Not crazy about crafting mechanics

I've read through a number of positive feedback to the crafting so I acknowledge up from that I seem, anecdotally at least, to be in the minority, but in the spirit of honest feedback from paying backers, my reaction was decidedly negative.

First off, the discovery process. If you were doing research with magical reagents or something you might have an angle here, but with just about everything else I find it remarkably trite. There is nothing fun, exciting, or even remotely mentally challenging about siting there for HOURS systematically going through combinations. About as much fun as trying open a pad-lock by going through all the possible combinations, and not having a clue what you are opening it for in the first place. Does a carpenter really put two boards on a table and then get "surprised" when he builds a shelf?!? Doesn't someone grab a bolt of cloth knowing they are going to make a shirt? It would make far more sense to me to either buy (aka learn) a recipe, or simply gain the knowledge through experience in a given vocation. That, not guess work, would be immersion. Bottom line is, I think, there will be a minority of players with nothing but time on their hands who will figure out every item, post it on a wiki, and the rest of use will consult it... at which point its kind of like whats the point???

The actual mechanics...and I know I'm not alone in this one. Heaven help me the number of clicks it takes to make ONE thing from scratch. Holy poop! Talk about carpel tunnel inducing clickity click click click-drag click click-drag click-drag click-drag click-drag click click. Its so bad that even with a cheat list of recipes I simply couldn't be bothered. Maybe I'm spoilt by having crafted in other games, but after using a streamlined system this one just seems so....ineffectual in that I'm not getting any more immersed in the world, rather I'm being taken out of it to play a poorly conceived mobile app'esque time killer game.

Now, having said that, I DO like the depth of the materials/product trees, but I'd really rather walk up to a crafting work-center, look at my recipes...see the requirements vs. how many I've got. If I'm short, take me to the recipe for the constituent ingredient, but either way select a number to make and just do it.

Thats just me. If you love the crafting system there is no need to tell me, I've seen the other threads but like I said I just felt compelled to offer my honest, if differing, opinion.

 

I feel that its redundant to create one item (resource materials) at a time as I find this very tedious. So, for example, when creating a bolt of cloth, do I really need to stand at the crafting table and make one bolt at a time, or would it make more sense to be able to create them in bulk. Or, if that idea doesn't appeal to some, then perhaps creating various lengths of cloth. ie. Bolts of cloth that come in 10 cubits in length, 50 cubits, 100 cubits, etc. This will save time for the craft person who may wish to create a large number of tailored items rather than just one or two. Also, I agree about being able to purchase or learn recipes. There should be, however, at least some level of discovery, especially when you get into very unique items.

 

I couldn't even get the darn crafting to work, even after looking up some of the recipes... And having to look up a recipe for how to cut a log into planks of wood is kind of ridiculous.
There must be some kind of trick to it that I'm just missing... I drag the log onto the milling table along with the measuring cubit aaaaand nothing after hitting "craft". The two pieces periodically "glow" but nothing else happens.

 

I think you're looking at the 5% who made it work. For me, it's not even close to workable.

 

You probably had too much wood. You need the exact Number of items to create something. 1 wood might make something, 5 wood makes something else. so if you put 10 wood on there, how does it know what you want to make because 10 wood makes nothing.


I know we'll see a lot of changes to crafting. I THINK we'll see recipes in the game that you get from NPCs(bought/taught), Loot (treasure chests, found in an old book, found on a kobold), and possibly from other players teaching. Also there will be the discovery system still to find new recipes.

 

This is the very early framework of crafting...
Keep this in mind!
Hear it from Starr himself

 

These are all reasons as to why they are testing it.
This is just the introduction to what is yet to come.
For now, it works as they basically want without blowing up, so it's successful.

All the little things that niggle will be worked on and it will get better.
Overall it was a treat to see an update to basically the old system -
of UO (edit) that works in a new world and we'll see where they take it.

If you ask me, it's really really exciting!

 

That's the thing, nothing tells me that I have too much of something. And why would the quantity matter? I WANT to turn the logs into planks, so shouldn't it be able to handle 7 logs?

 

because if they have a recipe that makes boards out of 1 log, and planks out of 3 logs, how would it know if you want 7 boards or 2 planks?

Now in this situation I don't think it does something different, but there are a bunch of other recipes where it does. And if they add a new recipe in and you put 20 logs on there and suddenly you got 2 tower poles instead You might be upset.

 

You're confusing the milling table with the carpentry table. As it stands now you get 2 planks and 3 pieces of timber from one log. How would that be a different output it I put 7 logs onto the table??? If I wanted something other than the timber and planks then something else would have to be added to the "recipe" other than just the quantity of logs. Perhaps the types of logs, or an additional cubit stick, or a triangle.... but for something as simple as ripping lumber why would they change recipes by the quantity you put on the table?

EDIT: I forgot to mention the bark, but I'm unaware of a recipe for it right now, although I'm sure it'll be used somewhere...

 

Someone in another thread made a great post with a solution to that exact problem.

It went along the lines of. If you already know the board and plank recipe. You could be asked whether you want to produce the 7 logs or the 2 planks.

If I put 50 logs on the table. I should be queried to produce every possible recipe I already have learned possible with 50 logs.
If those 50 logs on the table would produce something I have not yet discovered, it should also let me know and let me attempt to discover it.

 

A system where you could decide your goal in crafting beforehand could help. If you planned ahead, perhaps you could do bulk crafting, but it'd of course take more time due to the greater amount crafted.

 

Kudos to whomever mentioned it previously Skalex.

That would work as well Monxter. If we have the recipe book and already have a goal in mind, not just "discovery" then being allowed to set it up beforehand would be nice.

 

Of course we'll see what happens once the features Starr talked about will be implemented, there will be much more interaction & events during the crafting.
Perhaps even crafting a basic iron sword will be meaningful for the crafter in SoTA... and perhaps the sword will be valuable to it's user too.

 

I would just prefer buying/finding/learning recipes via interactions in game rather than a discovery process.

And THEN .. if you have the recipe .. for goodness sake .. don't make me drag/drop things on the crafting table (or if you do .. let me drag all my components there and make multiple items).

This crafting system is "archaic" at best .. and I can't imagine a lot of people WANTING to spend the amount of time required to make even the simplest of items.

Good concept in theory .. poor in execution at this point.

 

That angle really comes down to the nature of the crafting "skill" versus the abundance of materials versus the market for finished goods etc.

By that I mean, if this will be like any other game where you have to make 10,000 sets of plate to move up a tier, then we'll need good medical insurance for our wrists or just not craft. If on the other hand it were set up such that if you want to make a sword you need a recipe and some hard to get and/or very rare ingredients which you then endeavor to cobble together on your travels, and its a one time (or rare) thing you will be doing, then sure the process can be involved and elaborate but there is no indication that would be the case here. My impression is that it will be the usual mass production, for which the current mechanics, in concert with the inventory system mind you (where it seems near impossible to grab something which is barely 2pixels wide) are a huge fail for me.

 

Not sure if you were referencing my post or not, but it really is a simple solution and should be fairly easy for them to implement.

My full thoughts here
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...crafting-with-an-open-mind-results-here.6689/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

There are a few threads with mention of this idea. I think it's a good solution to the problem but it doesn't, in and of itself, remove the problem. Now I can't think that the devs would not allow at least a little in the way of mass production, but say they don't. I think there would be people who find is supremely annoying that this menu pops up every5 seconds as you craft 50 boards. I get it, it's just a suggestion to make things easier and can be fleshed out later, but there is a lot of talk about immersion on these boards and with that in mind it's probably be a killer for some people. Perhaps a different solution is you walk to a crafting table, select a recipe you want to work on and then throw down your materials and hammer on the craft button until you're done. If you want to stop somewhere, simply hit Esc to get back to the list of recipes or to leave the crafting table

Honestly, I think the original thought a good solution to the problem and it's impossible to make everyone happy. The long and short of it is that the current system, basic though it is, is not workable. Recipes make no logical sense in some cases and it takes a long time to do anything. It's fun for some people but a chore for the majority, it seems so something needs to change...

 

If the exact combination you put on the table would create something new then that would be fine, but I don't like the idea that it would prompt for recipes you didn't know just because you have some of each of the components on the table. That just encourages a people to dump inventory on the table randomly.

 

And taking it a step further, it would only ask you after you clicked 'craft' giving you a list of possible receipes...Perhaps ones you could successfully craft would be green, and harder or impossible receipes could be yellow, red, etc...with percentage of success?

At least that way it's not a random guess, but it could be lucky...Or a better term...part of experimenting...