Problem 1
Crafted gear is significantly worse than dropped gear in most circumstances, reducing the equipment skill lines to temper factories.
Problem 2
Players have to choose between wearing amazing motifs or best-in-slot gear.
Problem 3
Research is completely irrelevant once all traits have been unlocked.
Problem 4
Inventory management for dropped sets is very difficult.
Solution
What if you could research a specific dropped set item and could then craft that item using different motifs, producing a new set item that is bound to you. This would simultaneous solve all of the above problems, allowing equipment crafting to be relevant at the highest level, giving players the option of customizing their gear with amazing motifs, making research valuable in end-game, and simplifying inventory management, and at the same time increases the value of dropped gear from completing content.
Bonus
A dropped-gear-crafting system would also give a foundation for other interesting expansions in the future. For example, what if once you unlocked all available traits for a given dropped set item, you could craft gear in that set with two traits instead of one, perhaps with a special expensive trait stone from the master writ merchant? This expansion would again increase the value of both dropped set pieces and crafting, making all dropped traits useful, at least for research, and making the very best gear in the game require strength in both areas and also opening up 36 new trait combinations for each piece.
Edited by Alanar on April 28, 2017 8:54PM