Hello all,
new to this game as I am I want to state that so far I do love what I see for the skills and the dynamics of the game. But for me I am striving to find an MMO where crafting doesn't just feel like a side job. I have found some MMO's that did a decent enough job but still felt like it was lacking when it comes to feeling rewarded for focusing on crafting. From what I have seen there is a decent amount of crafts and currently with the state of the game I am content. But I feel like this game has potential to turn crafting into something greater.
If you have ever read the novel turned manhua: Overgeared, it has some pretty cool concepts that I feel like this game could definitely grasp and utilize into greater specializing the crafting side of things. I did read somewhere that humans will have advantages over technology, something that the other races will not have, but I feel like all races could incorporate some types of crafting ideas. while a lot of current MMO's have trash loot that can be used for basic crafting, and you can farm bosses for their soul or whatever to turn into some item that sells for billions of currency, there seems to be a lack of middle ground crafting materials in most MMO's. As the title states, I am a wishful thinker, and honestly I want to list some ideas and scenarios that I would love to see in an MMO when it comes to the availability of crafting, and why someone like me who loves competitive play would greatly appreciate competitive crafting and specialized opportunities. Let me know what you all think of this down below, ill take criticism or your ideas on what should / should not be a thing when it comes to making crafting more viable and rewarding.
Crafting itself has always been a thing that every one can do. It has almost always been something in MMO's where you can find some leather, maybe some string and get yourself some starter gear. Maybe you can make a few bandages and whatnot and that is definitely a fine thing. I want to state that I do not in any way want to bar those who can do beginner crafts the opportunity to do so. I just want to feel more reward in crafting and the types of things I can craft when it comes to higher level crafting. I think the idea of having to find your skills by battling monsters is a fantastic idea! It is unique and it makes me excited for the combat side of this game, but what about a type of system like that for crafting? As a crafter I would personally love to go out into the world and try my best to find the rarest of crafting designs, so that I could make myself and my guild more powerful. Maybe its not just a crafting recipe, maybe it means that you have to farm 15 or whatever dropped swords from a certain type of mob, so that you can analyse it and gain knowledge on how to craft that type of weapon. This way each guild can have a few dedicated crafters whose main focus would be to strengthening the guild, and they can assist that person by giving trash loot weapons or armor that they find to the crafter so that they could learn the knowledge on how to craft it, and then make armor or weapons with a high rating but better design and perks. I know that I personally would love to play that role. In this case what I mean by perks of items that are learnt is maybe this:
...
"Weapon_crafted_by_Donner": [
{"name": 'Minotaur axe of foo'},
{"stats": 'base stats gained from player crafting (these are just generally rolled stats and whatnot gained by rarity obtained while crafting it)'},
{"inherent": 'weapons crafted using the knowledge gained by analyzing the Minotaurs weapons and characteristics gain the following: +5 to attack'}
] };
From this example of a weapon, the stats that are rolled on it are based on the skill of the crafter, but the reason you might craft this weapon over another one, is that the person you are crafting this item for wants that +5 to attack that inherently comes with the design learned from analyzing the weapons of the Minotaurs. Using these creatures as an example, it wouldn't be too hard to grind these guys out enough to gain knowledge of how their weapons work, but it would be something that would feel rewarding for crafters like me who would love to take time to grind out the recipe, and then barter with guild mates for collected materials in order make them items, get a little bit of gold from it, but also greatly improve my crafting skills. In the end if there is a hardcore guild who has a crafter in a system like this, no longer would items from mobs (the rare drops at least) just be seen as gold on the market that if they sell enough of, they can just go buy a mass produced sword, now it becomes an incentive to collaborate with the crafters within the guild. I think I have had too many times where I specialize my crafting in an MMO only to find out that the only really special thing I can do with that crafting, is just sell my stuff to the market where x amount of people have hundreds of the same item listed. I understand if it was a consumable item, but there needs to be another place that I could put my gear effort and gear into, and I personally would find it most rewarding if it goes to my guild to become stronger.
Another thing is the balance of effort put into crafting and specialized "life skills". I think there is something wrong with having to afk fish for hundreds of hours if not thousands to gain top ranks in the crafting world. I would like to see a balance between the time spent grinding, analyzing and producing items / consumables and the levels of your crafts. While it is hard to make skills for crafting for it to not be a simple press of a button and then craft away, I think what I like most about crafting is the chance to get the rare materials and need the skills to use these rare materials. Say that we killed a Minotaur and now have its horn. Say that the system I mentioned before is implemented and I have the ability to create weapons using their styles. Well while some games play with the notion that you have a chance to fail the craft and lose all of the materials, the novel I mentioned that I fell in love with had a particular system where rarity falls into play. If you are a lower level crafter, you can craft certain items, but the rarity produced and maybe any other beneficial affects comes from your skills withing your crafting ability. So maybe a low level crafter makes a shabby Minotaur great sword, while a master crafter can make a legendary Minotaur great sword, making it do more % damage per rarity increase, and maybe even making procs happen withing the master crafters skills tree. Lets say that the master crafter has a 5-10% chance to craft a legendary item every craft. And that he has a passive skill that makes it so if you craft a legendary item, it adds "shining" to the title and adds a modifier that increases damage by 20%. So maybe a master crafter has a chance at making that same weapon but looks like this:
...
"Weapon_crafted_by_Donner": [
{"name": 'Legendary Shining Minotaur axe of foo'},
{"stats": 'base stats gained from player crafting (these are just generally rolled stats and whatnot gained by rarity obtained while crafting it)'},
{"crafting": [
{'shining = True'},
{'legendary = True'}
],
{"inherent": 'weapons crafted using the knowledge gained by analyzing the Minotaurs weapons and characteristics gain the following: +5 to attack'}
] };
The benefit of having a system like this is giving the master crafter satisfaction for their hard work, and a chance to make a name for themselves. This would also eliminate the discrepancy between a "trash tier craft" and a "god tier craft". What I mean by this is that when you play a lot of MMO's you are plagued with every crafter making the same overpowered weapon and filling up the marketplace with it. Nobody would touch a crafting recipe that you get from a low level, because its stats can't go any higher so it doesn't matter. But with this system you could potentially eliminate that flooding of the market with the same item, and bring back the variation and play styles into peoples game. Maybe the rouge wants a knife made by analyzing the Kuo-toa (fish people) that allows him to move faster in rivers so that he can preform better flanks in a certain area where his guild is located at. But he needs a master crafter to make one for him so he can keep his dps up compared to his other weapons that he got from higher levels. Or maybe the mage needs some boots with a master crafters proc on it, its a lower level recipe so the materials are easy to gather and in exchange for your services, they brought enough materials to make 30 of the certain boots, and some gold for the finishes product. What would drive the mage to do something like this? maybe the boots had an inherent effect that comes from crating from that specific mob. Like shadow mages of (place) inherent effect is to make effects last 15% longer (per item equipped). But they want the master crafter to make it because he grinded out a passive skill from some rare mobs that allow him to enchant at least epic rated boots with "turn invisible for 1 second on hit and increase movement speed by 50% (30 second cooldown)". With the combined set all the sudden it turns to almost 2 seconds and if this mage is a combat mage in PvP 2 seconds on invisibility and 50% move speed can save their life.
Plase remember that these are just ideas that I would absolutely love to see in an MMO. Even if none of this is implemented, that wont stop me from playing this game, as I think it already has some amazing concepts. I am a wishful thinker but I would like to know what all of you think about this. As someone who loves crafting in a game, this would definitely be something I would enjoy and if the devs do decide to take any of my ideas and utilize them I would be more than happy to play test and give feedback.
He is my friend that I got to join the community!