MMORPG crafting

[mattpegher]

What is with these MMO's and crafting?

In the real world you craft to make money. You get cheap materials to make craft goods. Rare ingredients can be used to make rare goods and rare recipies or special skills are used to make even more rare goods. You should be able to make something desirable or what is the point.

The MMO that i have been playing lately are full of basic items that are junk that no adventurer would use. Common goods are nothing more than junk to sell to a vendor or leave on the battlefield.

And many MMO's level crafting so that everone is making so much crap to get their skill up and dumping it on the market at deflated prices such that the only reason to craft is endgame uberepic items.

 

[BassBomb]

It is definitley odd how in a MMO diversity is the key and overall utility.

Raw goods are worth MORE than finished product

Like in WoW: Cloth, ore, herbs always seem to be worth more than what a user puts in to craft an item

The way they do it like you said, is to make that one item they want to use or wear not to make money.
This is what caused an imbalanced need for raw goods vs the crafted product. Those who supply the raw goods (miner, herbalist) will make more money than someone trying to craft!

I guess it needs to be changed somehow that the crafted items are valuable and can be made for profit

 

[racolvin]

Crafting has always been a bizarre thing in MMO's. For a while in the early days of EQ2 it was nice but they murdered it not long after release. No other game I've seen sets up the player economy very well for crafting, where player crafted items would be equal to or better than dropped loot. If what a player can craft and try to sell me is no better than the item that drops of a gnoll in the newbie zone, there is zero incentive for me to buy from a player. Which also means there is zero incentive to do the harvesting/collection of the raw materials.

Sorta sad really ...

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: racolvin
Crafting has always been a bizarre thing in MMO's. For a while in the early days of EQ2 it was nice but they murdered it not long after release. No other game I've seen sets up the player economy very well for crafting, where player crafted items would be equal to or better than dropped loot. If what a player can craft and try to sell me is no better than the item that drops of a gnoll in the newbie zone, there is zero incentive for me to buy from a player. Which also means there is zero incentive to do the harvesting/collection of the raw materials.

Sorta sad really ...

Also like when there is gear you COULD get made from some person but why bother when your next instance or quest at a higher level will likely become better than that piece already. Hunting down the expensive or overpriced materials for it to be made or farming them yourself just to wear this thing and find out its not too good anymore!

 

[natebigdawg]

I have recently been playing my first MMORPG past Trial and i have loved LOTRO. From what I can compare it too, crafting in this game is a little refined but still has the typical grind of other MMO's when it comes to crafting.

The nice thing is that all items have a critical sucess that can be achieved to produce a superior item or multiple components. The superior items sell for a marked up price that is very profitable. Superior sucess can only be obtained after mastery in a craft so there is a lot of dirt cheap selling going on and vendor trash.

I think that there should be a slight profit for selling crafted items to a NPC vendor but not too much of a profit or the market for raw materials would be too vastly affected. I have really enjoyed crafting thus far and know that it is a money sink but I do all of the raw materials gathering myself so I don't feel the pinch on my wallet.

 

[Genx87]

UO did it right. Miners mined, blacksmiths made items. Items got sold at a vendors house.
WoW's crafting system is the worst I have come across. Unless you want to make yourself a weapon there is literally no point in crafting. Most of the weapons at bind on pickup. Who thought that would foster a good crafting maket?

Edit: EVE's system is also very well done.

 

[ggnl]

The problem is that every character is given the crafting skills for free. It's so easy to find someone to craft basically anything you want, the price is dictated by the cost of raw materials. There's no value added by the crafter.

In Asheron's Call, for example, you had to forego combat skills to pick up crafting skill. Consequently, almost noone had crafting skills on their main characters so those who did (or those who had alts dedicated to crafting) were in high demand and could charge a premium for it.

Yet another consequence of the dumbed down, let-everyone-solo-everything approach to MMO development.

 

[Xed]

Swg had the best crafting system, imo. (I don't know if they broke it when they did that game restart or whatever the hell they called it)

 

[Vonkhan]

PreCU SWG had the most in-depth & rewarding crafting system ... they're kinda revamping it now to make it more interesting, but its way too late to save the game

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Genx87
UO did it right. Miners mined, blacksmiths made items. Items got sold at a vendors house.
WoW's crafting system is the worst I have come across. Unless you want to make yourself a weapon there is literally no point in crafting. Most of the weapons at bind on pickup. Who thought that would foster a good crafting maket?

Edit: EVE's system is also very well done.

UO was the only game where crafting actually paid off for me. When I hit GM in blacksmithing it was like backing up the Brinks truck to my bank vault. And you could actually make cash along the way to allow you to keep crafting and raising skill.

 

[racolvin]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Edit: EVE's system is also very well done.

The system in EVE isn't really crafting, IMHO. I do a lot of industrial work in EVE but there is no player skill involved at all. Once I have a researched BPO I can run it through the automated manufacturing process and crank things out by the blue billion - except that everything I make is exactly the same as anyone else could make. My profit is based on how efficient I can be in the usage of my raw materials, not in any sort of skill that *I* learned in playing the game. Nothing I can make is unique in any way, so everything is a commodity.

In most MMO's this is also true, that once the item is made it's just like any other. In EQ2 for a while there you had your name on it "made by XXX" so that at least people could build some brand/crafter loyalty

The system in SWG pre-CU was nice but it's been too long for me to remember the details. I just remember liking it

 

[mattpegher]

I think it would be interesting if you learned how to make an item then the more you made that item the better they got. So you could learn to make a, copper dagger which the first few were common, then the next few rare then after you made a bunch you would start making epics then uniques, maybe have to get some special ingredient for those. Granted it may only be a low level weapon but it was great for that level. You could still get to learn better recipies as you leveled but then the first few would still be common and so on. And never should a craft item be bind on pickup, duh.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: racolvin

Originally posted by: Genx87

Edit: EVE's system is also very well done.

The system in EVE isn't really crafting, IMHO. I do a lot of industrial work in EVE but there is no player skill involved at all. Once I have a researched BPO I can run it through the automated manufacturing process and crank things out by the blue billion - except that everything I make is exactly the same as anyone else could make. My profit is based on how efficient I can be in the usage of my raw materials, not in any sort of skill that *I* learned in playing the game. Nothing I can make is unique in any way, so everything is a commodity.

In most MMO's this is also true, that once the item is made it's just like any other. In EQ2 for a while there you had your name on it "made by XXX" so that at least people could build some brand/crafter loyalty

The system in SWG pre-CU was nice but it's been too long for me to remember the details. I just remember liking it

Those are maker's marks and they are still in EQ. UO had them as well, anything crafted by a GM carried a maker's mark.

 

[Aikouka]

I remember when I first started playing WoW and I got some armor. I went to a vendor and bought some Black Dye and was confused when I couldn't just apply it to my armor. "My god man, I want some sexy black armor!" That dye was expensive for a brand new lowbie too .

 

[CU]

If they made mob's drop what they had on them instead of random things it would help also. How can a dragon drop a sword? He should drop raw materials for crafters to use, like scales. I giant ogre with a really cool 20ft mace shouldn't drop a cool mace, because his mace is to big for anyone to use. Instead drop some rare raw metal that was used in his mace.

 

[natebigdawg]

One thing I look forward to with the Mines of Moria Exp. for LOTRO is that high level crafted items will begin to aquire experience and level up do to usage. I don't know too many details on it but I think that there is some good possibility for crafters to create items that will have a longer lifespan and become a sort of constant companion for the player.

I like the idea of people specializing in a craft and taking a hit on the combat side. It is much more realistic for a crafter to dedicate his time in making things and the pay-off for that should be similiar to going out and klling MOB's.

 

[Xavier434]

One of the biggest problems with crafting in a lot of MMOs is trying place both a high value and demand on craftable items as well as dropped items to the point where everyone wants to kill the hard bad guys and the economy is flourishing due to crafts all at the same time. There are many ways to stimulate such a thing that are fun and creative. One way which I believe should be focused on quite heavily is by mixing up where the best items for each slot come from. Some should come from dungeons while others should be available after some very vigorous crafting that does not require the crafter to run any dungeons that require a large group/raid for anything. The process of obtaining what needs to be obtained to craft these items should not be limited to just grinding either. Force the crafter to go through a series of steps that are considered to be both challenging and fun to get the materials for an item. Some of these steps can involve a smaller group as long as it isn't a raid.

That's just my 2 cents. A combination of very well thought out an fun ideas will ultimately be the best way to go in the end.

 

[Michael]

One of the basic flaws in most crafting systems is that you don't lose anything. If you die but then respawn with all your equipment, then there is no continued demand being created.

Eve Online is different in that when you "die" (your ship explodes) you've lost your ship and there's a risk that your equipment on the ship blows up as well. If you or your side doesn't hold the field, then there also is a risk that you lose the equipment that does not survive.

Couple that with the fact that almost all basic items and all "Tech 2" items are made by players and you end up with a crafting system that works.

As noted above, once you do make an item, there is no "maker's mark" and it is no different than any other copy that someone else makes. Skill and player knowledge certainly helps (especially when you go into T2 invention, but even in the supply chain for normal items), but it eventually comes down to efficiency and minimum acceptable profit.

Michael

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: Michael
One of the basic flaws in most crafting systems is that you don't lose anything. if you die but then respawn will all your equipment, then there is no continued demand being created.

Eve Online is different in that when you "die" (your ship explodes) you've lost your ship and there's a risk that your equipment on the ship blows up as well. If you or your side doesn't hold the field, then there also is a risk that you lose the equipment that does not survive.

Couple that with the fact that almost all basic items and all "Tech 2" items are made by players and you end up with a crafting system that works.

As noted above, once you do make an item, there is no "maker's mark" and it is no different than any other copy that someone else makes. Skill and player knowledge certainly helps (especially when you go into T2 invention, but even in the supply chain for normal items), but it eventually comes down to efficiency and minimum acceptable profit.

Michael

I'm not a fan of keeping the demand for supply up by having the craft get permanently destroyed. However, that demand still needs to be met and if you are not going to take the craft away from the player then you need to motivate the player to replace the craft. One way to do that is by implementing something like this idea which was posted earlier:

Originally posted by: mattpegher
I think it would be interesting if you learned how to make an item then the more you made that item the better they got. So you could learn to make a, copper dagger which the first few were common, then the next few rare then after you made a bunch you would start making epics then uniques, maybe have to get some special ingredient for those. Granted it may only be a low level weapon but it was great for that level. You could still get to learn better recipies as you leveled but then the first few would still be common and so on. And never should a craft item be bind on pickup, duh.

Essentially, you want to motivate the player to craft the same item multiple times, but it needs to be done in such a way where it doesn't feel like too much of a grind. There are many ways to accomplish that and what is stated in this quote is a good start. No matter what, the process(s) need to continuously feel like fun for most players.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: BassBomb
It is definitley odd how in a MMO diversity is the key and overall utility.

Raw goods are worth MORE than finished product

Like in WoW: Cloth, ore, herbs always seem to be worth more than what a user puts in to craft an item

The way they do it like you said, is to make that one item they want to use or wear not to make money.
This is what caused an imbalanced need for raw goods vs the crafted product. Those who supply the raw goods (miner, herbalist) will make more money than someone trying to craft!

I guess it needs to be changed somehow that the crafted items are valuable and can be made for profit

The reason for this is because most skills are done incorrectly in MMOs versus real life. If you are learning how to build a desk do you use your rarest most difficult wood knowing full well you are going to fail at least once or twice before you get it down pat or do you use the cheap shitty stuff until you've at least got a hang of what you are doing? That is the problem right there, most MMOs force you to use rarer and rarer ingredients as you make more intricate things, which is basically backwards from a learning perspective. The more difficult item I'm making, the less likely I'm going to make it using a high end ingredient before mastering it.

EQ2 had a pretty decent system but it was a click fest. UO had a far better system.

 

[QuantumPion]

UO's system worked so well because it was a fundamentally different gear system then WoW et al. In UO:

-There was very little "magic" gear that dropped from bosses, and those items weren't in very high demand.
-Since when you die you lose all your loot, generic player-crafted gear was in the highest demand.
-NPC vendors had a limited supply of goods which only refreshed occasionally, so pretty much all gear had to be player made.
-There were no classes, so every player could use every item. E.g. mages wearing plate, warriors using bows, etc.

UO had an amazing robust economy that truly was player driven. WoW's crafting system is basically just a way for non-raiders to get epics through grinding.

 

[BudAshes]

I actually think star wars galaxies had the best crafting system. Too bad the combat sucked.

SWG's true powerhouses were the crafters, as there was almost no looted weapons that were good. Everything from guns to houses were crafted by the players.

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: BudAshes
I actually think star wars galaxies had the best crafting system. Too bad the combat sucked.

SWG's true powerhouses were the crafters, as there was almost no looted weapons that were good. Everything from guns to houses were crafted by the players.

That's just tipping the scale the other direction though. That's easy to do. The hard thing is to make both craftable items and loot very valuable and very fun for almost all players throughout the entire game.

 

[coloumb]

Have to agree with others - SWG had [and maybe still has?] the best crafting system of any 3d MMO [not sure about UO as I couldn't stand the isometric view].

 

[BudAshes]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: BudAshes
I actually think star wars galaxies had the best crafting system. Too bad the combat sucked.

SWG's true powerhouses were the crafters, as there was almost no looted weapons that were good. Everything from guns to houses were crafted by the players.

That's just tipping the scale the other direction though. That's easy to do. The hard thing is to make both craftable items and loot very valuable and very fun for almost all players throughout the entire game.

Well loot is still valuable because the crafters need the loot to make the good items. For example you had to go off into the tatooine wilderness and fight gigantic krayt dragons to get scales that let weaponsmiths make more powerful blasters.