Is crafting without the recipe an exploit?

If you have the required skill-level and know the ingredients (either from memory or the wiki) you can craft even if you haven't found the appropriate recipe in a bookshelf.

Do you consider crafting without finding the recipe an exploit? If it isn't, why should there be hidden recipes at all? This might have made sense in an age before wikis but right now every recipe is just a quick search away.

What do the game developers think?

 

I think it isn't an error, but if they add a "only find recipes that you can actually use" I would like it to be "you can only make what you know"

 

There is a wonderful suggestion somewhere that "you can only make recipes that you have found in current and ALSO previous games. They are stored locally in the computer".

That suggestion rocks. I hereby second that suggestion.

 

The problem is that some recipes share exact ingredients, and the only way to properly craft them is to autofill, which you need the recipe to do.

 

You don't even need the wiki, all the recipes are listed in a very human-legible xml file in the game's directory.

 

Which file is that exactly?

 

CraftDB.xml

In the "game" folder.

 

Only the found recipes should be craftable imo, although I like the idea of past recipes being there too.

 

With the current way recipes drop, there's no way it should be limited to what you know. In my several runthroughs, I've maybe got 5 in total that actually related to my existing build's skill selection.

They only reasonable way they could implement that rule, is if they made recipe drop exclusive to your current skill loadout.

 

I just write them down in a text file as I go. That way I can say that my character(s) have an enchanted codex that reveals recipes from all the brave adventurers that came before them.

Hey, relying on the recipes you find in a playthrough to be the only things you can make? No way, Crafting is shitty enough as it is, using recipes you "don't know" is the only way to make it worth the massive time, skill point, and inventory investment.

 

I think the game should unlock all level-appropriate crafting recipes when you reach the necessary crafting level.

For example, using a Tinkering Kit with no skills will only show level 0 items, like plastic bolts, while using it at level 2 will show level 2 stuff like barbed copper bolts. You no longer have to hunt for recipes that may never show up, and at the same time it ties the process of crafting more directly to your skill level, as a matter of knowledge instead of just ability.

 

I agree with removing hidden recipe. Getting the ingredients are hard enough, and what you can craft isn't anything extraordinary. Craft items need to be A LOT better to justify being hidden and locked.

 

@123stw I agree with you.

I seriously don't know why people should be punished for being smart. And having a good memory.
Also, according to Craftdb, you can make amulets rather easily, and lockpicks.

 

There was a suggestion that when you get a level in one of the crafting skills, you get a random hidden craft that requires that skill level.

 

Here's the thing, would you waste 4 skill points on 4 mediocre random gears that your character might not even be able to use, and still have to find raw materials for?

 

What do you mean 4 mediocre random gears?

 

I think he means pieces of gear. At level 5 of, say, Blacksmithing, you can make a pretty good Weapon, a solid Helm, some mediocre boots or greaves, a solid Chestpiece, and a pretty good shield. That's 5 pieces of gear.

Unfortunately, by the time you pumped 4 points in the skill and wasted 25% of your inventory for 95% of your play time hauling around a press, a smithing kit, and 12 different kinds of ingots (plus coal and chalk), you get to make 5 pieces of gear that are:

A) inferior to virtually any Quest reward or Lutefisk God reward, or any mundane-but-high-quality item you've put on an Anvil of Krong a couple of times,
B) not worth equipping until AFTER you've made them and THEN found 2-3 Anvils of Krong to boost them up with, and
C) hard as hell to make in the first place, and THEN you have to gamble on Anvils of Krong to make them be up to snuff; if you want to remove some of the RNG then having Archaeology in your build is pretty much a must.

That's a LOT of stuff to keep track of and a LOT of YOUR INVENTORY IS FULL! messages to slog through, just to make a couple of maybe-upgrades that you'll outgrow (read: get better items as quest/lutefisk rewards/random drops) by the time you're in the lower half of the Dungeon - floors 6-10.

 

@DavidB1111

I was referring to jareddm post, which suggest 1 random recipe per smith level.

 

Fair enough. I like Aluminum boots though. Until I find the black boots, or Rocket Boots.
However, I soon stop picking up Tin or Zinc or even Copper because I have enough Bronze to build me a replica of a tank. Made of Bronze.
Also, Platinum is way too common. I want to either be able to make Platinum bolts, or gear out of platinum. Besides random artifact Emerald amulets.
Plus dual Wield for me = no need for a shield. Plus, I start as a Archaeologist, so no need for helmet.
Maybe I'm crazy.

One of my games got me Sir Albert's or whatever's helm fast, and a few Krongs later, and it gets silly powerful.
Also got a nice ring that spawned with two Armor absorption, a krong later that became three.

@123stw Ah, thanks.

 

Smithing is not for late in the dungeon, it's for getting good gear early and clearing the first levels so you can take your time leveling up spells.