Later crafting recipes, dropped or otherwise, have ridiculous requirements for Titan runes. I can understand the large requirements for the more easily obtained materials and that good equipment should have somewhat difficult-to-fulfill requirements, but to craft this level 45 Shadruned Glaive I just got the pattern for, for instance, I need 125 Archrunes of Titan. This is not at all feasible, not only considering the quality of the weapon, but also considering the time it would take to gather all those runes.

First, let's say that I did take the time to grind out all those BAMs. I would have to ensure that, for Archrunes, I was killing level 40-50 BAMs at around the same level due to the drop system giving severely reduced drops for those not within 5 or so levels of the monster. That means I have to get a party to kill them in a reasonable amount of time, since soloing would take an even longer time if it was even possible to do so, and a party significantly reduces the chance that I'll end up with any given Archrune drops. Even if people are willing to just give them to me, which is highly unlikely, it would take a several hours for even a party of 5 to farm 125 of them, and I doubt many people have so much patience to keep killing the same BAMs over and over again for so long. TERA is a great game because, unlike other MMOs, it doesn't require extensive, tedious grinding. As it is a true action combat MMO, the appeal of the game is to constantly face new challenges and enviornments, not stagnate on one level or area like this.

Even if they did choose to stay in one area and farm Archrunes, by the time that one person had 125 of them, the entire party would be severely over-leveled for whatever zone they were in, considering how much EXP BAMs give. What's more, if I somehow mustered the patience and time to solo so many BAMs, as a single person getting all the EXP meant for a party I would probably have to move on to higher level BAMs before I got all 125 runes due to the aforementioned drop system. I can't go back when I am a much higher level to expedite soloing either, since the BAMs just wouldn't drop the runes. Not that I’d want to anyway since by then I’d certainly have replaced the axe.

Now let’s assume I decided to buy the runes from other players. As I’m writing this at 12:02am on May 4th, there are a total of 56 Archrunes of Titan on the Frost Reach server’s Trade Broker. Note that this is abnormal; during the day, there’s likely to be far fewer runes. These range from 3 to 7 gold each. Assuming I bought all 125 at 3 gold each, that’s 375 gold. That’s a ridiculous amount of gold for a level 45 axe. On the Trade Broker right now is a level 44 Bonebreaker axe, which is significantly better than this Shadruned Glaive in every way, for 30 gold. That same amount buys me 10 Archrunes, which is a fraction of what I'd need to craft the glaive. So given the choice between spending 375 gold or numerous hours farming and getting a mediocre axe at 45, I could instead sell all my runes, or just not buy them in the first place, and buy this superior 30 gold axe a level earlier. Do you see the issue here? And the recipe for the level 50 Weighty Shadowaxe requires 219 Archrunes of Titan. That’s 657 gold-worth of runes, and by the time I can use that, I have access to Keyrunes of Titan-based equipment anyway, which is much better.

As it stands, it is exponentially more expensive to craft equipment than to just buy similar items. There is literally no point to crafting right now, unless one’s point was to waste time and money on equipment that is easily replaceable within a few levels. These amounts need to be reviewed and lowered significantly. Please look into this and patch it as quickly as possible. I would like to at least craft something both useful and worthwhile before I hit max level, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

In theory, this is the market force that will bring the price down -- oversupply, underdemand. As more and more runes go up, the prices -should- plummet.

Now, that's provided of course that a bunch of runes do indeed go up and aren't just hoarded for the designated Guild Bit.....I mean, Guild Crafter. If they're hoarded, you're going to run into the problem of an Architect in Age of Conan -- even if you -do- somehow manage to level it, each guild only needs one.

We'll just have to see what 'market forces' and player decision bring about.

Just to note...I mentioned crafting ad nauseum in the betas and how it needed to be carefully constructed to provide a viable third pillar of play. It doesn't seem to have mattered much, though.

Unfortunately this is the main problem with crafting. It's essentially useless to a player until it's capped, and the resource requirements are completely out of whack with the benefits the equipment can provide. Considering what was said in the patch notes as the reasoning for removing lucky/destiny eggs from quest rewards:
"[E]ggs were the primary source of combat consumables until the alchemy crafting system was complete."
It seems unfortunately likely they won't change the systems anytime soon. Should still definitely send feedback requesting it though.

+1

I have been leveling tailoring and I have been making blues for myself, even though I would have probably been richer if I just bought superior gear of AH and sold the mats...But I like wearing stuff I craft (I also wasted runes on crafting gear for remodeling).

However, I also recently acquired some high quality recipes from drops and thought it would be great to try and craft some and ran into the same issue. I can see how end game recipes should require ridiculous and unreasonable amount of mats...they theoretically last a very long time once made, but a level 40/45/50 recipes will become out-leveled by the time you even craft them.

So my theory is these mid-level range gear are meant for alts...because they are just not worth the time investment/money investment at those levels. Makes me sad, because I feel crafting should be rewarding throughout all the levels.

I think lowering mat requirements for titan runes would definitely be a good idea!

This needs more exposure.

With the material requirements the way they are, weapon/armor crafting is almost a complete joke. None of the green/white patterns below max level are worth making due to the obscene material requirements (making the crafted items cost far more than comparable random world drops in terms of pure material cost, not even considering the cost of the time/effort to make them) and the difficulty involved in simply levelling the crafting skill is even worse.

It's a complete joke that you introduce players to crafting with a tutorial at Level 11 when simply crafting a usable weapon will be far out of reach for the average player for dozens of levels more.

Many PvE elements of this game are just not well implemented.

Quote: Calypso on 05/04/2012, 12:28 AM - view


/facedesk

You don't even wanna look at alchemy.. It seems like it was just a half-[filtered] effort thrown in at the last minute.. Absolutely atrociously out of balance with the game. The cost of making a potion vs. what the benefit it provides (aka what a player is willing to pay) is *greatly* out of whack.

I recently ran an experiment with healing potion V's and how low I had to go before someone would buy them and I ended up at a price point around a 50% loss (not including what money I could have made selling the raw mats) + time and effort... and its not because "everyone is a lowbie right now" I get so tired of that inaccurate remark.. My server has considerable population at 30-45 already... not to mention someone who is 40 now vs. someone who doesn't hit 40 for another month still doesn't change how much money they will approximately have at that level.. (actually over time the average coin someone will have at level 35, for example, will even go down as greens/blues proliferate on the trade broker)

Crafting is prohibitively expensive and a waste of time at the current state. This is about all it sums up to.

That said, I can understand the overall goal of this to be yet another gold sink to prevent the economy from tipping off to one end, but in the end, just makes this aspect of the game useless. Low level potions are also at the extreme range for the new characters, making it so they don't even want to buy any consumables in order to have money to buy their skills.

It's too much. Make it stop.