Lots of questions

[Rasa]

I'm new to this so bear with me please If anyone would be so kind as to answer some questions I would be most appreciative. I'll even give you a /hug


Work Orders:
I was told batches are best. You skill up faster, get more xp, and get better coin plus an item which may be a rare. So that's what I've been doing.

Does the level of difficulty have any effect on how much xp I earn? On how much I skill up? On how much coin I earn?

Does the quality of the items I turn in have any effect on how much xp I earn? On how much I skill up? On how much coin I earn?


Items:
I haven't made any items yet. I've just been doing work orders trying to get to lvl 8 asap (so I can make bags).

Do I use the same tables to make items? I assume the recipe will tell me I'm at the correct table, right? I've only looked at some recipes and always see "You do not have all the items necessary...." I'm assuming those items are things I need to make but I want to be sure I'm at the right area. I don't expect a walk through

Thanks for your help if you are so inclined!

[Jelonna]

I believe the quality of the items you turn in effects your rewards...as well as the difficulty of the work order.

As far as which table, there is a refining taskmaster and a finishing taskmaster. The table you use will depend on which taskmaster you got it from. Also, a table will only show you the recipes you can make on that table; i.e. the finishing table won't show you refining recipes.

Some of those "you do not have all the items necessary" messages were bugs involving the game not recognizing certain tools. That error was supposedly fixed in the last patch, and I think it mostly affected artificers but keep your eye out for that too.

[Ysharros]

Originally Posted by Rasa

Work Orders:
I was told batches are best. You skill up faster, get more xp, and get better coin plus an item which may be a rare. So that's what I've been doing.

On singles, all you'll get is money (edit - and xp; you always get at least some xp for turning them in, even if you don't get much for making the items). Sets give items (vendor trash usually, possibly a resource (eg a hide)) and money, and batches give money, vendor trash, and occasionally nice stuff like a piece of clothing or a better tool.

I'm still not sure whether the difficulty of the work order affects this - I've had some really nice stuff from easy work orders. The quality of what you turn in does affect it. As far as I've seen, not turning in a full batch means you don't have a chance at the yummy stuff - at least, I've never had goodies for turning in less than five.

As a rule of thumb, it seems to be 1-2% on turnin for Very Easy / Easy work orders, 3-5% for moderates, and 5-8% for difficult. How much you get for making each item appears to vary too much for me to be able to measure with a thumb right now.

Does the level of difficulty have any effect on how much xp I earn? On how much I skill up? On how much coin I earn?

Yes. Harder work orders give much more xp. They seem to be fiddling with the rates right now so it's hard to say anything definite - the other day, for instance, I was getting 4-5% xp *per item* as I made a batch of difficult stuff, and this was for quality D & C, and then another 6-8% when I turned it in. This morning I did a difficult set and got all of 2% per item, when I got anything at all (also Cs and Ds). The first char was my outfitter and this morning was with a blacksmith, though I'm not sure if this has any influence (it shouldn't, but who knows).

Note also that difficulties aren't even within the same group. A moderate work order, for instance, can be 1 level above or below you, or equal to yours - and you'll get more xp for the one above you in level. You should be able to tell relative difficulties by their position in the work order list - though I've seen the "Nearly Impossible" WOs suddenly show up at the bottom again, so I'm not sure what's going on there right now.

Does the quality of the items I turn in have any effect on how much xp I earn? On how much I skill up? On how much coin I earn?

On the coin, I'm not sure. On the skillups, I believe you have a better chance of skilling up on items that are more difficult (the wider the gap, the more often you'll skill up). The xp is harder to answer as I said above, but in theory yes, you get more xp from better quality items.

To add to what Jelona said, it's worth knowing that you can put more items on the table for "made for use" stuff than for work order stuff. Up to level 10 you can only put 3 things on the table for a work order, versus 5 for a "real" item - after 10 you get an extra slot for each, and I assume more again as you level into the following tiers. (It may be level 11 now, since they're playing around with the tier stuff.)

[kreen]

I couple of points would add:

You get xp from your first successful attempt at completing a real recipe and its a very good xp return, better than a set WO. So as you level up it worth making each recipe once.

They are changing the xp rewards somewhat at present. Blacksmith seems harder than outfitter, my friend was levelling outfitter faster than me in a 3 hour session we had a few days ago and we were using the same strategy, getting similar results and keeping the same pace.

My strategy right now is as follows: this balances rare rewards and xp.

As soon as I level I grab a refining and finishing batch WO, one is a easy, the other is a mod. I then complete these. By the end of it my skills are almost fully assigned.
I then grab any new recipes I have and make what is fairly easy to do.
Then I start grabbing single item moderate WO's until I hit the next level - these seem to deliver the best xp versus time spent.

The only down side here is I think I am now lacking in gear at level 11.5. Probably due to not enough batch WO's. Hopefully i can fix this by buying some crafter gear from other crafters who have outgrown it.

You get more coin from WO's based on grade you return.

[Ysharros]

Originally Posted by kreen

They are changing the xp rewards somewhat at present. Blacksmith seems harder than outfitter, my friend was levelling outfitter faster than me in a 3 hour session we had a few days ago and we were using the same strategy, getting similar results and keeping the same pace.

I can confirm this but I thought it was a difference in patches. A couple of days ago I literally flew my outfitter from not-quite-9 to most of the way through 11 by doing high-moderate and difficult batch work orders. I was amazed at the amount of xp I was getting per item made - with the blacksmith, I'd got accustomed to getting *maybe* 2% even for a difficult item, less or none for mods / easies. As a result I assumed that batches were for goodies and money, and that singles were clearly for xp - because as a blacksmith, I was much better off doing singles (and getting turnin xp each time) than doing batches, at least for experience.

[Rasa]

Thank you all for the answers and advice! I've already learned a lot from what you've posted


/hugs

[Ysharros]

Welcome to the Dark Side Happy crafting!

Man, I wish I could get money for each new addict I help create.

.... that doesn't sound right...

[Rasa]

Hmmm.... some more questions if you all don't mind


I just took a look at my recipes for Primary Components. I don't understand the ingredients or where I'm supposed to get these things. For example, I have a recipe for "Kojani Mangled Leather Hand Wraps." It lists the following ingredients:
3 Mangled Bundle
3 Drifter's Mangled Bundle
3 Brigand's Mangled Bundle
3 Sentry's Mangled Bundle
3 Mystic's Mangled Bundle

Ok.... what is a mangled bundle? I have mangled hides. How do I "bundle" them? And what are these Drifter's/Brigand's/Sentry's/Mystic's bundles?

And one more question - I am trying to get my Leatherworking skill up. I keep selecting WO's that the recipe skill they use is Leatherworking, but it is not raising. It doesn't matter if I choose a moderate, difficult, or easy WO. What am I missing?

Again, I don't expect a walk through. I really like that crafter is not just a matter of clicking buttons. But I have been racking my brain over this. Any tips or hints would be much appreciated

[Ysharros]

The Mangled Bundle is a refining recipe you get at level 4 (not 3 for some reason) and is the basic processing recipe for tier 1 leather.

The Primary Component listing is a "ItemX" OR "ItemY" OR "ItemZ" kind of list - so in your example above, the recipe asks for a mangled bundle OR any one of the others.

The Drifter's, Brigand's, Sentry's and Mystic's Bundles are bundles that have been enhanced, at creation, with one of the special dusts crafters can use - if you look at the mangled leather bundle recipe, you should see a line that will let you add a... gah, I forget the word, might be "catalyst" - that would be the dust. Enhanced bundles are made just like normal mangled bundles except that at a given stage in the process the dust you added to the table is incorporated into the thing you're making.

As for your leatherworking skill, that sounds odd. One thing to check would be to make sure that the skill isn't locked (open the char sheet, crafting section, skills tab at the bottom), or indeed maxed out. If the latter, you're obviously doing something right. :-) If it's not locked of maxed chances are you just don't have any available points because they're already allocated across all three skills in that group - tailoring, leatherworking, outfitting. The beauty of the system is that we don't get enough points to max out all 3 skills in a group, so you'll have to reduce one of the other two if you want to increase leatherworking. If you intend to specialise as an LW rather than a tailor, you could set tailoring to go down, or just lock it so that when you level it doesn't go up and the points can go into LW.

After all that, if it's none of the above, you need to make sure you're getting WOs from the finishing taskmaster (refining ones won't raise leatherworking) and, as you've already noted, make sure they're leatherworking recipes. You mentioned that though, so I suspect the issue may be that you simply don't have any points available for it right now.

Keep asking questions. Helping out makes me feel useful!

[Rasa]

Ahhhh see I didn't know we couldn't max out everything Makes sense! Thank you so much for the answers. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions.


/hugs Ysharros