Interesting Crafting Design...

[maestro]

So, in most games, if you want to make higher level stuff, you... need higher level materials. Duh!

But not in Palworld. I've been noticing that as I unlock more stuff, I'm still using mostly the same materials I've been using for awhile. Wood, Stone, Ore (it's just called Ore, and there isn't like 50 kinds of metals from what I can tell), and the blue pal stone that I can't remember the exact name of.

I like this design choice. I chanced upon a supply drop and was able to cheese terrain to kill the guys guarding it and found a blueprint for a ludicrously powerful suit of metal armor (I was using cloth armor at the time), and I was almost certain as I went back to my base, that I would't be able to make it yet.

Well... I couldn't... but not because it required high level materials, but because I simply didn't have enough materials. Some material farming later, and I go from 20 defense on my armor to 120 defense on my armor (IIRC, something like that). That boss in that tower near where I started went from being a serious challenge first time I killed her to being a pushover because her attacks could barely scratch me.

It also helps simplify storage a lot, having fewer materials. A lot of games with a heavy crafting bent, such as the My Time At games, you need dozens of chests to hold the dozens of types of ore, several types of wood, etc and you end up having to hold onto so much junk because you just don't know what you'll end up needing and don't want to have to go out and search for something because you got rid of it thinking you didn't need it anymore.

So yeah, I rather like the crafting system here.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Irene ❤:

Originally posted by maestro:

the blue pal stone that I can't remember the exact name of.

Sodium Fragments. They exist near water and river.

Nah, I remember it being called... Palstone or Paldium or something like that. Come to think of it, I think it was Paldium... because I remember at the time, eyerolling at the pun on "Palladium".

[gadfly6363]

I also like the "fewer is better" approach to crafting materials. That plus the large stack sizes makes storage in this game much easier than storage in some other games. Was watching someone playing Soulmask, and number of different types of leather alone made me not want to play that one.

[ArcanisCz]

Well, not sure how far in the game you are, but I certainly started to need stuff like Ingots from Ore, then Cement from something. Also There is a polymer. Or better ingots from ingots and coal. Just wait :))

[Nicodemous52]

Yeah, I thought I had paldium on lock, then I started making Plasteel. I've got lots of ingots and palmetal ingots. I've got a good amount of refined ingots. But Plasteel takes tons of paldium as well as oil and ore. And you're going to need a lot.

Yes, the base materials mostly stay the same. But you combine them in different ways and in higher and higher amounts to make the end game mats.

[maestro]

Originally posted by ArcanisCz:

Well, not sure how far in the game you are, but I certainly started to need stuff like Ingots from Ore, then Cement from something. Also There is a polymer. Or better ingots from ingots and coal. Just wait :))

Yeah, but it's not like... 20 different kinds of metals, and you stop using all but the last few like in other games. Like, you'll do the whole copper -> bronze -> iron -> steel -> gold -> whatever ultimate metal the game wants to make up, usually mythril or something and then once you get to Mythril, all that copper, bronze, and iron you had end up sitting around taking up space, but you don't wanna get rid of it because you never use it except for one recipe every once in a blue moon and you don't want to drop what you're doing to go chase down some bronze for that rare item that wants it.

In Palworld, it seems like you use ALL the materials frequently throughout the game, and add some more to the mix as time goes on. You introduce new materials one here, two there instead of in other games where you jump up a tier and suddenly you got a new ore, a new stone, a new wood, and a new leather to start collecting all at once.

[Doko]

Originally posted by maestro:

In Palworld, it seems like you use ALL the materials frequently throughout the game, and add some more to the mix as time goes on. You introduce new materials one here, two there instead of in other games where you jump up a tier and suddenly you got a new ore, a new stone, a new wood, and a new leather to start collecting all at once.

The problem with "one here, two there", is that it ends up snowballing over time and well, that's subjective to the eyes of anyone.

When does it stop becoming like those other games?, does it stop at 3 types of ore?, 5 types?.

I kind of like the way we currently have to use the same given mats, because it means we have to farm more of those same mats to make more stuff, instead of mining 10 types of ore, only to make 5 things per tech tree branch, and then ignoring everything else before, because said previous branches in the tree end up serving less of a purpose.

As long as you keep the material list condensed, you could technically expand the tree and still have the older branches provide a needed use down the line, rather than a short span.

I've looked at many open world survival games, and so far they've all mostly fallen into that same exact pitfall, where there's too many types of mats to gather, older tech tree branches becoming useless or non needed pretty quickly and no one has really bothered to change that up in such a way that it encourages devs to abandon the current pitfall entirely.

I just don't think the subjective concept of "add this many, but not too much" won't work, because well...it's subjective and it'll please you, but others won't be so keen, and that'll just cause another divide.

I'd rather devs just figure out a way that doesn't revolve around making the same mistake of just dumping a stupid amount of mats in their open world games, and letting tech tree branches rot so quickly.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Doko:

Originally posted by maestro:

In Palworld, it seems like you use ALL the materials frequently throughout the game, and add some more to the mix as time goes on. You introduce new materials one here, two there instead of in other games where you jump up a tier and suddenly you got a new ore, a new stone, a new wood, and a new leather to start collecting all at once.

The problem with "one here, two there", is that it ends up snowballing over time and well, that's subjective to the eyes of anyone.

When does it stop becoming like those other games?, does it stop at 3 types of ore?, 5 types?.

I kind of like the way we currently have to use the same given mats, because it means we have to farm more of those same mats to make more stuff, instead of mining 10 types of ore, only to make 5 things per tech tree branch, and then ignoring everything else before, because said previous branches in the tree end up serving less of a purpose.

As long as you keep the material list condensed, you could technically expand the tree and still have the older branches provide a needed use down the line, rather than a short span.

I've looked at many open world survival games, and so far they've all mostly fallen into that same exact pitfall, where there's too many types of mats to gather, older tech tree branches becoming useless or non needed pretty quickly and no one has really bothered to change that up in such a way that it encourages devs to abandon the current pitfall entirely.

I just don't think the subjective concept of "add this many, but not too much" won't work, because well...it's subjective and it'll please you, but others won't be so keen, and that'll just cause another divide.

I'd rather devs just figure out a way that doesn't revolve around making the same mistake of just dumping a stupid amount of mats in their open world games, and letting tech tree branches rot so quickly.

I don't disagree, in fact, I was agreeing with you, lol.

[Doko]

Originally posted by maestro:

I don't disagree, in fact, I was agreeing with you, lol.

All good.

I've just played too many of these sorts of games that the thought of adding in more mats to build X/Y item that could have easily used previous mats (and would make sense) just makes me wanna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odqBnu8tQgs

Also 20yrs of WoW made me realise vertical progression crafting was a mistake.

[Jesus Christ]

There's also the fact that the game isn't done yet. It may very well go up to level 100. We'll see how many metals there are then.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Doko:

Also 20yrs of WoW made me realise vertical progression crafting was a mistake.

Now that I'd have to disagree on.

You can't really compare crafting in a game like Palworld or My Time At or Stardew Valley to an MMO like WoW or FFXIV.

MMOs are vertical progression, because they must be to keep players subbed.

They need new goals and new progression every so often to keep them going, otherwise they get bored and log off.

FFXI was a good example of this. For a good number of years, the level cap stayed at 75. New expansions came out, new content came out, but you got minuscule increases in character power, and equipment was mostly side-grades or very tiny gains (like 1% - 10% for the most coveted pieces of gear) and.... it didn't work all that well.

Some people like it, but most wanted more, better stuff to go after and hated that there were so many side-grades.

Even after they raised the level cap to 99 and added in item-level gear, there were still a lot of old pieces of gear with unique effects that people still had to go and get before they could become viable.

Horizontal progression does not work in an MMO, and that's why vertical crafting is a must in those games.

But, Palworld is not a game like that, and so its crafting system works nicely for this game. It ain't perfect, I feel the costs for some items, especially cosmetic furniture, is a little ridiculous, but eh. It just means you grind more I suppose.

There's also the fact that the game isn't done yet. It may very well go up to level 100. We'll see how many metals there are then.

Given what I've seen of the game's design up until this point, I doubt there will be that many more (certainly less than, say, the My Time At games). And even if there were, it would certainly be alloys using existing materials, combining them with new materials, to keep old materials still viable.

Also, I want to point out that while I mention the My Time At games several times in the thread, I am in no way saying those games are bad or that I dislike their crafting system. I am merely expressing my approval and pleasure that Palworld went a different way and presented a fresh, new idea on how to do crafting in a game like this. Games presenting new and fresh ideas ought to be celebrated, and thus this topic.

[Sam the big Toucan]

Originally posted by maestro:

So, in most games, if you want to make higher level stuff, you... need higher level materials. Duh!

But not in Palworld. I've been noticing that as I unlock more stuff, I'm still using mostly the same materials I've been using for awhile. Wood, Stone, Ore (it's just called Ore, and there isn't like 50 kinds of metals from what I can tell), and the blue pal stone that I can't remember the exact name of.

I like this design choice. I chanced upon a supply drop and was able to cheese terrain to kill the guys guarding it and found a blueprint for a ludicrously powerful suit of metal armor (I was using cloth armor at the time), and I was almost certain as I went back to my base, that I would't be able to make it yet.

Well... I couldn't... but not because it required high level materials, but because I simply didn't have enough materials. Some material farming later, and I go from 20 defense on my armor to 120 defense on my armor (IIRC, something like that). That boss in that tower near where I started went from being a serious challenge first time I killed her to being a pushover because her attacks could barely scratch me.

It also helps simplify storage a lot, having fewer materials. A lot of games with a heavy crafting bent, such as the My Time At games, you need dozens of chests to hold the dozens of types of ore, several types of wood, etc and you end up having to hold onto so much junk because you just don't know what you'll end up needing and don't want to have to go out and search for something because you got rid of it thinking you didn't need it anymore.

So yeah, I rather like the crafting system here.

I mean like, i would heavily rather a lot more ores like mythil and titanium.

[Jesus Christ]

Originally posted by Mr. Stego:

Originally posted by maestro:

So, in most games, if you want to make higher level stuff, you... need higher level materials. Duh!

But not in Palworld. I've been noticing that as I unlock more stuff, I'm still using mostly the same materials I've been using for awhile. Wood, Stone, Ore (it's just called Ore, and there isn't like 50 kinds of metals from what I can tell), and the blue pal stone that I can't remember the exact name of.

I like this design choice. I chanced upon a supply drop and was able to cheese terrain to kill the guys guarding it and found a blueprint for a ludicrously powerful suit of metal armor (I was using cloth armor at the time), and I was almost certain as I went back to my base, that I would't be able to make it yet.

Well... I couldn't... but not because it required high level materials, but because I simply didn't have enough materials. Some material farming later, and I go from 20 defense on my armor to 120 defense on my armor (IIRC, something like that). That boss in that tower near where I started went from being a serious challenge first time I killed her to being a pushover because her attacks could barely scratch me.

It also helps simplify storage a lot, having fewer materials. A lot of games with a heavy crafting bent, such as the My Time At games, you need dozens of chests to hold the dozens of types of ore, several types of wood, etc and you end up having to hold onto so much junk because you just don't know what you'll end up needing and don't want to have to go out and search for something because you got rid of it thinking you didn't need it anymore.

So yeah, I rather like the crafting system here.

I mean like, i would heavily rather a lot more ores like mythil and titanium.

I figured pal metal was titanium. Like how refined metal is steel.

[Ferry]

Originally posted by LizrWizr:

Originally posted by Mr. Stego:

I mean like, i would heavily rather a lot more ores like mythil and titanium.

I figured pal metal was titanium. Like how refined metal is steel.

Still waiting for a game that puts tungsten as the proper strong metal it is, like actually harder than titanium.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Mr. Stego:

I mean like, i would heavily rather a lot more ores like mythil and titanium.

Plenty of other games do that, and as discussed in the thread, sometimes less is more. I think the last thing we need in this game is a ton of crap to have to go out and farm that would just make earlier stuff obsolete.

The beauty of this game is all the materials stay at least somewhat relevant through the game, you just combine them in different ways, or learn how to use them to make new things rather than going "oh, I don't need bronze anymore now that I have iron".