Should crafting be interactive?

Vermillion_Raventhal

Think crafting is one of the most challenging aspect of the game to make fun. Though some just like making stuff.

Mini games IMO are bad because usually they get boring and become tedious. Maybe just my opinion but any repetitive sequence can be boring.

I had ideas of traditional click crafting but being able to train an apprentice to do the work for you.  For example you build a mine to gather a resource.  You can hire a miner once you are grand master. 

Another idea is to have a crafting wheel like wheel of fortune.  Where when you craft depending on your skill you will create random range of quality with rare legendary for grandmasters.  Sadly this kind of gameplay would likely be exploited for cash shop in this day and age.  

What do you feel like they could do to make crafting more than click and produce?

sunandshadow

I'm strongly in favor of minigame-based crafting, combined with discouraging mass crafting and instead encouraging players to make one of everything for themselves but only a few things to sell to other players who don't want to craft or have difficulty with a particular crafting minigame.

Quizzical

Crafting should involve interesting gameplay decisions.  There's not just one unique way to do this, but just making crafting into something stupid to grind levels in is not interesting.

My favorite approach is to make it not obvious what you want to craft.  Make it so that the optimal thing to craft varies wildly depending on your circumstances.  Don't make it so that everyone wants an epic sword of smiting, or even that all level 40 warriors want a pointy stick of +1 sharpness.  Make it so that you need crafting items often, they're cheap to get, but what's best for you depends tremendously on what you're going to do next.

A skill of the player component to crafting akin to A Tale in the Desert's glassblowing or blacksmithing can be interesting.  You have to be careful not to make the best few crafters too dominant, however.

You can also have some research component to crafting, where what one player crafts from given components will be different from one another crafts from exactly the same components.  Then it takes some tinkering to figure out what you can craft and how.  See A Tale in the Desert's paint system for an example of this.

You can also make crafting fit into a broader economic system as in Puzzle Pirates, Uncharted Waters Online, or (again) A Tale in the Desert.  What you want to craft can depend on prices that day.

Minigames aren't necessarily bad.  Having to do the same minigame a hundred times in a row sure is bad, though.  Puzzle Pirates handled this by making it so that you just have to play a minigame at least once per 10 days to remain current, and then could craft however many items at your proven skill level in that time.

What you should not do is ask players to craft a ton of junk that they vendor in order to level up crafting.  Crafting a hundred of some useless thing that even the vendors who buy your junk are sick of seeing is not an interesting gameplay decision.

Ridelynn

SWG is still my gold standard for crafting. Eve comes pretty close though. It's less "crafting" and more a logistics management mini-game.

Warlyx

i enjoyed Eq2 crafting somehow , its "ok" , dislike FFXIV the most , tons of ppl love it to me its just frustrating , and needing gear upgrades every now and then ugh...

i despise games that force u to craft tons of crap for vendor , there is no fun in crafting 1000 ingots , nor 1000 tables just to gain 10 lvls

k61977

I agree with Warlyx one of my favorite crafting was Eq2.  You didn't just set it an walk away.  You interacted and got better stuff by paying attention.  The idea of being able to get better stuff than you were planning by playing the mini game was a great idea.

Velifax

I'm not yet decided on this one, i think I'm okay with either.

I have two crafting games I like;

Factorio

Xyson

There are several I dont like;

WoW

Ark

Terraria

Life is Feudal

Don't Starve

Tough to come up with exclusive elements.

Terraria, Don't Starve, and Ark all have a wide variety of ingredients to always watch for or hunt down, and neither Xyson nor Factorio does. Can't really claim any thrill when acquiring and stockpiling many materials, and ive definitely been annoyed when required to track down some specific ingredient.

I enjoy needing to stockpile huge amounts of materials, yet I do not enjoy doing so in Ark.

Not really sure what the common denominator is here.

Just realized I forgot about the minigame aspect.

When I design crafting systems my immediate instinct is to implement a form of minigame that is more advanced than pin the tail on the donkey or equivalent. I assume the player wants to consider and juggle several finicky elements of the materials used to affect the final product; size, weight, age, quality,  etc.

However I rarely randomize the outcome, whether by character skill or player skill. I assume they'll want it deterministic.

On the other hand ive never played any of my crafting systems, so...

Velifax

Eve is an odd case for me.

Crafting resources flow easily and cheaply, so the "minigame" becomes "will i actually use this many" vs "can i sell this many." More of a balance game.

For me the efficiency maximizing aspect of planet um... mining was easily my favorite part; balancing input costs versus extraction rates.

So as in my previous post a small bit of calculation to yield a deterministic bonus seems key.

Scorchien

DMKano said:

The issue IMO is not only making the crafting process more fun, but making the crafted gear more unique and more meaningful for each crafter. 

Example if you only make the crafting process interactive but the end result is the same old +5 AC plate armor and every recipe for plate armor results in the exactly same +5 AC armor than the whole effort is moot.

The real problem with crafting for me is not the point and click nature it's the limited number of recipes resulting in 100% identical gear for everyone.

It's done done for balance reasons but the end result is dull and boring same-same for every crafter. 

SWG was on the right path, but almost all other games went for the easy mindless everyone makes the same crap route

Another example of how Balance sucks.....

Ungood

Humm someone seems butthurt.

Vermillion_Raventhal

Ungood said:

Humm someone seems butthurt.

I know Dwight Howard is.

Ungood

Vermillion_Raventhal said:

Ungood said:

Humm someone seems butthurt.

I know Dwight Howard is.

Nahh.. This involves another discussion, and a poster here is just being an insufferable child about it.

Personally, crafting is hard to make interactive.

I have seen some neat ideas to make Harvesting both interactive and even competitive. So that has been handled as far as making the harvesting more "Game Like", and Crowfall has put out some good ideas with this as well, building an idea of Team based harvesting, with their whole Motherload system.

I know some games have done wonders with lots of ways to make things work, like mixing metallurgy with needing to craft and create patterns, as well as having crafting/harvesting being it's own profession with levels and the like. Camelot Unchained had presented this idea, where there would be direct crafting classes, like a Black Smith, as opposed to everyone playing a generic combat class and players choosing to use their Bard to go craft with, because it has the fastest run speed and can get to the nodes faster or some such.

So there are things going on.

iixviiiix

I like crafting using minesweeper .

Scorchien

Ungood said:

Humm someone seems butthurt.

LMFAO... Hummm   de de deeee NO ..

   1. I actually think that Balance in an MMORPG in any form crafting included ... sucks ..

   It goes against the grain of everything an MMORPG should be ..

  2. Thats cute , you actually think i give a fuck what you think ... let me help .. I dont

 You would have to be be signifigant in even the smallest way .. which you are not ..

   Have a Nice Day

 

  

 

anemo

iixviiiix said:

I like crafting using minesweeper .

You know this could actually work (since I'm detecting sarcasm).   Especially if you make mines the "end crafting" button, with crafting abilities doing things like being able to move mines (ultimates being able to remove), and clear spaces being abilities added to the weapon on completion.

________________

I wish there were more classes like Pathfinder's Alchemist/Gunslinger classes where you're responsible for making your utilities/weapons as you level up from your rewards.   Compared the the fighter/mage where your character advancement is based on playing with the skill tree, and clever loot use.

Though it's not like I expect a computer game to cover absurd things like a player deciding that they're going to make a BFG, add an immovable rod to it to deal with recoil, and then use an animated golem to add auto reload mechanics...

Cryomatrix

mortal online had some interesting crafting. 

I think SWG is the gold standard for crafting. For me the end result of crafting mechanics should be people seek out specific crafters for gear.

The time i played SWG, i was known as a good weapon crafter and i'd make people stuff all the time and id have repeat and new customers as word of mouth spread.

I experienced it in EVE a bit but more because i made super cheap ships than i made good ships. 

A good crafting game has infamous crafters but problem is people who show up late to the party wouls complain that they can never compete.

So the way to fix it imo, is to have all the components have max efficiency themselves. So if you are awesome at making a sword, you should find the best handle maker, new patches can do this.

Ungood

Scorchien said:

Ungood said:

Humm someone seems butthurt.

LMFAO... Hummm   de de deeee NO ..

   1. I actually think that Balance in an MMORPG in any form crafting included ... sucks ..

   It goes against the grain of everything an MMORPG should be ..

  2. Thats cute , you actually think i give a fuck what you think ... let me help .. I dont

 You would have to be be signifigant in even the smallest way .. which you are not ..

   Have a Nice Day

 

  

 

Yup.. someone is butthurt.

Ungood

Cryomatrix said:

mortal online had some interesting crafting. 

I think SWG is the gold standard for crafting. For me the end result of crafting mechanics should be people seek out specific crafters for gear.

The time i played SWG, i was known as a good weapon crafter and i'd make people stuff all the time and id have repeat and new customers as word of mouth spread.

I experienced it in EVE a bit but more because i made super cheap ships than i made good ships. 

A good crafting game has infamous crafters but problem is people who show up late to the party wouls complain that they can never compete.

So the way to fix it imo, is to have all the components have max efficiency themselves. So if you are awesome at making a sword, you should find the best handle maker, new patches can do this.

I have heard that Mortal Online had one of the most in-depth crafting systems out there, right down to complex metallurgy for weapon and armor designs. I also heard that players would hide their best ideas as opposed to them ending up on some number crunching min-max guide.

I also heard that the Full Loot Open World PvP .. kinda put the game in the Ghost Town status.. but.. that is what they advertised the game as, some hard core game like that.

I played it for a few hours.. and.. not a bad game, just, not a great game either.. kinda fell in the meh range for me, but then again.. I didn't play it for long.

Cryomatrix

Ungood said:

Cryomatrix said:

mortal online had some interesting crafting. 

I think SWG is the gold standard for crafting. For me the end result of crafting mechanics should be people seek out specific crafters for gear.

The time i played SWG, i was known as a good weapon crafter and i'd make people stuff all the time and id have repeat and new customers as word of mouth spread.

I experienced it in EVE a bit but more because i made super cheap ships than i made good ships. 

A good crafting game has infamous crafters but problem is people who show up late to the party wouls complain that they can never compete.

So the way to fix it imo, is to have all the components have max efficiency themselves. So if you are awesome at making a sword, you should find the best handle maker, new patches can do this.

I have heard that Mortal Online had one of the most in-depth crafting systems out there, right down to complex metallurgy for weapon and armor designs. I also heard that players would hide their best ideas as opposed to them ending up on some number crunching min-max guide.

I also heard that the Full Loot Open World PvP .. kinda put the game in the Ghost Town status.. but.. that is what they advertised the game as, some hard core game like that.

I played it for a few hours.. and.. not a bad game, just, not a great game either.. kinda fell in the meh range for me, but then again.. I didn't play it for long.

What killed the game for me were 3 things.

Major was the low pop
2nd was once i stop playing a game, the addiction goes away, and then it is hard to go back to it.
3rd im too cheap to pay the monthly fee (even though i buy like 50 bucks of red bull a month) and i used to pay 40 bucks a day for my tesla. 

Ungood

Cryomatrix said:

Ungood said:

Cryomatrix said:

mortal online had some interesting crafting. 

I think SWG is the gold standard for crafting. For me the end result of crafting mechanics should be people seek out specific crafters for gear.

The time i played SWG, i was known as a good weapon crafter and i'd make people stuff all the time and id have repeat and new customers as word of mouth spread.

I experienced it in EVE a bit but more because i made super cheap ships than i made good ships. 

A good crafting game has infamous crafters but problem is people who show up late to the party wouls complain that they can never compete.

So the way to fix it imo, is to have all the components have max efficiency themselves. So if you are awesome at making a sword, you should find the best handle maker, new patches can do this.

I have heard that Mortal Online had one of the most in-depth crafting systems out there, right down to complex metallurgy for weapon and armor designs. I also heard that players would hide their best ideas as opposed to them ending up on some number crunching min-max guide.

I also heard that the Full Loot Open World PvP .. kinda put the game in the Ghost Town status.. but.. that is what they advertised the game as, some hard core game like that.

I played it for a few hours.. and.. not a bad game, just, not a great game either.. kinda fell in the meh range for me, but then again.. I didn't play it for long.

What killed the game for me were 3 things.

Major was the low pop
2nd was once i stop playing a game, the addiction goes away, and then it is hard to go back to it.
3rd im too cheap to pay the monthly fee (even though i buy like 50 bucks of red bull a month) and i used to pay 40 bucks a day for my tesla. 

Low Population, as it stands, is often an issue with a lot of Open World PvP MMO's. As it turns out, it's not that popular, and IIRC, Mortal was Full Loot, as well, making it even less appealing.

Azaron_Nightblade

Oh god no, on the mini games.
I remember Vanguard having something like that, and it got BORING after the first hundred times of going through it.

I'm with Kano's suggestion; make crafting relevant. Don't make it more convoluted just for the sake of it.

dave6660

I very rarely craft anything.  Now that auction houses have become so popular, players will undercut each other to point of losing money just to improve their crafting skill, which means I can buy that crafted item cheaper than it would have cost me to make it myself.

Plus leveling up is so fast in modern games, you're changing gear every few hours, spending time crafting something is a wasted effort.  At max level, the good gear is locked behind raids and dungeons with five difficulty levels so crafting is long forgotten.

The road that mmorpg's have gone down doesn't leave much need or reason to craft.  I'm not a fan of this trend but it is what it is.

7thRankedNoob

Totally, crafting should be interactive ... Many people play MMOs and think of their Avatars as Crafters first, Adventurers second.

I think Vanguard did crafting best ... everything involved a mini game. EQ2 comes in second and FFXIV third. FFXIV when it first came out had more interactive crafting than it does now, but its still in top 3. My memory of SWG is fuzzy. I remember it as needing many parts but was just a simply click afterwards to create.

I dont just want to push buttons and autocreate.... I want to think while I'm crafting.

Palebane

I never really got into crafting until ESO. It def has its flaws but seems more realistic than most (other than the arbitrary time restrictions for added traits). Never played SWG but Ive heard it had some of the most meaningful or interactive crafting. Isn’t the whole idea of Minecraft based on this? I personally do not enjoy minigames or puzzles and prefer more “realistic” rpg-skill based crafting where you can occaisionally lose materials.

On topic, more interactive crafting could be fun if it was done right, but as monotonous as some games have made it in the past, “more interactive” could be a nightmare. I think its super subjective, as someone who doesnt care for crafting in the first place would be apathetic about it no matter how good or interactive it is. 

Quizzical

Azaron_Nightblade said:

Oh god no, on the mini games.
I remember Vanguard having something like that, and it got BORING after the first hundred times of going through it.

I'm with Kano's suggestion; make crafting relevant. Don't make it more convoluted just for the sake of it.

One huge problem with Vanguard's crafting is minigame singular.  Rather than having a bunch of different things to do, it had one thing to do and asked you to do it an enormous number of times.  That gets very repetitive.

The other glaring problem with Vanguard's crafting is that it was more about grinding than crafting.  Rather than asking you to learn a minigame and then use it to craft something, it asked you to craft a zillion of something stupid that you didn't want in order to grind levels so that you could eventually craft the one thing that you did.

Cryomatrix

dave6660 said:

I very rarely craft anything.  Now that auction houses have become so popular, players will undercut each other to point of losing money just to improve their crafting skill, which means I can buy that crafted item cheaper than it would have cost me to make it myself.

Plus leveling up is so fast in modern games, you're changing gear every few hours, spending time crafting something is a wasted effort.  At max level, the good gear is locked behind raids and dungeons with five difficulty levels so crafting is long forgotten.

The road that mmorpg's have gone down doesn't leave much need or reason to craft.  I'm not a fan of this trend but it is what it is.

You havent played a game that ha decent crafting and that is a failure of the crafting system to begin with. 

My preferred role in any game is crafting, but very few games do it right, and the ones that do usually have low population mitigating the effectiveness of crafting which is other people buying your stuff.