How does the crafting changes break the game?
So, if they intend it to take (insert length of time here) to craft [insert item here] and it takes (insert length of time here) to farm [insert crafting material here]. Then it's working as intended, no?
I'm pretty sure everyone raging about crafting has imposed their own assumed timeline on how long it should take?
Either way it's a lose/lose and always will be. had the affect been reversed, everyone would have cheered. 1 day after the update everyone would have crafted everything and running around in the DZ finding out everyone else is just as geared and buggied on over to complain about how easy it is to achieve max gear. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. It all comes down to, people aren't happy unless they are getting something. I play with a lot of people and that's where the fun is. The possibility of pulling out an item with great stats from the crafting table, that's just a bonus.
Take an already bad crafting system, and then stretch it by almost 300%.. Its a ****ty way to artificially lengthen game time, to keep people playing, while they hurredly piece together some content, because they didnt implement enough in the base game, to keep people playing long enough to stick around and pay for dlc..
To sum up.. Not enough content to begin with.. Implement ridiculous, lengthy, grind heavy, rng based craft system... keeping players in game...come up with some actual content.. Sell said content to whomever stuck around through all that boredom!
Another thing is the change in Crafting demonstrates (in an indirect way) is the devs are either incompetent, or have no clue how a real Loot Grinder is supposed to work.
To use a cliche, they are putting a band aid on a sucking chest wound without addressing what is fundamentally wrong with the game at its core, IMO.
Loot grinders live and die by the amount of different loot that is offered and how often players... at all levels... Are rewarded with good drops. That doesn't mean players are asking for every single drop to be a HE, but the fact is the drop tables are so out of whack there are reports of people farming the DZ for 6-8 hours straight and not getting a single, good drop out of it. Something is wrong and is a symptom of not knowing what drives a Loot grinder and its players.
The exploiting only compounded the problem (as did giving "too many" PC to legit players pre-patch), so now it's like they are trying to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. These crafting changes do not make the gear a.ka. loot we get better. It doesn't make the game play any different for either PVP or PVE -- Another thing real MMO designers know to separate and this includes post-end game content as well (gear is divided into both PVP and PVE variants to keep both parties going).
Last but not least, new players or players who have lives outside of gaming will never catch up. Part of this is normal for any on-going game, but not to the point it will literally be the first batch of people who either played the game through in a few hours and/or exploited their way to hundreds of PC credits and already have the high-end gear. On the PC, this is compounded because people use aim hacks to literally walk through the challenge missions over and over again as an infinite source of Phoenix Credits. Rinse and repeat where the top end players are still benefiting and the casual, or less serious players won't stand a chance in the DZ for Supply Drops, or anything else for that matter.