Honestly I have always loved the crafting systems in most games, except for MMO's. What turns me off most in MMO crafting is the limitations imposed by the energy/labour/stamina systems.
Crafting is so much more fun when you are able to do it in a reasonable amount of time, and not having a cap on how much one can craft doesn't necessarily mean to make it inconsequential. A system can definitely have limitations without feeling restrictive as long as they are reasonable.
For example, Mount and Blade Bannerlord has an amazing crafting system that I have enjoyed a lot. The stamina system is a bit annoying, but it is easy to work around and that doesn't make the crafting system OP, since there are other limitations such as materials, level in crafting and blueprints.
Bottom line (writing on mobile and thumbs starting to hurt) is, a fun crafting system is one that lets you craft to your heart's content, with the only limitations being your willingness to invest effort (time spent =/= effort in this case, worst crafting system I've ever played was in Warframe, it makes me want to cry whenever I remember it) in advancing in it.
To me, crafting is an extremely important, fun, and vital part of a healthy and enjoyable game. Crafting should be engaging and unique to each game, with effort put into trying to make it more than just clicking and grinding. Crafted items need to feel unique and as though there was effort and pride in making them. Crafting should be relatively simple, though not necessarily easy. I personally think it should take time to level up crafting alongside other things, and that simply getting a load of materials and grinding 300 crafting levels in a few hours is just not a good system, especially since crafting at each level should be useful and fun. I thinking skilling should require some skill on the part of the player (go figure). Some people simply want to craft, and there should be some type of mechanism in place to make some crafters more advanced than others, whether it be through the extra time put in, the mechanical skill required, or their intelligence... or all 3!
I think the best example of a game that has tried to do this is Runescape. Though they are very clicky and grindy, the other aspects of their skilling system are potentially one of the best examples of success. First since, their whole game centers around skills, they constantly receive new updates to all aspects of the skills, especially the skilling itself. This is extremely important because it keeps skilling interesting. Second, skilling is vital to advancing in the game, though it's not completely necessary sometimes. For example, combat skills don't have to require armor and weapons from other skills to level, but it definitely helps; you can get these from loot sometimes too. Third, all skills are intertwined. The skills overlap in so many areas, some skills are impossible without others. Finally, skills are useful. Especially nowadays, Runescape's skills and products are vital to ALL levels. Again, while not necessary to level combat, it is so useful, people always choose to use crafted armor and weapons. However, the skills and their products are not as useful as they could be, mainly from mass production in the earlier days causing major market and leveling issues. From that point, try to make the products of skills worthwhile and not super easy to make. Flooding a market with useless items made in the leveling process is the worst problem with skilling. Maybe make a way to recycle or breakdown old items.
I agree with everything the most liked comments suggested.
As for my insight I would love a crafting system where the crafting itself shouldn't take much of my time (e. g. in WoW crafting 50 pcs of higher tier armor because you need to level up your profession, idk how it is in the new patch but back in 4.3.4 the crafting times are terribly long) as long as the crafting is just waiting for the bar to fill up and not some kind of a minigame or anything else that requires further interactions from the player.
As for the time spent by gathering the resources required to craft the items, I would love to see a system where it's not just mindless farming (I'm okay with it to a certain degree though), instead the process should be more of a challenge to the player and/or something more meaningful than aforementioned mindless farming. The rewards for said challenges would scale with the difficulty of the challenges. As I said earlier, it's okay to have some "mindless farming", but in general gathering resources should be an engaging activity rewarding players for their effort and combat skill, rather than a boring necessity.
From the many mmos and games I have played over the years these are what I found most enjoyable or noticed the most when being a crafter.
Features Crafting Needs to be Valuable
Progression on equal terms to raiding/combat activities that has an endgame role
Exclusivity that allows players to create a name for themselves but also doesn't lock others from content
Built with the world in mind. Ex. Trading and resource gathering discussed below.
No time gates such as you can only take a crafting test to increase mastery every 7 days
No built in inconveniences such as having 200 different resources making inventory management a nightmare
All professions should be profitable
Able to do all crafting to a certain level but only be a true master in a few or one
RNG limited to only a benefit
There are three main phases with crafting which are Trading/resource gathering, improving your crafting skill/mastery, and Endgame.
Trading and Resource Gathering
Some of the best examples of resource gathering that others have mentioned is SWG. Gathering resources was just as important as the crafter. The ability to find, control or harvest the best quality resources was important in the final product. This difficulty in acquiring the needed resources was a natural way to limit high end or highly desired gear. How I see this potentially working in AOC:
Utilize the massive world you are creating. Have all regions contain all the needed resources for crafting but in different quantities with some resources potentially extremely rare or non-existent while another is plentiful.
This resource could easily influence the type of gear available in the region and heavily drive trade between another region that does have the resource. This would help promote your trade caravan system and could be a very profitable profession being a trader.
The higher tier nodes that eventually spawn the dragons or others could be where potentially some of the best resources can be harvested or gathered. That spawn rate will help cap the amount of that best quality resource.
There should be static resource nodes and rare nodes that randomly spawn around an area to prevent bots or ppl camping a node.
Improving your Crafting
Some of the games that had some interesting parts to leveling your crafter was GW2 and ESO. The ability to discover a recipe by just trying things out is very interesting and engaging. Depending on how complex you make the crafting process this could become even more interesting. As an example in some games you need to know the temperature to produce steel and manage the heat when crafting the steel ingots. If you have process steps like that or others and allow experimentation into each step you could have a system where hidden recipes or process could drastically alter the end product while the normal crafting methods still produce what you want. However only masters or those dedicated would know the secrets of the hidden recipe process. Key features in your journey to being a master are:
Discovery and learning the craft. A simple craft system of have x resources, click on recipe and click craft is alright but it somewhat lacks depth. Having process steps allows potential for a complex and more involved crafting experience.
There should be the ability to learn all kinds of recipes and styles. Learning a craft and finding out there is only one thing to craft for 10 levels isn't rewarding.
Please do not introduce random time gates to slow progression. Max level/mastery in a crafting profession should be the same as reaching max character level. You might be max level but now you need to get the gear and all the other endgame aspects to progress.
In other games such as Last Oasis and in BDO there are ideas of durability and quality on the tools or stations that you use. I think having progression of tools and stations is another interesting way to show progression.
Endgame Crafting
Reaching endgame should be about creating a name for yourself or being useful in other endgame features. Some things that I found good to do in other games are:
Endgame crafted gear is equivalent to raid gear but the resources for crafting might be difficult to obtain.
All professions have a purpose at endgame and are profitable.
Hidden and unique recipes. Having recipes or as mentioned earlier a crafting process that needs to be discovered which makes unique armor/weapons/potions would allow players dedicated to the crafting system a way to make a name for themselves.
Master crafters can use raid gear and craft new better gear using it and other rare resources. I have always found this interesting because it means your raid gear can still be useful after an expansion or be raised to a higher level and not instantly sold/deconstructed/deleted because the expansion made it worthless.
A progression system once you reach max crafting level. Reaching the max level should not be the end just like max character level is not the end. This could be where learning different racial styles or crafting methods could improve crafting knowledge which improves your recipes. An example would be you learned how every race makes a sword with their various resources and because of that you now have a higher chance or just always craft swords at a higher level.
I think one of the best crafting systems to date was in Star Wars Galaxies. Many MMOs have tried, but none have come close to matching its purpose, necessity, and fun as a crafting system.
What sets SWG crafting apart is that it never felt like an exercise in tedium with no clear direction. Crafters had a purpose and it was showcased through the in-depth systems that allowed crafters to create items that were useful right from the start. Most MMOs treat crafting like a simplified minigame where the players just collect materials to craft useless items to reach a numerical threshold to make the next set of useless items. And along the way, the player might find a recipe to craft something useful that they quickly out-level soon after they make it. But in SWG, crafters were able to make practically everything and modify its effectiveness based on the TYPE of materials they used giving each crafter the ability to make items players could use and improve on them over time. If a system like this could be implemented, it would be far more appealing to the playerbase.
Sorry for the far from optimal english in advance.
I would like crafting to be an important aspect of the game and strongly encouraging player interaction by e.g. requiring not only components or materials of different artisans but the actual artisan. For the top level gear it should not be enough to simply purchase some materials.
Instead I'm imagining the following: a group of different artisans progresses through a dungeon to reach a spot where all of them need to be present to combine their efforts to craft the item. The materials they need for crafting were partly gathered solo, partly imported via the caravan system and processed and rewarded for skinning some other dungeon boss (or other group effort). Maybe one of the artisans needed some rare recipe drop first.
Crafted gear should feel equal to loot from other sources. It should not be in a way that drops of PvE group content is way better or way worse if compared by equal effort to aquire (so if one can solo gather all materials required, a crafted item shouln't be better than a max lvl drop of a dungeon). Yet it would be nice if different crafted items are BIS for different roles in raids, encouraging players to continously clear the content together even if they already cleared the raid several times before.
I personaly don't like mini games for crafting, but I love the idea of gathering stuff, defending some shipments of rare materials coming from the other end of vera and interacting with other artisans to finaly complete a shiny item after works of week, that realy matters.
For myself, if crafting isn't a class in itself, then it's not worth crafting. Very few games have had a crafting class. I subscribed multiple accounts to SWG to have multiple crafters. I spent in game time crafting to keep my stock up and that was what I enjoyed about the game. People knew my crafters names and also knew they would be getting quality equipment with good customer service. I was called upon constantly to make custom items.
I would love more than anything to have the ability as a crafting class to be able to rent shop space in a market in a city and that is where I play my game. I socialize there with people browsing my items for sale. I take custom orders for folks wanting something a special color or with special stats. Maybe they want a cheap version as a decoration.
You can have an entire sub game of the many different crafters. Only crafters can build houses, make armor, weapons, food, potions, etc. It actually really makes the game a better self balancing economy. You can have a crafting DEV that only deals with concerns about trade and crafting. I don't stay long in an MMO if crafting is an after thought or an achievement that anyone can do as a time waster. It's ok for a crafter to have some minor protection abilities and it's ok for a fighter/adventurer to be able to make simple items. You don't need a doctor to wrap a bandage on a cut, but you need a doctor to heal disease and poisons. A crafter doesn't need to be able to take down a boss, but they will have to fend off some small aggro now and then to be able to escape death.
First of all I like when crafting is meaningful people who played L2 in early days C1-Interlude can probably relate to it. But to have a relatable crafting system the itemisation has to be done right. The problem with crafted items becoming useless a few levels later is the problem that became apparent in WoW with item levels and the raw power of stats on items. If instead we treat items in Tiers with a gap between consecutive tiers being manageable it creates more relevance to item crafting itself. Problem starts when there are certain thresholds to be met every few levels to remain viable in combat. If lets say mid tier items are mathematically strong enough to clearly early-end-game content then it creates a niche for certain budget items in the market thus the item that you no longer use might be useful to another player.
To achieve the thing mentioned above itemisation should focus on certain bonuses provided rather than raw numbers as this brings us back to the WoW-dillema where it wasn't the set effect that counted but the sheer stat bonus. Good item management example was found in old Lineage 2. Where set bonuses usually trampled sheer stat numbers and so archers would craft Plated Leather armours, which were bottom-end low tier sets but gave a huge boost to attack power at the cost of defence making archers glass canons yet saving a lot of materials and creating them a viable damage dealing option vs bosses which in turn sped-up the process of gearing into top tier items.
Low-class materials conversion. Also old thing from Lineage 2 where artisans would turn basic materials into more advanced ones at certain rate. This opened a kind of back alley to obtaining valuable materials while creating demand for low tier ones and caused the market to bloom across all sectors.
Presets vs Crafted. Having the ability to craft items of equal power to the ones dropped but with custom stat bonuses makes crafting an important part in min-maxing the build. Here ESO sets a good example where investing more materials into an item allows you to craft the very same item but few levels higher so its base stats stay relevant.
Meaningful trinkets. Give us the ability to craft some consumables that actually impact gameplay instead having us to craft 10 different tier of the same dynamite lets have one that scales with crafting skill/materials used and give it an impact to change the outcome of the battle like for example extra siege damage so this kind of stuff becomes actually useful in breaking gates or siege machines. Or a crystal that lets you absorb health from targets and overheals you in the process (to some extent), something that has unique effect not found outside of crafting.
Also crafting shouldn't be a chore. I don't like be forced to craft 100 same items only to level up the skill so i craft another 100 of the same items just one tier higher. Lets have crafting progress scaled with the complexity of item crafted. This can be done basically by assigning certain skill XP values to every material and if incorporated together with meterial recycling it should be easy to assign these values to the base materials and more advanced ones being simply the multiplication of the base materials used in craft.
No crafting times. Any BDO players here? when was the last time you guys were smelting 10k iron? Waiting for something so mundane just kills the fun, because I personally can't fathom who the hell decided it's going to be a good idea to wait 60 seconds for the crafting bar to fill up. It did fill up? Now do it another 25 times. And yes I do understand that's basically game time spent not playing the game designed to slow down the progress so you have to subscribe for one more month. Please, just no.
Dismantling! I do not understand why so few games actually include dismantling option. You've dropped something you don't use? Dismantle it so you can get back 15% of the materials required to build that item. Not leather scraps, threads, or pattern but actual materials.
Categorised crafting trees. Lets have items within same class requiring similar materials to craft. Lemme give you an example. You want to craft Black Dragon Scaled Chestpiece of Badassery that requires you to have
10x Dragonhide
5x Black Dragon Scales
66x Tears of your enemies
12x "Your Mom"
But in the meantime you've dropped Black Scaleplate of Grieving and Abuse which falls into the same armour category but has slightly different crafting tree. When dismantling it you receive 15% of materials needed to craft it which is:
1x Black Dragon Scale
10x Tears of your enemies
2x 'Your Mum'
2x Metal Alloy
12x Steel
Even though some of the items are different you still get a part for the items needed to craft BDSCoB and might sell metal alloy and steel to someone that wants to craft White Scaleplate of Forgiveness and Cheer. Or maybe there's another person that wants to craft the T-34 Pancerplate and needs Steel plates that can be crafted by processing 1x metal alloy and 4 steel bars. I hope the idea is pretty clear, by doing so the crafting opens up to other professions or builds and lets them intertwine with one another.
Have bosses, elites or rares drop some special crafting components that allow you for example to save part of materials or add some small implicit enchantment on an item that does not affect the ability to enchant item further. This should incentivise crafters to take direct or indirect part in world conquest.
Have crafting less fragmented. Instead of making 100 levels of crafting professions divide it into few tiers with each tier requiring more experience to progress and unlocking access to recipes in bulk. So for example Amateur - can craft starter items level 1-10.
Journeyman - Can craft items 11-25. Process basic materials into advanced materials.
Expert - Can craft items 26-45. Process advanced materials into rare materials.
Master - Can craft items 46-50 (assume lvl 50 is max). Processing materials require 25% less materials.
Now again if the base values are well balanced Expert craftsman should be able to craft items viable for end-game and provide all the materials needed. While Master craftsman would create items slightly superior to the expert one but was also able to process more high-end materials from the basic ones than the expert crafter. Keep in mind it does not reduce requirement for crafting items only makes processing cheaper. This way master artisans would serve as a certain material sink for novice gatherers emphasising their progress and opening another way in obtaining high-end items while utilising low-level locations.
Last but not least. The processing profession. I believe sometimes less is more so I'd like to see processing consolidated within crafting rather than being a separate, middle, profession as it creates unnecessary distraction from the crating in my opinion and adding another link to the chain that is difficult to handle on its own might not work as well in practice as it looks on the paper.
OK, I am not a fan of the whole ideas but parts of them.
For example Runescape smithing:
You hammer, and heat up the processed materials into shape, and if you keep up the forging process properly, it's faster to forge the item. Not fan of varying amounts of xp tho. Loss of xp from not being optimal with forging might have bad consequences.
Honestly, had more ideas but recently I'm tired af and only recent games come to mind...might add another post with more ideas if I remember lol
Until now I haven't posted on here but maybe once or twice. And I know I'm a little late to the punch on this thread, but I felt like I needed to chime in here. I really appreciate the way Lethality put it.
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!
I remember on a few MMOs getting in to the crafting and it being difficult, challenging, but then logging on one day after a patch and finding that an especially slow witted rock could accomplish the task just as well as anyone. I want a challenge. If it's challenging, it's not boring, it's not tedious, it's rewarding! I equate it to real life craftsman. Anybody with a saw, some nails, and a hammer can build a table in a couple hours that will most likely not fall apart as soon as you set a glass on it, but someone who has devoted themselves to the craft will take the time necessary not only to create a table that will last a lifetime, but will be beautiful.
I'd like to see some real effort put in to crafting tools and processes. I know it's a lot to ask, but if we're going to make crafting something more interesting and engaging than clicking a mouse on the same icon repeatedly, I'd like to see a bit of realism. For example: require the blacksmith to move from the forge, to the anvil, back to the forge, then to the grinding wheel and back to the forge before quenching it. Require them to obtain tools of the trade and to improve those tools along the way as their skill improves so as to improve the quality of their work.
I've never really enjoyed crafting and I think it's because of how linear it gets on many occasions. I think the ideal way to reach a wide audience is to give crafting alternatives. My idea is based on having several levels of refinement for the same material and being able to obtain it under different mechanics. Kill mobs, Inflitration and gathering, Assault and exploration. Fight a boss or some mobs for a refined material. If the boss or mobs are very strong, coordinate as a team or sneak in for raw materials on his nest before they kill you . You don't like killing bosses? Sail and assault a merchant ship on a convenient route to get the material. Do you like to explore? Look for clues in conversations with NPCs that will take you to hidden deposits in remote places and travel to ancient refineries to obtain the material.
I like to think that the important thing is the trip and not the destination.
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paiwayMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I always liked the FFXIV crafting mini-game. I would love to have a mini-game that is integral to the crafting system. This allows a Crafter to truly "git-gud" at what they're doing, and also allows for a difference between people who have not practiced at crafting and those that have. Simply having a "press-button, get stuff" system is flat and boring, plus it does not reward crafters for good gameplay. Rewarding players for being good at crafting would also assist the social aspect to the game, as good crafters would be analogous to good raiders or good PVPers. These would be people to be sought out, or at least kept on their good side, because you'll likely want their services.
I honestly can't wait for crafting. I think as a new (in comparison) player to MMOs in general, the crafting system should be treated like a playstyle. It's been mentioned countless times, but most of us getting into crafting will enjoy the grind, or the work component that it brings, we just hope that its worth it. Maybe certain elements of the game can only be accessed by those crafters that have either levelled something or have made something that is a grind. Let the combat hungry / PvP players seek us out for that rare item we've crafted, or pay us a bucket load for our hard work.
I don't think having a rushed crafting system works well, but neither does something where you have to spend hours digging through forums and external sites just to find out how to do something. Again, a system that encourages mix and matching or exploration within the craft. Perhaps an element of RNG that "If i combine this iron piece with this gemstone - something awesome might happen" but learning too that if its useless, that we can scrap it back into materials.
There is nothing more incredible than wearing your own crafted gear. I think AoC can run with this idea, and make it customisable for crafters to do this for people. I imagine being approached by a casual player that doesn't get into crafting because they want a helmet in blue/pink/red/chrome. I'd love to be able to then take "orders" even and have a system where my gameplay that night is gathering what i need to create a blue helmet for another player, and trading with them. I can then, if its slow, do it for myself. I might want a Stag inspired shoulder piece, or whatever is possible to implement, and then i can go and craft it for myself.
This probably bleeds into another conversation around gear, but to be able to transmog in World of Warcraft, is such a nice system for crafters that are interested in doing personal gear. It means that I can always have that Stag shoulder piece, or that blue helmet someone wanted is given adequate time in the game to show off.
In terms of crafting food and drink, the gathering element is always going to grindy for people who just want to buy food and potions. I think being able to level the research that goes into crafting food and drink items is something theres an opportunity to take learnings from Valheim. Again, it might be an old system, but I enjoyed the idea of levelling up my camp, or levelling up my characters knowledge or workbench before i was able to craft even BETTER stuff. This idea could be something that gives incentives to be able to actually level up crafting elements including food and drink but also gear.
Thanks again for giving me an opportunity to share - Reading everyones comments gives me such excitement with the level of interest but also expertise in the crafting area, that in AoC i intend to explore it even further. Everyone has such insanely cool ideas - Goodluck!
At the end of the day, I want to log in everyday and see that the crap I make is selling.
Some random thoughts:
- Add reasons to live in a smaller node
- PVE mini game, such as supply armor/weapons for npc/node sieges etc...
- niche markets, healer vs DPS gear etc..
Concerns:
- sourcing materials/low profit margins
- don't want to be a repair/custom crafter bot
So I think when it comes to crafting there are a few issues / challenges to consider:-
1. Loot vs Crafting for endgame content - One of the big issues that keeps coming up is whether crafters should be able to provide end-game quality loot, and if they can, then what is the point of repeatedly grinding dungeons to get that "right piece of loot" To that I say, why not strike a balance:- Endgame weapons can be dropped from bosses & mobs, but exist in a "base format". these can be upgraded further thru the use of an experienced crafter. This provides work for crafters, gives them a use for endgame content, but also gives some customizability to the weapon for the specific user.
2. Alternatively, or in addition to, end-game loot can also come in the form of rare material drops, that can also be used to forge end-game weapons. These materials should be rare enough to be valuable enough that some degree of scarcity is created.
3. A third fun little tidbit, is perhaps when crafting to have a 0.00001% chance of creating a unique "named" weapon. These are extremely rare legendary weapons, that bear the name of the owner & it's crafter. This could add some flavour and permanence to special weapons, and bring prestige to whomever owns them. Perhaps they could also be cursed, so that if they're not used, or displayed or other wise they create a negative effect, so that they dont just sit in someone's chest for years on end, but rather moves thru the player-base.
4. I think - to give fun and engagement to crafting, I think customizability should be a big part of it. Customizability in the form of making stat adjustments, but also visual flair. A crafter should have access appearance changing ingredients and can choose to visually customize armor, either as a customer request, or as part of a branding exersize. For example a particular armorer can make all her armor pink, or all chest pieces have cyan shoulders, etc. On the stat customization side, it could represent a crafters ability to get the most out of their materials. The more skilled they are the more stats they can min/max. however as a result perhaps there should be a cooldown, so as to create scarcity, but also, represent the extra work the crafter has put in to create that piece of armor
I think the most important thing for me is that you should be able to craft weapons that rival raid drops (to a point). Although it shouldn't be cheap or easy.
I find LOTRO (pre F2P around 2007-2010) crafting system was quite good for a couple of reasons. Most of the points below are inspired by LOTRO crafting system.
- Most important crafted gear was good at any stage of character progression (good dagger at lvl1, god cape at lvl5,...). It should incentivize players during leveling to spend time on gathering and communication to get a better gear piece from crafting. Even in the end game, there were pieces of craftable gear that can be better than most of the loot you can find (of course with a high price and time effort required to craft them)
- Almost all valuable gear/consumables crafts required significant time effort, e.g. most of the time recipe for a good sword would require you to find ingredients crafted by other professions, and most of the time quite simple ingredients were needed making you ask your friends or anyone you can spot in crafting room to make you one real quick. This incentivized me to create important connections right from the beginning of leveling. And the best part is that most likely ppl who you asked for crafts will need you and will ask you back at some point.
- Multiple materials from a single gatherable point, and different proportions of those depending on e.g. environment. This is something that could make gathering more complex than just going to a location of a correct level and spawn rate (e.g. in WOW gathering is supper boring and most of the time requires no special knowledge or strategy).
- "Better craft 1 valuable item than 100 cheap". If I'm crafting for sale it feels way better to create a "masterpiece" and sell it than spamming e.g. auction house with 100 daggers or something... It definitely feels differently...
- Have more than 1-3 ingredients for at least gear crafting (in combination with the point above). Even if ingredients are not hard to acquire, crafting feels more rewarding/impactful when it takes more than just grabbing wood and iron to craft a sward. Putting time in finding the right people who can produce form gatherable in something you need (even if it cheap) and taking time to create multiple bits and pieces before producing a valuable item, is something that leaves more memories and feelings than spam-crafting.
- A little RNG but not too much. In the case of LOTRO (and many other games) crafting a gear, crafting a piece had a chance to upgrade it to the next grade (normal to magic, etc.), while even without that upgrade item is good enough, having this small chance to make it twice as better was also good. It was especially important for end-game crafting making you coming back to the workshop, again and again, putting effort into each piece created. On another side, I personally can't see any benefits of punishing rng, but in comparison to PathOfExale, this game has quite a huge amount of punishing rng yet a lot of ppl love this game.
- Time-gated crafting. This is something that can help when the crafting system prefers quality over quantity like in the points above. Something should not be produced too frequently and get into the game too fast (e.g. when the gear piece Is supper valuable and compete with the end game drop). Even if the recipe to create a rare item is complex, it will not stop true 24/7 nerds from spam crafting.
- Rare end-game ingredients from bosses and group activities. Well, this s something that quite simple yet helps to keep crafting important on all stages of the game. (Like no one cares about crafting in WOW except consumables. They tried to fix that in the last expansion by introducing crafting bases for legendary gear pieces, and it is a good take but not enough).
- Crafting leveling progressing should not require spam crafting of trash that will be thrown away right after or something that already crazy cheap on the auction house (cause everyone doing that). This can be a hard one to solve... I personally see that crafting just a few but complex items should be enough to get to the next level. it could be like a milestone gear piece to craft that can be sold for a lot or used to feel significant during the following leveling experience.
- Craftable instruments for profeccions. This is just a bonus I personally liked from LOTRO. You have to have instruments with a higher chance of double success as soon as possible. Like a separate small and simple progression system just for instruments.
There are many key points I agree with here such as
Making material hunting versatile and not just limited to harvesting but also mob drops. So that in a raid boss sure people can be excited for that 1% weapon drop but also so crafters can be excited for their 1% material drop. (Might not be a bad idea to have gear boost material drops)
Making a system that is catered to making the process enjoyable for the crafting community and not focused on pleasing those who dislike crafting in the first place.
Crafted gear, weapons, equips and anything in between should be competitive with end game drops in order to maintain demand for a crafting community.
Adding some synergy/ecosystem between life skillers such as farmers, crafters, gatherers, alchemists etc so that each can provide something of value to the others that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to obtain a certain item or material can help balance necessity/value between professions
I must say something about a system Archeage implemented where the only way to get personal engine powered transportation was to harvest a tree struck by lightning that had residual energy in it. With factors of certain trees being more likely to get struck (before the pay to win trees that were almost guaranteed) and certain regions having more thunderstorms than others therefore increasing tree farms in those areas along with "illegal" farms in hard to get to places so people wouldn't have to pay taxes on the property used. This whole ecosystem to me was fun. All so that you could have a wagon for more efficient trading.
If I could put it in a few words, have materials and the way to get them that will make people get creative with how they get it. It shouldn't be a clean cut linear process on how to get every item. Add variables beyond RNG and have gamers make an ecosystem of their own.
I want a more personal feel to crafting, one where people's individual crafting trees make them unique and needed in the community. Especially given the node system, I really like the idea of crafters setting up in settlements and towns and creating their own economies for gear. Sure, there might be some basic gear from an NPC merchant, but the best gear comes from the crafters.
On more of a selling/purchasing side, it would be awesome to set up socials to support town trading and selling, beyond a 'trade chat'. Maybe having a large job board that allows crafters to ask for resources, sell their specialized services, etc. I remember AoC talking about having little vendor stalls, I think those should play an important role in this, perhaps even having a specific spawned area for these so people can browse goods like a market.
I’ll be brief as many other more passionate crafters have left their desires for a useful and economical system to be implemented.
My dream of actually being a blacksmith since WoW (2004) I have yet to find a crafting system that is utilized throughout the game. Generally, it is leveled for early levels but then forgotten at higher levels. I think if you have a system where blacksmiths are useful with the majority of their trade such as making low level weapons and armor for new players or turning them in to towns as some sort of upgrade to the guards would just be one simple example. Supply and demand is going to fluctuate but if there’s something like what Black Desert Online has, an imperial delivery vendor. There will always be something to do with useless/unnecessary surplus of goods that can net you some profit or traded for other useful resources.
I’m sure there is going to be all kinds of weapons, armor and other goods needed by other professions that blacksmiths can create to make a profit while leveling their profession but when you get hundreds and thousands of players leveling a profession you’re going to saturate the market quickly. That sword little Timmy can make in the guild is awesome at first if he’s like the first in the game to craft it but as time rolls by there will be more and more like him. Now that the game has been out for 6-12 months there are hundreds of little Timmys that have these swords they made to level their profession and now we see thousands of the same sword on the market collecting dust. Give us a vendor in town, say the guard captain, that has a daily order of 100 (or more!) weapons and/or armor that you can fulfill that will reward you with currency or other goods (or something aimed at improving the guild’s city guards).
TLDR- Making crafting have a point in all stages of their profession for all skill levels so the market doesn’t get over saturated with junk and crafters don’t feel like a second thought.
My personal favorite crafting system was LOTRO. You are limited to only a few crafting professions per character to encourage player interaction. Also you start off becoming proficient in a tier of crafting then are able to master that tier through a crafting experience system which increases the quality of items you can craft from said tier.
Crafting systems are probably what I most get excited about in MMOs. I love being able to put in extra time and provide quality items for my friends while we play together. Having crafting that is a large investment where players look at a max crafter and view them with equal parts of impressed and a little disturbed they would spend that much time crafting.
The thing I can't stand about many MMOs is that crafting is next to useless until max level but then at max level you are forced to craft gear through all the levels that it would have been great to make and have at level but now is next to worthless. Being able to craft at level while playing the game I believe is incredibly important to a crafting system feeling rewarding.
I spend upwards of 80% of my time in MMOs crafting when it feels rewarding and I am able to make cool or fun things for my friends and guild mates.
The original crafting system in Lineage II has to be the best out of any MMO I've played. All other games I've tried to be interested in crafting but ultimately it just isn't fun.
Another thing with Lineage II though is the sale system with actual vendors being set up by players instead of having an NPC auctioneer. You get to browse through the shops and immerse yourself like you are actually shopping. It also makes crafter's feel like they have their own mini business.
My opinion or taste of crafting is kinda the opposite. I like that you get good or great gear from end game bosses. However Doing Raid's with more people than needed to get the best gear is dumb and sadly not doable for everyone. I like the system's that crafting is the best end game gear. One it brings the money to the economy for still a decent price. Two It is not impossible for anyone including the small guilds that either can not join bigger ones due to greed for the gear. Or just wants to say they did it as a small elite team no zerge needed. But I like the crafting to be in depth time consuming and very long to max like runescape. No one should be half way to max in a week of no lifing it imo.
What do I want in a crafting system?
1. The ability to acquire adequate space for massive crafting.
2. An optional mini-game to slightly increase the stats or completely whiff.
3. Lottery item creation, there should be a .001 chance an item is just created better than normal or just whiffs.
4. Fun items, like jumping once real high, a light show, a small venue of fog for a few seconds. More importantly a lot of items need to make you think. When can I use this. Like a smoke bomb that decreases aggro for mobs 30 and below for several seconds.
5. Most recipes should be "learned" from a trainer or a recipe. However, once players hits 40...advanced recipes should be experimented with to make, found in books, recipes, or other means. This is where recipes should be an end game of itself. Experimenting with recipes should not force people to lose all components, perhaps have a 5% chance of losing all components.
6. Crafting cool downs for rare, epic, or legendary items.
7. Crafting options in DND is so expansive players can take days just planning out crafting...and there's a love and anticipation in down time crafting. Going to the store can take hours as they try to maximize their gold, versatility, and power.
I am familiar with three types of crafting World of Warcraft, JRPG, and Dungeons and Dragons. I really enjoy the diversity of items and professions in World of Warcraft Vanilla, people say it made pvp unpredictable. There are three things that WoW missed the mark on. 1. Adequate space for crafting items, making a dedicated crafter requiring alts, mules, or sending items through the mail system for 30 days as storage. It has been mentioned that low level items will be required for "high" level items. However, I don't want to have to manually make a minor, lesser, agility, greater, super, just to make an "ultimate agility potion". WoW didn't do this but the way AoC has described crafting and keeping the value of lower level gathering items, I feel as if AoC does. If all those items are needed I want a 1 button click to make it or a shadow hearts ring or mario golf like area to "skill" craft it whiff, fair hit, good hit, perfect if there is a mechanic. There are two things I loved about dungeons and dragon crafting. You could make a utility belt of items based upon different situations and two they
I'd love if crafting requires skill rather than just pressing one button and having thousands of swords. Have RNG reduced by being more skillful in crafting.
It's just like PVP is not for everyone, or PVE is not for everyone. World bosses, dungeons, raids, I believe artisan should have a level of requirements as well, not something anyone can do because it will take the meaningless, don't try to make something for everyone, because that's what Blizzard did with professions and they killed them, only two survived and it's a shore more than something anyone can enjoy. It has to be hard for someone to enjoy it.
I've really enjoyed crafting in games such as Runescape and World of Warcraft. Being able to craft low-mid gear items as you progressed to higher skill levels felt worth your time whilst having high level gear obtainable only from raiding/monster drops. However a big thing that Runescape incorporated was having high level gear degrade over time have that be repairable through the crafting skill to prevent the crafting skill from being useless after low-mid tier levels.
Something I liked about WoW was being able to essentially craft end-game gear with a combination of materials obtained from high level monster drops.
"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor" -Alexis Carrell
I've played a lot of different MMORPG's, and I think crafting is highly important and essential for any MMORPG's.
Crafting in EQ2 was so boring but crafting for better gear I thought was essential for players who couldn't get into high-end groups/raids. Housing is most important because people love customizing their homes in all different shapes and ways and will stay logged in and play, just for housing.
ArcheAge: Crafting was really fun in this game but you needed to spend way too much money for mats. I enjoyed the housing aspect and would build houses all day long. Con: Mats, space, and no customize furniture. The market for crafting gear-useless and food and drink no profit.
Aion: That's how I made a lot of my in-game currency- leveling up my potions/food/drink and gathering rare components and selling them. I think to make any money in-game, crafting is the key. Not to mention, grinding mobs, quest completion, etc. I did like the system to craft but I would need to keep my character log in, as I made high-end pots.
I thought TESO was fun by unlocking herbs and actually pulling up a book to see the herbs you've collected and what potions made what was crafting.
Overall:
Gear: Needed, alternative ways for players to obtain gear to keep up with new content.
Housing: Customizing your home is needed.
In-game currency: Selling food/drink/buff items/gear/housing items
Food/drink/buffs/etc: If corporate in a game, crafters will craft where other players can't stand crafting.
Overall, I think crafting is well needed to keep any in-game currency going.
TL;DR : If you don't have the stamina then please read first 4 paragraphs and skip to the last paragraph, bypassing the <Wall of Text>. Thanks.
Not a full crafting system, but I quite liked how Diablo2 had gem slots in items and a selection of gems and runestones to fit into them. If something like that was used then there could be a Processor <type> that generates magical gems and runes that are later passed to the item crafter for inclusion in the Crafting task.
Every individual gathering, processing and crafting skill area needs to have enough detail to make it feel like a worthwhile area of expertise and not just a few tables open in a wiki on a second monitor. The dynamic server based knowledge of where to get things and where to sell things also form part of an artisan career. If I'm keeping notes with a pad and paper because the information is too organic to put on a spreadsheet then you've done something right.
I'm sure you've thought about this a lot more than me (I'm only posting this because Intrepid, quite rightly, keep their design notes private), but I envisage gathering, processing and crafting working something like:
In general, use any and all excuses to cap the quality level of items so that players have to push up every aspect of their artisan career to get the best results. Just let us know what our weakest link is at the end of each Artisan task so that we know to work on improving it. Periodic maintenance of tools and facilities should be necessary but not so frequent that they become tedious.
<Wall of Text starts here>
Gathering:
The quality of the Pre-gathered items should be variable; some areas might become known for high quality gatherables, others might be better suited to more disposable crafting applications (or perhaps some residential decoration crafting is more tolerant towards lesser ingredients?). Make the Pre-gathered item quality related to node levels and the result will be that there's much less chance of cross-server information sharing being helpful.
Gathered item quality cap:
The weakest link out of Gathering skill, pre-Gathered item quality and tool quality will determine the actual quality of the Gathered item. This approach can be applied regardless of whether names like 'Perfect' and 'Poor', percentages 100% to 1% or level '50' to '1' are used.
Gathering Speed:
If the quality of the pre-Gathered item is less than the Gathering skill and the tool quality then the Gathering is resolved quicker. eg. weak trees chop down quicker.
If the quality of the pre-Gathered item is more than the Gathering skill and the tool quality then the Gathering takes longer. The actual Gathered item is still capped by the 'weakest link' rule.
Other Gathering info:
A selection of tools may be required for each Gathering <type> skill.
A Gatherer would inherently know which Gatherables are required for a number of standard crafting tasks and more would be learned as the Gathering skill improves. i.e. you would know that they are used for without necessarily having the appropriate processing or crafting skill.
Processing:
Processed item quality cap:
The weakest link out of Processing skill, gathered item quality, tools and the facility used will determine the achieved quality of the Processed item.
Processing Speed:
The Processing speed is affected similarly to Gathering, although the Processing facility is also included.
The Processor may choose to make Processed goods lower quality to save time.
Other Processing Info:
A selection of tools and facilities will be required for each Processing <type> skill.
A Processor would inherently know which Gatherables and Processed goods are required for a number of standard crafting tasks and more would be learned as the Processing skill improves. i.e. you know what you need and what it can be used for without necessarily having the knowledge of how to gather or craft.
Crafting:
Crafted item quality cap:
The weakest link out of Crafting skill, Processed item quality, tools and the facility used will determine the achieved quality of the Crafted item.
Crafting Speed:
The Crafting speed is affected similarly to Gathering, although the Crafting facility is also included.
The Crafter may choose to make the Crafted item(s) lower quality to save time.
Other Crafting Info:
The required ingredients would be known in advance.
A Crafter would inherently know which Gatherables and Processed goods are required for a number of standard crafting tasks and more would be learned as the Gathering skill improves. i.e. you know what you need and where it comes from without necessarily having the knowledge of how to gather or process.
<Wall of text ends here>
Then you just need to go through the unenviable task of populating the Artisan system.
Every different type of gatherable, every different type of processed item, every different crafted item.
Ouch.
Also, I realized something, the current systems that use crafting are no different from Lootboxes. You hit a button and hope you get something good, that's literally a lootbox without monetization. I don't want lootboxes in crafting please, when you craft something is directly linked to your skill. Do not make it a lootbox, make it more reliable to skill just like how classes will be.
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ILLPeonUMember, Leader of Men, Kickstarter, Alpha One
edited May 2021
I would like to see some level experience for crafting , not enough to make it a primary way to level, but enough for if someone who wanted to do just crafting they could level up doing that eventually.
Always have crafting be the BEST gear, and if you want to give something from world bosses, have it be a drop that can be used by a experienced crafter to apply a enchant from the world boss drop.
Make it difficult to achieve the top tier, it should take a considerable amount of time to be a master crafter and that person should have a real sense of accomplishment.
Some kind of visual graphic a crafter can place on his stall or freehold to show the world what level crafter he is, so as people walk by they can see who is really great at their craft.
As someone mentioned earlier, rewarding a crafter with the ability to hire a apprentice once you have reached a certain level to take care of the lesser tasks you might need to be done would be very cool.
And please no mini games or RNG in crafting
Other than that I love the plans for AoC crafting and super excited to test it.
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Comments
Crafting is so much more fun when you are able to do it in a reasonable amount of time, and not having a cap on how much one can craft doesn't necessarily mean to make it inconsequential. A system can definitely have limitations without feeling restrictive as long as they are reasonable.
For example, Mount and Blade Bannerlord has an amazing crafting system that I have enjoyed a lot. The stamina system is a bit annoying, but it is easy to work around and that doesn't make the crafting system OP, since there are other limitations such as materials, level in crafting and blueprints.
Bottom line (writing on mobile and thumbs starting to hurt) is, a fun crafting system is one that lets you craft to your heart's content, with the only limitations being your willingness to invest effort (time spent =/= effort in this case, worst crafting system I've ever played was in Warframe, it makes me want to cry whenever I remember it) in advancing in it.
I think the best example of a game that has tried to do this is Runescape. Though they are very clicky and grindy, the other aspects of their skilling system are potentially one of the best examples of success. First since, their whole game centers around skills, they constantly receive new updates to all aspects of the skills, especially the skilling itself. This is extremely important because it keeps skilling interesting. Second, skilling is vital to advancing in the game, though it's not completely necessary sometimes. For example, combat skills don't have to require armor and weapons from other skills to level, but it definitely helps; you can get these from loot sometimes too. Third, all skills are intertwined. The skills overlap in so many areas, some skills are impossible without others. Finally, skills are useful. Especially nowadays, Runescape's skills and products are vital to ALL levels. Again, while not necessary to level combat, it is so useful, people always choose to use crafted armor and weapons. However, the skills and their products are not as useful as they could be, mainly from mass production in the earlier days causing major market and leveling issues. From that point, try to make the products of skills worthwhile and not super easy to make. Flooding a market with useless items made in the leveling process is the worst problem with skilling. Maybe make a way to recycle or breakdown old items.
As for my insight I would love a crafting system where the crafting itself shouldn't take much of my time (e. g. in WoW crafting 50 pcs of higher tier armor because you need to level up your profession, idk how it is in the new patch but back in 4.3.4 the crafting times are terribly long) as long as the crafting is just waiting for the bar to fill up and not some kind of a minigame or anything else that requires further interactions from the player.
As for the time spent by gathering the resources required to craft the items, I would love to see a system where it's not just mindless farming (I'm okay with it to a certain degree though), instead the process should be more of a challenge to the player and/or something more meaningful than aforementioned mindless farming. The rewards for said challenges would scale with the difficulty of the challenges. As I said earlier, it's okay to have some "mindless farming", but in general gathering resources should be an engaging activity rewarding players for their effort and combat skill, rather than a boring necessity.
Features Crafting Needs to be Valuable
There are three main phases with crafting which are Trading/resource gathering, improving your crafting skill/mastery, and Endgame.
Trading and Resource Gathering
Some of the best examples of resource gathering that others have mentioned is SWG. Gathering resources was just as important as the crafter. The ability to find, control or harvest the best quality resources was important in the final product. This difficulty in acquiring the needed resources was a natural way to limit high end or highly desired gear. How I see this potentially working in AOC:
Improving your Crafting
Some of the games that had some interesting parts to leveling your crafter was GW2 and ESO. The ability to discover a recipe by just trying things out is very interesting and engaging. Depending on how complex you make the crafting process this could become even more interesting. As an example in some games you need to know the temperature to produce steel and manage the heat when crafting the steel ingots. If you have process steps like that or others and allow experimentation into each step you could have a system where hidden recipes or process could drastically alter the end product while the normal crafting methods still produce what you want. However only masters or those dedicated would know the secrets of the hidden recipe process. Key features in your journey to being a master are:
Endgame Crafting
Reaching endgame should be about creating a name for yourself or being useful in other endgame features. Some things that I found good to do in other games are:
What sets SWG crafting apart is that it never felt like an exercise in tedium with no clear direction. Crafters had a purpose and it was showcased through the in-depth systems that allowed crafters to create items that were useful right from the start. Most MMOs treat crafting like a simplified minigame where the players just collect materials to craft useless items to reach a numerical threshold to make the next set of useless items. And along the way, the player might find a recipe to craft something useful that they quickly out-level soon after they make it. But in SWG, crafters were able to make practically everything and modify its effectiveness based on the TYPE of materials they used giving each crafter the ability to make items players could use and improve on them over time. If a system like this could be implemented, it would be far more appealing to the playerbase.
I would like crafting to be an important aspect of the game and strongly encouraging player interaction by e.g. requiring not only components or materials of different artisans but the actual artisan. For the top level gear it should not be enough to simply purchase some materials.
Instead I'm imagining the following: a group of different artisans progresses through a dungeon to reach a spot where all of them need to be present to combine their efforts to craft the item. The materials they need for crafting were partly gathered solo, partly imported via the caravan system and processed and rewarded for skinning some other dungeon boss (or other group effort). Maybe one of the artisans needed some rare recipe drop first.
Crafted gear should feel equal to loot from other sources. It should not be in a way that drops of PvE group content is way better or way worse if compared by equal effort to aquire (so if one can solo gather all materials required, a crafted item shouln't be better than a max lvl drop of a dungeon). Yet it would be nice if different crafted items are BIS for different roles in raids, encouraging players to continously clear the content together even if they already cleared the raid several times before.
I personaly don't like mini games for crafting, but I love the idea of gathering stuff, defending some shipments of rare materials coming from the other end of vera and interacting with other artisans to finaly complete a shiny item after works of week, that realy matters.
I would love more than anything to have the ability as a crafting class to be able to rent shop space in a market in a city and that is where I play my game. I socialize there with people browsing my items for sale. I take custom orders for folks wanting something a special color or with special stats. Maybe they want a cheap version as a decoration.
You can have an entire sub game of the many different crafters. Only crafters can build houses, make armor, weapons, food, potions, etc. It actually really makes the game a better self balancing economy. You can have a crafting DEV that only deals with concerns about trade and crafting. I don't stay long in an MMO if crafting is an after thought or an achievement that anyone can do as a time waster. It's ok for a crafter to have some minor protection abilities and it's ok for a fighter/adventurer to be able to make simple items. You don't need a doctor to wrap a bandage on a cut, but you need a doctor to heal disease and poisons. A crafter doesn't need to be able to take down a boss, but they will have to fend off some small aggro now and then to be able to escape death.
First of all I like when crafting is meaningful people who played L2 in early days C1-Interlude can probably relate to it. But to have a relatable crafting system the itemisation has to be done right. The problem with crafted items becoming useless a few levels later is the problem that became apparent in WoW with item levels and the raw power of stats on items. If instead we treat items in Tiers with a gap between consecutive tiers being manageable it creates more relevance to item crafting itself. Problem starts when there are certain thresholds to be met every few levels to remain viable in combat. If lets say mid tier items are mathematically strong enough to clearly early-end-game content then it creates a niche for certain budget items in the market thus the item that you no longer use might be useful to another player.
To achieve the thing mentioned above itemisation should focus on certain bonuses provided rather than raw numbers as this brings us back to the WoW-dillema where it wasn't the set effect that counted but the sheer stat bonus. Good item management example was found in old Lineage 2. Where set bonuses usually trampled sheer stat numbers and so archers would craft Plated Leather armours, which were bottom-end low tier sets but gave a huge boost to attack power at the cost of defence making archers glass canons yet saving a lot of materials and creating them a viable damage dealing option vs bosses which in turn sped-up the process of gearing into top tier items.
Low-class materials conversion. Also old thing from Lineage 2 where artisans would turn basic materials into more advanced ones at certain rate. This opened a kind of back alley to obtaining valuable materials while creating demand for low tier ones and caused the market to bloom across all sectors.
Presets vs Crafted. Having the ability to craft items of equal power to the ones dropped but with custom stat bonuses makes crafting an important part in min-maxing the build. Here ESO sets a good example where investing more materials into an item allows you to craft the very same item but few levels higher so its base stats stay relevant.
Meaningful trinkets. Give us the ability to craft some consumables that actually impact gameplay instead having us to craft 10 different tier of the same dynamite lets have one that scales with crafting skill/materials used and give it an impact to change the outcome of the battle like for example extra siege damage so this kind of stuff becomes actually useful in breaking gates or siege machines. Or a crystal that lets you absorb health from targets and overheals you in the process (to some extent), something that has unique effect not found outside of crafting.
Also crafting shouldn't be a chore. I don't like be forced to craft 100 same items only to level up the skill so i craft another 100 of the same items just one tier higher. Lets have crafting progress scaled with the complexity of item crafted. This can be done basically by assigning certain skill XP values to every material and if incorporated together with meterial recycling it should be easy to assign these values to the base materials and more advanced ones being simply the multiplication of the base materials used in craft.
No crafting times. Any BDO players here? when was the last time you guys were smelting 10k iron? Waiting for something so mundane just kills the fun, because I personally can't fathom who the hell decided it's going to be a good idea to wait 60 seconds for the crafting bar to fill up. It did fill up? Now do it another 25 times. And yes I do understand that's basically game time spent not playing the game designed to slow down the progress so you have to subscribe for one more month. Please, just no.
Dismantling! I do not understand why so few games actually include dismantling option. You've dropped something you don't use? Dismantle it so you can get back 15% of the materials required to build that item. Not leather scraps, threads, or pattern but actual materials.
Categorised crafting trees. Lets have items within same class requiring similar materials to craft. Lemme give you an example. You want to craft Black Dragon Scaled Chestpiece of Badassery that requires you to have
10x Dragonhide
5x Black Dragon Scales
66x Tears of your enemies
12x "Your Mom"
But in the meantime you've dropped Black Scaleplate of Grieving and Abuse which falls into the same armour category but has slightly different crafting tree. When dismantling it you receive 15% of materials needed to craft it which is:
1x Black Dragon Scale
10x Tears of your enemies
2x 'Your Mum'
2x Metal Alloy
12x Steel
Even though some of the items are different you still get a part for the items needed to craft BDSCoB and might sell metal alloy and steel to someone that wants to craft White Scaleplate of Forgiveness and Cheer. Or maybe there's another person that wants to craft the T-34 Pancerplate and needs Steel plates that can be crafted by processing 1x metal alloy and 4 steel bars. I hope the idea is pretty clear, by doing so the crafting opens up to other professions or builds and lets them intertwine with one another.
Have bosses, elites or rares drop some special crafting components that allow you for example to save part of materials or add some small implicit enchantment on an item that does not affect the ability to enchant item further. This should incentivise crafters to take direct or indirect part in world conquest.
Have crafting less fragmented. Instead of making 100 levels of crafting professions divide it into few tiers with each tier requiring more experience to progress and unlocking access to recipes in bulk. So for example Amateur - can craft starter items level 1-10.
Journeyman - Can craft items 11-25. Process basic materials into advanced materials.
Expert - Can craft items 26-45. Process advanced materials into rare materials.
Master - Can craft items 46-50 (assume lvl 50 is max). Processing materials require 25% less materials.
Now again if the base values are well balanced Expert craftsman should be able to craft items viable for end-game and provide all the materials needed. While Master craftsman would create items slightly superior to the expert one but was also able to process more high-end materials from the basic ones than the expert crafter. Keep in mind it does not reduce requirement for crafting items only makes processing cheaper. This way master artisans would serve as a certain material sink for novice gatherers emphasising their progress and opening another way in obtaining high-end items while utilising low-level locations.
Last but not least. The processing profession. I believe sometimes less is more so I'd like to see processing consolidated within crafting rather than being a separate, middle, profession as it creates unnecessary distraction from the crating in my opinion and adding another link to the chain that is difficult to handle on its own might not work as well in practice as it looks on the paper.
Regards,
Kaban.
For example Runescape smithing:
You hammer, and heat up the processed materials into shape, and if you keep up the forging process properly, it's faster to forge the item. Not fan of varying amounts of xp tho. Loss of xp from not being optimal with forging might have bad consequences.
Honestly, had more ideas but recently I'm tired af and only recent games come to mind...might add another post with more ideas if I remember lol
I remember on a few MMOs getting in to the crafting and it being difficult, challenging, but then logging on one day after a patch and finding that an especially slow witted rock could accomplish the task just as well as anyone. I want a challenge. If it's challenging, it's not boring, it's not tedious, it's rewarding! I equate it to real life craftsman. Anybody with a saw, some nails, and a hammer can build a table in a couple hours that will most likely not fall apart as soon as you set a glass on it, but someone who has devoted themselves to the craft will take the time necessary not only to create a table that will last a lifetime, but will be beautiful.
I'd like to see some real effort put in to crafting tools and processes. I know it's a lot to ask, but if we're going to make crafting something more interesting and engaging than clicking a mouse on the same icon repeatedly, I'd like to see a bit of realism. For example: require the blacksmith to move from the forge, to the anvil, back to the forge, then to the grinding wheel and back to the forge before quenching it. Require them to obtain tools of the trade and to improve those tools along the way as their skill improves so as to improve the quality of their work.
Give us a challenge, let us rise to it.
I like to think that the important thing is the trip and not the destination.
I don't think having a rushed crafting system works well, but neither does something where you have to spend hours digging through forums and external sites just to find out how to do something. Again, a system that encourages mix and matching or exploration within the craft. Perhaps an element of RNG that "If i combine this iron piece with this gemstone - something awesome might happen" but learning too that if its useless, that we can scrap it back into materials.
There is nothing more incredible than wearing your own crafted gear. I think AoC can run with this idea, and make it customisable for crafters to do this for people. I imagine being approached by a casual player that doesn't get into crafting because they want a helmet in blue/pink/red/chrome. I'd love to be able to then take "orders" even and have a system where my gameplay that night is gathering what i need to create a blue helmet for another player, and trading with them. I can then, if its slow, do it for myself. I might want a Stag inspired shoulder piece, or whatever is possible to implement, and then i can go and craft it for myself.
This probably bleeds into another conversation around gear, but to be able to transmog in World of Warcraft, is such a nice system for crafters that are interested in doing personal gear. It means that I can always have that Stag shoulder piece, or that blue helmet someone wanted is given adequate time in the game to show off.
In terms of crafting food and drink, the gathering element is always going to grindy for people who just want to buy food and potions. I think being able to level the research that goes into crafting food and drink items is something theres an opportunity to take learnings from Valheim. Again, it might be an old system, but I enjoyed the idea of levelling up my camp, or levelling up my characters knowledge or workbench before i was able to craft even BETTER stuff. This idea could be something that gives incentives to be able to actually level up crafting elements including food and drink but also gear.
Thanks again for giving me an opportunity to share - Reading everyones comments gives me such excitement with the level of interest but also expertise in the crafting area, that in AoC i intend to explore it even further. Everyone has such insanely cool ideas - Goodluck!
Some random thoughts:
- Add reasons to live in a smaller node
- PVE mini game, such as supply armor/weapons for npc/node sieges etc...
- niche markets, healer vs DPS gear etc..
Concerns:
- sourcing materials/low profit margins
- don't want to be a repair/custom crafter bot
1. Loot vs Crafting for endgame content - One of the big issues that keeps coming up is whether crafters should be able to provide end-game quality loot, and if they can, then what is the point of repeatedly grinding dungeons to get that "right piece of loot" To that I say, why not strike a balance:- Endgame weapons can be dropped from bosses & mobs, but exist in a "base format". these can be upgraded further thru the use of an experienced crafter. This provides work for crafters, gives them a use for endgame content, but also gives some customizability to the weapon for the specific user.
2. Alternatively, or in addition to, end-game loot can also come in the form of rare material drops, that can also be used to forge end-game weapons. These materials should be rare enough to be valuable enough that some degree of scarcity is created.
3. A third fun little tidbit, is perhaps when crafting to have a 0.00001% chance of creating a unique "named" weapon. These are extremely rare legendary weapons, that bear the name of the owner & it's crafter. This could add some flavour and permanence to special weapons, and bring prestige to whomever owns them. Perhaps they could also be cursed, so that if they're not used, or displayed or other wise they create a negative effect, so that they dont just sit in someone's chest for years on end, but rather moves thru the player-base.
4. I think - to give fun and engagement to crafting, I think customizability should be a big part of it. Customizability in the form of making stat adjustments, but also visual flair. A crafter should have access appearance changing ingredients and can choose to visually customize armor, either as a customer request, or as part of a branding exersize. For example a particular armorer can make all her armor pink, or all chest pieces have cyan shoulders, etc. On the stat customization side, it could represent a crafters ability to get the most out of their materials. The more skilled they are the more stats they can min/max. however as a result perhaps there should be a cooldown, so as to create scarcity, but also, represent the extra work the crafter has put in to create that piece of armor
- Most important crafted gear was good at any stage of character progression (good dagger at lvl1, god cape at lvl5,...). It should incentivize players during leveling to spend time on gathering and communication to get a better gear piece from crafting. Even in the end game, there were pieces of craftable gear that can be better than most of the loot you can find (of course with a high price and time effort required to craft them)
- Almost all valuable gear/consumables crafts required significant time effort, e.g. most of the time recipe for a good sword would require you to find ingredients crafted by other professions, and most of the time quite simple ingredients were needed making you ask your friends or anyone you can spot in crafting room to make you one real quick. This incentivized me to create important connections right from the beginning of leveling. And the best part is that most likely ppl who you asked for crafts will need you and will ask you back at some point.
- Multiple materials from a single gatherable point, and different proportions of those depending on e.g. environment. This is something that could make gathering more complex than just going to a location of a correct level and spawn rate (e.g. in WOW gathering is supper boring and most of the time requires no special knowledge or strategy).
- "Better craft 1 valuable item than 100 cheap". If I'm crafting for sale it feels way better to create a "masterpiece" and sell it than spamming e.g. auction house with 100 daggers or something... It definitely feels differently...
- Have more than 1-3 ingredients for at least gear crafting (in combination with the point above). Even if ingredients are not hard to acquire, crafting feels more rewarding/impactful when it takes more than just grabbing wood and iron to craft a sward. Putting time in finding the right people who can produce form gatherable in something you need (even if it cheap) and taking time to create multiple bits and pieces before producing a valuable item, is something that leaves more memories and feelings than spam-crafting.
- A little RNG but not too much. In the case of LOTRO (and many other games) crafting a gear, crafting a piece had a chance to upgrade it to the next grade (normal to magic, etc.), while even without that upgrade item is good enough, having this small chance to make it twice as better was also good. It was especially important for end-game crafting making you coming back to the workshop, again and again, putting effort into each piece created. On another side, I personally can't see any benefits of punishing rng, but in comparison to PathOfExale, this game has quite a huge amount of punishing rng yet a lot of ppl love this game.
- Time-gated crafting. This is something that can help when the crafting system prefers quality over quantity like in the points above. Something should not be produced too frequently and get into the game too fast (e.g. when the gear piece Is supper valuable and compete with the end game drop). Even if the recipe to create a rare item is complex, it will not stop true 24/7 nerds
- Rare end-game ingredients from bosses and group activities. Well, this s something that quite simple yet helps to keep crafting important on all stages of the game. (Like no one cares about crafting in WOW except consumables. They tried to fix that in the last expansion by introducing crafting bases for legendary gear pieces, and it is a good take but not enough).
- Crafting leveling progressing should not require spam crafting of trash that will be thrown away right after or something that already crazy cheap on the auction house (cause everyone doing that). This can be a hard one to solve... I personally see that crafting just a few but complex items should be enough to get to the next level. it could be like a milestone gear piece to craft that can be sold for a lot or used to feel significant during the following leveling experience.
- Craftable instruments for profeccions. This is just a bonus I personally liked from LOTRO. You have to have instruments with a higher chance of double success as soon as possible. Like a separate small and simple progression system just for instruments.
Making material hunting versatile and not just limited to harvesting but also mob drops. So that in a raid boss sure people can be excited for that 1% weapon drop but also so crafters can be excited for their 1% material drop. (Might not be a bad idea to have gear boost material drops)
Making a system that is catered to making the process enjoyable for the crafting community and not focused on pleasing those who dislike crafting in the first place.
Crafted gear, weapons, equips and anything in between should be competitive with end game drops in order to maintain demand for a crafting community.
Adding some synergy/ecosystem between life skillers such as farmers, crafters, gatherers, alchemists etc so that each can provide something of value to the others that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to obtain a certain item or material can help balance necessity/value between professions
I must say something about a system Archeage implemented where the only way to get personal engine powered transportation was to harvest a tree struck by lightning that had residual energy in it. With factors of certain trees being more likely to get struck (before the pay to win trees that were almost guaranteed) and certain regions having more thunderstorms than others therefore increasing tree farms in those areas along with "illegal" farms in hard to get to places so people wouldn't have to pay taxes on the property used. This whole ecosystem to me was fun. All so that you could have a wagon for more efficient trading.
If I could put it in a few words, have materials and the way to get them that will make people get creative with how they get it. It shouldn't be a clean cut linear process on how to get every item. Add variables beyond RNG and have gamers make an ecosystem of their own.
Thank You
On more of a selling/purchasing side, it would be awesome to set up socials to support town trading and selling, beyond a 'trade chat'. Maybe having a large job board that allows crafters to ask for resources, sell their specialized services, etc. I remember AoC talking about having little vendor stalls, I think those should play an important role in this, perhaps even having a specific spawned area for these so people can browse goods like a market.
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My dream of actually being a blacksmith since WoW (2004) I have yet to find a crafting system that is utilized throughout the game. Generally, it is leveled for early levels but then forgotten at higher levels. I think if you have a system where blacksmiths are useful with the majority of their trade such as making low level weapons and armor for new players or turning them in to towns as some sort of upgrade to the guards would just be one simple example. Supply and demand is going to fluctuate but if there’s something like what Black Desert Online has, an imperial delivery vendor. There will always be something to do with useless/unnecessary surplus of goods that can net you some profit or traded for other useful resources.
I’m sure there is going to be all kinds of weapons, armor and other goods needed by other professions that blacksmiths can create to make a profit while leveling their profession but when you get hundreds and thousands of players leveling a profession you’re going to saturate the market quickly. That sword little Timmy can make in the guild is awesome at first if he’s like the first in the game to craft it but as time rolls by there will be more and more like him. Now that the game has been out for 6-12 months there are hundreds of little Timmys that have these swords they made to level their profession and now we see thousands of the same sword on the market collecting dust. Give us a vendor in town, say the guard captain, that has a daily order of 100 (or more!) weapons and/or armor that you can fulfill that will reward you with currency or other goods (or something aimed at improving the guild’s city guards).
TLDR- Making crafting have a point in all stages of their profession for all skill levels so the market doesn’t get over saturated with junk and crafters don’t feel like a second thought.
Crafting systems are probably what I most get excited about in MMOs. I love being able to put in extra time and provide quality items for my friends while we play together. Having crafting that is a large investment where players look at a max crafter and view them with equal parts of impressed and a little disturbed they would spend that much time crafting.
The thing I can't stand about many MMOs is that crafting is next to useless until max level but then at max level you are forced to craft gear through all the levels that it would have been great to make and have at level but now is next to worthless. Being able to craft at level while playing the game I believe is incredibly important to a crafting system feeling rewarding.
I spend upwards of 80% of my time in MMOs crafting when it feels rewarding and I am able to make cool or fun things for my friends and guild mates.
Another thing with Lineage II though is the sale system with actual vendors being set up by players instead of having an NPC auctioneer. You get to browse through the shops and immerse yourself like you are actually shopping. It also makes crafter's feel like they have their own mini business.
1. The ability to acquire adequate space for massive crafting.
2. An optional mini-game to slightly increase the stats or completely whiff.
3. Lottery item creation, there should be a .001 chance an item is just created better than normal or just whiffs.
4. Fun items, like jumping once real high, a light show, a small venue of fog for a few seconds. More importantly a lot of items need to make you think. When can I use this. Like a smoke bomb that decreases aggro for mobs 30 and below for several seconds.
5. Most recipes should be "learned" from a trainer or a recipe. However, once players hits 40...advanced recipes should be experimented with to make, found in books, recipes, or other means. This is where recipes should be an end game of itself. Experimenting with recipes should not force people to lose all components, perhaps have a 5% chance of losing all components.
6. Crafting cool downs for rare, epic, or legendary items.
7. Crafting options in DND is so expansive players can take days just planning out crafting...and there's a love and anticipation in down time crafting. Going to the store can take hours as they try to maximize their gold, versatility, and power.
I am familiar with three types of crafting World of Warcraft, JRPG, and Dungeons and Dragons. I really enjoy the diversity of items and professions in World of Warcraft Vanilla, people say it made pvp unpredictable. There are three things that WoW missed the mark on. 1. Adequate space for crafting items, making a dedicated crafter requiring alts, mules, or sending items through the mail system for 30 days as storage. It has been mentioned that low level items will be required for "high" level items. However, I don't want to have to manually make a minor, lesser, agility, greater, super, just to make an "ultimate agility potion". WoW didn't do this but the way AoC has described crafting and keeping the value of lower level gathering items, I feel as if AoC does. If all those items are needed I want a 1 button click to make it or a shadow hearts ring or mario golf like area to "skill" craft it whiff, fair hit, good hit, perfect if there is a mechanic. There are two things I loved about dungeons and dragon crafting. You could make a utility belt of items based upon different situations and two they
It's just like PVP is not for everyone, or PVE is not for everyone. World bosses, dungeons, raids, I believe artisan should have a level of requirements as well, not something anyone can do because it will take the meaningless, don't try to make something for everyone, because that's what Blizzard did with professions and they killed them, only two survived and it's a shore more than something anyone can enjoy. It has to be hard for someone to enjoy it.
Something I liked about WoW was being able to essentially craft end-game gear with a combination of materials obtained from high level monster drops.
Crafting in EQ2 was so boring but crafting for better gear I thought was essential for players who couldn't get into high-end groups/raids. Housing is most important because people love customizing their homes in all different shapes and ways and will stay logged in and play, just for housing.
ArcheAge: Crafting was really fun in this game but you needed to spend way too much money for mats. I enjoyed the housing aspect and would build houses all day long. Con: Mats, space, and no customize furniture. The market for crafting gear-useless and food and drink no profit.
Aion: That's how I made a lot of my in-game currency- leveling up my potions/food/drink and gathering rare components and selling them. I think to make any money in-game, crafting is the key. Not to mention, grinding mobs, quest completion, etc. I did like the system to craft but I would need to keep my character log in, as I made high-end pots.
I thought TESO was fun by unlocking herbs and actually pulling up a book to see the herbs you've collected and what potions made what was crafting.
Overall:
Gear: Needed, alternative ways for players to obtain gear to keep up with new content.
Housing: Customizing your home is needed.
In-game currency: Selling food/drink/buff items/gear/housing items
Food/drink/buffs/etc: If corporate in a game, crafters will craft where other players can't stand crafting.
Overall, I think crafting is well needed to keep any in-game currency going.
Not a full crafting system, but I quite liked how Diablo2 had gem slots in items and a selection of gems and runestones to fit into them. If something like that was used then there could be a Processor <type> that generates magical gems and runes that are later passed to the item crafter for inclusion in the Crafting task.
Every individual gathering, processing and crafting skill area needs to have enough detail to make it feel like a worthwhile area of expertise and not just a few tables open in a wiki on a second monitor. The dynamic server based knowledge of where to get things and where to sell things also form part of an artisan career. If I'm keeping notes with a pad and paper because the information is too organic to put on a spreadsheet then you've done something right.
I'm sure you've thought about this a lot more than me (I'm only posting this because Intrepid, quite rightly, keep their design notes private), but I envisage gathering, processing and crafting working something like:
In general, use any and all excuses to cap the quality level of items so that players have to push up every aspect of their artisan career to get the best results. Just let us know what our weakest link is at the end of each Artisan task so that we know to work on improving it. Periodic maintenance of tools and facilities should be necessary but not so frequent that they become tedious.
<Wall of Text starts here>
Gathering:
The quality of the Pre-gathered items should be variable; some areas might become known for high quality gatherables, others might be better suited to more disposable crafting applications (or perhaps some residential decoration crafting is more tolerant towards lesser ingredients?). Make the Pre-gathered item quality related to node levels and the result will be that there's much less chance of cross-server information sharing being helpful.
Gathered item quality cap:
The weakest link out of Gathering skill, pre-Gathered item quality and tool quality will determine the actual quality of the Gathered item. This approach can be applied regardless of whether names like 'Perfect' and 'Poor', percentages 100% to 1% or level '50' to '1' are used.
Gathering Speed:
If the quality of the pre-Gathered item is less than the Gathering skill and the tool quality then the Gathering is resolved quicker. eg. weak trees chop down quicker.
If the quality of the pre-Gathered item is more than the Gathering skill and the tool quality then the Gathering takes longer. The actual Gathered item is still capped by the 'weakest link' rule.
Other Gathering info:
A selection of tools may be required for each Gathering <type> skill.
A Gatherer would inherently know which Gatherables are required for a number of standard crafting tasks and more would be learned as the Gathering skill improves. i.e. you would know that they are used for without necessarily having the appropriate processing or crafting skill.
Processing:
Processed item quality cap:
The weakest link out of Processing skill, gathered item quality, tools and the facility used will determine the achieved quality of the Processed item.
Processing Speed:
The Processing speed is affected similarly to Gathering, although the Processing facility is also included.
The Processor may choose to make Processed goods lower quality to save time.
Other Processing Info:
A selection of tools and facilities will be required for each Processing <type> skill.
A Processor would inherently know which Gatherables and Processed goods are required for a number of standard crafting tasks and more would be learned as the Processing skill improves. i.e. you know what you need and what it can be used for without necessarily having the knowledge of how to gather or craft.
Crafting:
Crafted item quality cap:
The weakest link out of Crafting skill, Processed item quality, tools and the facility used will determine the achieved quality of the Crafted item.
Crafting Speed:
The Crafting speed is affected similarly to Gathering, although the Crafting facility is also included.
The Crafter may choose to make the Crafted item(s) lower quality to save time.
Other Crafting Info:
The required ingredients would be known in advance.
A Crafter would inherently know which Gatherables and Processed goods are required for a number of standard crafting tasks and more would be learned as the Gathering skill improves. i.e. you know what you need and where it comes from without necessarily having the knowledge of how to gather or process.
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Then you just need to go through the unenviable task of populating the Artisan system.
Every different type of gatherable, every different type of processed item, every different crafted item.
Ouch.
Always have crafting be the BEST gear, and if you want to give something from world bosses, have it be a drop that can be used by a experienced crafter to apply a enchant from the world boss drop.
Make it difficult to achieve the top tier, it should take a considerable amount of time to be a master crafter and that person should have a real sense of accomplishment.
Some kind of visual graphic a crafter can place on his stall or freehold to show the world what level crafter he is, so as people walk by they can see who is really great at their craft.
As someone mentioned earlier, rewarding a crafter with the ability to hire a apprentice once you have reached a certain level to take care of the lesser tasks you might need to be done would be very cool.
And please no mini games or RNG in crafting
Other than that I love the plans for AoC crafting and super excited to test it.
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