I have several toons, all at different levels of tradeskill, and I don't remember the last time I got a pristine crafted item. I used to get pristine crafted stuff coming off the work stations nearly all the time, so has something changed?
Most of the recipes were converted to only produce "pristine" items and to return some material on a lesser result. Since there were no "crude"," shapped" or average results the "pristine" product dropped the adjective. Some recipes do produce different results on lesser successes, but those are done on purpose. Either because they can produce lesser amounts for stackable items or because the designer wanted to introduce one recipe to make multiple similar items (i.e. the tinkered home depots). I don't think there are any regular recipes that have "pristine" in the item's name anymore. I think there might be some quest recipes that still use that descriptor.
These days, 'Pristine' only means you crafted an item all the way through on a station that wasn't "Simple". It makes a difference in tinkering as you get more of your materials returned the closer you are to a pristine combine.
Thanks for the information, peeps. I thought i was going crazy or had lost some skillage or something. Do we know when this change happened and was it announced or just brought in by stealth?
Hmm...lets see. Domino was our tradeskill dev at the time. Not sure exactly when it was done. I'd guess 2008ish. If you look through the update notes enough you'd see the announcement.
As I am leveling up my second armor smith(don't ask), I can say there are still some items with the word pristine in the name want to say in the 60's and/or 70's. At least for that particular TS class.
