Basic Info:
Platform: Steam
Issue Type: Gameplay
Game Mode: Single Player
Server Type: PvE
Map: Exiled Lands
Mods: none
Bug Description:
When the Server Setting for “Crafting Cost Multiplier” is set to 2.00 or higher, a variety of things meant to always cost “1” is also increased. After testing various functions and features I was able to take a comprehensive look at what is influenced, inconsistencies found, and put together a list sorted by priority. The full list is given below.
Bug Reproduction:
Set Crafting Cost Multiplier to 2.00 or higher, then test any of the following below.
I previously reported a similar problem looking only at the Small Animal Pen back at
After making that report, I continued to discover multiple other issues created by an increased Crafting Cost Multiplier. I understand that even permitting a player to change Crafting Cost Multiplier is already a privilege, and problems created by changing it shouldn’t be high on the dev’s priorities compared to other bugs. To save time and effort, I tried to compile a comprehensive list of problems to narrow focus.
[tl;dr]
Once Crafting Cost Multiplier reaches 2.00, certain costs that need (or should) be "1" become "2." At 3.00, it becomes "3" and so on. Certain resources should be fixed to ALWAYS cost "1" at any Crafting Cost Mult to keep the game playable with this setting. For example, breaking a thrall in a Wheel of Pain or sacrificing at the Sacrificial Grave is always set to cost "1" NPC. This is already the case for those two. The following is what's not:- The baby animals required to tame a pet in any Animal Pen should always be 1.
- The baby foals/rhinos required to tame a mount in a Stable should always be 1.
- The amount of weapons or armors needed to begin dismantling in the Dismantler should always be 1.
- The Tome of Kurak required to upgrade sorcery at the Thaumaturgy Bench should always be 1.
- For the Main Quest, the amount of Staff of the Triumvirate and Albino Bat Demon Blood needed to upgrade to Awakened Staff of the Triumvirate should always be 1.
- The pets needed to hand-craft a pet skin in the player’s inventory should always be 1.
That’s it! With the above fixed, raising the Crafting Cost Multiplier becomes a valid (and painful) way of enjoying the game.
[Comprehensive]
For a comprehensive look, I want to start with what works fine at any Crafting Cost Multiplier.- Thrall Wheels. You always only need one thrall to craft a follower. This is also my most direct comparison for pets and why the current behavior of Animal Pens is unintended.
- Shallow Grave. You always only need one thrall to craft a zombie. This is good because a grave can only hold one body, so it would become impossible if it started to require more.
- Sacrificial Stone. You only need one thrall to perform a ritual (even though the required blood and flasks increases with crafting cost). This is exactly what one would expect, and it’s perfect.
- In the Main Quest, assembling the Heart of the Sands works fine. The real reason its fine is because it bypasses crafting by using a dialogue turn-in, but the bottom line is that there’s no unintended behavior here.
- In the Main Quest, assembling the Keystone works fine. You only need one of each item to make the Keystone, no matter the Crafting Cost Multiplier. This is my most direct comparison to the Staff of the Triumvirate problem.
- Keys. All doors only require a single key in your inventory to open. This includes the demon blood for Barrow King, as part of the Main Quest. This is the expected behavior and is fine.
Now on the opposite end are the things that went wrong. Although already listed in the tl;dr, here’s a deeper look at them.
- Animal Pens. As the crafting cost goes up, so does the required number of babies. Pens have limited animal space, so this becomes a problem right away. The Small Animal Pen can only hold one baby, so once two is required, this building becomes unusable. The full-size pens can hold five, but as a setting Crafting Cost Multiplier goes up to 10, so 6.00 to 10.00 still makes any pet production impossible. As seen with thralls in wheels, one baby animal should always make one adult. Only the required food should be affected by the multiplier.
- Stables. Like the Small Animal Pen, the Stable can only hold one foal. So a multiplier of 2.00 or higher makes mount production completely impossible. This should be like the Shallow Grave, requiring only one foal per horse.
- Dismantler*. Starting with a mult of 2.00, you need 2 duplicates of the same item to start dismantling one. There is an extra bug involving this, which I’ll explain down below. Likewise, a mult of 3.00 needs 3 duplicates, etc. up to 10. It should just be one item breaks down at a time, regardless of Crafting Cost Mult. Especially since this bench is more about cleaning up than it is “crafting.”
- The Tome of Kurak. This one really grinds my gears. With a mult of 2.00, you need two tomes to upgrade your sorcery. You cannot craft an extra book. The only way is traveling back to the cave and looting another (but remember, you can’t loot another while one is still in your inventory). Even when you do all that and finally upgrade your sorcery the first time, the upgrade consumes all of your tomes and gives back one. So you have to hike back to the cave again. And if you had a Crafting Cost Multiplier of 5.00 (you brave soul), you would need to hike there 4 times every upgrade. This cannot be intended.
- Awakened Staff of the Triumvirate. Both the required staff and required blood are affected by the multiplier. Having to down the quest bosses multiple times to advance the main quest I think goes against the scope (and intentions) of a “crafting cost multiplier.” More so when the Keystone doesn’t suffer this problem. There is an inconsistency between the two.
- Pet Skins. The required pets to hand-craft a reskinned pet increases with the multiplier. Like with thrall wheels and animal pens, this is logically inconsistent, not to mention thoroughly frustrating considering what it already takes to get the unskinned adult pet. The required food should definitely increase (and does), but not the pet itself. This isn’t a fusion technique, right?
*Bug: There is a discrepancy in the behavior of an Animal Pen and the Dismantler in how they use duplicates. If the multiplier is 3.00, meaning you need 3 duplicates, then an Armored Animal Pen will use all 3 Locust Spawn to craft a single Sand Reaper. But the Dismantler waits until you have 3 duplicates to start dismantling, then only dismantles a single one, leaving the other 2 duplicates untouched. So technically speaking, if you already had the 2 duplicates in the bench, then adding 5 more duplicates would dismantle 5, ignoring the Crafting Cost Multiplier. All the multiplier is doing is adding this unusual, unintended hurdle to start dismantling.
Finally, there are the things that are affected by the Crafting Cost Multiplier which, intended or not, are fine as they are. They are under the “You asked for this” umbrella.
- Weapon/Armor/Tool upgrades. For example, upgrading a Hardened Steel Pick into a Black Ice Pick at the frost forge. With a mult of 2.00, you now need two hardened steel picks to craft the upgrade. And that’s perfectly fine, it’s exactly what’s written on the card. Ditto for upgrading Light Boots into Climbing Boots. Logically maybe a bit inconsistent, but maybe your pain-loving brave soul really wants his climbing boots extra thicc.
- Weapons crafted from dungeon boss drops. Telith’s Sorrow with Heart of the Kinscourge, the Abysmal Sword with Abysmal Eye. With 2.00 or higher, you need to kill these bosses multiple times to get these drops to craft stuff, and I feel it’s fine. That’s because this is still under the purview of why you raised your crafting costs in the first place (unlike the Main Quest items, which becomes a question like “How many times do you have to beat the game?”).
- Broken Ratios. Combining Fragments of Power into Tablets of Power, the Gold Bars/Gold Dust/Gold Coin relationship, and so on. With Fragments as an example, it becomes a net loss to upgrade to tablets once the crafting cost mult reaches a certain point. But not only is there no good solution to that (what, program a special scaling memory gain for this one random server setting? Get real), it’s still a product of getting what you asked for, and the reverse of decreasing the mult benefits you the same way.
- Armor Padding. Influenced by the mult, you need 2 with a 2.00 and so on. Totally fine, exactly what you’d expect, extra thicc.
- Trophy Heads. This one is actually a grey line for me. Mounting a single head on your wall should only require a single head, just like animal babies to pets. The only reason it’s down here is because I feel like this is a vanity, something you farm to craft, and falls under the reason you raised the mult in the first place. But if it was also fixed to one head per trophy at any mult, I would consider that a good fix.
- 1 Fragment per scroll at the Archive. Contrary to everything else, this is the one thing I wish scaled with the mult, rather than always staying at 1. It falls under the spirit of why you raised the mult. It’s not a big deal either way, but I thought I’d bring it up at the very end here.
And that’s a wrap! As a disclaimer, I am only familiar with Exiled Lands and only tested all the main avenues of play on the Exiled Lands. Isle of Siptah may have its own impossibilities that make its “Main Quest” impossible by raising the Crafting Cost Mult. I really don’t know. If someone else more familiar with the map wants to bring up any landmines here, I’m sure it will be appreciated by myself and any interested devs.
Last is just some pictures showcasing the 6 outright problems I mentioned (plus the trophy heads).
