Designing the perfect crafting system for MMORPGs

[@devilofether6185]

I think an overlooked aspect of crafting is personalization and specialization; it is one thing to find a ready-to-order breastplate; it is another thing to be able to choose which materials it is made out of, how it looks, and what it is built to do; My perfect crafting system would include the ability to personalize and specialize. it is not exactly a crafting system in the traditional sense, but character builds in RPGs like Elden ring and especially Armored core have many systems that allow for a lot of player expression. Armored core is specifically about crafting the right tool for the job. There is no perfect mech, you are encouraged to make tough choices on which aspects of your mech to specialize, because you don't have the weight, or energy budget to make the best possible machine. As a bonus; the price of "failing" your crafting attempt, is having an un-optimal build for the job, making the mission much harder. losing is fun if it teaches you how you could improve your build

[@sh1nt0ni]

i mean even for weapons: it shouldnt be that difficult for a AAA company to implement some built in gear creating tool so we can design new weapons and armors with some basic physical calculations for weight, size etc. durability, effectiveness, sharpness are decided by the mats used and the crafting skill lvl

[@saltythegeek]

In my dream game, I would have molds. Those molds could be used to make the same item, despite material. Ingot molds could make gold bars just as easily as it could make Iron. The leather pattern in your leather crafting pouch could make the same jacket from 30 squirrel hides or two of the same jacket from a bear hide. The material is the special sauce. If you make a gemmed hilt from oak and malachite, you get the oak and malachite properties. If you do with pine, you get the pine properties.

[@ethangnasher3848]

Gotta agree on that, I'd like the ability to craft a similar looking weapon/armor but made from something different, with different properties too, maybe. That way you still have the cosmetic looks and the whole stat bonuses in one go.

[@baldchessman]

the Minecraft mod Tinker's Construct does a very similar thing

[@realdragon]

In my dream game crafting would have some minigame, something like flashgame JackSmith because you feel like you're actually making an item

[@EksMo2]

I played a mmorpg before that I really like the crafting system. Your character had lvls, and each lvlup gives you points to spend in your skill tree/proficiency/job. Max lvl was 60, and you get a fixed amount of points to spend. You can't have all the skills unlocked because the points were limited, but the good thing about it is that you can reassign a certain amount of points to different skills. It goes like you can only reassign 5 points daily or 10 points daily. So if you want to farm for loot drops or crafting materials from monsters, then you can build your character for that task, and when you are done farming, you can slowly reassign your points to a crafter build. The game had great community, and the clan that I was in had dedicated miners, tanners, weavers, hunters, blacksmiths, builders, etc. but when we have clan wars coming in the next weeks, we slowly reassign our points so all of us can fight in the war. Sadly, the game closed due to the board of directors of the company wanting to push it into p2w, but the game devs didn't want it to be that way.

[@neirenoir]

I think the minigame is essential for a truly satisfying crafting system. In my opinion, Potion Craft is magnificent in this regard, and so would FFXIV's be if it didn't become a solved (yet tedious) problem after gearing up. In my opinion, if you want a TRULY goated crafting system, you need to look up to the games that do it best, and these are often either Atelierlikes or technical games like Factorio. They allow the player to have agency while crafting what they need to craft, which makes the crafting process truly satisfactory and not just a means to kill more monsters. Good crafting systems are systems where you, as a player, can get better at optimizing the throughput or results of your crafting processes through gitting gud and thinking on how to optimize your pipelines even further. Notice how you still will have to craft "low level" items in Factorio despite being well into late game because simpler items combine into more complex items, or how Atelierlikes often have open ended crafting results (ie. the rank of your potions in Potion Crafter is a 2D vector, and the effects are defined by a whole route with carefully measured steps). MMO are probably more suited for the latter, what with maybe different players having different formulas for their potions or equipment, which could be reflected as differently balanced numbers in the end result, or using less materials for the same outcome and thus having better profit margins.

[@viralshark]

I'd like to add that in Ark: Survival Evolved, ALL (literally ALL) of the best stuff is crafted by players. You find blueprints in dungeon, loot drops, bosses, etc, then you craft items FROM those blueprints. But it doesn't stop there, you can respec your character as a crafter boost the output of those blueprint crafts. Even then, there is some RNG involved and so making more attempts can increase your odds of getting that optimal item. Even then, the stats on the blueprints themselves are generated by RNG anyway, so you are encouraged to find the EVEN better blueprint. If you are a PVE player, this encourages trading with other players to get that really really good blueprint. And in PVP, you are encouraged to raid because the enemy base might house that sweet blueprint (and items made from it). I've always thought Arks crafting system was SUPER good and rewarding, but of course it might not work in the scope of all games. That being said, there is still something to be learned from it!

[@repoilify]

Combat has to be more realistic and equipment has to be damaged from combat. If you don't repair your equipment the benefits of the armor/weapon drops and extensive damage should restrict movement or limit skill abilities. Now as you level you can have magic enchantments that provide like a shield, like in Halo, that can recharge naturally or be recharged (ESO) or buffed for a period of time for dungeons and raids. This would provide more weight to equipment. Magical debuffs should be a big deal because you never want your base armor to be damaged. It would require you to hire someone to fix it or you would need to spend time repairing that set. Example: Mages wear cloth but have high MP so they should rely heavily on magical barriers and shields. But without them their toast. Combat characters with low MP rely heavily on the material of their equipment so they rely more on durability. So any sort of magical buff is a plus. I think MMORPGs today give players too much progression too fast and try to hard to highjack our reward systems. So the armor all the way up to the end game is not important at all. Armor and equipment should be built upon like MHW. You see progression and growth in focusing your time in upgrading your equipment. You take pride in your builds because it takes time.

[@TheGrifhinx]

I think a crafting system might be better off if it has an opposite of it as a counterpart - a kind of de-crafting system. That way, any "finished product" of any passthrough of the crafting system never stays as the static "finished product" - we could deconstruct them into their base materials (of course with a risk of not getting maximum yield based on character stats, which I think can also be applied to the crafting system as well) and then the materials can then be reused into target products that could be made through the crafting system. To me, I like the idea that, since I'm theoretically moving on from a current cloth armor to a better one, I could dismantle the old cloth armor into fabric and then use the fabric into making something else, like a bag that can help me with inventory. Upcycling, basically.

[@Taletad]

This channel is a gem for aspiring gem devs I’m not that keen on mmo or rpgs but I just cannot stop watching your videos !

[@vincentsalcido9605]

You thought it was going to be a normal comment but it was me, the algorithm booster!

[@TM-cm4gb]

my favourite craft system was in Atlantica online. You needed mats and after starting recepie you had to do combat to do the workload. The higher level monster you fight the more workload you gained. So as high level getting to pretty high crating was quite quick. Also Craft could come out as enchanted from +0 to like +15 (max) felt good to get 15x +12 or +13 craft on max level gear :D + guild crafting, man that game was really really nice.

[@mughug9616]

The original (before SoE dumbed it down for the WoW players) Star Wars Galaxies crafting system was one of the best. Purely by it's design it created a extremely deep and varied player-controlled functioning and thriving economy. 1 - At the bottom you had a functioning economy of the resource miners and gatherers, who went out into the dangerous universe to track down and obtain the raw and/or rare materials. These were usually gathered to order and sold to crafters, who had to basically pay the best price for the best raw materials. 2 - Next you had a functioning economy of the crafters who created components of different quality to sell to other crafters, so they could create specialized machines of different quality to crafter creating finished goods of again different quality. 3 - Then you had the higher tier crafter who depended on all the others. They created the finished goods, again of different quality based upon many factors already detailed. 4 - Crafters could gain solid reputations all over a server for being the best in their trade and players would track them down to buy their goods. 5 - You could seriously avoid combat and just craft and trade at the time if that turned you on. Many played like that all the time. 6 - Become a Creature Handler, hunting and taming wild animals to keep or sell to other players. As a Creature Handler you could sell the DNA of animals to Bio-Engineer crafter. 7 - Create Droids or Bio-engineer fighting pets with custom properties. 8 - And there was an whole viable economy for those who wanted to earn a living as Entertainers, Medics or Doctors. Some of the items you could create were armor, clothing, food, medical supplies, mining equipment for resource gatherers, genetically enhanced fighting pets, tamed wild fighting animals, weapons, building materials, buildings, vehicles, furniture, spacecraft, personal and housing storage, decorative items and many more. Whole player cities full of many different buildings were created by crafters, from the individual brick up. No crafting system exists like it and while it may not have been perfect, in my experience it is still leagues ahead of anything else we have seen since.

[@LL43216]

The level of quality of this video is way beyond what I expected out of a DEV LOG. Incredible man

[@murdurmuffin7872]

My favorites: Minecraft (Tinkerer's Construct Mod) and Prey (2017) Prey was simple, you get like 3 or 4 generic resources that can be made into anything of that resources category (organic, synthetic, exotic, etc.), the resources were gathered directly from the main gameplay loop (looting monsters and scenery), there was strategic choice involved (do I spend my stuff on upgrades or that health kit? Oh crap do I have enough ammo?), and things popped out of it like a prize from a claw game or vending machine. Worked well for the game it was in. Minecraft with Tinkerer's Construct was just awesome and I enjoyed the full loop. You mined ore blocks like normal, but everything else changed. First, you built a multiblock structure for smelting your ores, then melted them down into a liquid using lava as a fuel. Then you crafted part molds, and actually poured the molten metal into them to make parts. You then put those together like a standard MC craft. THEN you could customize the tool with upgrade materials, which were usually mob drops, and get all sorts of unique effects on the tool. This fed back into the main game loop nicely, greatly expanding the unique and purpose built tools you could use. Want to mine more faster? You can make yourself a hammer that mines 3x3 at a time! Want a melee weapon that you can also throw? You could make throwing knives and spears! Want to farm and chop lots of wood? There's a mattock that both tills the ground and cuts trees faster.

[@elduriangavriel2130]

Not to minimize what you are saying because we all have our own preferences, but in terms of what you want from a crafting system it’s the polar opposite of most of what I want (at least in multiplayer RPGs). 1. While I agree that the combat loop should be one source of some of the components of crafting I think every component should be tradeable so I can personally bypass combat by trading with players who enjoy it more. Nothing irks me more than the game forcing me to do things other than craft when I want to be crafting. 2. Wurm Online also bypasses the 1000 daggers to level blacksmithing problem and it does so by letting you invest significant time in an item to improve its quality. This feels very rewarding and makes it so you can literally pay for all your needed tools and materials by sitting in your workshop building things. I like a good system with station upgrades but I think this should complement a good progression system based on time investment rather than resource dumping. Not replace it. 3. Random chance ruins many crafting systems but it’s based on how it used and not its mere existence. If I am making 1000 steel swords in hopes that one of them will be a legendary sword of judgement and throwing out the 999 that aren’t that’s a horrible system. If I’m making and improving 10 steel swords over a longer period of work because they are in and of themselves valuable and one happens to become a rare steel sword as an unexpected bonus, that’s game enhancing. RNG proc as goal = bad RNG proc as surprise bonus = good 4. Time gating is bad if it’s “wait out this timer and do nothing.” If it’s, “engage with this system which takes time” then it’s great. 5. Mini-games are good. Bad mini-games are bad. I feel about like mini-games like a feel like questing. Either make it insanely simple, or amazingly good. The illusion of depth that wears off on the 5th repetition is the worst possible way to do it. I spent hours on crafting in Fable 2 and 3 or fishing in Stardew Valley. These mini-games were insanely simplistic but they were very repeatable and remained fun after many repetitions. EQ2 and FF14’s systems gave the illusion of strategic depth but you’d figure out the system very quickly and it was never challenging again. I’ve never seen it done but I imagine you could have a system that’s immensely replayable with huge strategic depth. Something equivalent (but more thematically on point) to playing a game of chess each time you make an item. I think the closest is EVE’s hacking system which is essentially a game within the game, has some depth, and is well done enough I find it very repeatable.

[@noiadev]

@@elduriangavriel2130 All good points. Everyone will have a preference that leans one way or the other on most of these issues, but you do have compelling arguments.

[@Shinzenrie]

big interest in your crafting system

[@PJutch]

Extended Crafting Minecraft mod uses an intersting idea to gate crafts by crafting stations. It allows for modpack makers to add 5*5, 7*7 and 9*9 crafts and has crafting tables with corresponding sizes. It sems for me to be a better idea than just having crafts tied to some arbitary crafting stations. Also it won't work for most games.

[@Capybellie]

I very much enjoyed the system of extendable and upgradable crafting stations in Valheim. Another idea I like is that recipes play a much smaller role. Take a Sword for example. A sword will always be a sword. Don't make me get a new recipe for every new sword level. Insead I'd take inspiration from minecraft here, with the base recipe being always the same. But the key are the ressources you use. Better resources come from more didficult areas and enemies. So your crafting progress will naturally vibe with your game progress. Thirdly, combine crafts. A steel sword is better than a bronze sword. But a steel sword with some magic runes and some mystic gems is waaaay better!

[@Tsukasaelk10]

Great video! I looked it up because I was trying to create my own system, and you hit all the right marks. My only personal preference is having only two or three crafting stations (5-6 max). Where the player has a toolbelt of upgradable items like a pickaxe, hammer, skinning knife, sheers, jewelers tools, etc. To utilize , any station easily in lore. One station might simply be for martial/physical stuff, e.g. Weapons, armor, projectiles/consumables, trinkets, upgrading/reinforcing, and recycling as the 6 tabs for that. Then a magical crafting station that handles the same tabs, in essence, but for enchanting, inscribing, potions/alchemy, trinkets, upgrading, and recycling materials as its tabs. Perhaps a cooking station if you go so far. But having so many becomes too much to come back to, so I feel myself starting over in many games, yet unsatisfied for a long time. Amazing vid!

[@PJutch]

Random idea about fun node-based collection: what if you had some immortal boss sitting on your nodes, so one part of the party tanks the boss, and another mines nodes? To make damage dealers useful you can make boss weakened by dealing damage to it or replace it with waves of enemies.

[@Peregrin3]

Here is an idea, in combat and dungeons you farm components, special resources and cosmetic blueprints and then you use the crafting and resource gathering systems to create everything, this would make both raiding and crafting important and rewarding and since you decide how to assemble the components then crafting would be skill based not just stat based. An art sculpting mechanic would be perfect with this system. For example making a simple sword would be quite straight forward but creating a unique sword would take a lot more time and resources and would be incredibly satisfying to make and would gain you a reputation as a true master smith.

[@charger1369]

"We will create the greatest crafting system the world has ever seen" subbed. Here for it.

[@Lioni177]

Thoroughly enjoyed this video, IMO your best yet! I completely agree with your analysis of what makes a good crafting system and the specific pitfalls of bad ones. You also highlighted a big problem I've always had with Terraria but could never put my finger on, I would always eventually lose motivation in gear progression and I think a big part of that was not really feeling accomplished in my accomplishments. Keep up the good work. Strawberry Mochi!

[@calicow]

I really enjoyed this video style. It's always interesting to hear what went into a developer's design decision. Personally, my favorite MMO crafting system is in Star Wars: Galaxies. Not only because you could make crafting the entire progression and career of your character (until NGE made everybody engage in generic combat...), but because you could go so in depth with it. Especially if you also spec'd into the Merchant class, or had a friend who did and was willing to sell your wares for you. I was one of the first Master Merchants in my guild and I took in wares from Master Weaponsmiths, Armorers, Chefs, Tailors, etc. Then later, I dabbled in making my own vibro-blades and I loved that you could individually name your creations before putting them up for sale. And anyone who wanted to buy it had to physically travel to your shop and interact with the vendor you set up, or buy it from you directly. Our guild master had a brandy empire, because crates of brandy were one of the hottest commodities since brandy gave really good buffs. She had harvesters and factories going 24/7. It was a thing of beauty.

[@SecretSquirrel-df3br]

I'm glad someone mentioned SWG, because I was going to if no one has. Crafting in SWG was so integral to the game's economy and how most people got good equipment and food. I also really enjoyed buying customized droids and decorating my house with random stuff, all made by crafters. They even had crafters that could build your starship!

[@mughug9616]

As a Creature Handler and Scout I loved going all over the Universe. I would spend days camping out in the middle of nowhere trying to find rare creatures to either tame and sell to other players as fighting pets or sell the skin, meat and DNA to different crafters who create goods including armor, clothing, food, meds, bio-engineered pets, etc. I use to have my list of crafters that I would trade with, had contracts with, could haggle prices with and even took special orders from them for rare raw resources. Even my Scout line of skills allowed me to create and sell camping gear, etc. Over the years I also leveled up to be my guild's Architect. This was one of the Elite Artisan professions that allow the creation of factories, harvesters, houses, furniture and player city structures.) I would create for the guilds and even had a private market where I sold to anyone. Those buildings, etc. were built from individual bricks, etc. Never has been a crafting system to match since then.

[@DiamondOrPoor78]

Personally, my favorite dessert is brownies, however I also respect people who enjoy cookies. But cake lovers just need to leave my sight!

[@noiadev]

Interesting. What of your allegiance to the nation of Pie?

[@DiamondOrPoor78]

@@noiadev I respect them I personally quite enjoy key lime pie

[@senismarsenis9678]

Ruthless

[@Ultimantecat]

I love how each video gets better and better

[@benjaminmassart1266]

I really liked your vision of crafting in video games, there's one last things I would like added to all the things you want. It is a "ressource bank" like in the elder scrolls online. A bank where all the useless ressources you need in bulk are stored without taking inventory space

[@adam_sandler]

I think that leveling in a crafting system is not inherently wrong, but rather that gating recipes behind a leveled crafting skill is tedious. If a game prides itself on being grindy (OSRS my beloved) then the crafting system having an associated grind actually becomes part of the charm; OSRS is so successful because it's unapologetically itself, if you like that sort of grind then you'll LOVE OSRS, and you won't play other MMOs because they try and appeal to other groups (or everyone, which fails, look at RS3). On the other hand, if a game doesn't pride itself on being grindy, then simply detaching recipes from crafting level is a good way to handle it. You mentioned having workstations be the main source of progression, which can work depending on game; but that doesn't at all prevent the leveling system from existing. Chance to preserve resources, higher limits on rolls (e.g. can provide more armor), higher chance for higher quality (if the game has a quality system), etc etc are all perfectly valid traits to associate with a crafting level that don't revolve around gating recipes. Hell, a lot of RPGs actually DO this, but they just also gate items behind crafting. Just look at Skyrim, you can't make daedric gear at smithing 15, but even the iron dagger you *can* make gets better as you get to smithing 100. And yes scaling rolls still provides benefit to grinding out smithing, but it doesn't REQUIRE you to grind out smithing. "Oh but im losing 5% dps!!" if its so important to you to minmax, expect a grind (or a lot of money if you have a trading system). The point of minmaxing is that it's the point where it becomes far more effort than it's worth to get more damage, but you're doing it anyways. I think a lot of MMO players like the feeling of leveling and letting there be an optional leveling from crafting is a good way to let the player choose what they want their experience to be like.

[@akun50]

I'm partial to pumpkin pie or cheesecake, but I can't have them as much anymore as I need to watch my sugars.

[@PJutch]

Actually Terraria has some randomness in crafts. I am talking about affixes. Yes, you get an ability to reroll them very early, but your first couple of swords has a chance to get -10% to damage. I think such system could even work without rerolls if all affixes have the same power. Yes, some hardcore minmaxers will hate their life after getting +10% damage sword instead of +10% crtiticla hit chance sword, but I think most players don't care. Also Terraria has an even better example of randomness in crafting. There is a potion crafting table that you can find in dungeon that gives you a chance not to ues an inredient while crafting potions. I think it totally works for this

[@DaneC020]

Coconut cream... Just the cream... No pie.

[@fawkurface46]

Most of this I agree with, minus the no minigame. I think minigames in online rugs help remove bots and auto clickers bringing the power back to the actual players. Even tho I didn't like the game itself I liked the idea of "blacksmith simulator" having to make sure the heat is right and not over hammering the metal. And you can have the upgraded crafting stations and what not give you more wiggle room. Like say yes a lvl 1 forge can heat up steel but it needs more fuel to run and the steel cools down very fast making the next station more efficient and more control

[@Seshua87]

1 additional thing about Terraria crafting and perhaps a great realistic feature is that you need to move around to different stations to craft things. Not just stand at one npc/station to craft all things. This could be a part of a perfect crafting system imo.

[@gadzooks4476]

Tiramisu, or banana fritters are my favourites! Maybe even both at the same time...

[@DeWillpower]

very interesting topic! i felt like all of those "not this ingridient, not that one" at the end aren't enough to justify the making of the video, but it's short so i can understand why you structured it this way. i would object to the no time gates rule, not because i want the private company to make me spend more money by skipping the line to get the finished product, but to give some weight, the same for the absence of an alarm sound you dislike. so with that in mind, for me the perfect dessert is the tiramisù

[@ksastrophy]

I haven't seen a crafting system better than one in Path of Exile. There are a LOT of different mechanics and tools one need to know to craft well in PoE. Actually crafting is arguably the most profitable thing to do in this game and still done by minority of players because of the amount of player experience needed to make it worth. Surely it's not a system for everyone, but games like PoE and MMOs don't need everyone to be a craft-machine.

[@Amipotsophspond]

Mexican wedding cake, but the thing is playing fan fair would get old real fast so it needs to be a check box to disable. also if you are playing in a ultra hard mode you don't want to die because some fan fair blocked something from view

[@JuanSolo62]

i think the only other thing i'd suggest adding is a skippable animation where it shows the item progressively being crafted. It can add immersion and since its skippable, means you aren't trapped.

[@HangerHangar]

There's an alternative path, make crafting a literal part of your character like a skill tree. For instance a rogue could give up some stealth abilities (or advancements in stealth) for an alternate crafting talent/skill tree, opening up craftable tools/poisons/crossbows/bombs and allowing those players to use self crafted gear at higher efficiencies than players without those skill points. A crafter's talent tree should come with abilities like "stat buff abilities" that temporarily increase gear stats (IE: like some classes shouts that give stats), the ability to tweak gear so that you enhance base stats but add durability as a trade, the ability to move raid gear abilities to other gear, granting the ability to shift stats on gear (IE: skew rogue gear towards making off rogue abilities as acceptable for use), and being able to craft encounter specific gear (IE: pieces of gear that disable a specific boss ability, or even disable other features like enrage timers). Basically centering around out of combat prep, to allow peaks temporarily above even BiS raid gear or that prep opening up utilities worth the loss of BiS. IMO one of the things online RPGs are missing compared to paper, is the ability to out of combat prepare your way out of a combat problem. It's a pretty common trope of a character needing specific gear to take down a baddie. Of course that's the antithesis of current MMO design, of perfectly prepared encounters that have everything calculated down to the last single stat point to trigger some target engagement metric.

[@TheMstrydude]

Eh, I have to disagree with the "No crafting lvl" thing. I think that works for a lot of games, notably single-player and survival games. But for others, it feels immersion-breaking. Like you get to craft this really powerful weapon that can slay demons and take on armies because you have the cool-looking crafting station. I think for games that are geared to Roleplaying and such it makes more sense that we have to improve our skills and learn to be a better crafter so it feels like we are growing and improving.

[@SacredSilence95]

Your solution is good because you excluded from the factors the desire to have a powerfull item crafted by a skilled crafter. I think it is a human desire that many people have, because it mirror so much our experience in the real world where the value of an item is direclty linked to the skill or the name of the crafter. It's fine to ignore that desire and players will surely adapt and ignore that point. But also, if you can fullfill that desire in a game, you can achieve a different form of cool, a different form of satisfaction. I personally think that the levelling system in crafting is unacceptable, you are right about that. But there must be another solution, I'm sure

[@wertigowicked8466]

I think being able to create any weapon at any level but it's quality being modified based on your level in that crafting profession and the quality of he materials that also get getter with leveling up gathering professions related to it or buying them. Also being able to get resources back beased on your level of either said profession or a scrapping profession.

[@exodius9054]

I absolutely love a well made chocolate cake

[@maddys2741]

Strap in everyone, this is going to be a journey! It's a long one! 😉

[@LucasSilva-jd2bf]

Terraria is really an awesome game. I love the crafting and the agency you have in it. You wanna skip a certain boss? Go ahead, lol. Don't feel like grinding for a specific item? No problem, just dodge better and you'll be able to beat the next boss without it. I think that MMORPGs lack the feeling of a good singleplayer game. Most focus on the social aspects, like guilds and raids, but I think those should be extras, not the core of how the game is meant to be played. Also, in my opinion, most MMORPGs get boring after a while because there's no risks - no consequences to your failures. One of the reasons why Rotmg is still alive (though barely) is because of permadeath. Just imagine the amount of tension when you're raiding some high-level dungeon with an item you spent weeks grinding for, knowing that a single mistake means getting your character deleted. Not sure why, but very few MMORPGs have permadeath or some kind of hardcore mechanics where failure can lead to major consequences. I think that's why so many people reach endgame and get bored. There's just no risk.

[@TheBirdBoi.]

Cookie dough ice cream

[@Bluhbear]

I'm not much of a dessert person, usually... but cheesecake is pretty good. Ice cream is a classic.

[@Storm-dk7zp]

I`d die for a milk-rice (or rice pudding) with cinnamon sauce :D Great analysis. I agree with all main points but disagree slightly. I think a minigame COULD be fun and realy highlight player agency. In the sense, the better the player is at the minigame, the better the produced item will be. This sounds great on paper. But reality probably has to say something about it. You would probably need a different, engaging and challanging minigame for every profession, that still measures "quality". Maybe hit a specific point with a mousclick very precisely or something like it. Your actual player Skill at playing the minigame would improve and so would the item you create. Really going hand in hand with the "learning a profession" idea. You would always get a baseline quality for what you put in in resources, but how much bonus you get depends on your minigame skills. One issue, namely that no minigame is fun after you did it 12.438 times for cheap swords. To go back to reality, if you would want to learn wood working in reality, you wouldnt make 200 chairs, you would make maybe 4 chairs one table and a cupboard. So limited numbers of various items. So a slight variation in the minigame, with not a lot of repetition. Better yet, woodworking would break down in several steps. Cutting wood, putting it together and then finishing (sanding, then oil/paint) it. So to sum up one cluster of 3-4 minigames per profession, that the player gets actually better at and only has to perform a limited number of times (more often of course if he maybe wants to sell the high quality items he can produce, because he is actually good at the game). This would probably be better then "no minigame". Some people would maybe argue that this would be incredibly resource intensive to implement in the game and by far exceed what basically any AAA-game would ever do. And way more so what is at all feasible for a single dev. But thats such a developer issue, as a fan/customer, I can simply demand ;).

[@MasterBroNetwork]

Minigames in crafting would also be difficult like this due to cheaters but I would love to see an interactive crafting system instead of me just clicking a button and magically creating a god-killer blade or something.

[@ethangnasher3848]

I say there should be minigames, but only when first attempting a tier of quality, lets say. There's multiple qualities you can craft a weapon with each a more demanding minigame in terms of precision and patience, but basically the same per weapon just increasingly more difficult in what you gonna do to complete it. Afterwards you can just auto-craft that weapon of the tier you managed to complete.

[@TwistedRacoon]

Ice cream. MapleStory had a fantastic cast of mobs with their respective common and uncommon drops. Ex Stumps dropped branches but sometimes leaves! Too bad it was all useless junk. MS also had the stimulators in the crafting system. This added RNG to the item's stats should the player feel lucky. Looking forward to see what you come up with! I knkw exactly what it WON'T be :p

[@SecondsGuess]

You should design video games for a living, what an absolute mad man 🤯

[@matholameu7781]

I haven't actually played your game yet, just stumbled on your videos while learning about game development. You're living my dream. I'm definitely going to be watching all your stuff and giving Noia a go. Hopefully one day I'll be in your shoes. P.S. Nanaimo bars all the way.

[@mimivrc4148]

I agree on all points except the RNG and minigame one, BUT not in the way you might think. imagine terrarias crafting system, but you always have the *choice* to do a minigame to attempt to craft a higher quality, higher stat version! (higher stats based on a min to max range based on how well you do in the minigame, which I guess isn't RNG)

[@darqed]

i also realised that crafting always sucks. 24h for a thing to craft? level up a skill for 30min to unlock a recipe? but I always liked the whole idea of it. great video

[@powerup3005]

My biggest problem with crafting systems is them being little more than over-glorified shop menus where you just walk up to the npc/work station, click through menus, pay the required resources and now you have an item. But the problem is I can't think of a way to circumvent that without falling back on a repetitive mini game

[@PJutch]

Expected you to talk about customizable gear when talking about agency. For some reason the best examples of it are in minecraft. First thing first, everybody knows mc enchantments and they are kinda bad system. Also I think I have seen a mod that allows you to place enchanted books near enchanted table to be able to choose specifically this enchantment so it is kinda recipes. Haven't played Wyncraft but I think there crafting system is interesting and easy to implement. To craft something you use required materials that you collect from nodes and add optional ingredients that are obtained as other loot and give things like damage bonuses. It is balanced by durability/effect duration decreased by strong ingredients. Also idea is cool people say that implementation sucks because node-based collection is too boring and too grindy. Tinkers Construct and Tetra are pretty well known but I still describe them here. Tinkers Construct allows you to choose materials for different parts of the tool (most of the time 3 - head, tool binding and handle). This materials impact tool stats but also add an unique effect. So you can choose to make something not very important like handle from wood to make your tool regenerate durability or iron to make your tool magnetic (placing drops directly into your inventory). Also you can add modifiers that cost you a lot of resources (I think for full efficiency you need 3 stacks of redstone) but add buffs similiar to vanilla enchants (also I think you have limited amounts of slots for them). Progression is gated by having to make smelter to process metals, having to make forge that requires a lot of metal to make thing like hammers, vanilla mining level system and best materials spawning in the nether. Old and I think discontinued addon Iguana Tweaks for Timkers Construct made progression more linear by adding more mining levels. So you coouldn't mine iron with flint tools, you needed to make copper tools first. Also it had a tool leveling system, so you needed to mine some amount of blocks before you can actually mine iron with you copper pickaxe. You could apply a mob head (this mod made them rarely drop from normal kills) to skip this process. Also you could enable getting random modifiers from leveling your tool. Haven't played a lot with Tetra but the point of the mod is that you can choose types of differemt parts of your tool. So can make your sword have different types of guard (or not have one). And of course you can choose a material to craft it from. Tetra has a point system called integrity that prevents you from using best materials in your tool and adding too many parts to it. Also it is bound to its tool leveling system so after getting enough xp part starts to use less integrity. Also you can add vanilla enchantments to your tools but they have a limited amount of magic capacity. Progression is gated by requiring hammers with greater mining levels to process better materials and requiring blueprints found in loot to create better parts for you instrument. Sorry for long read that I doubt is useful.

[@noiadev]

You have a lot of good info and ideas

[@jaishaw6977]

Great breakdown of crafting system - I think one reason mmorpgs have such annoying systems is to try and help balance the economy but that's another discussion.

[@omg2manyusers]

Apple crumble, topped with custard. Can't be finer.

[@ysayde1331]

I think my favorite is chocolate marshmallow icecream. ^-^

[@nramir00]

I'm sure someone has said this already, but you said A LOT like Goku's English voice actor (Sean Schemmel). Especially at 1:19

[@noiadev]

That's a new one for me XD

[@Satook]

Chocolate fondant with ice cream Or Pear Pudding and Ice Cream Can’t pick one.

[@DynoSkrimisher]

I hate how grindy some MMOs are, like, you'll need 50 of a rare resource to get 1/100 ingredient for a high level weapon. Mystera Legacy does this and the dev *wanted* it like this.

[@HotBaraDad666]

I gotta say. At least in Guild Wars 2, you get a lot of mats from just doing combat, be it random mats or mat bags that drop, to salvaging gear you find that's useless. Unfortunately it does have issues with having to level a given profession but thankfully the gear you get isn't entirely worthless (even if it's still a net loss.) Worst case scenario you will just salvage it for research notes (needed for the jade bot iirc) or for materials (which themselves have some actual value.) It also has timegated crafting with some materials but those can be bought from other players (or sold to them for profit.)

[@nairobie755]

If by not entirely worthless you means the only way to get the best gear.

[@HotBaraDad666]

@@nairobie755 lol yeah, legendary gear is a massive drain on mats. But hey, better than having most of the materials be useless outside of leveling your crafting disciples.

[@nairobie755]

@@HotBaraDad666 don't forget you can also craft every stat line of ascended gear. Which is a fair bit easier to attain. Hell you could level to max level from only gathering and crafting while achieving the best stat line for your build. Not sure why anyone would, but they could.

[@ShadowofArts]

Leveling GW2 crafting is kinda a pain and limits the player exploring other crafting jobs unless you have alts. I definitely prefer the FFXIV system more due to accessibility for other crafting classes. Unlike the video I prefer a mini game lol

[@trorisk]

-For the economy I think it is very important that part (not necessarily all) of the best end-game equipment is accessible through crafting. We can clearly see with Eve Online the importance that this has in the economic system of the game. +I think that objects (craft and non-craft) should, in addition to durability, only be able to be repaired a limited number of times. Except obviously for unique “legendary” type objects. -I don't like your levelless system at all. I think we need to make low level crafts quest items or starting points for other crafts. And make it almost mandatory for players to buy or equip them. For example, the level 20 cleric has a class quest, if he does not do it he does not have the rest of his class quests and cannot learn other spells linked to the class quests, which asks him to do an instance. And requires that he have a mace and/or a dress crafted to receive very good equipment, better than anything he could have as loot or as a common quest reward. +And I think a disassembly system to learn is good. For example, you learn how to craft an item that loots (in raids or anywhere) if you disassemble lets say 5 of them. And you gain 1 crafting experience point each time you disassemble it. Except obviously for unique “legendary” type objects.

[@KryyssTV]

Having crafting linked to the "core" gameplay completely destroys both the option for players to engage exclusively with the crafting system while also utterly destroying any sort of in-game economy because everything people want is available through normal gameplay. This further undermines the point of an MMO which is the meaningful interaction with other players since it permits players to be self-reliant. The best crafting system in any MMO is from Star Wars Galaxies whereby the gathering process was automated but resource nodes periodically shifted so players needed to explore a huge open world to find the best new resource nodes. It was also impossible for any single player to obtain items without engaging with other players directly or via the marketplace or player owned vendors and even some crafters depended upon loot drops that could only be obtained in large quantities by higher tier combat spec'd players.

[@KamenDesantis]

IMO Starbound > Terraria in every aspect. As for minigames, I like the planning type of "minigame". Let the player apply what they know of the system (agency!) to make a recipe or program or checklist that the character then performs to craft an item. No RNG. An example would be the factory minigame from Rogue Galaxy. As the player unlocks new technologies they can add options or refine their recipe or flowchart to make better gear, and its entirely their own. But I'll toss the crafting systems of 2 other games in here just to muddy the waters a bit. In Wurm Online (and Wurm Unlimited), players make literally EVERYTHING, for an mmo of that type, its the pinnacle of immersion. Also one to consider is Earth and Beyond, now playable only on the Net7 server emulator (damn you EA...), where not only was player crafted gear the undisputed best in slot, each race and class combo had an equipment type they specialized in. Anyone could craft low, mid, and mid-high tiers of any equipment type, but the top endgame tier stuff was specific to a race and class combo.

[@Fidious]

i love pudding it's delicious and i also hate crafting especially warframe's system, like it doesn't even feel like you're progressing, I hate forced gatekeeps.

[@HolySl0w]

immagine crafting a wheel that has 2 different sized halves! OCD goes brrrrrrr on that pie chart! BUT... Love the video, nice insights and universal truth.

[@noiadev]

I knew this comment was coming HA! I tried I tried so hard. The graph program wouldn't get the colors right, so eventually one side looked ok and I just thought...eh crop 50% of both sides and bam 100% circle....and that was the best I could get them to line up

[@HolySl0w]

​@@noiadevhahaha ngl i laughed when i saw that because as graphic designer it's not the first time i see that! i thought you tried copy/pasting some graph and i was right hahaha! :D

[@MisterYellowStream]

I actually really enjoyed this :)

[@FazzCode]

I look forward to the video!

[@DiamondOrPoor78]

Another great video. Terraria is definitely a perfect game, or the closest game to a perfect game. The crafting system works so well too it always feels good to craft an overpowered weapon like the Zenith after killing all the bosses in the game and getting all the swords! You have to be one of the best game devs for putting this much effort into every aspect of the game!!

[@senismarsenis9678]

Craft deez nuts

[@iliebocse4572]

I don't mean to say anything bad, but I will point out that if you haven't played Lineage 2 and see that crafting system ...well long story short your video would look a tad different, however good job pointing out the most important aspect of them all. Anyhow, these "modern" games are deflecting from having a good crafting system because (1) they want to make it easy for all snowflakes over there. (2) It takes a lot of thinking to get something innovative and not extremely complex. (3) They want to have simple crafting because over 50% of the game skins are actually in a virtual shop. With this all in mind: gone are the days when you would look at someone in an MMO and say : oh gosh, that player really did this and that and he is really cool for overcoming x,y,z objectives/boss/pvp event/etc. Nowadays is like: oh look at this dude, he opened his wallet and he has all the shinnies.

[@Count-Drekon]

my favorite desert is Pudding with cream :)

[@logansthename]

Great video man!

[@PumpkinBeastMusic]

Peppermint icecream is top tier

[@c0pykatt]

I really like creme brulee but macaron are pretty great too

[@JustQuixa]

Intriguing topic! Waiting impatiently. =)

[@kilx81]

All good for single player games..... Mmo's you need the aspect of in-game economy as well. You really need to be able to earn in-game currency with mining and other collecting skills. Refining materials and crafted items too. If this is too hard or too easy it will kill the economy in game and make the game less attractive in the end. Or make crafting out to be nothing. Too hard people will give up and do other things in game. Too easy it will drain currency from rich players and leave the mid-tier gamers stuck waiting to get enough resources. Or it will result in overflow of items that just aren't sold. Crafting, collecting skills, loot and economy. For the best crafting system an mmo-game must balance it all.

[@DevlogBill]

By far the game with the best crafting system in the entire universe! EverQuest 1.

[@somedude8728]

You should look into ARPG crafting systems (Last Epoch and Path of exile are the ones that come to mind) although they might be a bit too complex, having a way to make your crafted item your own seems like a good idea

[@rept7]

One thing that I think needed discussed more is if specialization is something you think MMOs should lean into or not. MMOs should have systems that encourage interconnection, and having players able to do everything certainly hasn't been helping in that regard.

[@noiadev]

In the past nearly every MMO in memory would force the player to pick a specialization. I think the devs hoped that this would encourage social behaviours and the players would talk to each other if say a woodworker needed nails from a metalworker. Instead what happened is the woodworker just made an alt account for each crafting specialization anyway. I think most MMOdevs saw this and just threw their hands up in defeat.

[@rept7]

@@noiadev Which only makes me more interested in what game devs *could* do to achieve interesting player to player interaction with a crafting system.

[@ANlevant]

In my opinion, the minigame in Final Fantasy 14 was the only thing that made crafting actually good (aside fromt he fact that it is so profitable). In fact, I really love crafting, it's my favorite crafting system. I really think this formula, having a minigame for crafting, is actually the correct one. PRess a button and TADA! magic super item just makes it feel really ridiculous and stupid. And specally since FF14 has storyliens for your crafter, it would be very hard to belive that I just saved a business from bankrupcy by just pressing one "make profitable item" button.

[@andreastagno1617]

hey! just a little note on the title of game (maybe someone already told you idk); "Noia" means "boredom" in italian and i dont think is intentional. Anyway, good devlog!

[@noiadev]

Actually....completely intentional. I came up the concept of the game while working in a boring call center. So I wanted a game that bored office workers could play. Noia sort of sounds fantasy-like to an American like me XD

[@theodoregabranth1800]

"Naming your breakout success as Final Fantasy because you thought it's probably the last game your studio will produce" kinda vibe

[@blizzardcrow3051]

My favourite dessert is blueberry pie

[@johnh290]

Don't know if you care, but my favorite mod in skyrim is one that lets me pay other people to make and enchant gear for me, im an adventurer not a blacksmith :p

[@renanrolo6219]

The only thing I hate in crafting is the absurd quantity of items you should carry around, and I don't mean equipments, I mean the resources, you're like a walking Home Depot, and then after spending 9999 units of something you are able to create ONE piece of equipment. I understand that "in real life, it is easier to get one pound of wood than it is of gold", but I don't like how games force you to "work the same amount of time" to get regular materials and to get that rarest gem, and the only way to do that is increasing the number of regular resources you need to harvest.

[@noiadev]

It is a balancing act for sure. You can substitute the word Resources with Time in most cases when it comes to crafting systems. How much time does the developer require of the layer to craft an item? Too little and it feels too easy. So most devs, I feel, lean heavily in the opposite direction. There is an amount of time that would be good for you or I, but that may be too little for someone else that wants a grind. So most devs opt to shoot past trying to find an optimal amount of time spent and charge headfirst into a mindless amount of grind time instead. Because too little time and both player and dev suffer. Too much and only the player is weary from the grind but the devs show a high player playtime. That is my theory anyway.

[@renanrolo6219]

100% True! Well, if I keep extending this I'll deviate from my original complaint, the huge quantity of resources you need to carry around, which may change my opinion, but I'm too proud of myself to change it (LOL). (yea, the balance is the key, and although is easy to describe, it's hard to balance it).

[@slalithkumar3429]

I am fine with the this crafting systems but it is hard to balance around it. Its only work in single player.

[@JustQuixa]

Nice observations. Ever try A Tale in the Desert? That had some interesting mini games.

[@masterm8840]

Hmmm... Noia dev played Aion.. AION and NOIA

[@giovanniaguiar7740]

My favorite dessert is Brigadeiro

[@SanyaBane]

I love Gathering in New World. As about crafting... Maybe simple system of World of Warcraft is the best.

[@galacticgeek2616]

I'm actually working on a MMO by myself, will I finish? who knows, but this kind of insight is perfect as I'm about to start making my crafting mechanics

[@noiadev]

I don't see any devlogs on that channel.....WHERE ARE THEY!?

[@galacticgeek2616]

@@noiadev I have thought about it, just moved houses so may be the perfect time, thanks for the input!

[@nas1373]

As a terraria (and calamity) fan I find this as a W

[@therealsrpinwino]

Honestly I love yogourt!

[@123chicken88]

Will they be more gameplay after the bee hive? And will you ever put the game on steam

[@noiadev]

Yes and yes. The game is set to have content up to lvl 50. I don't want to put the game on steam yet as early access games can get very harshly reviewed. Once the game is in beta it can go to steam

[@pinkius]

No shit you said a word about Aion... I wasn't expecting you to remember the MMO I've spent quite a bunch of time in, and god damn it the craft in that game is awful.

[@TidepodChan867]

Man i really like yogurt with bananas.

[@hggpi]

I dont think time gated crafting is that bad. I understand why you dont like it. but i never had a problem with it personally. Also probably nobody played dungeon blitz, but that game had 3 day long craftings just like warframe. It died but i enjoyed it and i wanted to mention it

[@thezyreick4289]

I only disagree with the timegate thing. I think time gating can actually improve a system when done right, but when done for the purpose of getting players to spend to skip, that is not the way to do it. But most of my favorite crafting games are almost all time gated, like factorio. you are time gated by how fast the harvesters can get resources and turn them into materials. that is a time gate but it does not feel like one since it looks like a process.

[@noiadev]

Absolutely. The creating time in Factorio is more of a game mechanic than a simple timer like in Warframe. In Factorio the player can influence the timer by upgrading their factories or making more factories in general. When used that way it is a good mechanic. Sadly it is never used that way in most MMORPGS

[@thezyreick4289]

@@noiadev true, mmo's in particular seem to fall really short of the mark. Now that i think about it, none of my favorite crafting games are mmo's, they are basically all single player or rts.

[@thezyreick4289]

@@noiadev Do you happen to know of any good resources to go about learning how to do mesh deformation? Like in potion maker, you can grind up ingredients with a mortar and pestle, and it deforms or changes the mesh as you do. I am trying to learn how to do things like that.

[@maddys2741]

Bring me some chocolate cake and cheesecake 😄❤️🤤

[@davijose2462]

Lovely video