I fervently disagree.
It is an ability just like the healing herbs and has huge advantages over other abilities as it is not restricted by mana, knowledge points, or having to farm monsters to learn how to make, and the bandages have a very low cool down. The only balancing mechanism is to require it to be in the hot bar and take up one of the 8 slots.

Oh and something needs to change with chests and crop stacking...
A large chest has 45 slots. Grain/beans/meat stack to 100. So you can put 4500 into one chest. That is 225 bags.
Meanwhile a warehouse holds 192 bags.
So a single large chest can hold more (potential) bags of grain/beans/meat than a warehouse.

I believe that the desire to make higher quality equipment rarer and more costly can be done without RGN and with more resource sink and player satisfaction.
The current system has 3 RNG levels for crafting.

Basic is 80fine/20good, and stays there for residents despite tech.

Craftmanship+ specialty shop:
80good/20 exceptional
This roughly means that every third item will be exceptional

Engineering + specialty shop:
40good/60 exceptional
This roughly means that every other item will be exceptional

All these odds are fine and appear fair.
But because of RNG it is entirely possible to have a run of 15 items with none being exceptional.
(I have experience with this from making hundreds of cotton cloth armor)
This is quite frustrating and produces lots of worthless unwanted good equipment which floods the market with little demand when exceptional goods are also available.

My suggestion is to switch from RNG to resource costs.
Instead of one craft button you have two.
One with the base resource costs that produces the lower quality option.
The other with twice (for the 40/60 ratio) or three times (for the 80/20 ratio) base resource cost that produces the higher quality option.

So with Engineering and a tailors shop you would have two buttons-
One that will cost 5 cotton cloth and produce a good quality cloth armor piece.
Another button that will cost 10 cotton cloth and produce a exceptional quality cloth armor piece.

This maintains the over all odds of getting a piece while increasing the resource sink but letting the crafter know what they will get instead of having them roll the dice to see if they are lucky or not.
This reduces the issue of crafting unwanted good items and prevents the market being flooded. In addition with a reliable way to get exceptional items it is more likely to see them for sale in the market instead of hoarded as rare event pieces.

This same base idea can be extended to enchanting.
In the enchanting case the first enchant on an item requires one of each reagent, the second requires two of each reagent, the third requires four of each.
Even if you keep the RNG odds of loosing an item the loss is quantifiable in its cost to replace without having to worry about more cumulative RNG gambling.

Looking at most of the builds posted and watching some videos of the playtests I noticed that pretty much without exception an Int of 16 if not 18 was used by all if just for the memorization points.
I also acknowledge that the magic abilities are the most varied and useful of all avalible in the game and a high int helps with that.
But I fear that Int has become a required stat, thus reducing the real options for players to customize their character. If all characters have high Int as the standard then something is unbalanced.
Thus if all the characters have high int then that means that any spells or effects resisted by high int will be less useful in game.
So you -have- to take a high int to be able to make useful hot bars and you -shouldn't- use many spells with status effects as they are easily resisted by the fact that -everyone- has high int.

If others feel the same way I would encourage the Devs to distance memory points from int and instead make them something you can buy with knowledge points, perhaps scaling cost too.
Best case people start with a few memory points but can buy up as they need and magical soft CC status effects are again effective against most of the population who are not mages.
Worst case some players have a huge number of memory points due to their grind and drive and are able to memorize all the abilities, but still can only switch them out when not in combat and still restricted by equipment. They no longer have to reset at fires but it cost them a lot of knowledge points.

In addition the main counter to a high strength and constitution fighter, would be magic statuses, but this dose not happen because even a melee fighter needs a high int for the memory points.

Charisma is also a potential sticky point as the words of power only effect those with lower charisma than you... and considering how effective the power words stun and kill were people may start seeing a high charisma as a necessary cost at player creation to protect against the power words.

Hopefully more abilities will come out giving players other ways to reduce the effect of magic CC or damage other than needing a high int or charisma.

I did not get to play in the last alpha and only have other peoples videos and the information in the forum to go off of, so let me know if I am way off on the reality of the situation.

I understand the concerns of naked griefers and mid-end game pvp.
But if you want to combat the naked griefer issue then just make mana directly connected to equipment and not stats. Give mage equipment, like, 200 mana per item, leather 100, chain 50, plate 25... or something. That way a naked player has no mana to cast spells with and is not an issue.

But this patch forgot about the players who click on the mage starter package and join in the game.
Before, the experience of starting a new mage lived up to the warning on the tin "medium". It was not easy to kill mobs and an errant ice spike might get the attention of two or three baby black widows and you would get knocked down, ok. Moving on to the goblin camp it was again hard, but not impossible to take on one goblin and maybe a wolf.

This is no longer the case.

And when comparing the struggles of playing a mage at start with playing a melee? It is obscene.

I am building a larger argument and comparison to illustrate how this patch caused more harm than it could have possibly alleviated in the realm of low to mid pvp and pve which is where all players get their first experiences and impressions of the game, not late game with full city tech, numerous unlocked abilities, 40+ talent points, and enchants.

The bottom line was gutted.

This is my opinion from personal experience trying a new mage in solo pve content, and from having a T3 kitted mage with T2 enchants and numerous talent points.

I admit that I may be in the minority... but believe that it is not the case.

I personally see no point in playing a mage when we are simply easy targets for any melee pvp player and emaciated pve farmers. We cant even jump down a cliff to run away.

I will go to melee until a patch comes to remedy the situation.

I have faith, for now, that the developers will correct this. I just hope it does not continue into the next alpha.

@Razvan
Thanks for all the input !
It is information like that I cant get just watching videos and looking at builds or the wiki.
I look forward to playing and seeing the free form class developments.

and some of us are un happy about that ability and think the cost is way too low. XD

Nice introduction but do you have a website or discord with more information about organizational structure, guild/player activity time windows, and such not? I am entering into this winter/spring alpha and am shopping for a guild !

TLDR; Stats are not what make your character unique or special so do not focus on them, instead start average and enjoy the process of growing your character as you play the game.

One big benefit to having few directly manipulatable stats which effect a number of derivative attributes all of which interact in variable ways is to decrease the ability, and desire, to min/max characters into dead ends and instead just build fun concept characters that all work about the same but have their own personality.

If players had direct access to each individual factor (crit chance, detection, each resistance and avoidance, hp, move speed, etc...) then there would be huge perceived reward in building some min/maxed monstrosity which seems great for single purposes but impotent at all else requiring more characters and more number crunching to create 'the best build for x' this week which will only be replaced by Y next week or worse; nerfed by devs. So while you may be able to get exactly what you -think- you want now, you are more likely to find it to be not what you want as the game play advances or new content arrives; at which point you have to go back to the drawing board and start all over with a new character.

The philosophy here, which I agree with, is that by making a more convoluted interacting stat system players are told that if they make an average character with one or two higher points then they will be able to have the most rounded and fun long term game play. Any deficits wont be significant and can be easily remedied by just one companion or investment in the talent tree. Yes people can still do some min/maxing but when compared to joe average their strengths still wont be all that much higher such that joe might not even notice the difference except over a long drawn out interaction.

The difference between characters is one more of ability, talent, and gear choices, (all of which are easily changeable in game) not of stats. So in that respect the stats are not as important in this game than they might be in others.

I entirely think that non-DnD players might actually have the most fun with the game as they are more likely to start with a balanced stat build and discover the joy in adapting their abilities, talents, and gear to the play style they want that day knowing that just about any choice they make will be well supported by their solid foundation of average stats.

TLDR; Stats are not what make your character unique or special so do not focus on them, instead start average and enjoy the process of growing your character as you play the game.

@PeachMcD @GamerSeuss
You are both correct that having experience in playing the game allows you to have greater knowledge of what you need or can do without. As I said, I have not played the game and as such have a similar perspective as that of any other player who is curious about the game and only has videos and posts for reference.
I believe that it is totally possible to find a great build that fits within 16 memory points, however that requires experience and trial and error. There very well may be fun combos that really make the game for a player but they would never think of or try due to the restrictions of the current memory system, especially since many abilities take time to discover and learn before they can be accounted for.

A new player who has never tried balancing between all the options to create an optimized hot key bar for their desired game play style does not have that experience. Many of the videos I watched by players noted that lack of experience and felt unfairly penalized by having a low int which could not be altered except by 2 via expensive talent progression.

You both have good points and I appreciate your additions to this discussion. Hopefully some developers have thought of these possible issues as well.

bumping for visibility, and daily post XD

My anticipation is that the pvp worlds will have less materials avalible because all the fighting and looting will be harder on equipment while also reducing the access to resources as harvesting teams will be attacked. The PvE worlds will have to deal with higher passive agressive competition for resources as it is a safer place to farm, but the transfer of goods between worlds should be hard enough and rare enough that the PvE world should not be feeding base goods to the pvp world, just high value finished goods or maybe some special enchanting components.
I would be shocked and disapointed if there were trading of base goods, like food, between the pvp and pve world instead of the pvp world just using diplomacy and alliances to manage that.

They are really busy with getting the siege mecanics implemented. I have faith that someone will see this before the next alpha, if nothing happens a week after this one ends i'll bump it.

I can not be sure what the system is to calculate the yield but there is a definite pattern of lower nutrient yields producing more crop than expected.

The numbers make me think that the system has a serious bug in it, in any case the current numbers remove the whole point of the reducing nutrient system and crop rotations.

More data points:
Crop Nutrient %, Projected yield %, Fertility %, Harvested Yield
ordered by crop nutrient levels.
Wheat: Water never below 70%
120%, 142%, 150%, 357
115%, 135%, 150%, 338
75%, 149%, 150%, 374
54%, 156%, 150%, 392
49%, 156%, 150%, 392
49%, 149%, 150%, yield 374
39%, 164, 150, 411
39, 149, 150, 373
24, 164, 150, 410
24, 164, 150, 410

Rice: Water never below 77%
100%,100%,100%, 50
120, 159, 150, 80
115%, 176%, 150%, 88
110, 177, 150, 89
110, 179, 150, 90
105%, 176%, 150%, 88
105%, 156%, 150%, 78
95%, 146%, 150%, 73
95, 178, 150, 89
90, 178, 150, 89
85, 178, 150, 89
85, 178, 150, 89
44, 175, 150, 88

Beans Notes:
110, 150, 150, 75
105%, 150%, 150%, 75
100%,100%,100%, 50
95, 149, 150, 75
95, 150, 150, 75
90, 149, 150, 75

The intention was to loose the ability or benefits from the tech, this is not what they intended. A city degraded to rank 1 should not have all the tech it unlocked when it was rank 15.

There is something like this in D&D online and it seems to separate players with the power creep making a bigger difference between starting players and 'end game' players making the environment not all that welcoming to new players.
The idea of having a relatively even playing field and low power distance is one of the main premises -and for me selling points- of Fractured.
Because of the low power distance here I can gift a friend equipment and they can start working on their skills and talents without a discouraging gap knowing that a max talent player is only going to have 2 more stat points in any given stat (10%-20% difference) and only up to twice as many secondary skill points (fortitude, willpower, etc) allowing them to easily quantify their progress and differences allowing them to look forward to grinding for a known bright future instead of feeling they -have to- grind in order to even participate in the game content.

We had the massive mage spell rebalancing because they had too little reliance on equipment, meaning the devs want there to be reliance on equipment (expendable resource) more than talents (renewable resource). As such It would seem that the devs want the tallent tree to be the flavor of a character (determined by talent tree end abilities and the neat things between trees) but equipment and enchanting to be the meat.

Could you be more specific as to the area of the game play that you feel needs more 'fine tuning' that is not possible with talents + enchants + material bonusses?

When a town (rank 5) drops to village (rank 4) the tech only available to towns is properly greyed out and unselect able and Tech points are reduced appropriately.
However the functionality of tech previously chosen is still enacted.
We can still craft T4 materials, enchant, and use the marketplace.
Just FYI

That is basically what my original post was suggesting while also giving power to the city technology unlocks and bonusses from specialized crafting buildings.
Crafting at home can have the much higher cost but crafting at the specialized city crafting building keeps an advantage.

FF 14's system where the more modified an item is the lower its durability is could be applied to fractured.
The more enchants and the higher power of enchants put on an item the more it reduces the items durability.

This would mean that you -can- have that mage armor with 3 tier 2 enchantments, but it will have 60% less durability. Thus you get the extra power and effect at a cost of being able to use the item for a shorter time.

In high activity pvp this also may be desirable as you really want the best equip you can have and are not very concerned about its durability as you are going to loose it if you die and wont be running out with your highly enchanted but also fragile equipment on daily grinds, but for special occasions. Players can choose to spend the extra time and resources to constantly wear top tier paper thin equipment, but that is a choice and will help drive the economy should it be a popular one.
It would -however- reduce the rewards of pvp some. But with you only able to put items of 100% durability for sale in the market it's not like there is a black market for stolen/looted goods anyway. (I think there should be one tho)

@GamerSeuss
Following your assertion that the majority of players like RNG in their crafting I have done a cursory review of the most popular MMO games and their crafting systems to see which have RNG attached to the quality of goods created or have the possibility of having goods destroyed.

WoW- 2.2 million players - crafting RNG? -no- Crafting is money by another name and find the recipe with grind.
Loss of item possible due to enchanting? -no-

WoW classic- 1.1 million players. as above.

FF 14- 2.4 million players- crafting RNG? yes - Higher quality materials increase probablity of higer quality gear.
Loss of item possible due to crafting/enchanting? only if player decides to push it to that point.
Ability to change RNG to make it more probable to get higher gear or extend destruction point? Yes and multiple.

Old School Runescape - 1.4 million players. Crafting RNG? no- Crafting is money by another name
RNG enchanting item loss? no-

Elder scrolls online - 1 million players. Crafting RNG? no - crafting is money by another name.
Enchanting item loss ? no

Do I need to go on?

Of the top 5 MMO games - by population- only 1 has a crafting system similar to the one in fractured and even that one still has far more safeties built into it than fractured does and has many ways to continuously improve your odds.

So by population 5.7 million out of 8.1 million - or 70%- of gamers seem to prefer crafting systems with no RNG and all of them do not have systems of arbitrary item loss during the process.

I could continue my data collection but feel no need until you put forward some effort beyond just declaring you are right.

If you have some other, relevant, and referenced, data to provide in counter to this to back your assertion that RNG crafting is in the majority then please bring it out.

Otherwise it would appear that your opinion is in the minority of MMO gamers. Not the majority as you have repeatedly asserted with no backing.

Data on populations: https://mmo-population.com/
Data on crafting systems from each of the individual games wiki pages.

Back to the actual topic.
Here is an interesting site comparing different crafting systems pros and cons:
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/5-approaches-to-crafting-systems-in-games-and-where-to-use-them--cms-22628

Working under the assumption that the devs included item loss and random chance to get excellent gear to increase the drain on resources for high quality/enchanted gear then surely a system that gives the desired results while at the same time producing the same -or greater- drain on crafting/enchanting resources would maintain the status quo.

Do people think that this is not the reason for having RNG in item creation and Item loss in enchanting?
Or do people think that my proposed ratios and exchange rate is not high enough to guarantee equivalent item scarcity?