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Crafting: What do you like?
Fishbaitz
Member Posts: 229
I was responding to a post on another forum on crafting, telling him my thoughts on the matter. He was for having a myriad of crafting profession and gathering professions, like mining, gathering, smithing, fletching, cooking, ect; with many levels or tiers in each category. He supported this with it meant a good economy and lots of content. I was inclined to disagree.
My thoughts on the matter is that crafting should be limited to the actual crafting professions with less or smaller levels in them. And gathering would be largely simplified as well by giving more from each resource node. I supported this with the claim that his style of crafting isn't fun and is overly grindy, and that you don't need gathering professions to support crafting professions in order to have a good economy. I also stated that crafting like that is not a lot of content.
We both claimed that the majority of the MMO community was behind us, but I got curiose and wanted to find out what other people thought about it all.
So, do you like blueprint or exploratory crafting? Gathering and Crafting or Crafting alone? Multi-combination materials or straight materials? Many tiered materials or few generic ones? I want to know your thoughts and any examples of crafting systems found in games that you like or dislike. I want to know what the MMO community wants.
*I would poll, but it doesn't give the option for multi answer sooo... no*
Comments
I think very little amount of people actually enjoy crafting and the majority does it just for gear, definitely explains the huge grind the mats are. So yes i quite agree with the fact that gathering should give a lot more resources.
Actually the reason i've never enjoyed crafting is because it just seems broken, most people gather some mats as they level or get them at cap but its usually just buy mats when your a high lvl and make the low lvl items in sheer amounts until you can make something you need. A chore, not fun. Some might say "low lvl gear is suppose to help you" well then why is it that my quests always give me better gear and that i actually spend a fortune on one piece of equipment that will be useless to me in a few lvls?. Crafting at its core is broken for me, or maybe i just don't get it.
Well, I am all for a few professions (like smith, alchemists, tailor and such). 6-8 is good, maybe one that trains animals and a herbalist that can collect rare herbs and make salves) .
But I also would like one class that basically is a crafter/merchant who can take all of those and are leveled up in a different way, like getting xp for crafting and earning money instead of killing things. that class should also get a store instead of a house.
As for the crafting in itself I want the player to be able to design their own item with effects and looks, the better crafter the more choices.
And no system that forces you to make a 100 tin daggers or something else useless that no one wants to buy.
And i don't want an auction house, it is better to shop at player stores and market stands. Someone that can point you in the direction of a crafter that has the item in stock is fine however.
Crafting directly contradicts one of the main reasons for playing your character, which is gear acquisition. I've never played an MMO where crafting was anything more than a boring time sink. If the economy needs more (or less) gear, then the simplest solution is to make mobs drop more (or less) gear.
I know some people are hardcore role players and enjoy being seen as an 'important crafter', but filling a role that takes no skill is tedious at best. In other words: crafting should be a game in itself, otherwise it serves no real purpose.
IMO it doesn't matter what you can craft or how many items you can craft, a successful player driven economy springs forth from the best quality items in game only being available through crafters. If you want to kill an online economy start including said quality items in loot tables. Crafters need to have purpose and customers need to depend on them.
Some sort of "consumption" system should be in place. I know decay is a touchy subject, but surely there are other options to create a repeat customer situation. If an item does not cycle out of the game somehow, items will saturate and remove the "dependancy" needed for a successful economy.
Ingredient quality allows crafters to search for the best ingredients and separate themselves from their competition by trying to offer the best quality items and removes the "every named item is the same" boredom. It makes the crafters try harder and their customers to actually SHOP for items instead of just buying the item from the first vendor they find. It also reduces the "he has x item, so it will do y damage" situation. Not knowing how powerful or good that weapon or armor is that your opponent has makes half the fun in combat.
Specialization (training a narrow craft to become better at it) and personalization (Crafted By: tags) are not necessary but nice touches. Anything else (including crazy amounts of items available to craft) are just fluff.
Crafters simply need to be needed.
I love the crafting in Atlantica Online.
You gave you the option to craft everything. But the drawback is learning a craft is grindy. To craft say an basic axe it takes 1000 workload. And the only way to gain workload is by killing monster or afk-crafting which takes time. And to learn the next higher grade axe, you need to craft 100 basic axe.
The basic idea is you can learn everycraft. But learning a craft takes alot of times. Unlike for example wow where you can only learn 2 basic craft, and you can maxout your skill in a few hours as long as you have all the material.
I just find it funny that we have polar opposites posting after one another. One claiming gear progression should all be from drops, and another advocating item decay in order for crafters to be needed in the long term. (neosapience and Delzo)
Disagreement Heirarchy
Yeh i found that system quite interesting and crafting was actually quite useful in that game with a good economy from all the mats dropped from not only high lvl monsters but even low ones. It wasn't very deep and hard to understand but it worked.
That's called balance. If you can easily get geared through monster drop, there's no point of crafting. But if you can easily craft everything, there's no point of fighting monster.
What usually happens is if you learn sword crafting, you have the ability to craft a powerful swords, but the drawback is it either really expensive to make, or it's bound so it's not sellable.
Trust me item decay is very strong, a great example of this is fallen earth. Now the main feature of that game is its crafting but the AH their is very rarely used and thier is very little need of crafters their. Why? Because you usually have enough mats to make your own gear or theirs usually a guildie who will make it for you if he doesnt give you his old gear before. The problem is, the people at the cap only needed to make their gear once and their set, no more need of crafters after that.
I find it amusing when debates have ppl stating that 'MOST' of the mmo community agrees/disagrees with the opinion being stated.
For crafting, while I don't think it is necessary for the 'world economy', it does give a sense of immersion to a world needing your expertise on making game stuff.
I would like to see more complex-driven professions that the player can evolve in his/her own way. Gives variety to the game. If the game is weapon/armor heavy with quests, then do away with making that type and concentrate on other things for smithing, like accessories (horse shoes for extra speed, or tools to help other professions). Weave the professions together that only those crafting can provide what is needed for others to improve theirs.
As some have said, atm it is a bit grindy for rather useless crap, but in RL most crafting goes this way since you can only get better by repetition.
I usually think that way to, so I got thinking after making that claim, and decided to post here on that topic to see what people really think, not what I think they think. Hooray for using the word 'think' too much!
As these are games, they are made to be fun, why would I want to live one of the boring parts of life in something I am playing for enjoyment and entertainment.?
Disagreement Heirarchy
I like this thinking. It is out of the ordinary same old. For most crafting is nothing else than a bar filling from the left to the right and a message about whether you succeeded or not. Can it get any more boring? I mean this is basically the principle of a lottery so why dont they at least present it by "tHe crAZy WhEel Of CRaFTIng!" with funny jingles and flying confetti?
Seriously crafting needs an overhaul as a whole. Make blueprints for weapons or armor drop from mobs. The crafter class then comes with different attributes and skills. For example the ability to read the foreign blueprint. Depending on how good his ability is he accurately reads the different parts of the recipe. He may then decide if he wants to go on with an maybe inaccurate reading and see what he gets or first improve on his reading skills.
Because the errors he makes while reading could lead to new improved designs. Just like in evolution, hehe. The actual blueprint would be divided into different parts each of which responsible for different attributes of the weapon/armor. You can insert materials of different qualities into these parts hence improving this part of the craft or not.
Inserting materials are realised by mastering certain fun minigames further de- or increasing quality. The crafter class' attributes could help in mastering these games or a general "assemble" talent. A "reassemble" talent could rule over how often you could try again.
Of course, the outcome has to be worth the hassle. If you are building a whole class about crafting you have to fill it with sense. Id like to see such new things.
Excellent out of the box thinking. I don't dislike any of your ideas.
I like crafting, there, i said it.
What i like in crafting though is complexity, a simple use 2 of this to get that everytime doesnt keep me interested, though its better than token turn in "crafting". I like crafting to have lots of variables and lots of inputs that affect the end product, i like what i craft to have my characters name on it "crafted by xxx" so people will know what i can do and if they like it, come back for repeat business.
Why do i like crafting? It gives me something else to do when i dont feel like fighting or questing or whatever. Actually, i like crafting more than fighting and questing a lot of the time
I dont HAVE to group up to do it, i can craft solo, i can craft with a like minded group of people too.
Its another option that fleshes out a world and gives people something to do.
But, to me there is nothing worse than pointless crafting, builders and crafters like to build and craft things to be used, by themselves and by others, in my opinion.
Crafting helps to produce a community, which is what mmorpg's are about.
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
My favorite crafting experience was EQ2. It wasn't too bad on the grindiness of the whole gathering and crafting process. Plus you had events that you had to react to in the crafting process that made it more interesting. So you had to have involvement in the process versus just gather a set quantity and pushing a button to get your item.
Personaly I think gathering and crafting is a complete waste of time that could be removed from games with no negative impact on the fun to be had. Gathering and crafting are only useful for making money and getting items, but I could just as well adventure and get the same things, except adventuring is much more fun. I even played games like Vanguard but the crafting still wasn't very good. And really if I am buying items I do not care who made it or even if it was crafted or just found.
I say drop skills and levels and make crafting into a customization tool (visually that is). You could let players collect different design blueprints to do different types of customization and then let them customize their generic looking items they find while adventuring.
All men think they're fascinating. In my case, it's justified
my personal experience with crafting was when i played daoc. i hated the cratt bar aspect of the grind, and it was a grind in the early years but improved from a time sink perspective in the here and now. overtime i had a lgm ctafter in all aspects except weaponcrafter. what i enjoyed after the grind to lgm was the "THINKING" aspect needed to be a successful crafter. i enjoyed talking with people on what they wanted there "template" to be, use my skills as a spellcrafter to imbue skills into all my crafted pieces , then proc the armor with awesome effects with my alchemist abilities. i would craft set pieces for all levels(especially for the battlegrounds and craft the ultimate level 50 template pieces. i never had money issues(made 99% and masterpiece items usually for cost), although i would always get a nice "tip" from people who appreciated the time and effort . i had a money making machine in my necromancer who then could trinket the material. i still miss that aspect of daoc. who knows i might return some day.
live long and prosper
strength and honor
if urgent do it yourself
if you have time-delegate it
if you have forever-form a committee
That's why mobs should drop crafting materials instead of gear. I'd like the idea that all the best weapons and armors were produced by crafters but at the same time the mats for making them were expensive and hard to come by.
Not every player should be a crafter, so having a grinding factor suits fine to me. Besides, if you're a smart crafter you make other players to grind the mats for you.
I dont get why some people want to lessen their game worlds, if all you want is action, why are you playing rpg's when there are fps's or rts's.
Is it that some are hardcore raiders, and do not want to see their role in a given game lessened by crafted items being better than drops. They might not be top of the in game profession heap anymore, people might not oo and ahh over how many times they've run a given instance or set of instances in order to be "geared up", they might have to grind to get gold in a non raiding way?. Though with cash shop item creep thats going to become less relevant as time passes.
Anyway, there are already a lot of games for non crafting people where crafting can be ignored entirely, now why not let crafters have some games with vibrant crafting, its an area sadly lacking in most games out there at the moment. I play two and have heard about but not played two others, and one that was revamped into a non crafter game. There may be more, but they arent sold as crafting freindly if there are.
F2P/P2P excellent thread.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/282517/F2P-An-Engineers-perspective.html
I too enjoy "complex" crafting and for me the absolute reference for crafting in an mmorpg was Star Wars Galaxies (the original, before Sony ruined it).
First of all SWG was a totally player-run economy. With the exception of starting gear, everything was player-made and everything decayed, thus ensuring that crafters would always be needed. When i say "everything" was made by players, i mean everything - armour, weapons, medicines, clothes, food, drink, land transport, space vessels, houses, furniture, musical instruments, entertainment props, mining equipment, crafting equipment, factories, surveying equipment ... the list is endless.
I cannot even remember all the crafting professions, but those i can remember are: Armoursmith, Weaponsmith, Doctor, Chef, Architect, Shipwright, Artisan, Tailor ...
There were maybe 15 resource categories (metals, ores, hard plastics, liquid plastics, woods, plants, gases, liquids, etc). Each category contained literally dozens of sub-categories ... so under metals for example you would find all the metal types that you can think of (iron, steel, copper, zinc, tin, silver, gold, ... etc etc).
There would then be spawns of these sub-categories, each with a different spawn name ... so, for example, there would be up to 100 different types of copper. Every resource had 6-8 aspects (hardness, flexibility, durability, conductivity, etc) and each aspect was graded from 0-100. (So for example, one copper spawn might be graded as follows: Hyanarium Copper: Hardness 30, Durabilty 40, Conductivity 96, Flexibility 68, etc).
Spawns would last from between 1 day and 2 weeks. The chances were that the exact same resource would never spawn again. You had to use your scouting and surveying skills to locate the spawns (which could be on any of 9 different planets), then find the best concentrations and then set up mining machinery to mine/harvest them.
Once you had collected the best possible resources, you could then work on trying to improve certain aspects, depending on your skills (increasing a wood's hardness for example, or a plastic's flexibility). You would then create your first sub-components, on which you could again conduct experiments to improve certain aspects. These sub-components would then be put together to form main components (more experimentation) which in turn would form the finished product (more experimentation).
All of this experimenting allowed crafters to concentrate ondifferent aspects of an object. You might choose to make armour which offered less protection, but which lasted longer before needing to be replaced, or which was lighter and therefore allowed faster movement. Or a house which was more energy efficient and thus had lower running costs. Or a medicine which was very powerful but whose effect lasted only 10 minutes ... as opposed to a 30-minute but less effective one.
The quality of the final product thus depended on the character's skill in finding and mining the best resources, the quality of the tools he used (player-made, varying qualities), his experimentation skills, the quality of his mining and construction equipment (player-made, varying qualities), etc. It is no exaggeration to say that every item created in SWG was unique.
Then you've never played EvE. And you've never played FFXI, where, yeah, crafting is a boring time sink, but it's also more than that. Most vital consumables have to be crafted in FFXI, and a lot of good equipment can only be created by crafting as well.
Fallen Earth player here, my most played and fun MMORPG before will always be Star Wars Galaxies, yes for me personaly if crafting is a afterthought and a MMO is to much loot-gear oriented with very limited crafting then I know it's not the game for me.
I am a capped crafter, but unlike many I still craft low lvl till cap items, I do craft for the fun it gives me, play other type of game genre for my combat fixe as MMORPG combat never really satisfied me fully, now don't get me wrong combat in MMORPG can be fun, but personaly I like combat in other genre of games to be much better suited towards me taste, crafting is actually something else when done right in a MMORPG, it can not be found in single or mulitplayer games and if it's in those games it's often very limited to self progression, unlike MMORPG's where it can mean allot towards allot of friends/players/guild/clanmembers.
Yes I like my crafting to have meaning towards more then myself, I don't craft in Fallen Earth just for myself, but do so for the playing community and some friends I have made along my journey's in the gameworld, obviously I do make things that I do need myself, but overall I take my time and my challenge is to be able to craft every single item the gameworld can offer me, it does take up allot of time to gather the mats, but again I do take my time to do so, which means I am NOT able to play a MMORPG 24/7 but am able to atleast squize in a few hours during week day's till some sunday's where I have more time to spend playing my favorite hobby.
I also know I am a niche type of gamer when it comes to playing games in this genre and am pretty sure that a majority of players would just choose to make what they themself need, obviously there are plenty players around who do so because they are guilded or some might just be like me and find their own challenge/niche within the crafting game a MMORPG can offer. So I fully understand that crafting is not something everyone enjoy's, shame that some people are blinded to actually think that combat isn't a timesink and crafting is, if people would open their eye's and would be honost we all should know that every single game regardless it's genre and regardless how a persons is playing game X it's alway's a timesink, when people figure that out we might have much better discussions about playing games in this genre. Cause as I said every game ever made is a timesink, what really matters is what YOU (commonly speaking) are enjoying within that time spend playing .
Give us a example of some of the crafting
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I like having gathering and crafting, so people who need some money can just sell resources, and they need to be multi teired, so more advanced characters can get better quality materials.
Rare materials need to take some work to get, and recipes, I tried the whole just combine stuff and find out what it makes, and decided i don't like that, now i do like having a research, or experiment type recipe that allows you to use materials for a chance to get a new rare recipe, but anyways.
As far as the crafting itself, I don't like having to play a minigame to craft, makes it too grindy. I just want to collect the materials, and then either put them in some area where they start making or just make them myself, with no chance of failure, there can be a chance that I make something better but I hate farming for mats for an hour or two, and then only make two items cause my luck of the draw caused me to fail 16 times in a row.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
I enjoy crafting to a point. I like it to be something simple. I know i'm gonna get shit for this but i liked some of the crafting in WoW. I liked makling potions because they were always needed and useful. With the potions it was take these items and you get what you needed. I didnt like engineering much because of all the sub combines. I also liked the gathering in WoW. BS/LW i found to jsut be a waste because the dungeons/raid negated anything you did. Though i liked the idea of the armor patches and stuff like that as a side set of enhancements. It made crafting still useful for the BS/LW professions. i like what vanguard and EQ2 did for the process of crafting but after like 50 it just became a pain, irritating and boring to me.