(this is a combination of a couple of posts and i will be adding more as my guild mates and I get more data)

I am doing this post because I am a Guildmaster of a crafting guild. Myself and my officers provide an environment in which beginning and advanced crafters can exchange information, data and support as we strive to be the best crafters we can be. A leader's purpose is to recognize the strengths of others and help them achieve their goals. Strength lies in the people we surround ourselves with.

I have one toon that is a devoted crafter, she is V10. I restated her to be my DEDICATED crafter. I chose to have one dedicated crafting toon because instead of having to find several motifs to go on three crafter, I only need one. It was a waste of resources to duplicate everything on several part time crafting toon. It is better for my guild when I can share resources/ motifs, recipes with my guild mates that do not have them these resources yet.

I have a total of 8 playable toons. Of which I allotted some of my skill points to my hirelings. Now when I am not using them, they are not wasted pixels.

Now back to the point, hirelings. This is my guild members and my suggestions to the developers:

1. Do Not send items through our hirelings we can purchase through a vendor.
We have come to destroying items that we can buy (if we need them) from a vendor. (that doesn't mean that you should talk yourself into the idea of taking items out of the npc vendors stock.... not everyone is a craftier)

2. Do Not decrease or eliminate the rare items we now receive through our hirelings. The rate of drop in the live game is pathetically low. If I have extras gold mats to sell/share it is only because I obtain them through farming. One of our members has been keeping track and it is a depressingly low number of USEABLE items that we get from our hirelings.

3. Stop forcing writs down our throats. If this is to be the only ways we can obtain rare items, then people will be extremely unhappy. When I was doing the writs, it was a horrible drain on the resources of our guild. We are a small guild but growing every day. We are also combining two guilds into one guild.

When you add up the number of resources that it takes for a level 50 crafter to complete each writ at level 50 it consumes approximately 100 +/- hard mats, i.e. woods, metals or cloth/leather per writ. When that is multiplied by 20 to 50 master crafters, what guild can support consuming that many mats on a daily basis. It will take many hours of farming to collect enough raw mats to do the blacksmithing, clothier and woodworking writs every day. I farmed in several areas: Craglorn, the Rift and eastmarch. Compared and averaged the time and number of mats.

All our officers stopped doing the writs so our lower level crafters would have the mats available to make, trade and breakdown equipment for leveling. I do not believe the developers understand the dynamics of crafters. It is not the only thing we want to do--at least we would like to have time to do other things instead we are trying to run around and gather materials. Which brings me to the next point;

4. Stop trying to give us "busy work". i.e. 'gather more materials to obtains rare items', 'fish more to make high end foods/beverages', 'complete writs and be rewarded with hard to obtain items' (that is what our hirelings are suppose to do). Please don't make it so hard to be a crafter that we have very little time to play. When people have to spend most of their time in game running around and competing with other farmers for the limited resources you currently provide, that is when the game will cease to be fun. We enjoy being crafters, and have spent a lot of time to get to where we are. It was our choice to be crafters, but at some point we would like to be able to pvp and pve more than we do now.

5. If we still have hirelings, place them on a set 12 cycle. Many people are not an a 9-5 schedule. Here are some of the dynamics that make your current system difficult:

a) 12 hours shifts;
b) dedicated family time (don't let the wife/husband feel neglected or no more gaming);
c) rotating shift work;
d) long commute times;
e) rotating shift hours;
f) unscheduled life events.

They have suggested 12pm and 12am as set times. That way a person would have a twelve hour window to check your mail.

Hirelings are suppose to obtain things we need. We spent valuable skills points to "hire" them.

If my employees, in real life, tried to pass by me the mediocre results of their "handy work", I would fire them, and hire someone else that could bring me quality items--not items that have very little or NO VALUE. For the most part they are without value and take up critical inventory, bank and guild bank space.

Summary:

This will not only impact crafters it will impact every player. What happens when gold or purple mats sell for 10 times what they do now.

I have several other crafters getting numbers on the writs and what they return on the PTS.

Everyone needs to advise every guildmate they have to speak up and let the developers know this will not be good for the overall economy of the game.



Most graciously,

osacee