General 2.1 beta crafting feedback

[tarsus]

Disclaimer: I am not a veteran of Alliance. I maybe have 2 years of playing experience spread out between 2.0 and prior. I mostly stick to martial stuff because I don’t want to remember other parts of the game, and even then I rarely remember to use any martial abilities. Most of my comments are observations of the general philosophy of the 2.1 beta changes and some of my details, (though I did my best to check them), may not be perfect. I will also not be talking about any ritual changes as I have absolutely zero experience with them.

There are a lot of things I like in this 2.1 beta, especially not worrying about colored packets and not keeping track of bolts and arrows. There are things I hate like magic weapons being broken with shatter unless strengthened or yet another ritual is slapped on, (shortly after we all remade our weapons with 2.0 even). Regardless of my thoughts on those specific issues, I think we can all agree the major focus of this 2.1 beta is crafting, yet with all the additional rules and features, this will barely even change the feel of the game.

The point of crafting in a larp is to enhance the player run economy, increase immersion, allow noncombatants (or those who just don’t have much fun fighting) to experience the game, and generally give people more things to do.

Enhancing the player run economy: The most these changes will do for the economy is adjust prices. Even with the addition of materials for certain superior equipment and the addition of said equipment, nothing screams ‘must have’ or ‘can’t live without.’ The additions seem more like icing on the cake rather than the cake itself and most people will be perfectly fine completely ignoring them. “Gathering” resources is simply a check in at logistics unless you happen to find some in game, most likely through fighting. There is no actual gather > refine > produce > sell cycle.

Increasing immersion: These changes do not encourage players to do anything more (in terms of role-play) than they are already doing. There are no phys rep requirements for materials, tools, or crafting stations. There are no requirements to role-play gathering or crafting. People are free to do it themselves sure, but there are no real stakes to care about. In games where crafting is integral to the game design, people will do their best to protect crafting areas from threat or work to assure the free flow of goods to make sure their crafters always have the materials they need to make the stuff they need. That does not exist in Alliance and 2.1 beta will not change that.

Noncombatant opportunities and giving players more to do: Some people physically cannot participate in combat or simply do not enjoy it. Still, they enjoy LARPing in a fantasy world with their friends. 2.1 beta does not help these people have anything more to do. Because there are no requirements for role-playing crafting, pretty much everything is handled with a logistics check-in. Sure, they can talk to folks to see what they want and some folks may want more things now; sure, they might have to appropriate a few mats in various ways (like check-in); but that doesn’t actually give them anything with any sort of mechanics to do in game. Furthermore, most of the non-crafting abilities crafters get are combat buffs.

On that note, it seems that crafting in Alliance serves to primarily enhance combat. It is just another of many paths to fight enemies. Crafting is simply a new skin for people who want to fight in a different way. I get that. The rulebook is centered around combat. Most people are here for combat - to be the heroes that kill the whatever-bad-thing is lurking out there. If that is so, that’s fine but there is absolutely no reason to invest so much into crafting in terms of both the rule book and player build.

Now, if you actually want crafting to be an integral part of the game, it can’t be something that is just done at logistics, it needs to be seen in game like what happens in DR. We need to see people sitting down at crafting stations hammering away at their new wares for a given amount of time before going to logistics and getting a tag. We need to see crafters yelling at fighters to defend them so they don’t waste half an hour of time pounding on a bench. We need their daily crafts to be indispensable for others so people are willing to defend them. This creates not only immersion and things to do, but so many new opportunities for plot to create stories that have an organic hook already attached to it.

If you want players to invest in crafting, you need to decide if you’re willing to fundamentally change the way the game currently operates. If you are unwilling to do so, then crafting should be as simple as possible or at the very least, require less build investment.

There are so many ways to approach this problem but I’ll only give one from each perspective:

Separate crafting build pool: If we want to keep the current combat focused philosophy of Alliance intact, still have more crafting options, but not fundamentally change the way the game is played, I think a decent solution would be to have a separate pool of crafting points. Every player gets to pick one crafting class and use those separate points to build their trade skill without having to worry about sacrificing their main build for it. As usually, they get more points for this build as they level up normally. Many mmos implement this method because of its simplicity and I think it would work well here. This will not enhance the experience of crafting at all nor provide any immersion, but will give players something new to try without heavy investment.

Crafting overhaul: If you are willing to fundamentally change the way the game is played, crafting can be very rewarding. Imagine players ‘chopping’ trees in the middle of a game. Imagine players going to an area designated as a mill to make planks. Wouldn’t it be fun to see crafters all in a room pretending to put together various items on properly phys reped workstations? This is a system that will require a ton of thought and more out of game investment from players, but other games do it now and have higher populations than Alliance.

Everyone in the game should need something from these crafters. While they should be able to make awesome expensive things, the bulk of their work should be directed towards cheap necessary consumables. There needs to be motivation to keep the cycle going. Things like whetstones are a good item from the beta, but make it stack with other damage abilities and make it less expensive. Make it something everyone should have in combat and want to keep stocked up on all the time. Make armor repairs take 10 mins for a blacksmith but allow them to craft repair kits which allows anyone to repair in 1 min.

Crafting cannot simply be a variant combat build. There are so many better ways to add combat skills in the game and they shouldn’t be disguised as crafting. Rather, crafting should be its own separate build apart from the main build or a completely new way to play the game. It’s not rewarding to sacrifice a large portion of build for something that is rarely used outside of logistics besides repairing armor.

 

[Heinricht]

Good afternoon: I have played a primary crafter in both Alliance and DR, and I can say that the crafting experience is a better experience in the Alliance system. The immersive crafting experience that is promoted in DR is not a good quality of life for players. Outsiders think it is always great when crafters build work stations and sit down and bang on items to build crafts. But this is not so for a crafter; sitting down and having to spend 30 minutes to 6 hours to craft an item robs you of your game experience. Worse it encourages the player to stay up the entire night making in game items. All the while; you always have to wonder if someone (PC, NPC, and monster) is going to interrupt your crafting and then you are set back to zero. All that game time wasted. When you have a crafted time component you also have crafters being shut out of mods and role play. We all come to these games to be immersed in the story and the culture but a game culture that requires crafters to spend their game sitting at a work station making in game stuff becomes oppressive. Instead of going on mods and having fun you are chained to a work station making items. For brand new crafters it is even worse as they are taken advantage of in their eagerness to build stuff. The newbie experience is then relegated to a weekend sitting at a table, usually by themselves, building an in game item. Crafting in this manner becomes a second job and is not fun. When you add a mandatory work bench in order to craft you set up a gate that prevents new players from using the skill points on their card. And once you get it, if that work station is destroyed, you once again can’t use the skills on your card. I've been there, I've seen it happen, and I have seen new players leave the game because they want to be support, they want to build, but when you have artificial barriers and hurdles like this you discourage new players from the get go. And let’s not get started about Toy-kinetics. When toy-kinetics were introduced it added a huge burden on game owners to provide manipulatives for crafters to use. But the vast majority of these toy-kinetic and manipulatives were destroyed by players or were just unappetizing games the players did not want to engage with.

In Alliance you get to plan your crafts, you get to wheel and deal with the people, and you can enjoy the role play experience as you are not tied down to any one bench. The Alliance system is an amazing system that allows players who want to be builders and supporters of the community the opportunity to still go on mods and still feel like they can contribute to the game as a whole.

Ask your Alliance crafters if they want to have to sit at a bench for 5 minutes per production level to create an item. You probably know the answer to this already. People want to engage with a story and not just be window dressing at a game. They want to live the adventure that’s why it’s live action role playing.

I've been LARPing since 1988 and I have witnessed a lot of systems come and go. The alliance way is equitable, it promotes access to all players to all aspects of the game, and does not promote artificial barriers or hurdles that would prevent you from playing. I'm very happy with the system and look forward to the changes coming in 2.1.

 

[tarsus]

Good afternoon: I have played a primary crafter in both Alliance and DR, and I can say that the crafting experience is a better experience in the Alliance system. The immersive crafting experience that is promoted in DR is not a good quality of life for players. Outsiders think it is always great when crafters build work stations and sit down and bang on items to build crafts. But this is not so for a crafter; sitting down and having to spend 30 minutes to 6 hours to craft an item robs you of your game experience. Worse it encourages the player to stay up the entire night making in game items. All the while; you always have to wonder if someone (PC, NPC, and monster) is going to interrupt your crafting and then you are set back to zero. All that game time wasted. When you have a crafted time component you also have crafters being shut out of mods and role play. We all come to these games to be immersed in the story and the culture but a game culture that requires crafters to spend their game sitting at a work station making in game stuff becomes oppressive. Instead of going on mods and having fun you are chained to a work station making items. For brand new crafters it is even worse as they are taken advantage of in their eagerness to build stuff. The newbie experience is then relegated to a weekend sitting at a table, usually by themselves, building an in game item. Crafting in this manner becomes a second job and is not fun. When you add a mandatory work bench in order to craft you set up a gate that prevents new players from using the skill points on their card. And once you get it, if that work station is destroyed, you once again can’t use the skills on your card. I've been there, I've seen it happen, and I have seen new players leave the game because they want to be support, they want to build, but when you have artificial barriers and hurdles like this you discourage new players from the get go. And let’s not get started about Toy-kinetics. When toy-kinetics were introduced it added a huge burden on game owners to provide manipulatives for crafters to use. But the vast majority of these toy-kinetic and manipulatives were destroyed by players or were just unappetizing games the players did not want to engage with.

In Alliance you get to plan your crafts, you get to wheel and deal with the people, and you can enjoy the role play experience as you are not tied down to any one bench. The Alliance system is an amazing system that allows players who want to be builders and supporters of the community the opportunity to still go on mods and still feel like they can contribute to the game as a whole.

Ask your Alliance crafters if they want to have to sit at a bench for 5 minutes per production level to create an item. You probably know the answer to this already. People want to engage with a story and not just be window dressing at a game. They want to live the adventure that’s why it’s live action role playing.

I've been LARPing since 1988 and I have witnessed a lot of systems come and go. The alliance way is equitable, it promotes access to all players to all aspects of the game, and does not promote artificial barriers or hurdles that would prevent you from playing. I'm very happy with the system and look forward to the changes coming in 2.1.

I get that some people don't want to do that, which is why I provided two options from two different perspectives that can work depending on what the players want: one where you roleplay crafting, and one where you don't have to at all - the main differences being you don't have to sacrifice your build to do it and we aren't all pretending that the new crafting features are just more combat features in disguise. Some 2.1 rules are creating problems that the new crafting builds will solve which means they are taking away from what people have now. Some 2.1 rule reduce the effectiveness of current builds and magic items so that the new crafting builds are more enticing.

There are plenty of other ways to do it, but I only listed those two because there are just too many options. For instance, another way to have a non-role play crafting would be to be a manager instead of an actual crafter where your points represent the amount of workers that are under you. Instead of actually crafting, you would "get your people on it" so to speak.

Our group played pre-evolved DR and most of our people were economy roles including a mad scientist, engineer, tinker, cook, and printer. We only had one full fighter. I ran scrounge and we had some other folks doing things like sawbones and such. We come from a group of amt and bel fighters and hated the combat system of DR but loved the dystopian setting, so we chose to open up a bar/public workstation building so we wouldn't have to enage in combat as often as others might (we outsourced a distiller, lol). Crafting in itself is a roleplay experience, just not an adventurous one, nor one you like apparently. It is also a live action experience, again, just not one you like. I'm sorry your experience as a crafter was not fun. Our experience was different. Our crafters were never alone. We had at least one guard and two or three crafters around our building at all times. We had crafters from outside our group come in to use our workstations and forge all the time. Our tinker became the town's quartermaster and was directly involved with the main plot, lending out gear to new arrivals, collecting donations, and helping supply the war effort. Most of his meetings took place during his crafting sessions. He may have not gone out on mods much (though mods in DR are very different than Alliance) but he felt like he was contributing to the game as a whole. On the other hand, I know plenty of people who go out on mods but don't feel like they've contributed much at all the to the game as a whole, not that they were looking to though.

That said, DR is a completely different game than Alliance which is why I limited my comparisons. It doesn't have to replicate DR exactly. If people don't like the stress of craft interruption, you can allow pauses, you can drastically reduce maximum crafting times, etc. DR was mainly brought up because crafting is an integral part of that game. If we want crafting to be integral, then people should be seen doing it in some meaningful way. If not, which is completely fine, then we need a system that is either extremely simplified and focused on just crafting or put crafting on a side build.

On a side note: Adventure is not the only thing people want in larp, regardless of setting. Some people want to set up a bar and serve people drinks. Some people want to find ways to improve the education system of the town so the npcs have a better chance of getting good jobs. Some people want to craft potions to make sure everyone in town (including npcs) has emergency curatives. These are all things I've seen people focus on. Do they still find adventure? Sure, but it is not their rai·son d'ê·tre in their larp world.

 

[Heinricht]

The suggestion for a required crafting time is what I countered. In my experience the required crafting time is not equitable and limits accessibility to the game. Players come to LARP to LARP not isolate themselves. Everything you have suggested by setting up shop and expanding your R.P. I have seen in Chicago and Tennessee grow organically. You don't have to force players to do this as it gets classist and is not equitable. First you have the cost of the props to expand your area, then the constant cost of items (trinkets, drinks, and food), and finally the ability to transport said items. It comes down to player choice. Let players organically design their role play spaces and can see imagination and creativity at work. Require it, in order to access your skill set, and you’re going to get bitter resentment from players. You can't force an economic expenditure on one character and then not require it of all characters. It will just provide more barriers and discourage new players from coming. NPR did an excellent article on why the civil war community is in decline and the reasons link up to LARP in general. TL/DR: The more expensive it is to gain entry into a game the harder it is for new players to get involved and stay involved. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/04/137609367/fewer-people-participate-in-civil-war-reenactments

 

[tarsus]

The suggestion for a required crafting time is what I countered. In my experience the required crafting time is not equitable and limits accessibility to the game. Players come to LARP to LARP not isolate themselves. Everything you have suggested by setting up shop and expanding your R.P. I have seen in Chicago and Tennessee grow organically. You don't have to force players to do this as it gets classist and is not equitable. First you have the cost of the props to expand your area, then the constant cost of items (trinkets, drinks, and food), and finally the ability to transport said items. It comes down to player choice. Let players organically design their role play spaces and can see imagination and creativity at work. Require it, in order to access your skill set, and you’re going to get bitter resentment from players. You can't force an economic expenditure on one character and then not require it of all characters. It will just provide more barriers and discourage new players from coming. NPR did an excellent article on why the civil war community is in decline and the reasons link up to LARP in general. TL/DR: The more expensive it is to gain entry into a game the harder it is for new players to get involved and stay involved. https://www.npr.org/2011/07/04/137609367/fewer-people-participate-in-civil-war-reenactments

I'll directly address your comment from the pro DR-like perspective but it honestly doesn't matter because I have already conceded that players may not want to do it and have offered an alternative. If most people think like you, then we have alternative X. If most people are more into a DR-like system, then we have alternative Y. That X alternative has not been directly addressed and there has been no comments as to why 2.1 crafting would be better. It's my preferred method for Alliance because I don't think the game needs a complete overhaul of the rules which a DR-like system would require. That said, from a strictly pro-DR type system perspective, here are my counter arguments:

"The suggestion for a required crafting time is what I countered. In my experience the required crafting time is not equitable and limits accessibility to the game."

If we alter the system so interruption is not a factor and times are decreased, how would it limit access to the game? There are multiple hours of downtime in every larp I've played. Unless you want to be out searching for lair cards every hour of the day, then it's not an issue. If you do want to do that, how is that remotely role playing a crafter at all? If you don't want to role play crafting, then why would you even want to be a crafter in the first place?

"Players come to LARP to LARP not isolate themselves."

Live action is actively pretending to do things. We pretend to track a monster by walking a certain path. We pretend to cast spells by throwing spell packets. We pretend to be politicians by debating others and writing laws. Why wouldn't we pretend to be a crafter by pretending to craft something?

Again, none of our crafters were isolated. That sucks if that was your experience, but there are many others that do not share it. Sewing circles existed (still exist?) and can be fun.

"You don't have to force players to do this as it gets classist and is not equitable."

Forcing players to rep things that may have extra costs is classist? So why do we force people to wear physical armor? Why do people who can afford plate in real life get better benefits? Why not allow both rich and poor to be equal and just pretend to wear armor? Why do we force certain races to wear ears or horns or makeup? Those are all cost and annoyance barriers that could encourage a classist environment. Really though, local larp culture is much more responsible for any classist behavior than any ruleset. If classism is a big problem, then it's the people that need fixing more than the rules.

"First you have the cost of the props to expand your area, then the constant cost of items (trinkets, drinks, and food), and finally the ability to transport said items."

What would it take to properly phs rep a blacksmithing station? An anvil and forge maybe? How much does black spraypaint, styrofoam and cardboard cost? As someone who is under the federal poverty level, I could even do that. I would be much easier than most aspects of the game even. Now how much does it cost to rep 35 point armor? That hurts a lot more.

There are absolutely no recurring costs. You can just grab the same foam sword and bang on it. If you can't transport foam and cardboard, how are you transporting all the other stuff, especially if its a tent camping site?

"It comes down to player choice."

Player choice is also about choosing what to play. I don't want to wear or purchase a full set of plate so I don't buy points that would increase my armor even if it would give me a considerable benefit and I'd love to look badass. If you don't want to rep or purchase the items for crafting then don't spec into it.

"You can't force an economic expenditure on one character and then not require it of all characters."

Out of game: As stated before, based on what path you choose in alliance, you can end up needed to spend hundreds on armor, or just enough to buy some cloth and birdseed. Economic expenditures are hard coded into alliance whether we like it or not.

In game: Combatants are forced to fight, use up consumables, and risk their lives to gain wealth. Crafters can get stuff in relative safety and at predictable intervals.

"It will just provide more barriers and discourage new players from coming."

Is it a barrier? Could it discourage new players form coming? The answer to both is the same as most things in LARP in general, yes for some people, quite the opposite for others. Registration costs, travel time, garb, weapons, armor, packets, creating a backstory, learning about the world, reading the giant rule book and players guide, social interaction for those with anxiety, physical requirements for people with disabilities, and simply getting over the larp stigma are all barriers to play and discourage a lot of my friends from joining. The great thing about repping crafting is that you don't need to be a crafter if you don't want to worry about making an anvil out of foam or spend X amount of time pretending to actually craft something.

"NPR did an excellent article on why the civil war community is in decline and the reasons link up to LARP in general."

As for the civil war reenactment stuff, I read it, but I will limit my comments on it because I'm sure the general topic will ignite southern passions in some people while others will find it to be a means for white nationalists to whitewash history. What I can say is that the article says the primary reason for its decline is lack of interest from the younger generation because they aren't "jazzed" for history and have other entertainment options that scratch the same itch. They mention current players have obstacles when it comes to money as their gear can run into the thousands, but the cost of a foam anvil and cardboard forge is a drop in the bucket when it comes to most larpers' kits. Money will always be an obstacle to larp but we can at least be consistent in having people rep what they roleplay.

Rant time:

Furthermore, I don't think that's the same with typical modern larps (and many have argued that enactment is distinct form larp anyway). Populations seem to be growing in the areas I have visited and general acceptance of larp within communities seems to be better. Even films and tv are exposing the general population to larp for better or worse (role models, knights of badassdom, hawkeye). I think the biggest untapped resource for LARP today is the cosplay community. I've had a lot of cosplay friends interested in larp simply because they enjoy dressing up and pretending to be someone else. Many of these people don't care about fighting at all and just want to socially interact with people and make characters with interesting backgrounds. Some of these people leave because their interests are not catered to, at least not enough. The feedback we get from our own community, even mine, is rife with survivors bias. It would be far more helpful for us to get the opinions of people who left after one or two games.

On a very slightly related note, I hear a lot of complaints about critical role from d&d veterans who think its boring, melodramatic, and ask why anyone would want to play a game like that. Not saying critical role doesn't have any combat, but there is a new generation of d&d players that can go 5 4-hour sessions without a single combat and have fun with each other. Similarly in larp, interests are shifting, (or maybe larp is starting to attract people with different interests), and while we don't need to completely adjust the focus of larps, we need to find ways to make people who don't care about combat and exploring have things to do. There is a new generation of larpers that do not share the same interests as previous generations, yet this is where larps need to focus their attention on if they are to not simply survive, but thrive.

 

[Gilwing]

This is getting a little off topic. If anyone wants to continue the discussion about DR crafting and civil war reenactment please move it to the off topic section.

Thank you.

 

[Muir]

"Players come to LARP to LARP not isolate themselves."

Live action is actively pretending to do things. We pretend to track a monster by walking a certain path. We pretend to cast spells by throwing spell packets. We pretend to be politicians by debating others and writing laws. Why wouldn't we pretend to be a crafter by pretending to craft something?

This hits something that has been repeatedly brought up as a primary game design principal in both 2.0 and 2.1: minimizing the amount of time players are prevented from actively playing the game.

The same logic has reduced duration of take-out effects, and installed meditate and other means to ensure character abilities aren't 'wasted'.

The question that should be answered there is what this change would bring to the game. A bit of verisimilitude seems like a poor exchange for putting players in a position of having to pass on taking active part in the game in order to use crafting skills.

Having ~18 years of experience with this thing (god, I'm feeling ancient), I can't count the number of times we've had entire game populations and NPC casts waiting around to start the big Saturday night mod because the Kings of Town and a plot marshal are tied up in a Circle of Power getting a bunch of rituals cast. Expanding that sort of delay to crafting, a mechanic which nearly every Alliance character has at least a little use of, exponentially increases the amount of time available to lose to such delays.

 

[tarsus]

This hits something that has been repeatedly brought up as a primary game design principal in both 2.0 and 2.1: minimizing the amount of time players are prevented from actively playing the game.

The same logic has reduced duration of take-out effects, and installed meditate and other means to ensure character abilities aren't 'wasted'.

The question that should be answered there is what this change would bring to the game. A bit of verisimilitude seems like a poor exchange for putting players in a position of having to pass on taking active part in the game in order to use crafting skills.

Having ~18 years of experience with this thing (god, I'm feeling ancient), I can't count the number of times we've had entire game populations and NPC casts waiting around to start the big Saturday night mod because the Kings of Town and a plot marshal are tied up in a Circle of Power getting a bunch of rituals cast. Expanding that sort of delay to crafting, a mechanic which nearly every Alliance character has at least a little use of, exponentially increases the amount of time available to lose to such delays.

I’ve stated it many times now, but I guess I should say it again, immersive crafting is not for everyone. The whole point of mentioning it was to show the complete opposite perspective of the first approach I posted, which was having a separate crafting pool with absolutely no immersion requirements. The point was to show how far apart in ideology each perspective is from each other, how both could and currently do work in some games, and how much room there is in between to find something that will work with this specific population base.

Every argument has been against a forced immersion rule of crafting, mostly the time requirement. Maybe that type of game isn’t for this population. Again, that is perfectly fine and a valid way to play. There are so many options that, unlike 2.1, don’t try to turn crafting into just another combat build. Separate crafting build xp, crafting manager, crafting as a downtime action similar to craftsman/profession, the list can go on.

No argument says how 2.1 addresses any of the points of having crafting in game in the first place. It will not enhance the player run economy by a significant amount, does not increase immersion, and does not give noncombatants or players in general more actual things to do during the game moreso than what we have already. Instead, it just gives more options to get stuff at logistics and gives various non-crafting abilities to these crafters. Crafting almost looks like a watered-down spellcasting build with the option of actually crafting. You even get to pick your abilities at logistics but with points instead of slots. As for crafting itself, it is just a form of currency. Your points are just a form of money you spend to get stuff. That isn’t crafting.

Alliance is not an economy game. Its focus is combat and its various forms: fighting, healing, offensive and protective spells, etc. Unless players want to drastically change the system, there is no reason to add so many rules to crafting, adding more tables, and increasing the length of the rule book, just to make it seem like the Alliance economy is more than it really is, especially when few, if any, reasons for crafting to be in the game at all are actually addressed.

The idea to make crafting a minor profession with its own xp will not address these issues either, but at least you will not be sacrificing your build to do it. It also acknowledges that Alliance is not an economy game and it’s more of a flavor thing that can help players attain items and other forms of wealth, but does not drastically change how the game is played. In contrast, 2.1 gives brewers ritual magic abilities.

To address your specific points:

Immersive crafting isn't a take out ability that prevents you from performing in combat. It doesn't have to be a skill which is wasted if interrupted or dodged. Immersive crafting is a choice to perform an action, not something that is forced upon you. Yes, it would be more like a ritual, but one that can be interrupted and split up over the course of the day and doesn't require any staff to oversee.

I doubt the vast majority of players are always doing something at every minute of every hour of the game. Even if there is always at least one mod out at all times, the entire player population isn’t going to be able to participate in those mods at all times. Even if they were, I would personally not be able to keep up and need to just sit down for a bit and rest. If interruption is not a factor, a small time investment will not hinder anyone from joining mods or stopping to join in on a conversation that is leaving the area.

During every larp weekend, Alliance or otherwise, there are hours of downtime where I’m just sitting and at most talking to people. Crafting times could be anything, but let’s pretend 2.1 added 2 minutes per production point to craft something and you spend all your crafting ability points on craft adventuring equipment. With 20 ranks into alchemy, you’d then have 30 points to craft per logistics. At two minutes, that’s a maximum of 1 hour per logistics of crafting that you can spread between mods if we remove interruption. That is less than 10% of your active time spent crafting which represents 66 of your total build (if you include educated). With multiple hours of downtime, I don’t see how this would force players into choosing between taking an active part in the game or using crafting skills. You can even reduce the time to 1 min per production point and/or make workstations half the time it costs to craft something.

I personally think that is more than worth it, but maybe it’s not worth it to you or the majority of the Alliance population and that’s fine, which is why this example was posted as the extreme opposite of my first proposal. I acknowledge that there are many different perspectives, all which currently work in various types of games at this very moment. A highly immersive crafting system is just one of those perfectly valid ways to play the game in that diverse crafting spectrum.

 

[JeffL]

FWIW, I am a fan of the minimal, but vaguely immersive, crafting that you are describing, Tieran. The 2-minute (or 1-minute) model you suggest means feels great to me. I am not crafter, but I would absolutely be willing to spend 6 minutes here, 10 minutes there, to craft things. I very much doubt it would impact my ability to do other stuff. And, I am a lazy creature (a.k.a. human), so if the rules don't structure this kind of thing for me, I'm not going to do it.

As to your broader point about crafting in 2.1, I also agree. The new crafting systems are big, sprawling additions to the game, but they absolutely just make me (a combat lover) think about whether I want [new crafting thing] vs. another Eviscerate, rather than making room for something other than combat in the game.

 

[tieran]

FWIW, I am a fan of the minimal, but vaguely immersive, crafting that you are describing, Tieran.

I have not said any of that.

 

[JeffL]

I have not said any of that.

Ah. Got my T's mixed up. Apologies to both Tieran and Tarsus.