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General: Guild Sores: Crafting Sucks!
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In this week's Guild Sores comic, MMORPG.com's David North vents his rage at the boring-ness of crafting. In his opinion, there is nothing developers can do to make it FUN and EXCITING! Check out Guild Sores: Crafting Sucks! and then let us know what you think in the comments.
Comments
Why partake in activities in MMORPG's that you don't like ? Kinda makes a lot more sense if you don't like to do something don't do it. I typically enjoy crafting and gathering materials instead of whacking enemies all day and night long, just wish more MMO's would put more depth in their crafting like older MMO's did- SWG-EVE-UO.
While I find crafting in ANY game no matter how "in depth" it is about as exciting as watching grass grow, I appreciate those who participate since I actively purchase what they make.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hilarious. I too hate crafting to death. But I disagree on making it more interesting.
I just think the reason people don't craft is because its such a quantitative activity, that it becomes too time consuming and boredom arises. Anyone that crafted in Aion knows, its an AFK activity.
If I was to make an MMO with crafting. I would make it so that if I mined an ore, I would get more than '1 Tin Ore'. I'm hacking a pretty damn big rock! I should be getting more like 10-20x Tin Ore!
The act of 'Forging' also needs to be made more interesting. RnG systems are bad. I'd prefer a minigame. E.g. holding the mouse down for longer to 'aim your hammer', to determine the 'quality' of your craft. Simple things that actually have a tangible effect on the end product.
Then lastly there is the issue of having to 'level up crafting'. No. The effort should be spent in having your char doing quest for NPCs who will teach you recipes. No levelling. Just finding recipes.
Look at SWG or EvE. Crafting can be very interesting if done right.
The problem with crafting is a typical problem of gear-grind MMOs where you don't need to craft anything, or where crafted gear is usually worse then the gear dropped by bosses etc.
This is actually in A Tale in the Dessert. When you do blacksmithing you actually do shape your item on the anvil. you use the mouse to determine where you will strike next. Pretty interesting stuff. It is pretty much a crafting only game though. There is no combat at all. But I would recommend anyone to check it out for a while if you are in between games. It might not hold your interest forever but it is something different and worth seeing at least once.
I would also point out that even mining is something of a minigame in that game. most of the crafting and gathering is a mini game after you get past the basics.
All die, so die well.
Probably my favorite crafting in an mmo was precu SWG.
For instance, there was the searcing aspect that sometimes I did by myself, but other times was with a friend of mine. Sometimes I stumbled on good resources, or someone asked me to collect a particular resource for money. I liked that the resources had different properties, and you could make stuff with optional items and sometimes you got experimental points to make stuff better in different ways.
I liked being self sufficient as much as I could and making my own stuff. I made my own house, eventually, and a lot of my furniture was my own as well. I made my own vehicles and droids.
From a shopping standpoint, the crafting was cool because it did afford the crafter to put out some unique items. I had particular people I went to for armor or for weapons or for clothing. They were well known on my server because they were some of the best. Unfortunately I never got that good with crafting, but i did have a lot of fun with it.
The downside was the monotonous aspect of trying to level it, and making a lot of junk no one else seemed to want at times.
I think SWG ruined crafting though when they did away with item decay. But it was great while it lasted.
SWG hands down was fun and one of the best crafting in any mmo, i havent found any to come close. But im looking.
I agree with the no item decay hurt crafting, takes away repeat business. And its not like combatants cant make money quick to replace items.
And i dont know why everyone says pre-nge crafting. It was still the same after the nge lol. Just put on the back burner and loot items became top spot for gear.
Crafting, even in the "great" crafting games like SWG/EvE can be summed up as "hurry up and wait."
Mine ore, target/lock click and AFK, crafting? blueprint, resources, commit and AFK... hurry up and wait...
Crafting has to be a lot more interesting and involve a lot less of "make 1000 useless pieces of junk in order to grind out the skill points to make something useful."
Mini-games for crafting should be the norm by now, not the exception, but developers don't focus any time/effort towards crafting because so few players appreciate crafting and so many players just like to kill stuff.
I think a "crafting done right" game would pull more anti-crafters in.
Funny enough, most people in modern MMOs hate crafting because crafting in modern MMOs is boring and repetitive, so do you keep pushing crafting to be less and less important OR do you really look at why players hate it and actually spend the time/effort to come up with something players won't hate.
@OP : Says you!
I dont know what the writer's experience is with the different crafting systems that are offered in MMO's. But there are definately more involving ones where it isnt just about some arbitrary minigame to keep the player busy. But where the activity actually makes sense and is immersive. One example for this is the gathering and crafting system in SWG.
In SWG crafters are awarded for taking the time to create a suitable crafting environment (high quality workbench, the right buffs, city with the right buff, the right gear) and gathering high quality resources.
In a game like this crafting is actually a profession and not just another way to progress your toon. So I disagree with the writer that crafting and gathering cant be made interesting.
This however doesnt mean you have to like it of course. But to say that any crafting system is just boring, is as usefull as saying any PVP is boring. Its just about preference then.
What are you talking about? After NGE. best gear in SWG has always been crafted. It never was loot. Any loot is just about a specific look. To get the best out of it, you need to find a good crafter with good resources to recraft it. If you dont recraft it, the looted stuff is subpar.
The only difference with preNGE was decay and I agree that the system needs something like that. The amount of schematics is a lot larger then back then. And most looted stuff that has always been in the game can be disassembled now and recrafted to your liking.
EDIT: Totally misread your post, but still my comment holds as answer to some who act as preNGE crafting was better then post.
Off topic : Something weird is going on with that new edit button if you use it when viewing the comments below the feature. The edited part doesnt show up.
If I then go to the forumthread (without the feature on the top) with the comments and click edit, the edited comment shows up in the edit window, but when I then click save it changes back to the unedited post.
Something is not working right anyway.
I wish crafting were more fun but making it into a mini game is not how you do that.
It is best for the industry the MMO throne remains an dusty empty seat never to be filled.
Just a few random thoughts that would make crafting more interesting in MY eyes:
1. An apprenticeship: You know like it always was and, in some cases, is still today. You have to learn your livelihood from a master craftsman. So crafters could either hook up with a real person who has earned the master craftsman moniker or have NPCs available to accomplish the same thing. The master would gradually ramp up the difficulty of the items to be created WITHOUT having to make, as someone said, 1000 useless pieces of junk in order to grind out the points. Just make it a bit harder to be successful, not impossible, just a BIT harder.
2. I LOVE the idea of making crafting more dependent on the equipment you have in your shop. Crafters should have to 'build' their own studio with better and better tools with which to make their products. Players might, for instance, win rewards from their apprentice master in the form of new tools or a new bellows or whatever. Or they could go out and collect the resources to build and expand their workshops. This would also be a double boon in that a game's housing system would become more useful than it currently is by letting players add on their studios to their houses. Whole player-owned towns could spring up with their own marketplaces based on what players are crafting and selling.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just wait until you can make a superior rusty axe...
I'm absolutely with you on this one. I'd say the main reason crafting tends to suck in MMOs is because it's done the 21st century way: ingredients go through an assembly line, resulting in mass production. Medieval crafting was not like this at all. Making an axe took more than 7 seconds, and every blacksmith made his products a little different. If crafting took longer, was less dependant on gathering ingredients (that's what the unskilled laborers do) and offered more customization, it would be enjoyable and well worth your time.
Basically, make me feel like I have a craft, not a McJob.
Attach addicting mini - games to crafting and it would be so much better, been saying this for years (the mini-games dont even have to be crafting related, I can watch my toon craft while i play pac-man or mine-sweeper). I little xp for the task would be nice too.
Crafting is pretty pointless in most games I think, because of the following:
1) Usually 99% of what you craft nobody wants. You quickly outlevel/outgear what you can make by the time you make it, and nobody wants to pay for an item they won't need for more than a few days. Also, there is usually only a very limited selection of what you can make and very limited ways to augment it (e.g., adding some extra material or being a "master" AKA grinder)
2) It is completely mindless. Tedious gathering followed by point and click. The few mini-game type approaches to make in interesting don't go nearly far enough
I think it would be more interesting if both the crafting and gathering aspects were made more fun/challenging somehow. I think tone approach should really focus on creating very challenging and thoughtful mini-games with a very high upside if executed flawlessly. And no, I'm not talking mini-game like click the button at just the right time (still mindless and boring), but more along the lines of the mini-games in Puzzlequest (although they need to up the difficulty) or a variation on card battle system (e.g. Magic the Gathering) or something. Something that fits the task at hand, but adds thoughtful and fun diversion from the core game. And if you have a crazy good score in the minigame, you might get some crazy good enhancements to your items...
GW2 "built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind"
1) Cash->Gems->Gold->Influence->WvWvWBoosts = PAY2WIN
2) Mystic Chests = Crass in-game cash shop advertisements
crafting sucks.... just another form of typical MMO grinding... now instead of grinding for levels or equipment, you're grinding for 500 cotton patches to make some equip
ZzzZZzzz...
The one crafting system I have fallen for is the one in LOTRO. It is a grind / gather style system but what I really like about it is there are two levels for each tier. For example Apprentice Proficient and Mastery. You need to level profficient to full to gain access to the next tier (journeyman) but if you keep gaining exp you can level mastery for that tier. as you level mastery and after it is maxed you have a percentage based chance to Critical. Crits cause additional things to be made or will be a second form of that robe you were making. The crit gear is really nice and is some of the best in game. Its awesome when your say smelting bars of Tin and you crit, turning 1 ore into 3 bars
I also really like the LOTRO crafting system because crafting drives the economy. It isnt all about loot drops from bosses. Alot of the best gear in game is made through crafting not from drops. LOTRO has a really nice take on crafting that I think everyone should try. Its really quite fun
Best wishes
Saint
I like that. I remember when i started my Carpentry apprenticeship. I am ashamed i didn't think of this.
It is best for the industry the MMO throne remains an dusty empty seat never to be filled.
Vnaguard crafting is the model other games should at least base theirs on, it's interactive, gear isn't useless, lot's of diferent combinations of things to make using dusts/powders/higher quiality materials. you can craft boats,house,horseshoes,housing items etc...
I like LotRO's crafting system except for the AFK aspect. Once you set to make a specific item (say leathers), you sit there waiting forever if you are making more than say, 5 or so. That can get really tedious especially if, like me, you do a bunch of those types of things at once.
Having said that, I think LotRO does it right with the amount of different items you can craft and how good those crafted items are in game. Like someone said earlier, crafted items are as good if not better than much of the loot you find.
If done right, making it into a mini game (maybe using that Apprenticeship idea) could make crafting less tedious if not more fun.
You want me to pay to play a game I already paid for???
Be afraid.....The dragons are HERE!
I always thought most MMOs go the wrong way with crasfting and make it tedious. Simply have repeatable PvE crafting quests, and make them varied and even PvP mini games and you have a more fun way to go about it.
The thing I liked better about prenge was the item decay as you mentioned. Also, with the nge there were item rewards and without item decay it took away from business. Part of the fun of crafting was having a virtual business. But besides those things, yeah there wasn't much difference.
Looking through the posts I'm glad others agreed with me about swg. The crafting in that game could be very fun. It had it's downsides too. But running a business and having your own store with your own vendors and shopping expeditions were also part of the swg experience.
you see, I don't usually like the standard "sit and wait" when crafting like WoW, Aion, and all other games gathering and production crafting systems, I perfer puzzles and small mini-games like Everquest 2 and Vanguard. I wish they made each and every crafting a bit different, like a hidden-Object game, a Match 3-game and many puzzling elements to work our brain and produce a nice quality item depending on our performance.