Hate Crafting - what am I missing?

One possibility I thought of which I'm not sure is possible with how the game works is that every crafted item gets say a 20% chance of having +/- stats as if it'd been blessed by a Anvil of Krong, maybe even a couple of times so you could end up wasting your ingots on something dreadful or get something far better than expected.

 

I still think that having the purely craftable items removed from inventory and stored as numbers like your stats would fix 90% of my complaints with the crafting system. That said, I think that maxed crafting skills should additionally synergize with one another. Perhaps as Stryke suggested above but only effecting those skills that you have maxed as a capstone.

How to implement synergism between skills is easy. If for example you have maxed Smithing skill and maxed Alchemy skill, any time you make an item that can be Kronged with Alchemy or Smithing, it should have a chance per maxed crafting skill to get a strictly positive Kronglike buff.

That way, those with Smithing and Alchemy have a two in 100 chance of Kronglike buffs added. Those with Smithing, Alchemy, Tinkering, and Wandmaking should get a much better change since more than half their skills are otherwise all but wasted on those skills. (Say with all four, they have a 20% chance?)

Additionally, the unKrongable items like potions should have additional chance to spawn extra potions. Not only one either. Make the RNG roll for a number between 1-5 depending upon the number of maxed crafting skills.

Think this is too potent? It may be. But I would love to hear another idea. We know the Devs read these threads. I just hope they decide upon a healthy balance that fixes the skills and negates Inventory Hell.

The word of the day for this thread is "Synergy".

(All this save the crafting components being made stats instead of items could probably be done through mods too. But we would have to choose between changing core skills or adding "Superior" modded skillsets. Neither option is good. It would be best if the skills themselves were officially fixed in a way.)

A Zorkmid for your thoughts?

 

Personally I would like to see crafting changed so that anyone can craft anything regardless of their skillset.

Then if you actually take smithing, every level of it gives a guaranteed chance to get +1 enchant slot on a crafted item. So if you have level 5 smithing and you craft a rusty sword, it will spawn with five enchantment levels on top of the base recipe.

See I think the problem with crafting is that you can get the same items you craft out there in the world, but they are absolutely going to be as good as what you can craft, and very likely better (especially by lower floors where you have a ton of enchanted equipment).

Then in addition to this you could add in some fun 'random' bonuses to specific crafting tiers. For example level 5 of smithing could give you a 50% chance of getting two krongs on one anvil rather than just one. Tinkering could give you a % chance to craft a trap/bolt/explosive in addition to whatever else you were crafting. Alchemy could have double effect on potions consumed.

 

This is a good idea. Another thing to do would be for higher crafting level to allow you to have some reagents missing, with recipes having a threshold before greater skill leads to up to all but one reagent being un-needed.

Like if something requires smithing 2 and 3 iron ingots, buying smithing 4 will make it take only 1 ingot.

 

Guaranteed chance? Is that a minor chance like my post directly above yours, but with a multiplier on success for every skill level, or a guarantee of an artifact level per skill level?

You think we should change crafting into skills exclusively for making artifacts? If no-one needs it to make items and anyone who has it can make artifacts, I see no other way to understand what you said. We could not continue calling the skills such as Smithing that if we made this change. It would be Smith Artificing instead.

Tinkering making other unrelated items when used makes sense in a way. But I fail to see how Alchemy would double the effects of some potions. It would be much easier to just double the number of potions crafted on a successful roll instead.

This could work. But I think it would again break the skills. Perhaps this idea could be implemented in a more complex way by adding new recipes that require higher skill but use substitute items or even less of the same as you suggest? For example, if a sword you are seeking to make requires three smithing and four ingots to make, but you only have three ingots, if you have four Smithing you could use another recipe that requires only three ingots.

 

The simple reason it wouldn't break the skill balance is because you can already find items that good. By picking up smithing you aren't gaining access to specific items, you're just increasing your chances of getting that item at base value. At the same time you're giving up all the perks and benefits that a normal skill line would give you.

What's more, it isn't like you can just craft as many items as you want in this game. Resources for crafting are very finite.

I don't agree that a chance at one krong buff is anything near enough to justify a skill tree. Those five points to get one krong on one item you find will easily be overtaken by a random find that happens to have more power on it. And considering the space management and need to find and keep the correct materials in the first place, it already has even more of a downside than taking up one skill slot.

I could see this causing problems with archeology turning artifacts into experience, but other than that I don't see the problem.

 

This. Even if it does make uber items available earlier, that is kind of the point, otherwise why bother with crafting?

 

I think in this case, upscaling will jibe better with the players since it'll feel like +content if crafting is reworked.