11 replies to this topic

[Vanpry]

I like how UO did crafting in general.  

Based on your crafting skill vs skill required to make an item you would get a failure (loss of all material), low quality, average, high or gm once you maxed out your skill.  That was so much more exciting then collect x, y and z and poof here’s your magical item.  

Which lead me to my next grip; crafting has become too high fantasy and not enough high quality.  For example why does every item have to be magical?  Why can’t an item just be exquisitely made?  

It was also nice that you could take items and recycle them getting some of the base material back.  I’m hoping alganon will allow crafters to recycle items to get some of the base material back.  For example if you recycle a basic sword that took 8 ingots to create you would get back 4 to 6 ingots based on your recycling skill.  If you recycled a magic sword that took 8 ingots to create you would get back 4 to 6 enriched ingots or basic ingot and magical component.

[Jergis]

-Salvaging is a good way to help alleviate the draining feeling of getting the same common magic item drop again and again when hunting in a zone for faction, pelts, etc. so i agree thought in this area is needed.

Come april, we'll see what they got for us.

Jergis

[Barrakketh]

I too wouldn't mind a crafting system where some risk is involved. It's true most MMOs now have an "insert components here and press a button to get your crafted item" system, with no chance for failure or critical success. LOTRO has a crit success, but no chance of failure.

I really liked AC2's crafting. You selected the level of the item you wanted to try to make, were told the components needed, and a colour code for the chance of success, from 100% down to less than 10%. The chance was based on your crafting skill level compared to the level of the item you wanted to craft. Feel lucky?

I'm not sure crafting with a failure chance would be popular now.

I'm interested to learn what this game plans for crafting.

[klaw]

Critical successes or failures could alter the final result of what you were crafting, and I believe would make the crafting process more realistic.

With critical successes, you could high a higher quality armor with more armor/damage dealt (physical or magical) / an automatic skill increase too.

Along those lines with critical or normal failures, you could lose the materials by how much you failed the crafting attempt by. For example, if you barely failed the crafting attempt, you would lose only a part of the materials used. However, a critical failure would result in a total loss of all mats, but you might gain a skill level knowing you will not try to make it that way again.

Salvaging, which I saw on another post, could be a means to recycle mats. How many blacksmiths made a sword to melt down to make another sword to level their own skills. Perhaps if salvaged mats were used then the success rate could be made harder a little to reflect the materials being used again.

I do like the idea of crafters being to have a clean slate to work from. Adding their dye or patterns to an existing template would encourage more individualism; of course, other things could be added also like spikes, banners, crafter emblems, ribbons, etc.

Still looking forward to the game.....

[Syndic]

The problem I see with quality systems is that players feel the need to always get the best possible item or it's no good. In EQ2, which had 4 quality levels, eventually decided that only the 4th level would give you an item, the rest were all fails, becuase players strived to get to the 4th level every combine anything less was considered by the player base as vendor junk. Personally in Vanguard when creating items I didn't make them unless I knew I could get an A quality item, if it was in doubt I'd just wait until I got a few more levels.

Not much point to having more than 1 quality of item if only the top one counts. As the EQ2 dev said when they removed the quality system, "I can spend time making 4 of every item or 4 times as many items, which would you prefer?" I'm staying with the later.

[Hasala]

I agree with you Syndic, but there are steps that can be taken to alleviate that problem. Like Klaw said, when you make a weapon, let there be a crit chance that you get something extra special. The problem is when you make it too easy to get that extra special item and crafters flood the market with those. Make it a form of study which increases the chance to get that special uber crit, but keep the chance low as in under 5% with max study or something along those lines.

I'm sure there are other methods that could be used to keep the populations low on special items and make the more common items a little more viable.

[Jergis]

-Yer right, many iterations of rewards and risks and accomplishments. The trick is making crafting as exciting, involved and enjoyable and many find hunting and adventuring. And making useful gear accessible even if not top tier has got to be another consideration. Let's hope Quest is listening, good ideas here.

Jergis

[Grymmoire]

Another possible way to encourage use of those lower crafted items would be if the best crafted items carried a random or player determined bonus, but lower ones allowed a player to slot a gem\artifact\relic of their choice, not unbalancing of course, but just something to encourage the gear\weapons usage over waiting for only the best item to be crafted.

The player then has more choices and may not gravitate solely toward "green", "blue", "purple" items. Of course the downside to this type of system is more extensive itemization and coding so perhaps too resource heavy for consideration.

[Aonaran]

One of the ideas I have always liked and thought would work in an MMO is how they done things in Guild 2. Basically you would buy a workshop and then you would have to supply the workshop with goods. From there an NPC would craft the items ready for your distribution etc.

Now I know this would need a lot of refining to fit into a MMO but for me the concept of crafting just isn't that immersive because to be a master craftsmen you would need to do that craft all the time. If you had someone do the work for you and you just supplied the goods and decided what they are to build and the quality etc then it could have some interesting concepts I feel

[Swordmage]

I am more fond of crafting systems where the quality of the components (and thus the cost to make) is a major determinant in how good the outcome is. It can be taken to extremes (SWG comes to mind); however, if the system is designed so better results require more skill and rarer components, I think it would be fun.

One question is whether or not the very rare/expensive components should be destroyed on failure. EQ2 finally went the way of preserving the rare; however, I could see both sides. I would hate to have to tell a guild mate that the component he/she/it spent 4 weeks of constant raiding to get went poof after the cat jumped on the keyboard.

[Velkyn]

One of the ideas I have always liked and thought would work in an MMO is how they done things in Guild 2. Basically you would buy a workshop and then you would have to supply the workshop with goods. From there an NPC would craft the items ready for your distribution etc.

Remember when 'hollow' weapons were introduced in AC? You would gather the parts together then take them to the NPC for crafting. Similar idea -- minus the workshop.

While I appreciate crafting, I don't like spending hours upon hours (upon hours!) trying to grind out a crafting skill. I would rather be adventuring. But some people love crafting and are quite good at it.

If I could raise my crafting skill by completing a quest (a crafting quest that takes me adventuring) then I would find that much more enjoyable.

[Cbill]

I really think they should add a mini game to craft items so its not just gather the materials and click voila you have an item. If they want to stick with 1 type of quality depending on how good you are at your mini game it could alter the stat's ever a little bit of a nudge this way or a nudge that way so you're still getting the same quality item but its not identical to every other item. That could also weigh on resources but it provides extra entertainment for crafting and on the other hand it irritates people that just want to go get everything then have their skill maxed out.