And who told you players cannot craft helmets? Probably bracers too although i havent dabbled with crafting too much.
You sure can create and improve rings, and probably necklaces too.
There is nothing actually bad about the current system, it doenst need to be removed but tweaked. Adjusted. Thats all.
A very simple (relatively speaking ofc) solution is to create a few categories of items, then assign those categories to loot containers as the devs see fit. With addition of unique hand placed items where it would be expected. Or by just assigning "super awesome loot" category to those special creatures or containers.
Of course there should be empty barrels and crates. Of course you should not get items specifically suited for your party all the time. What a nonsense to think otherwise.
The setting internal coherence and plausibility override simplistic casual player need to have every crate in the game filled with loot to satisfy his greed - while those same players complain how there is too much loot around. Having every crate and barrel filled with stuff is a completely ludicrous idea that would ruin several other features of the game.
The Merchants should NOT sell everything possible. That makes no sense at all. If that was true then no one would need any item from the rest of the game. They need some smaller tweaks but thats it.
If rarity of skills books are the problem then there should be more of those found through exploration and combat with more important enemies, as part of the loot.
There are simpler and much more effective solutions possible then just overblowing one feature without care how that affects the rest of the game.
- Higher crafting skill enabling players to add more attributes is a reasonable idea, i think something similar to that is already in the game, but not sure.
- Removing or seriously minimizing amounts of loot that give crafting bonuses. Having those appear only on bracers and helmets (if that is not already the case) would be a good thing too.
