Blacksmithing needs reworking. Idea inside.

NathanielFynn

BLACKSMITHING 2.0

I'm not English, it's not my mother language, but I'll try to make myself as clear as possible. I'm sorry for any grammatical errors or stupid looking sentences. Don't blame me, blame my English teacher

I'm having trouble leveling up my blacksmithing. Well, not really trouble, but I find it to go too slow in terms of earning experience points for it and it's just a drag. You'll need to create lots of items, daggers for instance, and trade them with someone else so you can disassemble their daggers and you'll earn some decent experience points. I don't mind the need to create lots of items, but I believe it should be implemented in a different way. Also, the need to trade with other people so you can get some decent experience points is just awkward. It should be drastically changed.

Well, do I have any better idea? Yes, I believe I do, at least I hope I do. It won't be the perfect way of crafting and leveling for everyone, but I believe it will be much more appealing to most ESO players, especially the ones who Role-play. I'll stay with Blacksmithing as a craft, but this could be implemented for all or almost all crafting skills (woodworking, clothing and alchemy seem the best options for this type of experience earning)

The experience earned per level 6 dagger made is currently 127 and for deconstructing someone else's dagger is 282, a total of 399 experience points.

I believe every item should degrade in terms of experience points earned, the more you make them. This will force people to create different types of items for the highest rate of experience earning.


EXAMPLE

Item type - number of items created - experience points earned.
For instance, bow level 1 (item type): item 1-10 (number of items created) grants you 50 xp per item (experience points earned).

2-handed sword level 1: item 1-10 grants you 50 xp per item, 11-20 will grant you 25 xp per item and 21 and up will grant you a measly 10xp per item.
2-handed sword level 6: item 1-10 grants you 75 xp per item, 11-20 will grant you 40 xp per item and 21 and up will grant you a measly 10xp per item.
2-handed sword level 50: item 1-10 grants you 1500 xp per item, 11-20 will grant you 750 xp per item and 21-30 will grant you a 300 xp per item and 31-up will grant 150xp per item.

When reaching the point of earning 10xp per item, you will be forced to switch to another type of item if you want to progress further at a decent pace.

Body armor level 1: item 1-10 grants you 75 xp per item, 11-20 will grant you 40 xp per item and 21 and up will grant you a measly 10xp per item.
Body armor level 6: item 1-10 grants you 100 xp per item since an armor is harder to make than a dagger, 11-20 grants 50 xp per item, 21-30 grants 25 xp per item and 31-up grants 10 xp per item.
Body armor level 50: item 1-10 grants you 2000 xp per item, 11-20 grants 1000 xp per item, 21-30 grants 500 xp per item and 31-up grants 250 xp per item

You'll need to switch to another item again to continue and progress.
You could also switch to another racial type of armor. let's say you're able to create Imperial and Bosmer armor. This way you can switch to Bosmer and start creating those items for 75% of the experience points you've earned with the Imperial items you just created.

Deconstructing the items will grant you half the amount of experience as creating it.

Items you find in chests and such, will grant you the maximum xp at all times (i.e. 2000 xp for level 50 body armor), depending on the level of the item. This will make exploration and chesthunting extra worthwhile for crafters.

Using traits in items will grant a total of 20% extra experience points. So an item which normally grants 500 xp, will than grant 600 xp.

Creating special set items will grant 200% xp, degrading of xp earned will apply here as well.


EXPERIENCE POINTS NEEDED

This system can only work when there are lots of experience points to be earned per level in crafting. Else it would be too easy to gain craftinglevels and we all want to have the feeling we're accomplishing something here!

level - xp needed

1-2: 2000
2-3: 4000
3-4: 8000
4-5: 16000
5-6: 32000
6-7: 64000
7-8: 128000
8-9: 256000
9-10: 512000

Furthermore, the itemlevels which you can create, should be matching the crafting level better or else you will be able to climb in level too fast. I'm only using the crafting of items here, but you will most probably deconstruct them as well, which will result in the need of lesser items to gain a crafting level.

Craftinglevel 1-2 -> itemlevels 1-4 (40 items needed with 50 xp per item or create and deconstruct 30 items)
Craftinglevel 2-3 -> itemlevels 5-8 (54 items needed with 75 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 3-4 -> itemlevels 9-12 (80 items needed with 100 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 4-5 -> itemlevels 13-16 (128 items needed with 125 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 5-6 -> itemlevels 16-20 (230 items needed with 150 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 6-7 -> itemlevels 20-25 (320 items needed with 200 xp per item or create and deconstruct 220 items)
Craftinglevel 7-8 -> itemlevels 26-30 (320 items needed with 400 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 8-9 -> itemlevels 31-40 (426 items needed with 600 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 9-10 -> itemlevels 40-50 (512 items needed with 1000 xp per item)

As you can see, deconstructing your crafted items will be worth your while!
Numbers aren't 100% accurate, but you'll get the idea. I'm a gamer, not a scientist.


WHY THIS CHANGE?

1. It will give more diversity in terms of crafting, making it less boring, because you'll need to create all sorts of weapons and not just daggers or just helmets;
2. It will make crafting more realistic, since you'll learn more from creating different types and styles of items than by creating the same item over and over again;
3. It'll make exploration and chesthunting more viable, because the items contained in those chests will grant 100% of the itemlevel's experience.
4. You'll level up faster, but not too fast.

Feel free to respond on this, whether it be positive or negative. I'd love to see your idea on crafting in ESO. Is it like you wanted it to be all along or are you missing something? Do you have anything to add or would you like to see something differently?

Darastix

You dont need to make just daggers or trade with anyone to level blacksmithing, thats just what player do when their grinding and using the most efficent path To speed level.

clocksstoppe

you will level up faster with exponential increase in exp needed?
*** NO.

are you insane? post the graph for f(x)=2^x between 0 and 50 and you will see how horrible it gets.

NathanielFynn

Darastix, thanks for your reply. I know you don't need to make only daggers or trade with other players, but since it's the best way to level up crafting, most people (try to) do so. In my opinion the best way to earn experience should be by creating different types of items and not just 1 item, because it yields the most experience versus ingredients versus costs.
They could even implement an option in the game where you create better quality items, the more you make them, even when the item yields almost no experience anymore. Just another idea.

Salicrege

I level easily by deconstructing items, even white/gray ones! I have barely crafted any items. I'm level 27 and my BS, WW and tailoring are all on level 12 currently. Enchanting is level 6 since I just picked it up due to me having empty bag spade.

The downside to this is that you might have to visit a town pretty often to deconstruct your items and open up your bag space. Also you need to upgrade your bag and bank slots. A tip is to have two mounts aswell. One that you max speed and another with carry capacity.

The only items I currently craft are weapons if I feel the need of an upgrade which I seldom need. Rare quality(blue) items drop from Dark Anchors which spawn often. So a tip: save ur improvement materials as long as you can for later use on higher levels.

Good luck!

NathanielFynn

Clockstoppe, like I said, numbers are probably off. I'm a gamer, not a scientist. I don't know the current xp needed to level up crafting, so the numbers I used are somewhat random.
Furthermore, no, I'm not insane. Just enjoying the game, but not satisfied with the current crafting-system.
Last, but not least. Let's keep this topic friendly.

drachir11.rbb16_ESO

Your idea may harm players who craft to use so will mainly be crafting a handfull of items I craft full heavy armour, Swords and Woodwork my shields to gain full gear for my main Dragonknight, At later levels I dont want to waste materials being forced to power level to get back to creating my own armour.

failkiwib16_ESO

Waay too much math ...I haven't opened my precious bottle of chocolate liquor yet O.o I need to do some Sanguine worshipping before getting back to this thread ...bye for now

Emberheart

No. It's okay to take 3 subscription periods of a month before you're a Master Blacksmith. It's supposed to take 90 days on average to be THE smith to go to on your server. It doesn't need to hit the cap in a week. If you want it bad enough, grind it. And grind some more. And grab iron all around the coast of Stros M'kai. And gather ebony in Cyrodiil in advance. It's fine as it is.

hongsenyunub18_ESO

I have a suggestion for you. Level up your character and break down every useless heavy armor and weapon. You can gain a lot of XP by breaking down a white lv40+ item. My BlackSmith (BS) is 35 and I only created less than 10 items so far. I just broke every item useless to me, when I reach VR1 my BS is 35.

BTW, I am not native English speaker. I am Chinese.

Destabilizator

No need to craft a single thing, I have tons of mats sitting in bank and I am over usability of them already (lvl 12 smithing/clothing/woodworking, all just from deconsing).

Chalybos

Yep, shredding gear pays off handsomely. The dagger grind is ... a grind. Much more fun to kill, loot & deconstruct.

Delte

I don't like this idea, I am actively leveling alchemy and I am now at level 12 with it. I deconstruct weapons and armour and those skills are at about level 6 to 8 and my class level is

I also make my own weapons and armour and I have found that if I level up my crafting as I play the game there is no need to power level any crafting skill.

bbadeau

That's a good suggestion; however I tend to agree with those who think that the system is OK as it is. I'm sure the system will evolve over time anyway.

I'm wondering about the price system for items. It appears that adding traits and enchantments does not change the value of the item I'm crafting. This seems a bit silly to me. Adding value should increase value

NathanielFynn

Well, I'm level 10 and have done quite some blacksmithing, but it is stuck at level 6 because you get almost no xp whatsoever for creating items. I want to study items so I can learn to use traits, so I can't destroy everything I find. But since research takes ridiculous amounts of time, it's going slow as hell. Besides that, you don't get any xp for researching whatsoever, even though it takes huge amounts of time to complete. Strange I say and in my opinion, not very well balanced at all.

cadaoryn

I do like the fact you justified for English not being your native tongue then wrote a large post that is more grammatically correct than 99% of anything on a forum! Good on you, sir!

Heres why the BS skill is fine as is. While it does level slow, i can already craft max level gear at player level 24, with blacksmithing around the same level. The level of Blacksmithing isnt as vital as the level requirements of something like enchanting, since the only requiremwnt is to dump a skill point in the blacksmithing to craft with the higher tier mats. The people trading daggers are typically people with alts just getting their blacksmithing to level 3 so they can get a hireling. *flies away*