Thread: Can Crafting Make a Comeback?

I was wondering if there's information somewhere around here that I've missed about any major crafting updates in the near future? I mean, a bigger one than just a few new recipes added or icons being updated. I was hoping there would be a major crafting revamp that would expand on the current system and significantly add to the things we can make ourselves now.

I love the crafting aspect of this game; I just wish there was more I could do with it and more good my chars and kin could get from it. I'd love to see more armor set options and I'd love to craft armor sets with set bonuses and various build possibilities. I want to be able to craft armor sets that are comparable to some of the raiding sets coming out; I didn't really like the stats on the Mirkwood level 65 gear.

It would also be nice if we could craft upgraded weapons for ourselves without having to raid. I'm a casual player that enjoys this game with my family and my schedule and responsibilites don't allow for any real raiding. (I mean, I run the Rift and Helegrod just for fun once in a while because they aren't time-consuming or difficult to figure out, but I can't do any serious raiding, unfortunately.)

It was a disppointment to realize that I can't upgrade my current weapons at all. Even though some might think it's lame or lore-breaking or insulting...or whatever...I'd love to have the option of crafting a symbol of Celebrimbor or the new Elder King symbol for a FA. Even if there was a grind attached to some new, rare ingredient or resource to do this, it would at least give me a viable path to the enjoyment of upgrading my weapons if this were an alternate choice allowed. I have the ability to grind/farm at my own pace for crafting materials whereas I don't have the option of scheduling raids and/or joining enough PUGs to successfully get my own symbols and gear set via rolls and tokens.

I'm not positive, but I think they may be changing some of the crafting stuff pretty radically with Isengard. Not 100% sure, but that's what i heard.

I'd be happy if weaponsmiths could craft level-capped offhand weapons that were almost on par with those offhand weapons that drop in instances.

I think there's about a 20% DPS difference between the best crafted offhand and the best offhand that drops in instances; that, IMHO, is too big of a difference.

Everywhere else in the game, crafters can usually out do the dropped items, even the purples (LI's not included). But once you pass your crafting cap and rise about that level, the items dropped are now better than the crafted ones, because crafting hasn't kept up to the rest of the game.

It remains to be seen if they will update it, or leave the better stuff to raids to force the time sink. They might even add more LI's, instead of more mundane crafted weapons and items. More LI's would make them more money, as people would then need those extra two slots on all their alts, and then more scrolls for relics, etc, etc...

Comeback?

All my characters craft, bar none. I think some people like crafting in whatever guise is offered, and some do not. I do not think it was ever the intention of Turbine to make crafting a big in-game money making activity, but it is very handy for personal use.

So comeback? or just more popular? (Won't matter to me )

I wager that Turbine will not really do much with crafting until they figure out a satisfactory progress-and-reward scheme for fellowship and raid play. The response to Update 2 suggests they still have some work to do.

Well the problem is, how do you make crafting worthwhile without making raiding obsolete?

Raiding is always going to be more intensive. It takes longer, there's more risk, it requires grouping. Crafting takes ingredients and a couple mouse clicks. Raid gear quality, consequently, is always going to reflect the amount of effort and risk it takes to acquire. If you can craft an item just as good after just an hour of gathering resources, why spend days and days raiding?

If you try to make crafting more difficult by requiring rare components, how do you make them rare? Add them to raid loot, like Symbols of Celebrimor? Then it just effectively becomes raid gear with an arbitrary crafting step in between, and the value of the crafted item is more or less the same as the value of the rare component. That'd be the problem with your suggestion of crafting Elder King symbols; how do you preserve their rarity if they're craftable? Require some other rare looted component?

Maybe you make it time-locked, like Supreme Symbols? But then people complain about being gated. And, ultimately, its going to slow down the spread of items at first, but then once everyone makes one for themselves, they'll flood the market and it'll be very easy to acquire.

Part of the problem is that items in this game are non-unique, every Glowing Aureate Ring of Power is the same as every other; its not like you can custom-make an item, as you can in other games with more robust crafting. But thats a fundamental design of the crafting system and its not going to change.

If you have a problem with how crafting is implemented, its your job to think of a better suggestion

Personally I think the future of crafting lies in consumables. By endgame, when you're level capped, you need to have content to work towards, so the best stuff is always going to be non-craftable/require special-loot components. If endgame gear in RoI was craftable, everyone would have it within a week, and then what? Consumables make more sense as crafted items; they only last a certain number of uses (unlike equipment), they're more easily marketed since there's always demand, and they dont make raid gear obsolete or vice versa.

The +crit % items (journals) for 1 shot recipes is what ruined crafting, as far as making money. When it was actually hard to get crits on one shot recipes, they were worth more because they were rare. Now, you can crit just about every time you try. Also crafting guilds for auto crit 1 shots.

If they make a new tier with the expansion, leave out T7 Journals and guild recipes, I think you might be ale to make money crafting again.

Unfortunately it does look like the only real money makers are the scholars, everyone needs the consumables.

Morale and power pots, curatives, scrolls, etc. Cooking provides some money with the buff foods (but far easier to level a hobbit up and leave them there to go SM in both)

I would love it if my tailor could make armor sets that give bonuses for the number items you are wearing in the set.

Well, my crafters don't have an issue making money, be it consumables, armour, jewelery, though I don't make weapons any more...

I don't go in for this whole raiding must give better rewards thing, it was one of the things that was not suppose to happen in this game, however it has over time, to varying degrees depending which craft you look at.

I liked the way things were back is SoA, I believe the best setup was considered to be a mix of crafted, raid and quest armour, this was the way it was designed back then. Nowadays though, its to easy to get crits for it to be this straight forward, and most of the quests can be done solo, which I imagine is why we see raids comming out on top. Back when I crafted my first set of teal armour for myself at level 50, it was not a quick and easy process as it is today, it took a lot of time and effort.

I could list of pages of ideas to improve crafting, and would love to see some of them done, but I don't really expect much to happen other than may be tier 7 finally being added. Not with the way the game seems to be headed.

I was talking about crafting with some members of the kin I'm in on the weekend.

LI's have made weapon crafting quite limited from level 45 and up. There are a a couple of classes that can use crafted off-hand weapons and guards and champs can use crafted bows, but once a player starts Vol 2 Book 1 they really don't need crafted main weapons until level 60 (crafted LI weapons) and again at level 65. Crafted LI's can only be made for level 60 and 65, all other LI's are mob drops and bartered. The real business for weaponcrafters is players who haven't started Vol 2 Book 1 yet. There are still hunter traps, burg tricks and guard/warden shield spikes for high level characters but that's about it at the top end.

Armor crafting has taken a similar hit at the high end from the instance token armor sets. There are high level armor recipies but they struggle to come close to matching the instance sets. The saving grace for armor makers is that the instance sets aren't accessable until a player is almost level 60 so players will still be looking for crafted armor after they have stopped looking for crafted weapons. The new Evendim armor sets are going to punch a hole in demand for mid level crafted armor (and for some classes the Evendim armor sets rival the Fem armor set from Angmar, but the Evendim sets are available at a lower level).

Scholars, Cooks and Jewellers are much less affected. Scholars and Cooks benefit from making consumable items that players need to keep restocking. Crafted jewellry is superceded by reward items but it takes time to earn those rewards so players use crafted pieces until they get the reward pieces they want, and level cap crafted jewellry still reasonable gear in it's own right anyway.

What can be done about it? As I've pointed out the biggest holes I see in crafting are high level weapons and armor. For armor, craftable pieces that have limited set bonuses could be a way to revive that craft at the high end. Possibly even craftable armour pieces that count towards the set bonuses the instance sets have, but with alternate stats.

Let's take the level 58-60 Moria armor sets as an example. Player X runs various Moria instances until they have enough tokens to barter for a piece of the Moria instance set. Instead of getting the standard legs, boots, gloves, etc for that set they use those instance tokens to barter for a special one-shot recipie needed to make an alternative version of a piece for that same armour set. This crafted piece of armor still counts as part of the instance set for set bonus purposes, but it has different stats compared to the standard bartered piece of armor. A player still had to complete the same content to get the required tokens, but there would be another option on what to spend those tokens on, an option that is relevent to crafting. I can see some issues with this idea, it's not perfect but it at least gives armor crafting a chance to integrate with the non-crafted instance sets.

One potential flaw in the idea is crafting players farming the instance tokens and selling the crafted armor to players who have not done the instances, but if there is a limit to how many pieces of this crafted instance armor can be equipped at the same time then a player cannot fully equip themselves with crafted instance armor. If they want a full set, they have to earn their own tokens and barter for some of the pieces themselves.

As for high end weapon crafting, I have problems seeing how to integrate weapon crafting back into LI's more than the current situation. Maybe crafted legacies that have a lower cap compared to legacies obtained by the current system.

Well, it is my understanding that RoI does in fact include a tier 7 crafting aspect, though the details seem fairly vague. As for making the weapons/armour equal to, lesser than, or greater than raid sets, I wish I had an answer but I have no details there. I do have a few points though I would like to mention and thoughts to suggest.

First, let me introduce myself, so to speak. My main two characters are both smiths, a weaponsmith and a metalsmith. Both are GM level, which I have had to work very hard at, since my higher of the two is only level 45. Now, I try to avoid buying mats on the AH (I may if I need some for a kin mate or such in a hurry and don't have time to gather myself) but generally I'm out running the risks to get the mats myself. And yes, at times this has put me in places I REALLY shouldn't have been, just to see what ores are there.

Now, being level 45, I've yet to see this discrepancy at higher levels between crafted and raid gear, but I know right now, I can usually make better than I can get through questing. I don't do instances or skirmishes, and have had a few others tell me that those were hands down the best ways to gain gear (and level, but thats another topic...). Even when I showed them pieces I had made and said "Look, its clearly better!!" they would still say "No, the instance sets are far better. After all, it's a set!" I think part of that is that gearing up, like levelling, is one of those things that there seems to be different ways to handle, and different opinions on what is the best way. Again, I'm still a long way from level 60, so I don't know much about high end, but I hope there is a crafted alternative to raid gear, because much like my lack of interest in instances and skirmishes, I don't really have a huge interest in raiding.

As for the idea that raid gear has to be better, because raiding is so much more of a commitment, well, in reality the game is a commitment. If I commit to play X hours a week/day/whatever, I've made that commitment. Of course, that might be time spent raiding, or crafting, or questing, or RPing in the Pony. Lets say I've committed to play 5 hours a day, the first while to get to level 50, just so I can safely wander Forochel, then after that spend my time all day every day fishing in the frozen waters of Forochel. What reward do I get for my time commitment? After all, I may not have been in a raid, but I made a commitment of time. Well, my reward is whatever satisfaction I get out of the time. After all, I made the decission to spend my time doing that. Now, I've never done a raid, so maybe I'm totally off base here, but shouldn't the reward for doing raids be the satisfaction you get from raids? Maybe its the joy of beating the boss at the end, or the thrill of the raid itself. But shouldn't people be doing raids, well, because they like doing raids? You know, that same reason those of us who craft do our crafting. After all, saying that people need to get better gear from raids than from crafts because raids force people to commit to something (and the implication here is that it's something they don't want to do otherwise) and if the reward gear was no better than crafting gear, no one would do raids, thats a problem with raids, not crafting. Lets look at this:

The best gear comes from raiding, because if I could buy this from a crafter I wouldn't raid...
I don't like raiding, but I do raid because I need the good gear...
I need the good gear so I can stand up to the challenges of the raids I'm going into...
I don't like raiding, but I do raid because I need the good gear...

See the problem here? It's not crafting. There is no reason crafted gear can't be as good, if not better, than raid gear. Those who raid because the like it will still raid, and those who craft because they like it will still craft, and neither needs to get hosed to force people into the other path. They can be equal, allowing people the freedom to play to the style they prefer. Sorry for the ramble..

Cheers.

Originally Posted by droid

Well the problem is, how do you make crafting worthwhile without making raiding obsolete?

Raiding is always going to be more intensive. It takes longer, there's more risk, it requires grouping. Crafting takes ingredients and a couple mouse clicks. Raid gear quality, consequently, is always going to reflect the amount of effort and risk it takes to acquire. If you can craft an item just as good after just an hour of gathering resources, why spend days and days raiding?

If you try to make crafting more difficult by requiring rare components, how do you make them rare? Add them to raid loot, like Symbols of Celebrimor? Then it just effectively becomes raid gear with an arbitrary crafting step in between, and the value of the crafted item is more or less the same as the value of the rare component. That'd be the problem with your suggestion of crafting Elder King symbols; how do you preserve their rarity if they're craftable? Require some other rare looted component?

Honestly I think you hit the nail on the head here.. You say that by dropping ingredients in the raid it makes it effectively raid gear with an arbitrary crafting step, but I disagree.. It's most definitely crafting gear, if you craft with common components you get common gear.. If you craft with rare and legendary components you should get rare and legendary gear.

I think I understand what you mean about it being arbitrary though.. You spend hours raiding then spend 3 minutes crafting.. The raid becomes the hard part... I do think items of this quality should require multiple convoluted steps in the crafting process. There are infinite ways to convolute the process enough so that it requires a herculean amount of effort to craft a herculean item. Possibly even requiring multiple individuals simultaneously expending a herculean crafting effort.

Incidentally my idea of herculean is multiple people spending at least 1 hour "simultaneously" (rather than just requiring steps previously completed from other crafters) on the crafting process with the potential for failure, in addition to requiring multiple ingredients from separate epic fights. Doing so, so that it's enjoyable and sticks with the lore I leave up to more creative and dedicated minds than myself however.

But epic items should require epic ingredients that only come from epic fights or nodes of some sort guarded by epic fights, and an epic amount of effort in crafting process. These items should then be the most powerful relics in the game, as they require the most effort to attain. There need to be items in the game that anyone could attain, but that fewer than 1% ever will.

As usual a number of fallacies are expounded by the "instances should be everything" crowd.

You do not have to be a good player to get good gear from fellowship/raid content; you merely have to be got through that content by capable fellows. I have seen very casual players taken through difficult instances.

If only a small percentage of the player-base want to grind instances/raids time-after-time then why are Turbine devoting so many resources to this lore-breaking activity? Update 2 has already cost them some monthly subscriptions.

Crafting should most definitely be put back to where it was in Shadows of Angmar.