BP Upgrades

[albijoe]

You can upgrade slots; why not allow item upgrades?

Example: when selecting an item to build, there is an upgrade button above it. This upgrade button lets you pick ONE of the following:
-Reduce ONE material cost by 30% (min 1)
-Reduce ONE artifact cost by 30% (min 1)
-Reduce ONE item quality by 1 level (minimum Good) but increase the number required by 1
-Reduce the crafting time by 20%
-Increase the price by an additional 25%
-Increase the minimum quality one level (max Great) but increase either ALL item requirements by 1 or ALL material requirements by 1

EDIT: This would be for a gem cost, similar to quest, trade and craft slots. IT would get crazy to have a single increasing cost; perhaps one cost line per item line?

[albijoe]

To be sure, the start of this idea was a way to reduce precraft quality requirements. Just a gem upgrade for that would be awesome.

[alanx]

Not all BP are of the same value. Not all BP have the same requirements either. Its my personal opinion but I feel that there are very few BPs that aren't well balanced. There are exceptions like ocarinas which are a little too easy; Valkyrie grip which are way too tough etc. Balancing the bp itself should solve the problem. All the other BP are appropriate to their gold and gem worth.
This proposal would allow end-gamers to widen the gap between themselves and newcomers....with this scheme I would need only 1 precraft to make ocarina and fewer artifacts to craft a tear. I think these should actually be made more difficult due to the amount of gold in the market.

I know that the devs could make more $$ with something like this but overall they would end up with a LOT of players quitting.

I would like to see more cauldrons instead and lesser fusion time.

[albijoe]

Ok, first, assume they only have an "upgrade a plan to reduce the precraft quality needed". Again, that was my real point.

The problem with another cauldron or more fusion slots is you get the same result; a new player needs more gems to get to the same place a seasoned player would.

Example: Let's say you can reduce the quality of a precraft by 1 level (minmum Good) for 1000 gems, then 2000, then 3000.... per line. Upgrading 3 patterns on a line would cost the nearly same (6000) as a 5th cauldron slot (7000?), except it is limited to which patterns a person decides are most useful.
If there are set "best patterns", a player with 18,000 gems for playing and paying forever would be able to update them and therefore craft them before a newbie. In the same way, a 5th fusion slot would be instantly available for anyone with 7000 gems, but a new player needs 16,000 to get all 5 slots. If there were double 4-slot cauldrons, late-game players would have 8 slots for 18,000 gems, while new players MIGHT have 4 for 2000.
If there are more than enough "best patterns", then players will pick and choose, and it will be only preference which dictates which patterns will be upgraded. A relatively new player may have the Dragon Fire and upgrade it; a late-game player may not, and instead upgrade Keeper of Souls for the same cost. It adds some crafting speed to the game, and if there are enough "best" patterns, it focuses players on those patterns they have (or waiting for the ones they like).

I also don't see this as a significant player advantage; this is convenience. I don't think there are any precrafts that take more than half a day to make, with fusions and everything. Most take more like an hour. Yes, over time, a late-game player will be able to amass more capital and items by making things faster, but they would be able to with more fusion slots as well, or any crafting benefit that must be paid for. This specifically I thought would add variance to the game, as I expect most people to not have the same BPs.

[alanx]

Yes, over time, a late-game player will be able to amass more capital and items by making things faster, but they would be able to with more fusion slots as well, or any crafting benefit that must be paid for. This specifically I thought would add variance to the game, as I expect most people to not have the same BPs.

Its not the same though....Lets assume you we are all crafting the ocarina BP. Let us assume we have 2 cauldrons. Even if we try to be as efficient as we would have been with cauldron, the highest efficiency we can ever reach is exactly twice of what we could do with 1 cauldron. So with reference to the current scheme we could at best reach 2x efficiency. But in reality we can never reach 2x because the number of craft slots are still the same so we might actually reach only 1.5x-1.7x efficiency. This is because now eventho you can fuse twice as much, youll need to first produce twice as much which cant happen hence its the bottle neck.

In your current scheme, the craft requirement itself drops. So instead of 2 Nordic lutes I would now need only 1. Since the craft slots are the same, the output from my precrafting now can itself reach a maximum efficiency of 2x. Since my requirement itself has been halved. So effectively I'm producing twice as much and this cascades with my fusion so eventho I have one cauldron, the number of fusions I need to perform is also halved. So I end up with a maximum of approx 4x efficiency. Even if we are conservative, it woudd be around 2.5x to 3x.

In the first case, with more fusion slots, the demand for precrafts and goods will increase so market prices will increase strengthening the economy.
In your proposal, people would become more self-sufficient over time thereby reducing demand.

I know that the numbers I'm giving and the logic I'm trying to convey aren't exact and there are many other factors and I might also be wrong about it all but I'm just trying to explain my thinking as to why the additional fusion cauldrons is a linear growth trend while the permanent requirement reduction is an exponential growth trend over time as you reach end-game.

Anyway, I'm fine with whatever the devs choose to do with this or let things just be the way it is. Nevertheless your idea is quite good. I'm just apprehensive about its impact end game.