How do you make fun crafting gameplay?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It seems that crafting in almost every RPG I play boils down to managing menus. Boring. Not fun. WoW last expansion did a so-called "crafting revamp", but the actual gameplay experience is still just navigating menus and clicking a button to combine fungible currencies stackable mats to print items. A big part of the Atelier JRPGs is crafting, and it is a little more important than usual since you craft bombs to blow up enemies and have to craft stuff to complete timed quests, but it still amounts to looking at menus.

The only game I can think of where the crafting gameplay was fun was Kingdom Come Deliverance's alchemy, where you had to memorize the recipe before starting the time sensitive process of heating the fire and keeping it at the right temperature, and then finding the correct ingredients on the shelf and pouring in the correct quantities in the correct order (while still keeping the fire heated), and then doing other stuff like mashing, and then if you did it right you get a lot of good potions. Now that was fun and engaging, better than navigating menus. Why don't more games do this?

[wndrbr]

Animations are good, but after a while once you memorize how to make potions, they just become a tedious time waster. Adding fancy animations are not going to make crafting better.

The key to making crafting fun:
1) make the process of collecting materials more engaging;
2) make crafted items useful.

[Tweed]

It seems that crafting in almost every RPG I play boils down to managing menus. Boring. Not fun. WoW last expansion did a so-called "crafting revamp", but the actual gameplay experience is still just navigating menus and clicking a button to combine fungible currencies stackable mats to print items. A big part of the Atelier JRPGs is crafting, and it is a little more important than usual since you craft bombs to blow up enemies and have to craft stuff to complete timed quests, but it still amounts to looking at menus.

The only game I can think of where the crafting gameplay was fun was Kingdom Come Deliverance's alchemy, where you had to memorize the recipe before starting the time sensitive process of heating the fire and keeping it at the right temperature, and then finding the correct ingredients on the shelf and pouring in the correct quantities in the correct order (while still keeping the fire heated), and then doing other stuff like mashing, and then if you did it right you get a lot of good potions. Now that was fun and engaging, better than navigating menus. Why don't more games do this?

This isn't fun, this is making crafting suffering deliberately so that you know you've arrived at mastery when you no longer have to go through all those wretched steps to brew potions.

[Oyster Sauce]

I thought very hard and couldn't think of a fun system, so here's Cooking Mama

[rusty_shackleford]

EQ2 had an interactive system for crafting that was more enjoyable than just pressing a button. You had to manage things like heat, durability of the item, quality, etc., With a combination of SWG-like materials which affect the crafting process, that could probably be the basis for something fun.

---

The problem is, crafting doesn't belong in a singleplayer RPG unless there's a really good reason for it. You should be hiring someone to do the crafting for you, and bringing them rare and exotic materials needed.

[edit]
KCD itself is an example of a game where crafting would belong: Henry is the son of a blacksmith.

[OnTilt]

BG3 had crafting so good it got game of the year.

[maidenhaver]

You don't.

[Element]

Animations are good, but after a while once you memorize how to make potions, they just become a tedious time waster.

The game should then offer the opportunity to get your own workshop and hire others to make the potions for you, provided you give them the required ingredients. Or even go a step further and let you hire people who will collect the herbs for you, but with it costing quite a bit of gold to make them go and collect the rare ones.

[Vergil]

The issue is every thing I can think of or has been mentioned basically boils down to the reward for mastering the feature is not having to interact with it. Yea it's kinda cool to get the ability to have others to the collecting and potentially parts of th crafting for you but at that point you're kinda admitting the system isn't fun in the first place. I wouldn't outsource something I enjoy doing.

[Irenaeus]

The only game I can think of where the crafting gameplay was fun was Kingdom Come Deliverance's alchemy,

Yes, that's my same experience. There must be other games with cool crafting that I dont remember - for example, crafting in AoD was ok - but KCD had a special alchemy experience unlike any other games I've played (admitedly not that many).

[Nemesis]

Potion Craft is a game entirely focused on crafting:

[Xenich]

EQ2 had an interactive system for crafting that was more enjoyable than just pressing a button. You had to manage things like heat, durability of the item, quality, etc., With a combination of SWG-like materials which affect the crafting process, that could probably be the basis for something fun.

---

The problem is, crafting doesn't belong in a singleplayer RPG unless there's a really good reason for it. You should be hiring someone to do the crafting for you, and bringing them rare and exotic materials needed.

[edit]
KCD itself is an example of a game where crafting would belong: Henry is the son of a blacksmith.

Vanguard did it a lot better I think. Failures, quality attempts, etc... all interactive at various levels of the process.

https://vanguard.fandom.com/wiki/Crafting

[Tweed]

If you want crafting to be your in your single player game it should be another part of your build and remain non-intrusive, simple as. Another case of Underrail doing it right.

[J1M]

(Absurdly) common crafting pitfalls:

1. Collecting reagents that compete for inventory space with other items or otherwise require micromanagement.
2. Hidden recipe information or recipe drops. Crafting is about working towards something. You eliminate that by making the ability to craft something part of the random reward interval.
3. Recipes requiring ultra rare drops or drops from the most dangerous creatures. Turns crafting into a post-game vanity project. (Cosmetics are a better fit for that game loop.)
4. The often-lauded QTE crafting model. It isn't compelling gameplay. It's just a punishment for not paying full attention. Full-fledged minigames are not QTEs, but rare enough that it's hard to think of examples.
5. Lack of emotional attachment. Very few crafting systems allow you to use the kite shield you made to best a hydra into a scale-wrapped version that allows you to fight a dragon. Continually upgrading an item that you take through the whole adventure would add meaning to the system.
6. It's a little ridiculous that an adventurer is also a master crafter. And that items are made near-instantly. A crafting system should involve recruiting crafters, relatively-easy to acquire materials, and waiting for them to craft something while you adventure.
7. Results that don't justify the complexity required to navigate the system. If development time is going into an elaborate and worthwhile method of making potions, maybe you shouldn't be able to buy them at the store for 10 silver.
   
8. Unnecessary complexity. I bounce off of the majority of crafting systems these days because they look complicated for the sake of being complicated, rather than for the motivation of interesting gameplay. For example, maybe there are 3 reagents because that motivates going to 3 different biomes to collect them. Maybe there are multiple rare ingredients needed for an item because that creates a tension with other items you also want to craft that need the same materials.

[Tweed]

Crafting in Lands of Lore 2 is fun. There's several items in the game than can either be repaired, crafted, or upgraded and the game never tells you this. Your only clue is to push them on people at the interactive sections. You can find Thohan's Great Sword in the Museum near the start of the game, but it's broken. If you're a moron then you'll leave it behind for junk, but if you're smart you'll show it to people and eventually find someone in the Huline village who will offer to fix it in exchange for a power orb. Give it to the guy and he'll repair it. You can also hand him a dagger and he'll turn it into a prism dagger (shoots little crystals at foes) free of charge.

In its repaired state the sword is still a piece of crap compared to other weapons you've found. At this point you also have a chance to recover another sword: Firestorm, but the merchant also wants a power orb in exchange for it, but you can get it by less honest means and by less honest I mean you can murder the captain of the guard which you're going to end up doing anyway due to the plot. Firestorm is slightly better, but still nothing to write home about.

Later on in the Ruloi Nest you'll come across a sword shaped indentation. Stick both swords in for upgrades. Greatsword Darkstorm drains health and mana and gives it to you while Thohan's Greatsword casts a lighting storm on strike. Congratulations, you now have the most powerful weapons in the game. If that's not fun crafting I don't know what is.

[Shillitron]

Animations are good, but after a while once you memorize how to make potions, they just become a tedious time waster. Adding fancy animations are not going to make crafting better.

The key to making crafting fun:
1) make the process of collecting materials more engaging;
2) make crafted items useful.

Agreed.
Give crafting a long tail of progression, interlink it with other game systems.

Example:
Vanilla warcraft had a "dark iron anvil" that you had to complete a dungeon to get to for crafting certain things.

You couldn't easily solo run to this - it creates a gameplay loop which encourages socialness, guild collaboration and gives stronger players a reason to run "lower content" that weaker players benefit from.

Vanilla in general had a great way of keeping content "relevant"

[rusty_shackleford]

I like when 'crafting' lets me make reusable pieces that can be socketed into gear such that there's minimum to no overlap between finding lewt and putting things on/in it. This takes a lot of different shapes, but basically the FO4/FO76 item modding where you can make mods/pull them off of items, etc., FO76 has a ton of item mods.

It changes the dynamic such that crafting no longer competes with adventuring.

[Havitner]

[J-12]

Dead Rising 1 and 2 (and 3 too from what i heard but i didn't play that one, and we will never speak of 4) had if not good then "not overstays it's welcome" crafting systems.
In first game you could only mix drinks in blender, you just needed to bring two of any food items to it and that's it. It's basic, instant, straightforward, doesn't involve any menus and while is perfectly neglectable its rewards are decent - no matter what you get it will heal you for a large amount of health-blocks and add some effects of varying levels of questionability, like being able to spit as hard as a shot from handgun, make you move faster, make zombies target only you and ignore other survivors, etc. Finding out all the recepies and their uses did involved element of experimentation back in 2006, but let's be real, these days you'll just check the wiki to know all of them and maybe some videos with tips on when and where to use each.

In second game the trend continued, the recepies for blender were still a thing but now you also could craft stuff at workbench the same way, just bring certain items to craft things out of them, like nail-bat being the first one.
Now you can also craft a bunch of other weapons straight from the start of the game, like boxing gloves with knives taped to them or a bomb made from propan-tank and nails again, but you'll get half XP from using them and won't be able to pull off special attacks until you find weapon's "cards", you get these from examining various posters around game's world which i guess also meant to make you explore more, but very few of these are hidden, most of them you'll find by just playing the game normally.
This system is still solid IMO, it's fast, robust, fairly intuitive and the benefits of using it are obvious.

[Acrux]

I think Arcanum's crafting is mostly good, because it's essentially half of the game system. If you want to craft, you need to dedicate your character to it.

What works pretty well:
Crafting consumables is great - healing items and grenades are a perfect use for crafting.
Crafting for armor and melee weapons is fine, as there are enough enemies that can break them that multiple crafting is warranted.
It can be both a good money sink (buying components) and a way to make money (selling crafted items) as needed.
Learning schematics as level-up or through finding them is fun.
Later learned schematics, and some secret found schematics, let you combine already created items to make more powerful ones.

What doesn't work as well:
You need to either carry components with you (or use followers as mules) or find a (convenient) place to store the things you want to craft with.
Crafting for ranged weapons or some specialty items you only need build once, unless you are going to sell them.
There can be too much random chance to find some of the rare schematics. I believe a few only have a 3% chance to turn up in a shop on any given day.


Otherwise, I'd prefer BG2's crafting where you take found weapons to a smith and have him combine them for you. It cost money and takes time, and you - as the adventurer - aren't doing it.

[TKVNC]

Any crafting where the speed at which you do it is based on the play speed of animations is automatically dogshit.

KCD, ironically, is exactly this, and why it sucks so bad. It's tedious and not engaging.

I don't mind games like WoW, and Kenshi for example - where you basically click a button with all the materials and it tasks it, and that's about it, really. Kenshi is better too since you can set up a range of tasks and it'll just run through them all.

[Xenich]

I like when 'crafting' lets me make reusable pieces that can be socketed into gear such that there's minimum to no overlap between finding lewt and putting things on/in it. This takes a lot of different shapes, but basically the FO4/FO76 item modding where you can make mods/pull them off of items, etc., FO76 has a ton of item mods.

It changes the dynamic such that crafting no longer competes with adventuring.

Yeah, that makes sense. Crafting should augment, improve, adjust, etc... an item, not be a situation where you go "do I use my dungeon drop piece or do I use the crafting one?"

[Ranselknulf]

Pretty much this. Allow players to automate tasks after they become mundane or routine.

Ideally, it'd be a combination of what Rusty was saying with skill checks and active engagement on crafting, followed by being able to automate away the boring or routine parts. Provided you have enough raw materials ofc.

[Gregz]

Truly satisfying crafting needs an RNG element.

[TKVNC]

Truly satisfying crafting needs an RNG element.

I agree, but also don't agree.

[Gregz]

Truly satisfying crafting needs an RNG element.

I agree, but also don't agree.

You joke, but the best crafting I've ever seen was Median XL. Lucking out on an epic craft that can support a meme build is an indescribable feeling.

[wndrbr]

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic had a pretty cool Gothic-like weapon smithing sequence. In order to smith a weapon you had to find an iron ingot, melt it down in a furnace using bellows to raise the heat, pour the liquid metal into a casting mold, beat the billet with a hammer, cool etc etc. Though, it wasn't something you were supposed to do reguarly through out the game - there were like two occasions where you could craft a weapon.

[wndrbr]

I liked the alchemy in the first Witcher game.

- it made sense in-universe for the main character to use alchemy;
- potions were actually useful, as drinking them was your primary way of pre-buffing before difficult combat encounters;
- components weren't competing with your other items for inventory space (they did compete when the game first came out, but thankfully the devs have added the 'alchemy bag' with a patch);
- the system (imo) stroke a good balance between being complex enough to be engaging and not overly difficult to understand;
- alchemical components were everywhere, so you weren't forced to go out of your way to find them;
- you only needed components belonging to a certain groups/types, there was no need to hunt down that specific herb/virgin blood/horn of satan/whatever. At the same time hunting for specific components was still encouraged because all components had "secondary properties", and combining components with the same secondary property would give you some additional benefit (like reduced toxicity, bonus damage, etc).

Too bad this system got dumbed down in the sequels.

[rusty_shackleford]

- it made sense in-universe for the main character to use alchemy;

I think this is probably the most important part for me.

KCD itself is an example of a game where crafting would belong: Henry is the son of a blacksmith.

Otherwise, finding skilled craftsmen to employ with the right skills should be as important as finding rare and unique resources, finding schematics for the craftsmen,, etc.,
This is even more immershun breaking when the game makes me someone important, leader of an army, etc., and I'm expected to go around picking flowers and mining iron.

[Kalarion]

I liked Dragon Quest XI's system. It was essentially a very simple and quick mini-game. You also learned new crafting abilities throughout the game and by leveling, so it essentially an integral part of character development.

You crafted already-existing items for the most part, making them better and, rarely, giving them completely new appearance and abilities. Very fun.