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Problem with "low level materials" in MMOs
Jxb1a
Member Posts: 41
t just me or are low level materials in most MMOs completely useless after you pass the "level" you use them at.
For example, copper. Copper seems to be in most MMOs; they're usually the lowest level type of metallic material that can be used for crafting. Which is okay, I mean, in real life you would want someone to practice with less expensive materials. Hopefully, they get better then they can be trusted to use expensive materials. But in MMOs shouldn't the skill level supercede the "level" of material?
So for example:
I'm a new jeweler so I can make this at first because it's super easy to make; a plain copper ring.
Now I'm a mid-level crafter, I got better, so I can make a silver ring.
Now, I'm a high level crafter and I can make gold rings with gemstones:
But, just because I'm a high level crafter doesn't mean copper should be completely worthless. So I could make a super complicated copper brooch OR a ring that uses a combination of low and high level materials that's based on skill level not level of material:
One argument would be that it could drive the price of copper up crazy. But I don't think that would necessarily be true. If there are 1,000 copper nodes spawning it would still be relatively cheap. Therefore, new jewelers can still make their low level jewelry and high level jewelers could still use copper. Moreoever, when the game matures and there aren't as many new players crafting low level gear, it would still create a demand for low level materials; in this case copper.
Does what I just tried to explain make any sense? It seems like in a lot of MMOs today, low level materials are just left to rot. I know WoW and RIFT follow this linearity of the correlation between skill level and level of material, I'm sure almost all other games follow the same rule.
Comments
It is because in Rift and WoW crafting really does not matter. It is an after thought. Something you do when your bored. A game that actually had a player run economy where everything is crafted by the players that really doesn't happen. I cant remember that happening in SWG. My memory is pretty bad though.
"Crafting" or more... professions are really important in WoW.
And in real life, it's the same thing you know.
If you make a Diamond ring, it's way more valuable and "better" than a cheap copper ring.
No game out there have the type of crafting you would like, and there isn't a majority of player that actually want that.
Well, Guild Wars 2 will kinda come up with a more original crafting system. But Gold will still always > Copper and etc.
Crafting in MMOs generally suck.
The whole tier resources are rather silly. Copper can be mixed with tin to make bronze, with zinc to make brass, with silver or gold and so on IRL, my computer have plenty of copper in it just like a chisel from anciant Egypt.
Crafting is made to be a really long time sink for some people only, so instead of designing cool looking items with good stats we get a huge grind to make second rate gear at best.
Maybe we should rethink the whole idea. One way is to have different rarity on materials and even end game gear needs some basic mats to be made together with some rare.
Another is to skip the tiers and stats entirely, and use crafting to redesign items with a custom and unique look, you take an existing item with stats and make it look unique instead.
Or mix those 2.
Not 100% true, a real masterwork bronze ring can easily be worth more than a badly made gold ring that is just worth material cost.
You are saying that Mona lisa is just worth the material costs otherwise.
A gold ring is generally worth more since it is more expensive to make, but that isn't always true. And diamonds vary a lot in quality, and is severly overpriced compared to stones like emeralds and rubys that are rarer, because the same company sells 95% of the worlds diamonds.
A crappy quality diamond isn't worth much at all.
Low level materials, and even low level crafted items, are made less than useless (delete from inventory will cost less than putting up for sale in AH) because even crafting has Progression like characters have levels.
Progression is the problem.
Yeah, I mean you can mix cheap ass metals with gold to make alloyed gold with different color properties. Like rose gold is mixture of gold with copper. But like everyone has said so far, it' just the way that MMOs are designed unfortunately.
I don't know of any themepark mmo's where you lose the skill either the entire post is about the materials you use early becoming useless later on unless I'm missing something.
This is the best original idea I've heard in regards to crafting in quite some time.
Ultima Online did it right in my opinion. Lower "tier" materials were still useful even at max level for making useful equipment that was just a little less expensive. As you increased your skill you simply learned how to make new items that were usable with any of the appropriate materials, and how to work more valuable materials that have slightly different or marginally better properties/color from lower level materials.
We can argue WoW crafting all day and we will just end up never seeing eye to eye on it.
The OP isnt saying a cheap copper ring is better than a diamond. He is asking why can't a little bit of the old stuff be used as well so it doesn't become useless.
There have been games that had the kind of crafting that I was talking about and I NEVER said that my opinion was of the majority. Infact I have stated many many times that I know it is not.
Do away with gear drops. That idea is outdated and makes no sense anyways. There's no reason a boar or a crab should drop swords and suits of armor when you kill them. that's ludicrous.
Same goes for bosses and the like. 20 people fighting a 50 foot tall beast, let's call it "DRAKUNIUS" (i dunno, whatever..) and after a long scripted battle that they've done 20 times before, the beast drops DRAKUNIUS' Chest Plate, and/or DRAKUNIUS' Long Sword... there's no reason any of these tiny humans/elves/dwarves (again, whatever...) should be able to wield or wear anything from this creature. So, I say, do away with gear drops.
Make crafting, and possibly treasure hunting/excavating/trade/discovery the major options to improve a character's gear.
Would make more sense and imho, ultimately benefit the entire community if mr. DRAKUNIUS instead dropped resourses and materials... "yay! we killed him. someone grab those broken peices of armor/weapons... let's melt it down and make some epic shit out of it! woot." -- or something.
/shrug
I've been saying this for years. Glad Im not alone.
SWG was my first mmorpg and with the initial set up of one character per server I didn't get to try crafting very extensively does anyone on here know if they followed a model similar to alot of the more recent mmo's where the lower teir materials became useless at higher levels?
I just did some research (ok i asked my girl she was the crafter) she said no it didn't work like that at all. Here are how the resources broke down
http://www.swgcraft.co.uk/dev/resource_tree.php
The stats on the resources and the crafting tool you used are what mattered if you wanted to make something of a better quality. Of course different items required different mats but I believe that there were not any mats that became useless.
Maybe not useless, but obsolete. It happened all the time where a particular type of resource would spawn with significantly better stats than what existed before, which pretty much meant that if you crafted with anything but that resource within it's type you were crafting an inferior item. You could still create items, they just weren't as in high demand because they weren't the top tier items anylonger.
There are three models of resource distribution I'm familar with: WoW, UO and Eve.
In a WoW-style distribution, level is everyting - you are constantly in a small sliding window between too low and too high. Each zone has both the monsters and the resources to progress you through a specific window of level+skill advancement. Low-level and high-level characters are rarely competing for the same resources. Players harvest in the zone for their level.
In a UO-style distribution, everything is useful, everything is present everywhere but in different rarities. The rarest ores are required for high end crafting, but common, plentify resources are useful for training all the way from novice to the skill cap. Players harvest close to home.
In an Eve-style distribution, efficiency is the core concept. There is high market liquidity of ores and you can easily harvest one material you have access to for another that you need. Higher-end items tend to simply require insane amounts of resources. High-risk and low-risk areas offer ores with different concentrations of metals and the ingame market does all the risk-reward balancing automatically. Players harvest wherever it is most efficient, up to the limits of their personal comfort zone.
It sounds like is the original poster of this thread is familiar with WoW-style, but wants something more Eve-style.
As others have said, that's part of the guided experience of themepark MMO's. Game's like EVE (the one I have most experience with) uses materials for many recipes. Veldspar, a mineral you can get from just starting, is used in recipes for some of the most powerful ships.
Hey now, let's not spread ignorance (or lies, depending on your actual level of knowledge of WOW crafting.)
@OP: The issue mainly lies in the fact that the only justification for doing things your way is "it's more realistic", which is one of the weakest rationale for a game mechanic (particularly when there are very discernable downsides to making things realistic, as there certainly are in this case.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
...if measured by realism.
And crafting in MMOs is generally a functional, mostly-enjoyable minigame if measured by fun or functionality.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
>>Axehilt
Defintely true, it's more "realistic." Though, I don't think it's fair to use such a broad term as "realism." However, I'm curious to know what discernable downsides there could be to simply not having to completely render completely useable materials useless.
Suppose that's a fair question.
If we decide that low-tier ores like Copper can be found in high-tier areas, then that solves problem 1 (of a bunch of high level chars saturating the lowbie areas.)
At that point you essentially have every ore in high areas, and I suppose you could solve problem 2 (which is complication-without-depth) by limiting how many ore types exist.
But problem 3 is sort of left unadressed in that you never find new types of ore as you level, which also leads to problem 4: you make the crappiest items and the best items with the same ore, so either crafting must require quite a bit of skill (an interesting but unusual direction for the genre) or require a ridiculous amount of ore (which causes pacing and economy problems of its own.)
Again, I don't suppose that's too cripplingly unworkable, but I do feel like it introduces more problems than it solves.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Like UO, AC or EVE?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, EvE, Darkfall & Perpetuum all have systems which avoid this problem. What do they have in common? You don't level in any of the games listed. Most MMO's treat crafting as an afterthought & thus you have materials which become utterly valueless as people level up.
Ultimately the issue is levels & progression which make the gameplay impossible to scale.
And crafting in MMOs is generally a functional, mostly-enjoyable minigame if measured by fun or functionality.
That's opinion. MMO crafting generally suck measured by enjoyment for many. Playing the Auction House is about the only thing I will do in these types of games.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.