TF2 has a crafting system where you get random drops as rewards for being in combat and playing the game how you want to. If you have items you don't want then you just turn them into scrap metal which then you turn into refined metal to make something you do want. They don't make it easy either, it is hard, takes a long time and you only ever have a chance of making an item you want. It's great because it keeps everything quite rare unless you want to purchase it on the store. What I also like is lots of items on the store cost quite a bit of money, so again this keeps lots of items to be quite rare. You can trade any item you want, there is no stupid bound on equip BS that MMOs do today.

The problem I have with crafting in MMOs is they always want you to do boring resource gathering. I don't get why they don't just have a system like TF2 where you turn your loot drops into materials that can let you craft the stuff you want. Most the time crafting is useless like in SWTOR no one ever buys armour or weapons because looted or PVP gear is better. Why don't they make crafted gear unique or allow you to craft items you can get in the game by scraping rewards you got that you don't want? Why do they always put such harsh restrictions on trading with bind on equip items? None of these mechanics are fun.

Instead of fixing crafting and making it fun like TF2, they just nerf it to make it useless so it doesn't become OP and impact the game so it requires you to have to craft. Then why have it? Right now every crafting profession in SWTOR is useless but Biochem and even that they nerfed and are giving another nerf and will do till that is useless. So why even have crafting in the game? None of the other crafting professions can make anything unique or do anything fun. Why didn't they add image designing or dancing professions? Why can't Cybertech make unique vehicles and trade them? Why isn't there a creature handler to make mounts? It just seems like as MMOs go forward they seem to want to take crafting out.

TF2 has actually managed to make crafting run, a challenge, accessible to all and everyone actually does it. It's such a success that so few MMOs out there have ever achieved because developers treat it as a mechanic that makes the adventure part of the game unfun. 

The other thing Valve have managed to do with TF2 is make gear with stats and yet balance it so it doesn't make your character any more powerful. Gear in TF2 just gives you a different ability but takes one away so it just allows for different play styles. Yet in MMOs gear makes you more powerful and again Bioware said their game wouldn't be so gear dependant  and yet it is more so than what WoW is today. Instead of making gear fun like in TF2 they've just made an army of clones MMO where you need certain gear to do certain things.

I think developers should look towards how TF2 does things because it makes crafting and gearing your character way more fun than any MMO out there. You can actually look unique too which rarely happens in an MMO. 

They'd have to do some pretty heavy modification to make that work and still be interesting.  As it stands, ToR crafting is far more interesting to me (and all they have to do is fix normal items sucking so that item modifications don't outstrip them.)

Honestly throughout leveling item modifications are extremely potent, and only Armscrafting has seemed like a weak tradeskill to me (because it makes the fewest item mod types and the most regular items.)  But even with that, I get the highest quality barrel at any given level so it certainly doesn't feel useless.

That is the thing,

I will craft in TF2, Minecraft, Terraria, Dark Cloud 2 etc., but will not touch crafting in MMOs.

The reason for me is that crafting in MMOs unlike other games is turned into a seperate but also completely dull mechanic rather than something I can do while doing other fun things.  And crafting in MMOs is mostly for leveling purposes or profit but not making things you can personally use.

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

That is the thing,

I will craft in TF2, Minecraft, Terraria, Dark Cloud 2 etc., but will not touch crafting in MMOs.

The reason for me is that crafting in MMOs unlike other games is turned into a seperate but also completely dull mechanic rather than something I can do while doing other fun things.  And crafting in MMOs is mostly for leveling purposes or profit but not making things you can personally use.

I guess you didn't try ToR?  Unlike the "stand in front of forge" crafting of typical games, you basically schedule your companions to do it for you while you continue playing the game.

It's a fantastic system I hope more games explore, whether or not gamers dig the rest of ToR's gameplay.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

That is the thing,

I will craft in TF2, Minecraft, Terraria, Dark Cloud 2 etc., but will not touch crafting in MMOs.

The reason for me is that crafting in MMOs unlike other games is turned into a seperate but also completely dull mechanic rather than something I can do while doing other fun things.  And crafting in MMOs is mostly for leveling purposes or profit but not making things you can personally use.

I guess you didn't try ToR?  Unlike the "stand in front of forge" crafting of typical games, you basically schedule your companions to do it for you while you continue playing the game.

It's a fantastic system I hope more games explore, whether or not gamers dig the rest of ToR's gameplay.

Its not amazing. Its fucking stupid. Having all the crafting done by automation defeats the purpose of even having a crafting system in the first place.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

That is the thing,

I will craft in TF2, Minecraft, Terraria, Dark Cloud 2 etc., but will not touch crafting in MMOs.

The reason for me is that crafting in MMOs unlike other games is turned into a seperate but also completely dull mechanic rather than something I can do while doing other fun things.  And crafting in MMOs is mostly for leveling purposes or profit but not making things you can personally use.

I guess you didn't try ToR?  Unlike the "stand in front of forge" crafting of typical games, you basically schedule your companions to do it for you while you continue playing the game.

It's a fantastic system I hope more games explore, whether or not gamers dig the rest of ToR's gameplay.

Oh I tried it,

I like how it does not waste your time with non gameplay, but didn't find the crafts all that useful, other than biochem.

i seldomly saw a useful crafting system in a MMO with no player-driven economy.

in a theme-park, devs try to micromanage everything. they think they have to control exactly what you wear if you start quest x. you should be strong enough, so you got all you need in the previous quests via drops and rewards. and you should not be overpowered, (even if twinking would be your fault) so they implement items which are soulbound and have minimumlevel to wear and such.

however, a 1st step would be, that no quest or raid drop would be better than crafted items. of course you can salvage those drops to get some rare material and then craft an uber item, but even not the hardest bossmob on the planet would drop something better than the crafted stuff. that would be a good start, even if it could not replace the imersion, versatility and complexity of a player driven economy. 

on the other hand, i like this crafting via companions in SWTOR. i never saw how it would make sense to play a minigame in front of a forge like in vanguard or EQ2. but crafted items in SWTOR are not superior to raid items. thats the problem. also there is no real trade & logistics like in a good player driven economy, due to global inventory. there is just an auction-house. but thats no trade, thats brokerage; something fully different.

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

That is the thing,

I will craft in TF2, Minecraft, Terraria, Dark Cloud 2 etc., but will not touch crafting in MMOs.

The reason for me is that crafting in MMOs unlike other games is turned into a seperate but also completely dull mechanic rather than something I can do while doing other fun things.  And crafting in MMOs is mostly for leveling purposes or profit but not making things you can personally use.

I guess you didn't try ToR?  Unlike the "stand in front of forge" crafting of typical games, you basically schedule your companions to do it for you while you continue playing the game.

It's a fantastic system I hope more games explore, whether or not gamers dig the rest of ToR's gameplay.

Oh I tried it,

I like how it does not waste your time with non gameplay, but didn't find the crafts all that useful, other than biochem.

SWTOR does the same old shit it just give you an assembly line to do it.

I can see how the added complexity of making an assembly line run smoothly may appeal to some people.

However its still shit since its the same old shit.  In fact it worse than alot of crafing systems since you have to run grind instances in the higher levels and your assembly line comes to a crashing halt.

Originally posted by Cuathon

Its not amazing. Its fucking stupid. Having all the crafting done by automation defeats the purpose of even having a crafting system in the first place.

So either you're in the "games should waste your time excessively" camp or the "crafting should always be the #1 activity in a game; no exceptions" camp?

When it comes to games with crafting as a light layer on top of the core gameplay, it's exactly the right implementation because it doesn't waste players' time.

Heck, even in games where crafting is a primary activity I want these same sort of light interactions kicking off scheduled timers (ATITD and H&H both use this method.)

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

Oh I tried it,

I like how it does not waste your time with non gameplay, but didn't find the crafts all that useful, other than biochem.

Best-in-slot item modifications all while leveling didn't feel useful?  Interesting.

---

Originally posted by gestalt11
In fact it worse than alot of crafing systems since you have to run grind instances in the higher levels and your assembly line comes to a crashing halt.

---

How does running flashpoints or operations impede on your assembly line? I haven't had that issue at all.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

Oh I tried it,

I like how it does not waste your time with non gameplay, but didn't find the crafts all that useful, other than biochem.

Best-in-slot item modifications all while leveling didn't feel useful?  Interesting.

I don't know maybe it is how I level but crafted gear never seemed to keep up with dropped/quest/comendation gear, so I always ended up with gear I can't use from crafting.

Originally posted by Cactus-Man

I don't know maybe it is how I level but crafted gear never seemed to keep up with dropped/quest/comendation gear, so I always ended up with gear I can't use from crafting.

For normal items that was probably the case (although typically the blues/purples would outmatch quest stuff), but for item mods?  As long as you pursued a set of orange gear, every tradeskill (except biochem of course) provided best-in-slot items for all your gear.

Of course the actual number of best-in-slot slots varied from 9* (cybertech with only 3 orange armor pieces) to 2 (two armstech barrels; you + your companion), so some craft skills are definitely weaker than others.

*Doing the math it looks like I would've capped out at around 28 best-in-slot items with Cybertech if I'd bought myself a full set of orange gear from the AH for myself and my companion.  With 3 or 4 of those items being earpieces (crafted earpieces frequently were better than quest earpieces.)

Guild Wars 2 is going to have something similar to Minecraft.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/08/21/guild-wars-2s-crafting-system-detailed-and-demonstrated/

I'm looking forwards to giving this a go.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Cuathon

Its not amazing. Its fucking stupid. Having all the crafting done by automation defeats the purpose of even having a crafting system in the first place.

So either you're in the "games should waste your time excessively" camp or the "crafting should always be the #1 activity in a game; no exceptions" camp?

When it comes to games with crafting as a light layer on top of the core gameplay, it's exactly the right implementation because it doesn't waste players' time.

Heck, even in games where crafting is a primary activity I want these same sort of light interactions kicking off scheduled timers (ATITD and H&H both use this method.)

ATITD has extensive time intensive gathering as well as some time intensive processing and minigames.

The SWTOR crafting system is for people who don't really like crafting. Crafting is only a waste of time if you don't like crafting.

Originally posted by Cuathon

ATITD has extensive time intensive gathering as well as some time intensive processing and minigames.

The SWTOR crafting system is for people who don't really like crafting. Crafting is only a waste of time if you don't like crafting.

TOR made the right decisions in what game elements they focused on (combat/conversations) and wisely created a light but innovative crafting system which compliments their focus rather than detracts from it.

ATITD's crafting involves constantly bumping back and forth between several processes which individually take time, but the player isn't locked into very many of them (if any) and instead each decision kicks off a process which then (often) frees the player to make the next decision.  Much like how crafting decisions in ToR are focused on the decision and not the time-wasting.

You don't have to like TOR's crafting but honestly if you can't at least see why it's a smart design decision you really have no business trying to design a game.

Originally posted by Cuathon

I guess you didn't try ToR?  Unlike the "stand in front of forge" crafting of typical games, you basically schedule your companions to do it for you while you continue playing the game.

It's a fantastic system I hope more games explore, whether or not gamers dig the rest of ToR's gameplay.

Its not amazing. Its fucking stupid. Having all the crafting done by automation defeats the purpose of even having a crafting system in the first place.

No. It is ingeneous. They know their core audience want combat and SW stuff .. but they need crafting to complete the set of mmo "features". So it is great. A crafting system that does hinder their core gameplay and gives a little variety when needed.

THAT is the purpose. Do you think every system in a game needs to be the core and focus of the gameplay?

umm. What game is "TF2"????

Personally I think Bioware had something when they made "Neverwinter nights" 11 years ago, while it´s system would nned some polishing up it was better than TORs is and had a lot of potential.

Among other things could you remake an item so it got a different skin and colors. The items consisted of 3 different skins you mixed together.

First you made basic crafting items from the mats that you later added together to create what you wanted. After that someone could add magical effects to it. It had plenty of different materials to make things with and a lot of customization.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Cuathon

ATITD has extensive time intensive gathering as well as some time intensive processing and minigames.

The SWTOR crafting system is for people who don't really like crafting. Crafting is only a waste of time if you don't like crafting.

TOR made the right decisions in what game elements they focused on (combat/conversations) and wisely created a light but innovative crafting system which compliments their focus rather than detracts from it.

ATITD's crafting involves constantly bumping back and forth between several processes which individually take time, but the player isn't locked into very many of them (if any) and instead each decision kicks off a process which then (often) frees the player to make the next decision.  Much like how crafting decisions in ToR are focused on the decision and not the time-wasting.

You don't have to like TOR's crafting but honestly if you can't at least see why it's a smart design decision you really have no business trying to design a game.

I know why they did it that way. I told you already. Its crafting for people who hate crafting.

I'm not sure if you are familiar with this concept:

Someone can be in love with the idea of an activity but, they do not like the actual activity.

Learning to make games is a great example. Especially MMORPGs. Do you know how many highschoolers and even college kids are all like, ooh I wanna make an MMO. And then when they are told what they need to do they are like, fuck that. The more classical example would be learning a language. But making an MMO is learning a new language, and one with strict syntax, actually multiple langauges but w/e, and then writing a full length novel in that language.

Similarly, a casual gamer may say, I want to craft a sword, but when they are given a game with even a semi relialistic sword crafting system they shit a brick. They love the idea of making swords, they don't love making swords.

Perhaps saying that it is for people who hate crafting is a bit of hyperbole. Its for people who like the idea of crafting but not its execution. But then not only do they not want to do a realistic sword making simulation, they don't want to do anything remotely resembling actually making a sword. In fact the more abstract the better. Indeed the only step beyond ToR's "crafting" that we could take is to just have a button marked sword, that when clicked makes a sword of stats relative to your current combat level.

Frankly I wouldn't be shocked if we get there in the near future.