Guild Wars 2

The idea behind crafting is great and I’ve maxxed everything but tailoring and artificing at this point, but the crafting interface itself actively obstructs/interferes with the crafting experience.

Let’s take a really simple and common example: I want to craft a lvl 80 rare chestpiece that I’ve already discovered.

Okay, first I have to click the chestpiece padding. Whoops, I need more bolts of silk! Now I’ll scroll all the way down and try to find the “refinements” section, click the silk refinement, scroll back up, and make my padding. Now I make the chestpiece plate, scroll back down, find the rare insignia. Make sure you get the rare one and not the fine or masterwork! While you can disable the masterwork and below tiers from showing up, this unfortunately also hides ALL of the refinement tab’s recipes so you can’t just keep this off forever. Craft the insignia, then scroll again through the hundreds of entries to find the chestpiece you want to actually craft, then you can do so. There is a text filter system, but it’s of limited utility since it’s kind of cumbersome to use and will include any items that include what you’re searching for as an ingredient, not just with the string in the name.

I shouldn’t need a wall of text to make a pretty basic magic jacket. What I think I should have is a tree. I click the jacket, and the whole right panel turns into a tree with all the required components (recursively iterating to include components for any required components, etc). I can click each component and without losing my crafting tree view either be able to click to craft each individually or, ideally, craft everything required in the tree at the press of a single button (if I have the requisite materials). There is absolutely no reason I should be spending more time scrolling through recipe lists than I spend crafting.

I’ll agree that the refinement system could use work. Personally I would like an option to craft a finalized product if I have all the base materials for it. That is, instead of having to make all the dowels and hafts and whatnot, as long as I got all the materials, I could make the final item with one click.

However, you can already search your recipes. So once you know the names, you’re usually good to go. Gets annoying if you’re simultaneously buying the materials from the TP, though.

Olba.5376:

However, you can already search your recipes. So once you know the names, you’re usually good to go. Gets annoying if you’re simultaneously buying the materials from the TP, though.

Yes, but that’s why I said " There is a text filter system, but it’s of limited utility since it’s kind of cumbersome to use and will include any items that include what you’re searching for as an ingredient, not just with the string in the name." Further, having to keep manually changing the search term for 5+ entries needed to craft a single item is the opposite of efficient.