Observation on Crafting Enjoyment: Deco vs. Armor/Weapons

Also when you destroy an item and you get a very few metal scraps back it is very defeating and perhaps would make you not want to try again. The risk and reward of crafting is not balanced. There are not enough possibilities to make it fun. At least get a couple of ingots back or some reward that makes it interesting. It is just too not fun. Sometimes you should be able to craft an extra of something because you are just that good at it. There definitely needs to be an occasional surprise,not ok you either fail or you don't fail, and that it is it, there is no in between or surprises ever ever ever.

 

I would caution against that "extra" craft because increasing power can be a vicious cycle but the odd surprise here or there would be nice. Rather than destroying an item though I would have it lock it's ability to be upgraded or remove upgrades or something. The complete loss of the item is just too painful to the entire process due to the resources required.

 

Agree.

Also, probably the main reason we are seeing stockpiles of crafted gear being hoarded is the hope for getting at least some of their investment returned in the form of gold and silver scraps through salvaging. Is this
still something that is being planned for a future update?

 

Yes it is planned for us to get Silver and Gold scraps and we should be getting them from our destroyed items as well as perhaps some of the other resources back imo. It doesn't make sense to never get almost nothing back from the expensive amount of resources that go into those destroyed crafted items plus it is plain sad. This needs fixed. @Lord British2

 

I problably would do the same, but i gather so many mats just doing adventure scenes... every now and then i burn through my supply. I cant see it every evening out for crafters... not with how much it takes to get the skills up.. and not with the fact non-crafters.. are gathering 75% of their own mats anyways.. meaning they can randomly dump exp into crafting .. eventually catching up.

I feel bad for anyone who still thikns they can be a pure crafter in this game. It was implied you could, but its not designed for it. As soon as you see nodes in zones with monsters. Or realizing the exp per node is based on the difficulty of the zone, it becomes apparenty the goal here is self sufficient. which makes the idea of the player based economy.. eh

 

I don't think I'd go quite that far, but it is true the current balance isn't very friendly towards the idea. To get by being a pure crafter would require dedicated harvesters willing to sell at a low enough price a pure crafter could afford.. (assuming the crafter has enough seed money to get started in the first place).

But a harvester will certainly have to be able to fight or have very generous friends willing to protect them.

I'm almost half tempted to do it to prove it can be done but I'd have to abandon everything else just to find the right people (assuming enough of them exist). Which I find to be an unrealistic expectation. You'd have to be seriously hardcore to really pull it off as game balance stands at the moment.

Current market prices being at the core of the issue at the moment I think.

 

I've always said that the only straightforward way to be a pure crafter is to join a guild that wants that exclusive service from you and feeds you mats. Even still, that kind of crafter is going to take much longer to level skills because of the disparity of xp gain between crafting activities. Trying to be a dedicated solo crafter would be a very long road, indeed.

Having alternative paths to level crafting skills that don't require raw or refined materials would both facilitate the opportunity for dedicated crafting and reduce price of raw materials. Much of the demand for raw materials that drives prices up is from people needing them to level skills, not because they actually want to make something with those materials. This would also, I think, increase the enjoyment of crafting equipment, as everytime I craft, I would have a goal to make some specific piece of equipment, rather than make 50 spears I simply plan to 'blow up' until I can level high enough to make something of use.

 

Thaf would make the leveling process much easier and cheaper. Definitely increase the fun as well. But that may also lead to an abundance in the supply of Crafters which I feel won't help the player run economy either. Good for the players, but not good for the idea of the online economy I think.

I'd go further as to say the demand for people needed resources to level up is also because of the lack of in game mechanics (skill caps) that just allows players to do everything. Being able is something that I'd love as a single player game but really mess up the multiplayer experience for me.

Back to the topic, variety and rng is definitely the factors why deco crafting is more fun. You plan a theme, then choose the components/furniture you need to craft and work it out. There is no frustrating rng factor involved.

If weapon/armor Crafters had less/no rng, they'd be able to actually plan and craft items to suit their customers (imagine the satisfaction!). Perhaps different enchantments will require specifically different recipes instead of the current enchant and rng a few choices.

The highest source of irritation for me personally is seeing all the further sources of variety in the add on store. If Crafters could craft the variety of weapons/armor/furniture/houses available in the store that'll definitely increase the fun factor.

 

Certainly, alternative paths to level crafting would require balance and have some equivalency in terms of 'time sink' compared to current method. I'm not advocating 'easy mode', just a variety of activities that reduces the artificial demand for raw materials and gives the crafter some variety in time spent along the way to that high level. I also think that reaching post-GM levels should not be achievable without lots of actual crafting.

I feel this too. I really wish they had found a different monetization strategy, but it's hard to blame them in the current industry environment. Our only hope here is that the game is successful to the extent that they can rely less on the store and provide more in game items for craftin, but I wouldn't expect any changes anytime soon.