Crafting In CRPG's.

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I was just thinking; Crafting, it seems to be a mandatory part of CRPG's now, and is yet another annoying part of the game quite often.

Once upon a time, a magical weapon/super weapon was something that was cause for celebration. You couldn't just spend a little experience and a few spells and have a +5 Longsword O Doom suddenly sticking out of your crafters backpack. A magical weapon was something that was incredibly difficult to get. Maybe you needed to vanquish a dragon (back when dragons were difficult...), or a demon, or perhaps scour through the pits of hell, etc. These days, it is a designer market where creating super weapons is expected, even in Indy games! Where once loot of such a kind was the bees knees, it is nothing now.

I can see the argument of people wanting to know whether decent weapons exist in the game for any weapons skill...that is developer laziness, as is crafting. They can leave it all up to the player and not have to worry about the affair. I also believe having seperate skills for weapons, especially examples like seperate Long sword and Short sword skills is idiotic.

Perhaps everyone would have been happy with seperate gun skills in Fallout? Instead of Small, Big and Energy, perhaps you could have a 10mm pistol skill? No?

In any case, the conclusion of my thoughts is that I believe this whole crafting business has gotten out of hand, especially as it is added in to every game on the market that I can think of. It invariably unbalances games, lessens the payoff of finding a decent item considerably if not totally destroying it, and further continues the trend to teaching gamers that everything should be provided on a platter to them instead of having to achieve something in order to enjoy the spoils of their labour.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

 

[Jasede]

Crafting is gay and for homos. I played an MMORPG and it held true there too.

Fuck crafting; it's a way of wasting your time without doing anything; even crafting-related quests tend to be boring and straightforward.

More games need to look at Realms of Arkania 2; when getting a magic weapon meant something.

But that will never happen; RPGs are dead. RPGs as we know it. And by we I mean both the dungeon crawlers and the Fallout-likes.

 

[Takeda Kenshi]

The problem with crafting now is that since its inception, (certain) people now expect it to be in every game and completely 100% viable. By making it viable, you immediately lessen the impact of finding magic items by exploring. This vicious cycle continues to the point where every single idiot who either purchased the game or resides in the game world (MMO) now has shiny, 'ub3r' equipment.

Immediate gratification sells loads of box copies, apparently.

 

[J1M]

Crafting sucks in most games. I specifically avoided it in NWN2 because it required to collection of a large number of mundane items, some rare items, the right recipe, and skill points of a number I couldn't know at character creation plus reading a poorly designed book to do.

It was much easier to just wait for the right weapon to drop or use a non-optimal weapon type.

Aside from the simple problem of poorly implemented mechanics I find it stupid that a character who spends most of their time fighting monsters is somehow able to craft something of any value.

Crafting can work, and be quite engaging in single-player RPGs but it needs to be of a drastically different form. In an MMO you know that the materials you need always exist somewhere and can often just be purchased from another player. Often, in a singleplayer game it is impossible to determine where an item you need comes from or when you will ever be able to access it due to the often linear nature of these games. The number and complexity of components required is also asinine, especially when the last one you need is only available much later than the rest, etc.

For crafting to work in a single-player game it needs to take the form of a limited resource the player can use to improve an item. This facilitates a meaningful choice. Take DnD for example, say there was a magical "+1 oil" that you could rub on any item to give it a +1 bonus. It works for any character, can be used whenever a quest rewards you with it or a boss drops it, and requires a choice about whether to put it on a sword or armor, etc.

In order to prevent depreciation in them as the game progresses, a means of trading 5 "+1 oil" for one "+2 oil" can be implemented if the designers are unable to control themselves when it comes to handing out loot. Maybe "oil" doesn't drop at all and there is even a skill that a caster can use to break down a +4 flaming burst dagger into a single "+4 oil" so the barbarian can apply it to his greataxe.

In conclusion, crafting of the form that Diablo II's socketed weapons + gem system is the way to go in a single-player game. People enjoy a small level of customization, but they don't want to require a gamefaqs article to do it.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

I can imagine crafting in a game where you play, say, a blacksmith. But other than that fuck off.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Crafting sucks in most games. I specifically avoided it in NWN2 because it required to collection of a large number of mundane items, some rare items, the right recipe, and skill points of a number I couldn't know at character creation plus reading a poorly designed book to do.

It was much easier to just wait for the right weapon to drop or use a non-optimal weapon type.

Aside from the simple problem of poorly implemented mechanics I find it stupid that a character who spends most of their time fighting monsters is somehow able to craft something of any value.

Crafting can work, and be quite engaging in single-player RPGs but it needs to be of a drastically different form. In an MMO you know that the materials you need always exist somewhere and can often just be purchased from another player. Often, in a singleplayer game it is impossible to determine where an item you need comes from or when you will ever be able to access it due to the often linear nature of these games. The number and complexity of components required is also asinine, especially when the last one you need is only available much later than the rest, etc.

For crafting to work in a single-player game it needs to take the form of a limited resource the player can use to improve an item. This facilitates a meaningful choice. Take DnD for example, say there was a magical "+1 oil" that you could rub on any item to give it a +1 bonus. It works for any character, can be used whenever a quest rewards you with it or a boss drops it, and requires a choice about whether to put it on a sword or armor, etc.

In order to prevent depreciation in them as the game progresses, a means of trading 5 "+1 oil" for one "+2 oil" can be implemented if the designers are unable to control themselves when it comes to handing out loot. Maybe "oil" doesn't drop at all and there is even a skill that a caster can use to break down a +4 flaming burst dagger into a single "+4 oil" so the barbarian can apply it to his greataxe.

In conclusion, crafting of the form that Diablo II's socketed weapons + gem system is the way to go in a single-player game. People enjoy a small level of customization, but they don't want to require a gamefaqs article to do it.

I could understand this (in some games, not every game as is the case today with crafting) so long as the 'ingredients' were exceedingly rare, or difficult to obtain, but even in Diablo II gems and things were almost falling from the sky.

Perhaps someone that likes crafting could enter the discussion though? Give us the flipside of why they believe it is a superior way of doing things rather than what I have suggested?

 

[Fens]

i always liked the crafting in the gothic games (including risen) as it was a good source of income when you were low on gold

...and punching the smith in the face, because he blocked the anvil, was fun too

 

[Hamster]

Crafting can be fun in some cases, but mostly this:

Crafting is gay and for homos.

I remember how being offered to upgrade my longsword to +12 or smt with all kinds of additional damage in NWN: HotU was a last straw after which i quit the game.

Not exactly crafting, but the same stupid concept.

 

[mvBarracuda]

I found crafting pretty fun in Arcanum. Furthermore the weapon upgrades in FO1 and FO2 can be considered crafting as well.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I like crafting. Crafting is an essential part of DnD for instance. You have to pay with skill points and feats so you should get something worthwhile for the feats you spend, no?
My Mage could have used his feats for spell focus or metamagic feats instead so when I take 3 crafting feats I want to have some use out of this.
It gets problematic only when the game let's you craft like crazy - ToEE for instance, +3 holy, axiomatic, flaming, shocking, shocking burst, mighty cleaving, keen, defending greatsword rofl.
There should be some limit on enchantments like in KotC or NWN2. Also in NWN2 OC there was a certain limit on crafting because you wouldn't have all the gems you wanted and certain essences... so you couldn't craft anything for your whole party (which was kinda negated if you chose the monastery for the keep, which had a merchant with unlimited rogue stones -> +6 stuff for everyone). In KotC you only needed gold but due to the massive amounts of gold and XP available you'd have your party decked out with the best stuff and most likely even had several kickass weapons per character.

Does a crafting system like in NWN2 or KotC reduce the excitement in finding artifacts? Yes. It does. And this is due to the fact that the things you find are worse than the things you can craft. Maybe if a game limits crafting to +3 stuff (like ToEE or Soz) you'd still be excited if you find a +5 holy greatsword with dispel on hit after killing a dragon?
Or if you can craft an Circlet if Intelligence +6 and you find a circlet that gives INT+6 and spell focus in all schools after killing a powerful mage...
So my point is, artifacts you find should have unique properties (worthwhile properties) that can't be replicated or even outperformed by crafting.

However BG2 approach was also nice, most kickass items were somehow a reward for killing a powerful foe ...

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I like crafting. Crafting is an essential part of DnD for instance. You have to pay with skill points and feats so you should get something worthwhile for the feats you spend, no?
My Mage could have used his feats for spell focus or metamagic feats instead so when I take 3 crafting feats I want to have some use out of this.
It gets problematic only when the game let's you craft like crazy - ToEE for instance, +3 holy, axiomatic, flaming, shocking, shocking burst, mighty cleaving, keen, defending greatsword rofl.
There should be some limit on enchantments like in KotC or NWN2. Also in NWN2 OC there was a certain limit on crafting because you wouldn't have all the gems you wanted and certain essences... so you couldn't craft anything for your whole party (which was kinda negated if you chose the monastery for the keep, which had a merchant with unlimited rogue stones -> +6 stuff for everyone). In KotC you only needed gold but due to the massive amounts of gold and XP available you'd have your party decked out with the best stuff and most likely even had several kickass weapons per character.

Does a crafting system like in NWN2 or KotC reduce the excitement in finding artifacts? Yes. It does. And this is due to the fact that the things you find are worse than the things you can craft. Maybe if a game limits crafting to +3 stuff (like ToEE or Soz) you'd still be excited if you find a +5 holy greatsword with dispel on hit after killing a dragon?
Or if you can craft an Circlet if Intelligence +6 and you find a circlet that gives INT+6 and spell focus in all schools after killing a powerful mage...
So my point is, artifacts you find should have unique properties (worthwhile properties) that can't be replicated or even outperformed by crafting.

However BG2 approach was also nice, most kickass items were somehow a reward for killing a powerful foe ...

Your points are valid ones, and DnD 3rd edition was made with crafting in it so my railing was not necessarily a direct attack on it, but rather an attack on the fact that every other system ALSO contains crafting. I must say that I prefer 2nd edition and previous editions more than 3rd+.

Your point of limited crafting also has merit, but is this merely just a replacement? What I mean by this is that it is a form of brinkmanship; Instead of making magic more scarce/powerful and a true reward for something difficult, it makes the magic quite mundane and spits out an even greater weapon for a large reward. Meanwhile, monsters that require magical weapons to defeat/harm are suddenly a non issue.

In 2nd edition, coming across one of these beasts without a magic weapon would mean that you had to think things through. Spiritual hammer was one way of giving someone a weapon to harm them, but the battle would still be fraught with danger. Now, just craft up some weapons and go to town. I understand your point of using the feats for this therefore you should be rewarded, but after seeing the crafting pollution across the entire CRPG board I often wish it was never implemented.

If something becomes too easy or plentiful in a CRPG it loses both its payoff factor and usefulness. It is like the issue of gold; there is always far too much, sometimes meaning the characters are dropping bags of gold in the gutters because of incumberance! The example of the topic would have players throwing magical swords and armour down in the streets because they had too many...no use selling them after all, otherwise you need to dump off another wheelbarrow of gold in the gutter.

It seems everyone wants to be famous, so they create youtube and make themselves a star. Before, it was the big screen or gtfo, now everyone can be famous!...but not as famous as someone on the big screen. Same with magical weapons in an CRPG. A normal, everyday longsword? How boring! At least make it a +1 longsword to start out! This attitude doesn't change anything, it just waters the whole system down in order to make the next gen feel more successful/important than they really are; due to the excess, nothing has changed except a mental blankness when discovering a really good weapon, whereas just finding a magical weapon/armour/whatever was a Big Thing in earlier games.

You brought up BG2, which is a fair enough comment to make and it was nice to discover such things in the game. The payoff has an even better feel in lower level DnD (especially prior to 3rd edition). It just feels a lot better when something like this is a big deal, and the only crafting being done would be by some old hermit in a far off cave, beyond the desert of doom, under the mountains of evil and through the forest of terror. After which you would still need to bring the heart of a dragon and the penis of a hydra...Penii? Anyway, I hope you get my point.

As for Arcanum, magic was not mundane. I can understand crafting in this context with technology, especially when you need to find the incredibly rare schematics in order to make the really good stuff, not only spend the few skill points you get.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

I liked Morrowind's crafting in theory. You need to capture a soul of some powerful for in order to make any kind of a meaningful item, and it could be something else than "Sword of Damage", too. The problem was that you could get a lot of the most powerful kind of souls and that you can't make the most powerful items yourself no matter what your skill is, but have to pay cartloads of gold for someone. Well, among with other problems in the game. I'd like to see something where crafting an item of great power was no trivial matter and wasn't limited to combat stuff. This also means I'd like to see more games that had gameplay outside combat. Scaling mountains, exploring depths, that kind of thing.

 

[mondblut]

Crafting of mundane and minor items is fine. Make arrows instead of spending cash on them, like in Drakensang. Make some cash forging cheap swords, as per Gothic. One-use potions and scrolls with spell effects. Something that only matters a bit.

The crafting of powerful magic items (i.e. TOEE etc) indeed kills all the excitement of finding treasures. It's, like, the quintessential munchkinism - people deck themselves in +6 stuff and then act all butthurt because "and all we're getting in this dungeon are lousy +1 items, wtf??". As if the party digging up tons of lost treasures wasn't an artifact inflation enough, now they have a capability for mass production.

 

[Luzur]

i used to be a pretty good smith in Ultima Online, which is a MMO game that have crafting coming out of the ass.

i never had any problems with rafting in UO, most of the time you had to get all the stuff yourself (going to mine, dig with pickaxe, smelt the ore, bang the ore with hammer til its basic metal, forge blade etc etc) but i dont remember getting far enough to make strong magic weapons, just the basic shortsword of harden and other stuff, which wasnt really any better then an ordinary shortsword.

if you wanted über magic weapons you had to go dungeon romping.

 

[Takeda Kenshi]

i used to be a pretty good smith in Ultima Online, which is a MMO game that have crafting coming out of the ass.

i never had any problems with rafting in UO, most of the time you had to get all the stuff yourself (going to mine, dig with pickaxe, smelt the ore, bang the ore with hammer til its basic metal, forge blade etc etc) but i dont remember getting far enough to make strong magic weapons, just the basic shortsword of harden and other stuff, which wasnt really any better then an ordinary shortsword.

if you wanted über magic weapons you had to go dungeon romping.

Yeah, UO's crafting style forbade (at least when I played) the creation of magic items. Unfortunately now most if not all MMO's allow crafting to be a viable means of acquiring gear. All you need to have is the patience of a saint and the ability to click on nodes. At least in UO gear wasn't entirely important, so losing a plate mail set during PvP meant nothing. Now, all gear is soul bound and in nearly all games you can't loot people anyway. Crafting is just a way for the soccer moms and drooling retards to get 'phat lewtz.'

 

[Xor]

I never really liked crafting in cRPGs, epecially the annoying MotB system. I'd prefer to just find the items lying around than have to gather materials and craft something.

I think Arcanum had it right, though. You couldn't craft magic items, but you were free to craft tech items with blueprints you'd find. It made more sense than being able to craft a +8 sword of ownage with little time or investment.

 

[Killzig]

+1 to the love for Arcanum's schemas. I also think I prefer weapon customization + improvement to crafting through magical backpacks and/or forge.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

+1 to the love for Arcanum's schemas. I also think I prefer weapon customization + improvement to crafting through magical backpacks and/or forge.

Well, it makes more sense overall. Not to mention the really good schematics were often quite hard to come by. I remember getting that super gun schematic in the vendigroth ruins, no easy feat with those magical things everywhere. It was worth it though, and it was very far into the game.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

iirc in Arcanum you could craft the sword of pwnage (aka sword of I bash you 20 times per round) pretty early on

 

[Xor]

Yes but it wasn't magical. We don't need to turn this into another discussion about Arcanum's combat balance which will inevitably lead to a discussion about how good of a game it is which will somehow lead to arguing about whether PS:T is an RPG or not.

 

[Phelot]

I like the idea of crafting of mundane items in order to make money or to save money if the created items are used often, but cost money (healing, ammo, etc.)

The problem is that the items you can make are often times readily available as random drops from creatures or are dirt cheap in stores.

At the beginning of Risen I found myself desperate to find potions, but the game is smart enough to know that a wolf wouldn't be carrying a healing potion. So the game forces you to spend money or make your own. We need more of that in games... I also think it's important that the game makes crafting interactive, make you work a little. That is, making you go through the steps with smithing rather then just clicking on a little icon of a sword.

I also like the idea of modern weapon modifications. JA2 gives massive boners due to all the weapon mods and crazy shit you can do. JA was even fun making those crazy gasoline and grenade bombs. Oh yeah and molotov cocktails.

Stalker Clear Skies touched on this a little, but I like it better when my character is doing the upgrades and I can find the stuff to upgrade them with.

I'd love an FPS game were you can find or buy different upgrades like sights and bolts and shit. Or were you could make pipe bombs and other gadgets. Somebody needs to get on that right away.

EDIT: Almost forgot: crafting magical items is stupid. Like others have said, magic items should be exciting to find. It's not exciting making a dozen magic amulets in a single click.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

You could just have only a small amount of magical items to be found, and only a small amount of the best crafting materials. Mass producing magical items is what is stupid.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

Crafting sucks and alchemy too.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Basic, combine A + B = C crafting effects in RPGs tend to work well enough for me, but 9 times out of 10 the moment they try to add another layer of complexity it all goes to the dogs.

Arcanum got it right, though. Even though most of the crafting process involved behaving like a homeless trolley lady, gathering up every single piece of trash you came across.

One aspect of this which I've missed (or can't remember) seeing is if you have the "recipe" for an item, but lack the skill, to just find some bloke who is skilled enough and hire him to do it for you. By this, I mean have someone do something for you which you can do yourself if your skills are good enough, not for a quest-vital item or unique stuff you can't make yourself.

I find crafting to be fun, as long as it's kept simple. One of my "hobbies" in Ultima 7, for example, was to gather up every single spindle of thread and bolt of cloth and then go on a weaving frenzy...only to then cut the cloth all down into bandages. I usually amass enough bandages to make my entire party dress up like mummies on Halloween.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Yes but it wasn't magical. We don't need to turn this into another discussion about Arcanum's combat balance which will inevitably lead to a discussion about how good of a game it is which will somehow lead to arguing about whether PS:T is an RPG or not.

that wasn't my intention, I just didn't like the crafting system in Arcanum too much