At first, I thought the change was really bad too, but then I started to see the bigger realities...
1) While I personally had a blast cherry picking bounties to collect the special materials, when I wasn't crafting with them, guess what...they took up half a stash tab and just sat there doing nothing. Now, I look at the pile of Rift Keystones and my learned crafting plans and see options open to my characters that aren't geared as well as my others. In an indirect way, the devs are empowering players to gear their characters in more ways, however they can, rather than relying on others to have to carry them through Torment 3+ runs or "rifting it forward" to get gear upgrades. Which I know, seems like another nail in the multiplayer coffin, but keep in mind...Seasons are coming. I'd be willing to bet this change is in line with that factor as well.
2) One person made the comment that Aughild set is endgame? Not saying it isn't a good set, but honestly, a little damage reduction and some increased damage to elites is insanely easy to upgrade from. Hell, you get one good Stone of Jordan and the right armor piece, you've just upgraded from it. It's good, not great. Same with the Ashaera set...fun to have Followers running with you, especially in multiplayer, but even the 20% life and 100 all res isn't impossible to upgrade. Which brings me to my next point...
3) While I've had great luck collecting both mats and plans, other people haven't. And when they try insanely hard for a mat to craft an item of average quality, it can be a little disheartening. The devs said many of the leg and set plans are meant as stepping stones, and they are. Many are just higher stat rolls for a slot...like Mantle of the Rydraelm. Basically a level 70 version of the special archon chest from 1.0.7, without the guaranteed mainstat, but with smart drops, you'll likely get mainstat anyway. And that's fine. The Utar's Roar axe for cold skill damage, the Devastator mace for fire skill damage, those are pretty good...not as good as the Azurewrath or Burning Axe of Sankis (respectively), but two of my favorite leg weapon plans and perfect examples. If you're running a fire build and you hit 70 and need a good fire weapon, you could craft a Devastator until a better fire skill weapon comes along. It's good, but easy to upgrade from.
4) Without the need to farm special materials, the Ring of Royal Grandeur, which is usually a necessary for people looking to cash in on set bonuses, is at least not as necessary for crafted pieces. Long as you have enough souls and breaths, you can get those set bonuses without the Ring.
I'm not saying removing content is a good thing, and I'm not saying they made the game more fun by removing an interesting reason to kill unique monsters. I sincerely hope they add some other reason to hunt them in the future. However, their philosophy here is sound...leg and set crafting plans aren't epic by any means, and they don't need to be...but if they aren't, forcing people to jump through hoops for not so epic results is, ultimately, a time consuming pain in the neck as well as a strain on storage space that most would rather use for gear that's actually epic, instead of a pile of junk used only for stepping stone pieces you upgraded from ages ago.
Should they make some insanely epic crafting plans? I'd be okay with it...as long as 1) the mats took insanely long to farm or were really hard to get, 2) there were options for every class, 3) it wasn't a "mandatory" for high difficulty, and 4) those plans were appropriately balanced against other gearing options so as not to throw the gear diversity curve into chaos.
I'll miss the funky mats, but I look forward to the possibilities I now have for my characters who could use a temporary boost to get just far enough into Torment to get some real endgame gear.
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