Thread: Guild advancement too slow

So I have finished Bree at lvl 25 and headed to Lone-Lands. I collect any Rich Iron ord I can find and started crafting metalsmith barter items. Rough calculations showed that reaching Acquaintance level will take me 12 days (400rep item every day and 1200 rep item every 3 days + 400 rep from starting quest). This is ridiculous. After 4 days of rather casual playing i reached lvl 31 at which I could use guild crafted armor, but I'm not even halfway through Acq. level with the guild :| Seriously this has to be redesigned. With this levelling rate, I will be like 36-38 when I'll be Acq with the guild and be able to craft lvl 31 armor. Shall I just forget about crafting guild armor until I reach max level?

Edit: Not to mention that to craft a set of armor + shield, I need 7 medium crests, which is 21 days more !!!!

Originally Posted by difens

Shall I just forget about crafting guild armor until I reach max level?

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: If you don't love crafting just for crafting's sake, forget about crafting guild armour, period, full stop. There are superior quest rewards available pretty much all the way through - either directly, such as the armour granted by the epic quests, or indirectly, with barter sets for various instances, skirmishes, Evendim, etc.

Also, Turbine neutered the guild recipes some time back. It used to be the case that the level 31 guild armour you're looking at was the best armour for 10 levels or so, crafted or rewarded. Now the level 31 guild armour is inferior to the level 32 critted armour from the auto-granted recipes you get once you achieve Artisan (which is inferior to the level 35 armour, and so on). Given the extra costs that go into making the guild armour, it's really not worth it.

Turbine has arranged things such that crafting is of limited benefit to yourself, at least the first time through. Even for non-guild recipes, you'll find that you can rarely crit at-level gear. For guild recipes, as you've noticed, it's structured such that the time involved in getting reputation and crests means that you'll have thoroughly out-leveled it by the time you can make it. The exception is if you use a higher level character to feed resources to a low level character - you can easily have a low level supreme master metalsmith who is kindred with the guild that way.

Crafted armour is adequate, but not game-changing; with comparable pieces thrown at you from every direction, there's very little reason to go out of your way to make it. The same goes double for guild crafted armour.

Originally Posted by difens

So I have finished Bree at lvl 25 and headed to Lone-Lands. I collect any Rich Iron ord I can find and started crafting metalsmith barter items. Rough calculations showed that reaching Acquaintance level will take me 12 days (400rep item every day and 1200 rep item every 3 days + 400 rep from starting quest). This is ridiculous. After 4 days of rather casual playing i reached lvl 31 at which I could use guild crafted armor, but I'm not even halfway through Acq. level with the guild :| Seriously this has to be redesigned. With this levelling rate, I will be like 36-38 when I'll be Acq with the guild and be able to craft lvl 31 armor. Shall I just forget about crafting guild armor until I reach max level?

Edit: Not to mention that to craft a set of armor + shield, I need 7 medium crests, which is 21 days more !!!!

Most of the guild crafted non-consumable items aren't worth it, plain and simple, even if you get around the issues you mention about timing of getting the rep/crests/etc. The cost for shards is high, and you outlevel them really really quickly. Make the level 32 crit stuff and be happy with it is my advice.

End game jewelry is a different story, Aureate jewelry is not quite as good as the best available elsewhere, but it makes mighty fine end game jewelry nonetheless. Takes advance planning given the cooldowns if you want to do it.

Crafting Lotro is not designed to let you craft equipment for yourself. You basically play through and then craft for your alts.
It's a bit easier for the higher levels, but the low levels are just like that, you level too fast.

Crafting is definitely a world for alt-aholics. If you level alts but fuel them with resources from your main then they can easily power-through guild rep on level and then can supply themselves with some gear. If you had a main that could deliver more Rich Ore and Dwarf Ore to open up Artisan level then you can do Artisan crests as well which more then doubles your advancement in the guild, and Master level adds even more with the weekly large crests adding huge chunks of rep (although it can be worth saving the larges for the recipes later). I've got 2 alts right now that I generally just log in every other day or so to make the crests. They will probably be well beyond their level for guild purposes by the time I start playing them more. In lieu of a main sending you resources a Kin can often help with providing resources too.

On my metalsmith main I've leveled rather slowly (rarely more than 1.5 hours of questing a night) and have typically gotten guild rep just a few levels behind the minimum item level. I usually find 1-3 items that are decent upgrades. I'm currently using a guild heavy shield and odds are there will still be at least one decent upgrade when I can make another crest. This is largely because levels come slower now than they did back in the 30s.

I believe the 'pro' way to level an alt is to send all the resources necessary to open up supreme crafting from a main, craft small crests (and medium for master/supreme) for rep and save the large/medium recipe crests for crafting later.