Crafting systems: Static vs. Freeform
jgbu...@gmail.com
have at least 4
separate ones floating around in my head...) you play the role of an
artificer. As a
change from the traditional systems, virtually ALL equipment and items
in the game will
be crafted by the player. Monsters will not drop usable gear, but
rather materials and
component parts, from which (after collecting enough of them), the
player can make items
they can actually use.
In a game where the crafting system is so central, the exact form of
the crafting system
can have massive gameplay repercussions. I want the choice of what to
craft your
materials into to be a meaningful one. Each material should have
multiple, sufficiently
different uses, and the pros and cons of each option should not be
trivially obvious. I
would also like a fair bit of exploratory variety to the crafting
system, so that you
could tinker around, and end up with a very different set of equipment
each game,
depending upon which types of materials you've managed to find.
Perhaps the most typical crafting system used in many games involved
preset formulae,
where each craftable item has a specific set of input materials, and
combining these
produces this specific result. It would be nice to have a system that
allowed the player
to vary materials and combine numerous things in a fairly freeform
manner, discovering
interesting, and potentially useful items along the way. Sadly, I've
found that most of
these more 'experimental' systems seem to produce unsatisfying
results.
For example, if I was to implement a simple combinational system,
where the properties of
an item were a combination of the base stats of the item type, and the
properties of the
material used to craft it, I think it would end up feeling rather more
bland. Items would
lose their character, and the difference between a Mithril Sword and
Mithril Axe would be
the same as the difference between a Iron Sword and Iron Axe.
For example, say that Swords had a base damage of 6, and granted a
parry bonus, while
Axes had a base damage of 8, and granted an armor sundering bonus.
Items crafted out of
steel get a 25% base damage bonus, while items crafted out of Kironite
(a crystalline
ore) get a 50% base damage bonus, as well as +5 arcane damage.
Iron Sword: Damage 7.5 / parry bonus
Iron Axe: Damage 10 / armor sundering bonus
Kironite Sword: Damage 9+5 / parry bonus
Kironite Axe: Damage 12+5/ armor sundering bonus
However, I think that a manually designed system would allow for each
item to have more
idiosyncratic properties so that items are more than just a linear
combination of item
properties + material properties. For example, the Kironite Sword
might also be able to
apply its parry bonus to deflect spells, while the Kironite Axe was
capable of
occasionally unleashing an Arcane Shockwave attack upon impact.
Of course, there are a few problems with static formulae:
1) They lack the randomness for which roguelike equipment generation
is known
2) Creating predesigned items for most meaningful combinations of
materials could quickly
get out of hand.
Assuming that some item formulae require small amount of various,
specific peripheral
materials, this would create a combinatorial explosion far too large
to manually account
for all combinations. Thus, the player couldn't just combine any group
of items he wanted
and expect to get a valid result. He would need to have a way to know
the correct types
and amount of materials for any given formula beforehand
3) The number of relevant formulae at any given time might be a bit
much for a player to
juggle, although this could be somewhat alleviated by a good crafting
UI (that could
filter recipes by desired item type, or specific rare materials that
you're trying to
figure out what to do with)
Most systems that I've toyed around with, based upon freeform material
combination,
rather than specific formulae, seem to result in something that is
either: bland and
obvious, unpredictable and obtuse, or too arbitrary. I don't believe
I've seen a system
of this nature that I considered effective in an existing game,
either. It may not be
possible without extensive hand-scripting, or accepting the general
blandness that an
obvious procedural method might provide.
I'm curious what some of your opinions might be on the matter of
crafting systems. Would
you find it bothersome if much of the equipment was non-random? (Keep
in mind that the
materials available to you each game will be random, and thus there
will be variety in
the items people choose to make and use) Any ideas on how a freeform
crafting system
might preserve the character and idiosyncrasies of a more prescripted
one? Which general
approach might you prefer if you were to play such a game? Any other
thoughts?
DrGong
Perhaps work on something on these lines
Each item can be used in a forge or made into potions.
Lets say each item has 4 predetermined "effects" and you have to
combine items and have two of the affects from two items to actually
get it to work in a potion. Of course, some of the effects are not
always good, so if you keep adding items to your cauldron, you start
picking up bad effects too. This is the system that "morrowind" used
to some effect. I could go into more detail if you wish.
The other thing is that they collect items, and then say, buy a sword,
and add to the sword in the forge a bunch of items they collected, and
it adds abilites to the sword, but for each item added, there a risk
of failure. so for example, lets say a item dropped called
"Firedrops" adds fire damage or resistance to the sword or sheild -
you can keep adding firedrops for a random increase in ablity, but
each time you add something to the forge, the precentage of failure
(and loss of sword AND items) goes up a percentage, to a maximum of
99% failure.
GreenNight
formulas, but lots of small ones.
An item has its own materials, which is defined by its shape, and the
material of whatever effects you want it to have. For example an axe
may need 3 wood/metal (handle) plus 2 metal (blade) while a sword
would need 6 metal and a potion 2 liquid. And for the effects you
could have things like 3 fire + 1 air element to add fire damage, 3
fire + 1 earth to add fire resistance.
Having all this you need to define the materials: sacred branch (wood/
earth), Mithril (metal/air), ... And you can have different materials
- and shapes - affect effects differently.
A normal branch would give less bonus (damage/armor/whatever) than a
sacred one for the thing it directly helps to create (shape or
effect). A sword could amplify parry and lawful bonuses. The materials
of the shape could amplify the effects imposed, something made with
sacred wood that would give bonus to clerical effects.
To add really special effects, like the ones here:
> For example, the Kironite Sword might also be able to
> apply its parry bonus to deflect spells, while the Kironite Axe was
> capable of
> occasionally unleashing an Arcane Shockwave attack upon impact.
you may add a table (even could be tridimensional) of shape-material(-
effects) relationships.
Iron Mithril Kironite Wood
sword - +5 dam to evil Magic parry X
axe(h) +5% ice ef. Parry Berseker rage -
axe(b) - Magic missile Arcan. Shock. Entangle
To add more randomness you could also have material that one game has
a property (Mithril - metal/air, Sacred branch - wood/earth) and
another property in another game (Mithirl - metal/fire, Sacred wood -
metal/earth), electing it randomly from a set of predetermined "right"
choices. And, of course, changing the formulas a bit from game to
game, one could have cheaper swords with only 3 metal, or shields only
made of wood, for example.
Have fun.
Krice
> I'm curious what some of your opinions might be on the matter of
> crafting systems.
I would add a crafting system to a working playable roguelike,
as more like extra stuff. I think crafting works better if the
resulted items have real differences to other items of same
type. The RPG system should make those differences important
and I don't believe that typical D&D can manage that. You need
better, more complex damage/combat system.
Gerry Quinn
jgbu...@gmail.com says...
> I'm curious what some of your opinions might be on the matter of
> crafting systems. Would
> you find it bothersome if much of the equipment was non-random? (Keep
> in mind that the
> materials available to you each game will be random, and thus there
> will be variety in
> the items people choose to make and use) Any ideas on how a freeform
> crafting system
> might preserve the character and idiosyncrasies of a more prescripted
> one? Which general
> approach might you prefer if you were to play such a game? Any other
> thoughts?
One idea might be to drop blueprints for random artefacts. The
artefacts would be high quality as in most games, with random special
attributes - some would be more valuable than others, depending on the
character etc.
The blueprints require a list of rare and/or expensive ingredients,
which could be quite random. For example:
Blueprint:
Sword of Arghararg
One-handed sword, 2d10
+5 to hit, +3 to damage
Protects against fire
Sometimes drains life when it hits
Requirements:
1 longsword*
1 silver bar
1 wand of fire (3+ charges)
1 speed potion
1 scroll of remove curse
*For verisimilitude; it seems to me that if the ingredients include a
sword, the rest can be fairly random without too much suspension of
disbelief.
If you found the blueprint, you could decide whether the sword was
worth it to you, and whether you had or could locate/create the
relevant ingredients.
If so, you could make it. If not, you could look out for a better
blueprint.
Additional possibilities:
- some properties of the item could be random each time it is made
- some rare materials might come only from disenchanting artefacts
- Gerry Quinn
Pointless
I like your second idea most. Material should have a predictable
effect on the crafted item, so that players can mix and match
different bonuses and effects into their "base" items. The problem, it
seems to me, is that your -items- are too boring. Increase hit %?
damage? magic damage? /yawn Use your imagination and expand the
abilities that can be granted through craftsmanship.
You can begin this process by asking yourself what gameplay will be
like. Maybe you should give the option of attaching ornaments to the
equipment, if the game has a storytelling atmosphere, or the option of
making crafts and souvenirs, if there is a trading mini-game. If your
game is purely hack and slash at this point, Nethack is an example of
a game that packs all sorts of interesting twists into their combat
system. Or look at Crawl, which has a great variety of effects, but
most can be described in a short paragraph
star....@gmail.com
some base attributes of various materials, stuff like density, mass,
heat resistance / melting point, cold resistance / brittleness,
hardness, edge-keeping, porousness, whatever. Probably place them in
groups ('metals', 'woods', etc).
Seeing as I'm thinking of a modern setting, let's say you want to make
rules to put together a gun. You would define that a handgun is:
barrel + stock + magazine + action + [sight] + trigger + hammer
You could then write lists such that the appropriate materials for a
gun barrel are only iron, steel, aluminium, and the future plastic
vinron, and hard code accuracy bonuses for the four; but say that the
stock could be made of any of METAL, PLASTIC, WOOD, and gives a
stability bonus of m/5 if mass >= 5 and a snap-shot speed bonus of (5-
m)/2 if mass < 5; which would allow you to make a stock out of three
dozen materials with noticble but mild differences.
And then the gun itself is just the sum of it's parts (mass, which
would be important, can come from nothing but the material defs times
the part sizes), with the code for being a ranged weapon of a certain
class and an overall modifier for manufacturing skill (probably
accuracy and jam chance for most guns).
I think the key to making this work well would be to break things down
to elements that can be made out of just one material. A sword might
be [pommel] + hilt + [hilt ornament] * 0-2 + [hilt wrapping] +
[crossguard] + [crossguard ornament] * 0-2 + blade + [blade ornament]
* 0-2 . . . the ornamentations would be mainly good for magic but
increase the amount of skill needed to get it well balanced, or
something, and the wrapping could give the a small effective skill
boost depending on how well it abosorbs sweat / imporves grip.
This kind of thing might work better in a modern setting when you tend
to have things that should be composed of many interchangable parts.
It dosn't let you make significantly NEW things, but it lets you make
a lot of variations on things. Heck, you could just define plans for
Revolver, Assult Rifle, etc and have various random corporations
produce guns based on their tech level and available resources.
Meh, I really shouldn't be spending this much time on here right now
(work), so I'll leave this thing half-sensible for the moment and
maybe think about it some more and see if I can come up with a better
copy later :).
--
Star-ish Weaver
Gamer_2k4
symbolizing how dominant each is. For example:
Kykar Leaf
----------
Invigorate [INGEST]: 5
Heal[INGEST]: 2
Heal[APPLY]: 1
Cure Poison[INGEST]: 1
Torik Root
----------
Cure Poison[INGEST]: 3
Potion of Healing
-----------------
Heal[INGEST]: 8
Potion of Water
---------------
Cure Poison[INGEST]: 1
Combining items would combine their attribute values. In this
example, if an attribute has a value of 5 or more, it's effect would
be applied. If the value is 10 or more, you get an upgrade (Super
Healing Potion or Healing Potion[2]). So, taking the above items, you
have the following combinations:
Kykar Leaf + Water = Potion of Invigoration
Kykar Leaf + Torik Root + Water = Potion of Cure Poison
Potion of Healing + Kykar Leaf = Potion of Super Healing
The same could work with weapons, armor, or anything else. However,
you'd have to be careful that there aren't crazy combinations, and
you'd probably want to set a limit on the amount of times that one
type of item could add to the values.
--
Gamer_2k4
Billy Bissette
@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:
> I would go with a mix of methods, too. I would start with setting up
> some base attributes of various materials, stuff like density, mass,
> heat resistance / melting point, cold resistance / brittleness,
> hardness, edge-keeping, porousness, whatever. Probably place them in
> groups ('metals', 'woods', etc).
>
> Seeing as I'm thinking of a modern setting, let's say you want to make
> rules to put together a gun. You would define that a handgun is:
>
> barrel + stock + magazine + action + [sight] + trigger + hammer
>
> You could then write lists such that the appropriate materials for a
> gun barrel are only iron, steel, aluminium, and the future plastic
> vinron, and hard code accuracy bonuses for the four; but say that the
> stock could be made of any of METAL, PLASTIC, WOOD, and gives a
> stability bonus of m/5 if mass >= 5 and a snap-shot speed bonus of (5-
> m)/2 if mass < 5; which would allow you to make a stock out of three
> dozen materials with noticble but mild differences.
You could make it not necessarily a weight-based trade-off.
Make density and strength separate values within a material type.
(Strength itself could be split. As you even mention the difference
between brittleness and hardness.)
Stability for a gun stock might be a combination of the amount of
material and its strength. You can skimp on the amount of material
to reduce weight (like having a metal frame instead of solid metal,
or having a hole in the center of a wooden stock,) but doing so can
reduce the stability.
You could make a titanium stock that helps give a decent speed
bonus (the weight of the whole gun might figure here,) but at the
same time is also very stable. On the other hand, an aluminum stock
can be light but not stable.
Fantasy settings would have basic metals, wood (or even different
wood types if you don't splurge elsewhere), along with more magical
materials. Maybe things like crystals or gemstone. Stone should
be possible as well. Hard leather, soft leather, and maybe various
types of hides and scales. Bone, ivory, and teeth. (A dragon
tooth dagger or warhammer?) Etc.
If you have objects wear down or decay over time, or by various
special damages (acid, fire, etc,) you can add more factors.
A possible downside is that you'll likely end up with not only
some materials that are superior in all ways to others, but with a
decent number of options you'll also end up with some that are
always inferior to the point that no knowing player would use them.
You might need to tweak the values to change that. Or perhaps add
on a magical side. (Gold makes a lousy sword material, but maybe
it is more conductive to magic, or at least some magic, for example.)
Nik Coughlin
>
> A possible downside is that you'll likely end up with not only
> some materials that are superior in all ways to others, but with a
> decent number of options you'll also end up with some that are
> always inferior to the point that no knowing player would use them.
> You might need to tweak the values to change that. Or perhaps add
> on a magical side. (Gold makes a lousy sword material, but maybe
> it is more conductive to magic, or at least some magic, for example.)
Or you could just make the superior materials rarer/more expensive and the
inferior ones more common/cheaper.
Billy Bissette
It isn't really superior materials that would cause a problem. As you
say, price and rarity can mostly cover them. If price and rarity don't
smooth out any remaining issues, then you'd probably need to look at
how much money and/or items players generate in general.
More likely to be flawed is the inferior end of the scale,
particularly if you have a wide variety of materials. People will pay
attention to the over-powered and the powerful, but they may just
ignore the under-powered. (On a positive note, for the same reason
most people probably won't complain if "bone" is all around inferior
to "wood" even if both are abundantly available. Not the same way
they'd complain if by the time you could afford/create emerald, you
could spend a bit more of abundantly available cash to get superior
diamond.)
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
jgbu...@gmail.com wrote:
> Assuming that some item formulae require small amount of various, specific
> peripheral materials, this would create a combinatorial explosion far too
> large to manually account for all combinations. Thus, the player couldn't
> just combine any group of items he wanted and expect to get a valid
> result. He would need to have a way to know the correct types and amount
> of materials for any given formula beforehand
One solution would be to not design every item separately, but instead
design the possible "features" of items, and "properties" of materials,
then define how the features interact with the properties.
For example, an axe could have an "impact weapon" feature, that would
give you damage bonuses if only the axe is made of material that has
the "heavy" property (you could also use some multipliers for the features
and scala attributes for the properties, but this can quickly turn into
a very boring system).
In similar way, the sword could have "deflect" feature, that would allow
him to parry magic spells if only the material has the "resist magic"
property.
Of course, the properties could have negative effects too, like some
penalties for axes made from materials that are "light" or a breaking
chance for swords made of materials that are "hard".
Specific monsters could also react to the features and materials in
special ways. Lycantropes can be vulnerable to any weapon made of silver,
faeries wounded with iron would be unable to heal, plants would make the
"impact" feature always work, not only when the meterial is "heavy", etc.
--
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Somehow you'll find you are there.
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
DrGong wrote:
> The other thing is that they collect items, and then say, buy a sword,
> and add to the sword in the forge a bunch of items they collected, and
> it adds abilites to the sword, but for each item added, there a risk
> of failure. so for example, lets say a item dropped called
> "Firedrops" adds fire damage or resistance to the sword or sheild -
> you can keep adding firedrops for a random increase in ablity, but
> each time you add something to the forge, the precentage of failure
> (and loss of sword AND items) goes up a percentage, to a maximum of
> 99% failure.
Wouldn't that encourage save scumming and punish experimenting?
star....@gmail.com
<n...@sheep.art.pl> wrote:
> DrGong wrote:
> > . . . the precentage of failure
> > (and loss of sword AND items) goes up a percentage, to a maximum of
> > 99% failure.
>
> Wouldn't that encourage save scumming and punish experimenting?
And be extremely annoying in general, yes. I remember a system where
mages could attempt to learn spells using something like crawl spell
levels, but difficulty made for a chance of failing and permanantly
losing those levels. ISTR it was a p'n'p system that was translated to
some computer game format which then led to mild (as this was a
standard no-permadeath game) but regular save abuse.
--
Crafty Weaver
Ray Dillinger
I remain unconvinced that "crafting" as such adds much to
a roguelike game. I've rarely seen it *NOT* be damaging
to game balance.
I would say that you should avoid common mistakes and
limit crafting to basic supplies otherwise available from
stores. Unenchanted arrows, garments, rope, etc. Make it
a "do I have to go back to the store" choice rather than a
"do I create game-breaking magic items" choice.
Creating enchanted foo should only be possible for
spellcasters, and for them it should be all about some
predefined spells that have material components someone
has to gather. Such spells could, eg, create basic
potions given specific ingredients, or enchant missiles
or armor up a few points.
But IMO, you should very definitely stick to the "static"
approach; nothing should allow characters to make items
better than they can otherwise easily get, or stack
many enchantments together on the same item. You have
enough trouble balancing the game without throwing in
uber-items characters can make.
Bear
jgbu...@gmail.com
> limit crafting to basic supplies otherwise available from
> stores. Unenchanted arrows, garments, rope, etc. Make it
> a "do I have to go back to the store" choice rather than a
> "do I create game-breaking magic items" choice.
> nothing should allow characters to make items
> better than they can otherwise easily get, or stack
> many enchantments together on the same item. You have
> enough trouble balancing the game without throwing in
> uber-items characters can make.
Oh, I agree. But the point of this game was to focus on the crafting
system by ELIMINATING the usual places one aquires equipment. (Perhaps
I wasn't so clear on this point in my original post) Thus, crafting
wouldn't be a way to circumvent the limits of the power level one can
find on dropped items. Crafting would be the ONLY way to get any
equippable items at all. And I also agree about not designing the
system in such a way that you can buff things rediculously. There
would be no feasible 'infinite reforging' or anything like that. There
would be reasonably low caps on how much enhancing you could do on a
single item.
The point of crafting in this game isn't just to make the 'strongest'
or 'best' items. What I'm hoping to accomplish is, given a set of
crafting materials the character has access to, present a number of
interesting yet sufficiently different crafting options, which will
have a significant effect on the range of the character's powers and
resulting playstyle. Basically, turn the material system into
meaningful gameplay choices / resource management, while at the same
time, making random availability of materials dictate to some extent
what paths the character can take (thus giving them different sets of
gameplay options each game)
What I'm concerned about is a way in which the crafting system, and
the gameplay / equipment choices it dictates could be made to feel
'exploratory', and yet still offer substancially different, meaningful
options in an intuitive fashion. It should be fairly obvious to the
player what they can craft at any given time, and the decision making
comes into choosing how best to use their limited resources.
jgbu...@gmail.com
> effect on the crafted item, so that players can mix and match
> different bonuses and effects into their "base" items. The problem, it
> seems to me, is that your -items- are too boring. Increase hit %?
> damage? magic damage? /yawn Use your imagination and expand the
> abilities that can be granted through craftsmanship.
Well, I intentionally used simple examples that wouldn't require any
additional explanation themselves. Certainly the actual range of
abilities in the game is significantly more detailed and varied. In
fact, I'm generally a fan of as numerous a spell system as possible.
But, in a way, the actual details of the abilities on the items are
irrelevant to the system which determines which abilities end up on
which weapons, or the manner in which one can combine materials to
achieve these effects, which is the problem I'm currently grappling
with.
jgbu...@gmail.com
<n...@sheep.art.pl> wrote:
> One solution would be to not design every item separately, but instead
> design the possible "features" of items, and "properties" of materials,
> then define how the features interact with the properties.
>
> For example, an axe could have an "impact weapon" feature, that would
> give you damage bonuses if only the axe is made of material that has
> the "heavy" property (you could also use some multipliers for the features
> and scala attributes for the properties, but this can quickly turn into
> a very boring system).
>
> In similar way, the sword could have "deflect" feature, that would allow
> him to parry magic spells if only the material has the "resist magic"
> property.
>
> Of course, the properties could have negative effects too, like some
> penalties for axes made from materials that are "light" or a breaking
> chance for swords made of materials that are "hard".
>
> Specific monsters could also react to the features and materials in
> special ways. Lycantropes can be vulnerable to any weapon made of silver,
> faeries wounded with iron would be unable to heal, plants would make the
> "impact" feature always work, not only when the meterial is "heavy", etc.
>
> --
> Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
> Somehow you'll find you are there.
I actually quite like this idea. I think I'm going to have to sit down
and take some time to see how well this would scale with the type and
variety of materials / item classes / effects that I had in mind.
While it may not have quite the same degree of 'uniqueness' that fully
specified items do, it seems to come closer to creating this than most
of the systematic methods that I've tossed around in my head thus far,
while having the advantages of flexibility that non-formulaic systems
provide. I may have more to say once I've spent time trying to 'break'
the system :P
eidr...@hotmail.com
One thought to compliment this...
- Have a "minimum threshold" of effects, such that all effects have a
negative modifier (-2 or something); this will suppress the lesser
effects such that only the primary effects (the ones complemented by
all of the reagents) will actually manifest in a particular
combination.
- Then, add a wide variety of random low-strength side effects (good
and bad) to ALL reagents.
- Thus, the more reagents added to reinforce the primary effect, the
more likely that the overall combination will push a side effect above
the minimum threshold so it can manifest.
- As an extra bonus, make lesser side effects increasingly difficult
to identify or discover.
- Thus, combining a known healing potion combination with a known
healing herb would definitely make for a better healing potion, but
could very well also put the quaffer to sleep, or cause confusion, or
randomly release a bolt of flame, depending on which undetected side
effects were present in all of the ingredients.
- To really make things random, have the "threshold" dependent on the
location; some areas might be "magically dead", causing even primary
effects to be muted or negated. Other locations might have
concentrations of raw magic, lowering the threshold such that magical
items / potions / etc would manifest side effects that were masked in
more normal locations.
This would allow good predictability of primary effects (allowing
increasingly powerful objects / potions / etc) but at the risk of
increasingly nasty side effects. Even with a known good healing
potion, experimentation with new combinations of reagents to minimize
or eliminate side effects would still be a good idea.
Applying this to magical devices would also give rise to the common
mythical / RPG trope of highly powerful items / artifacts / relics
also containing strong side effects and powerful curses.
ifnyou
> system by ELIMINATING the usual places one aquires equipment. (Perhaps
> I wasn't so clear on this point in my original post) Thus, crafting
> wouldn't be a way to circumvent the limits of the power level one can
> find on dropped items. Crafting would be the ONLY way to get any
> equippable items at all. And I also agree about not designing the
> system in such a way that you can buff things rediculously. There
> would be no feasible 'infinite reforging' or anything like that. There
> would be reasonably low caps on how much enhancing you could do on a
> single item.
For this to make sense, you need to have some reason why the character
is the only person in the world who can make things. Perhaps a visitor
from the overworld into some cavernous region inhabited only by
unintelligent beasts, unable to return to the surface?
I think this might work well with a low-magic or non-magical world, as
well. The kind of harsh realism and tough-to-survive world found in
URW, for example. One way to make crafting interesting would be to
have the player's skill in making particular objects increase as they
make more. Their first makeshift wooden spear is crummy, the next one
a little better, and so on... but then they find some obsidian that
they can chip into a point and they are faced with the decision, make
an obsidian-tipped spear (which they have some experience with making)
or an obsidian-axe (potentially more powerful, but the first one is
probably not going to last long). Anything involving metal is going to
take a lot of wood to get the heat to forge it... unless it's a soft
metal like bronze. Perhaps if the player found a source of clay they
could do metal-casting, for arrowheads and so on... instead of just
"add up the bonuses" like the crafting in KotOR, for example, the
player could be learning stuff about primitive manufacturing
techniques, searching out rare materials, discovering the advantages
of iron over bronze weapons, &c
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Ray Dillinger wrote:
> I remain unconvinced that "crafting" as such adds much to
> a roguelike game. I've rarely seen it *NOT* be damaging
> to game balance.
Come on, don't spread paranoia, slightly unbalanced games can be fun
too, there seems to be a "next layer" of balance somewhere in them.
Then again, it doesn't have to be unbalancing if the game is built around
it from the beginning. I agree that *adding* crafting to already balanced
game can have disastrous effects -- actually, adding any major feature to
and already balanced game is probably going to change the feel of it
dramatically.
I've seen at least two computer role playing games practically built
around crafting: Summon Nights and Final Fantasy 7, they both take
completely different approaches, but the end result is pleasing. Of
course, these approaches wouldn't really work as well in a roguelike.
star....@gmail.com
wrote:
> At Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:49:33 -0700,
>
> Ray Dillinger wrote:
> > I remain unconvinced that "crafting" as such adds much to
> > a roguelike game. I've rarely seen it *NOT* be damaging
> > to game balance.
>
> Come on, don't spread paranoia, slightly unbalanced games can be fun
> too, there seems to be a "next layer" of balance somewhere in them.
>
> Then again, it doesn't have to be unbalancing if the game is built around
> it from the beginning. I agree that *adding* crafting to already balanced
> game can have disastrous effects -- actually, adding any major feature to
> and already balanced game is probably going to change the feel of it
> dramatically.
Wow, a lot more posts that I don't have time to read while I peak in
here for a second. I will note that the gunsmithing example I was
going on about earlier was half-based on the idea that corporations
existing as background entities in the world would be using the
resources and tehcnology that they could find, modulated by the
orginizations that the player is going to be working against, to
produce the items that the player is going to run into. This would be
a setting where field construction is minimal (except perhaps with
special talent), and the player is not going to be doing most of the
crafting.
(The idea i'm toying with is a mission-based spy game, possibly with x-
com elements to the between-mission parts, which is where player
crafting would likely come in.)
So all in all, yeah, designed in from the beginning and as part of the
feel is important to making it work. If it's tacked on later, you'd
probably be better off with crafting that tacks things onto your
existing items, like ADOM has (IIRC).
> I've seen at least two computer role playing games practically built
> around crafting: Summon Nights and Final Fantasy 7, they both take
> completely different approaches, but the end result is pleasing. Of
> course, these approaches wouldn't really work as well in a roguelike.
Also Vagrant Story, in which crafting (or at least assembling) weapons
is essental to your survival, or at least your feeling that you're not
trying to beat monsters to death with a five pound sausage. (Me or my
brother got to that point -- probably went beyond where we should have
gotten with our equipment due to sheer stubbornness and possibly real-
time dodging.)
--
In-n-nout Weaver
Gerry Quinn
pau...@mbnet.fi says...
My 'blueprint' system could be retro-fitted to any roguelike with
artefacts, and probably even balanced quite well without too much
difficulty.
But I think that's not quite what what the OP is looking for - he wants
something based on crafting from the ground up.
- Gerry Quinn
R. Dan Henry
<ne...@sheep.art.pl> wrote:
>At Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:49:33 -0700,
> Ray Dillinger wrote:
>
>> I remain unconvinced that "crafting" as such adds much to
>> a roguelike game. I've rarely seen it *NOT* be damaging
>> to game balance.
>Then again, it doesn't have to be unbalancing if the game is built around
>it from the beginning.
Oh, I agree. I was going to say that, but I saw you said it first, so I
thought I'd AOL the sentiment. A roguelike that isn't built around
crafting will provide the equipment for a normal, non-crafting
adventurer's needs and so a crafter must either get super equipment that
is unbalancing or it isn't worth playing. So the most you get is a
fairly trivial benefit like keeping a steady arrow supply without having
to go to the store or a lack of balance -- or the crafter can have a
distinctive playstyle. Instead of fighting monsters with ever increasing
skill, the Mechanist combines items and animates them into ever more
sophisticated and powerful mechanical monsters who fight for him.
For that matter, Steamband's Aesthete class isn't really unbalanced, and
his enchanting and branding abilities are crafter-like. It does
encourage some minor scumming to build the gross levels of wealth
quicker, but it is one of the least painful forms of money-scumming as
you eventually don't even need to return to town to convert your piles
of branded weapons into cash.
The crafting elements of GearHead didn't seem unbalanced to me, either.
I think crafting has to be carefully monitored for balance and planning
ahead won't hurt -- much like combat systems, healing systems, spell
systems, monster and item generation, etc. But anything is easier to not
make broken if you plan it from the beginning, or at least in early
development, instead of trying to tack it onto an already complete game.
--
R. Dan Henry = danh...@inreach.com
If you wish to put anything I post on your website,
please be polite enough to ask first.
R. Dan Henry
>I'm curious what some of your opinions might be on the matter of
>crafting systems. Would
>you find it bothersome if much of the equipment was non-random? (Keep
>in mind that the
>materials available to you each game will be random, and thus there
>will be variety in
>the items people choose to make and use) Any ideas on how a freeform
>crafting system
>might preserve the character and idiosyncrasies of a more prescripted
>one? Which general
>approach might you prefer if you were to play such a game? Any other
>thoughts?
Any bonuses from base materials combine in a predictable way. Special
abilities are granted according to formulas -- but which formulas
produce what abilities (if any) are randomized each game. Let's take a
very simple system as an example.
I want to craft a shiny new dagger. I need a heat source, tools, and
materials. Let's assume all the smithing equipment is abstracted into an
anvil. I need materials for the blade, the grip, and the pommel. So this
gives me four elements to work with. Let's say the basic materials would
be an iron anvil, an iron ingot, a leather strip, and a pebble. Other
possibilities are a crystal anvil or a demon anvil, a steel ingot or a
mythryl ingot or a starmetal ingot, a dragon-leather strip or copper
wire or a troll-leather strip, and a fireruby or pearl.
So you have three anvil types, four ingot types, four grip types and
three pommel types for 3 x 4 x 4 x 3 = 144 possible combinations for
dagger-making. Now a crystal anvil always gives a +5 accuracy bonus to a
forged weapon and a troll-leather grip is worth +3 accuracy, while a
fireruby pommel adds +1d4 fire damage. So, if I use a crystal anvil, an
iron ingot, a troll-leather strip, and a fireruby to make my dagger, it
will have a nice +8 accuracy bonus and do an extra 1-4 points of fire
damage. Nifty. However, of the 144 combinations, 143 of them are
randomly assigned to 143 "special features". (Using all basic materials
never produces anything special.) Now, most of these special feature
slots don't do anything (of course, many could be filled with trivial
abilities, too), but 20 of them do have real special abilities:
1. Vampirism: Does an extra +1d6 damage to living creatures, heals this
much damage on wielder.
2. Elf-Slaying: Does double damage against elves.
3. Chicken-Slaying: Does triple damage against chickens. Does double
damage against fleeing monsters.
4. Mage-Slaying: For each spell the target can use, the weapon does one
additional point of damage.
5. Cleaving: Weapon ignores damage reductions from armor.
6. Ego Weapon: Every time you kill something with it, the weapon gives
you a congratulatory message ("Wow! You're the best!") and your morale
score is boosted by 1.
7. Rage: Every time you strike with this weapon you have a chance to go
into a berserker state.
8. Butchery: Every monster you kill with this weapon will leave a
corpse, already cut into chunks for dining on.
...
20. Anti-Magic: Any spell you cast while wielding this weapon costs
twice the normal spell points, but any spells cast at you have a 50%
chance of being negated.
If I got lucky with my dagger, in addition to my +8 accuracy and +1d4
fire damage, I could have the Elf-Slaying special ability.
Since a sword requires the same basic elements as a dagger, the same
assignments could be used for all sword-like blades, so having learned
how to make an Elf-Slaying Dagger, I know the formula for an Elf-Slaying
Absurdly Huge Sword, as well. Since maces and axes require a haft, they
either need a different set of assignments (and possibly have a
different set of possible abilities -- perhaps which abilities goes with
what item types is randomized each game) or the definition of a
particular material set needs to be flexible enough to handle the
differences. Well, there are lots of ways to implement this basic idea
and I think I've given examples enough.
One improvement would be to sort out special abilities by roughly how
special they are and have different levels of special abilities. If you
have "trivial", "minor", "major", and "great" special abilities, the
trivial ones could be assigned to items with one special material, the
minor abilities to items with two special materials, major to three
special materials, and great for four or more.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>But IMO, you should very definitely stick to the "static"
>approach; nothing should allow characters to make items
>better than they can otherwise easily get, or stack
>many enchantments together on the same item. You have
>enough trouble balancing the game without throwing in
>uber-items characters can make.
This can be balanced if the character that can make an uber-item has
some weakness that makes up for it.
Maybe you are decked out in the finest gear Central-Earth has ever seen,
but still have poorer odds of actually hitting with your Awesomeness
War-Blade of Universal-Slaying than a fighter would with his simple
Strong Long-Axe of Human-Hacking, not to mention hit points only the
most specialized mages would consider respectable.
Or maybe you have to sacrifice for every uber-item you make. Your Horn
of Artifactness may be able to shatter an ordinary dungeon level when
you blow it and deflect spells of darkness 90% of the time, but your
maximum character level is 29 instead of 30 and your (non-inflatable)
brawn and smarts stats are each one lower than you rolled.
If there is a hard clock to the game, the cost in creating items could
just be in time and materials.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>(On a positive note, for the same reason
>most people probably won't complain if "bone" is all around inferior
>to "wood" even if both are abundantly available. Not the same way
>they'd complain if by the time you could afford/create emerald, you
>could spend a bit more of abundantly available cash to get superior
>diamond.)
You could differentiate "bone" and "wood" by their effect on Necromantic
and Druidic magic -- wielding a bone spear would give Necromantic spells
a bonus and Druidic spells a malus, while a wooden spear would have the
opposite effect. This could also apply to spells from scrolls and other
items with a Necromantic/Druidic classification. Have effects like this
for various materials and different materials will be more or less
useful depending on what other abilities the PC is using.
Billy Bissette
news:cc88b3l5iav6jk2uu...@4ax.com:
> On Wed, 1 Aug 2007 07:37:07 +0000 (UTC), Radomir 'The Sheep'
Dopieralski
> <ne...@sheep.art.pl> wrote:
>
>>At Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:49:33 -0700,
>> Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>
>>> I remain unconvinced that "crafting" as such adds much to
>>> a roguelike game. I've rarely seen it *NOT* be damaging
>>> to game balance.
>
>>Then again, it doesn't have to be unbalancing if the game is built
around
>>it from the beginning.
>
> Oh, I agree. I was going to say that, but I saw you said it first, so
I
> thought I'd AOL the sentiment. A roguelike that isn't built around
> crafting will provide the equipment for a normal, non-crafting
> adventurer's needs and so a crafter must either get super equipment
that
> is unbalancing or it isn't worth playing. So the most you get is a
> fairly trivial benefit like keeping a steady arrow supply without
having
> to go to the store or a lack of balance -- or the crafter can have a
> distinctive playstyle.
There are different accessibilities to crafting to consider.
A separate character class for crafting should be one of the easiest
to balance against more "normal" styles. It will be sealed away from
the regular classes, and ultimately be composed of its own advantages
and disadvantages, just like the rest. Making a balanced crafter
would be akin to making a balanced magic user, priest, ranger, or
whatever other class expanded upon the basic idea of bashing monsters
with weapons in inventive and improved ways.
A crafter class might be able to make weapons superior to dungeon
finds, but would lack the skill in using them that a fighter class
would have, so the fighter stays competative or even superior even
though the fighter is restricted to dungeon finds. A potion crafter
might be best based off of magic users, taking into account the trade-
offs between the two methods, where one can stockpile but needs
resources and prep work (and inventory space) while the other is more
free to act on a moment but limited by mana recovery (which itself
may be assisted by potions or other devices).
Crafting being available to all characters is obviously more
upsetting to the nature of the game. This is true for either across
the board ability or by using a skill system where crafting can be
pursued. (A skill system may be the hardest to balance.) It is no
longer a non-fighter crafting a weapon, but also fighters making
weapons. This can throw off the whole weapon and armor generation
and availability in the game. One can cripple and restrict crafting
to the point that it is just a minor aid (like making arrows,) but
by that point one should wonder why they bothered implementing
crafting in the first place. Potions face similar issues. A magic
user that can create restore mana potions? And what happens to both
monster deadliness as well as healing spell balance if everyone can
craft healing potions without too much hassle. (Making it a hassle
against goes back to why you put it in in the first place. Were you
after crafting, or just looking for something to reduce scumming
and/or make more items useful even if just as raw materials or the
like.)
David Damerell
>Maybe you are decked out in the finest gear Central-Earth has ever seen,
>but still have poorer odds of actually hitting with your Awesomeness
>War-Blade of Universal-Slaying than a fighter would with his simple
>Strong Long-Axe of Human-Hacking, not to mention hit points only the
>most specialized mages would consider respectable.
You ought to find that fighter and come to some sort of arrangement.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Friday, July.
R. Dan Henry
<dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>Quoting R. Dan Henry <danh...@inreach.com>:
>>Maybe you are decked out in the finest gear Central-Earth has ever seen,
>>but still have poorer odds of actually hitting with your Awesomeness
>>War-Blade of Universal-Slaying than a fighter would with his simple
>>Strong Long-Axe of Human-Hacking, not to mention hit points only the
>>most specialized mages would consider respectable.
>
>You ought to find that fighter and come to some sort of arrangement.
And that's why multi-player games have balance issues single-player
games don't.