Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Lets detail talk about Crafting
SEANMCAD
Member EpicPosts: 16,775
lets talk about crafting.
1. NOT what is not good about crafting or specific crafting systems as a lead statement or point (meaning negative rebuttles or replies to other peoples suggestions is fine, but not as a lead statement on the OP question)
2. Provide details of what you feel is good examples that are either actual in a game or imagined, either way get specific and try to drill down as far as you feel is reasonable
lets drill down, be specific as possible, name games as examples etc.
I will chime in later or edit this OP with my detailed thoughts.
1. NOT what is not good about crafting or specific crafting systems as a lead statement or point (meaning negative rebuttles or replies to other peoples suggestions is fine, but not as a lead statement on the OP question)
2. Provide details of what you feel is good examples that are either actual in a game or imagined, either way get specific and try to drill down as far as you feel is reasonable
lets drill down, be specific as possible, name games as examples etc.
I will chime in later or edit this OP with my detailed thoughts.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Comments
Crafting is based on gathering, so it makes sense to me to talk about gathering first. There are several different kinds of gathering in existing games:
1. The obvious one is when monsters drop monster parts. This is usually a result of combat, but can instead be a result of something like fishing resulting in a supply of fish scales, or you might be racing mounts and get items related to raising mounts or items representing wealth like gemstones as prizes. Or the drop can be an item associated with the monster instead of a body part, like fish might drop seashells, seaweed, or instead of a fish you might catch a piece of driftwood or trash. I like these kinds of gathering fine (as long as the fishing/racing/whatever are actual gameplay, not waiting-based or automated). One exception: I don't like it when monsters drop gear, I think that sabotages the whole crafting process, and doesn't really make sense for animal-like monsters anyway. In an ideal RPG or MMO I think gear should not be obtainable from monsters at all, unless they drop unusable gear only, which is then salvaged into crafting mats.
2. A second obvious one is treasure chests which might have crafting materials in them. I used to like treasure chests as a game design element when I was younger, but they really don't seem to work in MMOs, and even most single-player games are too lazy to properly put each treasure chest as a reward that requires a puzzle to solve, which is the only place you really _need_ treasure chests, because there is no monster to drop the loot. Most RPGs in recent years haven't included puzzles at all, sadly. Exception: Games which have a well-developed stealth/theft system have a more legit reason to put items in various pieces of furniture in NPC's houses. Lockpicking is usually a rather boring minigame, but it's better than nothing. But even then, the game can easily get bogged down with junk, Skyrim being an excellent example. Skyrim wanted to give players lots of things to look and steal (and bog themselves down with; I don't find inventory weight management to be fun gameplay at all) but they really did not need to include plates and silverware and that kind of crap in the loot system, it's just bloat.
3. Gathering nodes - They pretty much suck. Whether we are talking about WoW, Wizard 101, or Dofus, gathering nodes are boring; making the player stand and wait while a timer cools down is not gameplay. But if you make gathering nodes more interactive they can turn into crop growing. Something like the tree system in Xsyon - you plant a tree seed and it quickly grows into a tree. You chop down a tree and get lumber and more tree seeds. You can decoratively place trees, and use them as local landmarks. Trees left alone will spread their seeds nearby, so deforested areas will naturally get re-forested. I believe you can even protect trees on your property from being chopped down by random passers-by. Growing crops on the terrain can also be done in A Tale In The Desert (mainly flax and vegetables) and I believe Wurm has a system where berries and herbs can be planted. Even themepark games which don't have interactable terrain may allow players to grow crops at instanced housing or in a minigame. In my opinion the ideal kind of crop growing is the kind which is like a speed and dexterity minigame where crops emote their wants and the player fills these. Wizard 101 _almost_ has a good system of this type, but it's too slow to really feel like a minigame, and the player is always running out of magic, which several of the crop tending actions need to power them. Wizard 101 suffers from bad minigames in general, though. NeoPets and Puzzle Pirates are two of the better examples of minigames incorporated into a larger online game, though I don't have a specific crop-growing example to point to. I'm in the camp that believes minigames should symbolically represent a crafting or gathering activity, but there's no need to be literal about it, because if real crafting processes were that fun I'd already be doing them for real.
4. Nodeless terrain-based gathering - This can be boring or moderately interesting, but it's hard to balance. It's boring if resources are too common and can be gathered with the player's bare hands, but if they are rare and the locations don't move around regularly that's just gathering nodes all over again, and if everything requires some prerequisite then it's hard for players to get started except through a relatively rigid walkthrough, and once you've crafted a gathering tool the actual activity of gathering can still be boring. Terrain-based gathering has the potential to add immersion to a game, but it seems to be a dangerous design element to include because it's so difficult to balance well. (Again, A Tale In The Desert, Xsyon, and Wurm have various examples of terrain-based gathering.)
Does that cover all types of gathering, or does anyone have one to add?
Recipes - Most crafting in games is recipe-based (though not quite all). A recipe is a piece of knowledge that allows a player to combine X amount of thing A and Y amount of thing B to get thing C. An excellent development in recipes that can be seen in Ryzom, for example, is ingredient categories or slots. This (theoretically) allows players to experiment with different ingredients, even using two different kinds of ingredients to fulfill one category, to get different stats on the resulting item (or to a lesser extent different colors and shapes). I say theoretically because in Ryzom itself this doesn't work very well due to the level system imposed on ingredients. You pretty much always want to use the highest level ingredient you can and lower level ones of the same type become useless, and it never seems to be beneficial to use two different ingredients in the same category. But if you had a greater variety of same-level ingredients, or no levels on ingredients, this could be quite interesting. It's also more immersive to allow the player to use, say, any kind of fruit to make a pie, rather than having apple pie be the only kind that exists in the world, even when there are plenty of cherries and blueberries around.
More unusual applications of recipes - Personalized recipes can be seen in A Tale In The Desert; it has paint recipes that are different from avatar to avatar, due to some behind-the-scenes mathematical modifications. It's debatable whether the result is actually fun for players because the system is considered too complex to discover through experimental play, and some colors are much more expensive for one avatar to craft than another, but those are balancing issues, not inherent problems with the concept. Another variation on recipes that I've heard of (but can't recall in what game, sorry) is crafting tokens or tickets. This may either be a required ingredient, or may be required to de-soulbind crafted items to make them salable, such that they are not needed on items crafted for personal use. These are intended to limit the number of items each person can craft, to reduce market flooding and give everyone who wants to the chance to craft a few things; generally this requires a game where the player is not expected to grind out piles of vendor trash crafts to gain crafting XP. The tokens/tickets can be used as quest, pvp, or dungeon rewards, though typically they are also a cash shop item. Recipes with semi-random results are another variation - one common example is a genetic system where breeding or merging two parents or parent items has results with probabilities in accordance with a Punnet square. Yet another concept is hidden recipes. These are often seen in the process of crafting (breeding/growing/raising/training) animals and plants. In this case what a pet is fed, how well it is cared for, or what enemies it defeats, can affect which form it evolves into or what permanent buffs, debuffs, or abilities it gains. In the case of plants it would more likely be the amount or quality of crop yielded.
Appearance modification systems - This is stuff like clothing and hair dye (in some cases, mounts/pets and architectural elements of houses can also be dyed, not to mention tattoos on avatars). It's a nice two-layered crafting process, where the first layer is crafting the dye with a recipe and the second layer is choosing a pattern of applying multiple colors and then supplying the necessary amount of desired colors of dye. (Some systems restrict the player to a single color of dye, but there's no technical limitation there, just short-sighted design.) Just as an aside, dye has interesting potential for player social self-marking. Dye could also be a source of trade between different geographic areas or different levels of players, if the ingredients for one color occurred in one area and for another color occurred in another area.
Appliances - From something as simple as a pot to something as complicated as a forge, appliances unlock new parts of the crafting tech tree by allowing the player to use a new crafting process. These are a great way to make a crafting system more fleshed-out because the player is crafting an item to enable them to craft new items. (Yo dawg.) In a game with minigame-based crafting they can also be seen as arcade machines in a player's personal minigame arcade. These make the most sense with a game which has personal housing, particularly since personal housing can have the problem of feeling empty and boring if you don't give the player activities to do there, so appliances can be collectibles that add life to a house. Typically appliances cannot be sold to other players, so they can help add balance to a game where crafting salable items may sometimes result in flooded markets.
Crafting via minigame - Blacksmithing in Puzzle Pirates is a quite nice example of playing a minigame to carry out a crafting process. The strategic, turn-based type of minigame is very fair and not generally considered extremely difficult by any players. As a solitaire-type game some players are happy to play this minigame for hours.
https://yppedia.puzzlepirates.com/Blacksmithing
A crazier example of a minigame is blacksmithing in A Tale in The Desert. Really interesting, though not really suited to repeatedly making the same item. The heavily skill-based type of minigame is much more difficult for some players than others, resulting in some players being expert producers (and items above a certain quality can be signed or named), while others prefer to trade for the craft instead of attempting the minigame (despite the fact that there is no cost or penalty for failing the minigame). Would probably be much more popular if you could make freeform sculptural objects and place them into the game.
http://www.atitd.org/wiki/tale4/Blacksmithing_Guide/Carp_Blade_TkLukz
1) Gathering
2) Making
3) Selling
Whilst selling isn't actually making something, it is never the less an essential step in the process and is the decision I think needs to be made first and foremost, before you even tackle the actual crafting bit.
Why?
Selling defines the purpose of crafting. Do you want a vibrant player economy? Do you want the best items crafted, or looted? Do you want every player to be able to self-support themselves, or should we have dedicated crafters? Once you know the purpose of crafting, then you can set about designing a crafting system.
I'll give you my thoughts on each stage, working in reverse order:
3) Selling
As I said, selling is the most important decision about crafting that needs to be made first. It defines the purpose of your crafting system so every other decision needs to support this purpose.
Best In Slot - Crafted or Looted?
This is fundamentally the most important decision a game designer needs to make. Crafted or looted? There are pros and cons to both. Looted is the game designers usual choice. By putting the best equipment at the end of content, you force your players to work through that content (often repeating it for months) in order to acquire it. This ensures development time spent on content is worth it and can keep some players retained for longer. Downside is that, once players reach endgame (or even whilst leveling), there is no real need to buy crafted items, so crafting becomes an underused side activity.
If you make the best stuff crafted, suddenly every single player in the game is going to want to buy items from players. This makes crafting an in demand profession and automatically creates a vibrant economy because no matter what your crafting system, some players will never bother with it and so must rely on buying gear from crafters.
Self-Supporting - Dedicated or Casual?
Games like SWG had crafters as dedicated professions, meaning if you chose to be a crafter, you couldn't also be an amazing fighter. This helped stimulate the economy - with less crafters, there was more demand and a lot more interdependancy. The best crafters on servers created a name for themselves, other players would seek them out specifically for their goods.
On the other hand, games like WoW, LotRO etc had crafting as a side profession - everyone could be a combat expert as well as a master crafter. This meant little chance to specialise and stand out, plus less demand as most people could crafter *something* worthwhile.
Selling - Auction House or Individual?
This is a lesser decision, but do you have an auction house or do players create their own shops? With an auction house, you increase accessibility for non-crafters but it drives down prices (through obvious competition) which can diminish crafting incentive. However, AHs also add a new dimension - playing the AH. I know many people who play the AH - monitoring stock levels, buying up cheap items to resell, buying all stock of a single item then reselling the lot at a higher price.
Going individual makes it harder to find your audience, but adds to immersion. It gives the best crafters a way to standout and become features themselves - in SWG, most endgame players knew the location of the top 10-15 crafters stores and would regularly check in with each to see if anything new and awesome appeared.
2) Crafting
I like to break this down into two parts:
- What you can make
- How you make it
With what you can make, I can't see a way to get away from recipes. Ultimately, the developers have the build the art assets, animations, models etc for everything in the game so there has to be a finite list of what can be crafted. Devs may hide the recipes, make them more complicated or whatever, but no matter what you use to make something, the end result must sit within a predefined list.That doesn't mean it has to be uninteresting.
End Result - How variable?
This is the first decision imo. In a game like lotro, you select a recipe, add ingrediant, click "Craft" and the end result is one of two things - a fixed item (model + stats) or a crit version. Only two possible outcomes, regardless of what input you used.
Something like SWG was different - the model (graphics, art, 3d model etc) was fixed but the stats were variable. The stats were the outcome of complex formulas that depended on what inputs you used in the recipe. Use better quality iron, get a better quality sword.
Experimentation - yay or nay?
Most modern MMOs don't seem to bother with experimentation during the crafting stages. You tend to have fixed inputs resulting in fixed outputs. This makes it easier to manage and understand but removes any uniqueness from the crafting process.
Experimentation allows you to play about, try different ingredients or processes in the hopes of creating a bette product. A developer must choose whether he wants this. Ultimately, its still a fixed mathematical formula so the developer can (by limited resources or processes) still remain in control of the outputs (for balance purposes) but it does make it harder. The benefit is crafters get to make meaningful decisions, focus their products and specialise.
In SWG, experimentation took the forms of variable quality, experimental ingredients, then an experimental phase. You ended up with one crafter producing a power hammer that hit for 1000 damage but slow speed, whilst another did 500 damage but was twice as fast, whilst another crafter would make one that didn't encumber the user as much. By having the ingredients vary in their quality constantly (ie at souce) it meant crafted items varied in stats a great deal.
RNG - yay or nay?
Always a contentious issue, do you include random outcomes in your crafting process? In LotRO, RNG was used to determine whether you crit-crafted an item. Frustrating when you didn't, but added to the fun. In SWG, RNG was avoided for most of the time, but final experimentation phase did include it.
RNG can add realism (nobody is perfect, mistakes will happen in real life), add excitement (elation when you crit-craft something rare) and punishment. It can also end up being really frustrating.
Now I'll move on to how you make it. This is the aspect that is often ignored. This is the minute by minute gameplay and is where the "fun" can be found. In most games, how you make stuff is usually just a case of clicking on a UI, selecting inputs and outputs, pressing a button then watching an animation. The "fun" is completely avoided in the minute to minute gameplay and is pushed onto the meta-game (what you make).
Some MMOs, like FFXIV, have started putting in minigames. This tries to add normal gameplay elements to an otherwise dull process. This shifts the balance from pure knowledge of the meta-game, to player skill in completing the minigames. So far, all these minigames have been half-arsed - fun the first few times, then dull and easy for the rest of time, resulting in a lot of resentment.
I don't really know what to suggest, however, but there is tons of room for improvement.
Final part from me, but I think @sunandshadow has covered it pretty well. The method for gathering needs to fit the purpose of the system, so by the time you get here you'll probably not need to make a decision - it'll be obvious.
If crafting is going to be a side activity which everyone can do, then gathering should be as painless as possible so as not to force players into doing something tedious. In that case, something like SW:TOR's companion system is best. If you have dedicated crafters with experimentation, then terrain spawning is the way to go. If you want lots of interdependence between crafters and fighters, link materials to monsters.
Final Opinion
As I've said, crafting needs to fit in with the overall game design. If it doesn't, you've failed. If your crafting system is awesome, but nobody wants to buy anything then you've just wasted precious development resources.
That said, my favourite system is still SWG. I rarely crafted but I loved the vibrant player economy. Having crafted items be so variable, as well as having them degrade, meant constantly searching out new and improved items, playing the auction house, or just grinding credits so I could buy what I wanted. The crafters were happy - they really could specialise and make a name for themselves. The fighters were happy - there were still rare loot drops they could sell, but there was also a ready supply of goods of variable price and quality to match their budget.
Only thing I didn't like about SWG was the gathering. It was a pain in the arse to constantly survey for the best materials, set up your harvesting machines, leave them 24 hours then repeat because the materials had respawned elsewhere. was too much of a ballache for me.
Crafting exists in real life, not everyone likes to do crafting, not everyone likes all aspects of real crafting, not everyone does real life crafting.
A game engine should use real life as a mirror on how to make a crafting system both in 'how' its done and the option to do it in the first place.
On the 'how' part I enjoy crafting systems which leave me thinking 'oh wow that is how its really made in real life, it really does requires these materials, in this quanity and in this manner put together and oh I need these tools to do and I need to make (or buy) said tools in order to do it)
etc.
that is kind of my top level approach to crafting. Most people (at least here) have what I feel is a very limited view of what crafting is and how it can work. Playing a game that is almost 100% dedicated to crafting allows a person to understand in more depth what works, what could work but doesnt exist and in general (to repeat) expands the mind on what is possible.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
The what is just your recipes.
But the how is the process. For example, glass blowing. The output sucks - I couldn't give a shit about oddly shaped vases - but the how is fascinating. Getting the materials, heating them properly, getting it on the pole, doing the blowing, the spinning then adding the finishing touches - that is interesting!
That is what needs to be turned into gameplay activities in order to be able to make your top level view of crafting fun. If you can do that then people will do crafting for the sake of crafting itself rather than just to make items to sell or use.
But, that is hard to do. For example, how do you turn beating a hot sword with a hammer into a gameplay element? How do you add all the intricacies of precision, angle, proper temperatures etc into the game as gameplay elements?
I also have to ask how it would really fit. If your top level approach is to simulate real life, then you have to remember that the majority of real life crafters (both today and in the past) had really monotonous jobs. Making horseshoes all day long is hard, sweaty, boring work. Do we really want that in our games? Or should we only turn the fun bits into gameplay elements (like beating on a sword, folding the metal) and automate the dull parts (monitoring forge temperatures, waiting for stuff to melt, moving materials about)?
1. Pillar of a rule, its like to me the most imporant rule. If a gamer doesnt like to craft then a system needs to be designed as such that they do not feel like they need to craft. Peroid, end of story takes care of the majority of your concerns. How this is done in most 'good crafting' games is like Wurm. Wurm is 99% crafting, if one doesnt like crafting they dont play that game. peroid end of story. I think its a horrible idea to try to make a crafting system 'fun' as you call it for those who would normally not like crafting in the first place!
2. Real Life crafting example: In real life you can make a wooden axe and some wood is better than others, if you can fine bone then its super sharp but some other rocks can work just as well but are not as sharp. One 'should' be able to envision a crafting example based on that description alone.
3. Now to get to the whole 'how to physcially do crafting' let me give you another real life example.
The guy who sits by the forge and puts in wood is the lowest paid most unintresting job of making something
The guy who only cuts down trees is the most boring role of the process of making a house.
The illegal immigrate who came over from mexico and can not speak any English is the guy on your team who is physically hammering the nail into the studs
Why do we think those are the roles we need to elevate in order to make crafting 'fun'?
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
1. In the real world if you dont want to craft you dont have to craft, you can buy peoples craft or whatever. In gaming that is not always true. It needs to be a choice (like in real life)
2. The process of making an item should try and come close to real life. Example: you want to make glass in a game it make sense to use sand, not leather because it real life glass is made from sand, not leather
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
2. In a fantasy world, there's no reason you can't say "glass make from sand is kind of lousy, better glass is made from ground Snapclaw shells, even better glass is made by adding faerie wing powder, and best glass needs ground gemstones." Or you could say, "This geographical area just doesn't have sand, so we could mine silica stone and limestone and combine the two to manufacture our own sand, but it's cheaper and easier to use Mountain Crab carapaces because they do the digging for us and eat the minerals."
3. Also 3, how many hours do you personally want to spend doing these three most boring jobs? I sure don't want to spend more than maybe 20 hours doing all of them together. Things that are the least fun to start with are the easiest to make more fun. So it's a great investment of game design effort to make these jobs more fun so players will be happy doing them for more hours.
2. I flat out do not agree. more over, the problem with many crafting engines is they make it far to easy because they want to appease people who dont like crafting in the first place. this is a bad design. make it complex. The dinner I just had in real life has about 10 different elements prepared all in a certian way, I dont put a chicken in my slot and get stew. that is silly. now how 'deep' does it have to be can vary but a system that is hyper basic generally isnt fun for people who dont like to craft nor for people who do.
3. there are people who say that all of crafting and all crafting engines ever made are boring unless they contain an aspect in which most of your time is spend physically doing the mini game of hammering a nail (as an example) and I suggest that is false.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
2. What don't you agree with? Do you dislike fantasy worldbuilding or do you think fantasy worldbuilding that results in glass being made out of monster shells is in bad taste even if it's chemically plausible, or something else? Complexity I think is a separate issue. I have no problem with crafting being complex if its fun. (On the other hand if we were talking about a science fiction setting with robotic cooking appliances being quite common, then it might actually be realistic to put in ingredients, tap a few buttons on a touch screen, and get a stew. That's not to say it would be particularly fun or interesting. But I think it's important to realize that different things are realistic in different settings.)
3. Is this statement relevant to mine?? If you are trying to say that the gameplay of crafting doesn't need to be fun for crafting to be interesting, I would say that's true for games that aren't crafting heavy (did you try shop heroes when I linked to it?), but false for games like Wurm and ATiTD where crafting makes up a large percent of gameplay.
1. Allow player skill to play a part...
I am fan of mini-games for crafting, and being able to 'prepare' for a craft (e.g. gathering high quality materials, boosting your stats with food, etc.), as it allows player agency over the final outcome. There is nothing duller than clicking a button and praying to RNGesus that you didn't just waste a hour getting materials because your craft didn't 'crit'. That said, a 'quick craft' option is a must for when you just need to churn out a bunch of stuff you couldn't care less about the quality of.
2. but have (mostly) predictable outcomes.
RNG is good in small doses because it makes things not entirely predictable, but if I'm a high level, well geared crafter, with high quality materials, I should be able to 99.999999% guarantee a high quality result. Also, while variability / customisation of gear etc. is good, I think that's a separate system; the base crafting system should be kept simple with only a few levels of outcome, e.g. High Quality, Good Quality, Normal Quality. Failure should also be an option, but only if you really screw something up or get too ambitious.
3. Allow customisation.
There are a few ways to do this, but as I said above this should be separate from the base crafting (i.e. make a base item) system. An example of this is enchanting (from WOW) or materia (from FFXIV), though I don't think either system really goes far enough. It should also be largely up to the end user, not the crafter, to customise the item (though crafters may still need to be involved). Visual customisation is also a part of this, and again, should be up to the end user.
4. Make crafting top level items take time, but don't require a grind.
This is a hard part to get right, as everyone has a different definition of time. One of the 'fairest' systems I've seen is to only allow a daily, or weekly, accumulation of materials, so it only takes a few minutes in total but it is only possible to craft X many of a certain item (or group of items) per day / week. This has it's frustrations though, as someone focused on that task can feel like there is nothing else to do; allowing these materials to be traded can help overcome this.
5. Make 'the best' (or near enough to it) achievable.
I know (at least some) hardcore crafters like to be the only one on the server that can make X, but one of the best things about crafting in an MMO, or any game, is using items / gear you made yourself. This doesn't mean there can't be interdependence (which can easily be a big part of the material gathering / refining stage), but high level crafting should be open to all; as long as all are willing to put in some time.
6. Be relevant
While you would think this is self evident, it's surprising how many games have crafting as little more than a glorified side activity. While I get that not everyone wants to craft, with a well implemented market mechanism (I don't mind personal stalls as an option, but for the love of ... put in an auction house as well; tax it if you have to) and a good range of things to craft (it doesn't have to be just gear) there is little reason crafting can't be just as much a part of the game as running the latest raid / dungeon.
I've never met any crafter who actually found the crafting process in a game fun. They get their enjoyment out of what they make and the money they make selling items. How they make stuff never seems to be fun, because most of the time its just clicking a few buttons on a UI (select recipes, select ingredients, press craft).
You are talking about turning real life crafting processes into gameplay elements, i.e. what a player actually has to do to turn raw materials into a finished product. At the moment, every game is basically just a glorified spreadsheet, there are no gameplay elements to this process so it is boring. Some games have added minigames (like FF) to try and make this process fun for the crafters.
So, thats what I'm querying. How do you take the real life process of smelting ore, pouring into moulds, cooling, beating, folding metal, reheating, beating again, sharpening, adding hilts, adding engravings etc, and turn them into actual gameplay?
2) You've reverted to talking about what you craft, not how you craft. The what is easy, it's just recipes. Games like SWG had really complex recipes, games like WoW have really simple recipes, but ultimately its just selecting ingredients, clicking a button and out pops an item. There is no fun involved in that process, there are no meaningful decisions to be made, just some happiness at the end because you have an item to sell.
So, I repeat - in your example, what would the player actually do, in game, when making either a wooden axe or a bone axe? What gameplay would be involved (if any) so that a skilled, dedicated crafter could make a superior wooden axe compared to a novice?
3) You said you wanted crafting in game to mirror real life! I don't want to elevate the boring stuff, god no. I wanna be the weaponsmith who spends his days making epic swords and axes! I don't want to smelt ingots all day long!
As for making crafting fun, I go back to what I originally said - what you make and how you make it. What you make is easy, we've discussed that enough (loads of recipes, experimentation, vibrant market, good demand) but you haven't offered anything up to improve the "how" when it comes to crafting. I've personally never played a game where the "how" was fun. Its always been about clicking a couple of buttons in a UI to select recipe, select ingredients then click craft. There is no gameplay. There are no meaningful decisions. There is no fun.
and yes. I think we are the crafters and the ones who want a mini-game to chop wood like the temporary hired help with a greencard instead of planning, gathering materials and learning reciepes are in fact not 'true crafters'
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
a few things though
1. I have seen the use of mini games in crafting engines (example would be EQ2 and Dark whatever its called where your success of fishing is based on twitch skills) and yes I do not like that.
2. Do I think that its possible for mini games to make crafting even more enjoyable? yes do I think not doing so means all crafting engines without it are bad? not even remotely close
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me