Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Which Games Should We Model Crafting After?

    • 668 posts
    February 10, 2017 6:01 PM PST

    What is your favorite crafting game and list some specifics on why? Using pieces of crafting techniques from any game and or your own ideas, what would your ultimate crafting method look like in game?


    This post was edited by Pyye at February 10, 2017 8:00 PM PST
    • 4 posts
    February 10, 2017 6:30 PM PST

    I loved SWG crafting and gathering.   I was a big fan of the random resource stats and how it affected your crafting results.  I would spend hours and hours finding the best resources out of all the planets and then look around for a great place to gather from.   I actually kept notes of the stats and would make sure I was always gathering the best materials.  

    • 668 posts
    February 10, 2017 8:01 PM PST

    I never played SWG but I often hear how good the crafting was...  What were the mechanics of SWG's crafting system once you got the ingredients?


    This post was edited by Pyye at February 10, 2017 8:02 PM PST
    • 3016 posts
    February 10, 2017 9:03 PM PST

    Either SWG or Vanguard. :)

    • 170 posts
    February 11, 2017 7:35 AM PST

    While I agree with Star Wars Galaxies and Vanguard I also kind of enjoyed EverQuest's. Black Desert Online's crafting to an extent was good where you had to own certain residents that would allow certain recipes. But since we are not doing housing at least they haven't said how we are BDO's wouldn't work.

    I did enjoy WildStar's secret caves. So you're out adventuring and crafting and you go to mine some ore and its a worm, you kill the worm quick enuff and you can go through the mouth of his giant corpse and you pop out his other end in a resource cave of tons to mine. But the cave will close off and kick you out after a certain time so you hope you have the inventory and weight allowance and you have the durability and spare mining tools and you go crazy getting what you can. It was rare but it was nice when you got it.

    The weapons and gear you crafted was pretty useful too it took and Dungeon or Raid drop to replace what you made so naturally I was a weaponsmith.

    I am not sure which game I would say to model it after even growing your own farm in ArcheAge was cool. But at the same time I want crafting to be fun and useful and require effort without being a full-time job. It has been too time-consuming in several games and that's great for crafters but I would rather adventure and explore Terminus rather than stare at a crafting hub all day while trade skilling. I want to do both and to me, trade skilling should be a time killer while waiting on a group or raid not my entire game focus.

     

    • 780 posts
    February 11, 2017 7:51 AM PST

    I never played SWG, but I understand that you could find all of these metals and other resources that produced items with different stats, and that it was actually possible to find a metal that was never found in the game again.  If that metal was perfect for creating the best version of a certain tool or weapon, people would only be able to get that version of the tool or weapon from you.  Could be wrong, but that's how my buddies explained it.

     

    Everything I hear about the Vanguard system sounds good to me also, so I think we'll end up with pretty good crafting here.  I just hope they don't decide the game can release without crafting and they'll put it in later.  I'm counting on it just being another one of those things they don't want to talk about until external testing.

    • 6 posts
    February 11, 2017 1:11 PM PST

    I loved the Vanguard system, *I hate you mangeld tool*, it definitly made you think about your next step, becouse you just might not be able to finish if somthing bad showes up *I'm talking about you mageld tool, stomps raki feet in anger* but if all whent well you could end up with some awsome items.

    WoW: is way to simple and an overly expensive money sink, even if you stay off the auction house and farm everything for your self.

    Rifts: was ok, I don't have much to say about it, as it didn't catch my intrest.

    EQ: I spent way to much time on some things to just have it not work, or have it eat everything it be lost.

    • 126 posts
    February 11, 2017 2:16 PM PST

    I loved EQ1's crafting but not the lack of storage for components and finished products. And I really liked the way people worked together, too! I hated the EQ2 style of crafting and didn't even try. I watched (and listened to) my hubby and lost all interest in it. I loved the look of EQ2's items and the way you could manipulalte them but crafting shouldn't punish you. Break a needle, sure, but lose exp or health? NOPE!

    I did some in Vanguard, but really don't remember a lot about it. I know I've mentioned somewhere that drops shouldn't be better than the best crafted item in the game! The ability to come up with new recipes is really good, too! I've seen that somewhere....

    I want to enjoy crafting again. I want it to be relaxing and fun, beneficial and a good way to make an extra plat now and then!

    • 668 posts
    February 11, 2017 7:41 PM PST

    I am not sure yet about what style (UI) of crafting I want.

    One thing I have been thinking about is a system that encourages taking crafted items and depleting them for other resources and chances for rare crafting materials.  This would increase the value and worth of any crafted item, no matter what level, because people will be using them for much needed resources and there will be less in supply. In so many games I have seen so many crafted items just sitting in auction houses, having their value go lower and lower...  it just makes no sense.  To me, they are still made of material and should have additional value elsewhere.  

    So it would be neat to have an additional direction or two you can take any crafted item in order to move in other directions...  and the market supply is up and down continually, holding higher values because supply is not overloaded.

    *Brad did mention being able to trade items in for buffs etc... be interesting to see if it includes crafted items.

     

     


    This post was edited by Pyye at February 12, 2017 9:05 AM PST
    • 84 posts
    February 12, 2017 5:28 AM PST

    Would love to see Pantheon adopt a crafting/resource system similar to Star Wars Galaxies.  It was by far the deepest and rewarding crafting system I have ever had the pleasure of participating in.

    1)  Resources that cycled based on your location, time of day, season.  This provided so many unqiue inputs into your crafted items, that essentially no two crafted items were ever the same.  Resource gathering was a very interesting and rewarding system all on its own.

    2)  Crafters who took the time to obtain high quality resources and crafting gear and were willing to learn and understand the intracasies of the crafting system were rewarded with highly sought end products.  The quality of the resources and the skill of the crafter provided for a higher quality end product.  Again, basically every item created was unique with its own stats.

    3)  The crafters name were imprinted on each item, which allowed crafters to make a name for themselves.  Higher quality items commanded a higher price.  Flooding the market with poorly made cheap items did not have much of an impact on the demand for higher quality items.

    4)  Crafted items were mostly highly consumable and/or wore out and therefore the demand for more crafted items was robust.

    5)  Interdependent.  Crafters needed items obtained by those out adventuring (such as leathers, meats, ect...) and they needed items made by other professions.

    I am pretty sure Brad had some experience working on Star Wars Galaxies; hopefully he is aware of just how popular that game's crafting/resource system was.

    • 47 posts
    February 13, 2017 12:09 AM PST

    Vanguard: Saga of Heroes crafting was by far the best crafting in a game I have ever played.  If Pantheon creates a crafting system like that I will be in heaven.  Please Mr. McQuaid.  Bring it back.


    This post was edited by Talint at February 13, 2017 12:09 AM PST
    • 9 posts
    February 14, 2017 5:46 PM PST

    Hi forum squad! The best crafting system I have ever experienced, actually, is EQ2. It had direct response and crafting-as-combat. The closest system to this was FFXIV: ARR. The problem with their system was that since you could multiclass, it became more about a rotational minmax than a responsive crafting system.

    Every game on the planet uses some iteration of menu-and-wait. I would much rather fight my item for its completion and quality, with RNG as part of it, but mostly ability centric. This game absolutely must NOT have a menu-and-wait based system. I hope others feel the same way. Blacksmithing in real life is dangerous, and because of this I disagree with Aredhel... it is totally reasonable to take a durability, HP, or progress hit for messing up a complication. Further, getting an imbue done should have real meaning, and not just happen the first time you make a sword. I loved how you could make 3-4, RNG would mess you up, and then that 5th weapon or chest armor, maybe you'd pull it off. Part of immersion is effort, and another part is how a game simulates reality I wouldn't necessarily ask for a direct port, but something with the same essence and immersive qualities would be wonderful... in other words, keeping in mind whatever Pantheons twists may bring,  but retaining the basic structure.

    P.S. Also, like EQ2, the mats for making an on-level item should be very farmable, but the items required to imbue (or whatever) should be scarce. There should also be a universal set of nodes to farm. While nobody likes those no-lifers who farm all day, having a character-locked node system demeans the importance of crafting and professions in general... this comes back to "everyone thinks they want it easy, with as many quality of life improvements as possible, but in the end you have to balance immersion and game experience with the urge to "email the loots to my yahoo account" gaming experience."

    I've got a high bar for you guys!! I hope you pull it off. You guys may be our last, best hope! Much anticipation, and good luck!

     


    This post was edited by DeviantFox at February 14, 2017 5:51 PM PST
    • 137 posts
    March 25, 2017 6:08 AM PDT

    Minecraft. I'm not really into the whole ability based crafting.

    • 57 posts
    March 25, 2017 6:44 AM PDT

    Like DeviantFox said, I as well loved EverQuest ][ form of crafting. To sit there and actually counter things that could go wrong and possibly die while crafting made it feel like you where crafting. The other games I played EverQuest (loved being mutiple crafters on one character), World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic just did't have a system that felt correct. Have materials in hand click combine and you either succeeded or failed. This type of crafting made leveling up extremely fast however one thing I do remember about SW:TOR was as you advanced in crafting abilitys the game had a artificial timer that took more and more time to create the item as you got a higher level (top teir item could take 4 hours to create in the background while you adventured). While I tend to take ever possible crafting skill the game offers, I just hate how in every game other then EQ that I played I have to continue to make alternate characters for that instead of playing my main and getting known on my main for my abilitys.

    • 77 posts
    March 25, 2017 7:48 AM PDT

    Best thing about FFXIV: ARR's crafting system. Looking like a boss in BiS crafting gear. Worst thing about FFXIV: ARR's crafting system minmaxing BiS crafting gear took away that individuality and pretty much everyone ended up looking the same again. (due to having to max all classes for rotational crafts)

     

    My favorite crafting comes from of course MUDS. Everyone in the 'realm' knew Nolv the dwarven armormaker made the awesome fullplate with customized appearances to customers satisfication. Armor was baselevel across metals >leather>cloth, instead it was skills that had to be learned to determine sturdiness, surivival, evasion, defense. Fullplate had to be learned to be worn by knights, and without learning how to wear that they were only able to wear leather-chainmail. It made that individualism real. Had to giveup on perhaps a class related 'skill set' to train in tradeskill so there wasn't many crafters. Also no npc's sold anything other than very very basic armor.


    This post was edited by Nolvu at March 25, 2017 7:49 AM PDT
    • 1584 posts
    March 25, 2017 1:46 PM PDT

    Aredhel said:

    I loved EQ1's crafting but not the lack of storage for components and finished products. And I really liked the way people worked together, too! I hated the EQ2 style of crafting and didn't even try. I watched (and listened to) my hubby and lost all interest in it. I loved the look of EQ2's items and the way you could manipulalte them but crafting shouldn't punish you. Break a needle, sure, but lose exp or health? NOPE!

    I did some in Vanguard, but really don't remember a lot about it. I know I've mentioned somewhere that drops shouldn't be better than the best crafted item in the game! The ability to come up with new recipes is really good, too! I've seen that somewhere....

    I want to enjoy crafting again. I want it to be relaxing and fun, beneficial and a good way to make an extra plat now and then!

    This honestly probably wont happen, and the only reason why i say this is becuase it would stop people from going to dungeons and farming camps in the long run, now maybe one slot like a face peice or something yeah sure but for all best crafting to beat all drops is honestly to me disheartening.  But back on track i can say i actually am liking what im seeing from EQ2, i have never played it due to always playing EQ1, but since it seems like it very interactive and such and keeps you on your toes with what you want to do and always do your best i think this is a very good approach and i hope we might get something like this.


    This post was edited by Cealtric at March 25, 2017 2:00 PM PDT
    • 2886 posts
    March 26, 2017 8:39 AM PDT

    Riahuf22 said:

    Aredhel said:

    I loved EQ1's crafting but not the lack of storage for components and finished products. And I really liked the way people worked together, too! I hated the EQ2 style of crafting and didn't even try. I watched (and listened to) my hubby and lost all interest in it. I loved the look of EQ2's items and the way you could manipulalte them but crafting shouldn't punish you. Break a needle, sure, but lose exp or health? NOPE!

    I did some in Vanguard, but really don't remember a lot about it. I know I've mentioned somewhere that drops shouldn't be better than the best crafted item in the game! The ability to come up with new recipes is really good, too! I've seen that somewhere....

    I want to enjoy crafting again. I want it to be relaxing and fun, beneficial and a good way to make an extra plat now and then!

    This honestly probably wont happen, and the only reason why i say this is becuase it would stop people from going to dungeons and farming camps in the long run, now maybe one slot like a face peice or something yeah sure but for all best crafting to beat all drops is honestly to me disheartening.  But back on track i can say i actually am liking what im seeing from EQ2, i have never played it due to always playing EQ1, but since it seems like it very interactive and such and keeps you on your toes with what you want to do and always do your best i think this is a very good approach and i hope we might get something like this.

    That's not entirely true. Because then what would be the point in crafting armor if it's never going to be viable? The key is basically to make it so that ingredients for those recipes can only be found in dungeons. Adventuring and fighting will still be necessary to be a crafter. It's just a matter of balance. Two different avenues to reach the same result. 

    • 399 posts
    March 26, 2017 8:36 PM PDT

    I liked the crafting in eq1. It was super hard and you really had no idea what to combine other than to try to decipher the lore that went with a rare new piece. Everything else was trial and error. Not for the faint at heart. 

    Initially pretty much nothing stacked so that was a good enhancement. But then later, they made it way too easy and every tom, Dick and Harriet became a master crafter. Do I like to sit and put in 4 or 5 or 12 ingredients in a kiln or something and hit combine? No. but I do.  I do, because I know few people want to. Did I like the many steps and ingredients needed to make a picnic basket? No but yes I did! because I got good food and it was hard!   I like hard because then I know few will do it. (Relatively few)

    I also liked the vanguard method.  The way I see it is the more realistic the better. The harder, the better. Crafting in PRF should be hard, not for the faint at heart.

    go go Pantheon!!

    • 15 posts
    March 27, 2017 12:32 AM PDT

    My favorite MMO's for crafting...........Vanguard (yes even more so with the faction requirements- i dont want it simple, i want my work to pay off and mean something), SWG (along with the personal vendors-but ppl quickly learned to steal you blind while offline), and a game called Horizons.

    Lets face it, 3rd party programs have ruined many a MMO. When someone can load a program, head to work, come home and have bags full of crap to flood the market it makes crafting almost pointless. I feel reaching the pinnacle of crafting should be as hard as leveling your cleric/pally/enchanter/insert class here to max. It should be its own sphere, not an after thought to adventuring.

    I tend to craft the first month or two, and hold off on adventuring for the most part. I love to be the guy that has the reputation of making the best/biggest bags/armor/weapons/goodies, discovering the hard to get recipes, and either selling or bartering for things i cannot get without adventuring much. Creating trade networks, alliances with other crafters, and really going full tilt. I also cant just sit at a keyboard for hours and hours anymore healing or whatever, so crafting allows me to take a few breaks here and there, socialize a bit, or go have a smoke and make some coffee.

    • 308 posts
    March 27, 2017 4:24 PM PDT

    I would like to see VG's Crafting system make a comeback. now that said it seems that SWG's resource gathering was much better than VG so maybe use SWG resource gathering with VG Crafting. VG crafting because i like that skill and correct processing would net you a 100% chance for your item to be crated. and SWG resource gathering because i feel that not all materials are created equal, even among the best material there would be some that are better than others. it might be nice to have harvesting skills affect the quality of the material to an extent.

     

    also i would like to say that i do not agree with either side of the crafted vs adventure gear argument. i believe that all gear that a character wears should need to participation of a crafter in order to wear it. lets say you find the magical BP of Super-Holy-L33Tness in the stomach of a dragon there is bound to be damage done or some such that would need a capable armorsmith to fix or maybe even fit it for your character.

     

    this would be the same with the Greatsword of Epeen that you found on the troll king, i am sure that the troll king would not be maintaining this weapon well and it would need repair before it becomes something a respectable adventurer would wear. and as for raids i think the best stuff from raids should be materials for crafters to make the super ultra mega rares.

    • 3852 posts
    March 28, 2017 6:47 AM PDT

    Vanguard. And the original EQ2 system had some nice features.

    • 62 posts
    March 28, 2017 8:59 AM PDT

    I only liked the extensive crafting systems of Starwars Galaxies and Vanguard (and ryzom aswell). 

    Starwars Galaxies was very variable with shifting resource stats so you had to actively search the resources and keep a database of what to find where for which time. Also the amount of stuff you could craft is unparalelled. Ryzom is somewhat to that extend.

     

    BUT: Vanguard was great in it's own regard. The minigame while crafting where you had to pick the tools you want to use was phenomenon. Do you risk burning your hands (don't add water), or do you risk straining you finger (don't add bandages). Also the mini-card game for diplomatic was awesome to play. 

    For fishing the same. I always loved the SWG fishing, but after Vanguard added fishing it was a fun and refreshing mini-game/challenge.

    So for me: Pick Vanguard.

    • 201 posts
    April 1, 2017 6:00 PM PDT

    This has been hammered to death I think.  The universal clear opinion from what I have seen (and personally want also) is a reproduction of Vanguard with some SWG and EQ2. To quote my own post from October 2015...

    antonius said:

    Besides seeing it made and fulfilling its promises...

    Make me a modern EQ basically with VG crafting (with some SWG/EQ2 elements) and I am SOLD forever.  Crafting is a MAJOR aspect for me and a critical one.  I really hope a good and developed system is available at launch, because for me at least, many of things and aspects I want, require a good system that is there to start.  You cannot really add item scarcity and rarity of gear, etc after the fact into the world and economy if you start without a decent crafting system.

    I so badly want a game with a crafting system like VG that:

    -had a game world where gear is very very rare from drops or quests, so even basic crafted gear is sought after and viable to sell (no brand new suit of gear from each quest, drops etc).  Found or quested gear should be the major exception, not the rule

    -factions exist with special unique recipes and stats and effects that require rep with different factions to learn

    -rare and unique recipes that have to be found/quested

    -crafting gear and slots just like adventuring

    -crafting stats, levels and skills

    -unique add ons like dusts for special abilities, procs, etc for more customized gear

    -top level crafting requires a great deal of time invested, NOT just "click, watch the little blue bar fill, click again, etc etc until Skill 300, with a guild supplying me I am max crafting in 3 hours". I want exp and crafting levels, etc and things for exp/money like VG crafting orders, etc.  Just like adventuring, I want top level crafting to be IMPOSSIBLE to reach in a week or a month even with 24 hour a day play.  People who want to be max everything in a day invariably LEAVE the game anyway after 1 month because they are bored.  I want to enjoy being "armorer level 23" as an important, profitable and enjoyable stage, not a waystation to "armorer skill 300, now let me find the 1 valuable item to make that it useful instead of quested item X or dropped Y"

    -integration with adventuring for the most unique and great recipes, gear, etc but not requiring adventuring for levelling and making most very good things

    -harvesting that has actual skills and gear and stats, not just "harvesting 300" and rare/ultra rare materials, plus dropped and deconstructed items to keep supply of items down

    -actual crafting quests for unique recipes, skills, tools, extra materials

    -crafter interdependency...no "I can make everything for higher level recipes on my own...I don't need anyone".  I like having to have relationships with leatherworkers for making my plate armor, etc.

     

    AND in response to that post...

    AgentGenX said:

    If we could still "like" posts on here, I would have liked your post.

    Furor said:

    I couldn't agree with this statement more. Vanguard crafting has been, in my opinion, hands down the BEST crafting system I have ever seen in any MMORPG.

    Josi said:

    This is my first post here and I can already tell I'm going to sound like a Vanguard homer on these forums. I couldn't agree with Furor more. If the dev's just straight ripped Vanguard's crafting system and made some tweaks for taste I'd be in heaven. There's a lot of really gread ideas in this thread I'd love to see as well, but a lot of the posts almost seem to be describing my experience of crafting in Vanguard. I can't help but wonder who here has crafted in VG and who hasn't.

     

    You get the idea.

    XX

    • 267 posts
    April 2, 2017 8:20 PM PDT

    Pyye said:

    I never played SWG but I often hear how good the crafting was...  What were the mechanics of SWG's crafting system once you got the ingredients?

     

    Shucklighter said:

    I never played SWG, but I understand that you could find all of these metals and other resources that produced items with different stats, and that it was actually possible to find a metal that was never found in the game again.  If that metal was perfect for creating the best version of a certain tool or weapon, people would only be able to get that version of the tool or weapon from you.  Could be wrong, but that's how my buddies explained it.

    Ok, so for those of you wondering how SWG worked, here is the best discription I can give you for it. First, its all about the ingredients. Crafting ingredients in SWG were broken down in to catagories like Organic / Non-Orangic and they were further broken down from there such as breaking down the Non-Organic into Rock / Metal and further by breaking down the Metal into Non-Ferrous / Ferrous and further into specific metals like Copper and even further to specific types of copper like "nutronium copper" or something. I know lots of division but this also had a point to it because a lot of items you crafted needed various things, sometimes specific types of copper but sometimes as non-specific as Non-Organic allowing you to use anything from that catagory even "Nutronium Copper". Sounds interesting right? well we're not done with ingredients yet, so Stats, every ingredient had 3+ stats on it for various things.. Like conductivity, durability, heat resistance or whatever. These stats ranged from 0 to 1000 and specific types of material would by default be better at certain stats than others. Like for example I remember Copper normally always having a conductivity of 700-1000 (duh, makes sence right?).

    Now here's the first curveball, all these different types of resources probably seem diverse enough already, but resources would "Shift" in and out of availability on all planets under unique names/stats. So a shift of "Nutronium Copper" might show up on naboo under the unique name of "Dutorum" (all of them were randomly generated names as far as I can tell) and it might have 999 conductivity and a lot of other nice stats, but you'd only have a few days to "A" Discover it by going to naboo and sampling to see if something new had showed up, "B" scout it out and determine where some high concenrations were and "C" setup automated extractors to extract as much of that resource as you physically could. Also bear in mind that while you were doing that so was everyone else and a number of people made quite a business out of being a dedicated resource extractor, so you might track down the biggest concentration of the resource only to find that someone else filled everything up with their extractors and you can't find a space to drop yours, mind you there is always another location but it could take you hours to drop all your harvestors especially if you were like me and using multiple accounts. Now here's the thing, most good items typically used 1 or more specific types of resource like "Nutronium Copper" where only a shift of that copper would work. If you missed a shift and couldn't get that resource from a friend or another player then you might be stuck waiting weeks before another shift came along. This made stockrooms and career extractors a cornerstone of high end crafting because even while another shift would eventually come along you have no gaurentee that it will be anywhere near as good. Oh and the name/stats of a specific shift never repeat themselves so once it shifts out of availability you will never get a chance to harvest it and can only get it from other players who stockpiled it or hope that something as good or better shifts in.

    Now all this complexity and thats just the resource gathering stage, but the crafting was also interesting (atleast IMO). So here is the basically how it worked, each item required the various ingredients which could be as basic as Organic where any organic resource would do from wheat to meat, or it could be as specific as the Nutronium Copper. With that it would tell you what stat impacted the various types of stats on the end item. So for example buff packs (the doctors actually needed an item to buff) had 3 stats on it (that I can remember) which were duration, strength and quantity. The duration made the doctors buffs last longer (highly desireable obviously) the Strength made them stronger (also desireable) and the quantity gave them more uses out of each buff pack (also desirable to those selling buffs). The resources used would impact the items base stats, so if conductivity impacted the duration then using copper with a 1000 conductivity would provide the best baseline stat for that part of the item (put a pin in baseline as we'll get back to that) if 2 of your resources had the conductivity stat then their stat would be averaged together to determine the baseline stat and the same with 3 or more resources with the same stat. This is where it is important to note that all resources didn't have the same stats, for example wheat doesn't have a conductivity stat, so in effect it would be ignored when calculating that baseline stat which made it more advantagious to be picky about which resources you selected for the crafting attempt.

    That said, we're only at the baseline stat portion of crafting, we've still got some things to cover. Next, after we determined our baseline stats, we now get a chance to improve and focus on specific stats if we want. A master skilled crafter in their field get 10 experimentation points (or 1 per 10 skill in that craft) to use on improving their item. With cloths/skill mods it was possible to get your skill up enough for an additional 2 experimentation giving you 12 total. From here, how this worked is you got to "Experiment" by attempting to improve on one of the items many stats. Each stat of the item had an experience type bar beside it partially filled in. Each box represented 1 experimentation attempt, so you could click 1 box to perform 1 small experiment on that stat or several boxes to perform a big experiement, then you'd click the experiment button and it would run a calc and either give you an amazing success, success, moderate success, failure or epic failure. Based on what you got it would move the stat along the boxes. Typically it was better to run small experiments 1 at a time because using multiple points at once typically never came out as well. So anyways you might only need 4 boxes to max out a particular stat on the item but it would ussually take you several more experiments to actually do that and ultimately you were always limited by the stats on the resources you used so to make anything truely epic you had to use epic materials. 

    Anyways, thats how crafting worked, mostly.. the rest is about mass production. In essence to mass produce you'd first harvest a ton of resources (duh) but then instead of crafting the item you could for the same number of resources craft a schematic to put into a factory. Typically most top crafters would have warehouses of materials setup and stockpiled. When they finally gathered all they needed to do a specific run they'd craft a few dozen schematics and would use the one that ended up being the best because a few "Amazing Success's" on a particular stat was always worth the wasted resources because every mass produced copy would then have those amazing stats. The limitation on that however was the actual number of resources you had stockpiled because it could only use the unique name of the resource that you pulled so if you used "Dutorum" Neutronium Copper then no other shift of Neutronium Copper would work. So once you ran out of 1 ingredient then the schematic was worthless to you.

    Now, 1 final step, is that some items could be sliced (hacked) by smugglers. I remember armor for example could be sliced for a random improvement on resistance (think AC) or encumbrance (think of it as a way to make your abilitys cost less endurance or whatever), and these improvements would not only be random in what they give you but also random in their strength. I remember working very closely with an amazing armor smith that when he crafted suits of PVP armor he hand me entire crates to slice and would tell me to slice them all take the best 2 or 3 sets of armor and give the rest back. I had some amazing PVP armor on display in my vender house that routinely got me sent offers for a ton of money. 

    Anyways, I hope that discription was good enough. SWG Crafting was definately one of the most detailed versions I've ever been a part of and I loved it, however 90% of what seperated the top crafters from the normal crafters was the fact that most of them had stockpiles of materials that were months if not years old. Typically when an amazing shift of a resource came in we'd pull and stockpile millions of units where as the typical crafter might pull a few hundred thousand units and ussually run out of them in a week or so. Oh and for the record, not all resources were able to be extracted automatically. Meat and hides for example had to be player harvested from dead mobs. The times amazing shifts came in on those resources we'd spend fortunes hiring other players to rush out and farm mobs like crazy so we could stockpile. This also is where guilds played a significant role because if you had a guild backing you up, you could pull tons of a resource to stockpiling without a problem and in return your guild ussually got the best stuff

    • 40 posts
    April 3, 2017 3:55 AM PDT

    I hope crafting "means" something in this game if its modelled after SWG,EQ2 or Vanguard I will be a happy bunny. I found crafting in these games to be time consuming, but very meaningful, and well worth the time it took master your chosen craft.

    I was an Architect in SWG, Carpenter and jewler in EQ2 and Shipwright in Vanguard, would love to be a boat builder again, think of all the crafting I have done over the years that was the most satisfing :).