Collectables in crafting: how about including the most abundant "useless" item?

[Bradik_Losdar]

Gems.

Yes gems, we all hate to get them. Next to worthless (much like collectables), they just take up pack space and many times we just leave them in the chests for lack of room. Why not make them a little more worthwhile, just like collectables are finally going to be, by allowing them to be used in crafting too?

[Rindalathar]

My guess is that those receipes already released are not the full list of new crafting options. Perhaps your request will be fulfilled, come a few weeks time.

[Cendaer]

Also keep in mind that part of keeping a game like this balanced, is the inclusion of some sort of "useless" item in the treasure tables. If every piece of treasure that's pulled is "useful," the game begins to teeter on the edge of Monty Haul-ism. There are numerous reasons to allow characters the chance of finding "useless" treasure.

For instance, one reason I can think of for having such items in DDO's treasure tables would be keeping some coins from entering the economy. If you open a treasure chest, you're going to find something. Anything you find in a treasure chest can be sold very quickly after finding it, thus adding coins to the economy. If your packs are full of items which you refuse to part with, you end up leaving some of these "useless" items behind, and once you do that, those coins will never reach the operating economy of the game.

There's a very narrow margin between generating too much "useful" treasure and not generating enough; those "useless" bits of treasure are a part of what keeps a game operating within that narrow margin. Give the characters too much "useful" stuff too fast, and a game becomes boring. If you don't give them enough, then they can't function within a game, especially if it was designed with the pretense that characters would be finding and buying things along their way through it.

After all that is said, we still have no idea whether or not gems will always be "useless." DDO is obviously being worked on continuously, maybe gems will someday be "useful" for something; but I don't think the devs have said anything about them. (please, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

So, until gems are made to be "useful," they're just gold pieces that occupy backpack space; and maybe they're gold pieces that the game is forced to create (because everyone gets something in a treasure chest), but may never make it into the economy.

I also agree with the OP, it might be interesting if gems were to be useful for something.