Re: crafting delays

[Lizzie]

Harmless asked in "ask the staff"

Is there any work in the pipeline on making the crafting delay longer for many recipes?

Things like statues and tables with multiple parts, or chests, I mean, many things, really shouldn't happen within the space of a RL minute (which equates to 1/10th of a zalanthan hour, so would be ~= 10 minutes). Even if it were 5 RL minutes then that would at least be half a zalanthan hour, and would limit you to 2 crafts per IG hour and therefore about 5-6 things in the space of a work day, which is about how long I have patience to do solo-RP for crafting anyway.

The craft delay for brew is really long, in my experience. I like that, as maybe a baseline for how long things should be taking most of the time.

Of course fast delays make perfect sense for say, slicing fruit.

If you're dealing with something time-consuming, you -could- just emote before you even type "craft item into product" and do all your emoting of the preparation that goes into making the thing. Then, you put out an emote indicating you're ready for some really dicey final touch that could cause the whole thing to fall apart if you do it wrong.

THEN type 'craft item into product'
and emote holding your breath while you do that final touch.

I for one wouldn't ever want to be 4 RL minutes into something when all of a sudden the templar/your boss/some dangerous creature/etc shows up and demands that you put your tools down this very moment...

and have to start all over again because you interrupted the code.

You shouldn't be relying on the code to dictate how much roleplay you put into crafting something. If you think it should take longer, then make it take longer by doing all the prep work before typing in the command.

[MeTekillot]

I dig this.

[nauta]

I agree with Lizzie.  I was a bit disappointed at the delay for baking bread, but then I realized that if it were any longer, you'd never bake any bread since you'd want to interrupt it with a command.  I just emote out the process before I type CRAFT.

[Lizzie]

I think every crafting delay should be at -least- long enough to type in a one-line emote. I've seen some that have had practically zero delays at all, or less than a dozen seconds. I totally agree there should be at least -some- delay in all crafting. I don't think 5 minutes is necessary, when you can just spend a half hour RPing it all out and then type the command in.

[CodeMaster]

It would be cool if some crafts gave you an interim object that represents the partially completed piece.  Even, e.g., just adding the word "incomplete" before the item (kind of the same way items become dusty or sweat-stained):

Code Select Expand


> craft silk cloth buttons into elaborate dress
You begin crafting...
You deftly fashion a dress.

> inv
an incomplete elaborate silk dress

> craft dress
You begin crafting...
You finish a dress.

> inv
an elaborate silk dress


[Harmless]

I know there's a bunch of ways this could be changed, I'm just throwing out examples. If you could do basic actions while crafting, and the delay were 5 minutes, would you still object? I.e., sit or stand, get or take or drop objects, and use the Way. My guess is then everyone would be fine with a longer delay, though sure, maybe not 5 minutes. More like what brew takes.

[Harmless]

also, I didn't put this in ATS, but I don't like it when, with the short crafting delay, people end up not doing a lot of emotes. I would love it if a change went in so that everyone knew they should probably make emote(s) for their crafts. I'll likely see less people grab a material and then whip it up into an expertly carved, glossed object in front of my PC and then return it, etc.. I'd rather not feel like I should "file player complaints" or whatever and just have the code better reflect reality, as well as create another means of limiting crafts besides what currently exists.

[MeTekillot]

Waying while crafting would be a godsend.

[Lizzie]

Waying while crafting would be a godsend.

I've thought about that often - I think the "contact" "expel" and "barrier" skills should break crafting, but psi-ing should not. So if you're already in contact with someone, you can continue to be in contact with them without having to stop what you're doing with your craft.

[manipura]

I'm with Lizzie on this.  If you think a particular craft should take longer than the code gives you, do the bulk of your emotes beforehand and then craft your item.  I would hate a delay that was something like five minutes.  I also don't think that making a longer delay would force people to emote better because they had the time.  In my experience players either like crafting a lot or they don't.  If you have a player that doesn't really like crafting much, but they have a character who crafts certain things sometimes, I don't think having an extra four minutes is going to make them suddenly RP their crafting better, it'll still be a chore to them that their character sometimes has to endure, only now they're enduring it for five minutes at a time.

Being able to continue Waying while you're crafting though, that would be nice.

[Harmless]

Okay well, five minutes is extreme but the blip craft delays where there isn't even time to type three words in an emote is jarring. Thanks for your opinions on the matter everybody.

[Lizzie]

You know, if there's a crafting recipe where the delay is non-existent or too brief to type in a few words-worth of an emote, you could just typo that particular recipe.

[Harmless]

I recently saw a staff member use the word "spam crafting" more than once recently.


I don't think it's a bad idea to reduce or remove the lowered crafting delay with maxed crafting skills.


Once you're at the uber levels of crafting, it's almost ridiculous how quickly items can be completed.  I couldn't tell you how many times I started an emote for crafting an object only for it to finish in literally two seconds, making me like awww fuck it.

As someone who as put as much time in on merchants as most people, I wouldn't mind if master level craft speeds were close to or the same as beginning speeds.  Unless it's something like arrows or other tedious and mundane but necessarily frequent things.

Kronibas post is about this topic so I put it here.

[Harmless]

There are a number of help files about how to roleplay certain guilds (the thief's bible, physician roleplay, etc.), but where's the roleplay guide for crafting?

The crafting system, like the emote system, puts an astounding amount of control in the player's hands.  You can do incredible (i.e. unbelievable) things, like crafting a delicately etched and dyed bone sword - wait, why not a half dozen of them? - all within an evening spent conversing with friends.

Nobody's actually doing anything that bad, that I've seen.  But I find that this sytem stretches reality more than any other system in the game except psionics and magick, and I think we (as players) should try to tether ourselves carefully to reality when we're using it -- myself included.  Try to imagine the process you would go through to create your craft IRL.

(Incidentally I agree that failing at cooking single-item recipes at "advanced" levels is ridiculous.  It would be cool if there were ways to ensure you weren't going to fail, like for example maybe turning off scan, watch, and listen would give you 100% cooking abilities...)

CM's post also

[Lizzie]

Well it looks like most people who are posting agree, that some crafting delays aren't long enough to type in at least a single emote, but should be.

So if the staff agrees as well, we can just typo/bug (or continue to typo/bug, as the case may be) whenever we encounter a delay that's too short to type in a single emote.

[Harmless]

I agree with that plan lizzie. 

[Fujikoma]

Personally, when I've been waiting RL months for some asshat to bring me a freaking rock, that can be found just a little ways from the gates, and gone through "No, that's NOT what I need!" a bazillion times, yeah, you might see me whip something up in a bizarre crafting frenzy. This is called, "Fuck you, I'm tired of this shit, witness my TRUE power!", and you shouldn't tempt my wrath, or I might craft you into Zalanthas's first toad. But if I'm doing something, I'm usually emoting things out. If I don't have time to throw out a bunch of classy emotes, we'll just sub in some of that virtual time where I'm sleeping IRL and call it a day. I'm usually pretty good about it, unless I'm in a hurry or no one is around, even then, I throw out a general emote when I'm doing these things to let you know, yes, my PC is very bored and doesn't like this one bit, but that AI agi, man, watch that blur of hands! Mantis crafters should get half craft time, tbh.

[whitt]

oooh.... oooh...

What if... you could add an argument to then of your craft command to send your own timer?  like craft spam egg 2.egg into a plate of green eggs and spam 30

Where the system would use either the default craft delay or the specified delay which ever was longer?  No one around to RP with and just need to use your few minutes of time to pump out arrows you should be crafting in your spare time?  Skip the argument and bang 'em out.  Sitting around the campfire cooking up Grebber's Delight?  Take your time and emote away...  No need to rush through a four course meal before hi-bye-thanks so much.

Worth an Idea?

[Fujikoma]

oooh.... oooh...

What if... you could add an argument to then of your craft command to send your own timer?  like craft spam egg 2.egg into a plate of green eggs and spam 30

Where the system would use either the default craft delay or the specified delay which ever was longer?  No one around to RP with and just need to use your few minutes of time to pump out arrows you should be crafting in your spare time?  Skip the argument and bang 'em out.  Sitting around the campfire cooking up Grebber's Delight?  Take your time and emote away...  No need to rush through a four course meal before hi-bye-thanks so much.

Worth an Idea?

The monstrous, red-skinned male says, in southern-accented sirihish "Cookie, ya done wit dem beans yet?"

The pot-bellied, brown-eyed man lazily stirs the pot with a ladle, staring at the monstrous, red skinned man, exclaiming "Hold yer kanks, ya bloody, scrab-feckin' ass-butt! All good things come wit patience!"

[Harmless]

I like that idea also as well as lizzies approach.

[Fujikoma]

Although I can see the reasoning behind the idea that crafting delays should be longer, I do have to say I agree with those who are of the opinion that stretching out crafting time is the responsibility of the crafter, and not the code. We're mostly adults here, we should be responsible in our RP, but it's a fecking game and if I want to spamcraft arrows they're already a pain in my butt that doesn't make me any coin really, that I'm just doing as a favor to someone, then no, I don't want it to take all damn day, and I shouldn't be expected to suffer after already suffering from twinking up my skills. My payoff is, hey, I'm a crafting badass who can whip things up in a jiffy, downside is if I get in a fight I'm dead, that's what I get for picking the guild/subguild combo I did. There are downsides to every combination.

[RogueGunslinger]

Amen to that, I agree with Fuji.