Discussion about Future Crafting Updates

[SSG_Orion]

We have some plans for LOTRO's crafting system, and we want to update you on where we are headed, so that you can share in our thought process and direction.

Overall, we like our crafting system, and we know that many players like it too. We want to take a very “do no harm” style of approach to this update. That said, we know there are some frustration points with the crafting system, and that the system suffers from being developed over 16 years ago.

Vocations:

At the outset of the game, we wanted the crafting system to serve manifold purposes. Vocations were designed with these factors in mind: socialization, game economy, and a unique way to highlight crafting. As time wore on, we added tiers, and then complexity through guilds. Crafting has been bumped with each new level band, but a focus on the system is something that has not happened in some time.

We hope, throughout 2023, to address that with updates that modernize the system.

Professions:

The first step is to separate vocations into individual professions. Our intent is allowing characters with a vocation to keep the three associated professions at the level that they have currently achieved. Players who are just enrolling in the crafting system can choose any three professions that they want.

We are also likely to allow players to expand their crafting vocations by one more slot. The details on how this is acquired is not yet solidified, but we are not expecting to allow players to have more than four professions trained at any time.The reason for this is simple, we still want to keep the social and game economy moving through the crafting system. While also offering you more flexibility.

Crafting Resource Tiers:

With Update 35: Return to Carn Dûm, we are introducing minor updates to the crafting system with new recipes and added items needed to craft those new recipes. This is the start of changes that will re-align crafting tiers. While we are not going to refine all the earlier tiers, we will continue to increase resource tiers for future level updates. We will continue creating more recipes for crafting vocations over time, rather than only at level increases.

Crafting Guilds:

There are three omissions for crafting professions and associated guilds: Forester, Prospector, and Farmer. We want to address this. We know that the length of time
needed in order to increase standing with guilds is prohibitive. We want to address that by making enrollment in the guild a more active experience. (Already enough consternation about what was deleted from here that we will not discuss it further.)
Crafting Relevance:

Our goal is to work toward making the relevance of crafted gear more important in the next level band, then over time integrate that back through the lower-level bands of the crafting system. The process to work backward through the tiers will take longer than this year.

The effort to make crafting more useful is integrated with the release of the expansion later this year. We want to establish crafted gear to be slightly ahead of quest gear. This will lead to two behaviors. One, providing optional rewards through the quests specific to crafters. And two, making crafting a unique stepping stone to assist in instances. The major quest lines and crafted gear should be used to get you prepared for the instances that come with the expansion.

Further, new gear and armor in instances will have some measure of crafting included to ensure that there is always something for crafters to look forward to. These items will assist in the stepping stones needed to move into raids, and so on.

The widgets or extra items that are needed to craft these latest items will be scattered throughout the game, not only in instance or raid spaces, so crafters should not feel forced to engage with the systems that they might feel less inclined to play. They will, however, be able to directly assist their fellow players and kinmates by making items that could help them in those endeavors.

Crafting and Housing:

We are looking at options to enhance how crafting influences and is influenced by the housing system. Details on this are still in the formative state but we have some ideas such as new hooked items or NPCs that function as gatherers for materials that you would need to visit and obtain the items that they are collecting for you. We expect that this will need a hefty side of control to ensure that it does not become abused.

Further, we want to make new recipes that allow crafters to make objects for home and hearth.

Events:

One idea that we have around enhancing the crafting system is the establishment of events that rotate and move from place to place in support of the different professions. An example might be a logging contest at different lumber camps, cooking competitions in the Shire or Bree, scholarly activities, metal working, and so on. Something available to engage in regularly that rewards unique recipes, items, titles, and most importantly crafting advancement for engaging with the events.

In Closing:

This is the first time we have spoken about crafting in a while. Now, we want to hear from you!

This thread will remain open until Monday of next week for your comments, questions, and opinions.

We will do our best to answer all questions, concerns, or thoughts within reason.

We hope you enjoy this little sneak peek at what may be and look forward to hearing from you.

[bohbashum]

Sounds good. Especially crafting + instances for best gear. That was fun in some ways before.

But what about the big issues?

1. Crafting guildes are painful to get up. Are people expected to do these?

2. Newer players have a harder time than those who played caps running through later tiers. Are we at least looking to "level squish" these?

3. Crafted class items and consumables are all over the place. With class updates, are these being updated?

4. Some vocations (jewler, cook, scholar) have always had an advantage. Even now, suggesting "crafted gear, jewler likely will be king. And many of them provide stuff always needed (scrolls, food, hope). Is this "usefulness imbalance" ever going to be resolved? Ive always felt punished for picking woodworker and weaponsmitg as my main character crafts. Yet many other games can make all crafts have perminance in usefulness.

[zipfile]

We want to establish crafted gear to be slightly ahead of quest gear. This will lead to two behaviors. One, providing optional rewards through the quests specific to crafters. And two, making crafting a unique stepping stone to assist in instances. The major quest lines and crafted gear should be used to get you prepared for the instances that come with the expansion.

Further, new gear and armor in instances will have some measure of crafting included to ensure that there is always something for crafters to look forward to. These items will assist in the stepping stones needed to move into raids, and so on.

Neat. But how will the Delving gear sit in this hierarchy?

Quest << Crafted << Low Instance << High Crafted << Low Raid << High Instance << High Raid (If I am understanding this correctly)

(Low = Tier 1/2 ; High = Tier 3-5)

[Hierona]

Just a couple of things about getting to endgame:

- Can we have a way to speedup earlier tiers to get more easily to endgame, or make it that every tier is awarded per level and crafting recipes are possible by how far you increased in every tier.
- Guilds are quite a pain. Can we maybe make it that you get quests like with Minas Morgul that gives the xp for guilds too.

Would say interact crafting with instances. Let set items give only the set when used with a crafting recipe. For example the Hiddenhoard gear. The Helm drops without the set and you need another item from a 6man and some landscape stuff to get the 3 set and another to get the 4 set.

Maybe an idea is to make runes craftable so the grind for LI's is a bit more doable.

Neat. But how will the Delving gear sit in this hierarchy?

Quest << Crafted << Low Instance << High Crafted << Low Raid << High Instance << High Raid (If I am understanding this correctly)

(Low = Tier 1/2 ; High = Tier 3-5)

I would do it like this: Quest < Low craft < Low Instance < Low Raid < Delvings < Delvings + Crafting < High Instance < High Raids

[SSG_Orion]

Neat. But how will the Delving gear sit in this hierarchy?

Quest << Crafted << Low Instance << High Crafted << Low Raid << High Instance << High Raid (If I am understanding this correctly)

(Low = Tier 1/2 ; High = Tier 3-5)

Delving gear is still going to fill the Raid Tier gear. The goal with Delving gear is that it is updated when the majority of the servers move toward T3 Raids.

[Ketriana]

We know that the length of time
needed in order to increase standing with guilds is prohibitive. We want to address that by making enrollment in the guild a more activeexperience where you will be able to maintain your membership and access by continued activity or it will decay slowly over time.

I'm rather concerned about this. I'm constantly seeing players returning to the game after long absences, and I've taken a lengthy absence from the game in the past myself. Does this mean that all our hard work to raise our guild standing would have decayed during our break from the game? I came back after 7 years myself and I would have been extremely disappointed if I had to start over to raise my guild standing. Something like that is very likely to frustrate and anger returning players, possibly to the point it would discourage them from returning. We really don't need endless grinds or punishment for putting RL first when it comes to something like crafting.

I really dislike this idea unless it is something very simple like, "go talk to this npc and do one quest to have your standing restored to where it was prior to your break." In that case though it seems like it would be a pointless change and would only serve to confuse and annoy people.

[SSG_Orion]

Sounds good. Especially crafting + instances for best gear. That was fun in some ways before.

But what about the big issues?

1. Crafting guildes are painful to get up. Are people expected to do these?

One of the issues that we know needs to be addressed, there are some bread crumbs in the post that allude to ways that this might be accomplished. Details, obviously as we move closer to implementation.

2. Newer players have a harder time than those who played caps running through later tiers. Are we at least looking to "level squish" these?

Not a level squish, but a better and hopefully more engaging way for players of all levels to participate and advance in social events.

3. Crafted class items and consumables are all over the place. With class updates, are these being updated?

Good question. This is something that we should also look at.

4. Some vocations (jewler, cook, scholar) have always had an advantage. Even now, suggesting "crafted gear, jewler likely will be king. And many of them provide stuff always needed (scrolls, food, hope). Is this "usefulness imbalance" ever going to be resolved? Ive always felt punished for picking woodworker and weaponsmitg as my main character crafts. Yet many other games can make all crafts have perminance in usefulness.

Scholar, cook, and jewler are the current top dogs, there is no doubt. With the shift to LIs, ages ago, we diminished the value of weaponsmith - we need to rectify that. Same with woodworker, metalsmith, and tailor. Though the direct moment to moment impact with those professions may not become equivalent, we do want to eliminate the feeling of being punished.

[SSG_Orion]

I'm rather concerned about this. I'm constantly seeing players returning to the game after long absences, and I've taken a lengthy absence from the game in the past myself. Does this mean that all our hard work to raise our guild standing would have decayed during our break from the game? I came back after 7 years myself and I would have been extremely disappointed if I had to start over to raise my guild standing. Something like that is very likely to frustrate and anger returning players, possibly to the point it would discourage them from returning. We really don't need endless grinds or punishment for putting RL first when it comes to something like crafting.

I really dislike this idea unless it is something very simple like, "go talk to this npc and do one quest to have your standing restored to where it was prior to your break." In that case though it seems like it would be a pointless change and would only serve to confuse and annoy people.

Understandable and something that we will need to be cautious about implementing and integrating.

[Elmagor]

At first, all of that sounds like crazy amount of ideas. Yes, all of that sounds great on papper, but we need more examples about how it work. I don't have much faith about SSG expanding game in all directions at once in next years, that sounds like huge amount of work. It can die really quick, we already hear about "crafting revamp" many times. Maybe it's great time to play Lotro, maybe we will be disappointed again.

As example, we have really good LI revamp, and many things was really good, but whole LI system was half backed. Around 1/3 of old LI resources was wasted and never turns into anything with new system. We have crazy amount of Tracery, like 16 BPE tracery what NO ONE use, and SSG refuse to do anything good with them. We have crazy amount of enchanting runes for different levels, and they just waste place in our vaults. Yes, LI revamp was great, but follow up build to expand LI system wasn't so great. I have fear what crafting revamp after start will freeze in same uncompleted unpolished state.

And IMHO biggest problem what I see: we can get a lot of new grind. Yes, we will get new good things with crafting, but that things will work only if you play 24/7/365. So don't go crazy with amount of time what we need to get new things, or new crafting events.

P.S. I have some crazy idea: What if we get new crafted items, and that special items needs many different professions to work on them? Like we can create Shield (metalsmith), after that we can use Scholar to change color for Shield with different dyes, and after that we can use Weaponsmith to add spikes on Shield to buff some stats for item. Or we can cook some food, and Scholar make it better. Or tailor create armor, and metalsmith buff stats for item.

[Pharone]

Professions:

The first step is to separate vocations into individual professions. Our intent is allowing characters with a vocation to keep the three associated professions at the level that they have currently achieved. Players who are just enrolling in the crafting system can choose any three professions that they want.

Will we be able to keep 2 of the existing professions we have already levelled up and replace the third one with a different profession?

[Vilan]

We want to address that by making enrollment in the guild a more active experience where you will be able to maintain your membership and access by continued activity or it will decay slowly over time.

I respect a lot of your work Orion, but making guild rep drop over time and spinning it as creating an "active experience" is really... let's just say I'd call it something different. It already costs money to unlock guild access. Let's not make it unfun please.

All I'd really like to see for crafting is to remove raid ingredients from old non-cap recipes and add in some LI crafting. Recipes for enhancement runes and/or traceries. You could make yellow unlimited, purple 1/day, teal 1/week. Maybe just hand these to the shafted professions like weaponsmith.

[Palentian]

Can we maybe NOT gate recipes behind rep? I mean I get gating like the special single use (like in Galtrev) but the basic recipes should not be rep gated.

[JuanD]

Crafting Guilds:

There are three omissions for crafting professions and associated guilds: Forester, Prospector, and Farmer. We want to address this. We know that the length of time
needed in order to increase standing with guilds is prohibitive. We want to address that by making enrollment in the guild a more activeexperience where you will be able to maintain your membership and access by continued activity or it will decay slowly over time.

I'm also concerned by this, doesn't sound too alt friendly imo, and as pointed out above, would also affect people taking long breaks from the game.

Now that we are talking about crafting, any chance to upgrade the existing LI recipes so they don't require mats from the old system? Would be nice to finally have those cosmetics back

[bohbashum]

Can i suggest some insane things from other games?

Crafting itself is very boring. Its just a menu and an induction. We have to jazz it up.

Some crafts could have utility for groups like others. For example. Durability is very boring. But look at monster hunter for a moment. You can sharpern your weapons before a hunt. You can then resharpen it later. Mechanically you could say its like food, but it could be a single weapon smith in a group who buffs everyones weapons before a raid. Musical instruments like war drums have commonly given buffs before fights. Woodworkers already make drums..

Tradepack runs from Archeage are huge. Im not suggesting to make tge world Open PvP. But maybe some kinda of travling challange to move resources over vast distances with challanges along the way. Maybe Umbar doesnt have great wood, so a run from mirkwood to supply them is needed. Players could do this for there own gain, or complete novices do this for people who do not want to do the challange that isnt fighting. Maybe a session play like the chicken to transport the goods making landscape much harder. You get the idea?

[zipfile]

Scholar, cook, and jewler are the current top dogs, there is no doubt. With the shift to LIs, ages ago, we diminished the value of weaponsmith - we need to rectify that. Same with woodworker, metalsmith, and tailor. Though the direct moment to moment impact with those professions may not become equivalent, we do want to eliminate the feeling of being punished.

Could just make craftable Traceries and you'd fix the majority of issues...assign each type of tracery to a craft and leave the Rivendell room for intro's.

Edit: could tie in to the "drops for high crafting" in here as well....

[laughatdo0m]

Crafting Relevance:

Our goal is to work toward making the relevance of crafted gear more important in the next level band, then over time integrate that back through the lower-level bands of the crafting system. The process to work backward through the tiers will take longer than this year.

The effort to make crafting more useful is integrated with the release of the expansion later this year. We want to establish crafted gear to be slightly ahead of quest gear. This will lead to two behaviors. One, providing optional rewards through the quests specific to crafters. And two, making crafting a unique stepping stone to assist in instances. The major quest lines and crafted gear should be used to get you prepared for the instances that come with the expansion.

Further, new gear and armor in instances will have some measure of crafting included to ensure that there is always something for crafters to look forward to. These items will assist in the stepping stones needed to move into raids, and so on.

The widgets or extra items that are needed to craft these latest items will be scattered throughout the game, not only in instance or raid spaces, so crafters should not feel forced to engage with the systems that they might feel less inclined to play. They will, however, be able to directly assist their fellow players and kinmates by making items that could help them in those endeavors.

This one will be the most important part of the update; finding a way to make crafting relevant as "entry level" gear for new instance clusters as they are released. One suggestion I always make around this is to consider how the vertical gear progression system works for FFXIV; whenever a new "savage raid tier" (4 raid instance cluster essentially) is released in that game every 6-8 months; they also release new recipes with crafted gear that is *BETTER* than previous gear, designed to be able to clear the current tier with a VERY tight DPS/Survivability check that only the top tier raiders would meet. For people that struggle to clear in those with the crafted gear in the first several weeks, the drops from the new raids are still better than the best crafted so over the weeks of reclears on the easier bosses they will replace the gear and eventually hit the stat checks they need (if they can handle the instance mechanics... which is another story). Giving people the ability to quickly catch up when returning to LOTRO for new content would help create a more healthy endgame raiding community.

The crafted gear shouldn't be crafted with expensive, rare ingredients either. It doesn't have to be trivial to gather, but respect peoples' time and allow them to gear up one character in a short amount of time while focusing on gathering nodes.

Vocations:

At the outset of the game, we wanted the crafting system to serve manifold purposes. Vocations were designed with these factors in mind: socialization, game economy, and a unique way to highlight crafting. As time wore on, we added tiers, and then complexity through guilds. Crafting has been bumped with each new level band, but a focus on the system is something that has not happened in some time.

We hope, throughout 2023, to address that with updates that modernize the system.

Professions:

The first step is to separate vocations into individual professions. Our intent is allowing characters with a vocation to keep the three associated professions at the level that they have currently achieved. Players who are just enrolling in the crafting system can choose any three professions that they want.

We are also likely to allow players to expand their crafting vocations by one more slot. The details on how this is acquired is not yet solidified, but we are not expecting to allow players to have more than four professions trained at any time.The reason for this is simple, we still want to keep the social and game economy moving through the crafting system. While also offering you more flexibility.

This is an interesting change. How will it work for old tools that are catered specifically to their associated vocations ("Tools of the Yeoman", etc)? Will they be updated to include every profession like Universal Toolkits, or will it just be shrugged off and left to the player to figure out how they want to get around it?

I do worry that increasing this to 4 professions will lead to people just using 3 characters for crafting:
1 Main with 2 Gathering Professions, Scholar (which has unique gathering nodes that require you to be a scholar to access) and 1 other Crafting Profession
2 Alt with the 4 other Crafting Professions
3 Alt with Farming and Cook

Crafting Resource Tiers:

With Update 35: Return to Carn Dûm, we are introducing minor updates to the crafting system with new recipes and added items needed to craft those new recipes. This is the start of changes that will re-align crafting tiers. While we are not going to refine all the earlier tiers, we will continue to increase resource tiers for future level updates. We will continue creating more recipes for crafting vocations over time, rather than only at level increases.

One way to increase players desire to craft is to give more interesting cosmetics to the crafting system (with rare resources). Allow players to craft gear that has unique or rare cosmetic appearances. Give scholars the ability to research some basic weapon auras.

One thing I've always asked for is that new tiers of recipes MUST include new versions of *ALL* relevant consumables. Every time a new tier comes out most classes get updates of their old class consumables, but sometimes a class or two gets left behind and must grind resources in old content killing grey mobs or praying for scholar nodes to spawn faster. A good example would be Beorning Wrath potions, which only existed in the level 100 recipe tier.

Giving players the ability to trade-down their highest tier resources for lower tier resources would also be a good idea. After spending months in the endgame instances getting hide/skarn/scholar drops from mobs, we tend to build a stockpile of the highest tier resources that we have no real reasonable way to get rid of other than selling. If we had the ability to craft older recipes with this latest gear (or trade it in for older, lower-tier crafting ingredients), we would be able to level new vocations without grinding grey mobs/gathering nodes in zones surrounded by grey mobs.

Crafting Guilds:

There are three omissions for crafting professions and associated guilds: Forester, Prospector, and Farmer. We want to address this. We know that the length of time
needed in order to increase standing with guilds is prohibitive. We want to address that by making enrollment in the guild a more activeexperience where you will be able to maintain your membership and access by continued activity or it will decay slowly over time.

My suggestion for the "catch-up" is to remove the time-gate on old reputation tiers; but change them so they can only apply reputation for their specific tier. This would serve two purposes:
1- players would be able to "catch-up" in a one-time grind without constantly waiting for timegated recipes to come off cooldown (or being forced to use MC to reset the timer or feeling obligated to use reputation accelerators).
2- players would NOT be able to stockpile old reputation items in order to instantly max out the new guild tier at the time it is released, as they would have to wait out the time-gate on the max tier reputation consumable, which would be released at the same time as new crafting/guild reputation tiers.

Theres no reason to make reputation decay. I'd prefer you respect players' time and keep it as a one time grind but add a catchup method. Adding decay would be the opposite of respecting players' time, and instead force meaningless upkeep.

[Elmagor]

Can we maybe NOT gate recipes behind rep? I mean I get gating like the special single use (like in Galtrev) but the basic recipes should not be rep gated.

IMHO it's ok what recipes rep gated, they just don't need to be gated too high. Galtrev really good example, we can craft good items early, but for cloak upgrade you need go just too deep.

If devs want to see people use crafted gear in instances, we must have all recipes gated around friend faction.

Also IMHO Gundabad and both Rohans don't have enough sources for currency what we use for recipes. If I need 100 Silver Coins of Gundabad every week for 500 embers, why I need waste them to buy all crafting recipes? It's ok when you doing quests, but when you complete everything in Gundbad? You need complete Forge/Loft every day just to buy one recipe in weeks. Meh...

Rohan have huge amount of recipes, and their cost way too high. 60 Westemnet Iron Coins for single recipe, it's like 120 task quests to buy just one recipe.

[TesalionLortus]

Crafting and Housing:

We are looking at options to enhance how crafting influences and is influenced by the housing system. Details on this are still in the formative state but we have some ideas such as new hooked items or NPCs that function as gatherers for materials that you would need to visit and obtain the items that they are collecting for you. We expect that this will need a hefty side of control to ensure that it does not become abused.

Further, we want to make new recipes that allow crafters to make objects for home and hearth.

Is this just about an interactive element (or even grind) though housing so, say - gotta obtain a specific item/NPC in order to get special things for crafting the "X thing" related to cap progression? Or just housing crafting node (with some timers on it) with your regular "hey I'm a friendly metalsmith Gondorian" NPC placed on housing property? OR, which would be far more appealing, say a Gondorian soldier NPC that you could upgrade to Swan knight through crafting. Or any other cool looking NPC of our choice perhaps, from Lossoth crafters to Angmarim priests maybe why not - that can be then redirected to do any of those tasks associated with crafting, in which case it doesn't appear as a hook waste because everyone could customize it to their liking, the way one can do with skirmish soldier appearances for example, and make it fit our houses/yards. Some NPCs with animations would be nice too, not just walking around but doing some of that stuff mobs/background people usually do, from dancing to cheering to doing magic with staffs. Anyway, I mean something more appealing and of wider variety/choice than just 'now you always gotta have that hobbit or that Gondorian guy' for crafting reasons, even though there is already a shortage of hooks. Also, there are many cool approaches to housing NPCs from more unique assets that we could have other than property guards or potential Free People woodworker/metalsmith etc

It's cool there is consideration for more housing items to be crafted. Could the "themes" of different professions be relaxed, so each can create some cool items of variety of sizes and categories? For example, for weaponsmiths: entire barrels of weapons, a statue holding a giant iron axe, or a set of many orc heads on spikes. Rather than just being limited to a small wall-mounted dagger, sword, one-handed or two-handed axe etc... which gets boring after a while and seems like nobody feels like buying those in AH either, and I get it, why waste hooks on such small similar things

[Elmagor]

Can i suggest some insane things from other games?

Crafting itself is very boring. Its just a menu and an induction. We have to jazz it up.

Some crafts could have utility for groups like others. For example. Durability is very boring. But look at monster hunter for a moment. You can sharpern your weapons before a hunt. You can then resharpen it later. Mechanically you could say its like food, but it could be a single weapon smith in a group who buffs everyones weapons before a raid. Musical instruments like war drums have commonly given buffs before fights. Woodworkers already make drums..

Tradepack runs from Archeage are huge. Im not suggesting to make tge world Open PvP. But maybe some kinda of travling challange to move resources over vast distances with challanges along the way. Maybe Umbar doesnt have great wood, so a run from mirkwood to supply them is needed. Players could do this for there own gain, or complete novices do this for people who do not want to do the challange that isnt fighting. Maybe a session play like the chicken to transport the goods making landscape much harder. You get the idea?

Well, durability is good mention. It's good way to buff item without reaching caps. Like we have raid armor with 40 durability, but we can use our crafting profession to "upgrade" item to 50 durability

[zipfile]

Well, durability is good mention. It's good way to buff item without reaching caps. Like we have raid armor with 40 durability, but we can use our crafting profession to "upgrade" item to 50 durability

What is VIP.....

...what is durability maintenance....

I swear, some of you have no grasps on reality.

[laughatdo0m]

Well, durability is good mention. It's good way to buff item without reaching caps. Like we have raid armor with 40 durability, but we can use our crafting profession to "upgrade" item to 50 durability

It does get a bit subverted by VIPs basically just skipping that part of the grind by having unbreakable gear then

[Strider5548]

Professions:

We are also likely to allow players to expand their crafting vocations by one more slot. The details on how this is acquired is not yet solidified, but we are not expecting to allow players to have more than four professions trained at any time.The reason for this is simple, we still want to keep the social and game economy moving through the crafting system. While also offering you more flexibility.

I'm very happy to see ideas to update crafting. This is an area of the game that deserves some attention so thank you for working on it.

The feedback I feel strongest about relates to the point above about capping a player to 4 professions. I don't think this is a good idea. I would really like to see one character being able to get all professions, even if they are locked behind mithril coins. I get the argument of maintaining the social aspects and game economy as relevant mechanics, but I would say the following:

1) There really is no social element to crafting with the system today. Players won't pick 4 professions and rely on friends and strangers for the rest, they will make crafting alts and have to deal with farming, managing inventory, and gaining rep on multiple characters they may not even enjoy playing. It's much more streamlined and a huge QoL boost to let players pay for the option to learn more professions.

2) As far as the game economy goes, this too is basically non-existent due to the amount of gold inflation that has happened over the years. The reality is the crafting marketplace is not accessible by the vast majority of players and is not worth accessing for those who have the gold for it given how hyper-inflated prices are.

[pwnzer]

Crafting Guilds:

There are three omissions for crafting professions and associated guilds: Forester, Prospector, and Farmer. We want to address this. We know that the length of time
needed in order to increase standing with guilds is prohibitive. We want to address that by making enrollment in the guild a more active experience where you will be able to maintain your membership and access by continued activity or it will decay slowly over time.

Totally against the decay of crafting guild experience over time - what's next? You're going to make reputation with factions decay over time if you don't quest with them regularly?

[laughatdo0m]

I'm very happy to see ideas to update crafting. This is an area of the game that deserves some attention so thank you for working on it.

The feedback I feel strongest about relates to the point above about capping a player to 4 professions. I don't think this is a good idea. I would really like to see one character being able to get all professions, even if they are locked behind mithril coins. I get the argument of maintaining the social aspects and game economy as relevant mechanics, but I would say the following:

1) There really is no social element to crafting with the system today. Players won't pick 4 professions and rely on friends and strangers for the rest, they will make crafting alts and have to deal with farming, managing inventory, and gaining rep on multiple characters they may not even enjoy playing. It's much more streamlined and a huge QoL boost to let players pay for the option to learn more professions.

2) As far as the game economy goes, this too is basically non-existent due to the amount of gold inflation that has happened over the years. The reality is the crafting marketplace is not accessible by the vast majority of players and is not worth accessing for those who have the gold for it given how hyper-inflated prices are.

Point 2 is very valid, but I'm not sure I'd advocate for forcing players to have to BUY additional professions. Simply unlocking all for players to have all crafting professions unlocked at once is fine, since they'll have to level each profession individually anyway. FFXIV already does this (allowing each character to max out every form of crafting), so its not like its unheard of in the industry.

[Curuer_Bauglir]

Are recipes (or other crafting components) going to be bound to account or character? Nothing is going to be more frustrating than getting a really good crafting drop on my main, an explorer, if it’s only going to be useful for a jeweler. Or having to rep barter for recipes or crafting components at level 150 when my jeweler is only a level 75, for example.