Alpheu5 wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Alpheu5 wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Muttsmutt wrote: »

The Issue:

We have all these beautiful motifs that we cannot use if we also want to wear BiS gear, or min-max, or play the game's hardest content.

Forcing players to choose between being less powerful when there are more powerful choices, or looking worse when there are better looking choices, is ... cruel. We have all these strong sets, and all these beautiful motifs, but we can't have them both?! Why? This limitation does not benefit the community, or the game as a whole, or even ZOS, in any way whatsoever, it's simply a by-product issue that has not been addressed.

The Solution:


Add a perk in the crafting trees to allow us to use tempers on an armor/weapon to reshape it in a motif we know.


The Consequences & Pros/Cons:

Pros:

-Crafting becomes something desirable for one to max and invest skill points in. Moreso if this binds the specific piece of gear, if it was not already bound.
-People can make their aesthetic choices without having to forego dropped sets' superior bonuses, and NOTHING has to change in the tier of dropped-crafted sets [which are correctly ranked].
-At the extreme, people who avoided dropped sets and ran with sub-par crafted gear for aesthetic reasons [it happens...!] will be able to experience the hardest content in the game without dragging their team down.

Cons:

-Tempers will rise in price.

NOT Cons / Bad consequences that WON'T actually exist:

-People will NOT stop running dungeons/trials, because they will still need the sets!
-People will NOT stop crafting sets, or craft them any more less... rather, will do so ONLY on their gameplay merit [which some of them have], or as in-between, also known as mid-game sets until they can farm their desired dropped sets- which is EXACTLY what crafted sets should be.
-People who like the look of sets don't have to worry one bit, nothing changes for them! Except that others can wear the same sets without being forced to wear a costume or deal with looking a way they don't like.

Amount of work ZoS has to do:

-Coding work to implement the functionality at Crafting Stations for the added perk, and associated UI assets. Much of which I expect will be very similar to the way improvement works.

The Alternatives:

By design, dropped sets have to be better than crafted sets in most cases, because there has to be a reward from doing Dungeons/Trials/etc. This is OK, crafted sets are not entirely obsolete, they have their uses in limited situations. The answer is NOT making crafted sets equal to dungeon drops- that can prove unfair and difficult.

Costumes are a band-aid fix, and present a much less variety than motifs. Not even the Crown Store gives us a large or desirable variety of combat-ready costumes, can't even say they do this to force us to buy costumes which is honestly a silly concept.

and of course i guess zos could also charge crowns at this or that turn in the "reshaping process". then add that to pros, zos makes more money.

RE the bold... this is false - at least partially. Folks have said on these forums a number of times that they craft sets because of the looks. They have said they liked some dropped sets specs but did not like their looks and so they avoided them. So it is evident that some people will move to drop sets and away from crafted if the only unique element that crafted sets bring to the table is given over to drop sets by means of this system.

The key is that some people ARE right now in play crafting sets and wearing crafted sets instead of drops because of their looks.

So your imagining that "People will NOT stop crafting sets, or craft them any more less." is apparantrly false based on statements made.

in fact, you imply almost admit that later in the same element when you say that (implied after the change) the decisions would be based on merits as opposed to looks and this is how you would like it to be... expressed of course in the self-certain emphatic capped comment about what things should be.

There is a difference between something you suggest folks don't do now (use crafted for looks over merits) and something you don't feel they should need to do now.

But if not one crafted set is made or worn in this game for looks alone and every crafted set made/worn in this game now is done for either merit or filler/convenience (if as you say explicitly "People will NOT stop crafting sets, or craft them any more less" , then nobody cares enough about looks in this game to give up merit/convenience for looks so no real serious need to add this feature, right?

For me, since i am a myth to you, i dont exist, cuz i do actually use crafted sets in some cases for looks and so if i could use better drop sets i would then reduce my crafted set make and use, i do not want to see the only unique feature that crafted sets bring to the table - style control - given away to drop sets.

And i have to ask...

When 1T rolled around, drop sets got all upped to tier-whatever-you-want up to cp160 (vs a lot of them being capped at cp120 or cp140 before), got a lot new sets added, got jewels and weapons pretty much across the board and got easily identifiable farming deployments... all of which turned into pretty good uptick in drop set impact in the game and.... yet... somehow.... thats still not enough for you?

After you get style control on top of all those gains from 1t, whats next?

We see tons of request for trait control too... is that next on the "lets keep making drop sets better and better and moar and moar until crafted are just a quaint memory on the folks here before we got it all for drops and renamed the old "crafting" skill lines "alterations" and made them into drop set support systems?"

The next step would be improving upon the current and/or implementing new crafted sets. The "façade over functionality" argument against being able to reform dropped sets becomes irrelevant if the crafted sets are on par with the dropped sets. I myself wear a costume on my main almost 100% of the time simply because the body pieces look absolutely terrible together, but would really love for my monster helmet to be visible.

And more people than you think would be against trait control on the basis that it would make the game too easy, myself included.

yeah yeah yeah... that makes perfect sense. :-)

Give drop sets massive uptick so crafted see less and less use.

then take away crafteds one remaining unique element....

then sometime later one day some day kinda maybe sorta get around to giving crafted some crtumbs.

Thats how things work right?

get more and more and more and take away every last bit until you finally get everything and then decide its time to share the love.

How about instead of giving drop sets even more bonus and taking that last unique part of crafted sets away...

FIRST you raise crafted sets up to be more worthwhile, give them other unique capabilities that give them a seat at the table for more than just copnvenience temporaries then throw-away disposables and then after that you take the currently unique to crafted style control and spread it around?

Every hear of triage?

Thats where you prioritize cases based on how cosmetic vs in need of treatment things are.

the give drop sets style control thing is like saying "hey, the super-model has a hangnail so unplug the kidney guy's dailysis machine so we can get the right lighting for her buff."

like i said, the massive gains from 1T, not enough for drop-fans. gotta get their more more more more more more first cuz like you know they didn't get enough with all jewels all cp160 bunches of new sets and drops freaking everywhere on cue...

but hey then later we can maybe look at crafted... after we give droppers more more more more more more more.

one day... yup... holding my breath.

Realistically, what do you think would be easier to implement:

1) Implementing a system to change nothing but the appearance of a given item, or,

2) Rebalancing all sets so crafted/dropped sets are on par with each other?

If we wait for the second to happen before even trying to do the first, there's no telling how long we'd have to wait before we'd get restyling. Just look at the time gap between Imperial City and One Tamriel, when all sets in the game got the memo that, hey, the level cap is now v16/cp160.

As it is right now, crafted sets can be obtained immediately, on demand, with BiS weights, traits, and in the preferred style. Dropped sets, on the other hand, rely solely on pure chance, and when you finally get exactly what you're looking for, you're stuck with whatever style it came in. As a crafter, I'm appalled that I can't take whatever motifs I painstakingly bought, found, or stole, and apply that knowledge to my own rewards.

Letting people restyle their dropped sets isn't going to magically make crafted sets non-unique, simply on the basis that crafted gear can be made at the player's behest. You have to remember that this is an MMO, but also an RPG. A player shouldn't be forced to choose between making their character badass and making their character just look badass.

STEVIL wrote: »

I just don't think sucking the last bit of unique capability from crafted in the process, followed by a one day eventual uptic for crafted makes sense.

I mean, really, you yourself say there is no telling how long it will be before crafted get help - that's a long time out of favor after you remove the only unique thing they bring.

Muttsmutt wrote: »

PS4_ZeColmeia wrote: »

So only thing to add is a trade window that let's a crafter transmog bound gear. This would help crafting as an actual trade pick up significant rewards and keep the motif business flourishing.

honestly i know people who just do not have a crafter because they don't want to waste the skill points or invest the time; this would encourage those people and give them a reason to dabble in crafting too.