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A Crafting System that allows individual choice.

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Brainbot
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A Crafting System that allows individual choice.

I am going to seperate this into a few parts to make easier to find the different sections.

Overview and System Basics

Many games seem to handle crafting as a restrictive system with set recipes and effects which act as nothing more than a glorified trade system for various found items.
I would like to see a more creative system that doesn't require recipes but is still easy to use and can offer a more palpable IGC sink.

The system itself is fairly simple. By using MWM's version of enhancements, augments and refinements, instead of traditional useless components and removing the need for a recipe you can let players mix and match attributes in any fashion they want limited by whatever trade off value combining items has. Most augments and refinements should be readily available from in game stores and not require random drops.

To explain it more clearly. Assuming that Augments are going to be ways to increase certain aspects of powers like damage, speed, healing and so forth then a straight combining of two augments will improve the aspects involved.
For example combining damage and speed would result in your power doing more damage faster.
This is the most simple use of this crafting system and I will get into the more creative ways to use it shortly.

(To be continued)

Brainbot
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Trade offs and Limits

Trade offs and Limits

This system would require certain trade offs and limits so as to not become exploitive.

If each power has slots for up to 4 augments/refinements then it stand to reason no crafting could have more than 4 component augments to it.
For example you could combine 4 damage augments into a big damage augment but you couldn't add a fifth one.

Also, there should be a trade off when combining two augments.
For example adding one augment that gives a 10% bonus and another that gives a 10% bonus should not give a 20% bonus but instead give a 15% bonus.

Finally, there should be a hard limit as to how much bonus a power can gain from an augment of a particular type which improves as you level.
For example, You can only get a 100% bonus to a each aspect at max level, damage, speed, healing, ect. Any beyond that is wasted.

Brainbot
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Advanced System Part 1:

Advanced System Part 1: Refinements

Where this system gets creative is with the use of refinements.

As I understand it refinements in CoT will be items that alter the way your powers work to a limited degree. (If that isn't the way refinements work then we can pick another name for this part of crafting because this part is essential to the system.) These could be things like a 1 in 10 chance for a single target power to be AoE, a heal that has a 1 in 10 chance to also restore energy, or some kind of global effect like a recharge bonus to all powers after using the power the refinement is in.

These chances to have additional effects would be subject to the tradeoff and Limits rules above. combining two 1 in 10 chances to make a single target power be AoE would only be a 1.5 in 10 chance for that AoE. Limits on how high a chance for an effect to occur, how many effects you can combine and so on.

Players can craft items that combine aspects of augments and elements of refinements.
For example combining 2 damage augments and 2 chances for a single target to become AoE.

To make it more interesting, refinements can be expanded with more ways to affect the how a power works. Effects like increasing a melee/PBAoE powers range, adding or changing damage types, adding or increasing a mez, buff or heal effect to powers, chaining/infection component to powers and whatever else the devs can think of.

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Advanced System Part 2:

Advanced System Part 2: Consumables

This can also be used to make unique consumable powers. Having a list of starting points and power components you can mix and match to make your own consumable powers would be interesting.

To explain it better. You start with a template power which you modify based on choices you make.
For example you take a simple grenade consumable power. On its own it does nothing but now you can add up to 4 effects to that consumable power. If you want it to be an explosive fire grenade you add 1 fire element, 1 ranged element, 1 AoE element and 1 damage elements. If you want it to be a smoke grenade you add a range, AoE, stun and concealment effect.

This wouldn't be limited to just grenades, you could make magic wands, swords, throwing knives, guns or whatever else. If all the same options you have when picking the appearance of your powers is available when making these consumable powers they will give players the option to make their gadgets fit thematically to their characters.

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A more palpable IGC sink

A more palpable IGC sink

This can also act as an IGC sink. Having a cost to combine, re-slot, buying level appropriate augments/refinements, salvaging unwanted combinations and so on is expected but because the system is easy to learn difficult to master, does not have a failure to craft element and the components are easily come by players will be more apt to experiment with the system resulting in more IGC sink with less grumbling about cost.

It will also allow those players who like to craft to profit from their efforts by offering pre-made items on the market (which can act as another IGC sink with listing fees) but because of the ease of the crafting system those pre-made items will not become crazy expensive.

Brainbot
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Special Recipe, Augment,

Special Recipe, Augment, Refinement and Consumable power drops

At the beginning I said that we shouldn't be required to have recipes and that most augments and refinements should be available from in game stores. This does not remove the possibility of special recipes, augments/refinements or pre-made consumable powers.

I would like these special rewards to be selected upon completion of certain challenges or from trials and to not have them be randomized drops. I find it frustrating to be seeking a specific item only to find I am either required to buy it for huge amounts of IGC on the market or spend extended periods doing the same content until earning it. That's my feelings on it and not a demand in any way.

Anyway, you could have special augments/refinements that are more powerful or unique from store bought ones which players can use on their own or combine using the same rules as above.

The special recipes would be the catalyst component in creating a special augment/refinement consumable power that cannot be further combined. As this is just a harder to earn version of crafting that I would not like included in the game I would instead treat these 'recipes' as the catalyst for a quest/ series of quests to acquire the items needed to make the special slottable. For example you get the plans for the 'Black Hole Grenade' and it says you need a part of an anti-matter meteor, alien metal and future circuitry. So now you have to either steal or earn those special parts, depending on your alignment, in a series of missions.

Pre-made consumable powers could be enhanced versions of ones players can make with special names, unique style or just effects unavailable in normal crafting.

These special rewards would in most cases demand a larger cost on the market but that is as it should be. Again, if these were made to be selected instead of random it would keep the cost down because they would not as unattainable for casual players.

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Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

I think a system like this would be very easy to pick up right away especially if the system was completely transparent with the percentages both before and after combining.
It would also be difficult to master because it would offer so much variety allowing min maxers vast opportunities to tweak loadouts.

Because it is simple to use and does not require random drops it is friendly to both the casual and dedicated player.

It can allow for each player to explore a characters powers more extensively and with proper limits/trade off rules would be difficult to become exploitive.
Because of the systems limits/trade offs there should be room to be creative with loadouts instead of focusing on a specific part of the holy trinity. Loadouts with interesting power refinements will make each character more likely to be unique from one another even if both share the same powers.

Its a system that is as simple or as difficult as the individual player wants to make it and the difference between the two is not giant expanses but a nuanced separation that caters to individual play styles.

This system can also be only slightly more difficult for devs to both implement and easier to expand upon in the future because the core elements, augments and refinements, are presumably already going to be balanced so balancing the combining of these is in the same area already being done. To be clear, this is more work than just including pre-designed recipes with pre-set effects but it is a crafting system that I think worth the effort.

Thoughts?

Radiac
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You may want to have a random

You may want to have a random outcome component to the crafting process, like when you make a thing by combining other things, you have a REALLY small chance of getting a Very Rare as a crafting result. Those Very Rares would then be highly sought after and expensive on the market. This would cause people with a bunch of common Augments to pay IGC to craft them and take a swing at a Very Rare instead of just selling them or if they do, the market for them might remain decent. That is, a chance at a random Very Rare result might create demand for the less Augments that go into that process.

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Brainbot
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I generally dislike random

I generally dislike random crafting results, especially in this case because the core idea is to have as much control in the crafting process as possible. I can see how having a random critical craft success would have players craft more and act as a greater IGC sink. The sink could be increased with items which would increase the chance to get the critical success. Still I am not sure I would like having that random element even with the increase it would give to IGC sink.

But just to remind you, I have left the possibility for the game to include random drops of a higher grade augment or refinement that could be used in the crafting process. This would give the game a better than normal crafted slottable. It would be like the difference between slotting a IO and a Rare IO in CoH except you decide what it would be. To increase the IGC the devs could just increase the crafting fees for items with these rare augments and refinements. I am more comfortable spending more IGC to get what I want than I am wasting a bunch of IGC getting what I don't want.

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If I'm deliberately making

If I'm deliberately making something for a distinct purpose, WHAT I create shouldn't be controlled by RNGesus.

Star Trek Online has a "randomized" crafting system as far as Item Modifiers goes. You get to pick the "category" of item, and the "Mark number" (i.e. Level) that it gets made at, but after that everything is random.

I recently "suffered" through this terrible game design during an Upgrade Weekend. I crafted over 1000 Polaron Turret Mk II items ... all so I could generate 7x Polaron Turret Mk II [Acc]x2 [Rapid] and 5x Polaron Turret Mk II [Acc]x2 [Snare]. That's over 1000 crafting attempts to yield 12 items that I actually wanted to use. Took DAYS of doing nothing but waiting for the Crafting Timers to complete. It was **NOT FUN** and by the end of it, I wanted to have nothing to do with the STO crafting system EVER AGAIN.


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I would certainly say I

I would certainly say I dislike the idea of random bonuses from crafting. If you craft a damage augment at level "X" of rarity "Y" it should be the same as any other damage augment of level "X" and rarity "Y". From a database / auction house standpoint, the return on investment is simply not there.

However, I am open to the idea of every once in a while that crafting an augment of level "X" and rarity "Y", you instead occasionally get a damage augment of level "X" and rarity "Y + 1". There might also be ways to increase the chances of this happening.

However, you would also be able to craft a damage augment of level "X" and rarity "Y + 1" directly. However, crafting it directly would probably be more expensive in terms of resources required.

To address Redlynne's point, I dislike the idea of crafting being a significant time sink. With my personal (non-dev) hat on, I would not mind if crafting was virtually instantaneous. However, as a dev, I will not make promises I cannot keep, as playtesting might tell us that it should not be instantaneous, instead taking a small amount of time.

Regards,

Felix

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In a system in which people

In a system in which people play a role, the performance of the entire system will depend on the motivations of the people in the system. You can quote me on that.

Thus in a crafting system with an RNG, if people want the 1-in-a-thousand result they will craft a thousand items to get it. So RNG becomes no longer a sometimes beneficial surprise as it was intended to be; rather, it becomes a time and resource morass between the crafter and the desired result.

I am a huge fan of crafting in MMORPG so long as we are crafting gear and the act of crafting requires a crafting skill. But I 've said it before and I'll say it again, I do not think that paradigm is appropriate for a superhero game. (it might be appropriate for supervillians, but we can get to that later)

So if crafting is not appropriate for a superhero game, what is? I like where Brainbot was going with some of his idea. I like that crafting skill is unnecessary. I like that recipes are unnecessary. I like the Final Fantasy-esque way he proposed that we can combine different augment pieces together to obtain different whole augment results. Some trial and error would be required to find out which sub-augment pieces combine into what whole augments, but it would never be random and it would never change after it was known.

It also accomodates the use of rare augment pieces to make more powerful wholes.

Relatedly:
In a superho game, we don't craft gear, we craft our own abilities. We hone them, train them and practice them. Included in those abilities may be the support network we establish with informants, suppliers, and backup situational awareness type help. So if we are going to have crafting, and it looks like we are certainly going to, I'd like to see these types of efforts included in the crafting tiers. Do I spend my crafting points training my quick attack or do I spend my crafting points making friends with the hacker I met last mission? I used the term 'crafting points' as a non-attributable term for the time resources and effort associated with obtaining and socketing augments and refinements.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I find randomized crafting

I find randomized crafting results, any randomized crafting results, are better suited to games that are gear focused. The same goes for any crafting time requirements.

I expect the gear in CoT to be similar to the gear in CoH. I don't think CoT will treat gear as something to tally up into some kind of attack value system but instead will use gear as a way to let players fine tune a character to their play style.
CoH had a very good system that allowed players to adjust what a powers stats were in their enhancements but it fell kind of short in being a system that offered much in the way of real variety. Most powers had a formulaic load out with almost no variation. Even after Enhancement Diversification power load outs didn't have much variety. It didn't matter what powers you had or your play style, attacks powers got accuracy and damage mods, mez's had control increases and heals got health mods.

What I am hoping this crafting system would do is offer more interesting avenues to players than a few choices in power modification. With it you can still focus on a particular aspect of a power like you did with CoH but by having refinements slightly tweak the way a power works instead of just how strong it is you can have a pretty deep rabbit hole for players to crawl down. Having a refinement that trades some damage for some healing would be an interesting choice to make. Or maybe a refinement that makes a power use more energy but has a larger radius. How about linked refinements so you can set up your own combo system.
None of these tweaks would be huge changes to the powers, just enough that you can find a combination that suits you as an individual.

Like I said, initially this would be a bit more work for the devs because they would need to come up with a formula they could apply to powers so that no tweak would be game breaking. But once they have that formula they would be able to release new refinements when they want. They could even postpone the more advanced aspect of this crafting system for an update after release and just start with a basic system that allows players to just combine augments. After the games launch they can expand on the system and introduce the refinements aspect a little at a time.

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

In a superho game, we don't craft gear, we craft our own abilities. We hone them, train them and practice them. Included in those abilities may be the support network we establish with informants, suppliers, and backup situational awareness type help. So if we are going to have crafting, and it looks like we are certainly going to, I'd like to see these types of efforts included in the crafting tiers. Do I spend my crafting points training my quick attack or do I spend my crafting points making friends with the hacker I met last mission? I used the term 'crafting points' as a non-attributable term for the time resources and effort associated with obtaining and socketing augments and refinements.

I completely agree with the idea that crafting in a superhero game should be treated more abstract. One hero may be in a lab with a soldering iron turning an desk lamp into an exo-skeleton while another could be punching a heavy bag. The end result is the same, they hit bad guys harder.

I am not sure that crafting is the place for a support network like you describe. Those sound more like they should be a part of a separate social system that includes contacts and allies.

Huckleberry wrote:

Some trial and error would be required to find out which sub-augment pieces combine into what whole augments, but it would never be random and it would never change after it was known.

Just to be clear, my system does not have recipes you learn by trial and error. Augments could be combined in any way providing nothing exceeds the limits imposed by the system. If a crafted augment could have 4 uncrafted augments as components those 4 uncrafted augments could be anything, 4 damage, 3 damage and an accuracy, 2 damage and 2 accuracy, 1 damage and 3 accuracy or 4 accuracy. It's meant to be a easy to learn but difficult to master process that allows as much freedom as possible in its use.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Just to be clear, my system does not have recipes you learn by trial and error. Augments could be combined in any way providing nothing exceeds the limits imposed by the system. If a crafted augment could have 4 uncrafted augments as components those 4 uncrafted augments could be anything, 4 damage, 3 damage and an accuracy, 2 damage and 2 accuracy, 1 damage and 3 accuracy or 4 accuracy. It's meant to be a easy to learn but difficult to master process that allows as much freedom as possible in its use.

Fair enough.

But I thought I would leapfrog that idea, or piggyback that idea. I'm on an animal imagery kick, apparently.

let's say you have 10 augment pieces and it takes 3 augment pieces to make a single whole augment.
1 piece provides healing
3 pieces provide increased damage
1 piece increases range
1 piece increases the damage but delivers it over three seconds
1 piece increases duration of effect
1 piece increases penetration through defenses like evasion parry or block
1 piece decreases cast time

Now I go to my dojo to work on improving my abilities. What do I work on?
I can combine all three +Dam pieces for a full-powered damage augment

I can combine 2 +DAM pieces and +PEN so while it may not be as powerful, it will hit more often.

I can combine the +heal with the +range and the +duration to improve my ranged heal over time support ability.

But I feel inspired and instead I create a vampiric attack by combining my +heal with the +DOT and the +duration and I put this new vampiric augment into my quick attack, so now whenever I attack someone with my quick attack skill it applies a small DOT that also heals me and lasts for four seconds. Of course, since it is my quick attack, the effects will end up stacking and I feel pretty good about the results.

This is the kind of combinations I was referring to and while they may not have been what you had initially imagined, it is where my mind took it.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I am not familiar with STO

I am not familiar with STO and its crafting, but I agree that I do not like the idea of a set real-time timer for crafting stuff. As Red said, it's frustrating and arbitrary and causes you to want to just log on, check your crafting, the log off. I rather prefer allowing the player to go out and do "hero stuff" for XP while having a crafting project in progress, such that XP gained while crafting the thing causes the thing to progress further. This would be akin to Iron Man going out and beating on Mandarin while Jarvis has the Mk XXXXIV armor being made in the secret automated manufacturing plant. I think villains could justify the same thing in a similar way. Replace Iron Man with Dr. Doom and Jarvis with random Latverian peons and/or Doombots, and you're there. Granted, there's a disconnect there logically, that requires suspension of disbelief. WE can all logically notice that my XP earned probably has no real effect on crafting progress in any directly relatable way as I'm describing, but nonetheless, it would give level-capped toons a reason to go out and do content again to get crafting done if nothing else. This could mean that you'd want to have a toon that's good at earning XP fast to complete projects faster, while maybe a different toon would be better at acquiring items and stuff to craft with.

As far as variety goes, I think CoX had as much variety as you could get or want, actually. I mean in the age of the IO system. The post-IO build process required you to figure out which stuff you wanted in which powers, and even though you generally wanted damage, the different sets all had damage, so you picked stuff based on global stat buffs and procs more than anything else. The fact that there were bonuses for completing all 6 parts of an IO set and people still did a lot of Frankenslotting is a testament to the diversity that system had. Granted, there were guides and stuff if you wanted to go with the internet's idea of the "best" build, but that's unavoidable. There will always be a "book" on everything like that. It's up to the player to be creative or go with the conventional wisdom, but the conventional wisdom will exist, and as such the more people follow it the less variety there seems to be.

I'm not sure how many different types of Augments a given attack power will be able to have. Apart from Damage, it sounds like a lot of things about the power will be more Refinement-modulated than Augment-modulated. If a blast attack has a secondary effect like endo drain, you could probably Augment damage and endo drain. Everything else would probably be Refinement territory, would it not? As such, I wonder how much or how often people will just back up the truck on damage and take the simplistic route.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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I've stated this elsewhere,

I've stated this elsewhere, and please don't take the following as anything remotelynsrt in stone:

One thing I'd like to see (and this is similar to what Felix was talking about), is crafting sets of Augs / Refs with a range of bonuses for the set. Where with additional resource costs, a player can in essence "reroll"' the bonus value upwards. Essentially adding in some random elements which are always an improvement off the base, butnthe core Aug / Ref remains the same. Add in bonuses to initial crafting of and improving the "reroll" for obtaining certain crafting badges and you add in some depth to crafting.

As for speed of crafting, something I'd like to see for some additoonal depthnof game play in crafting is to apply a timer to all crafted items. Then add an optional mini-game puzzle which can be played to speed up the process. Again, adding a little depth to crafting especially since we aren't using resource nodes for gathering and such. This optional mini-game can also have ties to certain crafting badges which could give advantages like wild-card puzzle pieces (as an example) with limited time uses per day. These mini-puzzles can also be connected with the cash shop to provide the option to purchase bundles wild-card pieces so players can use their real world cash to save time in crafting.


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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

One thing I'd like to see (and this is similar to what Felix was talking about), is crafting sets of Augs / Refs with a range of bonuses for the set. Where with additional resource costs, a player can in essence "reroll"' the bonus value upwards. Essentially adding in some random elements which are always an improvement off the base, butnthe core Aug / Ref remains the same. Add in bonuses to initial crafting of and improving the "reroll" for obtaining certain crafting badges and you add in some depth to crafting.

My entire system is about having ranges of bonuses except the player chooses what bonuses they want and there isn't a random element to the crafting process. As far as having 'sets' that people can collect, that is entirely possible with my system. If you combine a complete set of 'Tannim's Magic Crowbar' it can provide synergy bonuses as an example. As I said before, random or selected special augments and refinements drops can fit in nicely with this system.

Tannim222 wrote:

As for speed of crafting, something I'd like to see for some additoonal depthnof game play in crafting is to apply a timer to all crafted items. Then add an optional mini-game puzzle which can be played to speed up the process. Again, adding a little depth to crafting especially since we aren't using resource nodes for gathering and such. This optional mini-game can also have ties to certain crafting badges which could give advantages like wild-card puzzle pieces (as an example) with limited time uses per day. These mini-puzzles can also be connected with the cash shop to provide the option to purchase bundles wild-card pieces so players can use their real world cash to save time in crafting.

Having a timed crafting process is not something I am against. I am not sure it is as good a fit for a game like this. It fits more into games that focus on gear and where players have one main character they play the most. Because MWM goal is to have a strong element of replay to its longevity, locking players into periods of waiting for crafting to complete before they can see the results seems against that concept. Of course if the actual crafting time was minutes and not hours or days then just ignore this part.
I envision a game where swapping loadouts is common to encourage as much experimentation with the crafting system an individual player wants. Gone are the days where games lock you into builds and it becomes a chore or costs real money to fix a mistake you may have made at some point. Locking players into decisions is no longer an expected aspect of games and now players expect to have more freedom in ability customization. Games allow you to swap gear, powers and abilities on the fly now so you can choose how to face a specific challenge.
If crafting times take too long then it will frustrate modern gamers.

Radiac
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I know nothing about

I know nothing about programming, so I have to ask, is the code for the crafting mini-game more, less, or about the same amount of work as putting in a pinball machine that actually can be played in the dance club? I ask in order to get a sense of scale for the undertaking. Because that, the pinball thing, has been brought up, and the response was "takes too much effort". Granted, the crafting mini-game would be an INTEGRAL part of the game, and thus probably more worth that effort, but as I've indicated before, I don't love the idea of my character having to spend a lot of time in the lab solving Rubik's cube to make Augments. If it's a pretty simple "assemble the parts" type deal that's really straightforward, ok, but if you actually have to play it with some skill to make a thing, I start to worry that I'm going to be spending more time trying to get good at the crafting minigame than I spend saving the day in missions etc. I'd like to avoid that.

I also wonder how you can make a minigame like this which creates Augments (when Augments are really nebulously defined at this point, and may end up just as nebulous on launch day), and have that mini-game not violate anyone's notion of how and why Augments work, for them. I mean, for one toon, the Augment might be some kind of techy thing, someone else might think of it as training or exercise, or magic, etc. Is it possible to make the minigame generic enough that you're not treating all Augments as technology, for example?

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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As for the subject of bind of

As for the subject of bind of equip, bind on acquire, bind to account and bind to character, I think some amount of that is necessary to actually sink IGC, and games still do have that. Tons of stuff in GW2 are bound in all sorts of different ways. You can still unequip stuff, but you can't necessarily sell it intact, you might have to de-craft it, if you're even allowed to do that. Some raw materials in that game are account-bound on acquire, like Bloodstone Dust. When my Elementalist got his last Hero Point and unlocked Tempest, he got the Tempset's Loop item, which I cannot sell or trade away to anyone, you MUST earn it to unlock it. It is therefore worthless in terms of gold value, but still cool to have for costume purposes.

I'm not against randomness in the rewards dropped for doing stuff in game or some amount of added extra random thing when crafting. Maybe not anything strictly WORSE than what you wanted, but occasionally something better would be fine, for me.

I'm also not against bind on equip, bind on acquire, account bound or character bound as options. That stuff makes the items made non-refundable and as such thoroughly sinks IGC when you use it to turn lesser items into the final result you want. I'm not against that. YES it makes it a drag when you change your mind and want to go back and make a different item, but that's what playing more missions to get more loot is for. If you want to have a de-crafting tool, fine, but make it cost IGC and give back a small fraction of what you put in to make the thing in the first place. That's how the GW2 version works.

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As I said, I do not like

As I said, I do not like having the bonuses be variable. That is not to say we won't do it that way, just that I personally would prefer the bonuses to be fixed for a given improvement at a given level. There are lots reasons why, mostly to do with the back end. I also dislike the idea of people having to grind out an augment to get that extra 0.1%. However, as I stated before, having the RNG come in to play so that when you craft an augment, you have a chance of getting something better, well, sometimes folks critically succeed. And maybe there are things you can do to improve that chance.

As far as how you represent what the augments / refinements (improvements) are, I consider it as generic or specific as the animations system. Just as you might imagine your ranged heat damage to be a wizard's fireball or an inventor's microwave beam, your improvements may be similarly variable. Do we need to hard code the details of that into the system, or letting it be imaginary enough? Do we need a Conan's augment of increased melee damage or Iron Man's boosted musculature, or are we OK with "this augment boosts damage to health"?

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

This is the kind of combinations I was referring to and while they may not have been what you had initially imagined, it is where my mind took it.

Thats pretty much the basic aspect of my crafting system. The only thing I would clarify is that augments only affect a powers stats while refinements affect a powers behavior.

Let me expand upon my description of the system to illustrate the differences and how it can allow for more variety and uniqueness to each characters loadout.

You have two types of slottable modifications, Augments and refinements.

Augments, as I said, affect the stats of a power. Anything that can be summed up completely in a numerical way. Damage, accuracy, recharge, activation, power cost, buff/debuff amount, health, protection, mez strength and range. I think thats all of the stats a power can have but I could have missed one, pretty deep into the Nog now. The basic crafting system of my suggestion allows any of these to be combined in any way a player desires. The thing is augments only affect stats a power currently has. If you have a simple single target attack that does 10 damage each time it hits you won't turn it into a vampire attack by adding a health augment. Unless a power already has a mez effect adding a mez strength augment won't give it the ability to stun.

Refinements affect how the power behaves. There are too many elements to list but here are a few to give an idea, AoE, single target, mez type, damage type, burst and DoT to name a few common ones. If combining augments is the basic crafting system, refinements is the advanced system. Using an AoE refinement in a single target power will give that power some AoE element. Using a mez type refinement in a power with no mez ability will give that power a chance to mez now. Or you can put that mez type in a power that does have a mez type and change the type of mez you do or at least give a chance to change the mez with each use of the power. The point is refinements won't actually make a power stronger. If you add the AoE, the power will split the damage of the single target among the foes for example.

Those common behaviors of powers are not the only way refinements could affect powers. You can add less common or completely new behaviors to powers. What about a player who wants add a magnetic element to his attacks so each time he punches a guy all other foes in range are pulled towards him a little. How about another who wants to have each attack slowly increase the damage his PBAoE does. Anything the devs can think of can be a refinement.

Now any of these can be combined with any others to allow for some unique combinations.

Like I was saying before, there is very little variety in loadouts unless you introduce something that changes a powers behavior. A power that deals damage will have players focus on dealing damage above everything else. A power that heals has that aspect focused on. By just accepting that fact and having very clear limits on a powers stats which can be easily reached and leaving room for refinements to be added to the mix allows players to play around with the way a character behaves. This way a players natural inclination towards min maxing is appeased and the game is designed to allow for it but still lets players sacrifice elements of min maxing if they so desire, all the while players can further play with a powers behavior as much or as little as they want.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

My entire system is about having ranges of bonuses except the player chooses what bonuses they want and there isn't a random element to the crafting process.

Still leads to a search for the Optimum Meta where anything that doesn't maximally support that gets regarded as Vendor Bait. This really is something where we want to tread carefully and with forethought.

Tannim222 wrote:

As for speed of crafting, something I'd like to see for some additoonal depthnof game play in crafting is to apply a timer to all crafted items.

Personally, I'd rather have a system where you turn over the mats to a Contact/Ally NPC and ask them to do the crafting for you rather than going to an Invention Table and doing ... well ... this ...

... while waiting for a crawl bar to complete. If the different Contacts/Allies offer different Augments/Refinements in exchange for materials, then you get to a point of "Gotta Get 'Em All" when it comes to "collecting" the Contacts/Allies who can craft stuff on your behalf (since not all of them will be able to). It's still a case of dumping materials into the trash compactor to get what you want (later), and the more ... complex ... the crafting, the longer it will take, but you'd be able to specify what you want to obtain and pick from what the NPC can "do" for you. That way, rather than clogging up your inventory with Permission Slips Recipes to make "one off" copies of whatever, it turns into a big game of Who You Know and What Can THEY Do For YOU? You can then use that for all kinds of hooks or time sinks (and/or IGC sinks) as needed. Heck, you could even build in a "hurry up" feature where if you OVERPAY in IGC for whatever it is, the NPC will craft it for you faster ... meaning if you want to be a Ebil Marketeer™ you can simply spend TIME instead of IGC getting stuff crafted.

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I understand why using a

I understand why using a contact/ally/ auto-crafting system is appealing. But I also think it is just about the worst attempt at ceafting tthere is. Might as well just be saying each one of those is a store.

Crafting, to me, has at least some form of plsyer involvement. Consider that this game aleadynremoves resource nodes, skill systems surrounding how to collect of resource nodes, no systems invoved in different item crafts. Leaving most aquisitions obtained either by combat or in game world purchase (or trade). The combat portion is already a given activity rewuired for any other advancement in the game.

If the there is to ne any form of crafting, even automated in some fashion, adding mini-game decrease time for completion keeps the player actively involved with the game inna way that is directly related to the activity. Making additonal tie-ins to badges in combination with the above adds depth to the system.

Finaly, providing a hook to crafting where a player can use the cash shop as a short cut on time adds to the possible uses of the cash shop. Which just so happens to fall in line with one of reasons the cash shop is being made, use of real world cash to save time in the game.


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I like Red's NPC idea and

I like Red's NPC idea and would add that the NPC might ask you to do missions for them to craft stuff faster, or before they agree to craft the thing at all. Not just "you have to do missions to unlock the Crafting function, then they craft stuff for you forever" but maybe that plus "and they only progress on your crafting project while you're doing missions they gave you".

Then you could do things like offer bonus rewards of various kinds each day for doing different content, which content might be good for crafting through one NPC or another that day. Bonuses could be things like bonus items drops at the end of the mission, or bonus IGC drop rates during, etc.

The "combine stuff that drops and it always yields the same result" thing wasn't even done in CoX during the heyday of the SO Enhancements. Even those had a percentage chance to NOT combine and screw you, when you combined things that weren't precisely the same leve. I'd rather see a small percentage chance to combine and get something BETTER, if anything.

I think in the big picture, you know your game is going to drop IGC and items on people, and you need them to interact with the market to use those things to make or buy the items they want to use in their toon's builds. This means the odds of getting exactly the thing you want off of a random drop have to be very low, and that the system has to provide a way for the many, many low-grade items that drop to be somehow converted into something we ultimately want, else they sit there doing nothing. Whether or not NPCs are willing to foolishly buy valueless items for IGC is another question, but as long as it's like 1-100 IGC per item and not the 100k INF that you used to get for common IO recipes in CoX, I think it will be less inflationary than CoX. Also, every processing step should cause you to lose something. Crafting should cost IGC, buy/sell on market should have a transaction fee. Slotting a thing into a power should either cause it to bind on equip such that you cannot ever get it back out of there (without paying MORE IGC to do so) or if you can unslot it, you still can't sell it, you can only de-craft it and recover less than what it took to make the thing, plus the de-craft costs IGC too.

The whole system should sink IGC and cause you to do more content and get more stuff if and when you want to make any upgrade changes to your build. The fact that these things have no real world wear and tear on them make them very durable goods, so they have to ultimately end up being destroyed or locked in a place where you cant recover their full IGC value that was invested in making them.

I like randomness because it makes the game more thrilling when you randomly get a purple and I would try to recapture that feeling which I had in CoX. The idea of always equal "pay" for equal "work" with no chance of a very rare dropping on me at random is not as good as the randomness, to me. This is not a game that's so competitive that I'm going to care whether or not someone else has just gotten a purple and I didn't. Good for them, maybe I'll get one some time, whatever.

In order to maintain the rarity of very rare items, you need some essential, unique component that drops from the game very rarely that is absolutely required to make the purple in question, like the Recipes in CoX. I wouldn't call it a recipe, but the fact remains, if you could just gather up umpteen raw materials of no particular rareness and make a purple, then everyone will mechanically crank out the best gear in no time and they won't actually BE all that rare, which defeats the purpose of their extreme rareness.

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For the record I'm not

For the record I'm not against cash shop purchases as a way to make things craft faster.

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Here's an idea, you need

Here's an idea, you need various drops to start crafting an Augment you want (like, the good kind). At least one of them is as rare as you need it to preserve rarity. Then, when you go to craft the thing, based on how good it is, it takes a long time to make. The rarer it is, the more powerful and the longer it takes. Maybe it just takes time and you have to wait, but then can reduce that time to some extent by playing and doing missions, etc, or by paying IGC. That reduces the crafting time a little. To reduce it a LOT, you could buy a thingy in the cash shop to make it craft significantly faster.

Not selling Augments, not even selling components, just selling a thingy that accelerates the rate at which you can make them.

Even there, I don't see why you couldn't base the timer on XP earned while the crafting project is active rather than real time. That is, the rate of completion is based not on time but on XP earned while the project is active. Either way it can be set up to be as long or short of a wait as you want it to be, then you have the cash shop accelerator that makes it take WAY less time or way less XP earned to finish the thing.

I wouldn't be against that.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

That way, rather than clogging up your inventory with Permission Slips Recipes to make "one off" copies of whatever,

One, who says you'll need those old style "permission slips" to craft anything? We are looking to improve how cracting worked from the old game and that was one of those things which we worked out I think pretty well.

Redlynne wrote:

it turns into a big game of Who You Know and What Can THEY Do For YOU?

We already have the part of Who You Know related to crafting, and this would be doubling down on that part which I believe to be a mistake (sorry can't get into details here). Further more, for the system to be considered a player-crafting system, the player should, as I said earlier, actively involved in the process, otherwise it isn't crafting anymore. It also takes agency away from the player where earning crafted related badges is concerned, which can play a part in creating additional hooks into the crafting system.

Redlynne wrote:

rather than going to an Invention Table and doing ... well ... this ...
... while waiting for a crawl bar to complete

Once again, at least then there is a part where player agency is involved. But I think that the part where a player is at a crafting station putting it all together isn't necessarily where the animation is necessary. I have no issues with the player using a station to load out a series of items to craft and they can walk away. But there would be time involved. No, the animation plays out (customizable of course) when the player actively engages with the crafting system to work out the mini-game puzzles to shorten the timers necessary to complete the craft.

Brainbot wrote:

Augments, as I said, affect the stats of a power. Anything that can be summed up completely in a numerical way. Damage, accuracy, recharge, activation, power cost, buff/debuff amount, health, protection, mez strength and range

Augments are defined as what the power does. Examples include damage health, hold, debuff resistance. Accuracy, recharge, power cost and so forth are not Augments. Technically, damage type is an augment because its where you'll find Power Set Augments to go into a Power Set Socket and possibly change a part or all of the damage type of an attack set. You're also likely to find stuff like those additional effects such as added a control effect to a damage attack that didn't previously have one.

Refinements are defined as how a delivers what it does or functions. Here is where you'll find accruacy, recharge, energy cost, and even possibly area effect (though not likely at launch), among some other possible Refinements.


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Felix wrote:
Felix wrote:

As I said, I do not like having the bonuses be variable. That is not to say we won't do it that way, just that I personally would prefer the bonuses to be fixed for a given improvement at a given level. There are lots reasons why, mostly to do with the back end. I also dislike the idea of people having to grind out an augment to get that extra 0.1%. However, as I stated before, having the RNG come in to play so that when you craft an augment, you have a chance of getting something better, well, sometimes folks critically succeed. And maybe there are things you can do to improve that chance.

I can get behind this. If I'm crafting a damage improvement of a certain level, I'd like to get one as an end product. But a chance to "crit the roll" to get a bonus would be pretty cool - even if it's not a boost to the base effect but a small bonus to another. For instance, say you are crafting a damage boost that would normally give (just hauling numbers out of thin air here) +20% to damage. If you "critically craft", you could get another +5% damage added on top, or maybe another effect like +5% accuracy, -5% cooldown, -5% "mana" cost, +10% to a secondary effect, +5% reserve generation (if it even works that way), etc., so instead of a plain jane "Augment Damage" you get an "Augment Damage [DAM]" or "[ACC]" or the like.

Quote:

As far as how you represent what the augments / refinements (improvements) are, I consider it as generic or specific as the animations system. Just as you might imagine your ranged heat damage to be a wizard's fireball or an inventor's microwave beam, your improvements may be similarly variable. Do we need to hard code the details of that into the system, or letting it be imaginary enough? Do we need a Conan's augment of increased melee damage or Iron Man's boosted musculature, or are we OK with "this augment boosts damage to health"?

While having specific items represented as the augments/refinements can add a bit more lore-flavour to the game, I was quite alright with the Training and IO enhancements in COH to be generic "Increases Damage", "Increases Accuracy". Quite frankly - trying to remember what some of the DO and SO enhancements did just by name was a pain at times - especially for things we generally slot and forget about.

Now - if you eventually have special augment sets - I am cool with giving them specific names, like "Aegis Shield", "Offensive Matrix" and the like. Even sets named after specific in-universe characters or entities; "Anthems Armor", "Tannenbomb's Explosive Ornaments" or "Rook's Colors".

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Oh ... I think I see what you

Oh ... I think I see what you're getting at Tannim222.

Using numbers PURELY for purposes of illustration ...

Let's say that crafting something would normally take 30 minutes to complete if the Player does nothing other than Push The Button and walk away.

BUT ...

There are a bunch of little mini-games that the Player can play which will reduce that Time to Complete ... say by 60 seconds per mini-game, and Players have up to 10 seconds to complete each mini-game (and may not need to use all 10 seconds to "win"). So by actively "playing the crafting game(s)" Players can complete their crafting in less than 30 minutes (maybe even less than 5 minutes?)

Is that the kind of thing you were getting at Tannim222?


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Any system where you can

Any system where you can "crit for extra goodies" that aren't available any other way than getting the crits is going to quickly demote all non-crit results to "trash" status in the eyes of the Min-Max Crowd, which has quite a lot of members ...


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I'm sorry, but I liked the

I'm sorry, but I liked the crafting table in CoH. There was No Time wasted in making stuff (that I recall), you just put the ingredients in the blender, pushed 'Frappe', and you got your item. I definitely don't want to spend my play-time banging rocks together to make metal, then banging metal together to make ingots, then banging ingots together to make a sprocket, repeating the process for other parts, and then assembling my 'thing' and hoping I get what I want.

I want to go to the vending machine and get the 'thing', bam, done. I'll happily hand over buckets of mystery-junk, if that's what it takes to feed the thing.

Yeah, yeah, I know, there are lots of people that enjoy the 'meta game' of crafting stuff. And these Player Craftsmen/persons are an integral part of a well-functioning Economy, I get it. Sometimes, I'm one of those crafters. However, Most of the time, I want to beat up bad-guys and foil evil plots. I like being a Hero, not a blacksmith.

If the system says I have to spend some time, then let me spend my time beating up goons for the 'goon juice' that my crafting NPC needs, in exchange for my 'thing'. If, instead, my character needs to hand-craft the 'thing', then let's move it Out of the game. I'll run the 'Crafting App' while watching cartoons, or reading the forums. Or, I'll load up the craft-a-matic and let it run, while _I_ sleep, or get on with real-life, and my character is idle.

However, ideally, 'vending machine', bam.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

Oh ... I think I see what you're getting at Tannim222.
Using numbers PURELY for purposes of illustration ...
Let's say that crafting something would normally take 30 minutes to complete if the Player does nothing other than Push The Button and walk away.
BUT ...
There are a bunch of little mini-games that the Player can play which will reduce that Time to Complete ... say by 60 seconds per mini-game, and Players have up to 10 seconds to complete each mini-game (and may not need to use all 10 seconds to "win"). So by actively "playing the crafting game(s)" Players can complete their crafting in less than 30 minutes (maybe even less than 5 minutes?)
Is that the kind of thing you were getting at Tannim222?

Yeah that is mostly what I'd like to see. With crafting badges providing limited daily use bonuses to make the game easier and speed up completion even faster.

Redlynne wrote:

Any system where you can "crit for extra goodies" that aren't available any other way than getting the crits is going to quickly demote all non-crit results to "trash" status in the eyes of the Min-Max Crowd, which has quite a lot of members ...

The only difference of opinion Inhavenwith Felix is in that crit bonus be variable in what bonus is supplied. Say there is a bonus for +Acc, Rech, or Power cost. One of thise three would come up. The.ln if you get a bonus you don't want, you can use IGC to adjust that roll. But this to me isn't a deal breaker, just a one possible way to include an optional IGC sink to the game. And it is at a place where the crowdmlooking to maximize benefit may really want to take advantage of that possibility.


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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

As for the subject of bind of equip, bind on acquire, bind to account and bind to character, I think some amount of that is necessary to actually sink IGC...

Not sure how binding items sinks IGC. My experience in WoW is that when I craft a Bind on Pickup item (or bind an Item that isn't, and then later unequip it), the only thing I can do to it is either toss it or sell it to a vendor, which both decreases the amount of Goodes in the Economy and increases the amount of In Game Currency chasing those Goodes.

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heh.. the Hero's / Villain

heh.. the Hero's / Villain's Journey system.

wait.. just `Journey system!` ;D

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Well this thread is

Well this thread is officially jacked.

Tannim222 wrote:

One, who says you'll need those old style "permission slips" to craft anything? We are looking to improve how cracting worked from the old game and that was one of those things which we worked out I think pretty well.

Judging from what you have said here and elsewhere about the crafting system you guys are designing it is pretty much the same system we have seen in countless other games. You don't actually craft anything, even with the mini-game addition, you just trade specific widgets for a 'crafted' item. Its not crafting its an arcade vending machine that only accepts tokens.

And Redlynne is 100% correct, if you add a random chance to craft an improved version of that item any result that doesn't get that bonus is going to be considered a failed crafting attempt.

Tannim222 wrote:

Augments are defined as what the power does. Examples include damage health, hold, debuff resistance. Accuracy, recharge, power cost and so forth are not Augments. Technically, damage type is an augment because its where you'll find Power Set Augments to go into a Power Set Socket and possibly change a part or all of the damage type of an attack set. You're also likely to find stuff like those additional effects such as added a control effect to a damage attack that didn't previously have one.

Refinements are defined as how a delivers what it does or functions. Here is where you'll find accruacy, recharge, energy cost, and even possibly area effect (though not likely at launch), among some other possible Refinements.

That is how you are defining Augments and Refinements in your development right now. It is not how they are defined in the suggestion I was making.

My idea was to give players the ability to design what they craft from the ground up by taking the old style enhancements from CoH, adding new slottables that affect the way a power behaves and turning those into the components of crafting. Its transparent, easy to pick up, offers a lot of variety, easy to develop for after a power modification formula is worked out and best of all is closer to true crafting than most games have.

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Tannim222 wrote:
Tannim222 wrote:

I understand why using a contact/ally/ auto-crafting system is appealing. But I also think it is just about the worst attempt at ceafting tthere is. Might as well just be saying each one of those is a store.
Crafting, to me, has at least some form of plsyer involvement. Consider that this game aleadynremoves resource nodes, skill systems surrounding how to collect of resource nodes, no systems invoved in different item crafts. Leaving most aquisitions obtained either by combat or in game world purchase (or trade). The combat portion is already a given activity rewuired for any other advancement in the game.
If the there is to ne any form of crafting, even automated in some fashion, adding mini-game decrease time for completion keeps the player actively involved with the game inna way that is directly related to the activity. Making additonal tie-ins to badges in combination with the above adds depth to the system.
Finaly, providing a hook to crafting where a player can use the cash shop as a short cut on time adds to the possible uses of the cash shop. Which just so happens to fall in line with one of reasons the cash shop is being made, use of real world cash to save time in the game.

And now you know why I said that crafting is a paradigm that just doesn't fit this genre of game.

It almost sounds as if you're saying to yourself,"well we HAVE to have crafting because this is an MMORPG and dammit that's what MMORPGs have; so we might as well do SOMETHING to make it interesting."

I think that's the tail wagging the dog. If we don't have crafting skill trees and the ability for someone to be able to take pride in the time and effort that they've put into crafting. If we're not going to be able to say, this person is the best augment crafter on the server, then we should get rid of all other forms of the crafting paradigm. We should just choose what we want and get it.

You said that it is too much like going to a store like that is a bad thing. I say Great! As long as I meet the prerequisite requirements for a certain augment or refinement and I have enough training points saved up to get it, I should get it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not against crafting. I'm just against trying to shoehorn crafting into a place where it really doesn't fit well.

I think the other ideas here about using contacts and allies for our crafting are far more appropriate to the genre. But then, IF we were to assume that anything an ally or contact would craft is something we would use, since we don't have gear, that's a bit of a stretch also.

So, you mention a minigame.

I'll play along, because I can think of a minigame that would be appropriate.

Let's say you want to augment your #3 power, whatever that is. The minigame would be going into your dojo, firing range, temple, sweat lodge, or summoning pit and using power #3. Each time you use it you are given an option of modifying it a little bit in one of a few directions that are available to you based upon your prerequisites and the augmentable material resources you have at hand. Then after so many attempts at this you finally get it.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I am reminded of an article I

I am reminded of an article I read somewhere about Candy Crush. Apparently, the way the cash shop for smartphone apps like that work, you get into playing the game because its fun and requires skill. Then as it gets harder and harder to get past different levels, you can start to buy powerups that allow you to get past the nearly-impossible level you're stuck on. It gradually turns what was a skill game into a pay game, basically. So the need for a crafting puzzle or minigame is there because you have to have something that feels like a fairly doable skill game at first, then get's harder as you progress until you end up deciding to pay money to get over the hump. One app game, I forget the name, is a thing where you build a base and an army and then attack other players, not unlike Dune 200 or whatever and then you can pay to make your builds happen faster, which is necessary because build times get really long as you progress.

For the record, I'm not against that if it makes the game money and ends up being sustained income. I'm afraid it might alienate people in the long run though. And hearing myself type that last sentence surprised even me, I'm usually all gung-ho for MWM to be making money. I think a lot of those sort of games don't end up being played for very long by the people that play them though. The game itself might have a decent lifespan, but nobody is going to keep playing a game that constantly needs you to pump ever-increasing amounts of money into it to keep playing.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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To explain my thoughts on the

To explain my thoughts on the need for bind on equip, YES the IGC get's sunk as soon as you pay to craft the item, but then if you can slot that item in a power, then later sell it, you've retained the value of the item in terms of buying power and you've basically eaten your cake, but still have it too. You no longer need as many new Augments nor as much new IGC for your other toons. Not that anyone is going to shuttle ALL of the Augments from one toon to the others on a regular basis, but if you could do it freely at will, your need for more high-end very rare items decreases as you can just use the one you already have in the toon you're playing for the time being. I personally believe it does damage to the economy, in the sense that it kills demand for new augments, if you don't have bind on equip as a rule. I may be wrong, but most games have that, so it's not like it's a new idea.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Refinements affect how the power behaves. There are too many elements to list but here are a few to give an idea, AoE, single target, mez type, damage type, burst and DoT to name a few common ones. If combining augments is the basic crafting system, refinements is the advanced system. Using an AoE refinement in a single target power will give that power some AoE element. Using a mez type refinement in a power with no mez ability will give that power a chance to mez now. Or you can put that mez type in a power that does have a mez type and change the type of mez you do or at least give a chance to change the mez with each use of the power. The point is refinements won't actually make a power stronger. If you add the AoE, the power will split the damage of the single target among the foes for example.

Boy that sounds like Blaster debt badges to me! One of my first lessons playing a squishy was "don't make too many of them mad at you at once if you can't kill them".

Sorry...that just popped into my head when I read that sentence. :D

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harpospoke wrote:
harpospoke wrote:

Boy that sounds like Blaster debt badges to me! One of my first lessons playing a squishy was "don't make too many of them mad at you at once if you can't kill them".

Charles Darwin was the patron of many a Blaster. True story.

Go Darwin go.


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Star Wars: Galaxies was a

Star Wars: Galaxies was a game with an abundance of good, sometimes brilliant design ideas, and a shortage of good implementation of them. Their way of integrating entertainer classes musician and dancer into the game through cantinas and gradual removal of battle fatigue debuffs was brilliant as it automatically created a social space and a way to play the game that did not require combat and still was tons of fun.
Their crafting system was fairly simplistic, as was common for the time, but it took character skill and resource quality into account to create a wide variety of quality and secondary effects on the resulting item, allowing for an actual economy (of sorts anyway). It was still very much a RNG issue, but at least players known to gather high quality resources could command a higher price, as could players known for their production skills. Of course the number one player request (outfit design) was completely impossible for the time (and did not become available until Second Life, which incidentally within an hour of launch revealed the potential downside of giving players that much control over the gameworld).

Everquest 2 is one of the few games where crafting is treated as a (mini)game rather than as a slot machine. It has a crafting system that requires player interaction and intervention to craft anything at all.

The now defunct game Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, was earlier and had an even more elaborate crafting system which gave the player more control over the resulting item (if not its stats). Crafting was initially intended to be as involved but the game had even worse production issues than SW:G and the whole idea of gathering as separate game sphere was scrapped. One of the brilliant innovations in Vanguard was the addition of crafting writs. In any major city with crafting stations you could find a city official who handed out writs to craft a specific number of specific items. These writs came with the recipe and resources necessary to create them, though player gathered resources could be substituted for a considerable starting bonus. The high end crafting was quite a challenge to complete and for many players using expensive player gathered items could mean the difference between succeeding and failing. On completion of the writ the game took away the crafted items (which did not clutter up the vendors nor created a huge amount of money in the game) and rewarded the player with crafting XP and an increase in (crafting) faction standing. If the high quality goal was achieved the player usually also got some money and/or resources. With high enough faction they could access a faction shopkeeper who sold special crafting recipies that could not be obtained in any other way. At the highest level these were not trivial at all to obtain and some items were in high demand (and required tons of expensive and hard to get resources deep from within raid dungeons).

It is easy enough, for an involved crafting minigame, to include one or more steps where you can add optional resources and attempt to transfer as much of its alchemical (or magical or biological, you get the point) qualities to the product you are crafting, while a clock keeps ticking down and you have to resume finishing the product or risk failing the crafting process entirely. Players with a high crafting skill and a bit of luck can get ahead of the crafting curve and transfer more secondary qualities, creating a superior product in the process, while players just starting out likely have difficulty just completing the process successfully, but they won't need to do anything fancy to complete crafting writs. Only towards the end of a tier would they have earned the skills and experience to aim for the optional quality requirement in the writ for the extra rewards.

Eve online of course is the grandfather of all crafting oriented games. Even if the process itself is tedious and done mostly offline, the important thing here is that nothing in the game exists that is not first crafted by players (well, except for the starter ships). This, along with the single server model, creates a sprawling economy that is supported by tens of thousands of players, allows for functional markets and a need to move goods from one place to another, with all the risks inherent in that game. What is absolutely required though for such a system is a way to anchor the ingame currency at a low enough point that new players are not locked out of the market, and thus out of the game.

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Those games have gear which

Those games have gear which not only defines combat prowess but in many case what your combat abilities are. Random and varied crafting befits that concept.
I expect CoT to have a system where the gear is basically a substitute for allocating stats just like CoH had. I think in that type of system the crafting should be as inclusive as possible while still not being required, including buying them from other players. Having crafted items being better than drops or store bought gear puts more focus on gear than I think the game should have.

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Excuse me, but I just noticed

Excuse me, but I just noticed this sitting out in left field where no one was looking.

I know that Tannim222 has already said he wants to include player "agency" (or "activity" if you prefer) in the Crafting system. This idea doesn't have to exclusive of that.

One of my old ideas was that you can only make Enhancements (or in City of Titans parlance, Augments and Refinements) for the kinds of Powers that you've got. In other words, you can Make What You Can Slot. Part of the motivation for this idea was that it pushes things into a direction where you have a backdoor way to get to Specialization. Somebody with a lot of Resistance Powers is going to be better at crafting Resistance Enhancements than someone who has few to no Resistance Powers. Why? Because they USE those types of Powers.

People objected to that, saying they didn't want crafting specialization to be taken so far as going to the point of exclusion ... but they still like the idea of being a "specialized crafter" somehow. The problem is that if there's no exclusionary bounds, meaning that everyone can make anything, then what's the point of being "specialized" in the crafting of a particular flavor of Enhancement(s).

So if you have "specializations" in Crafting ... but you don't NEED to specialized to make ANYTHING ... what does that mean?

Well ...

The idea I hit on next to deal with that issue was that "specialized" Crafters could be more efficient at producing their results than characters who were crafting "outside their field" (so to speak). It could still be done, but the "specialists" could do it for cheaper. Which then begs the question ...

Cheaper ... how?

Well, there's all kinds of different ways you can make the results always be the same, but the COSTS to craft be variable and different based on the crafter. The specialist can do it with fewer materials. One of those materials can (and arguably should) be IGC. But then I had a new thought just now, which is why I'm typing this post at all.

What if specialist characters could make Augments and Refinements in City of Titans in less time than a non-specialist could ... in addition to costing less IGC to craft them in the first place? Even though the results are exactly the same either way.

Quicker. Easier. More seductive More efficient in production.


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In all honesty, I would

In all honesty, I would prefer workbenches to NPCs, the supers genre is about fantastical elements turned up to 11 and men and women, whether through happenstance, being chosen or with a little elbow grease have pretty much turned themselves into gods, something where I have to give somebody else my stuff so that they can in turn give me stuff sounds out of place for something like that. When I think about a crafting system in a supers universe I think of mad scientists turning circuitry and cogs into impossible machines or masters of the arcane crafting mystical objects with eyes of newt and unicorn hair, not something where I just go up to someone and ask them to make something for me. If I'm crafting something I want to feel like a mad scientist, I want to be the person doing the building not some random guy.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

One of my old ideas was that you can only make Enhancements (or in City of Titans parlance, Augments and Refinements) for the kinds of Powers that you've got. In other words, you can Make What You Can Slot. Part of the motivation for this idea was that it pushes things into a direction where you have a backdoor way to get to Specialization. Somebody with a lot of Resistance Powers is going to be better at crafting Resistance Enhancements than someone who has few to no Resistance Powers. Why? Because they USE those types of Powers.

I remember that, but I don't remember if I answered it nor cba to look it up.

However, thinking more on it now I would support it if it that "limitation" was set for the highest quality tier (maaaaaybe two highest) since that is where such specializations actually makes sense. I mean, even if I don't have any resistance powers I should be able to make a simple piece of armor (a.k.a lowest quality tier) that reduces most damage types even if by just a minuscule amount.

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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

In all honesty, I would prefer workbenches to NPCs, the supers genre is about fantastical elements turned up to 11 and men and women, whether through happenstance, being chosen or with a little elbow grease have pretty much turned themselves into gods, something where I have to give somebody else my stuff so that they can in turn give me stuff sounds out of place for something like that. When I think about a crafting system in a supers universe I think of mad scientists turning circuitry and cogs into impossible machines or masters of the arcane crafting mystical objects with eyes of newt and unicorn hair, not something where I just go up to someone and ask them to make something for me. If I'm crafting something I want to feel like a mad scientist, I want to be the person doing the building not some random guy.

I think it is far more lore appropriate to have NPCs do the crafting for you. Even Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark have their stuff built for them by trusted people in their corporations.

I understand if you want to be the mad scientist, but in this game isn't the mad scientist the role of a boss NPC at the end of a dungeon run?

If this game had a real crafting system, one that requires crafting skills and leveling, then I could see a player playing the mad scientist, arcanologist, or quirky inventor.

But from what we've been told so far, we are not going to have a true crafting system like that. We're going to have a bastard system that requires rare materials and time, but does not require any crafting skill. It could be good.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I think the Tony Stark factor

I think the Tony Stark factor is in the inventing and/or discovering of the new tech, while the manufacturing ought to be done by NPCs. I don't know of a crafting system can separate those two things, or if the need for player participation in a mini-game can accommodate that, but that's what I think the genre feels like, to me.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Well, the efficiency from CoH

Well, the efficiency from CoH was making it half as expensive to craft standard IOs in terms of inf, and also to make it so you didn't need the recipe. You "learned" them with the crafting badges. Now, that is primarily a significant inf reduction, but it is also more efficient, as long as you didn't need alchemical silver(s).

Regards,

Felix

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In terms of giving the

In terms of giving the Players "agency" like was being discussed earlier, I'd rather have anything akin to Sets (or even just the "permission slips" to make those Sets) be awarded as a result of completing specific in-game content, as opposed to getting them from random drops (which then get dumped on the marketplace).

Been reading the Know Your Lore series of articles for Blizzard games this past week (mainly WoW and Diablo) and came across a rather interesting article.

Know Your Lore: Why I love Artifacts

Some interesting quotes concerning how tying the Game Lore to what amounts to Gear Upgrades can yield an important playing experience.

Quote:

First, the quest becomes something people of a certain class have in common. Warriors can all talk about getting Strom’kar or the Scale of the Earth Warden, Hunters can discuss Titanstrike, Paladins can share the Ashbringer story. It feels distinct. Something that’s often lost in MMOs is a variation in experience — we all do the same world zones, the same dungeons, the same raids. The feeling of discovery gets flattered out. Legion combats this in a few ways: it’s enormous with quests hidden all over the place, randomized World Quests constantly pop up, and then there’s Artifacts. That Druid with his two fist weapons had a completely different experience than your Demon Hunter with his Aldrachi Warblades.

That’s cool. That’s class flavor.

Quote:

Artifacts as lore delivery systems

Artifact weapons also do something cool we haven’t gotten nearly enough of in WoW: they reach back into the gameworld’s history to bring story elements that aren’t directly connected to the current story to the fore.

What do I mean?

Some Artifacts are clearly tied to the threat of the Burning Legion and the invasion of Azeroth. But others are not — and these Artifacts bring elements of the game that have sometimes lain fallow for years back to the fore. Thas’dorah contributes to the mystery of where Alleria Windrunner has ended up, while we all know the Ashbringer. Some of the Artifacts invented for Legion have brought stories from years past forward — Felo’melorn is tied to Icecrown Citadel, Aluneth reveals secrets about Aegwynn, Strom’kar connects ancient Humanity with its Vrykul origins and is the weapon that won the Troll Wars. This is something that makes Legion feel far more connected to World of Warcraft as a whole. We’re facing a real, present threat, but it’s taking place in the same world we’ve been adventuring through for years. That world doesn’t stop just because we’re under attack from the Legion. Indeed, that world leaps to its own defense.

To me this makes for an excellent reason to play my alts (and not just my Warrior alts, as would be the case in previous expansions): I want to see these stories for myself. I’ve already done Death Knight, Paladin, and Demon Hunter Artifact quests and I’ll likely do Shaman and Hunter this week. I’m motivated to do them. And I’m motivated entirely by the chance to see the story unfold, to actually experience becoming a part of the legends of these weapons. I’m actually considering leveling my Druid for the first time since I stalled out in Cataclysm just to get to see those four Artifacts in action. Far from cutting off content from people who don’t play a certain class, the Artifacts are a reward for playing said class and a carrot to get you to play one. Maybe you won’t level it past 100, but you’ll get to see some really epic bits of the world’s lore in the process even so.

Quote:

How Artifact story unfolds

Artifact Knowledge is, on the face of it, a pretty boring mechanic that lets you catch up in terms of your second and third Artifact. That is, until you start reading the story of your Artifacts as it unfolds through the research process. This makes that process worth doing not just so you can get your other specs reasonable weapons, but also so you can find out more about the weapon you’ve chosen. I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on my Strom’kar’s history thanks to that, and it’s pretty interesting. I also like how certain Artifact appearances are unlocked by achievements, the completion of certain quests, and other game milestones.

This allows you to see the game’s story change the weapon, and that’s a really interesting mechanic that brings the lore home. You’ve completed your class order hall story, and with it, unlocked a whole new skin for your Artifact. You’ve done the Light’s Heart questline, or unlocked all the traits on an Artifact. It’s all about what you did, your own personal story, and that’s pretty awesome. I know that when Odyn empowered my Strom’kar it felt very personal, made the story I’d just played through feel more important. It was my story.

Now, take that same principle and apply the accessibility of crafting Sets to specific storylines of content in City of Titans ... except now you're chasing after Augments/Refinements that can reveal different bits of in-game lore relevant to those specific Sets.

Say, for instance, that there's a Marksman Set of some sort, oriented around long range/accurate attacks. How do you get it? Not by going to the crafting table and turning in your mats and permission slips. No, instead you have to complete an arc of Missions to get the parts and pieces, which can then be tied into Game Lore somehow.

The basic notion that I'm wanting to put in front of people is that crafting doesn't have to be a "lonely" activity that only happens in front of an interact window. It could also be something that gets done (in part) through story driven content. That way, it isn't just about the "riches" that you can gather up, but also the Deeds you have DONE.


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I like were this going.

I like were this going. This is something akin to ideas I've put forward in another thread way back. If I wasn't writing this on vacation via my iPhone, I'd link the thread; but I think it was in the thread about doing away with IGC, or maybe about removing the RNG.

In any case, I will forever support the idea that if you get something, it should be delivered via a story mission.

Want to award the players a new costume? Give them a story clue that starts a mission that grants it as a completion award.

Want to make new recipe available, make it a mission award or discovery.

Get rid of the RNG, and instead establish rarity through the tightness of the prerequisites.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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One thing of note, a crafting

One thing of note, a crafting table and npc are, in my view, completely interchangeable. They would be an aesthetic choice, you could go to a place like a "tech shop", and give the NPC your stuff to make, or use the automatic work bench at his shop. Or you can select an npc or work bench ae customization options for your base. They both serve the same function.

But they also don't completely remove the possibility of player interactions, such as minigames to speed up completion of orders either.

As to "specialization" I think there is a way this can be handled through partmof the badge system we may implement. Originally, the concept was one of our Non-Combat Powers which provided branched power trees, each yielding unique benefits to crafting. Some of that may be salvageable and reworked into into this part of the badge system.

With regards to Red's post on content required for crafting, I'm not against the idea, but would say that if used, it would be for very specific rewards related to said content (like Hami-os were)., with some tweaks.
However, the majority of crafting, including sets, would be provided through our current system. One reason being, if we required content for every kind of set, we will have limited sets in the game world because each set requiring unique content would take a long time to develop.

This ssytem has some similarities with the old games, only in that it has familiar elements. But there are also significant changes as well, which places emphasis on who you know and less on what you have while at the same time gives the base agency to the player for creation.


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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

notears wrote:
In all honesty, I would prefer workbenches to NPCs, the supers genre is about fantastical elements turned up to 11 and men and women, whether through happenstance, being chosen or with a little elbow grease have pretty much turned themselves into gods, something where I have to give somebody else my stuff so that they can in turn give me stuff sounds out of place for something like that. When I think about a crafting system in a supers universe I think of mad scientists turning circuitry and cogs into impossible machines or masters of the arcane crafting mystical objects with eyes of newt and unicorn hair, not something where I just go up to someone and ask them to make something for me. If I'm crafting something I want to feel like a mad scientist, I want to be the person doing the building not some random guy.
I think it is far more lore appropriate to have NPCs do the crafting for you. Even Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark have their stuff built for them by trusted people in their corporations.
I understand if you want to be the mad scientist, but in this game isn't the mad scientist the role of a boss NPC at the end of a dungeon run?
If this game had a real crafting system, one that requires crafting skills and leveling, then I could see a player playing the mad scientist, arcanologist, or quirky inventor.
But from what we've been told so far, we are not going to have a true crafting system like that. We're going to have a bastard system that requires rare materials and time, but does not require any crafting skill. It could be good.

Saying a mad scientist only make sense as an NPC boss is like saying wizards in a fantasy MMO should only be NPC villains, there are many mad scientists that are heroes, like Cyborg, the Falcon and Mister Terrific who make their own stuff, and while I do understand that it's only a bastard crafting system, that doesn't mean that are character have to as well. If my mad scientist character can craft anything he should be the one crafting it, now I do understand that their are concepts out there that would have to rely on other people, so I think maybe instead of it either being all workbenches or all NPCs, we should have a good mix of both, public places where there are both workshops you can craft your stuff and NPCs that will do it for you, with no difference mechanic wise on how their handled.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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Why define how the items get

Why define how the items get made? If we can divorce the item from a specific concept then we can divorce the process from any single concept too.

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I think it's fair to say this

I think it's fair to say this is a decent model of a "crafting support NPC" ... whouldn't you say? ^_~


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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Why define how the items get made? If we can divorce the item from a specific concept then we can divorce the process from any single concept too.

So true.

I feel like we've been down this road many times before. We aren't crafting gear. We're improving and/or modifying our powers.

For some characters it could mean adding a new frenelizer on their Schleswig Armature, for other characters it could be focusing more chi into their Nine-Step punch, and for others it could be renegotiating a bargain with a celestial intelligence. So, to say this is crafting seems so.... fantasy MMO.

I'm glad Tannim mentioned that who we know is more important that what we know, to paraphrase. So I think this may turn out to be okay


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Quote:
Quote:

I'm glad Tannim mentioned that who we know is more important that what we know, to paraphrase. So I think this may turn out to be okay

Don't get me wrong, that plays a part, but the actual act, as in putting it all together, the "player" does. The character may or may not, as I said, npc or crafting table are interchangable in my opinion, they can bothnlerform the same function.


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I am more interested in the

I am more interested in the actual crafting mechanics than the fluff attached to it because if I don't find the fluff interesting then I can ignore it easily by not reading it.

But you can't ignore the actual mechanics of crafting without ignoring the entire process.
Time sinks to craft, meaningless component drops, fixed recipes and a boring 'trade useless items for a useful item' mechanic is not a crafting system I am remotely interested in. Throw in a grinding mechanic to 'specialize' in crafting and I will dislike crafting. Top it off with a random result, any random result, for crafting and dislike turns to hate pretty damn fast.
What could be a system that lets players endlessly tweak for their playstyle becomes just another level of more powerful gear.

Using crafted gear just to give more and bigger bonuses is a waste and leads to power creep. Using gear to affect the behavior of powers without blatantly increasing them opens options to both the players and devs and allows for an infinite and interesting sideways progression game.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Using crafted gear just to give more and bigger bonuses is a waste and leads to power creep. Using gear to affect the behavior of powers without blatantly increasing them opens options to both the players and devs and allows for an infinite and interesting sideways progression game.

THIS.


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@Tannim, the part I was

@Tannim, the part I was encouraged by in your "who you know" comment had nothing to do with whether an NPC crafted your gear. Rather, I was encouraged that you implied that who we know is important in which augments and refinements we get to make.

So farming faction reputation has even more impact, and completing some content may open up future options, right?

@Brainbot, I was going to give my stamp of approval to you statement about sideways rather than vertical power progression, but it looks like Red beat me to it. I agree wholeheartedly.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

looks like Red beat me to it.

It's yet another bad habit of mine. I'll stop doing it eventually.


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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Using crafted gear just to give more and bigger bonuses is a waste and leads to power creep. Using gear to affect the behavior of powers without blatantly increasing them opens options to both the players and devs and allows for an infinite and interesting sideways progression game.

Couldn't agree more.

Hopefully we'll get build-slots that incorporate augments the way CoH did with enchantments so that we can make several really focused builds for different situations without the need to "stockpile" a lot of augments and refinements that only fit in a select few builds.

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You know I've been thinking..

You know I've been thinking... what about something like dragon age: Inquisition's take on crafting? Where you get schematics but what you put in them is ultimately up to you, like you know how those schematics in DA:I tell you to put in a certain amount of leather or metal or cloth into the slots but you choose what specific cloth/metal/leather that is, I'm thinking maybe we can do the same with crafting here, but we replace leathers and cloth and such with these five, tech(for those who like using machines), Mana (for magic users), Gene (for those who, through actions they took, or from how they where born, or accidently found themselves, have gained great powers from their genes), skill ( for our wire fu kung fu guys) and chem (for those who actively change their DNA) and we get schematics that calls for a certain number of these categories, but we ultimately choose what kind we put in those categories and depending on what we put in those categories we get different types of enhancements/refinements/temporary powers. We could also build a set bonus like system with something called "Rare schematics" that can have more than one type of bonus, and they also give you bonus like a small amount a defense against ranged attacks, or a small chance to deal some fire damage whenever you use that attack, if and only if you have another enhancement or refinement in that power that has one of the same materials used to create the rare enchantment.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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I'd also like to say that

I'd also like to say that with a DA:I like crafting system, I think that each schematic should only be able to be used once before they disappear so that as soon as someone gets a really good rare schematic they can't just copy paste it with different components so that all their powers are filled with those enhancements. Also maybe have some vendors around that sell these schematics.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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It's nice to see people agree

It's nice to see people agree with me on that point.

A lot of MMO's treat crafting as a means to lengthen the time it takes to 'finish' a character and as such they end up continually increasing the level of power you can gain through crafting with each update. It's a completely unneeded tactic, even in gear focused games.

Players who seek to find the best build, best gear or just best 'best' will do so regardless of its actual power increase. As long as there is something that gives an individual player an increase to their effectiveness they will strive for it. The easy route is to just make that 'gear' more powerful and move on but it has obvious pitfalls. Like I said, it leads to power creep but it also limits variety in builds for those players and makes it that much more difficult for casual gamers to get involved.

When you have items that just affect the 'stats' of an ability then whichever item gives the biggest boost to those stats is the most common choice people will make. Even when you have set bonuses like CoH did the most common goal was to get the global bonuses that helped the most. Recharge and soft capped defense were the most common goals of COH that it made most sets that didn't include them almost worthless. There was someone who said frankenslotting earlier but neglected to say that the frankenslotting was mostly used to max out a particular stat. It wasn't really creative, it was just simple addition.

Having to grind for either the IGC or components to have better gear only creates a bigger gap between casuals and hardcore players. The casual will never catch up and could easily result in them being excluded or ignored by the hardcore players.

Its better to just make it easy to let players reach maximum 'power' and use crafting as a means to have endless tweaking for personal taste. The players who seek greater and greater power will use that system to tailor the character to fit their own playstyle and as a result will actually find their personal power has grown but the game avoids power creep.
So for example, you create an ability or set of abilities and you have all the factors worked out, range, risk, damage scale, accuracy, ect, you can have a crafted item increase one aspect while lowering another aspect. If the devs decide its riskier to be closer to an enemy then sacrificing range for extra damage could be a possibility. If all mez types are equal then swapping one for another shouldn't be an issue, if they are not equal then swapping one for another would result in some sort of beneficial or detrimental trade off. Turning a single target to an AoE or cone or whatever could be as simple as just dividing the damage among foes or a fraction of the damage among foes.

To make this type of crafting system the devs would need to design their abilities with it in mind. It is more difficult to do at first but once they have the formula down it makes it so much easier to develop new abilities and new ways to tweak them later. Knowing the maximum stat increase an ability can get and how each stat relates to one another makes it easier to provide real choice for players in what to sacrifice to have the ability fit you personally. Making simple formulas that determine what damage is worth compared to buffs or defenses or whatever and then formulas how each of those stats relate to one another will make developing new abilitys, new ways to tweak powers and even new challenges the game provides easier because players will be in a pretty small range of power difference.

The holy trinity of dps, buffing and survivability will always be king in a combat oriented game but how players do them can be any of an almost infinite selection of choices. Instead of trying to keep making up new ways for players to fill those roles let the players make their own choices on how they want to do so.

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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

You know I've been thinking... what about something like dragon age: Inquisition's take on crafting?

The only difference between this crafting system and most any other system is each recipe has multiple ways to finish it. It's still a vending machine that gives you a treat except now you don't have to pay in quarters, you can use dimes or nickles as well.

Actually its not even that. Money can be spent on other things you want, this type of system relies on finding items whose entire purpose for existing is as trade for 'crafted' items. Its a vending machine that you can only pay for with pocket lint except your idea lets you use any color of pocket lint instead of only white lint.

I know that might seem rude to say but that is not my intention. I am trying to illustrate how all those crafting systems that use random drops of items that can only be used for crafting or sold to a vendor are just another form of currency that can only be spent one way.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

notears wrote:
You know I've been thinking... what about something like dragon age: Inquisition's take on crafting?
The only difference between this crafting system and most any other system is each recipe has multiple ways to finish it. It's still a vending machine that gives you a treat except now you don't have to pay in quarters, you can use dimes or nickles as well.
Actually its not even that. Money can be spent on other things you want, this type of system relies on finding items whose entire purpose for existing is as trade for 'crafted' items. Its a vending machine that you can only pay for with pocket lint except your idea lets you use any color of pocket lint instead of only white lint.
I know that might seem rude to say but that is not my intention. I am trying to illustrate how all those crafting systems that use random drops of items that can only be used for crafting or sold to a vendor are just another form of currency that can only be spent one way.

Well what's bad about having to use currency to craft things? As far as I'm concerned more time that's encouraged to be spent on the game, means more money for the devs, and a bigger salary for them, which means that they can do this for living, which means that they have way more time to put the kind of stuff we all want to see in the game, and the money to actually buy better equipment to make those changes possible. I personally do want to see a system where I have to earn currency to make my things, because 1) I'm doing things that I actually like getting them so it doesn't feel like work and 2) It gets the devs more money which in turn churns out more awesome stuff for the game. My main problem with how most crafting systems isn't that I'm putting a different kind of currency into it to get something, my main problem is that I don't feel like I'm making anything, I'm just duct tapping a magic gem stone to a circuit board in order to kick harder. I'd just like my currency to have more of an impact on what I make so that I can feel like I'm actively building it. I want to go from a system that goes from "Why am is my kung fu action guy duct tapping a magic gemstone to a circuit board in order to punch a little harder" to "Alright I have a schematic that I can use to make an enhancement, do I want to slide in three blue circuits in order for my one gun attack to use less energy or do I want to slide in 3 red circuits so that one gun attack deals more damage" I want more choice of what I can do with a schematic not some weird little system that makes the devs less money

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

Players who seek to find the best build, best gear or just best 'best' will do so regardless of its actual power increase. As long as there is something that gives an individual player an increase to their effectiveness they will strive for it. The easy route is to just make that 'gear' more powerful and move on but it has obvious pitfalls. Like I said, it leads to power creep but it also limits variety in builds for those players and makes it that much more difficult for casual gamers to get involved.
When you have items that just affect the 'stats' of an ability then whichever item gives the biggest boost to those stats is the most common choice people will make. Even when you have set bonuses like CoH did the most common goal was to get the global bonuses that helped the most. Recharge and soft capped defense were the most common goals of COH that it made most sets that didn't include them almost worthless. There was someone who said frankenslotting earlier but neglected to say that the frankenslotting was mostly used to max out a particular stat. It wasn't really creative, it was just simple addition.
Having to grind for either the IGC or components to have better gear only creates a bigger gap between casuals and hardcore players. The casual will never catch up and could easily result in them being excluded or ignored by the hardcore players.

Speaking as a non-min/maxer, the way CoH did it was fabulous.

CoH remains the only game I ever played. So when they brought in "crafting" and "loot" I ignored it for a while. It sounded like something I wouldn't be interested in. Admittedly I was biased by some posters on the CoX boards who were railing against the whole thing and bringing up WoW. I would just delete any recipes or salvage I got. (Yeah...who knows how much INF I flushed away without knowing it)

But one day, I did the University tour thing where you get to craft an enhancement at the end. It was like the drug dealer who gives you the first hit for free. I really liked how the enhancement looked...it was that simple. It was kinda fun to "craft" it too so I did some reading, downloaded MIDS, and I was off to the races. I never got close to min/maxing, but boy I had some fun. Bidding on recipes and salvage was even fun because it was something different to do. It added one more thing to do.

I did go for a little ranged defense on my Blaster and that changed me from disliking my Blaster to making 3 of them and playing them all the time. I also got back my perma-PA on my Illusion Troller and that was a huge thing for me with that character. That's about as far as I went. I got more powerful, but didn't really feel I had to wring out every ounce of power. Throwing together a build in MIDS with some bonuses was more than good enough. Most of the time my Frankenslotting was about getting the max damage/hold/sleep/immob, recharge, accuracy, end redux and ignoring set bonuses completely. It was something different every time really. I know it was just "simple addition"...but it was kinda fun to do. Probably a time sink but it didn't feel like it to me.

So that's my view as an "average player". The min/max stuff never was my thing, but the system was still fun. Might be my mindset. I never cared much what other players were doing or how powerful they were. (Probably because I never PvPed)

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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

Well what's bad about having to use currency to craft things?

There is nothing wrong with needing IGC to craft. There is something wrong with turning stuff that takes up inventory slots into a pseudo currency and trying to pass that off as crafting.

notears wrote:

As far as I'm concerned more time that's encouraged to be spent on the game, means more money for the devs, and a bigger salary for them, which means that they can do this for living, which means that they have way more time to put the kind of stuff we all want to see in the game, and the money to actually buy better equipment to make those changes possible.

Sure players may spend more time grinding in a game to get the best stuff, its the marketing strategy of Korean MMO's after all. But how about those players who don't stick around because the game feels like an endless slog to them. Is their money not worth as much to the developers?

The reason why MMO's are dying in the western world, the place where a superhero MMO will find the majority of its customers, is because most cannot get past the idea of endless grinding as content. The time when people spent every free moment playing their MMO of choice are gone and now most gamers only spend a few hours every couple of days at best. Sticking to tired and dated concepts like endless grinds will not help this game at all. This isn't a secret. Many articles and marketing reports are written about this if you just look for them.
Thankfully the devs understand this and have said they want their endgame to be make a new character. Meaning they don't expect players to experience everything the game has to offer with a single character. So, how does grinding fit in with that concept?

notears wrote:

I'm doing things that I actually like getting them so it doesn't feel like work

This is assuming a lot. Without knowing how frequent drops are, what foes drop what stuff, if you can out level drops, if getting a drop requires completing a trial, if there are loot locks or any of a million other factors I can't take this argument serious.

notears wrote:

My main problem with how most crafting systems isn't that I'm putting a different kind of currency into it to get something, my main problem is that I don't feel like I'm making anything, I'm just duct tapping a magic gem stone to a circuit board in order to kick harder. I'd just like my currency to have more of an impact on what I make so that I can feel like I'm actively building it. I want to go from a system that goes from "Why am is my kung fu action guy duct tapping a magic gemstone to a circuit board in order to punch a little harder" to "Alright I have a schematic that I can use to make an enhancement, do I want to slide in three blue circuits in order for my one gun attack to use less energy or do I want to slide in 3 red circuits so that one gun attack deals more damage" I want more choice of what I can do with a schematic not some weird little system that makes the devs less money

Dude, your saying your entire issue with crafting is what the names of the components are. It can be solved by just naming all component drops 'component 1', 'component 2' and 'component 3' and letting you decide what each of them are in your own personal narrative. And before you get all huffy, CoH kinda did that already by calling the generic crafting 'Invention origin: Accuracy' and whatnot.

And my 'weird little system' will not only save the devs money in the long run but it is something players have been trying to get for a while now. An invention system where we are given the parts and get to choose how to put them together. There are entire games built around that concept from 'Totally accurate battle simulator' to 'Besieged' to 'Garrys Mod', to 'Poly Bridge'. I think my weird system would actually be more profitable than a grinding system.

There is also this to consider, if you have a crafting system that doesn't change how strong a character is you can sell mods for real money without it being a pay to win game. The two biggest sellers in MMO's are customization items and power increases. These mods would have a pretty big crossover in terms of a monetizing sweet spot. This 'means more money for the devs, and a bigger salary for them, which means that they can do this for living, which means that they have way more time to put the kind of stuff we all want to see in the game, and the money to actually buy better equipment to make those changes possible.'

Here is another way to look at it if none of that gives you pause. The devs have already said they are going to give us as much freedom as possible in costumes, the way our powers look, bases, user created content, mission progression, alignment, faction reputation and teaming. So why do we have to draw the line at crafting. What is it about crafting that makes it unsuitable for the same kind of freedom?

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

notears wrote:
Well what's bad about having to use currency to craft things?
There is nothing wrong with needing IGC to craft. There is something wrong with turning stuff that takes up inventory slots into a pseudo currency and trying to pass that off as crafting.
notears wrote:
As far as I'm concerned more time that's encouraged to be spent on the game, means more money for the devs, and a bigger salary for them, which means that they can do this for living, which means that they have way more time to put the kind of stuff we all want to see in the game, and the money to actually buy better equipment to make those changes possible.
Sure players may spend more time grinding in a game to get the best stuff, its the marketing strategy of Korean MMO's after all. But how about those players who don't stick around because the game feels like an endless slog to them. Is their money not worth as much to the developers?
The reason why MMO's are dying in the western world, the place where a superhero MMO will find the majority of its customers, is because most cannot get past the idea of endless grinding as content. The time when people spent every free moment playing their MMO of choice are gone and now most gamers only spend a few hours every couple of days at best. Sticking to tired and dated concepts like endless grinds will not help this game at all. This isn't a secret. Many articles and marketing reports are written about this if you just look for them.
Thankfully the devs understand this and have said they want their endgame to be make a new character. Meaning they don't expect players to experience everything the game has to offer with a single character. So, how does grinding fit in with that concept?
notears wrote:
I'm doing things that I actually like getting them so it doesn't feel like work
This is assuming a lot. Without knowing how frequent drops are, what foes drop what stuff, if you can out level drops, if getting a drop requires completing a trial, if there are loot locks or any of a million other factors I can't take this argument serious.
notears wrote:
My main problem with how most crafting systems isn't that I'm putting a different kind of currency into it to get something, my main problem is that I don't feel like I'm making anything, I'm just duct tapping a magic gem stone to a circuit board in order to kick harder. I'd just like my currency to have more of an impact on what I make so that I can feel like I'm actively building it. I want to go from a system that goes from "Why am is my kung fu action guy duct tapping a magic gemstone to a circuit board in order to punch a little harder" to "Alright I have a schematic that I can use to make an enhancement, do I want to slide in three blue circuits in order for my one gun attack to use less energy or do I want to slide in 3 red circuits so that one gun attack deals more damage" I want more choice of what I can do with a schematic not some weird little system that makes the devs less money
Dude, your saying your entire issue with crafting is what the names of the components are. It can be solved by just naming all component drops 'component 1', 'component 2' and 'component 3' and letting you decide what each of them are in your own personal narrative. And before you get all huffy, CoH kinda did that already by calling the generic crafting 'Invention origin: Accuracy' and whatnot.
And my 'weird little system' will not only save the devs money in the long run but it is something players have been trying to get for a while now. An invention system where we are given the parts and get to choose how to put them together. There are entire games built around that concept from 'Totally accurate battle simulator' to 'Besieged' to 'Garrys Mod', to 'Poly Bridge'. I think my weird system would actually be more profitable than a grinding system.
There is also this to consider, if you have a crafting system that doesn't change how strong a character is you can sell mods for real money without it being a pay to win game. The two biggest sellers in MMO's are customization items and power increases. These mods would have a pretty big crossover in terms of a monetizing sweet spot. This 'means more money for the devs, and a bigger salary for them, which means that they can do this for living, which means that they have way more time to put the kind of stuff we all want to see in the game, and the money to actually buy better equipment to make those changes possible.'
Here is another way to look at it if none of that gives you pause. The devs have already said they are going to give us as much freedom as possible in costumes, the way our powers look, bases, user created content, mission progression, alignment, faction reputation and teaming. So why do we have to draw the line at crafting. What is it about crafting that makes it unsuitable for the same kind of freedom?

Okay so now I see where your coming from... just one problem... why did you say don't get all huffy? There was no evidence at all showing that I was getting angry with you at all in any of my posts, I was just trying to argue my point, throughout this entire conversation I have never insulted you once... so where did that come from? I mean I get what you're saying now but that was really uncalled for...

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

Okay so now I see where your coming from... just one problem... why did you say don't get all huffy? There was no evidence at all showing that I was getting angry with you at all in any of my posts, I was just trying to argue my point, throughout this entire conversation I have never insulted you once... so where did that come from? I mean I get what you're saying now but that was really uncalled for...

This thread was jacked almost immediately, by devs no less, without a passing glance at the original suggestion.
So when you called my idea a 'weird little system' I found it insulting. Especially since it seemed you hadn't even looked at it. Most of the arguments you made in your last reply were addressed in the original posts.
I used the 'huffy' line because it seemed you wanted to dismiss my idea as nonsense and discuss the issue of what to call components, which is just another aspect of how to define crafting that I thought had been put to bed in this thread.
If I misunderstood your intention by calling my suggestion a 'weird little system' I apologize, but I don't see how it can be taken any other way.

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Brainbot wrote:
Brainbot wrote:

notears wrote:
Okay so now I see where your coming from... just one problem... why did you say don't get all huffy? There was no evidence at all showing that I was getting angry with you at all in any of my posts, I was just trying to argue my point, throughout this entire conversation I have never insulted you once... so where did that come from? I mean I get what you're saying now but that was really uncalled for...
This thread was jacked almost immediately, by devs no less, without a passing glance at the original suggestion.
So when you called my idea a 'weird little system' I found it insulting. Especially since it seemed you hadn't even looked at it. Most of the arguments you made in your last reply were addressed in the original posts.
I used the 'huffy' line because it seemed you wanted to dismiss my idea as nonsense and discuss the issue of what to call components, which is just another aspect of how to define crafting that I thought had been put to bed in this thread.
If I misunderstood your intention by calling my suggestion a 'weird little system' I apologize, but I don't see how it can be taken any other way.

Well I did read it, and I admit I might have gotten carried away with trying to get my system out there, I apologize for that atleast. I thought it weird because I understand crafting systems atleast from an MMO as something to reward time put into the game and a way to make the player want to put more time into the game and this whole thing about slapping to augments, though I do see differently now, I found counter active to that.

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

I thought it weird because I understand crafting systems atleast from an MMO as something to reward time put into the game and a way to make the player want to put more time into the game and this whole thing about slapping to augments, though I do see differently now, I found counter active to that.

Your wording is a little hard to follow but I think I get what you are saying. Yes, crafting is a reward system designed to keep people playing longer, I'm not arguing that.
I think part of the reason why you thought my suggestion as 'weird' is because I designed it for a game that is not going to focus on gear.

I was halfway through a long explanation of gear focused games vs non-gear focused and how my crafting system changed the paradigm when I realized it can be summed up fairly easy.

The 'reward' for crafting does not have to increase the power of a character. You don't need to delay crafting to keep people interested in it.

The way I see it, the type of crafting most games offer is Ikea style. There is only one way to put that entertainment center together and you can't use the parts for anything else.
My crafting system is like Lego. You have a bunch of parts and you get to decide if you want to make an awesome space ship, a bitchen robot or a huge fort for your GI Joes.

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Maybe i didn't read correctly

Maybe i didn't read correctly but, i wonder how do we collect the things which are needed to craft ? I mean, it will be with the loots ? Or do we need to collect them from the world ? ^^
I wonder that because i noticed you talked about spending time to craft with a "quick" result system or a "waiting for hours" system.
Of course i take my own life as example to imagine how much time i could spend on the game and a collect + a "waiting for hours" system. Spending time was an idea from the period "Subscribes to play" like WoW, but as there will be no subscription to play CoT i wonder if it will be a good thing to collect all the ingredients.
On another hand, collecting/gathering is a part of the craft system and it's some times pleasant to tell ourselves :" Shit, i must have this ingredient and only the Lava Monsters aera has (or even, only the eye of a great lava monster is powerful enought for my receipe). That's a mission to deal with..." But, what if, if there is a collect system, only certains ingredients must be collected while others are looted from fighting ?

(Maybe be this is not the correct thread to talk about that ^^ I can erase this message and create another thread if needed)


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TitansCity wrote:
TitansCity wrote:

Maybe i didn't read correctly but, i wonder how do we collect the things which are needed to craft ? I mean, it will be with the loots ? Or do we need to collect them from the world ? ^^
I wonder that because i noticed you talked about spending time to craft with a "quick" result system or a "waiting for hours" system.
Of course i take my own life as example to imagine how much time i could spend on the game and a collect + a "waiting for hours" system. Spending time was an idea from the period "Subscribes to play" like WoW, but as there will be no subscription to play CoT i wonder if it will be a good thing to collect all the ingredients.
On another hand, collecting/gathering is a part of the craft system and it's some times pleasant to tell ourselves :" Shit, i must have this ingredient and only the Lava Monsters aera has (or even, only the eye of a great lava monster is powerful enought for my receipe). That's a mission to deal with..." But, what if, if there is a collect system, only certains ingredients must be collected while others are looted from fighting ?
(Maybe be this is not the correct thread to talk about that ^^ I can erase this message and create another thread if needed)

When it comes to getting crafting mats I think we need to combine the systems of "random drop" and "gathered loot" since I think the more common it is the more appropriate it is that it drops from any random schmuck while the more rare it is the more appropriate it is that it only drops from specific mobs or rewarded in specific missions.

I've also heard the idea of hiring NPC to populate ones base/lair (both personal and SG) so being able to send them out on such missions wouldn't be a bad idea, similar to what you can do in SWTOR.

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My understanding is that

My understanding is that there will be no 'node harvesting' in CoT. No scraping odd fungus off the walls, or sorting through a random junk-pile, conveniently located on a rooftop, looking for 'treasure'.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Right now, Crafting elements

Right now, Crafting elements have such descriptive names as "Type 1, Subtype A"

Technical Director

Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider

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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Right now, Crafting elements have such descriptive names as "Type 1, Subtype A"

If you guys ever want help coming up with names for stuff, I'm sure there are plenty of us who would love to dig through our imaginations for nuggets that haven't been flushed away by banality.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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Doctor Tyche wrote:
Doctor Tyche wrote:

Right now, Crafting elements have such descriptive names as "Type 1, Subtype A"

That's all wrong for my character concept, as he would do everything in Roman numerals and Greek letters. :)

The discussion of the immersion enhancing/immersion breaking of the actual materials themselves has been had on these forums before. I'm pretty sure you can't win. If you left it totally generic, it breaks the fourth wall and makes it feel like you're a person playing a game, not a superhero. If you make the materials more believable, like circuit boards and magic runes, well, some person will always get their character concept harshed by the circuit board, and someone else won't like the magic runes. The third option is WAY worse, which is to decide unilaterally that all superpowers in the game universe come from the same basic source, like Energy X in Freedom Force, and that's the one thing I would dislike the most, personally.

R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

If you left it totally generic, it breaks the fourth wall and makes it feel like you're a person playing a game, not a superhero.

Not to me personally. Leaving the power upgrade generic and letting me decide how it happened or to just not even link it to concept/story is by far the least immersion-breaking. I mean, the icon should have a generic "superheroy" style, but that's about all I need.

FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)

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One thing I'm personally

One thing I'm personally happy about is that we wont have the gawdawful naming convention for items that GW2 has. In that game, if you want a thing that does what you want it to do, looks nice, and has something slotted into it to enhance it to the nines, you end up wearing something like "Berserker's Seer Coat of the Scholar" or something. So what's the deal? Am I a berserker, a seer, or a scholar? Every time I see the names of the items in that game I am reminded of the episode of Taxi where Jim buys an Italian restaurant named Mario's and ends up renaming it "Jim's Mario's"

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I personally prefer just

I personally prefer just doing a mix of tech and magic and leaving it that way because that was what CoX had. The knock on the generic option for me is that you might lose some ability to grok what the items do. It's like in Magic: the Gathering, if you call something a "Hawk" you assume it can fly, and if you call the ability it has "flying" then the rules and flavor of the cards mesh well and make everything easier to understand. Hawks fly, and as such they cannot be blocked by Wolves, which despite being bigger and stronger, cannot fly. If you replace the words "hawk", "fly", and "wolf" with generic codes like "11011", "001101" and "01001" you lose any ability to really grasp what the hell is going on. Why can't a 01001 perform a 001101 action against a 11011? I have no idea, and neither will anyone else, ever.

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Radiac wrote:
Radiac wrote:

One thing I'm personally happy about is that we wont have the gawdawful naming convention for items that GW2 has. In that game, if you want a thing that does what you want it to do, looks nice, and has something slotted into it to enhance it to the nines, you end up wearing something like "Berserker's Seer Coat of the Scholar" or something. So what's the deal? Am I a berserker, a seer, or a scholar? Every time I see the names of the items in that game I am reminded of the episode of Taxi where Jim buys an Italian restaurant named Mario's and ends up renaming it "Jim's Mario's"

Realize thay there will eventually be names for things, they're not necessary at the development stage. Even our powers don't have iconic names for the purposes of the engine database, they have dabase names. Many of the things you'll need to use to craft will have a connection to the world (have names and lore of some form).

Now how the player decides their character can take those items and piece them together, that's customizable. Formone player they may take some stuff and it goes onto an altar or into amcauldron, while someone else uses a mechanical reconstruction workbench, or another person mediates and uses their ability to manipulate reality in some form, or someone else incorporates them into helping them work out more ephiciently.

The do-dads collected may be something mundane, highly arcane, or unique scientific creations, but the player can end up using them in a way they want to make sense for their character.


I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
Tech Team.
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I think it would be even

I think it would be even better if you got to pick a naming convention for your character at creation.

Let's say I want technology parts. Then all the Types and subtypes will have technology names for me. If I were to put them on the auction house, they will still be known to the game system as Type 1 Subtype A, so that when any other character looks at them, they will see them as the category they choose, such as magical, mystical, natural or biological.

In other words, Type 1 Subtype A will have a different name to each character depending on the category picked for the character at creation. It has exactly the same effect for each character, just a different name.

My technological character will see an item called Metastable Nuclear Isomer, but a character who chose the biological category at creation will see the same item as Hydroxyproline, the natural character will see it as Bokator Elbow Hook the mystical character will see it as Monto Hissan, and the Botanical Character will see the same item as Sympodial Rhizome. You could even have some other categories available in the cash shop for celestial characters, fiendish characters, 'weird' characters, undead characters, ancient characters, etc.

Before you go on saying that all the different names would be too confusing, because I know someone will say that; I would expect that a wiki page associating all the various category names to their system names, a Rosetta Stone, would end up being created by someone. Besides the only time you would ever actually need such a thing is when you want to transfer something from one of your characters to another; and in those cases you would know what the attributes are, so even if you didn't know what it would be called to your other character you would still know it by its stats.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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They might be able to do that

They might be able to do that Huck, but to me its just not worth the hassle. Even if your toon is a magic guy, I think you have to concede that if he's living in titan City circa 2018, he can't possibly believe that EVERYTHING in the marketplace is magical.

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Then I suppose a techno

Then I suppose a techno-wizard naming convention could be an option too, for the small price of $3.99 in the convenient cash shop.


I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
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I think I'd prefer having one

I think I'd prefer having one set of generic names.
While having item's names show up differently based on my character's preference might help with immersion, it seems like it would add a LOT of confusion trying to learn what everything does if I have multiple toons with different backgrounds (which I plan to have).
I also don't want to have to consult a spreadsheet to figure out what equivalent Item I need to mail from my magic guy to my tech guy to make something.

"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."

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Huckleberry wrote:
Huckleberry wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
Right now, Crafting elements have such descriptive names as "Type 1, Subtype A"
If you guys ever want help coming up with names for stuff, I'm sure there are plenty of us who would love to dig through our imaginations for nuggets that haven't been flushed away by banality.

Chunchunmaru...

Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...

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Rigel wrote:
Rigel wrote:

I think I'd prefer having one set of generic names.
While having item's names show up differently based on my character's preference might help with immersion, it seems like it would add a LOT of confusion trying to learn what everything does if I have multiple toons with different backgrounds (which I plan to have).
I also don't want to have to consult a spreadsheet to figure out what equivalent Item I need to mail from my magic guy to my tech guy to make something.

I agree - just have one standard set of names for crafting components. MUCH less confusion. Plus I really don't care if my mage gets circuit boards from blasting apart robots - makes sense to me. This is a world where science and magic cross paths on a daily basis. Orichalcum may be just as common (or rare) a salvage as Titanium in Titan City.

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I definitely don't want to

I definitely don't want to have to memorize a dozen different names for 'purple junk' or {insert random thing}.

My preferred scheme for crafting is simply a 2-step process. Refine random junk-loot into some relatively small number (maybe 12) of proto-materials, then combine those materials into a finished product. That way, we can have any number of different loot items, but they are all Useful and the actual Crafting system is simple enough to use, without a hundred-page manual.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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