Feedback:User/Wazwolf/Crafting

Crafting
User	Wazwolf
Categories	Mechanics World

(feedback on discussion page may cause me to edit)

EDIT: From the following link here, it sounds like crafting is going exactly the way both sides would want. Discovery for the curious, and wiki for those just wanting to instantly make the item in question. http://games.on.net/article/11863/Exclusive_Eric_Flannum_On_GW2_-_Thieves_Crafting_and_a_new_Video

Crafting, simply put, is a hot topic issue. Many welcome crafting. Many dread crafting. Many want crafting. Many unwish crafting. Many love crafting. Many hate crafting.

What should ArenaNet do? Simple, they should instate crafting.

• Crafting should not be a job, chore, work, etc.
• It should be gratifying to reward yourself and friends craftables
• It should come up in normal play with minimal farming
• Materials that do need to be farmed, should be a joy to farm (challenging mobs with 100% drop rates)
• Not competitive, so as to foster community
• If a timesink, it should be enjoyable and exciting to gather each part
• No skill ups, resulting in 30 useless items just to get to the skill you need to make 1 of what you wanted
• Crafting should benefit the economy but not monopolize it (I humbly suggest gathering a few economics interns for ideas, they can work for free)
• No useless items that have no point existing
• None to little dependency on other crafts so as to avoid bottle necks in supply and demand and price gouging
• No idle time crafting (watching a timer to craft is tedious and has no point)

Open suggestions, to adapt into however Guild Wars 2 decides to go about crafting:

If a player can be every craft at once, only a couple, or just one is not an issue. I do think less is more though for community involvement, so as to promote trading and selling. It would also make craft choice meaningful and special if only 1 can be chosen. That player can craft for themself and their friends, being uniquely appreciated.

When gaining the craft, the player can learn new craft recipes from an apprenticeship that could conceivably be without cost. Maybe the master is happily teaching the craft to the student as part of a questing storyline, increasing the student's knowledge as the student becomes more skilled (levels) and able to use the craft meaningfully.

No skill ups, as they truly are meaningless. Instead, from the Master, character leveling opens up a relevant recipe, a quest another, a boss drop another, etc. all without going out of the way of the storyline. Materials are available to buy from merchants and natural drops from the world.

If you have it, you make it. If not, you don't. Most likely, a character would have the materials readily available with a small pit stop to collect a missing item. The craftables should be useful to replace some items but not others. A balance. Or possibly, equal but of a different look. There should always be meaning to make something, collect something, buy something. So many games have either useless craftables that never have a place, or the craftables replace so much game content to make chunks of the game avoidable (like quests, or merchants having useless gear, or bosses that have no point of defeating)

All in all, crafting should be an addition to the character, the story, and the experience. It should coincide with fun and feel rewarding when you make yourself something nice, or have something for a friend. There should be no need to stand around making 30 of something for 15 min just to get to some future meaningful item.

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