Crafting overhaul anytime soon?

[Artheyliaslight]

Sorry, I have been away about a year and just started playing again. Seems like nothing has really changed with higher tier crafting while I was away which is kind of sad. Are there any plans to address any of this is and if SSG is going to update these tiers? As it stands right now, they are just bad. Really bad. Crafting used to be pretty good and was a great way to gear up especially for solo and casual players, but end game crafting is almost pointless.

[farmhand99]

I agree crafting needs more love. I remember when East Rohan was the end game. My scholar had orders for Fire Oils. I made some nice money than. This is to me part of what crafting should be a way for non raiders to make not just some good things like gear for themselves however some money.

[Artheyliaslight]

I agree crafting needs more love. I remember when East Rohan was the end game. My scholar had orders for Fire Oils. I made some nice money than. This is to me part of what crafting should be a way for non raiders to make not just some good things like gear for themselves however some money.

Agreed. Was really disappointed to see that there were no improvements during the time I was away. I thought for sure they would have at least updated the auto generated recipes. Trying to gear from lvl 120 to 130 has been a real pain due to all the reputation grind. After grinding all my crafters up to minas ithil only to find out it's all rep barter and raid materials kind of makes it pointless for casual players. The mats are very expensive and that is if you can even find any on the auction house.

[WeirdJedi]

Agreed. Was really disappointed to see that there were no improvements during the time I was away. I thought for sure they would have at least updated the auto generated recipes. Trying to gear from lvl 120 to 130 has been a real pain due to all the reputation grind. After grinding all my crafters up to minas ithil only to find out it's all rep barter and raid materials kind of makes it pointless for casual players. The mats are very expensive and that is if you can even find any on the auction house.

Minas Morgul went through several phases when it was released. They didn't want people to just power-level up to 130 and get gear without buying the expansion and doing the content. So the recipes were locked behind the Reclamation reputation, which required tokens from the instances. I remember because I didn't initially buy the expansion; I had to squander the treasure chests in Gondor for level-appropriate gear. The Epic provided me with a full gear set (no jewelry), but I did take advantage of the crafted Elite Minas Ithil weapons. Then after about four months, they introduced the raid and with it the ability to gain tokens more easily from the instances. Now they drop like candy from every chest in any mode on any level. This was way easier than trying to gather tokens in Ered Mithrin.

What about the guilds? Well, I sort of agree that there should have been more recipes made available for every profession. But they forgot to tell people that you had access to two guilds with the expansion now (something that was added to the patch notes after-the-fact). Unlike Vales of Anduin, housing decorations could only be made through the guild system. Shards were extremely rare until they added the weekly quests, something that required the Minas Morgul meta deed completed. These guilds were more desirable once they added the crafted relics with the release of Three Peaks and easier to level now that the weekly missions reward 10,000 reputation point tokens.

Now they added the new crafted gold pieces for metalsmith and tailorer. Expensive, yes, but rightly so. They didn't want people to be able to craft a full set, so they left the door open for people to get other pieces from the Remmorchant barterer for 7000 ember without ever completing the raid and the added option to upgrade it with Tokens of Resolution from the new Wildwood instances.

Yeah, I kind of miss the days where you could just reach a level and craft a full set of gear. But they had to do something to get people to buy new content. As for making money, I can easily do the weeklies for Ithilharn shards in a couple of hours and sell them for around 200g each. Crafting boxes too.

[lockecd]

Personally I think it should be changed. Was a lot of agitation with the players doing the instances to get armor, gems, shards, etc...

There was a member asking for a pocket item level 120 Being on my scholar I looked to see what they wanted. Having not made any items before I asked for the Dwarf- Iron Fragments and Dwarrowmarks. These are two of three items hard to come by the third is Dwarrowgleam Shards.

So, the shards or sometimes found in the T12 nodes, occasionally in the Adventurer’s Steel Bound Loot box, The rare Crafting Component selection box. Or from a Crafter’s Rare Cache from doing the 2 quest which are Reclaiming the Gray which is a maximum of 12 to 16 quest each day. Requiring 2 days to complete to do the next one.


To me the drop is too low.
I have found 7 total. Not sold/crafted or given any away. I did buy one, but not again.

The Dwarrowmarks one has to grind the two quest out.
Total of all three stages of Reclaiming the Grey. Initial, Advanced and Final (20 quest) to get one.
I have 11 in the vault again not sold/crafted/ or given any away.
The Dwaft-iron Fragment
Suppose to drop in the Caverns of Thrumfall, Glimmerdeep, and Thikil-qundu instances, and the raid The Anvil of Winterstifth. None of which are still run.
Granted to can barter from these for 100 Mark of the Longbeards
Yet with the Mark of the longbeards are also recipes, house items. Mounts.
One needs to be Kindred with the Gray Mountains Expedition to be able to barter.

This is boring after awhile

My feelings on this is that one should be able to gear up before moving on. I am trying to do this , yet as this is old content is frustrating. So I took my tortoise shell stone off. And here I am 130 with 120 armor and no essences. Still have many house items I want plus mounts, pets, and maybe even cosmetics. Because of this I am falling behind.
Then in the Vales the Artifacts of the Vale you need Rime of the Anvil . This is so very depressing.

[wispsong]

Personally I think it should be changed. Was a lot of agitation with the players doing the instances to get armor, gems, shards, etc...

There was a member asking for a pocket item level 120 Being on my scholar I looked to see what they wanted. Having not made any items before I asked for the Dwarf- Iron Fragments and Dwarrowmarks. These are two of three items hard to come by the third is Dwarrowgleam Shards.

So, the shards or sometimes found in the T12 nodes, occasionally in the Adventurer’s Steel Bound Loot box, The rare Crafting Component selection box. Or from a Crafter’s Rare Cache from doing the 2 quest which are Reclaiming the Gray which is a maximum of 12 to 16 quest each day. Requiring 2 days to complete to do the next one.


To me the drop is too low.
I have found 7 total. Not sold/crafted or given any away. I did buy one, but not again.

The Dwarrowmarks one has to grind the two quest out.
Total of all three stages of Reclaiming the Grey. Initial, Advanced and Final (20 quest) to get one.
I have 11 in the vault again not sold/crafted/ or given any away.
The Dwaft-iron Fragment
Suppose to drop in the Caverns of Thrumfall, Glimmerdeep, and Thikil-qundu instances, and the raid The Anvil of Winterstifth. None of which are still run.
Granted to can barter from these for 100 Mark of the Longbeards
Yet with the Mark of the longbeards are also recipes, house items. Mounts.
One needs to be Kindred with the Gray Mountains Expedition to be able to barter.

This is boring after awhile

My feelings on this is that one should be able to gear up before moving on. I am trying to do this , yet as this is old content is frustrating. So I took my tortoise shell stone off. And here I am 130 with 120 armor and no essences. Still have many house items I want plus mounts, pets, and maybe even cosmetics. Because of this I am falling behind.

I agree with you. Crafting revamp sounds good especially when they find getting the crafting guild up to a new level will be to grindy so you get quests to do so. What they forget to mention s that now even as a solo landscape player you have to grind these end game instances. Not a problem unless like me after getting 2 characters through the reclamation deed you still can't craft even one thing. These special ingredient boxes, they drop more often in fellowship runs which already drop gear...mat requirements have gone through the roof, reputations are needed beyond the guild and gold is not enough to buy some recipes. Make a mistake and everything is lost, grind again.

I used to be able to gear my characters through crafting as soon as they hit cap with mats I had gathered while levelling, the new crafting requires way to many mats...Vales housing items 70x gathered material, really. And then all the shards and ingredient boxes needed for the revamped guild crafting...I want the old way back. I don't need to be able to make gold pieces...just nice teal that isn't leagues behind BiS. And my crafted relic now requires 5 shards+ other mats (Elderslade supplies) and region reputation to buy from the guild vendor. Everybody, even those of us who don't play repetitious grind end game should be able to craft good pieces, not just those who play said content forever. Those already get reputation gear and instance drops.

But this seems to be the new way to keep players busy...look they run out of needs, just increase x.y and z...maybe a as well to keep them running the same instances over and over and over and over...........again. For players like me that just means, stop and enjoy the older content where we can play characters and have them geared without this grind.

[lockecd]

I actually got a shard today YAY !

Then in the Vales

I ride to Huitvis and see the Artifacts of the Vale you need Rime of the Anvil . A Raid This is so very depressing.

Yes the old crafting system was perfect in everyway. That to me helped everyone.

[Evodius]

Sorry, I have been away about a year and just started playing again. Seems like nothing has really changed with higher tier crafting while I was away which is kind of sad. Are there any plans to address any of this is and if SSG is going to update these tiers? As it stands right now, they are just bad. Really bad. Crafting used to be pretty good and was a great way to gear up especially for solo and casual players, but end game crafting is almost pointless.

The short answer is no. The longer answer is people have asked about crafting updates in the live streams before and it usually ends in a conversation about how crafting gear is for leveling; however, consumables always have a place at endgame.

[SavinDwarf]

I would like to see crafting start to make sense again – IMHO it was fine until the last three levels.

Crafting should be all about getting experience in crafting and earning reputation within your crafting guild. Perhaps you might also need reputation with a certain area/faction but there should be a way to gain that reputation that does not require fighting.

Having some rare recipes as drops is also OK, but only if they can be exchanged/given to a crafter.

I have no problems with high end rare items being required as components of recipes as long as:
1) They can be traded
2) The recipe itself should not need rare and high end items to be purchased.

The way crafting works should make sense with lore and common sense. Any change should be given a review where we say “does this make sense”

For example, if we design a system where the only way to get a top level recipe is to visit a NPC who sits in the middle of a field surrounded by 130+ mobs and the recipe is not tradeable or you need to be a master tailor to buy it. This is stupid. How is a level 40 master tailor meant to go into a field surrounded by 130 mobs in the first place?
End of Rant

[YamydeAragon]

New recipes are coming with Update 30. Lets see what they bring.

[GarethB]

I actually got a shard today YAY !

Then in the Vales

I ride to Huitvis and see the Artifacts of the Vale you need Rime of the Anvil . A Raid This is so very depressing.

Yes the old crafting system was perfect in everyway. That to me helped everyone.

There's a weekly repeatable set of quests at Skarhald called "Reclaiming the Grey" (given by one of the dwarves near the Skarhald stable master, I forget the NPC's name).
You can earn two dwarrowgleam shards and three dwarrowmarks per week from this set of quests, per character that has unlocked these quests.

This set of quests is still useful even after you finish with Ered Mithrin since you can use the shards to make "ember-worthy" items that can be exchanged for embers (1000 embers for 7 ember-worthy items, 1 shard needed per item). The NPC who exchanges the ember-worthy items for embers is directly next to the NPC with the Reclaiming the Grey quest. The recipe to make the ember-worthy items is autobestowed in the Ironfold crafting tier, in the "Processing" section.

[Trixie_Me]

This thread and the producer comments in the general forum are depressing One of the reasons I came back to LOTRO was a robust crafting system. I don't need it to match FFXIV (which has a fantastic system), but it should be strong. It sounds very much like they took the WoW route - where crafting is almost pointless at max level.

[SophieTheEnchantress]

The new Producer is not familiar with the history of crafting in Middle Earth and has decided (wisely) to punt until he gets a handle on the situation.

Since that leaves time for players to offer input, I highly suggest that all of you collectively write a document detailing _exactly_ what you want for Level 140. If the entirety of player feedback on crafting amounts to, "We want a crafting overhaul.", the Good Idea Fairy will come along, wave her magic wand, and cast an Unintended Consequences spell resulting in something horrible. Do you remember when Darth Severlin wrote about the awesome and exciting crafting update coming with Minas Morgul? Yeah.

What recipes should Level 140 crafting include?
Where should Level 140 recipes come from?
What ingredients should the recipes use?
Where should the ingredients come from?
How many ingredients should each recipe use?
How common should each ingredient be?
How strong should equipment be?
How strong should consumables be?
Do equipment recipes have a cool down timer? If so, how long is the timer?
Will Level 140 equipment have a further upgrade path? If so, how does that work?

Will an overhaul include changes to crafting tiers below Level 140? If so, what are those changes?

There are a lot of questions that need answering to prevent a visit from the Good Idea Fairy.

[Froyo_K_Baggins]

Agreed. Was really disappointed to see that there were no improvements during the time I was away. I thought for sure they would have at least updated the auto generated recipes. Trying to gear from lvl 120 to 130 has been a real pain due to all the reputation grind. After grinding all my crafters up to minas ithil only to find out it's all rep barter and raid materials kind of makes it pointless for casual players. The mats are very expensive and that is if you can even find any on the auction house.

It's not just a lack of improvements. 20 ingots to make a ring? 20 items from a drop box and 20 shards to make a single wearable item? Crafting is only for the whales who spent a whole lot of time in the game and, most likely, multibox. It's not been for the casual player for years.

[Raninia]

The new Producer is not familiar with the history of crafting in Middle Earth and has decided (wisely) to punt until he gets a handle on the situation.

Since that leaves time for players to offer input, I highly suggest that all of you collectively write a document detailing _exactly_ what you want for Level 140. If the entirety of player feedback on crafting amounts to, "We want a crafting overhaul.", the Good Idea Fairy will come along, wave her magic wand, and cast an Unintended Consequences spell resulting in something horrible. Do you remember when Darth Severlin wrote about the awesome and exciting crafting update coming with Minas Morgul? Yeah.

What recipes should Level 140 crafting include?
Where should Level 140 recipes come from?
What ingredients should the recipes use?
Where should the ingredients come from?
How many ingredients should each recipe use?
How common should each ingredient be?
How strong should equipment be?
How strong should consumables be?
Do equipment recipes have a cool down timer? If so, how long is the timer?
Will Level 140 equipment have a further upgrade path? If so, how does that work?

Will an overhaul include changes to crafting tiers below Level 140? If so, what are those changes?

There are a lot of questions that need answering to prevent a visit from the Good Idea Fairy.

I don't think we need a document per se, but would love to get broad sense of what y'all enjoy about crafting and what things you don't. That said, just because you give us feedback - some of which will undoubtedly be contradictory - doesn't mean we'll do the specific thing you specifically asked for.

[miss_tessa]

I don't think we need a document per se, but would love to get broad sense of what y'all enjoy about crafting and what things you don't. That said, just because you give us feedback - some of which will undoubtedly be contradictory - doesn't mean we'll do the specific thing you specifically asked for.

Hey! Thanks. So I can only speak for myself, of course.

I like crafting that lets me make decent gear. It does NOT have to be BIS but it should be better than quest rewards or random drops. I do not like rep gated recipes. I understand why there are some, but my crafters are likely only crafters. They aren't going to be running through Lothlorien, for instance. I also don't like having to make 15 different pieces to make 1 usable piece of gear. I really liked when they stopped that for T6/7. I also don't like to be forced to use the store (like for Universal Solvents).

What I'd like to see, is more region locked. So if you want to make Lothlorien armor, you have to go to the Lothlorien Crafting area. Or a Rohan one. I think that would add flavor, but again most of my crafters are NOT questers. They might be able to make L80 gear, but they'd never survive L80 mobs. LOL

Crafting prior to Moria is decent. We get granted recipes, and can find better ones. But at Moria, there's nothing I can craft that is better than quest rewards until like the 80s and even then, outside a few Guild recipes its hit and miss whether a rando drop is going to be better than what I can make.

I'd also like to see an easier progression in the Guilds. Time gating these Guild Rep items is ridiculous. I'd like to see the cooldowns greatly reduced. Like cut in half. I'd also like to see less single use recipes in the guild. Especially after I've slogged through all the Guild levels. I'd like to see a non raid way to get First Age tokens, but I understand and can make due with Second agers just fine normally.

I think that's all for now. If I think of anything more I'll pop back in. Thanks again!

[maartena]

I don't think we need a document per se, but would love to get broad sense of what y'all enjoy about crafting and what things you don't. That said, just because you give us feedback - some of which will undoubtedly be contradictory - doesn't mean we'll do the specific thing you specifically asked for.

I believe that at minimum, we should have a green tier or purple tier crafted set of armor, weapons and jewelry (and related items such as class items and pocket items) that is very easy to obtain. This will be the most basic set everyone can achieve, and from there they can start bartering for teal sets using embers and/or group drops, and grinding to get the materials for advanced recipes etc, etc....

It should be like that for every level cap, including level 105, 115, 120, 130 and whatever level cap we will get with Gundabad. (140 I am presuming)

We have these sets for levels 7-5 70, 80, 90 and 100, and for some reason.... it stopped. There are certainly some recipes that are obtainable at level 115 and 120, but getting them is much more challenging and time consuming. They can still continue to exist, but at the very basic level everyone needs to get a basic crafted set that is "free" or gotten from say the guild vendor for a few silver or gold.

[Galuhad]

I don't think we need a document per se, but would love to get broad sense of what y'all enjoy about crafting and what things you don't. That said, just because you give us feedback - some of which will undoubtedly be contradictory - doesn't mean we'll do the specific thing you specifically asked for.

I mentioned in another suggestion thread today, but here are my thoughts:

I would love to see the default vocations removed entirely, instead allow players three crafting 'slots' which they can learn any profession they like. Additional 'slots' could also be sold in the store as a premium, up to the maximum of ten slots - essentially allowing one character to have all the professions if they wanted. One day perhaps it made sense to restrict professions to encourage player trading, however fourteen years on many players achieve all professions across their alts anyway. It would be a huge convenience to players like myself who no longer have the time to commit to multiple characters. After all, in real life if you master one skill you're probably going to start learning something new.

[miss_tessa]

I would love to see the default vocations removed entirely, instead allow players three crafting 'slots' which they can learn any profession they like. Additional 'slots' could also be sold in the store as a premium, up to the maximum of ten slots - essentially allowing one character to have all the professions if they wanted. One day perhaps it made sense to restrict professions to encourage player trading, however fourteen years on many players achieve all professions across their alts anyway. It would be a huge convenience to players like myself who no longer have the time to commit to multiple characters. After all, in real life if you master one skill you're probably going to start learning something new.

Oh I like that! But I'd rather they be server than character slots. So I buy 3 craft slots on Arken and all of my Arken characters have those slots. Or account wide. I'd pay extra for that. So, 300LP for a character slot and 1400 for a server/account slot.

[LabadalofDorlomin]

I don't think we need a document per se, but would love to get broad sense of what y'all enjoy about crafting and what things you don't. That said, just because you give us feedback - some of which will undoubtedly be contradictory - doesn't mean we'll do the specific thing you specifically asked for.

Make sure all types of players are catered for and not just those that can get the special ingredients from raids and group content.

Make the guilds worth all the effort we gave to be a member back in the day... this has been totally forgotten.

Crafting is the only grinding I didn't mind actually doing when there was something to achieve at the end....



In SoA / MoM / Mirkwood sort of times... it was great to actually be a service to the kin. We would make ourselves some items and then as the cooldowns dropped we would make the Kin the items they couldn't get and vice versa... This game used to be about fellowship but all that seems to mean now to SSG is running 6 and 12 mans to get lots of access to ingredients that solo players cannot. There is more to fellowship than running group content...

[Arnenna]

I don't think we need a document per se, but would love to get broad sense of what y'all enjoy about crafting and what things you don't. That said, just because you give us feedback - some of which will undoubtedly be contradictory - doesn't mean we'll do the specific thing you specifically asked for.

You don't really need anything other than a look back through the crafting tiers 1 - 9 of a fully fledged crafter (meaning someone who has done the rep grinds to obtain all the recipes for any given region/level cap, obtained all the dropped recipe scrolls, special crafting recipes etc in the game). It's all there and worked great, until crafting got broken to the point of what it is today. Stats on lower tier bling got re-arranged with a crafting update at some point after Mordor too, which messed them up, so when looking at those, imagine them with their original stats (relevant to each of the light, medium and heavy classes).

If you don't have one of those crafters, then we can post you a thread showing you all the items perhaps. It will be a long thread though. That's how good and relevant crafting once was.

The basics of it . . . .

One can craft, for themselves, or others, a full set of basic gear for all level caps, plus a more advanced set of gear after obtaining the rep recipes, for all level caps. Guild crafting for every tier was the cream, and was the closest to raid gear that it got without over-taking the importance of raid gears. All level caps also include one or two BiS items, most often an offhand or one piece of bling. Some level caps also contain legendary recipes which dropped off raids and instances (Isengard, Rohan etc).

[thinx]

• Crafting was a nice tool that added to cap gear variation. Best gear sets were restricted to raids, but the 90% gear set consisted of a few pieces from every source (regular crafting, guild crafting, reputation crafting, reputation barter, raid, quest rewards).
• Resource gathering was a task in the past, but this was removed with the increase of regular drops - nowadays I rarely need to collect nodes.
• Crafting levels and guild levels were growing too fast. The number of items for a given tier went up to insanity. For regular crafting we got the construct/deconstruct items as reward, but this is IMO just a bad excuse. There was no need to increase crafting XP per tier.
• The role of crit success and crit items was removed with use of ultra-rare items (the cost of not having a crit is too high) and the subsequent introduction of guaranteed crit items.
• Essence crafting is not crafting, but an additional workstep for store bought components (solvents). Adding new essences is therefore not "we're doing something for crafting".
• Too many consumables do not matter, so crafting them is not relevant.
• There is no need to have multiple sets with multiple graphics at every tier. Designs on one level/tier can be shared, even with instance drops.
• vocation interaction had decreased, which is also connected to the AH and gold system. Having this interaction is not affordable.
• recipe cooldowns were a thing, but nowadays everyone (needs to) have a horde of alts to farm ash and dailies.
• one-time recipes and rare components from raids would need to meet "rare crafters".
• Getting recipes was a topic. The current system just gates a few behind reputation, but this is it.

[Braer]

Re-hire the guy/gal who worked crafting before 2012 era?

Hanging a raid drop on just about every useful craft in a tier (Ironfold) told us how disengaged crafting development had plunged. It dies on release of the next tier as the raid is no longer run.

It's been more the flaky inconsistences and copy/paste edit of a flawed tier source though.



Before you do anything, create a bug forum for support to open threads we can comment on with our game experience so we can cut out the spurious /bugs and better target resources. Then the devs/engineers have a resource bigger than one report to go from. Bugs seem to be an embarrassment to hide at all costs with the current system.

[wispsong]

You don't really need anything other than a look back through the crafting tiers 1 - 9 of a fully fledged crafter (meaning someone who has done the rep grinds to obtain all the recipes for any given region/level cap, obtained all the dropped recipe scrolls, special crafting recipes etc in the game). It's all there and worked great, until crafting got broken to the point of what it is today. Stats on lower tier bling got re-arranged with a crafting update at some point after Mordor too, which messed them up, so when looking at those, imagine them with their original stats (relevant to each of the light, medium and heavy classes).

If you don't have one of those crafters, then we can post you a thread showing you all the items perhaps. It will be a long thread though. That's how good and relevant crafting once was.

The basics of it . . . .

One can craft, for themselves, or others, a full set of basic gear for all level caps, plus a more advanced set of gear after obtaining the rep recipes, for all level caps. Guild crafting for every tier was the cream, and was the closest to raid gear that it got without over-taking the importance of raid gears. All level caps also include one or two BiS items, most often an offhand or one piece of bling. Some level caps also contain legendary recipes which dropped off raids and instances (Isengard, Rohan etc).

Lotro-wiki has a list of all recipes and ingredients needed to make them. What is very important to me...everything is in landscape for normal recipes. And the numbers of required mats are low, only one of the rare drops from gathering needed. For the guild recipes nothing but guild reputation and gold are needed. And no end game needed either.

[Dolamrothdame]

I agree about having crafted armor available at every level cap. And that's basic armor that's better than quest drops.

Also, I'd like to see some decor items added back in that we can craft. Perhaps another elven furniture set that isn't bright red. At the very least, craftable floor paints that match the crafted wall paints would be a wonderful option. Also, red floor and wall paint. And please make these basic items that don't require kin rep or special ingredients.