The debate has been all about endgame drops and the apparent consensus among high end players that loot drops are far better than anything craftable. It is sometimes added that "crafters" can "improve" those drops and therefore will always have a place in the game, but then it's pointed out that you don't need any points allocated to crafting to do this. So in the end, it would appear that a deep commitment to crafting may serve to entertain the usual OCD players who love it for the pure pleasure of the grind, but ultimately there will be little to no demand for their "2nd best" gear.

Paul Sage confirmed much of this in his recent talk about crafting, but was criminally ambiguous on the main points and it's not clear to me what kind of skill will be required to "improve" loot drops that have unique, uncraftable traits. Paul also talks at length about the deep levels of commitment required of crafters who want to make the best stuff crafters can make, but he neglects to point out why anyone would do this if anyone without any skill is able to improve the best gear in the game that is dropped. Why make that commitment, only to learn that no one is interested in your final product?

On the other hand, it really isn't feasible to allow crafters to flat out make the best gear in the game because that removes most incentive to play endgame content and allows anyone to simply buy the best gear, which is sub optimal, too. This is the crux of the problem and is always a problem with MMOs and crafting.

I think a workable solution is to keep the basic idea in place: the best loot drops in endgame content but can be improved by crafters. But require that the only crafters who can do this are the ones who have dedicated themselves to the kind of high end skills commensurate with high end adventuring. That kind of synergy would be acceptable to me as a crafter and as an adventurer.

'Criminally ambiguous', really?

How about you just wait and see how it turns out, instead of running wild with paranoid speculation.

But by taking up the crafts of your chosen playstyle and crafting your own gear on your way to high end stuff you will save an absolute tone in gold.

^This

I personnaly think that all the best gear should be available for crafting in any MMO. But I'll wait and see.

And also all the people who don't like crafting, or don't want to "waste" their skill points in crafting on their multiple plays through the game are the customers that will be buying the crafted items. Also the crafted traits and item qualities bring higher value to the items, which are far from useless, and anyone with enough gold is going to shell out for the best gear for levelling, PvE'ing and PvP'ing competitively and competently, so there will be plenty of gold to be made as a crafter, I'm sure.

The main thing for me is it seems they are making crafters into improvers.IMO crafters shoukdnt nessasarly make all the best gear but I think if come end game crafted pieces do end up not being wanted or used its a huge failing of the devs and wastes a pretty good crafting system. Really it should take a mix of crafted and looted gear to fill out your template. Soft caps I think will play a huge role in how all this plays out. They need to be raised so as to make it alot harder to reach them.

Crafting useless maybe for min maxers,not for me

The crafting is usually not best part of the game. Whatever devoted crafter can say - he will always live in milieu of other players, so the crafting is not the only game element = just imagine if there is no dungeons, no quests, no PvP - only gathering and crafting. I think that each crafter now confirms other elements are also important.

So pure crafting it can not be dominating drop from dungeons - that is also clear.

But the open question is how drop from dungeons can be converted into best gear in game: can it be just as it is? - I think it would be waste of possibilities.

The best would be for crafter to "improve" it.

I think best way is to drop ingrediends to craft best items. But anyway it does not have to be this way and is almost equal is to improve this gear by crafter.

The crafter improving best gear can not be just level 10 crafter (in crafting) - I hope they do not make this mistake. Because then crafters will be feeling dissapointed and only usefull while leveling (level 22 sword) - so it will be seen as dead end progress. The achemy and provisioning will be vital all the time when compared to smith, armor crafters.

I'll be wearing armour crafted by one of my mates at all times. This way, should anything go wrong, I can blame his crappy workmanship. That is the true power of crafted items.

As I have posted the crafting system is good. Crafting just svcks, this can be remedied though. There are NO crafted sets worth using, this needs to be fixed.

The bottom line is that if come end game all "crafters" can do is improve looted gear that part of the crafting system is fail. Crafters should be able to actually CRAFT armor/weapons that mean something. That doesn't mean they have to be able to craft all the best armor in the game, but crafted gear really does need to be wanted /needed to fully template out chars come end game.

Its the whole gear/stat system though that would have to be tweaked. I dont think you can fix it just by making them jump through all these hoops to become "master crafters" then only let them effect endgame as improvers.

They should just make it so that certain pieces of armor/weapons is only obtainable if you are a crafter and the same thing if you progress through end game content for both pvp and pve, so in order to be the best you can be you need to actually do everything.

Just an FYI crafters can't upgrade bound gear that belongs to someone else. So if you want bound gear to be upgraded you have to do it yourself.

Yes, crafting will be useless. They should remove it from the game. Derp.

Just wait and see what state it's in after release. Anyone in the PTS will tell you that it's changed so much since it's inception and continues to change on a regular basis. Be patient and save your concerns for next month.

I'm on PTS, and it is not constantly changing. All the sets are useless. It's very easy to fix though, the base of crafting is great.

Quote me where I said constantly. I said it's changed since it's inception and continues to change. False?

With a constant influx of new players though, crafters will always have a market.

Nothing has been done to make crafting more useful. As I said, the base is great. Rather than keep saying everything is fine you should be asking for better crafted sets.

No one at high levels uses crafted sets, I don't know if there is anything in Adventure Zones, can't test that.

When the sets are useless who is buying?

Stop throwing up strawman arguements to knock them down. You're not even misquoting me, you're simply fabricating everything I apparently said.

I never said crafting was fine, so please learn to read before my posts before you lash out. I'm telling people to be patient and see what state crafting is in come release, before bashing a beta build of the game. A lot can be done in a short period of time; and we've known for a long time that they aim to make crafters meaningful - if they're not, they'll fix it.

It′s a shame, i really do hope they will fix this soon.

To me the perfect solution would be to make the endgame dungeon loot be the ingredients that are required by top of the line crafters to craft the best gear.

Should these looted ingredients be bind on acquire, that I'm not sure about.

*shrugs*

Crafted items will be the OK stuff you wear until you can afford or are luck enough to get the good dropped items. There will be a gap that crafted items fill, it just wont be the gap most crafters want to fill.

He said that crafted gear for levels 1-49 is better from looted (on same gear level).

So basically crafters can do earnings by selling gear cheaper from the NPC prices for all leveling people.

Guilty as charged. Where's my blank cap.