Crafting In CRPG's.

[Surf Solar]

As long as the stuff you can create through crafting is unique and different to the items you can normally buy/find, I have nothing against it. It also makes use of some otherwise junk items in the game.

Think of a rather large quest where you find schemes for a certain item, then you need to find the ingredients to craft it and so on. Feels much more rewarding than just throwing item xy at the end of a dungeon.

It is also very cool to give the player some sense of accopmplishment if you tie crafting requirements to different skills, rather than just "crafting" skill.
Want to create some healing items? Take some survival skill, or an alchemy skill. High Repair/Science skill? Upgrade your weapons, other builds won't be able to do it that easily, etc.

That is a quest, not a crafting system, yet it describes the ideal crafting system... hmm, funny how that works. 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. 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. Even then, crafting is only really interesting when juxtaposed with other systems... i.e., do I put points into crafting to get this cool item I can't get anywhere else, or do I put them into speech to bypass fights entirely? 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.

The only time a crafting system ever really works, even when designed well, is in a) an MMO or b) an open world game. In a), crafting is often the only way to get a really cool item (unless you want to use another skill to create something else of value, then trade it), often requiring lots of time and specializing in skill. In b), crafting is there mostly to justify the open world in the first place - namely, if you have a huge world, you need something to do in it; one of those things is combat, another might be collecting stuff, which you then use for something else. I'vewritten at length about open world games and how they're built top-down rather than bottom-up (i.e. "okay we've made an open world, now we need to actually give the player something to do in it!"), and whether it's Agility Orbs in Crackdown or ingredients in Skyrim, it's there because the designers otherwise couldn't really give a good reason for there to be an open world in the first place.

As written for probably the third time in this thread already, crafting is simply shit when it comes with a simple "crafting" skill, for reasons you have already pointed out. I would have expected a bit more reading comprehension on your side, but I forgive you for you are a constant source of otherwise very good posts.

Crafting can be cool when it uses actual primary skills the player has chosen for his character. It is a simple tool to make the player feel he established his character in this particular skill, quests, npc realizing that player has n-amount of skill open whole new branches so that only this build could get item XY. It works the other way too, a melee skilled character should know how to easily craft a simple hammer out of some materials which can be simply found in the gameworld or by taking other weapons and breaking them up into smaller parts. Sure, one can simply buy all this shit from vendorsr, no one stops you from doing that. Or you just craft it on the fly, while you are in "the dungeon", without the need to backpedal, without the need to spend points in "crafting skill" . Skilled Gunslingers could preserve some otherwise junk shells and craft some extra ammo, especially good in settings where ammo is scarce. Characters skilled in doctor knowledge could use some of the otherwise useless ressources to create some healing items on the fly, else he'll be fucked if no vendor sells the shit. It simply means more possibilities and deeper things to do for the particular build you play. It simply raises the replayability by locking other builds out of certain items (and ideally gameplay elements). This is a bad thing now? :/

My example with the "epic" quest was just, duh, an example, not the projection you like it to be.

 

[laclongquan]

Of all the arguments here, I find that they support a system like NeverwinterNights 2 the best.

It's material based, so you got a limit on the number of items you can make. In this game is the high quality gems. Even if we do the scrounging from the beginning I am not sure we can gather enough gems to make items for a fully outfitted team.

It's pretty useful early game, because you dont have enough gold in that stage to buy what you need, but you can save enough to craft a set of Full Plate, or make a decent bow. Dont tell me about buying. At that stage we dont have enough gold to buy what we need for 4 people. We simply dont, unless we abuse the make/sell.

It's very useful late game, because we can make customized sets: anti-demons, anti-undead, anti-beast... And the cost is affordable. Also dont tell me about buying. The price on those things is skyhigh, and the goods are rare.

And in the case you want to abuse make/sell, the game got a mini feature to put away your excess gold: your Keep. Its investment is as high as 700k, and the return at the end can go as high as 1.3M, if you are smart about it. The Keep guarantees that you WILL use Crafting if you want to play with it. You can just pay out of your huge reserve but that will mean saying goodbye to further spending spree.

 

[flushfire]

I agree that it was alright in NWN2. Money wasn't really scarce, but essences were. And you really can't buy most of the things you can make. What wasn't so good about it is that because you had so many party members to choose from, it wasn't even a choice to level crafting skills or not. You were bound to have someone in the party to cover for it. Another is that the game wasn't really that hard to begin with, so in effect uber crafted items felt unnecessary. But those are easily fixed.

 

[Wyrmlord]

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.

Let's say you're putting together a game. At some point you decide that it's time to reward the player with a magical weapon. What do you do? Load the chest with +1 weapon of every type? It's silly. Add them to the traders' inventories? It's also silly. It's much better to give the player tools to break apart what he finds and make whatever he needs.

Yes.

I must mention how a first person shooter - not a RPG - Call of Pripyat balanced buying, looting, and crafting.

Buying Assault Weapons: There is a dealer who engages in special custom orders only, and what he shall obtain for you at a high price will be something that (as a randomly generated lottery) a) is the only one of its kind in the entire game's world (The FT-200M), b) is found in damaged state only on one other mercenary (GP-37), or c) is rare and expensive anywhere (Tunder S-14).

Looting Assault Weapons: If you stick to items you can loot, you will probably not do better than SGI-5K or the Tunder S-14. They are very good weapons, but not the absolute best.

Building Modified and Upgraded Weapons: If you have a modified weapon crafted at a workshop, it will be the only weapon of its kind in the entire world. Why? Workable tools are rare in a radioactive wasteland. The tools required are so rare, you shall have to risk your life to find them. There is an upgrade tree, in which you sacrifice one class of upgrades by choosing another class of upgrades - raising recoil but giving up more flatness. An ordinary weapon well upgraded will be a match for the special order weapons. (You can also upgrade a special order weapon in unique styles as well, but that will be an extraordinarily expensive financial commitment, because both upgrades and special orders are expensive.)

So each three of those approaches has a different benefit with different efforts required. Either you sacrifice your money, or risk your life finding the right tools, or your time by hoping the best weapon will drop in your hands eventually. None of these is a perfect substitute for another.

 

[Metro]

The root of the problem isn't so much with crafting as it is with itemization in modern RPG (using the term loosely) games -- especially in Skyrim where there are very few meaningful combat stats. Ideally you want a lot of unique items that have various amounts of positives and negatives so that crafting something yields specialized items that may or may not be beneficial for your character and not simply add +1 to uber or whatever.

 

[MMXI]

If money isn't so easy to come by then why not? I don't see what should be so difficult about it as plenty of games have done it before.

Again, it's a problem for a game that has a static economy. Let's assume a game has no crafting at all. Merchants have goods to buy at fixed prices, enemies drop fixed items and dungeons contain fixed treasure. The developer can easily balance this through play-testing. If the player earns more money through selling items found on enemies and in dungeons than they ever need to spend in shops then the item values need serious tweaking.

Now introduce crafting. The player can take basic items scattered throughout the world and craft better items with them. The player is actively able to convert cheap things into valuable things. If the player is the only one able to do this, then not only is it unrealistic, it also breaks the economy if the NPCs don't react. The player can buy lots of shitty goods, craft better goods and sell them to the vendors.

If you could code a decent and relatively stable economic model, where each NPC has assets, there is a flow of goods between the NPCs, and each NPC can spend time changing the worth of their assets through crafting (ideally using the same skill system that your character uses) then the player can slot into this system neatly enough.

Isn't pickpocketing as a separate skill just the same? If it can be done with effort then that just means it's how it's implemented, not that it is not a valid skill by nature.

Pickpocketing in something like Dragon Age: Origins where you only dig up vendor trash is a skill that's solely about money making. Being able to pickpocket quest items or keys, or even being able to reverse pickpocket someone means that pickpocketing is multi-dimensional.

I'm a little embarassed to say that I don't get your point. Teaching is actually a viable mechanic as if I remember correctly JA did it fine, however you can't teach more than what you already know, so what you said about not going out but just teach yourself doesn't really make any sense to me even if it was supposed to be an analogy on how crafting is in another player game.

Something to do with NPCs being services and how trainers and vendors are basically the same thing, with one providing items and one providing stat boosts.

 

[Zomg]

But crafting was incredibly boring and stupid in NWN2? Why would you ever want to replicate that? There were always more essences than you could reasonably use - the powerful enchantments were bottlenecked by randomly dropped gems (plus a few set ones) and level requirements, and the "mundane" crafting was bottlenecked by materials that you can't get until a set point in the game. You had like what 7 or 8 NPCs to sacrifice feats and skill levels for crafting with, so there was no tradeoff there. The whole thing is also rife with cheesy exploits like boosting your craft donker skill by equipng a craft donker hat . And it's all critically dependent on a brazenly unfit interface with a 5 page nigh-unsortable dumping ground inventory of small icons to manage. The final products are retarded superloots that you don't even need. FUCK IT IT SUCKS

At the very least it's another thing to balance when most RPGs cannot balance fucking anything

 

[MMXI]

I'vewritten at length about open world games and how they're built top-down rather than bottom-up (i.e. "okay we've made an open world, now we need to actually give the player something to do in it!"), and whether it's Agility Orbs in Crackdown or ingredients in Skyrim, it's there because the designers otherwise couldn't really give a good reason for there to be an open world in the first place.

Yeah. That's basically what I hate about crafting. Building bottom-up would result in a basic economy being modelled, which crafting can be a part of. You can then actually play the game largely as a crafter. Crafting will be a role. All crafting is in a game like Skyrim is a way to play as a guy with better equipment at the expense of combat skills. The extra damage you do with a better sword balances the extra damage you would do with higher combat skill. It's boring. It's an option for the sake of having an option. It doesn't change how you play, it just adds extra work to achieve something that could have been achieved another way. If someone tells you that they completed an RPG as a crafter you should be thinking along the lines of them rising through the ranks of a business, buying up other businesses, negotiating cheaper deals with suppliers, and possibly using their power and influence to achieve the goal of the game or reach the end point of the story.

There's a reason why typical RPGs aren't full of character classes that reflect their role in an economy. There's a reason you don't often make a party consisting of a fisherman, lumberjack, builder, tailor, baker and fletcher, and that's because cRPGs are usually about going out and adventuring instead of doing a day job. Create a cRPG where doing a day job can result in victory and maybe then crafting will be a fitting idea.

 

[flushfire]

Now introduce crafting. The player can take basic items scattered throughout the world and craft better items with them. The player is actively able to convert cheap things into valuable things. If the player is the only one able to do this, then not only is it unrealistic, it also breaks the economy if the NPCs don't react. The player can buy lots of shitty goods, craft better goods and sell them to the vendors.

Why is it necessary that the materials used are cheap? What if they weren't? If what you can craft is unique, you're going to have to choose between selling the material or making it into something you need, I don't see how that can be bad. It's easy to make unique craftables realistic, see Arcanum. Even if it happens as you describe, there have already been games where prices drop if you sell the same items en masse. If the materials needed are limited, the profit small and the game does not have a use-based system, nobody would bother to break it.

Being able to pickpocket quest items or keys, or even being able to reverse pickpocket someone means that pickpocketing is multi-dimensional.

I don't see why crafting can't be the same.

 

[sea]

As written for probably the third time in this thread already, crafting is simply shit when it comes with a simple "crafting" skill, for reasons you have already pointed out. I would have expected a bit more reading comprehension on your side, but I forgive you for you are a constant source of otherwise very good posts.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you or pointing out a problem in your post. Maybe it was the snarky attitude at the beginning, but I was just trying to illustrate that what you described wasn't really a crafting system at all, but rather just a side-quest. The rest was kind of just my own unrelated ranting.

Crafting can be cool when it uses actual primary skills the player has chosen for his character. It is a simple tool to make the player feel he established his character in this particular skill, quests, npc realizing that player has n-amount of skill open whole new branches so that only this build could get item XY. It works the other way too, a melee skilled character should know how to easily craft a simple hammer out of some materials which can be simply found in the gameworld or by taking other weapons and breaking them up into smaller parts. Sure, one can simply buy all this shit from vendorsr, no one stops you from doing that. Or you just craft it on the fly, while you are in "the dungeon", without the need to backpedal, without the need to spend points in "crafting skill" . Skilled Gunslingers could preserve some otherwise junk shells and craft some extra ammo, especially good in settings where ammo is scarce. Characters skilled in doctor knowledge could use some of the otherwise useless ressources to create some healing items on the fly, else he'll be fucked if no vendor sells the shit. It simply means more possibilities and deeper things to do for the particular build you play. It simply raises the replayability by locking other builds out of certain items (and ideally gameplay elements). This is a bad thing now? :/

This is another awesome point and further establishes that crafting systems as dependent on crafting-specific skills are pointless and stupid. If you're a doctor, I would imagine you're able to figure out how to make impromptu medical supplies, tie a tourniquet, make a leg brace, etc., so why would I need a "medical crafting" skill for that? Forging is different from using weapons of course, but if you have equipment and become experienced in using it, eventually you're going to need to learn to maintain it and make more. This all shows, to me, that crafting works so much better as perks and benefits of one skill path than a skill path all its own.

Of course, Skyrim doesn't have any real resource management, so that kind of eliminates the need for crafting in the first place, other than a time sink and LARPing potential.

 

[J1M]

I hate crafting the way it is done in NWN. It generally requires you to sacrifice character power for unknown later benefits. It's so likely that they may not have the +4 sickle in the game for your build that they have to let you put all the crafting feats on a party member.

It also has the problem of not being discoverable. You need to sort through a ton of recipes to find the one you need, and there is no sense of actually crafting something. It's just a store purchase with unusual currency.

Crafting systems should do a few things:
-Provide a way to customize items based on playstyle preference
-Provide a way of combining generic drops into a useful and specialized item
-Provide a progression system that improves slowly over time

The Diablo 2 gems are a perfect example of the kind of crafting system that I would want in an RPG.

The mechanic for improving them is consistent and very clear: combine 3 into a slightly better version of the same type. All it is missing is a way (gold sink?) to remove a gem from an outdated piece of equipment so it could be reused.

 

[Surf Solar]

As written for probably the third time in this thread already, crafting is simply shit when it comes with a simple "crafting" skill, for reasons you have already pointed out. I would have expected a bit more reading comprehension on your side, but I forgive you for you are a constant source of otherwise very good posts.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you or pointing out a problem in your post. Maybe it was the snarky attitude at the beginning, but I was just trying to illustrate that what you described wasn't really a crafting system at all, but rather just a side-quest. The rest was kind of just my own unrelated ranting.

Crafting can be cool when it uses actual primary skills the player has chosen for his character. It is a simple tool to make the player feel he established his character in this particular skill, quests, npc realizing that player has n-amount of skill open whole new branches so that only this build could get item XY. It works the other way too, a melee skilled character should know how to easily craft a simple hammer out of some materials which can be simply found in the gameworld or by taking other weapons and breaking them up into smaller parts. Sure, one can simply buy all this shit from vendorsr, no one stops you from doing that. Or you just craft it on the fly, while you are in "the dungeon", without the need to backpedal, without the need to spend points in "crafting skill" . Skilled Gunslingers could preserve some otherwise junk shells and craft some extra ammo, especially good in settings where ammo is scarce. Characters skilled in doctor knowledge could use some of the otherwise useless ressources to create some healing items on the fly, else he'll be fucked if no vendor sells the shit. It simply means more possibilities and deeper things to do for the particular build you play. It simply raises the replayability by locking other builds out of certain items (and ideally gameplay elements). This is a bad thing now? :/

This is another awesome point and further establishes that crafting systems as dependent on crafting-specific skills are pointless and stupid. If you're a doctor, I would imagine you're able to figure out how to make impromptu medical supplies, tie a tourniquet, make a leg brace, etc., so why would I need a "medical crafting" skill for that? Forging is different from using weapons of course, but if you have equipment and become experienced in using it, eventually you're going to need to learn to maintain it and make more. This all shows, to me, that crafting works so much better as perks and benefits of one skill path than a skill path all its own.

Of course, Skyrim doesn't have any real resource management, so that kind of eliminates the need for crafting in the first place, other than a time sink and LARPing potential.

Ok, I may not have the fastest brian, but did you just miss my point again, or did you just use examples?

I did not mean to implement for example a doctor skill, but then another "doctor crafting" skill at all. All these crafting requirements should dependent on, for example 60% Melee, 40% Repair, if we take Fallouts skillsystem etc - not "lol have n-% skill in the crafting skill".

Taking the crafting system of Skyrim as an example is a bad idea.....


Arcanum did that rather well, IMO. As a mage, even with some slight tech things to keep things interesting, I only needed simplest schemes and still could craft. If I would have wanted that, I could also roll a full blown scheme addicted guy who would do nothing but craft all day. The system is fine, the execution only needs to be tweaked.

Another example:


Instead of 20% in "crafting", it should be (pulling numbers out of my ass) "40 Doctor 40 First Aid" that enables you to craft some healing items....

 

[sea]

I hate crafting the way it is done in NWN. It generally requires you to sacrifice character power for unknown later benefits. It's so likely that they may not have the +4 sickle in the game for your build that they have to let you put all the crafting feats on a party member.

This is a very good point too. Crafting systems are all about delayed reward on initial investment, but rarely do RPGs actually make the case for it. Sacrificing short-term benefit for potential long-term benefit that you don't even have a guarantee of and probably won't give you an advantage over a non-crafting character, that's just a lot less compelling. I think if more RPGs had crafting as a secondary skill all by itself (i.e. smithing, alchemy, enchanting, cooking, craft-making) closer to the MMO model, that'd actually be a pretty big improvement because in that case you aren't putting faith in the game designer that some day, eventually, maybe your choice will pay off.

 

[MMXI]

Why is it necessary that the materials used are cheap? What if they weren't? If what you can craft is unique, you're going to have to choose between selling the material or making it into something you need, I don't see how that can be bad. It's easy to make unique craftables realistic, see Arcanum. Even if it happens as you describe, there have already been games where prices drop if you sell the same items en masse. If the materials needed are limited, the profit small and the game does not have a use-based system, nobody would bother to break it.

The materials could be more valuable than the items you are producing, but if things work that way then why are there items being produced for shops to sell if it's a money losing system? Perhaps only the best items in the game are costly to make, i.e. the items you put points in the crafting skills for. But then it's just another in a long line of skills that grant you access to better items. There may be a locked door with a fantastic piece of armour behind, making lock-picking a skill that grants you a top quality item. There may be a high-tech weapon as a quest reward for those with a high speech skill, making speech a skill that grants you a top quality item. Same deal with pick-pocketing.

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.

 

[Surf Solar]

crafting skills

FFS

 

[sea]

Ok, I may not have the fastest brian, but did you just miss my point again, or did you just use examples?

I did not mean to implement for example a doctor skill, but then another "doctor crafting" skill at all. All these crafting requirements should dependent on, for example 60% Melee, 40% Repair, if we take Fallouts skillsystem etc - not "lol have n-% skill in the crafting skill".

...

Arcanum did that rather well, IMO. As a mage, even with some slight tech things to keep things interesting, I only needed simplest schemes and still could craft. If I would have wanted that, I could also roll a full blown scheme addicted guy who would do nothing but craft all day. The system is fine, the execution only needs to be tweaked.

The "medical crafting" skill I mention is just an example to illustrate that tying crafting to primary skills makes much more sense than having lots of crafting-specific skills, especially when they're given the same level of depth and emphasis by the skill system as, say, combat abilities. That can work, but only rarely. Arcanum, as you say, is a good example, but arguably it comes at the expense of interesting combat. I think the tech skills were there mostly to give regular fighters an analogue to spells (new items = new abilities and other benefits) but that doesn't really work in every game, especially one whose character progression is so heavily focused on combat, like Skyrim.

This is a good discussion by the way. Really enjoying the talk of real game mechanics between this thread and the potion-chugging one, rather than the usual bitching. Good work, Codex.

 

[flushfire]

There's a reason why typical RPGs aren't full of character classes that reflect their role in an economy. There's a reason you don't often make a party consisting of a fisherman, lumberjack, builder, tailor, baker and fletcher, and that's because cRPGs are usually about going out and adventuring instead of doing a day job. Create a cRPG where doing a day job can result in victory and maybe then crafting will be a fitting idea.

But what exactly are skills involved in a day job and adventuring? Are the set of skills supposed to be exclusive and unique to each? Where do jobs like doctors and engineers belong in? Certainly they aren't adventuring jobs nor are they implausible as character classes in your typical RPG. I believe Mrowalk summed it up nicely a few posts before. It really does not have to involve sim-level mechanics, same way as thievery skills do not necessarily mean unless the game allows you to setup heists, gain infamy or break out of prison means it is useless and just there for the sake of being there.

 

[MMXI]

crafting skills

FFS

Well, crafting needs to be skill based at least, though I guess it could work by being limited by existing skills instead of being skills themselves. That would mean every character can craft a limited amount, but what they can craft is dependent on the skills they have. That's a FAR better system for a non-sandbox game, and probably a sandbox game too considering no developer in 2011 will even think about making a crafter a viable play-style. And yeah, I did type that post while you posted your reply to sea. Sorry.

But what exactly are skills involved in a day job and adventuring? Are the set of skills supposed to be exclusive and unique to each? Where do jobs like doctors and engineers belong in? Certainly they aren't adventuring jobs nor are they implausible as character classes in your typical RPG. I believe Mrowalk summed it up nicely a few posts before.

It's not as clear cut as that. In most RPGs you can get healing at a healer in town or from your very own cleric. The advantage of having a cleric is that they can heal you when you are far away from a healer. It's never really an issue of money. If you read this post of mine on the first page of this thread you'll see that if crafting is there to fix the party up with equipment when far away from a vendor then I'm all for it. However, if the feature is there to provide yet another way of getting some of the best items in the game then I question its value.

It really does not have to involve sim-level mechanics, same way as thievery skills do not necessarily mean unless the game allows you to setup heists, gain infamy or break out of prison means it is useless and just there for the sake of being there.

Those don't have to be sim-like. Those can be scripted quests. In an ideal world they would be sim-like, but we aren't living in one.

 

[flushfire]

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.

If you can't think of other ways to make crafting more than just getting better items without building the entire game around it, automatically means that is all there is to it?

if crafting is there to fix the party up with equipment when far away from a vendor then I'm all for it. However, if the feature is there to provide yet another way of getting some of the best items in the game then I question its value.

Then we are in agreement here, crafting isn't really useless, it just needs good implementation. Doesn't even need the level of complexity you want to see in a game for it to be on par with other non-combat activities. Tie repair with crafting and you get the same advantage as having a cleric when far away. Get more value or effects out of stuff like whetstones or other equipment enhancing items. A mad machinist's creation hidden behind a door he specifically created to be opened only by another machinist of his caliber.

 

[RK47]

weapon sharpening - strengthening bow string. Don't make improvements permanent. It's all I ask. Because the skill usage rate is 'fire and forget.

Things like armor padding should absorb a few hits before tearing - swords need regular sharpening to keep its edge. etc. Much like how most enchanting grew normally from usage of soul gems, it should be the same with smithing.

Even the alchemy side lack creativity.

 

[laclongquan]

For Fuck's Sake!

You are a bike rider for twenty years, doesnt mean you know how to make a bike from ground up. Fix some moderately complex troubles, maybe. Build one, hell no. IF you are a competent and mechanical-wise, you may assemble a new bike from purchased parts or scavenged parts, but chances are your product is not as good as one made by competent bike makers.

Same deal with cold steels. You know how to maintain your weapons, sure. You may even know how to make some thing resemble what you used. IT's tiny chance what you make is the same quality as something made by a competent blacksmith. Forget damascene blades, forget thousand-fold blades, which is the things results from an extremely competent and experienced swordsmiths.

Same deal with bows. You may know how to maintain one (which I doubt). If you are a curious monkey you may even learn how to make one from books. No way you can make ...etc and etc.

The examples are everywhere. Makers' skills are not the same as users' skills.

You dont want to invest in craft skills, FINE! You have absolutely no need to do that. You dont want to invest in your companions' craft skills, FINE! You have no need to do that after you get them. Just buy the goods.

But if you are a craftman I dont want to hear any Scrooge McDuck argument about how expensive that skill investment is. For Fuck's Sake!

Enjoy your Choices and Consequences, BIATCHES!

 

[laclongquan]

Playing Craftman in NWN2 is not just a powergaming option. It's a philosophical larping:

I want to create something, therefore I invest my very precious skill points into craft skills. I accept that these investment are very heartfelt and risky, but it's my choice.

 

[sea]

Are you not paying attention? The reason dedicated crafting skills suck is because it's so hard to make a full-on skill tree and leveling mechanic for them that is meaningful, especially next to other skills. Can it be done? Probably. Has it been? Not really, as even the best examples have a lot of room for improvement. When you demand that crafting be just as fleshed out as combat abilities, you're asking for trouble. At absolute best, it makes a viable secondary ability. At worst, it's useless.

Nobody is saying it's 100% realistic that using a sword makes you a competent blacksmith. At the same time it's a much more elegant solution to integrate certain skills into others if nothing about it warrants making it its own skill, and guess what, in almost all cases, it never is. Maybe a better answer is to combine crafting skills - instead of Gunsmithy and Bombs, you have Chemistry, and instead of First Aid and Doctor, you have Medicine. Point is, though, that there should at least be some sort of synergy to skills and benefits that make them worth using, without gambling on whether the designer took the skill into consideration, instead of just going for the damage upgrade.

And for what it's worth, yes, you can always pull the "herp derp, well real life isn't realistic or balanced, sometimes risks don't pay off" argument, but that still does not excuse shitty design.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

Again, in crafting, the winner is...


Arcanum. No doubt. Simple, smart crafting, that, slowing down your melee progression (if you go to the smith tree), pays off with rad equipment you can't obtain from anyone else (except some powerful NPCs you can try to kill for shits 'n' giggles).

And, while at the high levels you'll manage to get max melee, max dodge, and full smith tree, your progression will be a little slower and more painful than a pure melee build.
But the payoff is nice.

Not to mention explosives crafting, potion crafting, etc etc.

5/5

 

[laclongquan]

Herpaderp, Sea, Herpaderp

An umbrella skill to cover too many aspect is quite irritating to players. I mean, 2 Handed Weapon instead of Spear/GreatAxe/WarHammer/etc.. derp! Craft Alchemy/weapon/armor/trap is diversed enough, though Craft Trap is underutilized.

We are talking about NWN2 so. In that game there are instances of using Craft skills outside of a smith table. Build a bridge in the burnt village, anyone?

Anyway, Elegance and Synergy are just pretty words for Streamlining. You want to simplify matters and you want to make one skill control many aspect? Why not invent a button "Press here and something awesome happen!!!" Oh wait...

Final words: I recognize the greatness of Arcanum crafting system. THe only reason I rate NWN2 higher because of my personal preference for fully customized items: materials, properties, name. Arcanum is lacking in that respect.