I have been doing a lot of searching though the forum messages. In messages about crafting equipment, I frequently see the term junk gear or junk equipment. Other than the crafted item wasn't exactly what the crafter had hoped to produce, I'm not clear exactly what constitutes "junk". Does it mean that the item is unusable by anybody? Does it just mean it's not high-level optimized gear? Does it mean that the durability has been reduced to an unacceptable level?
Yeah, it just means you didn't get the masterwork or enchant rolls you were hoping for. As a player who only crafts for themselves, whenever I'm looking to replace a piece of my gear, I always end up with a bunch of stuff that isn't equal to or an improvement to what I'm replacing which basically makes it "junk". Someone else's junk could be an upgrade for someone of lower level though, so it's relative.
IMO, Junk gear is gear that was not crafted to what I was attempting to make. Does not mean its unusable, just not what "I" was looking for. Durability may be shot, but if I am crafting gear, and the effects are not popping like I feel they should, I will still try to make it decent. I'll toss it in a chest afterwards and vaguely remember what I have in there so if someone is ever looking for something, I can say...Ya, I got something like that - let me find it. My junk gear might be someone's dream gear.
I make "junk" gear by design then socket it with a regular gem and 1 masterwork and 1 enchant. Then put a shoddy, ragged, rusty or worn pattern on it and sell to an NPC. Nice to get things into the loot table you never know when a new player will get one.
Thank. folks, for the replies. I craft for myself as well as for sale. Even given that the RNG monster doesn't always present me with options that are optimal, I always get sufficient choice to make something that I think someone would want. The only things I don't want to put up for sale are things with more than 2 enhancement failures, since that knocks down the max durability by a lot.
The issue has always been that because of the RNG more often than not giving you junk, for every good piece of gear that I produce I end up with dozens (or hundreds) of sub optimal pieces. To the point where I can't even *give* them away, there's simply not enough new players wanting unoptimized random stuff. We set up a guild chatperhouse called YARD SALE with just furniture loaded with free gear for anyone to take and you'd still see stuff left unwanted. Vendor after vendor in town after town are packed with "not quite right" stuff. The system is designed in a way that just mass produces loads of unwanted stuff. Can absolutely forget about trying to recoup even 1% of your costs trying to craft to sell (especially if you were buying materials and not harvesting them yourself). Most of the time you can't sell it at all so you're not even covering the coal. This would be alright if for example, salvage was meaningful or there was some sort of sink for it all. But there isn't so it sits, languishing on vendors just clogging up the market. This is unlikely to change at this point and we're unlikely to see the needed overhaul to the crafting system at this stage so it is what it is. Without either stopping so much junk from being made (by reducing RNG and letting people actually make what they are trying to make), or giving something to do with the junk, well, we are where we are.
