Crafting: Has there been a game where this is any fun whatsoever?

[Rev+]

This is roughly on the level of microtransactions for me, just a needless annoyance that sours the whole experience.  Tool about, pick up a load of various bits and pieces, often be limited in how much of this shite you can pick up, make a thing, breaks three uses later, what's the fucking point.

There must be some games in which this mechanic works well.  There aren't, but there must be. C'mon then.

[kalowski]

I hate it. All of that "You do not have enough Elder Branches to make this" bollocks.

[Jerzy Bondov]

There obviously must be a lot of people who like this otherwise it wouldn't keep popping up in everything but, with the best will in the world, they are deeply mentally unwell and should be medicated or better yet killed.

[bgmnts]

It's a fantasty I suppose, in a world where most people work in hyper specialised jobs and few of us can do fuck all with our hands.

It's far more understandable than games where you do real life very boring things; Tax Returns Simulator etc.

But yeah, I don't think I've found a particularly satisfying crafting mechanic. More simple the better is a good rule.

[Vodkafone]

Alchemy in Elder Scrolls games is good and can get quite obsessive. In my current Skyrim game I've deliberately swerved it or I spend way too much time poking about in caves for rare ingredients like an unwashed Chris Packham. Can't say I've ever thought to myself "this is fun" though. Too many games these days are like jobs.

[Mister Six]

It's not a huge part of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, but if you want to upgrade the weapons you usually need a lot of resources that aren't necessarily easy to come by and drop in specific dungeons/places, which means despite playing (and loving) the game for 60+ hours, I can barely upgrade any of the weapons I've found through organic play, and instead need to make a shopping list and google where to go grind, which is no fun at all.

[Cloud]

I think it's best when you can get a rare ingredient and make something genuinely special.  I think Everquest took that approach at one point. 

[Cold Meat Platter]

The thing for me is there's no skill involved. It's not gameplay. You just recognise something has been highlighted on a big list and press a button to create it. 

[bgmnts]

The thing for me is there's no skill involved. It's not gameplay. You just recognise something has been highlighted on a big list and press a button to create it. 

Someone hasn't played Kingdom: Come Deliverance.

[jamiefairlie]

Tears of the Kingdom has a fun machine building mechanic that's pretty powerful and flexible but not onerous. You can play the whole game without it so it doesn't block you if it's not your cup of tea.

[popcorn]

The thing for me is there's no skill involved. It's not gameplay. You just recognise something has been highlighted on a big list and press a button to create it. 

It doesn't require skill, but it requires strategy, because you have to decide what things to make at the cost of making other stuff, and also it drives other decisions because you might decide to go to X location to get more of Y so you can craft Z etc.

That doesn't mean I particularly like it though. It's all right in The Last of Us I suppose?

[Ferris]

The thing for me is there's no skill involved. It's not gameplay. You just recognise something has been highlighted on a big list and press a button to create it. 

I agree with this, unless it one of those shit games where you never have enough stuff so now not only are you stuck doing crafting but you have no idea if you're diddling yourself by making these cool trousers cos now you'll never get that interesting hat or whatever the fuck.

Hate it, basically.

[Kelvin]

I think there are two big problems with crafting:

1) In many games, the 'reward' for crafting doesn't actually feel very satisfying or unique. More ammo, medikits, boring ass stuff you would normally find lying around in other games. Crafting is best when it produces something genuinely worthwhile and unique, or better still, personalised by the player.

2) My biggest bugbear with crafting is the stupid number of materials - often rare ones - required to complete even mid-level items. Want a half-decent weapon upgrade? You'll need to grind for 30 minutes near one pool of water, getting random drops, which you'd only know about by searching a reddit thread or watching a YouTube video. Then when you come to craft the item, you realise you've got ten red blossoms instead of ten purple blossoms, and guess what; you have zero red blossoms, because they only spawn in a late game area.

When even early stuff is that awkward to craft it totally disincentives me to pursue those mechanics, let alone experiment with the items you can craft.  Because why invest time grinding for materials if the weapon might not be something you enjoy using?

[convulsivespace]

This became my favourite part of the original World of Warcraft after a certain point, and I seem to recall a lot of more casual players would only focus on collecting raw materials and crafting.

It was almost entirely ancillary to the game though. You could successfully ignore it altogether and not really notice. I have no idea why developers would make it a recurring nuisance.

[seepage]

Crafting in Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children is almost a game in itself, and skills are crafted from combinations of other skills too! Materials have 5 levels and a multiple of each level plus another material is required to make the next e.g. 3(3(3(3a+b)+c)+d)+e, and this all has to be done manually. You spend some time making an item and at this point it just has generic stats. So then you take it to a dealer to be assessed and find out it's only of mediocre quality or not aligned to the element you want. So then you salvage it for scrap and start again. Once you're happy with an item then it's main stat can be further increased up to 9 times by enhancing the item

[kalowski]

2) My biggest bugbear with crafting is the stupid number of materials - often rare ones - required to complete even mid-level items. Want a half-decent weapon upgrade? You'll need to grind for 30 minutes near one pool of water, getting random drops, which you'd only know about by searching a reddit thread or watching a YouTube video. Then when you come to craft the item, you realise you've got ten red blossoms instead of ten purple blossoms, and guess what; you have zero red blossoms, because they only spawn in a late game area.

Absolutely this. It ends up adding an unnecessary distraction to a game. "Ooh, I wonder if I should pick those JubJub berries?"
"What's that over there on the map? A new side quest? No, a field of clover."

[Vodkafone]

Crafting in Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children is almost a game in itself, and skills are crafted from combinations of other skills too! Materials have 5 levels and a multiple of each level plus another material is required to make the next e.g. 3(3(3(3a+b)+c)+d)+e, and this all has to be done manually. You spend some time making an item and at this point it just has generic stats. So then you take it to a dealer to be assessed and find out it's only of mediocre quality or not aligned to the element you want. So then you salvage it for scrap and start again. Once you're happy with an item then it's main stat can be further increased up to 9 times by enhancing the item

Abandoning your children does sound like an advanced level of troubleshooting, hats off to 'em.

[Barry Admin]

I tried really hard again to get into Elden Ring a few weeks ago, but the crafting adds to the general ennui for me.

Any game where I have to keep spamming buttons to pick up daisies and rat pelts can fuck off. Actually the skinning and stuff in RDR2 was kind of immersive, but the thing where you have to keep spamming a button to pick shit up as a regular part of traversing the world? Yeah that can suck it.

[seepage]

Having to visit different shops for different materials is very tedious. I'm at the scrap metal shop but now have to traipse all over to the other side of town to visit the gems shop

[Jack Shaftoe]

I like it in Minecraft where it becomes the catalyst to go off on your own little adventure to find an abandoned mine or a stronghold library or whatever, finally coming across a chest with just the enchanted book you needed to upgrade your bow so you can finally survive a bit longer in the End, s'great.

[druss]

I think it's best when you can get a rare ingredient and make something genuinely special.  I think Everquest took that approach at one point. 

Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 did this well also.

[Poobum]

In open world games I love it. Most of the fun I had in Starfield was collecting resources, just a shame I found the base building mechanic so unwieldy and crap. Love obsessively grinding enemies for rare loot. Absolutely loved loot chaining in FFXII though I think there the items you could make were really good so it was rewarding. Though once it becomes dull obsession rather than linked to exploring new areas and making new items I do bin in, like Starfield.

It can fuck off where it doesn't belong. Soulstorm was an egregious example but I hate that game for so many reasons.

[Vodkafone]

In open world games I love it. Most of the fun I had in Starfield was collecting resources, just a shame I found the base building mechanic so unwieldy and crap. Love obsessively grinding enemies for rare loot. Absolutely loved loot chaining in FFXII though I think there the items you could make were really good so it was rewarding. Though once it becomes dull obsession rather than linked to exploring new areas and making new items I do bin in, like Starfield.

It can fuck off where it doesn't belong. Soulstorm was an egregious example but I hate that game for so many reasons.

This has reminded me of No Man's Sky - that's probably the best crafting experience I've had.

[Agent Dunham]

I like the alchemy in Atelier Ryza, but only fully (well, more fully) got how it worked quite a way into the game, so maybe should try playing again from the start (whenever work and the list of games I need to play allows me). Seemed a good balance between battling, out in the field, and coming home to do alchemy, which was engaging in its own way. If you were lacking a rarer ingredient it could often be found on a stall in town. Some of the boss battles could be quite hard (but not impossible) without something special acquired by alchemy. Otherwise a chill game. And great soundtrack (felt like John Cale had arranged it while in pastoral mode).

[druss]

I quickly realised that I would not like Subnautica when it became apparent that it was crafting: the game.

[Agent Dunham]

I quickly realised that I would not like Subnautica when it became apparent that it was crafting: the game.

Thallasophobia got me before I noticed that.

[kalowski]

This has reminded me of No Man's Sky - that's probably the best crafting experience I've had.

I don't know. Spending ages shooting at a wall to mine copper isn't my idea if fun.

[Mister Six]

I quickly realised that I would not like Subnautica when it became apparent that it was crafting: the game.

Although it's a bit more bearable there, at least in the early stages, because things are laid out such that the items you first encounter when delving deeper/wider are the ones necessary to move along the technology chain, and the quantities needed aren't so absurd, so it all feels quite organic and unobtrusive. I don't know if it gets worse towards the endgame because I didn't play it to completion - I struggle to play that kind of plot-light game for too long without staring into the abyss of my own mortality - but that's not Subnautica's fault.

[Mister Six]

Oh! I just remembered Infinite Wealth's surprisingly long and involved Animal Crossing ripoff side game, Dondoko Island, has crafting to make items for your residents to interact with. But it makes it a lot more bearable by letting you use the "monsters" from its surprisingly long and involved Pokémon ripoff game to harvest resources in the background while you do other things.

[Poobum]

Thinking more on it then problem is ubiquity and having to learn all new recipes and learning what all the hundreds of items do in each game. If you can beat the game without having to learn any of it then it can be pointless bloat. Elden Ring I enjoyed because I needed the extra advantage certain items gave you, so all my work learning, collecting and crafting had purpose. Same with FF12, definitely needed certain items to beat optional bosses.