How to please your crafters

baratron

I have a 9-trait crafter with almost all of the styles (7 motif chapters missing), so I get a lot of crafting requests. One guy in particular is amazing, and I want to show you how he does it.

Heading of message: Craft Request: Willow's Path.
I immediately know from that heading that someone is asking me for crafting, and which set station I need to go to. Even if I'm lucky enough to belong to a guild which has all of the attuned crafting stations, it's still useful to know where in the Guildhall I need to go.

Body of message:

Willow's Path Bow
Nirnhoned
Ebony Style

He lays out in order the item, set, trait, and style for each item that he's ordering. (Unless they happen to be multiple items of the same trait and style). It's so clear that I can't get confused and make a mistake.

Then the really good part. He does all the calculations of items for me and lists what he's included, so I can check them off against the mail. This is especially important if more than one mail has to be sent, to cover multiple traits and styles. If he's not 100% sure of how many pieces a particular item requires, he sends more and trusts me to return the excess.

Mats Sending
- 160 ruby wood
(Idk how much it is for a bow)
- 2k gold
(1k for tip and 1k for the mat, if it cost more tell me and I will pay ya even more).
- 1 Nirncrux

Thanks
- his name

I wish every crafting request I got was this clear.

Ashtaris

I know, it’s really great when a crafting request comes in where you know exactly the items, level, traits, and style, plus sends you all the mats required. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen too often

Beardimus

I'm with you on that, folks that have crafted get it I think. If they have never crafted they can be uber vague

Gilvoth

i have been asking for years for the ability for people to go to a posting board and the ability to fill out a sheet with questions and post thier request on it just like we have allready but its for NPC's.
if we could have a crafting board for people it would be awesome.

just post your request and wait for the mail C.O.D. to arrive

Prof_Bawbag

I tell folk now that if they want something made, they give me clear instructions. If not, I'm not gonna sit there and waste my gaming time. I'm not the person needing the items. It's when you say go to any crafting station and that will tell you the amount of mats needed, then they say "can't you do that". Yeah, righty-*** then, pal.

Then there are those orders which are akin to pulling teeth. Since my refusal to do any sort of leg work for the more experienced players (will do some for newcomers), my orders have went down to 2 a week from over 20. No skin of my nose. Before all this some orders took hours just to get to the point where you got the mats. Then they'd have the cheek to whisper you 2 seconds after sending the mats asking if you had made the items.

AlienatedGoat

"Can u make a set of training gear?"

Gythral

Phage wrote: »

"Can u make a set of training gear?"

That's better than most but still not going to get me to look at it, let alone think about actually making something!

AlienatedGoat

Gythral wrote: »

Phage wrote: »

"Can u make a set of training gear?"

That's better than most but still not going to get me to look at it, let alone think about actually making something!

If I had a nickel every time I got that request, I'd be drowning in nickels. And I wouldn't even care.

I see that request and already know I'll be wasting my next hour trying to wring specific answers from a person who doesn't have any.

preevious

Yes, often, they are vague. But I quite enjoy asking questions. That way, I can give advice, and the like.
Most of my client are very nice peoples.

Nestor

I try to never craft unless I have at least an email with the specifics.

Sheezabeast

I enjoy helping people who articulate their needs politely. I'm not a magician, I don't know what trait you want each piece in, or what style, or level for that matter!

Remember to tip your crafter too

mdylan2013

I used to enjoy crafting for others, I was one of the few that could craft anything in most of my guilds pre One Tamriel. Now I don't craft for others as most people expect me to offer build advice. If only they were all like your 'customer'.

redspecter23

As many other have said, I used to enjoy crafting for others. I've pretty much stopped doing it now. The number of times it devolves into an hour long text conversation back and forth trying to figure out what they want, then bartering price based on half mats here and there is just excruciating. I'm not doing it for the money, but to try and help people. There are limits to how much time I want to spend doing that.

Perhaps we can get some sort of crafting order form. It's sent to a player and picked up much like a master writ. Once the item is mailed back, a COD could be collected automatically based on a number decided on ahead of time. It's a bit of work to put something like this in place, but could make crafting for others as easy as a few button presses.

Juju_beans

Similar happening to furniture crafting as well.
Kinda know what they want so you look up the 3-4 patterns that match their description and link.
They want to know what it looks like and I tell them to go look at eso fashion website.
Then they ask what are the mats (not running addons that show mats in link).
Then they ask if they can buy it rather than provide mats because they don't have the mats.

baratron

mdylan2013 wrote: »

I used to enjoy crafting for others, I was one of the few that could craft anything in most of my guilds pre One Tamriel. Now I don't craft for others as most people expect me to offer build advice. If only they were all like your 'customer'.

Build advice is hard! Obviously I can help out newbies - people looking for Training gear, or basic CP 150/160 gear to wear while they farm for dungeon or Trial sets. I can do Light armour Julianos plus Seducer for Magicka PvE, and Medium armour Hunding's Rage plus either Morkuldin or Night Mother's Gaze for Stamina PvE. I can do Heavy armour Hist Bark or Whitestrake's Retribution or Armor Master for Tanking. I know that Healers and Damage Dealers mostly want Divines trait on their gear, Tanks need Reinforced on big pieces and Sturdy on small pieces, and PvP players want at least 4 pieces of Impenetrable. I also know that many mostly-solo players, or PvP players, want a Heavy chest piece so they don't drop dead of squishiness.

But anything more complicated than that - like these new Mechanical Acuity builds - isn't exactly my place to know. I don't play every role that exists. I suck at Tanking! I have all of one Magicka Damage Dealer, and I'm very happy with the build I have. It's your job to check Alcast and Woeler and my friend Jonlaw98's sites or YouTube channels to find out what the "best" players are using, and to check that the page you're looking at has been updated for Dragon Bones (or whatever the most recent build of the game is by the time you read this post).

redspecter23 wrote: »

As many other have said, I used to enjoy crafting for others. I've pretty much stopped doing it now. The number of times it devolves into an hour long text conversation back and forth trying to figure out what they want, then bartering price based on half mats here and there is just excruciating. I'm not doing it for the money, but to try and help people.

I have a very strong preference for only crafting for people who are:

• providing their own mats
• Guildies getting free armour paid for by the Guild Bank
• crafters who simply don't have enough traits for the set they want, so are asking me for white gear that they will improve themselves.

Sitting there working out a price [(2 Hemming + 3 Embroidery + 4 Elegant Lining) x N items of Light/Medium gear + (2 Honing Stone + 3 Dwarven Oil + 4 Grain Solvents) x X items of Heavy gear/Metal weapons + (2 Pitch + 3 Turpen + 4 Mastic x Y Wooden weapons/shields)] normally takes me about 20 minutes. And then when I lay it all out in whispers with the MM prices so they can see that I'm not trying to rip them off, at least 50% of the time they can't afford the full price and we then have to start haggling about which parts of the set to make purple.

If I wanted to make money from crafting, I suppose I could set up a Google spreadsheet to automate the calculations. But a lot of people don't have an addon which allows them to click URLs from within text chat. I wonder if someone could code an addon to automate the calculations within the game itself? Of course, addons only help people on PC/Mac, which is why @redspecter23's idea of building it into the game UI is so important.


I still think my least favourite "customers" are the ones who don't know what styles they like, can't be bothered to go to ESO Fashion or ESO Styles to look them up, and ask me to make "something cool".

I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you think looks cool!

People who do this are likely to get Hollowjack, because I always have a ton of that style stone - and who can argue about it being cool, what with those awesome flame stripes?

Pink_Violinz

This so much.

I've been 9 traits for a very long time and have almost every style. Far too often do people request a crafter with no clue what they need. They rely on me to know exactly how much material everything takes, at every level.

My favorites are the one who don't have the mats, and expect me to dig into my own supplies. If I'm lucky they'll say they'll pay me, but 9 out of 10 times the payment is worth far less than what the materials cost. Usually those same people will then fight with me when I say "hey it's easier if you bought the materials and sent them".

I don't know why I craft for people honestly

Ley

I have a maxed out crafter. I don't mind crafting items for people to research but I can't stand crafting sets. I don't even like crafting sets for myself. I reluctantly crafted a few sets for my real life friends but only because I promised I'd help them out if they decided to play ESO.

On the very rare occasion that I craft gear for someone other than myself, I usually just do it for free and provide all the materials.

KRBMMO

Phage wrote: »

"Can u make a set of training gear?"

It's even better when it's in zone chat

Ectheliontnacil

I know of other ways to "please" my crafters.

Yubarius

I used to be the opposite until I became a master crafter myself and realized how utterly ridiculous it is to find out what people want. Like when people say "oh just make whatever is coolest" but then complain about higher prices.

PlagueSD

haha, reminds me of spellcrafting in DAoC. You needed a spreadsheet to track item quality and enchanting...especially if you were going to be overcharging enchants and risking destruction of the item.