crafting difficulties

[evryn]

I am a lowbie, yes, yes. I've been building up my harvesting, crafting, and fighting skills on a somewhat even state. Fighting is the easiest to build up, especially when I can make my own items. Harvesting is pretty simple as well, being that the Skills don't cost too much, which allows me to at least have the base Skills that I need.
My biggest difficulty, perhaps my biggest complaint is with crafting. The skills are SO expensive to buy that I have to wait 4 levels to get ONE skill. By the time I have gotten that much higher, a whole new set of options is open that is just as expensive. The other skill trees (magic, fighting, harvesting) are much more rewarding, as you can often upgrade skills every time you level. I DESPISE that crafting is so expensive. There is just too much to learn with Skill Costs too high. With the other skils, you can really feel a sense of accomplishment at low levels of 10, 15 and 20. But with crafting, I imagine that it's impossible to really "come into your own" until you get up to 40+.
And it takes a god-awful amount of time to level up as well. I don't care so much about the amount of time, however. Long grind times are to be expected, and I can handle it. But if I cannot get the skills that I want, what is the point? Seriously?

[kisedd]

I am a lowbie, yes, yes. I've been building up my harvesting, crafting, and fighting skills on a somewhat even state. Fighting is the easiest to build up, especially when I can make my own items. Harvesting is pretty simple as well, being that the Skills don't cost too much, which allows me to at least have the base Skills that I need.
My biggest difficulty, perhaps my biggest complaint is with crafting. The skills are SO expensive to buy that I have to wait 4 levels to get ONE skill. By the time I have gotten that much higher, a whole new set of options is open that is just as expensive. The other skill trees (magic, fighting, harvesting) are much more rewarding, as you can often upgrade skills every time you level. I DESPISE that crafting is so expensive. There is just too much to learn with Skill Costs too high. With the other skils, you can really feel a sense of accomplishment at low levels of 10, 15 and 20. But with crafting, I imagine that it's impossible to really "come into your own" until you get up to 40+.
And it takes a god-awful amount of time to level up as well. I don't care so much about the amount of time, however. Long grind times are to be expected, and I can handle it. But if I cannot get the skills that I want, what is the point? Seriously?

The costs of many plans were reduced in Patch one. Down from 100SP to 30sp or so. Of course, many plans stayed at 30. The reason plans are expensive is that they don't one each player making every single item on their own. Even with 40sp cost, a dedicated player certainly can make every item in the game if they want.
Leveling is also very slow. This seems to be a hallmark of most MMO crafting systems. It weeds out the dedicated crafters from the gigantic pool that would flood the market with junk. In order for the economy to work, there can only be a few crafters and you need a lot of customers. I wish that some designer could come up with a fun crafting system that didn't involve the incredible grinds. The time factor does insure that a player won't make every single item, that they will specialize in a few areas and be customers in other areas. I make a few weapons, I buy armor.

[1969sher]

I agree there is to much to spend your valuable skill points on in crafting. I like the system overall but I don't agree with having to use skill points to get crafting patterns. It seems that a pattern should be bought in a store and skill points should be used to enhance your base skills for crafting those patterns. Of course the prices for these patterns should either cost a great deal for a permanent pattern or cost a more meager sum but only one pattern could be used for each item once. Kind of like another mat for the item you are making. Or how about an ability to craft your own patterns? There could be a skill to train for each of the 3 armor types, for example, and you could make patterns for each set of armor of that type. This is not saying that you would have to spend skill points for each individual sub type of armor, i.e. each individual piece, because then it would be back that same as it is. For now though I guess I will have to specialize in one or maybe two areas of crafting to be able to be sufficiently adept. But even that seems it will take quite a while to accomplish even this. Maybe just lower the skill cost for patterns and raise the skill cost for each individual crafting skill.

LMJ

[lyrah68]

It became clear to me, before I left the newbie island (which was about three to four weeks in newbie, an admittedly LONG time), that the devs expected crafters to SPECIALIZE heavily. Meaning, they expect you to be EITHER a weapons crafter...OR an armor crafter.

To take it even further, at higher levels, they expect you to be JUST a light armor crafter, OR a medium armor crafter.


IF you buck the system and "generalize", like I do, and try to do even TWO kinds of crafting, like Armor AND weapons (and I only do one or two kind of each), you WILL level much slower, take longer to max out forms, and probably NOT be able to add hp bonuses or other stats to items. BUT on the plus size, you will be able to make bargain basic gear.

The choice is up to us as crafters, bite the bullet and BUY some of your gear from another crafter, and make the best of what you can as fast as every other player, OR take your time (maybe twice or three TIMES as long as other players, possibly getting left in other players dust) and make everything that CAN be made.

And Yes Virginia, pre patch one, crafting was TEN times as expensive as ANY other skill tree out there, even Magic, which was a close second.

[lootking]

huh, i must be playing a different game or something.......

im level 103 in all 6 heavy armor pieces (medium quality by the way)
im level 60 in light armor (only do caster pants so far)
i make level 100 shields and bucklers
i also make level 60 pistols and level 60 daggers
i have +30 hp boost so far

any time youre feeling low on crafting sp here is what u do.....

save up 25 sp and buy into another crafting line (melee weap, range weap, jewelry, shields, whatever). using storebought mats, grind up to level 50 in that line, buying only the main crafting stanzas. cost of the 5 stanzas (crafting level 1 - 5 ) is 125 sp. say you did shields, and you started at level 20 (ie. you already had one line of armor past 50, so shield is at 20 to start) total available sp is 300, minus the 125 you spent to earn them, is a net gain of 175 sp, and as long as you have the dappers to buy the mats, this will take you, oh, about 2 hours of grinding, to get an easy 175 sp to spend in the tree youre really trying to build, or to buy more boost, or more focus, or more health, or more........ i think youll get the point

and the sp only become more available the more you craft, not less available. as each tree splits, thats that many more sp youre going to earn as you level each tree. like in armor crafting, at level 100 it splits into 6 trees. so from level 100 to 110 thats 600 sp available to me.

i dont see a shortage of sp. i dont seem to be being 'left in the dust'. as i said, it only takes dappers, and a bit of time to grind off some easy sp in any tree youre not interested in making every item in at the start, or right away. u can grind it up, and then fill out the plans later, when you have even more sp available to you, as a result of more trees splitting

hope that helps some crafters out there who feel they are low on skill points

meestor

[aelvana]

I support expensive crafting plans, because they encourage interaction due to everyone being limited in what they can learn to craft.