Save the world? Right after I empty your trashcan.

[Falksi]

Dragon Age 4 will do it right. The only way to create "fire ball" will be to obtain llinen + cotton broadcloth + twill weaves, and join a group of witches to learn "Bra burn"

 

[almondblight]

I dunno why people keep referring to it as a dopamine buzz

Because it is:

I was thinking back to when I first played Baldurs Gate. I used to have a little shiver of anticipation when I saw something that could be looted, either a chest, table or bookcase, as there was always a slim chance something good could be there.

A lot of RPGs rely on variable time rewards to be addicting. Trashos is right, look at the criticism of fighting trash mobs in PoE. "It was stupid to get rid of combat XP, now there's no point to fighting trash mobs." That's not the mentality of someone who likes playing games, that's the mentality of someone who likes a glorified slot machine. The point of playing a game should be that you enjoy the gameplay, not that you get some in game reward for doing something you find boring. But the truth is that for many RPG fans, the main appeal is the variable time reward. A MMORPG player has the same motivation as most Codexers. If you took away equipment drops and XP, you'd see a lot of people here suddenly lose interest in the "classics."

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I dunno why people keep referring to it as a dopamine buzz

Because it is:

I was thinking back to when I first played Baldurs Gate. I used to have a little shiver of anticipation when I saw something that could be looted, either a chest, table or bookcase, as there was always a slim chance something good could be there.

A lot of RPGs rely on variable time rewards to be addicting. Trashos is right, look at the criticism of fighting trash mobs in PoE. "It was stupid to get rid of combat XP, now there's no point to fighting trash mobs." That's not the mentality of someone who likes playing games, that's the mentality of someone who likes a glorified slot machine. The point of playing a game should be that you enjoy the gameplay, not that you get some in game reward for doing something you find boring. But the truth is that for many RPG fans, the main appeal is the variable time reward. A MMORPG player has the same motivation as most Codexers. If you took away equipment drops and XP, you'd see a lot of people here suddenly lose interest in the "classics."

You fucking idiot, I explained why I don't get a dopamine buzz from crafting drops, because, for me, crafting drops /= loot.

The reason why people like combat xp is not because it provides a dopamine buzz, its because that is what they expect when they purchase an RPG. Not having xp for combat in an RPG is merely fucking with their expectations and conventions, nothing to do with 'buzzing'. Your slot-machine analogy is utterly retarded, slot-machine analogies are applicable to situations where people gamble, acquiring xp from combat is not gambling. If a game has boring gameplay then people will find it boring whether they get xp or not, that is why games like Sacred 3 are considered shit, nobend. If you took away equipment drops and xp then you wouldn't be making an RPG and you'd lose people's interest because you'd fucked around with their expectations too much; feel free to experiment if you like, everyone likes a good experiment, but if people don't like something there's little point trying to force your bullshit on people, especially when its based of off bullshit reasoning.

 

[SCO]

SCO Still better than the other alternative, as it is in the IE games. Play through the game once and you know where to find everything. Completely loses any kind of suprise or exploration effect when opening a chest. It becomes formulaic... if your character is using X, you always go to place Y and pick up uber-weapon Z. Horrible.

This is completely orthogonal. There are mods for BG that randomize the location of less lore area contextual items and this is fine (within logical limits). What's not fine is the loot generator creating items out of thin air because they are 'supposed' to be better than your current equipment and dropping that shit on 'random trash mob 357' or 'trashcan 1346'.

As for the 'loot validation date', i actually prefer a very long turnover, slightly less than something like Realms of Arkania, but certainly longer than BG1 and 2 (1 is more acceptable on this). Turns out that deranged gamers of the last 2 decades prefer high magic +1 every 10 minutes even if it clearly has 0 effort put in on lore or sense or even modelling. Fuckers.

This is actually all on Larian, many many people complain about this on their games and they always make vaguely agreeing noises, turn around and do it again - we can plainly see from their actions that the 'feedback' they ask has a veto on pet characteristics. But anyway, apparently they're right, and gamers in general are tasteless enough they like it (see the long line of people on this forum complaining about Blackguards 1 and 2 items), so...

 

[Terpsichore]

Crafting can be fine if you get the materials from logical sources, BG2 was pretty good in that regard.

 

[Trashos]

A lot of RPGs rely on variable time rewards to be addicting. Trashos is right, look at the criticism of fighting trash mobs in PoE. "It was stupid to get rid of combat XP, now there's no point to fighting trash mobs." That's not the mentality of someone who likes playing games, that's the mentality of someone who likes a glorified slot machine. The point of playing a game should be that you enjoy the gameplay, not that you get some in game reward for doing something you find boring. But the truth is that for many RPG fans, the main appeal is the variable time reward. A MMORPG player has the same motivation as most Codexers. If you took away equipment drops and XP, you'd see a lot of people here suddenly lose interest in the "classics."

On the other hand, if you take away the XP, you 'd better make sure you get the number of trash mobs relatively right. PoE had way too many trash mobs before the patches, and with no XP gain they became utterly unbearable after a while. They served no purpose whatsoever for the player.

I don't entirely agree with you post, because the way you wrote it it sounds like it's either trash mobs or nothing. But it's not, PoE just made me wish they payed more attention to encounter design. I didn't wish for less fights, I wished for more interesting fights. The lack of XP just made the trash mobs even more unbearable, for the reasons we discussed.

(After that Bioware guy quit the industry (the one responsible for the BG2 and the DAO encounter design- DAO might be controversial but it had some excellent boss fights), it seems noone loses sleep over encounter design. They probably don't consider it marketable.)

 

[Iznaliu]

it seems noone loses sleep over encounter design. They probably don't consider it marketable.

I've heard very few people outside of here, even those who like Codex classics, mention the words "encounter design".

 

[sser]

Please god tell me ELEX doesn't do it before I give into temptation and buy it.

Hate to tell you this.

But Piranha Bytes is actually a Japanese vacuum company.

And ELEX is their newest state-of-the-art prototype.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

it seems noone loses sleep over encounter design. They probably don't consider it marketable.

I've heard very few people outside of here, even those who like Codex classics, mention the words "encounter design".

Who gives a fuck what you choose to hear?

 

[Trashos]

I've heard very few people outside of here, even those who like Codex classics, mention the words "encounter design".

Some of our beloved indies (eg, AoD) get it right, the problem exists mainly in the higher-profile titles.

But you are right, the casuals who just want to run around shooting stuff and feel like a god won't care. So the industry doesn't care. They are wrong though. Encounter design is part of a combat game's prestige, and casuals love playing well respected games -provided their usual AAA needs are also taken care of. I think the industry knows this, they just haven't come up with a formula to keep both the casuals and the more demanding players happy. So they disregard encounter design for as long as they can get away with it.

Also, there was a lot of talk about (the lack of proper) encounter design in PoE, and Obsidian took steps to remedy that in the expansion packs. So some people try to listen.

 

[ciox]

Its the worst when one of the basic components is scrap metal, literally a little pile of junk. It just killed me every time i had to collect this shit in NV and recently in Alien Isolation.

 

[Castozor]

I personally loathe crafting based on collect x amount of random garbage which can be found in every container/on every person. I prefer Dark Souls/Elminage Gothic type crafting, you find some material as a drop or an ore vein but instead of crafting randomly generated recipe y choose a piece of armor/weapon you already have and upgrade it to your liking at the appropriate craftsman. Much better in my opinion than having crafted gear compete with drops/treasure, which generally means crafting is useless unless heavily invested in or in the other extreme making found gear next to useless compared to crafted gear.

 

[Iznaliu]

which generally means crafting is useless unless heavily invested in or in the other extreme making found gear next to useless compared to crafted gear.

I think that can be fixed; the issue is that there generally isn't much thought put into crafting.

Also, there was a lot of talk about (the lack of proper) encounter design in PoE, and Obsidian took steps to remedy that in the expansion packs. So some people try to listen.

If you look at Obsidian's interviews, they are all about both trying to please casuals and hardcore players; them improving encounter design for WM isn't a coincidence.

 

[Snorkack]

Agree.

Absolutely one of the worst parts about D:OS 1 and D:OS 2. Fucking pixelhunting and the UI inventory manangement minigame. Tedious, boring, carpeltunnel-syndrome giving piece of shit.
Half the game time is spent on clicking useless shit and manageging it in your shitty ui.

Honestly can't think of anyt good crafting system in an rpg on the top of my head.

Loot hoarding is mental condition, and I suffer from it

Gothic games, Underrail, Fallout New Vegas, Baldurs Gate 2 (if you can call that crafting)

... Neo Scavenger, Two Worlds, Diablo 2/Torchlight 2 (If you count gems and sockets to crafting), Dark Chronicle, Morrowind...

It's not the crafting per se that's bad imo. It's just this cargo cult developer thinking that every game needs crafting and then they implement it the most boring, cumbersome way like everyone else does.

 

[ilitarist]

It's an influence of Bethesda and open world games, I say.

There should be a detailed world. What do we do with it? We feel it with junk. Is junk useful? No. Most RPG just leave junk there, having all those broken swords and rocks lying around. In a Bethesda game you get alchemy. Other games like that introduced crafting - even Witcher 1 had it, but moreso Witcher 2/3. Some, like KotOR went with the idea of several crafting resources you can get by disassembling other resources - and you get this system in Fallout 4 and Mass Effect Andromeda, only they use much more resources. I think it's an optimal solution because UI. With a proper crafting system a la Divinity Original Sin you need a UI to support it that would take probably as much space as the rest of the game UI. DOS is the proof that crafting is evil and boring as an idea in RPG. It requires so much effort so that it probably should have great effect. But when it depends on skills (see DOS1, Fallout New Vegas and so on) then it's just one of the playstyles. So it turns out the game asks you a question: do you want to elegantly swing your sword, cast elemental spells or... combine stuff in your inventory? Don't worry, it's all balanced, so your character will be viable wether you decide to smite enemies with holy light or make new boots with stuff you dig in a dumpster.

Removing this thing from skills (see Mass Effect Andromeda, Divinity Original Sin 2) only solves half of the problem. Now crafting is activity for everyone, not a character choice. But it's *optimal* to use it, isn't it? At the very least you can get some money. And if you are allowed to ignore optimal play in an RPG then it has a bad gameplay. So this solution is bad too!

Even if we forget about crafting and return to the main problem of the original poster - searching trashcans is optimal. You lose nothing and can get couple of bucks. In a game like Skyrim where there's little challenge anyway and money are not that important your character may even progress in terms of how he loots the place: low level character may grab everything while experienced hero values his time and weight and only gets what you really want. So it's sort of solution - make it useless.

I think the best solution would be making searching for crap impossible and the hero needing to buy crafting materials from some pawn shops or something. And make all the crafting straightforward, every component marked as such, every available recipe instantly available. Less realistic, more abstraction - but then the player knows that when he finds something in the wild it's something important and he doesn't spend time on crap.

 

[ilitarist]

SCO Still better than the other alternative, as it is in the IE games. Play through the game once and you know where to find everything. Completely loses any kind of suprise or exploration effect when opening a chest. It becomes formulaic... if your character is using X, you always go to place Y and pick up uber-weapon Z. Horrible.

Also in case of D&D games it also meant that character build had depended on drops. Don't want to say you have to be able to min-max everything but, say, if you for some reason specialize in Whips in NeverWinter Nights you will probably only have a generic +X Whip depending on story chapter. Or maybe the game has a monster dropping Ultimate Whip of Malicious Life Draining +5 which will guide you through the game. Alternatively as in case with Morrowind you may be able to get almost the best Light armor 10 minutes into the game because assassins hunt you and supply with that armor, but finding comparable Medium armor requires searching the whole damn island.

 

[Iznaliu]

I believe crafting stuff from scratch should generally be suboptimal and crafting should focus more around improving what you've got since it makes more sense thematically, and as one of the major problems with crafting is that it removes the need for finding better items normally.

 

[Naveen]

I'd made crafting class-dependant and for objects that one sometimes lack when you most need them, things like poison for the rogue, bandages for the healing character, and perhaps arrows for the archer. Stuff that you normally can buy but now that you are in the deep end of a dungeon or in the wilderness going back to the nearest town is a pain in the ass. I also would make the materials tied to the area where they appear (like some mushrooms) to avoid the nuisance of having to carry them around and stress over your inventory management. Just use them when you find them or lose them after leaving the area.

 

[Rahdulan]

I believe crafting stuff from scratch should generally be suboptimal and crafting should focus more around improving what you've got since it makes more sense thematically, and as one of the major problems with crafting is that it removes the need for finding better items normally.

I think we already know the answer.



It's not difficult to imagine devs nowadays would shirk from including actual gameplay systems that are there for flavor or obviously sub-optimal so people in their min-maxing wisdom would just pass them over. I think Gothic's smithing system is one such example that really exists so you can make some ore/gold on the side and not really to equip yourself through it AND there are smiths in the game so why not let the player try their hand at it as well?

 

[Suicidal]

Agree that the copious amount of looting in D:OS games is irritating and unnecessary, but I'm nearing the end of the 2nd zone (I think) and I've yet to do any crafting apart from some plot-related stuff and a few healing scrolls - you don't need to craft gear in this game since you keep getting better stuff from mobs and quests all the time so try to ignore it. Apart from this crap the game is great.

 

[Prime Junta]

Holding onto crafting materials makes sense if they're legitimately rare -- dragon bits, precious stones, that sort of thing. But not being able to slap on an enchantment because you're missing a bit of copper wire, a common plant, or a stick is .

At the very least, make it possible to buy those common ingredients for cheap at vendors, if you insist on putting them in for flavour or to make scouring for recipes/schematics/whatever more interesting.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Evil Islands did it right. You can use boar skins or rocks (chapter 1 is very low-tech) to make armor and weapons but they will be shit and vendors have these materials because they're super common and almost worthless (you can even provide some of your own and pay for some of theirs if you don't have enough). Crafting these items is easy but generally pointless because you can get them cheaper pre-made from vendors.

Spoiler

The game also get bonus points from me for taunting the player with item descriptions saying they're shit when they're shit and when you waste a rare material for a mediocre item

Spoiler

Once you get your hands on obsidian or hardened animal skins, then it makes sense to craft stone weapons or leather armor. You get better materials from quests and difficult enemies (troll skin, monster bones etc, many of them are completely optional) and use them to make better equipment. You don't need 6x scrap metal, 4x scorpion stinger and one medium-sized unbent beer can, you use metal x1 for a dagger, x3 for a sword, x8 for heavy armor etc; one type of material for one item. All random clutter items you loot from enemies are good only for selling and are marked as such. You can have items deconstructed to to get materials from them and use them for something more useful. There are blueprints for everything that can be crafted, you can bring a bronze helmet and some mythril to a smith and he will make you the same kind of helmet from mythril, but the smiths generally have plans for all common item types in that chapter from the start. All materials have different capacity to hold spells and weight that corresponds to the crafted item's weight, there's a separate spell crafting system, the same spells you cast can be crafted to be imbued into items (armor that automatically casts heal when you're hit, weapons that add debuffs or cast fireballs on attack). It's the only game where I was looking forward to getting back to town and seeing what can be crafted.

 

[laclongquan]

Prince of Qin did something pretty right about loot, materials, and drops.

YOu can get materials from drops and item containers (rock ores, tree wood, animal parts...). And they almost never go to waste even with the lowest drops because even with them you can make items and sell for much more than selling separate parts.

As for item crafting, either you build yourself, or you use an out-of-the-way crafter to make somewhat randomly results.

 

[Iznaliu]

YOu can get materials from drops and item containers (rock ores, tree wood, animal parts...). And they almost never go to waste even with the lowest drops because even with them you can make items and sell for much more than selling separate parts.

That sounds like decline because it seems to encourage crafting for the sake of crafting.

 

[laclongquan]

I dont know what you even talking about.

Compared to selling separate parts, you can combine into one item, thus save inventory space AND making money. What do you complain about, anyway?