Crafting Exceptional Items

[Chrys Ellis]

I have been thinking about the system for crafting exceptional items lately, and it's been bugging me a bit.  Here's why.  Two crafters try to make a pair of gloves of fury, for example.  One crafter has an 80% chance of success.  The other crafter, relatively new to the trade, only has a 10% chance.  Yet, somehow, they both have the same 5% chance of making an exceptional pair of gloves.  Does that really make sense?
  Now, supposing people agree that it doesn't really make sense that everyone would have the exact same chance of making an exceptional item, I have a suggestion.  Make the exceptional roll work like a crit roll.  That is, if you roll a 20 while trying to make an item, then you roll a second time, and have the same chance of it being exceptional as you had in making it. 
  For clarity, from the example above, assume both crafters roll a 20 while making the pair of gloves.  Each then rolls a 2nd D20.  The first crafter rolls a 10, and the second rolls a 13.  The first crafter, having an 80% chance of making them, would end up with an exceptional pair, and the second crafter, having only a 10% chance, would end up with a regular pair (I hope that's clear). 
  Of course, crafters who were attempting to make something that was trivial for them would automatically make an exceptional item if they rolled a 20 on the first roll.  Maybe the XP could be rewarded twice for making an exceptional item, as well, meaning those that make it trivially still wouldn't get any, but someone who had a smaller chance would learn twice as much from making an exceptional item.
  What does everyone think?  Sure, this would mean exceptional items would be more rare, but aren't they supposed to be just that?  And imagine how thrilled you'd be if you made something exceptional in a new trade, knowing what a slim chance you had of doing it.

[blonde]

After thinking about this, i must say i like the idea. It does make sense for more experienced crafters to have a better chance of making exceptionally good items. And the idea with the second roll (like a crit) is pretty good i think.

[Ne'er]

I agree with this as well. I don't really do any crafts where exceptional items are made, but I think it is a good idea.

[Variable]

I think this would give too great a chance of making an exceptional item, if you have a 70% chance on both rolls you'll make an exceptional item 49% of the time. That would flood the market with exceptional items.

[Talan Va'lash]

Variable - 11/30/2005  8:00 PM

I think this would give too great a chance of making an exceptional item, if you have a 70% chance on both rolls you'll make an exceptional item 49% of the time. That would flood the market with exceptional items.

I think you misinterpreted Xiao's post a little.

-TV

[blonde]

Variable - 11/30/2005  4:00 PM

I think this would give too great a chance of making an exceptional item, if you have a 70% chance on both rolls you'll make an exceptional item 49% of the time. That would flood the market with exceptional items.

You are not reading this right. You dont ever have a 70% chance of making an exceptional item...you might have 70% chance of simply making the item.

[Variable]

Chrys Ellis - 11/30/2005  5:22 PM  Now, supposing people agree that it doesn't really make sense that everyone would have the exact same chance of making an exceptional item, I have a suggestion.  Make the exceptional roll work like a crit roll.  That is, if you roll a 20 while trying to make an item, then you roll a second time, and have the same chance of it being exceptional as you had in making it.    For clarity, from the example above, assume both crafters roll a 20 while making the pair of gloves.  Each then rolls a 2nd D20.  The first crafter rolls a 10, and the second rolls a 13.  The first crafter, having an 80% chance of making them, would end up with an exceptional pair, and the second crafter, having only a 10% chance, would end up with a regular pair (I hope that's clear). 

 I may not be interepting this right, but doesn't the underlined part say that once you have succeeded in making the item, you roll another die with the same chance to make it an exceptional item?  If not, could you explain it a bit more? It sounds like it could be a cool idea,

[orth]

That is, if you roll a 20 while trying to make an item, then you roll a second time, and have the same chance of it being exceptional as you had in making it.    You have to roll the 20 first.

[Variable]

Oh, that makes sense, wow i was a bit off,

Thanks orth.

That sounds like a good idea, it gives the higher level crafters with better chances an advantage over a person just starting making them.

[FlameStrike]

Now if we could just get some exceptional weapons... *winks*

[aragwen]

I think it is a very good idea.
  The more skilled person should have a better chance of making the exceptional item.

[Rhino]

I don't see any reason to make it harder, the market isn't flooded with exeptional items.

I think DevelopmentTeam time could be spent better than on limiting the chance to make exceptional items.

But I agree that it makes more sense for a "master" crafter to make the exceptional than the "novice" crafter.

[Harloff]

I agree there is no reason to produce even less exceptionel items than we already do. What about having a thread range of 19-20 that way a novice crafter with 50 % chance would have equal chance of producing a exceptionel item under the current system and the new system. Of course this can result in more produced exceptionel items if most crafters that attempt to make the item have more than 50 % chance of doing it. But even a few more exceptionel items wouldn't unbalance the world as I see it.

[Chrys Ellis]

My idea is not to reduce the overall number of exceptional items, but to make it more realistic in terms of the skill of the crafter themselves.  I personally would be fine with a 19-20 crit range rather than just 20 for the first roll, but I am biased, since many of the exceptional items are in tailoring, and many of those are trivial to my character, so it would help me out.  I'll leave it up to the developers how they want to handle this aspect.

[scotcar]

Just building on this, what items can you make exceptional?
For example, can you make exceptional leather armour (Wolf, jaguar, cougar etc) or exceptional bags etc.
I also agree, why couldn't you have exceptional armour and weapons?
Especially using the new system just described, it would put more focus on master crafters.
There may be reasons for this (ie, how long before everyone has exceptional armour and weapons) but you could really charge a premium for these items.  Because of this, people may be more willing to hold up the price of items as the amount of effort it would take to produce them.

[Harloff]

I agree it would really be nice to have exceptionel weapons armors, shields etc. But the number of weapons armors shields helmets etc. would double, and this would as far as I have understood ealier post from the team give the servers more problems than they already have.

[lunchboxkilla]

I've made a topic on excptional weapons that kind of dead ended..

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Okay...

I like the idea of the Success Roll (19-20) -> Success roll 2 (Success) -> Exceptional [Item], but...

The second roll, and the second reference of the database that stores the character's chances at making the item, would put a huge load on the servers... Orth has been toying around with saving crafting data, and similar things, on each character's Gem of Remembrance, so if that's successful, it would reduce server lag considerably. However! The load of the rolls might be considerably more than the load that the Gems might take off; if the added load is LESS than the lost load, then perhaps this is a valid idea, but you still have to consider whether reducing the lag minimization is worth it.

In other words, depending on how successful Orth is, this idea could either have almost no impact on server lag, or it could increase it considerably. Personally (and don't count this against my status as a Mad Gamer), I'd have to put the lag issue above the realism issue; a character already has to be of a certain level to even make certain items, so it's realistic enough as it is. It's not like we're being inundated with Exceptional items, you know.

[Chrys Ellis]

Stephen_Zuckerman - 12/15/2005 5:16 PM The second roll, and the second reference of the database that stores the character's chances at making the item, would put a huge load on the servers....

  Do THAT many people craft at once, and are there THAT many items that even have a possibility of being exceptional that this would be the case?  Obviously, for items that didn't have the possibility of being exceptional, a second roll wouldn't be necessary.  I don't know how the system would actually handle this, but would it really make that much of an impact?

[Harloff]

I must agree this is not something that should be implementet if it has a high an impact on server lag. As Crys states only a few crafts have exceptionel items, tailoring, gem crafting and infusing (as far as i know), and not all craftable items in these crafts are exceptionel. However, exceptionel items cause lag I would suggest to drop the exceptionel items that nobody uses "exceptionel wand of light" "exceptionel ring with (unenchantet) alexandrite" etc..