Crafting leveling in this game makes 0 sense.

Legate_Lanius

Take Clothing and Blacksmithing (Jewelry and Enchanting are in the same boat too).

Any normal artisan will tell you that you hone your crafting skills by... CRAFTING and creating things ! In this game, the logic goes sideways by forcing you to deconstruct items to level up while gathering resources and crafting gear with them is totally pointless as it hardly increase the XP bar, like almost nothing.

So that means I have gathered tons of iron ores for nothing as I could make way more gold by stealing some stuff at the nearby port.

Meanwhile, provisioning and alchemy gets a satisfying leveling process, even a bit too fast.

How come they never even tweaked these things since 2014?

VaranisArano

If you want to level up by crafting items, do the daily crafting writs. Those use the resources you gather and give crafting exp and materials as a reward.

Otherwise, deconstructing gear, i.e. taking it apart to learn how a better craftsman made it, gives good crafting exp.

JKorr

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Take Clothing and Blacksmithing (Jewelry and Enchanting are in the same boat too).

Any normal artisan will tell you that you hone your crafting skills by... CRAFTING and creating things ! In this game, the logic goes sideways by forcing you to deconstruct items to level up while gathering resources and crafting gear with them is totally pointless as it hardly increase the XP bar, like almost nothing.

So that means I have gathered tons of iron ores for nothing as I could make way more gold by stealing some stuff at the nearby port.

Meanwhile, provisioning and alchemy gets a satisfying leveling process, even a bit too fast.

How come they never even tweaked these things since 2014?

They did tweak things. Completely revamped provisioning after release, in fact.

Originally people made hundreds of daggers, traded them to someone else to decon, rinse and repeat to level smithing as fast as possible. They changed it to be not quite so easy to exploit. Although there is a way around it; have a high level character give high level items to the crafter to decon.

You didn't gather tons of ore for "nothing". Refine and sell the ingots and tempers. Depending on the tempers, might make more gold than stealing.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Deconstruction make perfect sense. It is the game's version of reverse engineering. Between that and crafting writs I think the leveling of crafts is fine.

As to all of the ore they aren't wasted. It is from refining ore that you get tempers and trait materials that are used to craft items. I do a fair amount of crafting for my own characters while leveling and for guild members for free so like having these materials on hand at no cost. The same goes for my houses where I try to make most if not all of the furniture. With the bottomless crafting bag space is not issue but I will occasionally reduce my refined materials buy selling on the guild store trader. A few thousand of this or that adds up for a trip to Luxury Vendor.

idk

JKorr wrote: »

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Take Clothing and Blacksmithing (Jewelry and Enchanting are in the same boat too).

Any normal artisan will tell you that you hone your crafting skills by... CRAFTING and creating things ! In this game, the logic goes sideways by forcing you to deconstruct items to level up while gathering resources and crafting gear with them is totally pointless as it hardly increase the XP bar, like almost nothing.

So that means I have gathered tons of iron ores for nothing as I could make way more gold by stealing some stuff at the nearby port.

Meanwhile, provisioning and alchemy gets a satisfying leveling process, even a bit too fast.

How come they never even tweaked these things since 2014?

They did tweak things. Completely revamped provisioning after release, in fact.

Originally people made hundreds of daggers, traded them to someone else to decon, rinse and repeat to level smithing as fast as possible. They changed it to be not quite so easy to exploit. Although there is a way around it; have a high level character give high level items to the crafter to decon.

You didn't gather tons of ore for "nothing". Refine and sell the ingots and tempers. Depending on the tempers, might make more gold than stealing.

Yes, they did change things, but it seems so much easier to level up new crafting.

Further, I think OP is not looking at the design clearly enough. It makes sense to decon items to learn the fine craftsmanthip. Learn the stitching and such.

Regardless, it works fine.

Legate_Lanius

idk wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Take Clothing and Blacksmithing (Jewelry and Enchanting are in the same boat too).

Any normal artisan will tell you that you hone your crafting skills by... CRAFTING and creating things ! In this game, the logic goes sideways by forcing you to deconstruct items to level up while gathering resources and crafting gear with them is totally pointless as it hardly increase the XP bar, like almost nothing.

So that means I have gathered tons of iron ores for nothing as I could make way more gold by stealing some stuff at the nearby port.

Meanwhile, provisioning and alchemy gets a satisfying leveling process, even a bit too fast.

How come they never even tweaked these things since 2014?

They did tweak things. Completely revamped provisioning after release, in fact.

Originally people made hundreds of daggers, traded them to someone else to decon, rinse and repeat to level smithing as fast as possible. They changed it to be not quite so easy to exploit. Although there is a way around it; have a high level character give high level items to the crafter to decon.

You didn't gather tons of ore for "nothing". Refine and sell the ingots and tempers. Depending on the tempers, might make more gold than stealing.

Yes, they did change things, but it seems so much easier to level up new crafting.

Further, I think OP is not looking at the design clearly enough. It makes sense to decon items to learn the fine craftsmanthip. Learn the stitching and such.

Regardless, it works fine.

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

Deconstruction make perfect sense. It is the game's version of reverse engineering. Between that and crafting writs I think the leveling of crafts is fine.

As to all of the ore they aren't wasted. It is from refining ore that you get tempers and trait materials that are used to craft items. I do a fair amount of crafting for my own characters while leveling and for guild members for free so like having these materials on hand at no cost. The same goes for my houses where I try to make most if not all of the furniture. With the bottomless crafting bag space is not issue but I will occasionally reduce my refined materials buy selling on the guild store trader. A few thousand of this or that adds up for a trip to Luxury Vendor.

Guys, I can understand because you are max levels and you got used to it.

But ask any man working at a forge or any RL artisan, you might learn something by looking at someone else's work, but to perfect your skill you have to CREATE something yourself. It's like saying I'm looking at tons of comics and paintings so now I'm an artist with great skills. That's what I mean by 0 sense, because in the game the only proper way to get crafting XP is only by deconstructing. Obviously the devs won't change it, but it's honestly a really weird way to level up. Basically, you go to traders to purchase intricate gear...

You don't level up by crafting gear and items but by deleting stuff you get in your adventures. It just sounds silly.
And yea, those Iron Ingots are pretty much a waste of time, might get a few thousands gold at best for it. Not the best investment per time/gold. Too many rerolls lol

idk

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

idk wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Take Clothing and Blacksmithing (Jewelry and Enchanting are in the same boat too).

Any normal artisan will tell you that you hone your crafting skills by... CRAFTING and creating things ! In this game, the logic goes sideways by forcing you to deconstruct items to level up while gathering resources and crafting gear with them is totally pointless as it hardly increase the XP bar, like almost nothing.

So that means I have gathered tons of iron ores for nothing as I could make way more gold by stealing some stuff at the nearby port.

Meanwhile, provisioning and alchemy gets a satisfying leveling process, even a bit too fast.

How come they never even tweaked these things since 2014?

They did tweak things. Completely revamped provisioning after release, in fact.

Originally people made hundreds of daggers, traded them to someone else to decon, rinse and repeat to level smithing as fast as possible. They changed it to be not quite so easy to exploit. Although there is a way around it; have a high level character give high level items to the crafter to decon.

You didn't gather tons of ore for "nothing". Refine and sell the ingots and tempers. Depending on the tempers, might make more gold than stealing.

Yes, they did change things, but it seems so much easier to level up new crafting.

Further, I think OP is not looking at the design clearly enough. It makes sense to decon items to learn the fine craftsmanthip. Learn the stitching and such.

Regardless, it works fine.

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

Deconstruction make perfect sense. It is the game's version of reverse engineering. Between that and crafting writs I think the leveling of crafts is fine.

As to all of the ore they aren't wasted. It is from refining ore that you get tempers and trait materials that are used to craft items. I do a fair amount of crafting for my own characters while leveling and for guild members for free so like having these materials on hand at no cost. The same goes for my houses where I try to make most if not all of the furniture. With the bottomless crafting bag space is not issue but I will occasionally reduce my refined materials buy selling on the guild store trader. A few thousand of this or that adds up for a trip to Luxury Vendor.

Guys, I can understand because you are max levels and you got used to it.

But ask any man working at a forge or any RL artisan, you might learn something by looking at someone else's work, but to perfect your skill you have to CREATE something yourself. It's like saying I'm looking at tons of comics and paintings so now I'm an artist with great skills. That's what I mean by 0 sense, because in the game the only proper way to get crafting XP is only by deconstructing. Obviously the devs won't change it, but it's honestly a really weird way to level up. Basically, you go to traders to purchase intricate gear...

You don't level up by crafting gear and items but by deleting stuff you get in your adventures. It just sounds silly.
And yea, those Iron Ingots are pretty much a waste of time, might get a few thousands gold at best for it. Not the best investment per time/gold. Too many rerolls lol

First off all, pretty much every character I have leveled also has every craft. So to sugest that I am max level and got used to it is a fallacy since I keep leveling characters, most recently a necro.

Second, I am pretty sure if I ask any man or woman working a forge about learning to craft armor that has a 10% chance to breath fire at all enemies in front of me or ask an artisan how to craft a staff that shoots fire, frost, and lightning they will look at me like I am crazy.

So to criticize that a fantasy game craft does not work like it does in RL would be like telling Picasso or Dali they had no clue how to paint because their work did not look like the real world.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

- snip -

Guys, I can understand because you are max levels and you got used to it.

-snip-

What makes you say that. I have one character fully leveled in crafting which is my main. I am currently leveling an alt that I started when the necromancer skill line dropped. That includes leveling all crafts. Not counting my time participating in the original beta tests I have about 15 months in the game. I'll take crafting any day over leveling my mount.

As to your references to real life. This is a game. Yes there are some parallels to real life but none of it is intended to be taken as an analog of it. It's fantasy thankfully, I get enough real life in real life.

VaranisArano

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

idk wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Take Clothing and Blacksmithing (Jewelry and Enchanting are in the same boat too).

Any normal artisan will tell you that you hone your crafting skills by... CRAFTING and creating things ! In this game, the logic goes sideways by forcing you to deconstruct items to level up while gathering resources and crafting gear with them is totally pointless as it hardly increase the XP bar, like almost nothing.

So that means I have gathered tons of iron ores for nothing as I could make way more gold by stealing some stuff at the nearby port.

Meanwhile, provisioning and alchemy gets a satisfying leveling process, even a bit too fast.

How come they never even tweaked these things since 2014?

They did tweak things. Completely revamped provisioning after release, in fact.

Originally people made hundreds of daggers, traded them to someone else to decon, rinse and repeat to level smithing as fast as possible. They changed it to be not quite so easy to exploit. Although there is a way around it; have a high level character give high level items to the crafter to decon.

You didn't gather tons of ore for "nothing". Refine and sell the ingots and tempers. Depending on the tempers, might make more gold than stealing.

Yes, they did change things, but it seems so much easier to level up new crafting.

Further, I think OP is not looking at the design clearly enough. It makes sense to decon items to learn the fine craftsmanthip. Learn the stitching and such.

Regardless, it works fine.

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

Deconstruction make perfect sense. It is the game's version of reverse engineering. Between that and crafting writs I think the leveling of crafts is fine.

As to all of the ore they aren't wasted. It is from refining ore that you get tempers and trait materials that are used to craft items. I do a fair amount of crafting for my own characters while leveling and for guild members for free so like having these materials on hand at no cost. The same goes for my houses where I try to make most if not all of the furniture. With the bottomless crafting bag space is not issue but I will occasionally reduce my refined materials buy selling on the guild store trader. A few thousand of this or that adds up for a trip to Luxury Vendor.

Guys, I can understand because you are max levels and you got used to it.

But ask any man working at a forge or any RL artisan, you might learn something by looking at someone else's work, but to perfect your skill you have to CREATE something yourself. It's like saying I'm looking at tons of comics and paintings so now I'm an artist with great skills. That's what I mean by 0 sense, because in the game the only proper way to get crafting XP is only by deconstructing. Obviously the devs won't change it, but it's honestly a really weird way to level up. Basically, you go to traders to purchase intricate gear...

You don't level up by crafting gear and items but by deleting stuff you get in your adventures. It just sounds silly.
And yea, those Iron Ingots are pretty much a waste of time, might get a few thousands gold at best for it. Not the best investment per time/gold. Too many rerolls lol

Looking at other people's work is a good starting point when you are trying to learn a new craft from scratch or teaching yourself.

I'm starting a sewing project that way specifically by looking at already made examples, and I would pull them apart to look at seam construction if they weren't expensive.

Now, obviously I've got to actually make the stuff to get better, and my first couple tries won't be full quality or good materials. Proof of Concept type stuff, you know? Once I'm confident with the techniques, then I'll go for it with the fabric that actually costs money.

So its a little of both - just like ESO.

Level up your crafting by deconstructing quality examples + creating lower quality goods for crafting writs, until you get good enough to do it with the max tier mats.


Of course, as stated by others here, this is a game.

Chances are, ZOS looked at Skyrim and said "Yeah, we really don't want to have players spamming hundreds of daggers/Gold rings to level up. So what can we do differently?"

Ultimately, if you want realism, I've got some thoughts about Provisioning and why I can make any food in Tamriel by stirring a single bowl and licking my finger.

Real food don't work like that...

Dusk_Coven

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

the logic goes sideways by forcing you to deconstruct items to level up while gathering resources and crafting gear with them is totally pointless as it hardly increase the XP bar, like almost nothing.

The whole notion of Intricate items -- items designed to be taken apart -- needs to be reframed I think. Or instead let us craft them, and in the process of crafting them get the Inspiration points, instead of when you deconstruct them.

mague

Crafting is not exactly demanding but useful. The only thing out of sync is jewel crafting and enchanting. Those level to slow because there is an uneven amount of item to decon.

When you play/quest the game from 1 to 50/160 you will be blacksmith/tailor approx. 50 and jewels/enchanting like 30. I know because i rolled on a different server. No money, no twinking. Just starting from scratch. I am 50/145 and tailor/blacksmith is mit 40ies while jewels are close to 30 and enchanting like 35. I did all dailies every day.

It should be balanced that questing to 50/160 is enough to be 50 in all professions. More green/blue jewels and enchants are required to drop to achieve this balance.

Legate_Lanius

Looking at models/instructions is essentially when you start, you’ll need to make stuff to improve your skills. Like any artisan activity.

But it’s not about realism specifically, any game (even SP) with crafting levels makes you actually craft stuff while leveling to advance through the levels. Because that’s the whole point.

If at least in ESO it gave some xp... but it barely move the XP bar.
That is why alchemy and provisioning are more satisfying, because you make stuff and have this feeling of progression. The rest of the professions are artificially made harder to level up because of this deconstruction silly focus.

idk

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Looking at models/instructions is essentially when you start, you’ll need to make stuff to improve your skills. Like any artisan activity.

But it’s not about realism specifically, any game (even SP) with crafting levels makes you actually craft stuff while leveling to advance through the levels. Because that’s the whole point.

If at least in ESO it gave some xp... but it barely move the XP bar.
That is why alchemy and provisioning are more satisfying, because you make stuff and have this feeling of progression. The rest of the professions are artificially made harder to level up because of this deconstruction silly focus.

Now you are asking for XP.

It seems odd that you are complaining that we also gain inspiration for deconstruction items for which we gain materials for crafting. It is as though you are complaining that we are given a means to make leveling a craft easier and is easily explained as learning how another craftsman did their work.

So in the end, if that makes it to easy for you just do not decon anything. You can level up your crafting via writs and crafting new items. It works well, but is a little slower.

Legate_Lanius

idk wrote: »

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Looking at models/instructions is essentially when you start, you’ll need to make stuff to improve your skills. Like any artisan activity.

But it’s not about realism specifically, any game (even SP) with crafting levels makes you actually craft stuff while leveling to advance through the levels. Because that’s the whole point.

If at least in ESO it gave some xp... but it barely move the XP bar.
That is why alchemy and provisioning are more satisfying, because you make stuff and have this feeling of progression. The rest of the professions are artificially made harder to level up because of this deconstruction silly focus.

Now you are asking for XP.

It seems odd that you are complaining that we also gain inspiration for deconstruction items for which we gain materials for crafting. It is as though you are complaining that we are given a means to make leveling a craft easier and is easily explained as learning how another craftsman did their work.

So in the end, if that makes it to easy for you just do not decon anything. You can level up your crafting via writs and crafting new items. It works well, but is a little slower.

I'm not sure if you don't get the point or feign to not get it. What I'm saying since the start (behind the artisans/artists analogy) is that the blacksmith, enchanting, clothing and jewelry professions have a very silly and non logical way to progress and get experience.

Meanwhile, with professions like alchemy/provisioning, you actually DO craft things and get rewarded for it. hence, why I talked about the sense and satisfaction of progression.

I purchased some intricate gear and got my blacksmith from 13 to 25. Was it easy and silly ? Yes. Satisfying ? Hell no.
A simple way to make those profs better would be to make a good XP gain when you actually create objects, like any game with crafting levels tbh.

Jayne_Doe

I'm not sure why you think it's more satisfying to spam making thousands of daggers rather than just deconning dropped gear.

Also, crafting the same food over and over again isn't exactly gratifying, either. I guess for you, you just want to stand at a station and spam craft a bunch of stuff? I like that the gear crafts and enchanting are different, rather than everything just being about spamming the craft button. Yeah...we're spamming a decon button, but how is that really different or worse? You deconstruct gear to learn how others make things so that you get better. You get little inspiration if you decon your own crafted gear, which makes sense, since you aren't learning anything new by deconning your own stuff. Nor are you really learning anything new about your craft by continuing to craft the same thing in the same way over and over again. Do you hone your skills? Sure. But that only makes you better at crafting one particular thing in a very particular way.

Using your example of artists - they most certainly studied other artists' work. To gain inspiration and learn new techniques, which helped them to refine and even redefine their own. A painter who just studies how to paint one way and then just keeps making the same paintings in the same way will certainly get better but will also stagnate.

But, whatever, this is a game. There's plenty of sense behind the way they set it up, but clearly you just want it to be craft x tons of times for EVERY craft, rather than some variety.

Legate_Lanius

Simple, because one could make use of what you craft during your journey to max level and champion points cap.
Most of the food I craft I eat and make use of, same for potions.

But let's just agree to disagree and let this thread die tbh, I see some don't see the point so whatever. It's not like this system and direction is going to change.

redlink1979

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Any normal artisan will tell you that you hone your crafting skills by... CRAFTING and creating things ! In this game, the logic goes sideways by forcing you to deconstruct items to level up while gathering resources and crafting gear with them is totally pointless as it hardly increase the XP bar, like almost nothing.

When you craft "the harder" things (craft in a higher crafting rank than rank 1) while leveling you get a decent amount of xp.
Same happens with alchemy/provisioning/enchanting: if you craft at the highest crafting rank unlocked (mats and quality) you get much more xp than if you craft in a lower crafting rank.

If you haven't reached the highest crafting rank, you get even more xp points (inspiration) added to your rewards.

So, you can earn a decent xp while crafting.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Legate_Lanius wrote: »

Looking at models/instructions is essentially when you start, you’ll need to make stuff to improve your skills. Like any artisan activity.

But it’s not about realism specifically, any game (even SP) with crafting levels makes you actually craft stuff while leveling to advance through the levels. Because that’s the whole point.

If at least in ESO it gave some xp... but it barely move the XP bar.
That is why alchemy and provisioning are more satisfying, because you make stuff and have this feeling of progression. The rest of the professions are artificially made harder to level up because of this deconstruction silly focus.

Now you are asking for XP.

It seems odd that you are complaining that we also gain inspiration for deconstruction items for which we gain materials for crafting. It is as though you are complaining that we are given a means to make leveling a craft easier and is easily explained as learning how another craftsman did their work.

So in the end, if that makes it to easy for you just do not decon anything. You can level up your crafting via writs and crafting new items. It works well, but is a little slower.

I'm not sure if you don't get the point or feign to not get it. What I'm saying since the start (behind the artisans/artists analogy) is that the blacksmith, enchanting, clothing and jewelry professions have a very silly and non logical way to progress and get experience.

Meanwhile, with professions like alchemy/provisioning, you actually DO craft things and get rewarded for it. hence, why I talked about the sense and satisfaction of progression.

I purchased some intricate gear and got my blacksmith from 13 to 25. Was it easy and silly ? Yes. Satisfying ? Hell no.
A simple way to make those profs better would be to make a good XP gain when you actually create objects, like any game with crafting levels tbh.

It sounds to me you are looking for something more along the lines of the Final Fantasy 14 crafting system which I found to be very convoluted and unsatisfying. In the end to get anything leveled you still had to do repetitive dailies and deal with their screwed up quality system. While I crafted there it was only because it was a way to get higher level gear in the release gaps. While it wasn't the same level as what you got from the highest level content it was still better than the normal level dungeons.

I haven't played WoW since they made crafted gear attributes RNG in WoD so I might be a bit out of date on how it works. As I recall though it is similar to ESO in the way you level but with more emphasis on creating the same thing over and over to progress. Even then it was still a grind to level.

As I've thought about it one thing that is different in ESO compared to the others is there isn't much a market for gear you pick up along the way. By putting more emphasis on deconstruction it provides a means to take all this stuff and put it towards something deconstructive rather than just vendoring for a pittance to remove the excess gear from the game. I am looking at this from someone where crafting is not end game but just a way to support my end game activities. All in all I thin ZOS did a reasonable job in how crafts are leveled. The mechanisms allow me to stay slightly ahead of my character's combat level without having to spend an inordinate amount of time leveling crafts. I recognize this might not be satisfying to a player who puts more emphasis on crafting but think overall it was a compromise that fits the largest segment of the player base.

es4eva

I remember grinding crafting in UO back in the day...that was real crafting...you're right, it does seem strange that you master a creation skill mainly through destroying.