Guild Wars 2

The fine crafting materials needed to keep your professions on par with your level are so over-tuned, it’s just killing the fun for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the overall mechanics of crafting in this game, the system is a lot of fun, and that’s why it bums me out so much that I can’t seem to craft anything that is beneficial to my level, because by the time I can start crafting stuff, it’s no longer useful. I mean, am I just doing something wrong? Am I missing something? Or am I really expected to use the Trading Post if I’m to keep my professions up to speed with my character?

Maybe, I made the wrong choice by picking both Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing on my first go, but if we’re given the option to gather everything and the option to have two professions, shouldn’t we be able to level a combination of any at the same pace as our characters? Isn’t that half the fun of the professions? As it stands, leveling one profession alone with mats that I’ve gathered is hard enough, but two? There’s just no possible way, and there’s no guided or efficient way to farm for the mats needed to do so.

Which leads me to my next point, I don’t know how I’m suppose to farm for fine crafting materials anyways. Sure, I can just explore maps over and over, level and just play the game, and that’s all fine. I tend to get plenty of ore, wood, and herbs that way, but after an entire map clear I might only come out with 20 fine crafting mats. Okay, that seems all good, but then you realize there’s about 5 or 6 different types of them, and it’s all just random. If I now need 10+ of a single one just to make one insignia or inscription, that 20, has now turned into about 5 of each different material, and I still can’t use that stack to make any headway in my profession without farming aimlessly, or using the Trading Post.

And as we all know, money doesn’t come easy in this game, and that’s all good too, that’s fine, I’m not asking that everything be handed to me and that this be easy, but right now, it’s just not fun. It’s too random, and too scarce. I’m okay with challenge as long as rewards are on par with the effort. Well the effort I’m putting in just to get a couple points in my professions for gear I’ve far out-leveled is not worth it. I like that I can go to areas and gather wood, ore, or herbs and feel like I’m getting somewhere with it, but if I want to gather fine crafting materials, it feels like an endless cycle of frustration.

So again, am I just bad? Am I doing something wrong? Is anyone else feeling this frustration as I am? Maybe someone can offer some advice, but from what I’ve seen, something different needs to happen with these crafting materials. At least tune them down, or make farming for them a little more clear.

Anyways, my apologies for my long rant, despite this small gripe, I am having a great time in this game overall, so thank you ArenaNet for making an MMO that has finally grabbed my attention for the first time in awhile. Most everything else so far in the game has been very refreshing, the pacing in general is just great, and if crafting could get on that same level, I think it would really benefit the leveling process, and just the game as a whole.

Didn’t read the whole post, but I can feel your pain. The crafting needs some balancing in this game, because it’s nearly impossible to max a profession out without using the trading post.

Arcadias.7648:

Didn’t read the whole post, but I can feel your pain. The crafting needs some balancing in this game, because it’s nearly impossible to max a profession out without using the trading post.

It’s rough. Having to use 3 of any given fine crafting material is one thing, but then when you get to the next “tier” and you need 8. UGH. Chances are you just used them all up to get to that point, so now you’re just stuck, and more than likely you will out level the gear you can make.

The funny thing is if they expect us to farm materials, but there is a anti-farming code implemented into the system. How do we expect to farm for the materials if we can only do it for so long?

Yeah it’s not just you OP, the fine crafting materials being so inconsistent is exactly what’s wrong with crafting. The fact that they come up so scarcely is why the price on them is so high.

I sank 2+ gold in Weaponsmithing today just to move on from Bronze to midway in the iron tier. Of course that was a case of me having not gathered a single resource I needed, but still, that’s kind of ridiculous.

When I got my Armorsmithing to 400 I realized that if I had no sunk the gold into Armorsmithing that I did, I could have a full Exotic set of armor by now. But nope, I just have two rare sets that I crafted, and because the fine crafting materials are so inconsistent, the amount of money it takes to craft an item is more than the amount of money it costs to simply buy the item off the trading post. I hate it. Why should I craft at all?

I could have just bought my gear, and gotten what I wanted. There is literally not a single point in crafting unless you want to get legendaries later on. You can’t make a profit off of it, everything you can make is on the trading post for less money, and the effort you’d put in to gather everything in order to make a profit is a terrible waste, because you can make the money you want to make in way less than half the time it would take you to gather the mats to sell something you would craft.

This is like, my ONLY gripe with the game. I love nearly every aspect of this game outside of how crafting is right now, the mechanics of crafting is great, the outcome is just terrible. I sincerely hope this gets addressed, because the way it is now, it’s a pointless feature in the game for people that don’t intend to craft Legendary items.

On top of that I have problems with crafted “elements”. Like blades, hilts, emblems etc.
There is just no room to store them all.
They should definitely add this to collectible TAB, or create some kind of “crafting box” where you could store those.

I agree, they need to up the fine crafting materials by A LOT. I really want to craft but….yeahhhhh.

I am level 42 on my thief and level 36 on a ranger and haven’t left T1 & T2 zones yet. I still don’t have any T1 or T2 blue crafting material in abundant supply. They are for the most part around 10-30 of each…..except butter and choc which are at 250… >.<

If this game is made for the journey then IDK how people would even keep their crafting level equal to their adventure level (without using the auction house) with these abysmal drop rates.

Please fix. Thanks!

While the mechanics and process of Crafting in GW2 is pretty cool and fun……..it is a total waste of time to do crafting. If I had just sold the fine mats I had gathered and not bought any extras to level crafting and craft things along the way I would have several sets of exotic weapons and armor. Instead I tried to do the “make my own stuff” method and am sitting at 80 with 2 pieces of rare crafted armor, the rest green and less than 2g to my name.

The fact that the game actually warns you that cooking is an “advanced craft” that’s hard to level up, when in fact it’s (still) much easier to level than any of the six armor and weapon crafts makes it pretty clear that they somehow didn’t get that making three-quarters of the crafts dependent on the same set of rare drops would make those drops expensive to buy – and crafting both weapons and armor for yourself next to impossible.

If the crafting trainers want to issue a warning about difficulty, it should be that you should choose to craft either your own weapons or your own clothing – trying to do both is a recipe for frustration.

I hear you, OP. Upper-tier crafting materials are out of sight on the TP. In my case (huntsman level 400), it is futile to purchase all of your upper-tier materials and turn a profit, even if you have all of the ore and wood on hand. Even if you were crafting for your character, it is still cheaper in virtually all cases to purchase gear on the TP than make it yourself (especially exotics) UNLESS you farmed all of the materials yourself. That definitely needs to be addressed. Otherwise, crafting is relegated to the status of a “leveling tool” and not much use beyond that. This is sad because I actually enjoy crafting in this game and I would like to continue as my main level 80 character explores Tyria. As crafting is largely a gold sink, there is essentially no incentive for me to continue crafting once my character reaches max level.

The drop rates of crafting materials need a little tweaking. On the other hand, I don’t want them to become too common where it wrecks the economy.

I’m sure we can strike a balance and come up with a solution. I’ve also heard that if we give it more time, the economy will stabilize. For those of you who have formal experience in economics, is there any validity to this claim?

It’s because it is too easy to level in this game. You get experience in a gazillion different ways, yet you do not get the fine materials required to level up your crafting level in the same easy fashion.

It is easy to level in this game however you would think 78 combined levels in the t1&t2 zones would net me enough t1-t2 fine crafting materials to level though those 2 tiers. NOPE! >.<

Easy mechanical solution.

Split the fine mats into a “crafter’s loot table”. This table only gets added to the base table if the killer’s crafting level is high enough to use the drop. Additionally, if your current crafting tier is the same as the drops, there’s a static bonus to the table.

Allow MF to effect this table.

This way, crafters who are self-crafting should mostly be able to make their gear, and may need to farm or mdk a little extra to keep pace. Crafters going for full discovery can slap on some Pillager/Traveler/Explorer gear and farm.

Legitimate crafters will spend much less time farming mats, non-crafters can’t farm as efficiently, and real-crafters wont bump into anti-farming code.

Balance the increased ability for crafters to gain mats by nerfing the crap out of xp given to your main xp bar. No more leveling professions by crafting, only crafting levels crafting. Boom, crafter’s have a market to sell to non-crafters, and order is restored.

I agree with pretty much everyone here, crafting is simply not worth the effort, too much cost and if you are like me, I am a level 80 with almost 75 exp points in crafting, so I can craft level 4-5 stuff. I am using the trading post for my items, crafting just does not make good sense.

Its sad…..after going broke trying getting my Armorsmith to 400 so that I could make my own gear at 80 and am now even more ready to just give it up and just sell any mats I may happen to loot and just buy my gear off the TP for fraction of cost. Just looking at the amount of fine mats I would need and the rate I get them at pretty much finalized my opinion that crafting in GW2 while cool in mechanics is utter fail in every other way.

IMO, the crafting mechanic is not the problem here. The problem is that this game mimics a real economy way too close which brings some associated issues:

There are way too many crafters. We all want to do crafting because it’s fun, but this has an impact on the game economy whether we like it or not.
This is not a single player game, it’s a MMO with an economy system. if 90% of the players are crafting the same items, crafted items will have little value because of the high offer while crafting materials will be on high demand, making them cost a lot.

I think the only fix appliable to this issue is: stop crafting, start being a material provider =P.
Alternatively, they could make crafted items account bound on creation and readjust everything so that everyone needs to craft their own equipment, but i really don’t like this approach =/

Just my 2 cents, sorry for my bad english D=

You are expected to farm for this. While leveling 2 profession who both use fine mats I had to farm 3 hours per tier. It’s not a whole lot tbh, but it’s there.

Sebyos.4089:

You are expected to farm for this. While leveling 2 profession who both use fine mats I had to farm 3 hours per tier. It’s not a whole lot tbh, but it’s there.

No, you’re expected to use the TP because you can farm gold faster than mats.

I get that you want to farm everything and do it for “free” but why farm a specific mat with diminishing return for 3 hours to get 9 of them (say 45s value) or whatever you need vs questing/bag farming a specific “cash mob” for the same 3 hours, getting some of the stuff you need and selling what you don’t need to buy what you do need.

I’m crafting stuff 10 levels higher than me using this method, so my gear keeps up just fine.

They just want you to buy gems to turn them into gold and buy off the China trading post.

I really dislike the crafting aswell, I just can’t be bothered with it… And being lvl 80 I see no reason to craft as exotic armor and weapons are so cheap to buy on the trade post

I love the crafting! I love the idea of it. I love the folding multiple bolts of anything takes seconds, and not ten minutes and a hearty afk break.

What I don’t like, after doing some research, is that more than 50% of ANY crafting profession (minus one) takes these rare mats. And its not just the rare mats, that is the problem, is that they are MORE than the item in question you need. Like, to make linen gloves, I need 1 bolt of linen, 1 leather pad, and 5??? 5! 5! 5! lARGE CLAWS??? That makes no sense.

Add to that the explosion on the TP, and if you want to buy them off the market, you have to pay over 2s a piece, for 10s total, and you can maybe sell the final product at 8s…maybe Thats a total of 2s loss on the final product.

The crafting system needs to be revised. a lot.

Agree x 1000. I finally got one of my crafting professions to 400 on my level 80, having to spend half my coin on mats to get there. Then I saw the ingredients of the exotic recipes (the only level that would be an upgrade for me now), and what those mats go for on the TP, and wished I hadn’t bothered with crafting at all.

So for now I’ll just be selling mats on the TP and buying gear…hopefully if enough other people do that crafting can at least become minimally profitable.

I think they should just place tier specific NPC’s in logical areas of zones where you can buy blue dropped materials in bulk for Karma…or add them to the current Karma vendors in the world. This way I can choose to spend Karma on gear or mats to improve my crafting or both depending on how much time I want to spend grinding Karma.

Make it a 2:1 or 3:1 exchange so a package of 10 mats costs 20 or 30 Karma.

2+ gold to go from bronze to midway iron in weaponsmithing?! It is clear you have not identified how to properly maximize your leveling experience.

I went from 300 weapon and 100 armor to 400 in both with less than 4 gold investment (though with a couple thousand karma).

The key to leveling your craft is not actually CRAFTING anything. It’s all about discovery.

For each tier you are in, buy ONE recipe from that level from the smith merchant (this is where karma comes into play). You only need one recipe so make it worth it (either you get use from the stats or you can sell it). You always want to work with the MAX level recipe you can work with.

Then make the highest level inscription you can using this recipe and DISCOVER each weapon/armor type using said inscription. Your crafting will level at ridiculous rates.

The only time you should ever craft anything in weapon/armorsmithing is the ingots, plated dowels, and bolts of whatever mats you’re dealing with, and doing so is generally without XP gain intentions. That is, do not craft these mats to gain XP unless it is the ONLY option available to you until you can get the next level.

I don’t see any downside to making like 100 Iron Ingots when you first hit 150. They aren’t crazy xp, but you get about 1 skill point for 5-6 combines. If you are going to end up using the bars there isn’t an issue.

I don’t always do the cloth though, because you can often sell scraps and buy bolts cheaper. You just have to check the TP.

I completely agree with the OP, I am going broke trying to level 4 professions (and 2 of them are still fairly low level) and yes, the fine crafting materials are the deal breaker, each tier you need more and more of them — it is FAR FAR more expensive than just buying the weapons and armor already made in the TP…….. I really hope this is worthy for the exotics at the end, but for what i read ….. neither. :s

After reading this, I think I’m discouraged enough to halt crafting and just sell the mats for now. I guess I’ll be able to afford the way point fees when I get higher :/

Fatal OEfx.5910:

2+ gold to go from bronze to midway iron in weaponsmithing?! It is clear you have not identified how to properly maximize your leveling experience.

I went from 300 weapon and 100 armor to 400 in both with less than 4 gold investment (though with a couple thousand karma).

The key to leveling your craft is not actually CRAFTING anything. It’s all about discovery.

For each tier you are in, buy ONE recipe from that level from the smith merchant (this is where karma comes into play). You only need one recipe so make it worth it (either you get use from the stats or you can sell it). You always want to work with the MAX level recipe you can work with.

Then make the highest level inscription you can using this recipe and DISCOVER each weapon/armor type using said inscription. Your crafting will level at ridiculous rates.

The only time you should ever craft anything in weapon/armorsmithing is the ingots, plated dowels, and bolts of whatever mats you’re dealing with, and doing so is generally without XP gain intentions. That is, do not craft these mats to gain XP unless it is the ONLY option available to you until you can get the next level.

This is all very good advice for sure, discovery definitely is the key.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that there is no effective way to farm for the fine crafting materials needed. I shouldn’t have to spend gold on the trading post to acquire them, I should be able to go out and gather the materials needed if I’d like, but as it stands, this is frustratingly hard to do if you have any hopes of keeping your professions on par, or close to on par, with your level.

That is my main issue with crafting right now, and from the looks of it, the sporadic drop mechanics of the fine crafting materials are the biggest problem.

The Devs did not do a good job with crafting in GW2. It’s only 50% thought through.

Example: I am a typical medium to hard core player. I crafted some items to level 30 which was fun, BUT by the time I was crafting level 25 gear I was character level 60 lol!!!! and thus found no use for my crafted items so I stopped crafting.

I was able to get better quest and world drop armor and weapons and buy cheep finished items from the TP. There was NO point for me to craft. Because there was no point in crafting I did not participate in that game play which is a symptom of bad game design full stop.

GW2 suffers from other bad design issues including the terrible dungeon design and messy, too fast combat actions that result in characters just randomly running round in circles spamming skills or groups blindly zerging as you can’t even see what mobs are doing as their motions are too fast and jerky.

Here’s the way to make crafting useful:
Save all the mats you get leveling your main. Make an Alt. Level crafting with the mats that you found, gain free XP levels for the alt. Stop crafting when until you have more mats from leveling the alt. Rinse/repeat. It’s a tool for leveling..nothing more.

I’m wondering how much worse it gets, really. It takes 96 fine materials (venom sacs) for my thief to make 6 pieces of armor, two daggers, two pistols, a spear and a harpoon gun at green level. But now that I’m 300, and soon will be moving onto the 70-80 zones, I am wondering just how much worse it will get. So far, it has been every 15 levels, I have to grind that much out, since level 20. Then at level 35, 50, 65… so I would assume at 80, I will have to grind out yet another 96 venom sacs. But wait… there’s rare and exotic, still, which is another tier of mats? Let me guess… it will jump from 8 mats, to 16?

I’m a terrible altaholic and realized early on that I can’t afford two crafts on one character, so I just abandoned leatherworking on my engineer and stuck to -only- leatherworking on my thief. With one craft per character I can actually level the craft alongside them with virtually no extra grinding for blue mats. Been working fine so far.

yes i got armorsmith and weaponsmith i feel exactly about the same as you . Arenanet screwed the pleasure in crafting .