My Dream for Crafting...

Fuck it. I suggest having a whole OSU track playthrough for each instance of crafting. No matter what you're crafting you gotta get a perfect score on some random OSU track. And the higher in crafting lvl you go, the harder the tracks. I think that would be the perfect test of skill and would definitely not get annoying to do each time you craft some small piece of material

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This highly depends on how you balance the entire system. If you can make the final item better by minigaming each crafting step on the way to that final item - it's gonna be tedious. And I know for sure that top lvl guilds will require you to craft everything at highest possible lvl.

And if we consider 10 items per person (at the very least) per gear tier for 40 people in a guild (that is if the guild is the smallest possible and not a 300+ one) and god knows how many crafts per item - it all becomes very tedious very fast. And any smart guild would be giving all the crafting to one character because it would not only level up that crafter's lvl the fastest, but it would also be the safest way to not scammed by another guild crafter (on the off chance that those 40 people are not 100% safe).

And then you need to think about how you'd set up the system itself. Do you destroy the materials if the crafter fails the minigame? I'd assume no cause Steven wants crafting to be 100% safe and controlled. But then if failing the minigame gives a non-best version of the item or just doesn't craft at all - it's a waste of time and potentially resources. And both of those are super tedious to anyone who crafts more than once a day.

And depending on the minigame itself top lvl crafters might make some keyboard/mouse macros to just circumvent it. Yes, Intrepid prohibits that, but I doubt they'll be able to catch every single user. Or people will just find a way around it somehow (cause they always do).

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And that is why I don't want minigames in crafting. Can't even imagine carfting hundreds and thousands of items through minigame

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Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how they balance the rarity of all the resources. They need to find a very tight balance of "not too many, yet enough".

This adds neither depth of gameplay (because it is bottable and it is one of those things where distinguishing the type of bot that can do it from a perfect player is by definition close to impossible) nor direct interest (applying a repeating physical minigame instead of complex itemization is just making it demanding and for some people tedious on top of boring).

High level crafting can be made terrifyingly complicated by designed systems and creativity. The devs have so much more freedom to just use 'sequences and itemization' with some number tricks, for the same result (some people will 'bot' it either by making real bots or by 'becoming bot level at their execution') that you might as well go for complexity.

The question Intrepid will need to ask is mainly 'what will high level crafters want' and 'what to do about all the people who complain because high level crafting is actually hard and not just throwing time and resources at a problem'.

Because if they start doing things on the level of games that make you do real crafting, there will be lots of people like that.

I only meant that if everything else is there, there is no need for the minigame.

What is it adding?

If you already 'don't craft thousands of things but only craft during the impactful times'. If you already 'have good enough itemization to need to plan your materials for your result', already 'have a skill level attached to a character' and 'already have any boosts, buffs, or gear'.

What is the point of the minigame other than a barrier to entry for those who have less physical execution ability, a chore if you make it easy enough for those people to do it, or a timesink?

You outlined multiple concerns and problems, accept that there are other solutions to those concerns and problems, but then offer an additional thing that doesn't really matter other than 'giving bot script writers something to do and making it harder on less physically capable players' (or in the case where the response is 'oh it won't be that hard', now it's... just adding what?)

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To be clearer I was responding to this aspect of it.

This entire paragraph is about 'what if minigames required lots of skill?'

I object to this aspect of it. And for clarity I honestly do think that bots do cause some problems to the genre that are not solvable and make certain approaches non-starters. This is one.

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So reviewing the goals:

1. The minigame must be consistently fun
2. The rest of the game's itemization in terms of strength of crafted items must be controlled so as to make the minigame's skill requirement less critical.
3. The minigame is meant to give players who are good at doing it a chance to shine.

Do I have it all correct?

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Well, since you can see how the third is directly conflictory, I offer another option.

Crafting isn't tedious if the other problems are solved, and it doesn't require a minigame to be so.

I feel like a mistake many devs make is to think that the 'act of converting Itemset A into Item B' is 'crafting'. That's not 'crafting'. That's literally hitting a toggle on what form you want some materials to be in. Adding more to THAT process is pointless imo.

'Crafting' in an MMO is 'creating relationships', 'getting materials', etc.

If you wanted 'real crafting' in an MMO, it would be in the ability to manipulate recipes and situations, still not necessarily 'making the conversion toggle into a minigame' because in that case you're betting. What if I don't like the minigame for the craft I find most interesting?

Real crafting of THAT type is a terrifying monolith of information and expertise and careful steps, but we do have an example of it.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/256525-legend-of-mana/faqs/10806

I'm not asking you to read it. Just to note how long it is.

I have a notebook full of techniques and recipes for this 'crafting'.