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Should crafting be an integral part of the game? Or just a "diversion?"
Creslin321
Member Posts: 5,359
Crafting.
Nearly every MMORPG to ever come out has it in some form or another. But it's relative importance in the game tends to widely vary between different games.
In most sandbox games, for example, crafting tends to be a very integral part of the game experience. You really can't play the game successfully without interacting with crafting in some way, whether it be through selling materials, making goods, or buying goods from other players.
But in most themepark games, crafting is really just kind of a side activity. Crafting can get you good gear, but you can also get good gear through PvP, questing, raiding, or dungeons. So really, you can play through the entire game without ever realizing crafting exists and be completely fine. In this case, crafting is just an optional diversion to the main game.
So my question is, how "integral" do you think crafting should be to the game experience? Should players pretty much have to interact with crafting (or the results of crafting) in some way to succeed? Or should crafting be a "diversion" that players can do if they get bored of the main game, but is not at all required?
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I honestly like crafting to be more involved in the game economy. It should drive the economy. The problem with themeparks is that there are so many other ways to obtain items, and the majority of which do not involve crafting. And in most cases, the items you can craft are not as good as the items obtained from alternate methods. I don't think either way is inherently bad, I just feel that there is a system for each type of game. Mixing them would be a difficult thing to do.
If there was a sandbox made correctly, that wasn't destroyed by the PvP elitist community, crafting may become more popular. This would force the mainstreams hand in making it a more integral part of the game. However, that's not the reality. Mainstream themeparks have no legitimate reason to alter what is working for them. Even if a lot of people think it's lame to begin with.
As I favor virtual worlds over the new "game" design of most modern MMO's, I want them to have a robust economy and I can't see a way to do that without a well thought out and integrated crafting system.
The only thing that should not happen is for it to be designed so that every player must actually do it in it in order to be financially successful, (but is should produce goods/services players would want to buy) should just be one of several alternatives to successful acquisition of wealth in game.
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Depends on the kind of game and the experience you want to create.
If you were making an adventure game then it should be focused on adventure, crafting would play more of an optional support role to make useful things.
If you were making a sim game crafting would play a more equal role with combat, as would other things like politics or religion.
If you were making a harvest moon type game then crafting should be center stage.
And the setting can influence not only the role of crafting in a game but the way it is implemented. Crafting and gathering in a sci-fi game would tend to be done a larger manufacturing level with after market upgrades, in fantasy crafting and gathering could be more of a personal endevour, in a post apoc game crafting and gathering is more akin to scavenging etc.
So yeah my answer is a dissapointing, depends.
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I use crafting as motivation. In most games I play, even ones that were designed to be story-driven themeparks, I like developing a large enough stable of alts to act as a fully self-sufficient little community and plan my adventures around what resources I need to gather. I only interact with the auction house when I don't enjoy the gameplay that would be required to get some resource and only sell enough to cover what I want to buy. So for me, the crafting minigames are the root of the entire game experience.
I'd like it to be more integral, more challenging. Crafting you see in themeparks isnt really crafting at all, except by name. You're gathering 2000 materials so you can creature 500 useless vendor trash items so your skill is high enough to produce the 1 decent quality item that drops in a 20 man endgame instance. Might as well not have it ingame if thats what you're going to put it. The whole "click trainer, learn recipe, click recipe until skill is high enough, repeat" mechanic is just disgusting.
Honestly I think crafting is simply a time waster because they should just have stores for the items and ability add stats and specific passives and actives to any item.
For rare items they should at most provide a small extra benefit as well as great visuals.
Adding the ability to take off stats from a lower item and upgrade them.
Actually what I am saying is crafting, but crafting done right in a way that it does not force a player to grind items.
For instance adding and removing stats should cost only gold or whatever currency they use in game.
Also buying specific stats costs similar amounts depending on how popular they are and increase accordingly.
I think crafting should be an integral part of any game, crafting is a great alternative when you get bored of just killing shit all day and i agree they should beable to make stuff that is better then stuff that drops in the game world, but not better then raid items or hard instances cause then that would defeat the purpose of raiding/instances. That is the problem, once you give 1 aspect of a game the upper hand you gotta sacrifice it somewere else, so if you make crafting items better then raiding items no one will raid and vise versa, just a balancing act, but i think crafting should be better then just a side project like most games today make them.
+1
Wealth should be squired from serveral ways. Apart of crafting :
-, from dungeon runs, drops from world bosses , etc - for combat oriented players
- rare ingridients that are hard to find and bit of random in spawn ,etc - for explorers
- from trading (no global ah , but local ah + player shops or just only player shops ) - for those who like to play economic game
And many many more possibilites. Noone paying me atm for system design so not wanna spent thinking about more original ideas
Anyway - pure themepark instance / BG runners like current "game design" - well I don't think they necessarily need well developed and meaningful crafting, though I may be biased cause I got bored of them and not playing any and not planning to play any of those anytime soon so I don't care.
Anyway I am waiting for virtual world type of mmorpg, and there certainly crafting need to play a great role, though it should NOT be only or vastly superior way to get wealthy.
It should be integral but not everybody should be requied to craft.
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Integral. If it's just a diversion I don't see there's any point to it. Unless it's totally fun, but I've yet to see an MMO crafting system that's fun.
I'd have to agree.
In themepark games, loot drops are the carrots that pull the players, so crafting is usually subservient to that, which I can understand, even if I don't like it
In "sandbox" or "virtual world" games, a player-driven economy is usually expected, so crafting should be a vital part of the game.
EVE probably has the best (only ?) current example of a player-driven economy. It's very easy for any player to do reasonably complex crafting, which means that there are thousands of competing suppliers in the player market. The competition is cutthroat, which means that the majority of common items offered are sold close to cost price.
So a new player starting in EVE today can probably equip themselves decently for less than someone who started 5 years ago. Not many MMO's can match that.
There are no other MMOs like EvE. Because Dev's refuse to make them or companies refuse to fund them. Sad times.
Many players play mmorpgs purely to craft goods for other players and play the markets.Often they do not particulary want to go 'adventuring'.
My view is that a game should either have a crafting system and try to make it good, or else not have a crafting system at all. Either of those are better than a token crafting system whose main purpose seems to be a marketing bullet point on the game's feature list.
The question is a bit like asking "Should MMORPGs take place in a high fantasy setting?" Sure. They can. And that can be fun.
And it can also be fun when they're not a high fantasy setting.
Just like they can be fun with or without being Crafting-centric.
More important to players is that a game doesn't make something both boring and very important. If a game is entirely reliant on crafting (forcing players to interact with the system frequent) but crafting is boring ("AFK in front of this asteroid or ore node for 5 minutes!") then players aren't going to be too fond of that, and it might work out better to make crafting unimportant if it's going to be that bad.
So a simple answer might go something like, "That depends; how good is your crafting system?"
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I think crafting should be an equal part of a person's abilities. So much so that it should actually be something you have to scarifice to master, ie a stat, combat ability, or even another skill entirely.
Any MMO that will have a good retention must have a working economy - crafting is a pilar of a working economy!
Sadly to many (read 99,9%) of all games make crafting the most miserabel chore you can imagine.
SWG was a positive example and the idea to have your crewmembers crafting for you is alos promising if executed right.
In a fantasy game it could become a whole gamemodule to manage your harvesters, transports, inventors, experimenters, engeneers, artisans, workers to get a result.
This alone is stuff for an insane amount of hours of playtime!
So yes, ANYTHING your mmo world shall offer at release and in the near and middle future must already have been very well thought over and integrated into the game at start or it wont work out!
See AoC for example which has a crafting that is obviously the afterthought of an afterthought of a gamesidekick while in SWG it was one reason that kept this technically underdeveloped game alive.
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Those two requirements are mutually exclusive.
You are a possessor of loot drop privilege.
Players who prefer loot drops never have to consider whether crafting can be rewarding while producing items that are inferior to loot drops.
Noone who cares about crafting could have said that without the contradiction destroying their mind.
If you can get the same or better gear from lootdrops than crafting cannot be useful. If it is not useful then it is not rewarding.
Thus we can conclude that crafting cannot be both satisfying and unnecessary.
It would be better to make one game without crafting and one game where crafting is important.
People who do not want to engage in crafting never seem to be capable of actually thinking about this.
Imagine if crafting was the game and then farming loot drops was an unnecessary but possible part of the game. How many raiders do you think would play that game if they had the option of playing a raiding centric game?
Maybe now you understand how ignorant you sound.
As in-depth and time consuming as some crafting systems can be in various MMO's, it's very rare that I see one that is worth the effort by the time your character has mastered their craft.
There are definitely exceptions, and sometimes there are a few that are absolutely horrible, or the system as a whole is incredibly without balance; some crafts offer more benefit than others to a player, while a player that might have chosen another craft is left with a pile of crap in their hands wondering why they wasted the time and effort on such a fruitless task.
Any decent MMO will offer multiple alternatives: The player that wants nothing to do with crafting will find another venue to obtain exceptional items, either through PvP rewards, raiding and participating in group activities such as dungeons/flashpoints/instances/etc. Meanwhile, the dedicated crafter should be able to benefit from the time invested in their chosen pasttime.
I fondly recall choosing to advance my skills in taming in Ultima Online, and I would drag mounts into town and sell them for affordable prices to whomever was interested in purchasing my goods. It made the challenge of leveling my taming skills worth the individual time I had invested in that pursuit, and it was also something worthwhile to others, and profitable for me.
I think it is a mistake to overlook the importance of a crafting system in a well-developed MMO, but I can see how the challenge of creating "balance" can get in the way of fleshing out a crafting system. For me, a GOOD MMO will offer something to capture the interest of players seeking a game where they can indulge in total immersion of the game world, and that would include taking up trades/crafting skills and contributing to an in-game world economy.
This goes with every feature, I think. If you're not going to do it well, why do it?
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The problem with most crafting systems is that they are designed for people who don't like crafting. Meanwhile, those of us who play mmos for non combat features are left with too many shallow, half assed systems. Everything revolves around combat and, for lack of a better word, it sucks.
Crafting is designed to be something you do when you're taking a break from combat or waiting for combat to happen. It should be its own endgame that caters to its own demographic. The result would be a more diverse community, a better virtual world, and actual choice of gameplay not just 100 different ways to kill stuff.
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Crafting to me should be for both vanity and minor stat improvements. Many MMORPGs that I've looked at have things like the ability to change your item model to look like another item model. Crafting could easily take advantage of that to make gear that looks awesome, instead of just looking like a bunch of rags. The stat part of the gear should probably just be more of a side thing for if you haven't upgraded in awhile. Nobody wants to be forced into buying a major upgrade.
Thats not crafting then, its fashion. Fashion is not the extent of crafting. At best its a small part.
This is what the previous poster meant when he said that crafting in modern mmos is made for people who don't like crafting.
If you craft things you don't need, it is still crafting.
All I'm saying is that if crafting is more of a diversion, fueled by the demand for fashion or some other social purpose, then it doesn't get in the way of play. This allows people to play the game, make money as they please, and then swing back around to the crafters for when they got some spare cash to throw around. However, I still think that some stats should be included on items and some professions should be able to break down items into other goods (disenchanting for an example) so that items can sell for other reasons.
I don't think making professions a diversion is for people who hate professions. I think that making professions a diversion is for people who hate buying from the auction house to play the game.
Optional .. in a combat centric game.
Crafting is in Skyrim, and Diablo 3 too. It adds flavors, but by no means it is a integral, important part of the game. Combat centric MMO should probably take the same approach.