Discussion about Future Crafting Updates

[spanyard2]

First I'd like to say thank you very much for taking a look at crafting. To me it's simple and easy to use and have always loved the Lotro crafting system, that is until we hit Anorien and up. Anorien just wasn't that much fun. Felt like a skeleton of a crafting tier with no guild and when it comes to Ironfold and up I am hoping you guys are planning to look at the massive mat bloat. It jumped from 5 brushed hides or ingots to 50 and 3 shards or more over night which basically shot crafting in the spine as far as I and many I've spoken with are concerned. With 1 brushed hide/ingot equaling 2 hide/ore each that's a lot of poor boars, bears and wolves hides and hours in the shard mines just for a pair of gloves it seems. Doomfold wasn't as bad though the cd items made it so it took a week just to craft a friend a set of purple base gear, not to mention even the base set purp recipes are gated behind a ton of barter tokens which meant you had to do 100's of dailies in order to get all crafters decked out with just base purp gear recipes. Over the years I've seen the amount of gear posted on AH tank and prices skyrocket because no one wants to do it with such a mat bloat and dailies grind just for base recipes. I get it with teal recipes and single uses but not base gear needing all those base mats and then shards and cd items and a bizillion barter tokens. So in the end all that i think really hurt crafting and I hope that wasn't done on purpose just to get people to give up on crafting and just spend $ on Adventure gear. Mat bloat killed supply which drove prices way up and with few people posting the lack of competition drove it up even more. That all being said I am still very glad you guys are tackling crafting and interested to see what ya all do.

My thoughts after all that blabbering i just did and some more blabbering...

#1 Awesome you guys are revisiting it and how you're aiming it and and hope to see it get it's deserved place. Saw someone tier the gear like this Quest < Low craft < Low Instance < Low Raid < Delvings < Delvings + Crafting < High Instance < High Raids which sounded about right tho I think to get the most out the instances it should tier 1-2=low gear, 3=med gear and 4-5=much better gear. Tier 3 is way to easy to be any where near tier 4-5 and should have classic dungeon style roll/pass and or individual loot tables. Personally always liked at least a few roll/pass items like Hilt of Earnil tho wished it was a selection box so you couldv've picked what class it's for. One can dream right haha

#2 Glad guilds are being looked at tho not seeing much point in guilds for Prospecting, Foresting, Farming but would have to know more. How would Scholar work? break it up and create a base Research to go with Scholar? I think people would freak but would make sense. Also when it comes to guilds it would be nice to see other ways to gain rep though I wouldn't make all the guild rep items useless. Do that and it would be punishing everyone that has been putting in the work early to store rep for the next tier. People freak again.

#3 Crafting Events and influences on the housing system sound interesting and would like to see where you go with that though we do have a significant amount of events already. Maybe they could go with current festival events or something. Whatever happens it will be interesting to hear more about it.

#4 Endgame gear drops being tied to crafting in some way concerns me. Not saying there shouldn't be any at all but most people that put in all that work to do instances/raids don't want to have to then put in all kinds of work just to get it made, use it, or whatever. Doesn't mean can't have a piece or something as i already said ofc...

#5 NPC's that gather materials for you hmmm.. not sure how i feel about that one though would perhaps be nice for say fishing and farming. Cast a net and come back to haul in your fishies and round up your crops the next day would be cool. All kinds of things you guys can do with fishing from different poles for ocean, lake, river to boats, bait, boat skins for $$$/LP, heck even charter boats that take you around lakes to see the view and give ya a bonus to fishing. Loved the fish addition to food. I can go on and on but I'll save it for a another post.

#6 Looks like you guys already figured out what a lot of people thought about the whole access by continued activity or it will decay slowly over time thingy. Yeah I wouldn't.

#7 Misc. UNLEASH the Lotro ingame economy!! by making most items NOT BOUND and I mean most except instance/raid gear. Unbind everything from barter items at barterers, all essences in existence, not a single one should be bound whether landscape, instance or crafted. Since Black Keys don't drop anymore then let gold Sturdy Steel Keys drop again, I was always stoked when i got one. Let us trade and sell most our hard earned items we get thru currencies. Anyways, I've taken up enough space.

In the end thanks for all the work you all have done over the years and hope lotro is around for another 16. (sorry for miss spells and grammar) Cheers!

[Liriandanor]

I really like the idea of crafting getting some attention and love again. There have been lots of good comments and several good ideas what to do and what would be much appreciated already. So just some ideas I had while reading through this

Guilds
Those were great at lower Tiers as they provided good gear for the next Tier. I really miss that now that not even the Gear from Embers lives through the first run of a new instance and is substituted by Delving gear most easily. It shouldnt be easy to get good gear but it shouldnt only be accessible through instances/raids. Reward people who took the time to level their guild rep
I'd like some more for Guilds to make the time invested worth the while. Like the Missions and their daily/weekly wrappers. 3 Guild recipes a day for a reward (Embers? Special ingredient for new and better recipes?) 15 Guild recipes for en even bigger reward (the afore mentioned better recipe?) Yes, this would be a new grind but one you could chose to undertake or leave it. Of course it shouldn't be necessary to just be able to continue playing, just an extra which might make things easier.

Housing
I very much like the idea of combining housing items to groups that was mentioned earlier in this thread. The number of hooks is limited and I cannot display even half of what I have or would like to. And there are probably not that many people who buy a complete neighbourhood of premium houses for all their things.
The combining could be associated with Guild crafting where only guilded crafters can to the combination and use either crafted items or vendor bought ones. Imagine one item that combines all the fishing trophies or all dead animals one might want to display in just one hook!

Prospecting/Foresting/Farming
Giving these profession a guild is interesting but what would be the reason for it? To make it equal to other professions? Giving the fact that you need these professions just to be able to provide for the others makes this even more strange. What Guild rewards would you want to give that makes the effort of leveling the guild reputation worth its time? And what about the often mentioned scholars? As the gathering is included into the profession, a scholar would only have to level one guild where all other producing professions would need two - the raw material guild and the producing one. That would need some good reasoning for me to understand the necessity.

Events
I love the idea of special crafting instances/quests/events. What I dont really like was the idea of that being a serverwide accomplishment. Everybody who comes a bit later to the show wont have the same chances of rewards as would the first ones have.
But as a soloplayer event - or even small FS / fellowship one I'd love it. Not necessarily seasonal events only but what about placing more ressource instances in areas that are not visited anymore? In addition to the normal materials these instances could give unique rewards like recipes (housing/cosmetics) for tokens you get in each instance (like the Moria and Hytbold ressource instances)

One addition to Guild-reputation: Making it easier to level the reputation would be very much appreciated. Starting a new guild and level it to highest Tier with only the token recipes seems a bit outdated.

Overall: Thanks for thinking about a long neglected game-feature!

-Gaer

P.S. I like the idea of another area like Hytbold which you can rebuild and/or support with crafting! There could be some rewards for certain steps of rebuilding or for a certain amount of support you give. Maybe also a kind of Kin-area would be possible where not only one player but all kin-members could provide assistance.

[Accomp]

Removed the mention of guilds decaying. Simply causing too much initial consternation and is going to derail good conversation.

Removed as in your not discussing it anymore? or this is being completely removed from SSG plan moving forward with regards to crafting? I will cease playing the game if this goes live. I don't have time to ensure multiple characters keep their crafting levels up as I have very limited playing time as it is. To play the game just to level crafting and not have time for anything else in the game would be sad.

[Xaviere]

One very specific note about Banquet items, currently crafted by Cooks at carnival campfires and requiring a significant timesink into Treasure Hunt/Hobnanigans activities. The banquets last five minutes, food effects granted from them disappear on death, and last I checked (130 cap) some of the banquets didn't even grant the proper stated effect to begin with.

Don't let this idea languish, please? If they lasted longer, effects persisted through death, and if ingredients were more consistently (but not necessarily more easily) available, I bet they'd be relevant and maybe even popular. Also maybe revisit some of the effects.

[MitchYurko]

I'm excited to see what the devs are cooking up for the crafting system. (bonus unintended pun) It's been in need of attention for far too long.

One of my significant thorns with crafting is, as a weaponsmith Guardian main character, once I got to level 50 and received my Legendary Weapon, crafting weapons only really serves as a cosmetic crafting function and maybe crafting weapons for my alts or friends. I still push my prospecting and weaponsmithing progress (probably more out of my neurodivergent OCD to max each tier), but I'm typically making all the ingots I can, then processing between ingots and shavings until I'm maxed. It would be amazing to have something available in the level 50+ crafting tiers that can complement legendary items and not replace or compete with them. Maybe allow certain vocations to craft relevant traceries? Something that wouldn't require additional significant overhauling of the LI system? The greatest challenge to my higher-level crafting characters is the legendary item system. Solve that challenge, get the two systems to complement each other and you'll make a TON of players happy!

Another annoyance has more to do with boosting characters than updating the crafting system. Consider a way to assist in catching a character up in crafting tiers after using a Valar boost, specifically in the gathering professions. I've tried buying wood, ore, and scholar materials from the auction house, but most people on there are getting greedy, making it ridiculously expensive to buy materials and much more economical to travel back to lower-level areas and grind out collecting materials myself. (Scholar is especially frustrating in the first tier!) Is there another way to acquire gathered materials, especially for boosted characters?

[spanyard2]

Just wanted to add i think the whole adding a 4th profession/vocation tab is a awesome idea. Wondering if it would be a good idea to make it so you can toggle a track all types of nodes skill instead of just the 1 or customize the track to just 1, 2, 3 or all. Guess there would be new craftable tools coming too. Whatever works. Also when it comes to resource availability I haven't really had an issue with farming it on landscape though farming some of the pre Moria ones can be a bit more tedious for jeweler and of course calenard and anorien due to no resource instances but they still aren't that hard to come by. Non public resource instances are a great way to alleviate this as has been done. These views/ideas come from someone that has all crafts and guilds maxed and has made many items for fellow players and has posted a lot of crafted goods on the Auction and through Trade and though the Auction/Trade hasn't been as active as it has in the past I would much like to see this aspect of the game be more relevant, fun, less rep/barter/dailies grindy for base purple gear and a viable means of trade/income like I know it is capable of. Can't wait to see crafts like weaponsmith get some love and by no means do i expect every vocation to be equally as valuable as the next since value varies depending on player and would simply just not be realistic as is the case in any world. Hope to hear more about all this from you guys/gals at SSG and as much as you see a lot of whining, arrogance and rudeness that there are many of us out here that appreciate your hard work and efforts towards this game and look forward to more to come. Til the next time....



(I noticed everyone likes to put a little wise saying at the bottom so here is mine!) **Unbind the Lotro Economy Kraken!**
******make most bound items unbound besides high end raid gear. Like all essences, barter items from all barterers like rep and even motes/figs, ixp runes, traceries/e-runes, LI's. Gandalf told me it would be a good idea so let's make it so! Let us trade or sell our hard earned currencies. Imagine the player interaction, trading and economy benefits. Lets do it!******

[Elaelin]

Please, when implementing crafting changes, don't add crafting to the daily grind along with missions, delvings, dailies, etc. If reputation is going to fade if we don't craft regularly, please put the rep tomes back at the skirmish camp.

[Liriandanor]

Being able to craft yellow and maybe even purple traceries to outfit an alt or even the main character would be one more thing to make crafting useful again. Especially for people with a bunch of alts.

One thing that I was thinking about from time to time would be a filter you could put into supplying barter offers. So that you would be able to filter for special professions. Like only items a weaponsmith may need or only for a tailor. I know you can put parts of the name in a search field but that only highlights the items with that name. You still have to scroll through the whole assortment to find everything. Just a minor annoyance I confess

Consolidating earlier Tiers of different ores or later Tiers of ore and wood to just one kind of item would also be much appreciated. Is there really a need for two kinds of wood in the Highest Tier? They are made to the same boards, so why do I need two slots in my CarryAlls or inventory? Silver and Barrow iron or Gold and Rich Iron or dwarf Iron and Platinum could be merged to one kind of ore/skarn for each Tier. I was very happy when that happened to Khazad ores, so why not to all other materials and Tiers as well.

-Gaer

[Rinlul]

Player economy will still be broken if Auction Hall listings are so short-lived. 2 weeks seems fair. Greater viability for crafters and greater availability of crafted items for players (especially players not at higher levels).


More inconsequential but fun idea: Make food resources nodes more worthwhile. Maybe you are more likely to get crit components? Or increase density (blueberry bog, etc).

[wispsong]

That's true for MM, but the sheer amount of shards we can get from the rare deed chests in Gundabad makes that an entirely different story -- except we have nothing to spend them on.

-Bel

I have given up on treasure caches. They are not numbered and hard to get to a lot of times. My shards came from missions but I'm taking a long break from them right now. I rather have an overflow on shards than none at all.

[wispsong]

Could I make a plea to consider the implications for inventory space and utility at this point, which a few people have touched on. With another crafting tier coming and - hopefully - more in the future, pressure on inventory is becoming very considerable indeed. If this revamp goes the way of other games, with regard to instance etc. drops, then it wouldn't surprise me to see more crafting ingredient types adding to this problem.

Obviously crafting carry-alls are available, but this system is somewhat clunky. In an ideal world, I would like to see separate crafting resource storage (in a really ideal world a sort of passive one of the Guild Wars 2 type, but I realise that would probably be too complex a system to add to the game code at this point) in addition to current storage.

However, even without major change like that, two improvements to the present, clunky system would immediately and materially help:

First, and presumably simplest: allow us to rename carry-all bags

Second, and I guess more complex: allow us to craft directly from storage, including from carry-all bags in storage, in the same way as we can currently craft directly from carry-all bags held in inventory

Even with carry-alls my cook has three of them, my scholar two, we have to many crafting mats through all tiers. I like the suggested changes. With the second I could have all crafting carry-alls in storage and wouldn't even need to sort them by profession/item. But naming them for tier would be good at that point.

[Bromlin]

Very happy about the changes. To get rid of the darn and limiting vocation system is something I had hoped for since I joined in 2007. Hated it right from the start. A fourth profession per character further removes limitations which is always a good thing. Surprised to get this, as I remember Cordovan saying this would probably be not an option. Loving it.

I can only give two thumbs up and hope it will all work out well and can go live soon. Cheers for the good work.

P.S. There is just one thing - along with these changes, can you please include the option to rename the carry-alls? They will be needed.

[Elmagor]

I have given up on treasure caches. They are not numbered and hard to get to a lot of times. My shards came from missions but I'm taking a long break from them right now. I rather have an overflow on shards than none at all.

We have few plugins to help you with them, like MoorMap. You can seen them on map and mark caches what you already use

[Pontin_Finnberry]

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.

Just want to say I love this idea! I assume it will be server-wide? if so that's great, I've long wanted server-wide accomplishments.

[Elmagor]

Since part of crafting update will be part of u35 and we yet to seen them on Bullroarer, can we give us little more info? We will get new essences recipes? Sunstone shards will be used with new recipes? Solvents still be used for essences, as well as malleables? I know it can be little more early to see, but craftable T2-T4 140 essences and usable Gundabad Malleables really can be just tooo late right now. Sure some new things wasn't ready, but essences?

[wispsong]

What is the point to guild for the resource collection vocations? Already, there seems really no point to get Gold level mastery for forester and prospector. At present, it only seems valuable to fulfill Copper mastery to advance availability to the next tier. What am I missing here? Basically, getting Gold level mastery just consumes large amounts of resources one might use to level up other Forester/Prospector alts.

Also, the disparity between Forester and Prospector feels ... annoying or a symptom of not having thought out the system ahead of time. Advancing Forester is "trivial" compared to advancing "Prospector". Since Forester can advance via hides dropped from hunting landscape creatures, it is much easier to get resources to advance with. It seems that this likely drives up the price for ores and ingots because it takes a LOT more work to collect raw material.

What makes this even more unbalanced is that forester supplies two professions with two sources, but prospector feeds three professions with one source. I don't see this bizarre imbalance addressed in the introduction.

Edit: Historian was left out above, but it also seems to exhibit some imbalance in the sense that basically profession can collect scholar raw material through mob kills.



All well and good, except that the number of hooks already means it is highly impractical to use many items one might like to have on display. The hooks and storage to available items ratio already seems to discourage decorating to some extent.

Edit: Oh, and as to the social interaction bit, would people craft more and put up for auction more if longer auction times were possible. This player probably would. It is understandable that very long "auction" sales probably are self-defeating in that people don't want to wait an eon to see if they win an auction, so perhaps longer listing times could gate on having a buy-it-now price set.

I also don't see any need for gathering guilds. Scholar has gathering included and tailor uses mob drops. Maybe integrate gathering professions into the creating profession? Jewellers gather ore/gems, Smiths ore/gems, woodworkers wood? Only farmers actually do something to get the mats for cooks. But that excludes one character from gathering all resources to feed others, so maybe not a good idea.

I like the idea of creating housing decorations. Maybe these could be the RNG instance drops? I really am upset about these since I never get them. It is one thing to miss out on replaceable gear but worse to miss out on unique everlasting housing items.

[Torolan]

Any way to add a search box to the suppliers? So we can search for bought ingredients instead of having to scroll through the whole list?

[Bromlin]

I also don't see any need for gathering guilds. Scholar has gathering included and tailor uses mob drops. Maybe integrate gathering professions into the creating profession? Jewellers gather ore/gems, Smiths ore/gems, woodworkers wood? Only farmers actually do something to get the mats for cooks. But that excludes one character from gathering all resources to feed others, so maybe not a good idea.

Anything that enhances the crafting experience in a positive way is very welcome. I think guilds for gathering professions is a brilliant idea, although we'll have to see which perks will be earned by pushing up guild ranks. Maybe shorten induction time and increasing the amount of ressources gained from nodes? I'm hyped about this, to be honest.

[Elmagor]

Anything that enhances the crafting experience in a positive way is very welcome. I think guilds for gathering professions is a brilliant idea, although we'll have to see which perks will be earned by pushing up guild ranks. Maybe shorten induction time and increasing the amount of ressources gained from nodes? I'm hyped about this, to be honest.

How about...

Chances to get rare shards while gathering resources.

More rare items and even housing items when you gather resources?

I really love how they mix farmer with scholar, where you can get rare resources for scholar from farmer.

[wispsong]

Anything that enhances the crafting experience in a positive way is very welcome. I think guilds for gathering professions is a brilliant idea, although we'll have to see which perks will be earned by pushing up guild ranks. Maybe shorten induction time and increasing the amount of ressources gained from nodes? I'm hyped about this, to be honest.

So far guilds are a grind and having one character guilded for each profession is as far as I will go. For me the benefits don't make up for the rewards. Maybe that changes with the revamp but I'm not confident about it. So far revamps have made things worse not better.

I liked the virtue revamp but it has become a never-ending end game grind.
I like the LI revamp, but it is a storage nightmare.
And the last crafting revamp has increased mat requirements by 10.

[Pharone]

You would keep what you have levelled up, already. You could remove a profession, and train a new one - there would likely not be a direct transfer of your previously leveled profession to the newly trained profession.

This is what I was hoping to hear. The vast majority of my characters all have like 2 of the 3 professions levelled up with the 3rd one either not started or barely started. I am looking forward to being able to drop the unwanted professions and take a new one instead.

Example:
My Lore Master is a Historian.

• Scholar is leveled up and I have been working on the Scholar guild
• Farmer is leveled up
• Weaponsmith has never been touched

In that scenario, what I want to do is:

• Scholar - keep this with no changes
• Farmer - Replace with Forester
• Weaponsmith - Replace with Prospector
• Add Tailor (if a 4th profession is allowed)

That would leave my Lore Master with:

• Scholar
• Forester
• Prospector
• Tailor (4th)

On a side note, as long as the crafting system is being worked on this year, would it be possible to get the ability to double click a resource in the Crafting window and it take you directly to that item in the Supplier's BUY window? I know that's a lot to ask, but it sure would be nice to be able to find and purchase the supplier-based ingredients for crafting faster than having to scroll through the list of purchasable ingredients.

[Neinda]

Why even have gathering crafts? Why not allow tailors to process hides. Weapon and metalsmiths to pick up ore and process it? Woodworkers to pick up wood and process it? Cooks to be able to farm? Jewelers to be able to pick up and process ore?

You could even go as far as making all crafting nodes "generic" where one would pick up an item equivalent to ingredient packs to be used by the appropriate crafter on the account. This could cut down on storage space.

In other games, one can be proficient in every crafting field. It makes it easier for the player base to progress. Also, it would be nice if we could level crafting by deconstructing items.

[WorrBinpike]

i hope this "Guild decay" is not only away in this thread but dead as an idea overall. This would be a bad decision.

Most "fun" i have with crafting is on new chars to craft them teal gear which is really good if you are in the lower level area (although oyou are only allowed to make one per week, this could be lowered to 3 days). This gives a real push for the chars. Also i had very much fun to build a LI Weapon, especially on level 65/75/85/95 etc with the OLD system.

I'm not sure how this works out with the new LI-System, but the fun of that is gone.

Personally i think the crafting system isnt that bad in the game, also that it needs a lot of time to get the "good recipes" in the past with guild profession.

Nothing wrong at the system imho.

I'm not sure if we need a complete overhaul of the system, and also when i think of some ideas we got, i'm also not sure if we should looking forward to the overhaul starting with the Angmar Expansion. But maybe i'm wrong.

[SSG_Orion]

Removed as in your not discussing it anymore? or this is being completely removed from SSG plan moving forward with regards to crafting? I will cease playing the game if this goes live. I don't have time to ensure multiple characters keep their crafting levels up as I have very limited playing time as it is. To play the game just to level crafting and not have time for anything else in the game would be sad.

Peek behind the curtain - there is enough vitriol toward this that it will not be considered. We can move on.

[SSG_Orion]

Just want to say I love this idea! I assume it will be server-wide? if so that's great, I've long wanted server-wide accomplishments.

Not necessarily server-wide, but something that many players could participate in - likely within a controlled environment.