I'm not used to yelling, though I'm aware sometime I tend to word stuff in a very definitive fashion, so no worries! All kinds of opinions are appreciated: once again, since the very beginning, I didn't intend this thread to be very serious, so feel free to offer your own take on the subject. I'll expose the reasoning behind why I gave this system the way I did. 1) I wouldn't want a crafting system to replace the regular item hunt in day-to-day CH, as I think that'd have a disruptive effect on the overall game experience. 2) Instead, I specifically intended the crafting rules as a way for players to convert the heaps of excess loot in customized weapons you couldn't otherwise find in the game. This is what led me to the "cards are randomly picked from reagents" mechanic. You simply can't pick the right reagents-formula and be relatively sure of what the end result would be (unless you only used 3/6x-of-a-card items, that is). This ties-in pretty nicely with the fact items holding cards in multiples tend to be higher rarity: the more precise you want the crafting process to be, the higher the rarity of reagents required, the more expensive a crafting expense gets. And I don't mean "expensive" in the gold-fee way exclusively, as since reagents are consumed by the crafting process, you simply can't reasonably go for countless attempts at the same formula, your epics/legendaries stocks are gonna be depleted pretty quickly that way. This is exactly what the system as I envisioned it is not intended to achieve. Crafting (in a game which is all about hunting) shouldn't be the easy way to put your hands on specific hard to find items. That being said though, if you've been playing CH for a real long time, and was unlucky enough to never drop/buy a single VP (or other item you might need), then you can theoretically dump all of your gold on a bunch of lochabers and hope for the best. Hope this clarifies stuff further. CH already has Randi/DD/Loot Fairy, which put together grant any player a more than reasonable chance to grab most of the items they want, given enough time. I honestly don't think we need yet another (and more convoluted!) system going in that direction. Crafting, by this reasoning, would instead be a huge items and gold sink, and a way for players to forge customized items they have some control over the results (via reagents selection), and yet not a 100% reliable tool to obtain exactly what you want, every single time.
Haha, @Bandreus I truly meant that comment in jest. Now back to the not serious serious stuff that I have firm lighthearted opinions about. I really appreciate your reasoning and explanation. And, I agree with most everything to some degree. The only area I differ is that despite being called "card" hunter I do not feel like I have ever hunted a card. I feel like I have hunted items for their specific array of cards. And, it would be nice for cards on items that I don't want/have a large excess of to be a some value to me. I also feel that as a new player, I have only played consistently for 6 months, it is very difficult to compete with higher tier items. And, that I have little to no control over getting the items that I desire to play with. I think introducing an expensive way to gain a little bit more control over your items would be an enhancement. And, given the expense will still encourage grinding for cards/items and reward older players who have more items/gold proportionally. Maybe I am noob looking for a hand out but the complete randomization of item acquisition has been frustrating some times. Spoiler: More thoughts that I did not feel deserved the spot light. I think a card pool is really what I am arguing for here. I want to pay gold to get an item destroyed and then have those individual cards which can be used towards crafting. Even under the system on 1/3 of the cards per reagent being selected you could easily say instead of reagents you put 9/18 cards in a item generator and 1/3 of those are randomly selected. That way it still takes 18 of the same card to craft the 6x item. And, if you are only given a few of the cards off the item you destroy then you are maintaining the integrity of a system that rewards playing the game more. My biggest fear is that a crafting system will just further the divide between well stocked older players and new players if it has an extreme cost as well as total randomization. I also really want to be able to take cards from 1 reagent and apply them to separate craftings. Even if you got all the card on a destroyed item it would take 6 lochabar axs to make 1 vibrant pain. I think that would be okay. I don't think that you would see a huge excess of flying dwarfs.
