What's happening with equipment crafting?

Yesterday, I decided to craft as I'd built up some decent batches of materials including gold and silver for
Masterworking and enchanting which I'd been stocking up for a few weeks.

I was disappointed to find that now my best efforts at masterworking and enchanting swords is to about level 8 leaving about 80 dura. Several months ago I was routinely getting above level 10 and as high as 15 12 or 13 (checked data) with well over 100 110 dura. Looking at the stats, the new stuff isn't a patch on the old, both in terms of the power and number of buffs.

I spoke to fellow crafters about this and they said they had pretty much given up crafting armor and weapons as it now wasn't worth it as even with their high skills, levelled over many months, the quality produced was now so poor that just about anyone even with low skills could achieve similar results, or at least not significantly worse to warrant them buying in. These crafter are now making foods and potions as the remaining source of market income. This is so sad.

Its noticeable that my weps and armor that I made months ago to higher levels sold quite quickly recently, especially straight after the ftp opened, as it is significantly better than what I can make now. The new stuff just sits on my vendor.

It's like the older stuff, now almost gone, was a legacy from the good old days of crafting where my skills related to my output.

This is not imagination or fantasy. It is quite clear, given I've run several batches to achieve a decent sample size that what I'm making now is hugely worse than what I was making 3 to 6 months ago, despite my skills being a little better now than then. If this were a combat change the forums would be rabid.

I'd love to hear what this change was all about. Will the Devs laugh with scorn and deny it or will they say the math went wrong, oops, or will they say they thought weps and armour buffs were getting to powerful so changed it radically, oh, didn't we tell you?

 

Maybe you were getting more dura masterworks and enchants and other gems procs that do not take any durability but add a lot of +, or your getting more failures now, bad luck? For example, durability MW, 30/ 15 dura, adds +3, durability enchant adds +3, takes no durability. The gem proc on chest takes no dura adds ( I think ) +3, wand attunement gem proc, takes no dura adds +3. there is more but I think that is enough examples. There are soo many factors here that could lead to the reasons why of this, but its not that the same enchants and mws are now taking more durability then before. As for power of enchants and masterworks, ( the subskills levels ) just look at something elrond makes and the power of those enchants and masterworks as compared to someone who is only level 100 or lower.

 

Enchanting is the worst part all you get is 16 focus /8 focus /item durability sometime twice in a row couple that with multiple failures at 87% and poof goes your piece.

 

The devs aren't going to respond because nothing has changed. I've been crafting daily for a long time and I can promise you that no changes were made to make your crafted goods any different. Sounds like you just had some bad luck lately and some good luck in the past.

Like the guys already mentioned, there are so many variables I can understand why you think a change was made. I can assure you my crafted items are still coming out the same as they were since they removed the option to destroy items on failure.

 

yeah hitting 98 is like a punishment milestone with that durability choice added, one only clicks that because the other 2 are worse like the previous stated pointless 8 focus. So there literally goes another viable choice and that is added in the mix. Gold and silver scraps anyone?

 

I haven't noticed any changes to crafting either. Sure, I have bad runs (as do we all). But still regularly making +10 - +20 items (I also make quite a bit of +8 - +10, just depends how my luck is that day)

 

Ok, in the end without facts its all opinion, but all you crafter's out there will know what I mean when I say you get a 'feel' for what you are doing and what's going on if you do it often enough.

In terms of bad luck, yep, possible, but that's not how it feels. Also, my last 2 batch runs were quite big, so its a decent sample size, I had been saving up metals, gold and silver for big sessions and make dozens of swords and slightly less armour pieces (over 2 or 3 sessions).

To illustrate (I can't do this all that well as my best and old crafted gear sold quite well during the FTP surge, largely as it is so much better than my new stuff), here is a typical example of an item I made yesterday...

I consistently made around 10 of these all similar end point dura and buffs.

Here is an example of an item I made a few months back.

NOTE: These +10 items are the inferior end of what I was making back then (hence they haven't sold) my best swords were +14 to + 15 +12 to +14 (just checked my data) with 120+ dura and I could reliably get 2 or 3 of these in a modest batch run.

Starting to doubt myself, I have spoken to yet more crafter's whom I know and who are committed to their trade, and most were saying the same thing. One even took the words out of my mouth (I didn't want to lead them) and said "my old stuff looks like Artefacts compared to what I can make now".

I'll leave it at that, there's no more I can say.

 

Can you hold down cntl on those so we can see what enchants and masterworks they have? I can already see the second is either exceptional ( adding 50 durability ) or has the durability MW ( 30 durability ) while the first one does not.

 

will do, but probably tomorrow if the head isn't too bad got to get ready soon to go out get smashed and see a loud band.

 

OHH NICE, what kinda music?

 

off to see Killing Joke

 

you got to be Joking maybe they should craft your swords

i've sort noticed that too but whats worse is that with the increased patterns you get from salvage you get less scraps which makes it that much harder to produce stuff to sell as of now i would say that crafting stuff to sell is pretty much useless for weapons and armor, for making personal stuff it's harder but you can still make some really good stuff if your crafting skills are high compared to a person thats just started crafting

 

the + level means nothing other then a number. You can have a +5 item that blows a +20 away for stats. Its always about the stats mainly and durability (depends on item) I still craft every other day and sell a lot. So I can tell you there is still good market in crafting but it all depends on what you make and what you have for final product. having GM+ does make things easier, but crafting % chances are rough. I have failed 6 times in succession on 86% before which wastes the product. Those are the times I feel the stars are not in alignment

 

I have also had terrible luck as has another guildmate. Can we really say it's bad luck? I was glad to find this post as we were scratching our heads trying to make a piece of armor and weapon for a friend. Failing three times in a row with a percent chance in the 80s doesn't seem right to me. It was a waste of someone else's resources and that made me feel terrible. If something was changed it would be nice to know.

 

what are you guys talking about?
there is NO CHANGE in crafting these days. its the same as a year ago on the buff chance and buff size.
purely based upon your skill levels. the big diff is dura loss instead of destruction.
otherwise, its EXACTLY THE SAME.
you may get more minor buffs than major buffs. crafting spec will definately fix that
do save 12mil xp for that in early feb, tho

 

Correct.

 

Crafting specialization will be nice. But right now it does seem like something is different, aside from not losing the item when failed.

 

I believe your Emerald gave it a +2 adding earth attunement. Try adding a gem and see the item jump up a bit

Oh, I usually add the gem before I start any Masterworking or Enchanting. Not sure if that matters for the + number. It matters when going working towards special abilities on the item. Like adding "Strength of Earth" (for example)

 

The special procs are all +3's. All normal masterworks & enchants are +2, and minor enchants are all +1.

And I will say it again... nothing has changed since they made items not break on failure.

 

I’m thinking this is more of a case, where more people are now crafting a bit more than they used too. At that point you really start noticing failures more often, because you are doing more.