Forums » Crafting and Gathering

It is ok to steal.....

    • 81 posts
    September 8, 2016 4:33 PM PDT

    ...Ideas from other games.  Use them, tweak them,  make them your own.

    Some stuff I loved in other games....

    Vanguard:  Complexity that made crafters actual crafters.  Not everyone wanted to do it because it actually took work instead of collecting 120 wood and 55 ingots and sliding a slider to 45 combines then going afk for 10 minutes and taking a shower while the little bar kept going across the screen.

    Repopulation: OMG this was the best system I have ever seen in a game, EVER.  First tackle of it (and this from a veteran gamer and dedicated crafter) just gave me a headache it was so overwhelming.  In order to make one sword I have to make 5 sub-combines ?  and for each of those 5 I need to make 4-5 more and another 3-4 for each of those ?  and each raw material has differing grades that effects each sub combine and each sub effects the main ?  OMG brain trauma !  But once you got over the sheer overwhelmingness of it you found grace and interdependency and flow. 

    Salem Online: Simplistic but in a good way.  Making stuff that you actually use for various things.  Crafting was more than just new armor and weapon every x levels and food that gave you a tiny buff but wasn't really necessary.  The way food worked was actually quite interesting,  same for Inspirationals.  You made things then studied them to learn things.

    ArcheAge: Absolutely nothing.  Every single aspect of crafting in this game was a perfect example of what NOT to do.

    Darkfall:  Crafting itself was a bit too easy (more of the collect and move slider from above) but the gathering was interesting because it was dangerous.  Sure it was a full loot PvP game but the fact that gathering was very dangerous made it quite satisfying.  Making it back to your base with x number of materials was an accomplishment,  and botters were practically non existant.

    UO:  It is hard to believe that UO being one of the very first MMOs that alot of what was offered still has not been outdone today.  Thanks WoW (but thats a whole other rant).  Making tons of items craftable is key to crafting.  IMO the higher the % of world items actually made by the players the higher my happiness.

    I will edit in more when I get more time but would love to hear other people's thoughts....

     


    This post was edited by KatoKhan at September 8, 2016 4:35 PM PDT
    • 21 posts
    September 8, 2016 10:52 PM PDT

    Loved the crafting in Vanguard, (getting A items YES) Must say that Lotro also had alot of fun crafting to enjoy :) 

    • 38 posts
    September 9, 2016 12:21 PM PDT

    Vanguard was my favourite. I haven't played Repopulation, so I can't comment on that. 

    • 86 posts
    September 9, 2016 1:22 PM PDT

    I didnt play Vanguard long enough to have an opinion on that. but I did however love the EQ2 system it had at launch. True interdependency along with a neat little minigame you had to play in order to succeed in the craft.

    • 23 posts
    September 10, 2016 8:35 AM PDT

    I am also in the camp that believed Vanguard has one of the best crafting systems ever. I really hope Pantheon directly copies that system, and allow crafted items be on par with dropped loot.

    • 308 posts
    September 10, 2016 2:39 PM PDT

    I am also of the opinion that VG had the best crafting in any game ever, although i do not hope for a direct copy of that there are many things that pantheon could use to make thier own system. Also i am of the opinion that it would be neat if no gear was just directly dropped and everything had to be crafted, or at least repaired by a qualified crafter before use by a PC. as an example if you are out in the world hunting and you kill a greater goblin wearing a Breastplate, are you really going to just directly put on the breastplate that a goblin was wearing?

    • 173 posts
    September 11, 2016 5:27 AM PDT

    VG was most def my fave.  I think I spent more time at the forge than I did in the fight.  It required skill and planning.

    • 201 posts
    September 11, 2016 9:57 AM PDT

    VG + initial EQ2 crafting.  Make it happen.

    • 81 posts
    September 11, 2016 12:29 PM PDT

    Gawd said:

    I am also of the opinion that VG had the best crafting in any game ever, although i do not hope for a direct copy of that there are many things that pantheon could use to make thier own system. Also i am of the opinion that it would be neat if no gear was just directly dropped and everything had to be crafted, or at least repaired by a qualified crafter before use by a PC. as an example if you are out in the world hunting and you kill a greater goblin wearing a Breastplate, are you really going to just directly put on the breastplate that a goblin was wearing?

    I also agree with this.  I love the idea that vendor NPCs should either be non existant OR should only re-sell what they have aquired from players.  You want a truly player driven economy ?  Let the players effect it directly. An example of the latter could be....

    NPC Thomas is a Metal Weapons Merchant.  He buys and sells weapons such as daggers.  He lives in a large city that borders the wilderness so there is alot of business for him.  Due to his influx of business from the locals,  he sets his stock at 100 daggers.  Right now he has 0 daggers left so he needs merchandise to sell to his customers.  He is currently buying daggers for 20 gold each.  Once he aquires say 25, he is still in need of more but less urgently so he only offers 15 gold each for the next 25.  Now he has 50 so his supply is pretty good so he lowers his buying rate to only 10 each.  He buys another 25 for a new total of 75 now.  Now he lowers his price again to a mere 5g each until he aquires 100 at which time he simply cant buy anymore at any price.  As he sells these to his customer base his stock obviously goes down and needs to be refilled making his pricing fluctuate and a smart crafter can pay attention to this and profit from it.  Also things done in-game could effect the merchant's stock.  Such as an area coming under attack could bolster sales to NPCs. Or a large band of brigands moves to the area and starts robbing travelling caravans of equipment.

     

    Kato 

    • 173 posts
    September 11, 2016 2:36 PM PDT

    Gawd said:

    I am also of the opinion that VG had the best crafting in any game ever, although i do not hope for a direct copy of that there are many things that pantheon could use to make thier own system. Also i am of the opinion that it would be neat if no gear was just directly dropped and everything had to be crafted, or at least repaired by a qualified crafter before use by a PC. as an example if you are out in the world hunting and you kill a greater goblin wearing a Breastplate, are you really going to just directly put on the breastplate that a goblin was wearing?

     

    I like you ideas.  I mean who would want to just pick up the BP off a dead goblin and put it on?  Your ideas sound good both becuase it would really help lead to a player driven economy.  It also adds more..realism if you will.  Perhaps not anything overly involved, but take it to a armorsmith to make it usable for you. It would also make crafting more saught after.


    This post was edited by VR-Mod1 at September 11, 2016 6:11 PM PDT
    • 62 posts
    September 13, 2016 7:57 PM PDT

    I'm seeing a lot of grand ideas here! I think that the dagger seller would need to also bump up their price as they run out, to reflect scarcity and the price of a dagger being sold should never be close to the price it is bought for. Nothing crazy, like EQ, but more like a 50% markup.

    I love, love, love the idea that a pirece of armor isn't intantly usable, like every piece of equipment is magically perfect for your character. Even better is the idea that degraded armor can be used as a showpiece or reforged anew with the right materials and skill. It would be so rewarding to be a crafter because of that and would add immersion and a reason to socialize. I think things like earrings, sashes, belts, capes and such that don't need resizing should be exempt, but that's just practical. A giant's earring shouldn't fit a halfling.

    • 205 posts
    September 16, 2016 6:20 AM PDT
    I also really enjoyed the Vanguard way of doing it. I also want to be relevant as a crafter the entire game. Crafting can take a TON of time and effort and a rewarding experience (aka to be "needed") is paramount for me.
    • 19 posts
    September 18, 2016 4:45 PM PDT

    I agree that Archeage's RNG system for weapons and armor sucked. Seriously it did. But I really liked how they used housing. For the first time I actually wanted land and a house (or farm!). I found housing in most MMOs kind of pointless (except for SWG which I hear was pretty cool but didn't stay with game to actually use it). I liked that you can "farm" on your land, craft using crafting equipment within the house. Not sure if I like the ability to port to houses like Archeage had, but I did like the mystery of taking someone's port that they opened and finding yourself in someone's house, farm, guild house on the other side of the world ... oops.

     

    I never played VG but wished I had.

    • 19 posts
    September 19, 2016 2:46 AM PDT

    Aarpoch said:

    Gawd said:

    I am also of the opinion that VG had the best crafting in any game ever, although i do not hope for a direct copy of that there are many things that pantheon could use to make thier own system. Also i am of the opinion that it would be neat if no gear was just directly dropped and everything had to be crafted, or at least repaired by a qualified crafter before use by a PC. as an example if you are out in the world hunting and you kill a greater goblin wearing a Breastplate, are you really going to just directly put on the breastplate that a goblin was wearing?

     

    I like you ideas.  I mean who would want to just pick up the BP off a dead goblin and put it on?  Your ideas sound good both becuase it would really help lead to a player driven economy.  It also adds more..realism if you will.  Perhaps not anything overly involved, but take it to a armorsmith to make it usable for you. It would also make crafting more saught after.

     

    I think you should be able to put the armor on since who wouldn´t if you found a stronger piece than you were wearing until that point. Though it should give you a small debuff since like you said some reeking goblin wore that before you. When you return to the city you should be able to remove the debuff by "cleaning" and repairing the piece or marking it as your own.

    • 96 posts
    September 19, 2016 11:15 AM PDT

    I think that his point was....most of the races would not be directly able to wear a piece of metal that was sized/shaped for something the size of a goblin...at the least, it would have to be modified in some way.  For some races...a goblin chestplate might only be the material equivalent of a bracer or shoulderpiece of some sort ;)

    • 6 posts
    November 6, 2016 2:43 PM PST

    I liked the way crafting was done in EQ2 . You actually had to pay attention to the process and make corrections if needed. Also, I liked that you didn't just get to pick a tradeskill class/profession right a way there was a progression that you had to go through first from artisan to your final tradeskill class that way you got top explore all the options before choosing your final class.

    • 12 posts
    November 7, 2016 10:51 PM PST

    I personlly didn't like EQ2's crafting. While it was more interactive, sometimes the RNG would deside to screw you and even on an item that is simple for you you screw it up because you get alot of bad events.

    • 151 posts
    November 8, 2016 10:25 AM PST

    antonius said:

    VG + initial EQ2 crafting.  Make it happen.

     

    /agree

    • 4 posts
    November 12, 2016 6:04 PM PST

        Just make it random and unpredictable so that someone can't make a BoT to craft for you. Even EQ2 had a crafting BoT and it seemed rather unpredictable.

    Also, please don't make us have to have a crafting toon.  I always hated that. "OK I can make that, just let me log on my crafting toon" 

    FFXI and FFXIV let you craft everything on one toon and it was fine. It wasn't game breaking.  The fact is that people who want to craft WILL craft and those who don't, won't.  So why does it matter if it is on the same character they adventure on? 

     

    These are only opinions of course! Thanks for reading! 

    • 14 posts
    November 21, 2016 7:13 AM PST

    There are no new things, only rearrangements of other things.

    It's trite and not entirely accurage but Tolkien was a rearrangement of European myth and legend, D&D a rearrangement of Tolkien and other authors, MUDs were a rough online approximation to D&D, and EQ was a visual MUD.  Taking a slightly different path, Warhammer drew heavily on Tolkien, Blizzard drew heavily on EQ and Warhammer for the initial Warcraft.

    VR should draw as heavily on other games and literature as they can without getting slapped with a cease and desist.

    Regarding crafting, I'd love to see a reimagining of SWG's crafting system including item decay. It doesn't have to be a whack-a-mole style minigame to keep me interested, just allow me to improve results based on experimentation and then lock in that experimentation to a design blueprint with a limited number of production runs. 

    Regarding "crafting toons", I always saw that as the result of poorly implemented crafting systems where one could simply grind crafting xp by burning through hundreds of copies of the same item. If crafting takes a time and resource investment similar to the usual PvE game play then leveling up a crafting toon becomes a ridiculous time sink just to avoid reliance on others. Make the crafting progression too easy and people will simply buy materials and grind.

    • 6 posts
    November 30, 2016 10:55 AM PST
    I really liked the EQ2 style of interactive yet moderately simple crafting.
    • 81 posts
    November 30, 2016 12:59 PM PST

    Some good ideas going in here,  please keep them coming

    • 73 posts
    November 30, 2016 5:21 PM PST

    I agree about making crafting challenging.

    In Vanguard I liked being a supplier of raw materials. If a crafter is crafting, he/she wasn't collecting materials and would pay well for them to be dropped off. That's how I made extra money.

    Games that allow people to specialize in different services I think strengthens the community while allowing everyone to do everything easily only encourages isolation.

    • 10 posts
    January 1, 2017 3:15 AM PST

    Echoing my love of Vanguard's crafting system. really is missed.  Remember sometimes 

    "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" a lot of fantastic original ideas in this thread as well.

    • 470 posts
    January 1, 2017 2:41 PM PST

    There is nothing at all wrong with borrowing mechanics or features from other games and adding your own twist to them. Game development today would not exist without this being a thing. Every feature, concept, story, and idea these days are derived or inspired from something else. So what the title calls stealing, I call iteration. (Stealing does exist mind you, but in most game development cases it's an iteration process rather than outright theft.)

    I never played The Repopulation, but sounds like you enjoyed it. I like involving crafting systems myself, and one of my favorite was Vanguard's. Whatever form Pantheon's crafting takes, I do hope that it will be an engaging system. I hate lazy crafting (by lazy I mean get a bunch of mats, click craft all, and go watch a movie).


    This post was edited by Kratuk at January 1, 2017 2:42 PM PST