All of the above comments really got me thinking about which crafting systems in all the different MMOs I have played over the years got me interested. One of the things I really liked was the ability to personalize your crafted item. It didn't have to be a trait that made it personal, but rather a color scheme or perhaps a design flair, something that help identify on sight that which you made. I am not sure they is a way around grinding, even as much as I dislike it, although SWTOR's ability to send "helpers' on missions while you did something else was cool Black Desert Online's worker system is cool too, although overall that game can get highly complex. I understand the desire to have crafters make a choice to focus, and then have that focus choice remove options, but my problem with this is that it can lock a person in too early with no easy way out other then to start from scratch and create another crafter to pursue a different specialization. I also liked ESO system, although inventory management, particularly at the beginning is tough.
I really enjoy mini-game craft systems, something that actually does demand a modicum of attention and a chance to be genuinely skillful in a craft.
Most games have crafting just be “have item, hit button”, which is unrewarding and completely sucks the joy out of any title of “master <whatever>” when it’s legit just a time and money sink.
Some interdependency is good, but not to the extent of FFXIV where you’re all but required to grind out every craft tree due to needing tools from 3+ trees in order to level your own and having to replace 3+ trees of tools once you level up once or twice.
In general I enjoy crafting when it rewards the whole of the character, not just as an economic route. My engineers in WoW were brutal PvPers because I was well-supplied with gadgets, grenades, and other powerful items that required engineering to even use, so that was a big success in terms of crafting as a character advantage and to provide useful gear to others. Likewise with D&D and other TTRPGs, the ability to know how a certain material or mechanism work from having experience with them would often be critical to overcoming anything from a complex trap to finding the critical vulnerability in an enemy's gear or domain. A lumberjack having increase skill with an axe from years of striking one against hard trees, a blacksmith having increase precision on stationary targets or how to build an extremely hot fire, an alchemist who has been exposed to enough chemicals to resist the effects or identify them with sight or smell, etc.
For crafting mechanics, I liked the minigame system of Vanguard, since every item required effort and awareness, and would produce different results based on materials and techniques. I've recently played a game where you can choose the tiers and varieties of materials used to craft an item, and the results fall within a quality range, as well as having chances for good variations or variations you've used items to define. This takes out the minigame of Vanguard but still allows for materials and methods to be specified towards a certain intended outcome.
For extreme material specificity, SWG had a great method with the procedural materials that could only be harvested for a limited time, then never appear again. Top-tier crafters would have massive caches of powerful materials that they would slowly use up as they make the most powerful items in the game. One friend told me the story of how he made top-tier grenades just once, because outside his home there was a world-shaking grenade war as both factions were vying for access to the vendor and duking it out to prevent others from getting the goods. Edge of Space used a similar system, though the randomized material was something the player would synthesize and get by luck, but they'd only get as large a stack of that material as they put resources into making in that one shot, so it rewarded players for making the biggest stacks of materials at a time in order to have a lot of that same material to work with.
Economically, scroll crafting in D&D is big money. A homebrew campaign I've been playing in for the past couple years has mandatory one-week downtimes between missions, which allowed me to go from crafting a few small scrolls for simple income, all the way up to scrolls that take the whole damn week but pay out extremely well, and have let me upgrade our infrastructure faster than any other method of crafting or mission gameplay rewards.
Back when the MyDream sandbox was in development, I designed a complete overhaul to the crafting and abilities system, where each component had modifiers that would add or subtract from the item's power level in each of the attributes, and control the selection of abilities that would be generated alongside them, then finally rebalance all the attributes based on the item's total power level, such that all items were extremely balanced relative to their power level, but there was some millions of combinations players could try to invent the sort of weapon, shields, and mobility systems that fit their style. Since I was limited to raw terrain materials and material-specific building components, you'd be using those as the materials for the crafting system, like a wooden cylinder or a green glass cube, which prevented the need to make crafting-only materials. If you knew a recipe, you could always create the exact same product, plus or minus attribute averaging for your crafting level. This was unfortunately never implemented.
I wrote documents on these back in the EQN/Landmark era detailing the concept of upgrading and evolving signature weapons throughout a player's lifespan, rather than changing to the next best piece of gear that fits the level requirements and intended build. The closest to this are games like 3089 where the player can swap parts of their equipment with parts within +/- 1 level of the other parts, so you slowly upgrade gear that you like over time instead of just moving to the next biggest piece of gear you find--though that was still an option since venturing a few levels out of your comfort zone could produce pre-built items that are a few levels higher than your current gear and outright replace it.
While I never took the time to fully research and experiment with it, the potion crafting in the later Might & Magic series, and the Elder Scrolls series, was always something I enjoyed. MM6 and beyond allowed for mixing potions to get new ones, and some had recipes where certain swirling bicolored potions could be mixed to get giant permanent attribute buffs--though some reduce the opposing attribute by half the increase value, so players would need to have characters quaff all 6 to not be at a disadvantage from the process.
ESO has a great crafting system that is sadly marred by the artificial time gating that they use to try to get players to buy their “pay for convenience” research scrolls. So plz plz plz no time gating.
"Everything in the game is made by the hands of the players" is a very bold statement. The same is written in EVE, where I myself flew on a mining barge. Here, such a scale of production can be implemented differently.
Let's take a bigger look, from our personal armor and potions to ships and castles. Since the first post featured L2 and her blacksmiths with their wonderful siege golems.
Who played Newerwhinter 2 remember the Fortress at the crossroads and how it was improved. We found the source of the ore, found a brigade of miners who mined it and then could improve the armor for the guards of our fortress. A similar mechanic of "companions" is present in the SWTOR already mentioned here, where we operate with satellites and a ship, and Newerwhinter Online, where the workshop is subordinate to the character.
Suppose a character with a specialization in geology, logging or herbalism finds a certain source of resource from which he can get a little for personal needs and in the future "send" to the development of the artel of miners, foresters, in general, who is needed for industrial procurement. The action is one-time and then you need to look for the next one.
In LostArk, we collected stone and wood, and from them we ordered improvements and decorations from the NPC for the estate donated by the king. It is more logical, in my opinion, on the contrary, from the "industrial resources" of the example above to make improvements for the guild castle or the node that we want to develop.
For the city guards, helping to fend off attacks from other players or monsters, you can come up with a number of improvements. They need to improve their armor (heavy, light, cloth), weapons, provide them with mounts, potions, feed them corny and pay a salary! For which they improve their quality. How many professions of the population of the node are involved in order to prevent neighbors from destroying it.
If the creators introduce professions like a fortifier into the game, my dwarf will put aside the blacksmith's hammer and sit down at the drawing table. Hello siege weapons and fortress dungeons.
I also think, that the most Powerfull items in all cases have to be crafted by the playerbase. The Blacksmith from L2 is a very good example for that.
But i think it depends on what kind of gear u want to drop by Raids and Bossfights. In this case, the most stuff a Player can get from fighting bosses are the rares materials for crafting the most powerfull gear by special players.
Otherwise the bosses have to drop only one special fullgear drop, something like a special necklace for example but no more gear.
A system where late game artisan is actually equal or even stronger than end game gear and where mastering one artisan category takes actual skill and time.
We'll be getting recipes from drops, quests, achievements and so on. What I want to see in an MMORPG is research to improve those recipes once learnt. All recipes, including parts like hilts and such, should be able to be researched for a cost in both time and resources.
Eve Online has research of blueprints to improve manufacturing time or material cost. I definitely want both of those, but I would also like research to improve quality and stat quantity/potential of the finished product. Like in Eve Online, it should be possible to keep researching the same thing over and over with diminishing returns and increase in research time and cost.
For example, a weaponsmith can make a standard sword with base damage of 100 and +10 to whatever stat the customer wants, for a cost of 100 iron ingots. Those numbers can be researched over time, and in increments, to be 120 damage and +12 to a stat, for 80 iron ingots. I think researching for better stats should automatically increase material and time cost, so they need to be researched down, especially for items requiring rare components.
A system like this lets crafters specialize, so no two weaponsmiths are likely to be completely the same. One might be really good at making endgame swords, and another makes some killer spears.
I'll just throw my hat in for Ultima Online, which was the last time I thought a crafting system was done incredibly well - and was actually worthwhile, immersive, and worthy of it's own focus as a mechanic in a game, rather than just an auxiliary bonus. The problem is that what made the crafting the best to me - was how it fit into the game world itself. The game world was large, and had lots of space - so player housing was actually in the game itself, not in an instance, you could essentially drop a house in the game world. This created a real estate market, houses were completely customizable, houses had an a plethora of decorative items you could place in them - either from crafting(carpentry), or from items in the game world. People were able to take that sandbox approach and make all sorts of things decoratively, or in the interest of utility.
One house a player had, was essentially a library of teleportation spots to the various locations in the game world, all categorized/labeled for ease, so people would essentially go visit his house for all sorts of reasons, and to travel to various other places, only possible because of the spells and items in the game that existed, runes - books - the ability to mark runes at locations, and the ability to travel to targeted runes or open gates to said runes. Which in and of itself turned what was simply a normal class skill into effectively a trade skill, simply through the available depth. Carpentry - was designed pretty much to make items for housing, utility, or decorative, it was in my view an awesome way to have an aesthetically oriented trade skill and have it be meaningful. There are more modern games that have had -chances- at something like this, but really missed the mark. Best example of late is World of Warcraft, there were points where inscription would change the appearance of a spell, or augment it in certain ways, that was an amazing thing they really should have delved into deeper in my view, and a large missed opportunity, for either - rare inscriptions(or glyphs) obtained through content and aptitude, or pvp - to make your character stand out, which is increasingly harder when everyone is homogenized via the transmog system(something I never would have implemented personally).
Other reasons trade skills were highly involved and important are because the majority of the BEST gear, was craftable in UO, via either Blacksmithing, or Leatherworking, and due to the nature of the PVP system, and full player looting(prior to insurance), it was important for your gear to be replaceable, but you still cared about having good gear. The entire UO economy was player driven, there was no centralized auction house, and players would set up vendors near cities(in their houses they built), and they could put whatever items, and price point they wanted on said vendor. "Quality of life" (auction houses) doesn't translate to immersion, or quality of game in my opinion, having experienced other systems.
To the above point specifically about trade skills to keep it on topic - the best gear was craftable, and this was done through runic sewing kits, or runic hammers which were generally obtained through completing bulk order deeds in cities, acquiring them from - and then completing them at NPC's, IE take your basic in game resources, craft 100 swords, deliver it to an npc, get a runic hammer, be able to make highly modified items(top tier stuff), this was a very involved, and enjoyable system in my view. Not to be confused with the standard asian model of hey, want a +15 item? buy 50 hammers from our item shop to guarantee you can upgrade your item.
There were a lot of things that conspired to make UO's trade skills - amazing, and they were woven into the game very well, these things likely might not be able to work in games that aren't set up in the same fashion. For instance, I'm skeptical that any mmorpg will ever have non instanced player housing, because it's all about "efficiency" and space, and who wants to sit there and design a fleshed out game world with extra space to populate with real estate, and I imagine thoughts of "but there will be too many players, and not enough space, or that will take up too much time, or let's just put in - instanced housing(and most don't even do this in the present lineup), that's great, but there's one less feature, and significantly less immersion.
In any event UO has my vote for favorite trade skills/implementation, and perhaps an honorable mention to EQ2, and WoW in wrath and older content(as the bare minimum acceptable), meaning lots of things to farm in the open world, reasons to do so, highly valued recipes, many reputation gated recipes that were integral to various people for various reasons, meaningful upgrades to craft along the way, and lots of provided utility etc. Modern WoW, trade skills are trash, let's be real, they've abandoned everything but m+ and raiding.
I feel like it would be pretty immersive to include some risk to crafting and means to minimize it - taking an example from real life, if you dont change your quenching oil or use one that is suboptimal then your blade can end up overly brittle or too soft (or crack, making the blade useless).
Moreover i think crafting should be a bit more complex then just clicking 'craft' and waiting 5 seconds, since some things could require more then one skill to complete - taking a sword as an example - blade, guard and pommel would certainly require metalworking, while the handle, being most likely from wood, would require woodworking. It could also be resolved in a different way - by having some sort of interaction with the proccess of crafting - it could be simple and not very hard, like moving weapon's blade across a grinding wheel to sharpen it, or pouring metal into a mould to cast jewelry.
SWG crafting was exceptional and the most fun I've had. They basically made the economy including player driven microeconomies. Especially when player cities came into play. Crafters made entire cities and damn near everything you used. Eve is very similar in this regard but i find Eve to be very convoluted with so many options to craft its a very high skill and knowledge gap detracting casuals from participating. I also enjoyed FFXI and FF14 crafting. XI was tedious as hell but extremely rewarding if you got it high. FF14 like XI does a great job of interweaving professions but the economy no longer supports crafting much in FF14 till the end game so its mostly a rush to cap your professions instead of enjoying the leveling and earning your chops. Earlier in FF14 life it was better but many people didn't do it because it wasn't accessible like a WOW crafting system. WoW classic crafting and TBC was kinda fun but after that it was pointless.
For Ashes i hope for a system that is the lifeblood of the world. Items and gear are made and not always given. What's given mostly is materials that crafters are hired to produce goods from like in RL. Nodes should require resources from gatherers to build, and buildings should need a builder profession to construct. If I kill a bear, a bear will never ever drop a sword unless it ate a traveler with a sword whole. It should drop meat, a hide if you can get it, bones etc...A special dragon kill could drop its hide which could craft legendary leather gear, maybe some teeth for necklaces and maybe a ruby in the stomach which you can get creative what it might make once its returned to town.
I played ESO, Albion, and briefly Eve, I think there are very good elements to pick up from the crafting systems, in these games.
However, the crafting system I dream of is a crafting system that allows artisans to highly customize the items they craft. I came to hate systems with very rigid blueprints/recipes that require a long list of components.
I'd love a more "modular" approach. Let's say you make a sword, first, you select its appearance (skin, color), level and quality, that would require specific materials, in a specific quantity, then you want it to increase some specific stats, so you can use specific materials, or maybe a different crafting technique, to get these different effects. And lastly, if you want your item to be part of a set (with set effects), you need to add specific components as well, that could originate from loot. These steps could maybe even be made separately, with a useable item at the end of each. A standard sword, a sharpened sword, an enchanted sword.
I want crafting to encourage creativity, and feel rewarding, being more experienced should allow you to make the same items, but with progressively higher stats.
And lastly, this goes a bit without saying, but we need a system for buyers to safely provide materials to a crafter when they make a commission, so they get their crafts for money without ever letting the materials in the crafter's inventory.
Crafting should be a gameplay style that should feel rewarding and require commitment, it shouldn't be something you HAVE to do, and it should almost always yield better results to let someone with more experience do your crafting for you.
I'm one of the players who is looking forward to the crafting mechanic in any game I play. I have always enjoyed the satisfaction you have when you are finally able to craft the gear you've spent many hours of game time preparing to make. What I believe disappoints me with MMOs now is the amount of RNG or the fact that there is no actual fleshed-out crafting mechanic.
For example, BDO has a "crafting system but with all the ways for you to improve the weapons and the amount of RNG involved I would rather not even bother making it myself at later points in the game since I was strictly free to play player. And then in other games where the crafting system is useless since the items you craft are not and will never be as good as items dropped by mobs, which is something I'm glad Ashes plans to not have happen, you plan to make items have a 1:1 ratio in a sense where they still have a purpose even in the late game. I hope you will also keep RNG out of the process as well since I'm not going to a casino, I'm trying to make a sword to further progress not only myself but hopefully someone who I could then sell it to for in-game money and have crafting be a viable way to make items but also gold to make a real economy in the game.
Another thing I hope gets added is a way to customize the stats a weapon, armor, or gathering tool could have that way its not just cookie-cutter items that get sold to the lowest bidder for instance BDO's auction site. I always felt as though items that are the same no matter what always took away the joy in making something mine like yes you may have an iron sword too it may look the same but mine is heavier and swings slower but also has higher penetration and damage (to an extent) to make it seem like I made something unique. This could in turn require extra/fewer materials to have for instance a pool of points that could be allocated to certain areas of the item. A game that a similar mechanic was Mortal Online which the game did have problems but I found its crafting system to be very innovative and new something that I very much enjoyed messing around with my friends with and make some very odd items.
In the end, I just want a crafting system that makes me feel like the time I sunk into it was worth it and not a waste of time and effort. I know some of this won't be in it and I'm ok with that I'm not expecting this game to be perfect with me there are hundreds of thousands of other players that are looking forward to the release of this game and they have their thoughts and feeling in how this game will work for them including you guys making this game. I just hope that it does not feel like I just took a trip to Vegas every time want to sharpen my sword or upgrade it and that it is not only fair to the adventurers but also us crafters and that we will have a place in the game right next to them. Anyways thanks for reading and thank you for asking for what we want and what we think about the game it is a very interesting feeling for me to feel involved in the development of a game no matter if you read this or not.
I would like crafters to interact with eachother more
Like you need to bring your item to another specific crafter to make items
Maybe even for more rare items two or more crafters needs to work together at the same time to make an item.
Or if you have "apprentices" they can help you turn the item while you use your hammer.
I dont want the "make the item" part to easy either. LIke, i have my 10 boar pelts and threads, open up a window saying "craft cloak" then press craft and "poff" i have my cloak.
Albion online have great crafting features, One that i love is, every drop in the world (dungeons , Mobs, raids, hellgates chests) is crafted by players and come with they name on the item.
These are items that people Lost to the world when they die, or other way is sell to an NPC, black market that pay alot for a type of item that the world is in need
The best think to do if you are looking to good crafting is looking for sandbox and pvp/pvx MMORPG like Albion , MO, Eve
Make world, raid and other pve drops be good in general.
But have crafted gear be able to specialize. Like if I have a problem with earth elementals in my part of the world I want some sort of dwarven mining pick or hammer that ignores their high natural armor.
Or say there is fire elementals, I want a special fan-like weapon that can easily be enchanted to draw air away from them to cause them to run out of oxygen then snuff out.
So normal world drops can be very generally useful, and while you can do the same with crafted gear it has the advantage of being something you can specialize and sell in a specific market.
On top of that make legendries you craft competitive but require lots of specific materials that might drop from the world or raids/dungeons etc. Don't let crafted stuff suck or be catch-up gear like WoW.
- From FFXIV, l liked the way that the crafting was its on class and had its own related abilites/crafting game. I also like how even the looted/crafter materials had a chance to be higher quality so you would save them for more valuable crafts. Dismantling/Disenchanting and Gem socketing also felt very appealing and made the gear feel more customisable.
- From WoW l mostly liked Engineering (especially Gnomish), which lets you create your own utility items for rare/common situations and that they always had a chance to fail. I wish Ashes will have something similar other than just alchemy and siege weaponry.
- Crafting leveling and recipe gathering should be slow enough for it to not be streamlined, but also for the crafted items to actually be worth crafting by the time you actually start doing it, instead of being tossed in to the trash.
- It would be interesting if every crafter of the same profession would have some variation/randomisation on the first/same tier items, they could create/unlock, unlike in WoW every leatherworker can learn all of the basic recipes from the trainer and FFXIV all recipes are already handed to you, but they are locked behind level requirement. In this case maybe giving crafters ability to teach each other their recipes with a lot of time, commitment and recourses.
Interaction with crafting system in all games, I personally find myself disheartened to create crafted items since in most cases the item is suboptimal to what you can get from random drops, looting mobs, or quest rewards.
Ashes being a game where most gear is crafted, I would like to see above all else reusability with recipes and materials. Crafters might be able to take an old recipe and with higher grade materials craft a scaled up Yeti Armor or a particular potion could use the base materials of the potion and add an effect or additional healing with other materials added in.
Ashes of creation with a focus on crafted gear, should have an equally in-depth system for crafting. I'm not clever enough to know if its possible but this is what makes or breaks ashes for me.
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I loved the Vanguard crafting: Rather than being a single progress bar, it became a more involved minigame.
Almost all other mmo crafting systems have been a boring progress bar, and I hope ashes doesn't take the boring route.
I have played quite a few different MMOs. Across them all, I would highlight crafting system in Lineage 2(maybe until Freya update, or something like that. Its been awhile). L2's crafting system might seem to be simple, but it is a core game mechanic.
If you as a player would want to progress far, at very least, to be able to equip you main character so you can join decent parties/clans and enjoy the end game, you have to have an artisan character(further crafter) and a few(yes, a few) scavengers.
The way this system works is that the crafter can craft items by reading the recipes. The recipes can be stored in crafter's recipe book. That recipe book can only store a limited amount of recipes. So, there will be times when you would have to decide which recipes to delete in order to get new ones in. When you craft an item, you read the recipe of your recipe book. If you have the necessary materials in quantities it requires, you may craft that item. Starting from certain grade, crafting armor and weapons would also require a copy of the same recipe to be used during a creation. For example, in your book, you have a recipe for a Grade B sword that you want to craft. That means that to create that sword, you need all the materials/parts the recipe requires along with a copy of the same recipe, which will disappear once you have used it, just like all the items needed for the sword. The higher the grade is, the harder it is to craft(duh!). The high end gear recipes are only 60%(weapons/armors) and 70%(jewelry) chance of successful craft. So you to craft a single item of a 5-6 piece armor set, you would it that 60% recipe learned, a ton of parts/materials that takes a lot of time to gather and a lot of money to buy, and a copy of the same 60% recipe. And guess what, there is a 40% chance that when you hit that create button, it will fails. When it fails you loose ALL the materials and the copy of the recipe. Crafters can also let other players use their recipe book in exchange for money as well. For example, any non-crafter class can gather/buy all necessary materials and recipes and use any crafters book that has that recipe learned to craft that item. That is just a basic idea of the crafter class in L2.
What does the scavenger do? Scavengers are the one who get all those necessary materials for crafting. Yes, you can get the materials by just looting mobs using any class. However, scavengers are able to access "alternative" loot. Most monsters have "alternative" loot which can only be harvested by a scavenger. Alternative loot give scavengers materials in bigger amounts that they would ever drop as regular loot. Some equipment recipes can only be gathered by scavengers. Some materials can only be scavenged at certain levels. That is why earlier I said you have to have a few scavengers, at different levels.
So, both classes practically make money from nothing. It is not easy at all. It is a Korean game, so gathering any materials is a "grind fest". For example, when Icarus weapons were just introduced, I wanted to craft the bow for my main character. Long story short, it took me a few weeks to get 18 pieces of that bow needed to craft it. That includes both, me grinding the mobs and trying to buy the pieces on the market at the same time. The recipe was only 60%. Luckily for me, it crafted successfully, but you can imagine how you would feel when you press that button, and how much more special that piece of gear feels.
Crafting in L2 is very important and big. The biggest reason is that it is pretty much the only way of getting good equipment until you get into the decent clans. The way NCsoft made it is that the high end equipment only drops from raid bosses and epic bosses, which require anywhere from a group of people to hundreds of people. However, you can get 60%-70% recipes for the most of that high end gear with scavengers and quests, which means that the crafter can craft it
What if you would look into a crafting system as this one and maybe, add higher stats to items that are crafted vs looted(for the exception of epic/legendary/super high end stuff). I feel like most of the MMOs completely leave crafting system undeveloped. It is just experience meter. Most of the gear is rather easy to obtain in most of the games, and crafters are not even used.
Specifically when it comes to time spent crafting, it depends on a few factors. I have spent from almost no time (10%) to almost all the time (90%) depending on the MMORPG.
The first factor is how engaging the system is, and how much time it takes to master. Does it actually require knowledge and being able to master complexity and depth? If you can just buy a bunch of materials for money and grind to max level in a few days, I consider the crafting system worthless and broken. I prefer if mastery of a craft takes many months or a year. As someone else said, please make the crafting system for the crafters.
Second factor is how valuable crafting is. It sounds like Ashes is on the right track in terms of importance. However, I am not a huge fan of any system where the only truly top end gear, or the crafting materials for it, is locked behind raid content. I think you need to let artisans make comparable gear without raid loot. Make it difficult, with super rare mats from gatherers that only the best processors can handle, who in turn can have master crafters make the final items. But, IMO, we absolutely need a more crafter-centric way to make top-end gear instead of only from raiding.
Third factor is how good the vendor/shop system is going to be. If I put in the effort, is there going to be fun/good way to sell my products to other players, where the effort is actually rewarded? I would like to be able to make small custom details, so players come directly to me to get their gear crafted with custom inscriptions or item names and such on the tooltip, for example.
Crafting systems in manga, light novels, manga, and manhwa are a good basis. have NPC shops be limited and cap out with player-based craft over taking NPCs slowly. A way for players to request new crafted gear and weapons or get their current gear/weapons upgraded/enhanced by crafting-focused players, it can be paid for with currency, or the player can collect/buy the material and bring them to the crafter or even find special custom designs for gear/weapons and bring them to a crafter to learn then make. the systems in manga/lightnovels like overgeared and the legendary moonlight sculptor are really good.
People who love crafting should be able to do so as long as they like without any restrictions like labour points for example.
To make crafting a fullfilling experience there should be a production process with a number of steps that have to be done in order to finish an item instead of just klicking one button. It would be great if this is combined with the possibility of various problems occurring during the process that have to be solved and the qualitiy of the finished item depends on how well the crafter fixed the issue.
As Nerror mentioned earlier, it's not a good idea to lock top end gear, or the crafting materials for it, behind raid content. The result would be that only crafters of large raiding guilds were able to produce those itms.
Nerror made a good suggestion with implementing crafting receipts that require super rare materials from the gatherers.
Alternatively crafting receipts for top end gear could require rare materials that can't be gathered instead they only proc with an extremely low chance when a crafter finishes a rare product. As a result only the most dedicated crafters would be able to produce top end gear.
The best crafting experience I had so far was in Vanguard SoH which had a minigame for the crafting process.
На мой взгляд ремесло должно стать частью игры и прогресса в игре, как при прокачке так и после на максимальном уровне. Каждое ремесло должно иметь ценность в игре, давать какое-то преимущество, как экономическом плане так и в игровом плане. Еще не плохо что бы каждое ремесло улучшало самого персонажа или открывал ему новые навыки как в анимэ Мастера меча онлайн. Состовлять комбо с классом и ремеслом. Так же придерживаться баланса ресурсов на добычу для крафта.
In regards to crafting, I will say that it definitely should feel meaningful. If I work hard to create armor or weapons, I definitely want it to feel like I accomplished something great. Crafting for people, like me, that love crafting should have meaning and give us that sense of accomplishment. Regarding the system of crafting in Ashes of Creation, I will say I think it has some great potential. Although I feel maybe other people can give proper opinions as to what the crafting system in ashes should or should not have.
I do have a question that I have been curious about since I had recently watched old dev discussions from back in 2017. In one of those discussions, I remember that crafting was asked about. The question was about if crafters can influence how their crafted items can look. I remember Steven had talked about looking into the possibility of having an Item Creation Suite, something akin to a character creations suite but for crafters to use. I wanted to ask about your research into this and if you feel it is possible to implement an idea like this into the game? I do have a creative mind, many people who are crafters likely have this, and I feel it would be incredible to actually determine what I am going to build whether my weapon will have features that make it seem 'demonic or 'holy' or 'mythical'. Personally, I just do not feel like I can agree with crafting items that are already set in a certain way in terms of both capabilities and looks. I am in complete agreement with the crafting system that allows us to influence the skills and abilities a weapon can have to make it more physical or magical. The one thing I want, if it is possible, is a system that can allow for the artistic crafters to bring their imaginations to life in this world where our actions shape it.
I find crafting to be one of the most fun things to do, even in games where the crafting is subjectively speaking poorly designed.
I think there are a lot of missed opportunities in crafting in MMOs. The reasons for this are understandable, and primarily stem from crafting being a afterthought and being a side system rather than a core game element. But I think you would win a lot of loyal crafters by making the crafting have a depth that supports a full time play style. To do that I have some suggestions:
- Have legendary items be difficult to make through genuine challenge and time investment. I recently invested a lot of time in crafting a item in Runescape called the Brooch of the Gods, which required me to collect a large amount of materials from several types of content in the game including puzzles, regular gathering, salvage and also required high levels in order to qualify to craft the item (took me around a few months of play to get everything I needed). I don't even really think this level of commitment even necessitates having high "stats" necessarily, unique abilities for utility and perks are also a good (and perhaps better) reward for that sort of time investment as long as that perk or a functionally similar ability isn't invalidated by an easier to craft or obtain item. For me making an item that is rare because it's extremely difficult is very rewarding and I think from the other side that content is also interesting, many players in runescape buy that same item from other people who invest the time to make it so by that point it is optional... if you would rather shell out the cash. Ultimately I think an item you pour sweat and blood into little by little is more compelling to me than a lucky rare drop (although there is a place for both really, maybe even in the same item).
- Make high quality and legendary items unique. I really like the idea of being able to build a reputation as a well respected crafter in my chosen profession, some ways of doing this are having items tagged with the username of their creator, a maker's mark, and/or named items. Being able to have player owned shops will also aid in this but much like a celebrity gets asked who they are wearing, I want high level players to be asked who made their equipment. Not that every item requires this, a common iron sword largely interchangeable with another but that's very different than an Excalibur or Dyrnwyn. I understand is if this is not feasible but I think you should at least consider it for rare legendary items.
-Make some items require multiple players across more than one profession. Crafters in real life often have to collaborate and requiring multiple players working together on certain components is a great way to foster the interaction that's important part of what makes a MMO live up to it's name and potential as a collaborative experience.
-Stick to your guns on your plans for not having a universal server wide auction house. When anyone can buy from anyone easily the market is controlled by few people. If you have regional market it gives an opportunity for new and low level players to provide utility to the out of the way areas that aren't worth the big guys' time.
-Recipes are an excellent reward for a quest or other content, and make some of them so rare that the average player won't even hear about them except in whispers. Collecting recipes is a pastime with a grand history.
-Vary the difficulty of your content. I think some content should be hard and require your whole attention and some should be easy and relaxing. These content types should be different and have different rewards and benefits but having both means that you can set your own pace and suit the day's play to your mood. Crafting that mega sword vs sitting down by the fireside to knit a pair of socks.
-Some people like repetitive crafting mechanics. A lot of people complain about the grind but other people find it meditative. You don't have to have repetitive mechanics but I think there is a place for them as long as it's thematically appropriate for the action to be repetitive.
Thanks for taking the time to read my suggestions and I also want to say I am greatly heartened and excited by the general design philosophy of the team regarding crafting, and I'm excited to see how it develops and provide more feedback as I follow that progress.
I have never really been doing much crafting unless it was for a specific item that was required.
All crafting systems i've encounterd have always been boring and more or less compleatly useless. Why spend 1h to get a cool sword that gets replaced 30 minutes in to leveling?
Collect x resource, y resource and merge them. Here you go, sword for you.
Not really that fun in my opinion.
So i have been following the progress of AoC for a while now, without a forum account, and I am really looking forward on playing the game so far, eitger way i made an account just to add my 0.02 to the discussion, wich i have a keen interest on.
Crafting really needs to be something special, not just another thing to do on the side, it needs to be engaging, interesting, and actually require some skill, not rng.
Sure, a some of the PvE/PvP exclusive players may find it boring or less interesting, but so will some crafters find PvE/PvP content, but this is, in the end, better for everyone. Crafters get to deticate their time solely too crafting if they so wish, (if they get an interesting and intricate crafting experience), and PvE/PvP players can stay deticated to their part, knowing that they won't have to bother with crafting, because their friend/ trusted craftsman/ guild member will fix the equipment or make a them something useful out of the new materials they got!
For example, imagine a eurotrack simultator, in wich you dont get to drive around from one point to another yourself, but you simply teleport/fast travel to your destination, NOBODY would play that game, and in my opinion, simplifying crafting to the experience we bave gotten from MMOs up untill now has been exactly that.
A craftsman should feel like they are part of the game, they should feel like they are smithing a sword, they should feel like they are making a potion or poison, they should feel like they are enchanting a set of armour, they should feel defeat, not because RNG-esus deemed so, not because they got wiped out on a raid, but because they lacked knowledge, skill or experience and wasted some valuable ingredients, and equally feel accomplished after making some killer equipment, potion, enchantment or ship!
Craftsmen should be abel to get famous on their node, the surrounding nodes and even the whole server, having a behind the scenes vs match with another crafter on who is going to be considered more successful etc etc
Crafting should actually make people feel accomplished, if every single person is able to craft, maintaining a deticated crafting community in the game will be impossible, and there exist a lot of people that are hoping to be part of a community like that.
Some other tidbits that i would like too see:
Basically people should be able too use anything as a crafting material, and the properties should matter eg you managed to get your hands on some high grade fire resistant metal, you can't just heat and reshape it with a normal furnace, you need some rare powder that makes flames stronger, you have to shape it with the help of a dragon, go too a volcano, get help from a mage to cast high grade magic etc etc
Or maybe you make some equipment from moonstone, crafting it in different phases of the moon gives a different final product.
Rarity should matter, if you see everybody running around with high level equipment it pretty much gets de-valued in the eyes of the player, AND the maker, having a high grade sword should actually feel like it, and even if somebody manages to get his hands on high level equipment, does he have the connections/funds/backing to maintain and repair it? Going from a common to a rare sword should be a big deal, common equipment shouldn't be trash, but, exactly as the name states, it should be common
Craftsmen should be able to make things to their liking, eg a blacksmith designing/choosing the look of the sword they would make and how that would change its properties.
People should be able to experiment with different level of success, get some basic knowledge from easy to find books, to gather and find various neat information scattered from other players,npc craftsmen, even up too old books from a dungeon/raid boss!
Sorry if the write up was a bit messy, but this were the things i have been hoping to see in a mmo for years now and i really do think the team can pull it off!
Either way thanks for all the amazing work you guys have done, and continue too do, I am looking forward too the game, especially the crafting system!
Small edit:
If a crafter wants to do something obscure he should be able to do it, eg someone comissions a sword with a summoning stone in the guard or pommel because he is playing a summoning swordsman or something obscure, i should be able to do it. Another thing, in alchemy, controlling the heat, the way they an alchemist extracts the ingredient, the order in wich the ingredients are placed in the cauldron and how many times it needs to be steered would all be critical for the correct potion, kinda like alchemy in old poterrmore but more advanced lmao
Also, as another commenter mentioned, i also think that a server wide auction would be a bad idea, going through a lot of different auctions in different nodes and towns searching for an ingredient, finding a good deal or getting lucky snd finding a good item should also be a part of it, crafters should be able to sell their items (especially really good ones, as they would likely fetch a higher rpice) in auctions with a commission fee or something similar.
flavour texts getting added depending on the actions of the player holding the item, would make for unique player driven stories
"Balancing" the materials of a sword, rg using a lighter metal for a larger sword too raise the attack speed, or mixing two different metals so that you negate a negative effect from one of them.
Hi... it would be very practical and motivating to have a BIG Box in every City which we can can store all Crafting Materials. 300 slots extendable. And during crafting the mats should automatic be used from this Box. BUT the content of the Box should be fixed t o the City / Node and not transferable to another City / Node. So the player has a further binding to this node and crafting will be comfortable and motivated, a basic of every MMORPG !
This is a two part answer, and sorry if it´s a bit lengthy.
1: Systems with value.
Personally, to this day and being a gamer since the the early 80´s, the systems of crafting in my book worth mentioning are few. What comes to mind is Star Wars Galaxies. Crafting was based on several factors, but i may be a bit rusty on this.
You first had to scour the lands for resources to use. Once found, you had to source the best spot for it, since they all had a % chance in rating from 0000 to 1000. The amount of material you could source was also random, so you could find a metal of rating 0994, but only a minimal amount of it....or a resource value of 0229, but enough to fill entire cases.
That i feel was a very compelling system, and it left you actually working for it. That system also resulted in what damage a crafted grenade did, or how good a set of armor would protect you, because the quality of the resource you mined, resulted in what stats you got when crafting with said materials.
2: Crafting and respecting the artisans value.
Many will see themselves in this. Spending hours / day farming materials, crafting and perfecting your skills, only to have it stomped on by an in game store item, or the random mob loot of the day. To that, you can also never keep up, because of how easy it is to spam farm something and make a killing in the market that destroys your work. A looted item is basically always way better than what has been created, and if a game has a level cap of 50, your items are basically useless half way there. The only exception is if you spend all the time making that flavor of the month set piece. That however is not crafting, that´s just bending to the trend.
To be honest, i would spend 80-90% crafting and gathering resources in a game if i could, and if it was valued for the work put in, just as it´s valued to be good in PVP or raids etc.
Lastly, the concept of time and making an item. It should indeed take a lot of time. A LOT. I know, it´s a game, and people want stuff...but this is the point of the problem. Crafted items should be unique, just like that " ultra rare " weapon or armor piece you hunt for weeks. Also, that rare item would also technically have been made by someone at some point...so that logic should be returned and used for us crafters, so we can make a living, specify our talents, and be sought after just as a PVP´er or raid guild that never fails.
By all means, have shops, have looted items, but separate crafted gear from it. Let us actually make items that not the first ferret NPC drops and a player exchange it on the spot.
Crafted items could also have specific features to make it more sought after.
* Specific engravings or color schemes
* Guild crest embossing
* Exotic animal materials usage
etc.
PS. Mixing a blueberry with a spider and some dirt to get a helmet, is not a compelling and intriguing craft system. As a leathercrafter in my personal life, i can assure you i have never made an armor set with any fruit or cobwebs, so keep the materials used on somewhat of a reasonable level.
Comments
Most games have crafting just be “have item, hit button”, which is unrewarding and completely sucks the joy out of any title of “master <whatever>” when it’s legit just a time and money sink.
Some interdependency is good, but not to the extent of FFXIV where you’re all but required to grind out every craft tree due to needing tools from 3+ trees in order to level your own and having to replace 3+ trees of tools once you level up once or twice.
For crafting mechanics, I liked the minigame system of Vanguard, since every item required effort and awareness, and would produce different results based on materials and techniques. I've recently played a game where you can choose the tiers and varieties of materials used to craft an item, and the results fall within a quality range, as well as having chances for good variations or variations you've used items to define. This takes out the minigame of Vanguard but still allows for materials and methods to be specified towards a certain intended outcome.
For extreme material specificity, SWG had a great method with the procedural materials that could only be harvested for a limited time, then never appear again. Top-tier crafters would have massive caches of powerful materials that they would slowly use up as they make the most powerful items in the game. One friend told me the story of how he made top-tier grenades just once, because outside his home there was a world-shaking grenade war as both factions were vying for access to the vendor and duking it out to prevent others from getting the goods. Edge of Space used a similar system, though the randomized material was something the player would synthesize and get by luck, but they'd only get as large a stack of that material as they put resources into making in that one shot, so it rewarded players for making the biggest stacks of materials at a time in order to have a lot of that same material to work with.
Economically, scroll crafting in D&D is big money. A homebrew campaign I've been playing in for the past couple years has mandatory one-week downtimes between missions, which allowed me to go from crafting a few small scrolls for simple income, all the way up to scrolls that take the whole damn week but pay out extremely well, and have let me upgrade our infrastructure faster than any other method of crafting or mission gameplay rewards.
Back when the MyDream sandbox was in development, I designed a complete overhaul to the crafting and abilities system, where each component had modifiers that would add or subtract from the item's power level in each of the attributes, and control the selection of abilities that would be generated alongside them, then finally rebalance all the attributes based on the item's total power level, such that all items were extremely balanced relative to their power level, but there was some millions of combinations players could try to invent the sort of weapon, shields, and mobility systems that fit their style. Since I was limited to raw terrain materials and material-specific building components, you'd be using those as the materials for the crafting system, like a wooden cylinder or a green glass cube, which prevented the need to make crafting-only materials. If you knew a recipe, you could always create the exact same product, plus or minus attribute averaging for your crafting level. This was unfortunately never implemented.
I wrote documents on these back in the EQN/Landmark era detailing the concept of upgrading and evolving signature weapons throughout a player's lifespan, rather than changing to the next best piece of gear that fits the level requirements and intended build. The closest to this are games like 3089 where the player can swap parts of their equipment with parts within +/- 1 level of the other parts, so you slowly upgrade gear that you like over time instead of just moving to the next biggest piece of gear you find--though that was still an option since venturing a few levels out of your comfort zone could produce pre-built items that are a few levels higher than your current gear and outright replace it.
While I never took the time to fully research and experiment with it, the potion crafting in the later Might & Magic series, and the Elder Scrolls series, was always something I enjoyed. MM6 and beyond allowed for mixing potions to get new ones, and some had recipes where certain swirling bicolored potions could be mixed to get giant permanent attribute buffs--though some reduce the opposing attribute by half the increase value, so players would need to have characters quaff all 6 to not be at a disadvantage from the process.
Let's take a bigger look, from our personal armor and potions to ships and castles. Since the first post featured L2 and her blacksmiths with their wonderful siege golems.
Who played Newerwhinter 2 remember the Fortress at the crossroads and how it was improved. We found the source of the ore, found a brigade of miners who mined it and then could improve the armor for the guards of our fortress. A similar mechanic of "companions" is present in the SWTOR already mentioned here, where we operate with satellites and a ship, and Newerwhinter Online, where the workshop is subordinate to the character.
Suppose a character with a specialization in geology, logging or herbalism finds a certain source of resource from which he can get a little for personal needs and in the future "send" to the development of the artel of miners, foresters, in general, who is needed for industrial procurement. The action is one-time and then you need to look for the next one.
In LostArk, we collected stone and wood, and from them we ordered improvements and decorations from the NPC for the estate donated by the king. It is more logical, in my opinion, on the contrary, from the "industrial resources" of the example above to make improvements for the guild castle or the node that we want to develop.
For the city guards, helping to fend off attacks from other players or monsters, you can come up with a number of improvements. They need to improve their armor (heavy, light, cloth), weapons, provide them with mounts, potions, feed them corny and pay a salary! For which they improve their quality. How many professions of the population of the node are involved in order to prevent neighbors from destroying it.
If the creators introduce professions like a fortifier into the game, my dwarf will put aside the blacksmith's hammer and sit down at the drawing table. Hello siege weapons and fortress dungeons.
But i think it depends on what kind of gear u want to drop by Raids and Bossfights. In this case, the most stuff a Player can get from fighting bosses are the rares materials for crafting the most powerfull gear by special players.
Otherwise the bosses have to drop only one special fullgear drop, something like a special necklace for example but no more gear.
Find out what it means to me ♪
We'll be getting recipes from drops, quests, achievements and so on. What I want to see in an MMORPG is research to improve those recipes once learnt. All recipes, including parts like hilts and such, should be able to be researched for a cost in both time and resources.
Eve Online has research of blueprints to improve manufacturing time or material cost. I definitely want both of those, but I would also like research to improve quality and stat quantity/potential of the finished product. Like in Eve Online, it should be possible to keep researching the same thing over and over with diminishing returns and increase in research time and cost.
For example, a weaponsmith can make a standard sword with base damage of 100 and +10 to whatever stat the customer wants, for a cost of 100 iron ingots. Those numbers can be researched over time, and in increments, to be 120 damage and +12 to a stat, for 80 iron ingots. I think researching for better stats should automatically increase material and time cost, so they need to be researched down, especially for items requiring rare components.
A system like this lets crafters specialize, so no two weaponsmiths are likely to be completely the same. One might be really good at making endgame swords, and another makes some killer spears.
One house a player had, was essentially a library of teleportation spots to the various locations in the game world, all categorized/labeled for ease, so people would essentially go visit his house for all sorts of reasons, and to travel to various other places, only possible because of the spells and items in the game that existed, runes - books - the ability to mark runes at locations, and the ability to travel to targeted runes or open gates to said runes. Which in and of itself turned what was simply a normal class skill into effectively a trade skill, simply through the available depth. Carpentry - was designed pretty much to make items for housing, utility, or decorative, it was in my view an awesome way to have an aesthetically oriented trade skill and have it be meaningful. There are more modern games that have had -chances- at something like this, but really missed the mark. Best example of late is World of Warcraft, there were points where inscription would change the appearance of a spell, or augment it in certain ways, that was an amazing thing they really should have delved into deeper in my view, and a large missed opportunity, for either - rare inscriptions(or glyphs) obtained through content and aptitude, or pvp - to make your character stand out, which is increasingly harder when everyone is homogenized via the transmog system(something I never would have implemented personally).
Other reasons trade skills were highly involved and important are because the majority of the BEST gear, was craftable in UO, via either Blacksmithing, or Leatherworking, and due to the nature of the PVP system, and full player looting(prior to insurance), it was important for your gear to be replaceable, but you still cared about having good gear. The entire UO economy was player driven, there was no centralized auction house, and players would set up vendors near cities(in their houses they built), and they could put whatever items, and price point they wanted on said vendor. "Quality of life" (auction houses) doesn't translate to immersion, or quality of game in my opinion, having experienced other systems.
To the above point specifically about trade skills to keep it on topic - the best gear was craftable, and this was done through runic sewing kits, or runic hammers which were generally obtained through completing bulk order deeds in cities, acquiring them from - and then completing them at NPC's, IE take your basic in game resources, craft 100 swords, deliver it to an npc, get a runic hammer, be able to make highly modified items(top tier stuff), this was a very involved, and enjoyable system in my view. Not to be confused with the standard asian model of hey, want a +15 item? buy 50 hammers from our item shop to guarantee you can upgrade your item.
There were a lot of things that conspired to make UO's trade skills - amazing, and they were woven into the game very well, these things likely might not be able to work in games that aren't set up in the same fashion. For instance, I'm skeptical that any mmorpg will ever have non instanced player housing, because it's all about "efficiency" and space, and who wants to sit there and design a fleshed out game world with extra space to populate with real estate, and I imagine thoughts of "but there will be too many players, and not enough space, or that will take up too much time, or let's just put in - instanced housing(and most don't even do this in the present lineup), that's great, but there's one less feature, and significantly less immersion.
In any event UO has my vote for favorite trade skills/implementation, and perhaps an honorable mention to EQ2, and WoW in wrath and older content(as the bare minimum acceptable), meaning lots of things to farm in the open world, reasons to do so, highly valued recipes, many reputation gated recipes that were integral to various people for various reasons, meaningful upgrades to craft along the way, and lots of provided utility etc. Modern WoW, trade skills are trash, let's be real, they've abandoned everything but m+ and raiding.
Moreover i think crafting should be a bit more complex then just clicking 'craft' and waiting 5 seconds, since some things could require more then one skill to complete - taking a sword as an example - blade, guard and pommel would certainly require metalworking, while the handle, being most likely from wood, would require woodworking. It could also be resolved in a different way - by having some sort of interaction with the proccess of crafting - it could be simple and not very hard, like moving weapon's blade across a grinding wheel to sharpen it, or pouring metal into a mould to cast jewelry.
For Ashes i hope for a system that is the lifeblood of the world. Items and gear are made and not always given. What's given mostly is materials that crafters are hired to produce goods from like in RL. Nodes should require resources from gatherers to build, and buildings should need a builder profession to construct. If I kill a bear, a bear will never ever drop a sword unless it ate a traveler with a sword whole. It should drop meat, a hide if you can get it, bones etc...A special dragon kill could drop its hide which could craft legendary leather gear, maybe some teeth for necklaces and maybe a ruby in the stomach which you can get creative what it might make once its returned to town.
However, the crafting system I dream of is a crafting system that allows artisans to highly customize the items they craft. I came to hate systems with very rigid blueprints/recipes that require a long list of components.
I'd love a more "modular" approach. Let's say you make a sword, first, you select its appearance (skin, color), level and quality, that would require specific materials, in a specific quantity, then you want it to increase some specific stats, so you can use specific materials, or maybe a different crafting technique, to get these different effects. And lastly, if you want your item to be part of a set (with set effects), you need to add specific components as well, that could originate from loot. These steps could maybe even be made separately, with a useable item at the end of each. A standard sword, a sharpened sword, an enchanted sword.
I want crafting to encourage creativity, and feel rewarding, being more experienced should allow you to make the same items, but with progressively higher stats.
And lastly, this goes a bit without saying, but we need a system for buyers to safely provide materials to a crafter when they make a commission, so they get their crafts for money without ever letting the materials in the crafter's inventory.
Crafting should be a gameplay style that should feel rewarding and require commitment, it shouldn't be something you HAVE to do, and it should almost always yield better results to let someone with more experience do your crafting for you.
For example, BDO has a "crafting system but with all the ways for you to improve the weapons and the amount of RNG involved I would rather not even bother making it myself at later points in the game since I was strictly free to play player. And then in other games where the crafting system is useless since the items you craft are not and will never be as good as items dropped by mobs, which is something I'm glad Ashes plans to not have happen, you plan to make items have a 1:1 ratio in a sense where they still have a purpose even in the late game. I hope you will also keep RNG out of the process as well since I'm not going to a casino, I'm trying to make a sword to further progress not only myself but hopefully someone who I could then sell it to for in-game money and have crafting be a viable way to make items but also gold to make a real economy in the game.
Another thing I hope gets added is a way to customize the stats a weapon, armor, or gathering tool could have that way its not just cookie-cutter items that get sold to the lowest bidder for instance BDO's auction site. I always felt as though items that are the same no matter what always took away the joy in making something mine like yes you may have an iron sword too it may look the same but mine is heavier and swings slower but also has higher penetration and damage (to an extent) to make it seem like I made something unique. This could in turn require extra/fewer materials to have for instance a pool of points that could be allocated to certain areas of the item. A game that a similar mechanic was Mortal Online which the game did have problems but I found its crafting system to be very innovative and new something that I very much enjoyed messing around with my friends with and make some very odd items.
In the end, I just want a crafting system that makes me feel like the time I sunk into it was worth it and not a waste of time and effort. I know some of this won't be in it and I'm ok with that I'm not expecting this game to be perfect with me there are hundreds of thousands of other players that are looking forward to the release of this game and they have their thoughts and feeling in how this game will work for them including you guys making this game. I just hope that it does not feel like I just took a trip to Vegas every time want to sharpen my sword or upgrade it and that it is not only fair to the adventurers but also us crafters and that we will have a place in the game right next to them. Anyways thanks for reading and thank you for asking for what we want and what we think about the game it is a very interesting feeling for me to feel involved in the development of a game no matter if you read this or not.
Like you need to bring your item to another specific crafter to make items
Maybe even for more rare items two or more crafters needs to work together at the same time to make an item.
Or if you have "apprentices" they can help you turn the item while you use your hammer.
I dont want the "make the item" part to easy either. LIke, i have my 10 boar pelts and threads, open up a window saying "craft cloak" then press craft and "poff" i have my cloak.
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These are items that people Lost to the world when they die, or other way is sell to an NPC, black market that pay alot for a type of item that the world is in need
The best think to do if you are looking to good crafting is looking for sandbox and pvp/pvx MMORPG like Albion , MO, Eve
But have crafted gear be able to specialize. Like if I have a problem with earth elementals in my part of the world I want some sort of dwarven mining pick or hammer that ignores their high natural armor.
Or say there is fire elementals, I want a special fan-like weapon that can easily be enchanted to draw air away from them to cause them to run out of oxygen then snuff out.
So normal world drops can be very generally useful, and while you can do the same with crafted gear it has the advantage of being something you can specialize and sell in a specific market.
On top of that make legendries you craft competitive but require lots of specific materials that might drop from the world or raids/dungeons etc. Don't let crafted stuff suck or be catch-up gear like WoW.
- From WoW l mostly liked Engineering (especially Gnomish), which lets you create your own utility items for rare/common situations and that they always had a chance to fail. I wish Ashes will have something similar other than just alchemy and siege weaponry.
- Crafting leveling and recipe gathering should be slow enough for it to not be streamlined, but also for the crafted items to actually be worth crafting by the time you actually start doing it, instead of being tossed in to the trash.
- It would be interesting if every crafter of the same profession would have some variation/randomisation on the first/same tier items, they could create/unlock, unlike in WoW every leatherworker can learn all of the basic recipes from the trainer and FFXIV all recipes are already handed to you, but they are locked behind level requirement. In this case maybe giving crafters ability to teach each other their recipes with a lot of time, commitment and recourses.
Ashes being a game where most gear is crafted, I would like to see above all else reusability with recipes and materials. Crafters might be able to take an old recipe and with higher grade materials craft a scaled up Yeti Armor or a particular potion could use the base materials of the potion and add an effect or additional healing with other materials added in.
Ashes of creation with a focus on crafted gear, should have an equally in-depth system for crafting. I'm not clever enough to know if its possible but this is what makes or breaks ashes for me.
Almost all other mmo crafting systems have been a boring progress bar, and I hope ashes doesn't take the boring route.
If you as a player would want to progress far, at very least, to be able to equip you main character so you can join decent parties/clans and enjoy the end game, you have to have an artisan character(further crafter) and a few(yes, a few) scavengers.
The way this system works is that the crafter can craft items by reading the recipes. The recipes can be stored in crafter's recipe book. That recipe book can only store a limited amount of recipes. So, there will be times when you would have to decide which recipes to delete in order to get new ones in. When you craft an item, you read the recipe of your recipe book. If you have the necessary materials in quantities it requires, you may craft that item. Starting from certain grade, crafting armor and weapons would also require a copy of the same recipe to be used during a creation. For example, in your book, you have a recipe for a Grade B sword that you want to craft. That means that to create that sword, you need all the materials/parts the recipe requires along with a copy of the same recipe, which will disappear once you have used it, just like all the items needed for the sword. The higher the grade is, the harder it is to craft(duh!). The high end gear recipes are only 60%(weapons/armors) and 70%(jewelry) chance of successful craft. So you to craft a single item of a 5-6 piece armor set, you would it that 60% recipe learned, a ton of parts/materials that takes a lot of time to gather and a lot of money to buy, and a copy of the same 60% recipe. And guess what, there is a 40% chance that when you hit that create button, it will fails. When it fails you loose ALL the materials and the copy of the recipe. Crafters can also let other players use their recipe book in exchange for money as well. For example, any non-crafter class can gather/buy all necessary materials and recipes and use any crafters book that has that recipe learned to craft that item. That is just a basic idea of the crafter class in L2.
What does the scavenger do? Scavengers are the one who get all those necessary materials for crafting. Yes, you can get the materials by just looting mobs using any class. However, scavengers are able to access "alternative" loot. Most monsters have "alternative" loot which can only be harvested by a scavenger. Alternative loot give scavengers materials in bigger amounts that they would ever drop as regular loot. Some equipment recipes can only be gathered by scavengers. Some materials can only be scavenged at certain levels. That is why earlier I said you have to have a few scavengers, at different levels.
So, both classes practically make money from nothing. It is not easy at all. It is a Korean game, so gathering any materials is a "grind fest". For example, when Icarus weapons were just introduced, I wanted to craft the bow for my main character. Long story short, it took me a few weeks to get 18 pieces of that bow needed to craft it. That includes both, me grinding the mobs and trying to buy the pieces on the market at the same time. The recipe was only 60%. Luckily for me, it crafted successfully, but you can imagine how you would feel when you press that button, and how much more special that piece of gear feels.
Crafting in L2 is very important and big. The biggest reason is that it is pretty much the only way of getting good equipment until you get into the decent clans. The way NCsoft made it is that the high end equipment only drops from raid bosses and epic bosses, which require anywhere from a group of people to hundreds of people. However, you can get 60%-70% recipes for the most of that high end gear with scavengers and quests, which means that the crafter can craft it
What if you would look into a crafting system as this one and maybe, add higher stats to items that are crafted vs looted(for the exception of epic/legendary/super high end stuff). I feel like most of the MMOs completely leave crafting system undeveloped. It is just experience meter. Most of the gear is rather easy to obtain in most of the games, and crafters are not even used.
The first factor is how engaging the system is, and how much time it takes to master. Does it actually require knowledge and being able to master complexity and depth? If you can just buy a bunch of materials for money and grind to max level in a few days, I consider the crafting system worthless and broken. I prefer if mastery of a craft takes many months or a year. As someone else said, please make the crafting system for the crafters.
Second factor is how valuable crafting is. It sounds like Ashes is on the right track in terms of importance. However, I am not a huge fan of any system where the only truly top end gear, or the crafting materials for it, is locked behind raid content. I think you need to let artisans make comparable gear without raid loot. Make it difficult, with super rare mats from gatherers that only the best processors can handle, who in turn can have master crafters make the final items. But, IMO, we absolutely need a more crafter-centric way to make top-end gear instead of only from raiding.
Third factor is how good the vendor/shop system is going to be. If I put in the effort, is there going to be fun/good way to sell my products to other players, where the effort is actually rewarded? I would like to be able to make small custom details, so players come directly to me to get their gear crafted with custom inscriptions or item names and such on the tooltip, for example.
To make crafting a fullfilling experience there should be a production process with a number of steps that have to be done in order to finish an item instead of just klicking one button. It would be great if this is combined with the possibility of various problems occurring during the process that have to be solved and the qualitiy of the finished item depends on how well the crafter fixed the issue.
As Nerror mentioned earlier, it's not a good idea to lock top end gear, or the crafting materials for it, behind raid content. The result would be that only crafters of large raiding guilds were able to produce those itms.
Nerror made a good suggestion with implementing crafting receipts that require super rare materials from the gatherers.
Alternatively crafting receipts for top end gear could require rare materials that can't be gathered instead they only proc with an extremely low chance when a crafter finishes a rare product. As a result only the most dedicated crafters would be able to produce top end gear.
The best crafting experience I had so far was in Vanguard SoH which had a minigame for the crafting process.
I do have a question that I have been curious about since I had recently watched old dev discussions from back in 2017. In one of those discussions, I remember that crafting was asked about. The question was about if crafters can influence how their crafted items can look. I remember Steven had talked about looking into the possibility of having an Item Creation Suite, something akin to a character creations suite but for crafters to use. I wanted to ask about your research into this and if you feel it is possible to implement an idea like this into the game? I do have a creative mind, many people who are crafters likely have this, and I feel it would be incredible to actually determine what I am going to build whether my weapon will have features that make it seem 'demonic or 'holy' or 'mythical'. Personally, I just do not feel like I can agree with crafting items that are already set in a certain way in terms of both capabilities and looks. I am in complete agreement with the crafting system that allows us to influence the skills and abilities a weapon can have to make it more physical or magical. The one thing I want, if it is possible, is a system that can allow for the artistic crafters to bring their imaginations to life in this world where our actions shape it.
I think there are a lot of missed opportunities in crafting in MMOs. The reasons for this are understandable, and primarily stem from crafting being a afterthought and being a side system rather than a core game element. But I think you would win a lot of loyal crafters by making the crafting have a depth that supports a full time play style. To do that I have some suggestions:
- Have legendary items be difficult to make through genuine challenge and time investment. I recently invested a lot of time in crafting a item in Runescape called the Brooch of the Gods, which required me to collect a large amount of materials from several types of content in the game including puzzles, regular gathering, salvage and also required high levels in order to qualify to craft the item (took me around a few months of play to get everything I needed). I don't even really think this level of commitment even necessitates having high "stats" necessarily, unique abilities for utility and perks are also a good (and perhaps better) reward for that sort of time investment as long as that perk or a functionally similar ability isn't invalidated by an easier to craft or obtain item. For me making an item that is rare because it's extremely difficult is very rewarding and I think from the other side that content is also interesting, many players in runescape buy that same item from other people who invest the time to make it so by that point it is optional... if you would rather shell out the cash. Ultimately I think an item you pour sweat and blood into little by little is more compelling to me than a lucky rare drop (although there is a place for both really, maybe even in the same item).
- Make high quality and legendary items unique. I really like the idea of being able to build a reputation as a well respected crafter in my chosen profession, some ways of doing this are having items tagged with the username of their creator, a maker's mark, and/or named items. Being able to have player owned shops will also aid in this but much like a celebrity gets asked who they are wearing, I want high level players to be asked who made their equipment. Not that every item requires this, a common iron sword largely interchangeable with another but that's very different than an Excalibur or Dyrnwyn. I understand is if this is not feasible but I think you should at least consider it for rare legendary items.
-Make some items require multiple players across more than one profession. Crafters in real life often have to collaborate and requiring multiple players working together on certain components is a great way to foster the interaction that's important part of what makes a MMO live up to it's name and potential as a collaborative experience.
-Stick to your guns on your plans for not having a universal server wide auction house. When anyone can buy from anyone easily the market is controlled by few people. If you have regional market it gives an opportunity for new and low level players to provide utility to the out of the way areas that aren't worth the big guys' time.
-Recipes are an excellent reward for a quest or other content, and make some of them so rare that the average player won't even hear about them except in whispers. Collecting recipes is a pastime with a grand history.
-Vary the difficulty of your content. I think some content should be hard and require your whole attention and some should be easy and relaxing. These content types should be different and have different rewards and benefits but having both means that you can set your own pace and suit the day's play to your mood. Crafting that mega sword vs sitting down by the fireside to knit a pair of socks.
-Some people like repetitive crafting mechanics. A lot of people complain about the grind but other people find it meditative. You don't have to have repetitive mechanics but I think there is a place for them as long as it's thematically appropriate for the action to be repetitive.
Thanks for taking the time to read my suggestions and I also want to say I am greatly heartened and excited by the general design philosophy of the team regarding crafting, and I'm excited to see how it develops and provide more feedback as I follow that progress.
All crafting systems i've encounterd have always been boring and more or less compleatly useless. Why spend 1h to get a cool sword that gets replaced 30 minutes in to leveling?
Collect x resource, y resource and merge them. Here you go, sword for you.
Not really that fun in my opinion.
So i have been following the progress of AoC for a while now, without a forum account, and I am really looking forward on playing the game so far, eitger way i made an account just to add my 0.02 to the discussion, wich i have a keen interest on.
Crafting really needs to be something special, not just another thing to do on the side, it needs to be engaging, interesting, and actually require some skill, not rng.
Sure, a some of the PvE/PvP exclusive players may find it boring or less interesting, but so will some crafters find PvE/PvP content, but this is, in the end, better for everyone. Crafters get to deticate their time solely too crafting if they so wish, (if they get an interesting and intricate crafting experience), and PvE/PvP players can stay deticated to their part, knowing that they won't have to bother with crafting, because their friend/ trusted craftsman/ guild member will fix the equipment or make a them something useful out of the new materials they got!
For example, imagine a eurotrack simultator, in wich you dont get to drive around from one point to another yourself, but you simply teleport/fast travel to your destination, NOBODY would play that game, and in my opinion, simplifying crafting to the experience we bave gotten from MMOs up untill now has been exactly that.
A craftsman should feel like they are part of the game, they should feel like they are smithing a sword, they should feel like they are making a potion or poison, they should feel like they are enchanting a set of armour, they should feel defeat, not because RNG-esus deemed so, not because they got wiped out on a raid, but because they lacked knowledge, skill or experience and wasted some valuable ingredients, and equally feel accomplished after making some killer equipment, potion, enchantment or ship!
Craftsmen should be abel to get famous on their node, the surrounding nodes and even the whole server, having a behind the scenes vs match with another crafter on who is going to be considered more successful etc etc
Crafting should actually make people feel accomplished, if every single person is able to craft, maintaining a deticated crafting community in the game will be impossible, and there exist a lot of people that are hoping to be part of a community like that.
Some other tidbits that i would like too see:
Basically people should be able too use anything as a crafting material, and the properties should matter eg you managed to get your hands on some high grade fire resistant metal, you can't just heat and reshape it with a normal furnace, you need some rare powder that makes flames stronger, you have to shape it with the help of a dragon, go too a volcano, get help from a mage to cast high grade magic etc etc
Or maybe you make some equipment from moonstone, crafting it in different phases of the moon gives a different final product.
Rarity should matter, if you see everybody running around with high level equipment it pretty much gets de-valued in the eyes of the player, AND the maker, having a high grade sword should actually feel like it, and even if somebody manages to get his hands on high level equipment, does he have the connections/funds/backing to maintain and repair it? Going from a common to a rare sword should be a big deal, common equipment shouldn't be trash, but, exactly as the name states, it should be common
Craftsmen should be able to make things to their liking, eg a blacksmith designing/choosing the look of the sword they would make and how that would change its properties.
People should be able to experiment with different level of success, get some basic knowledge from easy to find books, to gather and find various neat information scattered from other players,npc craftsmen, even up too old books from a dungeon/raid boss!
Sorry if the write up was a bit messy, but this were the things i have been hoping to see in a mmo for years now and i really do think the team can pull it off!
Either way thanks for all the amazing work you guys have done, and continue too do, I am looking forward too the game, especially the crafting system!
Small edit:
If a crafter wants to do something obscure he should be able to do it, eg someone comissions a sword with a summoning stone in the guard or pommel because he is playing a summoning swordsman or something obscure, i should be able to do it. Another thing, in alchemy, controlling the heat, the way they an alchemist extracts the ingredient, the order in wich the ingredients are placed in the cauldron and how many times it needs to be steered would all be critical for the correct potion, kinda like alchemy in old poterrmore but more advanced lmao
Also, as another commenter mentioned, i also think that a server wide auction would be a bad idea, going through a lot of different auctions in different nodes and towns searching for an ingredient, finding a good deal or getting lucky snd finding a good item should also be a part of it, crafters should be able to sell their items (especially really good ones, as they would likely fetch a higher rpice) in auctions with a commission fee or something similar.
flavour texts getting added depending on the actions of the player holding the item, would make for unique player driven stories
"Balancing" the materials of a sword, rg using a lighter metal for a larger sword too raise the attack speed, or mixing two different metals so that you negate a negative effect from one of them.
1: Systems with value.
Personally, to this day and being a gamer since the the early 80´s, the systems of crafting in my book worth mentioning are few. What comes to mind is Star Wars Galaxies. Crafting was based on several factors, but i may be a bit rusty on this.
You first had to scour the lands for resources to use. Once found, you had to source the best spot for it, since they all had a % chance in rating from 0000 to 1000. The amount of material you could source was also random, so you could find a metal of rating 0994, but only a minimal amount of it....or a resource value of 0229, but enough to fill entire cases.
That i feel was a very compelling system, and it left you actually working for it. That system also resulted in what damage a crafted grenade did, or how good a set of armor would protect you, because the quality of the resource you mined, resulted in what stats you got when crafting with said materials.
2: Crafting and respecting the artisans value.
Many will see themselves in this. Spending hours / day farming materials, crafting and perfecting your skills, only to have it stomped on by an in game store item, or the random mob loot of the day. To that, you can also never keep up, because of how easy it is to spam farm something and make a killing in the market that destroys your work. A looted item is basically always way better than what has been created, and if a game has a level cap of 50, your items are basically useless half way there. The only exception is if you spend all the time making that flavor of the month set piece. That however is not crafting, that´s just bending to the trend.
To be honest, i would spend 80-90% crafting and gathering resources in a game if i could, and if it was valued for the work put in, just as it´s valued to be good in PVP or raids etc.
Lastly, the concept of time and making an item. It should indeed take a lot of time. A LOT. I know, it´s a game, and people want stuff...but this is the point of the problem. Crafted items should be unique, just like that " ultra rare " weapon or armor piece you hunt for weeks. Also, that rare item would also technically have been made by someone at some point...so that logic should be returned and used for us crafters, so we can make a living, specify our talents, and be sought after just as a PVP´er or raid guild that never fails.
By all means, have shops, have looted items, but separate crafted gear from it. Let us actually make items that not the first ferret NPC drops and a player exchange it on the spot.
Crafted items could also have specific features to make it more sought after.
* Specific engravings or color schemes
* Guild crest embossing
* Exotic animal materials usage
etc.
PS. Mixing a blueberry with a spider and some dirt to get a helmet, is not a compelling and intriguing craft system. As a leathercrafter in my personal life, i can assure you i have never made an armor set with any fruit or cobwebs, so keep the materials used on somewhat of a reasonable level.
Best regards
Grihm