An Analysis Of The Crafting Endgame

[Sollux]

It was cleared the week of release. The issues are three-fold.

All 3 points you've made have been right on the money, and I'd like to add a third: One of the biggest problems is that players don't know what they want.

I'd love for Crafted gear to be relevant to Endgame raiding, on the other hand I don't want to finish my entire Endgame in a single week. I don't want to smash my face against a Turn for 2 weeks, but at the same time I don't want it to feel easy and one-shot it, regardless of how well I prepare. I want to get BIS gear quicker, but once I have it there's nothing left to do other than play/gear another class.

This is a problem that is much deeper than just "Crafted gear too stronk" or "You can only finish your Endgame when SE says so". It's an issue with the amount of time that a player can stay interested in a patch/game, and it stems from the players as much as it does the game itself. More content/longer raids would definitely ease feelings of "Nothing left to do", but so would the understanding that prolonging a patch's life through gating can be a good thing.

I know many wouldn't agree with me, and there are a ton of valid reasons gating can hurt rather than help such as "I don' want to play other classes, I want to play [Class] and there is nothing to do after I cap/clear Endgame", "If I'm willing to put in the time why can't I get BIS gear faster than others?", "Why can't I play at my own pace?", but if you could complete everything faster you would end up just as bored, only faster and with less time to enjoy the class(es) you love. This especially affects those who only like to play one or two classes and don't want to play anything else as it severely limits how much enjoyment they can get out of Endgame each week. Gating helps extend our enjoyment of the game and gives us room to try other activities or classes. For those who are adamant to only 1 or 2 classes I completely understand your dedication, but at the same time your boredom isn't entirely the game's fault. They simply cannot release enough content to keep absolutely every single class busy for 3+ months.

I've gone a little off track from Crafting itself, but I wanted to explain why Crafted items shouldn't be as powerful as Endgame raid items. At the same time though, they shouldn't be completely irrelevant, and my suggestion is something they might already be gravitating towards: Melded correctly, 2-3 Crafted items (Excluding big items such as Chest or Legs) should have the potential to be on-par with Eso gear in stats only, with Eso gear having better Defense and Endgame raid gear being better in both Stats and Defense. This would make a few pieces of Crafted gear viable for Endgame raiding, but not enough to really tip the scales, and it comes at the cost of the user's durability which can be punished by higher-damage lockouts on later Turns.