I've gotten two professions up to 200 (Huntsman and Leatherworking), but I'm having a hard time finding any redeeming quality to the crafting system, other than the XP gains.

As I see it, here are the problems:

1. It costs more to craft an item then you can sell it for.

2. By gathering your own mats (not purchasing them on the TP), you cannot get enough crafting done to be high enough level to make anything for yourself.

3. Dropped items are equal to or better than anything you can craft, and are cheaper to buy on the TP than to produce yourself.

Now I may be missing something here, but it just feels like other than the XP you get from making new items, that there's no real point in crafting. Except for being able to craft legendary stuff @ 400, but still... that's a lot of grind for something you could just purchase later.

Thoughts?

Originally posted by encopitt

I've gotten two professions up to 200 (Huntsman and Leatherworking), but I'm having a hard time finding any redeeming quality to the crafting system, other than the XP gains.

As I see it, here are the problems:

1. It costs more to craft an item then you can sell it for.

2. By gathering your own mats (not purchasing them on the TP), you cannot get enough crafting done to be high enough level to make anything for yourself.

3. Dropped items are equal to or better than anything you can craft, and are cheaper to buy on the TP than to produce yourself.

 

Now I may be missing something here, but it just feels like other than the XP you get from making new items, that there's no real point in crafting. Except for being able to craft legendary stuff @ 400, but still... that's a lot of grind for something you could just purchase later.

 

Thoughts?

Pretty sure you get legendaries through crafting so that's a nice bonus.  You can totally gather all your own mats and get enough crafting done to keep up with your level.  The only mats that are even remotely difficult to come by are Leather and Cloth [I see you're a Leatherworker]. Even if this weren't the case, it's an MMO, sometimes you have to use all those other players for something other than a reminder that you're not playing a single player game.  As far as dropped items = to crafted one's, I simply never get enough drops of the type I need to keep up.  Usually with armor I'm ok, but if I want to stick with particular weapons sometimes the drops will leave me behind. The other advantage of making it myself is to get the stats that I want.

I agree that it shouldn't cost more to make an item than you can sell it for on the TP.  Hopefully that balances out as playerbase and prices stabilize.  Right now it's simply a bunch of folks trying to undercut one another.

The advantage of crafting is indeed just XP.

Ok.. you can craft exotic gear, and you wanna have it. Just to get the right stats. But as it is right now, you can buy it at the TH for little less money more, as it would cost you yourself. And to get the skill to 400 is much more expensive as this difference.

On the other side.. the XP bonus is huge. So if you got enough Gold(for leveling an alt), it is by far the easiest way to drop just a lot of money, and leveling up with crafting.

But in a game like GW2(or any other themepark) the ingame economy is more or less non existant, and crafting is more or less useless. In WoW as example(and i could name other themeparks here as well) it was even worse, you dont even got XP for crafting, and the best Gear was more or less only from Raids.. so crafting there was even more useless.

Truth is, crafting will just be rewarding, if there is a solid ingame economy in place. And for that you more or less need a sandbox, you need gear with limited durability, which will fall apart sooner or later(and for a good economy better sooner than later). And some kind of loot system will help to increase the demand, too. And then of course, crafting items have to be the most effective way(not necessarily the best gear) to get gear.

And if it is a real sandbox you than even got all those crafting which comes with building up houses, towns, or whatever, which of course should be also under limited durability, with the necessarity to repair it once in a while. And of course the ability to destroy it all together.

Then crafting is a key factor of that game, and with constant demand of new stuff, and heavily satisfing to be a crafter, and even possible, to be just that.. only a crafter. But not in a themepark game.

OP, the only benefit I've seen for crafting aside from the XP is for making a bit of money off the TP.

There was an addon in WoW that did the research for you called LilSparky's Workshop where it would check all the mats necessary for the recipes you knew and tell you which ones would turn a profit based on the cost of the raw mats at the AH- in GW2 you can turn a profit the same way but it's up to you to do the research.

Now, weapons, armor, trinkets, etc. seem to be saturated/undercut to be more or less pointless to bother with but the items you can craft that can be used to craft weapons, armor, trinkets, etc. can still turn a profit.

XP. You can make some spare change on the TP but you can make about the same spare change in relatively short period of time running around looking for nodes  and doing a few DEs in the Orrian areas.

The economy (what little there is of it) is going downhill very quickly, regretfully.

& here I was thinking folks were going to flame me for trolling... Looks like I was right on the mark in that there's not a whole lot of value outside of legendaries and XP to crafting. Thanks for the input...

Guess I'll put the tools back on the shelf and grind some more.

Originally posted by encopitt

I've gotten two professions up to 200 (Huntsman and Leatherworking), but I'm having a hard time finding any redeeming quality to the crafting system, other than the XP gains.

As I see it, here are the problems:

1. It costs more to craft an item then you can sell it for.

2. By gathering your own mats (not purchasing them on the TP), you cannot get enough crafting done to be high enough level to make anything for yourself.

3. Dropped items are equal to or better than anything you can craft, and are cheaper to buy on the TP than to produce yourself.

 

Now I may be missing something here, but it just feels like other than the XP you get from making new items, that there's no real point in crafting. Except for being able to craft legendary stuff @ 400, but still... that's a lot of grind for something you could just purchase later.

 

Thoughts?

1) I crafted a full level 80 rare set for cheaper than buying it on the TP by under 50% cost.

2) Exotics are far cheaper to craft yourself than to buy them.

3) At current cost, you can make more $$ by crafting items and selling them, than to just sell the mats themselves.

4) Unique discoveries that are killer fun (for example, Artificers are the only ones that can make the chair/tree transformation potions, and those are account bound).

5) Dropped items look like crap compared to crafted sets and their looks.

6) Gathering gives XP, and by doing zone completion (i.e. ciricling a map), you can gather enough mats to go from 0 to 400 by completing all maps.  That's without circling, but if you circle you can do one map.

7) I wish there was a taco feast in cooking.

Last night, I got my toon up to 55 and then through crafting (Weaponsmith) got myself to 56 and 1/2 while raising my crafting skill to make level 55 blue weapons.

I spent about 2 silver to get the last few 225+ mats I needed, I only had like 2/3 of one drop mat and 1/3 of another, and I just sold the pre-55 iron based stuff I had equipped and made more $ than I spent, and was able to craft 3 pieces of Darksteel (55) platinum based weapons for myself.

My Jewelcrafting is a little behind, can only make level 45 stuff but gold was really hard to come by, now I'm finding a lot more of it and hopefully will catch my JC up to 225+ and craft lvl 55 stuff soon - I've got tons of gems (thank you transmutes) just need more gold.

Point is - it's awesome for keeping yourself well geared for leveling - without much added effort, but obviously some trade skills are more useful than others in this regard.

GW2 is the first MMO where I feel like keeping your crafting even to your level is not only fairly easy to do but very useful as well.

I don't really care too much if I can make $ off of it at "end-game" if I can craft an exotic set for myself at 80 I'll be happy, and sounds like I can craft 4 pieces of the same 80 rare and use Mystic Forge to turn them into a single 80 Exotic?

I could probably get the pieces I craft cheaper on the TP than the TIME it takes to gather the mats, but I gather all the mats when leveling anyway so I like the extra XP from crafting and like the feeling/knowing of actually being able to use what I craft.

Sense of pride/accomplishment thing.

I have 400 Armour, 400 Weapon, 120 something Leather and around 50 Huntsman.

The answer is no, not really. Once you have your gear (which is as cheap as crap to buy anyway) and once you are 80, it is pretty pointless.

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

I have 400 Armour, 400 Weapon, 120 something Leather and around 50 Huntsman.

 

The answer is no, not really. Once you have your gear (which is as cheap as crap to buy anyway) and once you are 80, it is pretty pointless.

 

Not if you are in a guild. It always helps to have someone crafting.

Leveling crafting is really cheap pre-exotics and the stuff you craft is almost always better than drops. It's not a big boost or anything, but there's really no downside. Yeah, you'll spend a few gold on it. You'll get 20 levels' worth of XP and customised equipment. It's more than worth it.

Jeweler is especially handy, as it allows you to get great accessories almost for free. You barely ever get them as drops and for storyline stuff, so they're really handy.

Originally posted by botrytis

Originally posted by bunnyhopper

I have 400 Armour, 400 Weapon, 120 something Leather and around 50 Huntsman.

 

The answer is no, not really. Once you have your gear (which is as cheap as crap to buy anyway) and once you are 80, it is pretty pointless.

 

Not if you are in a guild. It always helps to have someone crafting.

Free stuff is always great and giving out stuff to guildies is equally cool, but it's not actually needed. I really can't see anyone struggling for gear at any point, regardless of guild hand outs.

Or are you refering to WvWvW stuff?

I craft for something else to do besides combat all the time. It has done a good job of keeping my characters up to date with gear and I have made some money on the TP.

I hope down the road they add other non combat hobbies like fishing for example.  I would also like to see housing at some point integrated with crafting. 

Originally posted by Siphaed

2) Exotics are far cheaper to craft yourself than to buy them.

 

Yeah.. of course. o.O

Example. I crafted today, actually for 5 mins. an Orichalicum Ring of Berserker. It costs me 2 Gold 65 Silber.

And at this point this item is at the TH for 2 Gold 85 Silber. Profit?

Well, if i put it into the TH i have to pay 5% for offering, and another 5%(or even 10%) for selling to the TH(fee).

So.. now if i would sell this ring i would actually made a lose of money.. so much about Exotics are far cheaper to craft yourself.. dont kidding yourself. It isnt worth shit.

You can really just sell to friends, without the fee of the TH to make more or less a little bit of the fee profit. Thats it.

And.. it is not just this ring, is it more or less with any item available.

Originally posted by Scalpless

Leveling crafting is really cheap pre-exotics and the stuff you craft is almost always better than drops. It's not a big boost or anything, but there's really no downside. Yeah, you'll spend a few gold on it. You'll get 20 levels' worth of XP and customised equipment. It's more than worth it.

Jeweler is especially handy, as it allows you to get great accessories almost for free. You barely ever get them as drops and for storyline stuff, so they're really handy.

Yeap.. or you could always buy your stuff from TH, there everything(especially jewelery) is cheaper as you could craft it. I was more or less not able to sell one item as i crafted up to 400, to buy with profit.. or with other words, i wasted a lot of Gold for getting it up on 400.

But.. it is actually a good way to lvl up.. it is Gold -> XP. There is no faster way to lvl up. But also no more expensive way to do so.

Originally posted by BadSpock

... and sounds like I can craft 4 pieces of the same 80 rare and use Mystic Forge to turn them into a single 80 Exotic?

Another urban legend. Just for the fun of it i tested that on a little bit more indeepth.

Well.. i trashed around 500 green items into the forge. Point is you dont get any time a better(yellow) item out of it. The Ratio is around 10:0.7, with other words, if you waste around 100 green items, you will get out around 7 yellow ones. A lost around 50 silber with that.. but well.. i just want to do this test. ;)

With other words, the mystic forge may have a purpose(legendary items or other recipes), but not for trashing random items.

No there is not much point.   It is standard modern themepark crafting which is side-game,means to "play AH" and moreor less fun distraction to some.      There is standard oversupply and not enough demand and crafting is not essential for preety much anything.

As per usual there are some consumeables that are bit useful  (here mostly grouped in cooking).

That's it - not much point really.