Dear Devs- Crafting feedback

ConquerorDromtar

Dear Devs, I hope this reaches your ears for consideration in future crafting system changes. I think the game is currently at a precipice that could go either really well or really poorly for crafting and I'd like to give some feedback on perceived problems and potential solutions that could go a long way toward improving crafting in ESO. Like with many other system design choices I think crafting is great in concept and perceived intent, but took a left turn instead of right during implementation.

All concerns are my opinion, but also reflect opinions of the majority of my guild mates. All points come from both a player's and guild master's (me) point of view.

1. Crafters aren't builders, we're destroyers- The current inspiration (XP) rewards for deconstructing so greatly outweigh the rewards for making things that crafters have become deconstructing drones rather than creators. Every single (100%) member in my guild has at least one, more often two or three, *never used* crafting professions maxed out simply from deconstruction XP. While we appreciate the ability to level crafting professions in multiple ways, the situation as it stands seems totally backwards.

Solution: Please reverse the XP gains to reward making things more than deconstructing things. Making an item> deconstructing player made items > deconstructing world/dungeon/quest drops/rewards > deconstructing self made items, with higher quality (purple/blue etc) giving more XP than greens and whites for any given type.

2. Weapon and armor crafting is almost at the point of obsolescence- Overworld and dungeon drop sets are for all intents and purposes superior to crafted sets. The bonuses and ease of attaining sets like the Stormknight and Akaviri Dragonguard make them much more desirable than crafted sets; especially when a crafter needs 6+ traits known PER PIECE in order to make the crafted sets. I'm sorry to say this, but as it stands the researchable traits and craftable sets are pretty much useless except for bonuses like Mundus, Divines, and Training. The other traits have niche use, but they're generally a second tier deal and are easily passed up with little negative impact on play. Including the increased armor and crit resistance ones, and I'm primarily a tank…

Solution: Allow crafters to research and create sets available through over world, dungeon, PVP, and trial drops. Research would still require people to run this content and leaving the drop rewards as is would give people the option of attaining these weapons and armor through running content, buying off the market, or crafting for themselves. Furthermore, allowing people to eventually make these sets will help people gear up and prepare for new content if finding groups to run "has-been" content is too difficult or simply undesirable. Requiring research (that's on a timer) will keep crafted "bleeding edge" gear from flooding the market and give the people running progression content the opportunity to accumulate full sets of the "best" or most prestigious gear before crafters can flood the market. Finally, the decision to either use or deconstruct/research a piece of gear is significant, something the dev team has shown a desire to encourage.

twev

Agreements with above.
Crafting just isn't satisfying compared to the XP you get from crushing materials instead. It feels like learning to be a better artist by tearing someone else's paintings into shreds.
The creation process ought pay better.

To be honest, I have no clue what happens XP-wise when you try to improve a crafted item but fail?

I question not being able to research 2 items of the same type at the same time.

I get annoyed at having to decon good stuff now that I'd throw into long term research alongside another item already going, but in the same class. Wasting research time is just a PITA when you've got the mat in hand but still looking at another 70+ hours before you can screw it into place.

Zyaedra

I have to agree with both the OP and twev.

I have also been wrestling with a minor annoyance--why are the Keen Eye passives nested within the crafting tree abilities? The theme of these wonderful games is to learn while doing; however, I do not learn how to extract or spot nodes better by spotting and harvesting nodes, I learn them instead by crafting/deconstructing.

Natjur

End game, crafting is just about upgrading V12 drop sets to 'yellow'. The good thing, is you need NO skill to do this. Even a L1 crafter can upgrade an item to 'yellow'.

I have maxed all crafting skills except enchantment from just breaking items and never made anything except food and potions and the odd glyph. Provisioning and Alchemy are the only crafting in this game, the rest can be just renamed to 'upgrading'

poodlemasterb16_ESO

I have 6 traits on a lot of items. It took a while and a lot of destroying stuff. Dedicated crafters and a small army gathering stuff has made this possible. I'm doing this because I do understand the best crafting stations need all the traits and high end ones need a lot.

All my research crafters have points in time and multiple trait research. I'm playing a very long game.

Nearly all the stuff I use uses the enhance enchantment trait as my Enchanter is starting to get good.

The bow I made my son when he hit level 50 is still in use as a VR1 because he says he has not found a better one.

This is part of my expanding power base. I do this for me and my son now and I expect I will be very useful when several friends I have, start playing the game.

You want it easy.

Zyaedra

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

I have 6 traits on a lot of items. It took a while and a lot of destroying stuff. Dedicated crafters and a small army gathering stuff has made this possible. I'm doing this because I do understand the best crafting stations need all the traits and high end ones need a lot.

All my research crafters have points in time and multiple trait research. I'm playing a very long game.

Nearly all the stuff I use uses the enhance enchantment trait as my Enchanter is starting to get good.

The bow I made my son when he hit level 50 is still in use as a VR1 because he says he has not found a better one.

This is part of my expanding power base. I do this for me and my son now and I expect I will be very useful when several friends I have, start playing the game.

You want it easy.

I also have 6 traits on a lot of my items. I think the point the OP'er was trying to make with the researching part of their topic was that it takes a long time, people can just loot the other sets (faster) and upgrade them as Natjur described.

For me personally, I look forward to crafting and upgrading my stuff once I hit vr12. I just can't see crafting armor as anything but a money sink while leveling since I can replace damaged items with looted ones (for free) at any given time. I don't find repair cost worth keeping items.

I love the crafting game, but in ESO it feels barely worth it for armor. If crafted items had a significant leg up on repair cost (an innate lower chance of degrading and/or a lower repair cost), then I could see more people wanting armor crafted while leveling for more than just the look.

As for wanting it easy, I don't think anyone wants crafting in ESO to be easy/easier, we just want the effort to be well worth it.

ConquerorDromtar

Hey folks, I guess I wasn't as clear as I could have been, sorry for that. I don't want crafting to be any easier than it is now, if anything it's too easy as-is due to deconstruction granting more XP than construction.

1. I'd like to see the act of constructing something, aka actually crafting, earn a player more crafting XP than deconstructing looted items and deconstructing player-made gear earn more XP than deconstructing looted gear. Making this change would reward player effort and actual crafting over speed-clicking to deconstruct looted items.

2. Research- It became abundantly clear to me early in the game that looted sets are more desirable than crafted sets due to their bonuses. That seems wrong in my mind. I'm asking that crafters be able to research, on their normal timer, the ability to make sets there are currently only available via world drops. My maxed out Blacksmith heavy-armor-wearing melee DK used items from the Akaviri Dragonguard, Stormknight, and Knightmare world drop sets rather than anything he could make. Why? The bonuses were better than what he could make or have made.

I'd love the ability to take world drop set pieces, research them, and be able to craft those set pieces for myself and guildies. The awesome things about the research mechanic is that it would require someone to be running PVE content (the crafter?) in order to initially obtain said gear. On top of that, the timer on research is an intrinsic time delay making obtaining world/dungeon/trial drop pieces via looting faster and a tangible reward for those running said content. That seems like a win-win in my book.

Ralph_Damiani

What's most disappointing to me is how sets stop changing appearance. We need to be able to craft things that look more epic and varied. Later materials from the same motifs have very little visual difference between them. Not talking about oversized stuff, simply more ornamental armor, cosmetic items, etc.

We also need to be able to craft superior items from ANY type of material when you reach level 50, so you can go back to early level stuff, but with veteran level stats.

I'm not bothered at all by deconstructing things in order to learn them. It kinda makes sense, picking things apart to improve your knowledge of the craft, and that's what made crafting accessible to everyone. I never bothered with this aspect of the game in other MMO's, I simply can't be bothered with another timesink/grind. But this way, it's a natural part of disposing of unwanted loot. It's more rewarding than being given vendor trash.

Oevaag_Bur

I'm 100% behind you on your first point. It's completely backwards in my eyes too.

You're second point. I'm not so sure there.

My initial thought was "ye, that'd be pretty cool". Then I thought, "what would be the point in killing stuff/doing dungeons if you could just find a crafter to make it for you eventually ?". Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to be able to craft myself a soulshine set just now for example but my second thought just puts me off the idea in general just now.

I actually like some of the crafted sets. I generally run with 5 parts Lamae and 3 parts seducer (with the obligatory 3 part warlock for jewelry ofc). I switch 3 part seducer for 3 part whitestrake when tanking sometimes and I'll likely carry a 3 part hunding and/or a 3 part willow's once I have six traits in all BS armour next week too. Just to cover a couple more extra bases

The rest of the sets I see though.... ESPECIALLY the 8 part ones. Is it just me or are they all a bit......"meh" ? Not only in comparison to dropped sets but to the ones I've already listed as ones I use too ? Speaking as a Templar tank/heal btw before someone jumps in saying "such and such a set is best for dk/nb/sorc) I'd really like to see them redo ALL the 8 trait crafted sets and make them more group orientated. Things like adding health/mana/stam to everyone when in a group or triggering a mana regen or the like. Might actually encourage some not doing it already to do so

I'd, personally, prefer to see a system where a crafter could upgrade the dropped sets to match your level somehow. Have it cost TONS of materials 100/200+ of level required bars) along with 10 gems to keep the existing trait or 20/30 gems to add a trait to an item with none. Same to match colours (quality). So tons of honing stones/hemming etc for a green and so on. Incrementally raising the mat requirements as the levels increase. This would actually give us a use for all those bars etc we have in our banks as opposed to running off the most expensive item we can to vendor when we have too much ^^

BirdUp

Willow's Path set kicks a$$. It works hard for you 18 hrs out of every 24 hr in game day.

Other craftable sets work well too. One client of mine keeps asking for more Seducer's peices. Whatever works for that player's build is fine w/ me.

But, I have a horrible confession to make: I usually wear a thrice-cursed dropped set piece on my person: a Cowl of the Warlock. This is mainly due to the fact that the Warlock set is unbelievably awesome, and I need one accessory slot to help compensate for... a certain unfortunate aversion to fire.

Edit to say: during the 25% of game day time that my Willow's is not acting as a near permanent blue drink buff... I'm one weapon swap away from 5 piece Willow's, 3 piece Lamae <-- wpn swap --> 3 piece Willow's, 5 piece Lamae.