Dev Diary: Crafting Updates in Volume 3, Book 1

On Thursday, February 18 Turbine released a Developer Diary containing details upon the upcoming improvements for Jewelers and Cooks, as well as the new class item recipes for Woodworkers and Weasponsmiths,  that we will be seeing released with Volume 3, Book 1.

Jeweler

• All bracelets, earrings, necklaces and rings crafted after the release of Volume 3.1 will have different stats that have been “…reblanced to provide better, more useful stat increases, and to generally improve the quality and consistency of jewellery stats across the board!”
• Bracelets, earrings, necklaces and rings crafted post Volume 3.1 will have different icons than the current versions.
• All existing crafted jewellery pieces will remain the same, whether they are worn or stored.
• Many of the recipes in all tiers have been updated and have become multi-output recipes.  (Meaning they can create different versions of the same item, usually with different stats.)
• Some recipes (the example given is the “Ring of Tactics” will be redundant.  This will be addressed at a later time.

Examples of the changes of existing items to the new items’ stats shown are as follows:

I have to say I like the changes.  I find it interesting that all the items that they listed seem to have Agility on their current incarnations.  I was initially worried for players who might be looking for Agility with the changes, however the implementation of Multi-Output items gives me an idea that perhaps there is a different version of these items that will have Agility on them.  I’m not sure how I feel about all of the comparisons that they made, so I will hold off until I actually see what all the options are for some of these items.  I definitely think that Jewellery needed some help and it’s looking like this may do the trick.

Cooking

• Recipes that were using only vendor-bought ingredients have been changed to require ingredients produced by Farming.
• New “Ingredient recipes” will allow chefs to produced additional components needed for cooking such as flour.
• Some ingredients previously sold by vendors have been removed as they are no longer used in recipes.
• Shire Apples and Golden Shire Taters are now produced exclusively by Famers.
• All in-combat and out-of-combat morale and power regeneration buffs received from “Cooked Foods” now last 5 minutes for normal foods and 10 minutes for critical foods.
• All “Cooked Foods” now provide both in- and out-of-combat morale and power regeneration.
• Each tier of cooking has three or so different “Cooked Food” recipes
• Cooked Food A:  Highest in-combat morale/power regen; lowest out-of-combat regen.
• Cooked Food B:  Moderate in- and out-of-combat regen.
• Cooked Food C:  Lowest in-combat regen; Highest out-of-combat regen.
• Trail Food recipes for each tier will allow chefs to create new dishes that can increase Will or Fate.
• Fish Trail Food recipes that previously increased Will are being updated to increase Vitality and Will.  All previously crafted fish trail food will remain unchanged.
• Players with friend status with the Malledhrim will be able to purchase new Trail Food recipes from Maedhrusc in Emyn Lûm.
• New Campfire recipes for almost every tier will allow cooks to create campfires using harvested wood such as Ash, Yew, Lebethron, etc.  These recipes will be available on Novice and Expert Cook vendors.

It felt like a lot of changes were made to cooking to me.  For one, it seems that they are slowing down the ease and speed in which one can become a Supreme Master Cook.  I know I’ve done it on one of my alts, and I know Azz has too.  All you need is some cash and it’s pretty easy to do.  I however, did level up my cook to Supreme Master Farmer as well, but that’s definitely not necessary at this point.  So I would suggest if you have the money, level it up now before 3.1 drops.  Or at least get as far as possible. 

I do like the buff changes quite a bit as well.  It’s good to see that we’re going to have food that not only provides out-of-combat regen, but in-combat as well.  With the added timing buff, I can’t say I’m at all displeased with these changes.  It also looks like I’ll be getting my hunter into Fishing in the near future as well.

Farming

• New recipes have been added
Shire Apples
• Golden Shire Taters
• Green Pease

These changes were made to support the new Cook recipes.  Nothing much of note now other than Farmers will now be able to provide Cooks with more items, but honestly it’s still a profession that you can pick up on an alt and level to Supreme Master with relative ease and some money.  The only downside is that Farming is pretty darn boring.

Weaponsmith & Woodworker

New class item recipes for Superior Woodworkers and Weaponsmiths are available from Expert profession vendors and specific class trainers. Woodworkers can carve a powerful horn for Champions, while Weaponsmiths have access to deadly trap and trick recipes for Hunters and Burglars.

Well I guess that’s good.  I mean more, powerful items are always welcome.  The only thing that this makes me think about is that there were no improvements for Armourer, Scholar, or Tailors.  I know you can’t have everything, and that maybe they will get a look at in the future; but does this mean those professions are where Turbine wants them or there just wasn’t enough time and money to look at them yet?