The dilemma: As the game is deviloped more and more, more recipes are introduced, which means the chances of getting the recipes you want are reduced also, which means as the games item lists become more and more robust, the crafting skills will become less powerfull/usefull. Gaslamp has adressed this issue by making several of the more used recipes be starting recipees instead of hidden, as well as increasing the amoung of bookshelves found (coming often 3 at a time instead of one at a time). However increasing the bookshelf rate is simply a stopgap, slowing the rate of the problem but not fixing it. And making recipees standard instead of hidden reduces the specialness of the recipes. Both of these fill your recipee book with aditional clutter you need to wade through when trying to reach the desired recipes. As an alternate solution, when you use a bookshelf isntead of being given a random recipe, you will be presented with two random recipes and you pick one. You only keep the one you pick, you are an adventurer, you dont have time to read through an entire bookshelf, thats for people without monsters to kill and loot to steal, you just grab one and keep going. In adtion, the crafting skills will at two points (likely the second and final skill point) add an aditional presented recipee, and the recipees option generated via the skill points will always be ones that use that skill. Thus an adventurer with maxed out tinkering and blacksmithing who uses a bookshelf will see six recipes, two random, two blacksmithing, and two tinkering. He/she will then select one that will be added to the recipe book. This will reduce the recipee clutter, and at least garentee that recipees aquired are at least within your discipline (assuming you invest some levels into crafting skills). Some side notes: Non crafting skills could have a skill point that effect the number of random recipees aquired, perception and archeoligy spring to mind thematicly, perception gaining a second glance skill that works like anceint kromian rituals but on bookshelves instead of anvils is a distinct option as well. I aprove of the new crafting interface making you unable to craft hidden recipes without haveing the recipe in your book, giving a fairly signifigant advantage to people who look up recipes on the wiki over folks who get them through the game itself is not proper IMO.
Nonsense, I propose the introduction of a new and exciting skill: RECIPECRAFTING! Now you have the chance to find recipes that allow you to create the recipes you want. Tired of looking for the clockwork axe recipe? You just need to find the recipe for the recipe of the clockwork axe instead! Easier, cleaner and even more convoluted! ... Ahem, errrr... How about having each point in a crafting skill give 'x' points that you can apply to a crafting tree that branches out and you get to decide how to progress (bookshelves would give bonus points or milestones)? I think that'd be neat.
I am sure this has some drawbacks, but what if crafting something rolled a chance to "discover" a new recipe? Different recipes would need to be assigned higher/lower chances for learning a new recipe (based on their rarity/difficulty). But it could work to alleviate some of this problem as well.
I like the idea of the last skill in a crafting line giving a level 5 recipe of that crafting skill. Other then that, once the promised filters are in and the mousescrolling through the craft window is enabled, I see no problem with clutter. After a short while you'll know how to navigate to your favourite recipes soon enough, and newfound ones are always at the bottom. I also don't think crafting skills are bad. I do however really wish each crafting skill comes with a pouch of say 9 spots for ingredients. (Was suggested elsewhere by someone) In addition, an extra row of inventory for everyone tout court would curry my favour.
I like the ideas in post 1 and post 3. I move that these two ideas be combined into one system, making it seem more fluid to progress, while still being controlled. I add that there should be a way to hide recipes you never use, and a way to "favorite" recipes that you use often. The favorited recipes would show up at the top. Other recipes (from new to old) would show up below that. The hidden ones would show up either at the bottom or in a filter. This organizational pattern would make it much easier to get things done. Perhaps the main section of recipes would have sorting options, i.e., default new to old, group by type (ex. Distillation, you'd have the ones that combine to make stronger alcohols, the ones that take stronger alcohols and make them into Aqua Vitae, the ones that make new alcohols from complex recipes, etc.), and so on. It would be useful to have a checkbox for "Stuff I have the materials available to craft". Additionally a "What can I craft with this reagent?" screen would be nice - showing only recipes you have, of course. While I'm making suggestions regarding crafting - there's a hotkey to open the alchemy section, for some reason. All crafting has been merged into one screen now, so this key should really open the "crafting" screen, instead of requiring you to have an alchemy set specifically in order for the key to function. As well, hitting ESC doesn't close the crafting screen(s), while it does close all other UI windows one by one - this annoys me.
I -like- those ideas, Yushatak. I'm a tankish-build type that doesn't tinker or alchemy or n-lathe (smithy all the way), so having favorites and a way to hide things never to be used would be very very useful.
Alas, good sir/madam/other, you've missed the boat on this one. In 1.06, crafting meant top-level gear as early as level 3 (with a little luck - I once took Smithing solely to craft a pair of silver-based rings, and found exactly one silver ingot across all 10 levels of the dungeon). These days it's just another form of gambling on the RNG (albeit twice over - once for the reagents and once for the recipes).
Still, might be interesting testing a character with all the crafting skills. Perhaps I'll even use the Throw skill tree. I just don't like to micromanage too much stuff. At a point, the game stops being fun and it becomes a chore.
