@SSG: Please don't abandon crafting

[DavidWe]

It's been looking like crafting is getting seriously neglected. I ask for that position to be reconsidered. Crafting isn't often what's advertised as a draw for a game, but in playing, I've found for myself what others have expressed, that it really does add a dimension to the game that can strongly enhance the player experience. It can make things much more fun... or frustrating, for players.

[kickman77]

they already have. Crafting is a forgotten art since Helms Deep. Its a broken mess and its sad

[MakmakK]

they already have. Crafting is a forgotten art since Helms Deep. Its a broken mess and its sad

Mind explaining why its dead? I keep reading on forums how good crafting is and that new players should invest in it. (Newish player here).

[Yarbro]

Mind explaining why its dead? I keep reading on forums how good crafting is and that new players should invest in it. (Newish player here).

At lower levels, you can craft a wide range of gear for yourself and others; but there is a cliff-face around L70 where you cannot make a complete set of anything without Guild recipes, and because the shards needed to do that are now like rocking horse droppings, it is almost impossible to craft a set before you outlevel it.

18 months ago I took several alts from L65-70 through into the L90-100 range and crafted guild armour for all of them, with spares left over to sell in the AH; tried to do the same with my lowest level alt over the summer and NEVER got a single shard for L80 gear until he was L89, let alone enough shards to make a set of armour and jewellery.

[Macdui]

Mind explaining why its dead? I keep reading on forums how good crafting is and that new players should invest in it. (Newish player here).

In the early game it is good. You can fairly readily make reasonable gear that you can later upgrade through questing and instances. There was even a fair economy selling your wears and consumables.

You used to get a raft of recipes on a craft tier increase. There might be additional ones to find from loot or you could buy a missing recipe on the AH. In those days some of the crafted gear was the best you could get and involved tracking down particular mob's trophies. There was no fear that a well earned gear piece wouldn't have months or a years use in it. In today's climate in the upper levels there is no stability as we get micro dot updates that take the concept of inbuilt obsolescence to an extreme.

Anything on the face of it useful may take considerable resources and a week or two later is made obsolete by a dot update and a lost of resources that could have gone toward the newer better item. It's gotten to the point of us giving up getting anything because it will loose all value at anytime soon.

We also have a crafting dev who struggles with each tier they implement. Crit versions displaying no name or stat difference from basic crafts. You can make an item, crit it and it's a lottery if the crit version has better stats or not. Barter recipes display nothing concerning their multi output options nor what can be made beyond the default Might version. Shields and Crossbows completely missing from the Mordor tier with no explanation. Wooden weaponry totally missing from the latest crafting tier. Hunter chants and oils with differing timers when they want them equal to refresh together. Food crafts used to have at least one you could crit for a better item so made the cook craft crit item useful. We still have the crit items but no recipe that makes a better crit food. Even the AH doesn't have an option to search for the last few tiers of recipes at a time when there were BiS (best in slot) items to craft.


All signs that that the crafting development is in an inexplicably poor state and needs to be taken over by someone who actually gets it. Our CM chooses to not craft. Our CM chooses not to experience the later game, conclusion they just don't want to know.

Craft up to Rohan but don't expect too much from it after that point.

Mac

[Fegefeuer]

They have not abandoned it, they have made it much much more grindy. Just compare pre-u23 recipes with u23 recipes and cry...

[scorrp10]

At lower levels, you can craft a wide range of gear for yourself and others; but there is a cliff-face around L70 where you cannot make a complete set of anything without Guild recipes, and because the shards needed to do that are now like rocking horse droppings, it is almost impossible to craft a set before you outlevel it.

18 months ago I took several alts from L65-70 through into the L90-100 range and crafted guild armour for all of them, with spares left over to sell in the AH; tried to do the same with my lowest level alt over the summer and NEVER got a single shard for L80 gear until he was L89, let alone enough shards to make a set of armour and jewellery.

You know all those shards are available at Skirmish crafting vendor?
But yeah, crafting is in the gutter, and not because of shard rarity.
The latest rescaling changes forgot to include huge swaths of fixed-level crafted items. Means mobs got tougher, dropped gear got way better, crafted items stayed same. Sure, according to some, mobs went from super duper mega easy to super duper easy, but that's beside the point.
The structure of recipes in lvl 70+ was that you needed a crafter being a full fledged character that quested the area, gained faction and currency and bartered for recipes. Not just a crafting alt that never saw action. You COULD get same gear using alts, but that involved guild grind and week long cooldowns. I suppose this fostered a certain level of player interaction and still does. If I hear a player on trade channel asking for something crafted and it is within my ability, I respond. All in all, I would say tier 6-9 crafting were pretty good if it were not so badly harmed by rescaling, making even top crafted pieces very sub-par.
Tier 10 was bad. Mostly just slotted gear with less slots that what you could barter fairly easily. And with better essences also being a major grind, nobody would waste them on T10 crafted, with essence reclaim scrolls being quite expensive.
Doomfold crafted was not bad, but totally inaccessible to characters needing it most: those in 106-114 range struggling through Mordor. The reason behind making purple crafted 323-326 require lvl 115 still escapes me. Or not. (Lootboxes anyone?). But at least if you got a main who did get through Mordor and enough dailies to barter most recipes, if you get an alt to 115, Doomfold crafted is a pretty good and easy option.
But t12 is just... painful. With special ingredient and shard requirements on everything, alt gearing via crafted is completely trashed.

[Gwyndor]

The issue for me isn't materials, it's end product. The stats of quest gear and random world drops are so much higher than crafted, that on the Legendary Servers I've hardly crafted a single thing for my toons. A few heavy armour pieces mid game, and regular new crossbows for my hunter is about all. My poor tinker has made precisely nothing. Crafted jewellery, at least from 1-50, is awful now.

And it's not that their stats are "too low". There are quite comparable to what they've always been, even as far back as SoA. Everything else is too high! Stat inflation of other in-game items have left them standing still. The only true money maker I've found (on the LS), are crafting tools (ironically). But even that market has been damaged by the terrible decision to allow Universal Toolkits onto the server.

[djheydt]

I shall merely note that back in SoA beta, one of the devs told us that LotRO nearly didn't have crafting at all.

I find it annoying that none of the *useful* Tier 12 recipes are supplied with the update; you have to go out there and buy them with some kind of currency AFTER achieving Kindred reputation. There have been recipes gated behind reputation ever since Lothlorien, which means that the peaceful crafter who stays home in the Shire or Bree isn't going to get very far.

I miss Asheron's Call 2's Crafting 2.0, in which one could train any and all crafts one chose, and with not too much effort, grind at least one of them to the kind of mastery that meant your recipes never failed.

I know why the devs originally set up the crafting Vocations the way they did: they wanted players to be dependent on other players for necessary crafting items, to encourage trade. I don't have data on how many crafters depend on /trade for materials, how many depend on their Kinships for materials, and how many have simply made enough crafters on their own accounts to cover all needs. I have seventeen alts; thirteen are active crafters, slowly grinding their way up through the chain of reputations, and the other four are storage mules. I'm willing to believe I'm an outlier here.

But this is still better than having no crafting at all.

[Edelhardt]

The Ironfold recipes are actually not bound, so you can get a Kindred friend or Kinnie to buy them for you, or you can look for them on the AH. The gear you make with them is bound on equip, and any new lvl 12 crafter can immediately use the recipes (crit only after completing the first tier obviously) to craft for themselves or anybody else.

I think it eminently reasonable to expect players to run at least one main toon through the content before you can craft gear that makes that content too easy, so I wouldn't even object to making the recipes Bound to Account. Ideally, landscape should be moderately tough with quest gear, and a bit easier with crafted gear that should be just good enough to get into the lower tier instances, where you can then get better gear to further progress towards the end game content (if that is what you want to do).

I have now run 7 characters through the Ironfold, and most of them did so with just quest gear and one or two crafted pieces once they hit 120. The levelling and the shard drop rate is the limiting factor here. Nobody had real trouble with it but it could get hairy once in a while (the Caves can be tricky on some classes, for instance). Again, I am ok with that because I don't want to totally faceroll through the content. I think the current approach to crafting makes sense.

[maartena]

Crafting has been neglected since Tier 10 pretty much.... Coincidentally, the decline of crafting came around the same time they had their first rounds of layoffs. Apparently maintaining the system takes a lot of time, and that is why recipes are always late, and are always coming at a later time. They really should have a "crafting update" that focuses solely on bringing crafting up to speed again.

As a general rule, there should be a basic, free craftable set of armor every 10 levels. They can be purple with teal "crit", more or less like the level 80, 90, 100 crafted armors (there are some crit difference, but you get the drift...). So, add level 110 crafted armor that makes the final parts of Mordor a lot easier to take on, and add level 120 crafted armor that can form a BASE to get to end-game content, starting with T1, and so on.

I'd rather they get rid of the loot boxes altogether, but if they must keep them.... let the crafted armor be an item-level or 2 below loot box stuff.

Crafting UP to Moria is pretty solid right now, crafting from 70 to 100 is also pretty solid.... but there is some definity improvements to be made in the 50-70 crafting, and 100+ crafting.

[soltasword]

Yeah, crafting died at level 95 when the last good crafting update came out. Ever since it hasn't even rated being a joke. Turbine and now SSG have apparently decided that one of the fundamental aspects of this game " the crafting system " just no longer needed any attention what so ever. They threw it in the trash and that is where it has been ever since level 95. We have asked so many times for crafting to get some love but all we get are these stupid single use recipes that you have to barter for in the first place. And worse, they are a joke as the bartered gear is better. SSG talked about a big crafting update with Mordor but did we get one, absolutely not. What we got was some bartered recipes that ended up not even being worth wasting our time on. And sure we got a new tier of crafting with update 23 but where are the recipes to craft, again single use bartered recipes but locked behind kindred rep standing with the new faction. And I bet the bartered gear is still better because I heard you can't even craft the recipes without an item from the instances ( I haven't made it to kindred yet so I wouldn't know for sure ).

And what makes this even worse is that stupid splash screen that says " Get Crafty - Become a master of your profession ". Really, you made crafting less than a joke but you couldn't remove that splash screen. If you can't tell, this has been a very big pet peeve of mine as I absolutely loved crafting my gear in this game. I hate having to get your gear by having to barter for everything now. It takes so much away from this game and makes the grind almost unbearable.

People keep saying we don't need another guild tier but we actually do. For most everyone, we could have it leveled up in no time at all. I have crests from all the other guild tiers stowed away that I could probably level each guild tier the day it came out. I made them just for that purpose. And even if you didn't have any crests saved and had to start fresh, the time it took to level up a new guild tier wouldn't even begin to match the time it takes to get your bartered gear. Not even close.

Sadly, I gave up hope on ever getting another decent crafting update. And most likely, I will stop subbing when my vip runs out because I just can't stand how bad they have made getting your gear now. So much for that statement made by the producer before this update " We want to reward you for playing ", I darn sure don't feel rewarded for playing the game as far as gearing up goes.

[MakmakK]

Thank you all for replying.

As I see ppl here have mixed feelings about it, it puts me in a dilemma. Initially I just wanted to quest and experience the world without any grind whatsoever, but as I was playing I felt that maybe by taking on crafting I will be heightening my experience even further.

As I started crafting, I noticed I was quite limited with recipes, I checked the AH and nothing was on sale, I looked at finished products (weapons, armor and such) for my level and nothing. I looked for crafting mats and found very little, and those were very expensive for me, so not new player friendly prices.

All that got me to the situation at hand. If I want crafting mats I have to farm them myself. ok. But I also need to purchase recipes from the lotro store, since I can't depend not on AH nor world drops. So we are talking about sinking a lot of effort and time, plus real money (not farming lotro points so those LP is money to me). Now, if it is like some of you say, that I can just use quest rewards and drops and have no trouble to do content at level, then maybe I should not bother at all?

I should say that I purchased the xp disabler so the content will remain relevant. I out leveled it so fast with all the festival and crafting that questing was mind numbing. It is much more exciting now

[Edelhardt]

As a general rule, there should be a basic, free craftable set of armor every 10 levels. They can be purple with teal "crit", more or less like the level 80, 90, 100 crafted armors (there are some crit difference, but you get the drift...). So, add level 110 crafted armor that makes the final parts of Mordor a lot easier to take on, and add level 120 crafted armor that can form a BASE to get to end-game content, starting with T1, and so on.

The lvl 120 crafting gear is just that, a base to get into T1 instances. It isn't a complete set but don't forget that you also get embers from disenchanting the quest gear and doing a few crafting runs with which you can purchase the missing pieces.

I agree with you about Mordor, a level 112-ish set would be really useful. Mind you, I expect they will nerf Mordor within the next year or so.

[sapienze]

Thank you all for replying.

As I see ppl here have mixed feelings about it, it puts me in a dilemma. Initially I just wanted to quest and experience the world without any grind whatsoever, but as I was playing I felt that maybe by taking on crafting I will be heightening my experience even further.

As I started crafting, I noticed I was quite limited with recipes, I checked the AH and nothing was on sale, I looked at finished products (weapons, armor and such) for my level and nothing. I looked for crafting mats and found very little, and those were very expensive for me, so not new player friendly prices.

All that got me to the situation at hand. If I want crafting mats I have to farm them myself. ok. But I also need to purchase recipes from the lotro store, since I can't depend not on AH nor world drops. So we are talking about sinking a lot of effort and time, plus real money (not farming lotro points so those LP is money to me). Now, if it is like some of you say, that I can just use quest rewards and drops and have no trouble to do content at level, then maybe I should not bother at all?

I should say that I purchased the xp disabler so the content will remain relevant. I out leveled it so fast with all the festival and crafting that questing was mind numbing. It is much more exciting now

What server do you play on?

Tell me its Landroval and I will set you up with all the materials, crit items, recipes and do the best I can to offer aid and answer questions.

[NeoBasilisk]

The lvl 120 crafting gear is just that, a base to get into T1 instances. It isn't a complete set but don't forget that you also get embers from disenchanting the quest gear and doing a few crafting runs with which you can purchase the missing pieces.

I agree with you about Mordor, a level 112-ish set would be really useful. Mind you, I expect they will nerf Mordor within the next year or so.

Didn't they just nerf Mordor in U23? I haven't taken a character through since then, but I thought I read that in the patch notes.

[MakmakK]

What server do you play on?

Tell me its Landroval and I will set you up with all the materials, crit items, recipes and do the best I can to offer aid and answer questions.

Thanks a lot for your offer, very generous of you. Unfortunately I set up shop on Laurelin, I did check Landroval but it seemed that Laurelin had a bit more ppl in it. Not sure if it's really true though, I used the /who to determine on which of them to play.

[greetingsdownunder]

As proven many times in this thread, crafting is far from dead, it simply requires you to earn the recipes for your main and then share to alts.

Guilded crafting is dead for sure after 100, and it's not coming back. The Crafted Armor for 105+ is basically 1 set of dailies per recipe, in my opinion it should be 1 set of dailies for three recipes since there are dozens of recipes to barter for at 115 and 120 and it shouldn't take longer than a month of dailies just for crafting recipes on all professions as it currently does, especially since many are single chance. Also, many of the buffs aren't scaled right for tier 2 or 3 content. For example, the resistance rating on tokens, stat food, mitigation scrolls, etc.

Crafters are barely higher than PvMP on the Dev's priority list.

[scorrp10]

Thank you all for replying.

As I started crafting, I noticed I was quite limited with recipes, I checked the AH and nothing was on sale, I looked at finished products (weapons, armor and such) for my level and nothing. I looked for crafting mats and found very little, and those were very expensive for me, so not new player friendly prices.

AH in general is a bad source of anything crafting except maybe two last tiers, except maybe on legendaries.

That said:
Materials in general are quite plentiful. Recipe scrolls also drop like crazy. Heck while questing around Goblin town in Misty, I had a veritable deluge of T5 recipes. The key is killing humanoid type mobs. In fact, while leveling a single main (Explorer vocation) I was able to feed enough mats and recipes to completely fill up 6 alts. I got 6 alts who with my main represent every trade at full Ironfold mastery, max guild and every dropped recipe present.

[Maryam]

Crafters are barely higher than PvMP on the Dev's priority list.

No, worse than that. Crafting has been on enemy of the Store list for years, thus no crafting and guild levels that could provide a decent alternative to Essence gear and the incentives to use the Store.

[Boraxxe]

Ah, crafting.

As the sage once said; you can never go home again.