My vision of a crafting system for real crafters

Hello

I would like to write this post a lot sooner but i did not know AoC would be so decide to have a great craft, so i want to give my vision of crafting.
As an old player (52), i began my MMO trip with Everquest, Asheron Call (1 & 2), Ultima Online and SWG.
WoW and WoW-likes was sadly the "evolution" of those great games.

I focused everytime on crafting, no matter the game, so i can say i know this part pretty well.

What do crafters really want in a game?
The answer is really simple: Essentially, objects that are not clones and manufacturing that is not done by pressing a single button once you have the resources.
Getting ressources is not crafting...At max it's gathering and ,most of the time, it's fighting for some ressources.

What is a clone item?
When a crafter is at max skill (Rank 10 in AoC if i had understood well) in a speciality (let's say black-smith), each craft called "Steel Long Sword" should be different each time for each crafter and even for the same crafter !
When you craft something in reality, you never make twice the same item, not at 100% identical.
Imagine when it's 2 different people doing the same item, we're far from the 100%.

Why crafters want this?
When you like to craft, you want to be able to personnalize the item, by colors, additionnal slot and by selecting best ressources for a master piece !

For me, there are ideally 4 parts in a craft:

1- The crafter and his equipment:

The characteristics of the manufacturer and his equipment must influence the manufacture of the object.
For example, in the case of blacksmithing, the attributes chosen could be strength and always intelligence (or focus, depending on the game).
For an alchemist: int + wisdom, leatherwork or cabinetmaker: int + dext etc...
His equipment would be the clothes and tools he uses, these being obtained by artisans or loot etc...

For what purpose? Determine the difficulty of making the object (average, good, excellent or perfect success) and be able to determine a total manufacturing point that would be spent during the manufacturing itself.

2- Resources:

The most delicate point that very few games have dared to address: The quality of resources!
In reality, when we harvest iron for our sword, it never has the same purity and the differences are numerous.
When we mine this iron mine, it would be good for this mine, depending on its location and others, to have an average quality.
For example, we find a mine in a particular location and it has an average value of 80. We could harvest iron ore from it with a quality of 70 to 90 at most...
Obviously, the quality of the iron would influence the quality of the finished product, would only be by a few%.
In addition, the resource processing profession would also influence the quality of the final resource.

3- Optional components:

There would be 2 types of options:
- Ingredients allowing you to change the color of 2 or more parts of the object
- Ingredients to boost it or give an additional ability.

4- The manufacturing process:

After having chosen the quality of the resources and options according to the object that we want to create (basic for 1st price or top for high-end), we then distribute the manufacturing points that the craftsman has ( Part 1-) according to different characteristics.
In the case of the iron sword, we could have:
- Solidity
- The weight
- The damage range
- The % of criticism

The craftsman can choose to decide which characteristics he wants to boost, also specifying that if he increases a characteristic to the max, the difficulty of achievement increases.

When the creation of the object is done, we have a result which varies, for example: Failure, average success, classic success, excellent success, perfect success (critical success).
This would also influence the final result.

Warning: This is not about creating overpowered objects, especially when we are talking about a simple iron sword.
Instead of having an iron sword that always does 10 dps, it would be a question of only having unique swords in itself, varying the maximum by -5/+5%, at least, on the dps.
The final result must be precise, we don't want 9.8 dps... We want 9.78 dps! At least 2 decimals.
We also want the name of the craftsman on the object, may fame accompany perfection!

The customization of objects by the color of the parts, the quality of the resources, the options, the power of the craftsman by his manufacturing points, would make it possible to have unique objects and even a signature for certain high-level craftsmen.

There you go, do with it what you want

PS Sorry for my english, i'm french.

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Comments

Azherae

There are absolutely no problems with your English.

If you did not get a chance to watch the latest LiveStream on the Artisanship System, I recommend checking Ashes of Creation YouTube.

If you watched it and this post is your response, the post might be merged into that Feedback Thread.

This is more likely if you request it, or if you say that you don't need to have a lot of discussions with others in this thread. If you have separate feedback, please add it to that thread.

Raven016

Sargramor

Azherae wrote: »

There are absolutely no problems with your English.

If you did not get a chance to watch the latest LiveStream on the Artisanship System, I recommend checking Ashes of Creation YouTube.

If you watched it and this post is your response, the post might be merged into that Feedback Thread.

This is more likely if you request it, or if you say that you don't need to have a lot of discussions with others in this thread. If you have separate feedback, please add it to that thread.

I did not watch it, i'll do.
I watched some videos few days ago but they were more on certifications, wich it's not crafting mechanism, but more some quests and gathering to pass next step.

I wanted to tell them about my vision and maybe, they'll have time to pick some ideas if they like it.

I'll post it in the Feedback anyway.
Thanks a lot for your reply

Blood_Raven

Overall I agree with you that crafters want options and to make items unique and not identical every time.

Love the name of crafter on what you create. I have always wanted this along with the names of the people who have used the item in the past would just be cool to see the history of an item.

Glir

@Sargramor This man played SWG and I like it. Good description of the crafting system and it should be noted that Steven said many years ago that they were inspired by the SWG crafting system.

Chaos_Legion

There might be issues with performance in sieges given the amount of unique items and color schemes. Path of Exile got away with RNG in every single stat being non-MMO game, but full scale MMO may struggle. Other than that and flooding market with no-luck items, its the right way to go I guess.

Depraved

Sargramor wrote: »

Hello

I would like to write this post a lot sooner but i did not know AoC would be so decide to have a great craft, so i want to give my vision of crafting.
As an old player (52), i began my MMO trip with Everquest, Asheron Call (1 & 2), Ultima Online and SWG.
WoW and WoW-likes was sadly the "evolution" of those great games.

I focused everytime on crafting, no matter the game, so i can say i know this part pretty well.

What do crafters really want in a game?
The answer is really simple: Essentially, objects that are not clones and manufacturing that is not done by pressing a single button once you have the resources.
Getting ressources is not crafting...At max it's gathering and ,most of the time, it's fighting for some ressources.

What is a clone item?
When a crafter is at max skill (Rank 10 in AoC if i had understood well) in a speciality (let's say black-smith), each craft called "Steel Long Sword" should be different each time for each crafter and even for the same crafter !
When you craft something in reality, you never make twice the same item, not at 100% identical.
Imagine when it's 2 different people doing the same item, we're far from the 100%.

Why crafters want this?
When you like to craft, you want to be able to personnalize the item, by colors, additionnal slot and by selecting best ressources for a master piece !

For me, there are ideally 4 parts in a craft:

1- The crafter and his equipment:

The characteristics of the manufacturer and his equipment must influence the manufacture of the object.
For example, in the case of blacksmithing, the attributes chosen could be strength and always intelligence (or focus, depending on the game).
For an alchemist: int + wisdom, leatherwork or cabinetmaker: int + dext etc...
His equipment would be the clothes and tools he uses, these being obtained by artisans or loot etc...

For what purpose? Determine the difficulty of making the object (average, good, excellent or perfect success) and be able to determine a total manufacturing point that would be spent during the manufacturing itself.

2- Resources:

The most delicate point that very few games have dared to address: The quality of resources!
In reality, when we harvest iron for our sword, it never has the same purity and the differences are numerous.
When we mine this iron mine, it would be good for this mine, depending on its location and others, to have an average quality.
For example, we find a mine in a particular location and it has an average value of 80. We could harvest iron ore from it with a quality of 70 to 90 at most...
Obviously, the quality of the iron would influence the quality of the finished product, would only be by a few%.
In addition, the resource processing profession would also influence the quality of the final resource.

3- Optional components:

There would be 2 types of options:
- Ingredients allowing you to change the color of 2 or more parts of the object
- Ingredients to boost it or give an additional ability.

4- The manufacturing process:

After having chosen the quality of the resources and options according to the object that we want to create (basic for 1st price or top for high-end), we then distribute the manufacturing points that the craftsman has ( Part 1-) according to different characteristics.
In the case of the iron sword, we could have:
- Solidity
- The weight
- The damage range
- The % of criticism

The craftsman can choose to decide which characteristics he wants to boost, also specifying that if he increases a characteristic to the max, the difficulty of achievement increases.

When the creation of the object is done, we have a result which varies, for example: Failure, average success, classic success, excellent success, perfect success (critical success).
This would also influence the final result.

Warning: This is not about creating overpowered objects, especially when we are talking about a simple iron sword.
Instead of having an iron sword that always does 10 dps, it would be a question of only having unique swords in itself, varying the maximum by -5/+5%, at least, on the dps.
The final result must be precise, we don't want 9.8 dps... We want 9.78 dps! At least 2 decimals.
We also want the name of the craftsman on the object, may fame accompany perfection!

The customization of objects by the color of the parts, the quality of the resources, the options, the power of the craftsman by his manufacturing points, would make it possible to have unique objects and even a signature for certain high-level craftsmen.

There you go, do with it what you want

PS Sorry for my english, i'm french.

2 people can make the same stuff identical, for example, coca cola.
anyways im confused, you want crafters to differentiate from others in the items they make but you want thm to give specific stats based on the type they are? so all blacksmith will give str to everything they make...this would make the items more similar than different, its a contradiction....

ive always liked the idea of different results using the same materials depending on who gathered them tho. but anyways games arent real life so yeah...balancing as well as technical limitations are more important.

Sargramor

Chaos_Legion wrote: »

There might be issues with performance in sieges given the amount of unique items and color schemes. Path of Exile got away with RNG in every single stat being non-MMO game, but full scale MMO may struggle. Other than that and flooding market with no-luck items, its the right way to go I guess.

SWG had no problems with that 15 years ago...

Sargramor

-" 2 people can make the same stuff identical, for example, coca cola."

You're joking right? It's called factory...
And if 2 people make their own coca cola, the recipe will be different...

- "anyways im confused, you want crafters to differentiate from others in the items they make but you want thm to give specific stats based on the type they are? so all blacksmith will give str to everything they make...this would make the items more similar than different, its a contradiction...."

No, the manufacturing point are based on stats, blacksmith would be based on Int +Strenght , Alchimie Int+ Focus, etc...
Nothing to see with the stats on the final product.

- "ive always liked the idea of different results using the same materials depending on who gathered them tho. but anyways games arent real life so yeah...balancing as well as technical limitations are more important."

Yes and it's time for a change...We don't talk about a new revolutionnary 3D engine, it's simple to do if devs/team want it to exist, so simple...And once again, SWG did it 15/20 years ago with 8 (!!!!!) caracteristics for each ressources !

Depraved

Sargramor wrote: »

-" 2 people can make the same stuff identical, for example, coca cola."

You're joking right? It's called factory...
And if 2 people make their own coca cola, the recipe will be different...

- "anyways im confused, you want crafters to differentiate from others in the items they make but you want thm to give specific stats based on the type they are? so all blacksmith will give str to everything they make...this would make the items more similar than different, its a contradiction...."

No, the manufacturing point are based on stats, blacksmith would be based on Int +Strenght , Alchimie Int+ Focus, etc...
Nothing to see with the stats on the final product.

- "ive always liked the idea of different results using the same materials depending on who gathered them tho. but anyways games arent real life so yeah...balancing as well as technical limitations are more important."

Yes and it's time for a change...We don't talk about a new revolutionnary 3D engine, it's simple to do if devs/team want it to exist, so simple...And once again, SWG did it 15/20 years ago with 8 (!!!!!) caracteristics for each ressources !

coca cola has a formula, if you deviate form that, then its pepsi or dr pepper.

who runs the factory btw?

what about factory workers making stuff in bulk and they all look the same, like pencils back then for example.

Sargramor

They all looks the same but they 're not exactly the same...
Even with a recipe, you don't have exactly same result...
To have exactly same result, you need a factory and we're talking about craftsmanship.
I'm not there to argue on that, you have my point of view, you got your...

Raven016

Depraved wrote: »

who runs the factory btw?

The freehold owner could have a deal with the crafters, will provide materials and the best crafters will have access more often. Those who dare to experiment with expensive resources might optimize their recipe.
But if they cannot afford the research costs they have to share the secrets with the freehold owner.

Thokan

Im all for a super complex crafting system. I absolutely loved The Repopulation, which I think is a straight up SWG-clone, for example

Unfortunately, a crafting system this intricate would fit a sandbox game more than a theme park MMO.

But what you suggest doesnt sound far off from Mortal Online 2. Have you ever tried that one?

Disclaimer: Miss me with that "Sandpark game" shit. AoC is a themepark with ambitions. Rightly so.

Scarctic

Sargramor wrote: »

What do crafters really want in a game?
Essentially, objects that are not clones and manufacturing that is not done by pressing a single button once you have the resources.
When you craft something in reality, you never make twice the same item, not at 100% identical.

Why crafters want this?
When you like to craft, you want to be able to personnalize the item, by colors, additionnal slot and by selecting best ressources for a master piece !

-> Yes, personalizing crafted items (colors, attributes, name) should be a staple in every MMO imho.

Sargramor wrote: »

1- The crafter and his equipment:

The characteristics of the manufacturer and his equipment must influence the manufacture of the object.
For example, in the case of blacksmithing, the attributes chosen could be strength and always intelligence (or focus, depending on the game).
For an alchemist: int + wisdom, leatherwork or cabinetmaker: int + dext etc...
His equipment would be the clothes and tools he uses, these being obtained by artisans or loot etc...

For what purpose? Determine the difficulty of making the object (average, good, excellent or perfect success) and be able to determine a total manufacturing point that would be spent during the manufacturing itself.

-> No, using the stats of fighting equipment is not ideal.
There should be extra slots on a separate inventory tab where you can equip artisan gear.
The artisan gear has own stats for:
"Gathering"(quantity, progress), "Perception"(quality, rarity)
"Processing"(quantity, progress), "Control"(quality, rarity)
"Crafting"(progress), "Artisanship"(quality)

Sargramor wrote: »

2- Resources:

The most delicate point that very few games have dared to address: The quality of resources!
In reality, when we harvest iron for our sword, it never has the same purity and the differences are numerous.
When we mine this iron mine, it would be good for this mine, depending on its location and others, to have an average quality.
For example, we find a mine in a particular location and it has an average value of 80. We could harvest iron ore from it with a quality of 70 to 90 at most...
Obviously, the quality of the iron would influence the quality of the finished product, would only be by a few%.
In addition, the resource processing profession would also influence the quality of the final resource.

Yes, if not too much to handle for the devs, but if pulled off maybe for an expansion.
Also the overload of so many different items could be a problem.

Sargramor wrote: »

3- Optional components:

There would be 2 types of options:
- Ingredients allowing you to change the color of 2 or more parts of the object
- Ingredients to boost it or give an additional ability.

Yes if every ability is worth it. Look at New World how much bullshit litters their item tables... or skill tables... or any tables... i don't want too many dead weights in the game.

Sargramor wrote: »

4- The manufacturing process:

After having chosen the quality of the resources and options according to the object that we want to create (basic for 1st price or top for high-end), we then distribute the manufacturing points that the craftsman has ( Part 1-) according to different characteristics.
In the case of the iron sword, we could have:
- Solidity
- The weight
- The damage range
- The % of criticism

The craftsman can choose to decide which characteristics he wants to boost, also specifying that if he increases a characteristic to the max, the difficulty of achievement increases.

When the creation of the object is done, we have a result which varies, for example: Failure, average success, classic success, excellent success, perfect success (critical success).
This would also influence the final result.

Warning: This is not about creating overpowered objects, especially when we are talking about a simple iron sword.
Instead of having an iron sword that always does 10 dps, it would be a question of only having unique swords in itself, varying the maximum by -5/+5%, at least, on the dps.
The final result must be precise, we don't want 9.8 dps... We want 9.78 dps! At least 2 decimals.

Yes, but without failure i guess, if i got Stevens vision correct.

KingDDD

These systems have two major downsides: inventory space and useless items. Salvaging can help alleviate some of this, but do crafters want to be salvagers?

Scarctic

KingDDD wrote: »

These systems have two major downsides:
- Inventory space
- Useless items.

Inventory space is not as big of an issue if you condense the quality differences into the UI.
Basically you create different values for one specific stackable item:
100x [iron ingot] (50)(40)(10)
25x [copper ore] (11)(9)(5)
or something similar, where you see it directly on the icon or when you hover over it.
So it always stays as one stack of this item unless the overall stack size is full ofc.

Useless items can be salvaged yes, or given away to friends or sold to other players who don't see them as useless because they get them cheaper than the higher quality ones.
In a world without geardrops, any affordable item would be appreciated even if it's just a backup piece for emergencies. and you can't repair it by yourself.
(I see many weapon and armor smith combos coming up for the sole reason of being independent in that regard tho...)

KingDDD wrote: »

Salvaging can help alleviate some of this, but do crafters want to be salvagers?

Is this a rhetorical question?
No, I recognize a philosophical question when I see one.

Did you know that crafty people of the past were to not waste any material in their processes?!
They reused many substances for instance in tanning, or melted old tools and broken metal parts for new smith crafts.

Even from a moral standpoint today, yes we want to salvage everything possible and produce resources as renewable as possible it would be an important message for all of us in a very subtle way under the mask of high fantasy and historical ingenuity and craftmanship.

Do you want to be the best in your craft?
Then use every tool at your disposal to get an edge over your competition.

KingDDD

Scarctic wrote: »

KingDDD wrote: »

These systems have two major downsides:
- Inventory space
- Useless items.

Inventory space is not as big of an issue if you condense the quality differences into the UI.
Basically you create different values for one specific stackable item:
100x [iron ingot] (50)(40)(10)
25x [copper ore] (11)(9)(5)
or something similar, where you see it directly on the icon or when you hover over it.
So it always stays as one stack of this item unless the overall stack size is full ofc.

Useless items can be salvaged yes, or given away to friends or sold to other players who don't see them as useless because they get them cheaper than the higher quality ones.
In a world without geardrops, any affordable item would be appreciated even if it's just a backup piece for emergencies. and you can't repair it by yourself.
(I see many weapon and armor smith combos coming up for the sole reason of being independent in that regard tho...)

KingDDD wrote: »

Salvaging can help alleviate some of this, but do crafters want to be salvagers?

Is this a rhetorical question?
No, I recognize a philosophical question when I see one.

Did you know that crafty people of the past were to not waste any material in their processes?!
They reused many substances for instance in tanning, or melted old tools and broken metal parts for new smith crafts.

Even from a moral standpoint today, yes we want to salvage everything possible and produce resources as renewable as possible it would be an important message for all of us in a very subtle way under the mask of high fantasy and historical ingenuity and craftmanship.

Do you want to be the best in your craft?
Then use every tool at your disposal to get an edge over your competition.

Lower tiers get replaced in value so quickly that they might not as well exist. This happens in every single game without a salvaging /recycling system.

It's neither a rhetorical nor a philosophical question. Im literally asking does someone who wants to craft items for their friends/guildmates/neighbors find engagement and fun in an indepth crafting system using salvaging as it's primary source of resource inflation/deflation.

Applying a real world lense of morality for a video game is hilarious and is something this game should MASSIVELY refrain from. Asking if something is fun will lead to a significantly better game.

Depraved

KingDDD wrote: »

Scarctic wrote: »

KingDDD wrote: »

These systems have two major downsides:
- Inventory space
- Useless items.

Inventory space is not as big of an issue if you condense the quality differences into the UI.
Basically you create different values for one specific stackable item:
100x [iron ingot] (50)(40)(10)
25x [copper ore] (11)(9)(5)
or something similar, where you see it directly on the icon or when you hover over it.
So it always stays as one stack of this item unless the overall stack size is full ofc.

Useless items can be salvaged yes, or given away to friends or sold to other players who don't see them as useless because they get them cheaper than the higher quality ones.
In a world without geardrops, any affordable item would be appreciated even if it's just a backup piece for emergencies. and you can't repair it by yourself.
(I see many weapon and armor smith combos coming up for the sole reason of being independent in that regard tho...)

KingDDD wrote: »

Salvaging can help alleviate some of this, but do crafters want to be salvagers?

Is this a rhetorical question?
No, I recognize a philosophical question when I see one.

Did you know that crafty people of the past were to not waste any material in their processes?!
They reused many substances for instance in tanning, or melted old tools and broken metal parts for new smith crafts.

Even from a moral standpoint today, yes we want to salvage everything possible and produce resources as renewable as possible it would be an important message for all of us in a very subtle way under the mask of high fantasy and historical ingenuity and craftmanship.

Do you want to be the best in your craft?
Then use every tool at your disposal to get an edge over your competition.

Lower tiers get replaced in value so quickly that they might not as well exist. This happens in every single game without a salvaging /recycling system.

It's neither a rhetorical nor a philosophical question. Im literally asking does someone who wants to craft items for their friends/guildmates/neighbors find engagement and fun in an indepth crafting system using salvaging as it's primary source of resource inflation/deflation.

Applying a real world lense of morality for a video game is hilarious and is something this game should MASSIVELY refrain from. Asking if something is fun will lead to a significantly better game.

i get your point but it depends on the game...not every game showers you with better gear every 30 mins

Dygz

Sargramor wrote: »

-" 2 people can make the same stuff identical, for example, coca cola."

You're joking right? It's called factory...
And if 2 people make their own coca cola, the recipe will be different...

- "anyways im confused, you want crafters to differentiate from others in the items they make but you want thm to give specific stats based on the type they are? so all blacksmith will give str to everything they make...this would make the items more similar than different, its a contradiction...."

No, the manufacturing point are based on stats, blacksmith would be based on Int +Strenght , Alchimie Int+ Focus, etc...
Nothing to see with the stats on the final product.

- "ive always liked the idea of different results using the same materials depending on who gathered them tho. but anyways games arent real life so yeah...balancing as well as technical limitations are more important."

Yes and it's time for a change...We don't talk about a new revolutionnary 3D engine, it's simple to do if devs/team want it to exist, so simple...And once again, SWG did it 15/20 years ago with 8 (!!!!!) caracteristics for each ressources !

Many more than two people craft Coca-Cola.
Inventing is not the exact same thing as crafting.
Ashes is not really making a "Crafting" game, rather they are making an RPG that includes some Crafting.
And, the devs are not trying to be innovative about Crafting mechanics.
You might still get what you want... especially if what you want are SWG Crafting mechanics.

Enigmatic Sage

Many developers trying to recapture the magic of SWG crafting.

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