Mozgoëbstvo
Learned
Yes, Arcanum is sadly an awesome game full of "but"!
This.Mrowak said:If crafting is boring it just means it isn't done right.
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.MMXI said:Says who?Vault Dweller said:Making items is a skill-based activity. Buying isn't.
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.You can't necessarily buy things you steal. Quest related items for instance. Reverse pickpocketing too to frame NPCs.
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.In the vast majority of cRPGs that feature crafting, crafting just doesn't fit in well enough.
This doesn't make any fucking sense, especially when posted in response to: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.
Ladonna said: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.
What are your thoughts on Arcanum's crafting and alchemy?sea said: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.
You do realize that spending hours leveling up crafting is NOT a mandatory element?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.
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.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.
And it can't work in other RPG sub-genres because... ?The only time a crafting system ever really works, even when designed well, is in a) an MMO or b) an open world game.
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?MMXI said: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.
Pretty much.laclongquan said: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.
Demnogonis Saastuttaja said:Excidium said: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?
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.Vault Dweller said:Says everyone who's played RPGs. [...] One's a gameplay element, requiring different abilities, the other is a price modifier.
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.Vault Dweller said: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.
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.Vault Dweller said:Pretty much.
I like the way you go all idealistic on me after saying the following:Vault Dweller said: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'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.Vault Dweller said: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.
Mrowak said:To whom and for what kind of money, if we are talking abour realism?
A mage could brew a potion or two.
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.Vault Dweller said:What are your thoughts on Arcanum's crafting and alchemy?
I was referencing Skyrim. And yes, it's not mandatory... if you don't want to use crafting, anyway.Vault Dweller said:You do realize that spending hours leveling up crafting is NOT a mandatory element?
Of course not. Again, I've been mostly contrasting with Skyrim's own crafting mechanics, which are just poorly thought out altogether.Vault Dweller said: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.
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.Vault Dweller said:And it can't work in other RPG sub-genres because... ?
sea said:Not that it can't work, but I think that there are better ways to handle acquisition of new items.
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.
...I'd rather kill people and take their stuff.
JA2. Not really crafting, but modding and experimenting with items. I love that.
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?