Forums » Crafting and Gathering

What I Want in Crafting

    • 470 posts
    October 4, 2020 4:40 AM PDT

    I posted something over on the Defend the Night forums in response to a thread about things I would like to see and I thought this might go well here as it relates to crafting. This is somethign I'd like to see to help make crafting more important. Let me know what you think. For the sake of brevity, I'll be pulling the ol copy paste with some minor edits.

    The Crafting Want
    The thing I always hope for in any MMORPG, and am often disappointed to find lacking, is a detailed procedural crafting system. Something that's a bit more hands-on like Vanguard's but taken to the next iteration. I want a robust crafting system that isn't click-it-and-forget-it. Nothing worse to me than a crafting system where you load up your bag, have a seat in town, and hit "craft all" then go make a sandwich. Vanguard's system may not have been perfect, but it was involving. There was a process to making components and then a process to crafting items, each with the possibility of complications and an action point pool that you had to manage or end up with anything ranging from a pile of molten slag or a Grade D crappy piece of armor instead of that Grade A shiny rare armor. Add to that each crafting profession relied on another, or sometimes multiple, to craft components for various items. In my case I was a blacksmith that for a while was one of the higher level crafters (yes crafting had it's own levels if you never played Vanguard, it took just as long to level as adventuring) on the server I played on. This got me a bit of a reputation for a while as the guy to see about the blacksmith parts for boats. And at one point I was so busy when I logged on I had backlogs of orders from people. Busy but fun. lol

    Stuff like that makes crafting desirable. It's a lacking thing in modern MMOs as most of them make crafting so simplistically easy pretty much everyone is doing it and flooding the market. The name next to that deluge of items is irrelevant.

    What I would like to see is a system like Vanguard's that allows for a robust selection of crafting, a leveling system for it, a process like it had, and then a deeper integration into the itemization. By that I mean let's say you get an uber rare sword from a raid boss. This sword is say 75% or so of what it's maximum potential could be. As would be the case with all items. They would need a crafter in one of the various professions to bring them to their full potential. You then have a choice. You can live with that 75%, or you can gather a specific rare mat and take it to a skilled crafter. There may be a reagent or two more than can increase the success chance by either providing a few more action points to the crafter or warding off a single complication. From there you hope you've found a good crafter that knows their stuff and hasn't been skimping on the skills or gear. They then proceed to the forge and one of about four possible outcomes will happen.

    1. Critical Success - You chose well and the crafter is a true master of the trade. With every strike the blade is strengthened, never faltering for a second. The crafter was so skilled that they found a way to strengthen the blade even more than expected (a rare critical crafting strike) making the blade not increased from 75% to 100% stronger, but 115% stronger + a random proc/effect. Rejoice!

    2. Basic Success: The crafter knew their stuff. They navigated the complications with skill and avoided any mishaps, strengthening the blade further (crafting success grades B-D). The blade is increased from 75% effectiveness to between 76% to 100%.

    3. Failure to Minor Failure: There were some...complications. The crafter seemed to have made some errors in judgement either through lack of skill or mistaking the branding iron for his forging hammer after an all night bender. You should have known better by the confused and glassy-eyed look he had. Not to mention the strong smell of ale on his breath. Blade Effectiveness reduced from 75% to between 30%-74%.

    4. Critical Failure: Where did you find this guy? I think you mistook the local drunkard for the blacksmith. The only thing you know for certain is that if this guy ever goes near a forge again it'll be because you're throwing him in it. The crafter lacked even the most base knowledge of metalworking. He was a bumbling bafoon that has now made you think of creative places to put that smithing hammer he's clinging to.

    Epic and Critical Failure: This imbecile with a smithing hammer (oh god, that's a wine bottle isn't it?) brings what's left of your blade back in a handkerchief. Judging by his drunken demeanor, you're surprised he hasn't mistaken the pile of slag for a biscuit. Blade reduced from 75% to a small pile of slag and dust. And as the idiot hands it to you he drunkenly stumbles, spilling the dusted sword particles into the wind.

    I hope that explanation was at least mildly amusing. ;p

    If you're not happy with the results you can try again for X rare mats but each subsequent attempt increases the chance of catastrophic failure. Maybe even critical success. Risk vs reward.


    This post was edited by Kratuk at October 4, 2020 4:42 AM PDT
    • 1785 posts
    October 4, 2020 3:50 PM PDT

    Great post Kratuk.  Broadly, I agree - although I'll say that from my viewpoint there are a lot of other things that need to happen as well.  But depth and a compelling gameplay loop for crafting is very important :)

    • 470 posts
    October 4, 2020 4:39 PM PDT

    Oh 100%. I want crafting to be good. That was just an idea. There's always been a question as to whether crafting or adventuring gear should be better. I think you should have both and intertwine the whole system. Maybe even give the crafter cosmetic overlays based on how they train their profession or maybe even specific to their race culture to make them more diverse. A human armorsmith for example may have one appearance that augments one high tier chest piece with something like shoulder spikes while an Arachi may weave in a stripped glow. That can be the last phase of the crafting process, a specific cosmetic look or effect. I imagine that would overwork the art department but would still be fun. ;p

    • 1921 posts
    October 7, 2020 8:06 AM PDT

    A problem with quality variances, rather than simply recipes, is the expectation that all desirable items must be the highest quality. It's especially true for things like critical success.

    If, instead, the recipe determines the quality (white/green/blue/etc) of the base item, and items are unique in base stats by their quality, that historically has been tried, but still, customers always want blue over green, and green over white, and so on.

    --Warning, theorycrafting ahead!--

    If it were my system to design, I would do it this way; The crafter makes the item with the racial appearance desired (to your point about Human vs. Archai, Kratuk), then the customer can add the appropriate customization to the item after the fact. This includes custom enchantments, stats, procs, skill modifiers, active & passive racial or deity modifiers, banes, set bonuses, and more. The customer/wielder can do all of that customization, not the crafter/tradesman exclusively.
    Some customization actions bind the item to the customizer, in particular, for items meant to be equipped and utilized as part of the combat loop. The use or application of customization widgets on an item is a no-fail action.

    Each level range of items would have a cap on customization 'slots' (it's all numbers, but sockets or slots, people can visualize better), and starting out with +1 slot per level tier (0-9, 10-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49) seems like a good initial testing point, while potentially capping at a certain level, if appropriate.

    Dropped gear would need to be repaired with NPC involvement, even if only for social currency fuel purchase, before use, customization, or equipping. Dropped gear would always and only have slots already filled, while crafted would always and only have empty slots, at item creation. This makes, for example, crafted gear more desirable via customization and appearance, but dropped gear more costly via social currency repair. (potentially, it's all tune-able)

    Slot effects could be temporary or permanent, on either dropped or crafted. Some could be recharged or refilled, some would disappear after a time or through use. Slot effects could apply to all types of crafted items, offering complete role-specific focused customization, if desired.  It seems likely, for tuning purposes, that dropped item slots would never empty, while crafted items could.  It's a subtle difference, between recharging a slot effect at 0 charges, and replacing a slot effect once empty, but I think the distinction is important.

    All tradeskills create customization widgets for all item types.

    • 368 posts
    October 10, 2020 10:07 PM PDT

    I just want crafting to be meaningful! Not just the source of the current "low end" current tier gear. 

    I think we have a real opportunity to make crafting matter in the broader meta. It can be one of many sources for character improvement, both directly and indirectly. 

    Maybe providing stat bonuses for maxing out certain tradeskills. This can incentivise the participation in tradeskilling and have a broader affect across other game loops. 

    Examples: 

    • Fletching skill can increase +1 dex, good for archers
    • Armorsmithing skill can increase +1 str, good for tanks 
    • Sage/Spellcrafting skill can increase +1 int, good for mages
    • Alchemy skill can increase +1 wis, good for priests
    • ....Or something like that...

    I think all "looted gear", should then be able to be modified or improved using the various tradeskills: 

    Examples:

    • Jewelrycrafting (Gems; Augments)
    • Sage (Imbuement; Colored Mana, Magic School, Etc...)
    • Weaponsmith (Physical improvements; Sharpened, Blunt, Serrated, Crude, Etc...)
    • Armorsmith (Physical Improvements; Tempered, Crude, Etc...)
    • Alchemy (Poison Application; DD, DoT, DBuff, Etc...)

    Then all tradeskilling should be commissionable via a trade window. People can "trade" tradeskill work to achieve character progression bartering skillsets.

    • 768 posts
    October 11, 2020 2:10 AM PDT

    Kratuk said:

    1. Critical Success - You chose well and the crafter is a true master of the trade. The crafter was so skilled.. the blade ..115% stronger + a random proc/effect. 

    2. Basic Success: They navigated the complications with skill and avoided any mishaps, strengthening the blade further (crafting success grades B-D). The blade is increased from 75% effectiveness to between 76% to 100%.

    3. Failure to Minor Failure: There were some...complications. ... Blade Effectiveness reduced from 75% to between 30%-74%.

    4. Critical Failure: ...no outcome suggested?

    Epic and Critical Failure: ...Blade reduced from 75% to a small pile of slag and dust. 

    It was an amusing read, for sure.

    I would try a different angle..hopefully tieing in "master" distinction amongst the masses of crafters.

    1) A critical success, should not provide extra. Let gamers be happy with an item that functions 100%. There is no need to go overboard on that. You have plenty of other things that will influence the output of that item. There is no empty gap you're filling by designing >100% stats. You're actually making things more complex than required. And de facto downplaying anything else in game that might boost your item output. And you're ramping up the difficulty/stat scale from the start (which is something you want to prevent and actually aim to make that increase through time the least steap as possible)

    Instead, a critical success can go as follows: The crafter completes the craft and due to their high skill, they get some critical successes throughout the craftingprocess. The accumulation of crits during the process, unlocks possibly one or two (or both if enough crits occurred); 1) the crafter is able to leave their name on the item, 2) a costumization options becomes available (preferably a racial thing linked to the crafters' race). They do not provide any measurable benefits to the costumer. Only crafters that continued to skill up beyond certain tresholds, or have unlocked those features, will be able to put in those costumizations. And it will show the crafter's dedication to crafting and multitude of crafts that they have produced in the past.  So, no extra stats are on the 100% item, but maybe the resale value is higher due to the more unique costumizations, making it a stand out amongst the regular 100% items of the same type.  The bottomline here, the critical success enables the crafter to display how masterful they really are. The items become traceable. In contrast to 20 items with 115% stat increase. 

    2) You state that a basic success is actually improving the item further. Possibly to  100%. I read this as, you're altering an already finished product. So you're reworking an item, instead of building it from components/resources. A basic success, for me, would be just that. You construct an item that is 100% succesful. (with some crits, but not enough to unlock the above mentioned. Or with enough crits, but the crafter themself is not advanced enough to display their "mastery")

    3) Although it's entertaining to think about different stages of item-condition. Like many stated in other threads already, many will just seek out the top products and disgard the rest. So where I would take this next stage of crafting: Mediocre Craft (MC). (Note, I'm not calling it a succes, since it's not succesfully finished. But the resources/components are used up.) Here you have a product that requires an additional crafting session to finish up. Or in other words, you can salvage your failure and start again with small additional resource/component cost. The MC is not equipable. It has some sell value. 

    Now this can go very broad or not at all. The additional resources might be different then the original resources/compnents, they can be rare or expensive. So someone who made this MC, might decide to just try and sell their failure as it is. Another buyer might have that additional resource and continue the craft. Or finishing the MC might lead to a lower tier (not lower condition) item. This allows lower level crafters, to pick up and finish the craft. It forms some kind of bridge between leveling crafters. Or to finish the MC it will require more time (in the crafting process) to finish the craft or take it to specific work stations to finish it. Some crafters might not be interested and this might be their reason to sell the MC. With 1) in mind, the MC might exclude the features suggested in 1), this again could be a reason for a mastercraftsmen to put those Mc's up for sale as they aim to uphold their reputation (or possibly it was the specific request of the costumer to have those costumizations on that item, which became impossible due to the MC).

    4) If you manage to fail in advancing the mediocre craft, you'll end up with components or resources.  

    It's more a simplistic approach. You still have the risk of failure, the value and distinction of master craftsmen, but hopefully less of a mudflation of various stats on 1 item ID.


    This post was edited by Barin999 at October 11, 2020 2:37 AM PDT
    • 768 posts
    October 11, 2020 2:19 AM PDT

    Kratuk said:

     A human armorsmith for example may have one appearance that augments one high tier chest piece with something like shoulder spikes while an Arachi may weave in a stripped glow. That can be the last phase of the crafting process, a specific cosmetic look or effect. I imagine that would overwork the art department but would still be fun. ;p

    Augmenting gear or adding item slots could be a thing. I would make them into a specific craft by their own right. And not mix them into the basic of craft-classes.

    This leaves you more room and time to actually enjoy the basics before making things complexer.

    By making them a specific craft on their own, you allow players to opt in or out of this extra "feature". It's not unthinkable that those slots will be common practice in short time. So from that perspective, it can have a big impact on how items evolve in the game. 

    For me, it's one of those features, that you can only implement succesful if it's done once every so often. There are already those glyphs to consider in current game design.

    If slots become a thing, I hope, they emphasise the lore/culture/race/class in the game. And not add extra stats to gear. This way, it can still add flavour, it can still change over time. But it doesn't fundamentally alter the design of item evolution. You can maintain your gear-/items-progression as it is.  

     

    • 768 posts
    October 11, 2020 2:34 AM PDT

    arazons said:

    I just want crafting to be meaningful! Not just the source of the current "low end" current tier gear. 

    I think we have a real opportunity to make crafting matter in the broader meta. It can be one of many sources for character improvement, both directly and indirectly. 

    Maybe providing stat bonuses for maxing out certain tradeskills. This can incentivise the participation in tradeskilling and have a broader affect across other game loops. 

    Examples: 

    • Fletching skill can increase +1 dex, good for archers
    • Armorsmithing skill can increase +1 str, good for tanks 
    • Sage/Spellcrafting skill can increase +1 int, good for mages
    • Alchemy skill can increase +1 wis, good for priests
    • ....Or something like that...

    I think all "looted gear", should then be able to be modified or improved using the various tradeskills: 

    Examples:

    • Jewelrycrafting (Gems; Augments)
    • Sage (Imbuement; Colored Mana, Magic School, Etc...)
    • Weaponsmith (Physical improvements; Sharpened, Blunt, Serrated, Crude, Etc...)
    • Armorsmith (Physical Improvements; Tempered, Crude, Etc...)
    • Alchemy (Poison Application; DD, DoT, DBuff, Etc...)

    Then all tradeskilling should be commissionable via a trade window. People can "trade" tradeskill work to achieve character progression bartering skillsets.

    It can be very tricky to mix crafting with adventuring. Your first example points the way to railroading meta gaming. Where each DEX-playing character who wants to be optimized, will need to become a fletcher, etc. Doing so, you're removing players from the choice to want to craft or not. And you're narrowing their choices of crafting-classes by drawing optimized path for them. 

    Crafting should be a deliberate choice. Not to craft or willing to craft, should be a voluntary choice. And being a crafter, should stand on its own. You can be any class of crafter and that should not negatively impact your adventure class or make you suboptimal.

    Your second suggestion, for me, works more in line with crafting-class specific components. A looted item, could be altered. Depending on what you have in mind, you should adress a certain craftsmen. I believe there is an entire debate about what those alterations could be (check out these crafting forums, or pantheoncrafters.com/pantheonplus website). If those altered looted items, should be on par with fully playerbuild items, is another discussion. I would consider, salvaging looted items and reconstructing them from the ground up. Those looted items might have a specific component, that a common build, has not. At least you're providing a way to "take away" gear out of the game and increase "cost" by requiring a reconstruction. This could influence the availability of common goods.

    • 470 posts
    October 15, 2020 8:22 PM PDT

    Good feedback folks. It is indeed a tricky thing to mix crafting with adventuring in some ways. Let's just hope in the end it's a fun, useful, and involving system.

    • 1315 posts
    October 16, 2020 5:43 AM PDT

    Barin beat me to it which is not surprising as the two of us have discussed it before.  It is important to keep adventuring and crafting synergistic but separated.  Having products of one crafting being highly desirable by one or two specific classes is a good thing.  Having adventuring power magnitude increases being a reward for mastering a specific craft forced that craft into being an extension of the adventuring class and almost railroads players into pursuing it.

    Now using fletching as an example I could see dex playing into success and quality rates and therefor making it a crafting class that matches rangers and rogues primary stat for great synergies but a wizard could still collect a set of dex gear just for crafting.

    • 368 posts
    October 21, 2020 5:45 PM PDT

    Yea I suppose it would kind of push certain classes into picking a tradeskill based on what the benefit stat would be and I can see how it would be offputting for some.

    It just seemed somewhat realistic the way i outlined it. Armorors/black smiths would be "stronger" than someone that fletches whom would have a higher "agility or dexterity"... etc etc.

    It just means you would pick a trade skill based on the class you play as an adeventurer to get the most out of it. Certainly wouldnt lock you into doing it that way but you could lose out on the bonus stat. Choices matter...

    What if the character is just a tradeskilling character anyway? Would it matter then what primary stat you get out of it? The primary stats could reciprocate and increase your tradeskill effectiveness too.

    What is the stance on open tradeskilling vs tradeskilling classes? What is proposed here so far? Anyone can do any trade craft / harvesting on any character where it is a skill based system? Or tradeskill classes where your character has to pick a trade skill class to master and you can only craft stuff from that profession on that character? 


    This post was edited by arazons at October 21, 2020 5:48 PM PDT
    • 334 posts
    October 25, 2020 6:08 PM PDT

    Perhaps certain (starting) cities\locations are the only places to get certain resources, making faction or player trade a requirement.

    • 39 posts
    November 2, 2020 8:19 PM PST

    One thing i will say about crafting. EVE in a lot of ways does it right with materials. The basic stuff you find at the entry areas in EVE is core to making nearly everythign in the game. So, say Iron is a starting material for black smithing. That Iron that you find at level 1 should be useful at all levels of play. This will help the economy as a whole.

    So youing Iron as an example

    At Level 1 you refine the iron and make pure Iron weapons. Iron is fairly soft and easy to work so starting off making iron as a blacksmith makes sense.

    As you level you learn more and maybe you then learn to refine a basic STEEL. You mix that Iron with Carbon, and maybe a second metal, like chromium to make a steel. That you then use to make weapons and armor of a better quality than the iron stuff you made before. 

    So the Iron of "Tier 1" was still useful but then you added "Tier 2" ingredients of Carbon and Chromium to the mix. 

    Now as you level you may use LESS of the basic Tier 1 to make more advanced items, but keeping it in the mix for the most part will help the economy. Instead of having a ton of Iron Ore that sells for near nothing sitting around.

    • 134 posts
    November 3, 2020 9:03 AM PST

    I liked the crafting system in FF14. It has been a long time since I played but I remember with harvesting you had a random chance to get superior quality crafting materials and it wasn't just something you could click a button and walk away, the system was better suited to you individually crafting each item if I remember correctly.

    • 13 posts
    November 15, 2020 11:46 AM PST

    I'd like to make a quick suggestion of making master crafting a parishable skill.  If you have to use your crafting to keep the higher level skill, those who tire of the game or crafting can't just keep making things for themselves once they get to mastery. This would keep crafting as something that will always need to be used, which would be a sponge to item bloat in the economy and also give new crafters a shot at customers.  I'd be happy to explain the idea more if I'm not being clear enough.  And of course feel free to ignore me :)

    • 334 posts
    November 19, 2020 7:50 PM PST

    gloth said: I'd like to make a quick suggestion of making master crafting a parishable skill.  If you have to use your crafting to keep the higher level skill, those who tire of the game or crafting can't just keep making things for themselves once they get to mastery. This would keep crafting as something that will always need to be used, which would be a sponge to item bloat in the economy and also give new crafters a shot at customers.  I'd be happy to explain the idea more if I'm not being clear enough.  And of course feel free to ignore me :)
    sounds realistic enough.. depends on system used; if it requires physical skill of the player using input devices then it's already parishable. Other then that, it would need to fit game mechanics (would I get drunk faster if I stop being an alcoholic?)

    • 1315 posts
    November 20, 2020 5:16 AM PST

    Skill decay is something I have seen talked about as a limiting factor in skill tree based games as a soft cap on the number of skills you can master rather than a hard cap on how many points you can spend/earn in a tree.  Basically the higher your skill rank the more exp is burned away per time period so you need to always be using your skills at least that much to maintain them.  Usually there is also some form of "Once you reach Y you can never degrade lower than X" to cover the "learn how to ride a bike" effect.

    This could be applied to crafting and unlock all crafts and gathering professions then have the decay be a function of both time in game and real life time periods.  Something like (normal_rate_per_month)*((skill_level+max_skill)/max_skill)^(y)*((Time_in_a_month+Time_played_that_month)/(Time_in_a_month))^(x).  You mess with the values of normal_rate_per_month, y, and x till you get to a reasonable amount of decay per skill and how much you want to weight current skill and time played vs rl time, y and x can be less than 1 and will likely never be greater than 2.

    • 113 posts
    November 27, 2020 4:21 PM PST

    Trasak said:

    Skill decay is something I have seen talked about as a limiting factor in skill tree based games as a soft cap on the number of skills you can master rather than a hard cap on how many points you can spend/earn in a tree.  Basically the higher your skill rank the more exp is burned away per time period so you need to always be using your skills at least that much to maintain them.  Usually there is also some form of "Once you reach Y you can never degrade lower than X" to cover the "learn how to ride a bike" effect.

    This could be applied to crafting and unlock all crafts and gathering professions then have the decay be a function of both time in game and real life time periods.  Something like (normal_rate_per_month)*((skill_level+max_skill)/max_skill)^(y)*((Time_in_a_month+Time_played_that_month)/(Time_in_a_month))^(x).  You mess with the values of normal_rate_per_month, y, and x till you get to a reasonable amount of decay per skill and how much you want to weight current skill and time played vs rl time, y and x can be less than 1 and will likely never be greater than 2.

     

    I can see this as an anti-alt mechanic for crafting. The part I don't like is that I'm not always in the mood to craft and would not enjoy losing something that I earned due to what I feel like doing / sounds the most fun for that week/month. I worry about turning it in to a daily quest sort of deal where one feels obligated, "ok I'd better go hit all of my crafting professions (even though I don't really want to) to maintain my skills".

     

    On the one hand I would say that's fair. If you aren't totally in to it then you perhaps don't deserve grand master status or whatever. Being the best of the best should require time and effort and That is what makes it something to be proud of and give you a good feeling of accomplishment, make you stand out in the community too. 9

     

    On the other hand for someone like me, even though crafting is not my main focus in these games, I like to craft and would simply turn those maintenance requirements in to a grind/obligation. Shrug.

    • 3852 posts
    November 28, 2020 7:30 AM PST

    Skill decay - this is not something I have run into before. Then again I haven't tried that many MMOs over the last few years as I wait for Pantheon.

    Quick thoughts. 

    1. I agree we don't want any skill decay to kick in too rapidly. From a realistic point of view - a master blacksmith who takes a two week vacation does not come back as a novice. Or even an expert. From a gameplay point of view I entirely agree that we don't want to turn this into the crafting equivilent of daily quests. 

    2. Now let us look at a system that applied to long inactivity. Would a decay system that applied if someone took a break from the game be good or bad? If I am gone for a year and come back - who does it really hurt if I am still a master blacksmith just as I am still whatever level I attained in my adventuring class? People do leave games for a while for a change of pace or due to real world considerations. Do we want to discourage them from coming back? If my level 50 adventurer became level 30 after a year away would I come back at all? Many players would be deterred. If the same thing applied to crafting the same result might apply to a player that cared about crafting.

    I like the idea of skill decay but I am having trouble persuading myself that the advantages to the game outweigh the disadvantages. And I try to always go beyond "Do I like it?" to "Would it help or hurt the game?" and "Would it take more programming time and strain on the servers and if so is it worth it?"