Q&A: Crafting

Devlog
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Hello,

Here are some answers to the questions from the Q&A thread about Crafting.

Q: How do we craft Items - how does the process works (please not like GW2) ?

A: Crafting is based around the concept of machines. There are six (and a half) machine types:

  • Workbench
  • Extractor
  • Compactor
  • Mixer
  • Refinery
  • Forge
  • (Furnace)

Each machine is used to craft different things, with some being used to produce finished goods (e.g. Workbench), and some being for resource manipulation (e.g. Compactor). The Forge is slightly separate in that it is used to adjust stats and add new effects to existing objects. The Furnace is not technically a machine, but shares some functionality and is used to smelt ore.

The crafting process at each machine simply involves placing ingredients into the machine, selecting what to make and then hitting go. All crafting takes a certain amount of time. For the more involved player there are upgrades to the machines, character progression effects, tweaking the setup to maximise output and economies of scale to play with to get the most output from your inputs.

The process of getting from base resources to useable objects can involve many machines and steps, and so will either need a large investment by an individual player, different players doing different parts of the process and buying / selling the results, or Guilds sharing out the responsibilities.

Q: What Stats will they have ?

A: Items have numerous stats including Speed, Damage, Durability, Elemental Type, Area of Effect, Resistance and Critical Chance. The list is long and growing.

Q: Do they have a durability ? do we need to repair our equipment ?

A: Almost everything that is crafted has durability, and they cannot be repaired. This is deliberate choice to ensure that everything is transient, and crafting, trade and commerce are frequent activities. Also it allows us to create crazy and powerful variants knowing that that they won’t stay around forever. Instead of crafting or buying a single amazing weapon and then using it indefinitely, you will need a supply of weapons and weapon crafters and sellers will be busy keeping up with demand.

Q: How can Items be combined ? (Long ago you shared a nice crafting graph … any information ?)

A: Items can’t be combined as such, but they can be enhanced using the Forge. Taking a base item, and then choosing ingredients to forge with it produces extra buffs and effects on that item. There is a random element, and progression plays a part, sometimes there are conditions or negative effects to go along with the positive. This is also the way to make brews and bombs with various effects.

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All sounds good so far! Thanks for sharing Ollie!

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Seems like everything goes the way I had hoped for. Keep up the good work!

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Fantastic! Sounds like crafter and traders will be quite happy! (cough cough @zouls cough)

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This sounds like a really cool system you guys are setting up. Much better than what I could’ve imagined! I really like how items have durability, yet they still cannot be repaired, thus enhancing the economy :smile:

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Japp, the durability and the circumstance that you cannot repair stuff is cool, even if there will be players who pray to the gods for at least a repair function (but don’t listen to these infidels, cuz they don’t understand the way of the Oortians! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: )

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so now i am the first who say, i am against this. why ? as example i will kill a titan with my group and during this “raid” my weapon is broken. if my weapon is broken i cant help kill the titan. so i am useless. i think this should not be. maybe it is a option that repair is not only a button and sínstand repair, maybe we need some ore and time to repair the weapon, or something like.

but the rest sounds good

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Bring more weapons?

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Thus the complexity is caused by the machines used in a row ? Does machines have a “production quality” as well ? eg. if it’s a good machine the outcome is better ?

Which brings me to my biggest doubt … if everything has a durability and armor is “everything” and if armor is split into skin and stats why should one EVER create a good looking skin ? i can’t show any progress with it because i know exactly that it will be broken some day. In this case stats become much more important than skins … which is in my opinion a huge draw back compared to other MMOs becaus “the appearance” of my char was always a way to show progression for me.

My other question is how huge is this durability ? If a weapon is ruined after 100 enemies i need to carry 100 swords for farming :smiley:

Is this because of the “randomness” of the outcome or do you mean “event-items” ? To make my question clear: “Are crazy powerful variants possible at anytime or limited to special conditions” ?

I can understand your considering and I’m curious how this affects the game. All in all i like this approach.

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I would actually say that would make the astethic armor mean something because carrying show that you have the time and energy to keep a good looking armor going. But that is just my opinion, it is an interesting point.

Nope, that would mean that you would need to set up a reliable portal to get home from the area you are doing mob farming in :wink:

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i still can’t combine the idea that stats scale vertical and skins horizontal. Everywhere wherever i go the “good” stuff looks good and the “bad” stuff looks like ■■■■. If i look at cars, samurai swords, mobile phones, laptops and even PC-Hardware. In my opinion the quality of an item and the appearance of an item are inseparable and the appearance should representante the quality (i know iPhone did the opposite … ■■■■ hardware and nice looking :smiley: ).

back to your argument i’m not sure about that. IMO this will entice player to show off and forget about stats because they like to look cool. On the other hand there are other (pragmatic) players (like me) who won’t try to craft a skin because it’s completely useless.

To make an example: in GW2 there are ascended items and legendary items. both have the same stats (175% quality). as i started to craft my legendary bow (when ascended did not exist) i did this because it’s quality was 10% higher than the next lower quality (exotic 165% quality). now that there are ascended items i don’t give a trash about the stats of legendaries and the only interesting thing on them is the skin. but because it would be useless in a B< universe where everything breaks i won’t even create that. I’d make an ascended item and spend my time with other things … i’m sure a lot of people would act exactly the same.

there is also one more problem. if there are vanity skins - will they be destroyed too ? or do you have “infinite supplies” of them (which would be a huge benefit of them).

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I also don´t like the idea of weapons completely disintegrating as soon as their durability reaches 0, I think this would be quite discouraging to make some super awesome weapons and rather encourage to have a set of mediocore (boring) ones.

I think it would be way better if only the mods that are attached to a weapon/wearable would break from time to time
or
being able to ‘recycle’ broken stuff to get some mats or even the attached mods back.
(Refinery?)

But completely loosing your entire equipment form time to time would quite suck for an MMO(RPG)

I think Dying Light had a cool concept for repairing.
Each weapon could be repaired 3 times and only after using all 3 “charges” the weapon was really “broken”. A handy craftsmen had a x% chance to not consume one “repair charge” when repairing something, which effectively stretched the durability of a weapon a bit.
Something similar would be neat in B< imo.

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Hmm… Perma broken weapons… Can’t say i like it. But at the same time i cant say i dont. It will allow for less grinding to get stronger weapons (due to not being permanent) but it would lead to a CONSISTENT grinding of mats to have decent weapons. On the negative side this would mean good weapons would prob not be used too often since they want to “save them” but at the same time it forces people to make a choice… Eh. i cant judge before i get more info.

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It’s good if you’re a crafter. You can sell a full range of weapons or armor for people to use for different applications- cheap/low quality weapons for safe trips, medium quality for grinding, and high quality for boss and dungeon runs. Additionally, you’re basically guaranteed return customers if you’re in a prime location.

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But most of the early game armor in Guildwars 2 looked amazing?

Well that won’t really be a problem becasue the pretty armor doesn’t reall have any stats :wink: Menaing that people can easily worry about stats and apparence at the same time.

Skins are and have always been useless? That is kinda the point of them now it just turns into a constant payment Instead of a pay once thing, meaning something you will keep up if you have the economy for it.

I would say make them break

Anyway if the vanity armor parts actually break it should be much slower than the rest because else you will probably get tired of remaking it all the time. (there is a huge difference between reconstructing something every other month and every other day)

… That is what the whole MMORPG gameplay loop is about?

  • Kill monsters
  • Get gold and mats
  • Get better(aka new gear) gear
  • Get rid of old gear
  • Move to harder location

In this case you just don’t need to continously get stronger and stronger to a rediculess level.

Yeah this basically ensures one of the greatest worries Zouls had about trading, (that nobody had a reason to buy) doesn’t happen.

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I would say they did the exact same thing. Bad design and bad hardware :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Mixer sounds intersting can you mix like blocks cas that would be awesome

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Are there individual component block types that make up make up machines, such as power supply, conduit etc?
From the below image, machines seem to share a common set of components - just wondering if these have names :wink:

machinechart.jpg1000×1323 607 KB

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I really like this idea. Weapons can be repaired three times. I guess you need to improve your crafter/blacksmith skill?

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Awesome seems really in depth and requiring a lot of patience. This will give me an excuse to raise my prizes for specific items, hehe :smiling_imp: