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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
What kind of crafting system do YOU want in AoC?
Kionashi
Member
Im aware is too soon to start talking about the artisan system since there are a lot of things that need to be ironed out first like the combat. That said, I just read this 5 years old article about crafting systems in videogames and wanted to share it with you guys so we can have a discussion about what would be best for AoC in terms of crafting
Here is the article.
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/5-approaches-to-crafting-systems-in-games-and-where-to-use-them--cms-22628
Personally I would like to see a variation of the "Made-to-Order Customization" since it allow a great deal of customization options by using different materials in the same recipes to get cool variations of the same weapon that are useful in different scenarios
Here is the article.
https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/5-approaches-to-crafting-systems-in-games-and-where-to-use-them--cms-22628
Personally I would like to see a variation of the "Made-to-Order Customization" since it allow a great deal of customization options by using different materials in the same recipes to get cool variations of the same weapon that are useful in different scenarios
5
Comments
On the flip side, I really hate the "Guess and See What Sticks" method because it never really seems that fulfilling to me.
I really want the item you create as a player to be unique so that it matters what crafter you go to. But what I truly want most from the crafting system is that when you create a item, lets say shoulders, you could customize the look of the item to a certain degree.
Lets say you could determine the size, place cloth that hangs down from it as well as type and color of the material. The more options the better.
If you could do this to a certain extent with ALL crafted items I'd be beyond satisfied because at that point, no one will ever look the same.
This would also be a good opportunity for them to add more cosmetics that are crafted, collected or bought from the shop to customize equipment.
I'd prefer a crafting system that allow for meaningful choices, and has a degree of depth that's worth investigating, instead of being just yet another kind of collectathon gameplay ("acquire X recipes & Y materials")
Since Ashes is going for a stall-oriented market - if crafters have identical recipes, then they can only compete on price, and that makes stall-browsing an extremely boring task for other players, as there will be no "interesting" item, and your only goal is finding the "cheapest" item. Why not just use a centralized marketplace (where you can sort items by price) instead?
However, a well-implemented customization system would allow for a much more interesting ecosystem. e.g. swordsmith A might decide to optimize his products for "sharpness" (per hit damage), while smith B decides to specialize for "balance" (atk speed), & C decides to go for "durability" (item requires much less frequent repairs) - now they all have something different to offer, and for other players stall browsing should feel like a completely different experience.
I never came across an "Anything is possible" crafting system. Sounds good on paper if you can see the result of the craft beforehand. "Made-to-Order Customization" would be my first go-to though.
Imo the node system definitely has to play a major role in crafting as well. Like, it doesn't matter if you max leveled your weaver (assuming there will be a level system on crafters), you won't be able to craft end game gear through crafting stations in a small village. And different node types would give your gear different stat choices so it would make more sense to craft a sword in a military node than an academical one if you're looking for a specific outcome. I read that nodes will have a different look depending on the race who participated most. Maybe this can influence the looks of the crafts too.
Also I fully support what Voidwalkers wrote
But to make sure the situation in the first paragraph doesn't happen, players would need to have different customizations in different situations. If there is a meta for the whole PvE content and another for PvP, no matter how many different stats you can customize your gear with, players will all be looking for the same one and we will end up in the "cheapest win" scenario anyway because no one will want to buy a sword with the "wrong" stat. I think this is a very important point to crafting customization.
Ah that sounds about right for Husbandry, since breeding and genetics has a degree of randomness to it.
I'd picture a system with some~ depth in modeling genetics, then throw in some weird breeding / combination rules & bonuses (points at the Winning Post series (Japanese racing horse breeding game)), then don't document anything at all and let players try figuring them out. (well may be left a few hints in game, that players can find out from science node libraries or by talking to certain npcs)
Yeah, something like the sixth page of an eight-page in-game book happens to mention a creature that's part whale and part donkey. Aha! A breeding formula!
SwordArtOnline, nice. I remember that part
So yes, I wanna play Space Invaders to decide how well my crafting went
As to the OPs question, I just want something that's fairly engaging and involved. I enjoyed ESOs crafting system as well as even WoWs. WAR's crafting is a bit too simplistic and I can take it or leave it from an enjoyment standpoint but it is necessary.
I know this won't happen but please no DAoC crafting! If you can stand to watch this video
I am pretty ok with that, but I hope they lean into Anything is Possible mechanics as much as possible. I prefer mechanics that add a lot of depth to the game, and I don't mind it if that requires more complexity as well. Complexity just for complexity's sake is stupid, but I'll take depth over simplicity any day.
That's a cool idea, but I'm not sure how easily visible it'd be in 3rd Person. Maybe engravings could follow the same sort of system as recipes, where you have to find the engraving design in order to use it?
That said, my favourite is "made to order" with a combination of upgrade trees and customization slots.
I also liked Maplestory's risk-reward weapon enhancement system:
You could use "dark scrolls" which had marginally higher success rates (10% ---> 30%, or 60 ---> 70%), but a 50% chance to destroy the entire item on failure.
Theoretically, you could make it different for every player, that way your recipes would indeed be yours alone and a wiki wouldn't help. Without much effort even. However, then the entire logic component would go out the window.
The SAO example above is a bit over the top, but essentially yeah get me that.
I need the interaction between buyer and crafter to be able to go in several ways:
1. Show me what you got?
The crafter has his inventory displayed with prices for different items. You like, you buy, you move on.
2. I need a sword with these specs.
The buyer is looking for specific item specs. Based on player knowledge the crafter provides the price and time to delivery. The materials required are known to the crafter and the end product specs are a function of materials and player skill in the crafting minigame. So essentially a good crafter might make the same weapon with less materials, cutting production cost.
3. I have these materials, craft me a sword.
Maybe you have this ultra rare mats that theoretically deliver a good augment to the weapon(life-steal or something). You go to the crafter and the negotiation if a free for all, you want that in, he fills in the rest. The player skill and knowledge serve to deliver the best stats out of the materials that go in the weapon.
Essentially, I'd want crafting to be a game of it's own. The masters of it, should be known server-wide and their services coveted. Their secret sauce should be the mastery of the minigame that gets harder and harder with quality resources, rather than the simple accumulation of "levels in crafting" or knowledge of recipes you can google.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!
I'm all for aspects of realism in games like AoC but sometimes it can be taken a little too far... which can lead to frustration. Realism in games does not always equal fun.
I would imagine with how many players will be on a server, if players did try to gravitate toward a handful of master crafters, those crafters’ backlog of business would become completely unmanageable and people would not wait days or weeks for their items and would seek a lesser known crafter with similar skill.
It’s also worth noting that there will be tons of master crafters on a server, my guess is anywhere from 1% to 5% of the server pop will be a master of a craft. That’s hundreds of players to choose from. Only sense in going to a specific person is if they’re easy to work with and have a specific blade/armor style you like. And that’s only if Intrepid actually does implement the ability to fine tune the shape of the blade, etc.
In SWG, the stats on crafted items always had a random range of quality for each stat. Furthermore, the possible quality of the item depended on quality of the gathered materials which were required to make the item, which also were given random stats (within a range, depending on the rarity of the material) when gathered.
So, for example, a weapon in SWG had stats like damage, attack speed, crit, and durability, (there were other stats too, but lets keep the example simple). When a crafter made an item, all of these would have an rng chance of being higher or lower. The randomness meant that you might make a weapon with super high damage and attack speed, but average crit and super low durability, or you might make something truly epic with all 4 stats being high. The materials going into the weapon greatly affected how high or low the rng chances could go. The crafter's character skill and crafting tools also affected these chances.
When gathering the materials to make the weapon, the metal you would get from gathering or the component you would get from killing an npc would also have rng generated stats. Certain areas would have better chances to find harvesting nodes that provided materials with higher rng stat ranges. Gathering skill and tools also affected the chances of getting higher quality materials.
Because of the mechanics explained above, here is why this system was so awesome:
The downside to this system was that it was complicated. In AoC it would mean that a new player bangs on a rock and instead of getting a "stone x1" they get "pile of stone: texture 10, strength. 25, hardness. 15, density. 18". Some players disliked the localized economy, because it meant a lot of traveling and shopping, but it also gave villages a sense of place, and reduced the power of central market bid bots.
At launch, SWG did a poor job of explaining this crafting/harvesting system in game and the UI was awful, which made it even more unintuitive for many players at the time. Even so, I have yet to see a crafting system that made a player community so integrated.