Limited uses for recipes
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There have been multiple discussions on the topic of the recipes.
Currently, they can drop from any creature of challenge rating 4 or more and once used they teach to a player how to craft that item.As we pretty much all agree, this system cannot last like this. Before late, everyone will know all recipes and they will cease having any value. The same happened in other games which had this same exact system, and there is no reason to believe in a differen outcome.
Now, there are many ways to change this, and many players have different ideas on how to do it. One of the ideas presented is to have the recipes limited in uses. So for example with a recipe you can craft that item 10 times and then you need to find the recipe again. Since according to the last AMA, this solution is under evaluation by devs, I would like to open a discussion on it.
So, let's try to list the good and bad of this solution:
The Good:
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Gives a long term use for the recipes, the market for those cannot "Saturate" if you keep needing more.
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Since they are dropped completely at random, they create an interesting economic feedback system. The amount of recipes for each item will be grossly the same, but some recipes will be more requested than others, giving more value to those. You can't specifically grind for the recipe you want. This means that items will increase in price based on how popular the builds that use them are, rewarding those players who come out with innovative builds.
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Rewards specialising in a few crafts, which is something requested by players. While there is no hard coded limit to your masteries, if the act of crafting itself has a cost associated, then you have to decide which ones to pursue. You can't simply offer to "Craft for free Xyz, Your mats" and advance in masteries.
The Bad
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You are never done with recipes. As a crafter you will have to continously get new ones. They are no longer an "unlock" but just another material.
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It doesn't really make sense to forget a recipe because you actually practiced doing it.
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It is counter intuitive. New players may get their hands burned in the process.
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You have to carefully balance the drop rates of recipes. Too many and they are useless, too few and we go back to Jurassic Wars meta.
My opinion:
I like the limited use approach.
I think that the mistake was naming them "Recipes". It carries no sense to have a recipe drop from a Mammoth and there is no reason why you should forget a Recipe.
My idea would be to rename recipes to "Spark of Knowledge" or something like that. Generated and spread around by the God of Knowledge that watches over Syndesia. This way it makes sense that you can find them literally anywhere and that they are not permanent.Also, since they are generated by the God of Knowledge, it makes sense that those under his favour (neutral aligned players) will have an increased chance to find them. Since recipes can be found no matter what you hunt, it gives players a good reason to want to go around in Neutral alignment, solving one of the current issues on Syndesia.
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I'm in 100% agreement with everything you mentioned.
Would also be cool if specific monsters drop specific recipes as well.
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- I agree with the limited uses for recipes. If they are limited uses only, then the drop rates should be increased for sure.
- I agree with recipes dropping randomly from high combat rating creatures. Otherwise, if mage creatures drop mage recipes or melee creatures melee recipes, they would be much easier to camp and it would distort the balance.
- I agree with the increased recipe drop rate for Neutrals. In fact, I would propose something which takes it one step further: make recipe drops only for Neutral players. This might be harsh for Good and Evil players, but I believe Syndesia is in dire need for incentives to play Neutral alignment.
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My personal view is that full gear crafting should be available to everyone, constantly. Perhaps only certain town crafting benches allow certain crafts. This visually gives people something to work towards and acts as a carrot on a stick. It would also give certain towns a uniqueness.
However........resources for the better gear is increasingly harder to get. For example:
(Easy accessibility) Hide Armour - 10x leather, 5x linen weave
(Average accessibility) Leather Armour - 20x leather, 10x linen weave, 5x dire wolf hide, 1x fox tail
(Hard accessibility) Assassin Leather - 50x leather, 20x linen weave, 10x dire wolf hide, 5x fox tails, 1x dragon fang
(Extremely hard accessibility) Shadow Armour - 100x leather, 50x linen weave, 20x dire wolf hide, 5x fox tails, 1x shadow wax, 1x shadow dragon scaleetc etc
Making the best gear harder and harder to get/farm the materials.
This way everyone can make the gear, but really you need to either go out and get the materials yourself, or expect to spend a lot of money on the market purchasing them.
(The market should also take a % cut of payments to act as a gradual gold sink - which would help with inflation)This also encourages grouping up to farm materials, which is healthy for the game.
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First, I am shocked that in 2022 I see a crafting system where recipes drops randomly from all kind of animals and mobs in a sandbox MMORPG video game. That being said let's go deeper too the system itself.
The problem is fundamental why a bandaid to make recipes last only X amount of times is now under evaluation. The whole idea that e.g. a wolf can drop a recipe of two-handed sword makes zero sense, and like the part that once learned things will be just forgotten later...
Moreover, players who focus on professions usually wants also to progress via those activities, which is quite common in sandbox MMORPGs. Therefore, it would be only reasonable if crafters could unlock new recipes via crafting. In this can be combined research of gathered resources or already crafted items. Getting recipes (or parts of them) from enemies can also make sense, for example, some humanoids could drop certain pieces.
Even in theory everyone could craft everything, that does not mean this will actually happen. Some players won't do any crafting and some will do everything they can and then we have all kind of possible variations between these two extremes. Additionally, the recipe progressions does not need to be easy task either and it could take some time, basically things would be behind timewall. Like we have seen that the grind is in practice already everywhere, even someone could call it more knowledgable.
If this new bandage (limited recipes) will be implemented, it will create another everlasting grind on top of the resources... yay! How fun is that? Understandbly it is good for the game economy pov but not very interesting activity from players, especially from crafters pov.
And to those who thinks that why should we care if it makes sense or not that a wolfie can teach a player how to craft a sword... Then I would like to suggest that gathering flowers and vegetables teaches us combat skills.
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Well... you actually get better at combat by picking daisies since they reward KP...
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Limited use is fine, but 10 uses is too few, you would need to increase drop chance; when drop chance stays as current, I guess we should talk about 30+ uses...
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I'm for 10 uses and increased drop rates.
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I still think that crafters should beable to work for higher level rather than find a higher level.
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You work to make them better already, with the mastery system.
Potentially, if we want to keep the feeling of discovering through pratice, one could be granted some limited uses of the tier 2 craft when he 4/4 the primitive version for the first time (account wide).
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@Tuoni This!
I love most of FO, but the one thing that just doesn't jive with the feel of what FO is in my book is the whole Recipe thing.
Recipes tied to crafting I can get behind, with maybe some parts of recipes found on humanoids who could use them themselves, or found in chests for instance.
I also think @Kazzier has the right of it with progressively harder recipes to fulfill instead of dropped recipes.
This way, someone could viably play the game as a Crafter only if they wanted...start the game just unlocking some basics as they gather their materials, and then focusing on crafting and buying the mats they need later.
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I actually thought that they just threw the recipes into the game so that people would have something to do and grind, as place holder... But apparently they are serious with this.
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@GamerSeuss I think that combining current mastery progression and @Kazzier 's recipe unlock could be good base for a crafting system.
For example, players need first to maximise the mastery for a specific gear piece path to unlock a new recipe node. After that the recipe node needs to be activated like Kazzier suggested. Some recipes can even include recipe pieces from approriate humanoids if wanted. Very simple and crafting related at least.
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Or have the dropped recipes reduce the cost of crafting the item for X uses.
-like removing the top tier drop component requirement-
Thus for a short while you get a discount on making the item.At the moment even if you have the recipe you still are looking at 30+ hrs of farming to get the rare mats needed, as such currently the recipe is of a lesser burden (and just random) compared to the main burden of getting the mats for the item.
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If recipes are going to be limited use, then the recipes should be available in the cash shop.
How is a player going to play this game if they can only play one or two hours a day?
How is a person going to play if they are solo players?
Even if you are in a guild, you can only play with a group if your guild mates and friends are online and at the right time and place.
Or is the dev going to tell all casual players that they shouldn't play this game?
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Recipes in the cash shop is a big no. I think we all agree on that.
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Recipes having limited uses makes it actually easier for solo players. It increases the accessibility to crafting. It comes with an increase in the drop rates, and many solo players will have no reason to ever build more than 10 slayer helmets, so a permanent recipe or a limited recipe for them is almost the same. By the time they need a new one, they will surely have the economic resources for it.
@OlivePit
the economy of those items is based around requiring those uncommon materials, I wouldn't touch that part.The game already works like that.
Easy - Primitive
Average - Tier 1
Hard - Tier 2
Extremely Hard - Tier 3People are already grouping up to farm the materials for their armors.
The recipe system is something that is put on top of all this. It is another requirement that you have to fulfill (or purchase) in order to craft that item, and most importantly it is a resource that cannot be directly farmed.
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One issue will be that players will face situations that they are unable to craft what they want or need because there is no recipe available. Thanks to the random system they cannot farm those reasonable way either. This is of course bad news for players who have specialized to a certain crafting path (or few of them) but misses the recipes. I am sure that in practice this kind of system starts to irritate people very fast because the current system without craft limits already divides opinions. From UX perspective we are talking about anti-fun system.
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This post is deleted!
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In order to answer, I'd say one first has to ask for the design pillars the developers had previously announced for Fractured and if they are still intended. Then one would have to check if the proposed solution is in line with the intention.
As far as I recall in the first few statements by Prometheus, the basic gist was 'getting competitive within less than a dozen hours of playtime', 'avoiding grind, preferring and promoting exploration'.
Am I recalling this wrong and/or is this no longer the case?
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This has more to do with the actual difference between a t1 and a t3, than how easy it is to craft a t3.
