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I have a couple questions about crafting

<strong>How involved will crafting be? Also will crafters be able to break down the pieces they made and/or drops that they gather from mobs in order to gain mats for making other pieces? </strong>

I am a crafting whore/addict. In fact, I have such a crafting addiction in MMORPGs, when testing out a new potential new MMO, the first thing I do, when I am able is test out the crafting system, if it has been implemented in the alpha/beta. I am wondering how deep the crafting system of Ashes of Creation will go. Will it be heavily involved like the crafting system of Ashen Empires, or will it be less involved like games such as Guild Wars 2, or will it be a simple system like World of Warcraft?

For those that haven't played it, the crafting system of Ashen Empires is VERY involved. For an example, say a player wanted to make a basic sofa, that player would have to go out and cut down trees, and find sheep to shear out in the wild. Then, they would have to back and process the logs into boards and turn part of the wool into thread in order to sew pieces into the making of the sofa. The player would have to go out and mine iron ore, turn it into ingots (if you wanted to do it alone, or if you weren't a part of a guild), so that you could make tacks, bolts and braids. Then the crafting would put all those pieces together to make a sofa.

In Guild Wars 2, players have to make certain ingredients towards making pieces, but not as involved as Ashen Empires. For example, in order to make an amulet, the player would have to refine the gems, make the necklace, and then put those pieces together to make a amulet. For those that haven't played WoW, the current crafting system goes as such...player goes out to farm ore, they come back use some of that ore to make a shield, or plate chest piece or plate helm. That's it. Also the crafting system means little to nothing in terms of importance over gear that is looted from dungeons and raids other than for the transmogrification system.

Don't get me wrong...I love the transmog system, but as a crafting whore/addict, I feel useless in the current WoW system. I feel more important in the GW2 system as a crafter; and I feel that my time was well spent in the Ashen Empires system, because the gear that is made means just as much as the gear looted from drops. I am wondering how involved the crafting system of Ashes of Creation will be, and just how important the gear made will be in wide scheme of the game.

If you got to the bottom, thank you for taking the time. I can’t wait to play this game, and I hope crafting will be an integral and fun part of my gameplay experience.

Comments

  • I pray the resources spawns are dynamic and vast. I miss my Star Wars Galaxies resources. That game had it perfect.
  • It's apparently going to be like what you described with ashen empires, only that you cannot do everything by yourself.(you can actually, but you'll suck at it) you'll need the help of your buddies. let's say you are a farmer who wants a sofa. so you can gather wool, sell the excess, buy wood, take that to a wood worker, have the basic frame made, then take it to a tailor,make the softer parts. I think the last part can be fully done by the crafter, not sure...
  • [quote quote=18173]I pray the resources spawns are dynamic and vast. I miss my Star Wars Galaxies resources. That game had it perfect.

    [/quote]

    It made being a non combative an effective and viable class. loved that you had to work with others to make and get items to make your character better.
  • As a fan of crafting systems I’ve tried to analyse what makes a good crafting system for my personal taste. I’ve narrowed it down to the following components:
     Resource gathering
     Refining materials
     Blueprint discovery
     Effectiveness of crafted gear
     Fashion

    <strong>Resource gathering</strong>
    The start for every crafter, the most important thing about gathering is that is shouldn’t feel like grinding. It’s a good way to encourage exploration if the source of the materials is spread over the map and fast travel is limited. I prefer to collect a couple rare materials over huge amounts of common materials because it feels less repetitive.

    <strong>Refining materials</strong>
    The refining process often feels pointless, just a chore to transform the raw material into something useful. In general there's room for improvement, I would like a more realistic approach to refining. For example, if you look at steel which is an iron alloy, the mix of the alloy (and hardening process) determines the quality of the steel. So the first step for high quality gear should start with the refining process.

    <strong>Blueprint discovery</strong>
    Where gathering could encourage exploration, blueprint discovery could encourage both questing and exploration. Complete quests for a blacksmith to gain access to rare blacksmith blueprints or travel deep into a forgotten dungeon to find ancient blueprints. The most critical part is that blueprints need to be fairly rare, this encourages players to trade their services. I dislike it when every crafter can easily get all the rare blueprints.

    <strong>Effectiveness of crafted gear</strong>
    This is probably the most important aspect, crafted gear should be on a similar level as dropped gear. Make crafted gear too strong and nobody will look for rare drops, make it too weak and nobody will even look at crafted gear. In a perfect system crafted and dropped gear offer unique bonuses so there're pro's and con's for both options.

    <strong>Fashion</strong>
    Like many of you I’ve played Oblivion, Skyrim, The Witcher, Dark Souls etc so I know fashion deserves to be mentioned. Why wear gear that’s marginally better if it looks terrible? We all want to be strong but looking good can be even more important. During launch there will be 8 distinct races so I’m hoping crafted gear will be affected by the race. The colour is also very important, I’m hoping for a colour customization option after crafting in the form of a dye station or something similar.

    Let me know what you think about the aspects I addressed. And feel free to point out things you find important that I’ve missed.
  • As a fan of crafting systems I’ve tried to analyse what makes a good crafting system for my personal taste. I’ve narrowed it down to the following components:
     Resource gathering
     Refining materials
     Blueprint discovery
     Effectiveness of crafted gear
     Fashion

    <strong>Resource gathering</strong>
    The start for every crafter, the most important thing about gathering is that is shouldn’t feel like grinding. It’s a good way to encourage exploration if the source of the materials is spread over the map and fast travel is limited. I prefer to collect a couple rare materials over huge amounts of common materials because it feels less repetitive.

    <strong>Refining materials</strong>
    The refining process often feels pointless, just a chore to transform the raw material into something useful. In general there's room for improvement, I would like a more realistic approach to refining. For example, if you look at steel which is an iron alloy, the mix of the alloy (and hardening process) determines the quality of the steel. So the first step for high quality gear should start with the refining process.

    <strong>Blueprint discovery</strong>
    Where gathering could encourage exploration, blueprint discovery could encourage both questing and exploration. Complete quests for a blacksmith to gain access to rare blacksmith blueprints or travel deep into a forgotten dungeon to find ancient blueprints. The most critical part is that blueprints need to be fairly rare, this encourages players to trade their services. I dislike it when every crafter can easily get all the rare blueprints.

    <strong>Effectiveness of crafted gear</strong>
    This is probably the most important aspect, crafted gear should be on a similar level as dropped gear. Make crafted gear too strong and nobody will look for rare drops, make it too weak and nobody will even look at crafted gear. In a perfect system crafted and dropped gear offer unique bonuses so there're pro's and con's for both options.

    <strong>Fashion</strong>
    Like many of you I’ve played Oblivion, Skyrim, The Witcher, Dark Souls etc so I know fashion deserves to be mentioned. Why wear gear that’s marginally better if it looks terrible? We all want to be strong but looking good can be even more important. During launch there will be 8 distinct races so I’m hoping crafted gear will be affected by the race. The colour is also very important, I’m hoping for a colour customization option after crafting in the form of a dye station or something similar.

    Let me know what you think about the aspects I addressed. And feel free to point out things you find important that I’ve missed.
  • What we know so far is that the crafting professions will be split into 3 categories: Gathering, Processing and Crafting. So if we look at the building of a sofa, cutting the trees and sheering the sheep would be done with Gathering professions, Turning the wood into logs would be done with Processing professions, and finally you would use the Crafting professions to put those parts together. The thing about the crafting in Ashes is that depending on the level of the item you wanted to create you wouldn't be able to do all this yourself. The way it works is that you have a certain amount of skill points you can allocate to the 3 categories, giving you the choice of either specialising in a singular category or spreading your points out to become a jack-of-all-trades, Master of none.

    So let's say you put all your points into Gathering. This will allow you to harvest the highest level materials, but you won't have the skill required to process those raw materials or turn them into crafted items. On the other hand, if you spread your points out across all 3 categories, you will be able to gather, process and craft low-mid level materials and items, but won't have the skill to work with the highest level materials.

    So regardless of what you choose to do with your points, you will have to work with other people in order to make the best items. Also to set your mind at ease, the best armour and weapons will be crafted items using materials dropped from end-game bosses, so crafters will always be relevant at end-game.
  • As a fan of crafting systems I’ve tried to analyse what makes a good crafting system for my personal taste. I’ve narrowed it down to the following components:
    -Resource gathering
    -Refining materials
    -Blueprint discovery
    -Effectiveness of crafted gear
    -Fashion

    Resource gathering
    The start for every crafter, the most important thing about gathering is that is shouldn’t feel like grinding. It’s a good way to encourage exploration if the source of the materials is spread over the map and fast travel is limited. I prefer to collect a couple rare materials over huge amounts of common materials because it feels less repetitive.

    Refining materials
    The refining process often feels pointless, just a chore to transform the raw material into something useful. In general there's room for improvement, I would like a more realistic approach to refining. For example, if you look at steel which is an iron alloy, the mix of the alloy (and hardening process) determines the quality of the steel. So the first step for high quality gear should start with the refining process.

    Blueprint discovery
    Where gathering could encourage exploration, blueprint discovery could encourage both questing and exploration. Complete quests for a blacksmith to gain access to rare blacksmith blueprints or travel deep into a forgotten dungeon to find ancient blueprints. The most critical part is that blueprints need to be fairly rare, this encourages players to trade their services. I dislike it when every crafter can easily get all the rare blueprints.

    Effectiveness of crafted gear
    This is probably the most important aspect, crafted gear should be on a similar level as dropped gear. Make crafted gear too strong and nobody will look for rare drops, make it too weak and nobody will even look at crafted gear. In a perfect system crafted and dropped gear offer unique bonuses so there're pro's and con's for both options.

    Fashion
    Like many of you I’ve played Oblivion, Skyrim, The Witcher, Dark Souls etc so I know fashion deserves to be mentioned. Why wear gear that’s marginally better if it looks terrible? We all want to be strong but looking good can be even more important. During launch there will be 8 distinct races so I’m hoping crafted gear will be affected by the race. The colour is also very important, I’m hoping for a colour customization option after crafting in the form of a dye station or something similar.

    Let me know what you think about the aspects I addressed. And feel free to point out things you find important that I’ve missed.
  • I love to see invested crafters like myself! Welcome to the community. I predict the crafting system will be more involved than most considering crafting and economy is one of the pillars the developers love to refer to. Thats just me and I hope for the best :)
  • As a fan of crafting systems I’ve tried to analyse what makes a good crafting system for my personal taste. I’ve narrowed it down to the following components:
    -Resource gathering
    -Refining materials
    -Blueprint discovery
    -Effectiveness of crafted gear
    -Fashion

    Resource gathering
    The start for every crafter, the most important thing about gathering is that is shouldn’t feel like grinding. It’s a good way to encourage exploration if the source of the materials is spread over the map and fast travel is limited. I prefer to collect a couple rare materials over huge amounts of common materials because it feels less repetitive.

    Refining materials
    The refining process often feels pointless, just a chore to transform the raw material into something useful. In general there's room for improvement, I would like a more realistic approach to refining. For example, if you look at steel which is an iron alloy, the mix of the alloy (and hardening process) determines the quality of the steel. So the first step for high quality gear should start with the refining process.

    Blueprint discovery
    Where gathering could encourage exploration, blueprint discovery could encourage both questing and exploration. Complete quests for a blacksmith to gain access to rare blacksmith blueprints or travel deep into a forgotten dungeon to find ancient blueprints. The most critical part is that blueprints need to be fairly rare, this encourages players to trade their services. I dislike it when every crafter can easily get all the rare blueprints.

    Effectiveness of crafted gear
    This is probably the most important aspect, crafted gear should be on a similar level as dropped gear. Make crafted gear too strong and nobody will look for rare drops, make it too weak and nobody will even look at crafted gear. In a perfect system crafted and dropped gear offer unique bonuses so there're pro's and con's for both options.

    Fashion
    Like many of you I’ve played Oblivion, Skyrim, The Witcher, Dark Souls etc so I know fashion deserves to be mentioned. Why wear gear that’s marginally better if it looks terrible? We all want to be strong but looking good can be even more important. During launch there will be 8 distinct races so I’m hoping crafted gear will be affected by the race. The colour is also very important, I’m hoping for a colour customization option after crafting in the form of a dye station or something similar.

    Let me know what you think about the aspects I addressed. And feel free to point out things you find important or that I’ve missed.
  • I very much agree that crafted gear should be on par (or dare I say slightly more desirable) with dropped gear. As a crafting addict, I would like that my time of making item would actually mean something, and contribute to my guild and the game at large. One of my concerns would be the trading system when it comes to crafting, and the economy of the game.

    Currently, I am a player of mainly WoW. In WoW, if a player takes the time to invest in crafting profession such as Alchemy and Jewelcrafting (because those are really the only professions that make money currently in game), for non-crafters, the prices of items in the Auction House can get quite ridiculous. As I haven’t had a chance to level my Jewelcrafter yet (because the current expansion, Legion isn’t conducive to alt-leveling at all), I have to purchase gems from the AH. Even though my main is on a low population server, it’s nothing to see a haste gem cost between 2000 to 3000 gold. For someone who’s not a gold farmer, 2000 gold is a lot of money, even in today's WoW.

    I am hoping that this game won’t run into the same issues. I know as a crafter, I should be compensated appropriately for the time I spent to make an item. I’m just hoping that an economy model is set in place from the launch of the game, so that pricing doesn’t become a deterrent to crafting/consumer growth; because as anyone who plays WoW, and pays attention to the Dev chats knows, they didn’t employ any type of information, research or knowledge from an economist, when creating the WoW Auction House and economy.
  • I very much agree that crafted gear should be on par (or dare I say slightly more desirable) with dropped gear. As a crafting addict, I would like that my time of making item would actually mean something, and contribute to my guild and the game at large. One of my concerns would be the trading system when it comes to crafting, and the economy of the game.

    Currently, I am a player of mainly WoW, among other games. In WoW, if a player takes the time to invest in crafting profession such as Alchemy and Jewelcrafting (because those are really the only professions that make money currently in game), for non-crafters, the prices of items in the Auction House can get quite ridiculous. As I haven’t had a chance to level my Jewelcrafter yet (because the current expansion, Legion isn’t conducive to alt-leveling at all), I have to purchase gems from the AH. Even though my main is on a low population server, it’s nothing to see a haste gem cost between 2000 to 3000 gold. For someone who’s not a gold farmer, 2000 gold is a lot of money, even in today’s WoW.

    I am hoping that this game won’t run into the same issues. I know as a crafter, I should be compensated appropriately for the time I spent to make an item. I’m just hoping that an economy model is set in place from the launch of the game, so that pricing doesn’t become a deterrent to crafting/consumer growth; because as anyone who plays WoW, and pays attention to the Dev chats knows, they didn’t employ any type of information, research or knowledge from an economist, when creating the WoW Auction House and economy.
  • I would love to see crafting on par with combat skill theorycrafting.
  • [quote quote=20012]I very much agree that crafted gear should be on par (or dare I say slightly more desirable) with dropped gear. As a crafting addict, I would like that my time of making item would actually mean something, and contribute to my guild and the game at large. One of my concerns would be the trading system when it comes to crafting, and the economy of the game.

    Currently, I am a player of mainly WoW, among other games. In WoW, if a player takes the time to invest in crafting profession such as Alchemy and Jewelcrafting (because those are really the only professions that make money currently in game), for non-crafters, the prices of items in the Auction House can get quite ridiculous. As I haven’t had a chance to level my Jewelcrafter yet (because the current expansion, Legion isn’t conducive to alt-leveling at all), I have to purchase gems from the AH. Even though my main is on a low population server, it’s nothing to see a haste gem cost between 2000 to 3000 gold. For someone who’s not a gold farmer, 2000 gold is a lot of money, even in today’s WoW.

    I am hoping that this game won’t run into the same issues. I know as a crafter, I should be compensated appropriately for the time I spent to make an item. I’m just hoping that an economy model is set in place from the launch of the game, so that pricing doesn’t become a deterrent to crafting/consumer growth; because as anyone who plays WoW, and pays attention to the Dev chats knows, they didn’t employ any type of information, research or knowledge from an economist, when creating the WoW Auction House and economy.

    [/quote]

    After watching the Livestream from 5/5/2017 I have even higher hopes for crafting in AoC, around 25 minutes they talk about character customization and how crafting will be very important in the game. Steven Sharif even says it will be very hard to participate in the economy if you're not actively contributing by crafting something yourself.

    You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcbYJllGfnQ#t=25m04s
  • For me dropped gear makes crafting obsolete.
  • Crafted gear isn't always the best, but the best gear is always crafted.
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