Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Originally posted by Gallaid
how is the crafting in this game. Is there such a thing as a pure crafter?? Is the a market drivin by the crafters?? and how is the pvp??

IMO, crafting is horrible. It's the most tedious form of crafting I have ever seen.  You actually work your ass off for minimal results.  I kid you not, it is not fun whatsoever and it was the core reason why I left the game (despite the horrible game engine, core code, etc).

One day while I was mindlessly clicking away I thought to myself "WTF am I doing this for?"

Here's a lowdown of why I do not like crafting in this game:

1.  You have to go through four steps to make one piece of one major part of one item.  Each step is anywhere from 2 to 10 clicks.  That's about 32 to 40 clicks to make one small piece of a bigger item. (step one and four takes about 2 clicks. The middle steps takes at least 10).

Now imagine each cycle about 45 times per lvl.  The first item of that design will grant you XP. However, if you repeat that item you get no XP.  You only get about two items to create per level so as you can see, you simply cannot grind your way to another level.  You must do Work Orders.

These work orders sucks. I mean, they suck more than my blind Shop teacher in seventh grade.  You grind out these work orders for minimal XP, praying that you hit lvl 26.  Level 26 is the magical number because that's when the majority of crafters start to make money off of the trash they make.

I was a full time crafter.  I have played literally every payed to played MMO in the Western (and Eastern Hemisphere) and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt it was the worse rewarding MMO career I had ever made (being a crafter).

The PvP is ok in this game.  Well...not really that good but it doesn't suck either.  Vanguard just wasn't designed for PvP play.  You can tell the developers did not "develop" this area.  They just threw it in there.

I am being as fair as I can in my opinions lol.  I hate this game. I really do. So my answers will be biased.  I hated how the company ripped off the consumer and then cry baby Brad had his whole damn company fired in the company parking lot last Friday (except for four or five employees).  To me, Brad is no different to what he did to his company as Colton did to Loud Ant Software. He knew on launch that where he game was going financially and he kept it all hush hush even to his own dedicated employees.  Sigil Devs worked their asses off and Brad fired them and sold the game to another company.  He didn't even have the guts to fire them in person. He hired someone to do it for him.

If you wanna play this game, then would I suggest you to wait for the trial? Give it two weeks. I am sure SoE will be busting out a free trial very soon.  Just wait for the trial.  I would seriously recommend staying away from this one unless you can get it for free (trial)

Originally posted by Obidom
OK im guessing you want know about crafting as opposed to someones opinions and feelings about Brad and his treatment of his staff (wow talk about changing subject on the thread!)

Crafting is difficult and tedious to level up in, but it can be interesting to actually make things. I am inclined to agree with Enigma when it comes to the mind-numbing tedium of work orders, but I knew what I was getting into before I started. On the other hand, I enjoy actually making things that can be useful, and some useful things are in rather high demand. Boats and housing components come to mind as crafted items in high demand. They both require lots of materials, and the main recipes are acquired through quests.

It is possible to be a pure crafter, but you will probably need a lot of good friends to be successful as a pure crafter. Harvesting is considered an adventuring skill. There are some harvesting areas that do not have aggressive mobs nearby to prey on the pure crafter, but there are not many of them. I don't get the impression that resources are easy to obtain or cheap on the brokers, but since I harvest most of my own and sell what I can't use, I'm not the most reliable witness for that.

Crafters drive the market for some items, like I said. In addition to the big-ticket items, some consumables and miscellaneous items sell rather well. Supply of a lot of things is limited by their need for dropped items. For example, consumable invisibility carvings sell well but need a dropped item each and a dropped permanent recipe. For another example, bows need dropped items to craft at all, and some dropped rare additives to fetch good coin. I have made enough coin selling mundane arrows and bolts to get by. These don't take many resources for the most proficient crafters (eg, 1 wood timber can be made into 600 arrows, with luck), so they are great to put on the broker if you have nothing better and few resources.

The tedium of work orders, which are the only effective means of acquiring experience for advancement and faction for particular recipes, is well-understood by the developers. There is no short-term solution, and very likely no long-term solution, because most development resources are going into bug fixing, engine improvement, and adventuring content. The tedium is to some extent by design, because there is no risk of loss of experience, very low risk of loss of goods without some benefit, and the ability to drop the activity at any time and pick it up later. What's missing is a way of accumulating substantial experience without the tedium, such as questing, for those who can afford to concentrate. If you can put up with the tedium of experience and faction grind, you can become one of the few who can make some highly-demanded items.

Originally posted by Obidom

The easiest way to obtain crafting XP is via WO, now work orders mean working smarter not harder, so for example on lower levels you will find yourself doing darkblue WO (easy) as you have greater success at completing them as your skills are so low

Once you hit 25 you will find your self doing moderate or difficult WO as you maximise XP gain and also increase chances of getting rare items (rare items can be sueful components, tools or even recipes)

Just to clarify, the colour of the Work Orders are always relative to your level, so a blue WO will always be easy no matter what level you are, white always moderate and yellow always dificult - you dont become better able to do white and yellows as you level up.

I dont have time just at the minute to give you a decent explanation of my opinion of crafting OP, all i'll say for now is that Im a 30 carpenter myself and craft often - and you should check out this site:

www.vanguardcrafters.com/forum

complications and switching toolbelts get on my nerves. complications are just way to frequent 6-10 comps on a lt blue WO is silly... not to mention some of them complications dont make sense (throw oil on a fire?!?!11?)

The rewards at lower levels suck ive made it to lvl 10ish in blacksmith and artificer and doing workorders that take 15+minutes with dozens of complications all to earn a little exp and like 10copper. yippee!
a dozen subcombines to craft one copper piece of worthless vendor trash doesn not equal fun.

lol ok course I never like crafting in MMO's the closest I came to enjoying crafting was in EQ2 AFTER the crafting revamp.

I tend to agree with the first posters comments about crafting, it is by far the worse crafting dynamic I have ever did in any game.

Currently I am level 30 Blacksmith/Armorsmith and I have to say if your wrists don't give out on you before your enthusiasm for actually making it to level 50 then more than likely you are botting it or have a monkey in a cage doing it for you.

They just put in a correction patch that was around for almost 2 months (so people that started crafting 2 months ago has a big advantage) that has made it where the crafters now have to wear items that are at their level and not at their equipment expertise, in doing this the complications you get from crafting even a basic item becomes a nuiscance (can range from 9-12 complications sometimes).

As far as the economy goes, I would have to say it is governed by crafters in the game, weaponmith, Armorsmith and ship makers being the biggest coin makers ingame (Iron upgraded armors sell for 1-2 platinum now). Another thing about crafting that really disappointed me was the upgrade recipes that you have to earn from Work orders as rare drops. These are not frequent enough for every Armor/Weaponsmiht to get and those that had gottent the recipes before the changes (2 months ago) have a very good advantage on crafters that started late in the game (due to them making upgrades dropped instead of learned recipes).

I think the crafting in this game is the most $%^ed up ever in a MMO and you can tell it took Silus every bit of a month to come up with the lazy , half assed way to grind it in the game/rant off.