Guild Wars 2

Crafting for me is a major part of progression, so when the rates were so buggered I could clear an entire zone and still not be able to make a single item, I logged out and haven’t been back in some weeks.

Have they fixed this issue or is it still next to impossible to reliably level crafting?

It’s not impossible at all. It’s very expensive however, with the current drop rates of items, because the now scarcity of things like fangs, vials of blood, claws, totems, etc. has caused the price to soar due to demand. Leveling tailoring from 210 to 400, and with reselling items, and using what I had gotten from friends and acquired, I still had to constantly buy items. and spent almost 2 gold.

I can’t afford to buy all the mats for every item i need to craft, so looks like I’ll keep playing other things ’til they fix this mess.

Well, what I’ve done is stop trying to farm mats, salvage all whites, and sell blues/greens.
I’ve also went on to doing dungeons, quests, and finishing zones to get a flow of money coming in. I’m actually enjoying this more, as Dungeons provide cash, karma, and tokens, and chests, and drops from mobs. The same can be said for zone completion (minus chests, but they do give rares and exotics at times). Thus, I sell the salvaged mats I don’t need, and the items I don’t need, and then more then enough to buy the mats I need to level up crafting. And, it was much more fun, then say fighting harpies for 2 hours to get 10 vials of blood. Trust me…

Something to look out for is on the Trading Post, try searching the inscriptions / insignias. I’ve found it to be an acceptable cost to buy 6 of the cheapest insignias/inscriptions, and then craft those and vendor the results to get some money back (unless that happens to line up with what one of my characters needs ) Always double check that the cost of the inscription/insignia is cheaper than the cost of the materials, but that is often the case for a few of them, I’ve found.

The point is being able to explore the world, gathering the mats i need, not grind cash to line the pockets of some stranger on the auction house. Sorry, just not my idea of good game play.

I still say that if you aren’t willing to use the trading post, (yes the drop rate in general needs fixed back to what it was) then I think your out of luck…I might get 10 vials of blood during a bat event, you might get 2. I might not need them, you might have jewels to trade.

I don’t have a problem with the auction house, per se, but when it’s the only way to advance my profession, then i do indeed have a problem with it.

At first I found crafting to be very expensive and slow to level. Using some of the guides online I realized I had been pretty inefficient at crafting and thus wasted a lot of mats. After that though I found it relatively easy to craft. The only time I had to spend money was to get from lvl 375-400 bc I lacked enough rare trophies. I maxed both armor and jewel crafting. I had enough metal and jewels by simply mining everything I saw while getting 100% map completion. I also didn’t start crafting until level 70 when I had already accumulated a lot of materials. Im now onto cooking and weapon smithing.

I agree, the worst thing is trying to learn crafting as you also lvl. The outcome is not good. My char lvl is higher by a lot than my professions. Making them useless for me to use anything.

I have grind, spent money and done zone completion and still not fun to do any profession. I have always enjoy crafting is like my main thing. I can never wait to learn a profession so i can start working on it. Is what i spend most of my time with. And here, is not much fun at the moment. Played GW1 and i do not recall having this much trouble with drop rates.

I agree, the drop rates seem very low. For role playing purposes I want to tailor my own light armour, or at least some of it. With the current drop rates I can’t level in tailoring fast enough, and the armour I can make is never appropriate for my level. This is despite salvaging all gear except the yellow, including salvaging the armour I make. The system needs some balancing IMHO.

dragonfire.4638:

Played GW1 and i do not recall having this much trouble with drop rates.

GW1 didn’t really have crafting. GW1 also didn’t have a TP. Being able to see the prices at all times will affect how people price things. The TP is global, shouting in an outpost is only limited to that outpost. GW1 armor is also not tradable. If you only cared about stats then there was always collector amor. Weapons were pretty much crafted only for the skin. A GW1 character can get away with just 6 sets in their lifetime. Getting to 400 in crafting would require at least 33 sets (400/2/6, approximately 2 levels per discovery, 6 pieces per set) and then you still have another 400 in a different crafting profession.

How many sets of “Elite”/Obsidian/Vabbian do you have? After 7 years and completing 3 campaigns and 1 expansion on multiple characters I ALMOST have enough things for a Vabbian and nowhere near enough for an Obsidian. After a little over 1 month in GW2 I have enough for 1/6 of an Exotic.

Wormfodder.2051:

Crafting for me is a major part of progression, so when the rates were so buggered I could clear an entire zone and still not be able to make a single item, I logged out and haven’t been back in some weeks.

Have they fixed this issue or is it still next to impossible to reliably level crafting?

The drop rates have been lowered since launch, and continue to decrease with every patch. During head start, drop rates were barely adequate. Now, they’re ridiculous. Evidently farming for weeks, 8 hours a day, for enough tiny and small (t1/t2) mats is considered “working as intended” for anyone starting out, or starting another new crafting profession.

There has been no official comment regarding the drop rates of crafting materials such as blood, fangs, scales, bones, etc. To date, the issue remains unacknowledged. The only conclusion to draw from ArenaNets silence is they are intentionally nerfing the drop rates to force people to buy gold to buy them from the Trading Post, so ArenaNet can make their money.

Part of the problem is that anti-farming code kicks in so fast, players that are trying to level crafting on their own are penalized for attempting to do so. Anti-farming currently applies to crafting mats, and should not.

My advice, if your goal is to level crafting yourself, is to buy gold from ArenaNet and buy the mats from the Trading Post. This is evidently their goal, and will at least save you time and frustration, while unfortunately being completely pay2win. Sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but I’m a pragmatist and I’m not going to fight them on this.

If they want people to pay to craft, you should pay to craft. Save your sanity! I’ve played MMOs too long to fight greedy developers who. refuse to make their game fun for crafters. You win this round, ArenaNet.

I’ve been lvling alts, too build stacks of the harder too get mats. It’s a pain and while i’ve learned i like one class better than another. It’s not anyway too keep and real crafter in the game. I understand top tier crafting. Problem is i’m out leveling my crafting so fast that, I don’t wanna farm low lvl boring mats. And ppl wonder why there is such a huge market for Gold Farmers.

Here’s something weird. First time I went to the norn starter 1-15 area (just to get to frost gorge). Encountered a DE, figured, what the hell. First 3 mobs i dropped all dropped vial of weak sauce. I probably spent around 10-20min in the 1-15 area just doing random DE that came along my way (probably ruined the fun for some newbies coz of a fully traited 80 char with decent gear 3-4 shotting trash mobs. but ofc i die ALOT to the champion boss at the end of the chain) and got around 6 t1/t2 FMCs.

Prophet.6954:

Well, what I’ve done is stop trying to farm mats, salvage all whites, and sell blues/greens.
I’ve also went on to doing dungeons, quests, and finishing zones to get a flow of money coming in. I’m actually enjoying this more, as Dungeons provide cash, karma, and tokens, and chests, and drops from mobs. The same can be said for zone completion (minus chests, but they do give rares and exotics at times). Thus, I sell the salvaged mats I don’t need, and the items I don’t need, and then more then enough to buy the mats I need to level up crafting. And, it was much more fun, then say fighting harpies for 2 hours to get 10 vials of blood. Trust me…

Very well said! once I realized this it was like a light went off in my head Eureka!
I have been having so much fun and I find crafting much more enjoyable now, it really made a difference in my life

This is why I’ve been wondering what the use of crafting is. It isn’t to make money, obviously, when you can make more selling the mats because they’re so difficult to get. I’m starting to think vjek is on to something.