Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Which Games Should We Model Crafting After?

    • 230 posts
    January 6, 2019 10:21 AM PST

    Loved crafting in Istaria. Required effort but you didn't have to waste time finding someone to make stuff for you nor did you have to deal with over-pricing.


    This post was edited by DracoKalen at January 8, 2019 12:42 PM PST
    • 6 posts
    January 8, 2019 11:18 AM PST

    I skimmed so forgive me if others posted something similar.

    I liked Fallen Earth's crafting system - it would take a week or more to create some items and you could queue them (so, you have the parts to make an ATV or some such, but you have to craft the suspension, steering rack, engine and so forth, but if you knew the full recipe, you could just craft the final part, and it would do the necessary sub combines for you.   I might be misremembering too, so grain of salt and all that) - but this timer would run while you were offline.  (I don't remember if it was only while you were offline, or not, but that would make sense - you shouldn't get credit towards creating the item if you are off fighting creatures)  During this time, you could potentially get multiple skill ups.  I don't know the other crafting systems well enough to know the difference between EQ2, vanguard or SWG, but as others said, taking the best of all worlds is certainly a valid choice.  

    One thing that I would request is some way of identifying what item goes to what skill or some sort of managment of it.  I don't want 2500 different items that I have to go to a third party website to know what each does.  It will just make me skip crafting altogether.  I don't care if there are 2500 items, just as long as I can figure out what they do, even if that is a based on my skill...  example: Greater KnobRoch Spleen "Your skill with leather working makes you think that this item could be refined into a strong binding agent"  I can then, with the appropriate equipment refine that into "Strong Binding Agent" the generic ingredient for my recipies...  or something along those lines.  These sub combines could be completed much faster than the week it would take to make a more involved item, but could still be done off line.  (or while online in the crafting area if you wanted)


    Just my 2cp 

     

    Dracomir

    • 127 posts
    January 8, 2019 1:53 PM PST

    Dracomir said:

    I skimmed so forgive me if others posted something similar.

    I liked Fallen Earth's crafting system - it would take a week or more to create some items and you could queue them (so, you have the parts to make an ATV or some such, but you have to craft the suspension, steering rack, engine and so forth, but if you knew the full recipe, you could just craft the final part, and it would do the necessary sub combines for you.   I might be misremembering too, so grain of salt and all that) - but this timer would run while you were offline.  (I don't remember if it was only while you were offline, or not, but that would make sense - you shouldn't get credit towards creating the item if you are off fighting creatures)  During this time, you could potentially get multiple skill ups.  I don't know the other crafting systems well enough to know the difference between EQ2, vanguard or SWG, but as others said, taking the best of all worlds is certainly a valid choice.  

    One thing that I would request is some way of identifying what item goes to what skill or some sort of managment of it.  I don't want 2500 different items that I have to go to a third party website to know what each does.  It will just make me skip crafting altogether.  I don't care if there are 2500 items, just as long as I can figure out what they do, even if that is a based on my skill...  example: Greater KnobRoch Spleen "Your skill with leather working makes you think that this item could be refined into a strong binding agent"  I can then, with the appropriate equipment refine that into "Strong Binding Agent" the generic ingredient for my recipies...  or something along those lines.  These sub combines could be completed much faster than the week it would take to make a more involved item, but could still be done off line.  (or while online in the crafting area if you wanted)


    Just my 2cp 

     

    Dracomir

    Passage of real time being a factor in the quantities of items you can create is a very good and immersive way to ensure mass production and inflation doesn't become a problem in my opinion as well, but I've experienced that many people find it too restricting. They feel that if they choose to involve themselves with crafting, they should be able to craft more things if they play longer sessions instead of having to wait for a progress bar to fill up and tell them it's OK to start crafting the next item. But they also don't want to spend any meaningful amount of time in-game on the process of crafting itself, because that is boring.

    I've had some headaches over this in the design of a crafting system elsewhere. Maybe assigning an XP cost to the creation of items isn't such a bad idea after all (as it happens in D&D). Because the XP loss can sort of simulate time lost on crafting if you think about it, since the player will then have to spend time getting their XP back elsewhere. It just feels a lot more artificial to me.

    • 768 posts
    January 9, 2019 6:02 AM PST

    @Dracomir I get your point of the description of subcomponents to be meaningful or indicative to what their use might be. I find that a valid point and it will tie things closer into the entire crafting recipes and it could give more depth when selling those items through ingame brokersystems. 

     

    @Kaeldorn You kind of lost me there. Could you explain a bit more? It sounds like you don't like to spend time crafting. And you'ld want to just qeue recipes to finish up while you're doing something else. And for that you'ld design an actual loss of xp? That sounds very counterproductive. I'ld think that you'ld want people to enjoy crafting and gain anything while spending their time ingame on this aspect of the game.

    Players that invest more time, will get more out of it. It could be similar to adventuring or any other activity in the game. Your character will advance in some sort or fashion. 

    I strongly believe Pantheon would aim to make crafting a fun, engaging activity, not at all something automated. 

    Perhaps I misunderstood your suggestion.

    • 127 posts
    January 9, 2019 9:26 AM PST

    Barin999 said:@Kaeldorn You kind of lost me there. Could you explain a bit more? It sounds like you don't like to spend time crafting. And you'ld want to just qeue recipes to finish up while you're doing something else. And for that you'ld design an actual loss of xp? That sounds very counterproductive. I'ld think that you'ld want people to enjoy crafting and gain anything while spending their time ingame on this aspect of the game.

    Players that invest more time, will get more out of it. It could be similar to adventuring or any other activity in the game. Your character will advance in some sort or fashion. 

    I strongly believe Pantheon would aim to make crafting a fun, engaging activity, not at all something automated. 

    Perhaps I misunderstood your suggestion.

    Sure, no problem. This'll be a bit long though to get the point across, so bear with me.

    I worked on a crafting system mod for a persistent world server in a game for a couple of months, and one of the stated goals of the development and GM team was to 'fix' the economy (I also had control over drop rates of items and gold). Everything was far too easy to come by before I started. There were crafters who had so much gold they could theoretically order the construction of a castle as their holiday retreat.

    So what I incorporated as part of my solution was a system of 'crafting fatigue' that would fill up a bar as you constructed items. Not for minor things, but complete suits of armor and magical items would have a fatigue cost assigned to them that would be higher depending on the power of the item and the complexity in its construction. If the required amount of fatigue to craft an item was higher than the amount of unused fatigue points, you could not craft another item. As real time passed, the fatigue bar would go down again until it was empty.

    Effectively, this is similar to queueing the construction of items that'll be made when time passes while you're either offline or online. Except you do get the first item right away, and you'll have to wait until you make the next one (if you're full on fatigue). An advantage of both of these systems is that nobody can flood the market even if there's enough resources in their possession. The time spent on the production process itself adds value to the final product on top of cost of the materials used, just like it does in the real world.

    In crafting systems where players CAN mass produce as long as they have mats (like in most crafting systems in games), all of the value is in the resources and their rarity. "Give me 5 gold and materials and I'll add the best enchantment in the game to your weapon" is a common thing to see in trade chat in MMO's, because there is NO cost or investment to the crafter himself after he has trained up his skill to the required level. It takes them all of 5 seconds to click on the correct recipe and they're done. Maybe they have to travel to a special forge or something, but that's about the most effort you can expect.

    Nobody wants to play a minigame for an hour or two and repeat mundane tasks just to turn a bundle of resources into a usable item, even if it's a very good one. Therefore, crafting itself generally doesn't take any time, and one of the only ways to simulate that it does (and make the act of crafting itself add value to the economy) is to add progress bars while letting the player either log out or do something in game that's actually fun.

    I personally found this a perfect solution, and initially the crafting system I designed that incorporated this feature was well received. HOWEVER, it did not take long before complaints came in from a fairly significant portion of the crafting community. It took too long for the fatigue to go away. The amount of fatigue used up per item crafted had to come down. Add more ways to reduce fatigue (like casting buffs on the crafter before going through the process). That sort of thing. What it came down to was that they did not want to be limited in the amount of crafting they could do based on the passage of time, only on their ability to collect or buy materials.

    Now, to get to the side note about assigning an XP cost to the crafting of items. It feels like a dirty solution to me and it doesn't feel right, but what it does accomplish is that A) the crafter has to spend something that will take him time to recoup in order to produce items and B) that something they choose to do can be anything that yields XP that they find fun (like going into a dungeon with an adventuring party to kill some monsters, or perform an investigation on behalf of the local mayor, etc.). The end result is the same as having progress bars or crafting queues, but the player won't feel as restricted.

    • 19 posts
    January 9, 2019 11:52 AM PST

    EQ2 has something similar but it's more like Exp Fatique. BAr is full, you get lot's of EXP, when its empty you get 1/10 the normal Exp and you have to wait 4-7 days for it to get full again.

    • 4 posts
    January 9, 2019 11:31 PM PST

    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!

    • 4 posts
    January 9, 2019 11:47 PM PST

    everquest was the best . it might be hard and chance played a part but the end result always meant more . thats why everquest was the greatest mmo of all time. things meant something cause it took something to complete from lvling and dying every thing you accomplished carried satisfaction. to the little things like hunting outside the city gates to finally getting to move to the next area. spend weeks to months in one area if it isnt hard or difficult you lose the aspect of being proud of the things you did . me and my friends still to this day talk about running around lower guk. thats whats wrong with most mmo that come out now and their cool for about 3 months but then find them selfs scambling for more cause eveyones capped out in gear and lvls and are getting bored . HARD is good . 

     

    • 768 posts
    January 10, 2019 12:13 AM PST

    Kaeldorn said:

    So what I incorporated as part of my solution was a system of 'crafting fatigue' that would fill up a bar as you constructed items. Not for minor things, but complete suits of armor and magical items would have a fatigue cost assigned to them that would be higher depending on the power of the item and the complexity in its construction. If the required amount of fatigue to craft an item was higher than the amount of unused fatigue points, you could not craft another item. As real time passed, the fatigue bar would go down again until it was empty.

    Effectively, this is similar to queueing the construction of items that'll be made when time passes while you're either offline or online. Except you do get the first item right away, and you'll have to wait until you make the next one (if you're full on fatigue). An advantage of both of these systems is that nobody can flood the market even if there's enough resources in their possession. The time spent on the production process itself adds value to the final product on top of cost of the materials used, just like it does in the real world.*1

    Nobody wants to play a minigame for an hour or two and repeat mundane tasks just to turn a bundle of resources into a usable item, even if it's a very good one.*2 Therefore, crafting itself generally doesn't take any time, and one of the only ways to simulate that it does (and make the act of crafting itself add value to the economy) is to add progress bars while letting the player either log out or do something in game that's actually fun.

    I personally found this a perfect solution, and initially the crafting system I designed that incorporated this feature was well received. HOWEVER, it did not take long before complaints came in from a fairly significant portion of the crafting community. It took too long for the fatigue to go away. The amount of fatigue used up per item crafted had to come down. Add more ways to reduce fatigue (like casting buffs on the crafter before going through the process). That sort of thing. What it came down to was that they did not want to be limited in the amount of crafting they could do based on the passage of time, only on their ability to collect or buy materials.*3

    Now, to get to the side note about assigning an XP cost to the crafting of items. It feels like a dirty solution to me and it doesn't feel right, but what it does accomplish is that A) the crafter has to spend something that will take him time to recoup in order to produce items and B) that something they choose to do can be anything that yields XP that they find fun (like going into a dungeon with an adventuring party to kill some monsters, or perform an investigation on behalf of the local mayor, etc.). The end result is the same as having progress bars or crafting queues, but the player won't feel as restricted.

    *1 Production time spent adds value to the item. It also adds value to the sense of achievement. This is actually a good thing in a game. 

    *2 Quite similar to adventuring; Are you saying no one wants to play a combat minigame to get a bundle of rewards in the end? I do believe that is something that you'll see in this game. So why not experience this in crafting? It's a matter of making it engaging and fun to do. A nice activity which people enjoy doing and look forward on doing again or for a prolonged period of time. Do you consider building and/or buying subcomponents to construct an end product to be a minigame in itself? Or are you talking about a minigame that is scripted into the actual crafting design itself? 

    If crafting would take time and it's fun to do. What's in the way of allowing it to take time? There are so many mundane minigames out in the world that people are hooked on for life. They play it so many hours in a day. So in some way, there is a connection with what people enjoy and doing 'mundane' tasks. I'm certainly not saying, the design should be boring. I'm just saying, there are plenty of people that are enjoying themselves with content that is not lifethreatening challenging. (I'ld suggest have a read on https://www.pantheoncrafters.com/ for more examples of how crafting can be fun playstyle.)

    *3 I like the point they players made there. Please let us continue crafting items. We like crafting. (similar to, please let us kill mobs, we like killing mobs) The time to recover from a craft (or kill) and the amount of items they can make at one given time (mobs you can fight against at a time) are factors one can design around and players would accept limitations there. Important is here, that in contrast to your example, these limitations are indeed applied from the start. It would be very difficult and possibly damaging towards your player community to add restrictions and limitations where there were none before. It's a valid point you mentioned here.

    How about instead of an xp cost, or a loss of bonus xp (like someone mentioned from Eq2), there is in fact a mana cost.

    I like the idea where the difficulty of the item being made will decide how much mana is required to spent on that product. It seems a fair way to restrain a lot of those items being made in a small timeframe. So yes, nice one there.

    When you are able to spend mana during crafting, it might require so much mana you'll struggle to construct 3 or more items in a chainlike fashion. Again similar to why groups can not chainkill an entire caverun. It makes sense. Losing all mana on one item would be devastating, but perhaps there are ways around it or more subtle designs to allow this mana cost to be impactful but not killing the crafting experience as a whole.

    I might even go as far as to suggest that crafting mana would regain slower then your regular hp and combat mana pool. This again as a method to put the capability of amount of items being made within a certain timeframe into a certain border.

    There is a lot of potential in this mana suggestion. Let's see how Pantheon answers this pickle. 


    This post was edited by Barin999 at January 10, 2019 12:19 AM PST
    • 127 posts
    January 10, 2019 11:27 AM PST

    Barin999 said:*2 Quite similar to adventuring; Are you saying no one wants to play a combat minigame to get a bundle of rewards in the end? I do believe that is something that you'll see in this game. So why not experience this in crafting? It's a matter of making it engaging and fun to do. A nice activity which people enjoy doing and look forward on doing again or for a prolonged period of time. Do you consider building and/or buying subcomponents to construct an end product to be a minigame in itself? Or are you talking about a minigame that is scripted into the actual crafting design itself?

    If crafting would take time and it's fun to do. What's in the way of allowing it to take time? There are so many mundane minigames out in the world that people are hooked on for life. They play it so many hours in a day. So in some way, there is a connection with what people enjoy and doing 'mundane' tasks. I'm certainly not saying, the design should be boring. I'm just saying, there are plenty of people that are enjoying themselves with content that is not lifethreatening challenging. (I'ld suggest have a read on https://www.pantheoncrafters.com/ for more examples of how crafting can be fun playstyle.)

    When I mentioned a minigame that takes an hour or two, I meant a scripted one where you have to do chores like heat a forge with bellows, manually melt your ore, pour it into a mold, cool it down a bit, move it with tongs, bend things, hammer it on an anvil on specific points to get the correct shape, cool it down in water again, wait, wrap leather straps around the hilt and then you have ONE very good sword.

    I understand that most folks into crafting are perfectly OK with performing some mundane tasks to make the crafting process feel more involving than simply selecting a recipe and do enjoy that, but they don't want it take a meaningful amount of work and time. They'd be better off practicing real smithing as a hobby instead of doing it in a game then. Because if you could make real swords yourself, how cool would that be? (A brother of one of my friends did it for a while and it was pretty awesome tbh.)

    Anyway, if forging a sword takes all of 5 minutes and the minigame isn't very challenging to get right, that alone isn't enough to justify asking for a lot of gold for the effort you invested in the crafting. Which would unfortunately mean you'd still end up with a crafting economy where 90% of the value of crafted items comes from the resources. It would be the miner who gets paid, not the weaponsmith. That's something I would hope Pantheon's crafting system will try to step away from, especially since anyone can pick up every gathering skill and just do it alongside adventuring.

    Barin999 said:How about instead of an xp cost, or a loss of bonus xp (like someone mentioned from Eq2), there is in fact a mana cost.

    I like the idea where the difficulty of the item being made will decide how much mana is required to spent on that product. It seems a fair way to restrain a lot of those items being made in a small timeframe. So yes, nice one there.

    When you are able to spend mana during crafting, it might require so much mana you'll struggle to construct 3 or more items in a chainlike fashion. Again similar to why groups can not chainkill an entire caverun. It makes sense. Losing all mana on one item would be devastating, but perhaps there are ways around it or more subtle designs to allow this mana cost to be impactful but not killing the crafting experience as a whole.

    I might even go as far as to suggest that crafting mana would regain slower then your regular hp and combat mana pool. This again as a method to put the capability of amount of items being made within a certain timeframe into a certain border.

    There is a lot of potential in this mana suggestion. Let's see how Pantheon answers this pickle.

    Yeah, the mana cost you describe is fairly similar to the crafting fatigue bar I made. Although I think the time periods you have in mind are a whole lot shorter than the ones I applied there. It would literally take a couple of days to clear fatigue from crafting a single set of Mithral Full Plate armor (as opposed to a couple of hours for a normal iron one). But considering we had about 2-3 high end crafters of each tradeskill on an active population of about 50 players, it would've been really undesirable to allow crafters to churn out, say, 2 of those suits per day of what was without a doubt the best armor available anywhere. It would've been a matter of weeks before the entire server would be decked out in top of the line equipment. After which there would be no more need to craft armor ever again unless we decided to power creep with new materials and recipes every month.

    In an MMO it's not going to go down that quickly, which is good, but I still don't think being able to craft multiple finalized products every hour that actually compete with dungeon drops of a similar level can create a sustainable economy. You make a good point about the production of subcomponents though. It could be quite feasible to allow crafters to spend a one hour gaming session making one finalized product (because the crafting mana/fatigue bar takes that long to reset) and then spend the rest of that session making subcomponents in preparation of a future project. Because the crafting mana cost of subcomponents could easily be set to 0 without breaking the economy.


    This post was edited by Kaeldorn at January 10, 2019 11:31 AM PST
    • 7 posts
    January 15, 2019 1:52 PM PST

    Trustar said:

    3)  The crafters name were imprinted on each item, which allowed crafters to make a name for themselves. 

    You have no idea how much I miss that.    I use to take a great deal of pride in how many of my guildies were running around with gear on that had my name stamped on it.  Or when i would get random mail from someone that saw some of my gear on a player and wanted to commission some gear.  

    I do like the crafting system from Final Fantasy 14.  It is engaging and a lot of fun to do.  I love being able to have all the craft classes on one character, and in fact it enhances your crafting abilities.  You can use some of the actions from one craft on other crafts.  And you can make normal quality or high quality items.  You can also find normal and high quality materials to use in crafting that give bonuses to the quality of the item your crafting, making it easier to successfully make the high quality items.  There are a lot of good ideas in that system that make crafting fun, challenging, and worth while to do.

    • 1 posts
    January 23, 2019 4:47 PM PST

    Vanguard without a doubt

    • 17 posts
    February 27, 2019 3:21 AM PST
    I like the sound of the EQ2 system. That's really cool that you could die from crafting, but was the opposite true? Could you level up from crafting. I totally believe in making it hard to craft, but I also think there should be some XP gain as well. Was that also part of the equation?
    • 1785 posts
    February 27, 2019 11:27 PM PST

    Mojorizen said: I like the sound of the EQ2 system. That's really cool that you could die from crafting, but was the opposite true? Could you level up from crafting. I totally believe in making it hard to craft, but I also think there should be some XP gain as well. Was that also part of the equation?

    Nope.  You could advance your crafting skills in EQ2 via a successful craft, but you could not earn adventuring XP that way.

    In ESO, you can earn adventuring XP by crafting, but I honestly wouldn't consider that game's crafting system to be viable or any sort of model that Pantheon should emulate.  Although to be fair, that's as much due to the way the game handles itemization and the sheer amount of loot they hand out as it is about the actual crafting process itself.

    • 945 posts
    February 28, 2019 4:25 PM PST

    I loved the "animations" (not necessarily everything about the system) of games like EQ2 and ESO.  If your character was crafting, they actually had to be at a forge or in a mill hammering at an anvil or sawing at a workhorse... not just standing in the middle of the bank fiddling with their fingers to produce a full set of armor. 

    • 28 posts
    March 20, 2019 12:20 PM PDT

    Talint said:

    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.

    /agree

    also, would love some of EQ's racial crafting.  Yeah, these were insanely hard to craft, but they were incredibly rewarding.

    Mal


    This post was edited by Malleable at March 20, 2019 12:22 PM PDT
    • 23 posts
    April 24, 2019 10:49 AM PDT

    There is really only 2 ways to make crafting really work long term in an MMO from my experiance.  Limit it by work of some sort that can't easily be botted or macrod, or limit it by time.  EQ2 limited by work, the player had to respond to certain events during the crafting process and had abilities to speed up or repair the item as he worked on it.  Not countering events correctly or not repairing the durability after a failed event usually resulted in a failed craft and some fuel loss.  EVE online had one of the best player economies I've ever experianced and they limited crafting by factory rent and a time sink.  

    Without having one of these two kind of limits, crafting was usually meaningless and crafting things usually had almost 0 if not in many cases a negative value add over the base components.  Meaning that it was usually way more profitable to simply farm and sell the mats than actually crafting.  Both EVE and EQ2 made it so that crafting was a viable way to earn wealth.  That isn't to say that having a system that is more in depth such as the SWG system wouldn't be awesome, where different inputs will highly influence the crafting outcome.  But if one of the formentioned limits aren't implemented the crafting aspect of the game will be flat with little value add while the material farming aspect would simply be more rewarding.

    • 6 posts
    April 25, 2019 5:32 PM PDT

    I suggest the Visionary Realms team decide on what is best.  I know this is for feedback, but just want my point to get across if it does. lol

    • 81 posts
    April 30, 2019 2:50 PM PDT

    The ideal crafting system to me would a combination of several systems and a few unique things as well.  Maybe in a progressive system.  Just off the top of my head.....

    Basic Gathering:  Pick up items from environment (most 4x games) examples: rocks and branches.

    Basic Crafting: Grid based Menu (Haven and Hearth) examples: Pile of wood and Firebrand.

    Skilled Gathering:  Requires a skill and progresses via skill exp or skill level (most every mmo) examples: Mining and Lumberjacking.

    Skilled Crafting:  Requires a skill and progresses via skill exp or skill level (most every mmo) examples: Blacksmithing and Tailoring.

    Advanced Gathering:  Combination of skill based and PvE.  You obtain a much harder to get skill and use on Mobs.  examples: Skinning and Stoneworking (golems and elementatls)

    Advanced Crafting:  More specfic crafting that makes individualized items (Vanguard) based on ingredients.  Only basic recipes learned through some difficult process and the individualization comes       from ingredients used, tools used,  process used etc. 

    Elite Gathering:  Very very specific skill needed to get that uber ingredient.  Most difficult to obtain,  lenghty quest chain or boss drop.  Example:  Terasque Tooth Removal to make vorpal weapons.

     

    Also you could mix into these stuff we enjoyed from other games....

    Semi Automated Gathering:  Fish traps and Hunting Snares. (Salem Online)

    Automated Gathering:  NPCs and Hirelings that do your bidding (Black Desert)

    Window based crafting for basic stuff (UO)

    Crafting Interdependancy (Repopulation) in order to make a sword you need to make several ingredients.  each of those ingredients may require one or more sub ingredients.  In repop which is one of my favorite crafting systems you may need to make 20 or 25 sub ingredients before you make the final ingredient.

    Mini Games in both gathering (Fishing from Black Desert) and crafting (Everquest).

     

    Basically,  to sum it up,  why only have one gathering and crafting system?  Why not start out simple to make simple stuff and make it more complex, more time consuming, and more dangerous as both gathering and crafting progress.

     And most important of all is for 100% of end product items should be player made. (possible exception is basic starting gear).  Loots should all be ingredients for crafters to use or items to barter with.

     


    This post was edited by KatoKhan at April 30, 2019 3:00 PM PDT
    • 3 posts
    May 18, 2019 1:45 PM PDT

    Talint said:

    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.

    I liked most of the crafting system in Vanguard. One of the things I didn't like was being forced to adventure in order to obtain recipes for some materials... (e.g. having to venture into a high level mob area to obtain the recipe for bricks used to build houses.)  If VR elects to follow the Vanguard model, please give us some options to obtain recipes that allow for different play styles... In the games I've played over the years I've found a great number of top end crafters are dedicated to just crafting and do not spend much time doing other game content.  Vanguard was brutal in that respect because in order to become a high end crafter you also had to level up as an adventurer so you could survive long enough to search the quest location and obtain the recipes for some important crafting materials.

    • 1 posts
    July 7, 2019 6:43 AM PDT
    SWG + EQ2
    • 1315 posts
    July 9, 2019 11:46 AM PDT

    Kaeldorn said:

    When I mentioned a minigame that takes an hour or two, I meant a scripted one where you have to do chores like heat a forge with bellows, manually melt your ore, pour it into a mold, cool it down a bit, move it with tongs, bend things, hammer it on an anvil on specific points to get the correct shape, cool it down in water again, wait, wrap leather straps around the hilt and then you have ONE very good sword.

    OMG, that. I want THAT!! Especially if it was unguided so that you had to learn what order to do stuff in to get good results. Everyone else is just a crafting poser. Pay no attention to the small forge and anvil in my garage.

    In all seriousness though there is a basic equation that must be satisfied of Raw materials value + consumable purchased mats + possible cash earned if mob killing while crafting much be less than or equal to the value of the finished product.  If this is not true then you are actually degrading the value of raw materials by crafting it into something.

    One of the ways you can do this is by limiting possible output per crafter through either a long mini game or some regenerative resource consumption.  Another is basically make most leveling raw materials unlimitedly available so that the cost out of pocket id negligible to train crafting.  A balance of the two I think would make for the least onerous system without devaluing crafting.  Great items would still require rare materials that would hurt to destroy on an utter failure.

    I would personally prefer to hit “strike with hammer” 25 times with a 6 second delay and consume one bar of metal than consume 25 bars of metal to make 25 pry bars from a stack of bars by clicking craft and wait while the 6 second crafting timer repeats 25 times.  The 25 hammer strikes would take time but not consume as much harvested material.  The single hand crafted pry bar could be worth as much crafting experience as crafting 25 useless pry bars in an automated crafting system.

    Once you start adding in choices of different abilities to use other than “strike with hammer” the game becomes more dynamic especially if timing and conditions can change which ability is best to use next.  Almost as if you were fighting a battle with the materials, your tools were your weapons, your abilities were your skills and the item would be your loot drop (too sarcastic?).  I like the idea of having non guided free form crafting where you can discover and experiment to make better or more specialized outputs as well as separate the WoW crafters from the SWG master crafters who could combine the best materials to make out of this world results.

    • 1 posts
    July 25, 2019 6:37 PM PDT
    Just wanted to pop in and say that crafting means different things to different people. For some, it's seen as a means to an end, whether that's to reach the highest tier to produce in demand items or to make your own profession gear / runes / potions.

    For others, crafting gives a sense of completion and they will do their utmost to get their hands on rare crafting recipes.

    Overall, making crafting diverse and each specialty / discipline as detailed and fulfilling as possible will yield great results for a crafting system.

    Content is king and crafting needs to add to the story, the environment, the economy, and character progression.
    • 159 posts
    July 26, 2019 9:23 AM PDT

    Geckomayhem said: Just wanted to pop in and say that crafting means different things to different people. For some, it's seen as a means to an end, whether that's to reach the highest tier to produce in demand items or to make your own profession gear / runes / potions. For others, crafting gives a sense of completion and they will do their utmost to get their hands on rare crafting recipes. Overall, making crafting diverse and each specialty / discipline as detailed and fulfilling as possible will yield great results for a crafting system. Content is king and crafting needs to add to the story, the environment, the economy, and character progression.

    That was well-thought out and said. You should post more. :)

    • 1785 posts
    July 26, 2019 9:44 AM PDT

    Vander said:

    Geckomayhem said: Just wanted to pop in and say that crafting means different things to different people. For some, it's seen as a means to an end, whether that's to reach the highest tier to produce in demand items or to make your own profession gear / runes / potions. For others, crafting gives a sense of completion and they will do their utmost to get their hands on rare crafting recipes. Overall, making crafting diverse and each specialty / discipline as detailed and fulfilling as possible will yield great results for a crafting system. Content is king and crafting needs to add to the story, the environment, the economy, and character progression.

    That was well-thought out and said. You should post more. :)

    Agreed.  Very well said Geckomayhem.