WHY can you not gather Crafting Mats at lower levels?

SteveyP777

Greetings all,

I have come to that point in the game where most newcomers scratch their heads and wonder... WHY is there no mechanic in the game that enables you to CHOOSE what level mats you are wanting to gather out in the world?

I've looked everywhere and the advice tends to be; 'just get a lower level toon to do it for you' or get someone in another guild to do it for you which is fine but in my mind that is still basically a workaround for something that should be quite easy for the devs to put into the game! You'd be talking about a toggle somewhere that gets you to chose which level bracket you're wanting to gather at (as long as the level bracket is below or equal to your own).

Is it too complex for them to do this or is there some other reason why what you gather absolutely *has* to scale to your level?

I'm wanting to support a friend through the lower levels and help to craft sets and gear for them at their level and I simply can't - for a game that is so sociable, it just seems strange to me that something so intuitive and (in my opinion as a programmer myself) easy to fix hasn't been woven into the fabric of this wonderful game!

Anyway - there is probably a good explanation so let me have it!

And thanks as the support on this forum is outstanding!

SteveyP777.

Mithgil

You gather mats based on two criteria;

1. Your character's level, and
2. The Rank for the crafting skill in the profession in question.

So, you can end up with 50% mats based on level, and 50% mats based on the crafting skill Rank.

An 810CP without any crafting Rank will gather 50% top tier and 50% bottom tier.

This is the "how" it works part; example:

An 810CP with full Rank in a given craft skill will gather 100% of the top-tier crafting mat for that profession.

Have your friend do the mats gathering as that will at least get you the mats required. Your friend is allowed to participate in the gathering of the necessary mats. This solves the problem.

I hope both the explanation and solution offered are helpful.

SeaGtGruff

The assumption seems to be that once you've advanced to a certain level, you won't need to craft at the lower levels.

The mats you find in the world will be based on your character level as well as your crafting level-- half one and half the other.

For instance, if your character is level 40 then half the time you'll find mats that are for crafting level 40 gear.

If your character's Blacksmithing skill allows crafting with up to level 30 mats, then the other half of the time you'll find Blacksmithing mats that are for crafting level 30 gear.

Since your crafting skill level can vary from one crafting skill line to another, you might be finding level 30 Blacksmithing mats, level 20 Woodworking mats, level 10 Clothier mats, etc.

Note that this is based on the passive skill levels that you buy with Skill Points in each crafting skill line, not your overall level in the crafting skill line.

Daemons_Bane

Your friend could also start deconstructing all the gear that he loot.. that would supply you with more than enough mats

bmnoble

You got three options:

Lower the passive of your equipment crafting skills by respecing at a shrine, that way you will see nodes 50% max level stuff and 50% the lower level stuff determined by what level you have set the crafting passive to eg you set the passive to 1/10 you will see iron and rubedite.

Or the far easier option go to guild stores and buy a large amount of low level mats which tend to sell much lower than end game mats and mail/direct trade them to your friend. That is how I keep up my stocks of low level mats to make training gear for guild mates.

Also daily crafting writs give back random lower level mats, takes a long time to stockpile them that way though.



Your friend could:

Decon the lower level weapons he picks up they tend to give a lot more mats back than max level stuff, will also help leveling his crafting skills.

Or he could pay gold to a crafter to make his training sets, you don't really need that many lower level mats at all in the game.

SteveyP777

Hey everyone,

Thank you very much for your suggestions - definitely some things in there I didn't realise. I suppose I still feel these are 'workarounds' for a fundamental issue that would be easy to fix in-game HOWEVER having said that, please don't see that as a criticism; it is my own quirky pet-peeve and I'll get over it!

Plus, there's a lot in the above I was unaware of and I reckon it'll be a non-issue once I try applying some of those suggestions so thank you all for your help, as always the help on this forum is second to none!

Cheers,

SteveyP777.

Olauron

Mithgil wrote: »

You gather mats based on two criteria;

1. Your character's level, and
2. The Rank for the crafting skill in the profession in question.

So, you can end up with 50% mats based on level, and 50% mats based on the crafting skill Rank.

An 810CP without any crafting Rank will gather 50% top tier and 50% bottom tier.

And the good thing is this works not only for random resources in the zone, but also for the resources from crafting surveys.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

(TL;DR: "kids these days" )
I was here when the materials were specific to each leveled zone, and you had to go to a ridiculously humiliating "VR zone" (or, later, to the even more humiliating group-only Craglorn) to gather any of the highest tier materials. A group of three trash mobs or critters would slaughter you in that zone if you weren't top level, geared to the teeth and prepared for a tough fight. Back then, you needed to be badass to gather ore. Only flowers could be picked safely in low level zones, because alchemy materials are not leveled. The current system may not be perfect, but at least it's much, much better.

SteveyP777

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

(TL;DR: "kids these days" )
I was here when the materials were specific to each leveled zone, and you had to go to a ridiculously humiliating "VR zone" (or, later, to the even more humiliating group-only Craglorn) to gather any of the highest tier materials. A group of three trash mobs or critters would slaughter you in that zone if you weren't top level, geared to the teeth and prepared for a tough fight. Back then, you needed to be badass to gather ore. Only flowers could be picked safely in low level zones, because alchemy materials are not leveled. The current system may not be perfect, but at least it's much, much better.

Don't get me wrong Stefan, I just came from playing LOTRO and I MUCH prefer this system... it's just the gaming programmer in me that feels they've really missed a trick and it comes close to but just misses basically being PERFECT!

I'm not asking for it to go back to the zoned model for crafting mats which is definitely not as good as what it is now...

I'm saying that a master crafter should be able to craft at any level, and gather materials at any level, and it's counter intuitive and somewhat impractical that you are funnelled (BECAUSE of the scaling) into only being able to gather mats at max level if your character is at that level.

I'm day-dreaming here; if only we could have some control over what level of mats WE CHOOSE to gather - a simple toggle that you can adjust as you see fit as a CP810 MASTER CRAFTER to say 'I'm going to change my mat-gathering bracket to the level 10-20 bracket because I've got a friend at that level and I want to help him out'...

So please don't hear me complaining, I absolutely love the crafting in this game, it is worlds better than other MMO's I have played. I'm really saying nothing more than 'SOOOO CLOSE' to perfect but just shy of it. But it doesn't really matter because as demonstrated above; there are plenty of workarounds.

Obviously... this is just MY personal opinion

danno8

Easiest solution would be the ability to convert high level materials to low level materials at a crafting station. Should be trivial to implement.

Conversion ratio could be 1:1, 2:1 or could scale the further the level difference.

Fennwitty

I agree in principle it would be nice as an *option*, however the number of people who'd use it I'd expect would be very low.

You could also make a new character just to adventure with your friend.

etchedpixels

The problem range is between level 50 and CP 160. There it is very hard to find stocks of guild store materials because most people who are at level 50 cp 0 get to cp 160 fairly fast and anyone who has a second toon jumps straight from 49 to 50 + their current CP level so you can't have a second toon to collect mats in that range on your account.

tmbrinks

I have literally thousands (nearly tens of thousands) of each of those "low-level" mats, simply from the extra rewards from doing daily writs. I have zero use for them personally, since all my characters are way above CP 160. I've tried selling them in my guild stores, but they are slow moving and take up sales slots, so I just let them pile up in my craft bag.

When somebody in zone asks for a low level material because they're crafting, or doing writs or what not, I take and mail then a stack of the material, not asking a thing for it.

iksde

Daemons_Bane wrote: »

Your friend could also start deconstructing all the gear that he loot.. that would supply you with more than enough mats

especially this is not worth xD
better sell them to vendor and for gold buy these mats, you will get more mats for gold you get from selling trash items than actually deconstructing them

Danikat

Mithgil wrote: »

You gather mats based on two criteria;

1. Your character's level, and
2. The Rank for the crafting skill in the profession in question.

So, you can end up with 50% mats based on level, and 50% mats based on the crafting skill Rank.

An 810CP without any crafting Rank will gather 50% top tier and 50% bottom tier.

This is the "how" it works part; example:

An 810CP with full Rank in a given craft skill will gather 100% of the top-tier crafting mat for that profession.

Have your friend do the mats gathering as that will at least get you the mats required. Your friend is allowed to participate in the gathering of the necessary mats. This solves the problem.

I hope both the explanation and solution offered are helpful.

Minor correction: 160CP is the highest 'level' for gear and since 150CP gear uses the same materials that's the top level for finding the materials. After that CP is irrelevant to the materials you'll find, there is no difference between nodes you get at 150CP and at 810CP.

etchedpixels wrote: »

The problem range is between level 50 and CP 160. There it is very hard to find stocks of guild store materials because most people who are at level 50 cp 0 get to cp 160 fairly fast and anyone who has a second toon jumps straight from 49 to 50 + their current CP level so you can't have a second toon to collect mats in that range on your account.

That's the ones I struggled with as well. When I was crafting those levels I found it very hard to find materials because even with TCC there were very few listed in traders and now I've got characters above 150CP (meaning any new level 50s will jump up to the current champion level) the only way I've got to gain more of them is to level up a second crafter and keep their crafting skills at the right level to have those materials drop...which I'm not sure is worth the hassle.

It would be helpful to have an alternative which doesn't involve putting points into deliberately incomplete crafting skills just so I can farm those materials.

SickDuck

With the current system you need so little amount of anything but the highest level of mats, and you outgrow them so fast I don't really see the point. The only thing that needs real amount of material is cp160 gear and only for historical reasons that make no sense in these days anymore.

Really this issue should affect 1 in a million of the players. You have to be a master crafter for a guild of lazy noobs if you have more demand on low level materials than you can provide. Just deconstruction trash items gained during gameplay should give more than enough for lowbies to gear up. Also it shouldn't need more than half an hour to run around and gather enough raw mats to make a full set of gears, for their own need. It's not something you need to do every day. For crafters the daily writs provide a decent amount of random low level mats to fill the gap when someone still can't provide those handful of resources.

What bothers me more is the uselessness of all these materials. I wish they had more purpose, for example they could contribute to styling. In that case I would understand the need for more. But with the current system I'd rather just get rid of the varieties and have a single material that can be used for all levels. That would be an better solution to this "problem" imho.

Linaleah

SteveyP777 wrote: »

Hey everyone,

Thank you very much for your suggestions - definitely some things in there I didn't realise. I suppose I still feel these are 'workarounds' for a fundamental issue that would be easy to fix in-game HOWEVER having said that, please don't see that as a criticism; it is my own quirky pet-peeve and I'll get over it!

Plus, there's a lot in the above I was unaware of and I reckon it'll be a non-issue once I try applying some of those suggestions so thank you all for your help, as always the help on this forum is second to none!

Cheers,

SteveyP777.

the reason it works this way now, vs how it used to work (with mats being distributed by zone, so you could only find certain mats in certain zones and NOWHERE ELSE) is because it actualy made farming mats harder not easier. right now, you can keep your crafting at a level you need and get mats you need from every other node. before, I used to run around for ages, just to find a few nodes of the materials I needed and hoping that someone else doesn't get to them first.

this system as strange as it may sound to you, is far more flexible, both while leveling AND at max level.

P.S. I'm sorry if it was mentioned before, but in case it wasn't. doing crafting writs also awards mats and they are usually split between mats of your current level and random lower level mats. do them daily enough and you end up with more mid to lower level mats than you know what you can do with.

L_Nici

If you could just convert the highest Material to lower ones that would result into a flooding of the market with low level mats. Since the logical step would be the higher material is worth more than the low level, so you take 1 higher material and get maybe 10 lower materials. The other way around no one would use that, since it is not worth it, so you could stick without being ablee to transfer. A 1 to 1 can't be done either, because items on lower level cost less materials.

Everest_Lionheart

With the sticker book I find myself with between 150-180 extra slots in my bank depending on how much random gear I’ve picked up leveling any of the toons I regularly play. That leaves me a ton of extra space to farm for junk items on my low level characters, place that stuff in the bank and switch over to my crafter that has all the passives including the extraction passives that return extra materials for deconstruction. You could try that option as well. It can be a lot of switching but there are quite a few places you can run into trash mobs and get more materials than you can hold in a short amount of time. I use that same method on my CP toons from time to time to grind some gold in Deshaan. There is one route filled with chests, heavy sacks, thieves troves, psijic portals and with treasure hunter passive I have even had mother’s sorrow drop from regular enemies. Sell the extra MS and junk items for gold. 30 minutes, full inventory, 25-50K profit depending which jewelry drops when I catch the dolemans.

danno8

L_Nici wrote: »

If you could just convert the highest Material to lower ones that would result into a flooding of the market with low level mats. Since the logical step would be the higher material is worth more than the low level, so you take 1 higher material and get maybe 10 lower materials. The other way around no one would use that, since it is not worth it, so you could stick without being ablee to transfer. A 1 to 1 can't be done either, because items on lower level cost less materials.

Since this is really only a problem people have with outfitting lower level alts I doubt it would result in any kind of "flooding" of the market with low level materials. Like you say, higher level materials is worth more than lower level materials, so no one would use this technique to make money.

Even at 1:1 it would be a loss of value to anyone except for those who don't want to create new alts at various levels just to have a supply of low level materials.

One Tamriel created this strange issue, I see no problem in people being able to convert materials downward:

- the amount of time farming is exactly the same either way;
- no one in their right mind is going to farm high level materials to convert it downward at a loss in value;
- if we are concerned about that happening you can change the ratio so that you get fewer low level materials from each high level materials

It's really a win-win.

SteveyP777

tmbrinks wrote: »

I have literally thousands (nearly tens of thousands) of each of those "low-level" mats, simply from the extra rewards from doing daily writs. I have zero use for them personally, since all my characters are way above CP 160. I've tried selling them in my guild stores, but they are slow moving and take up sales slots, so I just let them pile up in my craft bag.

When somebody in zone asks for a low level material because they're crafting, or doing writs or what not, I take and mail then a stack of the material, not asking a thing for it.

That's actually helpful because I keep reminding myself I'm *new* at this game. So my worry that I'm in a deficit of low level mats may actually just be a very short-term concern - based on what you're saying, low level mats are extremely likely to come my way and in the long run, you're implying I'm going to have so many I won't know what to do with them!

That's actually reassuring so thanks - I'm assuming this is a short-term issue

SteveyP777

Linaleah wrote: »

the reason it works this way now, vs how it used to work (with mats being distributed by zone, so you could only find certain mats in certain zones and NOWHERE ELSE) is because it actualy made farming mats harder not easier. right now, you can keep your crafting at a level you need and get mats you need from every other node. before, I used to run around for ages, just to find a few nodes of the materials I needed and hoping that someone else doesn't get to them first.

this system as strange as it may sound to you, is far more flexible, both while leveling AND at max level.

P.S. I'm sorry if it was mentioned before, but in case it wasn't. doing crafting writs also awards mats and they are usually split between mats of your current level and random lower level mats. do them daily enough and you end up with more mid to lower level mats than you know what you can do with.

Hey Linaleah - sorry, I'm not sure I've made my query clear enough; I'm not comparing the 'old' vs the 'new' way. I 100% agree that the new way is MUCH better than the old, my query here was that it just seems there could be an extra step to make it *even better* by allowing some user-control over the level of mats you choose to gather i.e. not zone-controlled, not scaled, but user-defined (with the upper limit being your level & CP). To me... that would literally be perfection!!!

However, from the comments on this thread, I'm quickly gathering that although it might be a nice option, it's vastly not necessary and this issue I've raised seems to only be impacting me and my friend in the short term and definitely won't follow us in the long term! So I am reassured!

tmbrinks

SteveyP777 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

I have literally thousands (nearly tens of thousands) of each of those "low-level" mats, simply from the extra rewards from doing daily writs. I have zero use for them personally, since all my characters are way above CP 160. I've tried selling them in my guild stores, but they are slow moving and take up sales slots, so I just let them pile up in my craft bag.

When somebody in zone asks for a low level material because they're crafting, or doing writs or what not, I take and mail then a stack of the material, not asking a thing for it.

That's actually helpful because I keep reminding myself I'm *new* at this game. So my worry that I'm in a deficit of low level mats may actually just be a very short-term concern - based on what you're saying, low level mats are extremely likely to come my way and in the long run, you're implying I'm going to have so many I won't know what to do with them!

That's actually reassuring so thanks - I'm assuming this is a short-term issue

It is. Once you are past CP160 there is absolutely no need for the CP10-CP140 mats that drop, as you can't have a character ever again at those levels. Level 1 - 50 mats, you may occasionally use again when you're leveling a new character, but the cost to make things as those levels is so cheap, that a few minutes of farming for those materials and you have enough for a full set of gear.

Araneae6537

If you don’t have characters that are lower level (but lower level mats can also be gathered by characters without full points in the craft) nor someone else’s lower level character(s) who could gather for you, who are you crafting for? Maybe lower level sets sell well on traders, Idk, but in that case, it would be worth it for you to invest in a source (your own farming character(s), buying from others, etc.) but for most people, I don’t think this is a problem. The mats have no other use than for lower level gear.

SickDuck

danno8 wrote: »

L_Nici wrote: »

If you could just convert the highest Material to lower ones that would result into a flooding of the market with low level mats. Since the logical step would be the higher material is worth more than the low level, so you take 1 higher material and get maybe 10 lower materials. The other way around no one would use that, since it is not worth it, so you could stick without being ablee to transfer. A 1 to 1 can't be done either, because items on lower level cost less materials.

Since this is really only a problem people have with outfitting lower level alts I doubt it would result in any kind of "flooding" of the market with low level materials. Like you say, higher level materials is worth more than lower level materials, so no one would use this technique to make money.

Even at 1:1 it would be a loss of value to anyone except for those who don't want to create new alts at various levels just to have a supply of low level materials.

One Tamriel created this strange issue, I see no problem in people being able to convert materials downward:

- the amount of time farming is exactly the same either way;
- no one in their right mind is going to farm high level materials to convert it downward at a loss in value;
- if we are concerned about that happening you can change the ratio so that you get fewer low level materials from each high level materials

It's really a win-win.

Not much point creating a conversion system tbh. You could just cut the extra step and allow crafting any level of gear using the highest level material. Just need to adjust crafting cost accordingly (or not since the cost is already increasing with level regardless of material...). The next step after that would be getting rid of all low level mats since they got made redundant. Honestly that would be great, there is no point to have dozens of variants that have very limited usability. (There are opinions that gear should not even have a level at all, since everything is scaled to cp160 anyway)

Linaleah

SickDuck wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

L_Nici wrote: »

If you could just convert the highest Material to lower ones that would result into a flooding of the market with low level mats. Since the logical step would be the higher material is worth more than the low level, so you take 1 higher material and get maybe 10 lower materials. The other way around no one would use that, since it is not worth it, so you could stick without being ablee to transfer. A 1 to 1 can't be done either, because items on lower level cost less materials.

Since this is really only a problem people have with outfitting lower level alts I doubt it would result in any kind of "flooding" of the market with low level materials. Like you say, higher level materials is worth more than lower level materials, so no one would use this technique to make money.

Even at 1:1 it would be a loss of value to anyone except for those who don't want to create new alts at various levels just to have a supply of low level materials.

One Tamriel created this strange issue, I see no problem in people being able to convert materials downward:

- the amount of time farming is exactly the same either way;
- no one in their right mind is going to farm high level materials to convert it downward at a loss in value;
- if we are concerned about that happening you can change the ratio so that you get fewer low level materials from each high level materials

It's really a win-win.

Not much point creating a conversion system tbh. You could just cut the extra step and allow crafting any level of gear using the highest level material. Just need to adjust crafting cost accordingly (or not since the cost is already increasing with level regardless of material...). The next step after that would be getting rid of all low level mats since they got made redundant. Honestly that would be great, there is no point to have dozens of variants that have very limited usability. (There are opinions that gear should not even have a level at all, since everything is scaled to cp160 anyway)

that would be fantastic, but i have a feeling it will not happen, as it drastically reduces the need for a crafting bag.

SirAndy

SteveyP777 wrote: »

WHY is there no mechanic in the game that enables you to CHOOSE what level mats you are wanting to gather out in the world?

There already is ...

Simply respec your toon to the desired mat level in the craft in question and half of the mats you find in the wild will be of that desired type.

AlnilamE

SteveyP777 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

I have literally thousands (nearly tens of thousands) of each of those "low-level" mats, simply from the extra rewards from doing daily writs. I have zero use for them personally, since all my characters are way above CP 160. I've tried selling them in my guild stores, but they are slow moving and take up sales slots, so I just let them pile up in my craft bag.

When somebody in zone asks for a low level material because they're crafting, or doing writs or what not, I take and mail then a stack of the material, not asking a thing for it.

That's actually helpful because I keep reminding myself I'm *new* at this game. So my worry that I'm in a deficit of low level mats may actually just be a very short-term concern - based on what you're saying, low level mats are extremely likely to come my way and in the long run, you're implying I'm going to have so many I won't know what to do with them!

That's actually reassuring so thanks - I'm assuming this is a short-term issue

Not only will they come your way, if someone lower level needs gear and you don't have the mats, it is customary for them to provide them, since it's easier for them to get the particular tier they need.

As Linaleah said, writs are a good way to get mats of various levels, though that's a bit random in the short run.

idk

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

(TL;DR: "kids these days" )
I was here when the materials were specific to each leveled zone, and you had to go to a ridiculously humiliating "VR zone" (or, later, to the even more humiliating group-only Craglorn) to gather any of the highest tier materials. A group of three trash mobs or critters would slaughter you in that zone if you weren't top level, geared to the teeth and prepared for a tough fight. Back then, you needed to be badass to gather ore. Only flowers could be picked safely in low level zones, because alchemy materials are not leveled. The current system may not be perfect, but at least it's much, much better.

Let us not forget that the CP160 matts were locked behind DLC zones. The current design was a eliminate that requirement. Zos also added the additional lower tier matts as a reward for doing crafting.

While the system is not perfect it’s works fine and is likely the best design we will get. Maybe someone will come up with a better idea but until then this works.

rpa

In theory adjusting skill points in a craft skill rank allows lv50/cp150+/craft 50 to gather (max and) intermediate level mats. In practice, its not worth the hassle.

danno8

SickDuck wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

L_Nici wrote: »

If you could just convert the highest Material to lower ones that would result into a flooding of the market with low level mats. Since the logical step would be the higher material is worth more than the low level, so you take 1 higher material and get maybe 10 lower materials. The other way around no one would use that, since it is not worth it, so you could stick without being ablee to transfer. A 1 to 1 can't be done either, because items on lower level cost less materials.

Since this is really only a problem people have with outfitting lower level alts I doubt it would result in any kind of "flooding" of the market with low level materials. Like you say, higher level materials is worth more than lower level materials, so no one would use this technique to make money.

Even at 1:1 it would be a loss of value to anyone except for those who don't want to create new alts at various levels just to have a supply of low level materials.

One Tamriel created this strange issue, I see no problem in people being able to convert materials downward:

- the amount of time farming is exactly the same either way;
- no one in their right mind is going to farm high level materials to convert it downward at a loss in value;
- if we are concerned about that happening you can change the ratio so that you get fewer low level materials from each high level materials

It's really a win-win.

Not much point creating a conversion system tbh. You could just cut the extra step and allow crafting any level of gear using the highest level material. Just need to adjust crafting cost accordingly (or not since the cost is already increasing with level regardless of material...). The next step after that would be getting rid of all low level mats since they got made redundant. Honestly that would be great, there is no point to have dozens of variants that have very limited usability. (There are opinions that gear should not even have a level at all, since everything is scaled to cp160 anyway)

Yup, you make a good point.