Hard vs. Soft Crafting

ArchivedUser

I've been turning this over in my mind for a while, and want to see what the community thinks.

First, let me define what I call hard and soft crafting.

Hard crafting is pretty structured. You have recipes for specific items, such as an iron sword, obtain the proper materials, and then make the item according to the recipe. A stereotypical example of this is vanilla Minecraft, where there are a very limited set of tools you can make, and they all have very specific recipes.

Soft crafting is much looser and gives more freedom to the player. You can create different parts of items seperately out of different materials, and then mix-and-match parts to get whatever unique item you want. A stereotypical example of this is the Tinker's Construct mod for Minecraft, which allows you to make different parts of your tools out of different materials. A Flint pickaxe head with a wooden rod would get you a pickaxe that mines quickly and breaks quickly, whereas a Stone pickaxe head with a stone rod would get you a slower pickaxe with more durability.

There are a few pluses and minuses to each system. Hard crafting is more beginner friendly, and lets you make things like set bonuses because you already know all available items. Soft crafting is truer to the real world, gives the player more options, but makes it harder (or nearly impossible) for the devs to do things like give set bonuses.

So far, I'm fairly sure Ashes is leaning towards a hard crafting system (they said in the most recent livestream that we'll be using one of the top-tier armor sets, which means there are sets). My question is - how hard do you like your crafting?

Please keep in mind:
 - For now, let's ignore how long it'll take for the team to develop a given crafting system.
 - In soft crafting, generally the best materials are only found as drops from high-tier bosses; thus, it's still difficult to craft the very best weapons possible.

ArchivedUser

I think having most common items able to be "soft crafted" would give a lot of player agency in how they want to build their character. I think it has been said by the devs that crafters can customize the stats on crafted gear to a certain degree, but I am only going off of memory here so dont quote me on that :^)

ArchivedUser

Not quite sure what I want the mix to be yet. I'm going to hold off answering until I know a little bit more about the artisan crafting skill tree

ArchivedUser

Personally i prefer a Softer version of crafting. I would like each item to have various parts that you can swap out to customize the weapon or armor to make it exactly what you are looking for. So for a sword you would have a blade, hilt and pommel. Each part could be forged separately to customize that sword for a fighter or a mage depending what ores you used on each piece. Crafting tools can be made the same way ,so you would choose a handle to speed up crafting and a blade for durability.

     This can be applied to every craft as well as gathering and processing. Gatherers could choose to gather slowly to gather higher tier ingredients and processors could mix various types of ore to make special alloys suitable for various purposes. In cooking and alchemy your ingredient grade and choices would affect the final product. Enchanting can also have various components to make up the recipes on the fly to get exactly what you are looking for.

ArchivedUser

This may change as we learn more.

ArchivedUser

Im thinking that most of the basic stuff would be hard crafting. maybe be able to do some custom work for say your guild your part of, would really make it cool to soft craft custom armor for guild members. have it include the banner on say your cloak would be a neat feature. really make it noticeable what guild your with, as well as who the higher ups are etc etc. 

ArchivedUser

I have tried both systems and can't really say which is better. Soft can be more rewarding and interesting but the hard style has it's merits...

ArchivedUser

I like it the way Xontian explained softer crafting.  The idea of no two crafted weapons looking exactly alike or functioning in exactly the same way appeals to me.  It adds to player customization even more so if we can end up crafting and getting the same stats but completely different looks to the weapons because we arrived at the same place using different methods.

ArchivedUser

lexmax said:

Not quite sure what I want the mix to be yet. I'm going to hold off answering until I know a little bit more about the artisan crafting skill tree

I need to have more info as well before I can make a decision on thus one... will also have to explore the ideas of each as well

ArchivedUser

I voted for soft crafting, but I do want to point out that soft crafting does not preclude being able to make set items or other specific items.

there are various ways to go about it, one is the blueprint route, another is a specific constructed ingredient in the soft recipe that must be discovered.

For example, lets say an effriti camp is found, and a player wishes to make "effriti armor". One would obviously have to get thematically appropriate resources, like effriti steel. But swapping out effriti steel for your normal steel may only produce something like "flaming armor". To make effriti armor, you would have to create or have created for you an additional piece to include in your recipe something like an "effriti sigil" that would be added to each piece.

Further, having a recipe that a player can read to get started mitigates some of the issues with newbie friendliness. 

ArchivedUser

The idea of soft crafting reminds me of SWG. How you could obtain different materials in different qualities and craft varying quality and stat components which you would assemble into a very custom piece of gear.

Now if the game really wants a good crafting system they'd need to go with quality variety on everything. Craft a sword with all grade-a materials and sharpened flawlessly by a master. Maybe mix in some ember ore to add fire damage. Add or subtract carbon to affect it's toughness.

Another simple crafting system that has a lot of variety to it is Dragon Age Inquisition. You craft the components of your gear but what you make the components out of affects the stats and bonuses as well as the visuals of the gear. There are different tiers of types of components that have many different stat-attributes depending on what they are used for. A metal may give strength or endurance when used in armor but would give armor piercing when used in the creation of weaponry.

DAI gives you the recipe but allows you to select the stats based on what you compose it out of.

ArchivedUser

The crafting/resource thing was brought up in one of the Q&As. There will be a huge variety of resources to craft with, but no plans for resource spawns to have different traits ala SWG. Which is too bad, was really fun/irritating trying to survey to find the perfect spawn of fiberplast that had the highest stat you were looking for to make the best of whatever you were crafting at the time.

ArchivedUser

From what the Devs have described in some of the Streams about dials and materials it sounds like there will be a lot of soft crafting.  I'm personally more oriented to hard crafting, but like everyone else, I'll have to check it out in Alpha.

ArchivedUser

I know this is taboo but I'd like a system like Crowfall is using.  You have a basic recipe where x + x + x = a sword.  Now if you use 3 pieces of iron you get an iron sword that does y.  If I use different materials I get a different result and I can experiment to find out what the combinations do.  As I unlock combinations the effects are recorded in my crafting interface allowing me the ability to specialize even more what my equipment does.  Those people who want to craft more mundane objects are completely capable of doing so but the master crafters can specialize equipment to a far greater degree through trial and error.

ArchivedUser

Why dont we wait until we see what they make as a crafting system.

ArchivedUser

NightshadeRaven said:

Why dont we wait until we see what they make as a crafting system.

Because there's nothing to do but speculate because of how far we are away from getting into the game.  Even more so its easier to get them to change to a direction the community is more comfortable with early in the process.  Our feedback now has a much better chance of being implemented than a week before the game releases when we decide we hate the crafting system.

ArchivedUser

Dominus Kuuk said:

NightshadeRaven said:

Why dont we wait until we see what they make as a crafting system.

Because there's nothing to do but speculate because of how far we are away from getting into the game.  Even more so its easier to get them to change to a direction the community is more comfortable with early in the process.  Our feedback now has a much better chance of being implemented than a week before the game releases when we decide we hate the crafting system.

You hit the nail on the head. Speculation thats all the majority of people are doing. How can you say 'change to a direction the community is more comfortable with' when you dont know what they plan to create. Once we know what they plan on doing then you can suggest to improve it or get them to change some aspect of the design. Your giving feedback on something that does exist making it totally pointless.

ArchivedUser

I'm watching (not playing) 'Crowfall'  at the moment; I like their way of crafting, which offers plenty of options to craft items from a range of materials in a 'soft-crafting style, and also involves a 'Timing' element to qualify for each particular skill, similar to EVE Online.

However, till we see how AoC crafting is presented, I'm 'ambivalent' poll-wise.

ArchivedUser

If there was a level beyond ... " Soft Crafting " ... i would most definitely choose it.

I personally don't like the idea of every piece of armor to have " sets " .; because then ... it'll bring forth incentives to solely seek out the highest Tier Set / Gear Set ... even if they're multiple Sets for that Tier ... it'll still lack the uniqueness . IN other words, eventually, everyone is going to have that same Gear for that particular tier ... all looking the same & not diverse.

In fact, i thought of crafting completely different - i was hoping that ... the gear that we earn / find / create / " given-to " ( etc ... )  ... i was hoping the each gear can be altered separately & independently  - without a " recipe " , without a guide.

Because Recipes Spoon-feed the Player. Without ever having to wonder. 
Basically, I'm hoping that Enchantments can be applied on Crafting Materials  in order to produce something entirely different if that same Material had no enchantment. Also hoping for there to be  " certain parts " that can be altered:

• Lets say i wanted to Alter this Sword'S Handle. 

• What if i wanted to add Some Cloth on the Handle for a better Thrust / Swings. Like so 

( Probably " not the best example " ,its two Completely different Swords, but the point is to make small Modifications where ... " Hard Crafting " usually doesn't allow )

I prefer if all Crafting Materials can interact with each other & other things, as opposed to Crafting Materials being restricted by Recipes ... and thus having a Universal use for them ( if Soft Crafting  )

ArchivedUser

From the player's perspective, crafting should be a mix of both. From the developer side, it really winds up being hard crafting all the way. The reasoning behind this is developers need to retain control of the game systems for reasons of balance, risk vs reward, etc., but that's not to say giving players some modicum of flexibility isn't a good thing too. It helps players to feel attached to their crafted wares, and their characters, and that attachment is a big part of keeping people coming back to play.

ArchivedUser

NightshadeRaven said:

Dominus Kuuk said:

NightshadeRaven said:

Why dont we wait until we see what they make as a crafting system.

Because there's nothing to do but speculate because of how far we are away from getting into the game.  Even more so its easier to get them to change to a direction the community is more comfortable with early in the process.  Our feedback now has a much better chance of being implemented than a week before the game releases when we decide we hate the crafting system.

You hit the nail on the head. Speculation thats all the majority of people are doing. How can you say 'change to a direction the community is more comfortable with' when you dont know what they plan to create. Once we know what they plan on doing then you can suggest to improve it or get them to change some aspect of the design. Your giving feedback on something that does exist making it totally pointless.

The post is about more than speculation though.  The community is giving its opinion on how we want crafting to work. If the way they are designing crafting lines up with the majority of the players opinions it allows the developers to know that they are in lock step with the community which is always a positive thing.  If there is a discrepancy it allows them ample time to look at the crafting system and implement  ideas at as early of a juncture as possible which is why we're talking about it.

Eragale said:

If there was a level beyond ... " Soft Crafting " ... i would most definitely choose it.

I personally don't like the idea of every piece of armor to have " sets " .; because then ... it'll bring forth incentives to solely seek out the highest Tier Set / Gear Set ... even if they're multiple Sets for that Tier ... it'll still lack the uniqueness . IN other words, eventually, everyone is going to have that same Gear for that particular tier ... all looking the same & not diverse.

In fact, i thought of crafting completely different - i was hoping that ... the gear that we earn / find / create / " given-to " ( etc ... )  ... i was hoping the each gear can be altered separately & independently  - without a " recipe " , without a guide.

Because Recipes Spoon-feed the Player. Without ever having to wonder. 
Basically, I'm hoping that Enchantments can be applied on Crafting Materials  in order to produce something entirely different if that same Material had no enchantment. Also hoping for there to be  " certain parts " that can be altered:

• Lets say i wanted to Alter this Sword'S Handle. 

• What if i wanted to add Some Cloth on the Handle for a better Thrust / Swings. Like so 

( Probably " not the best example " ,its two Completely different Swords, but the point is to make small Modifications where ... " Hard Crafting " usually doesn't allow )

I prefer if all Crafting Materials can interact with each other & other things, as opposed to Crafting Materials being restricted by Recipes ... and thus having a Universal use for them ( if Soft Crafting  )

Instead of an enchantment on the crafting material wouldn't that be incorporating a different material into the grip of the weapon?  I think we are both looking for the same thing though Eragale.  The point is to be able to mix and match each individual component that goes into the item.  In this instance you want to be able to define what the handle for your specific sword is and how it effects the overall performance of the weapon.  This would allow players to make or order customized gear for their characters that fit the players individual vision for their character and play style.

A system that is soft can still be hard for players that want a less intensive system. A hardwired hard system can never be soft to accommodate the players who want more control over their creations though.

ArchivedUser

I have played plenty of games that had a mix of hard and soft crafting. Vanguard had a good mix of both where you could apply Dusts to weapons for varying effects and complications would increase or decrease how good an Item was.    I dont mind craftign systems having alot of hard crafting but I always like to see some soft crafting elements to help give the crafter some sense of creation.    As I have gotten older I do prefer if crafting individual items is not to time consuming.

 Some Mmorpgs jsut have to  many sub componets or steps  to make a final item or apply minigames that after a while can make the crafting tedious.    

ArchivedUser

I don't see how a gear sets cant be based on function rather than material looks.

Some components may modify the Set bonuses, some components may modify the item stats itself.

The way I understand is crafting will be a customisable thing, and hopefully a tunable thing. So soft and hard are irrelevant. It simply is both by default.

Even the gear is designed to be modular so that you can swap out components. Those components would probably be functional as well as visual.

ArchivedUser

I voted for hard because I like extra effort be required so that you gain knowledge to craft something.

This involves necessity to find recipes for stuff before you are able to craft them.

I also don't enjoy crafting becoming too complicated and complex. Crafting is only means to an end for me.

ArchivedUser

I want recipes for high end gear that are hard to come buy but some level of player skill needed to maximize the stats

ArchivedUser

I'm a bit up in the air about hard vs. soft. But one thing I really don't want to see is sets being broken up by level restrictions.

"A'right, I can make the iron scale leggings and chest, but, oh ... I have to be 4 levels higher to make the gloves and boots and 7 higher for the helmet."

This hurts me when equipping items, too. I can finally equip a full matching set then next level sees me collecting the next tier one piece at a time.

ArchivedUser

I like both, to be honest. Either stick to the recipe and get the basic result or play around with different materials and see what you get.
Different materials allow you to build a weapon that matches your playstyle.

ArchivedUser

I'm still hoping for mostly Soft Crafting, although ... having both Soft Crafting & Hard Crafting would be nice - freedom experimentation as opposed to .... being restricted to a Recipe

ArchivedUser

I want to see what IS create as a crafting system. What I dont like is players suggesting what IS should do. Once we see what they created then the players can then make comments and suggestions.

ArchivedUser

Either way seems to be good to me as long as it fits into their Interdepency of Crafters idea (for that wood rod you need a woodworker, iron ore a smelter, etc.) What I would really like to see is interactive crafting, the one click mass producing items is old and outdated.

ArchivedUser

if you can build a simple item like a chair (not from IKEA)then you should not need a blueprint. But if you want to build a crossbow or potion launcher then you should need some instructions to follow