Guild Wars 2

I started this game with the pre-order early access, so I have seen how Crafting has improved over time (remember when Jute was super-rare?). I also know the most efficient ways to level crafting, so I am not making newbie mistakes here. I recently started a new character and got to see how the process works from the beginning… and it still needs work. My character was Sylvari and I worked through zones as per my personal story. As a Mesmer, I decided to pick up Artificing and Tailoring.

Tier-One went smoothly. No issues with Jute meant that, by the time I had finished Caledon forest (lvl15) I could craft lvl20 gear. Sweet!

Tier-Two was a significant issue. Following the story through Brisban Wildlands and Kessex Hills, I had quickly acquired enormous amounts of Iron, Silver, Wool, Leather and Logs (200+ refined of each). Unfortunately, Tier-One Fine Materials continued to drop. I had completely explored both these zones and lacked the Fine Materials to even begin crafting this Tier.

As I entered Gendarran Fields at lvl40, I was still wearing lvl20 gear (other than drops). Tier-Two Fine Materials were finally dropping, and by the time I finished exploring both this zone and Harathi Hinterlands I was able to craft lvl35 armour. At this point, I gave up on Artificing realising that it was impossible to manage both at once. Unfortunately, I was lvl60 by this point (we seem to level a lot faster than we used to too —- not complaining).

I am currently lvl65 and beginning to acquire tier-four (and salvaging tier-five) common materials, but still need more tier-three Fine Materials (and more Cotton!) to be able to craft lvl50 gear.

I am aware of other sources of materials. I know I can use the Trading Post, but it is too expensive. I am not a good player and lose huge sums of money on respawning and repair. I know you can use Laurels, but they are over-priced: 20 random materials, when you need something like 100 specific materials? It would take a week’s worth of Laurels to maybe get what you need.

I believe things need just a little smoothing out. It seems as though the loot tables for fine materials do not match up with the zones where common materials are harvested. This just seems silly. If they lined up, players would be able to craft their gear as they go along, just as originally advertised.

While I do agree with you that crafting is not exactly perfect, most of your issue is that you’re still only lv65.

To properly do crafting, you need lots of coin. To get lots of coin, you need to efficiently farm events and dungeons. To do that, you need to be lv80. Which is easy – leveling from 1 to 80 normally takes only about a week or two.

Ur missing the whole point. You should not need coin to craft. You should be able to go through the zones ans get the materials u need as u level. I completely agree

You can absolutely go through the zones and get the materials.

However, expecting to just be handed all the materials as you simply walk around leveling is naive. If materials were so easy to acquire in bulk that you could simply get everything you wanted without needing to go out of your way to farm them (ie walk around a map just faming, not just gathering things you simply happen to come by while doing your quests) then they would be worthless and the in-game economy would be a joke.

Here’s how the economy works in an MMORPG: People that are not interested in crafting/have no use for a particular material will sell it. People interested in crafting with that material will buy it. That keeps the economy running. If materials were too easy to acquire then nobody would buy them, and nobody would buy any end products either because they would be all maxed out and able to easily craft whatever they wanted. The economy would just die out, and thus a large part of the game would die out.

Crafting is a job for your character, not something you just do for convenience. Thus, it follows the most basic rule of commerce: money in, money out.You get enough money out of just questing to buy whatever materials you want. And if you find copper but need iron, then sell the copper and buy some iron – would it be that much of a difference if it just gave you iron directly?

I believe the point the OP was making is the Teir drops should match the level of the zone. IE teir 2 drops should begin to appear in the 20-25 zone and teir 3 in it’s appropriate level zones. Not getting Teir 2 materials in a level 45 zone.

Someone should be able to farm mats in an appropriate zone if they want to spend the time farming. Stating that the best way to craft is to grind to 80 then grind crafting to be able to make 80 is kinda stupid. If someone wants to craft as they level that should be an option.

But as the OP stated taking a weapon and armor craft is nearly impossible to do on the same char without spending lots of gold

You’re missing the point. Crafting in this game is practically useless and unless you’re looking to get a quick extra level here and there or using one of the very few (and I mean VERY FEW) things at max craft to help you along like exotics or some food you should not be using it at all.

You say the TP is too expensive, but it’s the exact opposite of that, you can find suitable gear for yourself at any level for pennies on what you would have to shell out to get some mats to craft it.

However I do understand what you’re saying though, exploring the open world, it is hard to find the necessary mats for your tier according to your level, and yes, the tiers are very prominent as to what materials they are but as far as what zones they begin/end in, it is pretty random and I Don’t think much thought was given to them other than “Okay this is a hard zone, lets put the hardest one here, and this is the easiest, lets put the easy ones here….” Etc

Bottom line is, either spend your karma to buy the armor in the zones (what I did when the game was first released) or just save up some mats and sell them on the TP and buy yourself armor for a couple silver a piece depending on what level you are. Rares are not NOT needed even until 70-80, even then you really don’t need them. Don’t bother with crafting, it isn’t like other games where leveling/crafting can be achieved hand-in-hand fashion.

1) Crafting is another skill for characters to have.
2) Like every other skill, it needs to be learned
3) Unlike other skills, “learning” is expensive, since the drop rates for some mat’s (claws. scales, fangs, etc) is negligible——————at best.
4) With the exception of Jeweler and Cook, every craft uses the same “rare drop” items, so that, even if you CAN create an item, you can’t get the mat’s to make more than (1) without a LOT of gold
5) I’d “kinda” like to have a nerd character that does nothing BUT craft (holds swords by the pointy end, can’t string a bow, ALWAYS misspel’s the spell, etc, but is a WIZ at creating !!). Unfortunately, the drop rates just won’t support this type of character——-even within a guild.

I agree with the OP about the problems with lower tier (esp. Tier 2) fine crafting materials. I am swimming in Tier 5 and 6 crafting mats but it has been an annoying and tedious chore to get fine mats for Tier 2 for the crafting skills that I have not leveled up yet.

GW2Spidy confirms the terrible balance in the game right now – as of 9/21 a Bone Shard (Tier 2) is selling for 1.2 silver while a Bone (Tier 3) is going for 0.21 silver! A lower tier mat going for -6x- the price of a higher tier. Other Tier 2 mats are in the same state.

Something is obviously wrong here. If the system were properly designed then fine crafting mats should be more expensive as they go up in tier. Instead you have this bizarre situation because after a year the people in charge of GW2’s crafting still have not figured out the gaps in their design of the crafting.

The Laurel vendors were a clearly a band-aid try to address this but then players are random fine mats instead of letting them choose what they needed and we’re given the a poor exchange rate of a paltry 16 Tier 2 mats for an entire laurel.

There are many ways that this could have been addressed from the basic design of crafting (give a chance to get a fine crafting mats from salvage kits) to fixes that are have to be easier to implement post-release (drop rates) . I hope they figure out to do something, it’s been a year since this system went live, it would be a sorry state if we’re seeing this same imbalance a year from now.

kahzee.6042:

Ur missing the whole point. You should not need coin to craft. You should be able to go through the zones ans get the materials u need as u level. I completely agree

Where is it written that you go throw a zone once as you level and you should get enough to level your crafting?

The following quote is the ONLY quote in this thread that shows clear objective,(quanitative, parametric) data. As such it’s the only quote that means anything in this thread. In other words it shows actual data vs. simple opinion or subjective data. Based on the fact that a tier two mat is selling for 6x the price of a tier 6 mat; yes something needs to change. Ok so the mat is rare, it still shouldn’t sell for 6x more then a tier 6 mat…2x max, but that is my opinion based on other successful MMO’s. On to the original problem…..It would seem logical that mats would fall into the areas that would pertain to their tier. WoW is an example of this. You find the mats of corresponding level in the corresponding area. There are exceptions to this theory in every MMO I’ve played, however for the most part this theory holds water. Seeming how tier 2 mats are obviously not showing up in their proper level areas….that indicates a problem that needs to be addressed. What’s the point of selling mats on the market when the crafting skill is broke before you even get to tier 3?

“GW2Spidy confirms the terrible balance in the game right now – as of 9/21 a Bone Shard (Tier 2) is selling for 1.2 silver while a Bone (Tier 3) is going for 0.21 silver! A lower tier mat going for -6x- the price of a higher tier. Other Tier 2 mats are in the same state.

Something is obviously wrong here. If the system were properly designed then fine crafting mats should be more expensive as they go up in tier. Instead you have this bizarre situation because after a year the people in charge of GW2’s crafting still have not figured out the gaps in their design of the crafting."

(on the topic of crafting not being smooth)

I havent played for a few months so I missed all the updates except for this last scarlett invasion thing.

I was happy to find out that you can finally craft celestial items but then I realized that can only make a single charged quartz crystal each day, and you need FIVE for ONE insigna: can anyone explain to me whats the point of this? Is there any real reason? You cant even sell the items so why do I have to wait so long before I can craft a new set of items?