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Crafting - How I would do it
Storm_Fireblade
Member Posts: 156
So, lets talk crafting. Not only is it going to be one of three core-features in Camelot Unchained, it is one of the most important systems for me too. I´ve played several games in the last 14 years. Unfortunately I missed out to get in touch with the crafting in Ultima Online as well as Star Wars Galaxies, which at least from what I´ve heard and read were pretty nice systems. But that didn´t prevent me from getting my fair share of experiences with different craftingstyles. Unfortunately no game did ever come close to what I would wish for myself - DAoC coming the closest.
First of all I think becoming a crafter should be a commitment. Most games offer crafting as some sort of side job everyone can take up. In my opinion thats the first mistake. Crafter should be a class itself - at least if we are talking classbased games like Camelot Unchained will be. I can choose to become a healer, tank, melee-dmg....or crafter. It should be a valid option like every other and not being valued less. Lineage II did at least try to go in the right direction here. Choosing a crafter doesn´t necessary mean you can´t have meaningful abilities for RvR too.
The next thing is how to progress. Although Mark already told us, we won´t be making 10.000 swords no one needs, we know little about how its going to be then. Personally I would choose a path I haven´t seen anywhere yet - a realistic one. Why am I able to build hundreds of items in no time in the first place? Items, f.x. a sword should take a real effort to make. You should have to make several keyitems and go through different productionstages all rewarding you with some form for classprogression. With such a system every item really would count. People would have to order something, if I haven´t any of it in stock etc. In my opinion there is no problem in forcing players to craft like 1-2 hours to make one sword, as long as you are rewarded along the way and not only for the last click.
To minimize the output of crafters would not only make it more realistic, no it would also increase the respect for those players and minimize the chance of any form for inflation. At the same time people would value their items more and the interaction with crafters and non-crafters would be increased too.
While including different productionstages you make it possible to include two other things I would count towards important and desirable --> Quality and Interaction. First, it shouldn´t just be a simple click and made. Somehow you have to offer crafters more playfun, while doing their job. Vanguard tried it and, although the game itself didn´t became a success, did at least a good job in making something up to improve. Second, it should matter what kind of materials you use during each productionstage. Using better ressources and maybe even doing a better job during the interactive-part has to increase the quality of the item.
This would lead to the seperation of good and passioned crafters from the rest. Just like a good pvp´ler, a good healer or anybody else is able to stand out from similar classplayers. It should matter, whether or not I´m good in crafting, If I´m trying to be the best, if I´m using higher materials....at the end I want to be rewarded for my efforts and getting the possibility to really be known as the guy everyone comes to, because they know where they get the highest quality. It has always been so fruststrating to see everyone make the same items and be capable of the same things as soon as they have the same "skill-level". There should be a playskill-component too.
Furthermore customisation is a must have. As a crafter I want to label my items and maybe even from scratch define their colour etc, so everytime I deliver an item people can see my signature.
Well, thats how I see it and I hope Camelot Unchainend will offer something very similar, since Mark - avoiding the hype - still is mentioning how important crafting is going to be, that crafting pride is something they are looking for and that we are going to see something, he hasn´t seen himself in any game up to now.
I could go into more specifics, but I guess its enough to start a discussion for now 
Camelot Unchained Fanpage
https://simply-gaming.com/camelot/
Comments
In your mind, you have created Camelotville: a facebook game where you get to craft cool, nifty things that you can hand off to other players as the battle the world!
A class that does nothing but crafts? Nothing but builds parts for finished products later? Would you wield your blacksmith hammer in RVR? Or just avoid RVR all together? How do you get your mats?
I think it would be cool if crafting was composed of gathering materials and how fast you could complete a particular random generated puzzle to determine the quality of the goods. That way people can take pride in crafting and people who are particularly good at doing them will be well known.
I have a feeling though that the crafting won't be much different than the original daoc.
Actually, that is excactly why I wanted to talk about it this detailed. People tend to think, that allowing "Crafter" to become an independent class, it would only offer craftingskills. Why is that so? Is it really so hard to think outside the box, the box being MMOs the last years? Try to think about how it really was in medieval Europe. Do you think a craftsman couldn´t defend himself or assist with other skills?
In Lineage II, at least back in the days I played it, you could play a crafter and they got abilities to assist the group. Of course you sacrificed something compared with others, when choosing a craftingclass. Just like playing a healer, tank, mage...will limit you in certain ways, craftsman should too - BUT, no one says, you cannot gain abilities to defend yourself and assist your group.
Getting your mats is somehow connected to the RvR anyway. Sure, you will have a few ressources in the safe-areas, but the rest will be in the contested areas. Having a craftsman-class with some skills alongside your crafting abilities wouldn´t render us crafter helpless, when it comes to that, while still maintaining the need to seek support from other classes.
It isn´t that hard to design a craftingclass, that not only has the monopoly on - yeah crafting - while still making it a viable class in RvR with certain perks other classes don´t have. Should a crafter be inferior to other classes in RvR? Absolutely. But that doesn´t mean, you can´t stand your own at all.
Camelot Unchained Fanpage
https://simply-gaming.com/camelot/
If your goal is subject blacksmiths and tailors in battle against warmages and knights, then come right out and say it. Historically, knights were conisdered Delta Force. Yes, a blacksmith can practice his swordplay against a wooden dummy in hopes one day he will fight Johnny Depp and rescue Kiera Knightley.
But in the real world, many tradeskillsman "took up the cross" and died in the 10s of 1000s. There are plenty of gold and coal miners across the planet that think they're the hulk after a bottle of whiskey. They're not mighty dwarves with elobarate cities beneath the crust. Truthfully, they're out-of-shape assembly workers that spend half their lives underground.
Making crafting independent of class makes the most sense for me. It is a tested system that works in most cases. The interesting part is how you gain skill in your trade. Obviously, MJ has some ideas about this system sine he has mentioned it, so I prefer to wait until he talks more about it before discussing it further.
What should be talked about is how gear affects the game. Please, don't make PvP gear separate from normal gear like what AoC did. DAoC had a wonderful system where the caps made most templates a mix of crafter-made gear and quest/raid drops. I want to see something similar here.
To me, crafting's most untapped resource and potential goldmine for making it work lies in not only allowing player skill/knowledge to affect the quality but also to visually create unique items.
Even in the good crafter mmos, such as UO and SWG, you were limited in terms of what you could do with items visually. There wasn't a ton of variety or difference (though SWG wa sa bit better then UO in that regard).
The quality of resources in SWG that you used in crafting along with things affect the "quality" of the item you crafted. So using low quality metal, wouldn't make as good an item as high quality metal and such. This led to crafters who were known for making high quality items because they found (or bought) high quality resoruces to make them.
The thing to me, that I would find most appealing as a crafter, would be allowing crafters to VISUALLY create their items.
TAke a sword for instance, allow people to pick different hilts, pommels (or no pommel), crossguards, blade designs, etc. Then even allow them to add etchines, and jewels or other thing sto the hilt, things that set them apart from other crafters.
The sam egoes for armour. you can do it with a layer system, where you can select the "base" model, then the colour, painting on armour, gilding, etching, etc.
Bascially this allows crafters to be able to make their own styles, it allows them to have creativness and thing sthat are greatly untapped when it comes to crafting in mmo's.
You can even tie this into gameplay, by allowing crafters to "find" receipies and techniques through RVR, whereby they can "acquire" other armor/ewapon recepies from the other realms, through defeating enemies in battle, taking keeps, and other things, This can create crafters that are known for having "unique" items (making them hard to get/find) among other ways to give crafters more personality through their goods.
I totally agree, this is the main crime that most developers commit when dealing with crafting in general. Its just treated as "something to do when you are not doing anything else" or just some sort of "perk" on the side.
I honestly think crafting needs to be genuinley meaningful, and above all else the items made by crafters need to be sought after and not outclassed quickly by other items. Further, real effort should need to be put into making the best items. I don't think I really have the answer as to what the perfect way to handle crafting is but I am looking forward to finding out if there will be innovation.
Ex-DAOC, Excalibur
i think tho that for this to really work you would have to have (nearly) unlimited progression (not only in crafting but in adventure classes too) - otherwise there would be soon max level crafting alts of every max level adventurer.
Agreed on SWG. Crafitng in SWG was awesome and I haven't played an MMO that was as fun and could get pretty serious, but that didn't require you to run 5 spreadsheets like EvE or maybe some indie sandboxes do. Though that was a skill model.
I don't agree that crafting should be it's own class though. It's too restrictive in my eyes. Keep Crafting and Fighting separate in the same character (and housing?), but implement things like gear quality (material quality), experimentation (speed, damage, color, and other customization), specific gear that improves crafting, zones/keeps/mines that are required to reach higher level crafting items. The WoW induced crafting over simplified everything. The mithril axe i crafted with ore from a mountain zone while I was at the great dwarven forge was the same as an axe with ore from a desert zone crafted in some guy's backyard.
I also liked item decay/repair, which I don't know if that has been addressed yet, but that kept the market active. Even lower quality crafters had business because not everyone could afford or wanted to quality gear. Looking forward to the next Foundation post on this topic.