Discussion - Crafting Caravan: September 25, 2020

[Ranperre]

It took me four rolls to finally get my windsteps (including the refund).

Guys, I really appreciate this option for the crafting caravan. I think it has a lot of promise. That said, I shouldn't have to spend 120 damn coins (600k+ councils, I bought like 50 and made the rest) to get them. This level of randomness can't be acceptable going forward or the cost of each roll needs to go wayyyyyyyy down.

[Dumdidum]

I like the idea of getting tokens to trade for unique rewards you cannot get otherwise.
That being said, i am currently not exactly thrilled with the rewards.
A bunch of dyes and crafting mats that can be bought way cheaper with councils (on the market a crafting token goes for 5-7k, easily). Black dye, the most illusive one, is now so common in events and raffles that you can buy them in bulk for 90k or less.
A bunch of consumeables that are very pricey for what they offer, and go poof once used.
A nice title, tbh the only reward that would make me consider doing quests in all my maxed crafting skills just to get the favor.
What WOULD make me want to invest time in this event even after all crafting skills were to be maxed are things like extra character slots, a month of VIP, cosmetics that permanently change how my character or gear looks, a unique recipy for each separate event (miss the event? tough luck you will never get that recipy) etc.
These rewards can be extremely expensive and nearly impossible to get, but at least would give a high incentive to keep participating.

For those that are just levelling crafting skills and consider tokens a sideshow (and i still have a handful i am working on myself) the event is great.

[Celerity]

I like the idea of upgrading lower level items but I think the cost is just too expensive for the marginal benefit. Every item will only have a niche use in a couple builds. Even for these general use run speed items, they only have value if:

1. You want a slight power increase in your combat abilities in a movement speed set or aoe farming set
2. You use fire magic and/or shield in a movement speed set, so you can get +2 more sprint speed on your boots

Personally, I don't use fire magic and I don't use shield for movement since the last patch which made the buffs no longer carry over. I don't think the difference in power between lvl 60 mods on your boots or lvl 80 mods on your boots for 1 slot in an aoe farming set is significant enough for the cost either.

I would be incredibly surprised if more than 2 or 3 people in the entire game even bothered to upgrade the amulet of the rugged traveler as that is even less significant, also being an upgrade from lvl 60 to lvl 80, but only offering +1 sprint speed, with, as far as I can tell, the only benefit being for aoe farming builds. Or alternatively getting +1 sprint speed on your aoe farming necklace if you valued lvl 80 mods over the sprint speed. Maybe I'm missing something here with an animal run speed mod that needs it but either way it's less significant than the windsteps still.

Also as a suggestion, maybe you could make the player hand over 2 gems to determine the skills in the same way you craft gear, rather than having the refund system.

[Tandiril]

In response to what @Celerity wrote: When considering the cost vs the use of Windstep shoes, the reason for different opinions on that matter might also be that those have a rather large level range of mods. For example, I would agree that the cost is not justified if you already had lvl 60 shoes beforehand. However if you had lvl 40 boots like me, cost shifts more to be around reasonable.
Actually that would be quite nice (but complicated and probably not supported by the current system): The final, upgraded level range could be only one factor, the other being how many levels your current piece is below that

[Dibbuk]

This is my personal opinion, only. I have pretty much given up on crafting caravans. Simply put, the rewards are far inferior to the time, effort, and materials spent. Many crafting quests called for extremely rare materials. The windstep shoe reward are an excellent example of inferior reward for rare and expensive items, but in almost every case, whatever rewards are given (and a few of the quests gave no reward at all that I saw), were not even worth the cost of the materials. Add to this the lack of storage, and I feel the crafting caravan is not worth the effort.

[Sasho]

**FYI**

In case you didn't know the crafting caravan isn't the only way to get level 80 windstep shoes. Ever since the implementation of the "Level X Loot Boxes" in Serbule, you can use your Level 80/Universal keys on the Level 80 box and it generates all varieties of loot for that level. It's not guaranteed to be yellow tier or windstep shoes, but I have gotten those and items like the Gazluk +40 health ring from these chests. So keep your eyes out to save and/or buy lots of keys when these events come out (Halloween is big for this if I remember) and you may be able to score some lucky, unique level 80 loot.

No rules against trading this loot either.

**Also a fun FYI as a bonus**

If you are ever pulling loot from any chest that you don't really need (ex: You're level 70 and the chest is level 40 gear), if you switch into a loadout that has no combat skills (Wind instruments/Dance), the chest will produce generic, usually no-wield loot that you can give to new players. I'll do this with the chests in GK because I can get some ridiculously strong no-wield armor that brand new players can benefit from.

Edit: Thanks, Jack for informing me. I'm sad to see that feature go. Part of the fun for me with the level 80 chests was seeing what random loot would pop up. Makes sense that it would be changed though. I guess I'll just stick to going for no-wield goodies when I pop upon the level 80 chests.

[mrwarp]

**FYI**

In case you didn't know the crafting caravan isn't the only way to get level 80 windstep shoes. Ever since the implementation of the "Level X Loot Boxes" in Serbule, you can use your Level 80/Universal keys on the Level 80 box and it generates all varieties of loot for that level. It's not guaranteed to be yellow tier or windstep shoes, but I have gotten those and items like the Gazluk +40 health ring from these chests. So keep your eyes out to save and/or buy lots of keys when these events come out (Halloween is big for this if I remember) and you may be able to score some lucky, unique level 80 loot.

Sorry, but this is not completely accurate. There is absolutely 0 chance of getting windstep shoes or rugged amulets from the Level 60, 70 or 80 event loot chests. In the level 80 chest, there is currently a chance to get some level 70 items as well, but that will likely disappear now that the level 80 gear tiers are more filled out.

[Silkt]

To assist players with varying amounts of playtime, such as only night after the kids are in bed, would it be feasible to switch the quest timer to a quest cap. That is event goes for 72 hours and 12 hours resets on some quests so they could be done 6 times, I suggest remove the timer and cap the amount of times that quest can be done at 6 or even 5 since the most dedicated would struggle to the 6 x 12 hour timer correct. Or if the internal mechanics don't allow that extend the event time but still cap the amount of times each individual quest can be done.

On the item upgrade, I would rather see you hand over an item and certain numbers of tokens and the item and attached mods are raised 1 tier. Although this would require the mod system to have all mods step through every tier.

[Daguin]

-Redacted-

[Glythe]

I missed the last crafting caravan but after reading the thread it sounds like there was a problem with the implementation of what sounded like a neat new feature.

Observation: Everyone loves Windstep boots.
Suggestion: Make those boots more accessible?

Since this is a *crafting caravan* why not give the option to have the tailoring npc teach you the recipe to make windstep boots? To make it more exciting (since you seem to want to make the item be very limited) why not have this specific item become account bound on creation? That way people who desire to make boots can learn it and people who want to gamble on boots can do that too?

I would suggest that learning the recipe would require maybe 5 tokens per tier (60/70/80/whatever) since the creation of the boots will be expensive and not get any immediate benefit. Making the boots would obviously require very high trade skills. Maybe you need 80 in the required skills to make them. Maybe you need tailoring and leatherworking at 80? Who knows!