Well, alot of people seemingly had the issue with the fact that 5 crafting/blacksmithing meant that it was exceedingly rare to have random loot meet the same standards of crafted gear. As in, crafting gave a definite expected high value item for your skill level, but random loot generally fell on the median value for their level and thus making them worse.
Yeah, it's a tough spot to balance
- randomized looted items
- crafted items
- unique items
in a way that everybody is happy.
Personally, I'd like a system in which the follwing order more or less applies for items of the same level, in order of item stats and power (with possible blacksmithing and crafting abilities always maxed out):
uniquely
upgraded unique items (with a unique ingredient like in BG2)
>
upgraded unique items>
upgraded epic/rare randomized items>
unique items>
upgraded crafted items >
epic/rare randomized items >
upgraded normal randomized items
>
crafted items > normal randomized items
(upgraded here means crafting better items by using normal ingredients (like essences in DOS1) to increase an item's stats.)
