In my experience it’s pretty rare to find a game that gives players unlimited access to their crafting system from the start. There is almost always some sort of improvement system or some other means of pacing the crafting process. This can be through a leveling up system, requiring recipes, or even just through material availability. This post will explore how other games have implemented their improvement and gating systems while trying to reach conclusions about the most applicable solution for my own game.

World of Warcraft

WoW utilizes a level based crafting system with some recipe requirements. To level up players are given starting recipes from trainers. Completing these recipes has a chance to give a level based on the difficulty of the recipe. Difficulty is represented by colour - in descending order: red (uncraftable), orange (guaranteed skill up), yellow (likely skill up), green (unlikely skill up), and grey (no skill up). Some catch up recipes were added in the Cataclysm expansion which provide more than one skill up per craft. These were added as a way to allow players to improve their profession more quickly at low levels. As a player I’ve always found that gaining a level feels underwhelming with this system. Most real progression happens at plateaus where you unlock new recipes (leveling from 13-14 is irrelevant but 14-15 gives new stuff!). I feel that giving the player intermediary levels which provide no benefit devalues the experience of leveling up. I prefer systems which have less frequent but more impactful level ups.

Through most of WoW’s lifetime end game recipes have been obtainable from reputation vendors which required a significant amount of work on the player’s part to unlock. These served as an additional layer of crafting improvement on top of the normal leveling system. Warlords of Draenor removed this avenue for improvement which has partially contributed to the lackluster state of crafting currently.

Another removed crafting system from the early days of WoW is the profession specialization feature. Most professions had two or more bonus paths that the player could choose such as weapon-smithing vs armor-smithing from blacksmiths or tailors choosing to focus on spellfire cloth, mooncloth, or shadowcloth. Specialization added flavour and an additional sense of progression to the professions, however many of the choices were irrelevant as one option far outweighed others. For example in the case of tailors each cloth type was used for a specific set of gear. One set was geared for healers, another for maximum damage, and the final for a mix of damage and defense. While players were given 3 options, there was always one optimal choice based on their class.

Guild Wars 2

GW2’s crafting is similar to WoW’s in many ways. Player’s still start at level 1 and gain levels by crafting default recipes that the game provides. The game’s discovery mechanic adds an additional method to leveling by allowing player’s to experiment with various items to discover new recipes for a larger chunk of experience than the default recipes provide. One of the main distinguishing features of the system is that crafting grants skill experience instead of all progress being a flat +1 level. The xp based system allows difficult recipes to be rewarded more than simple ones.

There are still intermediary levels and plateaus where new skills are unlocked which is odd to me. Given that the choice has already been made to use experience over flat levels why not make each level up more exciting and rewarding? In general the plateaus in GW2 come every 25 levels and level cap is 500. It would be just as easy to consolidate the system into 20 levels, with each level requiring the equivalent experience to the old systems 25 and rewarding the same progress. Perhaps in this system players would be intimidated by a large initial investment for the first level. This could be addressed by adding a curve with a lower requirement during the learning period could be balanced easily enough.

Minecraft

Minecraft is one of the few examples of a game that has virtually all crafting unlocked immediately. The only inhibitors to player’s crafting everything they want is resource availability and knowledge. The game doesn’t provide any information as to how to craft, player’s must either experiment on their own, get help from friends, or use online resources such as wiki pages and patch notes.

There can certainly be value in obfuscating information about the game system, however in Minecraft’s case I believe it is too obscure. Games that rely on outside information can be intriguing, however typically the basic actions are explained in game and only the subtleties and advanced techniques require online research to understand.

The Witcher 3

The Witcher doesn’t use any crafting skill leveling system, opting instead for requiring recipes to be found throughout the world. This causes skill improvement to be a result of normal gameplay instead of a minigame where you craft a bunch of junk you don’t want to access stuff you do. I’ve had a lot of fun following the story of another Witcher - through an underground lab, a wrecked ship, and ancient ruins – being rewarded with recipes for powerful items while discovering how he came to possess them in the first place.

Each recipe also has a difficulty associated with it. The most difficult recipes require a master blacksmith to craft for you. This again provides a gating mechanic to impede the player without requiring tedious leveling to unlock. Master crafters exist throughout the world and often require the player to complete a quest to unlock their services. These quests are fun in their own right and could exist even without being tied to a crafting unlock. You won’t find any ‘bring me 20 iron hammers to prove your skill’ quests here.

Conclusions

Leveling up a skill can be a useful way of gating players and it’s an easy concept to grasp. I personally would design a system with a far lower than typical number of levels with each level having a noticeable improvement.

Recipe requirement is a great way to implement skill improvement. They can be rewarded for tasks as simple as visiting a new area or as daunting as taking down a big bad. Recipe systems tend to promote other areas of the game (exploration, combat, etc.) and don’t require tedious ‘craft 10 copper hammers, now 10 iron hammers’ minigames.

For myself I will likely be going with recipes scattered throughout the world as the primary means of improving the skill. If that doesn’t prove compelling enough I’d consider combining it with a leveling system with around 4 tiers – ensuring that early tiers can produce useful items, not just junk.

Next time I’ll cover the last topic I’ve been meaning to look at: Permanence & Usefulness.

Next - Permanence & Usefulness