Crafting In CRPG's.

[Mozgoëbstvo]

Yes, Arcanum is sadly an awesome game full of "but"!

 

[Ladonna]

How hard is it to balance crafting into a game?

On one hand you have to think some people won't forge 20 wands of Ice Storm and a Holy Avenger +10. Others however, will. If you balance the game for the non crafters, you have the game become a walkover for the crafters. If balanced for crafting, you make it possibly mandatory to use the skill.

Some games have crafting where you cannot make anything better than you can find. Well, what is the use of the skill in this case?

I am not a big fan of it mainly due to the above. But it can be nice when, after 30 hours in, you realise the devs didn't bother making a decent Axe/Polearm/Hammer/whatever after pumping your points into the skill instead of Sword.

 

[Kalin]

While I can not comment on the crafting system in such an atrociously bad game as Neverwinter Nights 2, I do feel rather obliged to share that I really enjoy how crafting is represented in the latter part of the Geneforge series. You don't need any special skills to craft or augment items, just the right components. Some of the components needed for high end crafting are so rare that you have to choose which artifacts and items you want the most, as there is no way of making them all. Recipes are scattered around the world in the form of tomes, books and journal fragments, but are not strictly necessary for crafting. It is a simple system, for sure, but it works surprisingly well.

 

[shiggidyshwa]

My question is, can/should crafting ever be anything more than just finding the materials and then clicking the magic 'assemble' button?

Sea, I hear what you say. Does crafting have to be as involved as combat? From what you say it hasn't been done effectively. I don't have much experience so I'll agree. So what's the issue? I'll try to draw a parallel between combat and crafting using my own experience.

Combat in an action game has a few pay-offs, including advancing the story, grabbing good loot, and strengthening your character. Crafting can produce the same pay-offs, right? You can craft some flashy gear, make your char better.

The difference for me is that combat is more enjoyable throughout the experience. From the beginning of the fight until the end, I'm actively engaged and putting my character to good use. With crafting, the experience is largely a dull grind until I craft the desired item. Then I get an endorphin rush and feel good, but only then. The actual act of crafting is not in itself enjoyable. MMOs run into the same problem with level grinding and farming gold for equipment. The pay-off is immensely fun, but the getting there isn't.

So, is there a way to make crafting more engaging and challenging? By challenging, I don't mean putting the materials in dangerous locations. That just means you have to fight for them, which is combat. The act of crafting will still be the same. It may as well be an NPC quest with a unique item set as the reward.

Is it possible to inject crafting with some sort of problem-solving puzzle dynamic?

 

[Vault Dweller]

If crafting is boring it just means it isn't done right.

This.

Making items is a skill-based activity. Buying isn't.

Says who?

Says everyone who's played RPGs. Even if there is a skill attached, you get a discount, which is pretty much all you can do when it comes to selling and buying. Arcanum improved the concept a bit by letting you buy rare, personal items, but if you compare buying/selling with crafting, the difference is huge. One's a gameplay element, requiring different abilities, the other is a price modifier.

You can't necessarily buy things you steal. Quest related items for instance. Reverse pickpocketing too to frame NPCs.

Let's drop quest-related activities (as the same can be easily done with just about any skill) and focus just on the stealing mechanics and what they add. Since in most RPGs money isn't a problem (the problem is what to do with them), you really have no reasons to steal. It can be done right, of course, but if we compare average implementation of stealing, trading, and crafting, crafting easily beats the first two in terms of gameplay. Even in Skyrim.

In the vast majority of cRPGs that feature crafting, crafting just doesn't fit in well enough.

How so? I liked crafting in Gothic 2 (fit right in), Arcanum (just thinking about those schematics makes me want to replay it), ToEE (made a lot of difference). It would have worked well in NWN2 if the game wasn't so easy.

So, do elaborate.

Yeah. And you can have a teaching skill which you can level up that allows you to teach yourself other skills. It's an alternative way of leveling up after all. Why go out practising your various skills when you can teach yourself it using your teaching skill? Plenty of cRPGs have "trainers" that boost your character in multiple ways. Why can't you be one? If you can be a craftsman just like all those NPC craftsmen then it only makes sense to allow you to be a teacher.

This doesn't make any fucking sense, especially when posted in response to:

"Crafting is an alternative, and as such should always be a welcome addition. If done right, it wouldn't replace buying or exploring for items, but give the player more options and will reduce the need to provide the player with every possible item type."

 

[laclongquan]

Nice try Kalin. Too bad yours rate 0/5

How hard is it to balance crafting into a game?

On one hand you have to think some people won't forge 20 wands of Ice Storm and a Holy Avenger +10. Others however, will. If you balance the game for the non crafters, you have the game become a walkover for the crafters. If balanced for crafting, you make it possibly mandatory to use the skill.

Some games have crafting where you cannot make anything better than you can find. Well, what is the use of the skill in this case?

I am not a big fan of it mainly due to the above. But it can be nice when, after 30 hours in, you realise the devs didn't bother making a decent Axe/Polearm/Hammer/whatever after pumping your points into the skill instead of Sword.

NWN2 limit your craftable spell at level 4. And the higher level spell goes the more expensive, horrendously expensive the action cost. I did one or two as novelty, since my party is magic-heavy. Still, I imagine a pure melee group could use these rare wands.

And the name of the game is Customizable. YOu dont have to rely on game devs to make items for you. Chances are what you need is not in game, or in enough quantity, anyway.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Oh wait, maybe in fact you've just revealed that crafting systems in themselves are never that interesting to begin with and creating skills around crafting, as some sort of rote, repetitive act is stupid.

What are your thoughts on Arcanum's crafting and alchemy?

At most it should be something that determines whether you should be able to get the Mega Awesome Item of Quality, not something that you spend hours leveling up or spending thousands of gold on.

You do realize that spending hours leveling up crafting is NOT a mandatory element?

At best it's a secondary sort of skill used to augmenting existing ones; choosing which of those secondaries and weighing their trade-offs is what makes things compelling in the first place.

Is there anything wrong with that? A good character system requires secondary skills to support your primary skill and, hopefully, to make them more viable.

The only time a crafting system ever really works, even when designed well, is in a) an MMO or b) an open world game.

And it can't work in other RPG sub-genres because... ?

 

[Vault Dweller]

So why not add another that is crafting? Well, all of those skills I just mentioned should ideally have varied uses in the game. Lock-picking may be useful to complete a quest in a different way by opening up a back entrance to a building. Pick-pocketing may allow you to plant incriminating evidence on an NPC you don't like during a murder investigation quest. And of course a speech skill will have use outside of getting better items. Crafting though? Nah. It's almost always about getting better items. That's it. It's a skill to do what other skills already do, but in a slightly different way. But like I said, model a decent economy and allow the player to complete the game in a way befitting a master craftsman then it'll actually be useful.

So, lockpicking and pickpocketing can be used in quests, but not crafting? Your imagination doesn't fly that high? You can't think of using crafting to forge keys, for example, or to fix devices (the way Science and Repair worked in Fallout, or to create makeshift turrets or even party members/companions?

And the name of the game is Customizable. YOu dont have to rely on game devs to make items for you. Chances are what you need is not in game, or in enough quantity, anyway.

Pretty much.

 

[Mister Arkham]

I hate crafting, it's boring as fuck. I'd rather kill people and take their stuff.

'xactly. Leave smithing to the blacksmiths. Take Skyrim, for example. So you suddenly craft legendary this and that... Why do you do carrot-fetching quests, you should be forging the weapons of the nobles and the best warriors. You're the best smith in the region... Whatever. It's equally stupid that you're supposed to be the destiny chosen dragon slayer and even still people treat you like crap and want you to clean their toilets. Then you shout them down into a river and they angrily charge at you with a dagger while you wear armour made out of dragon.

Anyway. The point is creating weapons and armour is a time-consuming craft, and if you're the best at it, why are you even adventuring anymore?

This is the problem that I've been having with the second half of the game...but I think that it's a mentality issue more than a problem of the quests themselves. People are still going to need shit done and ask their hero to do it for them, even when the hero has ascended nigh unto godhood. It's what they expect out of heroes because they're heroes. Same reason why people get down on their knees and pray to Jesus to give them a magical Zonda that runs on air...Jesus is supposed to be able to do anything and he's supposed to love you no matter what, so why the hell not ask? If you decide that those sorts of quests are beneath your character at a certain point then that's your decision and there's nothing wrong with it. I personally decided that it was below me the second that I could answer anyone's threats and claims that places were too dangerous with, "Fuck you, I am wearing a dead dragon."

From a design perspective, the underlying problem that we're looking at seems to be that there A) isn't enough high level content outside of the main questline, and B) what is there is too easily undercut by the level scaling system. Now, I'm of the general opinion that the level scaling in Skyrim works pretty well. It bumps combat difficulty where appropriate and doesn't create the weird visual problems from Oblivion where bandits start wearing glass armor. What Bethesda really needs to have done, I think, is set up some higher level quests that only unlock at those higher levels...sort of as return content for when the main plot takes you back to a city that you've previously done everything in. Of course, there are some instances of this...but clearly there just isn't enough. I mean, it's an open world game. Players are going to wander, and eventually they'll wander back to the cities that they've previously cleared of quests, so why not have something new waiting for them that rewards their checking in and obliges their new, obscene power level?

Further, it could have been a good place to implement this Radiant Storytelling thing that they're so proud of, and after you hit level twenty-five the game makes a note of what your skills are and starts sending you couriers with requests from Jarls who want a fine ebony sword made by the strange itinerant blacksmith that they've heard so much about.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda, I guess.

 

[MMXI]

Says everyone who's played RPGs. [...] One's a gameplay element, requiring different abilities, the other is a price modifier.

So what? They are both skill based activities. So please tell me why everyone who's ever played an RPG believes buying doesn't require skill. "Oh, it's just an automatic modifier as opposed to crafting." So what? So are weapon skills.

Since in most RPGs money isn't a problem (the problem is what to do with them), you really have no reasons to steal. It can be done right, of course, but if we compare average implementation of stealing, trading, and crafting, crafting easily beats the first two in terms of gameplay. Even in Skyrim.

Well, I don't really know what you mean by "trading" but stealing is a far lower level skill than something like crafting. Stealing is usually a skill to represent picking up an object and stashing it away discretely. Clicking a button to craft a sword out of a bunch of components represents possibly days of work. Of course one individual craft is going to have a much larger effect on the game than one steal. But then why not have a "raid dungeon" skill that represents raiding an entire dungeon? That would mean far more in terms of gameplay than simply stealing a low value gem from a wandering NPC.

Skills are not representative of the same level of abstraction. If you do one type of skill-based action 100x more frequently than another, it's fine if that other skill has an outcome that is 100x greater. In fact, that there is the art of game balancing. So your "crafting easily beats the first two in terms of gameplay" is meaningless to me. The fact that I would much prefer to play a thief than a crafter in a cRPG doesn't mean that I prefer inferior gameplay.

Pretty much.

No. Not pretty much. There's nothing stopping you from asking the right NPC to craft you an item. You don't have to be the crafter yourself to be able to obtain custom items. And like I said, if the advantage of crafting is to top up your party's equipment mid-dungeon then I'm all for it. It's just when crafting becomes a way to get the best items in the game that I question its value.

So, lockpicking and pickpocketing can be used in quests, but not crafting? Your imagination doesn't fly that high? You can't think of using crafting to forge keys, for example, or to fix devices (the way Science and Repair worked in Fallout, or to create makeshift turrets or even party members/companions?

I like the way you go all idealistic on me after saying the following:

Since in most RPGs money isn't a problem (the problem is what to do with them), you really have no reasons to steal. It can be done right, of course, but if we compare average implementation of stealing, trading, and crafting, crafting easily beats the first two in terms of gameplay. Even in Skyrim.

I've covered in various posts how I think crafting could work well as a skill itself and as an actual play-style to complete a game with. That's how crafting should be done in games attempting to be sandboxy. I've also covered how crafting could be done nicely in a less sandboxy game with perhaps extended dungeon segments, requiring a large amount of time away from civilization. I've also covered why I think crafting has little value if it's just there to give you access to some of the best items in the game.

You can make any skill, no matter how poorly it's implemented, work as alternate quest solutions, especially if you are scripting to allow those alternatives. You could make a retarded hair cutting skill that boosts charisma temporarily after each hair cut allow you to solve a quest for a local barber in an alternative way. It doesn't make it a worthwhile skill to have in a cRPG, though. As for using crafting as a way to solve quests in a different way, it depends on the scope of the skill. If you can repair a bridge if your crafting skill is above 60, well, that's what a repair skill does and you've just bundled the two together. If you can build and deploy gun turrets around town to help defend it, well, that's what I would call an engineering skill. Of course, there's really no difference between these terms and "crafting". But what I was trying to express was that if crafting is a skill to turn some inventory items into other inventory items through some crafting interface, and the items you can create are all purchasable from local merchants, then crafting doesn't often lead to a radically different play style.

 

[shiggidyshwa]

MMXI's got it. I'd like to see crafting as not only a distinct skill, but a distinct game mechanic that offers challenge in and of itself.

 

[crufty]

To whom and for what kind of money, if we are talking abour realism?

Fences, nobles, intellectual elite. In my mind, one isn't selling off Orcish daggers to the local blacksmith. But the up and coming warlord might have a use for 50 swords of varying quality. Not to mention tapestries, art, rare objects of value to collectors. A good reason to have lore (elves of faggolia). So when in the faggolian towers you can recognize the difference between rare elven linens of unparalleled quality and ordinary cloth the help left behind in their hurry to gtfo.

And yet, suppose you find a nice sword. Of rare design and fine craftsmanship, strange sigils . Vibrates to your touch, the whole nine yards. You have this oddly glowing gem that your Mage friend has identified as being some rare gem infused with elemental resistances. Are we really saying you have the skills to embed the jewel and improve the weapon in a meaningful way? Would even a blacksmith have that capability?

And anyone who did, in civilized lands, would they not be under lock and key, under the watchful eye of the local lord, church or guild?

A mage could brew a potion or two.

Yeah, basics I get.


I am not against crafting as a form of meta game play. I guilty admit in skyrim I fabricate my own armor, to a point, and enjoy doing so. So I get the attraction.

 

[sea]

What are your thoughts on Arcanum's crafting and alchemy?

It's good, but as I wrote, it kind of comes at the expense of combat skills, or rather, crafting is basically a melee analogue to spells. I would have preferred more, though. Rather than feeling like an inventory, instead you're just buying schematics from stores and hoping that eventually they'll stock the parts you need; resting for days and checking the shops out isn't exactly my idea of fun. Ideally the materials for crafting would be more integrated into the gameplay, as quest rewards, or even part of its own quest line, where you collaborate with other inventors to create brand new items (and you could even have some consequences, i.e. invent the Machined Plate and more enemies will have it later on, unless you murder or bribe the other techies to keep quiet). It's hard to expect such depth from every part of the game but it would have fit Arcanum to a T.

You do realize that spending hours leveling up crafting is NOT a mandatory element?

I was referencing Skyrim. And yes, it's not mandatory... if you don't want to use crafting, anyway.

Is there anything wrong with that? A good character system requires secondary skills to support your primary skill and, hopefully, to make them more viable.

Of course not. Again, I've been mostly contrasting with Skyrim's own crafting mechanics, which are just poorly thought out altogether.

And it can't work in other RPG sub-genres because... ?

Not that it can't work, but I think that there are better ways to handle acquisition of new items. In a smaller focused game, you don't need to waste the player's time with hunting/gathering gameplay. There's rarely a decent economy in RPGs, as well, so the importance of crafting compared to, say, an MMO, is diminished. I just haven't seen too much convincing evidence that crafting in itself is all that useful, as it's often either useless or redundant, more and more so the more linear you get. I think keeping it to small stuff like health potions is just fine, or jewelry for money-making, but getting the balance right so that crafting is both useful but non-essential is something I've seen few games really nail. Again, Arcanum is probably the best example I can think of.

 

[FinalSonicX]

Not that it can't work, but I think that there are better ways to handle acquisition of new items.

The value of a crafting system extends beyond merely the acquisition of items, IMO. That is merely one of the uses it has.

A crafting system for one provides options to the player - this is always good in an RPG as long as the proper level of thought and care in design is provided for the system and its implementation. A crafting system may also help fulfill some aspect of a player's conception of their character's role or personality. Their ideal character may have a large part of their identity tied up with the crafting of weapons, armor, potions, etc. Additionally, crafting provides the potential for new and interesting quests tailored to the player's interests. The crafting can be an additional choice available for managing long-term resources.

One thing that I think is critical in implementing a crafting system is that it should not mandate a requirement for "recipes" (unless it is logical and/or adds to the fun), nor should the crafting be simplified down to tossing a bunch of materials on a workbench and pressing the craft button. Time needs to be a factor, and in a game where time is a resource, crafting provides an option for advancement that isn't directly tied to the character. It allows for customization in gear and as a result customization in terms of play style.

In long-term games like P&P RPG campaigns, my experience is that crafting really enriches games and the experiences of players in the long term, so long as the implementation is satisfying.

 

[Cairn]

Wow.

This morning while playing Skyrim before leaving for my examinations, I spent some time grinding my Smithing skill a few points upwards. It took only 10 minutes maximum to get it up to 30 and I had two perks to spare.

Apparently, with Dwarven or Elven Armour, you just get marginally better or even the same quality equipment. Except it takes far more effort and it is far more expensive to get the right smithing materials just to get that one additional point of armour rating. And on Master, boss level two handed weapon wielders can smash you on the head instantly whether you have 20 rating Steel Helmet or 21 rating Dwemer helmet. I like most things about the game, but this was unfortunate.

I had the same annoyances with crafting in Neverwinter Nights 2. Crafting was a lot of work for what amounted to getting a weapon no better than the last dungeon's best loot anyway.

Actually, that was the problem with Oblivion. By the time you could afford to get better weapons or armor, you've already stolen or obtained something better from your various doings in the game.

With Skyrim, it's not that weapons don't do any better because they really do, it's that enemies level up with you pretty tightly. If you kept using that Skyforge steel sword instead of upgrading to something like Dwarven, Orc, or if you're going the other way, Elven and glass weapons and armor, you'd see the difference. You just don't see the difference because enemies are leveling up with you. All those times you leveled up doing only smithing, the standard enemies also leveled up, only their fighting and armor skills were leveled up while you were leveling only your smithing skills. It's quite annoying. I personally prefer a more realistic way, and that's to have enemies at standard levels, and then the individual enemy is at a random level within that standard set of levels regardless of what level the player's at. Which means the player will have to avoid such creatures and enemies, sneaking around them until they get to be at a higher level of fighting. Skyrim does some of that, but not enough of it in my opinion. With Skyrim, even more than Oblivion, the best weapons for you to use at any given time are always going to be the ones you make yourself, not the ones you find. Sometimes you'll find better ones than you can make while your smithing skills are low, but once your smithing skills are caught up, your smithing is what's going to give you the best weapons and armor, especially since you can improve them depending upon your perk levels.

 

[Cairn]

Crafting is primarily what makes games like this fun. I mean hacking and slashing, sneaking up on and around enemies is fun only for so long. In Oblivion, however, the crafting wasn't all that fun. It was more fun to hack and slash, especially with their blocking system. When you got bored of the game itself, you could save first, of course, and then proceed to kill everyone in a town, and travel town to town slaughtering all who was unfortunate enough to be seen. The unkillable characters just added to the challenge because you had to knock them down, and then kill all around them before they got back up again so that they wouldn't start attacking you again.

Eventually, you get so strong in Oblivion that nothing can stand up to your might. I mean, I literally killed the giant gate guardian to the Shivering Ilse's in sword to sword combat. There's a whole mission devoted to you not having to fight that guardian outright because he's designed to be too strong. He was a very fun character to fight once you've gotten so strong that nothing ever poses a threat to you because he actually forced me to drink like four whole health potions.

My point here is that Oblivion did a good job of keeping the hack and slash fun, and even it got annoying sometimes. However, most RPG's get somewhat boring just doing hack and slash. Crafting, exploring, all these little things added to an RPG, more particularly, an open-world RPG just adds to the enjoyment and discovery of the in-game world. In fact, there was a time when I was getting really bored with Oblivion's hack and slash for so many missions one right after the other, hack and slash, hack and slash. Then, in my boredom, I decided to explore the Mages guild a bit. I'm not one who cares as much about the magic stuff. It's unrealistic and makes the game too easy. Anyhow, I discovered something there that utterly revitalized my interest in the game. I discovered that I could craft spells and enchant my own weapons and armor. Once I discovered that, I regretted that I didn't put more experience points into my magical abilities. My goal would have been to enchant reflect damage 100% using different pieces of armor. Yeah, I know, I contradict myself not wanting the game to be too easy. But I considered this fair because it required me to figure out how to do it. Never did it because I was already too far into the game to be able to level up my magical abilities enough to do any substantial enchantments towards that end. I wanted to be able to stand there and allow enemies to hit me to their own demise. Oh, then I would have really upset the towns, slaughtering everyone I could possibly find. I wouldn't even touch the guards. I'd merely allow them to kill themselves. That was my plan anyway.

Anyhow, I played Wurm Online, and that game is heavily into crafting. You literally can craft, and indeed have to craft everything you want. You need a sword, you have to learn how to make it by mining the metal, smelting it down, and hammering it out on an anvil you also had to make with a hammer you had to make. You need food, you have to cook the meat you kill in a dish you made on a fire you created, or fish you fished with a fishing pole you made. That game has tremendous potential. My one thought playing that game was to combine Oblivion with Wurm, and that would be like the best RPG thus far in the history of game-making.

I think it's more along the lines of what people look for really. Some of us are casual gamers and love to just play the game we feel like playing, whether it be shooting at a screen, hack and slash, selecting units and moving them, building their bases, or whatever. And then some of us want a virtual reality game where everything is similar to what it would be in real life. Those of us that are looking for that virtual reality-type thing often love the crafting because crafting is realistic. You have to know how to do things in real life, otherwise you have to buy it somewhere. My thing is this. I learn by watching. If an NPC can do it, has done it, implied to have done it, I should be able to do it one day. Maybe not now with my current inventory and/or skills, but eventually, I should be able to do it. That's why I found Wurm Online to be fun. It's why I love crafting. It adds another element of realism to RPG's, and it gives the player so much more to explore and learn. It makes the game last much longer too because it gives the player something to do when they get bored of monotony of the storyline or doing missions that seem to be so many of the same mission, only with different characters.

And you know what, most people, no matter how varied the missions are, like to just simply run around and explore sometimes, explore what they can and can't do, test their limits and see what they get. And I can prove this too. Think about Grand Theft Auto III and beyond. Is there even one person that focused only on doing the missions and never saved, and then went on a killing spree to see if they could get all five stars, and the national guard chasing after them all in an effort to see how long they could last before getting killed and having to reload. Maybe not even that. Maybe they just wanted to start shooting people run to the edges, see if they could swim, anything but the storyline or missions. Tell me that any of you always stuck to the missions. Of course, I doubt even one of you that played ever just stuck to the missions. Why, because exploration and fiddling around with things is fun in open-world games, especially open-world RPG games like Skyrim and Oblivion, and the Gothic series, and Wurm Online. It's fun to see what you can do, and to level up those abilities. Well, crafting adds another element of that exploration and experimentation that we all love to do at one time or other in games. Some of us, like myself, happen to love it so much that it actually makes us salivate at the idea of being forced to craft things that we need.

 

[Gregz]

Crafting in Arcanum was fun, and it made sense in the way magic and tech was polarized.

KoTC, ToEE:Co8 style crafting is enjoyable and a relief. Because as much as I enjoy this:

...I'd rather kill people and take their stuff.

The flip side is that completionists and powergamers (like me) are constantly missing out on important gear. "Oh, crap, I forgot to search under that tree in the forest that I can no longer return to..." which just happened to have the best elven armor or whatever. I throw a tantrum like a 2 year old when that shit happens, and it happens in cRPGs all the time. The D&D 3.5 crafting system is great, because if you missed that uber item you have the opportunity to grind and make it, all is not lost.

If you don't like grinding, or don't care, then don't do it. This coupled with user configurable difficulty settings keeps everyone happy.

I also agree with Phelot, modding is great fun:

JA2. Not really crafting, but modding and experimenting with items. I love that.

 

[Johannes]

Crafting in Arcanum was ok because it had interesting and/or powerful and unique rewards for your skill points. It's satisfying just to take those 2 levels of electricity to boost your dexterity by 4 from the rings, for example, because it's so obviously useful for a techie. Crafting grenades is cool, opens a whole new way of attacking, making traps is unique, or just having gunsmithy to see how all the different hightier weapons work etc. Problem in the game is though that acquiring the ingredients for any expendable items were a pain in the ass, and of course balancing was a bitch since on first run you can't really know which stuff you can acquire anyway, and easy way to get infinite money by crafting.
It somehow just feels good still, because a techie in Arcanum can actually feel like an engineer/inventor. Which kinda has to do with the ingredient hunting minigame though, cause it actually makes you do something, so it's more rewarding since there's some effort even if the effort is BSB in itself (going through Tarant shops and thrashcans repeatedly).

ToEE crafting was crap. It was powerful but when it cost gold anyway, only difference to buying stuff was that you lose some experience and are a feat poorer, and have to consider which spells to take from that angle. I'd much rather see a dedicated crafter NPC taking orders to make that stuff, you can only craft at towns anyway. And it doesn't really have the Immersion of Arcanum crafting, just picking one feat and suddenly being able to craft a 100 different things doesn't just seem engaging to me. When in Arcanum you build an engineer PC, in ToEE you build a mage PC who learns the creation of OP stuff as a sidejob.

JA2 way is really good way to handle items, you don't create new shit yourself but stuff is modifiable, out in the field too, and there's skills to govern explosives and mechanics. So it's not separate method to get stuff compared to buying, but choosing and possibly changing the addons is something you do and consider always.


Mostly just, don't make it seem like the PC would be some super crafter who just romps dungeons most of the time, unless it somehow fits the theme like in Arcanum. Usually heroes would leave the smithing business to smiths, even if they help them get quest items to craft from (like in BG2) or even if they can take maintain or modify their equipment when lost in a dungeon.
If you can craft something easily, is there a reason someone at a town wouldn't be able to do it for you for a agreeable cost?

 

[Haba]

Alchemy is a support skill in most games. And like most support skills, it is superficial.

There are a few games that are completely focused on alchemy/craftsmanship(Kamidori). I would say that most of the time crafting is pointless. Only when you give a real dedication to the crafting mechanics, acquiring the resources and formulas, does it have some point.

 

[Phelot]

Drakensang: TRoT had some fairly necessary crafting if I recall. I think the best weapons had to be crafted, no? Also supplies like arrows and healing stuff. It always seemed ok, not too tedious. I like scavenging for items anyway, so I don't mind.

The first Drakensang (made by Radon) was awful though.

 

[Machocruz]

http://vagrantstory.wikia.com/wiki/Crafting

Vagrant Story has the most extensive and integrall crafting system I've encountered.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Some short examples of crafting :
Skyrim - broken
NWN2 - broken
KotC - broken
BG2 - okay but you can't really call it crafting since you just find quest items you transform into stuff
Diablo 2 - fine, since the entire game is about getting even more stuff. It's varied enough and still doesn't break the game
Minecraft - awesome

 

[JarlFrank]

I liked the crafting in Arcanum. There were a few limited items you could craft, and none of them were especially powerful compared to the stuff you could buy or find (with a few exceptions). Also, each level of crafting cost precious skill points that you could also invest in weapon or conversation skills.

The best part was being able to find ancient crafting schematics that allowed you to build unique guns - that require materials only found in the ancient Vendigroth ruins, for example. This is what makes crafting rewarding and interesting for me. Being able to create unique items from rare ingredients, but having to actually find the schematics before you can build it.

It's not fun if you have to grind smithing on simple iron daggers until it's high enough to craft better things - the raw materials for which are also relatively common. This makes it into a chore, and into routine, and that's not fun. The benefit of crafting skills should be the ability to use rare materials you find on your adventures to craft something special.

Let's do a fictional example. So you're an alchemist. You need to break into the duke's palace and steal some important documents for your king, who suspects treason. Alright. You're not a thief, though, and suck at sneaking - how do you get those documents? Talking to the local witch, she tells you about a recipe for an invisibility potion which requires very rare ingredients, but she also tells you that she won't make it for you because such a potion would surely be used for illegal activities.
So... you know of a recipe, you know that no trader would sell you/make you such a potion due to legal issues, and you're an alchemist... bingo! Now you can use your crafting skills to get into the palace and steal the documents while characters without the crafting skill would either have to find a different way inside or find a black market dealer who would sell such a potion...

If your game sports item damage and has a scarcity of resources, item crafting would also be fitting and fun. Post-apoc world. Quality weapons are rare and expensive. Well-smithed melee weapons are worth a lot and only available in large towns with master blacksmiths, quality firearms are even harder to come by. Improvising your own weapons is therefore a valid skill. Carving a bow yourself. Or making a crossbow, if your skill is higher. Attaching a knife to a sturdy wooden pole to make a makeshift spear. Creating makeshift firearms that have a high chance of misfire, but hey, better than nothing, right?

As you can see from these two examples, crafting can be a good idea if implemented correctly and if it actually fits into the game's premise. What's the point of smithing in an Elder Scrolls game which is filled with artifacts and has master smiths in every major city? Alchemy has always been useful and interesting, but smithing is kinda out of place in Skyrim. Crafting skills should make sense within the game they're set in.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

I agree with Demnogonis. In Minecraft, crafting makes sense. You put the materials together and get an item that can be used in quite a few ways. Redstone & Repeaters, Pistons & Sticky Pistons, Swithches, Buttons, Pressure Plates, Obsidion, Dynamite, Torches, Sand & Gravel, Music Blocks, etc. can just let you do so many amazing things. I have seen a self-building/repairing house, adding machines, a programmable image TV, and a working game of Pong. The execution of how items are crafted and what effects can be brought from that are astounding compared to the usual putting menu items in a list, clicking craft, get item with higher stats and some cool effect that most RPGs use.

 

[Kraszu]

I do not think crafting in rpg's is a waste of time. In some rpg's you can meta-game and get the highest level gear in a short amount of time; it rewards people who would spent their time using that system, But the Issue of "brokenness" arises when people don't want to limit themselves instead they want the game developers to do it for them. In a single player game I think that's retarded. If you didn't want to be overpowered you should of avoided the crafting system, and not bitch on some message board like a child. why ask developers to give you limits you could of easily put on system yourself?

Why complain about any imbalance? You are doing too much damage? Don't use items. Some spells are too strong? Don't use them. Game should be balanced enough to not have anything broken, and the player should try to get a little ahead by good planning, there is also no reason for crafting to broke the balance.