LIVE Community Q&A on Crafting with Paul Sage!

Mithoron · Guild Founder Joined: 14 Aug 2007 Posts: 1447

EDIT: I've updated this post with all the Q&A's...just click the View Post and scroll through it and enjoy!!!

There will be a live Q&A session with Paul Sage (Creative Director of ESO) at 1:30 EST sponsored by TESO Elite on their forums. Here are the blurbs:

The Elder Scrolls Online

Join us on Teso Elite today at 1:30PM EST for a live community Q&A about crafting with ESO Creative Director Paul Sage. The Q&A will be held on their forums, here: http://www.tesoelite.com/forums/threads/live-community-q-a-with-paul-sage-topic-crafting.937/

This Friday, March 7th 2014 TESO Elite will be hosting a LIVE community driven question and answer session with Creative Director Paul Sage.

Where: Right here, in this thread. Yes this one, the one you're currently reading. But how, it's locked? We'll unlock this thread when Paul Sage is ready to start taking questions.

When: March 7 2014, 1:30pm (EST, or GMT -5:00) until 3:30pm (EST, or GMT -5:00)

If you have any burning questions that relate to crafting, now is the chance to get it answered, right from the horses mouth. Not that I am calling Paul Sage a horse or anything... ahh crap, okay I think you have enough information.

http://www.tesoelite.com/forums/threads/live-community-q-a-with-paul-sage-topic-crafting.937/

Tydfil · Member Joined: 18 Feb 2014 Posts: 77

think i might be watching that

Mithoron · Guild Founder Joined: 14 Aug 2007 Posts: 1447

So here are the questions/answers that he covered (in chronological order)...

Crafted gear of equal level and equal quality rating is always better than dropped gear from a numerical standpoint. Weapons do more damage, armor has more... armor. However, certain enchantments can only be found on drops. Crafters can always improve those items which have unique enchantments. Legendary items do not drop...

There are definitely racial motifs which are rarer than others. Especially some of the higher tier motifs like the primative or daedric styles. Some of these are very difficult to find.

I would say you are going to have to make some choices about what you keep and what you don't. Bank space / inventory space is another limiter to being able to work on all crafting skills at once. It isn't impossible, it is just harder if that is what you choose to do. There's also a TV show about your "problem."

Yes and yes.

There is a guild store right now. If you join a guild you can sell items to your guild members. This might seem restrictive at first, but you can join five guilds. We expect trade consortiums to start up in the game. Part of the reason we have done it this way is we felt that with the Megaserver, being able to just find whatever you wanted at all times can really hurt the overall game. We love trading and want to encourage, but we don't want to kill the game in doing so. However, we are looking at ways for guilds to have an even larger presence in how they sell their goods.

That is something we'd like to do, but we have to do it in the right way.

As of right now, those are public access nodes. We have considered privatizing them, but again... we have to be careful about flooding the world with resources. I can't stress strongly enough how teamwork will help build up supplies.

Your crafting skills (inspiration) are not tied to your level (experience). As long as your find the resources and the skill points, you can craft high level gear and advance crafting without needed to level at the same pace.

It is hard to say, at first guess I would say Smithing. I think in the early game it will be Smithing and Enchanting. Enchanting is harder to find and level, so less crafters may yield more money rewards. Smithing is going to take more time and searching to master. Later on it will be Alchemy or Provisioning is my guess. Alchemy and Provisioning will have more demand because of the consumption rate. However, enchanting nodes are more scarce (though those will improve soon). Ya. I may have to go with Alchemy or Provisioning simply for consumption rates as the game becomes harder.

Not sure how long it takes to master a profession, but pretty long is my guess. ~200-300 hours. Assume top tier. It also depends on the professsion. Smithing will take longer because of research.

I think characters dedicated to crafting are awesome. Yay crafters.

We'll, hopefully, always expand on crafting as long as the game goes on. So I fully expect more styles.

Bank space and inventory space are friction elements for the economy. It is unlikely we will have a dedicate crafting inventory in the near future. Choice is important.

No dye system, yet...

We have a system in place for Imperial players to be able to switch the appearance of an item to Imperial Style. We may expand upon that.

What I meant by this was that having someone work on finding resources with you and sharing them while each of you concentrates on one profession is a good way to have all the resources you need. So, if I play with my son, and he collects all the Jute he sees for me and I collect all the Iron I see for him... we have more resources available. When you do this with multiple people as a guild, it goes much faster.

No. There is certainly no plan to allow that.

galletta said: ↑

Hello Mr. Sage!
I'm very pleased to have you here.

First question: Do you have any plans on improving the UI for the crafting tables (such as the woodworking bench) so we can filter even more what are we going to do?

Second question: We will be have the option to dye our armors? I would love to dye mine with the colors of TESO Elite (Unknown at the moment)

Third question: What do the devs think about custom particles for weapons and/or armors? I'm thinking about a gem that makes your helm bleed, or something like that, might be just cosmetic, but its the little things that makes me love this game.

Fourth question: Can I give you a hug? I felt so hard in love with TESO that I'm going to buy the Collectors Edition even I already have the digital imperial edition. I just want to give you a hug, like father and son, come on

1. We don't have any specific plans to work on the UI for crafting station improvements in the near future.
2. Answer unclear... ask again later. (Magic 8 ball reference.)
3. I like the idea, but I always want to be cautious about how many glowy things are on screen at once. It can make large-scale situations visually hectic.
4. Hugs always welcome.

Toorlokviing said: ↑

Greetings Paul Sage!

since crafting materials take up space in our bag...would it be possible to implement crafting bags for strictly crafting materials. i.e. herbs-alchemy,runes-enchanting, food-provisioning...those i feel take up the most space as all i did most of the time during beta was just collect resources...also i found potency runes to be in very short supply throughout the areas of the ebonheart pact i was testing in and was wondering if this was intentional..id rather find them in the world then deconstruct lol. bags if they were implemented for crafting only suggested have a different slot...would take up a few slots in your norm bag, but could hold up to 50 slots of the specified resource. these bags would make most sense to be crafted under clothmaking if they ever were implemented.

Our inventory space and bank space provides a much needed gold sink. Something useful to spend your money on. Currently, that friction is useful to the game, and removing that isn't something I think we want to pursue at this time.

No, there are no racial crafting bonuses. I don't know that these have ever been brought up internally. Interesting idea.

Daedric armor is a style in the same way Bosmer or Orc is a style. So while the light Daedric armor looks different from the heavy Daedric armor.

We do not have cloaks in the game at this time.

The top gear that drops will always be able to be improved by crafters. We have what internally we call "boosters" but are tannins, resins, and tempers for the Smiths. Using these, you improve the gear you find. Of course, unless you have a lot of them, you can't improve them without risk... For instance, there is a temper for Fine quality and one for Superior. If you need 5 tempers to get to Fine with a 100% chance of success, you might need 8 to get to Superior with a 100% chance of success. However, you could risk destroying the weapon by not using enough boosters as each booster adds a percentage of success.

You may have to adventure to get skill points. You could explore and find skyshard, or do quests, or level up, etc. There are many ways to get skill points. However, crafting gains will not grant you XP to level your character. They go into your crafting skills. Internally we call the meter for crafting inspiration. That is what you gain that allows you to unlock new crafting skills (passives.)

Runes give all the hints of that language they will ever give. However, you can now hear runes as they were always meant to be on our PTS. Each time you create a glyph, you will get to hear how the words are actually said.

We don't have plans for potions like that at this time.

Let's see if I can clear up traits. Traits are properties you can add to a weapon or armor piece. As the weapon increases in strength, so to do traits. (This is not true of enchants.) To learn to craft a trait on a weapon or armor piece, you must research it. This means you must find a like weapon or armor piece that has this trait and research that exact type. For instance, to learn the sharpened trait for daggers, you must find a dagger with the sharpened trait. Then you must destroy it to learn the trait. If this is the first trait you have learned on daggers, it will take six hours. The next trait you learn on daggers will take 12 hours. The next 24, and so on. If you wish to learn the sharpened trait on a sword, and it is the first trait, that will take 6 hours. So, you're probably going to have to specialize in the weapons and armor pieces you want to learn all the traits in.

Now traits aren't just beneficial for their own sake. Traits are the gates to crafting sets. To craft a set piece at a special set location, you have to know a certain amount of traits. It varies depending on the "set" you are trying to create. Some "set" pieces might require you to know 3 traits and some might require you to know 6. When you consider "set" bonuses need at least three pieces of gear to be worn before they kick in, you can see crafting will take dedication.

Item decay taken to item destruction certainly makes a small percentage of communities happy, but my experience with it is that it makes the hard work to get certain items very frustrating. Unless you means resources needed to repair gear and not full on destruction of equipment. However, we went with an economic answer for item repair vs. a crafting solution. Item decay can certainly work, but probably wouldn't work well in our system.

I don't think so. Maybe Lee Ridout (alchemy designer) could answer better than me on that one.

1. As River Song is fond of saying, "spoilers."
2. Of course, provided you meet the criteria.
3. Yes, or better.

Not entirely a crafting question, but the answer is no.

This is something the team is very much in favor of. VERY in favor of.

I will forward this to our UI team. (Done.) There may already be other answers out there, but let's see what we can do.

1. Crafting sets are not tied to level. You pick the set you want and it can be applied to any level gear. Traits requirements are stiff to make sure crafters are special.
2. We alter the stats in real time and have other ways of showing it has been improved.
3. There are styles which are rare. Mentioned above.
4. I am not sure I understand this question. Sorry.
5. From an enchanting perspective? Some enchants are already built in and make that dropped gear unique. This is what makes dropped gear stand out.
6. If I understand the question, the latter.

You get these from three sources:

1. Hirelings. They are pretty good at sending these to you, especially if you have ranked them up.
2. Extraction. Depending on the weapon or armor will give you these.
3. Refinement. Another way to get the "boosters."

They are restricted to these methods, because we want crafters to be valuable.

Capped at the first.

No katanas at this time.

In the future, I would not be surprised to see poisons.

Thanks for asking. There are a number of reasons, but perhaps the most important to me is the offline experience. There is something special about logging in and seeing something complete. It is hard to explain, but I love that moment when I can research a new trait, craft a new thing, or even feed my horse after logging back in. Also, it ramps the game up more slowly. Not everyone will be able to craft everything right away. It is going to take time for the game to mature. And perhaps finally, it also makes the dedicated crafter stand out just a little bit more.

Some of those will be in for launch. However we will not have crafted crossbows in.

It is. You'll get more inspiration if you break down an item you find or another crafter makes.

Hah. Sir Paul's last name is McCartney, and he is WAY more awesome. We won't have housing in for launch, but if we did have housing at some point, having a garden would be neat.

The costume slot is designed for our disguise mechanic and our costumes. We'll almost certainly be expanding the variety of costumes as the game continues. There are costumes you get right now for hitting Vet Ranks. As for adding a toggle for shoulders, I don't think that is something we have considered up to this point. Mostly, I believe, because shoulders aren't like faces where you have put a ton of detail into them and want to see them.

The high payoffs of crating will take time and effort investment. I don't think we're interested in short-cutting that.

We have upped the drop rates on some of these items to improve your ability to advance in Woodworking. That said, there is always the possibility of adding more items made of wood to the game.

I think we would like to add more to it, yes. But it is still a very valuable profession.

1. I am partial to smithing.
2. Enchanting is easiest to learn, most difficult to raise. (We are looking into this.)
3. Alchemy
4. I can only speak for myself on this one. I spent the most time on Smithing. The whole team did fine work: Dan Wellman, Marc Hudgins and Chris Strasz on UI, Brad Derrick and Josh Smith on sounds, and of course the myriad of artists who worked on this. Systems like this are huge.

Most crafted gear is tradeable, because craftspeople need to be able to sell their wares.

You just discover them by alchemisting, alchemicaling, alchemying, alstoprighthere.

You add a skill point to the skill and they send you a nice mail the next time you log in (assuming you were logged out for a while), with materials attached. You should read the mail. There are good stories that Wynne McLaughlin and the writing team added to the mails.

Well, as I mentioned, it actually goes up in time. And yes, it is going to stay.

This is something we've discussed, but doing so would take a lot of development time. It isn't high on our priorities right now, but things change.

Efficiently is a tricky word as it could mean different things. But no, you can hit 50 without crafting or buying crafted gear. It will make it easier if you do I think. Support your local crafters!

1. Not at this time.
2. Almost assuredly.
3. Not at this time, but eventually, anything is possible.

I am going to have to wrap it up for the day. I'd like to thank everyone for coming out to ask questions, and give a special "thanks" to our hosts TESO Elite. If I didn't get to your question, I am sorry. If I brutalized grammar or spelling in my attempt to answer quickly, please forgive me. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone in at launch on 4-4-2014, and maybe earlier if you're there for the head-start. Thanks so much,

Paul

Hamfast58 · Member Joined: 27 Feb 2014 Posts: 475

I am not sure what the secret was to be able to post a question, thankfully most I wanted to ask (Jewelry Crafting, Die's for armor, something else that slipped my mind) were asked... except for the one that slipped my mind... but it slipped my mind in any case.

I also wanted to ask if there was a chance that Paul and the Crafting Development team could answer the other questions asked in a blog type format, with almost 20 pages of questions only a fraction could get answered real time by Paul.

Thanks for the transcript Mithoron.

Mithoron · Guild Founder Joined: 14 Aug 2007 Posts: 1447

Yeah, I asked a few questions myself and none got answered...

TruenoBoricua · Member Joined: 04 Mar 2014 Posts: 118

Stoked for crafting.

Hamfast58 · Member Joined: 27 Feb 2014 Posts: 475

Mithoron wrote:

Yeah, I asked a few questions myself and none got answered...

one got answered, it was just asked by someone else...

Arch-Eon · Member Joined: 21 Feb 2014 Posts: 100

Mithoron wrote:

Yeah, I asked a few questions myself and none got answered...

xD he didnt reply to YOUR questions, but he did answer someone else who asked similar things xD.

BTW I saw you sneaky way of asking when the next beta would be held xD

Mithoron · Guild Founder Joined: 14 Aug 2007 Posts: 1447

Arch-Eon wrote:

BTW I saw you sneaky way of asking when the next beta would be held xD

Hehehe, but he didn't fall for it! ;)

Valudshen · Member Joined: 10 Mar 2014 Posts: 31

No katana? So sad... I hope they add them

LIVE Community Q&A on Crafting with Paul Sage!

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re: LIVE Community Q&A on Crafting with Paul Sage!

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re: LIVE Community Q&A on Crafting with Paul Sage!

re: LIVE Community Q&A on Crafting with Paul Sage!

re: LIVE Community Q&A on Crafting with Paul Sage!

re: LIVE Community Q&A on Crafting with Paul Sage!

re: LIVE Community Q&A on Crafting with Paul Sage!