Why is it so difficult to Craft after Anorien?

[Woodlink54]

Why is it so difficult to Craft after Anorien?
One of the things I really enjoyed about LOTRO is the diversity of activities you can do besides just Questing. As I leveled up my characters, I really enjoyed making new jewelry, weapons, armor, and other things. I also found it rewarding to craft things for my kinship members and other players that I would team up with; however, after I reached Anorien and moved into the Doomfold areas and above, all of that came to a screeching halt; because it became nearly impossible to acquire new recipes for any level above Anorien.

To start with, you cannot acquire upper-level recipes from drops like you used to. They can only be obtained by Bartering from a Quartermaster, and usually, they require that you have required the appropriate reputation such as Friend or Kindred, which can take quite a while to achieve. In addition, to that, you need to purchase the recipes using "Marks" from that area and they may charge anywhere from 20 to 250 Marks. Now if you do the math to acquire a full set of jewelry (7 items) and armor (7 items) that would require 280 Marks at 20 Marks each or 1400 marks at 100 marks each or 3500 Marks at 250 each. That is a totally unreasonable and probably unachievable cost to pay to acquire the recipes.

In addition to that, many of the recipes have at least one very rare or extremely rare item required to craft the recipe that you rarely receive by questing in the area where you are questing, and if you do you may acquire 1 of the items, but the recipe requires 2 of the extremely rare items. I have spent over an hour in an area harvesting lumber to acquire a Shard of Splendor and only found one when I needed two. This is not a very enjoyable or productive use of my very valuable game time. I don't mind spending time harvesting for crafting items, I often spend time gathering items so that I can craft Items, but usually spend an hour or so harvesting an area and come up with 50 or 100 hides or ore that I can use to make many items. But to spend over an hour harvesting only to come up with half of what I need to make ONE item is totally ridiculous and a waste of my time.

To add insult to injury, some of the items you need to make an item that you spent many hours questing to be able to purchase require items that you cannot get by landscape questing. For example, the Hunter Set Helms Recipe requires 1 Fragment of the Abyss that can only be obtained from the 12-person Raid "The Abyss of Mordath". I find it very insulting that the LOTRO developers continue to try to force me into doing things that I don't want to do. I love landscape questing and am NOT INTERESTED in doing RAIDS!!!! Especially since I do mainly solo questing and belong to a very small fellowship of two other players. I do not and will not participate in Raids, so to make it a requirement that you participate in a 12-person raid in order to acquire the necessary ingredients that you need to make an item that you have worked hard to purchase is extremely rude, arrogant, and just plain bollix.

To summarize my thoughts, I think it is high time that the LOTRO developers revisit the crafting requirements for the upper levels of the game. The thing I love about LOTRO and I am sure there are many people who feel the same way I do is the diversity of activities. I like being able to choose how I want to play each time I launch the game. Do I feel like landscape questing today? Spending my time in the Crafting Hall making things? Going out and harvesting Ore, Wood, or other materials. Do I want to do some Skirmishes and if I wanted to do some Raids that is an option. But what I don't like is the developers putting what I consider totally unreasonable barriers on your ability to continue Crafting in the upper levels. I find it extremely annoying and frustrating that I have lost the ability to craft items for myself, my kinship, and others.

I don't know what the developers were thinking when they set up all of what I consider unreasonable requirements to acquire recipes and material for the upper-level Crafting, but I think it is a big mistake and that it should be rectified.

[Arnenna]

Why is it so difficult to Craft after Anorien?
One of the things I really enjoyed about LOTRO is the diversity of activities you can do besides just Questing. As I leveled up my characters, I really enjoyed making new jewelry, weapons, armor, and other things. I also found it rewarding to craft things for my kinship members and other players that I would team up with; however, after I reached Anorien and moved into the Doomfold areas and above, all of that came to a screeching halt; because it became nearly impossible to acquire new recipes for any level above Anorien.

To start with, you cannot acquire upper-level recipes from drops like you used to. They can only be obtained by Bartering from a Quartermaster, and usually, they require that you have required the appropriate reputation such as Friend or Kindred, which can take quite a while to achieve. In addition, to that, you need to purchase the recipes using "Marks" from that area and they may charge anywhere from 20 to 250 Marks. Now if you do the math to acquire a full set of jewelry (7 items) and armor (7 items) that would require 280 Marks at 20 Marks each or 1400 marks at 100 marks each or 3500 Marks at 250 each. That is a totally unreasonable and probably unachievable cost to pay to acquire the recipes.

In addition to that, many of the recipes have at least one very rare or extremely rare item required to craft the recipe that you rarely receive by questing in the area where you are questing, and if you do you may acquire 1 of the items, but the recipe requires 2 of the extremely rare items. I have spent over an hour in an area harvesting lumber to acquire a Shard of Splendor and only found one when I needed two. This is not a very enjoyable or productive use of my very valuable game time. I don't mind spending time harvesting for crafting items, I often spend time gathering items so that I can craft Items, but usually spend an hour or so harvesting an area and come up with 50 or 100 hides or ore that I can use to make many items. But to spend over an hour harvesting only to come up with half of what I need to make ONE item is totally ridiculous and a waste of my time.

To add insult to injury, some of the items you need to make an item that you spent many hours questing to be able to purchase require items that you cannot get by landscape questing. For example, the Hunter Set Helms Recipe requires 1 Fragment of the Abyss that can only be obtained from the 12-person Raid "The Abyss of Mordath". I find it very insulting that the LOTRO developers continue to try to force me into doing things that I don't want to do. I love landscape questing and am NOT INTERESTED in doing RAIDS!!!! Especially since I do mainly solo questing and belong to a very small fellowship of two other players. I do not and will not participate in Raids, so to make it a requirement that you participate in a 12-person raid in order to acquire the necessary ingredients that you need to make an item that you have worked hard to purchase is extremely rude, arrogant, and just plain bollix.

To summarize my thoughts, I think it is high time that the LOTRO developers revisit the crafting requirements for the upper levels of the game. The thing I love about LOTRO and I am sure there are many people who feel the same way I do is the diversity of activities. I like being able to choose how I want to play each time I launch the game. Do I feel like landscape questing today? Spending my time in the Crafting Hall making things? Going out and harvesting Ore, Wood, or other materials. Do I want to do some Skirmishes and if I wanted to do some Raids that is an option. But what I don't like is the developers putting what I consider totally unreasonable barriers on your ability to continue Crafting in the upper levels. I find it extremely annoying and frustrating that I have lost the ability to craft items for myself, my kinship, and others.

I don't know what the developers were thinking when they set up all of what I consider unreasonable requirements to acquire recipes and material for the upper-level Crafting, but I think it is a big mistake and that it should be rectified.

Players have tried, in vain to get through to them about the state of crafting after Westemnet - for a very long time, as in years. If they haven't taken it on board by now, its pretty safe to assume they're never going to. Gearing since Mordor (doomfold tier) is all about ash acquisition (motes and embers) and the game is built around that system. Of course, the bypass for those currencies is lootboxes, which kinda gives the clue why they are reluctant to change it. I don't think it matters to them that crafting died along the way. It matters to players, but I don't that matters to them either. There has been a pattern while embers has crept into the game. It started off with ember barter where embers were quite plentiful and easy to acquire (Iron Hills. Ered Mithrin) but gradually, over time, they have become much harder to get with more limited avenues to obtain them. As we all expected. If one compares ember acquisition of Minas Morgul with ember acquisition of Gundabad, the difference is significant, and I suspect will get worse as we move along.

I wouldn't expect to see a proper fix to crafting while motes and embers are still in play, and I don't think they are going anywhere unfortunately. Players need alts to feed embers to their mains now, and the new reward track works the same way. All alts contribute, but only one character will benefit. That kind of system turns a game into work.

[DavidmeetHal]

I am in FULL agreement here, and this has been a very common complaint, but all it's been so far is deaf ears.

[johnwood]

Why is it so difficult to Craft after Anorien?
I don't know what the developers were thinking when they set up all of what I consider unreasonable requirements to acquire recipes and material for the upper-level Crafting, but I think it is a big mistake and that it should be rectified.

This is not unintentional. It's to push store sales and milk the player base as that's the pretty clear business model for quite some time now.

[DoRonRon]

However every Ember source created later turns into a mote source. Once you have a few chars with those unlocks you can fill your alts with coffer gear so can ignore piecemeal returns from crafting and quests/instances too. All the way to the cap -10 border. Total absence of "there be dragons", "minefield" and "beware the dog" signage at that border our concern. Bonuses to experience might be worthy offers in another MMO such as DDO but in Lotro we get comparatively weaker as we level, excepting now an occasional "reforge" and the option to change all your traceries.

The token recipe added to each tier keeps the need to keep advancing your crafts ofc; while you can spend several grand of LP on crafting tiers in the store.

All those efforts finding those rarer recipe drops, gain rep for purchase all undermined by the guy/gal who came up with the Ash idea and none thought to say no, we don't need all that grief.

[maartena]

In my opinion, SSG has completely neglected crafting after Gondor. And it doesn't look good for anything to be done about it any time soon.....

What should happen is a complete revamp of all crafting:

- A standard set of armor (green, with purple crit) should exist every 5 levels, all the way up to 140.
- A guilded set (teal) should exist for every 10 levels till level 60, and then every level cap (65 through 140).

The standard set should be "ready to landscape" and comparable to what you might get as questing armor along the way but it gives you a bit more choice in case you do not want to do certain quest areas and/or skip over some areas you do not like, and you have already exceeded the experience level of those areas because of other things you have done (lots of festivals and experience bonus items e.g.)

The guilded sets should be "ready to do T1 content" with the gear gotten from instances being slightly better than the guilded gear.
The guilded sets should follow the current golden standard for it: A 6 day, 18 hour cooldown and the requirement of ONE special ingredient, such as a shard appropriate for that level range.
The guilded recipes should be available on the guild vendors, with the appropriate guild reputation.

On top of that, each level cap should have ONE "golden" item. This item is harder to get, needs guilded crafting, and requires you to earn the recipe. This item should be comparable to T3 gear, but without set bonuses.

People that are leveling should be able to augment their questing armor with a crafted item or two, or have a full crafted set at any time they add another 5 levels to their character. Crafting used to be so good before level 100 or so, and after that it has really just been neglected. For some time there was still a need for crafting because of level 100 legendary items, but now that this is also gone by the wayside and everyone get their LI at level 50 and levels it up..... I feel weaponsmiths especially (and woodworkers to a point) have been made completely obsolete, and that should change.

Weaponsmiths can be made relevant again by being allowed to make traceries for every weapon reforge level, more easily accessible than the current craftable recipes. Woodworkers make minstrel instruments, but should be allowed to make traceries as well. Maybe their "golden" item is a badass tracery.

In short: Make crafters great again! Make it so they are actually needed again.

But yeah, the way crafting has been neglected over the last 5 years or so..... is an insult to what it once was. And I am hoping there are plans to make crafting worthwhile again, especially at post level 100.....

[Aurora7]

In my opinion, SSG has completely neglected crafting after Gondor. And it doesn't look good for anything to be done about it any time soon.....

What should happen is a complete revamp of all crafting:

- A standard set of armor (green, with purple crit) should exist every 5 levels, all the way up to 140.
- A guilded set (teal) should exist for every 10 levels till level 60, and then every level cap (65 through 140).

The standard set should be "ready to landscape" and comparable to what you might get as questing armor along the way but it gives you a bit more choice in case you do not want to do certain quest areas and/or skip over some areas you do not like, and you have already exceeded the experience level of those areas because of other things you have done (lots of festivals and experience bonus items e.g.)

The guilded sets should be "ready to do T1 content" with the gear gotten from instances being slightly better than the guilded gear.
The guilded sets should follow the current golden standard for it: A 6 day, 18 hour cooldown and the requirement of ONE special ingredient, such as a shard appropriate for that level range.
The guilded recipes should be available on the guild vendors, with the appropriate guild reputation.

On top of that, each level cap should have ONE "golden" item. This item is harder to get, needs guilded crafting, and requires you to earn the recipe. This item should be comparable to T3 gear, but without set bonuses.

People that are leveling should be able to augment their questing armor with a crafted item or two, or have a full crafted set at any time they add another 5 levels to their character. Crafting used to be so good before level 100 or so, and after that it has really just been neglected. For some time there was still a need for crafting because of level 100 legendary items, but now that this is also gone by the wayside and everyone get their LI at level 50 and levels it up..... I feel weaponsmiths especially (and woodworkers to a point) have been made completely obsolete, and that should change.

Weaponsmiths can be made relevant again by being allowed to make traceries for every weapon reforge level, more easily accessible than the current craftable recipes. Woodworkers make minstrel instruments, but should be allowed to make traceries as well. Maybe their "golden" item is a badass tracery.

In short: Make crafters great again! Make it so they are actually needed again.

But yeah, the way crafting has been neglected over the last 5 years or so..... is an insult to what it once was. And I am hoping there are plans to make crafting worthwhile again, especially at post level 100.....

Orion, Severlin:

You are looking for communication, so please pay attention to the quote; there is an overall vision, guidelines and several specific suggestions.

Since 2023 is for kinship revamp, please target 2024 for revamped crafting. It will probably require that time frame to implement crafting properly if you begin planning now.

Regards
Aurora7

[Woodlink54]

Thank you all for your responses and observations. I am glad that I am not the only one who feels that SSG has really missed the mark at T-10 and above crafting. One of the things that I have always loved about LOTRO is its diversity when it comes to gameplay. I enjoyed spending time foraging for resources and crafting new items for my characters and for my Kin as we leveled up; however, I don't understand what SSG was thinking when they totally changed the requirements for acquiring recipes and resources for T-10 and above crafting. They have taken all the fun out of crafting and made it virtually impossible to craft anything.

I intend to lobby SSG to make changes to their T-10 and above crafting requirements and I hope that those of you who feel the same as I do will do the same. I would hope that if SSG understands how disappointed we are in their current crafting T-10 and above crafting process they put that on their list of things to change in future updates. Please spread the word and have your fellow LOTRO friends contact SSG and make them aware that we would like to see major changes to the T-10 and above crafting.

Thanks

[Carallot]

AFAIK @SSG_Orion said that an upcoming update to Crafting is coming. No idea of what it will be but.

OT-PS: Please note that they are immersed in upgrading/refactoring the *SERVER* software to 64bits since (at least) 2021 and has been described like "walking in a mined field", that's why since 2021 we have been having mini-regions and a mini-expansion and I suspect that's why partially Orion returned. They expected the update BEFORE Amazon's Rings of Power (luckily there will be a Season 2 and Amazon will LEARN something from Season 1 mistakes) but as long as things are getting done we should be patient. Remember, SSG is STILL solving some past mistakes that were done before 2017 (in general, not upgrading some basic aspects and only adding new things without a holistic view of the game. Remember the old system of LI? Remember when the free content ended in the Lone Lands?).

[DavidmeetHal]

Thank you all for your responses and observations. I am glad that I am not the only one who feels that SSG has really missed the mark at T-10 and above crafting. One of the things that I have always loved about LOTRO is its diversity when it comes to gameplay. I enjoyed spending time foraging for resources and crafting new items for my characters and for my Kin as we leveled up; however, I don't understand what SSG was thinking when they totally changed the requirements for acquiring recipes and resources for T-10 and above crafting. They have taken all the fun out of crafting and made it virtually impossible to craft anything.

I intend to lobby SSG to make changes to their T-10 and above crafting requirements and I hope that those of you who feel the same as I do will do the same. I would hope that if SSG understands how disappointed we are in their current crafting T-10 and above crafting process they put that on their list of things to change in future updates. Please spread the word and have your fellow LOTRO friends contact SSG and make them aware that we would like to see major changes to the T-10 and above crafting.

Thanks

Oh believe me, you are not alone, this has been a VERY common gripe and complaint.