Who actually crafts potions and items in games?

If you can name the item you craft, my odds of crafting go up 10,000%

Crafting potions is such a hassle for me. I end up being super stingy and just using regular potions over them so there's not much point to it. I'm specifically thinking of Dragon Age: Inquisition, I'd only use resist potions when facing dragons. The grenade stuff I don't think I ever used.

I do like crafting weapons though.

I love crafting weapons and armor, as long as it's rewarding to do so. In most games that have a crafting system that's often how you get the best gear.

Potions and consumables kinda depend on the game. There are lots of games where it's not particularly necessary and I have the bad habit of hoarding consumables instead of using them anyway. But if the game makes those consumables worthwhile and the crafting process isn't overly complex or tedious I'll mess around with that too.

When you think about it, Persona and demon fusion in Megaten games are basically a crafting system, and I spend so many hours with that when I play those games.

Ain't nobody got time for that. You wanna talk about shoehorning shit into games? then look no further than crafting. Outside of MMOs, not one crafting system comes to mind that felt even remotely fun or useful. There might be one or two that were worthwhile if I actually sat down and thought about it for a while, but off the top of my head? Not a one.

Depends on the game really. In some of them crafting seems kinda pointless, while in others it really helps - either in general or for a particular play-style. I guess it also depends on the how interesting/easy the crafting system is to use, though I'm never going to spend a tonne of time looking for an optional rare material/ingredient. That's just boring.

As examples, I've never done much crafting in any of the Dragon Ages, did a tonne of crafting/upgrading in Two Worlds 2 and craft quite a lot of potions but not much in the way of armour/weapons in the Elder Scrolls.

Depends on the crafting system really, a few games have actually made it balanced in terms of the amount of time it takes versus the item you get out of it, but often I find it's either requires too much time (item drop grinding) to be fun, or is too simple (you pick up the components everywhere all the time, and you just have to hit a button to make it) to be of any value.

Alchemy for potions is a cool idea that I never use, apparently you can make some wicked potions and become a god for awhile in certain RPGs but I'd rather become badass through equipment.

Weapon systems are usually the pits because you might have fairly unique sword effects but it looks like the same old steel you'd find anywhere, I'd rather find an awesome named item in a difficult dungeon with a menacing appearance than carry around a normal longsword that has a high chance to bleed or whatever.

Depends on how necessary/obtuse it is in any given game.

Witcher 2 made it worth doing. And making weapons in Vagrant Story was pretty rad.

I havent played witcher games on the harder difficulty levels but I have the impression that not using potions will mean that your progess in the game will probably be very slow and a lot of the fights will be pretty hard.

What he said!

I find even crafting weapons and armour a bit of a chore - my "smithing" level and use in Skyrim didn't really get past Riverrun - I just like murdering shit.

The only game that so far I've done any in was Divinity (as I mentioned before) because some of its crafting was batshit crazy.

Yeah, I came in to say that The Witcher makes potions really important.

Really depends on the game. Usually if there are good alternatives, I don't even touch crafting though.

Like Pillars of Eternity, not even looking at it and just selling all that. You get money coming in, find some good gear, and purchase some too.

Dragon Age Inquisition, by comparison, I found the crafting really easy and the best way to get better gear (for the most part) so I actually crafted quite a bit in there.

If crafting is going to require a lot of grinding, I'm probably not gonna mess with it. Most RPGs are long enough already.

Another aspect: It's hard to spend time and resourced early game on crafting when you know there's better stuff to come, so that immediately gets me in a "fuck crafting" mood in a lot of RPGs from the get go. Maybe I get back to it, maybe I don't. This issue is a cousin of "don't use any potions or consumables because I might need them later" issue I can have in some games.

They definitely help quite a bit, and are an example of crafting being well integrated front and center, quick to do, and very useful. Very well done in that game. Probably the only game that's ever gotten me to worry about crafting potions or consumables. Otherwise it's just gear.

I don't dabble in it, unless there are major rewards.

I do find it to be useless in a lot of games. Maybe if it comes to crafting weapons and armor, I'll do it. I did a fair amount of it in Diablo 3, but that's also because it's so streamlined and requires little effort on the part of the player. Games that have you closely manage your crafting supplies rather than just have you passively accumulate and store as much as you want, and don't tell you exactly what you need when you need it are obnoxious. Crafting consumables is something I'll only do if I absolutely need to. Anything other than a potion that just directly gives me health is a waste of time.

For a recent example, I played through most of Far Cry 4 before realizing that I had barely crafted or used any of those special syringes. They can be useful but they're just not really necessary at all, and it's so easy to forget about them with how the game is designed. I ignored the crafting skills on the tree until they were the last remaining ones to unlock.

Fuckin Divinity: Original Sin... I've too much damn time crafting. I kind if had to tell myself to stop because a lot of it wasn't even worth it. a lot of fun just seeing what you can do. I definitey use a crafting guide in it thoigh, because the amount of time that game takes is already huge so I didn't want to slog through the crafting as well, any more than I had too.

I don't like crafting or consumables in any game. I can't think of a single game I've played that has made it worth doing. Obviously, sometimes you HAVE to craft some stuff as part of a tutorial or whatever, but aside from being forced to do it I'll avoid it at all costs. I just don't think they are fun systems.

Depends on the game. For example you mention Pillars of Eternity. I just about never crafted in it.... until the end of the game when it got time to make some super bad ass crafted armor/weapons. But games like Skyrim? Crafted all the time. Recently replayed Witcher 2, almost all my gear was crafted at one point or another the whole game. Etc etc. If the stuff you get out of it really is a cut above I will put in the effort, if it isn't.... not so much.

I generally hate crafting, but it can be done well. I liked how in The Last of Us, crafting could be a serious choice. You could make a life saving medkit, or an instant kill molotov, and that actually added to the resource management aspect of the game. But in other games, crafting seems like such a waste of time, that I just can't care.

Depends on how necessary and easy it is.

For some encounters in The Witcher 2, potions are necessary and the crafting system is pretty painless. Meditate, go to the recipe, see what you need, if you have it, craft it, if you don't have the stuff, go find it or don't craft it. Too bad the actual act of taking potions requires you to be in meditation, which is dumb - what if I need a potion mid-battle? Oh, you didn't know you were going to find yourself in one of those places where the difficulty takes an absurd leap, like where you have to escort the excellently-named Brigida Papebrock? Too bad! Hope you've got a recent save!

Sorry, got carried away there. Anyway, The Witcher 2 is a good example of a game where potions are going to be necessary but making them is easy, and that's just the way it should be. Don't make something complex for complexity's sake.

Also, I know it sounds interesting on paper, but I'd also rather not be asked to just combine random things to see if I can get a certain potion. If your system for doing this isn't too hard and you know recipes for stuff (Skyrim), it's cool if I can go ahead and make "Potion of Temporary Badassery", but I'd much rather see a merchant who sells recipes than spend time just trying to see what comes out.

Crafting weapons and armor tends to be more interesting and easier, for some reason, and the reward for going out and finding the stuff you need for something way better than what you have and then crafting it is more immediate and lasts longer than some potion that will last a few minutes.

Specifically potions and other consumables? I just end up being super stingy and finishing a game having used little, and if buying them is an alternative I do that instead.

It would be crazy not to utilize a fully-implemented crafting system, given real or imagined scarcity within a game's rules. If no such thing exists then fuck it.

Mainly in Skyrim, Monster Hunter, and what relative little I've played of The Witcher 1 and 2.

Absolutely - unless it proves to simply not be worth it. In my first playthrough of Skyrim, making potions was my primary source of income. Leveling Alchemy to 100 gave me more money than I would ever need, and then I made (and continued to make) as many health, cure disease, and invisibility potions as well as paralysis poisons that I could. It was damn satisfying to be able to heal, disappear from sight, and stop any enemy in its tracks with things that I invested my own time into making.

I used to be the type of person to always horde consumables up until I either had to empty my bag, or the credits rolled. I can only imagine my character went on to open an item shop with the lifetime stock of stuff I horded. But these days I'll use anything on a whim if it makes something even slightly easier or could turn a profit.

Still some games aren't balanced that well and have a crafting system that doesn't reward the player. If the game is dumping more gold on me than I could ever hope to use, and I can buy all the same potions I can create with no downside, I'll usually lean towards that. I'm all for being rewarded for my time, but if the time spent gathering materials and crafting could be spent obtaining more gold than the potions costed, I'd rather be earning the gold.

I really WANT to craft. The concept intrigues me but then you get into the actual finding materials/schematics part, also looking at item stats and comparing is often annoying to do in many games. Worst of all in the interest of balance most games make crafted items laughably mediocre compared to random drop "rare" items.

You hit the nail on the head in your initial post, it depends on the game. Does the game make it cool and interesting for me to craft stuff? If so, game on. Is it a boring and tedious chore? Maybe I'll grind to make up the difference.

In WoW I rarely crafted because I knew I could find better gear in raids. I'd do the bare minimum but it wasn't fun for me.

In Monster Hunter I run around bug catching and mining ore because preparing for the hunt is the whole reason the game is fun. Yeah, I could just brute force my axe against the monster's skull, but trapping it in a pit and blowing it up with barrels is way more interesting and fun. Plus knowing what type of healing items counter it allow me to ensure that I won't waste 40 minutes of work by carting because I ran out of antidotes or something stupid. It's fun when you dominate a monster like that because you know the reason you did was due to your preparation.

It's all about how valuable the game wants crafting to be.

I think the worst part is that most crafting seems to be just about inventory management, which is generally the weakest aspect of most games.

I've never had ANY game, where I've seen crafting and found myself short and ingredient or two and gone: "well that sounds interesting, I'll go looking for that ingredient" - most crafting for me tends to be me accumulating heaps of crap - realising I haven't used it for ages - randomly seeing what I can craft and then keeping (and not using) the stuff I've made, or selling it for a bit of coin that's not worth the effort.

You could run a scam in Dawn of Sorrow on the DS with crafting.

Buy 9 Brass Knucks from the weapons guy.
Go to a room and kill zombies and farm souls.
Go to crafting lady literally across the street from weapons guy.
Upgrade knucks to cestus's using zombie souls.
Go to weapons guy and sell him his own weapons for 10 times the price.
No one catches on.

@babychoochoo: Crafting in Morrowind was pretty great because it was so open and you could make really great and stupid stuff. Like a belt that on use cast a fire AoE upto 50 meters doing 100 damage. I used to make those and run around towns just using the belt murdering everyone with it without getting touched. Or you could make speed potions that made you run at 10,000% speed.

Most games handle it poorly though. Oblivion and Skyrim don't do a great job because they limited what could do what. I never made anything in Dragon Age Origins. I've made a few things in Inquisition but it's crafting is really dull and boring to use.

Crafting in WoW seemed great at first and in some professions it stayed great (jewel crafting/enchanting making racks). But once you realized that all you were doing was crafting to get to your max level it got kinda disappointing. When I first started in TBC I picked up leather working thinking "oh wow, I can make all my own stuff! Oh wait, it's pretty expensive to get the materials and I can just get better gear from questing or buying it cheaper than the mats on the auction house."

Back in like 2007 when I was deep into World of Warcraft my character was an herbalist/alchemist, so I spent a lot of time making and selling potions, oils, flasks etc. Good times.

If it's easy enough I tend to dabble with it. Games like Diablo 3 makes it pretty exciting without forcing you to go too much out of your way (I'm guessing that changes when you play high level end game, though). When you get that perfect roll on the stats you're looking for you make a small fist pump. Then proceed to find a better item within 15 minutes. But whatever.

I rarely make potions because I rarely use them.

I do craft in most single player RPGs, but I have no interest in the grindy kind of crafting you see in MMOs.

Really depends on the game. I remember doing it in The Witcher pretty steadily as it was the only good source of potions. You didn't find that many potions randomly and buying them is just dumb when you can pick up the ingredients from all over the place.

In Skyrim the best stuff was what you made yourself so I crafted all the time.

If I can get away with it, I'll usually not use consumables. Unless they are fun to use.

Witcher actually does a decent job of incentivising potions. I'd usually chug a swallow and maybe something extra before fights. I went through the first game by permanently attaching a bottle of the magic booster potion to my mouth and spamming maxed out igni.

Crafting in games can be pretty fun if done right.

In the witcher 1 you'd be hoarding a bunch of random herbs and such while out in the world then make a bunch of potions which were pretty important for combat. Unfortunately in the witcher 2 they became a tad less so. You couldn't just pop a healing potion in combat, the night vision potion made everything really hard to see, etc.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow had some fun "crafting" in making weapons. I still don't really know why but I ended up getting everything there was to get in that game and it was great.

Sure, if it works in an interesting way. I loved the crafting systems in Skyrim and Witcher 2. They're the first things that immediately spring to mind (although it probably helps that I have both of those on the brain this week). I also did a ton of crafting when I was playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV, because they made the system really fun and I could just make a bunch of stuff for people in my free company to use as they were levelling up. The Last of Us was interesting where similar ingredients could be made into different things, but I tended to find I wasn't using much of the consumables in that game so I didn't actually do all that much of it other than making a bunch of shivs. Far Cry's syringe system is barely crafting, but I like the equipment crafting as it gave me a few early goals to hunt down specific animals and explore.

So I guess I'm okay with crafting in general across all different forms of it. I like collecting stuff and combining it into different stuff. Enchanting too, if you've got it.

If there are crafting options and it allows me to customise what I'm making and make things with really cool buffs and such I totally craft. The most recent crafting I can remember was crafting a bunch in Dragon Age Inquisition. I crafted a whole lot in Skyrim, too.

I'm currently playing Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and am becoming annoyed at all the flowers shimmering at me that I will never pickup because they'd just fill my inventory, since creating potions doesn't give XP towards creating better potions. The combat's fun though!

If it increases some skill somewhere or I can make something more useful than picking up stuff that's lying around, then yes, absolutely!

I crafted a ton in Dragon Age: Inquisition and Skyrim. There's very little "found" gear in the world in either of those games that's better than what u can craft.

I love crafting. Heck, if I can craft and build stuff I am instantly interested. Was one of the reasons why I got deep into Minecraft.
If a game has a good crafting system I can usually forgive rather large flaws. The problem is that any game has to treat crafting as an optional thing, and so you usually can't craft real awesome stuff. It has to be balanced in such a way that people who don't like crafting don't have to muck around with it. Wish more games did more with their crafting, having a lot of cool shit locked behind recipes where you need a bunch of stuff to put together.

Love crafting in games, it gets super productive at times and if there's unique stuff to be made only from it? Yeah I'm on board.I remember getting way into herbalism in DA:II because I didn't want to "depend" on having a healer in the party. If I can use potions well enough I shouldn't need to sacrifice a slot on my party for a dedicated healer (which I had always done in previous games and wanted to break away from it). Done right, crafting can be super rewarding.

Crafting potions, meals and scrolls in Pillars of Eternity makes the fights in that game immeasurably easier to cope with. The item crafting (which is independent from the weapon/armor upgrading) was also something that I roundly ignored for the first 80% of the game, because you didn't really need the strategic boost unless you were going out of your way to take down difficult areas early - like trying to clear out the Eothas temple in The Gilded Vale as soon as you arrive. It helped a lot when it came time for some of the tougher fights near the end, though, especially as I'd been picking up rare ingredients throughout the game.

Thing is, the game doesn't let you use buff spells/abilities before combat as part of its difficulty balancing. You can cheese most fights in prior IE games by dropping a thousand buffs with your mage and then backstabbing a dude to initiate combat, so they were wise to restrict a lot of that. Yet there's a blindspot with the meal items, as they can all be eaten outside of combat and they all have buffs that last minutes rather than seconds. Chowing down on a bunch of dragon steaks and magic stews before a big fight is one of the game's best kept secret weapons. (It might be just because I play a lot of Tales, but compulsively eating entire meals for buffs for every fight doesn't seem quite so odd to me as it probably should be.)

Basically this for me. The only exception to this was when i was a hardcore raider in WoW back in the day and when Alchemy was actually pretty relevant. otherwise I find it pretty boring and tedious.

Yup, really depends on the game. I got really into crafting stuff in Skyrim, but few MMO crafting systems have interested me. I kinda liked what EverQuest 2 was going for, as it kinda made a battle system out of the crafting, where you had to fight impurities in the process, had a health bar and abilties and all kinds of nonsense like that.

Y'know, I was never a big fan of "creating" in most games to begin with. Stuff like LittleBigPlanet or Mario Paint never did much for me and crafting just seems to be an extension of that. It just keeps getting shoehorned into games and I never much care for it. Thankfully developers are smart enough to make it mechanically optional so it hasn't been much of an issue so far. What I'm worried about is that with the massive success of Minecraft, if future developers take that game's design to heart and make crafting an integral part of most games. If that ends up being the case, then in the immortal words of Jeff, fuck video games.

Absolutely hate crafting in all games. I also hate when the best gear can only be obtained via crafting.

I'll craft a permanent item, but I ain't crafting no one-shot item unless I absolutely have to.