About the proposed minigames for crafting

I definitely want to see an example and a better explanation of the crafting process at mass scale (if that's even in the plans). The minigame might be fun and might let the crafters to show their "skill", but as a mass crafter of several years, I definitely would like to have some way to craft at big scales w/o doing the same minigame for each stage.

The problem with this sort of thing is that you have to come up with a minigame that all crafters (of a given type) like, when the only trait those players have in common is "Carpenter" or "Herb gatherer". Otherwise you're saying "I believe all lumberjacks should enjoy this minigame, and fuck the ones who don't".

It's not something I feel is easily done for all professions. Fishing absolutely needs a minigame (imo), if you want most fishers to care. Do the other professions? Hard to say. But these sorts of decisions are really decisions about what types of people are 'allowed' to be a particular type of crafter (or certainly, enjoy it).

NiKr wrote: »

I definitely want to see an example and a better explanation of the crafting process at mass scale (if that's even in the plans). The minigame might be fun and might let the crafters to show their "skill", but as a mass crafter of several years, I definitely would like to have some way to craft at big scales w/o doing the same minigame for each stage.

You're making an assumption here, possibly without realizing it.

A game doesn't need 'mass crafting'.

Half the time, the reason for it IS just to use up your time.

If the minigame uses up your time instead and is more engaging, 'mass crafting' could just be tossed out, and honestly, to me that's a lot more fun because the micromanagement of the systems is within the player's control rather than 'do what the system tells you to do' or 'do hundreds of X'.

Anyways this has an easy solution I think.

Material quality determines whether you have to play the minigame or not.

Minigames are generally undetectably bottable anyway. If they are beyond that point, players complain because they're VERY twitch-skill heavy.

Variety is their better bet.

Azherae wrote: »

You're making an assumption here, possibly without realizing it.

A game doesn't need 'mass crafting'.

Half the time, the reason for it IS just to use up your time.

If the minigame uses up your time instead and is more engaging, 'mass crafting' could just be tossed out, and honestly, to me that's a lot more fun because the micromanagement of the systems is within the player's control rather than 'do what the system tells you to do' or 'do hundreds of X'.

Yeah, that's why I added the "if that's in the plans". Though I meant it more as a "whether one crafter is supposed to be able to craft all the things his 300-member guild would need".

We know that lower tiers will be required to craft higher tiers. I'd assume it won't be a direct use, but a step by step one. You craft t1s into t2s, t2s into t3 and so on until you craft t5. Now, that might not be true and we might just have direct mats instead of craftable ones.

But even then, I'm talking about a guild crafter who's supposed to craft 8 armor pieces for 100++ people. And that's per tier of gear. And if his second specialization is jewel cutting (assuming that's related to the 5 jewel slots), that would be another 5 per each of the 100+. That's a whole lotta minigaming.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

You're making an assumption here, possibly without realizing it.

A game doesn't need 'mass crafting'.

Half the time, the reason for it IS just to use up your time.

If the minigame uses up your time instead and is more engaging, 'mass crafting' could just be tossed out, and honestly, to me that's a lot more fun because the micromanagement of the systems is within the player's control rather than 'do what the system tells you to do' or 'do hundreds of X'.

Yeah, that's why I added the "if that's in the plans". Though I meant it more as a "whether one crafter is supposed to be able to craft all the things his 300-member guild would need".

We know that lower tiers will be required to craft higher tiers. I'd assume it won't be a direct use, but a step by step one. You craft t1s into t2s, t2s into t3 and so on until you craft t5. Now, that might not be true and we might just have direct mats instead of craftable ones.

But even then, I'm talking about a guild crafter who's supposed to craft 8 armor pieces for 100++ people. And that's per tier of gear. And if his second specialization is jewel cutting (assuming that's related to the 5 jewel slots), that would be another 5 per each of the 100+. That's a whole lotta minigaming.

I would REALLY hope that isn't the case. Or rather, that if it is the case, that it's a negative.

The idea that one person COULD outfit an entire guild AND this not be a negative or tedious process ALSO implies that one person could outfit an entire smaller node. Now, that's SORT of good, but wouldn't one do this over multiple days?

Isn't it BETTER to have 'daily crafting' to do? That sounds a lot more like the problem being on either supply or demand side, not 'crafter'.

Azherae wrote: »

I would REALLY hope that isn't the case. Or rather, that if it is the case, that it's a negative.

The idea that one person COULD outfit an entire guild AND this not be a negative or tedious process ALSO implies that one person could outfit an entire smaller node. Now, that's SORT of good, but wouldn't one do this over multiple days?

Isn't it BETTER to have 'daily crafting' to do? That sounds a lot more like the problem being on either supply or demand side, not 'crafter'.

I mean, in my experience the crafting was happening when the supply supported it. I could log into the game one day and the GL would say "we've gotten all the resources you need to craft 20 sets of armor, go do it". Now L2 had the step by step system, so I'd start from crafting t1 into t2 and finish at "press the button 20 times to craft 20 instances of this particular gear piece". And then repeated that for each of 5 pieces in a set.

It was done through one crafter because it'd be a trusted person, it'd be a person with recipes already registered (you needed them registered to be able to craft the items) and at the lvl that supported the craft itself (depending on the server, this was also a long process).

And in that context, I look at AoC's system and see that only a few people would be able to master a particular direction. That mastering would require a ton of crafting, so it's beneficial to start crafting all the things the guild would need on that one person to boost him asap. And artisan reputation seems to matter too, so on top of your guild's crafting you might want to help out people in your node or maybe even in the whole vassal system.

And I look at that and see potentially thousands of crafts. And that's just within one "patch" of the game. Any expansions would bring more stuff. And any decaying (which will obviously happen) would most likely demand more crafts.

Now obviously you can split this all up across multiple days or even weeks, but, again, in my experience that shit don't work like that. If my guild needs the best possible gear for their next raid/siege/pvp encounter - I'm gonna craft it asap. And if the guild is working correctly, supply will be ready for me when I need it.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that's your guild's 'fault'.

If they collected resources for 20 sets of armor, and it didn't take THEM multiple days to collect, you are in a high throughput guild. For some people this is great. If one doesn't like it, don't join that kind.

In my opinion it SHOULD be that they will stagger this depending on your time and interest. Or, in AoC's case, since the preprocessing would be done by ME, not by you...

You'd log in and find that I put materials for you to craft 4 sets (or 20 Helmets) in your 'inbox', you'd do those, and then go do something else, and the next day it would be another 4 sets (or 20 gloves).

Designing a minigame to actively engage the player without feeling like a chore is difficult. I think the biggest problem comes from 'rote memory' style interactions. I would like them to avoid as much of this as possible relative to minigames. I hear your concern @Nerror relative to twitch skills, but twitch skills are part of the tool kit when it comes to reducing rote memory. That being said I think there is a reasonable timing window easily achieved to meet your concern while still using the tool effectively.

Example I really like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSx6IZbXwN8

Now this is what I would consider to be the level of 'slow twitch' of what you are talking about Nerror. It's a twitch kind of minigame in that it requires you to actually 'stop what you are doing if you want to participate' on a timer. While you don't have /much/ time to hunt the mole and need to react, there is still a decent amount of time to grab it. If you are better at comboing or play a class with big burst damage you also need less time to kill it. Either way it is well within normal combat parameters in the rest of the game.

For those of you who haven't experienced BDO farming. The mole cannot be handled by workers nor are they lessened by workers. Moles only appear when harvesting. The mole essentially drops a good item. It's therefore not a requirement to hunt them but it's very incentivized. There is a lot of design philosophy behind why I think this is a good system but here's the tldr:

1. Hunting the mole is completely optional. You don't need to hunt it to keep farming.
2. It's a reward not a punishment
3. It breaks the monotony of the task with something a little more active in a sudden way outside the players control.

I'd give you an example of a 'slightly more fast twitch' skill but I leave that to fisher people for I don't personally gravitate towards fast twitch crafts even if I fully support them existing. Knowing your reaction to the speed of 'hunting a mole' might help others engage you better though.

Edit: converted link from shorts to regular youtube for all you hyperlink leery clickers.

Azherae wrote: »

I'm gonna go ahead and say that's your guild's 'fault'.

If they collected resources for 20 sets of armor, and it didn't take THEM multiple days to collect, you are in a high throughput guild. For some people this is great. If one doesn't like it, don't join that kind.

In my opinion it SHOULD be that they will stagger this depending on your time and interest. Or, in AoC's case, since the preprocessing would be done by ME, not by you...

You'd log in and find that I put materials for you to craft 4 sets (or 20 Helmets) in your 'inbox', you'd do those, and then go do something else, and the next day it would be another 4 sets (or 20 gloves).

But that's the thing though. I feel like the game would almost require you to do this if you wanna succeed.

You want the reputation of the "best crafter around"? You gotta be the fastest to the top and always be available to craft stuff for people, be it through your stall or in person.

You want your guild to be at the peak performance at all times? You gotta craft everything you can for them asap. Why should a guild gimp themselves just to let you work less?

Obviously those kinds of guilds will be on the rarer side in the grand scheme of things, but what I'm mainly asking for is just some way to do crafting at big scales w/o the requirement for the minigame, because I know for sure that each and every dedicated crafter of a hardcore guild will have to go through thousands of those minigames and I'd assume that it'll get tedious pretty quickly.

Now there's a chance that gear acquisition will be so damn slow that this 1k crafts will be spread over weeks of gameplay. And while I'd be totally fine with that, I dunno how the masses would see it. I'm used to getting a single new piece of gear after a week of grinding money/mats for it, but afaik that's a very oldschool line of thinking.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I'm gonna go ahead and say that's your guild's 'fault'.

If they collected resources for 20 sets of armor, and it didn't take THEM multiple days to collect, you are in a high throughput guild. For some people this is great. If one doesn't like it, don't join that kind.

In my opinion it SHOULD be that they will stagger this depending on your time and interest. Or, in AoC's case, since the preprocessing would be done by ME, not by you...

You'd log in and find that I put materials for you to craft 4 sets (or 20 Helmets) in your 'inbox', you'd do those, and then go do something else, and the next day it would be another 4 sets (or 20 gloves).

But that's the thing though. I feel like the game would almost require you to do this if you wanna succeed.

You want the reputation of the "best crafter around"? You gotta be the fastest to the top and always be available to craft stuff for people, be it through your stall or in person.

You want your guild to be at the peak performance at all times? You gotta craft everything you can for them asap. Why should a guild gimp themselves just to let you work less?

Obviously those kinds of guilds will be on the rarer side in the grand scheme of things, but what I'm mainly asking for is just some way to do crafting at big scales w/o the requirement for the minigame, because I know for sure that each and every dedicated crafter of a hardcore guild will have to go through thousands of those minigames and I'd assume that it'll get tedious pretty quickly.

Now there's a chance that gear acquisition will be so damn slow that this 1k crafts will be spread over weeks of gameplay. And while I'd be totally fine with that, I dunno how the masses would see it. I'm used to getting a single new piece of gear after a week of grinding money/mats for it, but afaik that's a very oldschool line of thinking.

Just a week? Y'all whippersnappers!

Back in MY day we had to farm FIFTEEN WEEKS just to buy a new Status Removal Spell!

(Statements made in this response are hyperbole and may not reflect the reality of "Scroll of Erase" acquisition)

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I'm gonna go ahead and say that's your guild's 'fault'.

If they collected resources for 20 sets of armor, and it didn't take THEM multiple days to collect, you are in a high throughput guild. For some people this is great. If one doesn't like it, don't join that kind.

In my opinion it SHOULD be that they will stagger this depending on your time and interest. Or, in AoC's case, since the preprocessing would be done by ME, not by you...

You'd log in and find that I put materials for you to craft 4 sets (or 20 Helmets) in your 'inbox', you'd do those, and then go do something else, and the next day it would be another 4 sets (or 20 gloves).

But that's the thing though. I feel like the game would almost require you to do this if you wanna succeed.

You want the reputation of the "best crafter around"? You gotta be the fastest to the top and always be available to craft stuff for people, be it through your stall or in person.

You want your guild to be at the peak performance at all times? You gotta craft everything you can for them asap. Why should a guild gimp themselves just to let you work less?

Obviously those kinds of guilds will be on the rarer side in the grand scheme of things, but what I'm mainly asking for is just some way to do crafting at big scales w/o the requirement for the minigame, because I know for sure that each and every dedicated crafter of a hardcore guild will have to go through thousands of those minigames and I'd assume that it'll get tedious pretty quickly.

Now there's a chance that gear acquisition will be so damn slow that this 1k crafts will be spread over weeks of gameplay. And while I'd be totally fine with that, I dunno how the masses would see it. I'm used to getting a single new piece of gear after a week of grinding money/mats for it, but afaik that's a very oldschool line of thinking.

Anyways now a more serious response:

I don't understand large guilds that have only one crafter.

I don't understand the concept of being 'the best crafter around' to the point where you not only have no competition, but you are EXPECTED to play like this. That said I do know people that DO play like this, and then utterly enjoy it, so I don't see why we wouldn't support their dream.

But I don't see any connection here. Expected by who? If you want to be the absolute top, then yes, you often sacrifice some fun. In fact, I think most competitive games AUTOMATICALLY work this way, because humans only have fun doing the same thing for X period, but pushing beyond that to double the same time has payoffs.

Infinite fun, were it possible, would lead to infinite gains across all enjoyers. It's baked into Game Theory that if you want to be the BEST at something in a game, you will sacrifice some fun unless you have a VERY high tolerance/aptitude for the activity, in which case, good for you, you are naturally the best.

I already know your opinion on that, so.

Azherae wrote: »

Just a week? Y'all whippersnappers!

Back in MY day we had to farm FIFTEEN WEEKS just to buy a new Status Removal Spell!

(Statements made in this response are hyperbole and may not reflect the reality of "Scroll of Erase" acquisition)

Same as my statements for the "week" But with you knowing how long it could take to get stuff, do you think that kind of design would fly these days? Everyone seems to want everything right here right now.

NiKr wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Just a week? Y'all whippersnappers!

Back in MY day we had to farm FIFTEEN WEEKS just to buy a new Status Removal Spell!

(Statements made in this response are hyperbole and may not reflect the reality of "Scroll of Erase" acquisition)

Same as my statements for the "week" But with you knowing how long it could take to get stuff, do you think that kind of design would fly these days? Everyone seems to want everything right here right now.

I think it HAS to.

MMOs falter when things don't take long to get.

Also, part of this is from your lower experience with hard PvE, but for your reference, no one, I don't think even the TOP guilds, will care about the literal best gear BEFORE going to fight a hard boss.

If you don't die like 20 times before you even know what to DO with certainty, then it's not very hard. Mathematically there would be no progression pyramid.

This happens in PvP games too against top players. If you ditch the matchmaking and find a REALLY good player willing to keep fighting you, it takes 10-20 matches before you can even figure out what to do, far less manage to do it. At that point, your 'ability to win/learn because you do more damage or survive longer' is only minimally affected by the types of gear gaps I'm used to.

Azherae wrote: »

That said I do know people that DO play like this, and then utterly enjoy it, so I don't see why we wouldn't support their dream.

But I don't see any connection here. Expected by who? If you want to be the absolute top, then yes, you often sacrifice some fun. In fact, I think most competitive games AUTOMATICALLY work this way, because humans only have fun doing the same thing for X period, but pushing beyond that to double the same time has payoffs.

If minigame tedium is the sacrifice I'll have to make to achieve my dream of being the very best like no one ever was, I am ready to make that sacrifice. I'm just giving feedback on the fact that it might not be the best sacrifice to make.

Tie the minigame to scale crafting. Maybe if you can perfectly beat the minigame your crafting triggers multiple times, if your mats allow for that. Or maybe you gotta do some special action during the minigame to trigger multicrafting. Neither of those things would impact casual crafters in any way, but they would remove tedium from scale crafters.

Azherae wrote: »

Also, part of this is from your lower experience with hard PvE, but for your reference, no one, I don't think even the TOP guilds, will care about the literal best gear BEFORE going to fight a hard boss.

If you don't die like 20 times before you even know what to DO with certainty, then it's not very hard. Mathematically there would be no progression pyramid.

This happens in PvP games too against top players. If you ditch the matchmaking and find a REALLY good player willing to keep fighting you, it takes 10-20 matches before you can even figure out what to do, far less manage to do it. At that point, your 'ability to win/learn because you do more damage or survive longer' is only minimally affected by the types of gear gaps I'm used to.

I meant best gear at your stage of progress.

Wouldn't you need to be your best self to even see if it's possible to beat the boss at your progress stage? Or is that bad Lost Ark-like design of gear score that's not applicable to the games you've played?