Now, get rid of crafting this time around!

[tinysalamander]

Crafting often hurts immersion. How on earth can my cheaply crafted sword beat an ages old magical artifact of might ? That just doesn't make any sense. This happens in alot of games that have crafting that scales. Pillars had a similar problem, where crafted weapons where often on par with found items.

 

It’s enchanted and/or blessed. It’s not like you actually craft weapons/armor in PoE.

 

As for artifacts, either magic fades with time (happens in some stories) or, really, they weren’t that good. Someone wielded them and made and mark in history, which is why they are legendary. They became stronger through that person’s soul, but otherwise they are normal items.

[Katarack21]

Don't get rid of it, *make it useful*. Crafting was *clearly* an afterthought in PoE. It needs to be integrated much more with the game; it needs to be robust, deep, and complex.

[gibonez]

I guess I must be in the minority, I love crafting and was hoping it was way more intricate and detailed in POE 2.

 

Talking about smelting weapons to make iron and steel bars to make my own daggers with my own properties.

[Valmy]

I am fine with crafting so long as it is not important. God I hate when the best stuff is all crafted. I never hated a system quite like Dragon Age: Inquisition. The crafted stuff was all better than the dropped stuff and it could not have been more tedious. PoE's crafting was fine. Let's keep drops where you get your gear.

[Valmy]

I guess I must be in the minority, I love crafting and was hoping it was way more intricate and detailed in POE 2.

 

Talking about smelting weapons to make iron and steel bars to make my own daggers with my own properties.

 

It makes no sense for somebody who has not trained for years under a master to be able to craft weapons. But I guess we shouldn't use realism arguments.

 

But please not this. If you can make your own daggers with your own special powers then I will have to make my own daggers unless I want to have inferior daggers. And I REALLY do not want to make my own daggers.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Valmy

[Guest Blutwurstritter]

 

Crafting often hurts immersion. How on earth can my cheaply crafted sword beat an ages old magical artifact of might ? That just doesn't make any sense. This happens in alot of games that have crafting that scales. Pillars had a similar problem, where crafted weapons where often on par with found items.

 

It’s enchanted and/or blessed. It’s not like you actually craft weapons/armor in PoE.

 

As for artifacts, either magic fades with time (happens in some stories) or, really, they weren’t that good. Someone wielded them and made and mark in history, which is why they are legendary. They became stronger through that person’s soul, but otherwise they are normal items.

 

 

I guess a major problem of crafting is that it is either a requirement for an efficient party or so unimportant that barely makes a difference. You are either forced to use it if you want good equipment or you can skip it entirely. Games barely manage to find a good middle ground. Pillars does manage to do it to some degree but i would say it tends to the second point, that it can easily be skipped if you don't care for it. It simply feels like a system that is in the game to carter to the people who like crafting, but it is not an essential game play mechanic that enhances the overall game altogether. You could leave it out and it would barely make a difference. I don't mind more options but if it is in the game it should be integral to the experience. On my first playthrough i didnt even realize that you could craft since it was all hidden behind a button in the item menu. That could be done better. I would prefer it if there was a crafting skill or crafting talents that actually focus on crafting and make it an interesting aspect to build your character towards it. There could be many encounters or checks for skills like that which would help the role playing aspect too, since at the moment combat resolves everything. If it was like that i would love to have crafting in the game, but as it stands as it is i woudnt mind if they removed it all together. Of course they can also keep it in the game is it is, i woudnt mind that either.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Blutwurstritter

[Ninjamestari]

These are all points on why crafting should be limited to characters that actually have invested in the ability to craft via skills. That and I don't really like the Enchantment system in PoE either. Crafting is an interesting part of a fantasy RPG and in my mind does have its place, but it is important to not let it disrupt the overall game inventory of loot. This on the other hand ties to my whole multi-classing argument of keeping things simple and instead of re-inventing the wheel, building around what is already there and expand the current systems. I strongly believe in a design philosophy of sticking to the path you've chosen and expanding and building that to the fullest potential, rather than trying to re-invent everything all the time. Re-inventing things forces you to start from scratch, and usually nothing significant is gained in the process, while building and expanding upon what you already have leads to cumulative gains in depth, and over time becomes a lot better system for it.

[tinysalamander]

I guess a major problem of crafting is that it is either a requirement for an efficient party or so unimportant that barely makes a difference. You are either forced to use it if you want good equipment or you can skip it entirely. Games barely manage to find a good middle ground. Pillars does manage to do it to some degree but i would say it tends to the second point, that it can easily be skipped if you don't care for it. It simply feels like a system that is in the game to carter to the people who like crafting, but it is not an essential game play mechanic that enhances the overall game altogether. You could leave it out and it would barely make a difference. I don't mind more options but if it is in the game it should be integral to the experience. On my first playthrough i didnt even realize that you could craft since it was all hidden behind a button in the item menu. That could be done better. I would prefer it if there was a crafting skill or crafting talents that actually focus on crafting and make it an interesting aspect to build your character towards it. There could be many encounters or checks for skills like that which would help the role playing aspect too, since at the moment combat resolves everything. If it was like that i would love to have crafting in the game, but as it stands as it is i woudnt mind if they removed it all together. Of course they can also keep it in the game is it is, i woudnt mind that either.

 

Maybe, although being a skill it makes it into “push it onto someone else” type of skill which I generally dislike. Crafting talents are in the same boat.

[Ninjamestari]

Maybe there could be some mechanics involved that restrict the best craftables to those who took the skill for the main character? For example, there could be character backgrounds available that improve your crafting skill that are not available to any companions, or there could be a quest where you need to survive without your party, during which you happen upon a special one time opportunity to craft something unique if your skill is high enough. Band-aid solutions perhaps, but still better than no investment required what-so-ever.

[Guest Blutwurstritter]

 

I guess a major problem of crafting is that it is either a requirement for an efficient party or so unimportant that barely makes a difference. You are either forced to use it if you want good equipment or you can skip it entirely. Games barely manage to find a good middle ground. Pillars does manage to do it to some degree but i would say it tends to the second point, that it can easily be skipped if you don't care for it. It simply feels like a system that is in the game to carter to the people who like crafting, but it is not an essential game play mechanic that enhances the overall game altogether. You could leave it out and it would barely make a difference. I don't mind more options but if it is in the game it should be integral to the experience. On my first playthrough i didnt even realize that you could craft since it was all hidden behind a button in the item menu. That could be done better. I would prefer it if there was a crafting skill or crafting talents that actually focus on crafting and make it an interesting aspect to build your character towards it. There could be many encounters or checks for skills like that which would help the role playing aspect too, since at the moment combat resolves everything. If it was like that i would love to have crafting in the game, but as it stands as it is i woudnt mind if they removed it all together. Of course they can also keep it in the game is it is, i woudnt mind that either.

 

Maybe, although being a skill it makes it into “push it onto someone else” type of skill which I generally dislike. Crafting talents are in the same boat.

 

 

We have such a skill already with Mechanics, unless i missed some aspect about it. But i agree with you, that a simple skill requirement to craft is another poor solution to the problem, leading to a dump skill or talent. The talents should do more but unlocking the option to craft items that everyone can use.

[LordoftheMoo]

PoE's crafting system had the problem that the uniques weren't really unique enough... But if, for example, you made the unique enchantment on top of the regular enchantment, then the argument would be that nobody ever uses anything but the uniques because they are better, so all you've done is move the goalposts and slightly added some option as to what elemental/slaying damage your default baseline weapon has,

 

For the most part uniques in PoE1 were just pre-enchanted items with perhaps some effect (taking up enchanting points), as you've pointed out. It could have made them more interesting had they one or more effects that didn't take up points, or completely unique and compelling effects, but that were not of a level to make them indispensable and therefore "must haves". Ideal unique items would all be interesting rather than all-powerful or, in PoE1's case, not different enough. One thing I found is that many of the effects already on uniques were ones that I could put on them, so the item's "special thing" was that it was gold colored and had a story to it. :/ An effect doesn't have to be very powerful to be very interesting, and therefore desirable. Think of this one, for example, and how much fun it would be use... "Character gains 10% of their endurance back each time one of their allies is knocked unconscious". Not too unbalancing, because you're sacrificing a lot to have it go off, but also think of how useful that could be in a tough boss fight... or what kind of silly battles could result from trying to min/max the usage. :D

 

 

On top of all that, most heroes in literature tend to have either no special weapons or find one which sticks with the for the whole adventure - something you can't do in most tabletop RPGs without some sort of special mechanical effort.

I've had pretty good luck in RPGs I've run by making unique magic items have something different about them that makes the player emotionally bond with the item in some way. When they find a majority of magic items seem like they came out of a factory in China, the strange one suddenly becomes the one they want even if it's a bit less powerful, because it's different and therefore interesting. Giving such items little quirky things that don't mean much (if anything) in combat but make them stand out, can make the players unwilling to upgrade even when something much better (but ordinary) comes along. It's never been something I felt was forced in any way. It was just more enjoyable for people to have stories and a uniqueness to their characters.

 

I am fine with crafting so long as it is not important. God I hate when the best stuff is all crafted. I never hated a system quite like Dragon Age: Inquisition. The crafted stuff was all better than the dropped stuff and it could not have been more tedious. PoE's crafting was fine. Let's keep drops where you get your gear.

 

That's what I'd like to see as well. The majority of items come from the drop system or quests (with vendors and "special circumstances" filling out the rest). You can then improve them, like with PoE1. While I love crafting in games in general, this kind of game isn't where I enjoy it as much. I'd prefer to have improvements that I can perform on an item to make it more customized and a little better than "stock", but I don't want to build items from scratch nor do I want the upgrades to be so mandatory that I'm compelled to do so on every item I get.

[gibonez]

 

I guess I must be in the minority, I love crafting and was hoping it was way more intricate and detailed in POE 2.

 

Talking about smelting weapons to make iron and steel bars to make my own daggers with my own properties.

 

It makes no sense for somebody who has not trained for years under a master to be able to craft weapons. But I guess we shouldn't use realism arguments.

 

But please not this. If you can make your own daggers with your own special powers then I will have to make my own daggers unless I want to have inferior daggers. And I REALLY do not want to make my own daggers.

 

 

Doesn't the watcher learn a dead language in POE1 by merely talking to an undead woman.

 

I am sure he could master something as simple as smithing to some degree quickly.

Edited February 18, 2017 by gibonez

[Silent Winter]

crafting was originally a skill in the early days of PoE1 development.  They dropped it when they realised it wasn't as flexible as other skills.  Good decision IMO.

I don't mind crafting being in, but I don't want to have to waste one character as 'the crafter' - that leads to things like leaving one of the companions (maybe adventurer's hall) at the stronghold, sending them on the side-quests to level-up, and having them as 'the crafter' to add into the party when you want something made.  Realistic maybe, but tedious.

[TMZuk]

Crafting is a terrible mechanic for a number of reasons, already mentioned by a number of posters. It's tedious. It takes away the value of money. It makes it possible to optimize your characters to a ridiculous degree. It removes the joy of finding cool stuff, whether as loot or as items for sale.

 

But the cardinal sin is that it makes it impossible to suspend disbelief. If all it takes to make a basic enchantment is some grass or leaves or whatever, then why haven't every weaponsmith or armourer done it already? It's absurd!

 

BG2 had questcrafting, and that was all right. Still rather silly that Jon Irenicus had the Bow of Gesen but not the string, which was floating around in the Underdark somewhere. But at least, when you got the stuff together, they became cool ~unique~ items, which were on par with the best stuff you could buy or find. Personally, I preferred Lilarcor the Sentient Psychophatic Sword. (Why don't we kill somethinggg? Annnythinnnng? )

 

Crafting is a silly MMO mechanic. It's silly already in MMOs. It's twice as silly in a single player game. And yes, I would indeed pay towards a strectch-goal that removed it all together. In fact, when it became a strechgoal in PoE I wanted to withdraw my support. And, just as I feared, it ruined so much of the game for me.

Edited February 19, 2017 by TMZuk

[Ninjamestari]

Crafting can be a meaningful part of a single player experience, but I must agree that in its current form, the game would be better without it.

[evilcat]

I am not attached in any way to crafting, so let the OE do whatever they like and be done with it.

I used receipes i have avaiable at the moment. It works ok. Not sure if that makes gameplay much better.

 

It would be nice if i could turn unused traps into throwable bombs.

 

It would be nice to have friendly blacksmith to forge for us custom armour with desired properties. Like Vampiric Boomstick of Anihilation or something.

 

Crafting is good for leveling gear.

[Osvir]

Blade of the Endless Paths

[Varana]

Crafting in PoE was already quite restricted. You could do:

Cooking and basic alchemy, which probably doesn't need huge amounts of training. (At least you can set up the world to be like that.)

Writing magical scrolls. I don't remember whether creating them needed the same level of Lore as using them, but that's how it should have been. Other than that, not really complicated, apparently.

And enchanting existing items with a limited selection of enchantments, in a semi-alchemical way, judging by the necessary components.

PoE did not have anything like really producing weapons or crafting plate armour or things like that which really need lots of training and practice. The main exception being Durgan steel, but that you could justify by using a magical smithy that did most of the work.

 

And unless you played PotD+Ironman or so, you could safely ignore almost (or all) of the crafting stuff if you didn't like it. I for one almost never used scrolls, potions, or food (except on very rare occasions - mostly because I re-sorted the inventory and suddenly realised that those things existed...).

[sim-h]

I totally agree that crafting has no place in adventure and story driven RPGs. "Oh look, I just instantly combined some ingredients to give me a more accurate and damaging weapon onthe spot". However there is no way Obsidian are going to remove such a massive feature from the game!

 

The best that can be hoped for is changes (for it to take a long time, perhaps?!) and/or a 'no PC crafting' mode.

 

edit: And as for cooking, if a meat pie gives +2 might or whatever, why aren't all the characters obese! Better to have penalties if you don't eat once a day, muahahaha.

Edited February 20, 2017 by sim-h