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Crafting: For or Against?
- Thread starter jtb
- Start date
MorshuTheTrader
Neo Member
Not necessarily against it. A few games have done it well, but in the overwhelming majority it feels poorly designed and tacked on just because it's a popular trope in games these days.
Mihos
Gold Member
Unless the game is specifically made for that like Minecraft or Atlier series, I just make it ignorable and I am Ok with it.
Only exceptions I can think of is Elder Scrolls series for upgrading armor. I kind of liked that. I absolutely hate cooking in Zelda. I am basically just randomly throwing stuff together because... I ... I just don't care.
Only exceptions I can think of is Elder Scrolls series for upgrading armor. I kind of liked that. I absolutely hate cooking in Zelda. I am basically just randomly throwing stuff together because... I ... I just don't care.
Spiritwalker
Member
Not a huge fan, but I don't mind if it's a light and simplistic system.
I despise it most of the time but I think there are games that have done it well but they are very few. I only think crafting makes sense inside a system of extremely limited resources where you are unable to grind. For example roguelikes. That gives some decision weight to the crafting that I rarely encounter otherwise. If crafting is a matter of how much time I invest in it I don't want anything to do with it. Teleglitch is probably the best example of crafting I can think of.
Tacked-on bullshit where the word "Crafting" actually means "Combining materials", against. Except for Monster Hunter, because it makes too much thematical sense not to.
Actual deep crafting systems like FFXIV, or creative things like Dark Cloud II, though, are one of the best things gaming has to offer.
WRPG crafting, ala Skyrim, can go fuck itself.
Actual deep crafting systems like FFXIV, or creative things like Dark Cloud II, though, are one of the best things gaming has to offer.
WRPG crafting, ala Skyrim, can go fuck itself.
It's pretty damn sad how many people here seem to hate it.
The best ever will always be Star Wars: Galaxies. Man it was great. You could literally just be a crafter. My brother was an architect. He had a shop in a town he literally built himself and ran, as well as a huge house he had built. He paid me to rent all my miner slots and he had a huge mining operation going on for resources. I did a little bit of everything. I was a commando (roasting fools with a flamethrower) a fencer, a droid engineer, a musician, a carbiner. It was an amazing social game. You could hang out all day in the cantina and it was legit like hanging out in a cantina. You chat with your buddies and watch/tip the entertainers. I miss the game dearly. Even the CU didn't bother me that much but it came a completely different game after the NGE. I stopped playing when the NGE hit. I remember there would be a huddle of like 50 people around the droid at the spaceport waiting for the shuttle. The space expac was cool too, imo, if not a little too easy. It took interior designing your own home to space! The space yacht was awesome.
Some other great games that I think are worth mention are Vagrant Story. Before Atelier, there was this game. Crafting is almost required in order to stay ahead of the enemy difficulty curve, but whether or not each new weapon is an improvement is, at best, a tough call. Experimentation is necessary, but also extremely costly (since the two source weapons/parts are destroyed in the process of creating a new one). Until you gain the teleportation ability, the material limitations of each workshop make it impractical to perform the multiple-iteration combinations required to make truly effective equipment. It made crafting worthwhile and really made me want to experiment.
I'm actually enjoying the crafting system in Elder Scrolls Online. It's not close to SWG but then again, what is? It's simple enough but it has more depth than WoW does but not so much that I have to dedicated too much time to it. These days, that's best for me.
King Gilga
Member
It's not so much crafting I mind as it is crafting materials spam and loot spam.
Any game with that + inventory management can go fuck itself.
Watching the GB horizon quick loot turned me completely off the game because jeff's inventory was packed with random shit and there was loot everywhere. And on top of that the game didn't even have aoe looting! It's god damn 2017!.
Any game with that + inventory management can go fuck itself.
Watching the GB horizon quick loot turned me completely off the game because jeff's inventory was packed with random shit and there was loot everywhere. And on top of that the game didn't even have aoe looting! It's god damn 2017!.
Cymbal Head
Banned
I like it when the system is transparent, fairly limited in terms of possibility space (and therefore cognitive overhead), and isn't required for progression. Examples of crafting systems I've liked are Elder Scrolls and Breath of the Wild.
KojiKnight
Member
Star wars galaxies had an amazing and in-depth crafting system... The more time and effort put into it, the better the output. Some gun smiths could make better quality starter weapons than others could "master tier".
If it is like tomb raider or last of us then that is fine. Overall no though. Crafting just leads me to keep every single item I find because I think I need it. The thing is no matter how much crap it seems I am always missing like three items that I need to make something good.
Gotdatmoney
Member
The crafting in Vagrant Story was integral to the game. But the game is hard as fuck and the integration of all the systems is snails pace. It made me not want to waste a weapon that was working lest I get something shit and make life harder. (In theory, its been like a decade since I played it so I imagineit may be better a second time round).
Still loved the game. It could def use a remaster with some pace increasing and shortcut mapping.
Jack The Nipper
Banned
I use to be for it but when I am having to spend half the game (50) hours pressing X to pick up shit and then mixing it... it starts to get overly done. (DAI) It just becomes annoying and needing to do it just to heal, craft things in your castle etc doesn't seem like good game design after a while.
I was playing Red Faction (the original) and it's low use of opening and placement of things is a very good balance for not being over done. It's like 2 or 3 every 5 or so rooms more or less at times of course.
I also love when you just get a bit near and it's picked up automatically and quickly. I honestly think the X pick up shit everywhere thing needs to go away in more games. Let me run over to pick up since it is a game after all.
Picking up things should be for smaller very detailed worlds where the atmosphere is heavy and it can be a part of physics as well. (Deus Ex, Half life)
I was playing Red Faction (the original) and it's low use of opening and placement of things is a very good balance for not being over done. It's like 2 or 3 every 5 or so rooms more or less at times of course.
I also love when you just get a bit near and it's picked up automatically and quickly. I honestly think the X pick up shit everywhere thing needs to go away in more games. Let me run over to pick up since it is a game after all.
Picking up things should be for smaller very detailed worlds where the atmosphere is heavy and it can be a part of physics as well. (Deus Ex, Half life)
UpperCaseN
Member
I run hot and cold on crafting depending on the game, hard to define what makes the difference. I loved it in Rise of the Tomb Raider, seeing that upgrades were tied to animal skins etc made me want to and enjoy hunting. I hear that I would love Far Cry for this same reason.
I hate crafting when the materials are random. If you have to grind to get a rare drop, I will never do that. Perhaps it's rpg vs. non-rpg? I'm not sure myself, I just know that most times I hate crafting but sometimes I love it.
I hate crafting when the materials are random. If you have to grind to get a rare drop, I will never do that. Perhaps it's rpg vs. non-rpg? I'm not sure myself, I just know that most times I hate crafting but sometimes I love it.
Most feel unnecessarily tacked on but there are a few games where crafting feels crucial and engaging.
The Witcher games are one such example but for some reason I'm still partial to the crafting (or alchemy) system in Witcher 1. You have to craft all your potions and I liked how deep the system felt where you had to use alcohol as a base and watch the elements of each thing you pick up.
The Zelda Breath of the Wild system actually feels somewhat similar. You have to basically craft all your own healing items so you have to engage with the system. What's better about Zelda though is that it approaches crafting from sort of the opposite angle. Instead of trying to target a recipe you just put ingredients together that at least sort of make sense, following a few easy-to-understand rules. I think that makes the Zelda system more accessible and less of a hassle.
Actually, one thing that really gets to me is how most games handle the acquiring of ingredients. Games don't seem to have figured out how to distribute ingredients throughout the world or where to set how much players can carry. Most importantly, most games don't seem to have a system by which players can learn where to find certain kinds of ingredients. Lastly, there isn't that much of a sense of scarcity. Again, I think Zelda does probably the best job of this. You eventually figure out that certain kinds of planets or animals are found in forests, or near bodies of water, or even when it's raining.
The Witcher games are one such example but for some reason I'm still partial to the crafting (or alchemy) system in Witcher 1. You have to craft all your potions and I liked how deep the system felt where you had to use alcohol as a base and watch the elements of each thing you pick up.
The Zelda Breath of the Wild system actually feels somewhat similar. You have to basically craft all your own healing items so you have to engage with the system. What's better about Zelda though is that it approaches crafting from sort of the opposite angle. Instead of trying to target a recipe you just put ingredients together that at least sort of make sense, following a few easy-to-understand rules. I think that makes the Zelda system more accessible and less of a hassle.
Actually, one thing that really gets to me is how most games handle the acquiring of ingredients. Games don't seem to have figured out how to distribute ingredients throughout the world or where to set how much players can carry. Most importantly, most games don't seem to have a system by which players can learn where to find certain kinds of ingredients. Lastly, there isn't that much of a sense of scarcity. Again, I think Zelda does probably the best job of this. You eventually figure out that certain kinds of planets or animals are found in forests, or near bodies of water, or even when it's raining.
Foldedpencil
Banned
It's not the crafting that I mind, it's gathering, and rng drops that drive me crazy.