137001-i-hate-what-they-did-to-crafting

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Let me start my saying I am thrilled that people are returning to Wildstar. However the changes to the crafting system seem linear, restrictive, and largely unrewarding. The joy of saving up plat to buy a super awesome power core and then creating gear and melting face in that gear is largely gimped now, where power core is more a determinant of failure rate and item level it feels so...generic, so anti-fun.
 
Also not being able to craft pvp gear is ridiculous, only to be outdone by taking away tailors ability to make bags...what schmuck thought this one up? Now bags are selling for 29 plat each...guess I don't need ...bags -wait I do, I need a lot of them... Probably didn't see that one coming 29 plat for a bag. that is insane
 
These are the kind of changes that are born out of lack of necessity. You take something perfectly good and mess it up. Less is more.
 
I hope you reverse some of these ideas you came up with, seriously. Crafting now feels empty and devoid of meaning and reward.
 
 
I don't want to be overly critical, but as a signature customer, I feel honest feed back is well within the parameters of what I would want if I was on the development team.
			
				
	Edited October 9, 2015 by Omeed	
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These are the kind of changes that are born out of lack of necessity. 
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Yeah it was way better when I played a year ago.  Customizing gear stats to my exact playstyle was great.  Being able to choose how much risk/reward you were willing to accept when crafting was a nice touch.  Now it's just a pass/fail check.
 
Screw that.  If all I want is linear upgarde with no personalization, I'll buy it on the AH.	
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			Hey folks - slight edit to this. While we're all for constructive criticism, calling out/attacking specific employees is not great. Please keep it about the game - and never personal. 	
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Actually these changes are brought to you by World Of Warcraft. They pretty much just straight ripped off WoW including all the amazingly stupid things WoW did that people complain about all the time like making the crafting useless 90% of the game and making the gear random crap that most of the time has stats you don't need, want, and can't sell like Focus Pool on Heavy Armor.
 
The crafting system is a straight rip-off of WoW with zero common sense applied. If this Marc guy is the one who did it, he should probably get demoted and let someone who understand progression curves to be the boss. 
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			On the bright side, at least the devs ignored Warlords of Draenor's profession changes.	
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You can...CHANGE the focus pool stat on heavy armor, though.  In fact you can have whatever stat you want on the armor you craft.  The only hitch, such as it is, is that if there is a particular stat you want that doesn't match the random slot assigned to the armor then you can't get it as high as if it were a match.  I like that they tried something different with that, but I definitely see that randomized element as a shortcoming of crafting.
 
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 If I am CRAFTING something it means I should be able to put what I want on it without some random number generator penalizing me. 
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Just because no one has ever done it, doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do. From a game design perspective, to me, wanting to create a positive experience for the player means not alienating them from the get-go with this kind of crafting system which is 99% annoyance for the player and 1% reward. If you changed it to a system that let them earn their gear by harvesting and making craft items part of the quest rewards, then let them set the stats they wanted when they got the materials, would be much less annoying, it would make the questing seem more worth it, it would make the progression to end game faster and more smooth as well as giving players a repeating feeling of accomplishment. 
 
If you want your players to be happy, to keep playing and to pay money for your game, this is the way to do it. In every MMO I have ever heard of people complained about the crafting system because no one ever did it right. No one ever took the simplest, most straightforward approach.
 
They always overly complicate things like having to collect seeds to grow plants to make cloth to make items. What, do we live in the bronze age? You should be able to buy cloth from a vendor for practically nothing. Complex does not mean better, it just means more annoying. 	
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Just because no one has ever done it, doesn't mean it isn't the right thing to do. From a game design perspective, to me, wanting to create a positive experience for the player means not alienating them from the get-go with this kind of crafting system which is 99% annoyance for the player and 1% reward. If you changed it to a system that let them earn their gear by harvesting and making craft items part of the quest rewards, then let them set the stats they wanted when they got the materials, would be much less annoying, it would make the questing seem more worth it, it would make the progression to end game faster and more smooth as well as giving players a repeating feeling of accomplishment. 
 
If you want your players to be happy, to keep playing and to pay money for your game, this is the way to do it. In every MMO I have ever heard of people complained about the crafting system because no one ever did it right. No one ever took the simplest, most straightforward approach.
 
They always overly complicate things like having to collect seeds to grow plants to make cloth to make items. What, do we live in the bronze age? You should be able to buy cloth from a vendor for practically nothing. Complex does not mean better, it just means more annoying. 
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 In Wildstar I can take my level 15 character and mine titanium nodes for maybe 10 minutes and then craft an entire suit of armor that's better than the quest gear I've found utilizing only the materials I've gathered and purchased from the tradeskill vending machine.  
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If you only mined for 10 minutes you didn't craft a level 15 set of armor. You need 2 sapphires per capstone item and you're not going to mine that in 10 minutes. I think you are misremembering how long it took. 
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			wrong post.
			
				
	Edited October 10, 2015 by Keldaur	
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I will keep it simple.
 
This new crafting system is rubbish. :)
 
I have played WILDSTAR on and off since the beta, the changes to crafting have really ticked me off ;(	
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I'm sorry I don't remember specifying that I made capstone armor?  I made the basic training stuff and was like 'Wow, this is a lot better than what I had' and then I went back to mining to get more sapphires.
 
Don't put words in my mouth, man.
 
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My apologies. I assumed you weren't bad. I thought if you were crafting your gear you would at least wear the good stuff. 
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So, your point is "It's not a total train wreck, so why fix it?" I mean, what is your point exactly? We all agree the crafting system is better than many other games but there is still a lot of room for improvement. 
 
You seem to think that since it kinda-sorta works we shouldn't address the need to fix it which is a lot like saying, "I shouldn't wear a condom because I might catch HIV but at least it's not Ebola so I'll live with it."  	
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So, your point is "It's not a total train wreck, so why fix it?" I mean, what is your point exactly? We all agree the crafting system is better than many other games but there is still a lot of room for improvement. 
 
You seem to think that since it kinda-sorta works we shouldn't address the need to fix it which is a lot like saying, "I shouldn't wear a condom because I might catch HIV but at least it's not Ebola so I'll live with it."  
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I abandoned crafting, don't like it in this game.
 
I'm not a fan of it in most games but some keep it incredibly simple, like ESO, I like simple.	
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			Honestly, I liked the old system way more than this new one. It's way more complicated, less rewarding, less fun even. And afaik, materials cost way much more than before. For a lvl 8 light armor you need 2 acrylia cloth. That's 6 gold straight off the bat, without the other crafting materials. How's a novice supposed to get that, especially when you can't craft materials/cloth anymore (correct me if I'm wrong)? The game's great, and I enjoyed crafting before a lot, but now it's kinda meh.	
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Honestly, I liked the old system way more than this new one. It's way more complicated, less rewarding, less fun even. And afaik, materials cost way much more than before. For a lvl 8 light armor you need 2 acrylia cloth. That's 6 gold straight off the bat, without the other crafting materials. How's a novice supposed to get that, especially when you can't craft materials/cloth anymore (correct me if I'm wrong)? The game's great, and I enjoyed crafting before a lot, but now it's kinda meh.
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Thank you for the tip.
 
I suppose now that I know that, it's not as bad as I thought. Or I just imagine that the cloth would drop easier compared to the price tag it has. And yeah, the tech tree itself is easier than before. But I'm talking more about the item crafting part. I still would rather have the old system back than have the current one.
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Cloth drops off of humanoid enemies provided you have the Survivalist skill.  Unfortunately the tradeskill trainer still uses the old text that indicates that Tailoring is self-sufficient and can be paired with anything when it now requires Survivalist to acquire cloth.
 
I don't know how anyone could say that crafting got more complicated.  Load the schematic, put a power core in the center, pick the stats you want, craft the thing.  If anything the system as a whole is simpler since the craft tree progression is tied to crafting items you learn on your own rather than things tied to recipe drops/purchases.
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Crafting has become very tedious in my eyes. A special source annoyance is the RNG-driven creation of slots. I would prefer a system where you can determine the kind of slots. The UI in general is horrible. It is nice to explore a new recipe by trial and error. But doing this all the time again and again with even known recipes is very tedious. I am not able to craft several items at once. Sometimes you even leave the UI completely. I would classify the UI as alpha version.
 
The progress through the techtrees feels very monotonous. You do basically the same stuff again and again. Some kind of variety would be very welcome.
 
I personally also hate that I cannot craft the best in slot gear wearable in open world without doing raids. I am used to do it in other games. But Wild Star is a game  with vertical progression and gear Treadmill. So I assume there is no chance for a change.	
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Crafting has become very tedious in my eyes. A special source annoyance is the RNG-driven creation of slots. I would prefer a system where you can determine the kind of slots. The UI in general is horrible. It is nice to explore a new recipe by trial and error. But doing this all the time again and again with even known recipes is very tedious. I am not able to craft several items at once. Sometimes you even leave the UI completely. I would classify the UI as alpha version.
 
The progress through the techtrees feels very monotonous. You do basically the same stuff again and again. Some kind of variety would be very welcome.
 
I personally also hate that I cannot craft the best in slot gear wearable in open world without doing raids. I am used to do it in other games. But Wild Star is a game  with vertical progression and gear Treadmill. So I assume there is no chance for a change.
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I played in Beta and first few weeks of release. I left the game because of health problems. Now I'm back after physical therapy and enjoying WildStar for the most part.
 
But I am not happy about the changes to Crafting. I came back to WildStar for Crafting, loved the system at Launch... now... not fun, and if it's not fun then I am not a happy camper.
 
Whether I remain as a Player of WildStar depends entirely on whether Carbine changes Crafting BACK towards what it used to be, and I don't mean minor "tweaks", I mean a return for the most part to the old System, including pricing. I won't be forced to be a AH carrion eater just to generate enough funds to enjoy Crafting.
 
Not trying to sound grumpy or create drama, but just my honest opinion on the changes.
			
				
	Edited October 10, 2015 by Gardavil	
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See, this is exactly why your thread isn't going to be constructive.  Now you're just getting insulting.
 
Using training gear at level 15 makes me bad?  Oh snap, bro, I have been wounded.
 
Sorry about that, sunk to your level for a second.  I already made my case about the benefits to Wildstar's crafting system.  It isn't perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than what you'll find most anywhere else.  There is definitely an element of RNG to it that can lead to a variance in stat values but you can still determine whether the gear you're making is assault or support gear with your choice of secondary stats.
 
If having 99% control over what you craft is bad then I don't know what else to tell you.
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I'll just chime in as someone who got the deluxe version, left after a month, and returned recently for the f2p changes.
 
So I went weaponsmith. I've been going broke keeping crafting on-level while I get this character up there - currently level 30. Only once was I able to craft a weapon that was better than quest/loot bag drops. Every tier of crafting unlocks I open I think "ok this will be the tier I can grab a great ilevel power core and upgrade through crafting" and every tier I get a drop that makes me question why I didn't just go double gathering.
 
I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining because all in all I love the game and will continue to play it. I just don't see the point in doing anything with crafting. It's taking all of my money and giving me nothing usable. Apparently at max level you can just buy pvp gear that's fantastic for transitioning into dungeon > raid gear with just gold (if what I'm hearing is true).
 
Maybe there is just something I'm missing?
			
				
	Edited October 19, 2015 by Frosthaven	
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			Before gear changes and f2p Tailor was just as annoying and tedious. Only real difference was that crafted leveling armour was awesome. Even Weaponsmith could craft some good stuff. But at this point I would not take any gear tradeskill. Architect is still as useless as ever but has potential for fun if one is into housing. Technologist is mostly useless but may be the least painful tradeskill.	
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			I dabbled a little bit (up to journeyman) in weaponsmith. It feels like a massive drain of gold for little to no usable results. I found far better fun and success by going double gathering and spending the omnibits for the tool. I might have another go at 50 if they tidy things up, otherwise i see no point in it. Somewhere between the inordinate costs, scarcity of quality crafting materials, those awful crafting dailies and the amount of gear dropped/given it doesn't make any sense in using crafting while leveling.	
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I dabbled a little bit (up to journeyman) in weaponsmith. It feels like a massive drain of gold for little to no usable results. I found far better fun and success by going double gathering and spending the omnibits for the tool. I might have another go at 50 if they tidy things up, otherwise i see no point in it. Somewhere between the inordinate costs, scarcity of quality crafting materials, those awful crafting dailies and the amount of gear dropped/given it doesn't make any sense in using crafting while leveling.
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Before f2p I had an outfitter, tailor, armorer, technologist and a weaponsmith.  My Tailor and Weaponsmith were on master craftsman?  Level 50 gear.  I had paid a lot of cash to be able to make pvp gear, the various special drop gear, etc. 
 
What I loved about it was I could get a good core and make a weapon that was better than I could find in open world (i have horrible RNG luck).  I could make my esper/slinger clothing that was better than 90% of what I got as rewards,etc.  I even started to craft stuff for new players I met on my alts.  
 
Now with f2p I could MAYBE craft pve gear that will last for a level or two before it is replaced ( before i could use for 5 or so levels) (and I am talking capstone stuff).  Not worth the cost to craft nor the drastic change in materials.  My Tailor who had stuff to make about anything now can not make anything as I do not have the two other cloth types needed per level.  I have a crap ton of magecloth, etc. but the blue and purple stuff?  None.  Not worth trying to buy it to make something that is not that good anymore.
 
So yeah, not a fan of the crafting changes.  Think I will just take gathering and sell to vendor.	
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So yeah, not a fan of the crafting changes.  Think I will just take gathering and sell to vendor.
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I'm thinking of doubling up on gathering and selling mats to all the sadists who want to try and power through this nightmare system. I've made it to level 22 and I can't even get out of novice tailoring because the drop rate for the cloth is so bad even with survivalist. 
 
I'm at 92% of Novice and I'm out of Synthweave. I've leveled 5 levels and not gotten enough Synthweave to make 1 item. I'll be level 30 by the time I can even finish off novice at this rate so why should I level this skill at all? It's never, ever gong to produce useful gear for me. 	
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Do you salvage all the light armor that you find/grow out of? They yield the most tailoring mats. Ya, it is the hardest mats to get.
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			Do you salvage all the light armor that you find/grow out of? They yield the most tailoring mats. Ya, it is the hardest mats to get.	
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All due respect (I mean that), in what AAA MMO has that ever been the case for crafting? Not to say I don't agree with your sentiment (I do), but that's literally never been the case in any dynamic crafting system in any MMO. You could either make gear with set unchangeable stats (like FFXI) or have dynamic crafting that could lead to different stat combos (like WoW). But I've never seen a dynamic system that didn't have some random elements.
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			Major grief for me in gear crafting is not that it's so hugely masochistic annoyance but that it produced actually useful gear while levelling and that part was taken away. I understand that high level crafted gear should be properly balanced but what's the problem with awesome low level gear? It's better than drops from low level group content? Make rare lowbie drops bit better instead. Players will soon level out of their OP gear anyway.
			
				
	Edited October 21, 2015 by belymt	
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I am not a fan of the changes either. It's half-assed at best.
 
2 gathering professions, that cannot upgrade their harvesting tools without 8000 crafting vouchers? Really. So their idea is to drop a gathering profession, craft for 8000 vouchers and then pick up gathering again?
 
....Or....buy on the Cash Shop. Great, thanks.
 
I have a tailor, outfitter, weaponsmith and architect.
 
Architect is pretty much redundant now. Most everything we can make, drops everywhere. It was a headache to level that one up not to mention the costs.
 
Why did they take bags away from tailors? Why is there a level requirement on bags? Hardcore Inventory? Lower level toons aren't allowed to have as much stuff?
 
Allow us to wear our additional gear sets...That would free up a lot of space and the need for bigger bags.
 
But am getting off topic here.
 
There is no way I would level up a crafter now with the pelt and cloth requirements just to progress. That really should be addressed. Or allow a trade in. Like so many green leathers/cloths for blues and blues for purples.
 
I did craft gear for my alt stalker all the way while leveling. Every 10 levels I crafted her a set of purple gear, threw some cheap runes in and the gear saw me through. It was only when I hit 1 or 2 levels before next tier that the gear even started being comparable.
 
But no way could I have crafted all that had my alt been the one crafting while leveling. And I always thought that was the point? To be able to craft gear while you level.
			
				
	Edited October 21, 2015 by DanzMacabre	
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Before F2P, I had a max level crafter in every profession, with 90-95% of the patterns learned through the eldan databits, had spent 100's of plat to buy whatever recipes I couldn't farm up after hours of trying, and would level my alts by making crafted gear for them every 5-10 levels which worked well.
 
Now? Lost all of that time and plat with some token crafting vouchers tossed my way... less than the eldan data fragment conversions.
 
In addition, none of the crafted recipes in the "master" crafting tire are learned, aside from the first level. I looked into crafting a "DS" level crafted gear, and looking at the prices for Glamer cloth AND the special new vendor item one needs to buy, it's not worth it for the item power level, even factoring in the imbuements from entering GA (if your alt is attuned).
 
After my disappointment in how they handled my recipe conversions and the "square for square" transfer in the skill tree (which wasn't that at all), I feel like hours and hours of my time were just thrown away. I'm not going to level the new crafting system on any of my characters, it's simply not worth it.
 
The innovative crafting design of Wildstar is what initially drew me to the game. I'm not saying the top-tier stuff didn't need some adjustment, it did -- it was overpowered and I would often find myself unable to find replacements for items outside of raiding shortly after arriving at 50.
 
I LIKE the attunement process for items. Why not allow us to craft an item, then allow us to attune it in dungeons to bring it up to the relative power that the dungeon or raid provide (I believe the current GA and DS crafted recipes still don't provide full raid-level geared after being attuned in those raids)? Why cost SO MUCH for so little return? Why require yet another vendor item for top tier stuff, when the stuff is so hard to get in the first place?
 
So much could have been done to make crafting better. This really seems like 1 step forward, two steps back in concept design. And you really treated those of us that stuck with you and put time and subscription money into the game poorly in the conversion.	
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The only thing I know about crafting changes is reading this thread, and now I know enough.
 
At launch I followed crafting. Crafted is the only equipment I even saw as I never looked for anything else, I was happy just crafting. I basically didn't feel right without on level item if there were any after I reached new level ... I made it to level 28 (very slowly) so that's as far as I saw it. It wasn't my favorite crafting system ever but it did okay, so far.
 
So I hadn't looked at crafting, I haven't even considered recovering from the stat system change yet. Well, the gathering level requirements mostly did the game in anyway so none of it really matters to me.
 
I knew I didn't want to know about this.
...Some folks do like to feel safe and know where things are but everything is turned upside down over and over again. D:	
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Before F2P, I had a max level crafter in every profession, with 90-95% of the patterns learned through the eldan databits, had spent 100's of plat to buy whatever recipes I couldn't farm up after hours of trying, and would level my alts by making crafted gear for them every 5-10 levels which worked well.
 
Now? Lost all of that time and plat with some token crafting vouchers tossed my way... less than the eldan data fragment conversions.
 
In addition, none of the crafted recipes in the "master" crafting tire are learned, aside from the first level. I looked into crafting a "DS" level crafted gear, and looking at the prices for Glamer cloth AND the special new vendor item one needs to buy, it's not worth it for the item power level, even factoring in the imbuements from entering GA (if your alt is attuned).
 
After my disappointment in how they handled my recipe conversions and the "square for square" transfer in the skill tree (which wasn't that at all), I feel like hours and hours of my time were just thrown away. I'm not going to level the new crafting system on any of my characters, it's simply not worth it.
 
The innovative crafting design of Wildstar is what initially drew me to the game. I'm not saying the top-tier stuff didn't need some adjustment, it did -- it was overpowered and I would often find myself unable to find replacements for items outside of raiding shortly after arriving at 50.
 
I LIKE the attunement process for items. Why not allow us to craft an item, then allow us to attune it in dungeons to bring it up to the relative power that the dungeon or raid provide (I believe the current GA and DS crafted recipes still don't provide full raid-level geared after being attuned in those raids)? Why cost SO MUCH for so little return? Why require yet another vendor item for top tier stuff, when the stuff is so hard to get in the first place?
 
So much could have been done to make crafting better. This really seems like 1 step forward, two steps back in concept design. And you really treated those of us that stuck with you and put time and subscription money into the game poorly in the conversion.
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You know, your post starts very well, but then goes a bit weird. Yes, the item levels post-imbue now are competitive with gear that drops in raids. What makes you think it does not? Overcharged DS gear is comparable to 116 iLevel gear, which outside of avatus is the common level of drops. I agree with the entire first part of your post, and disagree with the second part. Go figure.
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I could have made my last paragraphs clearer. :)  I meant to be more that crafted gear at the upper levels was all more like the datascape gear, and could be imbued from dungeons to match dungeon gear's power as well.
 
I wasn't aware that the iLevel scaled to 116 on the DS gear. Thanks for clearing that up. I was under the misconception that it was maxed out at level 100.
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			How much overcharge are we talking here? Because to go from 110 to 116, it must be a lot. Good luck not failing on that.	
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Actually these changes are brought to you by World Of Warcraft. They pretty much just straight ripped off WoW including all the amazingly stupid things WoW did that people complain about all the time like making the crafting useless 90% of the game and making the gear random crap that most of the time has stats you don't need, want, and can't sell like Focus Pool on Heavy Armor.
 
The crafting system is a straight rip-off of WoW with zero common sense applied. If this Marc guy is the one who did it, he should probably get demoted and let someone who understand progression curves to be the boss. 
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But :X the dungeon gear CAN be imbued as well in the same way. Here's how it goes (if my memory serves me)...
 
Dungeon(complex): 72->76->84
GA: 76->86->96
DS: 82->96->110
 
With overcharge, the dungeon can get to 90ish, GA to 102ish and DS to 116ish.
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How much overcharge are we talking here? Because to go from 110 to 116, it must be a lot. Good luck not failing on that.
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But :X the dungeon gear CAN be imbued as well in the same way. Here's how it goes (if my memory serves me)...
 
Dungeon(complex): 72->76->84
GA: 76->86->96
DS: 82->96->110
 
With overcharge, the dungeon can get to 90ish, GA to 102ish and DS to 116ish.
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Dungeon : 72 -> 78 -> 88.
GA: 76 -> 82 -> 92.
DS: 85 -> 95 -> Not sure but probably 110 ( to allow divine runes ).
 
Overcharging only increases secondary stats , ilvl doesn't change, assault/support power is unaffected.
 
The occasional weapons/armor you see on the market with increased ilvl are from weapon/armor tokens from p2p to f2p conversion.
 
Source: I'm max talents/achievements Master Weaponsmith.
 
 
 
 
 
Overcharging mildly affects secondary stats. Sure if you wanna risk your matrix it's your call.
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			Compared to what runes give and the chance you can lose the matrix yeah... That's why I roll with Field Damp, reduced cost and reduced fail. Those weapons are stepping stones.	
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Hey folks - slight edit to this. While we're all for constructive criticism, calling out/attacking specific employees is not great. Please keep it about the game - and never personal. 
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No one even called out specific employees and this thread IS about the game and at the same time constructive.
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			Yes, I was gone for a short while between beta and f2p and I agree, crafting was better before from my memory. I noticed the changes immediately, i thought it was better before.	
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			Crafting is just awful. Doesnt have any *cupcake* sense. At low level you need so much materials for a piece of equipment wich doesnt give you any benefit. You can always get better equipment questing or even in drops. When you are crafting items you need blue and purples items wich are impossible to farm. What is the point to make the crafting system useless form leveling up and why taking away core mechanics like transform other useless items into useful one.Dev are listening....I dont think so...Change it or remove it. 	
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I have given up on crafting.  I had a tailor, weaponsmith, armorsmith, outfitter and a technologist.  When I started playing W* at original launch my concept was to be able to make good leveling gear for my characters.  My slinger started as a weaponsmith as that was imo the most important stat.  My Esper took tailor, so now my esper and slinger had gear and weapons as they leveled up.  I created a stalker - outfitter was needed, my medic was a technologist and finally a warrior so needed armorsmith.
 
Now with that in mind, I was easily able to craft really good gear for myself as I leveled up, and being an alt kind of guy, that was exactly what made the crafting so awesome to me, rather crappy RNG luck = poor gear most of the time, but crafting allowed me to bypass that bad luck and actually have good gear.  I even crafted gear for people I ended up grouping with/meeting as I leveled.
 
NOW this does not work.  It seems crafting is only viable post 50? (I have no clue, as i have 2 characters at 50, and no longer try and craft with them)  The training gear sucks, so you really need to be crafting capstone for actual use, which means grinding through the scrub gear as fast as possible, and then you get gear that *may* last a few levels as by the time you ground out the first two tiers of gear you probably leveled past the capstone gear.
 
An example:  My outfitter was level 25 when F2P hit.  I started leveling him again, as I sucked at him and wanted to get better with the class.  I decided that I would make some nice gear for him and noticed that I needed mats.  I had pulled fairly good gear with him but it was lagging behind by quite a few levels as felt in the shades eve instance (ie gear level did not match character level).  SO by now I was level 36ish and headed to wilderrun.  I was at base level artisan, so needed quite a bit of Rockhide leather.  (something like 44 to get to 1 capstone item i think off the top of my head)  SO I kill every four+ legged thing i come across as I am leveling up.  I go from level 36 to almost level 43 (capstone artisan is level 40) and guess how many leathers I got during that time (AND On a potion for harvesting too btw)?  19.  19 rockhide leather.  Not enough to make a full outfit of scrub basic gear, let alone a capstone item. Oh and lets not even talk about cloth drops and tailoring.
 
SO yeah, I will just sell my mats, convert my crafters to gatherers only and just buy stuff off ah at level 50.	
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I think something that has to be taken into consideration, when it comes to a bit of RNG on crafted gear, is that otherwise everyone would craft exactly the same stuff and the market would be over saturated with identical gear. I legit searched the AH at multiple points during my level up process (43 now woooo) to look for gear to buy because I would have a couple of slots lagging behind a bit and there was nothing at all to buy. I play a medic, and I'd totally buy some crafted gloves with deflect even though I really want multi-hit or strikethrough, as long as the AP/SP, armor, health, etc. was good enough. I'd pay MORE for the exact stats I want, how much more depending on how big a difference it'd be.
 
Your ability as a crafter is perfectly competitive, but a perfectly competitive market would result in items being worth almost exactly the cost of the mats, with sellers cutting the margin thinner and thinner to be the one who gets the sale. There'd be nothing to distinguish your craft from another. The concept is you might make 10 pairs of those gloves to sell, and maybe one comes out with that stat combo that makes them the best ones. You charge extra for that pair. Maybe sell the rest for only a little more than mat cost, or whatever the market is deciding for that quality of equipment.
 
Soon I'll be 50, and I may buy one round of gear at that point, since there is actually stuff on the market for 50s.
 
AH has potential to be a great place for people to pick up leveling gear. There's just not much to buy from what I saw... maybe I was just unlucky, I dunno. If I was looking, then I'm sure other people are looking too.	
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I think something that has to be taken into consideration, when it comes to a bit of RNG on crafted gear, is that otherwise everyone would craft exactly the same stuff and the market would be over saturated with identical gear.
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So why did this not happen before, when there was no randomness in stats ?
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			I think you are mistaken on that part. It was not that hard to understand.	
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AH has potential to be a great place for people to pick up leveling gear. There's just not much to buy from what I saw... maybe I was just unlucky, I dunno. If I was looking, then I'm sure other people are looking too.
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			Never really seen much point in crafting gear that isn't top level. The only thing I would even bother getting are weapons during leveling, everything else isn't really worth it as you get decent enough stuff from quests.
			
				
	Edited November 5, 2015 by H3rboss	
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			Yeah, but there's a lot of people who don't do quests exclusively. I like a mix of content, and yes this is anecdotal, but when I was level 20 I was wearing a crappy level 10 helm. I picked up quite a few levels going and doing protostar, then on to other instanced content, and while I was dropping a couple of things here and there a helm just never came. I went and did quests too, but I guess I was just unlucky at the time with none of the quests I did between things having that slot as the reward item. I ended up getting the level 19 pvp leveling gear helm and just wearing that for quite a while.	
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Depending on the item, 6-10%. It's not too hard, frankly, if you stack the talents the right way. Being a subscriber also helps immensely. I've been putting 8% overcharge items on the AH constantly, and frankly am getting sad that people put items there that are either undercharged or simply 0% over or under charge, expect it to sell, and when they don't (because they shouldn't), they keep trying to resell for a lower price. Meh.
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The slot colors not preventing 2 slots of the same color is a huge issue. I don't understand how it is not changed yet. It would instantly and immediately make the system much better. Still, I have managed to create decent gear on my alts on the other faction that I've now started, so I am not 100% convinced you can't make good low level gear...
 
As to the system, we've been complaining for weeks. We've provided well-detailed feedback, we done everything we could. I no longer believe the company has any interest in making this system fun again. We're just screwed, period. I guess we'll just have to reminisce about the days where crafting was better :|	
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{| class="blockquote"
The slot colors not preventing 2 slots of the same color is a huge issue. I don't understand how it is not changed yet. It would instantly and immediately make the system much better. Still, I have managed to create decent gear on my alts on the other faction that I've now started, so I am not 100% convinced you can't make good low level gear...
 
As to the system, we've been complaining for weeks. We've provided well-detailed feedback, we done everything we could. I no longer believe the company has any interest in making this system fun again. We're just screwed, period. I guess we'll just have to reminisce about the days where crafting was better :|
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			Ehm, you know nothing has been fixed about crafting, you don't need to move to an alt to know that. And showing off one crap item, because of crap slot colors doesn't mean you can't get a good item with good slot colors. We need to be impartial and unbiased here...	
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Ehm, you know nothing has been fixed about crafting, you don't need to move to an alt to know that. And showing off one crap item, because of crap slot colors doesn't mean you can't get a good item with good slot colors. We need to be impartial and unbiased here...
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			My main is a tailor, my first alt is an outfitter. Both have been crafting quite a bit recently. Given that, I should tell you that around 66% of what I craft is a good item. You are using hyperbole and you shouldn't. Again, I ask you to bring yourself to reason and calm down. Such exaggeration will do nothing to help, and will only prevent the devs from understanding the details of the problem.	
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I gave up on crafting when they revamped the stats. The old system was far more interesting for someone who crafted leveling gear. The new system has far less customization now which makes crafting very cut and dry. I have no clue what focus group they play tested this new system with, but its clearly not the same player base that plays on a regular basis today. 
 
I feel like the designers regressed on implementation in an effort to refresh the game for f2p launch to bring the population back up. What will bring the population back up are design choices that have meaningful rewards. 
 
No disrespect to the designers, but I feel like they're not working on the actual game or fixing its core issues when I see all this seasonal crap like the Winter Fest Holiday Shopping instance or inventing a 14th new currency like Eko Chits that don't even intend to stay in the game for a long period of time. All these extra seasonal events being added seem only to be distractions from the real faults in the game. 
			
				
	Edited December 20, 2015 by GhostRavenstorm	
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			you are one angry person and your anger comes from beeing poorly informed about what you are doing.	
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My main is a tailor, my first alt is an outfitter. Both have been crafting quite a bit recently. Given that, I should tell you that around 66% of what I craft is a good item. 
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You think too much in black and white and totaly miss the grayisch middle.
 
If you get the wrong socket, the item isnt lost in first place, you can lower the charge on the socket and craft it with undercharge and 0% failurerate. In your pictures you only show tier2 craftings, which means you are a beginner. So its normal that not every item will be perfect. You dont have the talent to do better items.
 
A cooking apprentice will fail at cooking some noodles, too. to much salt here, cooked too long,.... The endresult will be eatable most of the times, but he will not produce perfect noodles every time.
 
If you master your crafting skills, you can compensate 3 mismatching sockets and still craft an item with 4-6% overcharge. It will be risky, but its a risk too, to save your oversalted noodles.	
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{| class="blockquote"
You think too much in black and white and totaly miss the grayisch middle.
 
If you get the wrong socket, the item isnt lost in first place, you can lower the charge on the socket and craft it with undercharge and 0% failurerate. In your pictures you only show tier2 craftings, which means you are a beginner. So its normal that not every item will be perfect. You dont have the talent to do better items.
 
A cooking apprentice will fail at cooking some noodles, too. to much salt here, cooked too long,.... The endresult will be eatable most of the times, but he will not produce perfect noodles every time.
 
If you master your crafting skills, you can compensate 3 mismatching sockets and still craft an item with 4-6% overcharge. It will be risky, but its a risk too, to save your oversalted noodles.
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			Random sockets wouldn't bother me so much if as long as they didn't allow all three to be the same color. Two of the same color, I can understand in some cases. I don't think I know of any class or specs that benefit from three of the same element sockets. If an socket element only has one stat available to it (looking at you Fire!), then it also shouldn't appear more than once. 	
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			WoW doesn't charge you a fee for every piece you make. Too bad they didn't copy that part.	
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Think about what you just said. As a crafter, around 66% of what you craft is not complete trash. Now picture ANY form of profession in the real world working like that.
 
Let's imagine you are making spaghetti, you boil the noodles, you prepare the sauce, you add the spices and the cheese then you mix them all together and 34% of the time it becomes Lime Jello. 
 
That is what the random sockets do. It makes no sense what-so-ever to have random sockets. It just screws us over because some game designers has a pet idea that he is just unwilling to let go of.
 
Instead of firing him and putting someone in charge of the crafting system who cares about making it fun for the PLAYERS we get a broken ass system that is only the way it is so the designer can stroke his own ego. If I set out to craft an item and I gather the materials to craft it it should come out the way I want it every time. 
 
If you craft a dress in the real world it doesn't turn into a pair of shorts randomly. If we are just going to make random shitty items then why have patterns at all?
Why not just have a craft and see what you get button because that's what this system is, it's GAMBLING with our supplies. 
 
I am sick and tired of wasting my materials on a game of chance that serves ZERO PURPOSE and is only there because the designer wants "His system" to be unique. Unique isn't always good. Functional is much more important than unique. 
 
If you want to continue getting my money, you will fix this. It pointless and stupid. It is not a feature, it serves no purpose, it is only there to ANNOY your players. It is the opposite of fun.
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I agree with most everything you said here, but I think you miss the point of it. It's a gold and time sink. It takes time to make gold and time to gather mats. It gives us something to do other than raids.  (Albeit boring)  It's content!
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Ideally, content is both fun and rewarding. At a minimum, it needs to be one or the other. Crafting is rarely fun, but it is usually pretty rewarding.
The crafting system as it currently stands in this game isn't fun or rewarding.
 
So if it's content, it's bad content.
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{| class="blockquote"
Let's imagine you are making spaghetti, you boil the noodles, you prepare the sauce, you add the spices and the cheese then you mix them all together and 34% of the time it becomes Lime Jello. 
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			Before F2P crafting was much better. They literally launched it broken without listening to feedback about stats and problems. The F2P launch was more important than crafting, we can fix it later people faceplant on pugg dungeons and then quit the game....	
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As far as I could see crafting is a complete wreck until you are raiding. My guild has a raid group or two going on (I'm not paying that much attention to that, really), but I've seen many times people talking about crafting gear for the new additions. So at least there it has a use: fill some gear gaps while you get the REAL gear from the raid.
The other thing I see from those crafters is complaining about the costs and how they are broke.
 
Though, in a little side note, has anyone mentioned how most of the unique appareances were shafted during the crafting remake? Before you could find a few models that weren't anywhere else. But now they are impossible to obtain, despite each crafting tier having three (progressively better, statwise) variations. That would have been more than enough to accomodate the missing models by spreading them around. This decision makes no sense to me.	
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			The complete lack of model variety in crafting is one of my greatest frustrations, to be honest, Ildur. xD 80% of the reason I ever pick up a crafting profession is to be able to make myself pretty armor.	
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My apologies. I assumed you weren't bad. I thought if you were crafting your gear you would at least wear the good stuff. 
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			So old system/new system aside, can you get items from crafting, while leveling that are better than quest items for your level, or is it too much money/effort for little stat reward?	
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So old system/new system aside, can you get items from crafting, while leveling that are better than quest items for your level, or is it too much money/effort for little stat reward?
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It's just a complete mess. Doing the crafting dailies in Grimvault costs me per day almost 3 plat for the Vendor items only. So this does not include any Galactium ore or gems I have to aquire additionally. The system is completely broken to be honest. Why not increasing at least the material cost for required Galactium (which would raise the prices in the CE) and decreasing the stupid prices of 6 gold each down to 50s or something. Please Carbine.
 
#MakeCraftingGreatAgain	
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{| class="blockquote"
It's just a complete mess. Doing the crafting dailies in Grimvault costs me per day almost 3 plat for the Vendor items only. So this does not include any Galactium ore or gems I have to aquire additionally. The system is completely broken to be honest. Why not increasing at least the material cost for required Galactium (which would raise the prices in the CE) and decreasing the stupid prices of 6 gold each down to 50s or something. Please Carbine.
 
#MakeCraftingGreatAgain
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