"zos repeatedly stated during development that they wanted crafted gear to always be on par, or even better than, dropped gear." Zo$ said a lot of stuff during development.

Like Amsel said, ZOS said a lot of things, but...

This is the direction they're heading according to a response in the IC thread:

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Yes, you'll will be able to craft VR15 and VR16 items, but it will require the acquisition of new materials. These materials are not obtained through harvest nodes the way other crafting materials typically are. Instead, you must obtain them by deconstructing VR15 and VR16 drops and then using those materials to craft new items. Also, the new materials are tradeable, so you can buy and sell them with other players, and you can buy them with Tel Var Stones in the Imperial City.

I like your ideas. But it looks like crafters who aren't in IC will be out of luck.

Some of the best stuff is bind on pick up, so you wont see them in stores. Crafting still offers some powerful bonuses, seducer us one of my favorites to use while leveling up.

myrrrorb14_ESO wrote: »

Some of the best stuff is bind on pick up, so you wont see them in stores. Crafting still offers some powerful bonuses, seducer us one of my favorites to use while leveling up.

Exactly, crafting is basically turning into a "well, it makes your alts easier to level" skill set. After all the time and effort and money put towards maxxing out a crafting skill, it's pretty disappointing that the min/max endgame requires set bonuses that arent available to crafting.

I really think that the problem could be resolved if they added a system where crafters could dismantle dropped gear (or gear bought from vendors/pvp rewards) in order to learn how to make those sets or other unique bonuses.

As it is now, crafters have a hard time selling much of anything. Most of what I do end up selling isnt gear to be used, it's trait research items for other crafters to use, and then they'll be in the same situation - selling their traits off to recover the cost of leveling up crafting in the first place.

I know ZOS' take on this is probably something along the lines of "well, crafters can make gear look how they want", but endgame content doesnt care what you look like, it cares about stats, and so do the teams running that content.

Also, the cost of upgrading items is ridiculous in comparison to how easy it can be to get the same quality out of drops. To make a single legendary item, I need:
-The base materials for the item itself
-The trait stone for whatever trait the item is using
-The style stone for whatever style the item is being crafted in
-Enough trait research for the item if it's going to be part of a set
-A minimum of 2 green upgrade materials
-A minimum of 3 blue upgrade materials
-A minimum of 4 purple upgrade materials
-A minimum of 9 yellow upgrade materials

The cost of upgrade materials alone on a legendary item can reach 15-20 THOUSAND gold depending on the ingame market (which is crap on consoles right now, btw). At the same time, someone can go pvp for a bit or (supposedly) go to the imperial city, get some tel var stones, and buy gear from a vendor with those stones, that will have the same or better performance and quality.


I had high hopes for crafting in this game, since the developers always seemed to be aware of the need for a good crafting system... but ESO is getting thrown in the same pile as all the other MMO's that have had crap crafting systems. SW:G, made nearly 12 years ago now, still completely stomps out any other game on the market for crafting. Why is it so hard to come up with something to rival that?

also current sets are getting reworked hopefully that means the 8 and 9 trait ones will be looked at as they arent that good

MSchroederMSchroeder
mod
Iluvrien wrote: »
This update announcement includes the two new vet levels and associated gear but makes no mention of extensions to the active side of crafting (new crafting passives are mentioned).

Will we be able to make VR16 gear? New sets? Traits? etc... or will we be dependent on a group-PvE and PVP based supply chain for these items? You know, something that seems to completely exclude the solo or semi-solo-PvE style player.

You can craft VR 15 and VR 16 items, using materials gained from exploring the Imperial City - either through deconstructing the items you find there, or purchasing the crafting materials directly from vendors using Tel Var Stones. (The Imperial City has no crafting nodes, because it's both totally urbanized and totally destroyed.) Those materials can then be sold on Guild Stores or traded to other players.

There are three new Item Sets to craft, also found within the Imperial City. I can't share details quite yet, but you'll find them soon enough. However, there are not any new Traits this time around.

@Lynx7386 ... man I really like your ideas on crafting. You have a big two thumbs up from me. I'm still rather new to the game (been playing since March)...but began investing in crafting soon after I started playing. My first character (VR6 Orc Nightblade) is now dedicated solely to crafting & I've restarted the game with a new main character.

One other item I'd like for ZOS to address is the 8 and 9 trait crafted sets, especially for a critical strike & stamina build. Seems like Hunding's Rage is the best fit for this so far and it only requires 6 traits to craft. You would think that something that requires 8 or 9 traits to craft would be even better...but I personally don't think that is the case. This applies to mages too...from looking at the sets I don't see any 8 or 9 trait crafted sets that are much better than the lower level crafted sets (NOTE: I haven't played mages yet so I defer to all the Raistlin's and Gandalf's out there on this subject )

Crafting is so easy, if all the best gear in the game could be crafted, there would be no challenge in getting the best gear. For some people there would be no point in doing end game content, if the reward was junk gear that you'll never use because you can craft better.

wildbear247 wrote: »

from looking at the sets I don't see any 8 or 9 trait crafted sets that are much better than the lower level crafted sets (NOTE: I haven't played mages yet so I defer to all the Raistlin's and Gandalf's out there on this subject )

Nope the 8 and 9 trait sets are pretty meh even for Casters. There is a nice set for Healers, but how many times do you resurrect someone (as that is what the 5 piece bonuses seem to help the most)? Maybe in PvP it happens more often, but not in PvE. Most I know res themselves.

The 8 and 9 piece sets do offer some nice 2 piece bonuses though.

Nestor wrote: »

wildbear247 wrote: »

from looking at the sets I don't see any 8 or 9 trait crafted sets that are much better than the lower level crafted sets (NOTE: I haven't played mages yet so I defer to all the Raistlin's and Gandalf's out there on this subject )

Nope the 8 and 9 trait sets are pretty meh even for Casters. There is a nice set for Healers, but how many times do you resurrect someone (as that is what the 5 piece bonuses seem to help the most)? Maybe in PvP it happens more often, but not in PvE. Most I know res themselves.

The 8 and 9 piece sets do offer some nice 2 piece bonuses though.

You don't like being able to have 2 mundus stone effects active at the same time? That is a 9 trait set.

The other factor to consider is that crafting passives require skill points so ZoS isn't really helping crafters by adding more passives to each tree. I'll be interested to see what ZoS does but I'm not happy about having ~80+ skill points locked into crafting when additional skill trees will be released in the future.

As noted, crafters need the ability to change racial motifs and increase the level of gear among other things. Even without being able to research dropped or reward set traits this would go a long way in upgrading gear, especially bound items. A new trait is likely for Orsinium so hopefully it's a good one but until then ZoS needs to upgrade the current crafting system.

NobleNerd wrote: »

You don't like being able to have 2 mundus stone effects active at the same time? That is a 9 trait set.

But the rest of the Bonuses don't make up for what is given up to use that set. Getting a small buff to all 3 attributes is not that much of a bonus to me, especially as a Purple Food gives me so much more of a buff. Nothing in the game, even 3 pieces of Jewelery with Kuta Weapon power enchants, can give me an extra 273 Weapon Damage that a full set of Hundings Rage can. Adding in a 4 Piece Ashen Grip, 400+ total weapon damage can be gained, along with lots of other nice buffs that help weapon and melee.

It may work on the right build. If it was 3 Stamina or Magic or Health buffs that might be different, but even then, that is still less than a Green Food, and probably less than a Blue Food.


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