@ZOS, please add this to crafting

Lynx7386

I had an entire post written up and this [snip] forum lost it, so here's the condensed version:

Step 1 (Upper Left Corner)
The crafter has in his possession a level 22, rare-quality, dark-elf style maul.

Step 2 (Transition to upper right corner)
By adding the appropriate type of crafting material (in this case the level 16-24 material, steel), the crafter is able to upgrade the level of the item. This turns the item into a level 24, rare-quality, dark-elf style maul.
This step would require the correct passive skill point investment in crafting. In this case, you would need the Metalworking: II passive in the blacksmithing skill line, which allows you to use steel ingots to create level 16-24 items.

Step 3 (Transition to bottom right corner)
To ugprade between material brackets (from 24 to 26), the crafter adds the next type of material: in this case, the level 26-34 material, orichalcum. This turns the item into a level 26, rare-quality, dark-elf style maul.
This step would require the correct passive skill point investment in crafting. In this case, you would need the Metalworking: III passive in the blacksmithing skill line, which allows you to use orichalcum ingots to create level 26-34 items.

Step 4 (Transition to bottom left corner)
By adding a style crafting material (in this case the orc style material, manganese), the item maintains its stats but is converted to the desired appearance. This turns the item into a level 26, rare-quality, orc-style maul.
This step would require knowledge of the desired style, meaning you'd need to have used the orc racial motif to learn how to craft in the orc style.


What this accomplishes:

1. Crafters will no longer have to waste valuable upgrade materials (the materials used to upgrade an item's quality from common to fine, fine to rare, rare to epic, epic to legendary) when levelling up their character; instead, they can simply upgrade the item with base resources. Now, a player who has poured thousands of gold into a legendary veteran rank 14 weapon wont have to give up that weapon completely when he reaches veteran 15, or veteran 16; he can simply upgrade it to the next level with the materials found in the imperial city.

2. Crafters will be able to modify the appearance of an item, whether crafted, dropped, or received as a reward, to fit their characters. If a player gets the warlock set and doesnt like how it looks, he can use this system to alter it into, for example, khajiit light armor. This system is already present in-game in the form of the imperial edition upgrade, which allows players to convert any item into the imperial style. There's no reason it could not be applied to the crafting system in the manner proposed above.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing]

Korozenn

I like the idea of refining the same weapon by its level using the same material you crafted it with (in this case Steel Ingots) instead of having to waste more mats on making an entirely different weapon.

Don't agree with the next steps on the Orichalcum Ingot upgrading the weapon itself to a new tier or Coverting Item Style for existing weapons. Refining it with the same ingots as you did in the previous step makes sense but that does not as it is supposed to be an entirely different weapon than before, in my opinion.

dlepi24

Well, with this system I would just take one of the several master weapons I get from non-vet PvP each week and upgrade it all the way to v14. No reason to run vDSA anymore and I waste no gold mats.

Lynx7386

Reforging one item into another has been done throughout history to preserve valuable materials. You melt down one weapon and use the metal to make something in a different shape (style conversion), or you melt it down, temper the alloy with additional carbon or other metals, and then reforge it into a new weapon (material tier upgrading). If reforging hadnt been done, ancient empires would've run themselves dry of bronze, iron, and steel trying to make entirely new weapons and just discarding the old.

For that matter, when you deconstruct an item, you should generally get back most of what went into it. If you melt down a sword, you arent going to wind up with just enough metal to make a pocket knife, the material doesnt simply vanish into thin air (sublimation doesnt typically effect high temperature metals).

As an example, let's say we're crafting a veteran 14 nord greatsword. Here's what we'd need:
14 voidstone ingots (base material)
1 corundum (style material)
2 honing stones (Fine quality upgrade material)
3 dwarven oil (Rare quality upgrade material)
4 grain solvent (epic quality upgrade material)
9 tempering alloy (legendary quality upgrade material)

Now, I dont have current prices for console, but back before console release a tempering alloy would sell for 3.5k gold, a grain solvent for around 1k, dwarven oil for 500-800 each, honing stones around 100g each. Going by those prices, we're looking at around 38,000 gold worth of materials to craft that one greatsword.

Guess what you get back when you deconstruct it? If you're lucky, you'll get one tempering alloy, one corundum, and 3-5 voidstone ingots. That is an absolutely pathetic return for the cost required to create the item in the first place, and that's not even including the fact that you do not get back enchantment glyphs or runes on an enchanted item that you deconstruct. You've just spent 38k on an item that, when deconstructed, nets you 4k at the most, a 90% loss in value. If that kind of thing held up in material recycling today the world would've gone bankrupt years ago.


So now you have an option to add the ability to reforge an item, keeping it's quality level and type while changing appearance or item level. Perfectly reasonable, and any invested crafter playing this game would agree.

Lynx7386

dlepi24 wrote: »

Well, with this system I would just take one of the several master weapons I get from non-vet PvP each week and upgrade it all the way to v14. No reason to run vDSA anymore and I waste no gold mats.

That's a reasonable argument I hadnt considered, but it still only puts a kink in the material bracket upgrade suggestion. Still no reason to not have upgrading within the same material range, or changing an item's style.

ContraTempo

Lynx7386 wrote: »

I had an entire post written up and this [snip] forum lost it, so here's the condensed version:

Step 1 (Upper Left Corner)
The crafter has in his possession a level 22, rare-quality, dark-elf style maul.

Step 2 (Transition to upper right corner)
By adding the appropriate type of crafting material (in this case the level 16-24 material, steel), the crafter is able to upgrade the level of the item. This turns the item into a level 24, rare-quality, dark-elf style maul.
This step would require the correct passive skill point investment in crafting. In this case, you would need the Metalworking: II passive in the blacksmithing skill line, which allows you to use steel ingots to create level 16-24 items.

Step 3 (Transition to bottom right corner)
To ugprade between material brackets (from 24 to 26), the crafter adds the next type of material: in this case, the level 26-34 material, orichalcum. This turns the item into a level 26, rare-quality, dark-elf style maul.
This step would require the correct passive skill point investment in crafting. In this case, you would need the Metalworking: III passive in the blacksmithing skill line, which allows you to use orichalcum ingots to create level 26-34 items.

Step 4 (Transition to bottom left corner)
By adding a style crafting material (in this case the orc style material, manganese), the item maintains its stats but is converted to the desired appearance. This turns the item into a level 26, rare-quality, orc-style maul.
This step would require knowledge of the desired style, meaning you'd need to have used the orc racial motif to learn how to craft in the orc style.

Here are the 2 issues I see:

1. ZoS doesn't want to make it easier/cheaper to have great weapons. They WANT you to spend time farming gold and/or materials. That's how they get you to hang around and keep giving them money.
2. This is the real Pandora's box: ZoS has been very careful to only make dropped sets and items available at specific levels. With this idea you can upgrade ANY dropped set to any level higher than it started. Sets like Akatosh and Night's Mother would suddenly be available at any level above 43 and 23 respectively. They may as well make crafting stations to produce them.

I'm not saying I would not like it, but I seriously doubt ZoS would do it.

wildbear247

I like the OP's idea a lot. I would recommend some minor changes though.
1) Make players invest 1-2 skill points for the ability to upgrade gear from one level to the next.
2) Allow players to transfer their gear, even gear that is bound to an account (although the bound equipment would be unusable by other players). Example: a VR16 emails his VR14 legendary gear to a VR4 master crafter and pays the crafter to upgrade that VR14 gear to VR16. The VR4 master crafter then sends the upgraded gear back to the VR16 dude. Would be neat to attach a timeout feature to this so that the bound VR14 gear is automatically sent back to the original player.

So basically this would increase the investment a master crafter would have to make in skill points, but it would also increase the potential profit the crafter could make in game by upgrading other players gear. I think this would also allow players not interested in crafting (but that would like being able to upgrade their high level gear) an approach that means they don't have to invest skill points in crafting to get this benefit. Then the non-crafters can continue to invest skill points in other areas (skills that help more directly in PvE and PvP, for example).

Lynx7386

2) Allow players to transfer their gear, even gear that is bound to an account (although the bound equipment would be unusable by other players). Example: a VR16 emails his VR14 legendary gear to a VR4 master crafter and pays the crafter to upgrade that VR14 gear to VR16. The VR4 master crafter then sends the upgraded gear back to the VR16 dude. Would be neat to attach a timeout feature to this so that the bound VR14 gear is automatically sent back to the original player.

I dont think we'll ever see that happen, unfortunately.

Preyfar

Just require rare upgrade mats in the same vein as perfect roe to recondition and improve gear.