[url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/barmy]Barmy[/url] ... for those of us insufficiently steeped in British slang. ^_~
City of Heroes set up its crafting system to have both "common" IOs and Set IOs. Everyone could make every one of the common IOs and everyone could make any of the Set IOs.
For City of Titans, what if that was tweaked a little bit?
Everyone could craft any of the "common" Augments and Refinements (or whatever the equivalent is). But characters can only craft Set Augments and Set Refinements that can be slotted into their own Powers.
In other words, you'd need to have a Confuse Power in order to craft Confuse Sets. Likewise you'd need to have a Taunt Power in order to craft Taunt Sets. Essentially set up a system where you can only "make" what you (personally) can "use" in terms of Sets.
For altaholics, this would (in effect) lead towards specific characters "specializing" in the crafting of certain Sets ... since it would be very difficult to create a "dedicated crafter" who was capable of creating ALL Sets. At the same time, you'd still be able to USE everything you MAKE (and if you aren't going to use what you make, that's what the in-game market is for).
It's not much of a limitation, granted ... but it is one that would discard the notion that ONE character can "do it all" ... and as a byproduct would encourage the creation (and playing) of alts.
Barmy idea? Sure.
But it's just so crazy [i]it might work[/i] ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Can you explain something for me as I am having trouble following?
Specifically what benefit there will be to being able to craft everything that will make people desire alts to be able to do so.
(EDITED TO INCLUDE)
NVM. I don't see an actual discussion happening between the two of us and have no desire to derail your thread.
it could definitely work, not doubts there...but why do it? if the goal is simply to force players to make alts well, I don't think that will go over real well with the playerbase at large. it would be annoying, especially if some of the recipes required items from different disciplines, having to swap characters to make something "big." I would find that having to constantly swap characters to build things would be a pain.
[img]http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/whiteperegrine/84183/69278/69278_original.gif[/img]
I'm sorry, Redlynne, I have to agree with your title, limiting crafting in this way does seem barmy. The issue that this is (apparently) intended to fix... doesn't appear to exist. I don't think I ever met a player with only one character.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Does the vast majority of our future player base [i]need[/i] encouragement to play alts?
Although I understand the logic of only being able to craft what you can use, I don't think it would really add anything to game play, other than some interesting builds designed to be master crafters.
-----------------------------------------
I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
The difference between forcing and encouraging/incentivizing is in the eye of the beholder.
I'm merely beginning with the starting assumption that if you can "do everything" with one character (ie. "my crafter") then that's what people tend to do. Some don't, but a lot do ... particularly if there are Badges involved, and rewards for getting [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Portable_Workbench]EVERY Crafting Badge[/url] available (like City of Heroes did).
In fact, here's a bit of irony for you.
If what I'm proposing here had been in effect for City of Heroes, it would have had almost no impact on being able to obtain the Field Crafter Badge. Why? Because the Field Crafter Badge required creation of COMMON IOs, not of Set IOs. The only thing that would have been impacted would be the "Craft 1000 Inventions" requirement, since the Commons needed for the Badge add up to 455 ([url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Gaining_the_Field_Crafter_Badge]see analysis here[/url]) and the remainder to reach 1000 Inventions made needed to be made up somewhere.
So really ... how limiting would it be to require characters to have a Power which makes use of a Refinement/Augment in order to craft a [b]Set[/b] of Refinements/Augments of that type that have additional factors going on with them? You know, like [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invention_Sets]Invention Sets[/url] in City of Heroes.
Want a [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invention_Sets#Defense]Defense Set[/url]? You'll need someone with *A* Defense Power in order to Craft it (which in a City of Heroes context could be anyone with either Combat Jumping or Maneuvers).
Want a [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invention_Sets#Resist_Damage]Resist Damage Set[/url]? You'll need someone with *A* Power that takes Resistance Enhancements in order to craft them.
Which then brings in the counterpoint of ... if you DON'T have those kinds of Powers, why would you need to craft a Set of Enhancements for a type of Power you aren't using? Two answers come to mind. "For a Friend" being the first possibility, with "For the Market" being the second. Except that if a Friend needs a particular Set (to use), they'd be able to craft it themselves, for themselves ... all they need are the resources to do so (whether those resources are Salvage, Recipes and INF ... or something else) ... and presumably, almost all of those resources could be traded to them or bought off the market.
Which then brings things around full circle to ask the question ... how is not being able to craft what YOU can't use a severe limitation?
Define what you mean by "big" here, because I don't think you're using it the same way I am. As far as "needing things from different disciplines" go ... that would seem to be trumped by the If You Can Use It Then You Can Make It clause. It's only if you CAN'T use something that you COULDN'T make a Set of stuff for it.
[url=http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/powerset.php?id=Scrapper_Melee.Martial_Arts]Scrapper Martial Arts[/url] could slot:
Thunder Kick (melee): Acc, Dam, End Rdx, Rech, Stun
Storm Kick (melee): Acc, Dam, End Rdx, Rech
Cobra Strike (melee): Acc, Dam, End Rdx, Rech, Stun
Focus Chi (self-buff): End Rdx, Rech, To-hit Buff
Crane Kick (melee): Acc, Dam, End Rdx, Rech, Knockback
Warrior's Challenge (taunt): Acc, Rng, Rech, Taunt
Crippling Axe Kick (melee): Acc, Dam, End Rdx, Rech, Immobilize, Slow
Dragon's Tail (PBAoE): Acc, Dam, End Rdx, Rech, Knockback
Eagle's Claw (melee): Acc, Dam, End Rdx, Rech, Stun
Take every Power in the Powerset and what [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invention_Sets]Invention Sets[/url] would you be able to make use of (and therefore could Craft)?
Melee Damage Sets
PBAoE Damage Sets (Dragon's Tail only)
Universal Damage Sets
Scrapper Sets
Immobilize Sets (Crippling Axe Kick only)
Knockback Sets (Crane Kick and Dragon's Tail only)
Stun Sets (Thunder Kick, Cobra Strike and Eagle's Claw only)
Taunt Sets (Warrior's Challenge only)
To-hit Buff Sets (Focus Chi only)
So taking all 9 Powers would grant access to 9 Sets of IO Enhancements. Skip a Power here and there and that would drop, simply because your build isn't using those Enhancements (therefore you don't need those Sets for your character). And that's just a single Primary Powerset. Add on the Secondary Powerset and the 41-49 Powerset as well as any and all Inherent Powersets (Fitness, Sprint, etc.) and you'll quickly see that a single character would be quite capable of Crafting a pretty wide range of Set IOs ... but not necessarily ALL of them.
As you can (or at least, should) be able to see, this really isn't all that big of a limitation. After all, If You Can Use It You Can Make It isn't all that restricting to YOUR personal needs. So when you point out the difficulty of being able to make something "big" that requires different disciplines, I'm going to have to ask you to be more specific than that overly broad generality. I'm talking about keying the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invention_Sets]TYPE of Sets[/url] that you can Craft to being enabled/permitted by what the build of Your Character can actually use.
Note that when including [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Multiple_Builds]Multiple Builds[/url] the range of what a single character could make could potentially be expanded even further. Indeed, with three alternate builds, you could even do a PvE build, a PvP build and a "Crafter" build to pick up anything the other two builds couldn't cover for you.
Also bear in mind that I'm simply using the City of Heroes crafting system structure as a sort of touchstone to convey the SHAPE of the idea I'm presenting here. At this stage we have no idea of how Crafting would be structured in City of Titans, how the Sets would be organized or any of the necessary details to discuss this in concrete terms.
Because "specialization" in this fashion would add a layer of complexity to something that would otherwise be a completely level, flat ... BORING ... field of possibilities. I'd also mention the "familiarity breeds contempt" motivation that occurs when everyone can do everything equally (so no "specialists" need apply).
Again, when it comes to making COMMONS ... everyone can make every Common.
When it comes to making specialized Sets ... you'll need to obtain those from a "specialist" (ie. someone who actually "does that" sort of thing for a living). If that "someone" is YOU then You can make it yourself. If you CAN'T, then why are You (needing to be the one) Crafting that instead of handing the parts and pieces over to a "specialist" who can, since YOU won't be able to make use of the results of the Crafting?
So one of the side effects would be a very different style of in-game market PvP with a different set of economics and dynamics for the different ranges of Sets available within the game.
And all of that is, of course, predicated upon the notion that there will be Sets AT ALL ... simply because City of Heroes had them for its Invention system. City of Titans might NOT have "sets" that work in the same way that City of Heroes did, and instead go for something more a la carte (which I personally would prefer, all things considered) ... in which case, this entire line of argument I've been presenting would be moot.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
It does look like crafted sets will be in CoT.
In this thread near the end Tannim give a very basic outline.
http://cityoftitans.com/forum/would-you-take-weakness-exchange-advantage
Assuming there are very rare Augments to be had, I don't like the effect this might have on acquiring/crafting them. For example, if I'm a Scrapper who doesn't play Defenders, I might get (as random drops) some stuff needed to make some very rare Defender-only item and I might then just just trash that stuff because I can't use it to craft anything for myself, nor can I craft the thing it makes just to sell it for a profit. This would drive down the availability and drive up the street prices of crafting inputs that the less popular Archetypes might need to make their stuff.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Just playing devils advocate here Radiac....but one would assume that all of the components would be able to be sold as well as the finished product.
In truth I think when Red said ...
It actually highlighted how this suggestion is unlikely to have a meaningful impact. The entire suggestion hinges on the idea that players will find a benefit in being able to craft everything and if the find they are unable to they will in turn make alt character to fill the gaps in what they can craft. As Red clearly points out, the actual effect it will have on characters in minimal at best and would likely only affect a small subsection of the player base (completionist badge hunters). Worse, if they do start to offer some kind of tangible reward as a kind of carrot or employ a disadvantage as a stick in regards to alting all this will do is breed resentment.
While we are a ways off from designing crafted set Augs and Refs, I wonder if it is even necessary to use this at all or even the basic Augs and Refs. Some sets will do multiple things. An attack set can have controls, debuffs, or even buffs. So would a player be forced to enter the market to purchase control Augs if they wanted to socket the. In their character's melee attack powers?
What happens when players can pick a wide range of tertiaries?
I would say that if the impact is minimal to the over all gain then the benefit of creating the sense of being "specialized" is minimal as well. Which means it is probably not worth the effort in bothering to create such specializations. I would much prefer keeping crafting open ended with providing benefits to thise who go out of their way to "specialize" in crafting in generall. Just because everyone could obtain all the crafting badges in the old game didn't result in everyone going through all the effort to actually do so.
It is either that or making specializing in a specific niche of crafting have an impact to the character, therefore the player, and also hold some significance to the game as well. The problem with that is specializing in the wrong niche could not result in any significant impact. Market needs could shift. Certain niches might not be in high demand and all the effort in specializing might nit necessarily result in any additonal earning potential (as far as marketing is concerned). Which is where the results of heavily crafting would most likely be measured by players.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Lets assume that the Pri/Sec/Ter powers I chose do not cover all Set Types but I want ALL the badges on my one character. What is to stop me from taking my level 30 character that has everything and using a Minor Respec (assuming that the respecting will allow different tiers) to replace one/two of my Tertiary powers with others that do use the Set Types I'm missing.
If this is mainly about stopping Badge Collectors then that has been bypassed.
If its about finding ways to make Alting more attractive I think there are better ways as this would alienate some players, and while we cant make everyone happy all the time this looks to be a direct smack in the face to some.
/5c
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
They did exist, I believe Golden Girl didn't have many if any others for example, but I agree there seems little point in this. If you really wanted to have this effect, you would make recipes tradable but crafted stuff character bound, but that would certainly cripple a lot of my fun on the market.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Tank Mage type builds are generally recognized as being something to AVOID in games, because they allow one character to "do it all" ... offense/defense, as well as ranged/melee and single target/multi-target. When all you need is ONE to do EVERYTHING, you've made a boring game.
I have no problem with a single character being designed with multiple builds allowing it to "cover all the bases" of Crafting [i]at different times with different builds[/i]. If someone wants to go to the effort of doing that, more power to 'em! After all, that's THEIR decision and THEIR character build options at that point.
But allowing Everyone to do Everything related to Crafting all at the same time? It's convenient, I'll grant you that ... but it's also boring as [b]{FNORD!}[/b] from a game design perspective, as well as a missed opportunity to differentiate characters from each other. It also does interesting things to the ... liquidity ... of the game's economy of resources and services, which any student of unrestricted capital flows ought to recognize isn't necessarily a positive thing.
As I've been at pains to point out repeatedly every time this objection is raised ... that's NOT the purpose, design goal, or even the major effect of what this proposal would do within the context of the precedent set by the City of Heroes Badge system, which I'd expect City of Titans to try and emulate until someone on staff says something to the contrary.
Heck, as I've said before, the effect of this idea on even the City of Heroes Badge Hunting would have been comfortably negligible. Why?
Count up the number of Badges that REQUIRED you to Craft [b]Set IOs[/b]. I'll even count them twice for everyone to save you the trouble of looking it up on paragonwiki.
[b]ZERO[/b].
There were 4 Badges that counted up the number of Inventions you had created, and Set IOs contributed to those totals ... but those badges weren't LIMITED to counting ONLY Set IOs. They also counted a number of other things towards their totals (including the Crafting of Temp Powers, for example, as well as the Crafting of Costume Pieces).
The only way this proposal would have a "tremendous impact" on Badge Hunting would be if MWM set things up such that some of the Crafting Badges required creating a specified number of [b]Set[/b] items in each category. Not Commons ... SETS.
Do I expect MWM to create Badges for Crafting Augment/Refinement [b]Sets[/b]? No.
Why? Lack of precedent and a conflict with expectations based on that precedent.
Look, let's boil this down into the crucible to get at the REAL objection here.
I'm fine with people being able to Craft anything they NEED or can otherwise USE on their character (that they're actively playing) at ANY time. So SOME of the options, ALL of the time is perfectly fine.
I'm even fine with people being able to "jump through hoops" to be able to Craft "anything" on a time share basis ... whether that be through use of another character on the account or almost the functional equivalent by switching over to an alternate build of the character actively being played (to quote Cutey Bunny Issue 1: "New costume? New powers!"). So ALL of the options, SOME of the time is also fine.
What I'm objecting to is having ALL of the options available ALL of the time in an "anything goes" free form structure. My objection falls into the same category of reasons and rationales for why an "anything goes" system that dispenses with Archetypes and Powersets is a bad idea.
I'd want to see at least SOME contours of limitations on what can be Crafted so that we don't wind up with a uniformly featureless (geometric) plane of universal flatness when it comes to whatever sort of Crafting System gets developed for City of Titans. Notice that my "opening bid" on such limitations is so low as to barely even be a speed bump, and yet I'm already getting pushback for having the temerity of suggesting that omnipresent universal convenience isn't necessarily a good thing for the health of the Crafting community or the Badge Hunter community.
Because that's what we're arguing about. TOTAL convenience versus the alternative of ALMOST total convenience. And look at the responses. We don't even have a Crafting system yet for City of Titans. We don't even have Badges associated with that Crafting system yet. And already, we have people opining that anything less than absolute and TOTAL convenience would be terrible and ... to quote you ... "a direct smack in the face to some."
Pardon me, but I think you're over-reacting.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
That may be what you are arguing but those are not the responses you are getting.
People have expressed their opinion that the cause and effect dynamic you expect this to produce won't exist or be so nominal as to be unnoticeable.
.
That there is little to be gained in overall game terms with the implementation of this system.
That the idea of being specialized is minimal at best.
Perhaps offering a counterpoint to the actual arguments being made is a bit better than assuming people are not smart enough to understand your opinion and that why they don't agree.
The term of art you're looking for is "not upsetting the apple cart."
When you start from an assumption that there won't (and can't?) be any specialists at all ... and won't budge from that position because it might impact absolute convenience ...
Except that I have ... repeatedly.
Most of the responses I've gotten have focused on the "harm" that would be produced ... which I then go on to document verges on the non-existent. Then I get responses saying that the "gain" either wouldn't exist or would be so small as to not be worth the effort ... to which my response is that I'm not trying to "revolutionize" things beyond recognition, so any perceptions of deviation from the baseline assumption HAVE TO be small.
The funny thing is, the contours of this ... discussion ... follow almost exactly the same ones revolving around the creation of various "sinks" for all kinds of things in the game (IGC, etc.). Every "sink" that gets proposed (by anyone) draws a virulent reaction, no matter how non-invasive it is, because each and every single one impacts convenience in some form or fashion, even if that impact is next to non-existent when taken individually but which COULD add up to being adequate or sufficient when taken in aggregate. Even when "sinks" are designed to be as convenient as possible, people still get up in arms about them existing in the first place ... and then when they get watered down to the point of ineffectiveness in response to all the pushback, the argument then flips over to "well why have them at all?" so as to kill them off from either direction (because they'll never be "just right" for somebody). The net result is that there is no "middle ground" to be found anywhere, only fanaticism dedicated to rejecting that any "sinks" ever exist anywhere.
In politics, this would be called [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY#BANANA]BANANA[/url] (meaning, Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).
Like I said in the first place ... "barmy" to even think it would be possible to have a rational discussion of this topic on the merits. It isn't even possible to discuss the possibility of ceding an inch without having people staking claims of losing miles of sovereign territory (that they will fight to the death to defend!) when it comes to convenience.
So, to repeat myself ... I'm pretty well convinced that I'm facing a lot of over-reaction. Makes it hard to have a reasoned conversation.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
My over-reaction was that I didn't see any problems that needed this solution. Rather than defending the idea, could you please explain why it's important?
I mean, 'Everyone can craft anything' seems more like a feature, than a bug.
What is the issue that needs 'fixing'? Please be specific?
Be Well!
Fireheart
Nope, What I said is what I meant...if you don't understand it just ask me to clarify.
Well again no....Tannim and myself made this counter-point...that the effect would be minimal. In no way did we suggest or imply that there wont be specialists. We both in fact stated that if your system was put in place it would not have much of an impact.....this is further backed up by your repeated comments on this very fact as you illustrate here...
You explain clearly here and at other times that not being able to craft anything will have little impact. When we agree with you and see how this has little upside in terms of getting what you stated as the goal from its implementation (a character that is seen as a specialist and the drive towards alts).
I know my pointing out how you blatantly misrepresented our response does not fit the narrative you are trying to twist this into but these are the facts.
Well except that you haven't.
Until now this is the first time you even hinted that your suggestion 'HAVE TO be small'.
This is very typical of the way you discuss things so I am not surprised. You take peoples statements and argue something that is not exactly what they said. You ignore anything that does not fit in the narrative you are creating in your replys and you introduce new arguments as if they were always there.
And you continue to assume that people don't agree with you because they are just to stupid to understand your genius.
So continue to argue the point that its either total convenience or minor inconvenience that no one is actually saying except you.
To be fair, Red's idea is an alternative vision of other games that feature multiple crafting systems. It is different to those in that those games you can only craft what you *choose* to craft, but you are still limited in total to WHAT you can craft on each character[1]
Or at least that is how I see it. You make the choice on what you can craft by one means or another. In Red's version the limitation is dictated by what your character can use. In other games, the limitation on what you can craft is by what crafting *skills* you pick up. They both have the same effect (limitation/specialisation on crafting results), just a different way to get there.
[1] Yes, I know that Final Fantasy 14 bucks this trend, but seeing as each crafting system is also effectively its own character class (in terms of skills and levels), it is more of a time sink than anything else... and even then, I believe that there are still specialisations that restrict a little bit what you can craft.
Randomly getting a recipe for a thing you couldn't actually use was disappointing enough in CoX when you could still craft it and/or sell it. Randomly getting a recipe for a thing you can't even craft seems marginally worse to me, if anything.
Also, in it's heart and soul, I don't think this is really a game where your character's crafting skill is a big thing in terms of immersion. I mean in paper-and-pencil DnD you have different Feats the govern which type of gear you can make, etc. I don't see any great role-play immersive angle to the proposed system as such in that regard. Maybe if you categorized different Augments as "Tech" versus "Magic" or something along those line, you could make it seem flavor-text appropriate but that's basically the CoX origins all over again, and I think they said they weren't going to make people commit to an "origin" in any officially-tracked way. So while I can see the sense in NOT allowing Iron Man to craft magic wands, I can also see the benefit to just letting that part of the fluff text slide for the sake of functionality and whatnot.
If you have to be a Blaster to make high-end Blasty augments, for example, what effect does this have on classes that are less popular than average? I mean, one class or another might be kind of challenging to play, or just not terribly popular for reasons having nothing to do with gear, but then if you ARE in that class, you'll find it difficult to acquire Augments you need because there are so few other people crafting that stuff. While it's true this ought to drive the street prices of that stuff higher, it's also true that the effect that this is supposed to have in a free market is that new people will come into that market to serve the obvious needs of the ripe market. But those people have a tangible non-economic barrier to entry that is the unpopularity of the class itself. So a less popular class may become starved for available Augments on the market in ADDITION to being a little less fun to play in general, this compounds the unpopularity of that class and the combined effect might be that even MORE people choose NOT to play that class. The class's unpopularity thus get's more severe and feeds back into itself. That can't be good.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Fully get that. But Reds suggestion includes none of the ways it actually works in other games...the biggest of which being skill progression level.
Reds suggestion was based off of the design of CoX's crafting system. You get recipes and components as drops to which you can craft an enhancement, temp power or costume part.
Red contends by simply limiting what recipes a player can craft to what they can do it will make someone a specialist in that area of crafting. This will in turn drive players to create alts so that they can have specialists in other areas of crafting.
The problem is that the only person who benefits from this 'specialization' is the specialist himself. There is no compelling reason for someone to seek out a player who can craft something you cannot as it will be something you cannot use. There is no reason to seek out someone who can craft what you craft because they craft at the same level you do....it wont matter who crafts it the result will be the same.
In effect this would do little to nothing to reach what Red stated was the purpose of this suggestion.
If Red had suggested adding in elements of Crafting skill levels which will result in one player being better at making the augment than another thus giving a reason to seek them out then he might have actually had a cognitive suggestion. As it stand all he has suggested is a change in crafting that does not do what he thinks it will.
Right. You can have Professions such as Herbalism, Mining and Skinning in World of Warcraft, but such things wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in City of Titans. Likewise, you can have Professions such as Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring and so on in a game like World of Warcraft, but again, such distinctions wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in City of Titans.
The closest even I can come to conceptualizing analogous professions loops back around into things like Day Jobs and Secret IDs, which by their very nature become to cumbersome and unwieldy to even start going down that road.
However, rather than being "harmed" by having an introduction of such a balkanized Crafting system like World of Warcraft's (in that game setting), instead you get something that increases the diversity of options and choices available to the Player. You aren't even necessarily "locked into" a single Profession forever in the World of Warcraft scheme, since you can (in effect) respec it and work to advance the new Profession all over again (insert major grind here). Why does this happen? Because no ONE character can DO IT ALL. You can make a group of characters that will give you access to everything, but no soloist is going to be able to do everything, all at once, all the time. So you have to Pick & Choose. You're given a CHOICE ... and that choice helps define "who" that character is for you (and what they can do).
But if you try and translate that into a City of Heroes(esque) kind of game setting, almost all of the underlying assumptions collapse out from under the edifice very quickly. For one thing, you don't have equipment swapping "gear" to make (and maintain!). For another, you aren't exactly using skills to gather and harvest resources out in the wild in ways that are inherently restrictive (ie. you can only gather herbs and can't mine ore). So the very implementation loses a lot in translation between games.
The ugliest possible translation that I could think of would be to tie the ability to Craft stuff into what City of Heroes would consider a Pool of Powers. You have to take Powers from a specific Crafting Pool in order to be able to make various categories of stuff.
Uh ... NO. >.<#
Okay ... so what if instead of activating the Zero Sum Equation of having to spend a Power Slot in order to make things ... instead, the whole thing is set up to be transparent, such that what you can Use directly translates into what you can Craft. You still get the CHOICES aspect of things, but now because it gets bundled with the rest of your Power Picks, you create a whole other layer of meta-game that every Player gets to participate in automagically, and which is structured in such a way as to prevent self-gimping. Thus, different builds of the exact same Powersets can have a diversity in what they can Craft based on what they can Do. One of the great features of City of Heroes was that two Fire/Fire Tankers on the same Team were very unlikely to have the exact same build, or be played in the exact same manner. Bring an "echo" of that kind of diversity where builds "matter" into the realm of Crafting and what happens?
Let's take another analogy then. Travel Powers. Who here thinks that everyone ought to be able to use every single Travel Power at Level 1 and that we ought to get them all as Inherent Powers? Who here thinks there should be no drawback whatsoever to running all of the Travel Powers simultaneously?
Yes, that's a Straw Man ... I know ... but I'm also using it to illustrate the sort of fallacies of assumption that can result in a sense of entitlement. Before I started this thread, it's quite obvious that everyone assumed that any character could craft any Augment or Refinement (ie. Enhancements) of any kind without any sort of character based restrictions. And just like with choosing a Travel Power at Level 1 ... just because you can choose any Travel Power initially does not inherently mean that you necessarily ought to have access to all of them (at the same time?) free of charge, let alone even want to. When you have to make a choice, that choice ought to define your character (and what they can do) in some way, form or fashion.
This 1st character Flies.
This 2nd character Teleports.
This 3rd character Superspeeds and Super Jumps.
This 1st character can make Confusion Sets.
This 2nd character can make Taunt Sets.
This 3rd character can make Melee Damage Sets and Ranged Damage Sets.
What's the difference? Not much ... and all the difference in the world ... depending on how you want to look at things. I know that I came to identify my own characters based on their preferred method of movement (Fly, Jump, Run, Teleport, and in some cases, multiples of the above, particularly with Tri-form Kheldians). I did not begrudge or bemoan the fact that there were movement types I couldn't make full use of. Instead, I learned to use what I had to the best of my abilities, and occasionally relied on others for assistance (see: Taxibots and Recall Friend).
It's hard to have diversity in a system that promotes absolutely no distinctions whatsoever. It's hard to have more than one solution to a problem when everyone can use the default answer equally and after that it's just a question of grinding stuff out and racking up the counters on all the Badges. There's no ... challenge ... in a system like that. No diversity. All you've got is everyone able to do everything without restrictions. It's dull. The terrain has no features. There's no individuality beyond checking off the checkboxes of getting all the Badges. Everyone is self-(ishly)-sufficient ... and you wind up with a system that promotes City of Soloists, because no one needs anyone else. After all, you can Have Your Cake And Eat It Too (see reference to Tank Mages).
Is that what people really want? It's *convenient* as I've said, and there's no gainsaying that ... but is it FUN? I have my doubts ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
At the risk of sounding sarcastic, I wonder why I would do that? It is, after all, the touchstone reference that we all have in common, complete with documentation at Paragon Wiki, to outline examples and run test cases with. It also happens to be the baseline assumption for the kinds of dynamics people are [i]expecting[/i] MWM to recreate.
So ... yes. I grounded my suggestion in the commonly available reference point that did not require building an entire Crafting system from scratch that no one would implicitly understand. Guilty as charged. Was that a crime?
And I keep saying that is one possible solution to work around the limitation ... with another being alternate builds. And despite repeatedly saying that use of Alts would be a side effect, rather than a purposeful goal (and if it doesn't happen, the whole thing is a failure), you keep refusing to accept the information I'm giving you and incorporate it into your understanding and perspective on the issue.
At this stage, without a Crafting SYSTEM framework to hang various bells and whistles on, I can hardly start calling for "crafting skill levels" just yet. And what does "better at making" stuff mean? Extra buffs to the produced crafting? Roll the RNG and see what extra goodies you get? Would calling for that sort of thing (at this stage of development) even be remotely balanced?
Any sort of "crafting levels" system would immediately fall prey to min/maxing, particularly if Crafting results can have variables in what gets produced. We're all familiar with the idea of "junk" Crafting rolls in other games (the Diablo series could be especially bad for this) when you're at the mercy of the RNG. I would not consider such a direction to be something healthy for the development of City of Titans, therefore I have not called for it.
There's also an inherent elitism that takes root when dealing with Crafting Levels as a measurement of advancement. They also set up a sort of "you must be this tall to ride this ride" sort of GRIND to be able to achieve those levels, and last I checked there are few people eager to jump on that train to Korea.
Now ... in all fairness, and in reaction to what you're saying here (meaning that you have provoked this thought with your comment) ... if we HAD to have something akin to Crafting Levels, here's how I would prefer to see something like that structured. Once again, I'm going to reference the kinds of structural elements that City of Heroes used in its crafting system to obtain the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Gaining_the_Field_Crafter_Badge]Field Crafter Badge[/url]. Yes, this idea is somewhat amorphous and lacking in details just yet, so at the moment I'm just sketching on the whiteboard for this.
Suppose that for each category of Augment/Refinement there were a group of Badges (see [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Gaining_the_Field_Crafter_Badge]here[/url] for an example of this sort of thing). So you organize things into categories, and the Badges keep track of how much "stuff" you've Crafted in each of those categories. The number of Badges you've earned in a particular category then adds up to being the "Level" of Crafting you've earned in that category, and when you've earned all the Badges in a category, you've "mastered" that particular category of Crafting. With me so far? So far so good?
Now ... take that number of Crafting Badges in a category (not which ones, just how many of them you've got) and then use that as a limiting gateway modifier on how "high" you can go with the Level when Crafting Sets in that category.
So let's look at the table at the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Gaining_the_Field_Crafter_Badge]LINK[/url] I've provided and pick a category. It doesn't really matter which category, but for the purposes of our discussion, let's choose something that highlights the differences that I've been suggesting in this thread already. Let's choose the "Mez" category.
Sleep, Snare, Hold, Stun, Immobilize, Fear
Now ... there were 5 badges to be earned in this category in City of Heroes:
[list][*]10
[*]15 & 20
[*]25 & 30
[*]35 & 40
[*]45 & 50[/list]
Now ... let's say, just for the sake of argument, that for each Badge I earn in this category, I can Craft Set IOs (because we're using City of Heroes for reference and illustration) of up to 10 Levels per Badge. In other words, I have to "earn" my way towards being allowed to make the really "cool" stuff available within that category. So if I've only got 1 Badge for the category, then I can Craft Level 10 Set IOs in that category. If I've got 2 Badges for that category, then I can Craft up to Level 20 Set IOs in that category. All the way on up to having all 5 Badges for the category and thus being able to Craft Level 50 Set IOs in that category.
So far so simple and straightforward?
BUT ... if you add the wrinkle of my "you can only Craft what you can Use" spin onto things, that situation becomes even more complex. Because my current build might have an Immobilize, a Snare and a Stun in it, but I don't have a Fear or a Hold or a Sleep because none of the Powers in my build offer those effects.
Note that in such a structure, Common IOs could be made by anyone without restriction. Those would form the "ground floor lobby" of the building edifice that everyone has access to and which is the foundation upon which everything else rests. Set IOs would form the "upper stories" of the building that require ... investment ... on the part of the Player to reach. Master the category and you can reach the top floor (ie. Level Cap), but depending on the specific build you have active when Crafting you might not have access to EVERY "wing" of the top floors of the building simultaneously.
How to get around that? Either hire more "staff" (ie. create Alts) or invest in alternate builds that change which wings of the building the elevators go to when you step into them. Remember, you can always get to Set "wings" within a category that your build makes use of while that build is active.
Some people are completionists and will want to have everything available to them. If that means creating Alts to achieve that, then they may decide to create enough Alts to reach that goal. The structure creates an INCENTIVE to do so without dictating a MANDATE to do so. The former is okay ... the latter is not. As the old saying goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Ironically, such a Crafting structure would, as a side effect, create an incentive for "Crafting Builds" that are optimized to cover the widest possible variety of Sets available within defined categories. Note that such builds may very well be less than ideal for PvE and/or PvP purposes, creating yet another push/pull tension on the options and relative values of choices when creating builds, [i]depending on what the Player values as being most important to them[/i]. Out of that mix of competing priorities will spring yet another layer of varieties of builds, enriching the game at large when it comes to messing around with Mids' Hero Planner (or the equivalent). Why? Because it's hard to make a "Tank Mage" of Crafting that can Do Everything simultaneously (there's just too many competing priorities to balance them ALL "just so" in order to check all the boxes).
That's about as far as I'd want to speculate on a "Crafting Levels" sort of system that requires Players to "pay their dues" in order to reach higher levels of skill in Crafting. It makes the Set IOs "special" and designs a system that requires investment in order to both Craft and Use those Set IOs, which has interesting implications for both Supply and Demand and how quickly they'll be capable of being pushed away from stability.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
If you can give even one reason that your suggestion promotes the need for other players I would be surprised.
I do find it funny how here ...
Which shows you don't expect there to be much of an impact on badge hunting.
And then in your latest post you say.
Which shows you expect your system would in fact have an effect on Badge hunting which makes it harder.
I have no issue with the notion of making badging more of a challenge (this seems to be the new reason for your suggestion as you have abandoned the notion of alting and changed specialization to making a character an individuality). But your suggestion does not actually provide a challenge to acquiring those badges. If anything it just makes getting the badge more of a grind.
Even if the idea did create a more challenging badge hunt it only has relevance to the small sub-section of players...the badge hunters.
Why?
I'm not asking that rhetorically. Why would that be more disappointing? If you can't use it, YOU CAN'T USE IT. Either you Craft it and sell it (because you can't use it) or you skip the Crafting step and just go ahead and sell it. If you can't use it and just keep it in your Inventory, all you're doing is gimping yourself. With your example, all paths lead to either an NPC Vendor or to the Auction House ... because you can't use what got dropped.
The only way to avoid receiving random drops that you can't use is to design the random drop system to only drop stuff that you CAN use. I don't know about you, but I'd be leery of taking things THAT far. I mean ... if you can't use it, it won't drop for you? I can foresee all kinds of problems with implementing a system like that. For one thing, it skews opportunities ... which creates a not level playing field (not recommended!).
Disappointing ... sure, I'll grant you that I'd always prefer to have stuff drop for me that I can use. So much more CONVENIENT that way! But even then, "Vendor Bait" has its uses within a game's economy, and shouldn't be banished out of hand simply because *I* find it inconvenient or "disappointing" to receive as a random drop. After all ... one man's trash is another man's treasure and all that. Just because *I* can't use something doesn't mean NOBODY could ever use it.
With great drops comes great responsibility ... TO AUCTION !!! ... or words to that effect. The same holds true for lousy drops as well. Eye of the beholder and all that.
Granted ... which is why I've been looking for a system that transparently (to the Player) works as a side effect of what Powers you choose to outfit your build with. Essentially "bundle" Crafting permissions into the Powers decisions, and do so in a way that only limits access to the "best stuff" (ie. the Sets), creating a dynamic in which not everyone can do everything (all at once).
You are correct. Indeed, almost any sort of "Pool Powers" approach to Crafting that worked like picking your Travel Pool at Level 6 and taking your Travel Power at Level 14 (ie. the old, original way that Travel Powers were structured in City of Heroes) would almost certainly be a mistake ... because creating a zero-sum investment like that would in turn produce a DISadvantage to participating in the Crafting System due to the "you have to pay to play" nature of such an investment requirement.
The entire "you can craft what you use" system then piggybacks on top of the Powers choices when Leveling, something that Players are going to be doing already anyway, severely reducing the opportunities for "self gimping" of making an unhelpful combination of choices that would allow you to Craft only things that are of little to no value to you. It's both "free form" but also personalized to each character's specific needs without requiring Players to push the right buttons to get access to their own stuff.
Given the freedom being offered in terms of animation selections, even that sort of distinction would be too restrictive. You could get away with Origins in City of Heroes (which DOs and SOs did, as you'll recall), but such distinctions are getting banished to Bio flavor text in City of Titans and thus would not make for useful touchstones.
Yup. In City of Titans, the Refinements/Augments used in a Power most likely aren't going to determine anything about how the Power animates anyway.
Are you talking about the Market effects? One would expect Supply & Demand to come into play, given a large enough population of Players. So let's take your example at face value.
For whatever reason, Blasters are unpopular to play {hand wave}.
But Blaster Augments still drop as an equal share of the random drops in the game for all classes.
This would imply that supply will outstrip demand, causing market prices to fall accordingly (barring Ebil Marketeer price manipulations). If prices on the market fall "too low" expect [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage]Arbitrage[/url] to begin occurring, where Players buy underpriced auctions and sell them at a higher price to NPCs as Vendor Bait (unknown if this will be possible with City of Titans NPCs "playing the market" just like Players). I would consider it within the realm of possibility that any of a number of different factors (including patch updates) could revise the popularity of Blasters, spurring demand for Blaster Augments.
Again, I look at that kind of situation and see a dynamic range of possibilities, rather than a static and unchanging "runaway" condition that never changes or gets recovered from.
But would that be the dynamic? If 20% of the drops that are given out relate to your class, the fact that your class is "unpopular" among the Players doesn't influence that drop rate. The supply isn't necessarily affected. The unpopularity of a class will affect the demand for those drops, however. Typically, when supply holds stead and demand goes down, the prices of the commodity go down as well, not because of scarcity of supply but because of scarcity of demand.
The flip side of that is that in the circumstances you cite, the difficulty would only be in finding Augments that have been Crafted by other Players already posted on the market. And yet you'd still be able to Craft your own Augments for any Power that you already have in your build. So as long as the materials are available, you ought to still be able to make your own.
I think you've got that backwards. I don't foresee a vicious cycle feeding on itself driving supplies to ruin for an unpopular class. Instead I foresee a dynamic equilibrium in which supplies remain steady but demand drops, producing an overall downward trend in prices and a glut in stocks on hand in the market due to unpopularity of the class. This lowers prices, and represents a "bargain" for anyone joining the unpopular class. Thus, playing a class that is "unpopular" could be significantly cheaper than playing the latest Flavor of the Month ... for which supplies hold steady but demand increases, producing an upward trend in prices and a scarcity in stocks on hand in the market due to the popularity of the Flavor of the Month.
So I think you've got that upside down there, Radiac.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
One major wrinkle is that Crafting isn't perceived as a "skill" in any shape or form (internally speaking here). It is a player activity which is designed to be accessible to all. This system of "you can only make what you can use" probably wouldn't fly.
Because as I said earlier, it could be fairly easy to pretty much obtain every type of power. Powers can have multiple effects, Players could pick multiple Tertiary powers to get stuff their chosen character doesn't have access to. It also calls for creating very specific types of Augments, making them distict by the exact function. Splitting hairs between what amounts to the same kind of improvement the augment provides. That is making a distinction between say one control effect over another, when under the hood they're effectively the same, this allows us to simplify the list of possible Augments and Refinements to their basic functions.
Now this doesn't mean that we couldn't, at some point, make specified pieces, or even Classification (or heck Specification) unique sets. That's entirely possible. The only distiction here is that with the wide diversity of build options, players shouldn't be cut off from being able to make one type of augment over another just because they didn't pick the right combination of powers. Limiting Class / Spec unique sets to only be crafted by that Class / Spec is certainly possible too. Is it necessary?
As I see it the only "problem" Red's system even attempts to address is homogeny of capability. By limiting in some way what one player could craft over another creates a diversity that at least to that player, might feel makes them more unique by giving a set of choices to the player. To a lesser degree it can add to the number of possible play hours if one player decides on making different characters just to get access to different things (crafting wise at least, among other game play experiences).
The possibility therefore exists in providing at some point, a set of choices before the character, where perhaps they can craft anything, but if they choose to specialize in an area of crafting they get certain bonuses. Instead of cutting players off from what they can do, you provide incentive for continuing to play the crafting minigame (this is the time of play portion), and you provide number of possible choices which inherently gives the player a sense of disctinction of what one character can do over another.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Nope not a crime. But as I was just giving Gangrel a synopsis of your suggestion to illustrate I understood it and the statement itself holds no malice this might be a bit of an over reaction.....I say plenty later in that post to get upset over.
I suggest you go back and read what you quoted you will see that I addressed both your desire to create a specialist and the side effect of making alts more attractive. As both your originally stated desire and the side effect were addressed I have a pretty good understanding of your perspective on the issue.
Yes....and note that I did not include the RNG part.
Why not. You already made the suggestion based on the assumption that the crafting system will function very similar to CoX. How is suggesting to limit what can be crafted different than suggesting crafting skill levels using the same assumption of a CoX type system?
I agree that a RNG type result for crafting is a mistake. Transparency in results is always better.
No idea what you mean by 'inherent elitism'?
But if I understand you right you are thinking I am suggesting that to get good at crafting you follow the same design model as Korean MMOs with the progress of your skill in a craft directly influenced by how much you craft.
I am not even remotely hinting at that aspect (but as I didn't clarify its easy to think that). After I respond to the next quote I will explain my thinking on the matter.
This system would in fact do much of what you say it would but I find it overly complex and moderately restrictive. It also really reeks of the aforementioned Korean MMO crafting level growth. If your system was implemented I would not have an issue with it mind you...I just think it does not need to be that complex.
Bear with me and look at what I propose as an alternative.
First completely dispense with the notion that you can only craft what you can do. Let anyone craft anything. Instead introduce specialization that can actually be shared with others on a meaningful level.
As you know CoT will include masteries (found here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans/posts/858157). Basically as you gain levels you reach certain milestones and are able to choose a mastery. This type of growth could be reused for crafting specialization.
Basically at certain milestone levels your character gets a chance to choose a crafting specialization skill.
To give a few examples:
Augment type focus which would give a small bonus to every augment that is of that type (say a baseline is 10% and the boost is 1/2%)
General focus which would give a smaller boost to any crafted augment.
Cheaper crafting which would make crafting cost less in either components or IGN.
Yes these bonuses would stack so hyper specialization would (as it should) produce a better result than lesser skill. These bonuses would of course need to be balanced before hand and leave room that the game can grow and introduce additional crafting without the power creep factor (as a devoted character can have the highest bonus in every power slot).
If a system like this was used then those who want to craft everything could do so. The player is required to make a meaningful choice as to what they want to be able to do in regards to crafting. Will make those with skills be sought out for crafting (or their crafted items will be sold for more in the market). It will offer a tangible benefit to the player to have alts that have separate skills.
In essence it will do everything you have either stated as the desire or as a side effect without being too complex (making it accessable is key IMO) and it does not require the need to limit what any player can craft.
It does have a possible drawback (depending on who you ask) by extending a character completion time (having the highest bonus augment in every slot.) It could make the game feel a bit of a grind if you have to purchase a large portion of your augments on the market and the cost is more than you would make in the journey from Level one to max. Resulting in feelings of having to grind to earn enough to complete your character.
Anyway...that's my take on it.
Dagnabit....you posted while I was typing mine. What Tannim says here is essentially what I suggest in my post except he says it better and with less words.
Regarding a Crafting System, I could easily see characters Hiring NPCs to do the hard work. Rather than being NightBat, tinkering in his cave, one could hire Joe the Mechanic, or Digital Daisy, or Tim the Enchanter, who have Vast experience in these crafting skills, to make the trinket. NightBat, himself, might use his clandestine connections to his alter-ego's corporate resources to get the job done.
Crafters could be contacts that give people missions to collect a dozen purple whatsits to use as materials. Such collection could be accomplished via whatever means are available, whether that's buying them on G-Bay, or harvesting them from the bodies of 'Things From Beyond', or stealing them from OxCorp.
Obviously, SOME supers are super because they are crafters, but most of them aren't. So, why should we require them to be one, in order to get the things that really enhance their powers?
Be Well!
Fireheart
You are not required to craft anything that really enhances your powers. Its already been established that crafted objects will not be character or account bound so you are perfectly free to purchase your objects on the market instead of making it yourself.
Yes, but that doesn't allow me to derail this topic with an idea of my own! *grin*
Be Well!
Fireheart
I like this idea. I like it a lot. It seems to me this solves RedLynne's problem of excessive homogeneity and does so in a way that would be both simpler to implement and simpler for the player to act upon. It allows for both a rich and diverse market while encouraging specialization.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My author page at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2MPvkRX
My novelty shirts: https://amzn.to/31Sld32
And yet, what you say ... has merit. Please. Continue.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
His post was pretty complete....he suggested what amounts to missions with crafted items as rewards. Its a good suggestion that deserves its own thread.
Actually, that was tangential to the idea that players/characters wouldn't do crafting in-game and on-camera, but hire an NPC to do it on the side, while the character continues to play. Stripped of all the niceties, Crafter NPCs would be vending machines - you feed in your correct salvage and push the button, and out pops the requested object. Of course, that's pretty much what a Crafting Table did, but this has a slightly different flavor.
The additional idea that these vending machines would give you a mission to collect the particular salvage in question, or to collect unrelated salvage in bulk, in exchange for the desired trinket, was just an additional layer of gloss between the character and the crafting.
Be Well!
Fireheart
The wording in your first post implied more that you did not want to have to craft (especially the part I quoted in my first reply) than a desire for crafting table variety. I understand now what you mean.
Its a good suggestion, start a thread so it can be discussed fully.
It *could be* possible to have customized crafting tables to suit themes, including it be an "npc". (adds it to ever growing QoL list).
There wouldn't be a need to turn crafting tables into fetch quest givers. A subtle difference to be sure, but one with rather significant implications.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Well, you're right, I don't want to 'have to' be a crafter. I don't want to 'have to' maintain a store of salvage, or, really, to 'have to' hunt down the critter that drops that one important ingredient. I definitely don't want to 'have to' farm said critters, endlessly waiting for the RNG to have mercy on me! I sure don't want to 'have to' buy Alchemical Silver on the Market, at 10,000-percent mark-up.
I also don't want to 'have to' wait until I level and get the power that unlocks a particular playstyle, before I can make the thingie that goes in the first enhancement-slot. I want to craft, or not-craft, as I see fit.
Tannim, a difference between an NPC Crafter and a regular Crafting Table, _is_ that the table wouldn't be a source of 'story' in any way. NPCs, however, are another way for the Devs to interact with the Players. They can add 'story', or missions, and be linked into the game's internal system.
It occurs to me that 'Crafter Missions' and the loot from them, might be used to balance supply and demand in the economy, in the background. A bit like the 'Vendor Missions' suggested elsewhere.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Keep in mind that the suggestion of Vendor Missions was made by someone who is not privy to how the loot system in general, in particular to crafting items, is being designed. I consider it a fall back should the primary loot system (which covers how and when things drop) doesn't end up working out as intended.
Another thing to keep in mind, crafing won't be necessary for everyone. Which is how the auction system will work as people who do like crafiting can sell the things that those who don't want to craft but use can purchase.
Further, it may be possible to obtain the things needed to craft items without waiting for the particular item to drop or even be purchased from the AH. Whic is yet another way that items can make their way into the game world without necessarily being dependant upon drops.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Agreed, we're all working in advance of tangible data and anticipating issues that may never occur.
Fun, isn't it?! *grin*
Be Well!
Fireheart
Star Trek Online has something similar to this in its [url=http://sto.gamepedia.com/Duty_officer]Duty Officer[/url] system. Some of the Duty Officer Missions that you can assign are functionally "Crafting" (or just plain old acquisitions) such that the reward for the Mission is something that would not normally be obtainable (such as the http://sto.gamepedia.com/Hargh%27peng_Torpedo_Launcher]Hargh'peng Torpedo Launcher[/url]).
Since then, Star Trek Online added an full blown [url=http://sto.gamepedia.com/Research_and_Development]R&D System[/url] which once again makes use of Duty Officers to perform the tasks.
In a City of Heroes context, substitute in "Contacts" for "Duty Officers" and as a Player you'd be able to go around to your network of Contacts and give THEM Things To Do™ for you that would functionally be a matter of winding up the key and waiting for the bell to ring on whatever the Contact has "cooking" for you (in the Crafting sense). That way, instead of having a centralized location with "universal" Crafting Tables in it (such as a University or a SG Base), the system relies on "running around town" to coordinate the activities of your network of Contacts. As an upside, this would mean that "old" Contacts who run out of Missions for YOU to do could still remain relevant to gameplay long after you've left their area ... meaning that Contacts aren't necessarily "disposable" in the sense of never needing to ever talk to them ever again.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I am fine to do away with crafting "leveling". For that matter, one could do away with needlessly exacting recipes. For example, in a fantasy world, you have a breastplate recipe, but for the metal you can use whatever you want. Tin, copper, iron, steel, mithril, the better the better the piece. This could also add other benefits.
This would, in a fantasy world, be closer to CoH custom tailoring powers by adding DAM or ACC or whatever, and you aren't beholden to a designer mandating a pristine summer lamb spleen but not a so-so winter ram spleen.
__________________
[IMG]http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll38/Gnurl/a72b7fba-8da2-4ac8-8e18-0f8453f7d3ee_zpscc5b27b5.jpg[/IMG]
The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Better make the bonuses,
reduced material costs,
reduced production costs,
chance of creating an extra product.
deconstructing a product and getting more base material
chance of finding more materials.
A better chance on making the highest quality.
Because for those who want to make everything and told they could make everything.
That means making the best quality of everything, or they are not making everything.
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/18.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
[URL=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knhgv6lgbrs/UA_riCKAHNI/AAAAAAAATxE/u-sgh23bZhc/s640/wonder_women_by_penichet-d47up0l.jpg [/IMG][/URL]
Right now Tannim said that there are no plans on restricting crafting. If they do decide later to add crafting levels then they won't say you can craft everything they will say you can craft every type but it is influence by your crafting level.
As long as the highest crafting level lets you make the highest quality of everything then crafting everything is possible.
Earn it. Is always much better statement then, Never.
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/18.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
[URL=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knhgv6lgbrs/UA_riCKAHNI/AAAAAAAATxE/u-sgh23bZhc/s640/wonder_women_by_penichet-d47up0l.jpg [/IMG][/URL]
While we're on the subject of the crafting system and the specific idea of making different specific augments craftable only by different specific classes, it occurs to me that I never originally though the "Recipe + salvage = useable Enhancement" formula was terribly logical. The recipe, of that;s what it is, is just a list of inputs you need, it's not supposed to be an input in and of itself. I mean, you don't have to go buy a new chocolate cake recipe every time you want to make a chocolate cake. The recipe is just a set of instructions/ingredients listed someplace, it's not a physical component of the finished product. I had assumed, at first, that once you got a hold of a specific recipe, or even if you just heard what it was from someone, you could make as many such IOs as you wanted from it, like the different combinations of stuff you could transmute in the Horadric Cube in Diablo II.
So I never liked the way the CoX system was implemented. I have nothing against limiting which IO you get to craft based on what pieces drop for you, or making people buy stuff they need on the market, etc, but I don't think the one essential piece needed to make a Positron's Blast Damage IO should have been called "Positron's Blast Damage Recipe". Calling it a recipe is just awkward and misleading in terms of what it really was and how it really functioned.
One thing I keep coming back to is this: as soon as you try to come up with a system of objects to collect to make an Enhancer, you get into the flavor text of "Where do powers come from and what is the basic energy source?" In Freedom Force that was "Energy X", in CoX it was a series of different things depending on your Origin, etc. So in response to my own complaint of "Recipes are an awkward way to name this thing based on what it does." I ask myself "Okay, so what would _I_ have called them?" and I still don't have an answer to that.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
"Formulations" is about as Origin agnostic as I can manage. The very term implies a "some assembly required" expectation.
Still, it's hard to get around the fact that the Recipes were really just "permission slips" added into the mix to direct which Salvage got used to make stuff.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Allow me to reiterate that I think it would be unwise to inject a RNG into the results of Crafting in terms of the modifiers that go onto something that gets Crafted. That just opens up the "junk Crafts" can of worms, where it takes multiple tries to "make the best" stats (which you KNOW is what people will immediately angle for).
If an RNG [i]has to be[/i] injected into Crafting at all, I'd fall back onto the age old "success is not 100% guaranteed" clause. I've been reading [url=http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=sword+online+progressive]Sword Online Progressive[/url] and one of the things about the Crafting system used in that (admittedly fictional) game seems to be compelling. That is, that in order to perform some Crafting actions, there is a minimum of Materials required, but using only that gives you a low chance of success. However, by adding additional materials (ie. spend more) you can raise the odds of success up to much more favorable levels (95% is mentioned as being the maximum possible for upgrades, for example). Note that a permanent 5% chance of failure is functionally the same as rolling a natural 1 on a d20 for a critical failure (no matter how good your mods are, you still failed anyway). That's about as close as I'd want to get to injecting a RNG into the Crafting system.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I will quote Tannim here so you can read his actual statement and decide if you like it or not for yourself and then discuss it.
This is his quick reply to the entire concept. As you can see it makes no promises one way or the other and only offers one possible solution to the OP's desire. Earlier in that post he states that the devs don't consider crafting a skill and are currently leaving it completely open for the players.
Problem with replying in a long thread without reading it is you miss whats been discussed.
If that's the worst thing you can think of about crafting in CoT then the devs will have done very well indeed.
If the term recipe bothers you ... call it 'Key component'. Its vague enough that it can be whatever you want it to be from the diamond the mad doctor uses for his death ray to the spark of insight the hero gets to make his sleeping gas work. Instead of Positron's Blast Damage IO recipe it would be Positron's Blast Damage Key component.
Now here's a thought that just occurred to me while writing my last post ...
In City of Heroes, there were separate recipes for Common and Set IOs. So far so good. Common IOs consumed Common Salvage, while Set IOs consumed Common, Uncommon and Rare Salvage.
What if City of Titans puts a different spin on this for Crafting of Set items?
Instead of using different types and mixes of Salvage to Craft the Sets ... instead, the Set formulas require a combination of (already Crafted) Common Augments/Refinements [i]be combined together[/i] in order to make the Set Items?
So let's take an example of a Ranged Damage Set ... [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Thunderstrike]Thunderstrike[/url].
[list][*]Thunderstrike: Accuracy/Damage
[*]Thunderstrike: Damage/Endurance
[*]Thunderstrike: Damage/Recharge
[*]Thunderstrike: Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
[*]Thunderstrike: Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
[*]Thunderstrike: Damage/Endurance/Recharge[/list]
So how would you make the first IO, the Accuracy/Damage one? Well, the basic idea I'm outlining here is that you'd put a Common Accuracy and a Common Damage IO together in order to make the Accuracy/Damage Set IO.
However, although that certainly SOUNDS simple enough, that might perhaps be a little too cheap and easy to accomplish. So it might be desirable to increase the "burn rate" of Commons being converted into Sets so as to sink Commons out of the economy more effectively. The first thing that comes to mind is that "double mod" Set IOs would require 2 copies of each Common IO for each modifier. This would mean that in order to Craft an Accuracy/Damage Set IO, you would need to combine 2 Common Accuracy IOs and 2 Common Damage IOs ... for a total of 4 Common IOs to make 1 "dual modifier" Set IO.
Progress that to the next step and you have "triple mod" Set IOs requiring 3 copies of each Common IO for each modifier. Thus, you'd need 9 Common IOs to make 1 "triple modifier" Set IO.
Progress that thought again and you'll have "quad mod" Set IOs requiring 4 copies of each Common IO for each modifier. Thus, you'd need 16 Common IOs to make 1 "quad modifier" Set IO.
So that Thunderstrike Set I've referenced above? Using the system I'm outlining here, it would take 4+4+4+9+9+9=39 Common IOs to Craft the entire Set. Set the minimum inventory size for Enhancements (or their City of Titans equivalents) to 20 (so the most complex Sets are "quad mods") and you're good to go.
The only downside I see with this system is dealing with the Proc IOs, since they would be an exception to the general rules and would therefore require doing something different. The first thing that springs to mind is that if City of Titans is able to limit the number Enhancement Types down to no more than 12 (which I'd honestly recommend, as I have in the past in these forums), then it ought to be possible to set up the required combination for Procs to be "1 of each plus 1" to cover all the bases and only double up on whatever the Proc does or represents. So if there are 12 Enhancement Types, you'd need 1 Common IO for each of the Types as the "foundation" for any and every Proc IO ... so 12 Common IOs to start. Then if the Proc is a Debuff Type Proc, simply add another Common Debuff IO into the mix and run the combination function of the Crafting Table. So every Proc IO would cost 12+1=13 Common IOs, with the +1 being variable depending on which kind of Proc the Set uses.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Going back tot he original idea of the post, if there were an inherent starting limitation on which items you can craft based on your class, you'd be able to make specific crafting rights an unlock earned through various means later on ans a way to reward players. Like, "get the Master of ____ badge from this TF and you get a crafting unlock with it (maybe a specific one from the TF, maybe a random one, maybe one of your choice, IDK)".
Also, in my most recent post, I mentioned my dislike of the term "Recipe". I think the specific bit of salvage or loot needed to make "Augment X" should not be called "Augment X Recipe" or anything like that but rather something totally "flavory" like "X Crystal" or "X Source Code" or "Essence of X Extract" etc.
Another idea that occurred to me is the fact that the gear/crafting system, however it may work, has the potential to add long-term re-playability to the game. I mean, some people will grind for gear a lot whether you make the game all about that or not, and for those who do, getting those untra-rares is what it's all about. In CoX I didn't rabidly go around grinding for gear and stuff a lot, so I took the more gradual "casually building my toon" approach of just getting some swag here and there and trying to get by with mostly rares etc instead of purpling everything out to the nines ASAP. I like always having some new thing that my character could use, even if it's very rare and takes a lot of work to get it, or a lot of luck, or a lot of IGC. So the gear system, I feel, should make this process of getting the uber gear any easier than CoX did, rather it would be better if it gave us a lot of different good options at the ultra rare gear level such that we might want several different "purples" for any given power, based on circumstances and build choices. That way theres a greater chance that I'll want to play my level-capped toons far past the point when they hit the level cap.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
CoT's end game is more about alts than gear I think. So you might be getting more in the way of story progression at the level cap as opposed to character progression.
My original notion was a sort of "permission lock" of the can/can't variety (essentially a boolean). An alternative to that would be that Everyone Can MAKE Everything ... but that the costs for doing so are not universally flat. So if you're Crafting something that you can't use it "costs more" to do so because it's outside your area of expertise (as represented by your Power Picks). Alternatively, you could go in the other direction that for [i]each Power you have[/i] that can make use of that item you're Crafting, the cost of Crafting it goes DOWN.
So, for example, my MA/SR/Soul Scrapper Redlynne had (if I'm remembering correctly, it's been a while) 8 Powers that could take Defense Enhancements. 3 Toggles and 3 Passives in the SR Secondary (I skipped Elude since I never used it) plus Maneuvers and Hover. That means that using the above notion, Redlynne ought to be "really good" at Crafting Defense Enhancements. Essentially, the "crafting skill level" in a particular category of Enhancements is a function of how many Powers you have that can use those Enhancements. So instead of making Crafting a separate thing all of its own and completely freeform (and therefore, a hassle), it's instead a reflection of the Powers you've chosen for your build that you play (and therefore transparent and effortless, except when messing around with Mids' Hero Planner).
Set things up such that EVERYTHING "costs a lot" to Craft as a baseline default ... but then allow the Powers builds on individual characters to determine the degree of "discounts" that character receives when Crafting something that their build can use a lot of. So the default "non-proficient" price is high, but specialists can bring it down to much more manageable levels.
And since we know that Players have an inherent desire to maximize their "efficiency" when it comes to expending resources for returns, this will mean that build diversity will impact the "shape" of the Crafting economy, on both the supply AND the demand side of the equation.
That sounds like a pretty good compromise which eliminates "universal sameness" in the Crafting system and the in-game economy that would result. Good idea, Radiac.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Badgers got to badge.
Always is better than Earn It.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSMeUPFjQHc
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/18.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
[URL=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knhgv6lgbrs/UA_riCKAHNI/AAAAAAAATxE/u-sgh23bZhc/s640/wonder_women_by_penichet-d47up0l.jpg [/IMG][/URL]
If there is to be some type of crafting system, making it so that each time there is a chance of getting a little extra "goodie" would be a decent incentive... Even just an appearance special effect is enough for some... I kinda like the idea of appearance items and Base/household items... Perhaps a special vehicle... Use the appearance items to unlock special costume pieces/sets...
You could use the simple 1+1 gets 2 if you added a rarity multiplier. Also, the rarity multiplier could add to the more complex system.
Personally, the enhancer system isn't my favorite, especially after diminishing returns was implemented. If I want to set up a power with maximum knockback, there shouldn't be any diminishing of the face value of the enhancer item / enhancement pick / etc. There really wasn't a game balance issue with that. And it would be a waste to add more endurance reducers to something that is already at minimum value.
No getting an endurance return with that method, as another means to get the endurance is needed, a "tap" power / enhancement...
Also, as a dabbler in the various powersets and archetypes, it was very discouraging to find that the "best' recipes were selling for millions if available, the stuff needed to craft them was hard to get, and they cost a lot of Inf. when I didn't have a good enough character to "Farm", nor knew which instance to farm...
Perhaps most of this should have been in a different thread... Sorry to be preachy...
Without an enhancement type system (I think its called augments in CoT) then each power is static.
While I can agree that the way CoH introduced ED was not the best it was because of balance issues. The devs of CoH had made a mistake...and knew they had to fix it before it hurt the game too much. Obviously it would have been much better if from the start you were told that you could never exceed a certain amount for each enhancement type. When ED was introduced the actual number values of everything had not been officially revealed....the devs had felt we didn't need to know that info to enjoy the game and were very resistant to releasing it. All of this (and the closely released nerf to the most popular powers) created a resentment in many players despite the fact that it was for the most part a needed change.
This was an issue for many players who either came later in the games life or could not devote as much time to it.
The reason why prices were so high was that before the release of IO's and the market there was just nothing to spend the wealth you had amassed on. It resulted in a great many long term or very active players driving prices up.
The game just did not have an effective money sink to keep the games economy in check (mostly because there was no need before inventions and the market). Couple that with the fact that the devs did not monitor and adjust drops rates for popular items enough(they considered the market and IO's to be optional and as such did not feel it need to be balanced as much) and you have a situation where the casual or late joiner is left struggling an uphill battle to get the stuff they want.
Of course these are simplifications of the issues but the main point is there.
Here is the good news. The CoT devs know these issues and will seek to correct them in their game. Little has been said about how they will but they have implied they have ideas for it in the works. Hopefully what they plan will make it easier (or at the very least more enjoyable a journey) for you to get the things you want for your character without making it too easy in general. Replace the grind with fun so to speak.
From a game design point of view the question how you should structure crafting (or include it at all) depends on if you see it as a minigame for the player (you want them to be able to do everything themselves) or as an alternative game mechanic (you are much more likely going to want it a multiplayer experience where there is an interlocking set of skills that no single character (and ideally player) can fully master alone).
This also ties into how complicated you want crafting to be. Is it a matter of gathering ingredients and hitting a button that says 'create'? Or will it be an actual minigame (like e.g. EQ2 or Vanguard or EvE have/had). And if the later, will it be player skill based or managing a complex supply chain?
And of course in most games crafting is a bit of an afterthought (which typically leads to balancing problems between crafted and dropped equipment). This is made more difficult if the game is not, technically gear oriented.
That's a lot of questions that we don't know the answer for that MWM decided on, so it is a bit hard to say if what was proposed by Redlynne would actually be a good or bad solution to a problem that might not even exist in the eyes of the developers. And a lot of the comments or rejections are not so much centered on the idea itself but on different underlying assumptions of what crafting must be in city of titans ...
And I'll freely admit that I have no idea how my "barmy" notions might mix with what the MWM people responsible for crafting have in mind to do. I'm just sketching out broad principles and shapes and behaviors on the off chance that something might "click" or otherwise be useful in some form or fashion. In doing so, I'm simply using the City of Heroes Crafting system as a kind of "touchstone" point of reference.
To be fair, I don't even expect an "answer" on whether any of my "barmy" ideas are useful to the people designing the Crafting system. However, I would consider simply "sparking some thoughts" in the direction of Crafting to be a success, even if NONE of my suggestions ever amount to being of any use to anyone on staff. My objective is to get the creative juices flowing (at all), rather than attempting to corner the market on ideas. Not every idea I come up with is a good one! But even Bad Ideas™ [i]can have value[/i] in terms of illustrating and illuminating thoughts and outcomes, as well as revealing consequences that ought to be avoided rather than pushed towards.
To quote Bryce Lynch:
"There are no experimental failures. There's only more data."
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I liked the Empyrian and that other gem or shard or whatever, and with enough you could craft whatever incarnate stuff you wanted by creating hard to find ingredients. There were some I never got as drops even doing the incarnate missions over and over.
Compare vs. Star Wars: The Old Republic real dollar store "crates", or Tera, with gold item reforging, all massively dependent on random retries. This irritates unbelievably.
I would much rather a CoH Incarnate (for crafting) concept where you can save for harder to craft items without anger-inducing cross your fingers (re)rolls. Not to say certain things couldn't come from certain missions or raids...
Parameters can be set to same time-to-accomplish and not have that at all. I want to have earned something over months, not be throwing away several aircraft carriers' worth of cash on rerolls over months.
__________________
[IMG]http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll38/Gnurl/a72b7fba-8da2-4ac8-8e18-0f8453f7d3ee_zpscc5b27b5.jpg[/IMG]
The very existence of the taunting tank irritates, for it requires idiotic AI that obeys the taunt.
Agreed. Any system that yields RNG dependent variable results is going to generate "trash" to be disposed of. Any time you've got the following going on...
Stock yield+0 -vs - Stock yield+1
... the former is going to be considered "trash" while only the latter is considered a "good result" by the Players, and it's not hard to figure out why. That's why I am prejudicially against variations in Crafting OUTPUTS that rely on RNG to determine randomized bonus yields.
Conversely, I don't have a problem with designing a system that is predicated upon using an RNG to determine if Crafting [i]is successful[/i]. That way, you can build a system with a low chance of base success but then design a way to "boost the odds" of successful Crafting by expending more resources until reaching a 95% success rate with maximal investment (ie. don't roll a natural 1 on a d20). That then puts the sliding scale of RNG influencing onto the side of the INPUTS, while keeping everything equal and balanced on the OUTPUTS (with the exception of Failure results).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I am not a fan of crafting failure chances for purely personal (and mostly selfish) reasons.
The problem is (from my point of view) its actually got lots of merit. One of the best (IMO) ways this can benefit the game is as a cash sink. IGC can be used to directly boost the odds or consumables can be bought to do the same. Even if the successful 'roll' to craft was high (around 60-70%), consumables or direct payment would be used more than not...
Not to mention it helps in player retention when a player has a definable goal to reach (ie self capping the crafting chance).
I don't know how this fits in with the devs design in regards to crafting...but it is something to consider.
Okay, first, props to Red for quoting a character from Max Headroom. Second, I think I like the idea of letting everyone craft everything but making that inefficient, then give out discounts or efficiency boosts to each toon based on either class, spec, tertiary, or just powers taken. THEN, I'd love to see some form of "okay, so your build won't let you go any farther in crafting, for that you have to do missions, TFs, etc and gain crafting boosts that way instead, which takes longer" to add some long-term replayability to the game overall that way. Third, I like the idea of always finding a use for any type of random swag one finds. Instead of just selling off unwanted bits and pieces, you could save them, then combine large numbers of similar items to make one better item, etc. Other games have done this.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
To be scrupulously fair ... no one (playing any game) does. It's the same reason why people hated seeing [b]MISS[/b] show up rather than damage during combat due to failure to hit your target. No one likes to "waste" resources, whether it be crafting materials, IGC, endurance or time. The same can almost be said for "overkill" DPS as well as "overheal" wasting potentials that could have been expended elsewhere.
That's mainly a result of wanting to "optimize" performance, which necessarily requires minimizing failure(s), so there's a lot of Return on Investment mentality going on. It's the whole "I paid for it, so it's MINE!" thought process.
Same here. At best, I'm merely telling them stuff they already know and have already considered, simply because there's only but so many ways to do these sorts of things. Still, if nothing else, it gives the rest of us something to think about while we pass the time waiting for developments.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
In most cases you are probably right.
In mine its simply because I don't enjoy the crafting process and anything that extends it just compounds my annoyance.
(Talking as fan not dev)
I despise failure chances. In NW I have an alleged 60% chance to get a top ranked success on a crafting task that uses some vaguely expensive ingredients where only the top ranked success is in any way useful, I have 10 successes out of 27 attempts and the frustration is incredible.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Star Trek Online does something similar with its Duty Officer system of missions. There's a chance of Critical Success, a chance of Success, a chance of Failure and a chance of Critical Failure. For a lot of things, it's possible to pick a mix of Duty Officers who can zero out the chances of Failure/Critical Failure. The bummer comes in on missions where what you want is a Critical Success (and only a Critical Success), and the odds on that rarely go over 33%, which can be annoying for missions that won't appear more than once per day for you (due to cooldown timers).
So I know exactly where you're coming from.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Well in Eq2 at the later tiers the materials come to you.
And as long as visible significant progress can be made, I am a happy camper.
But some people accuse me of having too much patience.
Just as long as I can reach my goal and do every mission and reasonably get every badge in the game I am fine.
Badgers got to badge.
Earn it. Is always much better statement then, Never.
Always is better than Earn It.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSMeUPFjQHc
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/18.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
[URL=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-knhgv6lgbrs/UA_riCKAHNI/AAAAAAAATxE/u-sgh23bZhc/s640/wonder_women_by_penichet-d47up0l.jpg [/IMG][/URL]
And don't forget that City of Heroes had a failure chance when you tried to combine enhancements... that little mentioned ability.
I wonder how many people actually went through the game without knowing that feature.
Yes, but that really wasn't critical and the way it usually happened cost you no money and a very small difference in performance.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
I think maybe instead of a straight fail on a bad random roll, make it so that the item being attempted still get's created, but either:
A) gives somewhat nerfed, less-than-best-possible numbers (only buffs your damage, say, 95% of what it would, etc)
B) is incomplete in some sense, like it still buffs damage the full amount but doesn't buff accuracy, or maybe it's missing a set bonus somewhere.
C) gives the same numbers as the "good" version, but is unreliable somehow (sometimes doesn;t work, sometimes works as normal, VERY infrequently works BETTER than normal, etc).
This would be like the idea of getting "Cursed item" in DnD I guess.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I had, very early on mind you, suggested a faikure chance to crafting which simply resulted a loss of the cost craft, but with also a critical success to craft which resulted in either savings or a slight bonus to the crafted item.
The failure and critical success rate was a result of the crafter's level to the level of the item being crafted. Trying to craft an item too far above the crafter's level would always result in failure while crafting below level resulted in success and greater chances of critical success.
Earning crafting badges reduced failure rates and increased critical rates.
Those among the team at the time were not keen on the idea. Basicslly, most felt if you managed to get all the stuff together to craft the item including covering the cost, you should be able to craft it. Crafting was / is viewed more of a player activity (which involves a time sink) and less of a character skill.
This was, by the way, part of the original skill system which once completd was outright turned down categorically, from which the noncombat powers system was spawned.
And now that we have the framework for crafting in place I could not fathom utilizing failure rates and such. It doesn't fit with the mold of this game.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Okay, no great loss there, if you ask me.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
True, not a great loss on the surface of things. The main point being that it caused a shift of perspective in design methods. The mandate of no skill systems for the game, does have an impact on how certain systems can be designed. Like with crafting.
No failures to craft, no weaker than normal items, no better than normal, no sudden weakness to the item created. And I'm always in the opinion that if a system says there is a failure rate of something, like the chance of failing to make an item, or make an item that is weaker in some way than the intended item, there there should also be the counter to that, the chance to make a better than normal item. With ways a player can design their character (through skill usage or otherwise, but usage is the closest equivalent to what we're talking about here), to manipulate those results. Everything has a counterbalance which provides are range of bounds of performance.
But since there is the mandate of no designing skill systems, instead everything shifts towards creation of powers. SInce crafting itself isn't a power but a player activity, it won't, on itself have a power. Obtaining certain badges may yield powers related to crafting however. That's the kind direction we've taken.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I agree with no critical successes, you would have ended up creating the mega-loot CoH didn't really have by the end (yes some purples got super expensive before enhancement converters). I would not so much object to a critical success that gave a small edge, but went away if the item left your account.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Not having skills like "Stealth" and "Pick Locks" and "Interrogate" and "Intimidate" etc like from DnD is one thing, but since raw materials will, one assumes, get turned into useable Augments via some form of crafting system, I don't think it's really outside the realm of possibility to have a "not totally reliable, there's a chance of failure" type crafting mechanics system just because the mandate is "no skills" As I see it these are separate things. The crafting mechanics might have a random component with a chance to fail, a chance to get a BETTER item at random, etc which can be in some way affected by the player's build choices (i.e. which powers they choose to take) and the accomplishments they make vis a vis badges (crafting badges, kill quota badges, any kind of badge really) without having to track a whole set of skills like in DnD. You can totally do "no skill system" and STILL have "unreliable crafting mechanics" if you're inclined to do so, as I see it.
I understand if what you're saying is "The devs have considered all of that, but they don't want skills and they don't want unreliable crafting either, so we're not doing either one." I mean, whatever will be, will be, at this point, and I'm not arguing for anything to be changed and frankly I don't care if there is a "chance of failure" built into the crafting or not, I really don't. I just personally don't think the premise that "we don't want a skill system" is actually a reason to only have "simple, 'always works' crafting" per se. As I see it, the one thing has nothing to do with the other, or at least the one thing COULD be done totally separate from the other, if you wanted to do it that way.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This is good to hear. I was very skeptical and wary of crafting in CoH when it was first introduced - but I quickly warmed to it because of it's openness, relative simplicity and the fact that it was entirely optional.
Having a skill system that creates superior items on crits and the like - leans a bit too far into the uber-gear arms race that many MMOs subscribe to. But little unlocks/bonuses from crafting X number of Y items like CoH had? Sure - I can get behind that.
Well not that it counts for anyhing at this point but that info goes back over 2 years ago and was all in the early conception phase. Further more a critical success may have been the equivalent of what was earned from combining two enhancements, or for temps with limited usage, a few more uses.
It was with awareness that players will go for any small number of bonuses and thus these items would be more highly sought after, possibly fetching a better price.
And if crafters were constantly attempting to craft the those "superior" items for either personal use or sale, they'd churn though more of the components and currency in the attempt. Creating multiple sinks.
But as with programming process iteration occurs and the first pass saw the entire skill system categorically declined. The bies of parts of the system became the noncombat powers system, and even that has been revised multiple times since. Its the nature of the beast.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Here's a different thought concerning "crafting failure" and designing the result to be purely a sink.
So when you Craft something, you toss your "permission slips" (ie. materials) into the Table and push the button. The egg timer counts down and when it "dings" your crafted item pops out of the Table, ready to [s]eat[/s] slot.
So consider this relatively harmless possibility.
If a Crafting attempt "fails" ... you get your "permission slips" back, so all you've really lost is Time Spent on waiting for the egg timer to "ding" for you. No in-game resources are "lost" in the attempt, only time.
Now suppose if there was an option to pay IGC to make the egg timer "ding NOW" rather than having to wait. If you do wait the full time, the IGC cost is zero. If you're impatient, the IGC cost counts down the longer you let the egg timer run (ie. scrolling price numbers, continuously updated). So you have a "pick your price point for IGC expense" setup.
Now suppose that the success/failure rate for Crafting was a straight 50/50 coin toss, and the egg timer countdown to craft was 30 seconds long. How many people do you think would just start burning IGC (even though they don't have to!) just to finish Crafting faster? Also, when the "time to Craft" isn't a constant (because of the failure chance), does that psychologically influence Players into being LESS disposed to wait for a "free success" result?
Note that at that point you've basically reached a psychological profile that separates the patient from the impatient.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Not sure what I feel about this idea.
The bit about paying as the timer counts down is how NW does it although most of those tasks take hours.
Some other tasks which do result in loss of materials (the equivalent of upgrading enhs, you don't lose the enh itself but the other stuff that is used in the attempt, takes a few seconds) you can buy a ward which is lost instead on failure.
I would have thought a "superior crafting table" with a percentage reduction in the timer would be something a SG would pay for in their base.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Star Trek Online does the same thing, although there the currency to be consumed is Refined Dilithium, which has a cap on its rate of daily generation. You can MINE as much Dilithium Ore as you want in day, but you can only REFINE but so much of it daily per character. Likewise, although the crafting and upgrading stuff starts out being "short term" durations (less than an hour?) at first, it does ramp up into being multiple hours of having your gear be unavailable while it gets worked on.
An interesting notion that has merit in its own right. Personally speaking, as a Developer I would want to "balance" that advantage somehow so it isn't "just better" no matter what.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Unsurprisingly both NW and STO being PWE games, yes it works the same way.
It depends how big a currency sink the table is, it can simply be an advantage if it costs a decent amount.
I would emphasize I have no input to or particular knowledge of this process atm, I'm just throwing ideas around in the same way you are.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Ikeans
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
That would require you to be left with a component after assembly that you have no idea where it should have gone.
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team and Forum Moderator[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
But its a component that you can use later with another crafting item.
PLUS you get a Hex Key with every single item you craft. Once you have crafted multiple items you can now get a Team Mate or SG member to help as you have multiple Hex Keys making it faster/easier to craft.
Taking this to a level of silliness (and why not) this could mean once you have crafted an item enough times you no longer need 100% the components, but rather say 75%.
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Right, but there's no way to know which 'extra part' you will need and a hex-key, of which you have Dozens, is Not It. Sometimes you can go to the hardware store and find the piece you need, but it's never Quite the right size!
Be Well!
Fireheart
Fireheart why do you try and bring logic into this?
:P
The Phoenix Rising Initiative Rules Lawyer
Oh, there's not much Logic in Ikeatech.
Be Well!
Fireheart