New Transmutation is a mess (visually)

http://crissa.twu.net/upload/project...ation-mess.png

The naming convention both goes out of the columns and is hard to follow. I really don't see the usefulness of this change. It's just a big visual mess of names and numbers which give a high chance of misclick. (And I haven't even learned the new skills yet!)

Worse, if you're trying to balance between any of the cusps, you're kinda sunk for pocket space. And if this follows the pattern of WoW's stepped ingredients, what you'll end up with is players in the middle won't be able to get the prisms/midrange supplies they need because no one will be saving/producing them. Gaps will begin to form that leveling players will have trouble leaping without heavy help from friends.

The point of tiered recipes is to keep high level players from using low-level players' gear to power-level, depriving low-level players of what they need. Interfaces often get messier before they can get cleaned up, that's just how development works, and the interface will sort itself out in time. We might wire it up as a right-click auto-behavior instead of as recipes... or something else. Don't worry too much about the interface at this point -- we just have to keep evolving systems toward where they need to be.

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Originally Posted by Citan

The point of tiered recipes is to keep high level players from using low-level players' gear to power-level, depriving low-level players of what they need.

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I'm pretty new, so I don't have a breadth of experience...fire magic and mentalism at 35, a smattering of skills lower. I don't think I've ever actually bought gear from a player/shop, and very rarely from an NPC. The only thing I buy is food and fire magic reagents. Consignments and shop listings are usually too expensive for a true new player who is favor-limited to being cash-poor, especially one leveling fire magic. The skill-specific drop system seems to ensure that the gear I need comes from adventuring (and it has - I don't feel undergeared)...is what you describe, perhaps, an unnecessary precaution? Does the dynamic change at higher levels? I'd rather sell my backpacks full of junk items to other players trying to suck the reagents out of them, than spend 45 minutes trucking around to 6-7 different vendors who are all out of cash. I suppose the only worry would be inflation from money passing from high-favor high level characters to low-level farmers in large quantities.

/ramblings =)

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Originally Posted by Citan

Don't worry too much...

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I don't, I'd just been ignoring it until today. ...And man it's awkward right now.

And this isn't getting into the random-roll frequency problem of trying to get better gear ^-^

...If maybe you could shorten the titles in the meanwhile so I could at least tell which was which? Prepend them with 'Small/Medium/Large' like the Prisms so they sort?

It is a bit confusing but after you use it for a bit it comes second nature where each piece goes i actually like the new Transm. and Augumn.

[MENTION=1821]Leodane[/MENTION] - I believe the general idea behind preventing higher level players from using lower level items is that then high level players can just go to the low level zones themselves, kill everything in sight instantly, and leave the zone deserted and non-fun for players trying to actually play it at-level.
If it was just low level players selling their loot to high levels the way you described, I think it would be great.