Crafting and loot itemization.

I was reading this post and, considering that I agree with what the OP had to say, it inspired me to write about how I would fix/implement it. I haven't read most of the discussion, mind you, but I figured I'd preemptively get the ball rolling by talking about solutions rather than pointing out (and reading arguments about) the problems.

Disclaimer: I'm probably the worst guy to talk about crafting since I'm not a crafter. I could probably talk about things that would make me want to craft but, essentially, I firmly believe that crafting as a feature in a game is counter-productive and is disruptive to any game-play loop. It doesn't mean it can't be done and that we can't find a good compromise but you're more likely to shoot yourself in the foot as a designer rather doing anything legitimately compelling. SotA's a good example of this phenomenon.

I welcome any challenge/feedback to what I'm suggesting bellow:

Problem:

How do you make crafting worth doing without indirectly making adventuring unappealing... and how do you achieve this in the context of a sand-box?

• You could make crafting in such a way that the items crafted are the most powerful versions of those items in the game... but that makes adventuring pointless as, none of the items you'd find in dungeons would be better than what you paid a crafter to give you.

• You could make it so that items have level requirements but that prohibits the sand-box.

With that said, if the goods crafted aren't better than the items found, what's the point of crafting? So we need a system where the crafted items are better but we need to control how much better they are so that adventurers can still enjoy the game without having to find a crafter.

So how do we accomplish this? Here's my take:

Break down the entire game in tiers. Items (materials and equipment) may not have level requirements but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be categorized in a specific tier. As people who have played SotA, we already understand the concept of segregating dungeons into tiers; a higher tier means more difficult enemies (and you're kind of supposed to get better loot). So now you just have to associate items to those same "dungeons tiers". That's not to say that items within a given tier would be in the same loot-table and will drop in every dungeon of those tiers... but that there's an expected level of quality (material) and power (equipment).

Racing and Fighting games usually segregate their cars and fighters into a specific tier so that competition can exist. You don't race a Lamborghini against a Volkswagen party wagon. We can apply this to not only dungeons and loot drops, but also PvP.

When I said "break down the entire game in tiers", I meant everything; this includes skills. In the case of SotA, that would mean that a skill at a particular level should give you expectations as to whenever or not you can reasonably play through a dungeon of the same tier. That doesn't mean you can't succeed with "lower tiered" skills, it just means that the dungeons, items and skills were designed to work and give you a specific experience at that specific tier.

This is where crafting skills comes in. Since skills are tiered, then next thing to do is make it so that crafted gear outputs gear at a higher tier than the materials of the skill's tier. So, as a crude example, if copper is tier 1 and a "copper sword" is a tier 1 drop, a crafted copper sword should have the potential (depending on the success of the crafter) to be the equivalent of, say, an "iron sword" (tier 2).

Now, what's to prevent players from skipping progression altogether and loot a tier 3 or 5 item? Or what if your super-been-playing-a-long-time friend can craft a tier 5 item for you? Tier proficiency... which is another fancy way of saying "level requirements".

Level requirements are a problem because we don't want to prevent players from doing things in a sand-box... but what if it was more like a suggestion? As a crude example, if a player with a tier 1 swordsmanship skill tries to wield a tier 5 mithril sword, that player should receive a penalty. What's the penalty? Well, it can't be stats (like damage or str/dex/int) because it would defeat the purpose of wielding the item in the first place... and you don't necessarily want the item to dynamically "grow" with the player (by reducing the stat's penalty as the player gets better) because that item would become a WoW-style heirloom item that hardly ever gets replaced.

But if each swing of a weapon costs energy, like Dark Souls' combat system, then the penalty could be the amount of energy it would cost to swing with it. Meaning a player with a tier 1 swordsmanship skill could essentially 1-shot monsters but that player wouldn't be efficient with it. Passive equipment such as jewelry or armour could simply stunt the regeneration of that energy resource; making it that much harder for that player to fight if he/she was completely equipped with higher tiered items.

A high-tiered healing potion? Add risk of getting poisoned/sickness!

You get more proficient with the equipment without necessarily reducing the power and, more importantly, the purpose of whatever it is that you're using.

Add the idea that crafting should involve some sort of mini-game and you got yourself a system that enables players to craft items of equal tier to that of their adventurer's counter-part (a tier 1 copper sword) with the chance (if the crafter succeeds at the mini-game), to craft something of 1 more tier higher (a tier 2 iron-grade copper sword).

But... there's something not quite "sand-box" about all of this. Why would a high-tiered swordsman, for example, want a lower tiered item? That scenario needs to happen as well. Not so much that players become more interested in lower tiered items than higher tiered ones, but enough that they're useful and not complete junk.

If we approach this with the idea that players with high tiered skills are "stronger", we can then assume that they would exert more force on the items they wield. So, what I propose is that equipping lower tiered items grant you a damage bonus (to be relatively even with player's skill's tier), in exchange for that item's durability. Consumables, like potions, would simply work as normal.

Whenever you're low tier or high tier, finding low tier and/or high tier items isn't a wasted opportunity. The lower tiered items are (in theory) removed just as quickly from the ecosystem as they're being crafted, while the higher tiered ones are slower to produce but last longer.

I could imagine people wearing a mixture of different tiers of items; low tier armour with high tier weapons, or vice-versa.

Thoughts? Am I missing something crucial?