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Why even have crafting in every game?
Gintoh
Member UncommonPosts: 329
Obviously in sandbox game it's a must as you're supposed to feel you're in a world.
But some people complain that the crafting sucks in a themepark game about gear grinding, and it's like why does it matter if you can get way better gear from raiding? Why really even bother having drafting in say WoW or a better example DDO? Why is it a must?
Comments
Because people like it.
Is this a serious question?
In WoW, you need something to break the monotony of what you're doing. Even if the thing breaking the monotony is more monotonous that what you were trying to break up. There are very few crafted items that are better than what you can get from drops. I think Inscriptions are the only player supplied items in the game.
In Rift, it's a source of quests and XP, along with some gear that's better than what you'd get from quests, or it fills in gear slots that you don't get from quests.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
To get the feeling of accomplishment to get a certain item that you need to craft? If all items could be bought in NPC shops, every player would be seen with those same items. Now you can get rare items over other players ;-)
Of course it is a serious question. And let me ask a few others too.
As a dwarf in WoW I hated the ram mount. Why not get rid of it. I mean I hate it. I'll never ride one. Good candidate.
Many people of have complained about gnomes being too small and really only useful for punting. Get rid of them.
A lot of people will only play horde or alliance. Why not make Horde/Alliance only servers!?!
Just my thoughts on the matter.
UO-EQ-L2-EQ2-VG-WoW-DDO-GW-AoC-LoTR-WAR-Aion
Currently playing: Rift
Waiting for: EQN
'hey guys to create this boat we want I really need an astrolab and we need a large party to kill the mob that has it, lets make that an event next weekend'.
or
'I need 5 items of X which comes from Mob Y which is in my area but I also need 5 items of item Z which only comes from the mob far up north, I could buy it from the people who live up there or I could go hunt for it myself'.
yes, examples from the game I play but you see the point and that is from a game whose crafting is not the deepest in the industry by any stretch.
Crafting (if done right) are a bit like a vollentary quest engine.
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WoW and similar MMOs crafting is useless, because quest/raid/drop items are better. NONE of my WoW items I could craft were even a fraction as good as items I could buy off the AH that people FOUND ON DROPS/DUNGEONS. So no point in crafting in WoW or similar MMOs.
UO/EVE/Ryzom/Istaria and other sandbox games have actually useful crafting
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Timesink. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
same problem in Darkfall in fact but that is not a fault of crafting in of itself. Its a problem of the developement team and how much they cater to the requests on the forum.
Fallen Earth is an example of a game where you really really need to be a crafter or find a crafter. drop items not so much, a few quest items yes but still not as widespread.
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Lineage 2 had a good crafting system, or at least 5 years ago it did when I was playing. You had a better chance to build something than to pick it up randomly. Of course, that meant farming the mobs that dropped the parts for days on end at the upper levels.
Most crafting system is just for show/making money not really viable equipment in my experience. But, this is because a ton of games have emulated WoW's system. EVE has a good one at least, I thought it was fun.
oh no arguement here on that aspect.
Darkfall crafting is not nearly as good as it could be. Fallen Earth crafting is MUCH better. What is sad however is that Darkfall crafting is still better than EQ2 crafting..
never the less, yes the amount of mats required to get from one tier to the next is crazyness. That said boats should be fairly hard to get mats for, they should be a zerg effort. But swords? not so much.
I should note: a boat that has 5 cannons on it should NEVER EVER NEVER EVER be able to be created and mat collected by one person. boats are by default a group focus mechanic.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
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I have to agree that if you aren't going to do a crafting system with any depth then there is little reason for every game to include it. Many of the current themeparks seem to have a crafting system tossed in just, "because they had to have one".
Personally, I'd rather have a sandbox type game with a serious crafting system, but I know I would find some of themeparks more enjoyable if they just got rid of the wasted systems. Toss out all the "junk" loot that serves as nothing but cumbersome coin tokens; get rid of crafting that has no depth or personality.
Claiming that crafting is pointless because raid gear is better fails to recognize a few points:
Not everyone raids. If you play a game with raid-based endgame, I know it can feel like everyone raids, but that just isn't the case. Crafted gear provides another avenue of progression for those who lack the time and/or desire to zerg dungeons for 3-hour stretches. While it might not be as good as raid gear, it doesn't need to be since non-raid activities rarely require it.
Some players enjoy crafting. Again, if you're primarily hanging out with raiders and on forums, you might not even realize these people exist, but there's a segment of players who won't even log into a game that lacks crafting, whether it's a sandbox game or not. Some like gathering, some like assembling, some like the self-sufficiency, some just like filling in another type of experience meter.
There's more to the game than the last level. In a game with 50 levels, 80 levels, 100 levels, raid gear usually tends to be what you seek once you hit that last level. If crafted gear is at all worth wearing for 49 levels, 79 levels, 99 levels, it serves a functional purpose. That purpose continues to be of value for new players (to a lesser degree) and rerolls (primarily) for the life of the game.
Improves game economy. If the above three points are true (and they are), we've established that there's at least a marginal demand for crafted goods from a segment of players. Where there's demand, there's money to be made from supply, and a healthy economy adds another element of gameplay that many players enjoy, even in theme parks.
Having developers that specialize in the one activity that you find enyoyable, whether it's roleplaying, pvp or raiding, might seem like the best way to make an MMO that fills your needs, but it's not the best way to turn a profit. A game that only has pvp will attract a very specific, significantly smaller group of people, as will a game that focuses solely on raiding or exclusively on roleplaying. The more types of gameplay you include, the greater your potential market penetration will be; if each element is well-designed and implemented, you might even retain some of those players for more than 30 days.
In addition to the above, all of those different categories of player personalites have symbiotic relationships with one another. While Richard Bartle's writings on the subject have been debated and are directed towards smaller MUD communities rather than enormous MMO communities, there are undeniably aspects there that hold true with regard to the way the different gamer psychologies impact one another. (http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm) Simply eliminating an element of gameplay (and, therefore, a segment of the players that enjoy it) will almost definitely have a negative impact on the community as a whole unless it's replaced with another system that serves the same player group.
What?
First, stop acting like the only crafting professions are Tailoring, Leatherworking and Blacksmithing.
Anyway, yes most armor drops are better in raids, but not the items you can get off the AH, anyone that know anything about WoW gear knows that the best items you can purchase on the AH...are crafted items, the best non-raid head items are almost all Engineer crafted items, most crafted items now are comparable to heroic dungeon gear, unless you are talking green gear, but that's a no brainer. The only enhancement items that don't require a profession are head and shoulder enhancements. The best pvp gear you can get that requires no pvp (a starter pvp set) are crafted items. Jewelcrafting is crafting and I make tons of gold off it...why because it isn't useless. I mean even some archaeology item is considered the best best in slot caster item until raid heroics.
-I want a Platformer MMO
I like crafting, I just wish it played a more important role than it does in most games.
Every game shouldn't have crafting, but they have to maximise the crowd. It's somewhat easy and too standard mechanic so it's get implemented, just for sake it's standard and someone wants it, or atleast it's thought to be wanted...
Of course it depends on the game, but many elements, perhaps most elements, in MMOs can be considered timesinks.
A lot of people consider achievement / feat grinds a timesink, while others think it's thrilling endgame content. Same thing with faction grinds.
In some games, crafted items aren't very good compared to drops. In other games, crafted items are the only items available and are therefore very important.
Perhaps a game company will eventually figure out a creative new way to do crafting in-game, or a new way for crafted items to impact gameplay. Simply leaving it out, without adding other elements to flesh out a game's world, really smacks of laziness on the part of the developer, and will likely make a game feel shallow and hurt its long-term appeal.
Like it or not, crafting has become a staple of MMOs. They provide an alternate activity besides just combat, combat, combat. Such activities are the things that, to me, make an MMO feel more like a virtual world instead of just a paper-thin fighting game with a leveling curve.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Right? I guess I can see what he's talking about with Alchemy. I mean, the flasks that drop in the wild are so... oh wait. nvm.
I was pleasantly surprised when I went from Apprentice to full 5 star Elite in under 2 months. I was pleasantly surprised again when I went from Elite to just barely Hardcore in 2 weeks. Apprentice, here I come!
Crafting is a necessity in MMOs.
Why is crafting in most MMO's? Because some people really enjoy crafting.
The better question is "Why is there trivial tradeskills in MMO's that have little to no effect on gameplay?" The answer being, the non crafting crowd would spit buckets of chips if someone could make gear better than they could find in a dungeon.
So we get mediocre poorly implemented haphazard and weak crafting thrown in to please both sides, the Crafters get something out of it, and the non crafters dont get to feel inadequate because they dont like to spend time in a game crafting.
I enjoy crafting, I LOVED Fallen Earths crafting, sure there were rough edges, but it was very nicely done. I played Aion, the crafting was tedious and repetitve and if you did not turn off ingame sounds when you went to the Armour/Weaponsmith you would hear hammers tink tinking for days after a few hours crafting, but I enjoyed it (The crafting, not the hammers)
I cannot say if I would prefer no crafting to the half arsed attempts made, I would definitely enjoy a more in depth and complex crafting system which would rely on other tradeskills and people to help promote more community aspects.
The crafting is there so they can say "hey it's not just a hack&slash raiding game, there's crafting too". The fact it is a second thought, and thrown into the game with minimal effort, well, they don't have to say that.
Same question I have about PvP added hastily to PvE games.
EXplorium never played Wow I suppose.
You simply can't play anything decently/challenging in the end game of WOW if you dont enchant ALL your gear, use stones to enhance the stats, have potions to enhance the fighting, use food, use elexirs to various degrees, use hundreds of different forms of crafting you can buy on the auction house.
In fact thousands of crafted things are needed in this game and then you come up with a ridiculous statement like that ? What a laugh ....
Writing about something you have no clue about ... silly really.
Well, as for wow and crafting. It had some use in the gameplay. It was more back in the days.
But in lets say wotlk, the crafters got patterns/designs or whatever from the raids/dungeons/vendors to make gear that was needed for the raiding, to make you char competable. For instance, wrists was crafted and also boots, sure you could get them as drops, but you had the alternative to craft or buy crafted items. And then we also had the 3 most useful craftingskills in wotlk to, Enchanting, Jewelcrafting and Inscribtion. Because, jewelcrafters where the only ones who could make the gems used for both raiding and pvping. Enchanters was the only ones who could enchant your gear with boosting stats. And inscribers were the only ones who could make glyphs to tweak your skills and talents. But there was craftingskills that became quite useless in that point, and was mostly just picked for the "buffs" it had for yourself. I can't answer on how the cata crafting is useful because I have stoped playing. But yeah, all in all, the crafting in some games are there to be used to enhance your "gameplay"
This also goes for Aion, some of the crafting is useful for gearing and enhancements.
So, some games do actually implement the crafting quite well. Some just has it there to keep you occupied if you grow tired of the gameplay^^ Like archelogy^^ I know you can get useful stuff from archelogy, but... to what cost? It's really timedemanding what I can see...
for one: enchanted was in vanilla, wotlk didnt invent it
for two not all games have crafting dcuo just came out with no tradeskills at all, just glorious combat