BLACKSMITHING 2.0
I'm not English, it's not my mother language, but I'll try to make myself as clear as possible. I'm sorry for any grammatical errors or stupid looking sentences. Don't blame me, blame my English teacher
I'm having trouble leveling up my blacksmithing. Well, not really trouble, but I find it to go too slow in terms of earning experience points for it and it's just a drag. You'll need to create lots of items, daggers for instance, and trade them with someone else so you can disassemble their daggers and you'll earn some decent experience points. I don't mind the need to create lots of items, but I believe it should be implemented in a different way. Also, the need to trade with other people so you can get some decent experience points is just awkward. It should be drastically changed.
Well, do I have any better idea? Yes, I believe I do, at least I hope I do. It won't be the perfect way of crafting and leveling for everyone, but I believe it will be much more appealing to most ESO players, especially the ones who Role-play. I'll stay with Blacksmithing as a craft, but this could be implemented for all or almost all crafting skills (woodworking, clothing and alchemy seem the best options for this type of experience earning)
The experience earned per level 6 dagger made is currently 127 and for deconstructing someone else's dagger is 282, a total of 399 experience points.
I believe every item should degrade in terms of experience points earned, the more you make them. This will force people to create different types of items for the highest rate of experience earning.
EXAMPLE
Item type - number of items created - experience points earned.
For instance, bow level 1 (item type): item 1-10 (number of items created) grants you 50 xp per item (experience points earned).
2-handed sword level 1: item 1-10 grants you 50 xp per item, 11-20 will grant you 25 xp per item and 21 and up will grant you a measly 10xp per item.
2-handed sword level 6: item 1-10 grants you 75 xp per item, 11-20 will grant you 40 xp per item and 21 and up will grant you a measly 10xp per item.
2-handed sword level 50: item 1-10 grants you 1500 xp per item, 11-20 will grant you 750 xp per item and 21-30 will grant you a 300 xp per item and 31-up will grant 150xp per item.
When reaching the point of earning 10xp per item, you will be forced to switch to another type of item if you want to progress further at a decent pace.
Body armor level 1: item 1-10 grants you 75 xp per item, 11-20 will grant you 40 xp per item and 21 and up will grant you a measly 10xp per item.
Body armor level 6: item 1-10 grants you 100 xp per item since an armor is harder to make than a dagger, 11-20 grants 50 xp per item, 21-30 grants 25 xp per item and 31-up grants 10 xp per item.
Body armor level 50: item 1-10 grants you 2000 xp per item, 11-20 grants 1000 xp per item, 21-30 grants 500 xp per item and 31-up grants 250 xp per item
You'll need to switch to another item again to continue and progress.
You could also switch to another racial type of armor. let's say you're able to create Imperial and Bosmer armor. This way you can switch to Bosmer and start creating those items for 75% of the experience points you've earned with the Imperial items you just created.
Deconstructing the items will grant you half the amount of experience as creating it.
Items you find in chests and such, will grant you the maximum xp at all times (i.e. 2000 xp for level 50 body armor), depending on the level of the item. This will make exploration and chesthunting extra worthwhile for crafters.
Using traits in items will grant a total of 20% extra experience points. So an item which normally grants 500 xp, will than grant 600 xp.
Creating special set items will grant 200% xp, degrading of xp earned will apply here as well.
EXPERIENCE POINTS NEEDED
This system can only work when there are lots of experience points to be earned per level in crafting. Else it would be too easy to gain craftinglevels and we all want to have the feeling we're accomplishing something here!
level - xp needed
1-2: 2000
2-3: 4000
3-4: 8000
4-5: 16000
5-6: 32000
6-7: 64000
7-8: 128000
8-9: 256000
9-10: 512000
Furthermore, the itemlevels which you can create, should be matching the crafting level better or else you will be able to climb in level too fast. I'm only using the crafting of items here, but you will most probably deconstruct them as well, which will result in the need of lesser items to gain a crafting level.
Craftinglevel 1-2 -> itemlevels 1-4 (40 items needed with 50 xp per item or create and deconstruct 30 items)
Craftinglevel 2-3 -> itemlevels 5-8 (54 items needed with 75 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 3-4 -> itemlevels 9-12 (80 items needed with 100 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 4-5 -> itemlevels 13-16 (128 items needed with 125 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 5-6 -> itemlevels 16-20 (230 items needed with 150 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 6-7 -> itemlevels 20-25 (320 items needed with 200 xp per item or create and deconstruct 220 items)
Craftinglevel 7-8 -> itemlevels 26-30 (320 items needed with 400 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 8-9 -> itemlevels 31-40 (426 items needed with 600 xp per item)
Craftinglevel 9-10 -> itemlevels 40-50 (512 items needed with 1000 xp per item)
As you can see, deconstructing your crafted items will be worth your while!
Numbers aren't 100% accurate, but you'll get the idea. I'm a gamer, not a scientist.
WHY THIS CHANGE?- It will give more diversity in terms of crafting, making it less boring, because you'll need to create all sorts of weapons and not just daggers or just helmets;
- It will make crafting more realistic, since you'll learn more from creating different types and styles of items than by creating the same item over and over again;
- It'll make exploration and chesthunting more viable, because the items contained in those chests will grant 100% of the itemlevel's experience.
- You'll level up faster, but not too fast.
Feel free to respond on this, whether it be positive or negative. I'd love to see your idea on crafting in ESO. Is it like you wanted it to be all along or are you missing something? Do you have anything to add or would you like to see something differently?