Crafting Systems

Now this has been a pretty popular trend for quite a while. Especially when it comes to open world games. After all, they have to give you something to find other than higher level equipment. So, they give you materials that you can find while roaming around or doing side missions and usually you will have no idea what you will even you them for unless you look them up. The game just says that this is a thing you might need later, but for now it is just clogging up space in your inventory. Or they will instead let you have access to the crafting recipe and you will see you have everything except for one item needed for it. More likely than not, you will probably not even know what it is and may have to look it up through a wiki. However, even if you do know what it is, the fact that you don’t have it usually means that it is not something readily available. So you can either pray that you will get lucky with drops or give up on crafting it for the time being. The first time I was introduced to a crafting system was in Terraria. It was my first game on Steam and the beginning of the end for my wallet and free time. One problem though I always had with the game though was crafting was such a pain. For one thing, you would be told that an item was an material when you got it, but it could be for a crafting recipe that won’t even be considered until the end of the game. Also the drop rates for some of them are so low that you are better off just playing normally sometimes rather than going for something specific. And of course the biggest gripe is how even if you have all of the materials, you still have to have a specific crafting station in order to craft the item. Why does crafting feel so complicated? Well, that’s what seems to happen when you have a game based on crafting. What if it isn’t a game based on crafting though?

You know exactly what kind of games I mean. the games where you can craft things, but it never feels like it is necessary to do so. Usually because the game overcompensates and kills the difficulty by giving you healing items for free and they also regenerate enough of your health that you don’t need to craft anything better. You just end up with more materials than you know what to do with and they end up cluttering your inventory. The worst part is that it is only there as a sideshow. The game isn’t really built around it at all. What I mean by that is that crafting is not necessary to progress through the game. Sure it may give you some benefits if you work hard enough, but you can get by just fine without it. This doesn’t happen in every game, but there are some games where it feels as though it was just tacked on to give you the option. It’s is nice to have sure, but what is the point if I have to grind more than I am already grinding? It is just more busywork at that point and frankly speaking that can be exhausting. It is especially bad when it relies on RNG. I can’t stand random drops anymore. Trying to find the one piece I need for equipment after five hours of hunts is just painful. The worst part too is I am usually hunting for these items to get inventory upgrades. Why? So I collect even more garbage that I don’t know what to do with in the first place. Am I crazy? Don’t answer that. Look, all I am saying is that it feels weird when you play a game and end up doing side activities just to make things a bit more convenient. Just give us all that space from the get-go! Ok, maybe I am the only one who has problems managing inventory space. Organization isn’t exactly my first language.

Anyway, what I want to say is that I do like having the ability to craft in a game, but I am not a big fan of games that rely heavily on crafting .The main reason is that I don’t want to tab out to a Wiki every time I find something new. I also have a problem with it feeling like it was tacked on as a way to lead you into sinking more hours into it. I want there to be a balance of having it work well enough in the game so that crafting is optional, but it feels worth it to go through the extra effort to collect materials. I know that sounds like I am asking for a lot and it is possible I am, but hey I can’t just hunt the same enemy for two hours just to get the rare 1% drop I am looking for to make myself a nicer pair of shoes. I got places to be and if I have to do it with my busted up sneakers, then that is what I’ll do. You see, when I collect things, there has to be some sort of goal in mind. Whether it is to get a new item, or finish a sidequest, or beat a particularly annoying boss, there just has to be something to keep me invested in the task at hand. Crafting systems on their own are not complicated. You just gather the materials they need and then you craft it. Maybe there will come a time where more will be demanded of the player to craft items successfully, but for now most of these systems are pretty basic. Which means that the real challenge is collecting the items that you need. There are ways though to make things challenging without making them grinding marathons. For instance, instead of having certain enemies rarely drop something, how about we instead create a stronger version of that enemy that has a higher chance to get the drops you need. At least having a few options would be nice. So many times I see on Wikis that certain items are dropped by one enemy or multiple enemies but with the same drop rate. Game, your killing me here. I am not saying the system should go away, I just think that maybe we could tweak it a little bit so that I find myself less in a constant grind and spending more time playing the actual game. At least that’s the hope anyway. My luck is weird sometimes so there are never any guarantees. Well, I think I have made my point. Hopefully. Thanks everyone for reading and see you next time.