Mathir said:Vandraad said:Mathir said:Guys, you have a lot to develop in this game. Lets not overthink this. Copy/Paste Vanguard's crafting and call it a day. Whatever you do, do NOT have click to combine. Strategic minigames are a must for crafting. EQ2 started it off, Vanguard made it even better. Everything about Vanguard's crafting system was great. If you can keep that and improve on it, great. But seriously, everyone here would be happy if you just cut/pasted that code into this game (in a theoretical sense).
No, 'minigames' aren't a must. Some people like them, others despise them. Vanguard crafting wasn't and isn't the end-all-be-all of crafting mechanics.
What possible complaint can you have about a strategic mini-game that adds fun and excitement to crafting? And Vanguard was the end-all-be-all for crafting mechanics to date in an MMORPG. If you want click to combine, there are a ton of failed MMOs out there offering that crap.
Depends on how the economy / loot / equipment is setup in the game TBH. Personally I'm hoping for a more crafter centric economy. Something where mobs rarely drop anything directly usable by players, but instead drop items that are craftable into equipment and gear with a mechanic that forces players to eventually retire old equipment and purchase new in order to encourage a healthy economy. Such a system could easily make use of and encourage the use of a "Minigame" style of crafting that Vanguard specialized in to maximize the qualitiy of what you make but ideally not limited/capped like Vangard but instead more open ended like SWG with countless end results depending on your luck and crafting skill. However in addition, to make the economy flow, I'd like to see the option to mass produce or a quicker production method for things that are trivial to your skill and you aren't concerned about sqeaking every last stat out of. That way the mass producers could flood the market with cheaper / moderate stat goods while the skilled crafters that put their time and effort into it can focus on putting out the top notch gear that attracts prices that are double or triple the typical price.
Then it becomes the choice of the player how to proceed.. need some generic armor to go camp somewhere, no worries heres some cheap stuff. You need the best armor to go raid a new dungeon well pay the piper and set off. (side note when I say a decay method I don't mean it lasts an evening then you have to buy more, I mean something where it lasts a month or 2 of serious play but eventually it'll break and you need another)
Ofcourse, this is all just theoretical at this point. However the more powerful and abundant the mob dropped loot when compared to crafted, then the less meaningful or desirable a crafting minigame will be. That said, at this point I'd be happy with complex mini-game crafting or generic point and click crafting just so long as there is a viable point to crafting other than a time sink.
I always craft in MMOs, no matter if the trade skills are useful or not, just because I like it :).
I was not so impressed by the crafting system of EQ2, I don't consider the act of crafting being something required to be action/reaction based, getting a press button craft does not bother me. I think the best crafting system ever made was the SWG system, but I think its pretty well adapted to syfy games, and not so much for fantasy.
I'd like a crafting system deeply linked to loot system, for example, instead of getting a big dragon that drops a "flaming sword of blablabla", the big dragon's corpse could be harvested, getting some components, like scales, claws etc ... a claw could be used with rare metal ingots to craft the "flaming sword of blablabla". The goal here is to make crafters more valuable for a community, cause in most MMOs when reaching high end content crafters are limited to consummables production, and that's not cool. I'm not especially a fan of interdependance between tradeskills, it is often a bit artificial and too much a pain in the ass when growing skill. Interdependance could be reserved to important crafts only, or only high end ones, that would create teamwork at the right moment.
I did not like in EQ the key system to access some dungeons, everyone had to get its own key and it was too much time to invest to get access for a whole guild. Instead of this kind of system, I'd love to see server quests that involves the cooperation or many crafters to open access to dungeons, that would make nice social events.
Top tear raid gear sould always be the best for hardcore players, I would love to see crafting goods feasible for casual max level players. It would only work is crafting is a in-depth system.
By making the higher level crafting gear require multiple Master crafters ie a master work longsword would need a master blacksmith (bladesmith) to make the blade, a master blacksmith to make the crossguard and a master jeweler to inlay the design and jewels, a master carpender to make a hilt, master taner for the leather raps, and a master enchanter to well enchant it. the final work could have many ways it could be altered. Is the helt made from purple-heart wood for more HP or Ironwood for more STA. What jewels and ingraving was used did the enchanter use ice, fire, or life tap enchantment.
By using a in-depth crafting system and making gear that can be good at high and max levels players will invest more time and guilds will want them in the guild and will spend time to raise the crafters to help the guild. this would increase the RPG part of the game and the play time of players that get invested in crafting.
Ravirn said:Top tear raid gear sould always be the best for hardcore players.
Best in slot gear should be made by crafters though. Perhaps the receipe is dropped by a raid boss and one or two of the ingredients are also dropped by raid bosses but if you want to turn it into the best item in the game they you need to give it to a hardcore crafter that has worked for weeks / months / years on their crafting skills and can turn that into one of the best items in the game.
I don't buy the argument that best in slot gear is for raid drops only. Crafters need to be relevant at the extreme high end of the game as well and the only way that is going to happen is if they can craft some stuff that is better than raid drops. Although as I said I'm perfectly happy for the reciepe to drop from a raid boss so only crafters in high end guilds will get access to them.
Nanoushka said: The idea of 'fun' minigames is enough to turn me off crafting tbh.
It is more the idea of making crafting challenging. Trade skilling in EQ was the most boring experience out there. Farm low level mobs for crafting material then just sit and click the combine button for hours on end. It required absolutely no skill at all.
I think what people want in Pantheon is something that requires true skill. Only the most dedicated crafters and those with real skill should be able to max out their crafting skills. That way the high end crafters will always be wanted by the general player base and their skills will be sought after. That will make sure that crafting is always well worth doing and not something that is useless.
Nanoushka said: Yeah I see your point Cromulent and I think it's a very good one. I'm afraid it doesn't dampen my own enthusiasm for simple gathering and clicking a combine button tho :D. Maybe it could be a combination of both? So basically common recipes which work the way I'd prefer and special recipes where you'd quest for them for example (perception could be useful here, activating a questgiver when you have a certain amount of skillpoints in a craft), and have the type of hurdles presented to you which would fit the more challenging kind of crafting? I think crafters with those recipes would still be rare that way, and there would be a decent supply of the more common crafted goods.
I don't see a problem with having low level and easy to make crafted gear being trivial. So I can agree with that. But if you want to make that really good piece of armour or a weapn it should require a hell of a lot of work to be able to make it. Especially if that crafted item was better than raid gear.
The main problem with crafting is that if it is too easy to make items then the economy becomes flooded with those item and the value drops. If the items crafters can make are worse than what you can get from raids then there will never be a demand for high end crafters so Pantheon needs to find a way to combat those particular problems. If you just want to make a few easy to make items then you could probably just make after a couple of hours of crafting practice but the really good stuff should take weeks / months of practice to be able to make so that only the best can make it.
Basically I think both casual and hardcore crafters should be catered for but only the hardcore crafters should be able to make the good stuff otherwise the economy will be flooded.
Nanoushka said: Yep exactly. For example, arrows and certain parts of a bow could be trivial parts. And then at a certain skillpoint the local bowyer will give you a quest triggered by perception which will involve more difficulty and more steps, to introduce that system to a player. While doing that, people can decide whether they enjoy making that bow, or hate the process and skip it, and not gaining the recipe that way. The difficulty of the triggered quests would ramp up, and at some point you can't get them from trainers anymore but out in the world. I could picture a craft plateau-ing at some skillpoint if a player would only be interested in the trivial items, and therefore only those who do the quests and intricate crafting processes to be able to become master craftsmen.
Exactly! I'm really excited to see how questing and crafting can be brought together for a deeper crafting experience. Especially if a crafter needs to work with adventerers to complete it. Much like Vanguard had crafting quests.
Nanoushka said: I was reading your topic on crafting and I wanted to add something. I don't think lowlevel items should be on vendors (or very limited supply, where it'd make sense they could have made those that day) unless a player vendors his or her items to them of course. To me harvesting, while not hard as you mentioned, still demands time from a player. Time is a precious commodity in an mmorpg, and should have its modest or not so modest reward :). Gathered materials make crafting truly come to life the way I feel it, esp if you can't just buy it from a vendor but from another player. It once again promotes interaction with each other, not just with game systems and adds a touch of realism. Vendors most likely won't be stalking the woods every day to skin endless amounts of bears, they would need some sleep somewhere :D. What could be interesting tho, is do the same thing with the harvesting skills as with the crafting skills. Give them quests and complex mechanics for some things. For example, bear, wolf or lion skin could be considered trivial but skinning a gryphon could be considered more special and demand more from a skinner. Once again a quest and a more complex skinning mechanic could be added. And down the line, skinning a dragon or raid boss could truly be an ability of a master skinner. Another thing that could be added would be for example an improved skinning knife that you need to pass a certain skillpoint up to another skillpoint (where you'd need an even better knife). This could be a quest/complex crafting mechanic, maybe for the skinner themself or maybe for a blacksmith, to promote dependance between the crafts. The skinner could have hides or fur, or maybe one could spin wool, and this could serve as lining for the armor an armorsmith might make. So no matter the triviality of items, they'd still have meaning, they would still be worth the time investment and they should promote player interaction imho :).
I think you might have misunderstood me (or perhaps I have misunderstood you). All I was talking about was the levelling process with ingredients that can be bought from merchants. So say you bought three lumps of metal you could make a small worthless statue. All those that you buy from the merchants to level up would only make useless vendor junk that you sell for a couple of plat. You could even flag these items so that players can not use them at all. You could flag the crafted items as vendor junk so that the only thing you can do with them is sell them to vendors. All the items are meant for is to level up crafters and nothing else.
As soon as you want to make an item that would be used by another player you would absolutely need to harvest the materials or pay a harvester to do it for you. Therefore crafters could level up on their own but as soon as they want to make something for a player they will need to harvest or pay a harvester to do make the item.
Hopefully that way everyone wins.
If I have misunderstood you I apologise.
Nanoushka said: Ahh right, now I get it. The way I see it, I'd prefer crafts where every item makes sense and is useful. I'd enjoy it if certain lowlevel items remain useful as ingredients for higherlevel recipes, or useful in themselves even if it's just for lowerlevel characters. But I get what you are saying as it's so often the case that you get unuseful things to make which are just vendor fodder. To me it seems like a not well thought out implementation of crafts, I hope Pantheon will do that differently.
The problem I see with crafting is two fold. First you need to level up and second you need to master the process of crafting. Leveling up is just a time sink. Mastering the process of crafting is where the skill really lies (or should do) so you can level up using rubbish items that are just designed to be sold to a vendor without impacting on the actual skill of crafting. The difficulty should come from mastering the art of crafting and that will come from practice as you try and level up on anything that you craft.
The problem for a crafter is that if every item requires items gathered from harvest it either makes it a) very expensive because you have to buy the items from farmers or b) very time consuming because you have to stop crafting and run around all over the world gathering items. Neither of these things take any skill. Just time and (im)patience so I don't think they really add anything to the crafting game. I hope that the developers concentrate their time on making the actual crafting process as fun and as challenging as possible so only the most dedicated reach the high end.
I certainly see a market for buying gathered materials to make player made gear though. If the game is like what I imagine gathers will be in really high demand and the materials that they gather will be worth a lot of money but those materials will only be used in useful items for players and not junk which is just used to level up the crafter.
I want bother crafters and gathers to be really useful in this game so I understand where you are coming from but requiring a crafter to have either a) lots of money or b) even more time than is required for leveling their crafting skills to go out and gather seems a bit harsh. When they are making items for players is when crafters should have to pay out lots of money to gathers.
I enjoy crafting period. Just part of me I guess. :) And the idea that I can help out guild, guildies, friends..keeps me motivated. :) I am also a packrat...I like harvesting/gathering too. I usually don't get others to harvest for me, unless it might be for reagents ex: batwings for levitation skill. I'll ask newbies to help me gather things like that for a few plat. :)
Cana
I must say I've given crafting a chance again in each of the MMOs I've played.Might mean some part of me wants to like it
The question is;how can it be made fun,interactive,more community oriented ?
Some random thoughts concerning crafting:
-Is the crafting process the only thing that should let players advance?Or should it also be possible through engagement with the world?
rare soulbound crafting manuals that are rewarded for dedication and exploration?(if crafting manuals would be ok,they could only get you to expert level?)
-When I think about community oriented crafting,it might make sense to have some kind of mentor system?
Where an apprentice can examine/absorb the crafted items of the mentor to gain inspiration,which would grant them a boon between novice-expert mastery
In return,the mentor gains a recognition boon
-To advance from expert to master ,other efforts are required and the progress might become more dependent on the perception system and researching stuff you find on the journey
the items of the new civilizations you encounter/the rare hides and teeth you find on bosses like dragons/the atmospheres -poisonous -cold-miasm etc
Achieving master would open up all knowledge to you to get to grandmaster level ,but crafting grandmaster items is a slow process,perhaps even takes a few months
where the challenges present themselves.As you are in the process of creating the item,challenges will pop up where you require something to continue the craft.
At one point you might discover you are missing basilisk tongue ,next time it could be manticore poison (random) these creatures would be hard to find and hard to get to the places where
they do appear.
This gives crafters a lot of material to brag to other players -say,I'm crafting this artifact do you know where I can find x,do you mind helping me out-
A very long process to the grandmaster crafting would bring people closer together I think
Pretty much like how some hobbyists can go on for hours about their obsession.
When crafting is engaging and difficult to master, I tend to enjoy it. Often times, I craft simply for the desire to supply friends and guild members with the items they so desire, preferably the highest quality when possible. I also enjoy being self sufficent whenever possible.
Kilsin said:How much of a crafter are you, do you enjoy crafting in MMORPG's
Very much of a crafter . I wouldn't play a MMO without crafting/gathering so yes, obviously I enjoy crafting . I would say that I spend 30 - 40 % of my time on crafting related activities .
and if so, what do you enjoy about it?
This is an excellent question and I had to think about it for a long time ! For me there are 3 main factors in my crafting motivation .
1) CREATION
I love to create . I also create in RL (art and science) . The only activity in an MMO which creates (almost all others destroy) is crafting . It provides me pleasure to figure out recipes, find some morning dew, a moon silver ingot and a pearl shard and transform that in a shining magical necklace . I like when there is a hidden logic in recipes which one must discover . I like when the recipes themselves must be earned either by experimenting or by questing . All this fulfills my need to create things .
2) SOCIALIZATION
I feel that a world would not be complete without artisans, scholars and tinkerers . Of course there are those brawny types bristling with weapons and just wanting to kill things all over the place . But the world would be a boring place if this were the only people that one meets . I would often go out of my way when I heard people asking for banded in Commons - I would drop everything, take the person to my forge and craft him a full set . It was very gratifying to see how happy the person was to have found at last a friendly smith . More often than not when I happened on these person later again, they remembered what I did and helped me on their turn . I would like that the name of the crafter stays engraved on crafted items like f.ex in Lotro .
3) ECONOMY
Crafting obviously expands and contributes to the player driven economy . For the crafter this is the way to secure funds for his (sometimes expensive) research and for the buyer to obtain items that only a skilled crafter could do . I like when there are not only mundane products but also unique items created by craft . Not really thinking about weapons or armor but mainly on quest or utility products like f.ex the Rebreather in EQ .
In summary I cannot imagine an MMO without crafting .
I love crafting. I tend to most enjoy consumeable, enchant, and tinkering type professions, as things like blacksmith or tailor tend to not be as profitable which means you tend to not get to do your craft quite as often. It's just nice to have the extra avenue for character progression and something fun to do when you feel particularly tapped with killing/grinding.
What I would personally like to see is that at master skill level in a given profession and specialization the crafter be able to break down any items related to their craft (like a weaponsmith being able to break down any metal weaponry) in order to learn how to make it. I imagine it taking something like 2 or 3 deconstructions of any given item to learn how to make it. When you break it down you get nothing (no mats/items), the only thing you gain is a message and/or craft log update that you gain some understanding of the item. Destroy enough of them and you learn how to make the item yourself (maybe requiring mats from scrapping a(some) similarly powered piece(s) of gear). In this way crafters, given enough time and dedication in the game, can collect the recipes to (almost) every item within their specialized profession to truly become legendary craftsmen and forge a name for themselves on their server. I imagine it would also help keep items from becoming too common for a while longer than normal.