I often find myself crafting a very little percentage of my play time, approximately 5-10%. Though this is a reflection on not experiencing many great systems, or the redundancy of crafted gear (outpaced by quest or drop loot rewards). I have gravitated towards Gathering professions.
I did like FFXIVs craft system, as others have mentioned, a bit more engaging then just a simple 'click and craft'. I also like the use of specialization within a crafting profession, e.g. WoW Blacksmithing diverging into Axesmithing, Hammersmithing and Swordssmithing. The specialization makes these streams feel a bit unique, as apposed to 'x' crafted can create everything.
I enjoyed crafting in games where it encourages social interaction, and gave value and meaning to those who could craft the hard/rare recipes. e.g. knowing 'player x' can craft the rare shield, and battering with them on a cost for their service.
Also related to crafting, I enjoy games where the resources are gathered from a multitude of sources, e.g. gathering, other professions, rare drops.
Most of my time as a "Crafter" in MMOs has been in final fantasy 14, but have also played a good amount of crafting in World of Warcraft.
So i thought i would point out some Pros and Cons from Those games:
FFXIV:
Pros:
Mini-game aspect is cool and makes crafting seem like an actual game play element, instead of a side activity
The different quality of ingredients can help you make High quality items, but the higher geared players do not need to buy the more expensive high quality ingredients due to them having the stats to make the items with the lower quality ingredients
Cons:
The Macro system they use means that after a week, everyone who has the money for the gear is making the highest level items in the game while basically being AFK. With enough money, anyone can get to max level crafting and start afk crafting High level consumables and Equipment while putting in very little effort
The only thing to change every patch for crafting is the gear usually. This makes the crafting have a very:
Race to get gear - Make money with new gear - stop crafting until new patch because the market has crashed - New patch comes out - repeat. This can be very boring - PLEASE DO NOT MAKE CRAFTING ONLY ABOUT THE GEAR
World of Warcraft
Pros:
Gathering the higher tiers of recipes can be a good challenge/adventure, which is rewarded with cheaper craft costs. I love this system over the standard "Level Up and suddenly know how to make new stuff" approach
Cons:
It feels like i am mashing huge quantities of resources together to level and thats it. This makes it feel like i am playing a Gatherer more than a crafter as getting the resources takes more time than the actual crafting
When i do reach the higher levels of crafting, i am Mass making items until they have the stats i want on them. It feels like i have no control over what i am making and what i am making is just numbers, not an actual item
Edit:
For time spent crafting:
FFXIV: i have 1,500 hours in game with prob 200-300 of that crafting and another ~50 gathering for crafting
WOW: I have 1,000 hours in game with maybe 10 actively crafting.
Honestly crafting just needs to be simple, place X into box A and get product Z. FFXIV's crafting is cancer because it's a minigame and is only fun/interesting the first 30 times you do it. However the "crafting community" will outcry that it's the best system...even though all of them use macro's to create things which essentially turns it back into "Place X into Box A and get product Z". Just make it simple, it doesn't need to be over the top and flashy...I mean hell we'll already be gathering stuff anyway. Neither crafting nor gathering needs to be a minigame.
As for time crafting, that depends on how useful crafted items are after a while. In ESO I could craft a set that was everything I needed and i'd never need another again...unless I wanted another for a different look or my spec changed. IN WoW...crafting might as well not exist anymore it's useless in most aspects since better gear is obtaned outside of it, when you should be able to make something really close to it.
In closing, make crafting simple, make it rewarding, and remember items always need to be equal or at least close to equal as anything obtained outside of it (especially at end game).
Crafting is near and dear to my heart.
So this might become a little longer than i have initially planned. However, in most games, crafting as been designed as a chore whose sole meaning stems from its mandatory nature.
1. Interdepentency with other professions and other players.
The Armorer needs parts from the leatherworker, the blacksmith and some others to get all the materials to create a high-tier Armor based on plans made by the scribe.
The Ship Builder needs lumber from the woodworker, reinforced platings from the armor smith, weapons from Siegen Weapon creator...
Customization Options by the Crafter. Allowing the crafter the customize the Items he creates.
This should be true for both crafter and prosessors.
Crafters can influence the stats of the items they produce.
Prosessors can influence the properties of the materials they create, which in turns affect the base statline of the items that can be crafted with them. (A processor might decide to make the Iron Plates he creates more durable by:
Using higher quality Iron.
Using more Iron
Trading off other properties of the iron plate (for example flexibility), which would in turn increases the defensive stats of the gear crafted with said plates, but decreases the offensive stats.
Specialization
Smelting =/= Smelting
Both crafters and processors should have the ability to follow an in-depth specialization similar to a skilltree.
Doing that a smelter (for example) could focus on certain materials or certain item groups.
While smelter A might focus on creating iron plates primarily used for armor crafting,
Smelter B might focus entirely on the creation of iron sheets, which can be utilized for weapon crafting primarily.
Smelter C on the other hand might focus on goods which are primarily used in other professions like carpenting, jewel crafting, Alchemy or siege weapon(/ship building.
Smelter D, E and F focus on metals with magical properties instead of physical properties.
/Also customizable tools and workbenches
These specialization should give meaningful and widely impactful benefits towards the creation of items in its own specialization, which affect both the amount of materials needed and the quality of the product created and ultimately the strenght of the item crafted from them. A smelter focusing on products for weapon crafting should NEVER produce items that are as desireable for armor crafting as the Smelter A in the above mentioned example.
Give us the option to specialize and exceel in certain aspects. Don't force us to be the same.
Indepth crafting trees
A wide variety of produts which can be created by every profession. Each and every one of them having a meaningful use within the game.
Progression
Create a long path of progression for crafters, so those that decide to primarily focus on it will be rewarded over those that only do it occassionally. Just to be clear, here i'm not talking about weeks, but many many months of constant progression to finally reach the end of this path. This should involve:
A talent tree that takes months upon months to complete.
Crafting gear/Units/Workbenches, Tools and Devices, that can be improved continously for a long time.
Recipes that need to be found and improved upon by usage (leveling them up, farming exp through crafting them)
P.S. I was kinda disappointed when you commented, that people had the ability to max out multiple professions within one of the 3 crafting directions. This directly counteracts the community building and interdependency aspect of the game you pride yourself so much upon.
Understated point someone mentioned earlier was that the crafting profession shouldn't be so convoluted and mysterious that you have to resort to looking up external guides to figure out how to get started and basic functions, where to find templates you need to advance. It breaks immersion. There needs to be a better way such as crafting quest lines etc. that players can locate easily and work on as a goal rather than not knowing hot to get to their next crafting item unlock because a template is buried in a well under a pile of rocks randomly in the world.
I might be on my own here but I found ESO's rune names and potion/poison creation system to be tedious as hell and convoluted. It didn't map out for you what created what even after you had made it once from what I recall. And I never had enough inventory space to carry all of the mats when I was travelling around.
Those who mainly focus on crafting should be able to craft better things than someone who doesn’t.
I think anyone should be able to craft and level it up to max, but I don’t think that someone that spends very little time in crafting should be able to do as good as someone who spends most of their time crafting. This could be said about most things in the game for example PvP. A PvPer probably has an advantage in PvP compared to a crafter or raider. How? Well, maybe there is some type of PVP currency(only earned through PVP content), which let’s them buy PvP gear/items (I haven’t read much about the PVP in AoC so I don’t know how it works). This could be done for crafting as well.
Specializations
I think each crafting profession should have 3 (or more) specializations. This will make it so not all crafters of a specific profession can do exact same things. Instead they will specialize in one of the three specializations. I like using examples so here is one:
We have three players A, B and C. All of them have cooking, however they all have picked different specializations (the bold text are the specializations and the benefits with them).
Player A has specialized in baking, which makes it so they can craft the best raiding food.
Player B enjoys doing a bit of PvP now and then, so they have specialized in warm food dishes, so they can create the best PvP food.
Player C, spends all their time crafting and has therefore specialized in cold food dishes to craft the best food which helps with crafting.
Minigames
To make crafting more fun and engaging, instead of just pressing a button, add 1 or more minigames. I understand that a minigame can become tedious, especially when you have to do them multiple times in a row, hence why I suggested more than 1 minigame. To add to the suggestion, is a mechanic Genshin Impact uses;
After the player has successfully completed the minigame for a recipe X amount of times, they will unlock “Automatic Crafting” - This makes it so the player can decide if they want to keep doing the minigame(s) or not.
The amount of times the recipe has to be crafted successfully through a minigame should vary depending on the quality of the item that is being crafted. So an item of higher quality would take more successes compared to a low quality item (Ex. Legendary = 30 successes, Common = 10).
A suggestion to motivate players to actually continue to craft through the minigame(s), could be that the items crafted “manually” will have better stats/effects.
Using different types of material will change the outcome of the craft.
I don’t know if this will work for all professions. I think the easiest way for me to explain this is to give an example:
The player is a carpenter, they make furniture. They have a recipe for a chair with a cushion. To craft the chair they need wood and cloth. If the player wishes to they can also add dye to the recipe. The player can now decide what type of wood and dye they want to use when they craft the chair:
Oak wood and red dye = Chair frame is made of oak and the cushion is red.
Pine wood and green dye = Chair frame is made of pine and the cushion is green.
Walnut wood and no dye = Chair frame is made of Walnut and the cushion is white.
One of my favorite crafting systems in an MMO was crafting in Final Fantasy XI. You had serious investment into whatever craft you chose to pursue thus limiting you being a jack of all trades through a cost barrier.
Additionally, there were chances to have critical failures (losing all the materials) and critical successes (a +1 or +2 version of whatever you were making). Most importantly, every single item had a purpose in the game and was tradeable on the auction house.
Another great crafting system (for some not all things) was in ArcheAge. I liked how you needed to craft numerous components in order to build complex things like vehicles or even diving gear.
Most time when I see a crafting system in a game. It is only crafting, crafting, crafting.. And then you can use strong gear. But why never play the gear on the way to the best you can craft.
Gathering resources from different mobs and iron, flowers, whatever is important.
But it needs a good balance to be fair.
As next you start crafting different gear, like in ESO, in different places.
Now you finished your first gear, as sample a green tier. Now you should play this, learn about it, and optimize it, before crafting the next tier. Level the gear before upgrade it, as sample, to blue.
That's should be the way to craft.
But it is only my opinion
This is something I have think a lot. I hope I can express it correctly
For me, Crafting is a cycle through which players can (optional for those who enjoy it) create some of the best items in the game. It is a cycle that must include craft and "un-craft", and what I mean by that is that as you are able to explore the open-world you should be able to explore the crafting world and science if you will. The idea of this system is to avoid falling into the rot where MMO release crafting that is only interesting for a season or in the best case for an expansion. I hate how recipes get deprecated when the "new hot element" is found in an expansion or patch. You use to know how to do the best sword with Mythirl but now that Fel-Mythirl is introduced nothing your character knew is worth it.
- Craft is about learning a recipe and creating an item but recipes shouldn't be static. A player should have a say in what goes in the recipe trying to "control" the output. A recipe you learn from a vendor or you acquire in the world should feel like a guide of an item with 100% certainty of result. However, if a player wants to tweak with the "out of the box" recipe the system should allow it in a way he can change a standard reagent or even add a new one. Let me give an example of a sword recipe that contains 50 bars of silver and 10 pieces of leather, the output is the "Verras Silver Sword" with set stats. Any player that reproduces the exact recipe will obtain the same sword with the same stats. However, if a player changes 50 bars of silver for 40 of silver and 10 of Mithril the outcome should be unknown. Maybe the outcome is unstable and you lose some or all of the reagents. Maybe the outcome is stable and now you have discovered the "Verras Mithil Silver Sword" and has additional stats or some sort of trade-off. The whole point is that recipes are inspirations crafters can use to copy or to build upon.
- Un-crafting is about deconstructing an item not only to salvage some of the materials but also to learn from how that item "was made". Again, the idea is to find a source of inspiration. Not all recipes should be found in a paper some boss drops or sold by a vendor. Through un-crafting, a player can start to discover a new recipe, and through test and error come to a conclusion of a recipe that is stable. This way a Sword dropped by a boss that is no longer useful for a player can be used to un-craft and learn some of the underlying materials and sources of power used to craft it. A source of power can be a place, a type of fire, or even a spell. The materials salvaged can be important elements of the original item, for example, a Sword can be salvaged for the handle and the core of the sword, which makes it unique.
- Discovery is perhaps the key balance process in this system. This process takes time and the outcome should be controlled but also logical within the construction of the world. Perhaps it has a long cooldown to discover a new recipe, to test the stability and outcomes. It should give you information to continue or correct the path of the experiment you are running. The payoff of the effort should feel rewarding within the world, perhaps if you are the first to discover a new recipe you can be the "owner" of the patent inside the world. Everyone who reproduces the recipe afterward now knows that you are the expert artisan that discovered the recipe. Even a title could be in order, IDK, you can get creative and funny with the rewards.
For me, the whole point of the system is to build upon the knowledge and effort of the players. IRL a crafter has to research, test, and conclude to get to a result (even a negative result is valuable). The knowledge your character has about crafting needs to be part of an evolving system. An MMO developer shouldn't focus on producing an all-new set of recipes for every patch/expansion while scratching the work done before. Introducing a new reagent into the world shouldn't feel like the time and money spent on learning a craft is lost. It should feel like everything is building upon new layers of possibilities.
World of Warcraft, during Wrath of the Lich King, had a pretty neat system i think, but not something i would call "great".
Long cooldowns on a few high tier crafts worked well in WoW, people could sell their craftsmanship without providing mats and still make money.
Chance to create more than 1 potion for alchemy, also worked well in WoW at the time. People would give you the materials, and most of the time expect only 1 item back, leaving you with the rest of it. Made you feel like "the wolf of Wall Street" without any effort on your own part. Was great!
Gather/Crafting is IMO the very best solo experience in an MMO can provide at end game. It should have a central role, so that people have stuff to do once they hit max level.
My SO loves gathering and crafting, in MMO's as it's something very zen to do while chatting/talking with friends, and i agree.
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shakaconMember, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Crafting...I find crafting should be purposeful and not just a grind. That is what has me so excited about AOC. I am so excited about Animal Husbandry...I plan to spend most of my time on taming and breeding mounts.
In most games, I spend about 20% of my time crafting and 40% adventuring/raiding, and 40% of my time socializing. My most favorite crafting experience ever was in Everquest 2 on their crafting signature quest timeline for the Planes of Prophecy Expansion. This was the most creative crafting questline ever and I had so much fun doing it. During this questline, I spent so many days working on nothing but the crafting questline. I loved how we had to solve puzzles and craft items that helped us on the questline. (Disclaimer: the one component I did not enjoy was the 3-5 minutes it took to craft one item). Below is a link to the timeline.
First, sorry if some of this is a repeat of above and/or MAJOR Scope Creep... sadly I don't have enough experience with a large number of MMOs to give good comparisons
I would suggest a basic crafting interface with a metric ton of extra capabilities that can be unlocked over time as conditions are met which can be hidden & not used if desired...
For example:
Craft proficiencies:
As your proficiency in using various metals is raised add the following
Research techniques in Tempering/quenching/etc
Research into raw material refinement -- Remove impurities which could cause structural weaknesses
Research into raw material hybridization such as metal alloys... IE like learning how to make Bronze/Steel/etc
As your proficiency with a craft and your mastery of the trade increases
Allow for the player to repair damage, and as repair skills increase allow for the decrease in material usage and time requirement for the repair
Allow for the player to identify weaknesses, and as proficiencies are raised identify suitable replacement(s) to remove the weaknesses
Allow for crafts to have RNG failure/great crafts upon completion ranging from needing to be scrapped to a signature signed piece with stats on the item adjusted accordingly
For Multi-Profession crafts "Using a sword as an example" please allow the crafter to make the choice
Perform the craft from start to finish with the craft relying on their skill proficiencies in each skill required allowing them to become a general crafter
Create the component(s) specific to their profession(s) and outsource creation of the remaining components to friends/guildies/etc
IE: A Blacksmith would create the blade & misc metal components, a Woodworker would create the handle and other required wood items, a Leatherworker would create the components for the scabbard and misc leather components, a Mage or Enchanter would enchant the blade or create magic runes to be affixed to the sword/scabbard
For commerce related crafts if crafters can accept quests/missions/etc from a Craftsman guild to allow them to obtain a proportionate amount of experience and monetary gain when fulfilled when compared to hunting & selling monster materials
For example:
The guild needs to craft X wagons for a trade caravan to go between cities
A or many engineers can submit base and/or modified plans
After part requirements are determined...
Woodworkers, Smiths, Clothiers, Leatherworkers, Mages/Enchanters, Stone Masons, Jewelers, etc would all submit their craft specific item(s) or if substitutions are allowed, they would submit better than requested items for higher reward(s) upon turning it in.
For siege weapons... treat this like a commerce job but at a larger level for components and require more crafters to stick around for the attack to diagnose failures and perform field repairs as needed for both wear & tare as well as enemy damage against the siege weapon. Also allow craftspeople/engineers to scavange and reverse engineer captured siege weapons with varying degrees of success... IE a player barely able to refine Iron ore would have something like a 0.001% chance of learning how to make Titansteel, where a player proficient in Titansteel Alloy would either learn how to make or gain proficiency in making siege components such as the ram head or misc components from known alloys.
For Endgame dungeon raids I propose the following
Gates that Rogues can pick locks for -- have them re-lock after a certain amount of time, but a craftsman in tow could get a key shape from the rogue that picked the lock and make a temporary time limited key passed out to the raid so the lock wouldn't have to get repicked frequently.
Traps that Rogues could temporarily disable -- allow craftspeople study / deactivate / reverse engineer it for use in protecting their guild house / city
Allow for craftspeople with proper repair capabilities be able to do out of combat field repairs on items they are proficient in working with, but have it limited in scope compared to what they could do at their home/guild workstation(s) say maybe max out at 85% of max for the repair.
Allow for craftspeople to obtain experience and/or craft related endgame rewards... IE learn a new Shield BP, building component such as bars on cages or thrones, new alloy types and strengths/weaknesses.
Essentially taking a craftsperson into a raid would be a nightmare level escort quest, but would produce a TON of benefits if done properly and frequently.
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?
Finally! My time has come.
I could spend hours crafting. When I'm not running dungeons, exploring, or following a storyline, I am always crafting in every game I play. Percentage-wise, I would say about 75% of my solo playtime is devoted to this. That said, here are some things I would like to see in Ashes and the reasons behind it.
-NPCS should only give basic recipes at all times. In World of Warcraft, they lock end-game recipes behind a rep-grind and it makes me want to vomit every single time. I don't want to spend the next 4-8 weeks trying to make an NPC like me enough to learn a recipe that should be achieved in other ways, especially since I know that two weeks after I get the recipe the game basically gives it to players. It is a lazy design and not fun.
-Given that we know that resources are spread throughout Vera and there will be no global auction house, crafting should not be leveled by making X amount of daggers/shoes, but rather obtaining new materials. Valheim does a good job with this. When you obtain a new material, you should be able to unlock the next tier of recipes after a couple of experiments. This makes it exciting to discover something new and an incentive for crafters, who are solitary creatures by nature, a reason to explore or at least set up a trade network with other players.
- High-Quality Recipes should be obtained 1 of 3 ways: Node Library Building (If the design has remained the same from the last known blog post about it), Exploration (Finding an abandoned tower, entering a hidden room inside a lengthy dungeon, etc.), and Loot Drops (Probably restricted to boss level creatures, including rares).
-High-Quality items should require skill checks. If those skill checks turn into mini-games, give us a series of them so we aren't bored with the same animation every single time. These could be "Adjust the Furnace" so we have to control the temperature, "Hammer Time" where we have to strike the item in the proper cadence, "Spin to Win" which has us turning the sharpening stone as fast as we can. These are just examples, but I think you get my meaning. I don't want to be bothered with a classic game of pressing pre-generated keys that are in a constant loop. Last note on this: The mini-games should be quick and rewarding, or not rewarding if we fail the skill check. It should be just fast enough to not get annoyed with it, but long enough so we aren't tempted to play on our phones while we wait for the progress bar to finish.
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angelicshiyaMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I think crafting should be a career for the master crafters and people who want to make their game all about city life (rp) and crafting as their main gameplay. I know I have no interest in pvp, very little interest in pve as well. I really just want to live in the metropolis, go to the local pub, share in the daily gossip, own my own home, and spend my days mastering my craft.
I think it need to take a few weeks to couple months to master a crafting category. The reason I say that is due to the node system. I don't think I should become a master spellbook/orb/wand weapon crafter until we have been in the metropolis stage of development for a few weeks because I think the crafting should be tied to the stages of the world development. No one should become a master beer crafter when the max node stage has only gotten to stage 3 (a lot of content/potential recopies haven't been unlocked)
I want people who have achieved master/god tier rank to be world renown.
Once upon a time a dwarf who stopped in a local stage three node's town pub and overheard the pub-keep chatting with some patrons about how she heard a legend that there was a wise old master "blacksmith of weapons" who specializes in Great
mountain battleaxes. that he dwells deep in the Darkfrost ice mountains. The adventuring dwarf now knows where he must go.
This is what crafting should be about. Yes, everyone should b able to craft, but for the people whose sole purpose is only crafting and rping. please me it long, worthwhile, interesting, goal-oriented. And if a raid boss is going to be dropping swords and armor out of its belly when defeated SO HELP ME GOD!!!!
I like crafting that is easy come easy go. More about having the skill and knowledge of where the mats are and the time to go get them. Gear should be lost easily to players and break down fairly quickly so crafters are always required to make more. Games I hated crafting was gw2 where in a month or 2 you have your final set of gear and it pretty much never changes you never lose it you never need to craft or have anything crafted again.
There's so many different ways to go with this. Copper and Chestnut, while not good for weapons, could be exactly what someone wants for their statues or furniture.
Adding additional "magical" or "core" slots gives a good avenue for high-end/raid quality materials to affect the outcome.
I enjoy gathering but only for the feel of reward when it feels like I've paid enough attention to it while doing my other objectives. I feel it should be scattered along my normal activities instead of something I actively go do.
Id like if there was more skill involved. I'm not a fan of it being repetitive.
Gamer Tags: Erock Darktide Asheron's Call & Erodge Vanilla WoW
I'm a Senior Software Dev. Love Video Games.
MMO preferences: PvP, PvE, Questing, Crafting (ALL)
I'm a pure gatherer so I've played that aspect a lot, when it comes the gathering systems they're either adequate or boring in mmo's. I've only found an exceptional few where gathering felt fun, mostly survival games have enjoyable gathering systems but many would not fit into an mmo framework.
Maybe have a bar gauage which you hit right and that dictates loot quality potentials and with a higher level skill your chances in each one get better. Give us skills to find or track nodes, but don'tmake it a marker you follow, proximity metersI've found are more engaging.
Just remember gathering needs to be as much if not more enjoyable than crafting since crafting deoends on gathering.
NPC could gift you an order every hour if you requested one and you could sell the order to other players or craft items to fill the order. When you completed an order the game would give you a random loot roll and the harder or more complex the order the higher your chance of getting rare items.
SKIP TO THE ITEM LIST FOR FUN PART
Rohan: Blood Feud (shitty game) had some really interesting features in terms of mat gathering and crafting. Some of it was artificial restrictions (with difficulty or RNG), but the core idea of the system was cool. Sort of in the beginning when the game was popular and populated, getting crafted armor was quite hard, but at that moment it was "worth it" since getting better gear and upgrading was really hard too. It made gatherers and craftsmen an important deal. SWTOR had (has?) good crafting overall too, however some things were a bit confusing or tied too much into "technicalities" (for example, certain Trooper weapon couldn't be made with the same job you made lightsabers because reasons; it made it confusing at first because you couldn't find where the craft recipe was or if it was your specialization at all, and once you learnt it, it was annoying). I'll expand further a bit below and tie it in the end for a "good system" that I think would be good.
Rohan had different elements to be gathered (minerals or precious stones, plants, etc). Each had a different grade (E, D, C, etc.) and the higher the grade the better the item (higher level) requiring higher gathering job level to pick it up. These would be a component to craft different things, and of course, crafted item had grades too. So you would need say 30 grade E gems as part of a low level / low grade necklace.
You could also pick the "type" or "specialization" of the armor to be crafted: an armor for mages would have Psyche, Intelligence, etc. stats, and for a warrior/melee class would have vitality, strength, etc. You get the idea. The crafted items (armors and weapons) would also have socket possibilities to insert socket gems in it to add passives/more stats.
SWTOR on the other hand, had crafting of the likes of WoW or any other "major" mmo. Perhaps FFXIV too. Of course you had different jobs that allowed you to pick up up to 3 different things. At the same time (and this is important for me too), it had artifact (purple) and orange (legendary or epic?) 'modular'/'modded' clothing. So this meant that for those t-mogs enthusiasts, before t-mog was implemented into the game, we could have a level 10 robe from the first dungeon final boss with 4 slots to be modded out and change the parts as we level up for better ones. These parts also had A or B variants. So the same 'mod' could have one variant with more vitality, and the other with more shield rating, or more absorption rating from that shield.
Combining the two, my system would be as follows (roughly):
Without taking into account materials requirements/gathering jobs, crafted items (armor/weapons/potions/etc) would have "in-between" sections of quality compared to the level segmented table of items. Suppose you have 3 items with X amount of stats at level 10, 20 and 30. Let's also say level 18 armor is the last boss of a dungeon before the next segment of levels (from level 20) - crafted armor could be at level 12/14/15 and be slightly better than 10 and the rest, but not better than level 18 or the next segment armor. Of course, for each segment there is a 'tier' of crafting that would be worth it if any player chooses to go for it. That up until end-game where in end game crafted armor has the best stat (this is in my system, keep in mind) but materials needed are gathered from dungs and raids at the highest level of difficulty. This base system would ensure that crafting IS a choice during leveling if you can afford it or decide to go that route or mix level gear with crafted gear, but is not a "must" making the level gear worse, but also not making crafting irrelevant. For older players or with alts, this method would be good as a system of getting "great leveling armor" without having to implements any "heirlooms" type of system if they want to level up a new character. And this also ensures that late in the game, crafting becomes even more important so leveling it up all the way makes sense, has an incentive and it matters.
Crafters can have an 'alignment' of the type of armor/weapon (or specialization) to be crafted for a better % of higher stats that are wanted. For example some type of mail-armor user caster, they would want intelligence or wisdom. This would require more materials of certain type (extra plates would make more defense and vitality, where as more magic dust ? would make it to have more intelligence).
Crafted items will have slightly higher stats than their 'counterpart' of level gear (refer to the first item) - level gear 10 STR; crafted gear 12 STR.
At a certain skill level of crafting, smiths can craft 'slotted' items. Say a sword, would have a default basic handle with X stats. As you progress in level (or content and can acquire new materials), you can craft a new better handle to improve its stats. IF level gear would have sockets/slots too, make crafted upgrades also have slightly better stats. (item 3). This would save up people from re-buying or re-gathering materials to craft yet another armor of the same type with possibility of stat loss (see item point below), would keep craftsmen relevant because they're still needed for slot upgrades, and would make it overall more interesting than just wishing for RNGeezus to give you the best roll of something. (also could happen that you perhaps get the base armor at medium roll, but then 1 slot is best in stats, making up for that initial 'loss').
Within a tier of crafted items (white, green, blue, purple, etc.) there could be a range of "min/max" stats possible depending on the skill level of the craftsmen. Someone who can make tier 3, will not have such a hard time making a good refined tier 1. Tiers also would need to be matched with tiered materials. (blue materials for blue items, so on and so forth). There could be a minimum amount of materials needed for the crafting to happen, but putting in say 10 more would make it much more likely for a good stat roll (this last part is secondary, as in the end people would end up mostly paying or buying for always the best stat roll anyway, it depends on how complex/difficult is done).
So far, this system takes into account players jobs of gathering and crafting, their (hoped) interaction between each other, PvE and the auction house/market. But what about the PvPers? I want them integrated into this too! To make this not even longer, I'll put it in context of "PvE and PvP are content in this game. We want you to play all the content". In that sense, PvP could also have materials quests for some sort of t-mog and/or "attunement". These "attunements" would give the player that chance to, if say they chose to slightly change their class or they want to go bananas with whacky builds, change their currently set armor (say to defense and vit) to something else (perhaps intelligence and damage?). I don't like PvP much for diff. reasons, so I haven't thought this last part through much. I also kind of hate the fact that I'm forced to PvP, or PvPers are forced to PvE (but context above).
Cheers
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Undead CanuckMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
My favourite crafting was the original system in Everquest 2 (kind of like the archtype / class / subclass system). Where you had to make the base items. Then you had to combine them into the subcomponents. Then you have do combine those together (I think there were only 3 layers).
A system where it you can actually specialize in specific things to help out other crafters or be the one who makes the final items.
I prefer a system that allows characters to work together to make something special as well as where you can slave away all day and make something amazing yourself.
And being able to adjust various parameters so that someone can request an item just for them.
My favorite crafting system came from a turn based MMO called Wakfu. Every resource, from grains, to trees, to monster populations could be cultivated and conversely depleted. If you were a baker and wanted to create high level bread, you needed to head to a field in a high level zone and plant the grain yourself and defend it while it grew. This opened up the opportunity for people to come in and kill the gatherers taking their harvest for them. This also extended to exploring into the heart of a forest region to plant rare trees or fight into mines to stake a claim. What I liked about this is it created actionable gameplay for people looking to spend their full time crafting but did not eliminate the risk in a way that instanced materials do. I strongly dislike how randomly spawning resource nodes scattered across every map has somewhat become the norm in games like Guild Wars 2 and ESO. To me this makes crafting something you can't focus on and you just passively accumulate materials as you're out adventuring. I think in order to give the gathering professions a fulfilling identity you need to be able to seek out areas with the materials you want and pursue them.
To me this is the difference between spending a 4 hour play session cultivating then harvesting a field of wheat as opposed to just randomly picking flowers on the side of the road to your next quest.
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VarkunMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
Much has been said on this subject over the years and intrepid is making all the right noises when it comes to crafting IMO.
First off, my standard plea to all MMO developers:
Please create a crafting system for players that love crafting - not for players that hate crafting!
And by that I mean, all too often we see complaints from players about “tedium” or “grind” or “inconvenience” surrounding some of the typical actions involved in crafting. Maybe it’s inventory management, or the time it takes to craft something.
I’m here to suggest those things are ok. They’re ok because those who intend to pursue crafting as a primary gameplay style do not view those tasks as tedium… those tasks *are* our gameplay. It’s what defines us as dedicated crafters, so sanding off the rough edges just so non-crafters can enjoy it more is, in my opinion, not the way to go!
Backing up a step… ideally, if a player doesn’t like to do something, they shouldn’t feel compelled to have to do it. That means the system should also not “force” Joe Combat to feel like he *has to craft*. There should be a design that fosters the idea of interdependence between players. And part of that design means it’s ok that there are things in there that make it unappealing to non-crafters.
As an example… I, as an advanced crafter, would not be able to face some of the foes that Joe Combat can, nor should he be able to craft the Axe he needs to face them. There should be opportunity cost and tradeoffs with choosing to go down such a dedicated path.
So this is me begging… please try to elevate crafting from something players “also do” in MMOs, to something players can do “instead of” combat.
Reading this back, I realize this comes off more as a manifesto than feedback I don’t mean to disparage any play styles or player types… it’s just been *so long* since a virtual world game had anything aside from a combat play style and progression path as s first-class citizen, I can’t help but put hope into Ashes of Creation!
The above quote and the highlighted line sum up my thoughts on crafting. I have said much on this subject in previous posts over the years and will not repeat myself.
One thought I have is there could be some sort of theory component to all of the crafting professions be that the study of old manuscripts, recipe drops providing a bonus to crafting experience gain, thought the main experience gain would still be through the execution of the crafting skill.
Close your eyes spread your arms and always trust your cape.
I like the idea of being able to be a player that focuses mostly into one thing and still be able to have fun with it. With a great crafting system and great social interaction you can be renowned for it and that can be more special to someone than being really good at PvP or PvE. Personally I like the idea of owning and running a tavern out of a freehold plot. So being able to acquire most or all of my materials/ingredients with gold would be ideal.
However, I still think that for high end recipes and materials should come from high end content. The best weapons, armour and maybe even food should come from things like raids. There could be specific meat that only comes from a specific raid mob. I also think it's a good idea to incorporate low level materials in high level recipes so those materials don't end up obsolete and used solely for levelling up. Why would we stop using copper in high level engineering?
I also love the idea of locations being requirements for certain recipes. For example, I could be a top level blacksmith but I'm not very good at raiding. But this guild wants me to build a sword for them that requires a special forge found only deep inside a raid. That guild could bring along and protect that player so that they can get the crafting done. Almost like an escort quest but with an actual player. The same could be done with certain gatherables requiring a high level gatherer. Maybe dragon scales that can only be harvested by an experienced gatherer. I just like the idea of being a humble chef that gets escorted through a dangerous area so that I can make some top notch food!
This might be a step too far but perhaps you could make these player escort type missions happen by hindering the fighting ability of a player that's just there to craft or gather. Maybe their tools are weighing them down. I only suggest this because otherwise there would be no need to take somebody who only crafts over somebody that crafts and raids. Though maybe this kind of thing would end up happening if certain recipes are so hard to acquire that it's unlikely anyone on your usual raid roster has it. You would have to go to somebody that puts loads of time into crafting.
Also I think it might be a good idea to be able to incorporate a crafting window into the trade window or provide some way to craft an item using the materials in somebody else's hands and give them the result in one transaction. Just to stop those people who take the materials and run off with them. Though I suppose you could also prevent that behaviour with the ability to just kill a player that tries to steal your stuff!
I can not say I have played too many MMORPGs to give the best feedback. However, I have played ESO (Elder Scrolls Online) for years. There are some aspects of the crafting in ESO that I liked, and that I did not like;
Alchemy:
- Pro1: Combining ingredients for different effects. At first you don't know if you will actually make something usable with your choice of combination, which forces you to experiment with the ingredients.
- Con1: Potions (other than health/mana/stamina) are rarely used in both PvP and PvE contexts, as they make for little to no impact.
Cooking:
- Con1: Only increases max or regeneration of health/mana/stamina, amount of EXP earned, and fishing proficiency.
- Con2: Despite there being many recipes in ESO, the divergence is very limited.
Enchanting:
- Con1: The most sought-after rune glyph for enchanting is only available to buy in the Imperial Sewers (PvX ish) with Tel Var stones or for gold in auction houses, which means you either have to brace for zergs in the sewers or farm gold.
Blacksmithing, Clothing, Jewelry and Woodworking:
- Con1: Crafted wearables are too weak for PvP and PvE content. Crafted wearables are mainly used for the EXP trait to EXP farm.
Traits:
- Con1: Researching traits time consumption in ESO is somewhat unlogical. As further you get into the research the more time it takes. Realistically if you are a more seasoned researcher within the subject, time for research should go down, not up. The time should rather be decided on the difficulty of trait/blueprint, your subject proficiency level, and skills.
Crafting quests:
Con1:The daily crafting quests are quite repetitive, and after you have reached max level on all the crafting proficiencies you only do them to have a chance to acquire more rare crafting quests which also is repetitive, with the exception of style, and that you can earn writs.
Pros1: Writs can be used for buying crafting stations and other items for your housing. This actually takes some time but does not remove the fact that the way to get there is repetitive and only benefits if you actually use the housing for ESO.
Styles:
- Pro1: The number of styles that are incorporated into ESO is maybe the solely reason why people are still crafting in ESO. However, this is only for cosmetic reasons.
Conclusion:
Crafting has to be a smudge repetitive no matter how you look at it. It being gathering resources, do research, experiment, process, and craft. However, as I see it, it all comes down to: The vast field of consumables not only being used for health/mana/stamina, but rather having consumables that are needed for very specific reasons which actually have an impact on the situation rather then having a huge variety of consumables where only 5% are in use. Crafting of wearables should be on par with wearables that could be obtained within dungeons etc. so that players could actually spend their entire time in Ashes of Creation on crafting and still have the same progress as combat players. However, the equivalent risks should apply the crafter in a different aspect; i.e. that you need to turn up the temperature on the melter which could make you drain stamina and then health due to heat, and loss of resources. There should however be SOME legendary items that are only dropped in dungeons and SOME items that can only be crafted by a master craftsman, but not out-do on another in terms of stats. The time for crafting should logicly be distributed within the crafting process as it would in real life, or a fine tuned balancing.
I am hoping to be a fine artisan myself when the game launch!
Yours truly,
In my personal opinion I believe a system in which crafting is relevant is my preference. I know Intrepid is committed to making AoC just that, but hear me out. Ashes should commit to making a system where plays could solely focus on crafting as their gameplay and still have a meaningful experience.
Imagine being the blacksmith for you small encampment, repairing adventure's armors, buying and selling raw materials that pass through and crafting the best armor/weapons you can from those materials for the for the local adventures. My hope is depth for the crafting system, but not only that. I'd like sustainment. Relevance. A balance between being able to spend my time being the blacksmith, or the alchemist, but not being being forced to complete meaningless tasks. When an activity becomes work it no long becomes fun. A hard balance to achieve but I think Intrepid can do it.
I don't really have to many examples to describe what I'm talking about, but my hope is that Intrepid can make a meaningful and in-depth system while simultaneously ensuring players have fun with it and not burn themselves out.
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen of Ashes and Intrepid!
I'm a little later than I usually am on the Dev discussions, but I hope I'm not to late to put my opinions and thoughts in!
One of my favorite examples in it's core of crafting is in Albion Online! Although it certainly has it's ups and downs, the core of the process is what I'm interested in. The fact there's tiers after tiers after tiers, in my opinion is great. It makes it feel incredible when you finally have worked up to the point that you can harvest the next tier of resources to introduce into your crafting cook book. Not only that but having the craft the absolute best of the best tolls, weapons, and armor.. It's a long haul let's just say that. Having to craft through every single previous tier costs you many hours of work and effort for you to top out your best craftables.
The decent amount of RNG that is built into the Albion crafting system, and reverse-tier progression through the randomly spawning Rare/Epic harvesting isn't very rewarding, but the underlying concept of long term effort for big time reward is what made me fall in love with the system.
If we can emulate something along the same lines, giving an extensive tree of collectibles in order to create a diverse, challenging, and commitment rewarding crafting system.
Finally for the gear itself, one of my favorite aspects of crafting your own gear in an RPG experience is tailoring it exactly to your liking. Being able to customize the appearance and stats that are applied to the gear to help craft your character through your gear is HUGE to a crafting system that feels rewarding.
Echoing others here I'm sure, I like FFXIV's crafting. But I think it begs a distinction between crafting as an end-game activity, and crafting to produce items.
Yes, FFXIV has a full suite of abilities you use to craft items. But at a certain point in crafting gear progression, you can macro a series of abilities to guarantee a top-quality craft every time. Is this a bad thing? NO. I like having the abilities vs. a cast bar, but I don't want to run through my 'rotation' 10 times when I'm trying to produce items to sell on the market board. At a certain point, I feel I should be able to click a button and get a guaranteed HQ item after a cast bar, since that's effectively what my macro does anyway.
On the other side, they have 'Expert' crafts that are significantly harder to make, and very luck-based with a variety of procs that can affect your crafting. The most efficient starter involves rolling a 50% chance 4 times in a row and needing to succeed at least once in order to keep going. I burn mats a lot without completing a craft at all, because I need to hit certain quality thresholds. The presence of Expert crafts allowed FFXIV to have ranked competitions between crafters in the current expansion-- The more items you crafted at higher quality, the more points you got. Very unique, in my experience.
As an side, needing to collect uniquely crafter-oriented gear that makes crafting easier/possible at all is a fun system. It enables decidedly crafter/gatherer-only activities, which is a HUGE bonus to the fantasy immersion of what I would like to seek from an MMO.
Comments
I did like FFXIVs craft system, as others have mentioned, a bit more engaging then just a simple 'click and craft'. I also like the use of specialization within a crafting profession, e.g. WoW Blacksmithing diverging into Axesmithing, Hammersmithing and Swordssmithing. The specialization makes these streams feel a bit unique, as apposed to 'x' crafted can create everything.
I enjoyed crafting in games where it encourages social interaction, and gave value and meaning to those who could craft the hard/rare recipes. e.g. knowing 'player x' can craft the rare shield, and battering with them on a cost for their service.
Also related to crafting, I enjoy games where the resources are gathered from a multitude of sources, e.g. gathering, other professions, rare drops.
So i thought i would point out some Pros and Cons from Those games:
FFXIV:
Pros:
Mini-game aspect is cool and makes crafting seem like an actual game play element, instead of a side activity
The different quality of ingredients can help you make High quality items, but the higher geared players do not need to buy the more expensive high quality ingredients due to them having the stats to make the items with the lower quality ingredients
Cons:
The Macro system they use means that after a week, everyone who has the money for the gear is making the highest level items in the game while basically being AFK. With enough money, anyone can get to max level crafting and start afk crafting High level consumables and Equipment while putting in very little effort
The only thing to change every patch for crafting is the gear usually. This makes the crafting have a very:
Race to get gear - Make money with new gear - stop crafting until new patch because the market has crashed - New patch comes out - repeat. This can be very boring - PLEASE DO NOT MAKE CRAFTING ONLY ABOUT THE GEAR
World of Warcraft
Pros:
Gathering the higher tiers of recipes can be a good challenge/adventure, which is rewarded with cheaper craft costs. I love this system over the standard "Level Up and suddenly know how to make new stuff" approach
Cons:
It feels like i am mashing huge quantities of resources together to level and thats it. This makes it feel like i am playing a Gatherer more than a crafter as getting the resources takes more time than the actual crafting
When i do reach the higher levels of crafting, i am Mass making items until they have the stats i want on them. It feels like i have no control over what i am making and what i am making is just numbers, not an actual item
Edit:
For time spent crafting:
FFXIV: i have 1,500 hours in game with prob 200-300 of that crafting and another ~50 gathering for crafting
WOW: I have 1,000 hours in game with maybe 10 actively crafting.
As for time crafting, that depends on how useful crafted items are after a while. In ESO I could craft a set that was everything I needed and i'd never need another again...unless I wanted another for a different look or my spec changed. IN WoW...crafting might as well not exist anymore it's useless in most aspects since better gear is obtaned outside of it, when you should be able to make something really close to it.
In closing, make crafting simple, make it rewarding, and remember items always need to be equal or at least close to equal as anything obtained outside of it (especially at end game).
So this might become a little longer than i have initially planned. However, in most games, crafting as been designed as a chore whose sole meaning stems from its mandatory nature.
1. Interdepentency with other professions and other players.
The Armorer needs parts from the leatherworker, the blacksmith and some others to get all the materials to create a high-tier Armor based on plans made by the scribe.
The Ship Builder needs lumber from the woodworker, reinforced platings from the armor smith, weapons from Siegen Weapon creator...
Customization Options by the Crafter. Allowing the crafter the customize the Items he creates.
This should be true for both crafter and prosessors.
Crafters can influence the stats of the items they produce.
Prosessors can influence the properties of the materials they create, which in turns affect the base statline of the items that can be crafted with them. (A processor might decide to make the Iron Plates he creates more durable by:
Specialization
Smelting =/= Smelting
Both crafters and processors should have the ability to follow an in-depth specialization similar to a skilltree.
Doing that a smelter (for example) could focus on certain materials or certain item groups.
/Also customizable tools and workbenches
These specialization should give meaningful and widely impactful benefits towards the creation of items in its own specialization, which affect both the amount of materials needed and the quality of the product created and ultimately the strenght of the item crafted from them. A smelter focusing on products for weapon crafting should NEVER produce items that are as desireable for armor crafting as the Smelter A in the above mentioned example.
Give us the option to specialize and exceel in certain aspects. Don't force us to be the same.
Indepth crafting trees
A wide variety of produts which can be created by every profession. Each and every one of them having a meaningful use within the game.
Progression
Create a long path of progression for crafters, so those that decide to primarily focus on it will be rewarded over those that only do it occassionally. Just to be clear, here i'm not talking about weeks, but many many months of constant progression to finally reach the end of this path. This should involve:
P.S. I was kinda disappointed when you commented, that people had the ability to max out multiple professions within one of the 3 crafting directions. This directly counteracts the community building and interdependency aspect of the game you pride yourself so much upon.
I might be on my own here but I found ESO's rune names and potion/poison creation system to be tedious as hell and convoluted. It didn't map out for you what created what even after you had made it once from what I recall. And I never had enough inventory space to carry all of the mats when I was travelling around.
I think anyone should be able to craft and level it up to max, but I don’t think that someone that spends very little time in crafting should be able to do as good as someone who spends most of their time crafting. This could be said about most things in the game for example PvP. A PvPer probably has an advantage in PvP compared to a crafter or raider. How? Well, maybe there is some type of PVP currency(only earned through PVP content), which let’s them buy PvP gear/items (I haven’t read much about the PVP in AoC so I don’t know how it works). This could be done for crafting as well.
I think each crafting profession should have 3 (or more) specializations. This will make it so not all crafters of a specific profession can do exact same things. Instead they will specialize in one of the three specializations. I like using examples so here is one:
We have three players A, B and C. All of them have cooking, however they all have picked different specializations (the bold text are the specializations and the benefits with them).
To make crafting more fun and engaging, instead of just pressing a button, add 1 or more minigames. I understand that a minigame can become tedious, especially when you have to do them multiple times in a row, hence why I suggested more than 1 minigame. To add to the suggestion, is a mechanic Genshin Impact uses;
I don’t know if this will work for all professions. I think the easiest way for me to explain this is to give an example:
The player is a carpenter, they make furniture. They have a recipe for a chair with a cushion. To craft the chair they need wood and cloth. If the player wishes to they can also add dye to the recipe. The player can now decide what type of wood and dye they want to use when they craft the chair:
Additionally, there were chances to have critical failures (losing all the materials) and critical successes (a +1 or +2 version of whatever you were making). Most importantly, every single item had a purpose in the game and was tradeable on the auction house.
Another great crafting system (for some not all things) was in ArcheAge. I liked how you needed to craft numerous components in order to build complex things like vehicles or even diving gear.
Most time when I see a crafting system in a game. It is only crafting, crafting, crafting.. And then you can use strong gear. But why never play the gear on the way to the best you can craft.
Gathering resources from different mobs and iron, flowers, whatever is important.
But it needs a good balance to be fair.
As next you start crafting different gear, like in ESO, in different places.
Now you finished your first gear, as sample a green tier. Now you should play this, learn about it, and optimize it, before crafting the next tier. Level the gear before upgrade it, as sample, to blue.
That's should be the way to craft.
But it is only my opinion
Best Regards
For me, Crafting is a cycle through which players can (optional for those who enjoy it) create some of the best items in the game. It is a cycle that must include craft and "un-craft", and what I mean by that is that as you are able to explore the open-world you should be able to explore the crafting world and science if you will. The idea of this system is to avoid falling into the rot where MMO release crafting that is only interesting for a season or in the best case for an expansion. I hate how recipes get deprecated when the "new hot element" is found in an expansion or patch. You use to know how to do the best sword with Mythirl but now that Fel-Mythirl is introduced nothing your character knew is worth it.
- Craft is about learning a recipe and creating an item but recipes shouldn't be static. A player should have a say in what goes in the recipe trying to "control" the output. A recipe you learn from a vendor or you acquire in the world should feel like a guide of an item with 100% certainty of result. However, if a player wants to tweak with the "out of the box" recipe the system should allow it in a way he can change a standard reagent or even add a new one. Let me give an example of a sword recipe that contains 50 bars of silver and 10 pieces of leather, the output is the "Verras Silver Sword" with set stats. Any player that reproduces the exact recipe will obtain the same sword with the same stats. However, if a player changes 50 bars of silver for 40 of silver and 10 of Mithril the outcome should be unknown. Maybe the outcome is unstable and you lose some or all of the reagents. Maybe the outcome is stable and now you have discovered the "Verras Mithil Silver Sword" and has additional stats or some sort of trade-off. The whole point is that recipes are inspirations crafters can use to copy or to build upon.
- Un-crafting is about deconstructing an item not only to salvage some of the materials but also to learn from how that item "was made". Again, the idea is to find a source of inspiration. Not all recipes should be found in a paper some boss drops or sold by a vendor. Through un-crafting, a player can start to discover a new recipe, and through test and error come to a conclusion of a recipe that is stable. This way a Sword dropped by a boss that is no longer useful for a player can be used to un-craft and learn some of the underlying materials and sources of power used to craft it. A source of power can be a place, a type of fire, or even a spell. The materials salvaged can be important elements of the original item, for example, a Sword can be salvaged for the handle and the core of the sword, which makes it unique.
- Discovery is perhaps the key balance process in this system. This process takes time and the outcome should be controlled but also logical within the construction of the world. Perhaps it has a long cooldown to discover a new recipe, to test the stability and outcomes. It should give you information to continue or correct the path of the experiment you are running. The payoff of the effort should feel rewarding within the world, perhaps if you are the first to discover a new recipe you can be the "owner" of the patent inside the world. Everyone who reproduces the recipe afterward now knows that you are the expert artisan that discovered the recipe. Even a title could be in order, IDK, you can get creative and funny with the rewards.
For me, the whole point of the system is to build upon the knowledge and effort of the players. IRL a crafter has to research, test, and conclude to get to a result (even a negative result is valuable). The knowledge your character has about crafting needs to be part of an evolving system. An MMO developer shouldn't focus on producing an all-new set of recipes for every patch/expansion while scratching the work done before. Introducing a new reagent into the world shouldn't feel like the time and money spent on learning a craft is lost. It should feel like everything is building upon new layers of possibilities.
Gather/Crafting is IMO the very best solo experience in an MMO can provide at end game. It should have a central role, so that people have stuff to do once they hit max level.
My SO loves gathering and crafting, in MMO's as it's something very zen to do while chatting/talking with friends, and i agree.
In most games, I spend about 20% of my time crafting and 40% adventuring/raiding, and 40% of my time socializing. My most favorite crafting experience ever was in Everquest 2 on their crafting signature quest timeline for the Planes of Prophecy Expansion. This was the most creative crafting questline ever and I had so much fun doing it. During this questline, I spent so many days working on nothing but the crafting questline. I loved how we had to solve puzzles and craft items that helped us on the questline. (Disclaimer: the one component I did not enjoy was the 3-5 minutes it took to craft one item). Below is a link to the timeline.
https://eq2.fandom.com/wiki/Planes_of_Prophecy_Crafting_Timeline
I would suggest a basic crafting interface with a metric ton of extra capabilities that can be unlocked over time as conditions are met which can be hidden & not used if desired...
For example:
Craft proficiencies:
As your proficiency in using various metals is raised add the following
- Research techniques in Tempering/quenching/etc
- Research into raw material refinement -- Remove impurities which could cause structural weaknesses
- Research into raw material hybridization such as metal alloys... IE like learning how to make Bronze/Steel/etc
As your proficiency with a craft and your mastery of the trade increases- Allow for the player to repair damage, and as repair skills increase allow for the decrease in material usage and time requirement for the repair
- Allow for the player to identify weaknesses, and as proficiencies are raised identify suitable replacement(s) to remove the weaknesses
- Allow for crafts to have RNG failure/great crafts upon completion ranging from needing to be scrapped to a signature signed piece with stats on the item adjusted accordingly
For Multi-Profession crafts "Using a sword as an example" please allow the crafter to make the choicePerform the craft from start to finish with the craft relying on their skill proficiencies in each skill required allowing them to become a general crafter
Create the component(s) specific to their profession(s) and outsource creation of the remaining components to friends/guildies/etc
IE: A Blacksmith would create the blade & misc metal components, a Woodworker would create the handle and other required wood items, a Leatherworker would create the components for the scabbard and misc leather components, a Mage or Enchanter would enchant the blade or create magic runes to be affixed to the sword/scabbard
For commerce related crafts if crafters can accept quests/missions/etc from a Craftsman guild to allow them to obtain a proportionate amount of experience and monetary gain when fulfilled when compared to hunting & selling monster materials
For example:
The guild needs to craft X wagons for a trade caravan to go between cities
A or many engineers can submit base and/or modified plans
After part requirements are determined...
Woodworkers, Smiths, Clothiers, Leatherworkers, Mages/Enchanters, Stone Masons, Jewelers, etc would all submit their craft specific item(s) or if substitutions are allowed, they would submit better than requested items for higher reward(s) upon turning it in.
For siege weapons... treat this like a commerce job but at a larger level for components and require more crafters to stick around for the attack to diagnose failures and perform field repairs as needed for both wear & tare as well as enemy damage against the siege weapon. Also allow craftspeople/engineers to scavange and reverse engineer captured siege weapons with varying degrees of success... IE a player barely able to refine Iron ore would have something like a 0.001% chance of learning how to make Titansteel, where a player proficient in Titansteel Alloy would either learn how to make or gain proficiency in making siege components such as the ram head or misc components from known alloys.
For Endgame dungeon raids I propose the following
- Gates that Rogues can pick locks for -- have them re-lock after a certain amount of time, but a craftsman in tow could get a key shape from the rogue that picked the lock and make a temporary time limited key passed out to the raid so the lock wouldn't have to get repicked frequently.
- Traps that Rogues could temporarily disable -- allow craftspeople study / deactivate / reverse engineer it for use in protecting their guild house / city
- Allow for craftspeople with proper repair capabilities be able to do out of combat field repairs on items they are proficient in working with, but have it limited in scope compared to what they could do at their home/guild workstation(s) say maybe max out at 85% of max for the repair.
- Allow for craftspeople to obtain experience and/or craft related endgame rewards... IE learn a new Shield BP, building component such as bars on cages or thrones, new alloy types and strengths/weaknesses.
Essentially taking a craftsperson into a raid would be a nightmare level escort quest, but would produce a TON of benefits if done properly and frequently.Now with Ashes I am purely interested to what I can do as a highwayman ^_^
Finally! My time has come.
I could spend hours crafting. When I'm not running dungeons, exploring, or following a storyline, I am always crafting in every game I play. Percentage-wise, I would say about 75% of my solo playtime is devoted to this. That said, here are some things I would like to see in Ashes and the reasons behind it.
-NPCS should only give basic recipes at all times. In World of Warcraft, they lock end-game recipes behind a rep-grind and it makes me want to vomit every single time. I don't want to spend the next 4-8 weeks trying to make an NPC like me enough to learn a recipe that should be achieved in other ways, especially since I know that two weeks after I get the recipe the game basically gives it to players. It is a lazy design and not fun.
-Given that we know that resources are spread throughout Vera and there will be no global auction house, crafting should not be leveled by making X amount of daggers/shoes, but rather obtaining new materials. Valheim does a good job with this. When you obtain a new material, you should be able to unlock the next tier of recipes after a couple of experiments. This makes it exciting to discover something new and an incentive for crafters, who are solitary creatures by nature, a reason to explore or at least set up a trade network with other players.
- High-Quality Recipes should be obtained 1 of 3 ways: Node Library Building (If the design has remained the same from the last known blog post about it), Exploration (Finding an abandoned tower, entering a hidden room inside a lengthy dungeon, etc.), and Loot Drops (Probably restricted to boss level creatures, including rares).
-High-Quality items should require skill checks. If those skill checks turn into mini-games, give us a series of them so we aren't bored with the same animation every single time. These could be "Adjust the Furnace" so we have to control the temperature, "Hammer Time" where we have to strike the item in the proper cadence, "Spin to Win" which has us turning the sharpening stone as fast as we can. These are just examples, but I think you get my meaning. I don't want to be bothered with a classic game of pressing pre-generated keys that are in a constant loop. Last note on this: The mini-games should be quick and rewarding, or not rewarding if we fail the skill check. It should be just fast enough to not get annoyed with it, but long enough so we aren't tempted to play on our phones while we wait for the progress bar to finish.
I think it need to take a few weeks to couple months to master a crafting category. The reason I say that is due to the node system. I don't think I should become a master spellbook/orb/wand weapon crafter until we have been in the metropolis stage of development for a few weeks because I think the crafting should be tied to the stages of the world development. No one should become a master beer crafter when the max node stage has only gotten to stage 3 (a lot of content/potential recopies haven't been unlocked)
I want people who have achieved master/god tier rank to be world renown.
Once upon a time a dwarf who stopped in a local stage three node's town pub and overheard the pub-keep chatting with some patrons about how she heard a legend that there was a wise old master "blacksmith of weapons" who specializes in Great
mountain battleaxes. that he dwells deep in the Darkfrost ice mountains. The adventuring dwarf now knows where he must go.
This is what crafting should be about. Yes, everyone should b able to craft, but for the people whose sole purpose is only crafting and rping. please me it long, worthwhile, interesting, goal-oriented. And if a raid boss is going to be dropping swords and armor out of its belly when defeated SO HELP ME GOD!!!!
On the same line as SWG and a game I don't think gets enough credit, taking inspiration from Mortal Online's crafting system could also go a long way.
Recipes being able to use different materials with different quality outcomes, I think, is the peak of MMO crafting.
Copper blade? Cheap resource, low durability, low hardness.
Adamantium blade? Expensive resource, high durability, high hardness.
Chestnut handle? Inefficient resources, low durability.
Oak handle? Efficient resource, high durability.
Same exact recipe, different outcome.
There's so many different ways to go with this. Copper and Chestnut, while not good for weapons, could be exactly what someone wants for their statues or furniture.
Adding additional "magical" or "core" slots gives a good avenue for high-end/raid quality materials to affect the outcome.
Id like if there was more skill involved. I'm not a fan of it being repetitive.
I'm a Senior Software Dev. Love Video Games.
MMO preferences: PvP, PvE, Questing, Crafting (ALL)
Maybe have a bar gauage which you hit right and that dictates loot quality potentials and with a higher level skill your chances in each one get better. Give us skills to find or track nodes, but don'tmake it a marker you follow, proximity metersI've found are more engaging.
Just remember gathering needs to be as much if not more enjoyable than crafting since crafting deoends on gathering.
NPC could gift you an order every hour if you requested one and you could sell the order to other players or craft items to fill the order. When you completed an order the game would give you a random loot roll and the harder or more complex the order the higher your chance of getting rare items.
Rohan: Blood Feud (shitty game) had some really interesting features in terms of mat gathering and crafting. Some of it was artificial restrictions (with difficulty or RNG), but the core idea of the system was cool. Sort of in the beginning when the game was popular and populated, getting crafted armor was quite hard, but at that moment it was "worth it" since getting better gear and upgrading was really hard too. It made gatherers and craftsmen an important deal. SWTOR had (has?) good crafting overall too, however some things were a bit confusing or tied too much into "technicalities" (for example, certain Trooper weapon couldn't be made with the same job you made lightsabers because reasons; it made it confusing at first because you couldn't find where the craft recipe was or if it was your specialization at all, and once you learnt it, it was annoying). I'll expand further a bit below and tie it in the end for a "good system" that I think would be good.
Rohan had different elements to be gathered (minerals or precious stones, plants, etc). Each had a different grade (E, D, C, etc.) and the higher the grade the better the item (higher level) requiring higher gathering job level to pick it up. These would be a component to craft different things, and of course, crafted item had grades too. So you would need say 30 grade E gems as part of a low level / low grade necklace.
You could also pick the "type" or "specialization" of the armor to be crafted: an armor for mages would have Psyche, Intelligence, etc. stats, and for a warrior/melee class would have vitality, strength, etc. You get the idea. The crafted items (armors and weapons) would also have socket possibilities to insert socket gems in it to add passives/more stats.
SWTOR on the other hand, had crafting of the likes of WoW or any other "major" mmo. Perhaps FFXIV too. Of course you had different jobs that allowed you to pick up up to 3 different things. At the same time (and this is important for me too), it had artifact (purple) and orange (legendary or epic?) 'modular'/'modded' clothing. So this meant that for those t-mogs enthusiasts, before t-mog was implemented into the game, we could have a level 10 robe from the first dungeon final boss with 4 slots to be modded out and change the parts as we level up for better ones. These parts also had A or B variants. So the same 'mod' could have one variant with more vitality, and the other with more shield rating, or more absorption rating from that shield.
Combining the two, my system would be as follows (roughly):
Cheers
A system where it you can actually specialize in specific things to help out other crafters or be the one who makes the final items.
I prefer a system that allows characters to work together to make something special as well as where you can slave away all day and make something amazing yourself.
And being able to adjust various parameters so that someone can request an item just for them.
To me this is the difference between spending a 4 hour play session cultivating then harvesting a field of wheat as opposed to just randomly picking flowers on the side of the road to your next quest.
The above quote and the highlighted line sum up my thoughts on crafting. I have said much on this subject in previous posts over the years and will not repeat myself.
One thought I have is there could be some sort of theory component to all of the crafting professions be that the study of old manuscripts, recipe drops providing a bonus to crafting experience gain, thought the main experience gain would still be through the execution of the crafting skill.
However, I still think that for high end recipes and materials should come from high end content. The best weapons, armour and maybe even food should come from things like raids. There could be specific meat that only comes from a specific raid mob. I also think it's a good idea to incorporate low level materials in high level recipes so those materials don't end up obsolete and used solely for levelling up. Why would we stop using copper in high level engineering?
I also love the idea of locations being requirements for certain recipes. For example, I could be a top level blacksmith but I'm not very good at raiding. But this guild wants me to build a sword for them that requires a special forge found only deep inside a raid. That guild could bring along and protect that player so that they can get the crafting done. Almost like an escort quest but with an actual player. The same could be done with certain gatherables requiring a high level gatherer. Maybe dragon scales that can only be harvested by an experienced gatherer. I just like the idea of being a humble chef that gets escorted through a dangerous area so that I can make some top notch food!
This might be a step too far but perhaps you could make these player escort type missions happen by hindering the fighting ability of a player that's just there to craft or gather. Maybe their tools are weighing them down. I only suggest this because otherwise there would be no need to take somebody who only crafts over somebody that crafts and raids. Though maybe this kind of thing would end up happening if certain recipes are so hard to acquire that it's unlikely anyone on your usual raid roster has it. You would have to go to somebody that puts loads of time into crafting.
Also I think it might be a good idea to be able to incorporate a crafting window into the trade window or provide some way to craft an item using the materials in somebody else's hands and give them the result in one transaction. Just to stop those people who take the materials and run off with them. Though I suppose you could also prevent that behaviour with the ability to just kill a player that tries to steal your stuff!
Alchemy:
- Pro1: Combining ingredients for different effects. At first you don't know if you will actually make something usable with your choice of combination, which forces you to experiment with the ingredients.
- Con1: Potions (other than health/mana/stamina) are rarely used in both PvP and PvE contexts, as they make for little to no impact.
Cooking:
- Con1: Only increases max or regeneration of health/mana/stamina, amount of EXP earned, and fishing proficiency.
- Con2: Despite there being many recipes in ESO, the divergence is very limited.
Enchanting:
- Con1: The most sought-after rune glyph for enchanting is only available to buy in the Imperial Sewers (PvX ish) with Tel Var stones or for gold in auction houses, which means you either have to brace for zergs in the sewers or farm gold.
Blacksmithing, Clothing, Jewelry and Woodworking:
- Con1: Crafted wearables are too weak for PvP and PvE content. Crafted wearables are mainly used for the EXP trait to EXP farm.
Traits:
- Con1: Researching traits time consumption in ESO is somewhat unlogical. As further you get into the research the more time it takes. Realistically if you are a more seasoned researcher within the subject, time for research should go down, not up. The time should rather be decided on the difficulty of trait/blueprint, your subject proficiency level, and skills.
Crafting quests:
Con1:The daily crafting quests are quite repetitive, and after you have reached max level on all the crafting proficiencies you only do them to have a chance to acquire more rare crafting quests which also is repetitive, with the exception of style, and that you can earn writs.
Pros1: Writs can be used for buying crafting stations and other items for your housing. This actually takes some time but does not remove the fact that the way to get there is repetitive and only benefits if you actually use the housing for ESO.
Styles:
- Pro1: The number of styles that are incorporated into ESO is maybe the solely reason why people are still crafting in ESO. However, this is only for cosmetic reasons.
Conclusion:
Crafting has to be a smudge repetitive no matter how you look at it. It being gathering resources, do research, experiment, process, and craft. However, as I see it, it all comes down to:
The vast field of consumables not only being used for health/mana/stamina, but rather having consumables that are needed for very specific reasons which actually have an impact on the situation rather then having a huge variety of consumables where only 5% are in use.
Crafting of wearables should be on par with wearables that could be obtained within dungeons etc. so that players could actually spend their entire time in Ashes of Creation on crafting and still have the same progress as combat players. However, the equivalent risks should apply the crafter in a different aspect; i.e. that you need to turn up the temperature on the melter which could make you drain stamina and then health due to heat, and loss of resources. There should however be SOME legendary items that are only dropped in dungeons and SOME items that can only be crafted by a master craftsman, but not out-do on another in terms of stats.
The time for crafting should logicly be distributed within the crafting process as it would in real life, or a fine tuned balancing.
I am hoping to be a fine artisan myself when the game launch!
Yours truly,
<AlcheMR>
Imagine being the blacksmith for you small encampment, repairing adventure's armors, buying and selling raw materials that pass through and crafting the best armor/weapons you can from those materials for the for the local adventures. My hope is depth for the crafting system, but not only that. I'd like sustainment. Relevance. A balance between being able to spend my time being the blacksmith, or the alchemist, but not being being forced to complete meaningless tasks. When an activity becomes work it no long becomes fun. A hard balance to achieve but I think Intrepid can do it.
I don't really have to many examples to describe what I'm talking about, but my hope is that Intrepid can make a meaningful and in-depth system while simultaneously ensuring players have fun with it and not burn themselves out.
Cheers.
I'm a little later than I usually am on the Dev discussions, but I hope I'm not to late to put my opinions and thoughts in!
One of my favorite examples in it's core of crafting is in Albion Online! Although it certainly has it's ups and downs, the core of the process is what I'm interested in. The fact there's tiers after tiers after tiers, in my opinion is great. It makes it feel incredible when you finally have worked up to the point that you can harvest the next tier of resources to introduce into your crafting cook book. Not only that but having the craft the absolute best of the best tolls, weapons, and armor.. It's a long haul let's just say that. Having to craft through every single previous tier costs you many hours of work and effort for you to top out your best craftables.
The decent amount of RNG that is built into the Albion crafting system, and reverse-tier progression through the randomly spawning Rare/Epic harvesting isn't very rewarding, but the underlying concept of long term effort for big time reward is what made me fall in love with the system.
If we can emulate something along the same lines, giving an extensive tree of collectibles in order to create a diverse, challenging, and commitment rewarding crafting system.
Finally for the gear itself, one of my favorite aspects of crafting your own gear in an RPG experience is tailoring it exactly to your liking. Being able to customize the appearance and stats that are applied to the gear to help craft your character through your gear is HUGE to a crafting system that feels rewarding.
As always, thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Chaos
Yes, FFXIV has a full suite of abilities you use to craft items. But at a certain point in crafting gear progression, you can macro a series of abilities to guarantee a top-quality craft every time. Is this a bad thing? NO. I like having the abilities vs. a cast bar, but I don't want to run through my 'rotation' 10 times when I'm trying to produce items to sell on the market board. At a certain point, I feel I should be able to click a button and get a guaranteed HQ item after a cast bar, since that's effectively what my macro does anyway.
On the other side, they have 'Expert' crafts that are significantly harder to make, and very luck-based with a variety of procs that can affect your crafting. The most efficient starter involves rolling a 50% chance 4 times in a row and needing to succeed at least once in order to keep going. I burn mats a lot without completing a craft at all, because I need to hit certain quality thresholds. The presence of Expert crafts allowed FFXIV to have ranked competitions between crafters in the current expansion-- The more items you crafted at higher quality, the more points you got. Very unique, in my experience.
As an side, needing to collect uniquely crafter-oriented gear that makes crafting easier/possible at all is a fun system. It enables decidedly crafter/gatherer-only activities, which is a HUGE bonus to the fantasy immersion of what I would like to seek from an MMO.