At the Crafting Station

In the previous post it was mentioned that this post would cover the features of the crafting station as well as the discovery process. In addition to these topics this post will take a brief look at the bank and its benefits, because in practice the bank is also a part of the crafting station.

Crafting stations are the places where one trains and performs their craft as well as discovers how to make products they’ve not been able to make before. The discipline specific crafting stations are located nearby the trainers of those disciplines, who again are displayed on the map with the discipline specific icons. The stations are often located quite close to each other, or are otherwise positioned in logical pattern. Crafting stations can be found in every city as well as in some explorable areas.

When one walks up to the crafting station and begins to use it, they will see a pane with four tabs: production, discovery, bank and collections.

The production tab shows all known recipes for the discipline. By clicking a recipe in the product list, you will be able to see what materials are required for crafting the product. When you start crafting the item, you can specify how many you wish to craft or alternatively select Craft All. The advantage of crafting multiple items at once is that the crafting time is halved every time one continuously crafts a certain kind of item.

When you click on a recipe, the materials required for crafting the item are displayed.

The recipes are color coded by how much character experience crafting the item yields. There are four colors to illustrate the amount of experience: orange, green, white and gray. Orange means one will gain a good amount of experience, green indicates a decent amount, white only a small amount and gray means no experience. There are also recipes which names are displayed in red: this means that the crafting skill level is not quite yet high enough for crafting the item, but if one trains their crafting discipline a little bit more, the recipe will turn orange and they will be able to craft it. By being able to see the red soon-to-be-available recipes, you are given a chance to plan ahead how you will train your crafting discipline further, and possibly avoid using up the materials required in the near future.

You do not always need to go to the crafting station to be able to see what items you can make; you can open a similar pane showing all known recipes for their disciplines via the hero pane anywhere in the world. However, it does not allow you to craft the items; crafting must always be done at the crafting station.

In Guild Wars 2 one can obtain recipes in the following three ways: automatically every 25 skill levels when training their discipline, by obtaining recipe sheets from merchants all around the world and then studying them, and by making discoveries at the crafting station.

You are able to research and discover new recipes by using the discovery tab. To make a discovery means finding maximum of four compatible materials that together make a useful product.

The materials one wishes to experiment with need to be located in one’s inventory. The materials which are suitable for making discoveries will automatically get displayed in the discovery tab’s material section. The materials then need to be either drag-and-dropped or double-clicked into one of the four material slots in the main section of the discovery tab – on the table so to speak. When an item is placed into a material slot, the materials that are not compatible with it are faded out in the material section, so it is easier for one to see which of the other materials go well with the material already placed on the table. When one puts a compatible material on the table to accompany the first, the selection of compatible materials is usually decreased even further; after all the available materials need to be compatible with both of the materials now placed on the table.

In the previous post the construction of jewelry was explained. It was told that for example a ring is constructed of a band, a setting and a gemstone or a jewel. If one places a copper band into one of the discovery slots; hooks, chains and bands as well as gemstones, jewels and settings that belong to another material tier get faded out in the material selection. One is then only able to combine a setting and a gemstone or a jewel of the same tier level with the band already placed on the table.

When you place a material on the table, you are also able to see how many discoveries you are able to make by using that material or the combination currently on the table. You can use this information to craft exactly the required amount of refined materials or components for making all of the discoveries.

There exists 5 recipes that can be discovered by using the materials currently on the table, and one material currently
in the inventory is compatible with them. Materials that are in the inventory but can no longer be used
for making more discoverieswon't get displayed in the material selection.

When one finds a new combination of compatible materials, they see a message “This looks like something! Craft the item to save the recipe”. When one presses the craft button, the materials required by the discovery will be used up and one will get the discovered item as well as learn the recipe permanently in return. Making a discovery yields twice the amount of experience one would normally gain from crafting that item.

A message telling that one has found a new combination
 of materials that together make something useful!

Some crafting materials require a higher skill for being used in discoveries than others. Some discoveries also require more than one unit of a material for a discovery. A subtle error message is displayed on the discovery tab when one of these situations occur. You should take note of this kind of experiment and try again later with either a higher crafting skill level or more materials. Taking the materials off the table happens the same way as putting them on: either double-click or drag-and-drop them back to the material selection, or press the Reset button.

There also exists a crafting station that does not belong to any discipline: the Mystic Forge. If you throw compatible items into the forge, you will get something else in return. This mysterious subject will be covered at a later time.

The bank is a place where one can store the items they do not need often enough that it would be beneficial to carry them around all the time. By depositing items into the bank, one can for example make room for new items that are found while exploring. In essence the bank is a completely separate entity, a place where one can walk into to deposit or withdraw items from their personal safe.

The bank tab at the crafting station allows one to access the bank straight from the crafting station without having to go to the bank to either deposit or withdraw crafting materials or finalized products. The bank tab was not a part of the crafting stations during the first two beta weekends, but was later on added thanks to ArenaNet carefully listening to players’ requests. Having the bank tab available at the crafting station helps the chef discipline in particular. Chefs need more different types of materials than the other disciplines for crafting their products as well as for discovering new recipes. A chef might not be able to fit all of the ingredients in their bags at once, and if the bank was not accessible from the crafting station, the chef would often need to run back and forth between the bank and the crafting station to be able to experiment with all the different types of ingredients.

In addition to the normal bank tab there is also a collections tab. The collections tab stores 250 units of every raw material as well as mini pets. When one has deposit 250 units of a certain material in their collectables tab, they need to store the rest in their normal bank tab.

The collections section of the bank has room for 250 units of each kind of raw ingredient.

It is possible to deposit collectable materials into the collectables tab from anywhere in the world by clicking the item or the cogwheel icon in the inventory and selecting deposit, provided that the limit of 250 units has not been reached. Components cannot be stored in the collections tab and hence must be stored in the normal bank tab.

There is an option in the inventory pane to deposit all collectible items into the
bank's collections tab. Just click on the white cogwheel icon
near the top-right corner to open the menu!

There’s one more thing which is not exactly a part of the crafting station, but is nearby and important to remember: the discipline trainer at the crafting station can also sell materials and recipes for the discipline. When training a discipline, you should check what items your trainer has to offer.

All in all the crafting station is a very well planned feature that allows one to perform almost all of the crafting related actions in one place which removes the unnecessary traveling between places and allows players to focus on what they enjoy the most: the crafting itself.

The Basics of Crafting in Guild Wars 2

This blog will start off by covering the more basic topics of crafting and trading. Guild Wars 2 is due to come out in two weeks time and right after the launch there will be a lot of players who did not get a chance to participate in the beta events and who can benefit from the kind of information when stepping into the crafting districts and trading posts for the very first time. The more experienced crafters have no need to get worried though: more advanced topics will be seen here soon enough.

This post covers the very basics of crafting in Guild Wars 2. Because crafting consists of many different aspects that need to be taken into consideration, this post offers only a brief overview of those aspects in order to keep the length of this post reasonable. The individual aspects will be covered in greater depth in the future. In this post we take a quick look at the crafting disciplines and their products, activation of disciplines, gathering, the crafting stations, training of the crafting skill and ways to obtain new recipes.

Before moving on to the actual topic, I wish to elaborate a little on the term discipline and why it is used in Guild Wars 2. Many other MMORPGs use the term profession when referring to a certain type of craft. Because the term is so commonly used in other games, it also has been used quite a bit in relation to Guild Wars 2, which has occasionally caused confusion. In Guild Wars 2 as well as in the original Guild Wars, the term profession means the same thing as the term class means in many other MMORPGs: the character type, such as warrior or ranger. If a player uses the term profession to talk about a crafting discipline in Guild Wars 2, another player might think that they are actually talking about a character type. It is likely that the developers of Guild Wars 2 chose to use the word discipline in order to avoid this kind of confusion.

Now, to the actual overview of crafting. There are total of eight crafting disciplines in Guild Wars 2: armorsmith, artificer, chef, huntsman, jeweler, leatherworker, tailor and weaponsmith. These disciplines allow the player to craft different types of items that can benefit them or their fellow players in one way or another. Such items are weapons, armor, armor dyes, potions, jewelry, meals and item containers. One can learn all of these disciplines on one character, but only two of them can be active (in a usable state) at a time. Disciplines are character specific, so you must perform the craft on the character that has received the training for that discipline. One also cannot move a trained discipline from one character to another. There are no ‘secondary disciplines’, ‘gathering disciplines’ or character level requirements for crafting like in some other MMORPGs.

Armorsmith, leatherworker and tailor craft different types of armor, runes (armor upgrades) and item containers more commonly known as bags. Armorsmith crafts heavy armor for warriors and guardians, leatherworker crafts medium armor for thieves, engineers and rangers, while tailor crafts light armor for the scholar professions: mesmer, elementalist and necromancer. Artificer, huntsman and weaponsmith craft weapons and sigils (weapon upgrades). Artificer crafts magical weapons such as staves, scepters and focus items, huntsman crafts mostly ranged weapons such as guns and bows, while weaponsmith crafts mostly melee weapons such as daggers and swords. In addition artificer also crafts potions which give their user temporary combat buffs. Jeweler crafts jewelry such as earrings and necklaces, and jewels which are upgrade components for jewelry. Chef prepares different types of meals, armor dyes and at least one potion called Ooze Custard which restores health. I will cover all of the different crafting disciplines in much greater detail in later posts.

One can learn a discipline by talking to its trainer. The trainers are marked on the map with discipline specific icons. As mentioned earlier, a player can learn all of the disciplines, but only two can be active at a time. In order to activate a discipline that is currently in a passive state, one needs to speak with the trainer NPC of the discipline. In the process of activating a discipline, one must choose which one of the currently active disciplines they wish to deactivate. The training received for the deactivated discipline will be retained, so one can later on simply reactivate the discipline and continue where they left off.

The locations of the trainers are marked on the map as small icons
that represent the discipline in question.

 
In addition to deactivating a discipline, one must pay the trainer an amount of copper coins that is equal to ten times the crafting level of the discipline they are activating. The maximum crafting level for each discipline is 400, so reactivating a discipline one has previously trained to its maximum level will cost 40 silver. Again, activating a discipline one has never trained before costs nothing because the skill level is still 0.

As mentioned earlier, there are no gathering disciplines, but one still needs to obtain materials for crafting. One can’t make armor without cloth, jewelry without beautiful gems or delicious food without ingredients. Some of the materials can be bought from merchants and karma vendors while some can only be obtained by gathering them.

In Guild Wars 2 everyone can gather all available materials. There are mineral veins, trees that are suitable for logging and edible plants all around Tyria one can gather using appropriate tools: mining pick, logging axe and sickle. Hostile NPCs sometimes carry materials such as cloth, leather, meat and more special materials called trophies which one can obtain after battle. In addition one can salvage existing armor and weapons for crafting materials by using a salvage kit. There also exist salvage items, which are specifically meant for salvaging and can be obtained from hostile NPCs. Gathering tools and salvage kits are bought from merchants all over Tyria. I will cover the different materials, the methods of obtaining them and other details related to gathering in depth in a future post.

The actual crafting by combining different materials happens at discipline specific crafting stations which have all the required tools available for performing the craft. One can find the crafting station for a discipline at its trainer. When one walks up to the crafting station and starts using it, a pane opens. Through this pane one can view what products they’ve learned to make, craft those products, discover ways to make new ones and access the bank. I will cover the features of crafting stations in greater detail in a later post.

Jeweler crafting station in Hoelbrak. It is marked with a sign and the jeweler trainer is waiting for apprentices nearby.

Usually one starts crafting by refining the raw materials such as copper ore into refined materials such as copper ingots. These refined materials are then used for making components. By combining up to four different components one is able to make an end product which will benefit its user. Depending on the discipline and product type, one of these components is an inscription, insignia, jewel, gemstone or a rune of holding, and the attributes of this component define what attributes the final product will have. The chef discipline is an exception to this rule: rather than following a predictable pattern, the recipes resemble real life cooking recipes.

One does not level a crafting discipline to its maximum skill by always using the same materials. There are different levels of materials that are split into six tiers. The tiers are based on the crafting levels of recipes that use those materials and mostly seem have 75 skill levels each. For example a tailor crafts armor using jute from level 0 to level 74, after which they learn to use wool on level 75. When they reach level 150 they can start using cotton. It was not possible to reach the maximum level in any crafting discipline in the beta weekend events because areas containing the higher level materials were unavailable for exploring. We can assume though that the later tiers follow the same pattern as the earlier ones, apart from the last tier that is either a larger (300-400) or a smaller section (375-400).

When leveling the crafting skill, some new recipes are learned automatically every 25 skill levels. Other recipes can be learned by purchasing a recipe sheet from a merchant and then studying the recipe written on it, and by experimenting with different materials and discovering new recipes in the process. Recipes often have a crafting level requirement before they can be learned. I will cover the different ways of obtaining recipes in a future post.

This post is closing to its end, but there is one more thing I still wish to mention: crafting gives experience that increases one’s character level. Reaching the maximum level in one discipline gives one 10 character levels. This makes it possible for one to reach level 80 – the maximum character level – by training every crafting discipline to the maximum level of 400. I will cover this topic in depth in another post.

In conclusion the things one needs to do when starting crafting are picking one or more disciplines, gathering materials required by those disciplines, performing their craft at the crafting station and keep on learning new recipes. There were many more things I wanted to explain here in greater detail but – considering the length this post has reached already – those things are better being left for later posts.