devtrackers.gg
Hey there,
We brought your question to a designer and he got back to us with the logic behind this, based on different perspectives:
Lore-friendly explanation
First and foremost - thralls are experts at their job, but they will only do as they’re told, which requires their master (you, the player) to tell them “Make this design I know, except better”. That’s why they don’t have the recipes for the ‘normal’ versions. As far as the exceptional versions go - they are experts and will perform to their maximum capacity and would sneer at you for making something as lowly as an Exceptional version, because that’s not utilizing their full potential.
Are-you-really-sure-you-want-this explanation
If we did that, Tier 4 thralls would have 3 recipies of the same armor piece - in fact, they should really also know the BASIC versions of the armor. So there would be 6 entries for each armor piece in the crafting station if you had a thrall there. 7 if you know the recipe as well. So for the Zingaran armor set, instead of having 5 entries for the armorset, you would have 30. And of course, these thralls know more than one armorset, so “How much do you like using your scroll-wheel?” I guess is the question.
Mechanics explanation
It’s a game.
Hope that cleared it out! 