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Crafting
Sineath
Member Posts: 224
The adventuring part of the game is fun and I'm now a lvl 60 Demonologist. Just wanted to point that out because this thread is about my experiences in crafting which is...NOT fun. 
At lvl 20, you have the option to go to the harvesting trainers in a far away zone and learn every gathering skill. Yes, you can learn ALL of them without problem. OK, there is some trivial problems to some of the harvesting skills. Like, the NPC not being there. You see the glowing question mark on the map and mini map but when you get there, you find out the NPC is, well, on vacation, I guess. Still, that only covers one or two of them and you can always do the other harvesting skills/quests.
Now, at lvl 40, you can choose Crafting professions! Yay! But, be aware, that you are limited to two professions. I tell you this and yet, you will probably pick the wrong profession. You see, 90% of the people playing don't read the quests they recieve most of the time. Yes, the quest giver has a line in RED telling you that whatever you choose will be permanent. However, even then, you think to yourself,'np, if I don't like this profession, I'll just respec'. NOOOOO, there is no respeccing. Remember that. You're PERMANENTLY stuck with whatever two professions you choose.
I chose Alchemy. I spend alot of time playing and the materials for making potions, food and drink drop off mobs so this seems like a great craft for me! Also, its a consumable and I prefer to sell mass items instead of a diamond ring or a sword of destruction. So, again, perfect for me.
Turns out I spent two weeks looking for the resources to make the potions, food, and drinks so I could turn in the quests and move forward to the next tier of alchemy. Let me break down the three most staggering problems with alchemy:
One: the resources for alchemy tier ONE drop off mobs that have a level range of lvl 40 to lvl 49. This means, if you need scorpion venom, you need to hunt a lvl 40 to lvl 49 scorpion. however, alot of the mobs you need resources from only appear in certain SELF instances that scale the mobs in the instance to YOUR level. So, if you're lvl 50+, you can never get the resources for tier one alchemy...ever, because the mobs in that instant become lvl 50+ depending on your level.
Two: the secondary ingredient needed to making a single potion, food or drink actually costs MORE than the actual potion, food or drink you are making. Yes, you HAVE to buy the secondary ingredient from an NPC vendor. And, yes, the vendor next to him sells the potion, food or drink you are making for a cheaper cost than the secondary ingredient PLUS you have to get the loot drop of the primary ingredient.
Three: Rarity of primary ingredients dropping from mobs. You can kill a lvl 40-49 yeti a thousand times to try to get a Yeti Bile so you can make a lvl 40 health potion and you won't get the Yeti Bile; instead, the yeti drops...health potions. Or, even worse, you need scorpion venom to make one food item, however, there are no lvl 40-49 scorpions in the game! rofl. What's worse is you cannot advance to tier two(the level 50 potions/drinks/food, until you turn in the quest items(lvl 40 potions/drinks/food) which means you CANNOT advance.
Four: I thought number three was funny but actually, the fact that you cannot turn in your quest items is probably even more annoying because, apparently, you have to turn in ALL quest items for every tier one quest at the same time for alchemy. Result: a bank 3/4 full of tier one resources and quest items plus the rest of your bank and your player bag full of future tier resources and items.
Funcom Fix to these issues so far: AH now works. You can now list items for sale. However, food and drink items cannot be seen on AH. Also, they've now changed some resource(not alchemy) items to stack up to 1000.
Now, you probably think I'm just whining about Alchemy but NOOOO. The other crafts have problems too; however, they have work arounds...like armorsmithing or weaponsmithing, you make an item then need to zone again before making another item(this is the solution work around for crafting your quest items).
Comments
I would say enjoy the flames from the fanboys but the crafting is weak enough that all they have is excuses. I believe Funcom say they will overhaul it, but I dunno I never got the feeling they had much in the way of good ideas for crafting.
Basically crafting in AoC is turning out as I expected. It seemed like it was mostly meant to be a guild timesink/barrier.
I think they were pretty smart to allow harvesting/gathering at lvl 20 and putting off crafting until lvl 40. But, there's something missing about it; I think they should have more crafting quests, maybe a practice type crafting quest for each craft at lvl 30 to allow people to try them all out before deciding.
Thats actually a very very good idea.
Where do I go to get harvesting skills? I am a 27 demo now (on Doomsayer).
Ugh I hope they overhaul crafting. I tried it for around a half hour one day and was so turned off by how lame it was, I haven't touched it since.
I had the same problem. The NPCs were under the buildings. You could still get to them and accept the quest. Was very annoying since you had to run quite far to get back on top of the walkways. Dunno if they've fixed it. I cancelled my account.
The trainers are in a little town in Poitain. I forget the name.