Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Overall, how would you describe crafting in VG?  How do you go about leveling your crafting?  Are the items you can craft useful at all level ranges, especially at the level cap?  How do crafted items compare to items gained through other activities such as random drops, quests, group instances, raids, reputation grinds, etc?  Is crafting profitable? 

Thanks.

I find crafting in vanguard to be very challenging.  I think I get more stressed out worrying that I will fail on my final step than when I die in adventuring.  I think it is the best crafting system since SWG (I really liked the different resources and factories)

I can not really hope to describe VG crafting to you as it is such a large subject.

I can point you to this link:

http://www.vanguardcrafters.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

There are crafting quests in which you can gain xp and rewrds, but most xp comes from doing work orders.. making items for npcs.  The better quality the item you make and the harder the item, the more xp you get and better rewards (crafting clothes, tools, etc).  Unfortunately I wont try to kid you; doing work orders is a grind much like a lot of things in MMORPGs.

Crafted items are generally level equivalent.  In other words a weapon or piece of armor crafted at level x is usually suitable for an adventurer at level x.   You can also give an item special attributes using additional components so that it will be more suitable for say a healer than a warrior.

Items you craft are comprable to dropped items.. perhaps superior.   Dropped items are also usually Bind on Equip, so they cant be re-sold second hand or bind on pickup, which menas they cant be sold at all.  This raises the demand for crafted items.

 CRAFTING IS VERY PROFITABLE.

I'm not a crafter, but from a buyer of crafted gear perspective I love the ability to have someone make a custom piece of jewelry, gear or a 'personalized' weapon.  As I level 50 Psionicist, there are stats, energy, spell evasion, detection, etc. components I want.  So I chatted with a guild crafter on the best approach to making an earring that would include much of what I have identified as crucial to my role when raiding.  With different cuts, dusts, shards, styles etc., he made me an awesome earring that I would never find just by browsing the market.

From my viewpoint, that makes crafting a very interesting and challenging sphere in VG.

VG crafting is the best around if you want something that is challenging and produces awesome crafted items.  However, if you want crafting to be the best items in game through no effort, then this is not the place to look.

The biggest difference between VG crafting and everything else is that crafting is a completely separate game with no requirement to do anything outside crafting.  If you want you can make a crafter and sit and work on crafting all the way to lvl 50 without ever killing a single mob or even selling a single item.

A big part of crafting is doing tasks.  Tasks can be thought of as being the crafter equivilent to killing mobs.  You take a task to make several items, you make them using recipes and materials provided.  As a reward you get random coin, cash items, recipes, and crafting equipment.  Yes crafting also has a full set of equipment slots.  Everything from an apron to multiple tool belts full of tools of the trade.  Like adventuring the equipment and tools have stats that enhance your crafting abilities.  As well as the crafting character sheet is unique and has unique stats and skills.

There are also numberous more involved crafting quests that can give you loot, horses, special recipes, and sometimes are needed to get to another tier or skill or to specialize into a special type of crafting faction.  Oh yes there are also crafting factions...

So crafting is not an adjunct to adventuring it is a peer to adventureing.  Self contained.

So you can't power level a crafter by dumping money onto them and having them flood the market with junk destroying the value of crafted goods.  In fact you get almost no xp for crafting stuff players need.  All that does is get you nice money :)

Crafting is also process oriented so you don't just click a button and presto the item appears.  No you have to do steps and using abilities to progress quality or progress while burning through action points.  If you fail to complete the process with your allocated action points you fail to make the item.  There are also complications that appear during the process that require you to use special abilities, tools, and ingredients to remedy them or you can ignore them.  Some complications can be good some can be meaningless and some can be bad.  So crafting is really a game of trying to get to the end with the highest quality without failing due to some unplanned complication.  Crafting is VG is the only system where I've ever been working on something and cursing at it all the while.  It can be challenging and fun if you like a challenge.  Making something does take some time however.  Making an item is akin to fighting a mob it might take a minute or so and require a 5-10 clicks and unless the item is trivial you can rarely predict with certanty just how good you will do on the final item.  So quality is meaningful.

There are also substeps in the process that enable you to apply various dusts and orbs and things to the item you are making to give it custom properties.  This really enables crafters to make the best stuff in the game because it can be tailored to a specific persons needs.

The player made items are definatley useful at all level ranges, including cap. IMO one of VG's great successes is the balance its struck between adv dropped gear and crafted. From what ive seen with 2 lvl 50 adv's and 2 lvl 50 crafters, the adv dropped gear tends to be a tad more out and out powerful, whereas the crafted gear is extremely versatile and can be min-maxed for specific stats and classes. (Edit, this is excluding raid drops from APW, from what I have seen so far crafted items are inferior to raid drops).

There's not as much money to be made crafting as there used to be, especially since the exp curve was flattened with GU2, but you can still make coin and be a valuable part of a guild as a crafter. If cash is what your after your better off harvesting (especially when GU4 goes live) on a time for time basis.

As far as leveling goes, theres no two ways about it - it takes time and it is a grind. IMO the rewards are worth it but be prepared to spend MONTHS doing WOs if you want a 50 crafter.

Be sure to have a read through the stickies on www.vanguardcrafters.com before you get started - it will help out a lot. The crafting community is very friendly and helpful I have found.

That all sounds really cool.   Thanks for taking the time to respond. 

P.S.  Is there a free trial available?

Originally posted by Wrymstrum

That all sounds really cool.   Thanks for taking the time to respond. 

 

P.S.  Is there a free trial available?

Not yet, unless you get a buddy key.