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The burden of crafting
osmunda
Member Posts: 1,087
In the midst of another thread, the topic came up. It seems worthy of discussion, but would be tangential to the original topic of the parent thread (IMHO a thread based on a loaded question)
Crysent :
Mortal is such a special case for me. I really enjoyed the game during mid-closed beta, prior to the massive crafting update - after that big crafting update that added a 3 week grind to get a simple pig iron sword the game became terrible - no pvp, if there was pvp it was a bunch of naked people, most people simply woulden't leave town.
It was just so frustrating they had a good combat game, but they choose to implament an overly complicated, buggy, way way way too grindy crafting system and then got caught up spending the next 4 months attempting to fix all the bugs in the crafting system when they shoulda been balancing the combat system they had that was actually fun.
Yamota:
I agree with this. It seems they have spent way much more time into developing crafting than combat. The game should really be called Crafting Online as it is basically the main activity in this game.
Comments
Personally, I would have to say I understand the concerns expressed by Crysent and Yamota but to some extent the craft and gathering resources does need to pose a significant challenge if it is to be part of a balanced whole. MO is not intended to be totally dominated PVP (ala Darkfall) Making crafting challenging without making it a burden requires a lot of balancing and the devs may well have overshot the mark in making it challenging.
When you mention a 3 week grind to get a pig iron sword, do you mean grinding to get the resources, or grinding to get the skill level? If the former, then yes that is a significant problem. If the latter, that is something that is likely to balance itself out after the population and economy stabilizes (some people will have decided that leveling up a crafter is worth it, and others will decide it's just easier to pay the crafter) Initially they had to simplify the crafting because people needed weapons and armor if they were going to test combat.
It takes a few days of crafting and gathering to bring up your skill enough to get decent yeilds on pig iron. The exaggeration of time is just that. Once the skill is up it takes less then 20 minutes to fill up an inventory of granum to make 10+ pig iron swords. This of course is assuming you have a weapon crafter with the proper lore leveled as well.
I don't see a problem with it taking 4-5 days before being able to craft a semi decent weapon (steel sword) this means real crafters will be rewarded late game when they've finally reached the point to make high end armour and weapons.
In Darkfall I think we saw too much of the high end gear (Infernal) too soon and now that high end gear is just a normal to vets, I hope that is never the case in MO because high end gear should remain exactly that a burden and a huge risk for a small advantage and not the 'norm'.
Relating to the first post while yes their concern that they spent a long time developing the crafting system/complicating it probably could have been used better in other areas of the game you have to also remember once that crafting system is in place and balanced to an extent it will always be there to better gameplay. Not to mention the crafting system has been a huge selling point to many.
Making good weapons and armor should take along time to do, because if crafting was to easy everyone can and will do it hence trade and economics will take a huge hit.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
I don't know that the issue is the speed of the skill gain as that is easilly tweaked. Too fast.. poof it can instantly take twice as long.. Too long.. poof now it's twice as fast.
The issues to me are two fold;
Issue #1: The game is designed to make you "discover" recipies on your own. There is no ingame list that shows you how to craft things. Sadly.. this is meaningless 90% of the time as all the recipies are simply recorded offline in the wiki. Why not just show them in game then? The remaining 10% is the opposite issue.. where the big beta guilds pooled resources and discovered the best recipies (which are closely guarded secrets) so at launch they can have an edge. Edit to add: this issue is exacerbated by the fact that it was in pay for beta for 10 months which is an incredibly long time to allow these guys to gather info on a "secret" system..
Issue #2: While it is possible to craft a tremendous amount of things... 95% of the stuff is useless. Having an indepth crafting system that produces unbalanced items seems like a waste. Whats the real point of 1,000,000 combinations if only 50 are going to be used?
Anyhow.. those are simply my OPINIONS. Everyone has their own taste.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
As you sead 1000000+ combo and only 50 is the stuff to use, well don't you think it will take ALONG time to find the right recipes that is something that is worth using?
That is is the whole concept with crafting in MO you actual have to find the right recipe to make the great weapon that no other have done before and you are the first.
Personly i find that concept really intresting, not like in other MMOs you buy all the recipes you can at your level, you and 1 million and your grandma can make the same sword.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Yes I do agree.. and thats what makes Issue #1 so bad... there are guilds that have spent the last 10 months of paid/free beta doing just that.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
The fact that it would even be possible to have "closely guarded secrets" as it relates to crafting is one of the excellent concepts behind the game. It is allowing the feel of a virtual world to exist. To me, that's simply fantastic, and I hope they translate this type of thinking to more areas within the game.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Again.. I agree.. but is no fun when the "closely guarded secrets" are possesed by a few guilds/people at the start of a FFA PvP game. Well at least I don't find other people having an edge to be fun, but it doesn't bother some folks. Matter of taste I suppose. There's actually a poll on this over at the official forums and the vote was split pretty evenly... something like 45%-55% if I recall.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
In any beta guilds learn the best ways to level, the right places to go, what gear is most effective for leveling and how to get it, where resource nodes are, where rare mobs spawn blah blah blah the point is MO is no different.
To me the largest difference between MO and most (possibly all?) other games I am familiar with is that MO allowed these guilds to purchase beta access 10 months prior to game launch. We aren't talking about a guild getting to quickly check things out as a group for a few weeks. We are talking about 10 months of them being able to explore every facet of the crafting system.. which is supposed to be a secret to discover while playing.
I think the concept of having to discover all the recipies is good and I have liked it in other games. I simply think that it becomes a negative when people starting fresh on day one are literally months behind in a facet of teh game which receives so much attention.
You are entitled to your own thoughts on the matter.. but my thoughts are clear. FFAPvP game require as level a playing field as possible. Having all the rare recipies on day one is a huge edge for these beta guilds. I will once again point out that nearly half of the people on the official forums feels the same way... Doesn't make it wrong or right... but it is indicative that my opinion is shared by many.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I can understand where you're coming from, by using an open development it has indeed come with this 'issue' well not really an issue just a minor inconvience for those who havn't tested the system. Perhapes a quick re-shuffle of the higher end recipies would level the playing field as suggested on the forum perhapes not.
There is an easy fix to the crafting issue and beta experienced guilds having better items. SV already did this, at least for weapons the materials are displayed (not for bows last I played) so even though you don't know the amount, you have a start for backwards engineering. As for the person who needed weeks to get pig iron, you went about it the wrong way, killing 3-4 orcs would of netted 500 pig iron easily.
Yes.. EXACTLY. That's what the poll on their forums was asking for.. but the established guilds ranted that they had "earned" this advantage. I guess it all comes down to personal taste. Some people like to have an edge.. some people like to win when things start out evenly.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018