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Crafting: For or Against?
- Thread starter jtb
- Start date
Horizon sucks with all the icons on screen. It's like I have to gather all that crap or it will bug me. Zelda has different issue. I climb to top of mountain. Took 10 min. Get to top and mine ore. Ore goes flying. FUUUU I have to go all the way down to get the topaz. fuuuuu
Crafting sux
Crafting sux
I love crafting when it is implemented very well and a core game mechanic and not shoe horned in. Most of the time, it is complete trash, added to a game for no discernible reason and does nothing but detract from the experience.
Crafting scale:
ultime online crafting = great
survival genre crafting = usually good
monster hunter crafting = mediocre
jrpg crafting = usually garbage
wrpg crafting = almost always garbage
Crafting scale:
ultime online crafting = great
survival genre crafting = usually good
monster hunter crafting = mediocre
jrpg crafting = usually garbage
wrpg crafting = almost always garbage
I really liked crafting in Minecraft because at the beginning before there were tutorials, it felt very explorative and most combinations somewhat made sense!when all you do is select what you want to craft and make sure you have the elements needed, it's kind of boring. Don't hate it, it's just boring.
Hippopuncher12
Member
The problem with the Zelda cooking for me is how long it takes. Going through the menus clicking hold and then adding each item and throwing it in a pot just takes too long. I mean it's cool because you can basically do whatever you want and see what pops out, but it's a little too time consuming for my tastes. TLoU was fast, you still have to go to a menu but it just took far less time. I am also not that far in Zelda so like I said I don't like it yet. I could very well change my perception of it once I am used to it and played the game for more than 5 or so hours. As for your last question, and I am sure people will quote and scream or whatever, but everything? TloU is one of my favorite games of all time, so far Zelda is just okay, again though that could change with more playtime.
Edit: One more thing I enjoyed about TloU crafting was the trade off aspect of it. On the higher difficulties materials came pretty rarely (usually) so you had to make good decisions about what you made.
Just don't make me do it a lot. I have a half complaint about HZD in this regard. You have to craft arrows a lot. I find myself crafting them after every encounter almost. It's made easy by just holding the R1, highlighting the weapon and holding X. It's quick. But I think the standard arrows should have been unlimited.
I kind of hate it these days. In principle, it's super cool and adds to world/character-building, and helps you connect to the game world around you in a tactile way. In practice, it becomes a total chore. When it becomes part of essential activities, it starts to feel like upkeep -- see last week's all-too-similar games, Horizon and Zelda:BOTW for examples.
No, I don't want to micro-manage my goddamned arrows, thanks very much.
No, I don't want to micro-manage my goddamned arrows, thanks very much.
Love me some crafting when done right. It's basically all I did in Final Fantasy XIV. I had all my crafting skills maxed and my only battle job was a 40 BLM.
Didn't really care for it in WoW but still did it. Loved it again in EQ2 for the short time I played. The more complex it is the more I tend to like it.
In single-player games, I always tinker around with it but only to the extent it serves an actual purpose; if the stuff I'm making is useless I won't bother. Love crafting in Minecraft and Legend of Mana, for instance. Can't be bothered in something like Kingdoms of Amalur.
Didn't really care for it in WoW but still did it. Loved it again in EQ2 for the short time I played. The more complex it is the more I tend to like it.
In single-player games, I always tinker around with it but only to the extent it serves an actual purpose; if the stuff I'm making is useless I won't bother. Love crafting in Minecraft and Legend of Mana, for instance. Can't be bothered in something like Kingdoms of Amalur.
Septimus Prime
Member
I think FFXI's crafting system literally has every shift aspect of crafting systems:
-Abundance of (mostly useless) materials
-Limited inventory space
-Esoteric recipes
-Extremely rare materials take forever to get
-Crafting itself needs to be leveled up
-High failure rate that destroys your materials
-Long animation
-You pretty much have to craft to be successful in the game
Like, it would be impressive if they set out to make literally the worst crafting system.
il Diavolo
Banned
I'd rather find awesome shit than have to build it.
letmetrythisname
Member
I'm sick to death of it, and I wish AAA devs would give it a break, along with detective vision modes and towers.
eyeball_kid
Member
I think it's one of the worst game mechanics to be introduced in recent years. My first experience with heavy crafting was in WoW, but I guess it existed before then.
It generally reminds me of the mindless tasks in F2P mobile games, that kind of skinner box game design where you just hit the button over and over because of a steady drip of small rewards. It's lazy and a bit manipulative in terms of appearing to provide engaging content, while actually providing very little.
It generally reminds me of the mindless tasks in F2P mobile games, that kind of skinner box game design where you just hit the button over and over because of a steady drip of small rewards. It's lazy and a bit manipulative in terms of appearing to provide engaging content, while actually providing very little.
I'm with you OP. In the games I've played that had a crafting system (mostly RPGs), I've always liked it. I dunno, it just scratches some sort of itch for me. I spent way too much time making gems in Xenoblade 
Crafting in FFXIV is basically a game all on its own, there's that much depth to it (but it does get grindy in places, I guess that comes with the MMO territory).
Not feeling the Zelda BotW cooking/crafting so much yet, because it seems a little random at this point, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it once I gain some more insight into how it works.
Crafting in FFXIV is basically a game all on its own, there's that much depth to it (but it does get grindy in places, I guess that comes with the MMO territory).
Not feeling the Zelda BotW cooking/crafting so much yet, because it seems a little random at this point, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it once I gain some more insight into how it works.
JetSetRadio
Banned
Autocraft microtransactions please.
Toni
Member
Horizon introduced a huge step up for the crafting design. It makes it all less of a pain by crafting everything in real time (no pausing to craft) and on the fly, with the press of a single button instead of the pause button/select button.
And also did that as an option for the player as well. You can traditionally open up the main menu for a more in-depth crafting.
Best of both worlds. Its perfection.
And its a neat idea devs should adopt if crafting is a huge part of a game's component.
And also did that as an option for the player as well. You can traditionally open up the main menu for a more in-depth crafting.
Best of both worlds. Its perfection.
And its a neat idea devs should adopt if crafting is a huge part of a game's component.
It's fine. It's not a selling point for me but in our post-minecraft world it seems to have become just that for many games.
In something like Monster Hunter it's just the means to an end. Every so often I need to go to a menu and craft 200+ Mega potions. Not super compelling. "Crafting" armor is basically the same as buying it except you need specific currency to do it (monster parts).
In Zelda I'm having fun experimenting. It's annoying that you can "fail" recipes though, which consumes your ingredient and gives you garbage.
In something like Monster Hunter it's just the means to an end. Every so often I need to go to a menu and craft 200+ Mega potions. Not super compelling. "Crafting" armor is basically the same as buying it except you need specific currency to do it (monster parts).
In Zelda I'm having fun experimenting. It's annoying that you can "fail" recipes though, which consumes your ingredient and gives you garbage.
Rickenslacker
Banned
I like it in concept, I greatly dislike it in practice. In games, I just don't feel it properly conveys the sense of, well, craftiness. It just ends up breaking down items that you want, and scatters that into several different items that are often useless on their own to clutter things up with. It often just gets in the way more than anything and makes things a pain in the ass.
When I think crafting as I have experienced it in games, I think pointless menu nested busywork.
When I think crafting as I have experienced it in games, I think pointless menu nested busywork.
Mr Nash
square pies = communism
Depends how it's implemented. If it's a matter of gathering materials, then letting things auto-craft while I read the newspaper, I'm not interested. If I'm involved with every step of the process and there's a chance of failure, that sort of thing I actually enjoy. Final Fantasy XIV's crafting system is like that and I love it. =)
S
Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
Taliban Stan
Member
I enjoy it when it's good. I'd rather craft a cool piece of gear than find it (unless it's as a reward for an enjoyable dungeon) or buy it.
The only thing that makes it annoying is poor resource gathering. When you need a lot of an item but you can only pick it up one at a time and maybe the targeting method to grab it is wonky (Betheda) or it takes a few seconds to pick it up (Dragon Age 3 comes to mind immediately), that's annoying but the crafting part is usually fun.
I like making stuff with computers in real life though, so this is up my alley.
The only thing that makes it annoying is poor resource gathering. When you need a lot of an item but you can only pick it up one at a time and maybe the targeting method to grab it is wonky (Betheda) or it takes a few seconds to pick it up (Dragon Age 3 comes to mind immediately), that's annoying but the crafting part is usually fun.
I like making stuff with computers in real life though, so this is up my alley.
Zvonimir Boban
Banned
Nah, it's so streamlined and easy that it's pointless. You spend a large proportion of your time going around hammering Triangle to pick up wood and plants to craft things when it would make zero difference to the game if there was no crafting at all and you simply harvested arrows/traps/health potions from defeated enemies and boxes lying around the world. You'd save so much time not having to piss about worrying about your carrying capacity and selling shit back to traders to make room and get shards.
I'm not picking on Horizon alone because it's something that every other open world game does and it does nothing but waste the players time, it's the very definition of busywork.
TLOU was far better when it came to crafting.
Stormblessed
Member
I think having to hoard trash items and hunt for recipes is pretty tedious. Console UIs especially are poorly suited to sorting through piles of junk. Most of the time it's completely inessential to the game, too. I can only think of a few titles where you had to craft to be effective, and in them you'd often find the implementation had been "streamlined" to the point where it was just a time waster - an extra two clicks to get a noise maker in Watch_Dogs, for instance.
Triggerhappytel
Member
I like it when it's simple and fast, such as The Last of Us or Horizon: Zero Dawn. It works particularly well in TLoU I think as it's in real time and you need to make tactical decisions about your equipment on the fly with limited resources. I didn't like the crafting in The Witcher 3 at all, as there was a metric shit ton of different plants and items to collect and I thought the UI was an indiscernable mess.
EVA UNIT 01
Member
Goddamn i hate crafting.
80% of the time it's bad, but that's a problem with its implementation and not the concept itself.
I specifically hate it in a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition where you can go through the whole game without ever using it. If a system isn't important then it shouldn't exist. Games like that typically suffer from superfluous feature creep and make using those systems feel pointless.
I specifically hate it in a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition where you can go through the whole game without ever using it. If a system isn't important then it shouldn't exist. Games like that typically suffer from superfluous feature creep and make using those systems feel pointless.
I haven't played Horizon yet, but I did play TLOU which I find crafting to be one of it's sub systems that helps combat. Basically, it isn't central to the experience so no wonder they make it short and easy for the players.
That by itself isn't a problem, but most of the replies here are bringing examples of a lot of games where crafting is secondary to the experience which, in turn, becomes a nuisance rather than something that can be fun.
For example, TLoU (and I imagine Horizon too) you pick up some items in the scenario, put two or three together according to a recipe you already have and you get a new item which is more useful than it's separate parts. Those are the basic rules for any craft system, but there's no depth so it becomes repetitive and boring by itself. If the items aren't good either, it becomes useless too.
In Atelier there's the same basic steps: Collect, get recipe, make item. However, in this case, there's a lot of depth to each of these processes that make the game fun.
There's tons of material to collect and they can have special attributes that can change the final item.
Almost anything you do will count as progress to get new recipes and there's a lot. You also don't get everything at once, since each item created can have special attributes that you need to discover for yourself. The crafting itself can get tricky with a lot of skills and rules to follow, making it puzzle like.
The items themselves can be used in the field, side quests, battle or as materials for new items.
It's a (almost) never ending loop of crafting that never gets old. I know atelier is a craft oriented game and TLoU is not (being survival horror, craft should be quick and simple), but I really wonder if Zelda or Horizon (both which I haven't played yet) couldn't do systems like this to make it more interesting.
theepicoftyler
Member
I haven't played a ton of crafting heavy games if I think about it. I don't mind crafting in Horizon. It's painless, and resources are plentiful.
I really enjoyed Minecraft's approach to crafting though. It was pretty central to what the game was about.
I really enjoyed Minecraft's approach to crafting though. It was pretty central to what the game was about.
travisbickle
Member
But there's a dozen different arrow/rope types that use similar resources. Unless you can strip the arrows down in your scenario you're just going to stock up on arrows with heads for low-level bows you don't use.
BassForever
Member
If its done well or is easy enough then I have no problem with it
Phrozenflame500
Member
The problem with crafting is either it's a major game mechanic and it's annoying, or it's a minor game mechanic and completely ignored aside from maybe one blatantly OP item.
The only games I can think off the top of my head to do crafting right are survival styled Minecraft/Terraria/etc. RPGs tend to fail utterly at it.
The only games I can think off the top of my head to do crafting right are survival styled Minecraft/Terraria/etc. RPGs tend to fail utterly at it.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
Against the vast majority of the time. Few video game activities are more boring. Fishing might be the only one I can think of.
family_guy
Member
I really dislike crafting, but hate looting and inventory management even more.
Its garbage in most games, but the few that do it well really do it well. TLoU was pretty great because of how the limited resources forced the player to decide what was absolutely necessary. Dishonored 2 is another good example, I loved making all sorts of bonecharm combinations.
Zvonimir Boban
Banned
Make it so you recover arrows from enemies that you defeated. Add a supply crate that replenishes arrows at towns and villages.
Or go the other route and instead of crafting different types of arrows, have a single pool of arrows and use the fact that it's a weird steampunky future world to get round the problem. Make cyber arrowheads out of dino parts or some other bullshit and as Aloy upgrades her skill tree or progresses in the game she unlocks different abilities for those arrows so you still have the same shock/tear/fire abilities without making the player dick around gathering and crafting.
It's a video game, there's any number of ways you can get around it instead of just copying the same crafting shit that we've seen in a bunch of other games just to pad things out. The world and the combat in Horizon are strong enough to stand on their own without pointless filler
Imp the Dimp
Member
I enjoy it in Diablo likes, but I don't think I ever found it particularly engaging in single player RPGs. Doesn't bother me overly much but gathering the ingredients usually shits up the inventory so there's that. Can't think of a single player game that got proactively better by having that mechanic off the top of my head.
edit:
This is about 100% accurate lol
edit:
This is about 100% accurate lol
GeordieMark
Member
I find it boring as crafting usually means lots of crap to collect, which in turn means inventory management and coming up against carry weight limits. It is rarely implemented in with 'fun' in mind, and so feels like something that is only added to games because gamers have come to expect it.
i'm not against crafting but i'm not a fan of it, in fact i'm not a fan of Minecraft and Terraria, i don't like to have junk, i already tend to keep everything in the inventory lol.
If crafting is optional then it's ok for me, i would use it when i need something, but if crafting is the primary way to get some things then no thanks, i usually don't even try classes like alchemists for example.
If crafting is optional then it's ok for me, i would use it when i need something, but if crafting is the primary way to get some things then no thanks, i usually don't even try classes like alchemists for example.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Crafting in games is only decent if it doesn't require you to hunt for random rare drop items or any shit like that.
I don't like it. It makes sense for survival games as they are built around that mechanic but not so much for anything else. It just leads to an overload of shit to collect.
I don't mind collecting stuff to upgrade. For example Souls games do it well with just a few different materials to collect and they upgrade all your weapons. Witcher 3 is an example of a bad implementation where you have sub-sub-sub materials making slightly better materials which make even better materials which you need to craft better weapons or armor. Totally excessive. Nioh has the same issue, its crafting system could have just been sacrificing an armor or weapon to upgrade or create a new one considering how much crap you accumulate during one mission. Instead you either sell that or disassemble it for parts which you can use to make better parts which give you a chance to get a better weapon but might end up with complete shit if RNGJesus is not on your side. Inventory management is never fun.
I don't mind collecting stuff to upgrade. For example Souls games do it well with just a few different materials to collect and they upgrade all your weapons. Witcher 3 is an example of a bad implementation where you have sub-sub-sub materials making slightly better materials which make even better materials which you need to craft better weapons or armor. Totally excessive. Nioh has the same issue, its crafting system could have just been sacrificing an armor or weapon to upgrade or create a new one considering how much crap you accumulate during one mission. Instead you either sell that or disassemble it for parts which you can use to make better parts which give you a chance to get a better weapon but might end up with complete shit if RNGJesus is not on your side. Inventory management is never fun.
seems like every online or loot-based game i play you need to luck out with rolls or spend 500 hrs to make crafting worthwhile. just always feels like i'm swimming upstream
but in the broadest, general sense, i like crafting. really fires off my reward synapses after a period of playing, even if the system is flawed and shallow
but in the broadest, general sense, i like crafting. really fires off my reward synapses after a period of playing, even if the system is flawed and shallow
It's all on the execution and how much time I'm spending not playing the game to collect garbage and mess with menus.
Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Summon Night Swordcraft? Yes.
Heck, Horadric Cube in Diablo 2 was alright.
Generic open world crafting? No.
But the actual best crafting mechanics are tied to a minigame where you have to develop an actual skill to make great stuff - if you want to. Looking at you, Boktai 2, you're the best. (Oh, and don't involve literally hoarding hundreds of items you'll never remember the name or where to pick more of.)
Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, Summon Night Swordcraft? Yes.
Heck, Horadric Cube in Diablo 2 was alright.
Generic open world crafting? No.
But the actual best crafting mechanics are tied to a minigame where you have to develop an actual skill to make great stuff - if you want to. Looking at you, Boktai 2, you're the best. (Oh, and don't involve literally hoarding hundreds of items you'll never remember the name or where to pick more of.)
SafeinSound
Member
9 out of 10 times it's a shit mechanic that is shoehorned into the game.
Coriolanus
Banned
the only thing i despise more than crafting is randomly generated loot.