Cyberarmy
Love fool
Anything more than Gothic 2 or Baldur' Gate 2 crafting is trouble in my book. Most of the time the shit you endured to craft in new "crafting" don't worth your time a bit.
I tend to think of this as an enhancement system, rather than traditional crafting. Being able to decide how to improve equipment rather than just "fetch X mats for upgrade Y" is far more rewarding/engaging. Gem socketing type systems with synergistic effects between enhancements but also with skills fall into this category as well.I thought it was done well in Evil Islands. Before that I never thought I'd enjoy crafting in a CRPG.
I tend to think of this as an enhancement system, rather than traditional crafting. Being able to decide how to improve equipment rather than just "fetch X mats for upgrade Y" is far more rewarding/engaging. Gem socketing type systems with synergistic effects between enhancements but also with skills fall into this category as well.I thought it was done well in Evil Islands. Before that I never thought I'd enjoy crafting in a CRPG.
I am not sure what your point is JarlFrank
Yes, if you make crafting in MMO fashion it will be grindy and boring. But it doesn't mean the crafting itself is at fault - it's its makers' fault. In order for crafting to work it has to be simple yet meaningful, allowing you to juggle limited resources to get what you need most at the given moment. I would argue that with a good design you could make an excellent crafting system that enhances the overall experience.
Lots of meaningless inventory features - crafting, trash loot, inventory limitations - are only meaningless because of the total disappearance of resource management.
In a game with equipment deterioration, both trash loot and crafting of mundane weapons suddenly make sense, because they might end up being your only recourse when your sword of awesomeness suddly breaks.
- farm resources by standing next to an ore vein and attacking it with your pickaxe till it's harvested
- gather 100 pieces of the resource so you can craft a weapon or a piece of armor
- farm the next better resource to improve your equipment
Yep, in The Summoning, until you got the unbreakable Warmonger, even lowly falchion was useful.In a game with equipment deterioration, both trash loot and crafting of mundane weapons suddenly make sense, because they might end up being your only recourse when your sword of awesomeness suddly breaks.
Abydon's challenge was dumbest and most annoying thing in Deadfire. And it's fucking Deadfire - it's full of unfun things. Fuck equipment deterioration with burning nailed siege ram.Lots of meaningless inventory features - crafting, trash loot, inventory limitations - are only meaningless because of the total disappearance of resource management.
In a game with equipment deterioration, both trash loot and crafting of mundane weapons suddenly make sense, because they might end up being your only recourse when your sword of awesomeness suddly breaks.
I don't disagree with that, but this approach brings its own problems.I prefer: a small selection of widely varied equipment in every category, with the best of each locked behind questlines or particularly difficult exploration.
A game with some of the most uninspired systems has an uninspired implementation of equipment degradation. What a complete surprise.Abydon's challenge was dumbest and least enjoyable thing in Deadfire. And it's fucking Deadfire - it's full of unfun things.
Fallout 3/NV handled this fine. Every dungeon had one unique powerful item in it. A stat-boosting bobblehead, or a named weapon that was more powerful than other weapons with the same model.Again, I'm not saying it's impossible to do, but it heavily limits what kind of game you can make. You can't make a TES-like (i.e. a single-character game with a large open world) with that approach, for example.
Especially when it's an open world 3D RPG, there's a high chance it will feature crafting... including the ability to build your own house from harvested wood and stone.
I don't disagree with that, but this approach brings its own problems.I prefer: a small selection of widely varied equipment in every category, with the best of each locked behind questlines or particularly difficult exploration.
It'd work in a party-based game with a compact gameworld and no shops, like Grimrock 2 for example (but even Grimrock 2 would have trash loot problem if you didn't need it to weigh down pressure plates). Otherwise, what would you fill the space with? And what would the enemies drop? If you just leave the space empty or fill it with combats (or other challenges) 90% of which don't reward you anything other than XP, you'll have boring ass exploration. And if most enemies/containers would just have consumables on them, then you again have a trash loot problem, just trash loot are now consumables (which are already trash loot in most games, but that's a different discussion).
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible to do, but it heavily limits what kind of game you can make. You can't make a TES-like (i.e. a single-character game with a large open world) with that approach, for example.
Morrowind most definitely has a trash loot problem, 90% of the stuff you find are food and alchemy ingredients you'll never need.Morrowind
Morrowind most definitely has a trash loot problem, 90% of the stuff you find are food and alchemy ingredients you'll never need.Morrowind
I don't disagree with that, but this approach brings its own problems.I prefer: a small selection of widely varied equipment in every category, with the best of each locked behind questlines or particularly difficult exploration.
It'd work in a party-based game with a compact gameworld and no shops, like Grimrock 2 for example (but even Grimrock 2 would have trash loot problem if you didn't need it to weigh down pressure plates). Otherwise, what would you fill the space with? And what would the enemies drop? If you just leave the space empty or fill it with combats (or other challenges) 90% of which don't reward you anything other than XP, you'll have boring ass exploration. And if most enemies/containers would just have consumables on them, then you again have a trash loot problem, just trash loot are now consumables (which are already trash loot in most games, but that's a different discussion).
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible to do, but it heavily limits what kind of game you can make. You can't make a TES-like (i.e. a single-character game with a large open world) with that approach, for example.