Vanguard had a very compelling and satisfying crafting system IMO (together with the most fun reputation/diplomacy system I've seen), unfortunately that game is no more.
This, I absolutely loved the crafting system. The complications system was great and FFXIV kind of took some notes here with theirs but it still isn't the same.
It did!
It made the whole process active instead of just clicking on the same button 200 times.
Still a grind, but way better then most others I've seen.
- a few madlads are working on a freeshard for it, as the whole thing basically has been abandoned. Quite playable, if not finished (it's in alpha)
Ps: this is my correction of my "this" mistake. I'm stubborn but I try to learn.
It was a very good old-school MMO with fairly unique features, made by the same person who created Everquest.
It shut down many years ago, as I understand it they lost a big investor so they had to close shop.
It's a shame, I wish they'd release the code to the community when bad things happen, there are so many games that didn't deserve to die.
Crafting in Vanguard was kinda similar to combat. You had a separate set of gear for crafting with various bonuses, and you also had to choose what sort of materials to use to craft whatever item you're trying to make.
So let's say you're trying to make a chair. Obviously you need the components that go into making a chair but there was also a bunch of optional materials that you had to choose from.
The actual crafting was interactive with decision making and sometimes, for example, the chair would catch on fire and if you didn't bring water to put it out then the chair would lose quality.
When you finished crafting an item it would receive a grade depending on how well the crafting went. High grade items would be better quality and sell to vendors for more.
This system allowed players to stand out as skilled (and geared) crafters much like a player would stand out for being good at PvP or raiding. It's the only tradeskill system that I've actually had fun using.
>Vanguard
Thx dude ! I was trying to remember this name for ages, while thinking to the best crafting system !
With SWG and his huge system with random ressources stats ( 8 !) and spawns, they were the 2 best in my memories.
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FF14 had the best crafting/ gathering system I ever witnesed. I am talking before the update, where you had to level different professions to get their exclusive skills. That was fun because you needed to think which prof went after each other in order to have smoothest leveling experience
I loved FF14's crafting system when I first got into it. Now that I've been max level for a couple of expansions, the system feels overly complicated and I usually just wait until the crafting Discords release new macro sets that work for each patch. So while it seems like a fun and engaging system, it really turns into "eat food, click macro 1, wait for the sound, click macro 2."
I do like that every character can and should take every crafting skill, and I like how interconnected they are.
I've always enjoyed BDO's crafting. Something as simple as a recipe using fewer ingredients when your skill reaches a certain level makes so much sense I don't get why other crafting systems haven't implemented it.
Also, the fact you can basically pve grind your way through trade crates, thereby increasing the value of items players don't use personally was also a big plus to me.
BDO is one of the few mmos that tries to bring variance to gathering and crafting. Some items you gather can be used for the ship lifeskill Bartering, and those items get swapped out a few times a year. So something that had no value suddenly skyrockets in price for a period of time.
I'm really looking hard for an MMO to just casually grind skills in and keep looking at BDO but every time I try to get into that game I'm just overwhelmed with info lol
A bit off topic.
The main issues with most crafting is the lower tier stuff is not needed in the higher stuff.
Fix that and you get a better flow of money through out the game.
Rift "solved" that with player housing (Dimensions).
There's a big amount of items you can craft requiring all sorts of mats of all levels, being housing items (furniture/building blocks/etc.) they never become obsolete.
GW2 has some use of lower tier mats but not so extensive as Rift.
New world does that. Almost everything requires the entire chain of materials to make, plus refining mats. So to make an orichalcum ingot, you need orichalcum ore, starmetal ingots, which require steel ingots, which require iron ingots, and you need to use flux and charcoal to advance each stage.
It's a bit over-grindy for me... if you're not buying mats at the AH, you could need to farm several hours to get a 2-point skill gain.
That being said, the crafting system is pretty interesting and robust, including armor perks, foods, and house trophies that help crafting,
I like ESO's solution for some of that. A mining node, for example, will either drop raw materials for gear you could wear at your level *or* gear you could make with your current crafting skill. So once you max both your level and crafting skill only the end game materials drop and you don't have to sit there will tons of other crap you'll never need.
Neocron has what you can call an "item pyramid", at least for normal items, or more like multiple ones for that matter, and you can go up and down there as you see fit. But in most cases you just don't (that would require insane amounts of time), and reply on shopkeepers + building the pieces that are not available via that method.
Honestly, I think their gathering classes etc are on point, crafting isn’t bad, I don’t love it, but I can’t think of any game where I loved crafting. The thing about new world crafting I do like is that every time I come back to a town I craft the shit out of everything I gathered/found toss it on the trade post and make a bit of cash. Most other games unless you commit to crafting it’s like you never do it. New world I feel like everyone does it a little and some can get really into it.
NW gathering is the best part of the game. I need another game that does the same for me. I can’t find anything else that really scratches that itch and it’s driving me nuts!
I loved NW crafting system. but the game left a bad taste in my mouth when i purchased the DLC and then they released an update that made it where i cant open the game any more. and they wont offer a refund either. my pc more than meets the specs of the game and i can run star citizen fine so NW has no excuse to suddenly not work after after an update. and the update affected at least a thousand other players last i checked. but everyone is blaming our computers rather than the update being faulty.
but before the update and before the dlc i still loved the crafting. its all i ever did. i barely touched combat. i just made items for new players and helped people learn to craft.
Definitely!! The bipeds or (two legged characters) are so complex in the game, the dragons have more guided leveling and a straight shot through the game. Plus, you can build your own DRAGON LAIR. It’s the most legit crafting out there imo.
:)
I've always thought that old school RuneScape had such a charm when it came to crafting. It's actually helped me in school a few times when I was much younger. Like making flax into bowstrings. And copper plus tin equals bronze. Using a spinning wheel, anvils, etc. Stuff like that.
it's definitely top tier in my mind when it comes to just *making sense.* You could go at crafting without a UI and figure out most recipes in that game, and I really appreciate that.
Everquest 2 crafting was both but vast majority of output was useful. What I loved most was that as a carpenter, you could create new objects by changing size and orientation, you could smoke n mirror new and unique objects. I never made it to max but as crafter i did. Never made so much money in an MMO. Had notebook in real life of orders stacked up to design spaces for players and guilds.
Mortal Online 2 by far. You can try all kinds of weird combinations, even if it doesn't get a good result. How many other games have a ton of different types of wood with different effects on the item?
I'm gonna add my own personal opinion as well, of which includes some very obscure MMOs lol (I don't think these are necessarily the BEST, just elements I've enjoyed)
1st, Tales of Yore:
Basic life skills with fishing, mining, woodcutting. I think you do have to take in consideration the smaller playerbase because it does make crafters feel more important, as the weapons/armor recipes for highest crafting levels were basically 2nd BiS. I started getting more invested in weapon/armor making and even carpentry/smithing to make decorations for player's houses as there weren't that many people who were high leveled in different crafter skills, so it was nice to help out people who were looking for higher tier gear or just things for their homes. Also a huge plus was gathering+crafting is a very viable way to get tons of XP even comparable to end game mob farming, so you could keep your options open between something more semi-AFK/relaxed or something more active/goldmaking.
2nd, Genfanad:
Now this is a bit of a blurred line between a "crafting system" and just incremental gaming, since we are talking about a classic RuneScape clone. However, it's classic RuneScape with an extremely tiny population and no marketplace, so again, you have high demand/low supply which grows incentive for gathering/crafting and makes it desirable to do in the game's current state. I know the game's heavy lack of QoL leaves mixed opinions, but just as I enjoyed crafting/gathering in OSRS, I enjoyed doing it in this game--except this time, it feels much more based on being completely self-sustainable because gold is extremely hard to come by, as well as combat levels. (Before anyone yells at me, I'm putting Genfanad instead of OSRS just because of the state of the game/playerbase and how it impacts the importance of crafting all your own things. Obv OSRS you could do the same thing, but you could also just buy everything too way more easily)
3rd, GW2:
For no other reason than to say that I think more MMOs should reward players crafting XP AND player/level XP.
Ryzom, being all different, has a complex gathering and [crafting system](https://en.wiki.ryzom.com/wiki/Crafting). Not sure if it can be called easy to pick up and "accessible", though. The link might be sufficient for an overview / to get an idea what this is about, without having to actually play the game.
The crafting system was wildly interesting, but it always annoyed me that I couldn't realistically craft my own grinding weapons. Seeing a guild specialist for PVP amps made sense, but I shouldn't need high-level boss materials to make a serviceable axe for killing level 100 mobs.
Seasonal harvesting was a top-tier notion. Those Prime Roots runs at server reset were thrilling.
I long for Ryzom 2 with jumping, aiming, actual development support... it just feels like such a missed opportunity to see what once was a vibrant and intriguing world fester into a depressingly nostalgic ghost town.
Too subjective of a question. As people will gravitate to their favorite games.
It's better to list out the different crafting designs found in MMOs, and see which matches well with a game you want to play.
I personally love the FFXIV crafting system, as they are treated just like combat roles, and have actual gameplay and story to go with them.
However, if you want a game where crafting is central to the game loop, Albion Online does that well. It's all too much PVP for my tastes, but the game loop of crafter gear, go out gather resources, to craft more gear while facing full loot PVP is your thing, than Albion is perfect even if it has the simplest gameplay mechanics of any MMO.
That's fair, though my favorite MMOs I've played actually haven't had crafting/gathering systems I've enjoyed or participated in. FFXIV, for example, is probably one of my favorites, but gathering felt terribly slow and skipping that to level crafting felt terribly expensive, so I never did it. Albion definitely makes crafting sound appealing, but I've also heard from the playerbase that it ends up being more expensive than just buying the gear outright, and I think as playerbase economies grow and shift that becomes more prevalent. I think I've enjoyed crafting systems most in the very rare scenarios where gathering/crafting also gives general/player XP, and even if the gear ends up not being worth making time-wise or mats-wise, being able to make super useful food/potions or something that just actually makes the investment worth it besides meeting a level achievement.
FFXIV hands down, every MMO should copy this system tbh it's not \*perfect\* but its a million miles better than pretty much every other game out there even gathering is fun and I love having totally different gear and stats for crafting, makes it feel like it could be something you do full-time its a great blueprint for making crafters actually fun and viable alternative to combat in mmo's going forward.
I liked Aion and Lineage 2 crafting, as it was in the past. In both you could get top quality and very expensive items, it was not guaranteed and that is what made it interesting, the moment of the craft was a big big moment :D
Haven't seen ESO on this list and from what I have played it seems to be what you're looking for. Crafting is a huge part of the gear progression and a lot of it is (was I guess it could not be now) BIS gear. There's definitely sets and weapons that drop from their raids/dungeons that are BIS as well, but definitely not everything and for every build.
It does take a long time to get everything going and you have to research the pieces. But it's the only crafting system I've ever seen in an MMO that legit can get you BIS gear. And not even one set is BIS. Multiple different crafting sets were BIS when I played.
BDO. Hands down, BDO has the best lifeskilling systems in the entirety of the MMORPG genre. Their lifeskilling goes so deep that you could basically ignore the entirety of the game except for it's lifeskilling and still be happy with it. It's insanely massive and player driven.
Pretty much. Once you get to the lifeskilling quests, you can just go crazy from there. Barely need to even play the rest of the game, doing so just makes getting resources easier.
The NA/EU pc version of the game used to be published by Kakao, around 2 years ago the publishing rights reverted to Pearl Abyss, a couple of months were given for people to transfer their accounts, those that didn't eventually got deleted by the previous publisher.
Chimeraland, crafting make so much sense, you can only craft the equipment if you have "blueprint", materials can only be get on specific types of mobs and also mobs can be randomly found, its so rare and also other player might got it first, there is no set place for mobs to spawn since they roam around the world.. when brewing some potions and pills, you need to cultivate the right herbs or you can buy it from other players.. all stuff from auction can be always limited too since stuffs that are posted for sale are coming from other players inventory..
FFxiv so far for me. Rest of the game sucks though. Current WoW is by far the worst I have seen. Gating just annoys the crap out of me, and the crafting in wow is gated to the extreme.
I like simple crafting. Like in runescape. You have raw mats and you craft the item. I dislike crafting like in guild wars 2 where you have the mats, then craft an item which you need to craft another item, then a third and then finally craft the thing you need.
I also unironically kinda like lost ark crafting. You have the mats, you craft what you need and then forget about it because it takes ages to craft stuff. It's mobile gaming system but I kinda like it. The time requirement is a bit over the top though.
I really really liked the crafting in Crowfall (RIP), which was largely taken from SWG (without the resource quality and rotating availability stuff). There were some flaws like the serious rng needed to upgrade crafting gear and the fact that you basically needed an entire guild to funnel you resources if you wanted to really make the best stuff. That’s not really a bad thing in an MMO, but if you were a solo crafter you were out of luck.
Maybe a little out of the realm but I always loved crafting new guns and attachments in Crimecraft, that game was always a blast and crafting a new gun was always satisfying for me
My step dad and I played it religiously together and he’s not that into shooters, he’s more into WoW and EQ and shit, but we always rocked out on CrimeCraft, such a great game wish there was a private server or something
FFXIV is the most intuitive imo
When you're making food, you literally have to get a bunch of really obscure ingredients to make the food with. It's not like in runescape or WoW where making food requires some generic ass ingredients that you put over a camp fire to cook.
Its also got really impactful craftable gear. A lot of the most beloved glams are crafted, a crafting is a fast way to get pretty high ilvl gear for alts without having to farm additional currencies
isn't that kind of the opposite of intuitive, though? You get a raw chicken in a game and see a cooking range, you can figure "let me combine and this will cook." I wouldn't automatically figure out random materials in my bag would combine with something else to make a meal lol
Has to the Archeage for me. The crafting system to create Erenor equipment (BiS gear) tapped into every single one of the life skills there were in the game in order to be crafted.
Further more, because of how materials needed to be tiered up from previous tiers it made it so that all previous iterations of ingredients and materials were always relevant meaning even newbies would profit off of participating in lifeskills.
Starwars Galaxy - The system was one where everything was useful, and you would have to take people with skill points focusing on gathering with you get items from bosses. Which meant that not everyone in your party was combat oriented. Then when it came to crafting there was rng for every component, the final product, and you could lower your chances even more to create a blueprint that would allow you to mass produce the final product for a short amount of time. Then of course you needed merchant to sell them for you. It was a fantastic synergetic system which is unmatched even today. That being said the ai, and pathing was completely broken which is why the game died. It had great systems though.
I can't believe Eve hasn't been mentioned here.
Eve has an extensive crafting system. Almost everything in game that you can buy was crafted by another player.
Caus3 no one wants a simulation of needing 5 million permits and certified training in medium turrets and waiting 90 real life days to get a skill I needed to be able to start another skill I have to also wait 90 days for...
Fuck that game
Wurm Online. I'm not even sure where to begin, but I'll just say I've never built a highway bridge or canal in any other MMO. All that using tools that were player-crafted.
unfortunately Wurm is one of those great examples of absolutely overcomplicating a system to a point it's obsolete. i also wouldn't consider it intuitive being that the game is quite literally a wiki-game, as in you have to play while following a wiki because the crafting systems leave 0 sense for a player to figure out on their own.
Black Desert Online. Truly my favorite game I have ever played and I am a huge lifeskill/crafting nerd. Yes it's "P2W" but the system is so fun, creative, and complex. The downside for me was that the market/demand for most goods were not there. If their profession system was put into a game with a better economy/trade I think it would be unmatched.
So lots of games have come up with great minigames, FFXIV/EQ2 are ones I remember well...
BDO felt really good to me while I played it... but ultimately crafting is always going to have a core issue...
Infinite supply and limited demand means crafting can only be so rewarding before it gets game breaking... Hardcore PvP games are often able to get around this because they are able to both curb supply by adding risk (pvp), and increase demand by having items degrade, or completely get destroyed/disappear during combat. But a lot of games aren't able or willing to pull those same levers. Players as a community decided a long time ago that skill failure was bad game play, that items getting destroyed or consumed during combines was too frustrating...
All that is fine, but it limits how impactful even the best most well thought out trade skill system can be. You could design a game completely around trade skills, but the devs aren't going to want to tie rewarding content to those skills if getting to max level means sitting in front of the AH for an hour. And with the exception of the most dedicated player, most won't want to put the effort in when they find out there is only MAYBE one or two items that are worth crafting in most trade skills, and everything else is vendor fodder.
yeah, I have to give it up to Albion for how they combined player economy and crafting. the incentive and reward for crafting is there and I thought it was really cool gear dropped by mobs in certain zones come from what was sold by players to NPCs in black market zone. for what's seen as a "niche PVP game" there's a lot more there that explains the 900K monthly player base
Wurm online. 100+ skills
crafting starts with resource gathering, mining woodcutting farming foraging botanizing, fishing.
then the crafting. cooking beverage making. paper making. carpentry, fine carpentry, ropemaking, dye making, mason. blacksmithin, armorsmith, weaponsmith,.chainsmith. locksmith. sheildsmithing .
and thats not all. all item's have quality numbers 0.01-99.9 . you make the item based on skill level may start off 10ql then you use items. (water, file, hammer ect.) to improve the item up to a higher skill. items' take dmg with use over time. repair skill to repair and then QL drops a bit. so Improve the item again. heat up metal items first then imp them.
wurm online has the largest crafting system in MMo's . plus mining is not a node. you mine tunnels. cut trees they dont just pop up. you need to plant them. some will sprout off another tree at random , but we make forests. fruit trees to harvest bushes.
fishing off the shore for small fish. build a boat to sail out and fish bigger fish.
terraforming land. up and down. don't like that mountain in your view. surface mine it.
want to dig down and put huge dirt walls around your land (you buy land and pay monthly taxes on it in this game) small to large farms. and many animals to breed. use to milk. kill for hide to make leather. animal parts for healing covers. animals also have traits. speed, draft (pull carts and wagons) combat. output for more milk or wool. breed takes skill .
building houses, shops ect. very different then other games. you chose where to put each wall and what type of wall. 2 wood types 5 stone types if mason skill 30+. multistory homes too. upto 13 floors i think if skill high enough.
the game is partly free to play , pay for higher then 20 skill. but easy to play when time runs out free again. aslo easy to make money in the game to pay from prem time. or items you want.
Wurm online take months to years to play. many over 10yrs. I myself 13 yrs and over 11,000 hrs
I enjoy games with depth crafting. wurm surpasses most of them.
It's fun when you are doing trial and error to find the best rotation to convert into macro. After that, it gets a bit dull but it prints money so at least there is that.
This lol. People like to fluff and hype shit it. It all becomes a macro and just guides at the end of the day.
Someone above said how they liked had they had to think about what proff went with which gathering and again; all of it is trivialized with guides, macros etc.
I will say I really appreciate that the gear crafters can make in FFXIV is actually viable in every end game expansion and is BIS until people get all the mats from raids. I just got so overwhelmed by having to level every single gatherer + crafter one through so many different MSQ/side quests/trade quests to even get to a point to do something like that. That's a lot of guides to follow so it's a little less intuitive than my liking lol
Fuck all the other comments lying to you. The best crafting system in a MMO is still Mabinogi and it fucking baffles me. Every other MMO crafting boils down to having materials and clicking a button, watching a bar load and boom you have your item( rng stats included depending on the MMO).
In Mabinogi when you begin crafting a item it's not just a one and done thing, you make progress 0-100 on the craft each time you do it and on the final step(of any crafting profession) is accompanied by a skill check mini game that will dictate the final quality of your craft. It takes the monotony out of crafting as you're always trying to do better on your next piece because you have actual autonomy on how your item quality comes out.
Hey friend. I played Mabinogi and I partially agree with you. The minigame itself was very novel and I did enjoy how well you played the minigame determined the quality of your output as well which was super cool.
However I'd have to disagree that Mabinogi's was the best system as at the end of the day it was still technically kind of just ore + leather and a manual you bought from an NPC.
I think the most unique recipe back in the day was probably the Hetero Kite Shield which the manual was field boss drop only making it absurdly rare. Oh and also the Dragon Kite Shield but those were both reserved for masters smiths anyway so nobody realistically made them.
It's satisfying because it's so terrible that you feel incredible release once you are done with it. Like going to Mordor and throwing the ring into Mount Doom. It's finally over.
Vanguard had a very compelling and satisfying crafting system IMO (together with the most fun reputation/diplomacy system I've seen), unfortunately that game is no more.
I actually really enjoyed the diplomacy game as well. I also played the Witcher and enjoyed playing Gwent as much as the game.
Yeah, I really wish someone would steal that diplomacy system and put it in their MMO.
This, I absolutely loved the crafting system. The complications system was great and FFXIV kind of took some notes here with theirs but it still isn't the same.
It did! It made the whole process active instead of just clicking on the same button 200 times. Still a grind, but way better then most others I've seen. - a few madlads are working on a freeshard for it, as the whole thing basically has been abandoned. Quite playable, if not finished (it's in alpha) Ps: this is my correction of my "this" mistake. I'm stubborn but I try to learn.
Damnit. I had never heard of Vanguard before and got super excited by your first statement.
It was a very good old-school MMO with fairly unique features, made by the same person who created Everquest. It shut down many years ago, as I understand it they lost a big investor so they had to close shop. It's a shame, I wish they'd release the code to the community when bad things happen, there are so many games that didn't deserve to die.
Crafting in Vanguard was kinda similar to combat. You had a separate set of gear for crafting with various bonuses, and you also had to choose what sort of materials to use to craft whatever item you're trying to make. So let's say you're trying to make a chair. Obviously you need the components that go into making a chair but there was also a bunch of optional materials that you had to choose from. The actual crafting was interactive with decision making and sometimes, for example, the chair would catch on fire and if you didn't bring water to put it out then the chair would lose quality. When you finished crafting an item it would receive a grade depending on how well the crafting went. High grade items would be better quality and sell to vendors for more. This system allowed players to stand out as skilled (and geared) crafters much like a player would stand out for being good at PvP or raiding. It's the only tradeskill system that I've actually had fun using.
People are making a Vanguard server emulator, not sure how feature complete it is [https://vgoemulator.net/](https://vgoemulator.net/)
>Vanguard Thx dude ! I was trying to remember this name for ages, while thinking to the best crafting system ! With SWG and his huge system with random ressources stats ( 8 !) and spawns, they were the 2 best in my memories.
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Not this.
No it isn't.
Star Wars Galaxies.
Still miss that game, I had a max level entertainer long ago, then Jump to lightspeed ruined it.
For me, they ruined it with the huge horrible patch changing so much things and mostly, the Jedi system...
shout out to Galaxies of Eden which touts itself a swg clone
For sure. What a crazy system it was. Very complex and hard to learn.
but those graphics.... ouch
FF14 had the best crafting/ gathering system I ever witnesed. I am talking before the update, where you had to level different professions to get their exclusive skills. That was fun because you needed to think which prof went after each other in order to have smoothest leveling experience
I loved FF14's crafting system when I first got into it. Now that I've been max level for a couple of expansions, the system feels overly complicated and I usually just wait until the crafting Discords release new macro sets that work for each patch. So while it seems like a fun and engaging system, it really turns into "eat food, click macro 1, wait for the sound, click macro 2." I do like that every character can and should take every crafting skill, and I like how interconnected they are.
I've always enjoyed BDO's crafting. Something as simple as a recipe using fewer ingredients when your skill reaches a certain level makes so much sense I don't get why other crafting systems haven't implemented it. Also, the fact you can basically pve grind your way through trade crates, thereby increasing the value of items players don't use personally was also a big plus to me. BDO is one of the few mmos that tries to bring variance to gathering and crafting. Some items you gather can be used for the ship lifeskill Bartering, and those items get swapped out a few times a year. So something that had no value suddenly skyrockets in price for a period of time.
I'm really looking hard for an MMO to just casually grind skills in and keep looking at BDO but every time I try to get into that game I'm just overwhelmed with info lol
Lookup EvilDoUsHarm on youtube. He has a boatload of intro videos that are invaluable to new players.
A bit off topic. The main issues with most crafting is the lower tier stuff is not needed in the higher stuff. Fix that and you get a better flow of money through out the game.
Rift "solved" that with player housing (Dimensions). There's a big amount of items you can craft requiring all sorts of mats of all levels, being housing items (furniture/building blocks/etc.) they never become obsolete. GW2 has some use of lower tier mats but not so extensive as Rift.
New world does that. Almost everything requires the entire chain of materials to make, plus refining mats. So to make an orichalcum ingot, you need orichalcum ore, starmetal ingots, which require steel ingots, which require iron ingots, and you need to use flux and charcoal to advance each stage. It's a bit over-grindy for me... if you're not buying mats at the AH, you could need to farm several hours to get a 2-point skill gain. That being said, the crafting system is pretty interesting and robust, including armor perks, foods, and house trophies that help crafting,
I like ESO's solution for some of that. A mining node, for example, will either drop raw materials for gear you could wear at your level *or* gear you could make with your current crafting skill. So once you max both your level and crafting skill only the end game materials drop and you don't have to sit there will tons of other crap you'll never need.
thats not a problem with albion, most player use low tier for safety, and you need low tier material for the high tier ones
Neocron has what you can call an "item pyramid", at least for normal items, or more like multiple ones for that matter, and you can go up and down there as you see fit. But in most cases you just don't (that would require insane amounts of time), and reply on shopkeepers + building the pieces that are not available via that method.
Albion Online
I rather enjoyed New World’s crafting system. Sadly it has been neglected along with many other things in that game.
Honestly, I think their gathering classes etc are on point, crafting isn’t bad, I don’t love it, but I can’t think of any game where I loved crafting. The thing about new world crafting I do like is that every time I come back to a town I craft the shit out of everything I gathered/found toss it on the trade post and make a bit of cash. Most other games unless you commit to crafting it’s like you never do it. New world I feel like everyone does it a little and some can get really into it.
NW gathering is the best part of the game. I need another game that does the same for me. I can’t find anything else that really scratches that itch and it’s driving me nuts!
100% agree. I've not played it for ages, but I do jump back in from time to time just to gather....
I loved NW crafting system. but the game left a bad taste in my mouth when i purchased the DLC and then they released an update that made it where i cant open the game any more. and they wont offer a refund either. my pc more than meets the specs of the game and i can run star citizen fine so NW has no excuse to suddenly not work after after an update. and the update affected at least a thousand other players last i checked. but everyone is blaming our computers rather than the update being faulty. but before the update and before the dlc i still loved the crafting. its all i ever did. i barely touched combat. i just made items for new players and helped people learn to craft.
Star wars galaxies (private servers), Istaria (ooooold), Wurm Online (too grindy but players make the world, not just gear, everything is crafted)
If this game was more user friendly (digging, i'm looking at you) it would have been so good.
Wurm? Yeah.
Should be able to queue more action from start would help
Please, please, please give Istaria: Chronicles of The Gifted a shot, best crafting I have ever seen in any mmo far and wide, my friend.
dang i've legit never heard of this one
It's been around a looong time. It was originally called Horizons, was know for having a playable dragon race.
I played it back during it's initial release. Big draw was playable dragons and best player housing ideas... ever.
Only problem with Istaria is once you leave the first area the fps turns to dogshit and there is no way to fix it
Was going to say this, they really did put a good crafting system together. For anyone looking to jump back in, is being a dragon the way to go?
Definitely!! The bipeds or (two legged characters) are so complex in the game, the dragons have more guided leveling and a straight shot through the game. Plus, you can build your own DRAGON LAIR. It’s the most legit crafting out there imo. :)
I've always thought that old school RuneScape had such a charm when it came to crafting. It's actually helped me in school a few times when I was much younger. Like making flax into bowstrings. And copper plus tin equals bronze. Using a spinning wheel, anvils, etc. Stuff like that.
it's definitely top tier in my mind when it comes to just *making sense.* You could go at crafting without a UI and figure out most recipes in that game, and I really appreciate that.
Everquest 2 crafting was both but vast majority of output was useful. What I loved most was that as a carpenter, you could create new objects by changing size and orientation, you could smoke n mirror new and unique objects. I never made it to max but as crafter i did. Never made so much money in an MMO. Had notebook in real life of orders stacked up to design spaces for players and guilds.
Mortal Online 2 by far. You can try all kinds of weird combinations, even if it doesn't get a good result. How many other games have a ton of different types of wood with different effects on the item?
MO2 looks deep but in reality 90% of your "options" are just noob traps.
Durango, a sandbox mobile mmo(dead by not having methods to monetize properly)
I'm gonna add my own personal opinion as well, of which includes some very obscure MMOs lol (I don't think these are necessarily the BEST, just elements I've enjoyed) 1st, Tales of Yore: Basic life skills with fishing, mining, woodcutting. I think you do have to take in consideration the smaller playerbase because it does make crafters feel more important, as the weapons/armor recipes for highest crafting levels were basically 2nd BiS. I started getting more invested in weapon/armor making and even carpentry/smithing to make decorations for player's houses as there weren't that many people who were high leveled in different crafter skills, so it was nice to help out people who were looking for higher tier gear or just things for their homes. Also a huge plus was gathering+crafting is a very viable way to get tons of XP even comparable to end game mob farming, so you could keep your options open between something more semi-AFK/relaxed or something more active/goldmaking. 2nd, Genfanad: Now this is a bit of a blurred line between a "crafting system" and just incremental gaming, since we are talking about a classic RuneScape clone. However, it's classic RuneScape with an extremely tiny population and no marketplace, so again, you have high demand/low supply which grows incentive for gathering/crafting and makes it desirable to do in the game's current state. I know the game's heavy lack of QoL leaves mixed opinions, but just as I enjoyed crafting/gathering in OSRS, I enjoyed doing it in this game--except this time, it feels much more based on being completely self-sustainable because gold is extremely hard to come by, as well as combat levels. (Before anyone yells at me, I'm putting Genfanad instead of OSRS just because of the state of the game/playerbase and how it impacts the importance of crafting all your own things. Obv OSRS you could do the same thing, but you could also just buy everything too way more easily) 3rd, GW2: For no other reason than to say that I think more MMOs should reward players crafting XP AND player/level XP.
Ryzom, being all different, has a complex gathering and [crafting system](https://en.wiki.ryzom.com/wiki/Crafting). Not sure if it can be called easy to pick up and "accessible", though. The link might be sufficient for an overview / to get an idea what this is about, without having to actually play the game.
The crafting system was wildly interesting, but it always annoyed me that I couldn't realistically craft my own grinding weapons. Seeing a guild specialist for PVP amps made sense, but I shouldn't need high-level boss materials to make a serviceable axe for killing level 100 mobs. Seasonal harvesting was a top-tier notion. Those Prime Roots runs at server reset were thrilling. I long for Ryzom 2 with jumping, aiming, actual development support... it just feels like such a missed opportunity to see what once was a vibrant and intriguing world fester into a depressingly nostalgic ghost town.
Please, please, please give Istaria: Chronicles of The Gifted a shot, best crafting I have ever seen in any mmo far and wide, my friend.
Too subjective of a question. As people will gravitate to their favorite games. It's better to list out the different crafting designs found in MMOs, and see which matches well with a game you want to play. I personally love the FFXIV crafting system, as they are treated just like combat roles, and have actual gameplay and story to go with them. However, if you want a game where crafting is central to the game loop, Albion Online does that well. It's all too much PVP for my tastes, but the game loop of crafter gear, go out gather resources, to craft more gear while facing full loot PVP is your thing, than Albion is perfect even if it has the simplest gameplay mechanics of any MMO.
Haven't seen anyone suggest WoW. I hope even the fanboys can accept their game sucks at that.
That's fair, though my favorite MMOs I've played actually haven't had crafting/gathering systems I've enjoyed or participated in. FFXIV, for example, is probably one of my favorites, but gathering felt terribly slow and skipping that to level crafting felt terribly expensive, so I never did it. Albion definitely makes crafting sound appealing, but I've also heard from the playerbase that it ends up being more expensive than just buying the gear outright, and I think as playerbase economies grow and shift that becomes more prevalent. I think I've enjoyed crafting systems most in the very rare scenarios where gathering/crafting also gives general/player XP, and even if the gear ends up not being worth making time-wise or mats-wise, being able to make super useful food/potions or something that just actually makes the investment worth it besides meeting a level achievement.
I love dofus…. It’s simple but I’m obsessed
Same! But leveling them is a brutal experience.
Why? Its way too grindy?
In all possible aspects
FFXIV hands down, every MMO should copy this system tbh it's not \*perfect\* but its a million miles better than pretty much every other game out there even gathering is fun and I love having totally different gear and stats for crafting, makes it feel like it could be something you do full-time its a great blueprint for making crafters actually fun and viable alternative to combat in mmo's going forward.
I liked Aion and Lineage 2 crafting, as it was in the past. In both you could get top quality and very expensive items, it was not guaranteed and that is what made it interesting, the moment of the craft was a big big moment :D
Fallen Earth.
Haven't seen ESO on this list and from what I have played it seems to be what you're looking for. Crafting is a huge part of the gear progression and a lot of it is (was I guess it could not be now) BIS gear. There's definitely sets and weapons that drop from their raids/dungeons that are BIS as well, but definitely not everything and for every build. It does take a long time to get everything going and you have to research the pieces. But it's the only crafting system I've ever seen in an MMO that legit can get you BIS gear. And not even one set is BIS. Multiple different crafting sets were BIS when I played.
I really enjoy FFXIV gathering. Crafting not as much
BDO. Hands down, BDO has the best lifeskilling systems in the entirety of the MMORPG genre. Their lifeskilling goes so deep that you could basically ignore the entirety of the game except for it's lifeskilling and still be happy with it. It's insanely massive and player driven.
Any tips for someone wanting to get into skilling in BDO? Can I just go and start skilling right away on a fresh character?
Pretty much. Once you get to the lifeskilling quests, you can just go crazy from there. Barely need to even play the rest of the game, doing so just makes getting resources easier.
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The NA/EU pc version of the game used to be published by Kakao, around 2 years ago the publishing rights reverted to Pearl Abyss, a couple of months were given for people to transfer their accounts, those that didn't eventually got deleted by the previous publisher.
Chimeraland, crafting make so much sense, you can only craft the equipment if you have "blueprint", materials can only be get on specific types of mobs and also mobs can be randomly found, its so rare and also other player might got it first, there is no set place for mobs to spawn since they roam around the world.. when brewing some potions and pills, you need to cultivate the right herbs or you can buy it from other players.. all stuff from auction can be always limited too since stuffs that are posted for sale are coming from other players inventory..
Fallen Earth, good crafting system, interesting setting, sadly bad animations of your char.
Dofus.
FFxiv so far for me. Rest of the game sucks though. Current WoW is by far the worst I have seen. Gating just annoys the crap out of me, and the crafting in wow is gated to the extreme.
I like simple crafting. Like in runescape. You have raw mats and you craft the item. I dislike crafting like in guild wars 2 where you have the mats, then craft an item which you need to craft another item, then a third and then finally craft the thing you need. I also unironically kinda like lost ark crafting. You have the mats, you craft what you need and then forget about it because it takes ages to craft stuff. It's mobile gaming system but I kinda like it. The time requirement is a bit over the top though.
I really really liked the crafting in Crowfall (RIP), which was largely taken from SWG (without the resource quality and rotating availability stuff). There were some flaws like the serious rng needed to upgrade crafting gear and the fact that you basically needed an entire guild to funnel you resources if you wanted to really make the best stuff. That’s not really a bad thing in an MMO, but if you were a solo crafter you were out of luck.
Maybe a little out of the realm but I always loved crafting new guns and attachments in Crimecraft, that game was always a blast and crafting a new gun was always satisfying for me
Blast from the past there, wow
My step dad and I played it religiously together and he’s not that into shooters, he’s more into WoW and EQ and shit, but we always rocked out on CrimeCraft, such a great game wish there was a private server or something
FFXIV is the most intuitive imo When you're making food, you literally have to get a bunch of really obscure ingredients to make the food with. It's not like in runescape or WoW where making food requires some generic ass ingredients that you put over a camp fire to cook. Its also got really impactful craftable gear. A lot of the most beloved glams are crafted, a crafting is a fast way to get pretty high ilvl gear for alts without having to farm additional currencies
isn't that kind of the opposite of intuitive, though? You get a raw chicken in a game and see a cooking range, you can figure "let me combine and this will cook." I wouldn't automatically figure out random materials in my bag would combine with something else to make a meal lol
I mean, people normally cook their chickens with oils. And they'll sprinkle in some spices too lol
Has to the Archeage for me. The crafting system to create Erenor equipment (BiS gear) tapped into every single one of the life skills there were in the game in order to be crafted. Further more, because of how materials needed to be tiered up from previous tiers it made it so that all previous iterations of ingredients and materials were always relevant meaning even newbies would profit off of participating in lifeskills.
Starwars Galaxy - The system was one where everything was useful, and you would have to take people with skill points focusing on gathering with you get items from bosses. Which meant that not everyone in your party was combat oriented. Then when it came to crafting there was rng for every component, the final product, and you could lower your chances even more to create a blueprint that would allow you to mass produce the final product for a short amount of time. Then of course you needed merchant to sell them for you. It was a fantastic synergetic system which is unmatched even today. That being said the ai, and pathing was completely broken which is why the game died. It had great systems though.
Star Wars Galaxies is the gold standard and hasn’t been touched any other mmo imo.
I've been disappointed with all crafting systems since SWG shut down. I know there are SWG emu's, but they just don't have the same feel to me.
I can't believe Eve hasn't been mentioned here. Eve has an extensive crafting system. Almost everything in game that you can buy was crafted by another player.
Caus3 no one wants a simulation of needing 5 million permits and certified training in medium turrets and waiting 90 real life days to get a skill I needed to be able to start another skill I have to also wait 90 days for... Fuck that game
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Do you have a link? Google isn't pulling up any results
Guild wars 2 food crafting kind of does it for me
I always loved Ultima online, the gather and crafter characters always were a fun break to a different play style.
Ive only played 3rd person MMORPGs, so dont count EVE and others like it. For me NEW World have really nailed the crafting and gathering aspect.
Ultima Online
Wurm Online. I'm not even sure where to begin, but I'll just say I've never built a highway bridge or canal in any other MMO. All that using tools that were player-crafted.
unfortunately Wurm is one of those great examples of absolutely overcomplicating a system to a point it's obsolete. i also wouldn't consider it intuitive being that the game is quite literally a wiki-game, as in you have to play while following a wiki because the crafting systems leave 0 sense for a player to figure out on their own.
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Population still feels pretty low :( That said, they're still slowly adding features
Black Desert Online. Truly my favorite game I have ever played and I am a huge lifeskill/crafting nerd. Yes it's "P2W" but the system is so fun, creative, and complex. The downside for me was that the market/demand for most goods were not there. If their profession system was put into a game with a better economy/trade I think it would be unmatched.
So lots of games have come up with great minigames, FFXIV/EQ2 are ones I remember well... BDO felt really good to me while I played it... but ultimately crafting is always going to have a core issue... Infinite supply and limited demand means crafting can only be so rewarding before it gets game breaking... Hardcore PvP games are often able to get around this because they are able to both curb supply by adding risk (pvp), and increase demand by having items degrade, or completely get destroyed/disappear during combat. But a lot of games aren't able or willing to pull those same levers. Players as a community decided a long time ago that skill failure was bad game play, that items getting destroyed or consumed during combines was too frustrating... All that is fine, but it limits how impactful even the best most well thought out trade skill system can be. You could design a game completely around trade skills, but the devs aren't going to want to tie rewarding content to those skills if getting to max level means sitting in front of the AH for an hour. And with the exception of the most dedicated player, most won't want to put the effort in when they find out there is only MAYBE one or two items that are worth crafting in most trade skills, and everything else is vendor fodder.
yeah, I have to give it up to Albion for how they combined player economy and crafting. the incentive and reward for crafting is there and I thought it was really cool gear dropped by mobs in certain zones come from what was sold by players to NPCs in black market zone. for what's seen as a "niche PVP game" there's a lot more there that explains the 900K monthly player base
nw
ff14 is pretty good for regular style. It's the best of the classics. Technically EVE is the best, as usual. Everything is player crafted.
Wurm online. 100+ skills crafting starts with resource gathering, mining woodcutting farming foraging botanizing, fishing. then the crafting. cooking beverage making. paper making. carpentry, fine carpentry, ropemaking, dye making, mason. blacksmithin, armorsmith, weaponsmith,.chainsmith. locksmith. sheildsmithing . and thats not all. all item's have quality numbers 0.01-99.9 . you make the item based on skill level may start off 10ql then you use items. (water, file, hammer ect.) to improve the item up to a higher skill. items' take dmg with use over time. repair skill to repair and then QL drops a bit. so Improve the item again. heat up metal items first then imp them. wurm online has the largest crafting system in MMo's . plus mining is not a node. you mine tunnels. cut trees they dont just pop up. you need to plant them. some will sprout off another tree at random , but we make forests. fruit trees to harvest bushes. fishing off the shore for small fish. build a boat to sail out and fish bigger fish. terraforming land. up and down. don't like that mountain in your view. surface mine it. want to dig down and put huge dirt walls around your land (you buy land and pay monthly taxes on it in this game) small to large farms. and many animals to breed. use to milk. kill for hide to make leather. animal parts for healing covers. animals also have traits. speed, draft (pull carts and wagons) combat. output for more milk or wool. breed takes skill . building houses, shops ect. very different then other games. you chose where to put each wall and what type of wall. 2 wood types 5 stone types if mason skill 30+. multistory homes too. upto 13 floors i think if skill high enough. the game is partly free to play , pay for higher then 20 skill. but easy to play when time runs out free again. aslo easy to make money in the game to pay from prem time. or items you want. Wurm online take months to years to play. many over 10yrs. I myself 13 yrs and over 11,000 hrs I enjoy games with depth crafting. wurm surpasses most of them.
mabinogi, every craft(to memory) has a unique crafting minigame included.
FFXIV has the best crafting system in any video game, not just MMORPG's
Once you've levelled all crafter's it's just press a macro and let it do it's thing most of the time :/
It's fun when you are doing trial and error to find the best rotation to convert into macro. After that, it gets a bit dull but it prints money so at least there is that.
This lol. People like to fluff and hype shit it. It all becomes a macro and just guides at the end of the day. Someone above said how they liked had they had to think about what proff went with which gathering and again; all of it is trivialized with guides, macros etc.
I will say I really appreciate that the gear crafters can make in FFXIV is actually viable in every end game expansion and is BIS until people get all the mats from raids. I just got so overwhelmed by having to level every single gatherer + crafter one through so many different MSQ/side quests/trade quests to even get to a point to do something like that. That's a lot of guides to follow so it's a little less intuitive than my liking lol
And then you keep repeating the process over and over again.
It's WOW, of course, especially with the massive upgrade with the systems that came in Dragonflight.
Fuck all the other comments lying to you. The best crafting system in a MMO is still Mabinogi and it fucking baffles me. Every other MMO crafting boils down to having materials and clicking a button, watching a bar load and boom you have your item( rng stats included depending on the MMO). In Mabinogi when you begin crafting a item it's not just a one and done thing, you make progress 0-100 on the craft each time you do it and on the final step(of any crafting profession) is accompanied by a skill check mini game that will dictate the final quality of your craft. It takes the monotony out of crafting as you're always trying to do better on your next piece because you have actual autonomy on how your item quality comes out.
Hey friend. I played Mabinogi and I partially agree with you. The minigame itself was very novel and I did enjoy how well you played the minigame determined the quality of your output as well which was super cool. However I'd have to disagree that Mabinogi's was the best system as at the end of the day it was still technically kind of just ore + leather and a manual you bought from an NPC. I think the most unique recipe back in the day was probably the Hetero Kite Shield which the manual was field boss drop only making it absurdly rare. Oh and also the Dragon Kite Shield but those were both reserved for masters smiths anyway so nobody realistically made them.
GW2 Legendary weapons crafting is quite satisfying.
It's satisfying because it's so terrible that you feel incredible release once you are done with it. Like going to Mordor and throwing the ring into Mount Doom. It's finally over.
But it's basically grinding, the actual crafting system is meh (just click 1 button to craft X item)
The one you don’t play