What a busy afternoon. Today , we were graced with the pleasure of hosting a community drive Q&A with the Creative Director of ESO, Paul Sage. This event went from 1:30pm EST to 3:30pm and he answered a lot of questions about crafting. Instead of having you go to this thread and read through them all yourself, I have taken it upon myself, after being forcibly told to by Vexx, to make a compiled list for everyone. So here it is! (you can also check out our old interview with Maria at Gamescom)
Roman said:
Hi Mr. Sage!, are Motif locations going to be in static bookshelves, or are they random throughout the world?
Random
Patrick Ramaker said:
In end game on ESO, will the Crafting gear be equivlent or better then dungeon drops? Most MMO’s gear crafting is only good to an extent which gets replaced quickly to the pve enthusiasts. Will the reward of say Legendary or Epic crafts be a notable difference then a drop anyone can get from a dungeon?
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…
TerrorCLASH said:
Paul,
How difficult is it to find racial motifs? Are there some motifs that are far more rare than others?
Thank you.
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.
Kytula said:
I love the fact that you can leave items in your bank and still use them for crafting. My concern is, I guess I horde to much of everything since I’m crafting everything, and run out of space really really quick. Is there away to fix this, or should i simple just keep selling my mats and make low level items to makes space?
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.”
davedesigns said:
Do crafted items have the same effects in Cyrodiil that they do in PvE? Can we bring back raw materials that we find in Cyrodiil to craft items in PvE?
Yes and yes.
Bryson Koning said:
Hi Paul! Is there going to be a mass trade/selling/buying system for crafting goods and other items? such as an auction house?
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.
Aimoss said:
We will be able to set some kind of store to sell our crafted items (apart from Guild stores) at some point in the game?
That is something we’d like to do, but we have to do it in the right way.
Thundercloud said:
Are the re sauce nodes for crafting always going to be free for all. Or will the nodes spawn for that person to pick or is it going to be a race to get it first like in the beta. Personally I don’t like the high demanded for competition for re-sauces. Gw2 made a nice change in adding that everyone could get the same node.
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.
Kaleka said:
Thank you for your time today Paul,
one quick question…I love crafting and want to know, Is crafting tied to your level? Meaning as long as I’ve invested into the skill lines can I be a level 20 character and craft lever 50+ items so long as I have the resources for it?
Thanks again 
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.
Evresbo said:
What do you think the most lucrative crafting profession will be at the launch?
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.
Onidra said:
Hi !
Thanks for the opportuniy
Some question from visitors of Game-Guide.fr (draganthyr and Aarha) :
For you, how long does it takes to master a profession. Is it possible ?
What do you think of characters dedicated to crafting ?
Will you put some items linked on pick up, when they are crafted ?
Will you add another styles, colors or traits in the future ? Or it’s over ?
Items for crafting take a lot of place. Will you implement an interface dedicated to crafting items like GW2 or Neverwinter ?
Why not a dye system ?
Can we use the appearance of an armor ? To keep statistics from one and appearance from the other ?
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.
Vaetilda said:
Hi Paul – can you elaborate on the significance of teamwork in crafting?
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.
Stan Ogden said:
Will I be allowed to steal from crafters ? Using say lag in trade window or just lying to them and walking off with their stuff ?
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.
davedesigns said:
Do any of the races have race-specific bonuses to crafting skills or do all races receive the same XP? For example Wood Elf gets more XP when crafting with wood, Orc gets more XP with blacksmithing, Nord gets more XP with provisioning, etc.?
No, there are no racial crafting bonuses. I don’t know that these have ever been brought up internally. Interesting idea.
Jellor said:
Hi Paul, I’ve seen in the last beta that it is possible to create Daedric Armor. My question is: Do all Daedric armor pieces look the same, or will they all have their own race influenced looks? (e.g. Argonian, Nordic, etc…)
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.
Drawberry said:
Bless you Mr.Sage for keeping up with this thread.
Here’s my question;
Winter is coming! Will we be able to craft snugly warm cloaks for our adventurers? Who doesn’t like a cloak, they’re very stylish after all.
We do not have cloaks in the game at this time.
Roger Thornton said:
Will we be able to craft or modify the top gear in the game, or will the top gear only be gainable through adventure zones and dungeon’s?
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.
Kagonos Kang said:
Can I go to the first station and craft and level up to get abi.ity points or do I need to go do quests and dungeons to gain levels to get the ability points? Does crafting gain experience towards the level of my character?
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.)
Silca Lune said:
Hi Paul and thank for this Q&A session.
I think I will choose Enchantment and would like ask you if in the game, it is possible to find in books or other, some recipe with the name of the runes and the enchantment’s effects ?
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.
Ganjarijuana said:
With alchemy crafting, will there be any potions you can create in which increase experience given, inspiration given, will they possibly increase your crafting skill levels, or even materials extracted whilst the effect is active from the potions?
We don’t have plans for potions like that at this time.
JacquesVisser said:
Greetings Paul – When you research a trait of lets say black smithing or Clothing example a item is heavy armor and for medium armor in a race skill of choice. Can that item you research help improve you to make advanced armor or weapon later on in game?
I Know it takes 6 hours to research one trait per item. I also have pics while I was black smithing it a detail name Creation weapon /armor set as in the ESO blacksmithing video
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.
Simsin said:
1. Can we craft Dragons ?
2. Can you give me all the gold you made from all those likes ?
Fus ro NAH.
(No to both questions.)
Kryptorchid said:
Thank you Mr. Sage for your time. I imagine you are pretty busy, especially this close to launch, but I just want to speak for everyone when I say all players appreciate your efforts in answering our questions.
So, my question is this:
Is having a vibrant crafting market important to your vision of the game, and if so, how will this be accomplished without item decay (which creates a constant need for new gear)?
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.
neptune612 said:
Can we look to Skyrim for help on alchemy ingredients?
I don’t think so. Maybe Lee Ridout (alchemy designer) could answer better than me on that one.
Asuna said:
1. Whats the highest level blacksmithing weapon’s called?
2. Can we craft Veteran Rank 10 items?
3. Is the gear we create on par with the highest level gear we can get from drops?
1. As River Song is fond of saying, “spoilers.”
2. Of course, provided you meet the criteria.
3. Yes, or better.
skyninjacid said:
will my pc beta stuff go to my ps4 beta and game? its on the same account.
Not entirely a crafting question, but the answer is no.
RedSatyr said:
Will we be able to have guild crests/logos on gear?
This is something the team is very much in favor of. VERY in favor of.
shad0wblade890 said:
Dear ESO dev team,
First let me say i really love the game!! I am a huge fan of the elder scrolls line and defiantly looking forward to the launch!! However there is only one thing that i think you can implant/change that is the rotation of the character/camera. i for one can only use my left hand due too cerebral palsy from birth that effects my n.system therefore i cant use my right side (uncontrollable). If you can add a option in the control settings that enables you to turn the camera using the keyboard (such as, Q,E) that will make a big difference. playing with a group, they wont know why your so slow and kick you out.Thank you,
sb890
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
Jose Rodriguez said:
(2nd time posted) But first, people keep the questions crafting related, so we can get answer faster and not take of he’s time to answer non-related questions.
Hello Mr. Sage!
1) Why the requirements for low lvl set gear are so high? (treats/research based)
2) Will Zenimax add a plus to items? (+1 +2 +3)
3) Will there be crafting patterns for rare gear/weapons?
4) Will there be gear to craft with random enchantments or with a chance of higher quality?
5) Why cant we “Improve” unique items?
6) There will be crafted weapon with random attack/spell power, or they are pre-set per lvl and quality?
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.
Raziel said:
The players can make tannin, resin, temper materials? Or this item can get for drop, chest, extracting and from hireling only?
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.
polarbearrex said:
there are 4 four effects for each herb in alchemy,can you learn more than first affect buy continuing to eat an ingredient or is it caped at the first ability
Capped at the first.
Valclorion said:
Will there be any one handed or two handed katana?
No katanas at this time.
-Rob- said:
Can we craft poisons?
If not will we see them later?
In the future, I would not be surprised to see poisons.
FoxPT said:
Hello Mr Paul why putting research time in crafting???
… 6h that means that people research one day and only can use that research in the next day probably because 6h its the time normally people gone play in a day week. Getting all the gear with everything to reasearch its a gigantic thing to do with 6 and + hours to research that will going to be a long and tedious crafting journey.
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.
Talos said:
will we have glass, amber, deadric, ebony, and stahlrim items to craft. What about crossbows?
Some of those will be in for launch. However we will not have crafted crossbows in.
Mark Kierstead said:
Paul,
We get not crafting experience when we improve an item, and we get very little experience when we break down an item we make. Is this working as intended?
It is. You’ll get more inspiration if you break down an item you find or another crafter makes.
polarbearrex said:
Sir Paul
Are there any plans to add farming to get provisions perhaps with the addition of peoples own personal home you could have garden in the yard.
second if we get personal homes are we going to get manikins to display our neatly crafted items.
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.
JD Dart said:
Costumes and visual customizing, there is an option to choose not to display helm but on some of the armour I have seen I would like to remove shoulders as well, I noticed a costume slot too, will there be more options on what can be displayed and a larger variety of costumes to help customize characters, make them more individual?
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.
Hoiyukin said:
With Crafting being as Viable as it is in TESO, the “upgrading” from a lower level item to a higher is incredibly difficult, time-consuming, & finance-consuming.
Will this be re-visited & re-interfaced in any ways?~Thank you. Hoiyukin.
The high payoffs of crating will take time and effort investment. I don’t think we’re interested in short-cutting that.
billydavey said:
Hi Paul,
Playing through the beta I unlocked crafting with Oak and have some of the raw materials, yet the only woodworking options I have to craft with is maple?
How does this work exactly?
If you have the right skill and the right materials, you should be able to craft with Oak. I can’t think of any reason you could not.
Mischa said:
Hi Paul,
Woodworking seems to have less craftable items than others. Are there any plans to add more?
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.
SaintOfMirren said:
Paul,
Great to have you here!
Is there any plan to make enchanting a bit more in depth of a crafting branch than it is?
I think we would like to add more to it, yes. But it is still a very valuable profession.
Boggie01 said:
Paul, in your own opinion.
1) What is your favorite crafting skill thus far?
2) What do you consider will be the hardest form of crafting to take on?
3) What do you predict will be the most popular form of crafting?
4) What part of the crafting system you and the devs have worked so very hard to make do you take most pride in?
Don’t be afraid to be modest. You and your devs get to brag at least once after all the hard work you have done, don’t you think?
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.
RazorLust said:
2nd time asking this one, but you’ve touched on a couple of the other questions I asked in a bulk post.
Not sure if you skipped this one intentionally, or just missed it:
At high levels are crafted items going to be Bind on Pick up to give exclusive benefit to crafters?? Or will there mats for crafting high level items be BOP??
Makes a difference to which toon picks up which craft….
Most crafted gear is tradeable, because craftspeople need to be able to sell their wares.
Toorlokviing said:
are there alchemy recipes in the game? or is recipes just discovered through crafting.
You just discover them by alchemisting, alchemicaling, alchemying, alstoprighthere.
davedesigns said:
How does the Hireling system work for receiving materials?
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.
Nick Carlysle said:
Is the 6 Hour timer for learning an enchant on a weapon going to stay?
Well, as I mentioned, it actually goes up in time. And yes, it is going to stay.
MeowMixz said:
Is there any plans to introduce preview (what item is going to look like on the character), before crafting ?
Thank you.
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.
Stan Ogden said:
Will players have to craft or buy crafted items to hit level 50 efficiently ?
^^^
So lying to people gets you banned ?
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!
TerrorCLASH said:
Hey Paul,
Huge fan! Played in 2 betas so far and was blown away! Favorite mechanic so far? Sneaking in PvP, perfect execution.
Now to my questions
#1- are you planning on addding an ancient dragon crafting style, extremely rare motif and insanely rare resources.
#2- will you continue to raise the max crafting level throughout ESOs life cycle?
#3- will we eventually be able to craft gear for our horses? i.e. a saddle bag for extra storage space, armour, horseshoes to increase speed etc.
Thanks you are all making a truly epic game.
1. Not at this time.
2. Almost assuredly.
3. Not at this time, but eventually, anything is possible.If you’re looking for addons, visit our ESO addons page.
