Crafting is completely cheapened....

Fahrice · April 2014

....by the fact that adventurers can reach max level in a crafting profession (wood/metal/cloth) faster than a crafter who is 100% focused on their trade without ever crafting a single item.

The Elder Scrolls has always been about getting better at something by doing it. When Daggerfall was released in 1996, Bethesda talked about this concept and made comments like "we always wondered how someone got better at picking locks by killing monsters" in reference to the D20-style experience system where you just level up and get experience. That is why they created the Major/Minor skill system that has been used in some form or another since then. It just makes SENSE.

So why can someone become the best, most awesome crafter possible, with every skill, without ever having crafted a SINGLE item?? How is that even possible??

I played 16 hours a day every single day of the 5 day early access - the *entire* time focused only on crafting in the most efficient manner possible, and sacrificing adventuring/questing to do so. By this past Sunday I just managed to hit 40 (43 now), and yet there were level VRx adventurers at that time who had already maxed out multiple crafting professions simply by farming mobs and deconstructing the items. Seriously?!

Let me make this clear - I'm in a 100% crafting-focused guild. I had access around the clock not only to other crafters to make items for me to deconstruct, but people sending me materials to help speed me along. The absolute, 100%, without a doubt fastest way to level is deconstructing items. If you're a pure crafter, that means teaming up and deconstructing items crafted by the other person. And apparently if you don't give a hoot about crafting, you can just level up adventuring and go ahead and get max crafting with almost no effort.

Why ZOS? Why in the world would you make it so that dedicated pure crafters get shafted and have their experience completely trivialized and cheapened by allowing people who didn't put in the time and effort to be able to do what we do?

Why can't I have a VR1 adventure level as a bonus for the 4 days /played I had at the end of early access like those VR1s got a free max level crafter - again, without EVER crafting a single item??

What's the point of me focusing on crafting with the hope that I can make a sacrifice of questing and adventuring in order to get a skill that I will then be able to market to high level adventurers/pvpers - only to find out that they can already do it themselves?

I feel completely demoralized by this and that I just wasted a week of my vacation for nothing.

/sad face

That being said, I really think you guys should consider putting in some mechanism to address this. Find another way to encourage crafters to work together that makes it so deconstructing items doesn't give more than DOUBLE the xp as creating an item yourself, or make it so that you only get that awesome xp if you deconstruct a *crafted* item, not world drops. Sure, keep the mats that can be had from world drop deconstruction, but even the chance of that should be tied to a crafting skill/level that can only be acquired by ACTUALLY CRAFTING.

That is all I suppose. I'm sure I'm going to get flamed to hell for this. Oh well.

Ysne58 · April 2014

I believe you may be comparing apples to oranges there. The VR people are finding higher level armor and weapons to deconstruct, which will give them more experience. Some of them have probably gotten the same kind of help you have. I seriously doubt they have only done deconstructing.

I'm playing 4 character on each server with one character doing all crafts and the others only deconstructing weapons and armor. Because they are only level 6 to 8, they are at best finding an occasional green item or two. The crafting skills they practice are between 2 and 3. Provisioning is the fastest moving skill. Since the other 3 characters put all provisioning, alchemy and enchanting materials in the bank, the crafter does get some experience without having to go out and look. Long term, she is going to be lower level than the others because she doesn't go adventuring as often.

Mr_Muggles · April 2014

Lore-wise, they are in fact taking part in artisan skills by deconstructing items. If you've ever heard of reverse engineering, that's what they're doing; they're getting a good item and taking it apart to see how it was made. That knowledge would assist you in being able to make good versions of that item yourself.

Censorious · April 2014

As a 'real life' crafter (hobby silversmith) I know how important it is to examine examples of other people's work to see how it was designed and constructed. Otherwise, you simply keep making the same pieces over-and-over and never learn anything new. Sweat-shop work.

The really good advances come from putting together ideas gathered from several sources. They don't just pop into your head out of nothing.

I would say the system is a fairly close approximation to reality.

mattriddle · April 2014

I will say, if people got just as much exp crafting than deconstructing, they'd just farm the materials, and then sit in town and grind craft to max level in one go. At least with deconstructing, you have to have enough items, and when you run out, go questing to get more items. It gets you moving around, or at least a bunch of players sending stuff to you in the mail.

I know it's weird to understand, but it makes sense that the developers wouldn't want the same scenario found in every other MMO. I've seen so many of those guides to max crafting level. "Get X of these items, craft 5 of these, 10 of these, you'll be at crafting level 10 now, then get X of these tier 2 items, craft 5 of these, 10 of these." It's just so boring that way.

katamuro11b16_ESO · April 2014

Dont forget that some people might be actually living in the game, or have several people playing the same char 24/7 to max out stuff. Plus there were always the weird balance issues in TES games, its nothing new and maybe in time they might fix it.

Azarul · April 2014

I somewhat agree with this. I am level 34 and have deconstructed everything I find and have crafted nothing. I am level 17+ in all 3 wood/cloth/blacksmith.

Nazon_Katts · April 2014

Ysne58 wrote: »

I believe you may be comparing apples to oranges there. The VR people are finding higher level armor and weapons to deconstruct, which will give them more experience.

This right there is the problem. High level items net you a tremendous amount of inspiration. And this even, if you have not a gained a level in that profession at all. This, paired with inflationary item drops during leveling, makes low level crafting useless.

There's really just no point pursuing it before you hit the veteran levels. And that's a damn disheartening realization when you've put that much time in crafting alone.

andrantos · April 2014

Zenimax may have been smart by putting an emphasis on deconstructing items. Simply, this removes items from the economy.

If it was the usual design that encourages crafters to grind out massive amounts of product, resources would be more contested and the market would be flooded with product.

The best crafters will be more invested into their craft skills. Dedicated crafters will likely have more traits researched, have a larger deserve of tempers, etc...

While the game has a large number of skill points, every point spent in crafting skills is not spent on combat abilities. Simply, some players will not want to invest too heavily in crafting traits.