Crafting in Guild Wars 2: Best in the MMO market

Crafting in Guild Wars 2: Best in the MMO market

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Posted by: cesmode.4257

cesmode.4257

I’ll go ahead and say it, I love crafting in Guild Wars 2. Its different enough where it dosnt bore you to tears watching a progress bar, but similar in that you need to refine things. I like how, for instance, an earring will require a hook, setting, and gem. Realistic! I like how cooking actually makes real items, and requires a somewhat realistic recipe to make. I like how the discovery system rewards you with a ton of XP, along with a few crafting levels. Genius..this alone made me smile when I realized that this was the way to go.

In WoW, it was a boring repetitive task that provided no value for you either selling things on the AH, or leveling. Little to no experience. In Guild Wars, you get loads of XP from it. Still, selling things on the TP is not worth it, but I can overlook this right now.

In Rift, it was just too convoluted and complicated to really master. Maybe I didnt give it a fair shot.

In Tera, It became too expensive midway through to purchase some of the items from the master crafters.

SWTOR had it interesting, with the companions doing these things for you. I’ll admit, it was slightly better than your run of the mill crafting, IMO.

I know I probably wander from the main zerg of people that probably dislike crafting in this game, but I love it. Arenanet: Whoever thought this one up, gets an A+ from me. +5 internets.

Karma is as abundant as air, and as useless as the Kardashians.

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Posted by: Nkuvu.2570

Nkuvu.2570

I agree with you. I’m not looking for a get rich quick scheme from crafting, so I don’t care if it’s not profitable. I simply find it fun. And it has bonus cookies of the experience flavor.

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Posted by: Promega.7628

Promega.7628

Crafting in this game is great if you consider all the rare materials and the mystic forge.

As for SWTOR, anyone else still LOL at slicing during pre-launch? Click this button and my companions bring me millions of credits… OK!

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Posted by: Fildydarie.1496

Fildydarie.1496

It is the best on the market that I know of, but not the best that I have seen (Star Wars: Galaxies, takes that crown.

Both have the notion of materials in→product out, guranteed. Very little kittens more than to get rare materials and lose everything trying to make high-end equipment.

Both have the notion of realistic recipies. It is nice to think about how the raw materials become to finished product and lends an air of credibility to the requirements.

Both gave progression for practicing them. The SWG exp system was…different, but in a good way.

What SWG had was variable input and output. I’m greatly simplifying this, but you could get different grades of ores and other materials, and each type of material had different properties. Depending on how suitable different materials were, the output would have different stats. To translate from the SWG recipies to GW2 recipies:

When you get leather, the source is taken into consideration. A dolyak will make a nice thick leather, suitable for the soles of boots or tough armor, but less suitable for straps. Part of your armor recipie requires leather for straps, and another part is leather for the chestplate. If you use dolyak leather for everything, you’re going to have durable armor that is difficult to move in—you want a finer leather for the straps.

The basic system, as implemented, was great, and I miss it (not the rest of the game, though—that wasn’t nearly as much fun).

The other thing that SWG crafting had going for it was that you had to choose crafting or combat—you could do both, but practicing additional disciplines requried you to give others up. When 25% of the population shares the same crafts as you, the market is easily flooded with finished products.

-Fildydarie
Hutchmistress of the Fluffy Bunny Brigade [FBB]

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Posted by: Arisal.9740

Arisal.9740

As much as I love crafting in this game I would say its a close 2nd to Eve Online. Just about every single item in the game is crafted and the market is all player driven. I am really glad they brought over buy orders just like eve. Only thing is Eve is a gazillion times more complicated because you also have to take logistics into account when it comes to manufacturing.

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Posted by: WaystedMined.7831

WaystedMined.7831

Sorry, but GW2’s market system doesn’t hold a candle to the Eve Online markets. Every other market and economy from MMOs I’ve played personally have paled in comparison to that system.

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Posted by: datus.4187

datus.4187

I’d have to strongly disagree. With all due respect, and not to be argumentative or offensive, the games you list in comparison are also bad examples of crafting systems, with the exception of WoW who’s crafting system is a bit better than the others you mentioned actually.

You’d have to rewind a bit, to understand the importance and effectiveness of crafting systems. Ultima Online so far is the best example of a successful crafting system, but second place is definitely LoTRO which has brilliant interdependency as well as a proficiency / mastery system.

Interdependency – Crafting systems must have interdependency to support a healthy economy. Interdependency means certain mats required for your craftsman are created and sold by other craftsman. GW2 does not have this.

Proficiency – Meaning that without much trouble your crafts-person should be proficient enough to support himself with his craft as he adventures but, mastery should rightfully require more work. The problem with GW2 is the work required to reach mastery is exclusive of the crafting system itself. It’s wholly creature based, which requires hunting… not harvesting or – ahem – crafting. Add to that that drop rates are very low for these materials so… by hunting for hours to gain the mats required for mastery, you far out-level your crafting altogether.

Ok levels don’t matter much here but if levels are that unimportant than why have them at all? Even non-level systems have skill progression. So levels, or skill gains ARE important design wise. I don’t think either should be trivialized, but one should be decided on.

Also we should not gain adventure XP from crafting. That’s fanning the flames.

Slight tuning of drop rates to rates required to craft would be a start as far as improving the crafting system, but still I feel it’s too linear of a system. All professions and all levels of mastery use the exact same mats, just less or more of them respectively. That’s VERY grindy and linear. As far as my experience goes anyway? I haven’t done cooking.

Perhaps Anet just needs more time to bolster up the crafting, but again OP, I disagree that it’s the best, or even close to it.

Thanks.

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Posted by: Judgement.1078

Judgement.1078

While I agree that the crafting systems in place in GW2 are fun and don’t feel like a grind, I have to argue that I have seen better craft-oriented MMOs out there, one in particular which is almost 10 years old and still keeps a small customer base.

Levelling crafts in GW2 doesn’t feel as rewarding as I feel it should and I would have liked to see a greater dependancy on crafting in the game. Right now it is too easy to buy armor sets from vendors and, if you’re like me and prefer to craft, you are left without a reliable customer base. In fact, as of now I see little incentive to go out and scour the landscape for resource nodes (some of which are mobile) and I don’t like having to purchase several toolsets to lug around and fill my inventory.

While it’s impossible to compare one craft system to another as every one is different, I feel that crafting is completely avoidable in GW2 and only serves as an additional source of entertainment, though I completely support ANet’s ideals of allowing players to play how they want, which may include not crafting at all. Players may not be in top fighting standard without crafted gear, but they can very well fight at level 80 regardless. Thus I have to admit that GW2 simply cannot provide the best crafting system available, as the parameters do not support it.

‘How does the day find you, Peacemaker?’
‘Like every other day- by forcing sunlight between my eyelids.’

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Posted by: Ephiny.9831

Ephiny.9831

Lotro has the best crafting system by far, and you can make money off crafted items

Valar Morghulis

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Posted by: Michaeas Magister.1589

Michaeas Magister.1589

I would also have to agree with Datus on his/her views on the crafting system. Especially about the linear aspects of it. With the exception of jeweler and chef, EVERY one of the other six crafting disciplines requires the exact same fine materials to craft with. So, here is some simple math I have done about those disciplines:

If you wanted to raise your crafting in armorsmith, artificer, huntsman, leatherworker, tailor and weaponsmith and wanted to discover the recipes using vials of weak blood, you would need quite a bit of it to learn them for all six crafts.

There are six pieces of armor in each of the armor crafts. You need three of the vials of weak blood for the normal (blue) tier of crafting for each piece, then you need eight vials of weak blood for the master (green) tier of crafting for each piece, THEN you need fifteen vials of weak blood for the rare (gold) tier of crafting for each piece.

So, to make all eighteen pieces you would need: ((3 * 6) + (8 * 6) + (15 * 6)) * 3 = 156 * 3 = 468 vials of weak blood to discover the recipes for all three of the armor crafts that use weak vials of blood across all three levels (normal, master, rare) of the armor.

But wait, there’s more!!

There are nineteen weapons that can be crafted in the game: four in artificer, seven in huntsman, and eight in weaponsmith… So, using the above formula for those you would need: (3 * 19) + (8 * 19) + (15 * 19) = 494 vials of weak blood in order to discover all the tiers of recipes for making weapons.

NOW, add all of those up and you require a grand total of 962 vials of weak blood in order to discover ALL of the recipes that use vials of weak blood. And that’s just for discovering those recipes. To discover and level your crafting across all six of the armor/weapon crafting disciplines, you are going to need 962 of EACH of the fine crafting materials used in that tier of crafting.

So, if you are looking at levelling-up all six of these crafts, you had better get to grinding for your fine materials… Oh wait, there is not supposed to be any grinding in this game…

So, I guess you had better get to farming them… Oh wait, there can really be no farming in this game with the diminishing returns code that has been implemented in an attempt to stop the botting… Hmmmmm…..

I guess you could just make (or buy via the gem shop) LOTS of gold and then buy the 962 fine mats of each type you would need to discover those recipes. (And perhaps this is the point of making all the crafts so dependant upon the same type of fine materials. To try to drive people to the gem market)

Or, I suppose you could just create a large guild like that french guy did who leveled to 80 in just a couple of days and have everyone in the guild give you all of their fine crafting materials. It would mean no one else but you in the guild would learn to craft, but I guess that guilds like those are not really made to help each other but just to help that one person in the guild. Not my idea of a good guild, but it seems to work well for that one person who receives all the benefits.

Of course you don’t HAVE to discover all the recipes of a given fine material when crafting, you could just grind out the same discovery you have made, but again that is going to use up your fine materials across ALL of your crafts…

In the end, the only answer I can see is for the developers to realize that having six crafting disciplines all dependant upon the exact same fine crafting materials was a mistake and to either lower the number necessary to craft with, or to raise the drop rate just a bit for them. Of course if their purpose really IS to drive us to the gem market to make us buy gems for gold in order to be able to purchase these fine crafting materials, then I don’t really see them making any changes to the crafting system.

In the end, I would have to agree that I have seen and played better implementations of the crafting system than what we have in Guild Wars 2. While I do like the discovery process and I believe that jeweler and chef have both been done rather well, the other six crafting disciplines just seem to be copy/paste duplicates of each other all using the exact same materials across the board for their various levels. While that is not too bad of a thing for the player that only wants to level up one of those, woe be to anyone looking to raise ALL of those six crafting discplines.

And if anyone actually DOES level all six of those crafting disciplines and discovers EVERY recipe for them, then there definitely should be some major achievement and title for them. After all, they will probably have had to donate a fair share of cash to the developers to do so…

Thanks.

It’s as I have always said,
“You can get more results with a kind word and a big stick,
than you can with merely a kind word.”

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Posted by: para.9351

para.9351

EVE Online has the best crafting system of any game.

[QTS] Cuties for Life is the cutest guild in the world. Ask for an invite. Cuties only!

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Posted by: Fadari.6479

Fadari.6479

Except for SWG, crafting in MMO’s is essentially the same. Or, I should say the same end product. You and I may play differently, harvest differently and enjoy aspects of each game and crafting system. But when it comes down to the end product, every crafter makes EXACTLY the SAME ITEM. In my recent adventures, I found a great little jewelry recipe on an event summoned vendor for a handful of silver. I thought I had finally found something not everyone else had and rushed back to make said item. It was soulbound. Not even account bound. I couldn’t make them to sell them and offer up something a tad bit different on the market. I have since made an effort to look for more of these hidden recipes and so far all except cooking are soulbound. Since you have no idea what the recipe makes, you have no idea if it would even be good for your crafter. (I try not too google too much and ruin the surprise) But, I think if you’re out adventuring and find these little nuggets, lets us be able to sell them!

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Posted by: wolonggong.3469

wolonggong.3469

I would give up the crafting XP in a heartbeat if they actually made it WORTH doing.

Why in the world would I give up several gold worth of crafting materials to be able to craft items I can buy on the TP for around 30s?

Seriously. I am sitting on over 25 gold because im selling the materials I find and yet im buying completely new sets of gear every 5 levels…the amount of rares needed is just plain crazy and needs to be cut in 1/3rd to make it CLOSE to worth it price wise…and im barely into level 60…I have no doubt I will have well over 50G by the time im level 80 and will have more than enough to buy everything but legendaries.

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Posted by: Telenn.6945

Telenn.6945

Nothing unique about the majority of crafting that you cant get multiple other ways. So fail.

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Posted by: poiuy.3907

poiuy.3907

OP you must be joking?

Crafting in GW2 is not bad but not great I give it a max of 6 out of 10.

GW2 has no end game other than pvp and you don’t need crafted gear for spvp.

GW2 has no end game for pve so you don’t even need crafted high end gear.

You can’t level and craft your gear as you go as the crafting skills levels way toooooo slowwwww compared to character pve leveling and the materials needed require an epic and massive grind of boring repeated game play to get.

Only one game gets 10 out of 10 for crafting and that is EVE online.

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Posted by: Cereus.6735

Cereus.6735

Crafting in GW2 is too static. Sure, gaining levels is nice- but as it stands nobody wants to purchase the end products because it’s not really worth the hassle to. The profit margins barely gets the crafter to break even. As it stands, I make more money selling the raw materials than the finished products themselves. Too many professions share too much of the same materials and recipes. Take bags for example. Other MMOs typically have tailoring/leatherworking so that they make the generic carry everything bags. A blacksmith would make safety deposit boxes that only worked for the bank. However as it stands at the moment- in GW2 tailor/leatherworking/armorsmithing all make the same kind of bags. It’s this homogenization of items that makes it hard for crafters to create items that are desirable.

Sure there’s special recipes, but as someone pointed out they create soulbound items and I seriously doubt that they have special skins. I looked a couple of them up and nothing they revealed was something that even cosmetic junkies would jump at.

Out of the various MMO’s that I’ve messed with- EVE online and SWG have the best economy/crafting systems of any MMO. In comparison, GW2 crafting is a huge disappointment. It’s somewhat frustrating that the only fantasy MMO that has a somewhat interesting crafting system is EQ and that is rather pale in comparison to SWG and EVE.

I had hope that GW2 would sate my love for crafting, but at the moment I’m feeling that it’s nothing more than a tool for easy leveling to get past the boring levels or the final home stretch.

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Posted by: teviko.6049

teviko.6049

Vanguard had the BEST crafting of any game I ever saw.

GW2 is…meh. I hate how MUCH of anything you need in order to level. The fact that the fine crafting materials (except for jewellry making and cooking) is over 50% of the required components for any tier.

The best thing about GW2 crafting is that you can FLY through material folding (smelting). In Vg, you couldn’t. Everything had to be hand walked through. But it was one of those systems where your knowledge of crafting and your own skill could easily make or break a recipe.

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Posted by: Xomic.5792

Xomic.5792

Eve online does it better, but GW2 is, perhaps, more creative in someways than other MMOs when it comes to crafting.

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Posted by: Michaeas Magister.1589

Michaeas Magister.1589

What I don’t understand is why only jeweler allows you to transmogrify lower level fine materials into higher ones. Why wasn’t this system integrated into the other crafting professions as well? I know you can use the Mystic Forge to upgrade stacks of 50 into stacks of between 5-27, but this costs at least one skill point to do and the transmogrify for jewels does not.

Could they possibly incorporate this into the other crafting professions? It would go a LONG way to making them a bit more palatable.

Thanks.

It’s as I have always said,
“You can get more results with a kind word and a big stick,
than you can with merely a kind word.”

(edited by Michaeas Magister.1589)

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Posted by: Ghoest.3945

Ghoest.3945

The actual crafting experience in GW2 is the best I have seen in any game.
Its actually fun to do the process of crafting.

As a functioning part of an MMO EVE has by far the best crafting.

Crafting in GW2 is almost a single player process. Its really fun and what you do has almost no effect on anyone else. Crafting in EVE is the core of the multiplayer part of the game.

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Posted by: Methesda.5198

Methesda.5198

I think it’s unfair to compare other crafting systems to Eve Onlines. I agree it blows every other crafting system out of the water, but that system plays are far more significant role within the overall structure of the game. In some ways, you could almost say that manufacturing in Eve is the whole game.

One of the things I like about the crafting system GW2 has is the clever use of 3 components to create ‘half-steps’ in crafting, without using more materials.

That is, the way you can use the rank one insiginias/emblems/etc to produce both 5-10 and 10-15 armor sets. By having this staggered system, you can produce twice as many level-grades of armour, without doubling the types of mats required. Very smart.

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Posted by: Elthurien.8356

Elthurien.8356

My top three crafting so far in order (including gathering)
1 – Star Wars Galaxies
2 – Guild Wars 2
3 – Age of Conan

This is the best on the market at the moment. I especially love the discovery panel and would love to see more of it. Cooking is hands down the best I’ve seen

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Posted by: PalmTrees.3796

PalmTrees.3796

I’d put GW2 crafting in the upper-middle someplace. It’s not completely awful for one of the click button and watch progress bar variety. Not very involving though. At least they learned enough from previous games to make the bar move fast.

I liked EQ2’s better. You had the mini-game to play, it made things more interesting. Also, I could sell my spell scrolls for a profit. I only played a little bit of Free Realms, but they had cooking which actually involved cooking. Putting things in the pan, turning them, etc.