Very simple suggestion:
1) At the Arcaneum vendor, please add every type of primed weapon and armor. Primed weapons currently sell below 50 gp, so no worries about the economy crashing.
2) At all vendors (or maybe Tower of Knowledge only, they need love), please sell all primary ingredients to craft magic items for a reasonable price (e.g. 500-2000 gp). This makes it so you can save up and craft a weapon you couldn't find.
3) Please add more artifact drops to sell to faction vendors. Late game (especially if you make Tower of Knowledge useful), we should be able to hit "brotherhood" status with every faction (if you want).
4) With Sorcerer DLC or Patch, please add pole-arms (halberd, glaive, and maul conspicuously absent!) would be great to have other two-handed options!
Thanks!
I like randomness in availability of crafting items, if that's what the game is actually doing. Part of the worderful RNG feel.
But if it's just an oversight (which appears to be the case), then, yes, fix it.
I've played through this game enough times to log 250+ hours and counting and there is nothing worse than having a character concept and not making it a reality. Why have someone play through the game, only discover random chance left you with a magic scimitar and a bunch of daggers, instead of the magic-axe warrior you envisioned from the start?
I am all for random drops, but the point of crafting is you make a few key weapons and armor you really need. Why would I make a magical dagger (especially late game) if my team wields long swords, axes, and warhammers? Certainly not for its resale value :)
Unlike my tabletop experiences, Solasta makes crafting accessible for low level characters (which is cool). Crafting appears to be a way for the player to find the weapons they need, while in tabletop, a DM can drop (as a reward) a weapon or item a player needs.
So in summary, it would be great to make it easier for players to fill in a few blanks (missing weapons or armor) to complete a character concept by level 10.
Arcaneum definitely should sell a Primed version of every item. It's especially strange that there is no Primed longsword for sale. Also maybe Loremaster should be able to craft things without needing a Primed item. It would still be worse than the other two choices for Wizard but its at least something. Two of my three parties have no primed chain shirt and one primed longsword...the third one has the shirt and 3 longswords.
And yeah I think they should sell all the item ingredients somewhere.
IMO Antiquarian is clearly OP right now. All the +2 books and the +STR gear not to mention Cloak of Elvenkind, shoes that give spider climb that don't need to be attuned, +19 INT hat, Cloak of Protection, etc. Definitely the best faction IMO.
With respect to faction rep, no EA experience here but I have started 3 parties with the release version and they are level 7 9 and 10 parties, so pretty deep into the game with all three. My first party I definitely missed some faction items and also sold them willy nilly to whoever I happened to be talking to thinking that I'd get to max with all of them eventually. My second and third parties I was much more careful and my strategy was to rush Antiquarian to Living Legend (81+) for the +25 STR belt and then level up Arcaneum and Danatar at roughly the same pace since both of them have very solid Alliance and Brotherhood items. Tower is crap but if you just say hi to the lady every time you are in town you get 4 faction so you can hit LL easy with that one.
Anyway. I am able to get LL with Antiquarian after the Monastery Gem quest around level 6-7. At level 9 I am Brotherhood with both Arcaneum and Danatar and still have at least 2 side quests and 1 gem quest left. So it might be possible to get LL with all the factions if you don't miss any faction items/choices...we shall see.
Yeah, I dislike it when games makes certain equipment types worse by not having a certain balance in item drops. I've never seen a scimitar that is better than just +1, for example, as random loot or craftable. Which makes scimitar a pointless weapon type, seeing as the elemental weapons are the standard for mid to late game.
Typos happen. More so on the phone.