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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.
What Are Recipes Supposed To Make Us Feel?
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
in Artisanship
Preface
Ashes of Creation Alpha 2 Phase I is not about economy nor crafting.
Minor changes have been made to droprates and I believe minor feedback has been requested on the feeling of it.
My group would like to be able to give feedback with some guidance or at least general concept, in mind.
Some of this will reference other games (Throne and Liberty, Final Fantasy 11, Onigiri, Legend of Mana primarily, maybe Eternal Tombs and Black Desert Online).
Context
We come from games that mostly don't use 'Recipes', but understand that for many people, recipes are part of the 'DNA' of the crafting system of games they enjoy. This post isn't about removing them. See title.
My understanding of the design space of most MMOs is that 'farming' for gear/progression is supposed to be fun, whether crafters are part of the gear acquisition process or not. This isn't something I care about but I know lots of people care.
I understand that this is the reason why Onigiri had no 'crafting from scratch', the weapons would just drop and you'd combine the ones with the Ability/Spells you wanted into your preferred weapon.
Throne and Liberty is the same, but has an economic control system in place involving converting untradeable dropped gear into Lithographs, which I'm considering 'Recipes', but it also has 2 or 3 other similar control systems that I won't go into. They're not intuitive to most people, and they don't feel like crafting. Maybe someday. The result is that you have to RP/imagine quite hard to 'feel' a positivity toward Lithographs (but at least it works in the end). This works because Lithographs don't drop from enemies. Gear drops. Then you 'deconstruct the gear into a schematic', forcing you through the Economic Control points.
I understand why Lithographs do not drop from mobs. Farming and getting a gearpiece you can instantly test/use is more fun for most people. I understand why the FF11 approach of rare materials dropping was simplified, even if I don't like it.
Contrast
In Ashes of Creation, recipes drop from mobs. My understanding is that this is the longterm intent.
In Eternal Tombs, recipes are purchased from NPCs.
After much playing and thinking, and group discussion, we find both of these to feel slightly worse than TL's Lithographs, because whereas TL could feel good with the base expanded upon, neither of the above can follow the same path. It does 'unfortunately' feel better for gear to drop, and then for the 'crafters' to need to break it down and make schematics. If none of it is going to be realistic anyway (consumable recipes, lack of recipes for certain things like Processing), the Recipe/Lithograph that 'feels best' seems to be the one you make yourself.
What are we (my group) missing here?
Non-crafters don't seem to have the same concerns, and that's great. We like that they can get by without learning more systems than they want to (TL is still falling a bit short here but it might improve if they figure out more appropriate 'visualizations' of their Economic Control points).
But, are recipes mostly a 'compromise' for simplicity as seen in TL? Or are we missing something due to either 'not having been conditioned by prior games in the same way' or something else?
Onigiri feels ok because they don't try to make you feel anything remotely like Crafting or control. Choice, and luck. Simple.
FF11 feels good because it goes all in, no recipes as items, you know how to make something, scrape together the materials and make it, good for crafters but there's a lot of gear that just drops whole in that game too (which feels like it would feel bad in Ashes)
BDO feels twisted up because it's just mass production, you don't even craft yourself, just enhance.
TL feels okayish but it mostly is leaning hard on the Econ Design justifications, and honestly most of my group seems to only be happy if they assume it's going to be built upon via material specializations or 'treating Extracts more like materials', and are all hoping it doesn't ditch its focus on this system because it'll eventually end up feeling like BDO.
But Ashes is the only one where you 'fight a mob in hopes it will drop a recipe for something', so far, and somehow, this feels more disconnected than all of the above. Not really 'worse', that would be up to the rest of the design which isn't ready yet. Still, kinda wanna know if to expect more, or if we're just missing something.
As usual, I wanted this post to be short and it isn't. Oh well. Thanks to any that read, double thanks for any responses.
Ashes of Creation Alpha 2 Phase I is not about economy nor crafting.
Minor changes have been made to droprates and I believe minor feedback has been requested on the feeling of it.
My group would like to be able to give feedback with some guidance or at least general concept, in mind.
Some of this will reference other games (Throne and Liberty, Final Fantasy 11, Onigiri, Legend of Mana primarily, maybe Eternal Tombs and Black Desert Online).
Context
We come from games that mostly don't use 'Recipes', but understand that for many people, recipes are part of the 'DNA' of the crafting system of games they enjoy. This post isn't about removing them. See title.
My understanding of the design space of most MMOs is that 'farming' for gear/progression is supposed to be fun, whether crafters are part of the gear acquisition process or not. This isn't something I care about but I know lots of people care.
I understand that this is the reason why Onigiri had no 'crafting from scratch', the weapons would just drop and you'd combine the ones with the Ability/Spells you wanted into your preferred weapon.
Throne and Liberty is the same, but has an economic control system in place involving converting untradeable dropped gear into Lithographs, which I'm considering 'Recipes', but it also has 2 or 3 other similar control systems that I won't go into. They're not intuitive to most people, and they don't feel like crafting. Maybe someday. The result is that you have to RP/imagine quite hard to 'feel' a positivity toward Lithographs (but at least it works in the end). This works because Lithographs don't drop from enemies. Gear drops. Then you 'deconstruct the gear into a schematic', forcing you through the Economic Control points.
I understand why Lithographs do not drop from mobs. Farming and getting a gearpiece you can instantly test/use is more fun for most people. I understand why the FF11 approach of rare materials dropping was simplified, even if I don't like it.
Contrast
In Ashes of Creation, recipes drop from mobs. My understanding is that this is the longterm intent.
In Eternal Tombs, recipes are purchased from NPCs.
After much playing and thinking, and group discussion, we find both of these to feel slightly worse than TL's Lithographs, because whereas TL could feel good with the base expanded upon, neither of the above can follow the same path. It does 'unfortunately' feel better for gear to drop, and then for the 'crafters' to need to break it down and make schematics. If none of it is going to be realistic anyway (consumable recipes, lack of recipes for certain things like Processing), the Recipe/Lithograph that 'feels best' seems to be the one you make yourself.
What are we (my group) missing here?
Non-crafters don't seem to have the same concerns, and that's great. We like that they can get by without learning more systems than they want to (TL is still falling a bit short here but it might improve if they figure out more appropriate 'visualizations' of their Economic Control points).
But, are recipes mostly a 'compromise' for simplicity as seen in TL? Or are we missing something due to either 'not having been conditioned by prior games in the same way' or something else?
Onigiri feels ok because they don't try to make you feel anything remotely like Crafting or control. Choice, and luck. Simple.
FF11 feels good because it goes all in, no recipes as items, you know how to make something, scrape together the materials and make it, good for crafters but there's a lot of gear that just drops whole in that game too (which feels like it would feel bad in Ashes)
BDO feels twisted up because it's just mass production, you don't even craft yourself, just enhance.
TL feels okayish but it mostly is leaning hard on the Econ Design justifications, and honestly most of my group seems to only be happy if they assume it's going to be built upon via material specializations or 'treating Extracts more like materials', and are all hoping it doesn't ditch its focus on this system because it'll eventually end up feeling like BDO.
But Ashes is the only one where you 'fight a mob in hopes it will drop a recipe for something', so far, and somehow, this feels more disconnected than all of the above. Not really 'worse', that would be up to the rest of the design which isn't ready yet. Still, kinda wanna know if to expect more, or if we're just missing something.
As usual, I wanted this post to be short and it isn't. Oh well. Thanks to any that read, double thanks for any responses.
♪ One Gummy Fish, two Gummy Fish, Red Gummy Fish, Blue Gummy Fish ♪
0
Comments
In L2 you'd have player-crafter stalls, so that any player can pay a bit of money to that player and he'd craft the thing you want. And in order for him to craft those thing YOU need to have the full set of items required for the craft (this includes the recipe).
And recipes would usually be one of the last thing you'd get for your craft, because you'd be getting main item mats (pieces of the item) by grinding mobs that drop them (in hopes of them dropping the full item as well) and all the additional base materials you'd either get along your leveling path or buy on the player market.
So, when you'd drop the recipe - for you it'd be almost the same as dropping the item, especially in the case of super rare recipes.
And while L2 still had the culture of "this is our crafter person who's gonna be crafting all the things", any given player would still be his own crafter too, especially if you didn't have a proper guild yet or were playing with a small group of friends who weren't as organized as you.
Here's an example of what it'd look like for the player
This player got (dropped or bought some and has already crafted others) all the items needed for the craft and then went to a player-crafter stall (the orange ones, with purple being the sell and yellow being the buy) to press the "craft" button. L2 also had a super "fun" mechanic of 60% recipes, which meant that you had rng on whether you'd get the item. This is what Steven was referencing when he said "we'll have no rng in crafting in Ashes".
So in terms of items used for this craft of a T5 helmet:
, which involves basic mats that you can start picking up from lvl4 wolves (out of 80 lvls of mobs)
The actions required for all of that were obviously super basic, cause it was just "kill mobs, get loot, press button to change that loot into another item", but I really liked that system and was often both a solo crafter and a guild's crafter.
Ashes adds processing to this and the professions themselves, instead of just farming mobs, so the system is even more complex. But the recipe is the hardest thing to get on that list, other than, obviously, dropping the full item on a tiny 0.04% chance of from a really big boss.
You could have an actual special component item drop instead in any situation where you have a recipe drop, 'saving' on itemization even if you didn't reuse too many of those. So in all cases it is, as you said 'press button to change loot into other item'.
And as noted, I understand that there's a benefit side to this as well, a player who gets a Padded Turban recipe or whatever, instead of a special fabric with an unrelated name, 'understands' better that they got something valuable without having to learn or look up anything (and for some that's important).
But having this happen for every meaningful gear piece is more of a negative for some people I've spoken with. And having it happen inconsistently is 'just annoying' to at least one other. TL 'repurposes' the 'nostalgia' of what you are talking about into Lithographs which serve an Economic Design function, but Ashes is probably going to be a 'Free Trade' game that doesn't need this.
One of the things that will definitely 'hold TL back' in a bit, when it comes to itemization and crafting, if they ever seriously add FF/New World level housing and furniture systems, is that it becomes harder to intertwine the activities and drops properly, and it's going to just feel bad and/or reintroduce the same 'issues' they were avoiding.
And New World's system isn't great either, because you need things like better furnishings to have actual rarer drops involved (check any 'Furnishing Leveling Guide' for that game to see why if you care) or you're not appealing to the Furniture Makers (at least the ones that I know).
So for Ashes, looking at it from the Furniture perspective for a moment, are those going to have Recipes? Are we gonna be going out into the world to kill Minotaurs/Mushrooms to get recipe drops for beds and it not feel weird? Or will they just 'not have them' and either allow you to make the stuff directly, or have to go back to the same 'special material'? (bearing in mind that I'm looking at the benefits of having the same item drop be used for both some midlevel gear/gear repairs, and also used for furnishings or similar).
At that point, why Recipes at all in Ashes of Creation?
We're not at the stage where I 'want to get into discussions of how they should design something' but I should probably provide reasons for any biases I am probably showing.
Recipes aren't Materials, as of now, they don't drop when you die. They're 'a farmable item that is worth something to crafters, but probably don't drop on death'. The more of them there are in the game, the more effect this has.
It's probably 'not time yet' to discuss any aspects of 'can you mail recipes', 'can you stack recipes', etc. I'm just pointing out that they follow different rules than 'rare material drops' at this time, in terms of incentives. So it's hard for me, a person who lacks the nostalgia for them in their L2 form (which is a very weak function even without that), to talk about the effect of them in an unbiased way, especially in a thread about game-feel. I might therefore leave this to group members and hope they don't stir up all the 'it's not important (yet)!' responses I'm usually avoiding.
I personally don't want full item drops to be anywhere near as abundant as they are now, so dropping a recipe for an item is the next best thing to show a player that they've achieved something cool.
I liked L2's design of "everyone's a crafter in a way", while also being way more casual-friendly than your suggestion of dropping a special fabric that you got no clue where to use it. You seemingly want the system to be more hardcorish and more "for the crafters", because knowing all the special drops and their usages is definitely something that all crafters/gatherers should know.
But imo, when a random player loots a "special fabric", they might not even know that it's valuable and might just sell it to the npc vendor. And I'd imagine that you don't want those special mats to be undroppable, so it would just look like a random material. I guess you could give it some precise description or visual hint of "this thing is highly important", but to me that kinda feels forced.
While I have certain experiences, I can appreciate many designs as long as they're cohesive, so honestly, no, I don't actually have much preference here. I'm mentioning this specifically because I would bet that when my group members post, they're going to have even more 'trouble' giving their thoughts in a way that doesn't come off as 'wanting a specific foundation'.
So, to be clear, I like the TL system enough, right now, I don't feel the need for them to drop a fabric, it's just that it has a future failpoint relative to certain goals (simplicity of interaction clashing with economic integration design). If they decide 'we don't need to worry about those goals anymore' (favoring economic integration over simplicity at higher levels of player investment) it'll be fine with me and I don't think my teammates will complain that much either.
The TL system is just the evolution of the L2 system, it takes no practical 'inspiration' from the FF11 one and I don't really think it needs to if it is trying to stay simple for accessibility to new players and to retain that feeling of 'specialization by decision' rather than 'specialization by investment'.
My point is that Ashes 'needs' the 'special fabric' more than TL does, by far, if Recipes don't feel good to people or cause balance issues with incentives, and I'm conveying that Recipes as they're currently installed don't feel good to me/us. We would like to give Intrepid some form of feedback about what small things might make that work better for us, but as you can see, it's quite complex to explain, particularly without 'giving the wrong impression'.
For what it's worth, for Intrepid designers directly, I can give a short version with no filtering below:
I doubt that helps the current discussion, far less 'makes sense' though.
Anyways, since this whole post is just 'hey don't assume we oppose specific parts of your system we just wanna understand and can tell you why X doesn't feel good in a specific implementation', I hope that's enough...
Essentially, recipes add uniqueness to aid with complexity of crafts and scarcity of resources; both being key tenants of AoC's economy.
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