How the fuck can we solve the crafting OCD shit in RPGs

[HeatEXTEND]

holy shit i think we did a realtime brofist Sykar

 

[Bohrain]

The only game/series that has made combining two or more things into something more useful fun is SMT, but demon fusion hardly counts.

 

[laclongquan]

The best item crafting ever is Prince of Qin

because it's long

It create items with a five-element attribute aside from the usual system. Water Fire Wood Earth Metal. e.g: Water plus Water will be water element, but if it's water and fire it lessen the buffs, water and wood increase effect in some aspect, and the others will be random number.
As the companions possess different jobs with different elements, there's incentive to make them all aside from the usual benefits.
The minor weakness is the method to store raw materials, which is very Diablo-like, by throwing items on the ground. I chose a post office building central to the whole land as one.

The second would be Neverwinter Night 2 OC, of course. Not MOTB or SoZ because its respective change to the system worsen it. Also it boast best crafting inventory system, and a method to dispose of item that suit a packrat.
You can store raw materials in containers. You can sell items to your keep's merchants and repurchase them at full price.
The weakness is that some raw material is less equal than others, so if you have them, might as well make items to sell for money.

Arcanum is actually very good, but there's less incentive to build items compared to the above. I mean, you dont want to make many mech spider because it's heavy as fuck to carry and if you dont like to unleash the spider there's no point (expensive).

 

[Anthedon]

Gothic I and II. There are comparatively few crafting materials and every new armor/weapon is a meaningful upgrade. The materials are still hard to get and the better equipment requires a pretty large investment of learning points. That doesn't sound hard to implement but most RPGs get crafting wrong. It's another buzzword like "Open World" at this point.

 

[Serus]

Baldur's Gate 2 has my vote. To hell with all that pointless busywork and materials, give me a couple of interesting components to find and an expert NPC to assemble them into something truly unique.

As much as the items themselves were ok and it was fun to collect the stuff to make them, it isn't really a crafting SYSTEM per se. More like a few scripted quests of the "find X pieces of an artifact (that are magic items themselves) to get a great item" kind. Nothing really systemic about it. Not only the player has no influence on the end results but also there are just a couple of those. It was a nice element for the game but not really something I would call "crafting".

 

[Zero Credibility]

Eh, I was never really a big fan of these elaborate crafting "systems", even when they are not done badly (and it is very easy to make them bad). For me, the best way to solve the problem of gathering tons of meaningless crafting crap in the game is to not have any meaningless crafting crap in the game. BG2 approach scratches much the same itch, adds quality content to the game, and is actually fun.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark.

The main Goldsink is buying smith'ed upgrades to your weapon, you don't hoard any items, just store up gold, which isn't aplenty as there's lot of other expensive stuff to buy which will be as equally distracting for your funds.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Arkenim

Sorry, said it like a fag there.

Arcanum.

 

[RNGsus]

Crafting should be left to the pros.

 

[Dorateen]

Temple of Elemental Evil/Knights of the Chalice style. No crafting materials, just gold and experience.

 

[Darth Canoli]

You are either stupid or outright Al Fabet. [bla bla bla]

I didn't edit my message after reading my "mistake" to give you a bone to chew on.

My char had a very decent strength and yet, the game throws so much trash at you you need to make choices all the time or backtrack to your storage to dump all the garbage.
And of course, maybe you just want to craft one thing but i don't, when i can craft, i want to craft multiple items and if i dump most of the dump/ingredients, of course, i don't remember everything i dumped.

So yes, that system is pure garbage, that with the constant backtracking and yet, you praise its crafting system, you're not just dumb, you're braindead.

 

[Trojan_generic]

Wizardry 8. You didn't waste too much time crafting.

 

[Zarniwoop]

It's not about the time wasted as much as the endless piles of """resources""" you gather up that floods you backpack, that you will never use.

Did not happen in Diablo 2: <-(extremely simple crafting done right)
Did not happen in Arcanum <-Crafting done right
Did not happen in the fist Risen at least <-Crafting done right

NWN2 had hints of it but not much. <- possible turning point
DA:O <-Infection definitely present, but only mild annoyance

EELIX is severely infected.
Ass Effect Andromedurr: Terminal infection
D:OS2 is peak shit. By act 2 you will have hundreds of shit essences clogging up your inventory, that you will never, ever, ever use.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Wizardry 8. You didn't waste too much time crafting.

And you could even dump all the ingredients on the blacksmith one by one, forgot that, was nice as well.

 

[Sykar]

You are either stupid or outright Al Fabet. [bla bla bla]

I didn't edit my message after reading my "mistake" to give you a bone to chew on.

My char had a very decent strength and yet, the game throws so much trash at you you need to make choices all the time or backtrack to your storage to dump all the garbage.
And of course, maybe you just want to craft one thing but i don't, when i can craft, i want to craft multiple items and if i dump most of the dump/ingredients, of course, i don't remember everything i dumped.

So yes, that system is pure garbage, that with the constant backtracking and yet, you praise its crafting system, you're not just dumb, you're braindead.

Al Fabet confirmed. Good to know that you are an irredeemable retard.

 

[daveyd]

Crafting should be left to the pros.

Not entirely sure what you meant by this, but if it was along the lines of you have to pay NPCs (e.g., Blacksmiths, Enchanters) to craft stuff for you, then tend I tend to agree.

Or for a fantasy RPG it could be limited to something like BG2 where you occasionally find pieces of magical items that a blacksmith can reassemble.

If an RPG "must" have player character / party crafting for some reason than it should be kept simple. i.e., A limited number of materials to craft stuff so you don't end up with a bag full of string, twigs, and pebbles.

Best examples of simple crafting I can think of are: Dead State (one generic "parts" item from which every piece of equipment is crafted. More complex items are crafted with existing items + parts so they are essentially upgrades. Works well for a post-apoc setting.

Expeditions: Viking; every weapon or piece of armor is either made of hides or salvage (metal). The traps have a limited number of materials. Pretty simple. I wouldn't really say I enjoyed crafting in Viking but that may be because the combat was too easy... Didn't really feel the need to craft better weapons / armor and didn't need to use many traps. But at least it was a manageable number of materials.

AoD A fairly limited number of materials that kept your inventory from being ridiculously cluttered.

 

[Efe]

underrail's system was OK but trying to get quality supersteel (or boot spring) was very tedious.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Rake]

Baldur's Gate 2 has my vote. To hell with all that pointless busywork and materials, give me a couple of interesting components to find and an expert NPC to assemble them into something truly unique.

As much as the items themselves were ok and it was fun to collect the stuff to make them, it isn't really a crafting SYSTEM per se. More like a few scripted quests of the "find X pieces of an artifact (that are magic items themselves) to get a great item" kind. Nothing really systemic about it. Not only the player has no influence on the end results but also there are just a couple of those. It was a nice element for the game but not really something I would call "crafting".

Tha's why it's good

 

[Gregz]

Crafting by itself may be worthwhile mechanic, but often in RPGs you end up gathering tons of materials that you never use because hurr durr. So you end up with backpack or stash full of useless reagents stored just in case and not sold because "maybe I'll need them". Happens to me every fucking time.

Which RPG's did crafting right?

ToEE Co8 mod and KoTC.

Just make crafting cost XP and/or gold, let the peasants gather mats.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Did not happen in Arcanum <-Crafting done right

rummaging through trash cans is essence of good crafting

Finding ingredients <> crafting. Fuck you. EVERY RPG has you rummaging through trash cans/barrels.

 

[Efe]

Did not happen in Arcanum <-Crafting done right

rummaging through trash cans is essence of good crafting

but you don't have to. what do you find in them? maybe pistol parts? mostly rags for molotovs and saltpeter for bullets?

 

[Serus]

Baldur's Gate 2 has my vote. To hell with all that pointless busywork and materials, give me a couple of interesting components to find and an expert NPC to assemble them into something truly unique.

As much as the items themselves were ok and it was fun to collect the stuff to make them, it isn't really a crafting SYSTEM per se. More like a few scripted quests of the "find X pieces of an artifact (that are magic items themselves) to get a great item" kind. Nothing really systemic about it. Not only the player has no influence on the end results but also there are just a couple of those. It was a nice element for the game but not really something I would call "crafting".

Tha's why it's good

"Good" if one doesn't want nor like involved crafting with separate mechanics in his CRPGs - sure, I agree. But if one likes the idea of crafting - as in being able to make and customize items according to his character or his party needs - then no, in that case it's not "good". In other words, whether it's "good" or not depends on one's expectations.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Sykar]

underrail's system was OK but trying to get quality supersteel (or boot spring) was very tedious.

Which was only really of an issue for heavy armor wearers. Other builds barely needed supersteel, if any.
What makes UnderRail a good system is that it breaks away from the mold of usual retard systems where you just pick up everything not nailed to the floor boards and instead check merchants which had the best components usually anyway. It still pays to hover over a component and check if it is a high quality one but otherwise don't bother it is a huge waste if time to pick up everything. Al Fabet was put into the game for a reason.
On top of that you can not only precisely craft your weapons, armor, shields and utility exactly as you want them to be but also they outdo most commonly found items from merchants and drops except for very few exceptions. This applies even to unique items.