Crafting and Loot in MMORPGS

This is a continuation of my response to Charles Durham, the previous post can be found here.

Crafting has become one of the many ubiquitous features in the MMORPG genre. In worlds filled with heroes and monsters, there has always been a place for the master artisan. The artisan is the embodiment of Haephestus, forging weapons and armor that allow a player’s power to be unleashed with the utmost efficiency.

In the early stages of designing an MMORPG, a decision must be made: Will crafters be able to craft the best equipment in the world? Or will they make gear that is acceptable, but not exceptional?

Games like WildStar and World of Warcraft opted for the latter of these two options by allowing monsters drop the most powerful equipment in the world. While this is not necessarily a bad decision (because it rewards those who specifically enjoy the hardcore raiding play style), it certainly diminishes the value of crafters in the world and ultimately segregates the community.

WildStar Aside

In Wildstar I tried three of the different crafting professions, reaching Artisan in Architecture, Expert in Outiftter, and Expert in Weaponsmithing. By the time I hit level 50, I successfully sold six items on the marketplace and was resigned to mainly crafting my own equipment. While it was nice to be able to craft incremental improvements for myself while leveling, it was a costly and relatively solitary experience. The only time i was able to interact with the economy was when I was buying materials for my own armor or to complete dailies. 

At level 50, I realized that there were only two items that I could craft that had the ideal stat distribution (typically referred to as best-in-slot). After finding that the Auction House was filled with these items at razor-thin margins, there seemed to be nothing that I could do to contribute to the economy. When there is little specialization amongst crafters and little investment required to become a crafter, then there’s no place for a dedicated crafter in the game. 

The master artisan does not craft for himself, but for the benefit (or detriment) of others. Haephestus would not be as legendary an artisan had he not made Achilles’ armor, Aphrodite’s girdle, and Hermes’ helmet. In a game that is filled with combat, every group of legendary warriors should have a need for a legendary artisan. However, what you typically find in loot-centric games is that after the first set of max-level gear, the crafter becomes useless. This means that there is no place for a person who primarily enjoys crafting in a raiding guild (unless they are making potions or some type of consumable).

There is no such thing as a “hardcore crafter” in a game that doesn’t allow players to craft the best equipment.  People who enjoy making things and helping other players get geared are relegated to joining a “casual guild” or focusing primarily on the core gameplay of killing monsters. This is perfectly fine for a game that wishes to only cater to one type of players (those who primarily enjoy killing monsters), but if you’re trying to capture different types of players, as WildStar is trying to do with the path system, then alternative play-styles need to be a viable option.

Here are some basic ways I would develop a crafting system that makes crafting a viable play-style:

• Make crafting more rewarding but more costly (every item should be valuable, no mass vendoring)
• Make a crafting-specific class that would focus on crafting consumables to use in battle. (See Blacksmith and Alchemist in Ragnarok Online)
• Allow crafting to be a viable form of progression
• Allow players to hyper-specialize (In WildStar, I would like to be the best at crafting stalker claws with capacitor slots)
• Allow buy orders for equipment that has yet to be crafted
• Have the monsters primarily drop crafting materials and make dropped equipment more rare

I know some of these suggestions are controversial, so instead of trying to fit all of my explanations here, i will relegate that to my next post — where I will try to convince you why each of these are ideas would lead to a healthier world economy.