Game Mechanics A Craftsman's Plea (plz fix crafting, here's how)

Yes! This is another crafting thread and I am terribly sorry. To make it up to you, I will try structuring this suggessay in the form of notes for easier reading.

There are several problems with crafting that I think need addressing:

1. Crafted items have durability and are therefore far inferior to everything else regardless of effect. The way damage to this durability works makes identifications like speed completely irrelevant if not detrimental to armors and jewelry, as it would only help to hasten their degradation.

2. Crafting ingredients from lower levels are useless while those from higher levels are unusable. Why is this a problem you ask? It's because out of the many crafting materials given to the player, no more than maybe thirty of them find use outside of craftsman runs or leveling. Even then, to level up crafting, it is preferable to use high quantities of a few easily-acquired items, the effort spent implementing classics such as "Luminescent Ink", "Altered Ash", and "Depreciating Flesh" is therefore wasted, with the player not getting a new material to use but a new annoyance to cleanse their inventory of.

3. There are too many ingredients and most of them are entirely useless. For one, there are red and brown mushrooms, everyone's favorite potion-leveling fodder. The brown ones boost health by a few points and the red ones mildly boost recovery. Nobody uses these ingredients to brew actual potions for a fairly obvious reason, they are worse than blank potions. Not only would a blank potion yield 3 charges instead of 1, but those three will outperform the mushroom potion every time. Why are there two leveling mushrooms anyway? Another example is rotten and strong flesh. they have a similarly negligible durability cost but strong flesh is simply better, it can be used with twice the number of crafting professions and has an additional identification that actually appeals to a low-leveled player. Rotten flesh has no reason to exist, outside of level fodder and making sure that craftsmen will never use the items they make for leveling.

4. Crafting materials make no sense. Just what on God's green Earth is a granite ingot? What is a granite gem? I do not want to get into what can be smelted and what can't but do keep in mind that it's possible to write an essay on that alone. Did you know that pine trees are considered "softwood" while oak is considered "hardwood"? Most people don't know that because it's entirely useless information, but the fact stands that oak is considerably harder to chop down than some of the higher-leveled woods. Copper is a good place to start for mining but it should not be followed by gold. It also does not help that gold ingots and gold bars are different items. Molten is not an ingot, it is a potential state for an ingot. Dark is not a wood, it is a color. Rice string is delicious and it's called noodles. Lastly, if there was one thing that Disney taught me, it's that starfish are not caught with fishing rods but with mermaids (this is a joke).

5. Crafted items in their current state do not fit the theme of Wynncraft. Here's an example, every non-player craftsman in this world makes durable goods. What makes us oh so special? Does everyone from the Fruma province have hands growing out of their butts? Maybe we are secretly goblins picking up shiny bits of garbage and cobbling them together into objects of power that are themselves no better. Scrolls make no sense. Every scroll I've seen out and about has been of the teleporting nature, yet here we are, using "scrolls" to do everything but that. Is this secret Fruma tech? Well, that can't be it, we have no memory of it. Who even taught us scroll-crafting? I'm sure whoever it is should consider selling scrolls themselves, they would surely make a killing. Imagine if Bob, the hero of Wynn, forged himself a weapon. Oh, what a mighty weapon it would be! Why can't the player do that? Are we any less heroic? Are we less mighty than the fallen foes beneath our feet? The stars serving as an ingredient's rarity meter fit quite well with the rarities of other weapons and armors. It would not be wrong to allow items crafted with all 1-star ingredients to exhibit the strength of a unique item and so on.

6. It's not fun. Why am I here? I am here to interact with people. I am here to run some dungeons and obtain some gnarly gear. Above all, I am here to have fun. The crafting and gathering systems were not designed for fun. They were designed in fear of creativity, lest it becomes overpowering. What is the first thing you think about when you hear the word "crafting"? I think of creating, and by extension, I think of creativity. I also think about the connection between a craftsman and his craft. There is no connection that exists between a craftsman and his pile of garbage, crafted and discarded to craft at higher levels. What is Wynncraft's crafting trying to be? If it is meant as a challenge, then reward those who face that challenge with the ability to create powerful arms suited to their creator. If it is meant as a way to express creative will, then the least you could do is allow room for creativity.

My suggestion is to take five steps back and one step toward the right direction for crafting.

1. Durability can be replaced with ingredient level. A level 5 player can use a level 2 and a level 3 ingredient in their craft before they are unable to craft it. They can alternatively use five level 1 ingredients, or perhaps a more powerful level 4 ingredient with a level 1 just there to fill the holes. I think it would be good to keep the 6 ingredient limit, with the added benefit of high-level craftsmen likely not being able to find relevant ingredients to perfectly match their own level. A level 50 player has the option of using one level 50 ingredient in their craft if they can get their hands on it but it might be wiser for them to instead use several lower leveled ingredients for a more optimal result. Lower-leveled players are forced to stick with lower-level ingredients, middle-level players are incentivized to experiment with mixing high and low, and high-leveled players have the option to use low-leveled ingredients in their high-level crafts since there would no longer be a reason not to.
2. I think gathered materials should be kept in their raw form up until they are made into the desired item. I like the idea of different qualities of base materials that impact the quality of the item produced at the end but there is no reason to split them into two at the site of gathering because differentiating between iron gems and iron ingots only serves to annoy. To add to my previous point, higher-grade materials could be used to lighten the burden of the level imposed by ingredients. Let us say that one additional star in the base material quality will reduce the required level a player has to be to craft and use an item by one, so crafting a spear at level 10 with two 2-star ingredients will allow the player to craft a level 10 item with a combined ingredient level of 12.
3. I also think that an ingredient purge is in order. If we were to implement the ingredient level system, it should launch with no more than roughly 100 ingredients. As a player, I can confidently say that we, epic gamers, do not want a million useless crafting ingredients, we want several good ones and 100 would be a strong starting place to see what happens, correct things if something goes wrong, and build off of in the future.



It is now 3:24 Am. I have taken this post seriously as a writer and I hope you will show me the same courtesy as a reader, goodnight.

 

i think that your complaints (other than 4 and maybe 5, i don't think it matters but the uncreative names are kinda funny sometimes) are valid, but especially the last one has merit. the first three have already kinda been picked to death and i feel like people are kind of in a consensus that yeah profs are pretty flawed and crafting ingredients are silly but. what would you really do about it.

in terms of solutions though. your second one was from the refinery system which did actually exist for a while until it was removed. afaik, it was some bullshit about weight which was converted to tool durability because apparently people couldn't stay a t gathering spots forever since that was Bad Game Design. but honestly refineries were fun and immersive. i dont know why they were removed.... just... keep tool dura.... and refineries... surely it cant be that fucking hard?

anyways. your first solution is actually interesting imo but would also lead to a lot of balance issues around, well, every single ingredient and the entire system of ingredients in general. which would be ok if your third point was also implemented, i guess.

the problem with that is that removing over 5/6 of the ingredients is an absolutely awful idea. while yes, there's a lot of useless ingredients, people are working to fix that (i think) and making so few of them would lead to one specific meta for every crafted item. it's just a weird point for someone to make after praising expressing creative will

idk thats about it

 

Wait this isn't true?! Disney lied to me :(

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oh

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I don't think it's a weird point, limiting the amount of options often increases creativity.

 

As a max level person and having gone through almost 2 entire HIC playthroughs (1 completed, 1 at endgame right now), here are my thoughts:

Point 1
Most of it is wrong. Let me provide an example.

"10mr helmet 198 dura 122 agi min and 164 int min
https://wynnbuilder.github.io/crafter.html#1AY8v8v8w8w9T9g91
9mr helmet 198 dura 122 agi min and 148 int min
https://wynnbuilder.github.io/crafter.html#1AY8v8w8v8w9T9g91
8mr helmet 307 dura 132 int min
https://wynnbuilder.github.io/crafter.html#1AY8v8v8w8w9w9g91"
compiled by @TravusThaSlime

Find me a helmet/chestplate that even remotely compares to this. Oh, theres only one: Aquarius, a 7/5 mr legendary chestplate, which is still less than any of those 3 options listed above.

There are other examples such as spell % damage, earth/thunder % damage, gathering xp (GXP) (of which NO non-crafted GXP gear even exist), etc.

Why is durability there? To force you to come back every once in a while to repair the gear. Essentially having a cost to this overpowered gear. Take a look at some of the HIC completions (or my signature below if you are lazy). 20k hp going to almost 200k ehp and dps that compares to that of near mythics. You can't make a build this powerful without crafteds. If you get your hands on a war build, most meta war builds use crafted items to increase their damage output heavily.

Your walk speed point is valid though. Not sure how you would balance this. Do you have a suggestion for this?



Point 2
This is like saying most items below lv 90s are useless. How do you progress through the game then? If you look at the non-crafted gear, notice how most of the items are inferior of their endgame gear but are lower level. Sure, there are some ingredients that are really redundant like Salt and Sea Salt, but I have information from IMs saying they are working on to fix these redundancies (most of which stem from 1.18 when professions were introduced).

The point of RPGs is to also have useless items as well to provide more flexibility in builds, even if they are 100% useless in comparison to other similar gear. What if you didn't have access to the more powerful gear at the same level, or RNG decided to screw you over?



Point 3
Same argument as point 2.



Point 4
Valid. I just don't mind about the names, although some are funny and provide nice conversation topics.



Point 5
I'm not sure I understand your point. There's too much fluff for me to understand. Although what I will say is then, what IS the theme of Wynncraft? I believe that one of the hallmarks of Wynncraft is not just that it's an MMORPG built within Minecraft with NO MODS required, but also that it also has a very diverse build system. There are meta builds, but no one meta build beats other builds strictly. Craftings provide an even more complexity to that, which makes theorycrafting very hard but also very interesting. With Wynncraft 2.0 adding a skill tree, this makes theorycrafters both excited and uneasy on how the hell to manage even more complexity.



Point 6
Valid. Crafting to level up is pretty boring. At least gathering has some interaction to it. Again, how would you fix this?



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Now your solutions:

Solution 1
That requires a massive overhaul to the entire professions system and a massive headache to IMs. IMs have already been through hell and back adding ingredients and with Wynncraft 2.0, and now professions need an overhaul to its ingredients? This is nothing short of a dev change as well. How would you balance this? I myself is against this unless you have some clear examples (stats, durability, craftings, etc) on how such a system would work. I would also guess most prominent profers would also be against it without some clear examples.



Solution 2
Valid. It was nice being able to choose at the refinement like back in 1.18. Simply keep the durability change on tools, bring back the unprocessed materials, and not re-add in the weighting system. The latter part of your solution refers back to solution 1.



Solution 3
See point 2. This is the main reason why I am against this post. This is like saying you want to cut down the few thousands of non-crafted gear items down to a mere few hundred. What???

How would you also fix the legacy items that would inevitably be introduced into this? Legacy items are items that have used ingredients that no longer exist. They simply do not have stats while having much less durability than usual. Literally almost every crafted gear would become this in some fashion.



Overall, this is not the way to go to fix craftings in my opinion. You also need to add a poll to see opinions in a relatively quick way.

 

Yes, crafting has major issues. Your suggestions are near-universally bad though.

 

1. You have shown me three different armor pieces that use 5 different 3-star ingredients to fill their combined 18 slots, truly an icon of diversity and creative freedom. Regarding the result, this is not a helmet that I, a casual player that values gameplay over damage per second, would consider using. Its stat requirements are astronomical and its cost of production likely matches. You have proven that the current crafting is effective at boosting a specific stat beyond reason but it still fails to produce a neat, pleasant, and player-friendly arm. There are unique pieces of gear I would rather wear and mythic armaments I would rather hunt than waste any time at all collecting for and forging these.

2. For your second point, when was the last time you've seen a level 50 player strolling around with crafted armor? Just because there is no other path to progression for craftsmen does not mean crafting itself is valid. Nobody in their right mind even considers crafting their own armor and weapons between levels 20 and 80, though there are some below 20 who think "oh crafting? this looks fun! I'll try it!" only to have their dreams shut down by the lacking usability of their creations.

3. Still the second point! An RPG does not have to have useless items, in fact, I'd argue that most good RPGs exclude them entirely.

Exhibit A: Dark Souls 3:
Every weapon in Dark Souls 3 has a use. This is one of many elements that has successfully carried over into Elden Ring. The weapons and armors of ds3 are just barely different enough from each other to allow the player a preference. A personal example is when I played through and started with a hatchet. Eventually, I would stumble upon a similar weapon called the brigand axe I think. It was rather similar, but had higher damage and 0.5 more weight. I, an avid believer in fashionsouls, did not mind the extra weight but chose to use the hatchet anyway because it had a slightly larger swing radius due to its lessened slashing angle. Every weapon and every armor is different, be it a difference in weight, damage, attack angle, or just looks. These slight differences add up to allow the player maximum range of customization and I think the same philosophy can be applied to Wynncraft's crafting.

Exhibit B: Old WoW:
A major difference between retail and classic wow is the experience of getting an upgrade. The names and even abilities of equipped gear were remembered by the playerbase because of how rare they were. Each character had its own identity and their gear used to be a core part of that identity. Banks were not overflowing with legendaries and useless fabled items, green drops were few and far between and people were happy with it. I have no clue what my character is wearing in Wynncraft right now. There is no point in even guessing because items do not change, builds change, and with them come seven more names that I will likewise not bother to remember. There is a reason "less is more" is a common saying, it is all the more applicable to wynncraft.

4. Point 5! The theme of a world can usually be summarized in a few words, "dark fantasy" for example. For our intents and purposes, however, it does not matter what string of words describes the world of wynncraft, what matters is that everything fits together nicely. Having common craftsmen make indestructible gear while heroes from wynn struggle to get two sticks to stay together makes no sense. There should either be durability for everything or for nothing, exceptions are acceptable for "indestructible artifact weapons because those weapons were made long ago by an ancient and long-lost technique" but the entirety of player craftables being very much destructible makes no sense in the context of the world. Every once in a while you have to sacrifice logic for the gameplay, like when the final boss joins your team in some game, but this ain't it chief.

5. Point 6! I thought I was clear but let me tell you outright. Right now crafting is a thing you "get through" at max level. I want it to feel more like a journey. How? you ask. Two ways, boost experience gain of crafting so that A. (A crafter does not need to make as many products, which will allow them to build a connection with what they do make.) and B. (crafting becomes more available to poorer people, closing the gap between crafter and not, and allowing craftables to become cheaper, in turn allowing for a larger customer pool that itself would incentivize more crafting.) The second way is of course to make craftables unbreakable, just like every other item. Making something that will last is infinitely more enjoyable than making something that will not. This is one of the reasons nobody bothers to go all out on their crafting in the middle levels, why waste time gathering materials for a level 80 item when soon enough you can be level 100 and create something so much better? If you do go all out at level 80 gathering just the right ingredients, you will not be able to sell it for anything but a loss because of how expensive craftables are. Who would buy a level 80 subpar piece of gear when they can wait a few levels and save up a few emeralds to get something better at level 100?

Crafting is economically dead, if not dead than crawling on the ground begging for someone to end its misery.

Onto your concerns for my solutions.

I know it will be a massive undertaking to redo all those ingredients in a way that is balanced, after all this is the very reason I suggested starting small. One hundred ingredients will be significantly easier to focus on and balance out once something inevitably goes wrong, as is the case with any new system. Fact of the matter is that the very roots of crafting are rotten, I do not believe anyone will be able build something great on this flimsy foundation.

In all honesty, I meant turning logs directly into equipment in my second suggestion. An argument can be made regarding immersiveness or whatever but this is a fantasy game within a block game and not embracing that is a mistake. Making a game fun should come before logic.

YES! there will be backlash from the already invested. Yes! there will be legacy items. Does that matter though? Crafting is a decaying tooth to Wynncraft as a whole and the 2.0 update is the perfect time to start anew.



A poll has not been added to encourage discussion and discourage people from voting and leaving never to return.

 

Just on this part as I’m not really invested in the rest—polls generally do not infringe on discussion, as people who have something to say will say it regardless of whether there is a poll or not. Additionally, polls allow CT a quick preview of what the community thinks of a suggestion without having to go through potentially dozens of posts.

Polls also give people who look at the thread a reason to read further, as if they see a lot of yes votes (or no votes) they might be inclined to read more, especially if at first glance the suggestion is a block of text. Last but not least, adding a poll is just a common courtesy to readers so they can give feedback without needing to dedicate time to typing out some feedback.

 

What's your idea of "gameplay"? I have two issues with this line. First, Crokee's recipe isn't intended for dps. Second, dps is important for most gameplay.

You're going to have to explain what it means for an item to be "player-friendly" and why that matters. The only time I've heard anything remotely resembling this concept was the rework of Bantisu's Approach...

Yeah, mythics are rare too. They're also consequential enough to define the rest of your build.

Most people don't keep "useless" items.

I know what every relevant character I play is wearing right now. "I will not bother to remember" is not a good argument.

 

My idea of "gameplay" is what wynncraft advertises itself as, an MMORPG, that is a fantastical world to explore and a massive player base to interact in various ways with. The morph set is enough to fall back on to clear the entirety of this content and does not come with the shackle of durability, nor an insane intelligence cost to undermine your ability to set aside appropriate points for defense.

Player-friendly is when an item is able to be understood and properly utilized by a casual player. Take for example Az, a "useless" mythic that I keep around in my bank just because it's rare. It comes with lightning base damage, an electric bow texture, and a dex requirement of 80 yet gives bonus stats in intelligence and defense, with bonus damage % for those two stats. This is contradictory and not player-friendly design, a casual player upon first seeing it will think "Oh wow! a mythic!" and then "Why in the heck does it have bonus fire and water damage?" Crafting is stuffed with extra examples.

 

This is my issue. If you just want to explore, almost anything is good enough — even <10k EHP at endgame. The standards for lootrunning efficiently (in Crokee's case), clearing raids, and warring demand more than just "slap morph" for the average player. In wars, crafteds along similar lines are mandatory. And even in raids, it's not uncommon to see a player who uses crafteds, nor is it uncommon to see a morph user lose.

I disagree with the definition. If an item is linear enough to be understood and properly utilised, it's boring in design. I assumed that player-friendly instead meant that the average player could use make decent use of it without needing to put substantial effort into understanding its nuances.

I think the choice of example is quite surprising. Az's WF support is exactly what it looks like: it's intended to be mixed with those elements, which encourages investment into those secondary elements. Most int-based Az builds accept the free 15int to hit important thresholds, reach high defense values, and use either water or fire powders for increased damage. There are many item designs following the same lines as Az, like Convergence, Cancer and Demon Tide.

 

I wrote a thread awhile ago that delves into a lot of the issues you mentioned here. For example, adding more customization options to allow for more creativity and control such as choosing your attack speed and damage range. The other major change was revamping ingredients. Grant it, I didn't finish revamping ingredients and it's probably outdated by now. 1.18 is on its way too so it doesn't make sense right now to finish an ingredient revamp. Though I am still curious what you would think about the suggestion as a whole.

As for your suggestion, I don't agree with some of its implementation. For example, I don't see why ingredients should be removed. It would be wiser IMO to just rebalance them especially since there are a lot of niches left to be unfulfilled. I get it you want to keep things simple and prevent items from being overlooked, but creating legacy items like Crokee said doesn't help either.