About the proposed minigames for crafting

When you design this for our testing pleasure in A2, please consider your target audience. While there are many demographics that enjoy crafting, a big part of of them are not twitch skill gods or finger ninjas due to age or disabilities or just temperament. They enjoy the more leisurely pace that the artisan skills often provide.

So please, any minigames, or gameplay layers as Steven called them in the AMA, don't make them hard quick time action types or where a very high precision is required for the best results.

Obviously any gameplay layers need to not be tedious after the 100th time either.

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AntVictus

Or just drop them altogether since things like this drive away more crafters than they pull in.

WHIT3ROS3

AntVictus wrote: »

Or just drop them altogether since things like this drive away more crafters than they pull in.

But you haven't even seen a single example yet? I find it really hard to wrap my head around this kind of stance. "I don't know what it is, what it is comprised of, or how it will work, but I don't want it!"

I suppose some people's reaction to innovation or change is instant rejection. Shame...

I think it sounds innovative and fun but would like to see more. I like the idea of players having more agency regarding quality and spec, rather than it just being an entirely spread-sheet-oriented RNG-fest.

Mag7spy

I am all for them, they usually exist in fishing anyway. Can easily be a fast crafting option and a slow one where you don't do mini games so you can actively boost your chance and do crafting faster.

Since crafting is a heavy element in the game I don't believe everything should just easily be skipped over with one click, but that is just imo. Also depends how much quantity you are crafting, id expect things to be a lot more on the single digit side.

Ludullu

I definitely want to see an example and a better explanation of the crafting process at mass scale (if that's even in the plans). The minigame might be fun and might let the crafters to show their "skill", but as a mass crafter of several years, I definitely would like to have some way to craft at big scales w/o doing the same minigame for each stage.

SongRune

The problem with this sort of thing is that you have to come up with a minigame that all crafters (of a given type) like, when the only trait those players have in common is "Carpenter" or "Herb gatherer". Otherwise you're saying "I believe all lumberjacks should enjoy this minigame, and fuck the ones who don't".

It's not something I feel is easily done for all professions. Fishing absolutely needs a minigame (imo), if you want most fishers to care. Do the other professions? Hard to say. But these sorts of decisions are really decisions about what types of people are 'allowed' to be a particular type of crafter (or certainly, enjoy it).

Taleof2Cities

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

"I don't know what it is, what it is comprised of, or how it will work, but I don't want it!"

Agreed let’s test it in Alpha 2 first, @Nerror … rather than post a preemptive blanket warning in the forums saying “I can’t be bothered with mini-games.”

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

I definitely want to see an example and a better explanation of the crafting process at mass scale (if that's even in the plans). The minigame might be fun and might let the crafters to show their "skill", but as a mass crafter of several years, I definitely would like to have some way to craft at big scales w/o doing the same minigame for each stage.

You're making an assumption here, possibly without realizing it.

A game doesn't need 'mass crafting'.

Half the time, the reason for it IS just to use up your time.

If the minigame uses up your time instead and is more engaging, 'mass crafting' could just be tossed out, and honestly, to me that's a lot more fun because the micromanagement of the systems is within the player's control rather than 'do what the system tells you to do' or 'do hundreds of X'.

AntVictus

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

AntVictus wrote: »

Or just drop them altogether since things like this drive away more crafters than they pull in.

But you haven't even seen a single example yet? I find it really hard to wrap my head around this kind of stance. "I don't know what it is, what it is comprised of, or how it will work, but I don't want it!"

I suppose some people's reaction to innovation or change is instant rejection. Shame...

I think it sounds innovative and fun but would like to see more. I like the idea of players having more agency regarding quality and spec, rather than it just being an entirely spread-sheet-oriented RNG-fest.

Probably because i've done mini games with crafting in other mmo's and know first hand how terribly boring and tedious they get. There's no "skill" with it, just time sinking and monotony. It's not innovative as it's been done before. What sounds "fun" to the uninitiated is a plague for those who already know the annoyance of it. Mini games do not improve crafting they turn it into more of a chore.

I don't like RNG crafting either and that's probably the only thing we're going to agree on here.

neuroguy

As much as I like the idea of mini-games, I think if someone specializes in crafting and has to deal with them, it is a bit cruel that they are restricted to only specialize in other crafting artisan skills that also require mini-games. I don't want all of my artisan interactions to be mini-game based just because I specialized in 1 of the crafting skills.

WHIT3ROS3

AntVictus wrote: »

I don't like RNG crafting either and that's probably the only thing we're going to agree on here.

So no Skill, Fun or Chance in crafting.... ok. Makes sense.

Azherae

Anyways this has an easy solution I think.

Material quality determines whether you have to play the minigame or not.

Minigames are generally undetectably bottable anyway. If they are beyond that point, players complain because they're VERY twitch-skill heavy.

Variety is their better bet.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

You're making an assumption here, possibly without realizing it.

A game doesn't need 'mass crafting'.

Half the time, the reason for it IS just to use up your time.

If the minigame uses up your time instead and is more engaging, 'mass crafting' could just be tossed out, and honestly, to me that's a lot more fun because the micromanagement of the systems is within the player's control rather than 'do what the system tells you to do' or 'do hundreds of X'.

Yeah, that's why I added the "if that's in the plans". Though I meant it more as a "whether one crafter is supposed to be able to craft all the things his 300-member guild would need".

We know that lower tiers will be required to craft higher tiers. I'd assume it won't be a direct use, but a step by step one. You craft t1s into t2s, t2s into t3 and so on until you craft t5. Now, that might not be true and we might just have direct mats instead of craftable ones.

But even then, I'm talking about a guild crafter who's supposed to craft 8 armor pieces for 100++ people. And that's per tier of gear. And if his second specialization is jewel cutting (assuming that's related to the 5 jewel slots), that would be another 5 per each of the 100+. That's a whole lotta minigaming.

Azherae

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

You're making an assumption here, possibly without realizing it.

A game doesn't need 'mass crafting'.

Half the time, the reason for it IS just to use up your time.

If the minigame uses up your time instead and is more engaging, 'mass crafting' could just be tossed out, and honestly, to me that's a lot more fun because the micromanagement of the systems is within the player's control rather than 'do what the system tells you to do' or 'do hundreds of X'.

Yeah, that's why I added the "if that's in the plans". Though I meant it more as a "whether one crafter is supposed to be able to craft all the things his 300-member guild would need".

We know that lower tiers will be required to craft higher tiers. I'd assume it won't be a direct use, but a step by step one. You craft t1s into t2s, t2s into t3 and so on until you craft t5. Now, that might not be true and we might just have direct mats instead of craftable ones.

But even then, I'm talking about a guild crafter who's supposed to craft 8 armor pieces for 100++ people. And that's per tier of gear. And if his second specialization is jewel cutting (assuming that's related to the 5 jewel slots), that would be another 5 per each of the 100+. That's a whole lotta minigaming.

I would REALLY hope that isn't the case. Or rather, that if it is the case, that it's a negative.

The idea that one person COULD outfit an entire guild AND this not be a negative or tedious process ALSO implies that one person could outfit an entire smaller node. Now, that's SORT of good, but wouldn't one do this over multiple days?

Isn't it BETTER to have 'daily crafting' to do? That sounds a lot more like the problem being on either supply or demand side, not 'crafter'.

ClintHardwood

Please don't put in crafting minigames. They'll inevitably lead to a macro-crafting meta, and anyone who doesn't cheat will suffer.

FarronXIV

WHIT3ROS3 wrote: »

AntVictus wrote: »

I don't like RNG crafting either and that's probably the only thing we're going to agree on here.

So no Skill, Fun or Chance in crafting.... ok. Makes sense.

If we take FFXIV crafting/gathering as an example. ( effectively what has been proposed by Steven with maybe some nuance added on top of it)
FFXIV crafting consists of only minigames that each crafter and gatherer has to complete in order to make or gather an item, after some time this process becomes quite boring as there is little variance in the system.
Generally speaking, people cope with this system by using user-made macros that effectively auto-complete the minigame for them. Adding a degree of variance (or chance) into this system seems like it will cause the macros people use to not work and require them to pay actual attention to a system that ultimately is just a grind of pressing buttons in order which at the highest tiers people would have had to of done thousands of times.

You understand how such systems while they might be fun to begin with they ultimately lead to the users either dropping it completely or creating their own system to automate the games system, should that ability to create some form of automation on the system be removed, it will very easily result in a huge drop of people using the games system.

Ultimately this is all a useless argument since while you are correct we have not seen an example of their (Intrepid studios) crafting system, Crafting minigames have been done over time and it seems to always end with crafting/gathering becoming an underused system or in the case of ffxiv, it becomes a human centipede where they are all feeding off of each other.

Scarbeus

I'd need to see what they are going with before I could give a proper response, but simple things like how they do fishing in New World work for me. It's simple, but means you need to pay attention and its not complicated. Immersion, interest and entertainment are important, but I see what you are saying and at the same time WE are not our characters. You don't want to be locked out of the possibility of being am master of your craft because you simply aren't capable for some reason. For example if one of the professions involved matching colour tiles without making mistakes in a short time then that wouldn't work for me as I'm partially colour blind. So unless the game has colour blind modes built in (which I'm sure it would do these days anyway) I'd never be the master of my chosen Artisan craft.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

I would REALLY hope that isn't the case. Or rather, that if it is the case, that it's a negative.

The idea that one person COULD outfit an entire guild AND this not be a negative or tedious process ALSO implies that one person could outfit an entire smaller node. Now, that's SORT of good, but wouldn't one do this over multiple days?

Isn't it BETTER to have 'daily crafting' to do? That sounds a lot more like the problem being on either supply or demand side, not 'crafter'.

I mean, in my experience the crafting was happening when the supply supported it. I could log into the game one day and the GL would say "we've gotten all the resources you need to craft 20 sets of armor, go do it". Now L2 had the step by step system, so I'd start from crafting t1 into t2 and finish at "press the button 20 times to craft 20 instances of this particular gear piece". And then repeated that for each of 5 pieces in a set.

It was done through one crafter because it'd be a trusted person, it'd be a person with recipes already registered (you needed them registered to be able to craft the items) and at the lvl that supported the craft itself (depending on the server, this was also a long process).

And in that context, I look at AoC's system and see that only a few people would be able to master a particular direction. That mastering would require a ton of crafting, so it's beneficial to start crafting all the things the guild would need on that one person to boost him asap. And artisan reputation seems to matter too, so on top of your guild's crafting you might want to help out people in your node or maybe even in the whole vassal system.

And I look at that and see potentially thousands of crafts. And that's just within one "patch" of the game. Any expansions would bring more stuff. And any decaying (which will obviously happen) would most likely demand more crafts.

Now obviously you can split this all up across multiple days or even weeks, but, again, in my experience that shit don't work like that. If my guild needs the best possible gear for their next raid/siege/pvp encounter - I'm gonna craft it asap. And if the guild is working correctly, supply will be ready for me when I need it.

Azherae

I'm gonna go ahead and say that's your guild's 'fault'.

If they collected resources for 20 sets of armor, and it didn't take THEM multiple days to collect, you are in a high throughput guild. For some people this is great. If one doesn't like it, don't join that kind.

In my opinion it SHOULD be that they will stagger this depending on your time and interest. Or, in AoC's case, since the preprocessing would be done by ME, not by you...

You'd log in and find that I put materials for you to craft 4 sets (or 20 Helmets) in your 'inbox', you'd do those, and then go do something else, and the next day it would be another 4 sets (or 20 gloves).

JustVine

Designing a minigame to actively engage the player without feeling like a chore is difficult. I think the biggest problem comes from 'rote memory' style interactions. I would like them to avoid as much of this as possible relative to minigames. I hear your concern @Nerror relative to twitch skills, but twitch skills are part of the tool kit when it comes to reducing rote memory. That being said I think there is a reasonable timing window easily achieved to meet your concern while still using the tool effectively.

Example I really like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSx6IZbXwN8

Now this is what I would consider to be the level of 'slow twitch' of what you are talking about Nerror. It's a twitch kind of minigame in that it requires you to actually 'stop what you are doing if you want to participate' on a timer. While you don't have /much/ time to hunt the mole and need to react, there is still a decent amount of time to grab it. If you are better at comboing or play a class with big burst damage you also need less time to kill it. Either way it is well within normal combat parameters in the rest of the game.

For those of you who haven't experienced BDO farming. The mole cannot be handled by workers nor are they lessened by workers. Moles only appear when harvesting. The mole essentially drops a good item. It's therefore not a requirement to hunt them but it's very incentivized. There is a lot of design philosophy behind why I think this is a good system but here's the tldr:

1. Hunting the mole is completely optional. You don't need to hunt it to keep farming.
2. It's a reward not a punishment
3. It breaks the monotony of the task with something a little more active in a sudden way outside the players control.

I'd give you an example of a 'slightly more fast twitch' skill but I leave that to fisher people for I don't personally gravitate towards fast twitch crafts even if I fully support them existing. Knowing your reaction to the speed of 'hunting a mole' might help others engage you better though.

Edit: converted link from shorts to regular youtube for all you hyperlink leery clickers.

Ludullu

Azherae wrote: »

I'm gonna go ahead and say that's your guild's 'fault'.

If they collected resources for 20 sets of armor, and it didn't take THEM multiple days to collect, you are in a high throughput guild. For some people this is great. If one doesn't like it, don't join that kind.

In my opinion it SHOULD be that they will stagger this depending on your time and interest. Or, in AoC's case, since the preprocessing would be done by ME, not by you...

You'd log in and find that I put materials for you to craft 4 sets (or 20 Helmets) in your 'inbox', you'd do those, and then go do something else, and the next day it would be another 4 sets (or 20 gloves).

But that's the thing though. I feel like the game would almost require you to do this if you wanna succeed.

You want the reputation of the "best crafter around"? You gotta be the fastest to the top and always be available to craft stuff for people, be it through your stall or in person.

You want your guild to be at the peak performance at all times? You gotta craft everything you can for them asap. Why should a guild gimp themselves just to let you work less?

Obviously those kinds of guilds will be on the rarer side in the grand scheme of things, but what I'm mainly asking for is just some way to do crafting at big scales w/o the requirement for the minigame, because I know for sure that each and every dedicated crafter of a hardcore guild will have to go through thousands of those minigames and I'd assume that it'll get tedious pretty quickly.

Now there's a chance that gear acquisition will be so damn slow that this 1k crafts will be spread over weeks of gameplay. And while I'd be totally fine with that, I dunno how the masses would see it. I'm used to getting a single new piece of gear after a week of grinding money/mats for it, but afaik that's a very oldschool line of thinking.

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