Crafters getting the shaft

Silver_Strider

Crafters are getting the shaft?
Wait, does that mean Arrow Crafting will be a thing now?
Will bow finally be a viable front bar now?

YAY FOR CRAFTERS!!!

#sarcasm

Riejael

Artemiisia wrote: »

the reason people dont need crafters, is that they can make it themselves, or get friends to do it.

I haven't paid for a crafting set ever, neither have my friends

I think you touched on a bigger issue people are forgetting.

Crafting in ESO is easy. It doesn't take anything but time, but time in the background. Its one of those things that eventually happens, not something you have to actively work on.

Here's how it works:

1. Make a new character.
2. Do quests, dungeons, dolmens, or however you wish to get to 50/160
3. Instead of vendoring equipment, decon it.
4. Research traits you don't have

If you do those 4 steps with Blacksmithing, Woodworking, and Clothing. You will be 50 in those skills, and you will have all 9 traits eventually. There's literally no extra work involved. As a by product you will also have all the mats you need.

Since that's all that is needed, why doesn't everyone have a character that can do all the crafts? Doing so means you can make all of your gear yourself. You can upgrade dropped sets to gold yourself. What do you need anyone else for? I mean its as simple as going to one of three crafting benches instead of just vendoring the gear for less than a quest gives.

Its not like this in other MMOs. Where crafting is another playstyle entirely. Where you have to go out and compete with others for gathering nodes and spend time getting mats. Did you notice not ANYWHERE did I say to gather mats in those 4 steps? Decon takes care of that.

The ease of crafting makes it an unmarketable set of skills to focus on. I mean there is still a market for it as there are players who are either Naive and Ignorant to the system, new and don't have access to traits, or simply can't be bothered. But it doesn't include the entire playerbase as it does in other games.

I hate to say this.. but Crafting skills are simply another set of skills used as a set of passives for your character. Just like spending points in Legerdemain or Soul Magic. Pretty much a skill point dump. I don't believe it was intended to be anything else.

But if anyone can find a better use for those skill points, by all means spend them elsewhere.

Bladefyre

Iselin wrote: »

I still say the best solution is to let crafters learn how to craft dropped sets by deconstructing their pieces or some other high crafting level skill similar to deconstructing.

Methinks this would definitely be an amenable solution. I'd say limit the opportunity to deconstruct and learn drop set pieces to max CP (at the time of learning) 8 trait or > crafters and make the chance to learn the pattern/recipe (?) relatively small. This would provide opportunity to introduce passives or items that improve the "to learn chance" at a later time.

I'd also suggest adding in a craftable "something" that enables trait changing. So after weeks of "farming" to get that divines piece and you still haven't gotten it, you can use this "something" to change an item's trait. This "something" should be relatively costly to make and/or require rare materials of course.

This should more than make crafting more worthwhile in my opinion.

Aisle9

A lot of people don't seem to get it, and those who do, many are playing for so long, they just forgot.

Leveling up the skill is quick.

Researching the all the traits takes 1+ year, and that is if you're maxed out with SP spent in the skill.
Yes, in background. Yes, you don't need to do anything (except marking your calendar when that piece of research will be done, so you don't waste time).
Still, it takes 1+ year.

That is an investment. You are actively investing in the game, sure, by doing nothing, sure, in background, but, still you're investing.

And it's 1 year of your life. Forget about money, time is the most precious thing you can give someone. People seem to forget, but it is.

Please stop saying it's not a big deal. It is, it's a pretty big deal.

Back in the days nirnhoned was the best trait, now it's sharpened. What's the point of researching nirnhoned, other than making TBS (which you can buy, if you only need once) ?

That said, deconstructing and learning the enchantment has been a thing since forever lore-wise, so, it's not that far fetched. You break the thing, you learn the enchantment, you can make it.

Having special crafting benches, like all the other sets, should also be fairly easy to implement, probably the easiest solution.

BUT

It's a common thing for BiS gear drop from raids, so, I'm not in favor of having stuff like VO crafted. Same with monster sets, some things should drop from dungeons, the same way you can't decon enchants from daedric artifacts, for instance.

IMHO trial sets should drop from trials, and that's it. Everything else, with the exception of monster sets, hell yeah. Having the benches at the end of the dungeon makes it that you have to complete the dungeon.

PvP crafters or lowbies can do it normal mode and still be able to access them.

Jimbullbee85

Jewelary crafting for players with all research complete? Could charge a fortune for crafting those.

cyberjanet

Why does anyone think I'm going to spend all those crowns on a crown store motif when I have no reason to use it? I don't even buy motifs ingame any more. If one drops for me, I'll use it, but why spend money?

I'm not putting skill points into speeding up trait learning either, does it really matter if it takes me nine months to learn one? Ok, 60 days or whatever. Crafting is now just for gear to level in, and even then I hear people giving out advice like "oh, just level in anything you pick up, it doesn't matter." yeah, HUGE incentive to craft.

Even ZoS Support has said to me BIS for endgame is drops. Pity it's all ugly as hell. Pity the costumes aren't all that great either. I can wear the guild tabard, I guess.

SickDuck

As much as I would love to see great crafting, it's hard to see it happening. The problem is ESO's very liberal levelling and skill system. Getting all crafting skills to 50 is ridiculously easy and quick. Same for getting all passives to be a master crafter. It requires some skill points but there's more than enough. Not to mention the option to spread crafting over different toons or just use skill resetting before crafting new gear (since it's not that frequent). Bottom line is thanks to the game's flexibility it's easy to have your own crafter, no need for real commitment.

Now you can say that getting all traits are hard but they are not. It requires some time but not much effort. The problem with that it discriminates new players which is something ZOS seem to work against. Other issue is there are loads of people having all-9 traits for a year or two. Once you get there you can make anything without further effort. Materials are easy to get and cheap.

You don't even need all items to be researched. Head and shoulders can be skipped initially because of monster sets. Not many people crafting frost staff either. Only a few sets need 8-9 traits, you can do useful stuff even with 6 traits researched. It doesn't take much to hop on this wagon and once you're on, you're on forever.

The reason crafting is still viable that it provides quick and cheap gears that can be used to all content. Not BiS but good enough to get involved without the need to grind or buy stuff. The only thing I find unreasonable about crafting is the cp160 material increase. It had a reason long time ago which does not stand anymore. Cp160 crafting should not scale differently than the rest.

The other reason crafting is still viable because it does not provide BiS gear. Currently people can't be arsed to make the effort since it costs a little to pay someone for a convenience. Buff crafting and everyone will find a way to be self-sustaining. Make crafting gear BiS and a whole lot of gameplay will become rewardless again as before 1T.

Brrrofski

Aisle9 wrote: »

A lot of people don't seem to get it, and those who do, many are playing for so long, they just forgot.

Leveling up the skill is quick.

Researching the all the traits takes 1+ year, and that is if you're maxed out with SP spent in the skill.
Yes, in background. Yes, you don't need to do anything (except marking your calendar when that piece of research will be done, so you don't waste time).
Still, it takes 1+ year.

That is an investment. You are actively investing in the game, sure, by doing nothing, sure, in background, but, still you're investing.

And it's 1 year of your life. Forget about money, time is the most precious thing you can give someone. People seem to forget, but it is.

Please stop saying it's not a big deal. It is, it's a pretty big deal.

Back in the days nirnhoned was the best trait, now it's sharpened. What's the point of researching nirnhoned, other than making TBS (which you can buy, if you only need once) ?

That said, deconstructing and learning the enchantment has been a thing since forever lore-wise, so, it's not that far fetched. You break the thing, you learn the enchantment, you can make it.

Having special crafting benches, like all the other sets, should also be fairly easy to implement, probably the easiest solution.

BUT

It's a common thing for BiS gear drop from raids, so, I'm not in favor of having stuff like VO crafted. Same with monster sets, some things should drop from dungeons, the same way you can't decon enchants from daedric artifacts, for instance.

IMHO trial sets should drop from trials, and that's it. Everything else, with the exception of monster sets, hell yeah. Having the benches at the end of the dungeon makes it that you have to complete the dungeon.

PvP crafters or lowbies can do it normal mode and still be able to access them.

It's not a big deal. It's a year, yeh, and when it's done it's nice. But it isn't work. It's happening g while you go play the game. There isn't a reason for anyone who has been playing for a year to NOT be a crafter.

The only sort of hard bit is getting nirn. But that's cheap enough anyway.

Khaos_Bane

billp_ESO wrote: »

For crafting to be important in an MMO, the best items have to be crafted.

If you want to have a gear grind, then let bosses, etc, drop mats that crafters can use to make the best items. DO NOT DROP THE ITEMS DIRECTLY.

Sad how few MMO's get this right.

This, and people have been saying this for years. ZoS even misses the most basic concepts of good itemization in MMOs. Gear is a disorganized mess in ESO.

Riejael

Brrrofski wrote: »

It's not a big deal. It's a year, yeh, and when it's done it's nice. But it isn't work. It's happening g while you go play the game. There isn't a reason for anyone who has been playing for a year to NOT be a crafter.

The only sort of hard bit is getting nirn. But that's cheap enough anyway.

This.

You spend a year working up crafting which pretty much runs itself.

Getting dropped sets don't drop themselves. And you can't simply buy them either.

Iselin

Bontox wrote: »

Is this game on the path to become a gear-drop grinding game like Diablo 3 (*sigh*)?

There's no question that this game gets a lot, and I mean A LOT of its inspiration from D3.

• Slot a limited number of skills from a much larger pool of available skills? Check
• Earn Champion Points with high level characters and apply the CP to all characters in your account? Check
• Armor set bonuses? Check
• Armor set procs that take the place of additional skills? Check
• Loot goblins that appear and must be chased through crowds of mobs in the Imperial City? Check

At least we don't have Candyland goblin portals... yet.

boom782

Personally I don't think crafters should be able to craft BiS gear because it requires no skill.

BUT I do agree people who put tons of time into crafting should have a benefit so what about being able to craft non-tradeable armor that benefits stuff like crafting, alchemy, and other skills. Imagine being able to make a set of armor that while wearing it allows you to upgrade a piece of armor to gold for only 4 temps instead of 8. OR yields 6-8 potions instead of your typical 4.

Give crafters crafting benefits. But I don't think crafters should be able to make armor that is better than what drops in vmol for example if they cannot beat vmol.

mlstevens42_ESO

It doesn't take that much more work if you want to call it that to get armor or weapons from most of the things in game. Nor does it take all that long to level up and have max usable cp. All it takes really is time and not all that much either. You would be able to start from scratch on a new toon and be leveled to 50 within a week. Maybe take a short bit if you play regular like to get to the current cap for cp. Maybe a couple of months...and in that time you would be able to gear up without ever touching a crafted piece of gear. The person trying to level a crafter will still be learning traits at this point so time invested isn't really a way to convince me it doesn't need to be looked at.

The argument that bis has to be something one kills for is stupid. It makes crafting at all irrelevant. I get it everyone can if they so desire make a crafter. Why bother? There is plenty of dropped stuff to get ya by until you start doing dungeons and then you can get your bis stuff from them.

Sure crafted armor can be nice especially since you get to pick what it looks like and the traits you want, but by in large most people do not need it. Further there is all that time to get every item to 9 traits and having to dash all over to make the stuff in a particular set type and lets not get into collecting all of the motifs. Some motifs you can grab pretty easy by just playing the game but many are fairly expensive either in gold or time spent in order to get them. Even so the skill remains by in large not worth the effort of gaining it.

This is why the suggestions of making crafting more useful and something more consistent then the one time you get 160 cp gear or what not.

UO had ways of sparking interest in crafted gear due to varying stats on pieces made or gathered from mobs. There were ways to enhance gear once. Further with the degrading of armor the crafter was needed for repairs. I know we here in eso all have the capability to make our own stuff. UO limited the ability of someone to do everything by limiting how many points you had to distribute to all skills combined. Therefore someone dedicated to their craft was more likely.

The only things different about someone who just make s a bit of gear for themselves and a dedicated crafter in this game is if one has all traits done and all motifs current learned. After this is accomplished there is nothing new to strive for...at least in UO there were customers beating down your door if you were a good smith dedicated tailor or carpenter.

Again I do understand that some would rather just fight mobs or people and they enjoy doing what they do. I like big game hunting myself.....I also enjoy being a crafter in games. Just not this one. I don't spend much time actually crafting anything. I spend far more time running about trying to get new chapters to the newest motifs. Just so I would be able to craft in that style should someone ever accidently ask for my services. I do think that crafting should be more about crafting and less about looking for styles armor and recipies for cooking.

altemriel

mr1sho wrote: »

What's the point being a 9 trait Crafter when every BIS sets are drop sets ? Spend all your time leveling your blacksmith etc just to be put to the side I feel like one those angry guys from South Park right now yelling THEY TOOK OUR JOBS

yes, this!!!


I was thinking of buying the stalhrim motif from *****store, I never bought a motif, but this one is really great, but then I was thinking that there is nothing to craft and the style mats are also real money, so f*** that

Kelces

boom782 wrote: »

Personally I don't think crafters should be able to craft BiS gear because it requires no skill.

BUT I do agree people who put tons of time into crafting should have a benefit so what about being able to craft non-tradeable armor that benefits stuff like crafting, alchemy, and other skills. Imagine being able to make a set of armor that while wearing it allows you to upgrade a piece of armor to gold for only 4 temps instead of 8. OR yields 6-8 potions instead of your typical 4.

Give crafters crafting benefits. But I don't think crafters should be able to make armor that is better than what drops in vmol for example if they cannot beat vmol.

I quote again from an earlier comment and emphasize the point, you (and others) were missing:

billp_ESO wrote: »

For crafting to be important in an MMO, the best items have to be crafted.

If you want to have a gear grind, then let bosses, etc, drop mats that crafters can use to make the best items. DO NOT DROP THE ITEMS DIRECTLY.

Sad how few MMO's get this right.

So skill will be required = Everybody happy.

STEVIL

Kelces wrote: »

boom782 wrote: »

Personally I don't think crafters should be able to craft BiS gear because it requires no skill.

BUT I do agree people who put tons of time into crafting should have a benefit so what about being able to craft non-tradeable armor that benefits stuff like crafting, alchemy, and other skills. Imagine being able to make a set of armor that while wearing it allows you to upgrade a piece of armor to gold for only 4 temps instead of 8. OR yields 6-8 potions instead of your typical 4.

Give crafters crafting benefits. But I don't think crafters should be able to make armor that is better than what drops in vmol for example if they cannot beat vmol.

I quote again from an earlier comment and emphasize the point, you (and others) were missing:

billp_ESO wrote: »

For crafting to be important in an MMO, the best items have to be crafted.

If you want to have a gear grind, then let bosses, etc, drop mats that crafters can use to make the best items. DO NOT DROP THE ITEMS DIRECTLY.

Sad how few MMO's get this right.

So skill will be required = Everybody happy.

Except that that takes a huge chunk of functional sustainable casual play out. It makes crafting "necessary" whether done by you or by others for profit.

Games thrive when sustainable play even for casuals comes in a large variety of ways fitting a large caret of play styles and lifestyles. Turning any one element into a must have choke point defeats this.

Imo instead of getting the whole world hooked on and choked by crafting, they need to give crafting it's own unique aspect you cannot get from other means and have that be worthwhile...

My suggestion is 4 pc sets - allowing crafter to cut out the 2, 3 or 4 pc bonus from a set during crafting.

It is something drops don't have.
It adds a lot of "new set" off the bat.
It improves a number of substandard sets.
It creates a lot of new build options.
It completes the set counts giving the game 1pc, 2pc, 3pc,4pc and 5pc sets.

It's not ALL that is needed (see sig for more) but imo it is definitely needed.

BlackEar

MMOrpg is about progressing and doing so with other people which is why trials is one of the most important element in the game. There is no point to progression if you don't get rewarded and improve from it, hence we have loot. If the loot you craft is better than the loot awarded from these trials then you effectively make it useless.

This is why crafting should never be BiS. Think beyond your own (narrow) self interest, and think which is objectively healthier for the game and ALL its players including yourself.someone mentioned having crafting material drop in Trials, this is a good solution.

AzuraKin

billp_ESO wrote: »

For crafting to be important in an MMO, the best items have to be crafted.

If you want to have a gear grind, then let bosses, etc, drop mats that crafters can use to make the best items. DO NOT DROP THE ITEMS DIRECTLY.

Sad how few MMO's get this right.

camelot has already stated, crafting will be a specific class, and on top of gear crafting, they will craft things for the war effort like seige and buildings. long live eso's replacement: camelot unchained.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Everybody and their mom is a 9 trait crafter. Don't take it too personally...

FortheloveofKrist

nikigwil wrote: »

Im getting plenty of requests for crafting.

I'm assuming you just login with your crafter and set up camp at the TBS station?

DMuehlhausen

mr1sho wrote: »

What's the point being a 9 trait Crafter when every BIS sets are drop sets ? Spend all your time leveling your blacksmith etc just to be put to the side I feel like one those angry guys from South Park right now yelling THEY TOOK OUR JOBS

Welcome to the crafting in every MMO ever? It wasn't like that though when people were first hitting 9 trait. However now that ESO has been fully taken over by the GIMMIE NOW and I DON'T HAVE TIME TO TRAIN I DESERVE THE BiS items crowd. It will never shift back.

billp_ESO

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

billp_ESO wrote: »

For crafting to be important in an MMO, the best items have to be crafted.

If you want to have a gear grind, then let bosses, etc, drop mats that crafters can use to make the best items. DO NOT DROP THE ITEMS DIRECTLY.

Sad how few MMO's get this right.

if you are going to make crafting the main part of itemzation. you better build a sand box game. its not good for theme parks , it devalues the pve content . truthfully its been the see saw problem of eso since launch. the best way would be to have crafters enhance what was dropped in game. then the two could work cohesively.

This is exactly my point, the best items in the game should be made by crafters, and improving drops is a good way to do it.

Allow crafters to improve drops, change their motifs, etc, so that at the end of the day, the best items can ONLY be gotten from a crafter. Bring back the days when you sought out a certain crafter/guild because they could make XXX and you can''t get it any other way.

FortheloveofKrist

Oh, but soon you can craft furniture. And we all know the crafted furniture will be way better than the furniture that drops in dungeons. You'll be able to sit so much better than everyone else.

And you'll be able to make skyshards that don't do anything and chests that don't hold anything.

THUMBS UP!

XDragonDoomX

FortheloveofKrist wrote: »

Oh, but soon you can craft furniture. And we all know the crafted furniture will be way better than the furniture that drops in dungeons. You'll be able to sit so much better than everyone else.

And you'll be able to make skyshards that don't do anything and chests that don't hold anything.

THUMBS UP!

Not quite sure why, but my 'Sarcasm Proximity Alert' just went nuts....

itsfatbass

Not sure what you mean by this because Julianos Torugs pact etc are still very viable items. In fact I can get 30k + parses with all crafted and willpower. Just because the META items are drop sets doesn't mean you won't get good performance out of crafted. The difference is not that big.

Apherius

Let us have at least 1 Crafted set ...
for exemple : i'm magicka sorcerer and i use 4 infaible aether / 2 illambris/5 Burning spell weave/1 maesltrom inferno staff ...
it's horrible .. i have all motif , i spent more that 1 M for motifs ! and i can't use them because if i want a good dps ... i have to use horrible deadric set .

We should not have to choose between the beauty and the optimization .

svartorn

Yep, I'm a 9 trait master crafter who knows all the motifs, too. Seems like all I craft is low level training sets to level new alts.

Karius_Imalthar

I enjoy crafting and i've maxed them all and have all motifs but just to play devil's advocate:

• What is harder for a player to accomplish? Farm a particular set item for the exact slot, quality (jewelry), and trait or just ask a guildie to craft something for them? Right now it's like "I want a full set of gold gear. Let me just whip this up and throw some enchants on them." then done about 15 minutes later. Farming is tedious but it is harder than crafting
• Best in Slot doesn't mean only thing that is useful in slot. Yes, that crafted piece of armor might not be what people ultimately end up using but they usually use crafted gear for a long time or fill in that 5-piece until they can farm exactly what they want. It's hardly useless.

The reason crafted items are not the ultimate end game items is that crafting is so easy. If there were epic rare drops, for example, that could be used to craft epic rare items and some epic quest to place an epic enchantment them then crafted items could be great again .

EldritchPenguin

The best use I've found for crafting is a fallback for when you're fed up with RNG. Like, I am not farming for 3 sets of Burning Spellweave for my 3 Magicka DD's when I'm 30 runs in and only have one Divines piece. I'd rather just farm the mats and put them together so I can stop beating my head against the RNG wall. At least Law of Julianos is comparable to the BiS Boys.

Kelces

STEVIL wrote: »

Except that that takes a huge chunk of functional sustainable casual play out. It makes crafting "necessary" whether done by you or by others for profit.

Games thrive when sustainable play even for casuals comes in a large variety of ways fitting a large caret of play styles and lifestyles. Turning any one element into a must have choke point defeats this.

Imo instead of getting the whole world hooked on and choked by crafting, they need to give crafting it's own unique aspect you cannot get from other means and have that be worthwhile...

My suggestion is 4 pc sets - allowing crafter to cut out the 2, 3 or 4 pc bonus from a set during crafting.

It is something drops don't have.
It adds a lot of "new set" off the bat.
It improves a number of substandard sets.
It creates a lot of new build options.
It completes the set counts giving the game 1pc, 2pc, 3pc,4pc and 5pc sets.

It's not ALL that is needed (see sig for more) but imo it is definitely needed.

Sure, it should be at least on equal level to loot-gear though. This is definitely by far not the case at the moment, that's the problem, that many have with crafting.