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Boring Crafting
Cuathon
Member Posts: 2,211
So among players who love to craft there have been a lot of complaints about boring crafting systems in the current cohort of MMOs.
Crafting is a time sink with annoying progress bars.
Crafting is dull and shallow
Etc.
Now there have been several attempts by games to innovate crafting, such as the EQ minigame. Others have suggested adding the addictiveness of loot drops to crafting, something that SWG did with great success, although their loot drop inspired system focused on superior resources.
If you really liked SWG for the variable resource quality, would you play a game with a similar resource system?
Would you be interested in a game with a similar mechanic on crafting itself? Suppose you had the variable resources, but in the crafting process, based on some various factors, your final print also had some chance to be better or worse in a semi random way? Would you prefer the random effect to always be a bonus, such as a random chance to be 0-20% better than base stats? Would you dislike a chance to be inferior to base stats? I know I would prefer an upward trending chance only.
Aside from variable resources and also variance during the crafting process, do you like or dislike a crafting mini game such as in EQ 2? I feel like the minigame was really just a disguised % bonus chance, except a little more interactive.
Can you think of other ways to devise a more engaging crafting system?
What sort of crafting features could a major game company put out to make you buy their game, or at least do a trial?
Comments
AC's dynamic loot system combined with it's salvage and tinkering system, provided it's in a skill-based MMO. In a class-based MMO it probably wouldn't be as much fun.
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
Could you describe AC's dynamic loot system? What is tinkering? Salvage is similar to GW salvage system, or different? I have never played AC.
I kind of want a very in depth crafting system like you are actually the one hammering the sword, and if you fail at it you break/ ruin the sword and its worth nothing, but if you do it correctly you could make a great sword that'll work well in battle, though this would only work if you have runescape-esk weapon system like where there are only 8 ( or however many types you want) so you take your iron bars and melt them and continue on the process, if you fail its your fault. Same thing for a rune sword, you use rune bars and do it again, that way the only difference between crafters is their skill, not necessarily the materials/enchants/stats. A skilled craftsman could make great swords that everyone would buy from them, where as a random smith would fail his swords.
I am kind of vague in what im describing but I think you sort of get the idea. Thats my dream for a crafting system.
How would skill be determined? Twitch? Do you understand how swords are made? It is boring and tedious and it takes an incredibly long time. Basically you spend a lot of time hammering and hammers to fold the steel or metal and so forth. I mean, there are different systems, but irl high quality sword making is not for shits and giggles. Similarly, if you mess up, I am pretty sure you could just resmelt the metal you were using.
I don't want to insult you but I don't understand what you mean by hammering the sword yourself, or if you know the actual process by which swords are made. I kind of think the process of sword making you imagine is wildly simplified in comparison to reality. It does sound like a minigame style crafting process though. But the problem is that it would have to be twitch based or something, which is unfair to people without that level of twitch skill.
I think I know what you mean..In SWG the difference was in the resources....not sure how you would put the emphasis on skill over materials etc. but it would be interesting to see....
Thats the point in it being hard, that way not everyone could be a craftsman, those that couldnt do it would be the miners or the gatherers, and it wouldn't take as much time as irl because melting the ores and cooling the metal and all these other minor tasks would be instantanious, it'd just be the actual crafting itself that would take time. Plus, if the game's economy is is only run through craftsmen and gatherers, the reward is very much worth the time invested in creating said sword. It'd be more realistic in the sense that only the truelly skilled could succeed, and obviously minor tweaks could be made if it is too challenging/easy.
Most MMOs have a static list of items that players can find. The stats on these items never vary. Dynamic loot systems are ones where the stats and bonuses of a weapon are generated within certain range. AC and UO are examples of MMOs that have dynamic loot systems.
If you find a copper dagger in WOW, the stats will always be the same.
5-10 Damage
1.5 Speed
30 Durability
Level 11 requirement
If you find a dagger in Asheron's Call, it will have stats and spells that are generated within a range dictated by the particular loot table it came from. Some of those attributes include:
Max damage
Variance
Quality
Durability
Material type
Attack bonus
Defense bonus
Speed
Value
Charges
Spells
Almost every weapon and piece of armor in the loot system (quest and special items aside) can be salved, reducing it to scraps of its base material type. For example, a copper dagger would yield copper salvage. With tinkering, salvage is collected up in bags, and full bags of salvage can be applies to weapons to enhance them or change them in a variety of ways. More on Tinkering can be found here.
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
You still haven't explained how to implement skill based crafting. You still don't seem to understand what crafting a sword is like. You have to pound on a sword for hours and hours and hours, just hammering to get high quality. Why should we make a game where some arbitrary real life talent makes you god anyways? That's what real life is for. You also seem to assume that you have what it takes to be a craftsman. How do you know? I suspect that you don't.
I like crafting, it's just so rare that it's done well. My biggest gripes with crafting boil down to
1) Tedious - having to start out at the bottom and craft a zillion basic bits of armor may be realistic, but it's boring. Nevermind having to collect all the ingredients. When the process of gathering ingredients causes you to outlevel the gear you're crafting, AND the next level of gear, something is seriously wrong.
2) No market for product - If you have to make the equivalent of 10 complete sets of armor to advance to the next level of crafting, what are you going to do with all that armor? Sell them? Even if only 1/10 of the players are crafting, you're already at the saturation point for supply/demend. Nevermind the fact that many players skip the crafted bits entirely, leading to the next point-
3) Inferior final product - what the hell is the point of crafting stuff if better stuff drops randomly as loot?
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
So by dynamic loot you mean diablo style loot drops? Okay, I understand that. The problem is that dynamic loot inherently screws over crafting. There is just no way around that in my opinion. Even with salvage you can't play as a crafter really.
EverQuest 2 and Final Fantasy XIV both showed adding a minigame to crafting only makes it tedious.
I'd prefer a system that lets you create the item if you just have the tools and materials, but give the player options to customize equipment. Ultima Online and Ryzom does this well. The materials you put into the item determines its stats.
But a game has to have a market for the crafted items. If an NPC sells all the gear to max level, it will put a cap on how much the items and materials are worth on the market. And if quest rewards/monster drops are even better, then that makes the whole system pointless.
I totally agree about loot drops ruining crafting.
I do not see a way around having to craft a lot to level skill. What alternative do you propose?
Collecting the materials is unavoidable for crafting. I think the way to remove overleveling is to just remove "levels" and go skill based, but that presents its own set of problems of course.
Having a market for your product is problematic. It would be difficult to balance the need for armor verses the time to craft it. I think the main problem here is that players want their armor to last a "realistic" amount of time, but they want crafting to be instant, and resource gathering to be relatively easy. These are mutually exclusive in terms of economics. If i can make 100 armors in the time it takes to wear down one set, obviously I have a huge problem. But players of a game generally refuse to accept basic principles of economics.
It is my personal opinion that crafting an amazing weapon or piece of armor should take at least 1/100 of the time that the armor will last. That way you could always have a market. Since even if every player was a crafter you would have so many separate spheres and so much to do in each sphere that you would always have a market. Say as an armor smith you need to make 10 pieces of armor. Say it takes an hour of gameplay to make a piece of armor, then the piece lasts 100 hours. The player buys all 10 pieces from you, so even with wear and tear he gets 90 hours minimum for the full set.
If your crafting system was complex enough or if the ratio of demand to supply was high enough, you could make the armor in 6 minutes, and the player could still get 100 hours of use out of it without causing a problem.
I know some people who enjoy crafting minigames but, I think that playerbase is not large enough to justify it as a crafting mechanic. So I suppose I am saying I agree with you. I think that loot dropping and npc shops both cater to the gear up and fight crowd and no game that is serious about crafting can have them.
I love crafting. I loved Vanguards crafting system. I wish a more modern MMO would implement this
I self identify as a monkey.
I read alot about Vanguard's system, but I've never played it. I know you can craft almost anything, including ships, but aside from the diversity of craftable items, what stood out about the actual mechanics of Vanguards system?
A Tale in the Desert might have more ideas about how to make crafting interesting than all of the other games listed on this site combined. Yes, all of them. The problem with having crafting discussions on a site like this is that most people haven't played ATITD much, and thus don't know much of what has already been done and how well it worked.
Vanguard has one crafting puzzle, some slight variations on it, and a ton of grinding. I guess that beats just having the grinding and nothing else, but that that qualifies as better crafting than most other games is sad.
One way i'd love to see crafting done is using a cooking mama or trauma center style mini game during the actual crafting process. Would be much more involved than waiting for a bar to load, or just picking actions off a hotbar like EQ2/Vanguard/XIV.
I can't think of a reason why it couldn't be done.
It was basically a mini game. You had several steps in the process of making an item. The more effort you put into each step led to a higher quality item. for instance you used planks, you had to polish it, shape it, and something else. Its been a long time since I played. You gain skill for these separate process. Add into that the quality of your tools affected the construction.
I know i'm not doing it justice, but it was very fun for us crafter types.
I self identify as a monkey.
Don't try to talk on behalf of all "crafter types", which I most certainly consider myself to be one of. In all MMOs I play extendedly, I do a lot of crafting. And I disagree with you: for me, Vanguard's system was the worst piece of shit ever.
I apologize for my presumption. I definitely made a mistake in phrasing it like that. Its a good catch not to let me get away with something like that. You've done a good service to others in clarifying that. +1 to the correction. I will now fall on my sword to make up for my dishoner. Arrrrggghhh, its going dark. Dont go to the light, don't go to the light....
I self identify as a monkey.
I loved crafting in two games the most, both for different reasons :
1. SWG. The crafting and gathering was the most immersive of any MMO ive experienced. The way you had to use scanners to find the right spots to put your harvestors down is plain awesome for a scifi MMO. Also the factories and workshop you could create for yourself in your house added to the immersion. Apart from that the crafting system was also a smart one. I loved munitions and shipwright. Combined with the shop npcs you could place and the way you were found through the bazaar, made this the most complete crafting experience that Ive played.
2. Fallen Earth. Although the crafting system itself is as basic as you can get, the gathering of scraps in a post apocalyptic world is immersive imo. But the best part in this game is that you actually can create anything for your own toon. Havent played other games where its so well done that you can create usefull gear for yourself during lvling. Its too bad though that with their last changes they made it more frustrating, especially the node spawns.
EQ2 and Vanguard have nice crafting systems too, but Im not really a fan of nodehunting in general and the minigames in EQ2 were kind of meh. A good point in EQ2 crafting however, is that you craft faster the higher lvl you are. That actually makes sense when you become more experienced as crafter. As opposed to other games where refining resources and crafting becomes slower and slower for a purely arbitrary reason (just to slow you down), which I hate.
Could you give some background for ATITD? I have heard of this game in my net travels but have not played it.
I have also heard people say that Wurm Online has good crafting, and to a degree Minecraft although that is more the world building thing. Any opinions on Wurm?
Its certainly possible, although maybe a lot of trouble to make one for all different purposes. It seems like the market for such a game is really small in the already underserved crafting demographic though.
Instead of just dropping swear words, care to explain why you don't like it and/or what kind of crafting systems you prefer? What games do you play?
Whats kind of funny for me loving to craft things. I sometimes forget that it is definitely not universally viewed so. So when a game comes out without a 'good' crafting system, I think to myself how does the community not cause an uproar or why would they put out a game without an involved crafting system.
Then I remember, not everyone likes crafting... fools.
I self identify as a monkey.