Short experiment:
Crafted a packer of mats, that's about 50 MQ MA vests. At a range of q120-180, most of them were sold to vendor at 300+ dappers, for a rough estimation of ~15k dapper profit. Wear on the armor tool was under 10 hitpoints, meaning I can do quite a few craft sessions before it dies **. Even adding in teleport costs to a town and back, tool and pick(s) cost, I believe you easily recoup your investment in tools, simply by not dropping the stuff you made.
Even high end regions have easy access to dig spots - Lost Valley from HoP, FF from Oflovak's, Loria from Avendale (or HH kara), Grove of Confusion is the only one requiring a pact or a long trek. A carefully chosen dig spot with a hawker nearby will also eliminate the trouble of trekking back and forth.
Of course, if even this minimum of organization somehow reduces a player's freedom in your opinion, I can't stop anyone from requesting free tools.
** edited because on a second practice I figured tool life doesn't decrease linearly
Crafted a packer of mats, that's about 50 MQ MA vests. At a range of q120-180, most of them were sold to vendor at 300+ dappers, for a rough estimation of ~15k dapper profit. Wear on the armor tool was under 10 hitpoints, meaning I can do quite a few craft sessions before it dies **. Even adding in teleport costs to a town and back, tool and pick(s) cost, I believe you easily recoup your investment in tools, simply by not dropping the stuff you made.
Even high end regions have easy access to dig spots - Lost Valley from HoP, FF from Oflovak's, Loria from Avendale (or HH kara), Grove of Confusion is the only one requiring a pact or a long trek. A carefully chosen dig spot with a hawker nearby will also eliminate the trouble of trekking back and forth.
Of course, if even this minimum of organization somehow reduces a player's freedom in your opinion, I can't stop anyone from requesting free tools.
** edited because on a second practice I figured tool life doesn't decrease linearly
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