Poll: Do you like Crafting?

[veloper]

Stacking upgrades on equipment is fine, but collecting tons of materials first is just boring and having to train up a crafting skill by producing a lot of useless crap is just awful, mindnumbing work.

Very few games just reward playing the main game with useful components and let you invent interesting combinations with them. Most games and especially MMOs just give you work, so crafting generally sucks balls.

 

[Gray-Philosophy]

If done right, I do like crafting. It depends on the game and whether it fits the setting.

 

[CeeBod]

Crafting in WoW was something I liked - you could never (or almost never anyway!) make best in slot gear, but you could craft items that were good enough to only be replaced with a drop from a raid boss - a nice balance to make it useful but not essential or overpowered.

I also like the label it used to have (no idea if it still does) on crafted items showing who made it - it made me feel quite proud turning up for a Nefarian raid and seeing that so many in the raid were wearing Onyxia scale cloaks I'd crafted, using scales I'd skinned. That "crafter's pride" is one thing that most game crafting doesn't capture.

 

[G00N3R7883]

If its an RPG, FPS, 3rd person shooter/brawler ... no, I'd prefer to just be given a working item. It seems like unnecessary filler content designed to artificially extend a game's length by encouraging the player to spend ages finding dozens of scattered materials.

And in most games I've seen crafting, the stuff you get from shops or killing enemies is better, or at least good enough to help finish the game anyway. I tend to just ignore crafting most of the time.

Fortunately most games are sensible enough to not *force* the player to do it if they don't want to.

 

[freaper]

I like crafting, in theory. If I can play the game and at the same time improve my crafting skill of choice without having to grind for resources on the side I'm all for it, but otherwise I much prefer finding loot.

 

[Redryhno]

I prefer The Witcher 2 and 3's systems.

You have to go on globe trotting quests to find the recipes for best armour and weapons in the game, as well as finding master blacksmiths and armour smiths.

You still craft it, but it requires exploration nonetheless. Add to the fact that each Witcher armour has a small story behind it and you really do get an appreciation for value when you finally end up looking like a badass.

If I have to think of the worst possible execution of either system, it'd be Dragon Age Inquisition. There is no point to look for armour where with the right materials, you can just craft the best armour and weapons in the game. The worst part is that it's just min/maxing at that point and that it's effectively just the standard armour (visually speaking).

It is incredibly boring imo.

To be fair in Witcher2 however, to get all the armor and weapons, you had to either get lucky as hell with rare(ish) drops, or exploit the shopkeep refill mechanic. Also the monsters not respawning if you turned the contracts in. Which you needed to be able to level up and to have the materials needed for an alchemy playthrough(which was OP as all hell from what I'm remembering, and you're useless if you don't go all out on it)

OT:

I like crafting. To a point. But not the way most games do it. Deadrising, Skyrim(sorta), and Survival games in general? Sure, they're ok. But there's too many where that's the only way to get good equipment anymore, and it requires you to spend an exorbitant amount of time gathering resources to then spend an equally large amount of time getting your skills up to make "good" stuff.

Personally I'd like there to be more Witcher-like crafting systems, where you have to go and get the stuff and someone else will put it together for you, at least in RPG's where crafting more than basic stuff isn't feasible. Hell, even more games where you get some optional boss drop that you can bring back and have crafted into one of three choices or whatever that's really fucking good.

 

[Joccaren]

I like a bit of both. Having some legendary equipment that's possible to find, and is some of the strongest/most powerful in game - it is incredibly disappointing when you finish the massive fetch quest deal and get a sub-average sword or something as compensation.
However I think you should also be able to craft incredibly powerful items too... They just require very rare materials that can only be found through exploration. A chance to make your own legend with your equipment.
By and large I feel crafting should keep up with the gear you can find. Some things you may be able to craft to be more powerful, some you need to find to be more powerful. However finding things shouldn't grossly overpower crafting them, and crafting things shouldn't grossly overpower finding them. Having both be viable options would be great, and its kind of a shame more games don't do that.

 

[zerragonoss]

Well if you mean crafting where I get to make interesting decisions about what I am making and have an impact on the finished product, or have to decide whether constrained resources go to making say medical supplies or explosives than yes. Or at the very least where I get to turn make that sweet suit of dragon scale armor because I killed a dragon and took its skin than awesome.

If you mean that odd vendor shaped like an anvil where I give 2 pieces of metal and one of wood to get a sword instead of giving 3 pieces of gold like I would do for the vendor down the street not really. I don't have a problem with it it's just not crafting so much as making a slightly more tedious alternate currency.

 

[Valiance]

Why the fuck does Dead Space have a "Crafting Mechanic"?

For that matter, every other game that has a Crafting Mechanic...what the hell? What happened to the days where you'd delve deep into a dungeon, fight an optional boss, and HOLY SHIT! I JUST GOT THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON IN THE GAME!!!!!

Personally, I miss the good ol' days...the days where you had to earn the best gear in the game...not make it. What's the deal with all the crafting these days? "Oh sure, you could quest to get this awesome piece of armor...or you could craft this piece of armor that's 10 times better!"

Anyone else miss the days where you didn't craft the best gear in the game, but instead had to find/earn it?

Sounds like your actual problem is that crafting isn't balanced against weapons you can find in dungeons / questing / from bosses in the games you're playing.

In games where it's properly designed, there are similar / equal rewards for these different options / playstyles. I know that in most of the games I've played where crafted weapons/armor are the "best" armor, I most certainly "earned" it because to get the materials to perform the crafting, I had to run some of the hardest dungeons and fight some of the strongest enemies in the game just for the materials to build it.



Also, Dead Space has a crafting system because it's a survival-horror game and it kind of goes with the atmosphere. In a life-or-death situation, combining materials you find to create something that could help you survive most certainly makes sense. I do agree that many games are "stretching it" these days, but plenty of games would do well with a crafting system, even if it's just attaching a flashlight to your gun with some duct-tape.

 

[Silvanus]

It makes sense that a game with a focus on personalisation and role-playing would include as many options for how to advance as possible. I generally like the presence of crafting in an RPG, even if I don't end up using it much (like in Skyrim).

It just seemed out of place in Dead Space 3-- a method of incorporating micro-transactions.

 

[Drakmorg]

To be honest, not really.

The thing about crafting in games is that it will never properly evoke how making stuff in reality is actually rewarding. Seeing as how in reality, making stuff yourself is most rewarding when it's something creative and clever, and a thing you can call completely your own. Whereas in the land of video games it is literally completely impossible to use crafting systems for anything other than exactly what the developers could think for them. You wanna just tie something to another thing and see if that results in something cool? Too fucking bad, we didn't think of that, go do something else.

Also, purely to be nitpicky, when I'm playing a role-playing game, it's a bit immersion breaking to have my character, or even just NPC blacksmith I'm handing a sack of materials to, fart out full suits of plate mail and matching swords in the span of about 5 minutes. If that, even.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I do like crafting on say a Minecraft level, where shit translates directly in a logical fashion and more over you can apply what you discovered onto further crafting and possibly upgrading existing gear. That makes a very enticing system for me.
MMO crafting however I hate, just throwing billions of rare materials that come from rare monsters at rare intervals into a never ending pot... ya I see your fucking hustling scheme mate, you want that subscription going for 12 more months and that is why you made this horrid time burning grindy shit.

However even in the best of circumstance I understand some people just don't want to make the effort, so just as there are easy modes there need to be easy crafting modes where they give you the shit.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Gaming pre-crafting was boring as hell. Then we got crafting and things got fun. Now crafting is a central mechanic necessary to advance the game. Now it's boring.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I see it as a way of changing the "farming" mechanic since crafting require farming the materials while the alternative (let says in MMORPG) is just looting rare or powerful creatures.

 

[PhantomEcho]

Do I enjoy crafting? Yes. I love it.

Am I satisfied with how most games have implemented it thus far? No... not at all. When I play Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim, I'm not playing them to slog through the quests, kill all the dragons/gods/wildlife, then turn it all off and go to bed. I'm playing them as a character, a person living and interacting with the world insomuch as the game will allow me. An RPG, to me, is an opportunity to fully commit to the role-playing aspect of the genre. If that means the character rarely leaves town except for when hunting down new resources or leaving to meet new merchants and customers... so be it. Tedium bothers me not.

Crafting, while a major part of many of my characters through the years, has never been exceedingly satisfying. The best I've encountered, thus far, remains Alchemy in the Elder Scrolls series. It's one of the few areas that, to this day, still allows the player to experiment with ingredients and their interactions with one another. It's always been very fun, if ultimately more shallow than I would have liked. Ideally, there would be nearly limitless combinations of ingredients and reagents with which to brew my elixirs... with all kinds of permutations based upon the potency of the ingredients, skill of my character, and the quality of my lab equipment.

On a broader scale, I'm most excited about Fallout 4's crafting system for precisely this function. It seems Bethesda is finally giving players a crafting system that really feels like you're MAKING something. I choose the grip. I choose the stock. I choose the accessories of my weapon, based on what role I want it to perform. I put it all together, and it comes out a weapon I can truly feel like I designed myself. It still falls short of my ideal, whereby I could feasibly choose precisely how the model itself meshes together and functions... but that's just not where the tech for these games is.

Characters of mine who perform crafting roles wholly embrace them. My Nord blacksmith spends a lot of his time repetitively pounding on an anvil, churning out shipment after shipment of armor he can't manage to sell off at full price because his mercantile skill is low. I do it, sometimes for hours, not because it's the most entertaining aspect of the game but because I enjoy letting my mind slip into that place... the place where I can almost feel the burn of embers on my flesh as I work over the forge. The place where I can almost smell the herbs being mashed up in my mortar. I'm endlessly happy that these features are making it into the newer games, where previously they got dropped by transitional entries into various series based upon the sudden prominence of the 'Action RPG' and the so-called 'dumbing down' of the genre.

Crafting, when done right, can ADD immeasurably to a game whilst taking away little.

Unfortunately, by the time we get around to Skyrim, it's plain to see that they've expected crafting of equipment and materials to replace the very important balancing act that is The Risk/Reward Loot Dynamic of the RPG. They even went so far as to remove VITAL services rendered by NPCs in favor of 'pressing' the player into crafting skills. That's a ham-fisted error in judgment I hope games intent upon utilizing crafting mechanics consider for the future.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

I tend to dislike crafting systems unless it's a cornerstone of the game's design and implemented in a reasonably intuitive and non-intrusive way. I much prefer finding gear to making it myself. It's much more rewarding I find.

 

[happyninja42]

Depends on the game mostly. Some games have a fun crafting system, others don't. I like the spirit behind crafting, but the tedium of going around and getting all those really rare items can become a pain sometimes. Also, I find it annoying that in most MMO's, the crafting is almost pointless, as you will level past the gear relatively quickly. But in a game like Sheltered, it's really fun, as it has direct, important impact on your survivability.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I think it all depends on the game in question. By the end of Final Fantasy XIII, I was using the crafting system because I found it genuinely fun after hours of dull combat and linear hallways (with nice skyboxes). I do however recognize that it's really odd to use crafting to make the Ultimate Weapon even more powerful...which kinda undermines the Ultimate part of that weapon. Honestly, I wish there was more in the way of cosmetic customization. Yeah, this new armor set is neat but why can't I dye it purple?

 

[Zaltys]

Crafting is boring if every crafter can make the exact same things. Which is, unfortunately, the case in most games.

I suppose you could say that I want it to be more realistic. It should be like cooking: if you're making something for the first time (with unfamiliar ingredients), it probably won't turn out to be a masterpiece. No matter how good of a chef you are.