The World of Layonara
NWN Discussions and Suggestions => CNR Suggestions/Discussion => Topic started by: Rehevkor on June 20, 2005, 10:36:00 pm
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I believe that the crafting system on Layonara is unreasonably difficult. I'll demonstrate this by way of an example. I chop about 8 branches of hickory from a tree (this takes about half an hour; I'm a monk, not a lumberjack). At the crafting house, I try to produce sawdust from these. I fail on 6 of them, and break my wood crafter's tools once. At the inn, I try to produce raw parchment from the sawdust and water. I succeed only once out of 6 attempts. And, of course, I fail to cook the one raw parchment I managed to produce into a scroll. That's nearly an hour of work with no useful product to show for it. Do the probabilities for success really have to be so low? Even a 50% chance of success is challenging to work with, yet the highest I've seen as 35%. And, in practice, that tends more toward 20-25%. Also, the number of items you have available inevitably narrows as you progress farther along the path to your final product, and even a couple failures along the way can leave you unable to finish. Given how time consuming (and dangerous) hunting for some of the ingredients can be, this seems way too difficult. Even if the percentages are left alone, would it not make sense to still get some experience when you fail? We are supposed to learn from our mistakes, or so that's what people have been telling me all my life :) This way you wouldn't get stuck in a rut of failures; you could actually get better with practice, instead of only improving on the rare occasion that you succeed. Aside from the mind-numbing repetiveness caused by countless failures, I like the idea of CNR. I don't want to ignore it, but I'm afraid I'll have to in order to have enough time to enjoy roleplaying and adventuring on the server. Edit: Oh, and as a monk, I can't use any of the mining tools. I think it would be a grand idea to have something like Miner's Gloves that give the required feats, but have some massive penalties on them to prevent abuse (-10 AC, movement speed reduction, hair falls out, etc). Is this doable?
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think of it this way...if it was so easy..everyone would be doing it and the end result if you are selling them would equal 0 income...also if you cant manage to mine ore deposits..perhaps is a good way to get someone to do it for you RP wise..i know the feeling, playing a Druid you cant mine or chop wood, so i get others to bring me raw ore or "gather" wood for me. Also going back to topic one, you dont really wanna see an increase of more powerful weapons out there do you...cause if the CNR was made easy, that is what will most likely happen. In time you will become much better and fail less, just got to roll with the numbers....i myself get frustrated with it also, but i wouldnt ask the team to change it in the slightest, rather i wish we as players could make a few more magical items.
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Realistically you can make as much money questing/fighting as you can through CNR. So don't make the idea of becoming rich lure you into the system. You should do it because you want to, or you think your character should, or if you're bored even. Hehe.
CNR is one of those things you either love or hate I find.
I loved it. I spent more hours than is humanly imagniable crafting.
And I had fun doing it. And yes, it was often due to being bored. But this was back when I would be lucky to be on the server with 3 other people.
If you're finding yourself failing often, perhaps you should ask a friend to increase your strength or dexterity just before crafting something. Once you get the first couple levels, you're more easily able to sustain yourself.
The first few levels of any new craft are the slowest. Once you get in the swing of it though, I found it to be an appealing form of relaxation.
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Good comments all, but I want to clarify something. I am by no stretch of the imagination suggesting that it should be easy. I'm only saying that maybe it's slightly too difficult, and that perhaps getting a reduced xp reward on failures as part of the learning process would not only make it more realistic, but also make the strings of failures a little less frustrating. When I go through all of that effort and hit a dead end because I've destroyed all of my components and gained nothing, I'm not having any fun. After failing five times in a row at making sawdust (SAWDUST, for crying out loud) I begin to feel like a hamster in a wheel >_
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This is true.
Crafting is very hit or miss as well, which can be additionally frustrating.
I also think of it as a puzzle. Trying to figure out what combinations on what devices will make what items (which may then go towards OTHER items crafting) is just too cool.
Sometimes it *really* makes me mad. hehe. Buy some Cat's Grace potions or what not. Those might help too. Stick with it. Also have someone "train" you. They perhaps might show you ways of improving your level easily...you never know..;)
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I *do* think a small XP reward on failing is a decent idea. Small small. You do learn from your mistakes and practice makes perfect too. ;)
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I. MADE. SUGAR! :o
*ahem* Just thought I'd share my breakthrough.
I would also like to mention that I was entangled and killed by an assassin vine while collecting sugar cane stalks to make that sugar.
That is all.
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Well congrats on the sugar..heh.
Harvesting the items necessary to craft is part of the fun. You get a nice party, nice RP out of it, and, usually, nice XP and loot from the monsters guarding said harvestings. *grins*
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Just wait until you get to a level where you have a 95% chance of sucess and roll two 1's in a row. Now that is frustrating. But, on the other hand, when you have a low chance at something and you get it. It is very rewarding.
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Wood Crafting is based on Str and Dex.
Food Crafting is based on Wis and Con.
If you have no bonus' (10s) in these abilities, then the most basic items start out at around a 25-35% chance.
However if you have decent stats for the craft, you can start out at 50% for a lot of the basic things.
Making sandpaper can be frusterating, since, as you said, there are so many steps. When I started working mahogany I must have gone through 60 branches (quite a few trips and a couple weeks RL time) before I ended up with a single sandpaper. But, since there are so many steps using the same ingredients, you have a lot more chances to make xp and improve. You just have to look at it a different way. :P
Also, i've seen a lot of monks do well with alchemy. Alchemy involves going to a lot of different places and gathering ingredients. The monk speed bonus makes the gathering less tedious.
-TV
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My con bonus is +2 and my wis bonus is +3, so I'm ideally suited to cooking, but still all of my starting choices were 35%. Last night I made two runs for sugar cane and had an entire inventory page filled with them, and only managed to produce powdered sugar once. This just seems unrealistic and needlessly time wasting to me.
Getting a little crafting xp for failures would erase my problems with CNR though. It even makes sense. Do the devs read this forum, or should I post a suggestion somewhere else?
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Like someone else said, it's hard when you take up a craft, but as soon as you have patience and advance a couple of levels, it gets a lot easier.
Picking a craft based on stats is allright, but they only influence about 5 or 10% most of the time at lower levels.
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"...Getting a little crafting xp for failures would erase my problems with CNR though. It even makes sense. Do the devs read this forum, or should I post a suggestion somewhere else?..."
I read nearly every single post...easily 90% of the posts and yes of course we read this forum since it is for a very important part of the world and game system.
We will not be giving xp on failures, sorry.
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this seems like a good place to plug my business again!
If you need materials for crafting, Talk to Klugger in game. He will do hickory for real cheap. Anything else you want well talk about.
-Klugger
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I recall a saying, "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." If you gave experience for failure instead of success, characters would learn very quickly at first but find mastering their craft very difficult. I think the idea has merit, but I'm just getting started. Don't turn the system on its head just on my account. ;)
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Rehevkor,
Nex is looking for blank scrolls, and since he can't chop his own wood, would be glad to help you out in order to succeed. He could probably get you closer to 45-50% with the help of magic..
And after you get the hang of it, you won't need any help.
I'd bet most wizards would gladly help .. except for those drow, can't be to sure about them .. ;)
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Rehevkor - 6/22/2005 2:38 AM
My con bonus is +2 and my wis bonus is +3, so I'm ideally suited to cooking, but still all of my starting choices were 35%. Last night I made two runs for sugar cane and had an entire inventory page filled with them, and only managed to produce powdered sugar once. This just seems unrealistic and needlessly time wasting to me.
I don't have many hours spent on cooking, but I still got it to
lvl 10 relatively fast. Okay, if you count from the time when
I got my first cooking xp til i got my last, it was a very
long time. I hardly put in any work into food crafting at all, I
mostly picked up things during travels and adventuring which
I later used in the kitchen. For instance, berries/nuts grow everywhere.
My total con/wis mod is 2, so my character is no cooking wiz. If you
ask me, food crafting is way too easy at the lvls I've done.
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the biggest trick to CNR is figuring out what are the easy things to gain xp in, if you Find Lily in game she can tell you how she got started in cooking
just like most people will tell you to level up in gem crafting by simply cutting gems before you try to make rings there are better ways to gain cooking XP then by gathering suger, same goes for pretty much ever craft i've tried with any character
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Heh its like in RL. You want to learn how to make furniture? You dont go out and buy 1200 dollars worth of lumber and make a dining room table and a bedroom set, you make like, a couple small bookshelves and a stool, or something. So when you screw up the first couple things you're not out so much time and materials.
-TV
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This is a very old thread, born of frustration. Let it die in peace :)
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Four things of cotton was a lot for a 2nd level druid to aquire from a mess full of orcs. To lose two of them, I crossed my fingers in the hopes that the next two, would not be lost as well, but woolah, a bolt of cloth.
I really do not think, I am willing to risk a bolt of cloth for a cloth pattern, at least not yet. Even at 4th level, I am still a weak character to pair up with more seasoned characters.
If I had of known I needed spiders web for thread, I would not have collected all poison from the spider corpses.
Still, spiders web to make thread?????