Crafting is all about creating products. How useful they are has a huge impact on how the system fits with the rest of the game. The games I’ve been examining throughout this series demonstrate the full range of usefulness, from absolutely critical to largely irrelevant and everything in between. Today I’ll be discussing the impact of product usefulness in each game as well as looking at The Witcher 3’s interesting take on consumables.

World of Warcraft

The usefulness of crafting has taken a sharp nosedive with Warlords of Draenor. While consumable items like potions, food, and enchanting remain useful (and indeed mandatory), the gear that can be obtained through crafting is not strong enough to be worth producing. Weapons and armor that can be crafted are lower level than those that can be acquired through raiding while being more of a hassle to obtain. Additionally there is a cap of 3 crafted items that can be equipped at any one time. As a result crafted gear is primarily used for quickly gearing up alternate characters and by non-raiders. Choosing to have crafted gear irrelevant for raiding removes a burden from raiders but it comes at the cost of crafting being largely abandoned at max level.

Even when gearing up a new character – where crafting should be useful - most players will opt to spend a few thousand gold on gear from the auction house instead of crafting it themselves. Since there is such low demand for crafted gear it’s simply more efficient to buy.

The low usefulness of crafted gear makes the crafting system feel shallow and unenjoyable. I personally haven’t so much as opened up a crafting menu for quite some time as a result.

Guild Wars 2

Crafting plays a much larger role in GW2 than in WoW. Much like in WoW, consumables can be obtained through crafting which enhance player stats for a time. Unlike WoW craftable weapons and armor are at worst equivalent to gear obtained anywhere else. In fact crafting is one of the most reliable ways to obtain the best armor in the game (Ascended). This armor binds to the player’s account once created. So although components can be purchased from others, the player will still need to finish crafting the item themselves. Ascended armor can also be obtained through certain living world updates and as random drops from mobs.

By making armor from crafting very useful the system is given a purpose. Players are incentivized to participate in crafting and rewarded for doing so.

Minecraft

In Minecraft every single thing you do in the game outside of punching your first tree requires crafting. The system is critical to the gameplay experience, not an optional side event like many crafting systems. When crafting is as important as it is in Minecraft players will be spending a large proportion of their play time interacting with the system. It stands to reason that the system should be as satisfying and fun to interact with as the rest of the game – if not more so. Minecraft does this reasonably well in my opinion. The fundamental act of placing items in a grid to represent the product you want is pretty solid. There’s not a lot of weight or flash behind the actions but they are quick and easy to grasp.

When crafting is critical to gameplay it should be accessible, efficient, and most importantly enjoyable.

The Witcher 3

Crafting in the Witcher is one of many routes to improving your character. There are some very strong weapons and armor which can be obtained through crafting, however if the player ignores crafting they will still be able to collect similar gear through other aspects of the game. Similarly, the swallow potion provides health regeneration over time. The same regeneration effect can be gained from eating food found throughout the world, however the potion is more efficient.

Most consumable items such as potions, bombs, and oils are exclusive to the crafting system. Each consumable has a niche use such as +25% damage vs vampires. They provide a strong bonus to players who participate in crafting while those who don’t are still able to complete the same content through player skill alone.

The Witcher’s crafting system to me is very well balanced. It incentivises its use while not forcing itself upon players.

Consumables and Permanent Items

Each game I’ve looked at has a mix of consumable and permanent items that can be obtained through crafting. I suspect this is due to the fact that they complement each other quite well. The temporary nature of consumables results in steady demand and an ongoing use for crafting. To supplement this, permanent items can have their costs and effects scaled up to provide strong rewards for participation in the system.

The Witcher has an interesting consumable system that I haven’t personally seen before. Potions and bombs have a set number of charges before they deplete. Players can refresh the charges by resting which consumes alcohol. This method still removes some items from the game economy each time a consumable is used, however it is different from the initial investment to craft the item. This allows for consumable recipes to have much higher unlock requirements while allowing players to use them more liberally. The downside is that the system is slightly confusing to learn. Through convention players expect that a potion will be consumed on use and a new one will have to be created. I personally didn’t understand why I couldn’t craft more potions to replace the ones I’d used until I rested for a completely unrelated reason and got the ‘alcohol used, alchemy items replenished’ message.

Conclusion

• When crafted items aren’t adequately useful the system feels unrewarding and unfun.
• Making crafting one of many ways to obtain a given reward incentivizes participation without forcing players to do so.
• When crafted items are critical the system should be strong enough to stand on its own.
• A mix of consumables and permanent items provides a good balance of strong rewards and ongoing use for the system.

In the next and final post in this series I’ll summarize everything I’ve gone over thus far, discuss what I’ve learned from the experience, and think about how to apply it to my game.

Next - Opinions & Lessons Learned