Star Wars Galaxies is the pinnacle of crafting with EVE Online and Everquest 2 following up right behind it.
Like many have posted, I found Vanguard to be annoyingly tedious. The mini game seemed less concerned with your stats and more concerned with random, terrible happenings.
Then you didn't really play it through. Those that played, know crafting is all about gear and stats.
The EQ2's crafting system is very simplistic at its core and the "mini game" after the first levels is just button mashing.Vanguard crafting system is top notch IMO but it needs more crafting quests and quest lines especially in the mid to max lvl.
Istaria has one of the best crafting system but it is a bit grindy too.
Star Wars Galaxies is the pinnacle of crafting with EVE Online and Everquest 2 following up right behind it.
Like many have posted, I found Vanguard to be annoyingly tedious. The mini game seemed less concerned with your stats and more concerned with random, terrible happenings.
Then you didn't really play it through. Those that played, know crafting is all about gear and stats.
Vanguard crafting goes through several stages:
1. Isle of Dawn 1-10: You basically go through the questline and thats it. Nothing else to crafting at this stage. Especially you cant create anything worthwhile.
2. Banisher New Targonor / Ahgram / Tawar Galan 11-25: I usually try to strech this stage to 25 or higher, by doing some WOs in between, so I have less of a boring grind after. With level 25 you start to be kind of useful - T2 stuff is easy to do, as an Artificer you can manage Repair Stones, as an Leatherworker T2 saddlebags ...
3. Masterwork Sigils: Once you can manage Tier 3+ batches to all grade A, the big grind to get your sigils starts. Also use the bag of wonder daily (it sometimes drops sigils), and check the broker for recipes (they drop from diplomacy). This way getting enough sigils should be done pretty soon. My last level 50 crafter has handed in about 40 sigils for ancient plat because I didnt needed them for anything else.
4. Society Quests 25/28/35: Quests are getting thin now. More and more one enters the big grind for sigils. Thanks to the Banisher Questline, one has great equipment for that level, at least compared to the status before. The society quests add great jewelry and an kickass apron.
5. The big big grind ca 30 - 50: Several big quests in between, like Magi Hold level 47 (but you need civic buffs or good gear for the last stage), but basically you have to find a routine to not lose motivation. A good idea is for example: every day you play, get to a crafting outpost, craft 3-9 batches (30-90min) to all grade A (the highest you can manage), and then do adventuring after.
6. Double XP weekends: There is definitely nothing better to level than crafting on double XP weekends. Safe your double xp potions for these occasions. You can literally fly through the levels this way. Oh, and you will still get more than enough sigils even if you would exclusively only level at these weekends - so dont worry.
7. Pantheon of the Ancients 50-55: Here you get your final gear, and the big recipes.
It ranks tedious, grindy, and bot ridden. The concept of chopping trees for materials, collecting things to make houses, crafting things to make boats are GREAT concepts. But the skilling part is boring, tedious, and very grindy. It was so bad that everywhere I turned, there were automated bots skilling up. This is what I would call it another great ideas, but bad execution. I'd much rather skill up by making items like crafting in other games, versus doing work orders.
I would rank it as one of the better more involved ones. A bit too grindy for my taste, which is odd because I play Istaria as well (boy that game is a grind). Howeve rwhat made it grindy was not just the click fest but that I wasn't really interested in the things I could craft.
Crafting a house would be nice, but I feel too limited in my choices so didnt' care about the house. Never did make a boat though, that might be good.
Anyway, definately one of the better ones.
edit - when they go f2p if they ever had brick and board building like in eq2 or just expans the selection like in Istaria, I am so all over this thing. Flight, great housing, bards, nice graphics, ships.... yep it could work well. Oh and change the way elves run, sheesh, running so stiff like and slighly sashaying (sp) egads, can't stand the way my dark elf runs.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Comments
Then you didn't really play it through. Those that played, know crafting is all about gear and stats.
The EQ2's crafting system is very simplistic at its core and the "mini game" after the first levels is just button mashing.Vanguard crafting system is top notch IMO but it needs more crafting quests and quest lines especially in the mid to max lvl.
Istaria has one of the best crafting system but it is a bit grindy too.
Vanguard crafting goes through several stages:
1. Isle of Dawn 1-10: You basically go through the questline and thats it. Nothing else to crafting at this stage. Especially you cant create anything worthwhile.
2. Banisher New Targonor / Ahgram / Tawar Galan 11-25: I usually try to strech this stage to 25 or higher, by doing some WOs in between, so I have less of a boring grind after. With level 25 you start to be kind of useful - T2 stuff is easy to do, as an Artificer you can manage Repair Stones, as an Leatherworker T2 saddlebags ...
3. Masterwork Sigils: Once you can manage Tier 3+ batches to all grade A, the big grind to get your sigils starts. Also use the bag of wonder daily (it sometimes drops sigils), and check the broker for recipes (they drop from diplomacy). This way getting enough sigils should be done pretty soon. My last level 50 crafter has handed in about 40 sigils for ancient plat because I didnt needed them for anything else.
4. Society Quests 25/28/35: Quests are getting thin now. More and more one enters the big grind for sigils. Thanks to the Banisher Questline, one has great equipment for that level, at least compared to the status before. The society quests add great jewelry and an kickass apron.
5. The big big grind ca 30 - 50: Several big quests in between, like Magi Hold level 47 (but you need civic buffs or good gear for the last stage), but basically you have to find a routine to not lose motivation. A good idea is for example: every day you play, get to a crafting outpost, craft 3-9 batches (30-90min) to all grade A (the highest you can manage), and then do adventuring after.
6. Double XP weekends: There is definitely nothing better to level than crafting on double XP weekends. Safe your double xp potions for these occasions. You can literally fly through the levels this way. Oh, and you will still get more than enough sigils even if you would exclusively only level at these weekends - so dont worry.
7. Pantheon of the Ancients 50-55: Here you get your final gear, and the big recipes.
It ranks tedious, grindy, and bot ridden. The concept of chopping trees for materials, collecting things to make houses, crafting things to make boats are GREAT concepts. But the skilling part is boring, tedious, and very grindy. It was so bad that everywhere I turned, there were automated bots skilling up. This is what I would call it another great ideas, but bad execution. I'd much rather skill up by making items like crafting in other games, versus doing work orders.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Hmm.
I havent seen bots since years.
And every time I saw one, I reported them.
I would rank it as one of the better more involved ones. A bit too grindy for my taste, which is odd because I play Istaria as well (boy that game is a grind). Howeve rwhat made it grindy was not just the click fest but that I wasn't really interested in the things I could craft.
Crafting a house would be nice, but I feel too limited in my choices so didnt' care about the house. Never did make a boat though, that might be good.
Anyway, definately one of the better ones.
edit - when they go f2p if they ever had brick and board building like in eq2 or just expans the selection like in Istaria, I am so all over this thing. Flight, great housing, bards, nice graphics, ships.... yep it could work well. Oh and change the way elves run, sheesh, running so stiff like and slighly sashaying (sp) egads, can't stand the way my dark elf runs.