(The process of) Leveling Crafting is Exceedingly Boring.

I'll be honest, Star Wars Galaxies spoiled me and I am basically attempting to hate the Everquest II crafting system as little as possible, because it's ZOMG boring in comparison. That said, what's most awful about the EQII crafting is the actual process of making items:

It's boring. Completely and totally boring, with a side of "far too RNG".

I leveled 7 "Traders" post NGE in SWG, as well as mastered several crafting professions prior to the NGE. I also very much enjoyed all of the aspects of Beast Master crafting in SWG. While the actual process of crafting an item wasn't stupendously exciting, it was more interesting than the EQII process for a number of reasons:

• There wasn't any babysitting random RNG "ticks", you simply DID each step and the process was done.
• Resources had stats and because they had stats, there was a huge game built up around using those stats. Sure it could be "mathy" at times, but it was awesome and easy to learn. Therefore, there was a lot of variety and secondary game play that effected that part of the process of actually making an item.
• The very little RNG there was in the system (when experimenting) could largely (and most often TOTALLY) be overcome by outfitting your character with the proper gear, tools, items, and bonuses. (And there was A LOT of game play associated with getting to this point that had nothing to do with standing in a house poking at keys). I mean, at the top end people griped about +/- 1-3% off "perfect" due to RNG and realistically, any item that was within +/- 10% just fine (even though folks would scoff at impefect items, because people are snots...).
• During the act of item creation, a person could modify the item's color, name, stat weighting, and ultimately make a truly customized item - or not: if all the person wanted to do was slam it through and be done with it, go nuts!
• There were many sub components that were crafted and could be used to customize an item, particularly with Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Droid Engineer, and Shipwright.
• When "grinding levels" a person could go from 1 to 90 in about 4 hours of non-stop ATK play. While it was repetitive, it never felt boring, because everything that happened was on the player's terms - No RNG, because there was no need to experiment on an item that isn't even going to exist (due to the practice mode XP bonus). Grinding was just grinding and you could do it as fast as you could physically slam the parts through the machine. It was a beautiful thing...

With crafting in EQII, after 40 levels (spread out over nearly a year now, because it's just THAT boring) of pure drudgery while staring at a wall (no such thing as crafting droid in this game!), the WHOLE PROCESS boils down to the following:

• Randomly mash buttons and hope you don't shoot yourself in the foot with RNG.
• Don't bother mashing the buttons, just wait at the lever and press it when the light comes on - YAY! PIECE OF CHEESE! Sadly, this method appears to be the best use of one's time.
• Run around aimlessly clicking on every single harvesting node in a zone.

I am ABSOLUTELY 100% for ATK game play, but there is so little game play to the Everquest II crafting system that I really don't think I can do it. I want to like it, now that can't just play SWG any more, but it is truly...
Uninspired.
Writs: *yawn*, but what else is there to do from level 1 to 90? Run around aimlessly clicking on every single harvesting node in a zone? /logoutAndCry
Please, SOE, can you add some kind of alternative crafting system that has the resource, componets, crafting process, and customization that, say, SWG's Weaponsmith had? You know, with harvesters and stat quality and variety and... maybe just a little more need for something other than a clicking finger and a set of eyes... please?
Please?

I love the EQ2 crafting system and have 9 max level crafters that all adorn and tinker as well.
There is much more to crafting than staring at a wall. There are crafting quests for many levels. Levels 1-9 the tutorial, levels 10-19 there's a crafting timeline in New Halas, levels 20-29 a crafting timeline in Butcherblock, levels 30-39 Steamfont and the leaper mount quest series back in Butcherblock. Levels 40-49 you can do the Sootfoot crafting quests in LS. There's not a real quest line for 50-69 although at 60 you can do the crafter quest chain for the glider mount in Tenebrous. At 70 there are crafter quests in Kunark that get you enough faction to do the crafter epic at 80. 80-89 is chock full of crafting quests with a large quest series in SF zones followed by another large series of crafting quests that begin at 85 in Great Divide, followed by even more quests in EW/Drunder. I did all these quests as a level 12 adventurer.
Also knowing how to craft doesn't involve just randomly pushing buttons. In adventuring randomly pushing buttons may make a mob die but it's usually not the most efficient or best way to do it. Crafting is the same way. Those reaction arts have a purpose and the reactions that happen only happen at certain intervals. If you know when to expect them you can be ready to counter them. When not countering, you can be using those buttons to maintain your durability or speed up your progress.
Crafting may not be for everyone and if it's not for you there are many other things to do in game. There's no reason why anyone has to craft. There's nothing that I can think of that can't be commission-crafted or traded to someone who doesn't craft.
I'm all for improvements to crafting, but please no complete brand new way of doing things.

9 level 90's. Love the crafting. Its more of a 'work for it' than it is 'have fun doing it' type of thing. I started crafting back when it actually took more time/work to get items crafted. Now its just gather/craft/done.. simple.

Leving crafting in EQ2 is very fast if you focus on rush tradeskilll writs.
Crafting is interesting if you focus on the missions, weekly and daily tasks, and signature lines. IMO, the tradeskill line in DoV is just wonderful.

You folks have no idea what you missed or where I am coming from. Consequently, this post is not directed at EQ II players, it's directed at SOE, because they do know where I am coming from. Thanks for the replies though.

I totally understand you.
some people like to mash buttons to cover 4 bars of progress and call that fun. i am not one of them hence why I never bothered with crafting. it's just too boring for my taste.

If you think crafting is bad now, think of what it'll be like without Domino being its guardian angel.

I could never get into the crafting in EQ2, it just takes way too long for too little. I enjoyed it in LOTRO since it went so much faster I was able to level crafting right along with my character (At this point however, I think I enjoy crafting in LOTRO more than the actual game itself, the classes there are too boring). The only other game where I could tolerate crafting in that it was relatively fast to level was WoW (This was several years ago though and dont know what its like now)

Yes I agree with the OP, crafting is TOO BORING.

I was a shipwright in SWG and I understand where the OP is coming from. I was surprised at how crafting worked in EQII compared to SWG, but I don't mind the chages. Resources with stats was fun and challenging, but also sucked when the best spawn of a resource happened a year or two before a new player ever started. I just staretd EQII in December and I can make armor with the same stats as a 7 year vet and thus can "compete" in the market - except that new FTP characters can't use the broker or collect enough gold to buy my armor...

Crafting in WoW requires literally no player interaction at all. It's even more mindless than EQ2's. I certainly hope no one is calling for "Queue up 4,000 arrows. Now I'm going to head out of the house and go shopping, while the game makes those for me."

Gaealiege@Butcherblock wrote:

Yeah i din't buy that reply either.
I'd like to see an engaging crafting system, interesting, time investing, unique items.
Heck if it was me making a game, I'd probably have mobs drop resources only and everything would need to be crafted by players.
I like to see critical succeses, unique items, item signatures, effects, colors. I know it's a lot .
In eq2 you have to fill 4 bars with some blue goo, hit some keys when their respective icon comes up. Definitely not my cup of tea, sorry.

I preferred EQ1's system, but I'm more hardcore than most. =(

I leveled my crafters (90 jeweler, 90 tailor) with the addition of a second monitor + netflix.

Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:

which proves how interesting and engaging you find it

I can't believe anyone would find LoTROs crafting more interesting. You just gather the mats required, start, and go take a shower. It is all automated with no chance to fail (last I played years ago; started in closed>open beta>1 year).

Brigh wrote:

Tried that one as well, hated it as well. It looks like crafting is always secondary and no one is paying any attention in order to develop a better system. I didn't try the swg one so can't comment on it.
Swtor one is not as boring but simply because you don't have anything to do apart from getting resources. Your companions do it for you.

See HERE's your problem.

feldon30 wrote:

That's not quite what we are discussing here. first time bonus or not as nothing to do with it. it's about how boring crafting is and no pristine bonus will make it engaging.

I crafted in EQ1 and then in SWG before JtLS (so long before the CU and the NGE). I also crafted in EQ2 at launch and through the various changes. I've also tried the crafting system in Vanguard, Rift, and a few other games.
For complexity and richness of player involvement, the original (preCU/NGE) of SWG's crafting wins hands down. I heard it was 'simplified' a lot in the CU and then gutted to be a shadow of itself in the NGE. I never had the heart to go back and try because of all my memories of what was before (I actually did go back to SWG for a few days here and there, but the memories of my time there before EQ2 launched were still too strong and overpowered any potential attachment to the changed game which I know many others absolutely loved and I wanted to give a chance). For the stat item crafting it was a lot of player involvement at multiple stages, mental involvement.
EQ2's crafting at launch was, in my opinion, better than it has become but it had one overwhelming flaw, one class made a base product that all other classes were required to use and that class had very little incentive (game mechanics wise) to bargain with the other classes. Thus, it created the ultimate gouge scenario for greedy players. Changes later to 'correct' that imbalance caused the whole system to be more convoluted than it needed to be. It was then utterly gutted to be a shell of its former self. Later, after Domino became the dev, there were improvements to the whole crafting experience but the crafting process was left as the gutted shell. She did clean up a large portion of the mess in recipes that had occurred in the gutting, at least for all classes except one. Only one class still has horribly incomplete product lines in the lower levels. But I digress.
Under Domino, the focus of the crafting experience has been shifted from just the process of crafting items to doing quests and other things very similar to the adventure game. For good or ill, that's the current state. Depending on the time of year, you can actually get into the 30s (or higher) with only crafting a couple 'class' items. Once you get to 80, you can completely omit crafting class recipes and rely solely on quests to get to 90.
There is an equivalent to the crafting droid (which, if I remember rightly, allowed some crafting away from a crafting station) in the form of "portable" crafting stations. These are tinker made, two varities with different durations. The lower level ones have a 5 min duration and the higher level 2.0 versions have a 15 min duration. If you're not a tinker (to make them yourself), you can often find them on the broker, just search on "portable". (example: http://eq2.zam.com/db/item.html?eq2...7b81e4fda0b890a)
You can learn a lot more about the EQ2 crafting system from EQ2 Traders Corner: http://eq2.eqtraders.com/articles/news_page.php

It's incredibly easy and incredibly dull. I maxed all 9 because I felt it was worth it and too easy not too, but an alternative would be nice. Maybe while your out there harvesting you get xp everytime you find a rare, and put first time make bonus back in.