In my opinion, much of what was said about Ryzom's craft system is not at all true.
The craft system was nice and intuitive. You could make a mediocre item not knowing anything, and an acceptable item that was quite usable with only a few experiments. Making the best kick-ass items was something that took weeks or months, but it was also an interesting element of player interaction (before tools came out where you could just type in what to optimize for and the tool would find the best combination with the cheapest materials, sigh...).
One of the bigger "socializing" things in Ryzom was crafting some equipment for a friend or for a newbie player. Or, finding some nice boss mats to craft a good sword or axe as a birthday present (or for christmas). One of the elements in the faction PvP was (among having "bodies", sigh...) having good equipment for the people in your faction. This included gathering the materials and being able to craft them, for others.
Getting good materials often involved a group, too. Not only is any boss over 170 entirely unkillable for anyone even at maximum level (that is, without friends, or without multiboxing), but even digging for supremes in the Prime Roots alone could be a deadly challenge, especially with Kitin Patrols (which at times were just ridiculously overpowered). Having a group with you still meant 3-4 deaths in an evening of digging, but without the group it would be 15-20 deaths and likely no loot. Hitting a patrol when you're alone is instant death. They see you from miles away, they run much faster than you do, and they kill you in 2 hits. In a group there's still a chance someone gets to run, and maybe, return for a rez.
Take that away, make items soulbound, and you lose all this interaction. You turn a group game into a solo game.
Ryzom did suffer from some serious design errors which greatly favoured people... well, how to put this, people with a kind of unsocial behaviour, organized campers, and munchkins, but that was in the gathering system rather than crafting.
For example, if you wanted a pair of supreme zun amplifiers, you needed to get zun. Which, as it happens, only spawns once per season (and not even every season) only in some specific weather condition, usually in a piss place with kitins sitting on it or neaby, too. So you come there 10-15 minutes after season change, but someone was there 2 minutes earlier. You can try all day and you won't get a thing. Challenge? Maybe so.
However, the problem is that there are people who use out of game tools (nowadays there exist websites for that) so they reliably know when season will change and what's available where. The same people (or their friends) will sit at spawn locations for zone bosses precisely on time, since they spawn regularly at exactly predictable intervals.
This is where it gets unfair and annoying to people who just play the game as intended, people who try to find something legitimately. What always annoyed me in Ryzom was that the game seemed explicitly designed for being exploited in this way.
On the other hand, you don't really need the best amplifiers in the world to enjoy the game. You don't need the biggest bad-ass sword. With a little player skill and a group of friends, you can perfectly enjoy the game (and kill everything that exists) with only the second best gear.
Crafting System [ What is ideal ]
These are some opinions of mine based upon experiences I have from playing games and my own ideas. These opinions are specifically for an MMO environment, and as such are heavily independent on other ideas.
One of the big questions I have thought about with regards to MMOs is how do you make crafting both fun and profitable? In order to make crafting worthwhile then it needs to be highly repeatable, in general. This is because the majority of high level items are so inaccessible to the majority of the player base that they become a specialism. Whether it is a suit of armour or a spaceship the only way it can be worthwhile is if you can make a lot of them. However repetition is not fun... in fact it is almost the opposite of fun. This makes most mini-games quite frustrating no matter how enjoyable they may initially be.
The way I would solve this is to separate the two functions of design and manufacture. Most games for crafting have almost no design function at all. For example Eve is lauded as having one of the most open and expansive manufacturing systems, but all the designs are hard locked by blueprints. In order to break this you would have to be able to design your own blueprints. This could use a mini game because the point here is not to be repetitive but to design something better. It would have to have a level of complication that had game world effects, and therefore I would use a modular system very similar to that described by ShawnCowles.
This adds something very special to crafters - customisation. This leads to a knowledge asset. A player might therefore focus his time designing armour that is especially lightweight in order to appeal to the more travelling adventure type. Not everyone would want to invest in this direction, and through a combination of skill (both in reverse engineering the design system and skill at the mini-game) very good blueprints can be created. People would seek out these crafters because they have a unique offering.
The profit side would come from how the blueprints are being used, and for this I would use a passive system. Use of NPCs or automated factories (or in my personal view upgrades to your house/hall) could easily be designed to handle this. That would allow you to mass produce these items in the background, allowing you to profit from your designs whilst freeing you up to spend your free time designing new and improved versions (R&D) or doing something else (such as marketing your product).
The real difficulty of designing this system I think is balancing. Rather than having a set number of end points that can be reached (and thus weighted against each other) you would be designing an open ended system with less predictable results (through combinatorial explosion of the design and ingredients used). Even more complex would be that I think to be a truly great crafting system for an MMO you would need multiple levels of manufacture for the more advanced items. For example if you were building a ship you'd want something a bit more interesting than creating "ship modules" that add up to a ship. Instead you'd have raw materials (spider webs) that could be processed into another material (silk) that could then be used to construct a module (sail) that then would be added to the ship. This creates specialisms that allows for more people to be engaged in the manufacturing process because doing everything yourself would be too time consuming. With profit being taken at each step that adds to a richer economy.
One of the most important things I think with this system, that is rarely covered in games, is downsides to gear. I think this is because most games fit the lazy D&D concept of gear+x, where everything is just given a higher rank of pre-existing qualities. Some might go so far as to give a couple of attributes (different styles of armour protection for example, where you can pick protection vs this or vs that), but these are a trade off of benefits. For example in my previous description of armour I stated that weight could be a factor. This would be important because if the game gave you proper penalties for wearing heavier armour (such as making your character slower or easier to knock over) then there would be a choice as to your style. Customisation and differentiation of gear for certain tasks creates a much stronger economy, as mmo players are a very diverse bunch and would have a desire for very different types of gear. Therefore you can have the gear stats being important but not defining of that character. The best heavy armour would be no good if you could be kited by unarmoured faster players in open terrain that you could never reach, but in a castle siege or toe to toe in a cramped dungeon it would be very important. Here only being able to run at half speed wouldn't matter.
I also think that gear drop from enemies should be generally raw material based. So an enemy dropping some armour would be useless if that enemy was an 8ft tall ogre. So you'd have to process the materials down. This means that even mob drops would often add to the economy because you'd need others to refine and process into useful things.
One of the big questions I have thought about with regards to MMOs is how do you make crafting both fun and profitable? In order to make crafting worthwhile then it needs to be highly repeatable, in general. This is because the majority of high level items are so inaccessible to the majority of the player base that they become a specialism. Whether it is a suit of armour or a spaceship the only way it can be worthwhile is if you can make a lot of them. However repetition is not fun... in fact it is almost the opposite of fun. This makes most mini-games quite frustrating no matter how enjoyable they may initially be.
The way I would solve this is to separate the two functions of design and manufacture. Most games for crafting have almost no design function at all. For example Eve is lauded as having one of the most open and expansive manufacturing systems, but all the designs are hard locked by blueprints. In order to break this you would have to be able to design your own blueprints. This could use a mini game because the point here is not to be repetitive but to design something better. It would have to have a level of complication that had game world effects, and therefore I would use a modular system very similar to that described by ShawnCowles.
This adds something very special to crafters - customisation. This leads to a knowledge asset. A player might therefore focus his time designing armour that is especially lightweight in order to appeal to the more travelling adventure type. Not everyone would want to invest in this direction, and through a combination of skill (both in reverse engineering the design system and skill at the mini-game) very good blueprints can be created. People would seek out these crafters because they have a unique offering.
The profit side would come from how the blueprints are being used, and for this I would use a passive system. Use of NPCs or automated factories (or in my personal view upgrades to your house/hall) could easily be designed to handle this. That would allow you to mass produce these items in the background, allowing you to profit from your designs whilst freeing you up to spend your free time designing new and improved versions (R&D) or doing something else (such as marketing your product).
The real difficulty of designing this system I think is balancing. Rather than having a set number of end points that can be reached (and thus weighted against each other) you would be designing an open ended system with less predictable results (through combinatorial explosion of the design and ingredients used). Even more complex would be that I think to be a truly great crafting system for an MMO you would need multiple levels of manufacture for the more advanced items. For example if you were building a ship you'd want something a bit more interesting than creating "ship modules" that add up to a ship. Instead you'd have raw materials (spider webs) that could be processed into another material (silk) that could then be used to construct a module (sail) that then would be added to the ship. This creates specialisms that allows for more people to be engaged in the manufacturing process because doing everything yourself would be too time consuming. With profit being taken at each step that adds to a richer economy.
One of the most important things I think with this system, that is rarely covered in games, is downsides to gear. I think this is because most games fit the lazy D&D concept of gear+x, where everything is just given a higher rank of pre-existing qualities. Some might go so far as to give a couple of attributes (different styles of armour protection for example, where you can pick protection vs this or vs that), but these are a trade off of benefits. For example in my previous description of armour I stated that weight could be a factor. This would be important because if the game gave you proper penalties for wearing heavier armour (such as making your character slower or easier to knock over) then there would be a choice as to your style. Customisation and differentiation of gear for certain tasks creates a much stronger economy, as mmo players are a very diverse bunch and would have a desire for very different types of gear. Therefore you can have the gear stats being important but not defining of that character. The best heavy armour would be no good if you could be kited by unarmoured faster players in open terrain that you could never reach, but in a castle siege or toe to toe in a cramped dungeon it would be very important. Here only being able to run at half speed wouldn't matter.
I also think that gear drop from enemies should be generally raw material based. So an enemy dropping some armour would be useless if that enemy was an 8ft tall ogre. So you'd have to process the materials down. This means that even mob drops would often add to the economy because you'd need others to refine and process into useful things.
The way I would solve this is to separate the two functions of design and manufacture. Most games for crafting have almost no design function at all. For example Eve is lauded as having one of the most open and expansive manufacturing systems, but all the designs are hard locked by blueprints. In order to break this you would have to be able to design your own blueprints. This could use a mini game because the point here is not to be repetitive but to design something better. It would have to have a level of complication that had game world effects, and therefore I would use a modular system very similar to that described by ShawnCowles.
Right on the money, and this is something our system is doing. We are creating a point system for materials, and letting the player place items on the board and learn to craft things from there. Say a sword needs 5 iron ingots, 25 leather straps, and a wood hilt, the player can place those items in there, but they added a gold bar as well. Instead of getting just an iron sword you would get an iron sword that had a gold trim around it. Our system is also designed to give you percentages based off of how close you are to a recipe of the type, but does not restrict you from doing your own. So, you could craft an iron sword and not even know how to do it ( assuming you placed everything correctly ) and you could do it with limited resources. It is rather complex to fully explain without pictures. Perhaps after my vacation i will post it up and see what you guys think.
All of these comments have been great. I really like to hear what you guys thoughts are on a good system and a bad system. I wish more developers would allow for these types of discussions to take place.
I suggest you take a look at wonderland online. That's my favorite crafting system to date. Mostly because it's so expansive.
Hm. No one has brought up one of my favorite Playstation 3 game series, Atelier. It is a much longer series then just the PS3 games but those are the only ones I have played and I absolutely love the system. The entire game revolves around crafting (Alchemy).
The entire crafting system was very fun. The biggest thing was you could find 100 of one specific material and you would end of with about 70 unique items out of that. All crafting material (and items in the world) had values associated with them based on their "quality", specifics about the material (Sour, Weird Shape, Expensive, Dry, Or stat altering affects.) You could craft in mass production or in small quantities with trade offs for both. If you crafted something that required 2 Rocks. If you made 1 of that item you would choose from 2 rocks and that is where the quality of your newly made item would come from. Now lets say you want to make 10 of this item, you would then choose 20 Rocks and the end result would be from those 20 items. This would allow you to stack more qualities, use less time (You had to spend time when ever you crafted an item, due to the game being on a Day/Month/Year time line) and hopefully achieve a better item. Trade offs is the end item would not be the highest quality if you just did two at a time. Yes the 10 items crafted all at once would be identical. Weapons, accessories and armor were crafted the same as well.
I loved everything about it.
The game ends and there is no "continue" where you left off at. Yes you can do a "New Game+" but I was surprised because I had some big plans for some of the rare monsters at the end of the game and was not able to follow through.
Not at all. It felt good to find that rare resource that allowed you to make a higher quality item.
Yes. There was plenty to do with your crafted items and sometimes you did have an excess of items but they could always be put in storage and most of the time you would find a need to use them later on. Even items you made at the beginning of the game could be made useful near the end of the game.
Yes! I hated the Everquest crafting system immediately when I first played it (Chance to fail...). I hated World of Warcrafts repetitive no real reason to craft except for these 1-3 items for you end game. Crafting never felt like it could benefit anyone at all in it. I enjoyed the crafting in Chocobos Dungeon 2 for PS1, some Warcraft 3 maps had a very fun system, something like Ice Trolls or along those lines.
A system that makes finding/gathering the resources just as enjoyable as making end product.
Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland (PS3):
- Most entertaining aspect of the system:
The entire crafting system was very fun. The biggest thing was you could find 100 of one specific material and you would end of with about 70 unique items out of that. All crafting material (and items in the world) had values associated with them based on their "quality", specifics about the material (Sour, Weird Shape, Expensive, Dry, Or stat altering affects.) You could craft in mass production or in small quantities with trade offs for both. If you crafted something that required 2 Rocks. If you made 1 of that item you would choose from 2 rocks and that is where the quality of your newly made item would come from. Now lets say you want to make 10 of this item, you would then choose 20 Rocks and the end result would be from those 20 items. This would allow you to stack more qualities, use less time (You had to spend time when ever you crafted an item, due to the game being on a Day/Month/Year time line) and hopefully achieve a better item. Trade offs is the end item would not be the highest quality if you just did two at a time. Yes the 10 items crafted all at once would be identical. Weapons, accessories and armor were crafted the same as well.
- What could have been done better
I loved everything about it.
- Most annoying aspect of the system
The game ends and there is no "continue" where you left off at. Yes you can do a "New Game+" but I was surprised because I had some big plans for some of the rare monsters at the end of the game and was not able to follow through.
- Was the system tedious
Not at all. It felt good to find that rare resource that allowed you to make a higher quality item.
- Was the end reward worth the effort
Yes. There was plenty to do with your crafted items and sometimes you did have an excess of items but they could always be put in storage and most of the time you would find a need to use them later on. Even items you made at the beginning of the game could be made useful near the end of the game.
- do you craft in games normally ( used to gauge your opinions value )
Yes! I hated the Everquest crafting system immediately when I first played it (Chance to fail...). I hated World of Warcrafts repetitive no real reason to craft except for these 1-3 items for you end game. Crafting never felt like it could benefit anyone at all in it. I enjoyed the crafting in Chocobos Dungeon 2 for PS1, some Warcraft 3 maps had a very fun system, something like Ice Trolls or along those lines.
- In your mind, what would be a good system?
A system that makes finding/gathering the resources just as enjoyable as making end product.
I think it's important that a crafting system is entertaining and interesting after you add a skip or fast forward button for every part of the process. I'm not that fond of minigames, but they have potential to enhance the experience.
The crafting process should be unique. If the effectiveness of gear is determined heavily by stats, playstyle and situations it would create diversity and people would have to find out for themselves what is best for them. There is no ultimate recipe. Only customized gear is valuable and only for some individuals.
One way to achieve this diversity is by having a webbed or branching skill system. For example when the effectiveness of a certain weapon may be decided by the players combined skills in steel weapons, blade weapons, one handed fighting, short weapons, Kukri swords, fire-enchanted weapons and so on. In addition to all the other stats and skills that might be relevant. It doesn't have to be that complex, but you get the idea. (I can't imagine all the work required to balance such a system though.)
Many different crafting skills should also play together as a whole and create diversity. One recipe may give a completely different result when followed by different people with different skillsets. Someone may have great experience in using some materials and other players may have specialized themselves in a few crafting techniques. An economy like this would encourage people with different skills to collaborate for the greatest results.
This is not exactly crafting, but I think it's a good example. One mage is skilled at controlling many projectiles simultaneous, but only if the projectiles are small. Another mage may conjure huge projectiles, but can only effectively control one at a time. A spell for throwing two large fireballs is useless for both mages since the first guy can't maintain the size of the balls and wastes potential by only throwing two. The other guy spends all his energy on focusing on the two balls simultaneous and in the end both mages only cast two weak fireballs or the spell might even backfire.
It should be possible for gear to evolve with the character. Upgrades and tinkering keeps the favorite gear valuable and makes crafting worthwhile. I also like the idea of measured experience for each individual item. (Almost like when you've had a car for a long time and you've developed an intuition for it and just know and feel how it acts in every situation.) If you get more and more skilled with the gear you use the most it will give you a good incentive to keep using and investing in it even if it's not top tier for your level.
At least the system shouldn't encourage players pick up every piece of armor and weaponry they find, Although loot could be useful for material or maybe it could be customized to fit the players need. I like the idea of having to customize armor for it to fit at all. Maybe reduced effectiveness for gear that isn't tailored.
The whole experience of crafting, from gathering resources to using the gear should create a relationship with the player. When you give a name to a unit in a strategy game you give it an identity. With identity comes a history. A collection of memories from exciting battles and epic victories. The unit suddenly has a personality and the player is emotionally invested in it.
We should give a face to the crafted gear to create a similar effect. Aesthetics is important. Maybe have a function were weapons evolves as they are used. Kill one hundred vampires and your blade gets a bonus against them.
Just my little rambling.
The crafting process should be unique. If the effectiveness of gear is determined heavily by stats, playstyle and situations it would create diversity and people would have to find out for themselves what is best for them. There is no ultimate recipe. Only customized gear is valuable and only for some individuals.
One way to achieve this diversity is by having a webbed or branching skill system. For example when the effectiveness of a certain weapon may be decided by the players combined skills in steel weapons, blade weapons, one handed fighting, short weapons, Kukri swords, fire-enchanted weapons and so on. In addition to all the other stats and skills that might be relevant. It doesn't have to be that complex, but you get the idea. (I can't imagine all the work required to balance such a system though.)
Many different crafting skills should also play together as a whole and create diversity. One recipe may give a completely different result when followed by different people with different skillsets. Someone may have great experience in using some materials and other players may have specialized themselves in a few crafting techniques. An economy like this would encourage people with different skills to collaborate for the greatest results.
This is not exactly crafting, but I think it's a good example. One mage is skilled at controlling many projectiles simultaneous, but only if the projectiles are small. Another mage may conjure huge projectiles, but can only effectively control one at a time. A spell for throwing two large fireballs is useless for both mages since the first guy can't maintain the size of the balls and wastes potential by only throwing two. The other guy spends all his energy on focusing on the two balls simultaneous and in the end both mages only cast two weak fireballs or the spell might even backfire.
It should be possible for gear to evolve with the character. Upgrades and tinkering keeps the favorite gear valuable and makes crafting worthwhile. I also like the idea of measured experience for each individual item. (Almost like when you've had a car for a long time and you've developed an intuition for it and just know and feel how it acts in every situation.) If you get more and more skilled with the gear you use the most it will give you a good incentive to keep using and investing in it even if it's not top tier for your level.
At least the system shouldn't encourage players pick up every piece of armor and weaponry they find, Although loot could be useful for material or maybe it could be customized to fit the players need. I like the idea of having to customize armor for it to fit at all. Maybe reduced effectiveness for gear that isn't tailored.
The whole experience of crafting, from gathering resources to using the gear should create a relationship with the player. When you give a name to a unit in a strategy game you give it an identity. With identity comes a history. A collection of memories from exciting battles and epic victories. The unit suddenly has a personality and the player is emotionally invested in it.
We should give a face to the crafted gear to create a similar effect. Aesthetics is important. Maybe have a function were weapons evolves as they are used. Kill one hundred vampires and your blade gets a bonus against them.
Just my little rambling.
I haven't given this subject a lot of thought, but I'll just pose to myself the question: "What kind of crafting system would I put in an MMO?"
And then answer it:
First of all, one peculiar thing about me is that I DO NOT BELIEVE IN HAVING A LEVEL/EXPERIENCE SYSTEM. So, keeping that in mind:
This would be a F2P MMO, and you would get a certain number of "points" per day. (You could buy more points, if you wanted) These points could be used to craft items, replenish MP or HP, add modifiers to skill checks, or other functions.
Every character would have a crafting specialty, so you wouldn't have to lose combat ability to gain crafting skills.
Now, you could save up your points and have the option to permanently master a quality which you instill in your weapons. For instance, if you save up all your points for a month, you could make "metal-reinforced" wooden bucklers. You could have quests to get materials or recipes that would add these properties.
Crafting wouldn't eat any resources but your points. You wouldn't have to pluck a chicken to fletch an arrow.
And then answer it:
First of all, one peculiar thing about me is that I DO NOT BELIEVE IN HAVING A LEVEL/EXPERIENCE SYSTEM. So, keeping that in mind:
This would be a F2P MMO, and you would get a certain number of "points" per day. (You could buy more points, if you wanted) These points could be used to craft items, replenish MP or HP, add modifiers to skill checks, or other functions.
Every character would have a crafting specialty, so you wouldn't have to lose combat ability to gain crafting skills.
Now, you could save up your points and have the option to permanently master a quality which you instill in your weapons. For instance, if you save up all your points for a month, you could make "metal-reinforced" wooden bucklers. You could have quests to get materials or recipes that would add these properties.
Crafting wouldn't eat any resources but your points. You wouldn't have to pluck a chicken to fletch an arrow.
I think crafting systems should tekl you the rcipies for everything, as youll go google them anyeays whicj is just slow and annoying.
The way I figure it, any crafting system that makes you hunt down 20 of some random part is broken. It's a grind, a padding device, and does nothing to make acquiring our item any more difficult -- just more boring. Spiral Knights suffered from this, and even though I loved playing it, I haven't gone back for over a month because of it. The worst part was that, after questing for/buying all the materials and saving up money to purchase bucket loads of specialized, plot-relevant energy...you still had to pay some obscure 'crafting fee.' For what!? o_O You have the materials, you have the fires to light the forge, and you're the one doing all the labor! Who are you giving that money to anyway? .-.
Honestly, it seems that most crafting systems exist to provide the illusion of customization. "This is my special sword, I made it myself ^___^" you declare proudly, brandishing a weapon with all the same stats and appearance as any store-bought blade, plus the occasional random stat modifier stapled on as a glowing afterthought. To truly personalize, it should allow you to select what materials and forging techniques you'll use. If deer-horn handles fit your hand better than redwood, then go for it. If you notice that metal A keeps an edge better than metal B, then use that instead, wary of whatever disadvantages it may come with for balance. And speaking of balance, if you like your blades weighted more toward the tip for a stronger offense or closer to the handle for a quicker, stouter defense, then work that in. The item should be at your mercy, not the other way around.
Honestly, it seems that most crafting systems exist to provide the illusion of customization. "This is my special sword, I made it myself ^___^" you declare proudly, brandishing a weapon with all the same stats and appearance as any store-bought blade, plus the occasional random stat modifier stapled on as a glowing afterthought. To truly personalize, it should allow you to select what materials and forging techniques you'll use. If deer-horn handles fit your hand better than redwood, then go for it. If you notice that metal A keeps an edge better than metal B, then use that instead, wary of whatever disadvantages it may come with for balance. And speaking of balance, if you like your blades weighted more toward the tip for a stronger offense or closer to the handle for a quicker, stouter defense, then work that in. The item should be at your mercy, not the other way around.
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