Poll: Crafting elements and sandbox design

[Carnagath]

It's pretty clear to me that there's a big trend right now of adding crafting elements and a sandboxy world to everything. Games that are based on that concept come out all the time, and even franchises that traditionally had nothing to do with that, have incorporated them into the gameplay (like Dead Space or Far Cry). I think that they are great and make sense on some games (for example Far Cry 3, they turn the island from just scenery to a playground, and they make sense in the character development as well), but on other games they feel tacked on and disruptive of the experience, and they add nothing other than pad the game (in Dead Space 3 for example, I don't feel that faffing around at a bench all the time and looting 10 crafting mats in every room adds anything to a tense action game, in fact it often kills the tension). It seems that developers these days are absolutely terrified of having their games called "linear", or just want to pad the hours of gameplay with little cost, regardless of what game it is.

What do you guys think? Do you enjoy those elements in so many games these days?

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I dislike crafting, but love sandboxes. Where's your option for that (or the reverse)?

Sandboxes are great because they make sense. They allow for tactical randomization and improvisation. They can also reduce the emphasis on dungeon-paradigm (i.e. linear, must-go-deeper) levels, which I have always hated. But - yeah - I can only imagine the pressure on game studios' budgets the new emphasis on sandboxes is creating.

Crafting is a shoe-horn thing. It really adds nothing to most games and is just another finicky gimmick for wasting time. I was really annoyed with crafting in Skyrim in particular because they went to all this effort to add in a new armors/weapons crafting system while entirely throwing out the spellcrafting system that had already been part of the system. The difference between the two systems was that the armor/weapons system didn't allow for any creativity or individuality, while the spellcrafting system was basically: go wild, combine all types of spells, break as much gameplay balance as you like.

 

[NightmareExpress]

Sandbox design definitely leaves me bored to tears after a while (typically the long times of travelling dead land in between "hot-spots"), but the crafting element seems just fine. Isaac is an engineer of sorts, obviously accustomed to a good bunch of the weapons by this point, so I thought the crafting system was a tad appropriate in DS3 (to hell with the microtransactions, though).

With that said, I guess it depends on the game and the context.
Did the series contain it prior? Is there any way to justify it? Was it an original design principle when the (first) game was being planned out?

 

[skywolfblue]

I like crafting, so long as there is no Grind.

I'd say Dead Space does it right, you can build anything so long as you have enough stuff for it. You don't have to craft a lot of dummy items to "level up" your crafting skill (I'm looking at YOU Skyrim and WoW).