(The process of) Leveling Crafting is Exceedingly Boring.

Tatwi wrote:

Interesting, I haven't done as much crafting in EQII yet as I'd like but I'd say exactly the opposite for mostly the same reasons.
I didn't play SWG much after the NGE (too little time I'm afraid) but while I saw the brilliance in SWG's crafting design it was far too much focus for me on harvesting the right resources and too little time focused on me interacting with the crafting process. This being from someone who mastered more than a few crafting professions while grinding holocrons.
Either way feedback noted, thread is an interesting read.

I have to agree with an earlier post asking how anyone could find LOTRO crafting more invovled than this game. I came here from LOTRO because I was bored out of my mind and there was nothing fun for me to do.
It took a few days to learn, but my husband has figured out when I'm crafting based on how much I'm yelling at my monitor at any given moment. I can fail at making something (although nowhere near as bad as all those attempts at a Trueshot bow that drove me near insane back in EQ1).
I love all the crafting quests I've done so far. I think I've gotten futher on them than just sitting and making things. I got to have a total geek-gasm and dig fossils in game and earn a dinosaur of my own at the end of it. Granted I would have liked something a bit more invovlved than just clicking on glowy piles of dirt and standing at a craft table, but it was still fun.
Rush orders make me mad so I don't do as many of those ... but I don't even sit and make one of each item in my list on my carpenter. I only make what I need to for any given project. And like anything else, I don't just sit and craft all day. I make what I need and then go do other things. Find out I need something else, I make it and go back to whatever else it was I was doing.
The only time it starts to be boring is sitting there grinding out root beer for the faundler because I need various grotto bits for housing projects. I don't have to do so, but I choose to because I like to decorate and do all that.
I haven't been playing all that long, and I do suffer from alt-itis so it takes me a while to get anywhere, but my main is lvl 40 in both adventure and crafting without really trying even.

feldon30 wrote:

In all hoesty, I quit tradeskilling when that change was made. I have no interest to quest grind up another tradeskiller.

It takes a special, patient, mindset to craft in EQ2. This is NOT a bash just and observation. My wife can sit for hours with her 9 maxed grandsuperdupermaster crafter and hit 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 for hours on end. I, however, can't.. I just can't do it. It is SOOOO boring. I want to a eat shot gun after about 2 minutes. I also like class interdependency. Each crafting class should be dependent on another. I'd revert back to pre LU-13 crafting in a heart beat if I were the producer.. I am on of the ones that give LoTRO the nod as the best crafting in a AAA title... gathering/harvesting.. regional faction recipies... fantstic. I LOVE the fact you can just get evething together.. craft while I make a sandwich..lol perfect. No tedious 1-2-3 1-2-3.. I hate to admit this.. well ok no I dont since I do not play eq2 anymore, but I setup a macro/bot thing to craft for me one time..lol Sorry.. Just could stomach it. Thankfully, I simply ordered my wife to craft what ever I needed when I played once she had all her crafting classes leveled.

The process itself of 1-2-3-1-2-3 which is subject to lag, or missing a reaction, which lulls me into a coma, absolutely needs a change.

I could tolerate it with the pristine bonus, but there is NO WAY I will ever bring another crafter up from 1 to 90 with the current system.

I have four level 90 crafters. Never again.

EQ2 Tradeskills themselves are great and have capabilities and number of items rivaling any other MMO. But the actual mechanics of crafting in EQ2 are more effective than Thorazine than inducing sleep or coma. You should not craft for more than 30 minutes in EQ2 and then operate heavy machinery.

I don't spam 123. I hit progress mostly, then if it falls, which with AAs, traits, and gear it doesn't do it much, I include a durability for power or success hit.

I miss the old school, other-people-dependent version of crafting, honestly =(

Laenai@Oasis wrote:

I miss the one where not every player had 9 max level crafters.

Ok I am the queen of leveling crafters and have been doing it while chatting and find it quite fun and different everytime I level the next one. I learn new things about the process everytime and see ninja tweaks and changes all the time.
For starters I haven't done the 123 231 123 baloney since the first year, and yes if I grinded leveling them that way I would be bored out of my mind.
I have ranted on more than one occasion about the size, especially at low resolution, of the creation screen ruining the interactive fun, reminding me of the meditating while sitting with an open spellbook in the EQ1 lol, but I finally broke down and added the Drums crafting mod and that took care of that part
(I don't like using 3rd party programs, because it doesn't let me know what the new guy is seeing, but I couldn't resist that nice little window with the easy button for repeating.

The addition of tons of neat quests and signature items to go after have also improved the system and made it much more imaginative and fun. I went nuts crafting just to the the earring for the run speed buff on all my toons when that was introduced.
Take some time, join the crafting channel or a crafting guild for a while and really see what it really is like.

Brigh wrote:

I actually prefer that, because at this point I have no interest in crafting and would rather have it automated and be able to reach the crafting cap and be able to go back and craft what I want, or do the odd crafting quest here and there than nothing.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Yes! Believe it or not, at launch crafters were interdependent, meaning they relied upon one another for subcombines.
Remember "WORTs" (washes, oils, resins, tempers)?
Meh...bygone are the glory days of crafting when you'd have to squeeze in-between six others at a public crafting station.

I don't mind if people find it boring and I hope they don't try to make it less so. If everyone could craft, then we'd have nothing to do for other people and crafting would be even more boring.
The leveling process is not the most exciting, but it's definitely one of the better ones I've come across. I'll take staring at a station for 30-60 mins at a time over spending hours to try and farm minotaur meats in EQ1, only to gain 5 levels from 100 or so combines.

I would love to see more tradeskill quests, especially aimed at the levels between 50 to 79. There just isn't much there at this time outside of a couple quests on the Isle of Mara, the tradeskill glider mount quests, and a few tradeskill quests in Kunark.

feldon30 wrote:

I would agree with this. I have literally fallen asleep at the keyboard while crafting. Now I either have to be on a phone call or watching something to be able to tolerate crafting. I have two 90th level crafters (in 5 years). I would love to see something happen to make this either more engaging or more hands-off across all the levels. The fact that it's difficult even to chat while crafting is very frustrating. (I don't always have the option for voice chat.) Hit enter, type something to guild or group and send it, and you're not back on the crafting window. You have to reach for the mouse button to keep crafting. Ugh.

with rush orders giving the xp they do now, leveling is already really fast and easy. It may be boring for some, but it isn't slow.
I started a 10th crafter just so I have another tradeskill apprentice and he is already level 47 after only 3 crafting sessions. Each session was 'maybe' an hour in length. Two writs, ding, repeat.. not hard.

I actually found Vanguard's crafting to be challenging and interesting. I actually really liked the way harvesting worked as well (and being able to have a gear set that switched automatically with what I was doing.

OberonThunderfire wrote:

I agree, I enjoyed VG's crafting system immensely.

For lvl 50 crafting, don't forget the quest line in the Moors. It used to be required in order to do the group TS dungeons and Mara weekly solo quest, but seems like since it's no longer required people have forgotten about it.
Once you do that, there are daily TS faction quests in the Moors too, with the frogloks, the trolls, and that expedition who's name I keep forgetting.

Delthar@Antonia Bayle wrote:

This really is the heart of the matter, especially the highlighted part.
In SWG you could get up and use the washroom right in the middle of the crafting process if you had to, because it was you, the end user, that initiated the forward momentum the whole way through. As a result, the process was as quick as you were (well, in the absence of lag). Also, as I mentioned in the OP, if the quality didn't matter then you had the ability to skip the part of the process where quality could be improved, which (from a human-time perspective) was helpful in reducing the coma inducing boredom aspect of crafting.
Just to come to SWG's defense for a moment: Yup, post NGE removed the purpose of crafted items for about a year and half, but it did not alter the process of crafting or the crafting/resource system at all (with the exception of harvesting animals, but they reverted back to normal that pretty quickly). Eventually all the professions were fixed up so that the things they made had a purpose again, with Beast Master enzyme refinement consumables and tools being the epitome of interdependency. Check this chart out! The BM community was amazing, but so was the depth of the profession. So really, by the time December 2011 rolled around there was never a better, more enjoyable, feature rich, greatly-bug-reduced version of SWG, including the pre-cu era. SOE does know how to listen to their communities and amazingly, from 2007ish on they did that with SWG like no other company I have seen.
Anyhow, when compared to the similar World of Warcraft craftng system, the Everquest II crafting system is more rewarding (in no small part due to the housing system and the ability to craft furniture). However, the crafting process in Everquest II does not even have the variety and interactivity of the crafting process in FreeRealms, which unfortunately serves to deflate the value of the entire crafting system in EQII.
To sum up a little bit...
Crafting Process:

• Coma inducing tedium with no variety, at all, from level 1 to 90 and beyond.

Crafting System:

• Requires hours of coma inducing tedium.
• Able to make genuinely useful items at all levels, which is great!
• The harvesting system (especially with the guild harvesters) is good, but the resources themselves are dull.
• There are quests, including a couple of dailies, which is a good way to offer advancement beyond the crafting process itself. These adventures should be expanded upon through quests lines that involve puzzles, riddles, and interesting game play beyond "go here, click shiny!".
• I can't imagine how awful it would be to not be in the Crafters Union guild, where I've had access to crafting stations, resources, etc. since last July or so. As an example of how awful it would be: Grinding 10,000 Reputation to be able to buy a stove that can't even be used to make food was demoralizing! It took hours to get that stove, when even the worst crafting station and crafting tool in SWG could actually be USED to craft items sucessfully...

Once again, I want to like the crafting process in EQII, but it's really far too awful for me to continue with - there are more enjoyable ways to spend my time. This is sad, because my favorite part about MMOs is crafting (and the other players to craft with). The crafting system on the other hand has promise and value, it's just a little uninspired, unimaginative, lacking in variety and customization, and over all pretty dull compared to what SOE is capable of producing (See Star Wars Galaxies, FreeRealms, and systems like Dungeon Maker for examples of SOE system that shine with the light of dignified awesomeness).
You guys can do better. Please don't wait for EQNext to do it. Thank ye!

Piestro wrote:

I respectfully disagree, because the SWG system put virtually all of the much player loathed "RNG" outside of the crafting process itself, unlike EQII which front loads heavy doses of "RNG" in both the crafting and harvesting processes (both of which are heavy duty, blunt force Skinner Boxes).
The SWG resource system was by and large the "RNG" SWG crafters dealt with the most, which directly translated into community building game play, because players did not have to gather resources alone. In my eight years of experience in the game, most people did not engage in resource collection as a strictly solo activity, because there were simply a huge amount of options to avoid doing so. Personally, I operated the Citadel Resource and Crafting Centre from 2003 to 2011 (from Intrepid to Starsider), where we shared resources and tools among various guilds and friends. By the end of the game, we had resources kicking around from the very first week of the game! But anyhow, we did everything from helping update the www.swgcraft.com resource tracker to trading products and services for the resources we needed. Loads of other people did the same as well as other things, like sell lightsaber crafting kits (complete with all the resources and tools one needed to make a "perfect" lightsaber) or deal in vet reward 30K resource deeds, which could be used to spawn 30K of ANY resource that had spawned in the server's history. There were just so many options and so much game play that the SWG crafting system mitigated the disapointment of both its Skinner Boxes and its "RNG" with actually enjoyable, community-based game play. The same cannot be said for Everquest II.
I am always happy to read and discuss feedback with you. Thanks for stopping by!
RNG: Random Number Generator; Game play where the game, rather than the player's effort or skill, determines success or failure.