Egalitarianism and Guild Crafting Locations

Wreuntzylla · August 2014

As I understand it, you can't craft Mage and Fighter guild sets unless you complete the respective guild quest lines. Every other aspect of craft leveling is setup so that if all you want to do is craft, you can do that, even if you remain level 1. It isn't easy, but it's dooable, especially when part of a guild.

Assuming the internets are correct, this should be changed. Allow porting to group mates for guild crafting stations!

Tarukmockto · August 2014

Not a chance. Just like you need to earn skill points to craft increasingly better items. You need to earn Eyevea and Earth Forge rights.

Isibis · August 2014

And after that they would have to let lvl 5s port to craglorn as well, because if they get Eyevea why not Arena Set? I think the system is well balanced now. You can be a great weaponsmith if you stay home, but if you want to be the best you'll just have to go out there and bash some heads.

zgrssd · August 2014

If you want to be a cafter, you pretty much have to go past level 3 (that is what you have after the toutorial).
You need the Skillpoints from Skyshards and quests to make proper gear. And the best way to get them is to level the character normally (for PvE) at the side.

Note that right now you cannot combine every craft in one char. The inventory requirements are just too high right now
I have one for Blacksmithing+Clothing+Woodworking. That one can even do some PvE between bag upgrades and fully upgraded pack horse (that are also the crafts wich have set bonuses).
I got a provision mule, that currently needs a upgraded imperial horse to even do that part.
And a mule/crafter for alchemy and enchanting. I try to get her a Pack horse so she can go on adventures a bit (she is my evil AD character).

Srugzal · August 2014

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

As I understand it, you can't craft Mage and Fighter guild sets unless you complete the respective guild quest lines. Every other aspect of craft leveling is setup so that if all you want to do is craft, you can do that, even if you remain level 1. It isn't easy, but it's dooable, especially when part of a guild.

Assuming the internets are correct, this should be changed. Allow porting to group mates for guild crafting stations!

First of all, your premise is impossible. You cannot get out of Wailing Prison without at least getting to level 3. There is no such thing as a level 1 toon, not in any practical sense.

This means that you have a minimum of 3 skill points. You can't do much crafting without more skill points, so no, there is no such thing as a "crafting character." Once you finish leveling your character (by that I mean finish the Main Quest or at least get to VR1), you can retire it to the crafting bench and stop the gear chase, but you have to level to be able to craft anything better than noob gear. You can deconstruct all of tamriel and have level 50 in all crafts and still not be able to craft anything of importance because you need 15+ skill points to max a crafting skill (don't remember the exact number). You can retire sooner, but you won't have access to the Guild stations, Coldharbour, or Craglorn. Those are earned. That is, theoretically, what makes them potentially valuable.

So even if you could port to a player in a quest-locked area like the Prismatic Forge, you're not going to be able to do anything once you get there. And never mind the time trait research takes without maxing the research passive. You do know those are 8 trait stations, right? As are all of the stations in Coldharbour and Craglorn?

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · August 2014

Srugzal wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

As I understand it, you can't craft Mage and Fighter guild sets unless you complete the respective guild quest lines. Every other aspect of craft leveling is setup so that if all you want to do is craft, you can do that, even if you remain level 1. It isn't easy, but it's dooable, especially when part of a guild.

Assuming the internets are correct, this should be changed. Allow porting to group mates for guild crafting stations!

First of all, your premise is impossible. You cannot get out of Wailing Prison without at least getting to level 3. There is no such thing as a level 1 toon, not in any practical sense.

This means that you have a minimum of 3 skill points. You can't do much crafting without more skill points, so no, there is no such thing as a "crafting character." Once you finish leveling your character (by that I mean finish the Main Quest or at least get to VR1), you can retire it to the crafting bench and stop the gear chase, but you have to level to be able to craft anything better than noob gear. You can deconstruct all of tamriel and have level 50 in all crafts and still not be able to craft anything of importance because you need 15+ skill points to max a crafting skill (don't remember the exact number). You can retire sooner, but you won't have access to the Guild stations, Coldharbour, or Craglorn. Those are earned. That is, theoretically, what makes them potentially valuable.

So even if you could port to a player in a quest-locked area like the Prismatic Forge, you're not going to be able to do anything once you get there. And never mind the time trait research takes without maxing the research passive. You do know those are 8 trait stations, right? As are all of the stations in Coldharbour and Craglorn?

First, the hordes of level 2 RMT bots infesting the game 'back in the day' show you're wrong about a minimum level.

Second, even a level 3 can gather all over-world shards in their starting faction with care and some luck or making use of the fact other players clear mobs away from a few that can be a tad tricky.

Thus a level 3 can get 3 shards per zone and in my experience of running lowbies (level 10 or so) through this content several underground shards are also going to be obtainable with luck.

I reckon a level 3 could easily get 15 shards without any real help at all and likely one or two more at least.

Srugzal · August 2014

fromtesonlineb16_ESO wrote: »

First, the hordes of level 2 RMT bots infesting the game 'back in the day' show you're wrong about a minimum level.

Bots under programmatic control... an exception, not to mention an aberration. You could also do "travel to player" I suppose, and escape WP too. Why you would want to do this, I don't know. You miss those skill points anyway, so it wouldn't make sense to do this if you want to avoid leveling. And why avoid leveling anyway, it's so easy at that point in the game.

Second, even a level 3 can gather all over-world shards in their starting faction with care and some luck or making use of the fact other players clear mobs away from a few that can be a tad tricky.

I will concede that yes, you can do this if you set up starting conditions that are entirely favorable, group with advanced players, and somehow manage to survive both the public and the group dungeons and make no mistakes in the meantime. It just beggars belief that anyone would actually do this. It's just a silly suggestion.

Thus a level 3 can get 3 shards per zone and in my experience of running lowbies (level 10 or so) through this content several underground shards are also going to be obtainable with luck.

I reckon a level 3 could easily get 15 shards without any real help at all and likely one or two more at least.

That's only 5 skill points, not nearly enough. I'm talking about 15 points, not shards. but so some people with too much time on their hands might try this. Show us the video, I'll make popcorn.

However, that certainly doesn't make the hirelings viable, and some advanced improvement mats will never be seen, since they linked the hirelings to toon level.

And yet somehow I get the feeling that your whole reply is a troll, and I've fallen for it. HAHA, good one. ;-)

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · August 2014

Srugzal wrote: »

Second, even a level 3 can gather all over-world shards in their starting faction with care and some luck or making use of the fact other players clear mobs away from a few that can be a tad tricky.

I will concede that yes, you can do this if you set up starting conditions that are entirely favorable, group with advanced players, and somehow manage to survive both the public and the group dungeons and make no mistakes in the meantime. It just beggars belief that anyone would actually do this. It's just a silly suggestion.

I've done it on 4 characters, and the vast majority of over-world shards can be obtained without anyone else around, it depends on your faction how many are guarded by mobs that you can't sneak past, maybe a couple of so at worst. Worst you can do is die and have to come back and try again.

For example, in the whole of the DC faction there is only 1 over-world shard that is impossible to get solo under-level due to it being too close to mobs to be able to interact with without getting attacked, it's in the south east of Bankorai.

My reference to other players was more talking about dungeons, but even if you're alone it's often possible to outrun/drop aggro from mobs.

I do it because it's fun and I build up a good stock of SPs before I begin to level the characters, but it's also very viable to build crafters.

Tarukmockto · August 2014

@fromtesonlineb16_eso:
I guess I can see the challenge in trying to collect as many shards as you can without leveling, but once you've done it on one toon I don't see the point in doing it repeatedly.

It seems like you are working really hard at not having to work for the shards through normal leveling.

@zgrssd:
My main is VR6 and has all crafting at 50 except Enchanting at lvl 39. It took some resource shuffling on a couple of alt toons to get there, but it's absolutely do-able on one character. I had Alchemy & Provisioning to 50 by lvl 10 and finished Wood, Clothing & Blacksmithing before hitting VR1.

I'm still researching, but have 8 traits on all wood and 7 traits on everything else. It's down to the last trait and the months it will take to get through them!

Srugzal · August 2014

Tarukmockto wrote: »

@fromtesonlineb16_eso:
I guess I can see the challenge in trying to collect as many shards as you can without leveling, but once you've done it on one toon I don't see the point in doing it repeatedly.

It seems like you are working really hard at not having to work for the shards through normal leveling.

@zgrssd:
My main is VR6 and has all crafting at 50 except Enchanting at lvl 39. It took some resource shuffling on a couple of alt toons to get there, but it's absolutely do-able on one character. I had Alchemy & Provisioning to 50 by lvl 10 and finished Wood, Clothing & Blacksmithing before hitting VR1.

I'm still researching, but have 8 traits on all wood and 7 traits on everything else. It's down to the last trait and the months it will take to get through them!

Grats on this. As someone with 4 crafting alts who has struggled to level everything (not Alchemy, that was easy) and still hasn't finished, I think I can appreciate your achievement, so bravo to you.

poodlemasterb16_ESO · August 2014

I really like taking my low level crafters into ... interesting ... territory. My level 18 Blacksmith was 12 when he got to Bangkorai and it was a pile of fun getting around, discovering stations, and farming mats.

My Enchanter was 12 for along time and although I don't need to go places I have leveled him to 16 now, really so he could go read books. Got level 20 that way after a lot of reading.

My lead is VR1 and she does clothing and wood and is self sufficient. A Vampire Sorc.

Soloeus · August 2014

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

As I understand it, you can't craft Mage and Fighter guild sets unless you complete the respective guild quest lines. Every other aspect of craft leveling is setup so that if all you want to do is craft, you can do that, even if you remain level 1. It isn't easy, but it's dooable, especially when part of a guild.

Assuming the internets are correct, this should be changed. Allow porting to group mates for guild crafting stations!

And what are you going to craft at level 1 without putting perks in the skill lines?

Wreuntzylla · August 2014

I had guildies run me through dungeons for some skill points. Took very little time overall, in small chunks (as the crafts leveled), using the teleport to player option. We also set our PvP server to an empty one to easily farm the cyrodiil skyshards.

Initially, I had 2 toons per craft (~doubling up on crafts per toon) to get to 8 traits quickly. In some cases I am now quadrupled up. I don't recall the math exactly but if you spec into only what you need to actually make a traited piece of gear on every toon but a main crafter (e.g., avoid improvement upgrade skills, decon skills, keen eye, etc.), it doesn't take very many skillpoints. There are, I think, 28 alliance skyshard skillpoints and 15 in cyrodiil.

It's a pain in the rump moving multiple crafters to a station to make a particular set, and then moving the gear to the main crafter for improvement, etc., but it is worth it for a guild crafter. Theoretically, I think it should take you something like a maximum of 230 days to research all traits on one toon and 50ish to be able to make specific sets. I'm pulling these numbers out of a faulty memory bank so don't quote me, but I have the exact calculations written down somewhere.

The more concurrent crafters, the quicker you get there. In my case, it looks like roughly 3 months for all traits. You would have to be absolutely perfect to have the right traits at exactly the right time to get through in the minimum number of days, which would require a large, supportive guild - mine is a small supportive guild. In fact, only 4-5 people significantly contributed to the effort.

Leveling so many crafters is very time consuming but achieves the end goal. However, if you can't get to the crafting station, it makes the effort pointless.

As a sidenote, you only have to level crafters to 40 to make everything in a craft. My mains are 50, the rest in their 40's.