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Question about MMO economy design
Jerival
Member Posts: 16
This has been bothering me for a bit. Why do some PvE MMO's include a crafting system when the best gear is dropped from end-game raids, and the gear itself never deteriorates?
I'm guessing the developers don't want the crafting community to control the economy for casual players, but then why bother including the crafting system at all? Or is there another reason I am missing?
In full disclosure, I dont like crafting, but a robust economy always draws me deeper into the game experience. This is probably why I loved Eve for so many years.
Comments
Crafting is something that players like to do. It's not an economic necessity.
That said, it seems to work best when players can get the best stuff from a variety of places. So the primary gear comes from dungeons but upgrades and specialty gear comes from crafting.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Some players play mmorpg to fight big dragons.
Some palyersr play mmorpg for arena combat.
Some players play mmorpg to gank people.
And some like mmorpg because of their deep economy... (like you)
Quite honestly, I hate mmorpg with a deep economy, because usually that just turn in to harvest(grind) wars. Or flipping wars, where merchant rule the game.
So that we're not either just guessing or trying to conjecture reasons for a strawman, could you share which MMOs you are referring to? That would go a long way towards helping to discern why those games have crafting systems.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Wow, Rift, EQ2, almost every themepark mmo, etc...take your pick.
Exactly and those games have emphasis on endgame dungeon and raids, that's why they function that way.
Those FFA pvp sandbox game use the system the OP refer to, because it fit those games better.
Recently I've been playing FF14. I enjoy what end-game content I have completed, and the loot really isn't my focus as much as the challenge of completing it with my friends.
A few people have told me the game has a "really good" crafting system. But after dabbling in it and seeing what you can/cannot craft, it really appears that crafting is for cosmetic changes, or making personal/FC housing items. Outside of the culinary line, I haven't seen any end-game players using crafted items.
I can understand why you dislike the approach, but in my opinion, this would offer more "content' for those interested in acquiring wealth through market transactions.
Honestly OP , I agree with you. To me if you are crafting stuff ingame which is of no use to anyone, what is the point? It is pretty rare these days to see any MMO with a reasonable balance of combat, crafting and ecomony.
Those three things are the trinity, in any MMO, that I look for. I certainly wish I had played SWG back pre NGE, just to see what it could have been like to play a good one.
Also I believe EvE is the only recent game to have accomplished this and I believe that is the main reason for its success. People fight to gain resources and create the need for an economy, based on survival. Thats all it is. Can't have one without the other. Give everybody free ships the economy disappears. Take away the resources, you have no reason to fight.
The game is successful not because it is a sandbox but because it balances the MMO trinity better than any other game I know of.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
I love crafting but most of the games I have played over the last few years, probably more, have had crafting at the same level of importance as fishing...something to do while bored.
The most annoying thing is that you are always chasing your tail. Whenever you have the skill to make that new item you find it is no longer of any use. So you continue till you max out your crafting and find everything you craft is useless.
Another thing that always bothered me is when games spend loads of resources creating items in game that are 'junk' items. honestly, just give me the cash equivalent and stop cluttering up my bags!!!
I think the main problem, as someone mentioned above, is that the generic theme park games cater to a certain mind-set that just wants one click gameplay. keep it quick and simple and a time sink and the masses will be entertained. Becoming a master crafter should be easy to attain otherwise people will become annoyed but by doing so crafting becomes unimportant. So I don't expect any theme park game to have a working economy any time soon.
In each of those games crafting actually serves a different purpose. Keep in mind, not everyone raids. If you don't raid, you don't need to be on the raid gear treadmill. But back to the different purposes...
In each of them, the consumables mostly come from crafters. Usually it's an alchemist, cook profession or both. So that's the reason for those professions.
WOW has changed a lot, and in the process has reduced the value of various crafting skills, so I can see why that would be on your list. Up until four years ago, the best ammo at any level came from crafters. Ammo, however, has since been removed from the game. The Blacksmith in WOW is completely different from the way it originally was, with specialization removed, being replaced with, iirc, extra gear slots and other perks. Actually, most WOW crafting skills have changed drastically because the inflated stats of the umpteenmillion tiers of raid gear pretty much made a lot of it obsolete. Engineers crafted all the cool trinkets and toys that really didn't fit anywhere else. Most of WOW's crafting is really for the level 1-70 range. The sharpening stones, crafted armor, crafted weapons and such were pretty darn useful through those levels.
EQ2's tradeskills are more crafter-centric than craft-centric. What I mean by that is that Quests, collections, specialized gear and other rewards/achievements are incorporated into the system. Basically, it's more for the player that wants to level crafting than for the player that wants to craft stuff for other people. Don't get me wrong, the crafting itself does have uses. Mych like WOW, it has specialty recipes for endgame players, but it is primarily useful for players up to the level 60-70 range, consumables being the exception.
I really don't remember much of Rift's crafting system, so I am at a bit of a loss for an answer on that one.
"Recently I've been playing FF14. I enjoy what end-game content I have completed, and the loot really isn't my focus as much as the challenge of completing it with my friends.
A few people have told me the game has a "really good" crafting system. But after dabbling in it and seeing what you can/cannot craft, it really appears that crafting is for cosmetic changes, or making personal/FC housing items. Outside of the culinary line, I haven't seen any end-game players using crafted items." - Jerival
In FFXIV, it seems more a matter of playing the market. There's demand for HQ gear and furniture, but at higher levels you're looking at Masterwork/Mastercraft/Mastersomething books for decent crafted gear. I haven't followed it in a while, and i know the game has changed a lot in the short while it's been out, so you might want to hit up a wiki on that. I can't see them ruining crafting, as they seemed to have cornered that odd niche of crafters that actually likes to juggle money and resources around to get an order done. Maybe that's where all the L2 crafters went.
Although crafting is a secondary focus in most themepark MMOs, it usually is there to serve a particular niche. That niche could sometimes be as simple as Lizardbones said: "Crafting is something that players like to do." Whether it has a benefit above and beyond its own progression path is of no concern for that crowd.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Merchants running the game is a GOOD thing imo.
Commerce is the only thing in MMO, from my experience of playing them, that really binds the players together and creates a microcosm of social interactions in MMO.
Interactions between players and the need to form associations and alliances seems to reduce significantly in games where commerce are not important at least in some way, and technically to me that defeats the purpose of even playing an MMO.
I could play Diablo 3 and get loots if all I wanted to play is a loot game.
Of course, I am a fan of systems where the best crafting recipes are found in the hardest dungeons, and those crafting recipes are better than any looted gear, since you had to go through the trouble of going through the dungeon AND leveling your crafting.
So what does EvE crafting consist of? I hear about it's praise all the time here.
but what is it? And how does it work?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
There is a one fundamental design issue when it comes to crafting - PVE rewards, the loot.
Most games take the opposite approach, they focus their game around PVE and shiny loot and then try to find some supplementary use for crafting - consumables, cosmetics, structures, etc.
EVE takes different approach, they surpassed shiny loot and PVE rewards and allowed crafting to be main source of gear.
There are several key attributes that make EVE eceonomy/crafting so robust but those do not go well with standard MMO themepark design:
1) Item decay.
2) No gear progression.
3) Standardized products.
4) Interdependent, very complex production chain.
The main point is tho: Why would any dev want such economy?
Even CCP is no longer supporting such model and all they do for many past years is they provide shiny loot and divert from complex economy.
It is not worthy.
I disagree fully. Especially your last statement is borderline trollish (troll baiting?) in how polarized it is. Incentivizing players via more complex gear progression is in my opinion an important aspect of game longevity for any game that thrives to allure more mature or experienced players. I'm not saying Eve's system is perfect, but I'm certain it has greatly benefitted the game in the long term. It is true that Eve has been trying to get more new players and has made changes to be more accessible. So far, I'm still confident they will thrive to keep the game's economy rolling.
Sure, but that does not make you right.
Let me explain the reasoning.
MMO's like FF14 have quite clear player hierarchy. The nature of the structure is that only a tiny minority of players have access to the best equipment at any given time. However, I think most players do care about how said best equipment can be acquired. The fairest way to justify the player hierarchy is to make it based on player skill. The alternative is to make it based on time spent in the game. You may already know which style crafting falls into.
Making crafting based on player skill is incredibly difficult. It is not a huge stretch to say that FF14 already has one of the most fleshed out crafting systems out of many themepark or even sandbox MMO's. Even then to make it require as much skill as the hardest endgame encounter would take a massive amount of work. It is simply not possible as long as the devs are working with limited resources. You may criticize the game for not going further with it, but it already does do more with crafting than many, many other MMO's. Anyway, before someone makes a pure skill based crafting system that is also as hard as a top-end endgame encounter, crafting is largely based on the time spent (= acquiring more money than others). More importantly, even if the crafting is as difficult as the hardest endgame encounter, you can still bypass it by having enough money to buy the end-product from a crafter (in other words, you can grind your way to the best equipment, not having to have any skill needed to make said item). And that, my friend, opens up the Pandora's Box if crafters (and people with the most money) were given access to the top-end gear. Player hierarchy is no longer based on simply player skill (which I believe most players find a fair approach), but also how much time can you spend on a video game (which may or may not be based on player skill in the least). No lifers win. Of course tackling endgame contents requires some dedication, but it does not necessarily have to come at the expense of your personal life. However, crafting and money making is not limited in any shape or form (and shouldn't be, IMO). That leads to those with most time with their hands having an unfair advantage that doesn't take into account player skill that is indispensable in beating the Coil of Bahamut, for example.
FF14 devs do try their hardest to keep crafting relevant though, within the aforementioned limitations. Every time a new gear cycle is introduced, crafting is rejuvenated by allowing players to create items that are on-par with the new time-locked "second-best equipment" and slightly weaker than the, again, time-locked "best gear". That way, players can essentially "get ahead" by buying the equivalent crafted gear that have no time limitations on them, while others have to wait for the weekly tomestone cap to get more endgame gear. That is the time when crafted gear is the most relevant in endgame contents. Of course A Realm Reborn also goes much further with the cosmetics, having tons of cool 3D furniture, unique crafted gear and cool effects on some other crafted gear. It is all cosmetics, indeed, but for what it is they are not "an afterthought" at best.
So, to sum it up, good MMO economy design does not allow for no lifers to win at the game just because they're no lifers, and keeps the most skilled players exclusively at the top, far into the gear cycle (but not necessarily the whole gear cycle). Of course no lifers who were the top dogs in the first MMO's like FF11 do not like this approach because they can't just no-life their way to the top. I think that the majority of players do find this fair.
This is where your lengthy post went down the sink...
You got yourself trapped in meaningless terms such as "skill", "hard", "difficult". You percieve crafting as PVE encounter and apply same measures.
However, any meaningful crafting is entirely different matter - you compete with other other people on the market, not in PVE grind/raid fest.
That is where only relevant "skill" comes in - how much money you can make. To know what to buy, what to make, what to sell and when.
Simply put, many games (MMOs especially) try to cater to a variety of different types of gamers. Furthermore, most MMOs tend to be heavily based in skinner-box design mechanics (i.e. loot treadmills), which tend to go at odds with having a robust economy. Eve, on the other hand, is focused almost entirely around an economy-driven game. And is indeed one of the few MMOs of its type.
That said, there are a few PvE (skinner-box) type games in which crafting does matter (GW1/2 are examples of this), but they do tend to be in the minority. Most games have crafting to please crafters, but it's more of a tacked on features than a core design element.
You do compete and the winner is decided by the time spent. You know it's true. It's not the whole story, you're right, but someone who knows what to buy, what to make, what to sell but doesn't have 24/7 to spend on the activity will lose to someone who doesn't know as much but has 24/7 to do it. The same can't be said about player skill. If you can't meet the required quota you won't get the best rewards, regardless of how much time you put in. Someone may take 100 hours to get there, someone may take 10 hours, but the fact is, having to meet that quota is the fairest way in the players perception to get the rewards. Unlike with making money, a guy who spends 10 hours on the encounter can actually beat someone spending 100 hours on it. Making money can be about skill, but it can (and often is) about being a no-life much more than skill.
However, even no lifers have access to e-peen in FF14 for example. The largest personal houses cost 70+ million gil. Lots of """skill""" needed to scrap that sum together.
Nope, it isn't. Pity you did no read any of what I said.
And you better not tell me what I know or not, especially considering how limited your perception is.
People making fortunes in EVE Online just by attending couple minutes a week to their production lines prove you wrong. Enough said.
And these people did not spend any time to get to the point where they can make fortunes in few minutes per week? Moreover, can a totally new player ever catch up to these guys' wealth within a reasonable timeframe if he starts playing today, even if he was "smarter" than them but could not invest all his time to the game? Just like a skilled player can beat the final coil of bahamut much faster than someone who has tried to do so for weeks, even if said skilled player started trying much later.
It may be "enough said" to you but all I see is a lot of context being ignored
Either way, even if player skill had determined the winner when it came to grinding money, there's no way to know as there's no common benchmark to relate to. In endgame encounters this is easy: beat the encounter and you have proven your skill. As far as getting the most money? Maybe you played 10 minutes a day or maybe you played 24 hours a day, all we know is that you're filthy rich
EDIT: Not to mention RMT lol. If there's a suspicion that the wealth came through "unfair means" it really ruins the whole concept. Thus player skill in endgame encounters will always be superior.
Crafting in Themepark primarily functions as gear augmentation. Sure the weapon you got dropped in a raid, but the raid boss isn't going to enchant it or create inscriptions, etc.
And then there's alt gearing which is part 2 of the themepark formula which is where crafter's can make a ton of money. People make alts and want to get into the same level of raid/dungeon that they were on their main. Usually crafter's can make gear that is better than what drops in raids 1 & 2, but not better than raid #3, so if you have the money you can skip your alts past the tiers of raiding you've already done.
I think you have a rather simplistic view of crafting in themeparks and boiled it down to something that doesn't really reflect reality.
IMO....
Crafting economy will normally be treated as the ignored stepchild in most games.. Why? Simple.. You can NOT sustain the themepark formula of "chasing the carrot" loot design, if crafting competes with that.. So many games today are designed to have you chase loot drops.. (aka. the carrot) If you remove that incentive or prize, by giving players a reasonable alternative, the chances a player will shorten his stay in that particular game will increase.. Players need a reason to stay and play.. Besides the one reason of friendships, the other 2 big reasons is content progression or character progression.. We all know that creating content is the more expensive route, so devs often choose the easier route.. Gear grind progression = keep chasing the carrot..
There are ways so both can co-exist, I'm just not sure the community and/or devs want to explore those options..