Crafting Update: Now and into Corsairs of Umbar

[Orion]

Good morning.

This post is one of those posts that, as a designer, you dread making.

There are two announcements around crafting this morning.

First and least importantly, we are deactivating the forester event a few days early due to some exploits that evaded our detection and the bad actors taking advantage of those exploits. We're closing the exploits for the next round of the event.

Second and more important, we have some unwanted news about Umbar crafting. As I have stated, we intended to uncouple and grant Umbar recipes at the outset of the expansion, making the Umbar crafting tier independent from all previous craft tiers. While diligently working to bring this to fruition behind the scenes, we've hit an unfortunate wall of ancient code that firmly stated, "You shall not pass!"

It is unfortunate and unavoidable we cannot separate the tiers in this manner. Crafters must complete the previous proficiency tier to access the Umbar craft tier. This revelation is a big disappointment for me and the capper on a not-so-great crafting weekend.
Post questions in this thread, and I will answer them soon.

 

[Thurinuor]

Hi Orion, sad news! One question: Is the wall "You shall not pass!" a problem that can never be fixed or is it just a problem that can't be solved for Umbar? Tanks for your hard work and the update news! <3

 

[Orion]

Hi Orion, sad news! One question: Is the wall "You shall not pass!" a problem that can never be fixed or is it just a problem that can't be solved for Umbar? Tanks for your hard work and the update news! <3

The issue we found requires a system rewrite.

In a nutshell, the craft system is one of the first systems created for the game. It's over twenty years old, and the integration weaves through the game like an intricate spider's web.

Uncoupling the tiers would take time incommensurate with the gain from making the change.

 

[istvana]

Disappointing but your efforts are appreciated. So too is your coming out now and telling us what the situation is.

I take it that there is little or no likelihood of the situation for Umbar changing within the next three months and perhaps little or no likelihood of it changing at all. You would have said so if this was simply a delay. Edit - you confirmed this as I was typing.

My question does not relate to that. Does this roadblock affect the plan to have a separate crafting guild for Umbar crafting? Not necessarily the same thing at all as having Umbar crafting totally separate.

Question two if I can get greedy. Does this affect the efforts to dismantle the vocation system and give us a choice of which three or four crafts to give a character? Note I am not asking about the status of this work, merely about whether the new information impacts it.

 

[Laurelinarien]

I don't think this is what you want to hear but, here it goes: as a long time crafter, I don't feel bad about the uncoupling of tiers not happening. I do wonder if the consolidation of older tiers I remember you talking about is still happening, though.

RE Event: I'm sorry the usual suspects ruin everyone's fun, I'm sorry it adds to your workload but tbh I can't help but feel the harm is done. They trade for their rewards to be safe from a rollback and no punishment ever comes. But hey.. thanks for trying to fix it.

 

[Stormcrow]

Crafters must complete the previous proficiency tier to access the Umbar craft tier.

I am actually not disappointed by this.



However, I am pleased that the forester event exploits will be addressed.

 

[Dol]

Sad news. There are a couple of questions in this regard.

I saw information that the 4th craft slot will be introduced in 2024. But in connection with this news, is it worth expecting it in principle? Will the game allow you to do this?

Do the old craft guilds need to be upgraded or will they still, as was said, be separated by the new progression?

And one more question about the event. I saw an excellent proposal on the forum about making it not the crafted competitive pvp event that it is today, but a solo event, the reward for which is awarded by completing the time. Have you considered such mechanics? Well, even if not for this particular event, then for 9 future ones?

 

[Nenaras]

Thank you for letting us know, Orion, and for all the work you've been doing, both with crafting and with other game systems. The situation is unfortunate, but it's a reality of the game you're working with and many of us understand that fact.

That said, like others in this thread, I am not particularly disappointed by this loss. I am more interested to see if a fourth profession is still on the table!

 

[Thurinuor]

Crafters must complete the previous proficiency tier to access the Umbar craft tier.

I am also not dissapointed about that. I always finish a tier before starting a new one so this does not affect my personal game style. It's more important that a 4th profession is still on the table and that we will not have the vocations anymore, instead we can choose 3 or 4 of our own choice. So for me it's all good.

Thank you Orion for your great work and your fresh ideas for the game. I like the the crafting event a lot (besides the grind).

 

[istvana]

I too am not disappointed by the loss of uncoupling. Even though I have new characters on a new server and have not done any crafting because they were only going to be Umbar crafters. Now they must do all prior tiers - OK I can live with this.

I heartily support making the crafting event something to do solo with rewards tied to performance against a clock or any other measure you feel is appropriate.

 

[Orion]

Sad news. There are a couple of questions in this regard.

I saw information that the 4th craft slot will be introduced in 2024. But in connection with this news, is it worth expecting it in principle? Will the game allow you to do this?

Yes! The silver lining to all of this is that professions are still de-coupled from vocations and we are still going to allow a 4th profession.

Do the old craft guilds need to be upgraded or will they still, as was said, be separated by the new progression?

This should still be possible. We are investigating if the necessity of separating these still exists.

And one more question about the event. I saw an excellent proposal on the forum about making it not the crafted competitive pvp event that it is today, but a solo event, the reward for which is awarded by completing the time. Have you considered such mechanics? Well, even if not for this particular event, then for 9 future ones?

It would defeat the purpose and intent of the event to turn it into a beat a timer event.

 

[Stormcrow]

The silver lining to all of this is that professions are still de-coupled from vocations and we are still going to allow a 4th profession.

Great to hear. I am eagerly anticipating this.

Thanks for your work (and all others who are involved) on this.

 

[Silme]

Thanks for updating us. It's a shame the tiers aren't able to be decoupled but it's fine.

The Forester's event is a really nice idea and I like the rewards - however, even after only a few runs of the event, I'm really sorry but it is getting quite boring and I dread to think of how many times i'm going to have to run it. Especially once you bring the other crafts in.

It might be nice to tie some of these currency rewards to daily activities - e.g. collect X amount of wood, refine X amount of planks.

I really appreciate your efforts to bring new life into crafting!

 

[Thurinuor]

This revelation is a big disappointment for me and the capper on a not-so-great crafting weekend.

Sometimes things happen that are unexpected. Don't be sad! You do a great job und in the end we will see a bunch of great crafting events and a nice new crafting tier with Umbar. <3

 

[Mithlanros]

As for the Forester event, I think burglar stealth speed is wonky, I found I was moving faster in stealth. Didn't seem as fast as normal for stealth but still faster than supposed to be. I only did this once! You can check! Anyway I hope you get everything sorted for next go around.

Also as a side note, can you make the descriptions for the upgraded axe recipes a little more clear? It isn't obvious that you need to progress through all tiers rather than saving up and skilling to the final tier. Although if you did this /cough it isn't wasted but now you need to sit on those materials you spent to skip until you completely level an axe up from scratch.

 

[Mithlanros]

Thanks for updating us. It's a shame the tiers aren't able to be decoupled but it's fine.

The Forester's event is a really nice idea and I like the rewards - however, even after only a few runs of the event, I'm really sorry but it is getting quite boring and I dread to think of how many times i'm going to have to run it. Especially once you bring the other crafts in.

It might be nice to tie some of these currency rewards to daily activities - e.g. collect X amount of wood, refine X amount of planks.

I really appreciate your efforts to bring new life into crafting!

Yeah I agree, I have more than half a dozen foresters and I didn't make a dent. I even won a few rounds(outside the burg which I am pretty sure was running too fast)

 

[Edinros]

Can you guys at least balance the existing tiers and make do with what you already have? So that at least the journey to the max tier would be a bit easier, or something to make it more bearable at some tiers. I, and probably many others, don't want to slog through the "bad stuff" to get to the "good stuff". That excuse is just and excuse and doesn't make the 10+ hour staring contest with a progress bar any better.

When you guys announced the crafting updates I was thinking that maybe stuff could change. The best method now is to just process shavings to resources to shavings over, and over, and over again. While it does its job, I don't feel "accomplished". I had an idea that maybe to get mastery in a tier you would need to craft "x" amount of unique recipes, or make x common recipes, y rare recipes and so on. Just a suggestion, though I don't know if it's any easier to incorporate.

Right now, you are gated behind a multi hour waiting time afk while your crafter processes resources. My suggestion is to make it a "quest", a journey, that you actually have to think about something when you craft, not anything over the top, just something to entertain me while I watch the progress bar go, hopefully, faster than now.

I would argue that you don't need to split the tiers (the fact that you don't need to progress in the previous tiers) in the first place, its just putting a band-aid over repetitive content that doesn't really change much as the grind would literally be the same just with a different path, and while that repetitive content is needed, I would rather incorporate at least some decision making, with a better reward when you make a good decision (like +x% more crit chance with gear or more crafting xp when grinding mastery).

Regarding the rewards. I heard good things from you guys about this, and I hope you stick to it.

I would also like to remind you guys to take a look at some tiers of crafting again, or at least consolidate them, as some tiers are REALLY slow to gather materials, as there are no good spots or instances to grind it (and some resource instances give way too little nodes per day). Another thing is the unnatural xp needed for some tiers which ties in with the difficulty of obtaining resources at some tiers (especially the early mid to gondor + ironfold tier). Some good tiers are mordor (chests), minas ithil (instances) and gundabad tier (mainly because of delvings, but do note its level cap only which doesn't make the earlier tiers easier when playing on level).

I would really love to hear your thoughts on this suggestion, or at least a reason as to "why not". I want this game to be as fun as possible, just like you guys do, and I'm happy that you are at least listening and responding to our questions and whatnot, even if some are discouraging.

 

[Fjorgynr]

That said, like others in this thread, I am not particularly disappointed by this loss. I am more interested to see if a fourth profession is still on the table!

I would like to know this as well. Until the idea of umbar being separated I was happy just to keep working up those tiers, the short cut to top tier was nice but as I saw the monumental grind involved in the crafting event I realised that I'd probably be better just carrying on as I had been and face that grinding hell in the distant future.

The event ending early I don't care about just wish I knew if the little bit of forester crit rate from the deeds is worth having. If not, as it is the only thing I have any real chance of getting from the event, then I could remove thar miserable soul destroying grind from my life, never do another crafting event. Just stick to pve events (disliking pvp so much I should have known it was a bad idea but I did hope I'd gey something out of it), gathering resources missions and questing.

 

[istvana]

This should still be possible. We are investigating if the necessity of separating these still exists.

This about having a separate crafting guild for Umbar. It tells me "do not hold your breath - given the inability to separate out crafting in general we may very well drop this idea and just use the existing guilds".

 

[Finaurion]

If this is to be the case, is there any consideration then perhaps on lessening the grind of the previous tiers?