why is it so hard for games to have a crafting route and a raid route to obtain "the best gear". one would think that would make a little more sense, to appease everybody or atleast make things more interesting.
Originally posted by Slukjan I never understood this. It seems a no brainer to make crafted items the best items available. Then people can get really excited about crafting. But most MMOs seem to have the best gear dropped from raid bosses...which pretty much makes most crafted gear obsolete. At the very least devs should make crafted gear at least equal to the best raid drops, if not better. I'm not sure why this idea hasn't caught on yet.
It's a catch 22.
Players often say they want one thing, but instead play the opposite. Many players want 'the best' crafted gear, but they also want incentives to run dungeons / raid. The two often conflict, and one or the other has to be the superior choice, at which point everyone ends up doing that instead.
Then you have the rare games (i.e. Firefall), which say 'okay, now ALL the best stuff is crafted. And you get those materials from bosses, instancces, etc. And you know what? No one gave a damn. It's not as satisfying as finding that l337 axe, shield, staff, dagger, etc.
That said, there are more games trying to a route of more heavily emphasized crafting. We'll just have to wait and see if players actually support them or not. It'll be nice to see a different norm of MMO, though. As I'm tired of the gear grind.
You have to measure what you think the playerbase really wants. In a game like GW2, which isn't hugely crafting oriented to begin with, they recently made the absolute best weapons only obtainable through the weapon crafting professions - and there was actually quite a lot of community backlash agasint it. (Although accurately measuring that can be nearly impossible, as we've seen over and over again that as little as 2% of any given game's community posts on any forums anywhere.) Plain and simple though, there are a lot of players who don't want to craft, and you're liable to make them angry if they feel like they're forced to craft.
I think you're just falling into the trap where you think your perspective equals that of the majority, when, in fact, the majority may actually only want crafting to be a small fun thing to do on the side.
wrong in gw2 the best weapons right now ascended weapons, can be obtained by drops crafts and even so if you had legendary that old legendary of yours are now the same power as a ascended, and tell me what si teh new on ahving people complaining? people will always complain about something and I tell you people was with a crafted ascended the next day and I don't doubt they did get some hours after the patch was in, so next time before you say something get your facts right....
I can't understand a word you're saying; so I'm not even going to try to reply.
why is it so hard for games to have a crafting route and a raid route to obtain "the best gear". one would think that would make a little more sense, to appease everybody or atleast make things more interesting.
Because it costs a lot of resources to create a second route. And if there is little demand for it, devs are not going to bother.
Back when i play WoW, for each tier of content, there are always TWO slot with craft items being BIS (or close to BIS). Do people care? Not really, and that is why they don't expand the use of that.
In comparison, they did LFR for one raid, became highly popular, and now every raid (at least the new ones) are LFR. (LFR costs resources, because the LFR version needs to be tuned, and have different mechanics).
Devs know what is popular, and what is not, and allocate resources accordinigly.
Originally posted by Horusra Should change end crafting to refining items found in the game. Upgrading, changing stats, changing look...etc. That way one still have to raid or whatever to get the basic item and crafter still feel important.
Originally posted by Quirhid Crafting is boring. Rewards don't change that.
Crafting is fun..Take away the easy way out of getting gears in raids..Replace it with crafting material that you need to finish that gear..Raiding for gear is to easy and it suxs!!!
Fun is subjective.
It is more fun to me to kill a mob, and receive a loot, then receive some crafting mat, and have to play a mini-game before i get my item.
In some cases it's not even a mini-game, you just click buttons.
Could you actually make crafting a skill based mechanic like combat?
Originally posted by immodium Originally posted by nariusseldonOriginally posted by PoppleOriginally posted by QuirhidCrafting is boring. Rewards don't change that.
Crafting is fun..Take away the easy way out of getting gears in raids..Replace it with crafting material that you need to finish that gear..Raiding for gear is to easy and it suxs!!! Fun is subjective.It is more fun to me to kill a mob, and receive a loot, then receive some crafting mat, and have to play a mini-game before i get my item.In some cases it's not even a mini-game, you just click buttons.
Could you actually make crafting a skill based mechanic like combat?
Originally posted by QuirhidCrafting is boring. Rewards don't change that.
Crafting is fun..Take away the easy way out of getting gears in raids..Replace it with crafting material that you need to finish that gear..Raiding for gear is to easy and it suxs!!!
Fun is subjective.It is more fun to me to kill a mob, and receive a loot, then receive some crafting mat, and have to play a mini-game before i get my item.
In some cases it's not even a mini-game, you just click buttons.
Could you actually make crafting a skill based mechanic like combat?
yep.
I was thinking something along the lines of you had to beat the metal into shape, say a sword. Your stats are all dependent on where you hit the metal.
You had to smelt iron down too maybe. Get the right temps and such.
I never played DAOC or UO so not sure what the crafting was like there. I mostly played themparks where crafting is just opening a menu and clicking 1 button then waiting for a few seconds and poof...item created. Pretty dull.
I like the idea of crafters being able to modify end game gear by altering/adding stats, looks, adding enchants (which i guess some games do), that sort of thing. I guess maybe FF14 does this to some extent with materia. But I'd like to see more depth in the crafting process. Again, I think FF14 is a step in the right direction for that.
Kiddies/casuals don't like crafting, and that is the audience for most of the shallow, F2P drek that gets put out these days.
Also, designing and developing a good and useful crafting system is not easy to do. As such, most developers can't or can't be bothered to do it.
So, more shallow games, with crappy crafting systems, for 1-2 month customers, made by disposable devs/programmers.
That is what the MMORPG genre is now.
Casual and crafting and mutually exclusive subjects. Nothing to do with the other.
I'm casual and love crafting.
How nice for you.
Most casual players do not like crafting and won't play a game with a deep or complex crafting system, because by definition, it is not "casual friendly".
Most games these days have shallow everything, including crafting, if they have crafting at all, and those are the games the producers are making.
There has not been a game made with a crafting system comparable to SWG/UO/EvE or even Fallen Earth in years (and the crafting there was only marginal). Why?
Because the kiddies/casuals, which make up the majority of players these days (especially for F2P games) don't want to "have to" craft to get the best gear. Or rely on another player to craft it for them.
So there is raiding, instead, and a loot based economy.
Edit: And as a side issue, having meaningful, high end, useful crafting would cut into the things that could be sold in cash shops, as well. So you show me a heavy cash shop game, and I'll show you a game with lousy crafting.
The first scenario is something I don't like about RPGs. A board has no use for a shield, so why does it drop one? Also, humanoids use armor and weapons, yet most games don't let you take stuff from the enemy you just killed. At the very least, we should be able to take broken armor and melt it down for crafting again.
magic?
If a mage can teleport, and create fire from nothing, why can't a magical bird drop shields and stuff?
It doesn't make sense from a roleplaying perspective. What does make sense is having a bird clutching a key which opens a chest full of loot, though.
Originally posted by Slukjan
I never played DAOC or UO so not sure what the crafting was like there. I mostly played themparks where crafting is just opening a menu and clicking 1 button then waiting for a few seconds and poof...item created. Pretty dull.
I like the idea of crafters being able to modify end game gear by altering/adding stats, looks, adding enchants (which i guess some games do), that sort of thing. I guess maybe FF14 does this to some extent with materia. But I'd like to see more depth in the crafting process. Again, I think FF14 is a step in the right direction for that.
DAOC's crafting was your typical boring menu grind, but the production of items equivalent to end-game content made the process worth the effort.
The first scenario is something I don't like about RPGs. A board has no use for a shield, so why does it drop one? Also, humanoids use armor and weapons, yet most games don't let you take stuff from the enemy you just killed. At the very least, we should be able to take broken armor and melt it down for crafting again.
magic?
If a mage can teleport, and create fire from nothing, why can't a magical bird drop shields and stuff?
It doesn't make sense from a roleplaying perspective. What does make sense is having a bird clutching a key which opens a chest full of loot, though.
Why not?
You can easily dream up some mumbo jumbo lore saying that in this magic kingdom, people are storing stuff in minaturized "chests" that can grow big or small. When you kill a bird, the chest that it swallowed pop out, restore to the right size, and when you open it, it contains a sword +3.
Make total sense to me.
(BTW, the minaturizable storage is not a new idea either, it is already used in Dragonball Z, which is as much fantasy as sci-fi).
Kiddies/casuals don't like crafting, and that is the audience for most of the shallow, F2P drek that gets put out these days.
Also, designing and developing a good and useful crafting system is not easy to do. As such, most developers can't or can't be bothered to do it.
So, more shallow games, with crappy crafting systems, for 1-2 month customers, made by disposable devs/programmers.
That is what the MMORPG genre is now.
Casual and crafting and mutually exclusive subjects. Nothing to do with the other.
I'm casual and love crafting.
How nice for you.
Most casual players do not like crafting and won't play a game with a deep or complex crafting system, because by definition, it is not "casual friendly".
Most games these days have shallow everything, including crafting, if they have crafting at all, and those are the games the producers are making.
There has not been a game made with a crafting system comparable to SWG/UO/EvE or even Fallen Earth in years (and the crafting there was only marginal). Why?
Because the kiddies/casuals, which make up the majority of players these days (especially for F2P games) don't want to "have to" craft to get the best gear. Or rely on another player to craft it for them.
So there is raiding, instead, and a loot based economy.
Edit: And as a side issue, having meaningful, high end, useful crafting would cut into the things that could be sold in cash shops, as well. So you show me a heavy cash shop game, and I'll show you a game with lousy crafting.
"most casual players do not like crafting" - IMO this is totally false. I don't think how casual/hardcore a player is has is shown in any way, preference... at all by or through crafting.
Yes most games these have shallow crafting. That isn't any different than in the past. There are several games that I think are better than SWG UO in crafting. Yes the ones I like are older Istaria and ATITD, EQN looks intersting though.
Crafting has never been popular, ever. it was always just on the edge. Raiding has always been more popular than crafting.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
You have to measure what you think the playerbase really wants. In a game like GW2, which isn't hugely crafting oriented to begin with, they recently made the absolute best weapons only obtainable through the weapon crafting professions - and there was actually quite a lot of community backlash agasint it. (Although accurately measuring that can be nearly impossible, as we've seen over and over again that as little as 2% of any given game's community posts on any forums anywhere.) Plain and simple though, there are a lot of players who don't want to craft, and you're liable to make them angry if they feel like they're forced to craft.
I think you're just falling into the trap where you think your perspective equals that of the majority, when, in fact, the majority may actually only want crafting to be a small fun thing to do on the side.
I agree with you but also with OP. At LEAST top crafted gear one have invested a lot of time and effort should be at PAR with raid drops. I would say win-win situation.
I agree with you but also with OP. At LEAST top crafted gear one have invested a lot of time and effort should be at PAR with raid drops. I would say win-win situation.
Show me a themepark game where the crafting actually takes effort and I'd be more likely to agree with you. Crafting in any MMO I can think of (other than maybe EVE and Vanguard) is something so simple that a 3 year old could do it and simply takes time but not any thought. If you could just get everything in a themepark by crafting it would take dumbing down these games to an extreme that even MMO devs aren't willing to go to.
If games would make their crafting mentally stimulating and challenging my opinion about this would change though.
I agree with you but also with OP. At LEAST top crafted gear one have invested a lot of time and effort should be at PAR with raid drops. I would say win-win situation.
Show me a themepark game where the crafting actually takes effort and I'd be more likely to agree with you. Crafting in any MMO I can think of (other than maybe EVE and Vanguard) is something so simple that a 3 year old could do it and simply takes time but not any thought. If you could just get everything in a themepark by crafting it would take dumbing down these games to an extreme that even MMO devs aren't willing to go to.
If games would make their crafting mentally stimulating and challenging my opinion about this would change though.
Khm, ever played Wow? But truth is they have simplified maybe to much. Once one needed even coal and alike which sounded logical to craft good sword. This is gone. But nowadays for really top recipes many times you need elements that can be created only once per day or days ... etc. Hard to obtain. Recipes are many times random and rare drops. Same with crafting rare ingeneering mounts, ... etc. Once even opening lock boxed was fun because required a lot of effort from rogue, ... now is all done with just leveling. Part of me wish that "old good" times, part is happy as it is.
About others ... crafting actually never got under my skin, nor Vanguard's nor others.
Khm, ever played Wow? But truth is they have simplified maybe to much. Once one needed even coal and alike which sounded logical to craft good sword. This is gone. But nowadays for really top recipes many times you
Yes I found WoW crafting very simplistic when I played it . Just needing a rare item drop is just more grind. There is no real thought in that. I'd like to see a system where the recipes that would work would be random with some logic system behind it. You'd have to experiment with different ingredients to get the recipe to work and just because it worked one time wouldn't mean it would always work with exactly the same ingredients. Not just "I'll look up the ingredients I need online and buy the rare stuff on the AH or grind for it..."
Second Best Gear in FFXIV is High Quality Class Specific Crafted Armour.
Best Gear is actually two sets, 1 Class set and 1 Job set, that is Not Dropped, but Bartered for with Items you get for completing various End Game Dungeons.
My biggest problem with crafting is that it just produces the same stuff over and over. Crafter A produces the same sword at level X as Crafter B and Crafter C. Everyone is creating identical weapons, identical armor and identical potions. It doesn't matter who you go to, you get the same end product.
I always thought that individual crafters ought to be able, for a lot of extra effort, to create customized weapons that only they can craft. They get 10 points and can split it up into 4-5 different categories for weapon stats, they can design their own image for the weapon, logos, etc. Then, they are the only ones who can craft that weapon or that armor or that potion and it's actually different from anything else you can get in the game.
The problem with modern crafting is that it just doesn't matter. It's just getting yet another standard design that takes another step and usually costs more money.
It's because developers are now focused on making cash-grab games, and not subscription modeled games maintaining revenue over time. They don't need the crafting time sink, just like they don't want to waste resources for things like housing/player shops/guild houses etc., decent animations, open dungeons, etc.
For a game to have a deep, varied, and vital crafting system will require that it is, first and foremost, a crafting-based game, and secondly, a game where the players are crucial to the development and success of their characters, not just "best gear trumps all".
Crafting is also for people who like the social aspect, and developers understand that's a small and dwindling percentage in the marketplace.
Comments
why is it so hard for games to have a crafting route and a raid route to obtain "the best gear". one would think that would make a little more sense, to appease everybody or atleast make things more interesting.
It's a catch 22.
Players often say they want one thing, but instead play the opposite. Many players want 'the best' crafted gear, but they also want incentives to run dungeons / raid. The two often conflict, and one or the other has to be the superior choice, at which point everyone ends up doing that instead.
Then you have the rare games (i.e. Firefall), which say 'okay, now ALL the best stuff is crafted. And you get those materials from bosses, instancces, etc. And you know what? No one gave a damn. It's not as satisfying as finding that l337 axe, shield, staff, dagger, etc.
That said, there are more games trying to a route of more heavily emphasized crafting. We'll just have to wait and see if players actually support them or not. It'll be nice to see a different norm of MMO, though. As I'm tired of the gear grind.
I can't understand a word you're saying; so I'm not even going to try to reply.
Because it costs a lot of resources to create a second route. And if there is little demand for it, devs are not going to bother.
Back when i play WoW, for each tier of content, there are always TWO slot with craft items being BIS (or close to BIS). Do people care? Not really, and that is why they don't expand the use of that.
In comparison, they did LFR for one raid, became highly popular, and now every raid (at least the new ones) are LFR. (LFR costs resources, because the LFR version needs to be tuned, and have different mechanics).
Devs know what is popular, and what is not, and allocate resources accordinigly.
/agree
In some cases it's not even a mini-game, you just click buttons.
Could you actually make crafting a skill based mechanic like combat?
Fun is subjective. It is more fun to me to kill a mob, and receive a loot, then receive some crafting mat, and have to play a mini-game before i get my item.
In some cases it's not even a mini-game, you just click buttons.
Could you actually make crafting a skill based mechanic like combat?
yep.
I was thinking something along the lines of you had to beat the metal into shape, say a sword. Your stats are all dependent on where you hit the metal.
You had to smelt iron down too maybe. Get the right temps and such.
Kiddies/casuals don't like crafting, and that is the audience for most of the shallow, F2P drek that gets put out these days.
Also, designing and developing a good and useful crafting system is not easy to do. As such, most developers can't or can't be bothered to do it.
So, more shallow games, with crappy crafting systems, for 1-2 month customers, made by disposable devs/programmers.
That is what the MMORPG genre is now.
Casual and crafting and mutually exclusive subjects. Nothing to do with the other.
I'm casual and love crafting.
I never played DAOC or UO so not sure what the crafting was like there. I mostly played themparks where crafting is just opening a menu and clicking 1 button then waiting for a few seconds and poof...item created. Pretty dull.
I like the idea of crafters being able to modify end game gear by altering/adding stats, looks, adding enchants (which i guess some games do), that sort of thing. I guess maybe FF14 does this to some extent with materia. But I'd like to see more depth in the crafting process. Again, I think FF14 is a step in the right direction for that.
How nice for you.
Most casual players do not like crafting and won't play a game with a deep or complex crafting system, because by definition, it is not "casual friendly".
Most games these days have shallow everything, including crafting, if they have crafting at all, and those are the games the producers are making.
There has not been a game made with a crafting system comparable to SWG/UO/EvE or even Fallen Earth in years (and the crafting there was only marginal). Why?
Because the kiddies/casuals, which make up the majority of players these days (especially for F2P games) don't want to "have to" craft to get the best gear. Or rely on another player to craft it for them.
So there is raiding, instead, and a loot based economy.
Edit: And as a side issue, having meaningful, high end, useful crafting would cut into the things that could be sold in cash shops, as well. So you show me a heavy cash shop game, and I'll show you a game with lousy crafting.
It doesn't make sense from a roleplaying perspective. What does make sense is having a bird clutching a key which opens a chest full of loot, though.
DAOC's crafting was your typical boring menu grind, but the production of items equivalent to end-game content made the process worth the effort.
Why not?
You can easily dream up some mumbo jumbo lore saying that in this magic kingdom, people are storing stuff in minaturized "chests" that can grow big or small. When you kill a bird, the chest that it swallowed pop out, restore to the right size, and when you open it, it contains a sword +3.
Make total sense to me.
(BTW, the minaturizable storage is not a new idea either, it is already used in Dragonball Z, which is as much fantasy as sci-fi).
"most casual players do not like crafting" - IMO this is totally false. I don't think how casual/hardcore a player is has is shown in any way, preference... at all by or through crafting.
Yes most games these have shallow crafting. That isn't any different than in the past. There are several games that I think are better than SWG UO in crafting. Yes the ones I like are older Istaria and ATITD, EQN looks intersting though.
Crafting has never been popular, ever. it was always just on the edge. Raiding has always been more popular than crafting.
I agree with you but also with OP. At LEAST top crafted gear one have invested a lot of time and effort should be at PAR with raid drops. I would say win-win situation.
Show me a themepark game where the crafting actually takes effort and I'd be more likely to agree with you. Crafting in any MMO I can think of (other than maybe EVE and Vanguard) is something so simple that a 3 year old could do it and simply takes time but not any thought. If you could just get everything in a themepark by crafting it would take dumbing down these games to an extreme that even MMO devs aren't willing to go to.
If games would make their crafting mentally stimulating and challenging my opinion about this would change though.
Khm, ever played Wow? But truth is they have simplified maybe to much. Once one needed even coal and alike which sounded logical to craft good sword. This is gone. But nowadays for really top recipes many times you need elements that can be created only once per day or days ... etc. Hard to obtain. Recipes are many times random and rare drops. Same with crafting rare ingeneering mounts, ... etc. Once even opening lock boxed was fun because required a lot of effort from rogue, ... now is all done with just leveling. Part of me wish that "old good" times, part is happy as it is.
About others ... crafting actually never got under my skin, nor Vanguard's nor others.
Yes I found WoW crafting very simplistic when I played it . Just needing a rare item drop is just more grind. There is no real thought in that. I'd like to see a system where the recipes that would work would be random with some logic system behind it. You'd have to experiment with different ingredients to get the recipe to work and just because it worked one time wouldn't mean it would always work with exactly the same ingredients. Not just "I'll look up the ingredients I need online and buy the rare stuff on the AH or grind for it..."
Second Best Gear in FFXIV is High Quality Class Specific Crafted Armour.
Best Gear is actually two sets, 1 Class set and 1 Job set, that is Not Dropped, but Bartered for with Items you get for completing various End Game Dungeons.
So, there's that.
My biggest problem with crafting is that it just produces the same stuff over and over. Crafter A produces the same sword at level X as Crafter B and Crafter C. Everyone is creating identical weapons, identical armor and identical potions. It doesn't matter who you go to, you get the same end product.
I always thought that individual crafters ought to be able, for a lot of extra effort, to create customized weapons that only they can craft. They get 10 points and can split it up into 4-5 different categories for weapon stats, they can design their own image for the weapon, logos, etc. Then, they are the only ones who can craft that weapon or that armor or that potion and it's actually different from anything else you can get in the game.
The problem with modern crafting is that it just doesn't matter. It's just getting yet another standard design that takes another step and usually costs more money.
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It's because developers are now focused on making cash-grab games, and not subscription modeled games maintaining revenue over time. They don't need the crafting time sink, just like they don't want to waste resources for things like housing/player shops/guild houses etc., decent animations, open dungeons, etc.
For a game to have a deep, varied, and vital crafting system will require that it is, first and foremost, a crafting-based game, and secondly, a game where the players are crucial to the development and success of their characters, not just "best gear trumps all".
Crafting is also for people who like the social aspect, and developers understand that's a small and dwindling percentage in the marketplace.