Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Is having to find and learn crafting recipes good or bad?

    • 1785 posts
    May 21, 2020 9:02 AM PDT

    Earlier this morning, I saw a tweet from someone complaining about how having to go out in the world and find crafting recipes in their game was "artificial difficulty".  I'm sure there's more context behind what they said, but it got me to thinking - is this really a bad thing?

    Personally, I like the idea of rare and powerful recipes that have to be found and learned out in the game world, and not just purchased from some trainer or something like that.  But maybe I am in the minority here.

    What does everyone else think?

    • 416 posts
    May 21, 2020 10:04 AM PDT

    I like the idea of rare and powerful recipes being quested for or found out in the world. Normal recipes should be obtainable through the crafting trainer.

    • 255 posts
    May 21, 2020 2:08 PM PDT

    It will be a pretty boring game if everything is hand feed to people. Lets just stay in this one spot and never have to leave to get crafting up. Doesn't sound very interesting to me for a game.

    so I agree with Thorndeep, that basic recipes are from trainers, you might have to adventure to a dangerous place to obtain them, just like spells, or quest for some and and others are drop only.

     

    • 35 posts
    May 21, 2020 2:08 PM PDT

    I loved how WoW handled it. Normal/Basic recipes were attained through levelling your crafting or buying recipes (aka Food recipes) from vendors and harder crafting recipes like Robes of the archmage was obtained by spending a huge amount to buy from another player or you ran LBRS for a chance for it to drop.


    This post was edited by TheGoose at May 21, 2020 2:08 PM PDT
    • 17 posts
    May 27, 2020 8:22 AM PDT

    I think the best recipes should be found/earned in some way.  If you don't like having to go out in the world, maybe you learn new recipes from weird mistakes on existing recipes (or incredible successes.)  I actually kind of like the idea of having recipes adjust as you level up the skill for example.  When you start a wood item might take 3 pieces of wood, but as you get better at it (past certain magic points) you figure out how to do it with less wood.  Basically your skill reduces the amount of waste wood you generate cutting it up for said item.  

    I kind of like the idea of "magic" crafted items being created by shoving in randomly imbued items (elemental - mage imbued, poison infused - rogue, raw magic - enchanter, spiritual - cleric, animalistic - shaman, etc) and then randomly combining up to 3 imbued items and a normal creation would result in learning a new recipe potentially as you generated something new.

    This would result in a system where you could kind of generate tailored to specifics items.  

    • 3 posts
    May 29, 2020 1:04 PM PDT

    I prefer for recipes and even skills to a certain extent, to be Quested/Researched. My main in EQ was one of the only max melee researchers on my server and I enjoyed making high-end Tomes and selling them. 

    • 768 posts
    May 30, 2020 4:09 AM PDT

    Taking the most recent stream of VR in mind (storylines and perception). It would be a shame to limit this aspect to adventuring only. 

    There is a lot of potential to write up good storylines for crafters to draw them away from their craftstations and into the world. This could have a positive impact on the sensation of a living world. Where you can come across crafters traveling around looking from things aside the next bos to kill.

    Personally, I'm ok with taking it a bit further when it comes to what is available to a character. A basic initiation of crafting is presented to the player. How they handle it, in which directions they are going could lead them on to their "personalized" crafting carrier, or away from crafting (depending how they react on it). From there on, the player might start of with this basic knowledge and undertake one of many steps towards the specific crafting content they prefer.  This could lead to; going to various towns around their starting city to learn about 5 basic smithing recipes. But it could also lead to several merchants initiating the player into the broker/auction system. Or the guild system (coming from a crafters perspective), where the majority of recipes are used within a guildsetting. I am not talking about a playerguild, but a crafters guild. Lumberjacks in different regions that use axes with a different build/effect or components. ... I could go on, but there are so many options to stear away from that 1 crafting trainer provides all.

    Going further with the axe example: you have many citizens/npc's on Terminus that use an axe for different ways. Why don't you allow your recipes to be spread across those npc's. Where your recipes per level are spread out. So depending how you continue the storyline, you'll come across recipes but perhaps not all of them. Or at least not at the same time or from one npc. Perhaps a crafter following a storyline could be on their way to all 1 sided axes and become master in those. And another crafter who started of at the same npc, is going towards becoming expert in halberds. And yet another crafter going a different path is able to get them all, be it in longer time period. You can put forks in the storylines in many sections here. So much potential.

    Becoming a crafter is as much as a story and a growingprocess as it is to become a skilled adventurer. Why wouldn't you provide this in a game that is going strong towards the impact of choices in the life of your character?

    I think, many many people are still very fixed on the limited crafting designs that have been offered in games 'till this day.  Now there is still a chance to keep your eyes and mind open for new approaches to a crafting design.

    Getting every none-rare/none-epic recipe from a trainer within your city. Is that really the best you can come up with? Open your mind and put in some more depth.

    (not meant to criticise anyone here, just saying; Can't we do better? Pauze for a minute and consider if there are more indepth options to be designed here.)


    This post was edited by Barin999 at May 30, 2020 4:21 AM PDT