial amount (100-500g). They don't produce high-quality items, they shouldn't require any significant amount of gold, or materials, to craft.
If people can make money crafting then it isnt a gold sink. That was the old methodology anyways. So everything you made sucked donkey balls. The new patterns fix this issue though by making the items BoA.
I really think BoA should have been the norm anyways. People complained it was too much like wow, but is a huge AH overflowing with gear better?
Even the best crafted ilvl 62's are still only worth a few million at most and the cost of materials alone seems about even with the odds of getting any reward (especially when you consider the TIMEsink it is to craft it all vs farming) but blizzard could analyze all their numbers on AH sales and figure out a more precise cost that balances risk vs reward.
The crafted weapons can be worth about a billion ... hard to guess the correct number, it's just that the chances are way too low (weapons roll 63 damage modifiers, not other rolls, but socket is a socket and 65% CHD is still nice). Don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to defend the old crafts, just explaining why they can't cost 5k to craft.
As I said, blizzard can run the numbers and find a better balance but no ilvl 62 craft is worth anywhere remotely near 1 billion. Sure people post things for all sorts of absurd prices but that doesn't mean they sell for that much. There are many >1100 dps + ~60 CHD + socket + lifesteal 1h weapons that are under 100m and still aren't selling while many worse ones are priced at 1 billion or more. Legendaries with good guaranteed affixes have raised the standards for what rares have to roll to be remotely worthwhile.
As I said, blizzard can run the numbers and find a better balance but no ilvl 62 craft is worth anywhere remotely near 1 billion. Sure people post things for all sorts of absurd prices but that doesn't mean they sell for that much. There are many >1100 dps + ~60 CHD + socket + lifesteal 1h weapons that are under 100m and still aren't selling while many worse ones are priced at 1 billion or more. Legendaries with good guaranteed affixes have raised the standards for what rares have to roll to be remotely worthwhile.
Ofc they don't sell without a primary stat (and they are rarely on AH above 1100). Add a primary stat and you won't find under 300m. Also, the dps goes above 1.2k on crafts. Again, im just mentioning nearly best possible crafts with misserable chances to roll. In reality the old crafting is crap and it should stay that way.
If you want main stat on a rare with CHD and socket then you'd either drop the lifesteal (worse survival) or IAS (lower dps) and the prices drop even more.
>1100 dps means "greater than 1100 dps" not less than.
Bazinga!
... I think we're getting slightly off-topic here (though I would really really really like to get such a weapon for that money, no kidding). More on topic: the old recipes are just that - old. If I could, I would even unlearn all of them, as it's annoying to have to scroll through all of them to get to my Archon Int stuff.
What the hell are you talking about?
Hes showing you on the screenshot that there's NO weapon greater than 1100dps on AH for 100m with those stats and his remark was sarcastic, not in your favor.
No i don't need to drop lifesteal or IAS, you can roll 1100+ dps with just 2 affixes.
Oh I see, he doesn't know how to shop... >60 CHD is not the same as ~60CHD ("about" 60 CHD) and by limiting the price you're ignoring all bid auctions (many under 50m).
I don't understand what you mean though because you seem to be contradicting yourself and saying that you don't need to drop IAS yet you do in order to get all the other stats. Yes you can trade the IAS for main stat and stay over 1100 dps but it still drops the price vs one that has IAS (thus ~10% higher dps) instead.
Even we suppose that you're right and a godly rolled craft can be worth 1 billion or more, it doesn't matter how godly a perfect roll can be if the odds are so astronomically low that nobody will ever get it in even 10 years. All that matters is the risk vs reward and nobody but blizzard can analyze exactly how much the rewards are.
Make all crafts cheaper, make them all BoA, and screw anyone who just wants to make a buck. I'm sorry if this sounds crude and insensitive, but I'm getting a bit tired of seeing good ideas being shot down due to "NOOOOEZ, I WANTS TO SELL STUFF!!".
Couldn't agree more.
Craft you gear to play the game - farm for rares and legendary items that are better than crafts to sell. Good cycle to me. D3 has become too much of "i want to find awesome loot to make $$$" Not necessarily a bad thing, but when you rolled a BoA item that was godly, you got sad just a bit that you couldn't sell it for billions.
Make all crafts cheaper, make them all BoA, and screw anyone who just wants to make a buck. I'm sorry if this sounds crude and insensitive, but I'm getting a bit tired of seeing good ideas being shot down due to "NOOOOEZ, I WANTS TO SELL STUFF!!".
They don't even have to make it BoA.
The chances of crafting a 100-million gold weapon are pretty goddamned low. To put it into perspective I have yet to find a 1100+ DPS 1her. Hell, I haven't even found a single 1000+ DPS 1her.
The problems is that roughly 170k in fees & mats per weapon is just brutally out-of-line with what the recipes are actually producing. The value of the items has decayed drastically but the cost to make them has remained the same. That's why people aren't using them.
Plus, lowering the crafting cost would only serve to assist self-found players. I see no reason why they can't drastically cut the gold cost to craft. It's not even going to have any tangible effect on the economy, honestly. Most people are still going to gravitate to the 1.0.7 patterns because they produce BiS, or near-BiS, items and, therefore, are a much more worthwhile pursuit.
If they slash the price to craft non-1.0.7 items people still will largely ignore them because it will still be very difficult to make gold with that as your primary vehicle.
Why is it that only blizzard can analyze the risk vs reward? The affix database is there to see. Go check all affixes and affix ranges that can be rolled, choose the 6 you want with minimal ranges you want and do the math. The prices or item values are dictated by the playerbase, supply/demand - blizzard has nothing to do with this between patches.
Because only blizzard knows the exact odds of an affix rolling (it may be equal or it may not) and only blizzard has a database of every transaction that has ever occurred. They can look at a transaction, see what affixes the item has, calculate the odds of those affixes rolling, and then do the same for every other transaction until they determine how much the crafted items are selling for vs how much they cost.
Because only blizzard knows the exact odds of an affix rolling (it may be equal or it may not) and only blizzard has a database of every transaction that has ever occurred. They can look at a transaction, see what affixes the item has, calculate the odds of those affixes rolling, and then do the same for every other transaction until they determine how much the crafted items are selling for vs how much they cost.
Are you serious? What does it matter how much something sold for X weeks or months ago. The prices are constantly fluctuating, changing after almost every patch, depending on the amount of players actively playing , value of gold etc.
If you want to put a value on an item you will only use data from previous days or weeks (not more), its going to be a range, not a precise number and it's going to be true for a limited amount of time.
And they have all those stats too you know. They can factor in whatever they want to and keep the cost a little higher than their estimated reward.
In case you forgot, you asked why blizzard is the only one that can analyze risk vs reward and suggested that players could. If you don't estimate the reward from historical data then how else? The only other way is to pull numbers out of thin air and pretend they're real.
Why is it that only blizzard can analyze the risk vs reward? The affix database is there to see. Go check all affixes and affix ranges that can be rolled, choose the 6 you want with minimal ranges you want and do the math. The prices or item values are dictated by the playerbase, supply/demand - blizzard has nothing to do with this between patches.
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I found it curious that in patch 1.0.7 the drop rate for all crafting recipes was greatly increased. What is the purpose of this?
Logically it seems that the intent is simply to help all the players get as close to full crafting potential sooner rather than later. But given the state of crafting as it is right now and the general lack of use for it, I'm starting to suspect that a change is coming for the crafting part of this game. The question I ask is what do you think is coming AND OR is there a better reason/theory as to why the drop rate was increased?
My thoughts if you want to read on:
So many players complain that WoW is a giant influence to D3. Specifically with crafting - folks feel that crafting in D3 is heavily influenced by WoW and will see more of that influence come about in the future of the game. What I've never understood is why is that such a problem for a game like Diablo 3? I know that the purpose of the game is PvE and the loot hunt - however, to be able to craft a decent set of starter gear would not be a detriment to that process, imo.
Recall, if you will, the original Inferno and how many of us slapped our faces against the Act 2 wall. It started so many complaints (myself included) that it eventually led to the nerf of Inferno - which made the general masses happy and the hardcore players unhappy. What if in Act 1 Inferno, as it was at release, we found a crafting material like Demonic Essence. That material was unique to Act 1 and it lead you to be able to craft a chest/shoulders/pants set of gear that had affix control to automatically give you a roll on your main stat and vitality - plus two to three random affixes. People would have been able to craft themselves a start to some decent gear to be able to farm Act 1, find what they needed to fill in the blanks and move on slowly through Act 2.
And in Act 2 - a new crafting material like "Really Demonic Essence" for instance, would lead to crafting a helm/boots/wrists that would further enhance your characters ability to progress. Rares found in the game could roll to be better than crafted gear and you could always farm for better than what you crafted. But what you crafted could let you farm and progress. Would that be so bad and break the PvE/loot hunt of this game?
I could then get long winded as to WHY they didn't do anything like this, so that you would be incentivized to use the AH/RMAH - but I don't want to make any of the fans of Blizzard nervous.
I think a system like that would have let the general community be okay with a long progression through Inferno and the system could have stayed the way it was. Crafting, i.e., would have been useful and fun. Would that be so bad for this game?
Thoughts?
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
I'm very happy that they introduced "Crafting 2.0", because I love crafting. But I must admit that it feels a little bit overpowered since I have crafted three upgrades for myself (gloves, shoulders, bracers) with only about 50 tries. These upgrades are now replacing gear slots that were worth tens of millions!! And it seems that "a lot" of people are easily upgrading their expensive gloves and Vile Wards but also amulets.
Just imaging that we had this "Crafting 2.0" back in May/June when the game was just released. You could easily craft items that you would consider godly when compared to the expensive items back then!
I don't think that they will change anything from the old "Crafting 1.0" system. and I don't understand why they buffed the drop of crafting recipes with 400%, because now they recipes costs have gone down untill almost nothing. The legendary recipes are still legendary (and hard to find) and are still giving you plans for completely useless items compared to the "Legendary 2.0" items and the "Crafting 2.0" items.
In the end I think the designers finally made crafting worthwile and a cool and good component of the game, the account bound type is a great solution to allow good rolls, but the downside is that items that were costing hundreds of millions 2 week back, will soon drop to a fraction of that prices (especially shoulders, gloves, amulets).
Personally I think they added 1 or 2 items too much in the "Crafting 2.0" system.
One of the main mistakes of the Inferno design at release that the entire playerbase plus Blizzard themselves agreed on was to have certain gear (item level 63) only drop in later acts of the game, but you needed that gear to progress. That's why people wanted to get in act 3 (and not just because of monster density, because seriously, VoA in act 2 falls nothing short with this regard). That's why people AH'd the hell out of D3 and why people tried to get to act 3 even if their gear was not even remotely good enough to go there.
Now, what you propose is exactly the same just with crafting. You would feel like there is this stupid gear check, but in order to get past it I need gear from the next act, which I can't access because my gear is not good enough - vicious circle. This worked by the way in games like WoW, where many encounters were gear checks, and once you killed them you could proceed. In Diablo, you can essentially complete the game on Inferno MP10 if you try hard enough even with low gear (my first Inferno Diablo kill was with my tank barb and ~8k DPS). Well, except for 2-3 enrage timers before that, but you get the point. Everyone can access any act on MP10 right now, but only very few people can farm the high MPs efficiently.
Therefore, your idea (which sounds nice initially) is just the same problem that we had at release and not a solution at all (unfortunately).
But, to answer your question where crafting is headed: Blizzard already said that they like the new recipes introduced in 1.07, so I'm pretty sure we'll see more fixed-stat recipes in the future (hopefully with other stats than main stats), but also some more BoA stats (though they won't introduce too many of them since they don't want to kill trading completely).
Its a means to dump gold. That part is fine imo. It sort of like gambling, and it can pay off. Best part is inflation has no bearing on the prices to make the gloves.
First let me say that I agree with you that it would be a let down to have the gear you worked for in levels 50 to 60 be obsolete when you go into Inferno Act 1 - but that was what happened and is not necessary now because of the changes to Inferno since release. But this thread was not meant to talk about those changes to Inferno - but rather to show that Crafting could be an organic, progressive thing because the gear that you are making can continue to evolve as you progress through the Acts. Right now we farm one Act for the best in slot gear as either a drop or drops to sell to get the funds to buy it. Crafting is meant to give players an alternative to that process - so while they are farming, they can find materials to assist with building a set of gear that can constantly be improved upon as they work each Act.
The "starter set" idea is to suggest that you can get some of the basics in Act 1, with a relatively low materials cost and time. Lets say you get to craft Chest/Pants/Boots/Helm in Act 1. Then in Act 2 you can craft Bracers/Gloves with materials that you find, only in Act 2 and the cost goes up a bit. Act 3 you get Rings/Ammy with a significantly higher cost and materials that only drop in the act and then finally in Act 4 Weapons/Offhands with materials there and large costs. Of course you can organically find some of these necessities in Rare and Legendary that you find in the field or buy off the AH - but in this model crafting lets you progress and do more with your time than just mindlessly hoping for a jackpot.
The theorycrafting part was asking the community input on their thoughts to what will happen with crafting in the future - since they increased the drop rate for ALL patterns by 400%. That suggests to me that they want you to have all of them. And the question/theorycrafting was why.
Yes there were gear checks with the original Inferno. There are gear checks now in the form of the desire to farm higher mp levels. But there is only one viable way to get to either of those goals - farm in a place where your sub-standard gear will allow you until you get lucky enough to trade, sell or buy your way to progression. As you stated, you were able to kill Diablo in Inferno with low dps and several tries. Is that the point of this game - to say you beat the final boss. Sure - its one of the points. The point that I think most people sign in for day after day is to find amazing loot and use/trade/sell it. The higher MP levels are incentive to accomplish that goal. Its a gear check. I have to disagree with you - this system would allow players to work toward a goal with materials that they find, while they are out farming for the means to an end. The gear checks already exist - a crafting system is another way for them to progress past those checks.
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
My guess is that they have a single drop rate for:
Rare BS Patterns
Legendary BS Patterns
Rare JC Patterns
Legendary JC Patterns (none exist right now)
It's pretty obvious to me that BS patterns are more common (and have far greater numbers) than JC patterns. I probably get 8-10 BS patterns per 1 JC pattern, both pre-1.0.7 and post-1.0.7. I really don't think this is all that uncommon as it makes perfect sense - if the BS patterns were as rare as the JC patterns you would have next-to-no chance of ever accumulating them.
I would take a stab in the dark that Blizzard realized the 1.0.7 patterns would be a massive failure if they were as rare as the pre-1.0.7 patterns, and then they realized that one of the reasons people don't really craft is because they don't necessarily have access to the things they would even want to craft - hell, I still don't have all the rare BS (or JC) patterns yet. Ultimately this just led to an across-the-board buff to the drop rate.
Correct. There's just no point in dumping 17k + materials into an item that has next to no chance of even being worth 100k (or being equippable). It's a financial loser in every way imaginable for people looking to make some AH gold. It's an untenable situation for self-found people.
I would like to see the gold cost of these dropped to an outright-trivial amount (100-500g). They don't produce high-quality items, they shouldn't require any significant amount of gold, or materials, to craft.
If people can make money crafting then it isnt a gold sink. That was the old methodology anyways. So everything you made sucked donkey balls. The new patterns fix this issue though by making the items BoA.
I really think BoA should have been the norm anyways. People complained it was too much like wow, but is a huge AH overflowing with gear better?
So many I can't even count them!
>1100 dps means "greater than 1100 dps" not less than.
If you want main stat on a rare with CHD and socket then you'd either drop the lifesteal (worse survival) or IAS (lower dps) and the prices drop even more.
Bazinga!
... I think we're getting slightly off-topic here (though I would really really really like to get such a weapon for that money, no kidding). More on topic: the old recipes are just that - old. If I could, I would even unlearn all of them, as it's annoying to have to scroll through all of them to get to my Archon Int stuff.
I don't understand what you mean though because you seem to be contradicting yourself and saying that you don't need to drop IAS yet you do in order to get all the other stats. Yes you can trade the IAS for main stat and stay over 1100 dps but it still drops the price vs one that has IAS (thus ~10% higher dps) instead.
Even we suppose that you're right and a godly rolled craft can be worth 1 billion or more, it doesn't matter how godly a perfect roll can be if the odds are so astronomically low that nobody will ever get it in even 10 years. All that matters is the risk vs reward and nobody but blizzard can analyze exactly how much the rewards are.
Couldn't agree more.
Craft you gear to play the game - farm for rares and legendary items that are better than crafts to sell. Good cycle to me. D3 has become too much of "i want to find awesome loot to make $$$" Not necessarily a bad thing, but when you rolled a BoA item that was godly, you got sad just a bit that you couldn't sell it for billions.
My two cents.
Monkalicious: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/OptimusPrime-12194/hero/79139477
They don't even have to make it BoA.
The chances of crafting a 100-million gold weapon are pretty goddamned low. To put it into perspective I have yet to find a 1100+ DPS 1her. Hell, I haven't even found a single 1000+ DPS 1her.
The problems is that roughly 170k in fees & mats per weapon is just brutally out-of-line with what the recipes are actually producing. The value of the items has decayed drastically but the cost to make them has remained the same. That's why people aren't using them.
Plus, lowering the crafting cost would only serve to assist self-found players. I see no reason why they can't drastically cut the gold cost to craft. It's not even going to have any tangible effect on the economy, honestly. Most people are still going to gravitate to the 1.0.7 patterns because they produce BiS, or near-BiS, items and, therefore, are a much more worthwhile pursuit.
If they slash the price to craft non-1.0.7 items people still will largely ignore them because it will still be very difficult to make gold with that as your primary vehicle.
In case you forgot, you asked why blizzard is the only one that can analyze risk vs reward and suggested that players could. If you don't estimate the reward from historical data then how else? The only other way is to pull numbers out of thin air and pretend they're real.