Your Dream Crafting System

[Kaemik]

((I realize these ideas will likely never happen, still a fun discussion))

This may be a bit off-topic but now that I've had two hours to sleep over it. It's kind of a problem in general with all extraction and crafting in MO. It's all just a GUI that you put resources in, maybe adjust some options and parameters and then you wait for a timer to do it for you. What if you had an active way to influence the outcome? Improve quality or maybe even just adjust a few parameters as the process goes. Over the years people have even pointed out a crafting system similar to the sword crafting in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic:

Actively participations makes the process less mundane and less macroable while distinguishing people that know what they are doing from those that only have the skill and they can also dampen the difference between high and not as high skills in a potential longer progression system. Make it so you don't have to do it actively but there are benefits to it, even if it's just altering some things about the product and not necessarily making it much better.

I've actually said in other games multiple times before, for me the holy grail of a crafting system would be a hybrid of Wurm Online, Mortal Online, and Dark Messiah.

Wurm Online in that Wurm takes work. Because of Wurm's improvement system, making a 50 quality sword on a good crafter takes mere minutes. The same crafter would take tens of minutes to make a 60 or 70 quality sword. An hour or so for an 80 quality. Hours for a 90. And days for a 99 (Max) quality sword.

Mortal Online however is a far more interesting in terms of materials. In WO there were only a few materials and each item had a single resource that determined it's "type" / final properties. For instance using an iron, steel, or silver blade would make an iron steel or silver sword but the handle wood wouldn't matter at all. Mortal Online is FAR better in this regard. Obviously no explanation of MO crafting is needed on these boards.

Dark Messiah comes in, in that the Wurm improvement process was essentially smashing hotkeys. As you can see in the video you posted, the DM system is much more involved and engaging.

As to how would this effect game balance? Positively IMO. Not everyone would really enjoy crafting but that's fine. Balancing a crafting around what non-crafters want is like balancing PvP around what non-PvPers want. And if you find a quick timer and then done system to be engaging as a "crafter" you aren't a crafter. You're a glorified gatherer. So with that out of the way:

"We need to sit there for hours to make each sword"? No. You sure as heck don't. I imagine if the Wurm system were implemented in MO2 most people who just get 50-70 QL gear for general usage and 80+ as siege gear or as a massive status symbol. That's part of the point of the system. There will be as much volume of gear as the market demands, because low level crafters will get their skill up by meeting the demand for dozens of 50 QL bows, swords, etc.

 

[Jackdstripper]

Dude, if you don’t get rl blistered fingers crafting in your game, you are not a real crafter.
That’s right, I can harden your hard core harder any day.

seriously though, crafting isn’t the focus of this game. It’s just one of the actives like gathering, taming, fishing...this is not a rl crafting simulator.

 

[Kaemik]

It's not THEE focus but it should be a major focus. If it wasn't for crafting and economy in this game, I'd just play Conqueror's Blade instead. Things like crafting are what breath life into an MMO world.

 

[Grasthard]

really like the suggestions!

indeed, the optimal crafting system would involve the possibility to increase the quality of the weapon by spending more time on it (like wurm online), and not just the material. also, multiple steps to craft each piece of a weapon/armor (like DMoMM, potentially with some small active actions in the process). this would make crafting more engaging and dynamic.

as of now, extracting and refining metals is much more engaging, as you need to move around towns, arrange material logistics, use different equipments at each step etc.

however, realistically, I don't see the system changing any time soon. hasn't changed in MO1 all these years.
and such a system would require a lot of rebalancing

 

[Bloodterst]

The quality system in wurm made ppl affraid to lose gear .
If u think ppl with ogh would be careful about losing it, imagine 90QL ogh?
Wurm took so much time you had to play 10hours a day to stay relevant...
Ofc i still liked the game and ran BLE for 3years or so..

Pros of QL like in wurm:
Crafting was more rewarding and was perfect for downtime when there wasnt pvp.
It gave gear more value and scoring high QL gear with perfect enchants was an "oh shit look at all this loot moment" that MO can only dream off.

Cons:
Ppl would loot a perfect sword and instead of using it sell it for 100 USD cuz too good to use
Ppl would not take fights cuz who wants to lose or risk good gear (compared to ease of gear in MO where u can just regear)
Time it takes for normal ppl to reach such QL (it becomes standard and ur fucked if u dont have it)
Gear over skill (probably the biggest con)

 

[Kaemik]

Definitely, those cons are adjustable. Gear over skill most of all. You exponentially increase improvement effort while decreasing power gain around the gear quality you want average to be.

I'd also add that Wurm had a lot of things going against it in terms of discouraging fighting. You could get on fairly well with 90% of your time spent inside your own settlement once you had enough things inside and settlements were not easy to bust into if build well. I feel like that had a lot more to do with the general lack of fights than fear of losing gear. You could always put your best stuff in storage and throw on a cheap set to go PvPing.

Super overpowered skills like Shield of the Gone I think discouraged PvP a lot more for people who didn't have them, than people rolling around in better gear. Also, the fact that combat required very little player skill made gear and character skills mean a lot more. Even the same level of gear disparity here would feel less pronounced with so much more opportunity to outplay opponents.

I don't think the system would discourage PvP at all if curved right. It would just make crafting an actual profession as opposed to glorified gatherers like they are in practically every game but Wurm.

 

[Grasthard]

The quality system in wurm made ppl affraid to lose gear .
If u think ppl with ogh would be careful about losing it, imagine 90QL ogh?
Wurm took so much time you had to play 10hours a day to stay relevant...
Ofc i still liked the game and ran BLE for 3years or so..

Pros of QL like in wurm:
Crafting was more rewarding and was perfect for downtime when there wasnt pvp.
It gave gear more value and scoring high QL gear with perfect enchants was an "oh shit look at all this loot moment" that MO can only dream off.

Cons:
Ppl would loot a perfect sword and instead of using it sell it for 100 USD cuz too good to use
Ppl would not take fights cuz who wants to lose or risk good gear (compared to ease of gear in MO where u can just regear)
Time it takes for normal ppl to reach such QL (it becomes standard and ur fucked if u dont have it)
Gear over skill (probably the biggest con)

well each system can be tweaked down not to take up too much time. in fact, in MO, materials themselves carry a "time-investment" in the form of extraction times. 1000 cronite can very well take around many hours to make.

however would be nice to have the ability to add something "extra" to weapons/amors after you are maxed out in the skills.

while this would apply only to a late-life server, would be nice to have high-rarity, high-end material, super expensive gear worth hundreds of gold, even just as a status symbol.

maxed out gear crafting is pretty linear and boring: click window, add mats, press button.

 

[Kaemik]

Right. It's not a crafting system. It's a gathering system. Once you have the mats 99% of the work is done. When I was a traveling carpenter on the fresh Wurm servers I was not even capable of producing logs at the quality needed to do my job. I had different suppliers for most of the materials I used. People paid me for my skill as a carpenter and it paid multiple times the value of the materials I used for most jobs. My work took time and that's why I was constantly swamped with more jobs than I could fill. Because I was good at what I did and it took time to meet all the demand for my services.

Wurm is the only MMO I've played with a crafting system worthy of the name "crafting system" IMO. Mortal is perhaps 2nd best, but it's off by miles from being a true crafting system still IMO.

 

[Grasthard]

Right. It's not a crafting system. It's a gathering system. Once you have the mats 99% of the work is done. When I was a traveling carpenter on the fresh Wurm servers I was not even capable of producing logs at the quality needed to do my job. I had different suppliers for most of the materials I used. People paid me for my skill as a carpenter and it paid multiple times the value of the materials I used for most jobs. My work took time and that's why I was constantly swamped with more jobs than I could fill. Because I was good at what I did and it took time to meet all the demand for my services.

Wurm is the only MMO I've played with a crafting system worthy of the name "crafting system" IMO. Mortal is perhaps 2nd best, but it's off by miles from being a true crafting system still IMO.

one thing that might slighly fix this in MO2 is that with extra profession skill points, a single character might be able to both extract resources and craft gear, making the whole process more streamlined and interactive.

in MO1 all my crafter characters have probably the lowest play time: log in next to the bench, press a couple of buttons, mail, log out.

 

[Magestica]

Perhaps alchemy could fit into this .. coat weapons with potions for greater stats but make the stats degrade over time, 24hrs potion effect runs out. Recipes drop and maybe are certain number productions - say 100 specific potions per recipe saleable of course, but encouraging harvesting. Rare spawns might drop rare recipes. Obviously food fits into stat increases so in effect mastering food does lead to 'better weapons', if im not mistaken that is.