Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Crafting is boring
JesterLo
Member, Alpha Two
in Artisanship
I know this is early days for the game, and especially the crafting system. What I am about to write here is a genuine suggestion and hope for a better crafting and processing system.
As I have mentioned in a post a round a year ago, I would love to see Ashes of Creation adopt a crafting system similar to that of "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes". The crafting system functioned as follows:
1) You needed to have the right items:
* Raw materials or components to craft with
* Crafting utilities to overcome complications or improve grade
* Tools proper for the trade, placed in a tool belt
* A workbench proper for the trade (found in cities or dungeons)
2) Set up your table
* A fixed number of raw materials and components are required to start a given recipe at all
* You will be able to bring a limited number of utilities to the table. Eg. oil for finishing woodwork, bandages for helping with injury complications etc.
3) Complete crafting the item (completeness: 100%) while you try to get as high a Grade as possible (graded D through A).
* You have 2000 action points to spend during a crafting process
* The crafting process has 4 stages. In each stage you can take actions that will use up the action points, and either progress the completeness of the current stage, improve the grade of the finished product, or both.
* During the crafting process complications may arise, such as an injury (eg. hammering your finger) or damage to the item (eg. chipped wood). Complications will have negative impact on the progress or the grade or both, or will have your future actions be less effective.
* Complications can be alleviated by doing simple less effective actions (like waiting for the injury to not hurt), or use utilities like bandages to make the complication go away faster.
The mini-game of crafting was something you could get good at as a player (the person, not the in game character) which meant that some people were actually better at this than others, even though they had the same crafting skill on the character sheet.
As mentioned by @ShivaFang elsewhere the crafting/processing times in AoC are there "to preventing the economy from overheating." I would love to see a system that reached the same goal, but with more player interaction, not player patience.
In Vanguard player immersion was high for crafters, as they actually felt they were doing something to produce the item they crafted. It also took some time to complete an item, just like in AoC, but the time was spend crafting, not waiting. This will also help with regards to an overheating economy as more time is spent on the actual crafting step.
My problems with the current system and why the title Crafting is boring
To craft an item (crafting, not processing stations) I show up with the correct ingredients/materials/components and pres a button. Then a progress-bar fills up over the duration of one whole second, and the item is done.
Processing the items needed to craft anything is not something you do, it's something you start... and then wait for a very long time to complete. This is not immersive and I am looking forward to how this part of the game will take shape during the coming years.
Good adventurer = good crafter
If the stats and quality of the crafted items only depends on the rarity of the ingredients, then everything you can achieve in this game depends on how well you (or someone you pay) are at fighting/adventuring:
Fight a dragon -> Gather "Dragons Breath" -> "Craft" flaming sword
Survive a night at a corrupted grave yard -> Gather "Wiggling Bones" -> "Craft" Living Armor
Defeat Giant Tortoise -> Gather it's shield -> "Craft" Shield of Giantness
There is an old video of the crafting system in Vanguard here (skip to 1/3 of the way into the video to get to the good part):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4udzX7PV_YI&t=217s
As I have mentioned in a post a round a year ago, I would love to see Ashes of Creation adopt a crafting system similar to that of "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes". The crafting system functioned as follows:
1) You needed to have the right items:
* Raw materials or components to craft with
* Crafting utilities to overcome complications or improve grade
* Tools proper for the trade, placed in a tool belt
* A workbench proper for the trade (found in cities or dungeons)
2) Set up your table
* A fixed number of raw materials and components are required to start a given recipe at all
* You will be able to bring a limited number of utilities to the table. Eg. oil for finishing woodwork, bandages for helping with injury complications etc.
3) Complete crafting the item (completeness: 100%) while you try to get as high a Grade as possible (graded D through A).
* You have 2000 action points to spend during a crafting process
* The crafting process has 4 stages. In each stage you can take actions that will use up the action points, and either progress the completeness of the current stage, improve the grade of the finished product, or both.
* During the crafting process complications may arise, such as an injury (eg. hammering your finger) or damage to the item (eg. chipped wood). Complications will have negative impact on the progress or the grade or both, or will have your future actions be less effective.
* Complications can be alleviated by doing simple less effective actions (like waiting for the injury to not hurt), or use utilities like bandages to make the complication go away faster.
The mini-game of crafting was something you could get good at as a player (the person, not the in game character) which meant that some people were actually better at this than others, even though they had the same crafting skill on the character sheet.
As mentioned by @ShivaFang elsewhere the crafting/processing times in AoC are there "to preventing the economy from overheating." I would love to see a system that reached the same goal, but with more player interaction, not player patience.
In Vanguard player immersion was high for crafters, as they actually felt they were doing something to produce the item they crafted. It also took some time to complete an item, just like in AoC, but the time was spend crafting, not waiting. This will also help with regards to an overheating economy as more time is spent on the actual crafting step.
My problems with the current system and why the title Crafting is boring
To craft an item (crafting, not processing stations) I show up with the correct ingredients/materials/components and pres a button. Then a progress-bar fills up over the duration of one whole second, and the item is done.
Processing the items needed to craft anything is not something you do, it's something you start... and then wait for a very long time to complete. This is not immersive and I am looking forward to how this part of the game will take shape during the coming years.
Good adventurer = good crafter
If the stats and quality of the crafted items only depends on the rarity of the ingredients, then everything you can achieve in this game depends on how well you (or someone you pay) are at fighting/adventuring:
Fight a dragon -> Gather "Dragons Breath" -> "Craft" flaming sword
Survive a night at a corrupted grave yard -> Gather "Wiggling Bones" -> "Craft" Living Armor
Defeat Giant Tortoise -> Gather it's shield -> "Craft" Shield of Giantness
There is an old video of the crafting system in Vanguard here (skip to 1/3 of the way into the video to get to the good part):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4udzX7PV_YI&t=217s- Jester Lo
2
Comments