Discussion about Future Crafting Updates

[Dragonetti]

There are some really great ideas in this thread. Crafting is definitely a system that has much potential and I hope that this update will be able to bring it back to life and keep it alive.

All the professions
With alts, one can already easily cover all professions and never need to trade with another player. Adding a fourth profession doesn't add anything more than convenience. Allowing players to have all professions would be granting even more convenience. If it must be so, additional professions could be gated by unlocking each new profession for gold, mithril, guild tokens or perhaps progression on already learned crafts. And as others suggested, progression on profession 4+ could be inhibited by diminished returns on craft XP if there are worries of a disproportionate advantage.

More reward tracks
Crafting should have its own reward track(s) with rewards such as ingredient packs, craft XP boosts, and picker boxes for resources, special ingredients, rare ingredients and guild tokens. Maybe there could be unique titles and cosmetics (did someone say tool auras?). These could be seasonal like the LI tracks, or maybe unlocked by progressing to a certain level in a crafting guild, or bartered from the guild which would disappear once completed forcing you to barter for a new one. Possible variations include having a unique track for each guild, having tracks be character-specific, and allowing only one reward track to be active (earning XP) at a time. Side suggestion: If crafting can get reward tracks, so should VIPs for boosts and similar.

Crafted gear progression
To keep crafting relevant at end-game, crafted gear should have some minor progression similar to how LIs are upgraded every so often during the end-game cycle. You could trade it in along with some tokens crafted by a crafter depending on the type of gear/jewellery to enhance the item level. It would have to be at an NPC since the gear can't be traded to a crafter once equipped. The original recipe could also get an update, but the upgrade should always be cheaper than a new piece. Of course, crafted gear should still be weaker than instance and raid gear but it should also keep up with the power creep so that newly levelled characters aren't too far behind.

New profession
Essence crafting was shoe-horned into the other crafts as a quick fix to make crafting relevant again. It's perhaps time to make essence-crafting its own profession (Artificer?). I understand there would be some backlash if everyone suddenly lost the ability to craft essences and had to start over crafting low-level essences. It might be that essence crafting in non-artificer professions gets removed after a longer period so that people have time to level their artificer job.
The artificer should also have a way to craft Universal Solvents, Essence and Tracery Removal Scrolls, even if on a long cooldown.
This new profession could also include combining LI enhancement runes into higher quality (not tier) versions. Runes should also be disenchantable into shards (remember those?) which would be used in the enhancement rune enhancement process. Just don't go berserk with the higher tier combination costs like in the old LI system.

We need to talk about the gathering guilds
Others have mentioned this but I want to emphasize that it is hard to imagine the possible benefits for joining the new gathering guilds. What are the plans for these? I'm sure there are already ideas floating around, but some suggestions include access to fast travel to a guild hall (nicely decorated (@Scenario)), temporary gathering buffs (+chance for bonus resources, critical ingredients, +wider node tracking radius) and cosmetic tools.

Additional quality of life changes

• Make it easier to gather low-level resources by adding local quests, such as "kill 10 mobs in a certain region for 20 resources". Maybe something to add to the gathering guilds? These could also be task-style quests.
• Give us the opportunity to use Mithril Coins to complete craft levels, maybe even for guild reputation.
• Make craft XP bonuses (both special event XP and bonuses from items) work on Forester, Prospector and Farmer.
• Add craft boosts to Valar packages.
• Fast travel to crafting guilds

[ZepherZaner]

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.

I like everything said here the only thing I think also needs some work is the graphics of the farms because I don't think onions and all other vegetables should all look like wheat stocks when growing/being planted.

[spanyard2]

A re-balance on the resource requirements for lower level tiers might be a good idea.

Currently leveling a Metalsmith;

- from Apprentice to Master requires 2 ingots per simplest item,
- Supreme requires 4 ingots per simplest item, no idea the end range as I haven't got further

Maybe with 14 levels in the professions and a new one to come an adjustment to say 1 ingot for the first range and then 2 for the next would be appropriate.

Ironfold and up is 50 ingots and 3-5 shards just for a base purple pair of gloves and 100's (yes 100's of dailies, not just 100, just to equip all crafts with one toon going through Mordor quests and this does not include the teal recipes) just for the tokens to barter for base recipes lol yeah i know it's ridiculous

[SophiaMarquette]

"Our intent is allowing characters with a vocation to keep the three associated professions at the level that they have currently achieved."

Not sure if you could make this work but would be nice if we could trade out an unused profession for another and keep the other 2 professions at the level we have currently achieved.

[thesilverpen]

More hobbies, ones that can tie into crafting. Make the crafting a hobbies actually fun like--maybe an artifact collection thing. Some items crafted, some found. Crafted items that are collectable for housing decor, trade value for a goal, or to do a community collection goal.
When the game began, it seemed like loremasters were gonna be needed to read scrolls for the good of others to achieve objectives. That was not the case--but it would be a cool idea. They could use that system in the way crafting is done, and others can seek them out (economy boost) to provide that service.
Cooks and farmers could supply community festival goals, perhaps. Imagine the farmer faire with a community stew, that would buff the server for a certain time, or whatever. Crafting would be interesting if it just had a more exciting connection than some gear that is outdated often by the time the skill is acquired.

And to a previous mention of those of us who leave the game for periods of time--due to life or whatever---- if my crafting level decayed, I woud be peeved enough, I would not return. Simply that. It would be a lot of wasted effort that I could not over-look.

[auximenes]

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

Thanks for listening. If you guys developed a cool system that didn't feel punitive then I think the players would be more receptive but until that time...

I would like to comment on the professions. I think it's best to leave it at 3, to keep what you mention about interacting with other players and also avoid an unbalanced system, avoiding players who have the two pairs of professions needed to craft almost all armor or weapon recipes.

Everybody has crafting alts at this point. Having a 4th profession would provide convenience.

[Ryvick]

I haven't commented yet because I wanted to see what others thought and collect my own thoughts on the matters.

Vocations: & Professions: (Status and Changes sound good.)

Crafting Resource Tiers: (Hesitant to comment as I don't know if these changes will be good or bad yet.)

Crafting Guilds: (Not sure the point of Forester, Prospector, and Farmer guilds. Bulk crafting perhaps? But that could just as easily be added to all tiers of the base profession.)

Crafting Relevance: (This is important, I believe this really went off the rails in Mordor when mat amounts ballooned out of control. Take everything Pre-Mordor as a good yardstick for what works.) [Such as reduced mat requirements and complete gear sets every 5-ish levels]

Crafting and Housing: & Crafting Events: (Sounds good, eager to see what you have in mind.)

Might I suggest you set up the previous in separate threads for suggestions when the time comes to talk about each? I have a feeling people will have a lot to contribute to the discussions for each.

[Faithlos]

Crafting guilds do not offer anything once you pass Westemnet. Rather pointless to get started engaging with a guild just for them to leave you after level 95. Thought crafting as a whole is pointless beyond this point. I have a few characters that are Gundabad whatever that have NO recipes for their professions because everything is rep gated. And not just rep gated but ridiculously so. I enter a new zone at level 130, start getting rep for the controlling faction to unlock the level 130 recipes (kindred) and finally after much questing and tasks I have become kindred and unlocked the basic crafting recipes. Except now I'm level 140 and the craftable items are useless.

I miss the old days when you reached a new crafting tier you got the basic recipes for your craft. The new tier would run through the next 10 levels of gameplay. Through gameplay and/or AH you got better recipes and through reputation you got the best recipes. My main still doesn't have any level 140 weaponsmith recipes except burglar garbage and shield spikes because I refuse to play in Moria 2.0. But she can't make any weapons from Doomfold onward with the exception of a few level 130 items whose mats are so outrageous to acquire I abandoned the thought.

I am very glad that crafting is getting some upgrades but if you want to make it better you need only look to the past. And for the love of Gandalf, remove the rep gates for basic recipes.

[Accomp]

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

thank you for clarifying your earlier statement.

[Hoppendi]

We will need to strike the correct balance here.

Good ideass.

My suggestio


Quote Originally Posted by laughatdo0m View Post
n 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.




This could be where this ends up.

Forget about 4th slot and let everyone delete Professions they dont want (or never wanted) - if only new characters get to choose 3 to their liking they will always have it better than 3 legacy vocation + 1 extra (only exception is: tailor guild explorer. Would be on par and potentionally exceeding with additional scholar to find everything). After all u still have to program profession change for the new system so why not merge old and new via deletion of 1 slot and adding a new profession to this.

Also they quoted suggestion is on point. A system where you need to advance tier by tier but being able to insta finish if resource goal is met and advance to next guild tier is a useful way to implement a change since waiting a week after 1 min crafting action is pretty much boring.


My personal suggestions:

Find more ways to let players gather wood and ore. Most obviously via mob drops - why should they carry ore? Well they carry so many random and strange things already some ore fits into picture - just similar to how jeweller and scholar also find their useful stuff within diverse enemies.
Or to address this you could make special barterers lets say exchange 2 Beryl into 1 Chunk of ancient iron ore and 2 Moonstone into 1 Chunk of Ancient Silver for Tier 5 as a plain drop alternative. Perhaps your housing NPC is headed towards "gathering" ore and wood already idk.

If you rework crafting pls consider some ingame measurement to see how many recipes are obtained per profession and tier, maybe just as simple as writing a progress number since the devs shoul know the number of max possible recipes.
Like: Cook - Tier 2 - 26/44 (Recipes learned). It would be appreciated by completionist and since you are talking about socializations: This would be a point where some people ask friends how to get all recipes and maybe learn about different reputation places and even what are the most important recipes to have. (Note: I think many recipes are removed due to LI changes this could lead to problems i guess, but a progress towards current max number would be such a helpful indicator).

You will have to add new tools to fit the new profession combos: If you dont want to find a solution for the 720 possible choices (while in realitiy 90%+ of players will choose between the same like 40) I'd suggest you make a lesser version of universal tookit craftable (maybe 5% less crit) and high ressource cost for this (in case for the socialization purposes even possible players needs ressources from every profession and every guild profession can excecute this recipe).

Also very important: Leave the concept of low level crafters alive, for alt or roleplay purposes it should be possible to make the majority of recipes and even provide full guild craft support without being a Mordor approved adventurer as long as you can acquire ressources via friends, alts or trades.

I dont think this exists but making upgraded versions similar to Draigoch Cloak idea via crafting would be a banger to all cosmetic players. This could even be a hybrid (ofc taking the rarest ressources / or new special ressources (maybe event?)) so player start with jeweller and make special gem stones and a tailor finishes upgrading a rare cloak (like Draigoch) and getting a new woven version of Draigoch cloak. You could implement this for every special item; cook could be needed to make special food and a woodworker would upgrade some other item into a fruit basket or whatever. Problem is making the assets for new cosmetics so the team would have to settle on a few special crafting processes i guess. You could also combine multiple special items that drop from different instances into something new (imagine merging 5 special instance gear sets into a special cosmetic set as a bigger side goal done via crafting with adding special ressources (shards / event exclusives /...) during the process). Just to picture a possible direction.

Before i get too creative i cut it right here - thanks for reading.

[Bromlin]

Forget about 4th slot and let everyone delete Professions they dont want (or never wanted) - if only new characters get to choose 3 to their liking they will always have it better than 3 legacy vocation + 1 extra (only exception is: tailor guild explorer. Would be on par and potentionally exceeding with additional scholar to find everything). After all u still have to program profession change for the new system so why not merge old and new via deletion of 1 slot and adding a new profession to this.

Orion has already made it clear in this thread that you willl be able to replace single professions while keeping the rest. The fourth slot will be optional. I guess it will be a shop item.
For example, my LM who is Historian can keep scholar and farming while replacing weaponsmith with cook and adding forestry as 4th profession.

[FrankvdN]

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.

Actually, I'd even give a warmer welcome to this kind of quests inside the existing festivals. It would immediately allow more variation in the things to do in the festival to complete the wrapper quests, mixing existing quests with the new crafting quests. For that matter I liked that thing where in one festival you plant some seeds near the Party Tree and harvest it at the end of the year.

[DavidmeetHal]

Right now I have a level 62 tailor that cannot find the recipes in either drops or the AH to make a level appropriate set of medium armour. That's all I want, to be able to make a set of landscape armor, and I cannot because of the recipes not dropping.

And it gets worst all the way to level cap.

[Acetate]

While everything here sounds good, one thing i would like is the ability to use more than 1 track skill at a time. Being able to track ore and wood at the same time would be awesome!

[snommis]

While everything here sounds good, one thing i would like is the ability to use more than 1 track skill at a time. Being able to track ore and wood at the same time would be awesome!

This idea is on point. There should be a universal tracking button, that shows what resources are out there for ALL your chosen professions / vocations. This has been a complaint of mine since the beginning.

[Tarlywyn]

IMO gating recipes behind hours of questing and excessive material components (especially since Doomfield tier) is hurting the crafting system. During those hours of questing, players have likely picked up adequate gear for landscape play and entering Tier 1 instances, so engaging with the crafting system for this gear isn't needed.

[Stalruf]

I think that adding “Buy Orders” to the Auction House will help the interaction as well as adding “Crafting Orders”. If I need something made I place and order for it and someone fulfills it. Maybe even letting you know who fulfilled it so you can establish a relationship for future orders etc.

[Michaleo]

My crafter Varmentor has sold over 22,000 vocation toolkits on Landroval over 8 years and would be happy to retire. Here are his observations:

Since tooklits became available for vocations at lower tiers, it is no longer necessary to have individual tools and swap them. At this point, the recipes for separate tools are no longer available. The hundreds of possible combinations of professions mean it is impractical to make a toolkit specific to each combination.

Besides enabling a craft, different tier and quality tools confer different crit or harvest-speed bonuses. The highest tier for tools is Westemnet with +25% crit -4s harvest. Universal Toolkits in the store have only +20% crit, although some have -4.5s harvest.

One approach is to remove current toolkit recipes and add Universal Tooklit recipes that give all the corresponding bonuses for each tier up to Westemnet. You could adjust the bonuses so there could still be a reason to use a store Universal Toolkit.

A radical but simplifying approach is to eliminate tools entirely and give crit/harvest bonuses based on the highest tier in the profession in which the crafter has mastery. For example, like current toolkit tiers, having Expert tier mastery would give +8% crit, having Artisan mastery would give +12%, etc. Just as better tools do, mastery at higher tiers would improve crit chances at all tiers where you can crit.

Obtaining and upgrading tools are an annoyance at lower levels but at some point, most people buy a Universal Toolkit or get a Westemnet toolkit and don't think about it anymore. It would be better to simplify or eliminate them than to add more features.

[truPaltrax]

maybe i missed it but would i be able to take one out as a amorsmith champ i have no real use for tailoring

[Skoch]

To coincide with the crafting profession changes, could we have a Legendary Tool that we can build out the bonuses to crafting % and gathering % with a handful of nifty/niche utility traceries.

Like, movement speed after gathering a node, or % change to get double yield, or a % chance to return materials upon crafting success.

[Rinlul]

I think there are a lot of people advocating for making crafting easier and more convenient. That is valid. But I think there are some of us who want crafting to be more challenging. Star Wars Galaxies had one of the most complicated and fleshed-out crafting systems of any game, but no one complained because it was just another part of the game and it was fun/engaging. Granted, we won't have anything close to that. But even in Angmar days, crafting was more of an adventure and a challenge. Having a purple item was a bonus, not expected as the default.

But I think there could be an added layer of complexity that doesn't make people outraged. Thinking some more unique boosts that are a proc effect (similar to traceries). Like a 5% chance to get a combat run speed boost for 15s, extra DoT ticks, morale bubble, etc. Or like a 2% chance to reset all your cooldowns. I think the earliest example I can think of is that tortoise shell bracelet from Moria with the +25% devastate magnitude.

Other item enhancements that could be worth a significantly greater challenge/risk could be cosmetic changes, as mentioned. Even unique combat animations would be pretty cool, if not too difficult to implement.

I love the crafting-inside-dungeons idea for some of the more challenging recipes. SWG had some of this too. Maybe a sword could be imbued with some extra fire damage if it was crafted at a station while the rest of your party was fighting a fire-based boss. The crafting process could add an extra challenge to an instance. Or going to remote locations during certain times of day, like an item must be crafted on top of Weathertop at midnight and you need a buddy to fend off enemies trying to interrupt your crafting.

And as always, EXTEND AUCTION HALL LISTINGS. For the sake of inflation and promoting an active player economy.

[mrdwayne98]

Any toughts about adding old craftable LI's for figments, too? Same way you barter those RT ones.. That would be perfect!

[ski0624]

As long as the recipes and/or ingredients are not limited to those who do the "big" raids and skirmishes. That makes it VERY hard for people who play solo to be able to craft. And it is not easy to get in the raids. Casual players or people who play solo a alot cannot always get into a group to play. I know people will say "oh get better" or "oh just join someone" but if someone has not done it before there are very few I have seen who are willing to help and instead just get nasty when someone asks for help.

[MikeSol999]

"Our intent is allowing characters with a vocation to keep the three associated professions at the level that they have currently achieved."

Not sure if you could make this work but would be nice if we could trade out an unused profession for another and keep the other 2 professions at the level we have currently achieved.

They need to make it work. It would completely suck if new players get to choose exactly what they want while old players are stuck with a useless profession they don't want on their character.

[MikeSol999]

Orion has already made it clear in this thread that you willl be able to replace single professions while keeping the rest. The fourth slot will be optional. I guess it will be a shop item.
For example, my LM who is Historian can keep scholar and farming while replacing weaponsmith with cook and adding forestry as 4th profession.

This is good to know. I care about this more then anything else.