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Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Suggestion: mini game for crafter's
azuleslight
Member, Alpha Two
I love the gathering and i also have high hopes for future additions to crafting.
Some suggestions for the mini game is the following:
-Players at every 10 levels gain 1 chance to improve quality of a crafted item. From normal to green: 25% chance. Green to blue: 10%chance. Blue to yellow: 5% chance. Yellow to orange: .75% chance.
-Each level costs materials to fuel the chance. For instance the dust and the green shards as fuel.
-Each level has associated fee's with all crafting. You must use the correct tier work bench to maintain these chances.
*At lower tier crafting table, the improved chances are halved.
*For higher tier workbenches, a slight increase in chances to improve quality.
-A failure can lead to damage ranging from slight to severe all the way up to destruction of the item.
-Require an item be repaired to have a chance to improve quality.
the actual games can vary for each crafter, prosessor.
Some suggestions for the mini game is the following:
-Players at every 10 levels gain 1 chance to improve quality of a crafted item. From normal to green: 25% chance. Green to blue: 10%chance. Blue to yellow: 5% chance. Yellow to orange: .75% chance.
-Each level costs materials to fuel the chance. For instance the dust and the green shards as fuel.
-Each level has associated fee's with all crafting. You must use the correct tier work bench to maintain these chances.
*At lower tier crafting table, the improved chances are halved.
*For higher tier workbenches, a slight increase in chances to improve quality.
-A failure can lead to damage ranging from slight to severe all the way up to destruction of the item.
-Require an item be repaired to have a chance to improve quality.
the actual games can vary for each crafter, prosessor.
1
Comments
Especially the crafting skills itself could benefit from smaller minigames though I can see a world where gathering also has this to make sure that each profession has a distinct feel!
Intrepid failed in gathering information from the community because there's no polls here, were there any polls and voting anywhere at all? If there was any then I missed, I never saw anything like that here
So i am adding to the debate, it doesn't have to be a required mechanic, you can just skip the mini game and craft it without playing. However, you do not gain the bonuses the mini game would give.
I don't get what this means. Can you describe exactly what the differences would/could look like between, say, level 1, level 10, and level 50?
"-Players at every 10 levels gain 1 chance to improve quality of a crafted item. From normal to green: 25% chance. Green to blue: 10%chance. Blue to yellow: 5% chance. Yellow to orange: .75% chance."
the percentage is the chance lets say to move up to the next tier.
Could you point me to a place where I can see the reasons for them being opposed? I totally understand not wanting to a repetitive annoying task. I don't think that's what anyone is asking for here (I'm guessing that'll be the reason they're against it)
Currently everything related to gathering and crafting feels the same. An alchemist is no different from a carpenter. This, to me, is an issue. We do expect this kind of variation in all other aspects of the game. Rangers, for instance, are different from mages; And enemies in the game have different attacks. Why would the professions be any different?
@azuleslight @Syraleaf
I’d go for something more natural, where you get bonuses and traits based on certain conditions while crafting, like the phase of the moon, the stars, being near water or a mountain, or by adding special things to the recipe or using blessings.
You’d have to manage stuff like the fuel for the fire, its temperature, and keeping it going for hours. An NPC would be there hammering the metal for many hours and maybe even days. If anything goes wrong during the process, the NPC would let you know either through a message or in person, and offer you on a quest to grab the right materials or get blessings from a witch or someone. If everything goes right, the gear would get a nice buff.
Quests could be bringing more coal when problems happened with the fire maybe the weather is bad, or bringing a certain type of wood for the fire to increase or decrease heat, or your ore for some reason has some kind of problem and you would have to add more ore of a certain kind to fix mixture, sometimes the quest could be bringing a certain type of blood from a boss, or pay a cleric to come to the forge and chant something for hours.
I would not do mini-games at all, I would make every piece of special equipment be almost like a saga sometimes with multiple quests if you want to go big. If the player does not want to be a dedicated crafter and doesn't even want to do industry, then the player would rely on crafters and the crafters would feel special doing this.
The best crafters would be people who can actually do stuff and not simply be a clicky boy.
I could elaborate such ideas like this, but I am not sure if the player base or Intrepid is interested in this kinda of stuff, the community itself is kinda a drag, sorry.
As I remember, most people had the opinion that it would be fun at first but then the repetition would turn it into just a chore over time, which I totally get it. There's been a few of threads about it and there's quite enough people saying no to this.
I like mini-games, but not in crafting, I would follow a different path which i just discribed in the post above a minute ago.
The ideas you present here are exactly what comes to mind to me when I say "minigames"!!! I think this really is just a language thing. I don't want anyone to have to shake controllers lol ^^ That's totally on me for not making it clearer. This game is played primarily by a more hardcore audience and the 'minigames' should match that style. It's why I mentioned Vintage Story (which I get is niche so you'd be forgiven for not knowing my reference here)
I merely want to make sure that each profession feels different to play as opposed to having all of them being just a "craft item" button like they are right now in their first temp implementation. I don't care much for how they're differentiated, merely that they -do- play out in different ways.
Thank you for your input though! I'm glad to see we have some common ground
TLDR: I think we agree and want the same thing. "Minigames" just sounds wrong. What we really mean is "Effort in-game that's more than pressing a button".
A crafting a job would be an event, and occasionally there could be quests related to that job. These quests would pop up to make sure the crafting is going smoothly, or even to improve it. The player wouldn’t need to be online all the time, but when they log in, there’d be one or two quests about the gear that’s being crafted, and if you don't work on it then your item would be of normal quality
That gear allowed different abilities to be used while crafting.
A crafter could focus on making Quality, or Quantity, or just XP.
They could combo chain abilities that guided the chances of the final outcome by a few percentage points. You could ignore the whole thing, or you could try to min max with the right clothes, tools, food, etc.
The better the gear, the more mistakes could be made, or the longer the chains could be.
This is just an example - but if AoC combat can be as fun as it is, then they can design a crafting "mini-game" to be as fun AND rewarding.
For me, I don't like this aspect of it as much, but it's the direction they seem to be going.
I'm much more used to @Arya_Yeshe's concept of how to handle that (they eventually claimed it was placebo in FF11, but damn what a powerful placebo it was).
I think it's probably best though, since your last line kinda makes the point doubly. I don't like FF14's crafting or AoC's combat, which probably means that the type of person who enjoys one enjoys the other.
I definitely like the idea of 'understanding the conditions around you relative to your input materials when crafting', but I remember feeling like the transition from FF11 crafting to FF14 crafting was a huge disappointment (and that means for someone out there, it was a huge step up, and I'm happy for those people).
I'll do my part as usual by letting Intrepid know how bottable any systems they come up with, are, especially since the Linux community for this game seems to be going strong.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
Lets try a hypothetical.
In AoC, you don't switch Classes, just clothes for passive buffs. So we put on our weaponsmithing apron that gives a bonus to what we want (quality vs quantity vs efficiency).
When we go to the artisan station, we begin to hammer our new sword.
Maybe we have 3 buttons and an Energy bar.
1 - Swing for X Energy for +1 quality
2 - Swing for X Energy for +1 quantity
3 - Swing for X Energy for few materials
That's just a quick and dirty example.
I get the sentiment of this comment but I also feel like I can say the same for combat? Why have rotations if we can just measure my stats and my opponents stats and then instantly conclude the fight. Obviously that sounds stupid but why do we apply this logic to crafting and gathering? Aren't they allowed to be fully fledged gameplay systems too? If the goal is for crafting and gathering to feel like systems that you can really dive into then I think they'll need to have the same amount of depth as the other systems.
I like the basic idea here but I'd love for it to be slightly more involved. An example of this is pottery like seen here:
- There is no measurement of skill
- You cannot do it faster
- Tools do not allow you to change the speed or efficiency of the actions
- The system acts the same way every time you perform the act
I think having those three points addressed would make it more well rounded and allow you to specialize more. I'll also note that I don't think this requires the systems to all be as deep and complex. Valheim, for instance, did a good job making lumber jacking feel fresh / slightly interesting with the falling trees. It just shows how a small change in a system can already give it a lot of personality (which I think is the most important part here. Each profession having some personality)
Finally, I'll note that the current combat system in ashes, in any given pve scenario also fails the second point (and arguably the fourth one too with the exception of some specific enemies) which makes me believe that you'd only need to fix some of the flaws listed above.
I understand this sentiment but how it is meaningfully different from fighting pve monsters? And why can't we expect that level of depth for a system that is supposed to form such a large part of the game?
Not all combat is the same. Dealing with casters, Tanks, every pull is different. State of the group may not be the same. Someone AFK, cleric maybe low on mana. The list goes on and on.
Mini games for crafting do not change and if they do its so little to break the repetition. When you play an MMO for months or even years. Mini games become beyond boring. I have been MMOing for 25 years. I have yet to meet a mini game I wanted to play past a few months of play.
Yeap, thats a good point!
People get mad at mini-games, however they play tasteless pve everyday and such players could be replaced by bots and nobody would be able to tell the difference LMAO
Wel, my idea is on the table, if you are crafting stuff this job should last for hours and along the hours there might be events/quests related to the job and if you want better quality stuff as a result then you should complete the events/quests
Hold on, I don't think anyone is actually arguing against that.
If anything, most of us seem to want that for you.
But the problem is that when you say 'minigames', most people think of simplistic, easily botted stuff that is mostly a timesink.
Truly complicated crafting minigames would be on the tier of medium-skill PvE and would progress upward in difficulty, involving decision making, maybe even teamwork, etc.
We have games that have these types of crafting systems, but I think not everyone calls those 'minigames'.
So, in an effort to shift the thread back, I'll explicitly say:
I agree with your entire first post, but I also know how easy it is to bot certain types of minigames (yes, I'm 100% admitting to doing that, but not for MMORPGs, long story).
So I am only supportive of 'minigames' that are complex enough to not be botted in an hour.
Here is one I like.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
That seems to be the Tact everyone is taking. "it interferes with MY enjoyment, so make it easy". Maybe "mini game" is misleading name, but that is what any system created would be considered. There are games with depths to crafting that are insane and deeply involved(OG starwars, Wurm online, classic WoW, FFXI) . That's what i want for Ashes, A community where crafters can not only play, but thrive. The system i proposed is an example that everyone can get on board.(not hard) Truly though it is not what i actually want, it should take sometimes days to create certain items. Leggo's should NOT be crafted by level 1 crafters. I know Ashes has a long way to go, but it is important to setup early that crafters are to be prized not mocked.
But aside from the above, I am open to having the crafting process be more involved than clicking a button. Like having to make choices during crafting that affects some stats at the cost of other stats (more power over less accuracy etc.), instead of the current way of having fixed stats on gear based on the recipe. Perhaps let us add some elemental damage or mitigation via optional ingredients, at the cost of some other base stats.
In other words, let us tweak the items and make choices in the crafting process. Just no RNG or quick-time events.
I really don't want to see another case of MMORPG crafters' dreams ruined by the 'bottom-up'+'feels-good' design approach.
And since we're already seeing cutbacks in things like the necessity of Artisans, like Gatherers no longer being required to get drops from bosses (a decision that I agree with on its own, but fear the implications of), we have to accept that we no longer know what is important enough to be part of gameplay going forward. I mean that in the sense that we've never tested that, but it's probably not going to be a thing. That's natural for a game this size, but it does reinforce the fact that we could always 'lose' things like that.
There was a largeish shakeup in yesterday's patch, though, @nanfoodle, so hopefully you find the fun in it this time, let us know how it goes.
"For what...?"
"Just about everything, really."
I agree its early on , i just want it understood that crafters and gathering are not a side thing. thats it. i want an immersive full on crafting system in place. so crafters can enjoy the game as much as a PVP or PvE'er. we shall see what happens.
that does seem to be a bit much...but materials make a huge difference as im sure you know.