The problem with crafting guides...

[Draccus]

I consider myself a pretty intelligent guy. I've got a degree in engineering and years of professional experience solving complex problems and reading and writing technical documents. It took me hours of studying to understand DDOs crafting system.

After finally figuring it out, I went back and read the guides again to see why I struggled to understand them. I read the forums and was relieved to find that I'm not the only person who had trouble grasping the basics of the crafting system. The main user-written guide is a fantastic collection of the details of crafting but I think it fails to properly describe the basic crafting process.

It feels like someone asked for the instructions for how to operate an oven and was handed the recipe for making Thanksgiving dinner.

Just a few additional lines at the start of the guide would have made the entire process MUCH clearer to me. Something like this would have saved me hours:

Basic crafting steps:
1. Create your blank item, known as a "Greensteel" item. This item will be crafted at the Altar of Fecundity in Merida using ingredients gathered in the Vale of Twilight. See recipes for specifics.
2. Upgrade your item at the Altar of Invasion in The Shroud using ingredients gathered in the Shroud. This upgrade will add one effect to your item and is known as Tier I. Effects include elemental damage, AC bonuses, spell points, etc. See recipes for specifics.
3. Upgrade your item at the Altar of Subjegation in The Shroud using ingredients gathered in the Shroud. This upgrade will add one effect to your item and is known as Tier II. Effects include elemental burst damage and improvments over the bonuses you added in Tier I. Depending on the combination of bonuses you chose in Tier I and II, your item will also get a bonus effect.
4. Upgrade your item at the Altar of Devastation in The Shroud using ingredients gathered in the Shroud. This upgrade will add one effect to your item and is known as Tier III. Effects include elemental blast damage and improvments over the bonuses you added in Tier I and II. Depending on the combination of bonuses you chose in Tier I, II, and III, you may get another bonus effect on your item. Your item is now complete.

It took me forever to figure out that you can only upgrade an item one time at each altar and that you can only pick one upgrade from the list. This simple, basic process would have helped me immensely.

Or...maybe it's just me?

[Turial]

DDO wiki is your friend. Borror0 has it layed out similar to your thought process.

[tihocan]

Unfortunately the tutorial is now pretty hard to find for new players, but here it is:
http://www.ddo.com/articles/945

[Draccus]

I read the official guide that you linked and feel it's as poorly written as the user guides.

In the SECOND sentence under Upgrading, they are already talking about combining ingredients to make shards of power before even explaining the basic process. That's terrible writing (worse than the user-created guide, I think) in that it doesn't explain the absolute basic process.

Create item -> Upgrade Tier 1 -> Upgrade Tier 2 -> Upgrade Teir 3

That should be the first paragraph in any guide. The details around how you upgrade (which altar, which ingredients, etc.) should be next. The actual recipes, which the guides seem to love to push to the top, should simply be linked as separate documents.

[Laith]

IMO, turbine needs an in-game dialog and a revamp of the crafting system before they expand it.
the reason people make mistakes or feel overwhelmed is that they're 100% on their own after the intro, and forced to constantly check their recipes each time they craft.

fortunately, that doesn't seem to be a priority right now.
until then, i will advise people cast Protection from Wall of Text, look at the DDOwiki or the spreadsheets for instructions, and the calculator or the planner when they actually craft.

[Goldeneye]

Fabulous summary - makes a great starting point for someone (like me) who's new to crafting!

[Strakeln]

Unfortunately the tutorial is now pretty hard to find for new players, but here it is:
http://www.ddo.com/articles/945

I highly recommend tihocan's Shroud Crafting Tool, perhaps he will be kind enough to add a link in this thread for you?

[tihocan]

I highly recommend tihocan's Shroud Crafting Tool, perhaps he will be kind enough to add a link in this thread for you?

Nope, I'm not kind enough
I still need to take the time to actually make it newbie-friendly too, it was my original goal but I never bothered to really finish that side of it...

[Inkblack]

<snip> i will advise people cast Protection from Wall of Text, look at the DDOwiki or the spreadsheets for instructions, and the calculator or the planner when they actually craft.

Protection from Wall of Text?

My spreadsheet chews through that measly 120 points of protection in no time...

Ink