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Why is crafting such a pain in the ass in games
- Thread starter Megalosaro
- Start date
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The crafting in Skyrim is one of the worst things ever. You need smithing, enchanting (and alchemy, I guess) to become strong, but leveling it is such a drag. Most of the times I just use console commands to get extra experience in those skills, since otherwise I'd spend an entire afternoon crafting useless shit to get to the cool stuff.
They're only related in that they're sometimes needed in order to craft certain equipment. But yes, they're not related to the system itself. Regardless, I just wanted to state that I fucking hate rare drops, lol, which are what kill most crafting systems for me. Especially in games where it's not noted which enemies drop which items.
This shit is the worst. I fail to see how that makes a game fun for anyone, unless they're masochists.
SlipperySlope
Banned
Fuck any RPG with Alchemy. Fuck them all. So fucking useless.
Edit - I'm looking at you, Bethesda!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Edit - I'm looking at you, Bethesda!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alchemy in Skyrim and Oblivion can be extremely strong (perhaps even too strong) if used correctly, but the way to master it is so damn tedious most of us just give up.
Oyashrio-Sama
Member
This!
SlipperySlope
Banned
That's my issue. You have to fucking level it. Screw that, I'm not spending 5 hours, if I'm lucky, just to get Alchemy to skill level 50 so I can make something useful.
Agreed. I recently finished that game and crafting was just a laborious chore and not really worth it in the end anyway. It seemed like just more busy work added to the game to try and draw it out. That game had enough pointless time sinks as it is.
Carnby
Member
In other words, The Last of Us.
How about that Dead Space 3 crafting system. What the hell was Visceral thinking!?
unholyrevenger72
Banned
I don't mind crafting when the results aren't random and i know exactly what i'm gonna get when i use the materials.
Sojiro
Member
FFXI and EQ2 both did it very well, I agree there. I also think FFXIV (both 1.0 and ARR) did a good job on crafting, also Minecraft does it damn well. Honestly there aren't many games where I can say I despise the system, I think its just more of a thing that isn't for everyone.
These two are usually things that ruin crafting for me, obviously the latter one being the main offender. It's just fucking dumb.
Other than that, I don't mind rare drop mats, recipes that take a ton of mats and so on if they are worth it. And if the game either tells me what and where, or there's a guide online. Just trying random shit out is also boring.
Complistic
Member
guild wars 2 crafting is excellent. You'd probably love chef.
redmetal86
Member
Anyone remember the crafting from the Lost In Blue games?
didn't they nerf that into oblivion for leveling purposes lol
helped me get 3 characters to 80 though so i guess i can't complain
http://www.flasharcadegamessite.com/28784-jacksmith.html
That's the only crafting game done well in the history of gaming, roughly.
(AAR comes close)
That's the only crafting game done well in the history of gaming, roughly.
(AAR comes close)
Megalosaro
Banned
The crafting system that inspired this topic was actually Tactics Ogre's crafting system. It's so needlessly exhausting, mostly because you can only make one item at a time. Plus it has that stupid "Chance of failure" bullshit.
To give you an idea, I'll point out what it takes to make one item:
A typical recipe is something like this:
Base Weapon/Armor
Ingot x 2
Gem x 1
You can usually buy the Base Weapon/Armor, or find it on an enemy, so that's not hard.
But the ingots and the gems are such a pain in the ass.
For ingots
First you need to make 3 base ores. For example, if I were making an iron ingot, I'd have to make 3 iron ores. an iron ore requires three inferior ores.
The gem stone, such as a fiery gemstone requires 2 gemstones, which require 2 inferior ores.
So basically, in order to make my weapon. I need to do 8 or more crafting transactions.
To give you an idea, I'll point out what it takes to make one item:
A typical recipe is something like this:
Base Weapon/Armor
Ingot x 2
Gem x 1
You can usually buy the Base Weapon/Armor, or find it on an enemy, so that's not hard.
But the ingots and the gems are such a pain in the ass.
For ingots
First you need to make 3 base ores. For example, if I were making an iron ingot, I'd have to make 3 iron ores. an iron ore requires three inferior ores.
The gem stone, such as a fiery gemstone requires 2 gemstones, which require 2 inferior ores.
So basically, in order to make my weapon. I need to do 8 or more crafting transactions.
Especially when you get that Nailbomb or Molotov crafted just in time to save your ass lol.
Eh, I got to level 9 on my armorer before becoming bored out of my mind. Takes too long.
Exploding8
Member
I would personally find crafting more fun if you actually interacted with the materials and the equipment while crafting. I've only seen one game do this, which tbh really boggles my mind.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfxutd2RDxM
Barring that, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes had a decent crafting system that actually made you pay attention since stuff could happen to increase or decrease the quality of stuff.
Not sure how good this video is, no time to watch it lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg5f-IXSmCs
NullPointer
Member
Simple menu, intuitive ingredients, and quick crafting process. Yeah, its just about perfect for a basic crafting system. But this is a game that expects you to craft while you're in the middle of dangerous situations.
Amory
Member
Weird. I was just about to say I can't understand a single thing about it. Shooters and engineers and trying to get effects past 100%...it's convoluted. I understand you want to get as many effects past 100% as possible (?) but I don't get what role the characters play in it.
Hopefully it's not important to do if you want to finish the game, because I doubt I'll use it.
Mauricio_Magus
Banned
Atelier does it right
Spirit of Jazz
Banned
Yeah, the scavenging/resource management is what makes the crafting work in TLOU, the actual system itself is nothing spectacular and I think it's pretty strange people are bringing it up here. Dead Rising 2 did a much better job at crafting in an action game, you had to seek out resources ala TLOU however you could combine random household items into hilarious death machines, it was the crafting and result that made it satisfying.
I think the most compelling crafting system I've played in an mmorpg was cooker in GW2 due to the sheer variety of items you could make. You felt a great sense of achievement in finding new recipes and then combining them into new dishes with strong stat boosts.
I didn't even know how to do it. Too complicated and annoying. :/
You find a bunch of tools scattered across the landscape such as scissors, tape, alcohol, sugar etc, and when you have enough of the necessary tools to craft what you want you simply hold "x" to initiate the crafting process. The end result is a useful weapon/item such as a malotov, smoke bomb, nail bomb or health kit/improved melee weapon. An additional aspect to the crafting system is that you can eventually improve upon the speed in which it takes to craft an item as it must be done in real time and could make you vulnerable to attack. As many have already said it's a great part of the game.
Was going to say this. I loved cooking in GW2
The last of us. The only crafting I can bear with.
I don't really enjoy grinding for materials (even if there are no rare drop materials) and remembering what and how many materials I need, then look for it, rinse and repeat is just a boring meta game for me. Yep that includes Minecraft.
I don't really enjoy grinding for materials (even if there are no rare drop materials) and remembering what and how many materials I need, then look for it, rinse and repeat is just a boring meta game for me. Yep that includes Minecraft.
dragonbane
Member
And I wish every game would copy Vagrant Story or Star Wars Galaxies.
You can add crystals to the reactor until one of the effects breaks 100%, then you can't add any more. You can also move on before that point. Then you pick which character is the shooter, who adds a unique factor to the crafting process (Shulk has a higher chance of triggering a crafting fever for instance), and which character is the engineer, which determines how likely they are to use the different flames. Then the crafting starts, and the characters work at all the effects of the crystals you put into the reactor. The number of times they'll use enhance something is determined by the affection between the shooter and engineer. The engineer will pick a flame at random depending on their preferences. Red flame enhances one of the effects at random by a large amount. Blue flame enhances all of the effects by a small amount. Green flame increases the cylinder gauge. If the shooter has good affection with other party members, they are likely to help out and enhance one or all of the effects by a very large amount.
Once the crafting is done, any effects that have reached 100% will be made into gems that you can equip as normal. If anything made it to 200% during the crafting (indicated by the percent disappearing and being replaced with HEAT!), it will yield a gem one rank higher than the crystals you crafted with. If anything failed to reach 100%, it can be recovered in a cylinder for further use at the strength it reached during crafting. You can recover one incomplete effect for each level the cylinder gauge reached during crafting.
I've yet to find a really good one. I've never liked games where crafting is like random recipe making:
Mix:
?????
?????
?????
and
Herb
to get a new result!
No.
Mix:
?????
?????
?????
and
Herb
to get a new result!
No.
Well that is why people like unfortunately. They feel like they're accomplishing something with very little effort.
giancarlo123x
Banned
One and done.
agreed. holy shit.
pillowtalk
Member
I played MH1 on ps2 for 800 hours and I was only able to get 3 rathalos plates, making my fatalis set ugly and incomplete. Other people were able to get it with more frequency, so I'm guessing I was just extremely unlucky.
Weapons aren't that bad. Full armor sets though, holy shit.
This. So complex when you're looking to try and optimize everything, but I spent hours just doing that alone. I'm sure OP would have hated it.
Don't forget mega heat (300%) which gives you two gems. Lots of time trying to get the wanted stats on the crystals you're gonna combine as close to 99% as possible without going over to make cylinders, and trying to make as many of them as possible.