Recently had a few players pointing out they'd use crafting more if it was quicker and resulted in more unusuals (not overly surprising on the latter part). While the currently Craft Unusual Headgear option doesn't guarantee an unusual, the % is pretty high. The idea is to allow excess items to be turned into unusuals, but without flooding the server with unusuals. Creating this thread to try and generate some feedback on what (if anything) can be improved; most notably if it can be done quicker, and if so how?
I like the idea of it being not 100% but not everyone has 108 items in the server i feel it wont overcrowd the server with (unusuals) in the future it might though so i feel if the percentage is like 50% to 60% or 70% make it like 85% or even 90 or 95 because i used crafting 4 times and only got 1 unusual showing i used my whole entire iventory or (432 items) so i like its not for sure but pumping up the percentage or chance of getting an unusual would make people happy
After using the crafting system myself and unfortunately not getting an unusual I can confirm it's rigged. But more seriously, I can see it being improved in a couple ways. I think the current % for unusuals is well balanced and I wouldn't go any higher if it were to change at all I'd recommend lower just to not have the market over-saturated with unusuals (although it does take quite a few items to trade all the way up to even taking that chance so you be the judge); however, its a long-winded process all in all and to sit and spend 12 straight minutes of turning my items into dust just to receive a water boy is simply cruel. Cutting back on time would make the whole process less frustrating and could be done in a couple ways: Get rid of the stupid countdown. I know it's going to be dust. You're just wasting my time. (You can keep the countdown for the item, but for just getting dust that can be eradicated). Say I wanted to get red dust, which requires 4 items, but instead of crafting one at a time you could select say 12 items and it would give you 3 red dust. This would make the process a LOT quicker. I'm not sure how practical implementing this would be, but would be the best way to cut back on time in my humble imo. Overall, great job with the crafting system guys. <3
The countdown exists not for the player, but as a protection mechanism for the database - a craft is quite intensive due to the amount of item transactions that are individually processed; this will probably be optimised in future. So, in order to get the required dust to craft an unusual: > 3 Infinity Dust ( 6 Seconds Per Dust = 18 Seconds ) Which Is > 9 White Dust (10 Seconds Per three crafted = 30 Seconds ) Which Is > 9 Red, 9 Yellow, 9 Blue( 6 Seconds per one of of each = 54 seconds ) So in total, you only spend 102 seconds waiting for the crafting progress screen (Although I admit this is assuming perfect distribution) Maybe the issue is, as you say, it's cruel to burn so many items just to get a waterboy, and that disappointment leads you do thinking that everything you just did is a waste of time. I was thinking of instead, letting you re-craft a self-crafted item for a smaller cost, for it to possible become an unusual? But it's the input item that will become the unusual (As opposed to a random item, like the current crafting recipe). An example: You craft an unusual using the recipe, but you get a [Self Crafted Waterboy]; you now have another recipe, that takes that Waterboy, and for a cost, has a chance to upgrade that Waterboy to an unusual. This gives you a good choice; if you like the original item, from the original unusual craft, you can try and upgrade it without having to burn through lots more items; if you don't then you can start from scratch ( I may possible add a recipe to allow a self-craft item to be turned back into a number of raw crafting mats (E.g. 50% of what was originally put into it) ) Non final figures / suggestions are non-final.
Yeah I like that, perhaps a crafted item + 1 Infinity Dust and it outputs a new crafted item? Also like the idea of breaking down a crafted item if they don't like it, both good suggestions. Agreed, people might spend around 10 mins selecting items, watching countdowns then get a waterboy, which puts them off the process. If they can get something back out of it it'd be a strong improvement.
Players are asking how to craft a current season crate, I know a few would like to use this option over crafting an unusual. At the moment it requires a junk can which I don't believe is in game, was wondering what the idea was to use instead, or if that item is going to be added? Perhaps 3xWhite and an Infinity dust is sufficient?
We're currently working out how we plan to make them craftable - if at all. It's likely however that as you said we may just do it via dust.
@Killermon any thoughts on crafting crates for items + some dust and dropping the junk can requirement?
Okay, so some updates (which will also be wrapped up into a minor update thread) All crafting has had its time significantly reduced to either 3 or 5 seconds, depending on the outcome of the item(s). This applies to the mass-crafting items (eg 3x colour 3x white) so you're looking at 3 seconds for 3 white dust. We're also looking at exploring the idea of somehow making it slightly cheaper to craft the unusual item recipe, however I wouldn't hold your breath too much on this while we evaluate the feedback from the reduction in crafting times alone. What people may not realise by the way, when you're in the "item select" menu, you're able to select up to however many items are required for that recipe and then click the affirmative button. You should see all 3 items auto-populate which means you don't need to go in to each and every item selection menu to craft, further driving up the speeds.
Sort of crafting related, speaking to a few players with 300+ items in inventory, they liked the idea of sorting their inventories by either alphabetically, item type (i.e. unusual or not) etc, to make it easier to create dust, rather than having to scroll past all the items they want to keep. If they know the names they can use search, but usually they're just going through the inventory looking for any common item they don't want. Dunno if possible, but if could sort i.e. alphabetically, all item duplicates would display next to each other.
Small update on this, we're looking to make some changes with the anniversary update we'll be releasing in the coming weeks; I feel people will appreciate the changes (in terms of a new crafting option) and altering some costs. I know we get regular feedback currently about how crafting could be more engaging, and I feel these changes will help towards that, so I'll ask you bear with us while it's implemented Anniversary update will bring a bunch of stuff as usual, but this is something we want to include alongside it.