Suggestion: Improving Crafting and Incentivising Content

dvstansb14_ESO

ESO currently does a reasonable job of blending and balancing armor/weapon crafting with world-dropped sets. When creating a character build, there are pros and cons to each, and often a good build will involve mixing crafted and world-dropped pieces. One area that could be improved is the lack of style choice with world-drops and the resulting style constraints/clashes when mixed with other sets (crafted or otherwise).

On the one hand, some players may prefer the unique (and possibly rare) look of of a particular world-drop set, on the other, some may want the stats/perks of the set, but in a different cosmetic style - others may only want the look of a rare-drop, but with different stats. These trade-offs may be intentional, but I see them as negatives as they reduce the player's freedom of choice regarding armor builds. A good example is the "Elf Bane" set, which has very compelling stats for my main character, but is only available in the Argonian style, which I personally dislike.

My suggested solution is to use a method similar to the somewhat recent addition of dropping rare crafting styles via "motif pages". Rather than (or in addition to) dropping set pieces, a "single use schematic" for a piece could be dropped instead (or extracted from the piece by a crafter). With this schematic, a crafter could then build the corresponding armor piece that would be imbued with the stats/perks from the schematic, either in the style associated with the schematic or in whichever racial/rare style the crafter knows. Alternatively, the schematic could be used to to craft an armor piece at a unique crafting station to get the stats of that crafting station, but with the cosmetic style of the schematic. The schematic would act as a sort of style/bonus "material" in the crafting UI and would be consumed in the crafting process.

With this approach, we can retain the value of both world-drops and crafting while giving players more freedom to tailor their gear both functionally and cosmetically. By "value" I mean this incentivises existing and new content/DLC for both gear-drop players and crafting-oriented players in that both can receive rewards useful for their purposes. This seems like a win-win solution to me.

CirithValaria

Personally I would like to see 2 things:

1st.
This for crafters who like to craft their own sets and want to design their own unique looks from various options.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/121362/master-crafter-new-perk-for-crafting/p1

2nd.
Dyeable, overall better quality and more unique Crown Store costumes for those who want to: hide their undesired dropped set looks / want to hide their crafted armor since they don't want to use time designing their style / to hide sorcerers bound armor / disguise their true gear in pvp etc.

With this its a win-win for ZOS and for players.
Just my 2cents...

EDIT: By all means I'm not saying your idea is bad - it's well thought, solid and offers good customization options for dropped gear in a way that fits eso. + Insightful