Hello everyone! And welcome to another blog post. This time around we’ll be taking a look at three different styles of crafting systems, and the pros and cons of each. Minor spoilers going forward for Diablo 4, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and Minecraft.
There are a variety of crafting systems, and they are all interesting in their own ways. Depending on your game’s pillars, you’d probably lean one way over the others. But what are the three most referenced styles?
Summary of Systems
Checklist-Crafting, as seen in Diablo 4
Diablo 4 utilizes the most common crafting system.
Player unlocks the ability to craft.
Player receives a crafting recipe(s).
In Diablo 4, this is done by players hitting a specific level.
The recipe tells the player what resources are needed to get X item.
The player goes out and gets the resources.
They come back and press craft.
The item is received.
Flexible-Crafting, as seen in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom allows the player a bit more creativity and discoverability in their crafting. It guides the player via item descriptions that hint at what said resource can be used for.
Hm, I wonder what effect this would have on a cooked meal?
The player discovers a resource.
The player checks the description to learn about it.
The player mixes and matches appropriate resources together to get the desired effect.
The player tosses the resources into a cooking pot.
After a short animation, the crafting is complete and the player receives the item.
Additional Notes regarding LoZ:TotK’s version of the system:
The player can only combine up to five items.
Doubling up on items with the same effect makes the end result stronger, but attempting to combine effects results in a weaker, single to possibly no effect result in this game.
No “recipes”, though some NPCs will suggest certain combinations when interacted with.
Player needs to experiment to find the best combinations.
Elixirs/Meals are different but crafted the same way by tossing ingredients into a cooking pot.
If the player mixes incompatible parts, namely ingredients stated to be for elixirs with those for food, the end result will always be dubious food, a weak healing item.
Strict-Crafting, as seen in Minecraft
Minecraft requires players to have specific resources and place them on specific points on a grid (2x2 base, 3x3 if the player is using a crafting table) to make more complex items.
Player discovers resources.
Player unlocks recipes that require said resources once they have picked up all related items at least once.
Player places resources on the grid, or clicks on the recipe icon for the wanted item so the game will populate the grid automatically, and then clicks on the combined item to finish crafting it.
Additional notes:
Players must gather a variety of items to unlock recipes, and have the correct amount of the resource to craft.
If they place resources in a non-existent arrangement, nothing is crafted and the resources are not consumed.
Some complex items can be reduced back into their original components, but most cannot.
The Pros and Cons
Checklist-Crafting
The primary function of this system is to gate items from players for a time. It helps to keep the player from being overwhelmed by what to do. It guides them better than the other two systems. It’s easier for designers to trickle out rewards and new content at a controlled rate. You’ll see something like this in Monster Hunter, Elden Ring, Diablo 4, Walking Dead Saints & Sinners, etc.
Pros:
Crafting recipes can be an exciting piece of loot.
Very easy to understand.
Easier to gate progression and trickle out rewards.
Player knows instantly if an item can or cannot be made.
It allows the player to get back to the core gameplay faster.
Can have a high number of ingredients, and is well suited for grind-focused systems.
Cons:
Can agitate players if the resource drops are poorly balanced, preventing them from obtaining the item for much longer than intended.
Players may ignore the item entirely if the resources are deemed too difficult to obtain.
Flexible-Crafting
The primary purpose of this system is to make crafting accessible, but still have enough depth to let the player feel smart.
Pros:
Just enough guidance allows for experimentation.
Makes the player feel smart as it rewards them for considering resource descriptions.
Tends to have lower resource costs for the final items, limiting time spent gathering supplies.
Minimal menus to click through.
Every new resource unlocks new crafting possibilities.
Cons:
Every attempt consumes the used resources regardless of the level of success.
Not every attempt will result in what the player wanted, leading to possible frustration.
Items tend to be more generic to allow for flexibility.
Strict-Crafting
The primary purpose of this system is to give the authentic feeling of crafting something. Minecraft is all about collecting resources, using them to craft better tools, then collecting more resources to craft other things. To put it simply, Minecraft is about mining and crafting.
Pros:
Placing items in the rough shape of the desired item feels intuitive.
Crafting requirements are pretty low (max nine resources per complex item).
Exciting to discover new craftables through collecting more resources.
There is incredible depth and variety of crafting recipes.
Cons:
Without some form of recipe list, such as the one Minecraft now includes, players may struggle to discover what items and layouts make what.
This can force them to leave the game to look for guides, which in turn might break their interest long enough to stop playing.
Which is best?
It’s easy to think one system is superior to the others, but they are not. Each system fits uniquely well into the game they are in.
Having strict-crafting in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom would be a nightmare. Players would now be forced to find specific resources and figure out how to place them, adding nothing to the lore like the item descriptions do, and keeping them from quickly moving on to the next dark cave they wanted to explore or mountain they wanted to climb as they try to remember the exact placement and things required. A checklist would be faster, but it would still add nothing to the lore, removing the dopamine hit from figuring out recipes, restrict players from combining items, therefore gating them from areas entirely should they not have the recipe unlocked, and force them to hunt down the proper resources and amounts. The flexibility of the current system works much better than either of the other two in this case.
A checklist system in Minecraft would take away from the feeling of ‘crafting’ that placing the resources provides. And the flexible system would do the same while also limiting what could be made, as the same materials could be placed in different spots to produce different complex items in Minecraft’s current system.
And as for Diablo 4, the crafting system is more about being a gate than a mechanic the player is meant to enjoy engaging with. The time spent laying out each group of resources and trying to discover how to make a potion would have most just look it up on their phone. And dumping piles of loot into cooking pots repeatedly to obtain healing items would likewise drag on as they itch to return to the core gameplay they purchased the game for.
Conclusion
As you can see, each of these crafting systems has a purpose, and were chosen to fit within their given games. They could be terrible if forced into a game they do not complement well, but, when used correctly, they can enhance the fun of their game.
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