I'm not a crafter and don't want to be. I rahter collect and have some npc do it for me. If the loot is good I tend to horad a lot. Crafting mats take up too much inventory. It's a hassle I avoid whenever possible.
The multitudes of items is one of the great annoyances of crafting, but it can be dealt with through deconstruction. Say you crafted several brass buckles for whatever reason and no longer need them. You should simply be able to deconstruct them back into raw brass so you don't have an inventory slot taken up for all eternity. If you recover 70% of the brass, it's no big loss and if for some reason you need to make another in the future, you haven't lost much. Even better, the system should allow low level mats to be refined into higher level mats. Newcomers to the game can have the choice to sell mats to buy gear, or use mats to craft themselves.
Deconstruction is also a great means to taking old gear out of the game, rather than just vendoring it. This system is far superior to bound items as well, since your old gear is no longer just worthless. If you're not a crafter, you can give old gear to a guildie, or have it deconstructed for mats towards new gear.
Item wear can be bad or good. The standard repair would restore the item, but take a point off of total durability. Then eventually the item would be wearing out too quickly to be useful, and need replacement. There should be a second choice to repair to 100% durability with no wear, but it would be more costly. This would allow you to keep an exceptional item for as long as you wanted. Personally I think there is no need for item wear as long as items are not bound, and deconstructible.
Mats need to be acquired from multiple sources, and should never be limited to a single one. Rare mobs, spawns, raids, distant locations, random outcrops, etc, should all be possiblities.
Finally, no forced alts. A character should not be limited to a single tier for some arbitrary reason. If a person becomes a master weaponsmith and then wants to pursue jewelcrafting, they should not be forced to create an alt to do so. If they want to split their time and materials between two or more crafts, that is their choice. The system will be self regulating for the most part. While it is conceivable for a guild to contribute masses of resources to a single individual in order for them to master several crafts, would it really be wise for them to do so? As many have stated in previous posts, choice is key. Give players choices, and let the game deal with them, good or bad.
I'm not a crafter and don't want to be. I rahter collect and have some npc do it for me. If the loot is good I tend to horad a lot. Crafting mats take up too much inventory. It's a hassle I avoid whenever possible.
The multitudes of items is one of the great annoyances of crafting, but it can be dealt with through deconstruction. Say you crafted several brass buckles for whatever reason and no longer need them. You should simply be able to deconstruct them back into raw brass so you don't have an inventory slot taken up for all eternity. If you recover 70% of the brass, it's no big loss and if for some reason you need to make another in the future, you haven't lost much. Even better, the system should allow low level mats to be refined into higher level mats. Newcomers to the game can have the choice to sell mats to buy gear, or use mats to craft themselves.
Deconstruction is also a great means to taking old gear out of the game, rather than just vendoring it. This system is far superior to bound items as well, since your old gear is no longer just worthless. If you're not a crafter, you can give old gear to a guildie, or have it deconstructed for mats towards new gear.
Item wear can be bad or good. The standard repair would restore the item, but take a point off of total durability. Then eventually the item would be wearing out too quickly to be useful, and need replacement. There should be a second choice to repair to 100% durability with no wear, but it would be more costly. This would allow you to keep an exceptional item for as long as you wanted. Personally I think there is no need for item wear as long as items are not bound, and deconstructible.
Mats need to be acquired from multiple sources, and should never be limited to a single one. Rare mobs, spawns, raids, distant locations, random outcrops, etc, should all be possiblities.
Finally, no forced alts. A character should not be limited to a single tier for some arbitrary reason. If a person becomes a master weaponsmith and then wants to pursue jewelcrafting, they should not be forced to create an alt to do so. If they want to split their time and materials between two or more crafts, that is their choice. The system will be self regulating for the most part. While it is conceivable for a guild to contribute masses of resources to a single individual in order for them to master several crafts, would it really be wise for them to do so? As many have stated in previous posts, choice is key. Give players choices, and let the game deal with them, good or bad.
I am already hailed FE crafting and must comment this post: in FE items are deconstructible (named in game Salvaging). ya must be able to make item to be able to salvage it. And not only items. Say ya have many tiers of resorces (in Fe scrap, cheapest, salvaged, average, pristine etc.) and in case ya young newbie guildie needs some item, ya can easily take higher tier resource and salvage it to lower tier. So no need to hold all resources of all tiers. And item's wear off (named in FE Fatigue) isn't bad at all - it give to crafters permanent need for their goods. They don't ware off so fast (fatigue has 20 lvls and each repair lowers that by one). And NO forced alts at all - every crafter can educate himself to max lvl in EACH craft area (if he have enough APs and skill) but no stupid artifical borders, eg. ya are metalsmith so no weapons or food craft for ya. Yes, it's time and money consuming but not impossible ( i have maxed each and every craft and recipes in FE).
There are in my book, 2 schools of thought when it comes to crafting in games...
Group A) The real crafters, these are the ones who like sandboxy complex games and are typically much older crowd that could sit and craft all day, many also would spend hours on the character design screen as well. The more indepth the crafting the more they love it. Crafting classes supporting each other and multiple classes of crafters (ala swg) would be the perfect example of this group in my book. This group would prefer crafting to produce the best weapons and items in game so that a near or close to near real game internal economy is formed. However, one of the biggest drawbacks to this is also the complexity for new players to jump in an have fun at it as well as the dependence on others to make it work depending on game design.
Group Are the Loot is better gang. This group appears to me, to be the younger crowd (imo), that expects loots to be the top drop of items, weapons etc and they don't typically have the time or the inclination to sit down and craft for hours on end and it is not fun to them. These are the polar opposites to the group A in that they seem to need the quick satisfaction of accomplishment that comes with a kill, loot, sell rinse and repeat. The game design type I see falling closer in line with WOW's style where crafting really doesn't matter and the only real money makers (the point of crafting/gathering) is to have 2 gather skills and sell everything you get on auction. Here the economies are typically based off of selling loot to the highest bidder on some sort of centralized auction house and typically with runaways costs, but its easy for new players to jump in and have fun without relying on others so it is more casual friendly as well..
That's my 2 cents on it. I guess for me, I fall a little more into the Group A because i love to craft and roleplay and i like complexity in my games but its not for everyone. I like also the loot systems but I think the balance of crafting is better then looted really is inherent to the game design and makes all the difference in having a community game world as opposeed to having a fun casual friendly game.
Comments
The multitudes of items is one of the great annoyances of crafting, but it can be dealt with through deconstruction. Say you crafted several brass buckles for whatever reason and no longer need them. You should simply be able to deconstruct them back into raw brass so you don't have an inventory slot taken up for all eternity. If you recover 70% of the brass, it's no big loss and if for some reason you need to make another in the future, you haven't lost much. Even better, the system should allow low level mats to be refined into higher level mats. Newcomers to the game can have the choice to sell mats to buy gear, or use mats to craft themselves.
Deconstruction is also a great means to taking old gear out of the game, rather than just vendoring it. This system is far superior to bound items as well, since your old gear is no longer just worthless. If you're not a crafter, you can give old gear to a guildie, or have it deconstructed for mats towards new gear.
Item wear can be bad or good. The standard repair would restore the item, but take a point off of total durability. Then eventually the item would be wearing out too quickly to be useful, and need replacement. There should be a second choice to repair to 100% durability with no wear, but it would be more costly. This would allow you to keep an exceptional item for as long as you wanted. Personally I think there is no need for item wear as long as items are not bound, and deconstructible.
Mats need to be acquired from multiple sources, and should never be limited to a single one. Rare mobs, spawns, raids, distant locations, random outcrops, etc, should all be possiblities.
Finally, no forced alts. A character should not be limited to a single tier for some arbitrary reason. If a person becomes a master weaponsmith and then wants to pursue jewelcrafting, they should not be forced to create an alt to do so. If they want to split their time and materials between two or more crafts, that is their choice. The system will be self regulating for the most part. While it is conceivable for a guild to contribute masses of resources to a single individual in order for them to master several crafts, would it really be wise for them to do so? As many have stated in previous posts, choice is key. Give players choices, and let the game deal with them, good or bad.
I am already hailed FE crafting and must comment this post: in FE items are deconstructible (named in game Salvaging). ya must be able to make item to be able to salvage it. And not only items. Say ya have many tiers of resorces (in Fe scrap, cheapest, salvaged, average, pristine etc.) and in case ya young newbie guildie needs some item, ya can easily take higher tier resource and salvage it to lower tier. So no need to hold all resources of all tiers. And item's wear off (named in FE Fatigue) isn't bad at all - it give to crafters permanent need for their goods. They don't ware off so fast (fatigue has 20 lvls and each repair lowers that by one). And NO forced alts at all - every crafter can educate himself to max lvl in EACH craft area (if he have enough APs and skill) but no stupid artifical borders, eg. ya are metalsmith so no weapons or food craft for ya. Yes, it's time and money consuming but not impossible ( i have maxed each and every craft and recipes in FE).
There are in my book, 2 schools of thought when it comes to crafting in games...
Group A) The real crafters, these are the ones who like sandboxy complex games and are typically much older crowd that could sit and craft all day, many also would spend hours on the character design screen as well. The more indepth the crafting the more they love it. Crafting classes supporting each other and multiple classes of crafters (ala swg) would be the perfect example of this group in my book. This group would prefer crafting to produce the best weapons and items in game so that a near or close to near real game internal economy is formed. However, one of the biggest drawbacks to this is also the complexity for new players to jump in an have fun at it as well as the dependence on others to make it work depending on game design.
Group
Are the Loot is better gang. This group appears to me, to be the younger crowd (imo), that expects loots to be the top drop of items, weapons etc and they don't typically have the time or the inclination to sit down and craft for hours on end and it is not fun to them. These are the polar opposites to the group A in that they seem to need the quick satisfaction of accomplishment that comes with a kill, loot, sell rinse and repeat. The game design type I see falling closer in line with WOW's style where crafting really doesn't matter and the only real money makers (the point of crafting/gathering) is to have 2 gather skills and sell everything you get on auction. Here the economies are typically based off of selling loot to the highest bidder on some sort of centralized auction house and typically with runaways costs, but its easy for new players to jump in and have fun without relying on others so it is more casual friendly as well..
That's my 2 cents on it. I guess for me, I fall a little more into the Group A because i love to craft and roleplay and i like complexity in my games but its not for everyone. I like also the loot systems but I think the balance of crafting is better then looted really is inherent to the game design and makes all the difference in having a community game world as opposeed to having a fun casual friendly game.
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