Biggest things for me with crafting is for it to have Meaning.
Chase items to craft.
Proc chances for higher tier rewards that are rare.
Rewarded for time invested with progression paths.
Reasonable but not Easy Material Requirements.
Many options, Not just 1 set of each gear type.
Ability to Influence outcomes with materials but not 100% guaranteed results.
Crafting is actually a class/archtype. So only people with the archtype can craft items. Which makes them really unique to play with.
Some people don’t like to fight and kill things, instead they like to 100% focus on crafting and commerce. Make those people shine by making a dedicated class for crafting.
Also by doing this you make crafters a unique asset to guilds and team. Can even make them exclusively repair walls and buildings in sieges etc.
I have to agree with those above me. I'm known as being a combat player in MMOs, but my secret love is actually crafting. When I started UO I wanted nothing more than to roleplay a blacksmith. Unfortunately that game, along with nearly every other, didn't have the economy to support that playstyle. It was much easier and more profitable to become a combat monster and quickly craft on an alt than it was to be a crafter and find people willing to defend you.
That's my wish, though, is to find a game where crafting isn't for everyone. The UI shouldn't be excessively annoying and items shouldn't require weeks of prep work to craft (other than maybe the very top tier items), as is the case in many games where people are put off by crafting, but it should also require as much time and dedication as being a top tier PvP/PvE player requires.
It doesn't really matter how great or horrible your crafting system is, though, if your economy doesn't support it properly. If the cost to get materials is a hindrance compared to the difficulty of leveling your crafting skills, then only the top tier guilds will have top tier crafters, meaning that there isn't a good supply and the entire game suffers. The bottom line is that crafting needs to require an investment that not every player is willing to make (but not one that feels penalizing), but that investment also has to be rewarded with items actually being in demand at all levels of crafting - not just the absolute top tier items.
I’ll preface this by saying I’m generally the gatherer/supplier of raw materials, but craft for my previous guilds when it’s a necessity.
- One of the big things I like is when games offer the option to auto-complete (auto-craft but not queued) low tier item crafts. By this I mean it’s something you’ve crafted before or X number of times manually, and by forsaking the chance for it to potentially upgrade in rarity/specialness you’re guaranteed the lowest tiered item. I could never stick with crafting for long when I want to craft 25 chairs and must play a little mini game for every single one as failing the mini game usually just meant you got the low tier anyways.
- I feel like I don’t know enough about the specifics/nitty gritty of the crafting system yet that I’m not sure if this is relevant, but I did enjoy when you were trying to craft higher tiered items there was a sense of risk. I’m not really a fan of the FFXIV crafting system, but I did like that you could risk failure for a higher payoff depending on which skills you used. I think I remember mention that if you use higher grade materials it increases the chances of getting a better item, so it’d be cool if the crafters also had something that they could do to have a potentially bigger payoff (with rarity and such) by either risk losing materials or potentially making it have lower durability or some other punishment for failure
- Also, I’ve always been in favor of recipes that have a set outcome. By this I mean that if you use 1 Apple and 1 Stick, you’ll get a…Fried Apple that gives 5HP or something. And you know if you use that plain apple and stick, you’ll get that each time instead of maybe sometimes it’s 4HP other times 6HP. However, if you use a higher-grade apple or stick maybe the benefits increase. Basically, not a fan of getting RNG stats on crafted items where you just have to keep crafting the same thing over and over until you get that +20INT +20CON chest plate or whatever. That’s basically like turning crafting into a mini game without the amusement a mini game might bring in the beginning.
- Also, I know there was mention of finding recipes through various methods, like dungeons and creatures and titles and what not. I've always liked when there can be specialized crafters and you know if I call up good ol "Johnny_Boi45" he'll be able to craft that special table or sword with high WIS (etc). Something where the recipe could be obtained by anyone, but if you don't know how to get it, and the crafters don't share the details of how to get it, it could prove challenging to discover.
Crafting is something I do whenever I’m just messing around or need something easy/quick and I can get the materials easily. My play time will probably be split about 60% Gathering, 30% Fighting/Adventure leveling, and 10% Goofing off (That’s a lie it’ll be like 50% gathering 50% goofing off).
Basically, feel free to ignore this, but just throwing out some things I’ve experienced so far.
I would spend days upon days crafting if i could work toward crafting my own unique legendary that very few if anyone in the game has. (also if i could name it that would be sweet)
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ShadowVenMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Dev Discussion #30 - Crafting
What are some examples of crafting systems and mechanics you’ve enjoyed from other games, and why? What percentage of your time do you typically find yourself engaged in crafting activities in an MMO?
To start off, Albeit the least important, I really look forward to how the crafting table(s) will visually look. Are they realistic looking? Are the tools/components visuallys seen on the bench related to the tools that my character is going to use? Can you really picture the outcome of what you crafted to be a result of crafting bench used? out of the many MMO's i've played, although its not even released yet, New World has done a good job at this part.
Secondly, lets explore tools. I enjoy games that have 2 different tools per crafting profession. For example, a carpenter (from FFXIV) uses a Saw and a claw hammer. This to me adds more depth to the game and crafting system because you wouldn't expect that a saw alone could be used to hammer in a nail(s) that was a mat for crafting a chair or bench. Have various recipes that require different tools for the job. Each tool can give specific bonus, whether it be a greater % increase to succeed or where it gives an item the ability to be enchanted.
Finally, I believe that when it comes to crafting gear based on mats (gathered & Processed), the quantity matters just as much as the quality. For a low lvl item, i'd expect to see low grade quality made as well as requiring few in number mats of that particular quality. For Rare medium level items, i'd like to see not only rare quality mats but increase the number of mats required. This continues all the way up to legendary and above. The more attributes, stats, enhancements, etc.. that a craft can create, the more mats it should require. I would also like to see crafters have no only tool specific gear, but armor that is specific to that craft as well. And of course this gear, based on its quality, should increase the chance of success and quality of the final product.
When it comes to the actual action of crafting, I don't per-say mind seeing a progress bar or anything like that, however, in certain type or special crafts, i'd like to see some sort of interaction window or state where I can have a chance of modifying in a small way, either positive or negative effects.
The time I spend on crafting really depends on the game, if the game did a good job on the crafting system, i'd say at least 1/4th if not more is related to Crafting and gathering.
Finaly crafting sistem.First of all I would like to make it clear that my opinion is from the point of view of a player who enjoys the socio-economic side of the game.
That being clear I consider that the real balance of the crafting system lies more in the processing system than the crafting itself, correctly balancing the transition from raw resource to a refined resource can make the economy stable and I consider that the higher tier resources should need at least 2 or 3 refined resources from the previous tier in their recipe. The worst feeling you can have as a Crafter is to see how little by little your work is losing value because the lower tier resources are no longer used, and the items never disappear, so in the end the prices go down and down leaving the value of crafting on the floor, that is something easy to solve simply by adding some way in which the items have the possibility of disappearing in case of death or a less aggressive system reducing durability to items by use or death and the need for materials of the tier of the weapon for repair, not only resorting to the currency as a resource for repair.
For me the most important part of crafting is the feeling of reward for progress, if the only thing needed is a recipe that feeling disappears completely , a polished crafting system should reward constancy and continuous work more than the luck of a drop of a recipe, it should have RNG involved but that this decreases as you acquire preficency with the crafting branch you are using, and even within each branch the specialization in a single type of item increases that feeling even more. One of the things I like most about the crafting system is that I can be , not only the best weapon crafter in my guild, but the best two-handed sword crafter in my guild, and that is the reason why I like being a crafter.
A system that I liked a lot is to add different categories of quality within the same item, adding additional statistics to those items that have a higher quality, being the quality a feature that is not fixed and is governed by a probability that depends on the specialization of the crafter in that area, so the crafter who is dedicated to craft spears exclusively will have a higher chance of creating a spear that is a masterpiece than a player who crafts daggers.
As it was said in the past ashes of creations doesn't have to be liked by everyone, and that's fine, I hope the same rule applies to crafting, if the general public doesn't like the crafting system for being too deep or tedious that's fine, it's not necessary for everyone to be a crafter and I hope it doesn't affect the system by making it more casual.
Don't speed up the crafting system, it's ok for a crafter to need 3 months of work to unlock the highest tiers of a single branch, or even more.
What are some examples of crafting systems and mechanics you’ve enjoyed from other games, and why? What percentage of your time do you typically find yourself engaged in crafting activities in an MMO?
I really enjoy crafting myself, or atleast in the games i've played so far that has crafting, but ofc there's things that i'm not too keen on. Lets start with World of Warcraft Classic. I really love the fact that having a crafting profession in Classic allows you to create things that you're actually using while leveling, such as gear or consumeables, it creates a sense of journey as you embark on an adventure to find the materials and then put it all together to form this piece of armor that you're likely going to be using for a while. It's even better when you've hit endgame and you're crafting a high-end item that you're going to use for a significantly longer time. It's not just about the crafting it yourself part, it's also the community aspect. Since i'm only able to choose 2 from a pool of 9, it's not unsusual for me to be dependant on someone else on the server crafting other items that i also need. Lets say i'm a Blacksmith and a Miner, well, for my raids i'm going to need some powerful consumeables to boost my performance, i'm going to need enchants on my gear, maybe there's even another very specific equipment that I need from another crafting profession, it really shows you that you are part of something bigger as you're really relying on the other players to provide you with services while you do the same.
Another part of crafting is when you pick up a profession and it can brach out in multiple directions, allowing you to specialize in a certain path. Lets return to WoW Classic blacksmithing. Just picking blacksmithing up means you get a wide array of potential items you can craft, but you're far from able to craft them all because of the specilization. You get to choose 1 of 4, Armorsmith, Hammersmith, Axesmith or Swordsmith. They come with unique recipes only available to that spec, but you're able to craft these and trade them to other players, making you rely on the community even more again. The issue here for me though is when one or multiple of these paths are considered weaker, or maybe even bad, as in the recipes you get from your path are simply useless or so nieche that the odds of the items being used by anyone is so incredibly slim. That takes away from the meaningful choice of choosing a path and can even feel punishing to the player because they chose the "wrong" spec.
Something that i've come across in a few games that i dislike about crafting is when you can't see what recipes you actually have available to you, such as Minecraft and Terraria. In Terraria, you cannot see which items you're able to craft unless you both have:
All the required items for the recipe in your inventory
Standing at the correct crafting station.
The reason i really dislike this is because, now, in order to craft something i want to, i either have have to spend A LOT of time experimenting with my inventory and craftingstation to see if I can get a desired item, or, I have to venture outside the game to a 3rd party website and look up all of the recipes to know what's available to me, which immediatly kills all emersion, it literally pulls you right out of the game to aquire meta knowledge before you're able to continue. There's a difference in choosing to follow a guide and being forced to because you don't want to spend a godless amount of time figuring things out alone.
Skyrim handles this a lot better though, there you basically have all the recipes available to you in the Smithing section, and as you advance in levels you unlock higher quality crafting, the alchemy is based around experimentation and gives you information on the ingredients used what effects they will provide. The enchanting section has close to 0 (if not actually 0) recipes available from the start, because all your recipes comes from disenchanting items to learn that specific effect which you can then apply to a lesser degree on your other items.
How much of my time to i spend engaged in crafting though? I don't know an exact amount of time, but I do know that i like to spend quite a lot of time crafting. Not gathering materials out in the wild like picking flowers with herbalism, or mining ores for minerals. No, i enjoy the trading with other players and providing them with a service. I enjoy dedicating my character to a craft, learning ALL available recipes and being there for my guild and my friends, always crafting anything they're looking for within my chosen profession. To me it doesn't matter how many recipes there are, how good or bad they are, i'm a collector and i love crafting. Therefor, i tend to spend a lot of time mastering my profession and then additional time providing the service to people.
If you actually read all of my post, thank you, if not, i don't blame you, it's a lot to read.
I have high hopes that Intrepid will make this a great game!
In games that have enjoyable crafting systems, I spend about 40 to 50 percent of my time crafting.
My favorite crafting systems were in Eve Online and Star Wars Galaxies. They both offered complexity of materials which provided multiple avenues of entry. With raw resources, multiple steps of intermediate products and final assembly, you needed several individuals to produce products which gives you a real economy. It also lets people make choices about what they enjoy making/gathering without threatening viability.
Star Wars Galaxies allowed experimentation on stats, Eve Online does not. I personally enjoyed the fact that not every item created was identical, but I can see the balance issues that can cause.
For me personally there's two important aspects to crafting that get overlooked by most mmos, the unknown and activity.
If you look at Skyrim you'll see a fantastic system for figuring out the unknown through eating literally everything you come across. I believe this could work very well in a game like Ashes due to the unknown terrain of Vera as well as the advancement of libraries.
Imagine picking an herb and eating it only to feel that nothing happens, no dialogue pop up or tutorial telling you what you've found. But instead you look on your stat page and see that your strength stat is now green and when you hover it you have a buff from the plant with an unknown duration. Eventually it fades away and the next time you try it, it has a definitive timer for the buff. Your character can then record that info in a library for other would be crafters to find and learn.
Now for activity its just as important how you craft as it is how you obtain your craftables. The perfect example I can think of is Kingdom Come Deliverance, an RPG that really delves into the nitty gritty of crafting, including locking off alchemy until you learn how to read. Or when you want to repair your sword you take it over to a grindstone and lay it down by applying pressure with the scroll wheel, depending on how well you perform you can receive a buff to damage or make the repair last longer.
Eventually these would get tedious for most though, and you could just as easily throw in a timed clicker for crafting to get the best rewards, a la Dead by Daylights skill check system or Fable 2s crafting minigames. Now I don't think you should throw these ideas in for ashes now, seems a little late for such a grand change, but maybe incorporating some elements down the line in an expansion would breathe some life into crafting.
Also and most important. Have useless/purely cosmetic things to craft. Let me make a clock for someones house, or a pin for them to put on their shirt, or dye the saddle on their horse or rocket boots that blow up most of the time or even just let us spend time crafting buildings that are being made to speed the process up. Theres so much more to crafting then 'find thing press button get new thing.' Love this games philosophy and am looking forward to seeing more always.
When it comes to crafting what I find lacking in other games in general is lack of skill, bragging rights/reputation as crafter and fun during crafting. Crafting is usually a mindless clicking on recipe to progres skill and that is it. Most of the time it only exists to facilitate the economy or in worse case just for the sake of existing.
To fix this, my suggestion is to implement minigame/s that allow manual skill based crafting together with automatic crafting just by picking a recipe from the menu. Main difference between those two methods would be that crafting from the menu would be guaranteed to produce a standard version of selected item, while manual crafting would have an interval of possible results that include both better and worse outcomes (+-5% would be what i think is good amount) based on how crafter performed. System like this would allow crafters to distinguish themselves from others by their skill. Also it could provide more fun than just picking up a recipe from the menu, while still allowing those that are not interested in being the best to be a reasonably efficient part of the economy. This is the basic idea of my suggestion.
Now I will go more in depth to elaborate on supporting systems that would improve crafting with system like this even further.
Minigames should scale in difficulty based on level requirements and tier of an item. Legendary max level items should have the highest requirements on crafter skill to produce items that are actually better than what would be crafted by automatic crafting.
Together with manual crafting, leaderboards would be implemented, so crafters can show off how good they are in crafting and competitive players that want to have the best gear and be best would seek those that are on top of leaderboards. For leaderboards to really mean something each type of item ie. sword, staff, wand, bow etc. would have to have a minigame with their own special skill mechanic so there can be more than one best crafter. Leaderboards score for specific type of items swords for example would be an average of all (or all in some period of time) crafted swords of said crafter based on final result and difficulty of item crafting.
To complement leaderboards system like this and reduce frustration of not wanting to waste tons of materials for training especially on higher difficulties, practice crafting would exist. Practice crafting wouldn‘t provide exp for character, wouldn‘t craft an item, wouldn‘t affect leaderboards and would cost only a small fraction of the cost of a recipe, especially for legendary items and such it should cost only part of most common materials required. Practice crafting would also introduce another fairly easy to tune material sink into the economy.
Another possibility to leverage / incentivize players is to increase an amount of exp gained based on the result of manual crafting.
tl;dr implementation of dual crafting system with automatic and manual skill based crafting system with risk/effort vs rewards component, to facilitate fun, skill and potential for bragging
In most cases, I don't find myself crafting at all. In the beginning of the game, they might toss a tutorial at you, but it would seem confusing and usually just fell to the wayside as if you wanted to craft, you needed the dough. Which at the beginning, you had none to work with.
The only craft system that I enjoyed would have to be Runescape. You're not making items with RNG, (short of iron bars) and it was pretty straight forward. Making arrows was a big one for me as it was useful to replenish ammo and gain exp at the same time. I will say the Stealing Creation minigame was really fun way of using Crafting for your team!
That being said, if I don't get some rhythm based blacksmithing, I'm going to be highly disappointed. /s
I've always enjoyed crafting systems that make it worthwhile to level the skill up by implementing certain crafting items that are obtained by drops. These items can be added to certain weapons and armor to make them stronger. It makes content farmable and crafting worth it.
Guilds can have designated crafters and designated farmers for these specific items making for contested areas for PVP. These items could also have durability, either destroying the original gear and returning the crafting item, destroying the crafting item, and returning the original gear, or destroying both. This would add an item/ currency sink. Thus balancing the economy for stronger gear.
Also, I have enjoyed crafting systems that implement other skills into them. That way having a well-balanced character/ guild is necessary.
Crafting one of my favourite parts of an MMO, some of my favourite crafting of all time was Ultima Online and Star wars galaxies( released version before it got simplified).
The keys things I think crafting must have is the items you craft have to useful, crafting items that are worse than even average drops makes crafting pointless.
I don't mind if some ingredients are hard to come by, and as other have said high level crafting materials could come from Raids/dungeons etc..
The SWG system to me was great, but possibly too complex for lots of people. I'll try and sum it up here for people who didn't see it.
Let see you wanted to make a blaster, you would need a power source, a stock and a barrell.
Each component would need a type of material , i.e a power source might be some crystal and some conductive metal.
Now when mining different types of conductive metal could be gather all with different stats, and not all variants were always available. so people would stockpile really good metal until really good crystal came, or some time they would hold it and sell it, and of course sometime you just go with the best you've got.
All of those variation made a lot of variation in weapons, and crafters got a reputation for build good blasters or good droids etc.. depending on what they were focusing on.
The key outcomes were not every sword is created equal, and crafters that put in the time and effort into there craft produced better items, and built a following.
I'd love there to be some variety in crafted items and for crafters to be able to build a reputation for being a great weapon smith or armour smith or whatever.
I personally feel that crafting should feel like a journey within itself and be ultimately rewarding once you become an artisan within the particular field. The leveling process of each crafting specialisation should take time and not be fast track process, there are those who find value in the crafting/gathering/processing journey and this in itself should feel as fun to persue as it would be for those out adventuring or in PVP. A player if they so choose so should have the same chance of becoming renown as an expert crafter, as they could as an amazing PvE or PvP player.
It is important to make the crafting system build up relationships between the community within the intertwining dependencies to establish a working and ever evolving economy and trade, where a need for each type of crafter is sought. Also ensuring each crafting specialisation has its place within Vera and doesn't become a case of players going for one or two options because they generate the most currency gain. Getting a good balance between the crafting specialisations and making them all feel useful should be a target to aim for. That way all players can be who they want to be, without there being a potential crafting meta.
Also adding in elements of risk vs reward to the crafting processes could be a possible idea, that could help players stay engaged in the processes and not make things be a one and done system. The creating of these various recipes should feel like an art and once one gets complete correctly it should feel like a milestone achieved for the player.
Hopefully you take the time to flesh out a system that could incorperate at least some of this feeling, to make everything feel entwined and meaningful for those who wish to dedicate themselves to the craft and those who act as a customer to the various craftsmen.
I loved the old crafting system in the original Star Wars Galaxies. Where if one wanted, they did not have to leave the house and are forced to do combat. You should be able to have multiple vendors in your home to sell or buy goods and trade skill materials. I think crafted gear should be on par or greater than world drops. I don't think there should be a lot of hand holding when it comes to crafting. There should be an element of surprise when combining items for the first time not some sort of shopping list right off the bat. If you performed the combine to get something then you should have a recipe for it. I also think there needs to be distinguishing titles for crafters and a way to search for them. In order to find crafters to make something for you.
I enjoyed the crafting system in Albion Online and Old School Runescape. I like how higher level crafting was tied into exploring more dangerous pve territories in order to gather materials needed. You had to get better at x combat interaction, in order to gather what you needed to produce y (or buy those materials in an auction house, or rely on guild mates to supply you those materials if you didn't want to perform combat).
Aspects of Albion's crafting & gathering system I disliked was that after a certain level you had to gather in open world full loot PVP environments where the risk far exceeded the rewards as large groups would hunt solo gatherers for easy money. You had to be in a specific (non-combat) set of gathering equipment for boosted gathering experience and gathering speed. This felt terrible. Invisible groups of gankers loved hunting defenseless gatherers who posed no threat. I don't mind dying while gathering, but full-loot pvp w/gathering was a major turn off to spending my time bothering with their gathering and crafting professions.
When I used to play Runescape way back when levelling up your crafting & gathering skills was half the fun of the game and you looked forward to the level up experience and would congratulate fellow gatherers or crafters when the little firework visual/audio chime triggered over their head.
What makes me stop gathering typically is how time inefficient it becomes to gather materials. If a node only spawns (as in Albion Online) 1 tick per hour and 10 gatherers are circling the map checking on the nodes, it is very inefficient and becomes a waste of time. Gathering and node refresh rates are a delicate balance with the world economy, but often what pushes players like myself away from gathering isn't the act itself or time it takes to gather from a node, but all of the inefficient time it takes roaming around maps checking on nodes that are on cooldown. That gets to be tedious and has a bad ROI for our time spent in the game compared to other activities where typically mobs refresh based on how quickly they're being taken down. Gathering nodes in most games don't speed up their respawn rate based on how quickly they're being gathered which is a turn off to the levelling experience.
I don't mind travelling a far distance or through all sorts of mobs to get to a precious resource gathering location, or even having to fight in pvp for rights to gather there, but my main turn off is typically if it's only a single node that respawns once an hour, it isn't worth the effort. As a gatherer you want I really liked in Runescape how you could travel to a mining pit and just rotate around there and chill while farming. You didn't have to use a 3rd party map and memorize a convoluted spawn rate map like in BDO that looks like a taxi service on crack. Gathering should be a mellow experience, not a sprint race around the world for single nodes.
When I put on my gathering gear I'm normally looking for chill down time where I'm not having to do heavy navigation or attention. The exceptions to that that I also really enjoy are doing combat vs Resource Bosses like a stone giant, etc. that would drop large amounts of gathering materials. I think that's engaging and a different option than running around on a mount with a 3rd party node map overlay that becomes tedious and isn't relaxing which is the main attraction of the playstyle to begin with. It shouldn't feel like being a Taxi/Uber driver going from stop to stop.
Like many others, I think being able to craft the best items should take dedication to your craft.
The difference in the best crafted items, by the most dedicated crafters, should be significant.
I especially like being a guild crafter, where I can craft for my guildies and charge nothing, if I want.
I liked being able to have a guildie supply the materials in some cases, if they wanted something crafted.
I also disliked the long wait times for creating an item... Once you've done all the hard work to hone
your crafting skill, you should be able to make the item quickly.
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kellock93Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
What I would love to see is minigames for crafting (i.E. Alchemy from Kingdom come Deliverance) where your skills have an impact on how good the product turns out to be and you actually have to know what you are doing.
I know that this alone would turn off many people, so it could be combined with the standard "if you have the recipe and materials hit the button and wait for 5 sec". The "regular" crafting could have certain set rates for completing the item or getting an upgraded version of it.
The "minigame" crafting would have a higher chance of failure, but also a higher chance to upgrade the items if you complete the recipe properly and do well in the minigame.
In terms of the usefulness of crafting it would be nice if players actually had a reason to use crafted gear during progression instead of only updating it through quests and such. Maybe certain thresholds in leveling where you have to invest in some gear to have a chance to progress or crafted gear has a level range and grows with you.
For crafting ingredients I would love them actually being rare and legendary ingredients actually still being legendary after the game has been running for a year or two. Especially when it comes to endgame ingredients.
Another thing that would be incredible if gear could be crafted with different materials and died to achieve different looks.
But yeah I know all of this is more me dreaming than anything else, thank you if you took the time to read this and I hope it proves to be at least a tiny bit useful.
CypherMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
1- I want to gain crafting experience when I make things that are at or above my current crafting level, and not get crafting experience for making things below my level. This way you can’t cheese the system by making a ton of cheap crap to level up and that is enough of a reason by itself but additionally you’d be creating a scarcity of items being produced between bottom tier and top tier.
2- I also am of the mindset that I’d like to have profession tiers.
For example: Beginner, apprentice, journeyman, professional, master.
And once you reach the top of one tier, you need to complete an advancement quest in order to move up.
That all results in a long but satisfying line of progression, where being the tier that you are means something.
3- I would prefer if the crafting activity itself was more than “select crafting recipe, click begin, go AFK” and instead requires that the player be present for the process. It doesn’t have to be a super complex mini game, but something like this:
For alchemy perhaps you have to be the one to add the ingredients in the right order
For weapon smithing, perhaps you have to press a button when it’s time to remove the weapon from the furnace and start hammering it, idk.
I’m sure there’s something that could be done so that crafting is not just choosing a recipe and going afk.
I enjoy crafting that isn't "simple". Simple should be left to gathering. Crafting should take a combination of materials and certain conditions met, be it the relevant crafting table and/or the relevant tools.
For example, you could make a ring at a forge but in order to make a ring with a jewel in it, you need an additional tool to be able to set the jewel.
And the more in depth the crafting system is linked the better. So for the tool needed to add a jewel could be made by a blacksmith/tool maker. I think making everything needed to craft items from within the Artisan system is the way to go. After all, if you could just buy it from a vendor, then why go to a crafter?
I've played these MMOs before, so this is where my experience of crafting is coming from (MMOwise):
World of Warcraft
SWTOR
Elder Scrolls Online
I also played several single games in my life, so some crafting was involved there as well, but not much.
So overall I figured out that these features were amazing when doing crafting:
Crafting batches of items if needed, ESO for example implemented this recently. Basically let's say you want to create 200 potions, you don't want to sit there for 20 min and craft all these 200 potions by clicking one by one, instead you want to have the possibility to craft exactly 200 potions or even the possibility to craft the "maximum" with the materials you have. This is a nice mechanic I enjoyed, because it fastens the process when it's really needed to create a high amount of the same items.
I like crafting special items, for example finding rare recipes which I can be really proud of and craft them. This could be for example a very special cake-recipe or a legendary breast-plate or similar. I also don't mind farming for such legendary recipes, as long as it is something special. Specifically thinking about that in Ashes it might not be possible to do every crafting job with one character, it would be great if such legendary recipes can make a person "more wanted" if you know what I mean or getting very specialised in what they're doing. For example if you have the craft "Forging", you could create sub-crafts like "armor", "weapons", etc. so that in guilds people can specialise as well and help their guildmembers but also make money out of their profession.
Another good point to have is the need for special materials from the whole world. I enjoy worlds, where you can find materials everywhere in the game (e.g. when killing monsters, players, raidbosses and much more). So that basically every activity you do gives you something out of it for crafting.
High-Level gear should also still need Low-Level-Gear, because that way you don't end up having this big problem that some stuff in MMOs is super expensive, e.g. because it's beginner-materials or it's super expensive because there is a specific point in the game where you need for example lizard-leather to level your profession up from 100-200, but because there are not many lizards it's taking you either ages to grind or a high amount of Gold to buy it. This mechanic is not fun in games, I found this especially in WoW at that time very disappointing.
I also love when games have a big variety of professions, that adds a lot for me to the game. As I mentioned above for example sub-professions are a good deal here to specialise a bit more.
Last but not least it would be great if crafting can be also still valuable in the endgame-content. And I mean not only for daily crafting-writs, but also for example because crafting a special item for yourself means that this legendary breastplate is better than the one from a raid-boss, so it makes my profession special as well, because it's still needed in the endgame.
I usually do craft a lot in games, but it depends on what that game offers. If crafting is just a thing to pass time, I don't enjoy doing it, but if there is a purpose it's a lot of fun to grind materials for and craft those, especially when I feel needed. For example we need 10 catapults for the next siege and I am a siege-builder-master, I would love being there for the guys and craft those catapults, because I can see why they are needed and basically see a nice outcome behind it.
Hope you know what I mean with all this post, but I love crafting and looking forward to see what you guys make out of it in Ashes of Creation.
Personally for myself I really liked the crafting systems in Monster hunter worlds, the vast weapon trees with so many factors in the weapons such as elemental affinities and the materials themselves coming from mystery targets until you have encountered the material at least once.
The feeling I first had with that type of crafting of not knowing when a certain item will be found in order to be able to finish a craft i wanted for a new weapon because i had the 3 common parts you can gather but the fourth piece needed was from something i hadnt seen and ended up not being able to see for a while to come in the game is nice because it gives the player incentive to create and hold a weapon at a potentially weaker state for some time in order to go down a tree that is later opened and end up investing into the long term of the weapon or armor rather then the short and straight crafting tree offered.
As to how much of that concept is able to be adapted into a game like Ashes of creation without it becoming a certain material that is monopolized or too scarce for all players to be able to access is a question to have to think about , I personally think the best approach would be to make those rarer drops from either instanced dungeons where all can have access too it or resources harvested from the open world where its hard to find but not just camped by a single group and respawns once every "x" amount of hours leaving nobody else the chance to obtain it.
My favorite MMO was Star Wars Galaxies. I don't believe any other MMO has reached the level SWG had with their crafting system. I would say 80% of my time is crafting, and I still am playing the SWG emulators. I will list a few mechanics that I think would be great to bring back
Resource shifts and Depletion: Making resource deplete after a certain amount or time adds an extra depth to resource management. If a high quality resource spawns and can deplete at any time then you will have people fighting over those resources, plus if they don't spawn at the exact same spot, PVP will consistently move around the map.
Temporary Schematics: Having Temporary schematics makes items extremely rare. If a boss drops a temporary, one use, schematic then these items will increase in value simply because of their rarity. Couple this with the schematic needing high quality resources, and you have extremely rare items if made properly with the highest quality of materials.
Item Durability: I know this has been touched on and talked about, but if an item can break, a crafter will always have a job. It creates a demand that would otherwise eventually run out. Again, couple this with those items being temporary schematics with high quality resources, and crafting becomes extremely viable and needed in this game. A skilled crafter can make a great name for themselves as more people will not want to waste their temporary schematics on unskilled crafters.
Experimentation: Adding in this layer to crafting can vary the weapon DPS, weapon durability, armor totals, armor durability, to add variations to each craft as well as variations of each individuals gear. There should be bonuses in the economic nodes that help lower the bit of RNG (SWG had a roughly 33% chance of maxing out a weapon), but still have a bit of variation in peoples builds and damage. Not every piece of weapon or armor is made the exact same.
In Elder Scrolls Online anyone can master all the professions at once, its a big part of how they sell their premium sub as it gives you a “craft bag” to hold all your crafting materials. This of course is not a great system and clearly not the direction Ashes intends to go. However, there is a system in ESO that I think Ashes could take to the next level and that is the crafted sets.
In ESO you can craft sets with different bonuses, this requires going out into the world and finding the hidden crafting areas that allow a specific set of bonuses to be applied to items crafted there. I think its a pretty cool system that forces exploration and in addition to nodes could be taken to the next level with some stations not being accessible unless a node is a certain level.
normally , I craft for a specific goal in mind. get BiS, Glamor/Transmog pieces to find how I wish to portray my avatar in game. Crafting for a nicer home/area and finally crafting to provide a recurring income for myself which can be used any number of ways.
What I enjoy in crafting:
consistency, reliability, automation for consumables. a number of unique items to provide variety. boring seeing everyone geared the same. Developing skill to bring an item to a higher quality and therefore stats.
What I dislike in crafting:
I disdain crafting systems which require grinding for materials. Gathering is required however (once again what is its purpose?) Spend 30 hours gathering mats, for 40 minutes of crafting, for X gold per hour... over and over again... spending more time gathering then actually crafting. ...you then start spending your earnings not on increasing your skill but just to cut out the grind.
Idea for improvement:
I dunno, maybe have a greater focus in the consumable market, which doesn't require a huge time investment unless its for something with permanence. I would enjoy crafting enhancements which would augment my favorite gear, keep it in top shape and improving to where the gear is just as good as BiS ...not the same set for both PvP and PvE though. Mats should be gathered from doing the content. Rewards Time commitment but not as much as being successful in the endeavor.
Overall:
Train to be better, but if you suck don't make it impossible to ever get better.
When it comes to crafting I enjoyed discovering the properties of different ingredients. As with several of the observations posted earlier, I have found the ESO crafting system one of the more interesting ones I have worked with; specifically, I enjoyed the Alchemy crafting mechanism where you first had to discover each ingredient's capabilities before you could combine those ingredients to create useful elixirs. A great deal of the fun in crafting, for me, is the discovery of what ingredients can do.
As a person that maybe gets 2-3hours a day to the game. I don't want to spend 1/3 or more of my time doing artisan stuff.
What I hope Crafting/Gathering/Processing will look like:
- Gathering: You walk around to fight mobs or do quests etc and stumble open a resource which you take a few minutes to get. So I don't go out of my way and spend the whole day just gathering.
- Processing: You have your character start processing 100 lumber etc for x amount of time. But you can leave him afk and go do the laundry or whatever.
-Crafting: Same as processing you start a crafting process go eat or bio break and come back he/she is done and go do a question or pvp or mobs etc.
I hate how archeage is or most MMOs, where I spend 1-2 hours just gathering or doing a repeat mindless task because I have to get the money or material to progress my artisan. So then I am left with 1 hour or less to just enjoy the game. But maybe this is just me.....
Comments
Chase items to craft.
Proc chances for higher tier rewards that are rare.
Rewarded for time invested with progression paths.
Reasonable but not Easy Material Requirements.
Many options, Not just 1 set of each gear type.
Ability to Influence outcomes with materials but not 100% guaranteed results.
Crafting is actually a class/archtype. So only people with the archtype can craft items. Which makes them really unique to play with.
Some people don’t like to fight and kill things, instead they like to 100% focus on crafting and commerce. Make those people shine by making a dedicated class for crafting.
Also by doing this you make crafters a unique asset to guilds and team. Can even make them exclusively repair walls and buildings in sieges etc.
Kind regards, Bas.
That's my wish, though, is to find a game where crafting isn't for everyone. The UI shouldn't be excessively annoying and items shouldn't require weeks of prep work to craft (other than maybe the very top tier items), as is the case in many games where people are put off by crafting, but it should also require as much time and dedication as being a top tier PvP/PvE player requires.
It doesn't really matter how great or horrible your crafting system is, though, if your economy doesn't support it properly. If the cost to get materials is a hindrance compared to the difficulty of leveling your crafting skills, then only the top tier guilds will have top tier crafters, meaning that there isn't a good supply and the entire game suffers. The bottom line is that crafting needs to require an investment that not every player is willing to make (but not one that feels penalizing), but that investment also has to be rewarded with items actually being in demand at all levels of crafting - not just the absolute top tier items.
- One of the big things I like is when games offer the option to auto-complete (auto-craft but not queued) low tier item crafts. By this I mean it’s something you’ve crafted before or X number of times manually, and by forsaking the chance for it to potentially upgrade in rarity/specialness you’re guaranteed the lowest tiered item. I could never stick with crafting for long when I want to craft 25 chairs and must play a little mini game for every single one as failing the mini game usually just meant you got the low tier anyways.
- I feel like I don’t know enough about the specifics/nitty gritty of the crafting system yet that I’m not sure if this is relevant, but I did enjoy when you were trying to craft higher tiered items there was a sense of risk. I’m not really a fan of the FFXIV crafting system, but I did like that you could risk failure for a higher payoff depending on which skills you used. I think I remember mention that if you use higher grade materials it increases the chances of getting a better item, so it’d be cool if the crafters also had something that they could do to have a potentially bigger payoff (with rarity and such) by either risk losing materials or potentially making it have lower durability or some other punishment for failure
- Also, I’ve always been in favor of recipes that have a set outcome. By this I mean that if you use 1 Apple and 1 Stick, you’ll get a…Fried Apple that gives 5HP or something. And you know if you use that plain apple and stick, you’ll get that each time instead of maybe sometimes it’s 4HP other times 6HP. However, if you use a higher-grade apple or stick maybe the benefits increase. Basically, not a fan of getting RNG stats on crafted items where you just have to keep crafting the same thing over and over until you get that +20INT +20CON chest plate or whatever. That’s basically like turning crafting into a mini game without the amusement a mini game might bring in the beginning.
- Also, I know there was mention of finding recipes through various methods, like dungeons and creatures and titles and what not. I've always liked when there can be specialized crafters and you know if I call up good ol "Johnny_Boi45" he'll be able to craft that special table or sword with high WIS (etc). Something where the recipe could be obtained by anyone, but if you don't know how to get it, and the crafters don't share the details of how to get it, it could prove challenging to discover.
Crafting is something I do whenever I’m just messing around or need something easy/quick and I can get the materials easily. My play time will probably be split about 60% Gathering, 30% Fighting/Adventure leveling, and 10% Goofing off (That’s a lie it’ll be like 50% gathering 50% goofing off).
Basically, feel free to ignore this, but just throwing out some things I’ve experienced so far.
To start off, Albeit the least important, I really look forward to how the crafting table(s) will visually look. Are they realistic looking? Are the tools/components visuallys seen on the bench related to the tools that my character is going to use? Can you really picture the outcome of what you crafted to be a result of crafting bench used? out of the many MMO's i've played, although its not even released yet, New World has done a good job at this part.
Secondly, lets explore tools. I enjoy games that have 2 different tools per crafting profession. For example, a carpenter (from FFXIV) uses a Saw and a claw hammer. This to me adds more depth to the game and crafting system because you wouldn't expect that a saw alone could be used to hammer in a nail(s) that was a mat for crafting a chair or bench. Have various recipes that require different tools for the job. Each tool can give specific bonus, whether it be a greater % increase to succeed or where it gives an item the ability to be enchanted.
Finally, I believe that when it comes to crafting gear based on mats (gathered & Processed), the quantity matters just as much as the quality. For a low lvl item, i'd expect to see low grade quality made as well as requiring few in number mats of that particular quality. For Rare medium level items, i'd like to see not only rare quality mats but increase the number of mats required. This continues all the way up to legendary and above. The more attributes, stats, enhancements, etc.. that a craft can create, the more mats it should require. I would also like to see crafters have no only tool specific gear, but armor that is specific to that craft as well. And of course this gear, based on its quality, should increase the chance of success and quality of the final product.
When it comes to the actual action of crafting, I don't per-say mind seeing a progress bar or anything like that, however, in certain type or special crafts, i'd like to see some sort of interaction window or state where I can have a chance of modifying in a small way, either positive or negative effects.
The time I spend on crafting really depends on the game, if the game did a good job on the crafting system, i'd say at least 1/4th if not more is related to Crafting and gathering.
That being clear I consider that the real balance of the crafting system lies more in the processing system than the crafting itself, correctly balancing the transition from raw resource to a refined resource can make the economy stable and I consider that the higher tier resources should need at least 2 or 3 refined resources from the previous tier in their recipe. The worst feeling you can have as a Crafter is to see how little by little your work is losing value because the lower tier resources are no longer used, and the items never disappear, so in the end the prices go down and down leaving the value of crafting on the floor, that is something easy to solve simply by adding some way in which the items have the possibility of disappearing in case of death or a less aggressive system reducing durability to items by use or death and the need for materials of the tier of the weapon for repair, not only resorting to the currency as a resource for repair.
For me the most important part of crafting is the feeling of reward for progress, if the only thing needed is a recipe that feeling disappears completely , a polished crafting system should reward constancy and continuous work more than the luck of a drop of a recipe, it should have RNG involved but that this decreases as you acquire preficency with the crafting branch you are using, and even within each branch the specialization in a single type of item increases that feeling even more. One of the things I like most about the crafting system is that I can be , not only the best weapon crafter in my guild, but the best two-handed sword crafter in my guild, and that is the reason why I like being a crafter.
A system that I liked a lot is to add different categories of quality within the same item, adding additional statistics to those items that have a higher quality, being the quality a feature that is not fixed and is governed by a probability that depends on the specialization of the crafter in that area, so the crafter who is dedicated to craft spears exclusively will have a higher chance of creating a spear that is a masterpiece than a player who crafts daggers.
As it was said in the past ashes of creations doesn't have to be liked by everyone, and that's fine, I hope the same rule applies to crafting, if the general public doesn't like the crafting system for being too deep or tedious that's fine, it's not necessary for everyone to be a crafter and I hope it doesn't affect the system by making it more casual.
Don't speed up the crafting system, it's ok for a crafter to need 3 months of work to unlock the highest tiers of a single branch, or even more.
I really enjoy crafting myself, or atleast in the games i've played so far that has crafting, but ofc there's things that i'm not too keen on. Lets start with World of Warcraft Classic. I really love the fact that having a crafting profession in Classic allows you to create things that you're actually using while leveling, such as gear or consumeables, it creates a sense of journey as you embark on an adventure to find the materials and then put it all together to form this piece of armor that you're likely going to be using for a while. It's even better when you've hit endgame and you're crafting a high-end item that you're going to use for a significantly longer time. It's not just about the crafting it yourself part, it's also the community aspect. Since i'm only able to choose 2 from a pool of 9, it's not unsusual for me to be dependant on someone else on the server crafting other items that i also need. Lets say i'm a Blacksmith and a Miner, well, for my raids i'm going to need some powerful consumeables to boost my performance, i'm going to need enchants on my gear, maybe there's even another very specific equipment that I need from another crafting profession, it really shows you that you are part of something bigger as you're really relying on the other players to provide you with services while you do the same.
Another part of crafting is when you pick up a profession and it can brach out in multiple directions, allowing you to specialize in a certain path. Lets return to WoW Classic blacksmithing. Just picking blacksmithing up means you get a wide array of potential items you can craft, but you're far from able to craft them all because of the specilization. You get to choose 1 of 4, Armorsmith, Hammersmith, Axesmith or Swordsmith. They come with unique recipes only available to that spec, but you're able to craft these and trade them to other players, making you rely on the community even more again. The issue here for me though is when one or multiple of these paths are considered weaker, or maybe even bad, as in the recipes you get from your path are simply useless or so nieche that the odds of the items being used by anyone is so incredibly slim. That takes away from the meaningful choice of choosing a path and can even feel punishing to the player because they chose the "wrong" spec.
Something that i've come across in a few games that i dislike about crafting is when you can't see what recipes you actually have available to you, such as Minecraft and Terraria. In Terraria, you cannot see which items you're able to craft unless you both have:
- All the required items for the recipe in your inventory
- Standing at the correct crafting station.
The reason i really dislike this is because, now, in order to craft something i want to, i either have have to spend A LOT of time experimenting with my inventory and craftingstation to see if I can get a desired item, or, I have to venture outside the game to a 3rd party website and look up all of the recipes to know what's available to me, which immediatly kills all emersion, it literally pulls you right out of the game to aquire meta knowledge before you're able to continue. There's a difference in choosing to follow a guide and being forced to because you don't want to spend a godless amount of time figuring things out alone.Skyrim handles this a lot better though, there you basically have all the recipes available to you in the Smithing section, and as you advance in levels you unlock higher quality crafting, the alchemy is based around experimentation and gives you information on the ingredients used what effects they will provide. The enchanting section has close to 0 (if not actually 0) recipes available from the start, because all your recipes comes from disenchanting items to learn that specific effect which you can then apply to a lesser degree on your other items.
How much of my time to i spend engaged in crafting though? I don't know an exact amount of time, but I do know that i like to spend quite a lot of time crafting. Not gathering materials out in the wild like picking flowers with herbalism, or mining ores for minerals. No, i enjoy the trading with other players and providing them with a service. I enjoy dedicating my character to a craft, learning ALL available recipes and being there for my guild and my friends, always crafting anything they're looking for within my chosen profession. To me it doesn't matter how many recipes there are, how good or bad they are, i'm a collector and i love crafting. Therefor, i tend to spend a lot of time mastering my profession and then additional time providing the service to people.
If you actually read all of my post, thank you, if not, i don't blame you, it's a lot to read.
I have high hopes that Intrepid will make this a great game!
My favorite crafting systems were in Eve Online and Star Wars Galaxies. They both offered complexity of materials which provided multiple avenues of entry. With raw resources, multiple steps of intermediate products and final assembly, you needed several individuals to produce products which gives you a real economy. It also lets people make choices about what they enjoy making/gathering without threatening viability.
Star Wars Galaxies allowed experimentation on stats, Eve Online does not. I personally enjoyed the fact that not every item created was identical, but I can see the balance issues that can cause.
If you look at Skyrim you'll see a fantastic system for figuring out the unknown through eating literally everything you come across. I believe this could work very well in a game like Ashes due to the unknown terrain of Vera as well as the advancement of libraries.
Imagine picking an herb and eating it only to feel that nothing happens, no dialogue pop up or tutorial telling you what you've found. But instead you look on your stat page and see that your strength stat is now green and when you hover it you have a buff from the plant with an unknown duration. Eventually it fades away and the next time you try it, it has a definitive timer for the buff. Your character can then record that info in a library for other would be crafters to find and learn.
Now for activity its just as important how you craft as it is how you obtain your craftables. The perfect example I can think of is Kingdom Come Deliverance, an RPG that really delves into the nitty gritty of crafting, including locking off alchemy until you learn how to read. Or when you want to repair your sword you take it over to a grindstone and lay it down by applying pressure with the scroll wheel, depending on how well you perform you can receive a buff to damage or make the repair last longer.
Eventually these would get tedious for most though, and you could just as easily throw in a timed clicker for crafting to get the best rewards, a la Dead by Daylights skill check system or Fable 2s crafting minigames. Now I don't think you should throw these ideas in for ashes now, seems a little late for such a grand change, but maybe incorporating some elements down the line in an expansion would breathe some life into crafting.
Also and most important. Have useless/purely cosmetic things to craft. Let me make a clock for someones house, or a pin for them to put on their shirt, or dye the saddle on their horse or rocket boots that blow up most of the time or even just let us spend time crafting buildings that are being made to speed the process up. Theres so much more to crafting then 'find thing press button get new thing.' Love this games philosophy and am looking forward to seeing more always.
To fix this, my suggestion is to implement minigame/s that allow manual skill based crafting together with automatic crafting just by picking a recipe from the menu. Main difference between those two methods would be that crafting from the menu would be guaranteed to produce a standard version of selected item, while manual crafting would have an interval of possible results that include both better and worse outcomes (+-5% would be what i think is good amount) based on how crafter performed. System like this would allow crafters to distinguish themselves from others by their skill. Also it could provide more fun than just picking up a recipe from the menu, while still allowing those that are not interested in being the best to be a reasonably efficient part of the economy. This is the basic idea of my suggestion.
Now I will go more in depth to elaborate on supporting systems that would improve crafting with system like this even further.
Minigames should scale in difficulty based on level requirements and tier of an item. Legendary max level items should have the highest requirements on crafter skill to produce items that are actually better than what would be crafted by automatic crafting.
Together with manual crafting, leaderboards would be implemented, so crafters can show off how good they are in crafting and competitive players that want to have the best gear and be best would seek those that are on top of leaderboards. For leaderboards to really mean something each type of item ie. sword, staff, wand, bow etc. would have to have a minigame with their own special skill mechanic so there can be more than one best crafter. Leaderboards score for specific type of items swords for example would be an average of all (or all in some period of time) crafted swords of said crafter based on final result and difficulty of item crafting.
To complement leaderboards system like this and reduce frustration of not wanting to waste tons of materials for training especially on higher difficulties, practice crafting would exist. Practice crafting wouldn‘t provide exp for character, wouldn‘t craft an item, wouldn‘t affect leaderboards and would cost only a small fraction of the cost of a recipe, especially for legendary items and such it should cost only part of most common materials required. Practice crafting would also introduce another fairly easy to tune material sink into the economy.
Another possibility to leverage / incentivize players is to increase an amount of exp gained based on the result of manual crafting.
tl;dr implementation of dual crafting system with automatic and manual skill based crafting system with risk/effort vs rewards component, to facilitate fun, skill and potential for bragging
The only craft system that I enjoyed would have to be Runescape. You're not making items with RNG, (short of iron bars) and it was pretty straight forward. Making arrows was a big one for me as it was useful to replenish ammo and gain exp at the same time. I will say the Stealing Creation minigame was really fun way of using Crafting for your team!
That being said, if I don't get some rhythm based blacksmithing, I'm going to be highly disappointed. /s
Guilds can have designated crafters and designated farmers for these specific items making for contested areas for PVP. These items could also have durability, either destroying the original gear and returning the crafting item, destroying the crafting item, and returning the original gear, or destroying both. This would add an item/ currency sink. Thus balancing the economy for stronger gear.
Also, I have enjoyed crafting systems that implement other skills into them. That way having a well-balanced character/ guild is necessary.
The keys things I think crafting must have is the items you craft have to useful, crafting items that are worse than even average drops makes crafting pointless.
I don't mind if some ingredients are hard to come by, and as other have said high level crafting materials could come from Raids/dungeons etc..
The SWG system to me was great, but possibly too complex for lots of people. I'll try and sum it up here for people who didn't see it.
Let see you wanted to make a blaster, you would need a power source, a stock and a barrell.
Each component would need a type of material , i.e a power source might be some crystal and some conductive metal.
Now when mining different types of conductive metal could be gather all with different stats, and not all variants were always available. so people would stockpile really good metal until really good crystal came, or some time they would hold it and sell it, and of course sometime you just go with the best you've got.
All of those variation made a lot of variation in weapons, and crafters got a reputation for build good blasters or good droids etc.. depending on what they were focusing on.
The key outcomes were not every sword is created equal, and crafters that put in the time and effort into there craft produced better items, and built a following.
I'd love there to be some variety in crafted items and for crafters to be able to build a reputation for being a great weapon smith or armour smith or whatever.
It is important to make the crafting system build up relationships between the community within the intertwining dependencies to establish a working and ever evolving economy and trade, where a need for each type of crafter is sought. Also ensuring each crafting specialisation has its place within Vera and doesn't become a case of players going for one or two options because they generate the most currency gain. Getting a good balance between the crafting specialisations and making them all feel useful should be a target to aim for. That way all players can be who they want to be, without there being a potential crafting meta.
Also adding in elements of risk vs reward to the crafting processes could be a possible idea, that could help players stay engaged in the processes and not make things be a one and done system. The creating of these various recipes should feel like an art and once one gets complete correctly it should feel like a milestone achieved for the player.
Hopefully you take the time to flesh out a system that could incorperate at least some of this feeling, to make everything feel entwined and meaningful for those who wish to dedicate themselves to the craft and those who act as a customer to the various craftsmen.
Aspects of Albion's crafting & gathering system I disliked was that after a certain level you had to gather in open world full loot PVP environments where the risk far exceeded the rewards as large groups would hunt solo gatherers for easy money. You had to be in a specific (non-combat) set of gathering equipment for boosted gathering experience and gathering speed. This felt terrible. Invisible groups of gankers loved hunting defenseless gatherers who posed no threat. I don't mind dying while gathering, but full-loot pvp w/gathering was a major turn off to spending my time bothering with their gathering and crafting professions.
When I used to play Runescape way back when levelling up your crafting & gathering skills was half the fun of the game and you looked forward to the level up experience and would congratulate fellow gatherers or crafters when the little firework visual/audio chime triggered over their head.
What makes me stop gathering typically is how time inefficient it becomes to gather materials. If a node only spawns (as in Albion Online) 1 tick per hour and 10 gatherers are circling the map checking on the nodes, it is very inefficient and becomes a waste of time. Gathering and node refresh rates are a delicate balance with the world economy, but often what pushes players like myself away from gathering isn't the act itself or time it takes to gather from a node, but all of the inefficient time it takes roaming around maps checking on nodes that are on cooldown. That gets to be tedious and has a bad ROI for our time spent in the game compared to other activities where typically mobs refresh based on how quickly they're being taken down. Gathering nodes in most games don't speed up their respawn rate based on how quickly they're being gathered which is a turn off to the levelling experience.
I don't mind travelling a far distance or through all sorts of mobs to get to a precious resource gathering location, or even having to fight in pvp for rights to gather there, but my main turn off is typically if it's only a single node that respawns once an hour, it isn't worth the effort. As a gatherer you want I really liked in Runescape how you could travel to a mining pit and just rotate around there and chill while farming. You didn't have to use a 3rd party map and memorize a convoluted spawn rate map like in BDO that looks like a taxi service on crack. Gathering should be a mellow experience, not a sprint race around the world for single nodes.
When I put on my gathering gear I'm normally looking for chill down time where I'm not having to do heavy navigation or attention. The exceptions to that that I also really enjoy are doing combat vs Resource Bosses like a stone giant, etc. that would drop large amounts of gathering materials. I think that's engaging and a different option than running around on a mount with a 3rd party node map overlay that becomes tedious and isn't relaxing which is the main attraction of the playstyle to begin with. It shouldn't feel like being a Taxi/Uber driver going from stop to stop.
The difference in the best crafted items, by the most dedicated crafters, should be significant.
I especially like being a guild crafter, where I can craft for my guildies and charge nothing, if I want.
I liked being able to have a guildie supply the materials in some cases, if they wanted something crafted.
I also disliked the long wait times for creating an item... Once you've done all the hard work to hone
your crafting skill, you should be able to make the item quickly.
I know that this alone would turn off many people, so it could be combined with the standard "if you have the recipe and materials hit the button and wait for 5 sec". The "regular" crafting could have certain set rates for completing the item or getting an upgraded version of it.
The "minigame" crafting would have a higher chance of failure, but also a higher chance to upgrade the items if you complete the recipe properly and do well in the minigame.
In terms of the usefulness of crafting it would be nice if players actually had a reason to use crafted gear during progression instead of only updating it through quests and such. Maybe certain thresholds in leveling where you have to invest in some gear to have a chance to progress or crafted gear has a level range and grows with you.
For crafting ingredients I would love them actually being rare and legendary ingredients actually still being legendary after the game has been running for a year or two. Especially when it comes to endgame ingredients.
Another thing that would be incredible if gear could be crafted with different materials and died to achieve different looks.
But yeah I know all of this is more me dreaming than anything else, thank you if you took the time to read this and I hope it proves to be at least a tiny bit useful.
Best Regards
-Kell
Aren't we all sinners?
2- I also am of the mindset that I’d like to have profession tiers.
For example: Beginner, apprentice, journeyman, professional, master.
And once you reach the top of one tier, you need to complete an advancement quest in order to move up.
That all results in a long but satisfying line of progression, where being the tier that you are means something.
3- I would prefer if the crafting activity itself was more than “select crafting recipe, click begin, go AFK” and instead requires that the player be present for the process. It doesn’t have to be a super complex mini game, but something like this:
For alchemy perhaps you have to be the one to add the ingredients in the right order
For weapon smithing, perhaps you have to press a button when it’s time to remove the weapon from the furnace and start hammering it, idk.
I’m sure there’s something that could be done so that crafting is not just choosing a recipe and going afk.
For example, you could make a ring at a forge but in order to make a ring with a jewel in it, you need an additional tool to be able to set the jewel.
And the more in depth the crafting system is linked the better. So for the tool needed to add a jewel could be made by a blacksmith/tool maker. I think making everything needed to craft items from within the Artisan system is the way to go. After all, if you could just buy it from a vendor, then why go to a crafter?
- World of Warcraft
- SWTOR
- Elder Scrolls Online
I also played several single games in my life, so some crafting was involved there as well, but not much.So overall I figured out that these features were amazing when doing crafting:
I usually do craft a lot in games, but it depends on what that game offers. If crafting is just a thing to pass time, I don't enjoy doing it, but if there is a purpose it's a lot of fun to grind materials for and craft those, especially when I feel needed. For example we need 10 catapults for the next siege and I am a siege-builder-master, I would love being there for the guys and craft those catapults, because I can see why they are needed and basically see a nice outcome behind it.
Hope you know what I mean with all this post, but I love crafting and looking forward to see what you guys make out of it in Ashes of Creation.
The feeling I first had with that type of crafting of not knowing when a certain item will be found in order to be able to finish a craft i wanted for a new weapon because i had the 3 common parts you can gather but the fourth piece needed was from something i hadnt seen and ended up not being able to see for a while to come in the game is nice because it gives the player incentive to create and hold a weapon at a potentially weaker state for some time in order to go down a tree that is later opened and end up investing into the long term of the weapon or armor rather then the short and straight crafting tree offered.
As to how much of that concept is able to be adapted into a game like Ashes of creation without it becoming a certain material that is monopolized or too scarce for all players to be able to access is a question to have to think about , I personally think the best approach would be to make those rarer drops from either instanced dungeons where all can have access too it or resources harvested from the open world where its hard to find but not just camped by a single group and respawns once every "x" amount of hours leaving nobody else the chance to obtain it.
Resource shifts and Depletion: Making resource deplete after a certain amount or time adds an extra depth to resource management. If a high quality resource spawns and can deplete at any time then you will have people fighting over those resources, plus if they don't spawn at the exact same spot, PVP will consistently move around the map.
Temporary Schematics: Having Temporary schematics makes items extremely rare. If a boss drops a temporary, one use, schematic then these items will increase in value simply because of their rarity. Couple this with the schematic needing high quality resources, and you have extremely rare items if made properly with the highest quality of materials.
Item Durability: I know this has been touched on and talked about, but if an item can break, a crafter will always have a job. It creates a demand that would otherwise eventually run out. Again, couple this with those items being temporary schematics with high quality resources, and crafting becomes extremely viable and needed in this game. A skilled crafter can make a great name for themselves as more people will not want to waste their temporary schematics on unskilled crafters.
Experimentation: Adding in this layer to crafting can vary the weapon DPS, weapon durability, armor totals, armor durability, to add variations to each craft as well as variations of each individuals gear. There should be bonuses in the economic nodes that help lower the bit of RNG (SWG had a roughly 33% chance of maxing out a weapon), but still have a bit of variation in peoples builds and damage. Not every piece of weapon or armor is made the exact same.
In ESO you can craft sets with different bonuses, this requires going out into the world and finding the hidden crafting areas that allow a specific set of bonuses to be applied to items crafted there. I think its a pretty cool system that forces exploration and in addition to nodes could be taken to the next level with some stations not being accessible unless a node is a certain level.
normally , I craft for a specific goal in mind. get BiS, Glamor/Transmog pieces to find how I wish to portray my avatar in game. Crafting for a nicer home/area and finally crafting to provide a recurring income for myself which can be used any number of ways.
What I enjoy in crafting:
consistency, reliability, automation for consumables. a number of unique items to provide variety. boring seeing everyone geared the same. Developing skill to bring an item to a higher quality and therefore stats.
What I dislike in crafting:
I disdain crafting systems which require grinding for materials. Gathering is required however (once again what is its purpose?) Spend 30 hours gathering mats, for 40 minutes of crafting, for X gold per hour... over and over again... spending more time gathering then actually crafting. ...you then start spending your earnings not on increasing your skill but just to cut out the grind.
Idea for improvement:
I dunno, maybe have a greater focus in the consumable market, which doesn't require a huge time investment unless its for something with permanence. I would enjoy crafting enhancements which would augment my favorite gear, keep it in top shape and improving to where the gear is just as good as BiS ...not the same set for both PvP and PvE though. Mats should be gathered from doing the content. Rewards Time commitment but not as much as being successful in the endeavor.
Overall:
Train to be better, but if you suck don't make it impossible to ever get better.
What I hope Crafting/Gathering/Processing will look like:
- Gathering: You walk around to fight mobs or do quests etc and stumble open a resource which you take a few minutes to get. So I don't go out of my way and spend the whole day just gathering.
- Processing: You have your character start processing 100 lumber etc for x amount of time. But you can leave him afk and go do the laundry or whatever.
-Crafting: Same as processing you start a crafting process go eat or bio break and come back he/she is done and go do a question or pvp or mobs etc.
I hate how archeage is or most MMOs, where I spend 1-2 hours just gathering or doing a repeat mindless task because I have to get the money or material to progress my artisan. So then I am left with 1 hour or less to just enjoy the game. But maybe this is just me.....