Thread: Patch 3.1: Crafting Reborn (?)

Originally Posted by Alahra

More than that, it boils down to the fact that SE hasn't really liked omnicrafting for awhile, from what I gather. They've never been good at designing recipe balance to combat it , and they took a number of steps throughout ARR to try to curb its influence (through the addition of more and more grind), but they weren't really successful because the level 50 skills were simply too good and too essential. It's likely that they never really intended for omnicrafting to be essential as it was in 2.0, but they didn't want to rock the boat outside of an expansion.

There's no indication yet that specialization will be detrimental to omni-crafters, but all of this is going to depend on player feedback. All of the current changes that have been happening (scrip lockouts, specialization) have been responses to complaints about the accessibility of crafting (including the fact that a new crafter supposedly cannot compete with an omni-crater and will be forced out of the market, which is false as I've mentioned).

This has been a concern for the developers for a while, so back in 2.4, they seemingly came to the conclusion that having all classes should be the norm. They introduced BIS multi-class gear with extra meld slots and low meld caps. Leveling was already previously sped up through leve quests as well. The idea was that each crafter would progress through each class over a course of around 2 weeks, which would temporarily give crafters with specific classes advantages in the market.

However, as a result, they also greatly increased the difficulty of crafting and even introduced crafts like the master book ii tokens, which effectively forced out crafters who had all classes, but were unable to come up with an effective strategy. Take a guess as to what kind of feedback the developers got.

Originally Posted by MN_14

This has been a concern for the developers for a while, so back in 2.4, they seemingly came to the conclusion that having all classes should be the norm.

Yes, I think by 2.4 they had essentially given up on really curbing the need for omnicrafting and instead made it easier to achieve, waiting to try and modify things to a greater degree in HW. But so far they haven't managed to strike the right balance. With the mat-heavy HW recipes, it's rather taxing to level just one or two crafts, especially for those that depend alot on others (with ALC probably being the worst offender).

They do seem to want us focusing on just a few classes now (Yoshi said as much in an interview not long after launch), but one head doesn't seem to be talking to the other. There are systems in place to encourage and allow specialization, but the general structure of the recipes doesn't really support it right now.

Originally Posted by MN_14

(including the fact that a new crafter supposedly cannot compete with an omni-crater and will be forced out of the market, which is false as I've mentioned).

Regarding this part, to be honest, that sort of thing happens regularly on my server. Omnicrafters have a rather large advantage when it comes to market manipulation that specialized crafters don't: they can purposefully tank a market to push out new entries into it, while making back their losses on other markets (since they have far more options for markets to push into). It's especially tricky right now because we don't have a lot of markets to work with (due to a lack of meaningful recipes), but that will get better as we get more worthwhile recipes.

Additionally, omnicrafters generally can work for better profit margins than those with just one or two crafts (since they aren't relying on others for all of their component materials, like ingots). That makes it easier for them to push people out of markets.

While I'm not by any means suggesting that the time they put in shouldn't be valuable, the structure as of now probably rewards omnicrafting a bit too strongly, to the point where maximizing most of the classes is a necessity for any serious crafter. Given that they're trying to move DoH toward a state that operates more like DoW/DoM classes for progression, they probably want someone to be able to be a serious crafter without needing 6-8 DoH classes at 60. You can be a serious raider with just one class at cap, after all, and I think they want something similar to be possible for crafters. They're getting there (red scrips were a step in the right direction and they generally accomplish a lot of what needs to be done), but they still need to tweak things.