The crafted housing item recipes sold in Empyrea and Karamelle have excessively costly reagent requirements, of which are some of the hardest to farm/most rare reagents in the game. As decorative items with no impact on gameplay whatsoever, I dont understand why these recipes are harder to craft and more resource heavy than high-tier, endgame gear. For example, in Karamelle City the recipe for the Treadmill housing item sold by Dolph, requires 150 Pretzel Sticks, compared to the tier 3 crafted level 140 boots requiring only 50 sticks. All Karamelle crafted housing items require Toffee Beans, which have a much lower drop rate than Karamelle Chunks, and the amount of time sink to farm 30-50 beans for one copy of any of these items is unrealistic and heavily discouraging.
It seems as if all these recipes were designed in this way to be an ultimate challenge for the select few. So the most hardcore players can say: "Hey, I crafted this really challenging item and can show it off in my castle!" However, this alienates the majority of the average player base. The decorating community more often than not likes to use multiples of the same items, across several castles. However, these recipes make it such an immense grind to be able to craft even one of the Karamelle/Empyrea housing items. The 3D artists at Kingsisle do an amazing job creating beautiful and useful assets to decorate our homes with, but these items feel like a waste due to how inaccessible they are. We've never had gym themed items before, but they feel very gatekeeped by each individual item requiring hundreds upon hundreds of Pretzel Sticks and Toffee Beans all together. Being so limited on time and resources, the recipes almost stifle player creativity.
There is a lot of inconsistency as well within the recipes. For example, the Barrel With Cork item sold by Loligo in Aerial Shores, requires 5 Flying Squid Ink and 7 Aethyr Dust. Whereas the Ice Dwarf Box, also sold by Loligo, requires 30 Flying Squid Ink, and 60 Aethyr Dust. Both items are simple wooden crates or barrels, why such a drastic difference in rare reagent numbers? The Kalamar Chest sold by Verrin in Nimbus Citadel, is also a smaller item, but costs 150 Kelp. To craft the Pigsie spell, you need 220 Kelp, and I feel as though most players would rather spend that rarer reagent on a spell than one housing item. The Chain Reel item sold by Loligo has a 50 Platinum requirement, which at the time Empyrea launched, the only source of that reagent was as a rare drop from the Great Clock/Accursed Play Gauntlets. To this day it is the only recipe in the game that uses Platinum. I really dislike items such as these feeling so insurmountable to obtain just to use for a fun, optional side activity like housing.
These kinds of costly recipes I would love to see for crafted castles, rather than individual items. I remember back in the day, crafting the Watchtower Hall seemed like such a feat, but once you finished it you had a wonderful sense of accomplishment! That your work payed off and now you have a whole new house to decorate that others may not have! These types of recipes being reserved for castles would be a very fun, aspirational activity that many in the decorating community would agree with.
A change that I and many others would appreciate to see is for all these housing recipes to be audited so they require considerably less, or none, of the ultra-rare, endgame reagents ie: Flying Squid Ink, Toffee Beans, Aethyr Ore/Dust, and Pretzel Sticks. All of which are much better to be spent on good gear or spells than a singular copy of a decorative item with no benefits. Toffee Bean drop rates/loot tables could be improved, as its a reagent only used for housing so it wouldn't make other gear recipes easier. However, this would not be the same for Flying Squid Ink and Aeythr which is shared with gear recipes.
Another idea could be to keep these recipes difficult, preferable less-so than current, but make it so once you've crafted any housing item for the first time, you have it "unlocked" and can get as many more copies as you like, which would simply cost gold. This could help players reagent economy by reducing the amount spent on housing items, which allow for more to be saved for future gear. Less reagents would need to be spent to craft several copies of the same housing items that usually require expensive/more rare reagents such as the mannequin and castle block recipes.
Thank you for considering my concerns on this topic, it is something I feel very passionately about as a housing decorator! It would be nice to keep such grinds for good gear and pets, but make housing a little more accessible in this way.
I agree with this post 100%. I'm personally a fan of having items become available for gold after you craft it. I do see the merit of having items be difficult to craft for the sake of reward, but I think that the more you have to do something, the less rewarding it feels over time. Making something once is an accomplishment, but when you have to do something ten times, it becomes a chore. By granting easier future access, you keep the first feeling of accomplishment, and multiply it significantly. If such a system was in place, I could see myself enjoying crafting each item in my recipe book, slowly crossing each one off the list, because I would be getting something that would more likely benefit me in the future. Of course, there are design concerns. I think the biggest would be just how such a system would be implemented. I've never developed a game, but I don't think any existing system could be used to model it without making a million individual badges or quests. The next issue would be preventing the abuse of the system. I would assume this system would come with an immediate no auction tag on all crafted housing so that the bazaar isn't flooded with hard to craft items. This raises questions about items that can be obtained through packs and already have high bazaar stocks, as well as castle blocks. I think that just removing bazaar access to all crafted housing wouldn't be too bad, if such a system was in place, though. At the end of the day, it would only be creating a few more recipes people would need to craft, so it may not be too much of an issue.
I agree that no housing item should require weeks or months of grinding to obtain. Decorating houses should be a fun hobby, not a discouraging repetitive grind. I know that I prefer to spend my time actually decorating, not endlessly farming. I've made a few compromises along the way to avoid months of farming.
But at least you can get those crafted items if you care passionately enough about it. What about all the housing items that are simply impossible to obtain? I'd like to see, more generally, excessive grinds for decorative items reduced, and the possibility of obtaining all items opened up. One way of doing so that would be accessible is to add more of these impossible or difficult to obtain housing items to the daily quest drop table, while eliminating the disappointing vendor and easy to obtain items from that table. Many decorators already are doing the daily quests for a chance at rare housing items they need.
An additional thing that could be done is to make more of the no auction items auctionable so that players who need them can obtain them from players who don't want them.
Agree with you 100%. For my gym project that started last year can't be done. Toffee beans are really hard to get and I farming several weeks. I just give up in my project.
I agree that no housing item should require weeks or months of grinding to obtain. Decorating houses should be a fun hobby, not a discouraging repetitive grind. I know that I prefer to spend my time actually decorating, not endlessly farming. I've made a few compromises along the way to avoid months of farming.
But at least you can get those crafted items if you care passionately enough about it. What about all the housing items that are simply impossible to obtain? I'd like to see, more generally, excessive grinds for decorative items reduced, and the possibility of obtaining all items opened up. One way of doing so that would be accessible is to add more of these impossible or difficult to obtain housing items to the daily quest drop table, while eliminating the disappointing vendor and easy to obtain items from that table. Many decorators already are doing the daily quests for a chance at rare housing items they need.
An additional thing that could be done is to make more of the no auction items auctionable so that players who need them can obtain them from players who don't want them.
I totally agree on the no auction items! I have a friend who really needed Bamboo Groves for their project and I have several I will not use any time soon. But with no trading feature in the game other than for treasure cards, you sadly cannot help friends out in this way if the item is no auction. I feel at least if the item is already dropping from sources other than a pack, it should be considered to be for auction, such as housing items from the Doomsday Krok Gauntlet. To my knowledge those unique housing items only drop from the gauntlet itself not the Doomsday Krok pack so why should they all be no auction if they can be farmed?
Alternative drop sources for all manor of housing items is always a plus, such as Pirate101 music scrolls dropping from fishing chests. I will say though I’d hate it if these difficult to craft items started dropping from Daily Assignments. That’s RNG heavy enough as it is, for the past 2 years I’ve not been able to get any more Gobbler Vision items.
I do wish that all housing items introduced for a new world would have at least one drop source from a boss/instance. That way, with so many players always farming that content out, there could be a relatively consistent inventory of those housing items at the Bazaar, similar to how many music scrolls always being available for this reason.
I agree with this post 100%. I'm personally a fan of having items become available for gold after you craft it. I do see the merit of having items be difficult to craft for the sake of reward, but I think that the more you have to do something, the less rewarding it feels over time. Making something once is an accomplishment, but when you have to do something ten times, it becomes a chore. By granting easier future access, you keep the first feeling of accomplishment, and multiply it significantly. If such a system was in place, I could see myself enjoying crafting each item in my recipe book, slowly crossing each one off the list, because I would be getting something that would more likely benefit me in the future. Of course, there are design concerns. I think the biggest would be just how such a system would be implemented. I've never developed a game, but I don't think any existing system could be used to model it without making a million individual badges or quests. The next issue would be preventing the abuse of the system. I would assume this system would come with an immediate no auction tag on all crafted housing so that the bazaar isn't flooded with hard to craft items. This raises questions about items that can be obtained through packs and already have high bazaar stocks, as well as castle blocks. I think that just removing bazaar access to all crafted housing wouldn't be too bad, if such a system was in place, though. At the end of the day, it would only be creating a few more recipes people would need to craft, so it may not be too much of an issue.
Yes, I agree, that would make crafting a bit more fun to me, similar to how I enjoy filling out the Monstrology Tome with new entries! You can buy the recipes you want, craft them at your own pace, tick those aspirational boxes, and then you know that you can use these items to your hearts content!
I do see one issue with your proposal on making more housing items no auction. There are already a lot of items in the bazaar that are originally crafted, but are in such abundance because they drop from several packs or dropped now by enemies. This would remove a good amount of items that people have become accustomed to obtaining. This might not sound like a problem if you can just make more of these items as you wish for yourself, but that requires you to already have access to those recipes. It could inadvertently cut off items from lower level/newer players who haven’t reached the corresponding worlds yet or those who’s memberships have expired.
I find it very odd that in a thread started to ask KI to make crafted items more reasonably obtainable, posters are also now asking KI to make items no auction, depriving many players of a means of getting crafted items. There is no need for "crafting for gold" (aka "buying"), and for then having to make stuff no auction, just fix the recipes.
Also, I am a member of the housing community and I totally disagree with asking to make houses hard to craft even for housing pros and by design out of reach for most players in this game. You are asking KI to make gym equipment easier because it's too hard for you to craft and then turning around and asking KI to make houses too hard for others to craft?
How about we focus on making all items reasonably obtainable rather than making things harder for others?
As far as drops from daily quests go, there are many undesireable items in the drop table; it's always disappointing to work all week only to get an item that I could have bought for gold, or a temp mount--I'm drowning in temp mounts. I think those could be removed and many items added without reducing the chance to win the good items that are already there.
Of course, there are many other/additional ways the items could be made more available--yes they could be boss drops. There is a lot of boring grind boss farming in this game and even a small chance to win a rare housing item would make it more fun and interesting for players. Especially for perennial grinds like loremaster, waterworks, darkmoor. I'm a big fan of providing multiple avenues for players to obtain items, because not everyone likes to do the same activities.
I find it very odd that in a thread started to ask KI to make crafted items more reasonably obtainable, posters are also now asking KI to make items no auction, depriving many players of a means of getting crafted items. There is no need for "crafting for gold" (aka "buying"), and for then having to make stuff no auction, just fix the recipes.
Also, I am a member of the housing community and I totally disagree with asking to make houses hard to craft even for housing pros and by design out of reach for most players in this game. You are asking KI to make gym equipment easier because it's too hard for you to craft and then turning around and asking KI to make houses too hard for others to craft?
How about we focus on making all items reasonably obtainable rather than making things harder for others?
I never said to make crafted castle recipes as difficult as the Empyrea/Karamelle recipes. They are simply too resource heavy, irritatingly time draining, and unachievable. One could argue the problem with those could be solved by having say Toffee Beans or Flying Squid Ink drop rates considerably improved, but that isn't the root of the issue. Housing recipes should be more forgiving of a players resources in my opinion and shouldn't use the same reagents as crafted gear. Even a reagent that's relatively common like Mist Wood can easily be eaten away from a players inventory if they want to craft an item that requires 100+ of it per copy!
I mentioned the Watchtower Hall, which back in the day was quite a difficult recipe since there's several copies of other housing items needed to make it, all with their own reagent costs too. It's not so hard now because some stuff is just available in the bazaar for various crafted castles. I don't mind them being a challenge, they should be, but it should be worth the effort. Crazy hard recipes for a housing item you can use once as opposed to a house you can keep forever is not cool. You can't appease everyone, some people like a challenge, for some, challenge is very subjective, and others just dont want a challenge for housing related things at all. Whatever level of "challenge" is attributed to a recipe for housing, it certainly should not feel out of reach for most players.
"I never said to make crafted castle recipes as difficult as the Empyrea/Karamelle recipes." Hmm, well, then I'm not sure what you meant when you said: "I really dislike items such as these [crafted items from Emyprea] feeling so insurmountable to obtain just to use for a fun, optional side activity like housing. These kinds of costly recipes I would love to see for crafted castles, rather than individual items."
I don't think that castles are too easy to craft. I felt compelled to write my prior response precisely because I've been considering crafting a watchtower hall. If I thought it was so easy, I would have made it by now. And I don't think that any housing item should be a huge chore to craft, farm or otherwise obtain which is why I completely support your request to make the recipes you mentioned more reasonable. I get a sense of satisfaction from completing a beautiful and creative house, not from completing a mindless grind. The grind just gets in the way of doing more decorating. Let's let decorators focus on being creative rather than asking KI to make it harder to get to the start of the project.
In my experience, crafting a house, while perhaps easy for an adult, is one of the most challenging and memorable things that a child can do in this game. Please don't ask KI to put crafting houses out of reach of the younger or more casual members of the community.
I am a huge decorator/house collector and I fully agree with the idea that, once you craft a recipe, it should be available for gold. If this is impossible, then definitely make the recipes easier. The only thing these items improve is housing which, sure it might boost your rating in Castle Tours, but they offer no true advantage to gameplay.
Also, while I haven't made it to Karamelle yet, knowing that I will likely never be able to get the gym items makes me very sad. I hoard reagents like a beast but that's just absurd.
Also, RE: the ice dwarf box. The reason for that is likely because the Ice Dwarf Box is used to craft the Polaris Tapestry... which in itself is ridiculous because who needs a tapestry to Walruskberg when you are in Empyrea? The standard for Tapestries is that you can craft them as you go, why is the Walruskberg Tapestry cut off from me until 2 worlds later?
"I never said to make crafted castle recipes as difficult as the Empyrea/Karamelle recipes." Hmm, well, then I'm not sure what you meant when you said: "I really dislike items such as these [crafted items from Emyprea] feeling so insurmountable to obtain just to use for a fun, optional side activity like housing. These kinds of costly recipes I would love to see for crafted castles, rather than individual items."
I don't think that castles are too easy to craft. I felt compelled to write my prior response precisely because I've been considering crafting a watchtower hall. If I thought it was so easy, I would have made it by now. And I don't think that any housing item should be a huge chore to craft, farm or otherwise obtain which is why I completely support your request to make the recipes you mentioned more reasonable. I get a sense of satisfaction from completing a beautiful and creative house, not from completing a mindless grind. The grind just gets in the way of doing more decorating. Let's let decorators focus on being creative rather than asking KI to make it harder to get to the start of the project.
In my experience, crafting a house, while perhaps easy for an adult, is one of the most challenging and memorable things that a child can do in this game. Please don't ask KI to put crafting houses out of reach of the younger or more casual members of the community.
Ah, I didn't word what I meant well enough, that is my fault. The gist of what I'm getting at was make the castle recipes difficult, and regular housing items pretty easy (aside from ones with additional functions like mini games, tapestries, seed vault, etc.) I definitely dont want crafted castles recipes to require rare endgame reagents like Flying Squid Ink/Synthonium, but there should be a level of difficulty somewhere. That's usually done with a castle needing x copies of another crafted item, but if that item required for example, 100 Aeythr Ore, it just becomes absurd rather than meaningfully challenging.
And a side note of something I should have included in my original post: I personally don't like Toffee Beans being a housing only reagent. I can see this sorta thing helping to separate crafted housing from crafted gear, but if there are to be reagents like this, they need to be significantly more common and farmable across the board. As I mentioned before, gear alters your gameplay, housing items don't so there is no need for rare high-end reagents being in these recipes. There are also only 2 possible ways to obtain them, rare loot from chests in Karamelle, or a rare drop from various KM bosses. Even Karamelle Chunks have a much higher drop rate and those are used for gear. Players need options for how to get things they want in the game, and there is no other choice but to sell your soul and hours upon hours of free time just to craft one housing item from the Karamelle vendor. I won't stand for it, I refuse to craft any of those items until the recipes are altered.
