In COX, there were a number of things that players could do to become more effective crafters that were not quite straightforward. There wasn't a big neon sign that said "HEY! YOU WANT TO BE A CRAFTER? YOU SHOULD DO XYZ!" but that didn't change the fact that crafters who knew the ins and outs had a lot of advantages over players who didn't know the fairly easy steps that would significantly increase their effectiveness as crafters. Some things that would have helped anyone.
1.) A dedicated crafting base. If you had a 1-person base that was set up for nothing but crafting, you could easily store valuable salvage, stockpile crafted IOS, have bank access, as well as have a crafting table. Setting up such a base wasn't straightforward, but at the same time it wasn't difficult if you understood why it was important. And considering how important avoiding "by it nao!" was to effective marketeering, I think having access to such a base was important. You could purchase recipes for useful sets cheaply on spec, and store the crafted IOs in your base for future use or for resale on the market.
2.) Using your base to stockpile IOs. Take something as rudimentary and basic as frankenslotting. It was so much easier to frankenslot if you had a stockpile of cheap set triple IOs awaiting newly-leveled characters. You could do the same thing with widely-used IO sets like Doctored Wounds, Crushing Impact, or Thunderstrike. If you had the INF, you could do the same thing with rare IOs or purples.
3.) Expanding your personal inventory via badges. If you memorized the level 25/30 recipes, you got an extra +2 salvage slots per badge. For the level 45-50 recipe badges, you got an extra recipe slot. The extra recipe slots were huge, considering that you could stockpile crafted IOs or salvage in bases, but there was no extra recipe storage beyond your personal inventory.
4.) The extra enhancement slots that you could purchase in the store were freaking amazing.
5.) Increasing AH slots really helped marketeering in general. You could do that via badges or cash shop purchase.
6.) The personal crafting table probably wasn't "worth" the effort put into it, but boy was it nice.
What are some of the tip/techniques that you used in crafting that weren't necessarily "in the manual"?
One Supergroup Base I had set up so that the enhancement storage tables were arranged very close to the storage vault and the invention table. Now that I'm thinking about it, i probably could have had one or two salvage container very close to this arrangement also, but the way I remember it, I just had 4 enhancement bins there. But what this meant was that I could open the window for each table/vault at the same time and access them as needed, without having to move my character at all. This was very convenient when I needed to make a bunch of enhancement for one of my characters. It required a bit of planning, I used to use the Auction House -Vault -Supergroup Base Portal on Talos Island because each facility was pretty close to one another
Having a good Farm Team/Mission was also helpful for crafting purples. Also, the chat channel for the big raids on the server were great for obtaining rare materials drops and purple IOs. A good zone PvP team was very helpful for the rare PvP IOs, especially when the team was on both the red and blue side; not only was it fun to play against your friends but the bonus of getting a nice IO drop made it worth all the dieing.
Turning Ae tix into random IO recipes was probably the quickest way to move AE tix into currency. If you had the personal crafting table and wentworth's anywhere, this went pretty quickly
I'd often farm AE after a couple of ITFs to get recipes to burn all the salvage that had dropped.
This is why I hated crafting.
It's boring and overly complicated
It distracts from actually playing the game
it gives an unfair advantage to those who do it, so much so that those who don't want to, feel like they have to, just to keep up,
It changes the focus of the game from being a hero to building power (you know one of those things I hate about levels)
Sorry I know no one cares but I just gotta vent.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
And that's why moll, the purpled out, fully incarnate thug/poison MM could totally take the so-called Mighty Paladin. ;)
Well, one man's boring and complicated is another man's fun and engaging.
As crafting was a part of the game, how could it be distracting?
How was it an unfair advantage? A crafter may very well out preform an SOed player but they invested time and effort to do so, and outside of PvP, players were not pitted against each other. Having the purpled out player on your team was only going to help you. As for having to keep up argument, I have never believed that. First of all, it is completely unfounded the game was never made harder there was no need to ever slot a single IO. What that argument breaks down to is just petty jealousy that someone else is better and the laziness to do nothing about it.
I have heard time and time again how players felt the IO system let them truly be the character they always to be in the game. Me personally I was able to give my robot themed Invulnerability tank resistance to psi attacks. But even ignoring that, lots of people play MMOs to build more power regardless of the theme. It is fun for them.
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The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
I originally intended just to vent and let it go not expecting any response at all.
but since you decided to insult me (just petty jealousy that someone else is better and the laziness to do nothing about it.) I will respond.
It was distracting from the actual game in the same way that building my base was. You could say that was part of the game, but really it was a different activity within the game.
playing around with the character creator was distracting in the same way. Yes making a character is part of the game but if you keep making and deleting toons and get all of your fun from that, I think a lot of people would wonder why you don't actually play the game.
Jealousy:
I don't mind having a more powerful toon on my team, but I do mind being the drag on the team that everyone complains about because I'm the only one who isn't optimized. And the other people on the team would get pissed about it too.
Laziness:
Now you're acting like crafting was a requirement, for playing the game right. Just like the people I teamed with who would complain about me not being optimized.
There were a lot of other activities in the game that I put a lot of work into, I particularly enjoyed playing with the mission architect and the base creator. (yes, these were distractions but they were MY distractions) These things were a lot of work but I liked what I was doing and I enjoyed the results. Crafting wasn't supposed to be a requirement. and the worst part of it wasn't even the crafting itself, it was the endless grinding for components, or money to buy them.
I'm glad you had fun crafting but I do think it had a bad effect on the game.
I think a much better way to have enhancements work would be to simply let people pick enhancements when they get the slots and never have to craft at all.
If you want an inventor (and I think you should be able to have one) crafting should allow you to have devices with different powers built into them. He could switch his powers by equipping different devices. this would make him very versatile and powerful but not a system abusing munchkin.
I strongly suspect that this type of inventor wont be in the game and we're just going to see a clone of the broken enhancement system COH had.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
I disagree that the invention origin enhancement was broken. That is my opinion.
Please present your opinions as opinions instead of fact.
Before we get bent out of shape here...
Everyone has to remember that one of the reasons CoX was what it was is the variety of game play. Crafting and marketeering were just as viable game play as min/maxing was. It will be important to add something like all of these factors in order to bring back the feel of CoX's inclusiveness.
Base building, farming, crafting, marketeering, single player, teaming, PUGs, RPing, bage-hunting, costuming, altoholics, street sweeping, lurking, content creation (AE) and more have to be represented if we want something similar to CoX in feel. Will we all love it all? Of course not. Did it really bother anyone that much in CoX? Not enough to spoil their fun, right?
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Everything I say on this forum is my opinion.
I don't feel the need to say that.
I assume everyone here has the 8th grade education necessary to know that themselves.
You obviously know it because you felt the need to point it out.
Apparently you don't respect us enough to make the same assumption.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Is there a maximum number one can put after a plus sign on this forum to indicate magnitude of agreement?
To paraphrase Voltaire's biographer, "There are things in that list that I may never do myself, but I will defend to the death (of my characters) your right to do them."
Spurn all ye kindle.
Interestingly, a variant on what Paladin proposes is one of the ideas we've had for an epic archetype - much like Khelds could cover for any specific class, we could create a crafter class that could build modules that could do any job - but only one at a time. It's not a launch project, but its something we might try once we've got the game out and running smoothly (and MMs working of course). It has lots of potential for fun and is a solid superhero trope. That being said, limiting crafting in general to just one class would be too restrictive of something too many people want and enjoy.
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!!!!!!!!!!
+10[sup]100[/sup]
Oooh, [I]very[/I] interesting! ([url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/49478#comment-49478]Dr. O'Brian[/url] begins tinkering furiously!)
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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This sounds awesome
Yet again, in your final sentence, you make an assumption about the rest of the forum. Yet again, I need to metaphorically bite my tongue.
Thank you, devs, for your information and your reminder about tone. I will do my best to respect it.
One of the approaches I thought of today about this question would be to limit what a character can craft (if going with a Sets model) would be to restrict characters to things which are only related to the Powers that they have chosen.
Want to craft a Stun Set? Your character needs to have chosen a Stun Power at some point during Level Ups.
In other words, you can only "make" what your character can "use" ... meaning that no one character can (or should?) be able to make everything. Of course, with (sufficient) Alts you'd be able to cover each an every single kind of crafted Set possible, so that would give Players an additional reason/excuse to dabble in altaholism.
The impetus for this sort of limitation is that I have found games that don't let you Do Everything™ on a single character to be more fun and engaging in the long haul. Games that "force" you to make choices that limit what a single character can do/access can give those choices greater meaning and in turn make some choices more "valuable" to others in a community (even if just among your own alts and no one else).
Games that let you "have your cake AND eat it too" tend to be less satisfying in the long run, in my experience.
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This thread has wandered around a bit.
As a general rule, I oppose anything that divides the playerbase into an elite class and a peasant class. When it comes to crafting, the one change I would really like to see that is seldom implemented is having reasonable component drops. A robotic enemy should not be dropping leather jerkins and a humanoid enemy should not be dropping robotic arms.
Restricting crafting to the skills a character actually possesses seems a bit excessive. After all, if I'm fond of running missions filled with robots but I don't have any skills the use enhancements based on robotic components it should still be possible to craft those enhancements and sell them.
Having an epic type that grants access to crafting levels unavailable to everyone else leaves me somewhat ambiguous. After all, at that point it becomes player choice, so despite the specialization it does not create elitism. Specialization is good. Elitism is bad. Unless something crazy is done like enforcing a preset number of players allowed to access the crafting epic archetype and it is handed out on a first come/first serve basis. That would certainly create elitism and would not be something I would support. I don't expect anything like this would happen, but it seems important to be clear.
I'm still not clear on exactly what we'll be crafting, but I assume that will be revealed as time goes on.
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-1
If we aren't simulating sub-Roman Britons or Somalian pirates, we should not be mugging carnival performers and hobos for any weapons-grade plutonium they happen to have on their persons. Characters who have a civilization with an economy buy things from merchants or build them from a box of spares. And Spider-man doesn't mug people for a living.
In a modern setting, lewts need to be as abstract as possible, or the setting is incoherent.
If there must be a way to seek out the specific lewt you want by fighting a specific battle, maybe there can be lewts that are good for broadening single-target boss-fighting powers that are easier to get fighting bosses, and lewts for crowd-fighting powers you get from fighting a horde all at once and so on.
I have never really cared for crafting, either. It's just not part of the make-up of the vast majority of super-hero characters. Superman did not, as a rule, build stuff to make himself more powerful or effective. (Ok, maybe he didn't have to.) One could even argue that heavily gadgeted heroes like Batman or Iron Man didn't build most of their own equipment, but would have it engineered and produced by their huge technology conglomerates. Same with Green Arrow and Blue Beetle. (And yes, I know I'm painting with a rather broad brush, those guys do occasionally fashion stuff on their own.) Most characters who spend serious time making things have that as their MAIN thing. And they are more often Villains or supporting characters (Toyman or Forge) I know there are some examples, so spare me the lists. This is a digression, anyway.
From an RP perspective, I've never gotten a handle on rolling my unconscious victims for what they got in their nasty little pocketses. "Lewt" drops are an MMO thing, and I get that, but it kinda breaks the game ideal, for me. I'd rather take my rewards in whatever is the "reputation currency" of the game and "acquire" what I need as I need it. Why would I want to keep track of storage and inventory and all that BS anyway? As I've said in another thread, grinding for "materials" is just another function put in to extend gameplay by forcing players to repeat content. At least, in CoX, drops were automatic so play didn't have to stop while you divvie up, and basically equitable. No "need/greed" nonsense.( I hope that's the model in CoT.) I always felt forced in games like CoH, or Skyrim, or Dragon Age to spend a lot of time looking for specific junk that I had to assemble to make something that didn't really fit my character, or be essentially gimped at higher levels. I want to be a Super Hero, not a Super Merchant, nor a Super Inventory Manager.
PS: I also kinda like Redlynne's idea of only being able to slot what you have as a power already. Needs some refinement, to be sure, but it makes a narrative sense, at least.
Its a refinement/alteration of most other MMO's crafting systems, where you typically choose an area to craft stuff in, and you are limited as to how many out of the selection you can have.
The one thing that I would *HIGHLY* recommend/suggest though is that with very *few* exceptions, practically everything that can be crafted can be sold/traded to other players.
The reason why I say few exceptions is that the developers may (for whatever reason) want to make something unique for the character.
Hell, CoX had the costume pieces that you could craft. But you couldn't actually sell the *results* of the crafting though. So something along those lines *could* make sense.
Why should most of the results be sellable/tradeable though? Just to make sure that you are not *FORCED* to take up crafting to get your hands on what could be crafted. So this would mean that someone like TMP wouldn't feel like they HAVE to spend time crafting to improve their character... there could be someone else out there who would do it for them. Either an alt (for character concept reasons) or just a friendly SG member.
I love complicated crafting (Wildstar is so badass!).
That said.. I will have to wait to see what the beginning of the loot looks like for CoT.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I feel compelled to restate a few things. But first, a bit of history...
I played CoH/CoV from Beta, minus the time between Issues 3 and 6 when I only logged in once or twice a month. So when the forums started bandying about the idea of crafting and looting I was in the camp that was adamantly opposed to the idea. Heroes and Villains do not craft, they buy (Heroes) or they steal (Villains). That was my attitude, shaped in no small part by the great degree of disappointment experienced in other MMORPGs that featured crafting. The one crafting system that I did enjoy because it felt so very natural to me was in a game called "Wish" that died during Beta testing because of internal conflicts among the developers. No other crafting system in my experience had been enjoyable and since Heroes/Villains did not make things anyway, what was the point?
I argued against it with every fiber of my being and to the limits of my extensive skills with prose and rhetoric. They implemented it anyway.
And I have to confess, I fell in love with it right from the very first day. Of course, I was playing mostly Villains, so the idea of rolling a defeated enemy for components was perfectly natural. A big part of my main character's bio was kleptomania, so naturally she would grab anything she could off her victims. It was an assumed behavior for her. One of the nice things about having my own little lair was having total control over storage of components and enhancements. Naturally when I did start inviting people to my group it created a few small problems, but we roleplayed our way through them in a most entertaining manner.
In CoX I enjoyed not having to think about it. Defeated enemies just handed over their stuff. At the end of the day I dumped what I needed in the base storage and deleted the rest. Once in awhile I might sell something rare, or sell something that fetched a high price in the Auction house even though it was common or uncommon, but most of what I gathered that I did not keep I simply deleted. There was no need to "loot" a fallen enemy, to divide stuff up among members of a PUG, or roll a pair of virtual dice to determine who got the rare. The game handled all of that, making it the most convenient loot system I've ever used.
Standing at a crafting table watching the holographic cube rotate in my character's hands made me smile. It was such an entertaining animation that one of my characters (a cat girl) would run the animation every single time she found herself with a few seconds of downtime. She was a member of a good-sized Villain group and at first a couple of them were annoyed by her constantly playing with her holographic toy, but inside a couple of weeks they were doing the same! That silly holographic cube animation was, for me, always a pleasure to watch. It was just so shiny!
(For those who don't recognize it, please forgive the Firefly allusion.)
So then. to restate what I've already said, I would not support anything that limited either loot or crafting based on the needs of the character. I would not support loot that had no reasonable connection to the enemy that dropped it. Those Aethir Pirates ought to be a good source of brass, for example, but a lousy source for steel. It should therefore be no surprise that I do support the inclusion of an auction house system for selling both components and crafted items.
I'm sorry if this is immersion breaking for some people. I really am. But for those like myself who did enjoy it, having a loot and crafting system similar to the one in CoX would be absolutely wonderful!
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I'd like to point out that one of the problems with having specific groups only dropping specific loot would be farming. Eventually people will figure out just what loot will be the most sought after for crafting and will then start farming the crap out of those groups. This might lead to a lot of people street sweeping and kill stealing for loot. It would not be too far out of the realm to think that a Aether Pirate might have some steel because they might have traded for it, robbed someone else for it, or killed someone else that had it on their personage. In the name of fairness I believe all enemies should drop all items, this way we might be able to help curb farming.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
Farming can not be stopped or curbed. It can only be channeled.
+1
I always envisioned different factions fighting among themselves, and keeping their drops. So you come along and defeat a thug in a group, and get any drops s/he picked up from other groups they might have got it from. Granted only 20% to 25% of the time, will you get drops that are coveted by another opposing group of theirs. ;)
Easiest way to avoid this scenario is to insure there are enough groups dropping the same items to remove the necessity of farming a single group for a single item.
I suppose my example was weak, but I haven't looked into the proposed enemy groups in any great detail just yet because I know everything is likely to change. But the odds are pretty strong the Aethir Pirates with their Steampunk style will be in the game. If the game uses a group specific loot table, it might wind up something like this:
Brass Pipe || 1:3
Brass Plate || 1:3
Brass Fitting || 1:3
Pilot's Scarf || 1:5
Rusty Sword || 1:5
Broken Ray Gun || 1:5
Carbonfibre Wing || 1:10
Carbonfibre Tailpiece || 1:10
Functional Ray Gun || 1:20
Functional Spyglass || 1:40
And then some of the items could be broken down into their components:
Brass Pipe = Used as-is or broken down into Brass
Brass Plate = Used as-is or broken down into Brass
Brass Fitting = Used as-is or broken down into Brass
Pilot's Scarf = Broken down into Wool
Rusty Sword = Broken down into Steel
Broken Ray Gun = Broken down into Stainless Steel
Carbonfibre Wing = Broken down into Carbon, Carbon Fibers
Carbonfibre Tailpiece = Broken down into Carbon, Carbon Fibers
Functional Ray Gun = Broken down into Stainless Steel, Titanium, Synthetic Ruby
Functional Spyglass = Broken down into Optical Lens, Brass Pipe, Brass Fitting
Or something along those lines.
And unfortunately, Brighallec is completely accurate when saying:
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An entirely plausible scenario. I'm not saying my idea is absolute. I'm simply saying this is something that endlessly annoys me.
If the dev team uses a random drop table that does not distinguish between groups (which is much easier to program, as well), then it certainly won't deter me from playing. I'll go on as I always have, annoyed but not perturbed.
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I fine with random drop tables that arent dependent on a particular group.
But........ for Rare Drops, i think it should Very Much depend on the group you are facing. :/
I know i'm contradicting myself. :(
This is true, but we can do things that don't further encourage farming or make it branch out into too many things. Also, isn't curbing technically channeling?
And on a side note, I am one of the people in favor of making farming available in CoT. However, I am also attempting to channel it into a more specific area that could possibly do the least amount of damage to the game.
I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!
A point against City of Heroes was the "bilateral symmetry" of its salvage system. Salvage was either Tech or Magic. It would have been better to include the other three Origins so as to include Natural, Mutation and Science.
Problem was that the salvage system (and Inventions in general) were an after-the-fact KLUDGE put onto the game rather than something designed into it from the get go. Even if City of Titans doesn't launch with a crafting system, it would still be wise to design a "space" which crafting is intended to one day fill and have that "space" be present from the beginning. That way, you aren't kludging on an after the fact system, but rather are filling out something that has been prepared for.
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One of the problems CoH had when they decided to implement salvage and crafting was the game engine. My understanding was several key components of the game engine had to be entirely reworked. This would also mean limitations on the diversity and variety of salvage that the game engine database could retain without introducing huge lag problems.
Unfortunately, even though we've come a long ways over the past twenty years, computer hardware still has finite limits to how much data it can process through its many pipelines. Even now, some so-called "gaming machines" have motherboard pipeline restrictions that prevent them from fully utilizing all the awesomeness of Quad4 processors and multiple GPU video cards.
In terms of software, Unreal 4 is a modern engine, so it will have much higher limits than the Cryptic engine that powered CoH. Over time it should be possible to implement a much wider variety of everything.
At least in theory. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
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I just treated the loot drops as OOC things. I didn't really think my character was running around with plutonium in her pocket. That would just be stupidest idea. I know there were people who actually thought and acted as if it was that way, but I guess it's no more stupid than a very public auction house willing to sell it to you!
Yup! Both were stupid :p
As for crafting. Sadly, it just sounds like TMP wants the "We just use SO enhancements" system from CoH, which is one of the things that made CoH falter. What it doesn't have to be is some sort of IC thing.
Players will find gathering points. CoT doesn't need to make artificial gathering spots like AH and tailors. People will come to just picking a spot and it will become THE SPOT.
My suggestion for the crafting is to make it the end game loot! Either make the recipes just open for everyone or make them purchasable with influence/credits/whateverCoTwantstocallit as a credit sink, but make the materials needed to craft be the big rewards!
Then, don't come out with new forms of currency, just new methods to earn the crafting materials! When fully decked out, people can then just sell their drops on the market, use them on alts or horde them! New enhancement set? Pick a combination of materials needed to make it and done!
Posting without my dev/mod/tinfoil hats on.
I feel that "I don't want to craft so nobody should be able to" is not a sensible argument. I enjoyed planning and equipping IO set builds and I got bored rapidly farming, so I made my money crafting. I would have quit CoH long before I was forced to without IOs and crafting. The key is to make the game playable without it, but better with it so that effort is rewarded but not essential.
I suspect TMP was slightly spoilt by the generally nicer nature of CoH compared to some other games (something I hope we can replicate). If you turned up with poor gear and a sub optimal build in some games, you wouldn't even make it in to a dungeon on a PuG.
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Actually, tmp is a heavy duty soloer. He enjoys playing with himself
CoH/V did not require you to craft in any way, shape, or form. I had IO'd out tunes that made me feel "uber". But there were times when I played with SOs only and I didn't feel like I was dragging the team down. Nobody I teamed with ever complained that I was holding the team back.
All I can do is speak to my own experience. No one ever said anything insulting because I didn't IO out a tune. Sorry if somebody ever gave you a hard time
Lay your hands on me
While I'm bleeding dry
Break on through blue skies
And take it high
/begin long-winded rant
From an RP perspective, and a general game play perspective, I am very much in the favor of having some sort of "Crafter" in game. I know many people are against this, as, if done incorrectly, it can be rather immersion breaking or negatively affect balance. There are a few things to consider though.
From an immersion perspective, imagine, if your character was a martial artist, that the "item" you received merely represented some special training, or it may in fact have been a shiny new sword (and perhaps unlocks a new costume piece or gives you an activated ability). Unless the item is called "Baseball bat with nails in it", you could easily justify crafted gear in an RP fashion.
From a balance perspective, players that choose to craft are doing so knowing full well that they are giving up some power and will probably never be as powerful as a full combat character, but the items that they craft may bring them back up to par with other characters. The real trick is finding the balance here between the items that crafters create and the abilities that other players have, with the crafter ending up on the lower end of the spectrum, but still being able to perform their tasks adequately.
I'm going to throw out some numbers here, and know before hand, know that I am pulling them out of thin air.
Let us assume that at lvl 30, the average dps for a ranged character that is fully specced for damage is 6-10k. Ideally, a crafter filling the same role would fall in the 4.5-7.5k category. The pure dps build would do more damage, but a crafter can still put out enough dps to warrant a spot on the group, though the group may have a bit of a struggle on some timed fights.
So, why bring someone to a fight knowing that they will be a bit sub-par?
First and foremost, You know them. The largest complaint that I have heard in groups is that so and so is not doing their job (dps / heal / tank / etc), everyone seems to forget this is supposed to be an MMO. Yes, an encounter may become more difficult, players may need to actually discuss strategy before running into a room, a controller may have to actually control and mob rather than everyone running into a group and watching the screen explode in a torrent of color for 3 seconds before everything is dead. Players play MMOs to play with other people.
This brings me to my second point, which ties into the exclusions of the first point. There will be players who are intent on pushing content and becoming the No 1 in the game. This is fine, and these people will probably never roll crafters, but they should, in some way, be tied to them.
Choosing crafting means a loss in one area, but denotes a gain in another. Some of the ideas I have seen on the forums are purely cosmetic -- i.e. allowing a crafter to create exclusive costume pieces. This could definitely be an upside to crafting, but if your character never uses that particular costume piece it is a bit of a null point. So what benefits could crafters gain?
Assuming that items work on the grey->white->green->blue->purple scale that is prevalent in so many games, imagine if crafters had the exclusive right to upgrade the quality of an item once. Many people will look at this and say, well, I can just create a crafter and mail the stuff back and forth, but what if there was a way to limit that? Its simple enough, require both players to be online at the same time. This would prevent you from simply creating an alt to do all the work for you. This would be similar to how enchanting other players gear works in many games.
Something similar can be done if crafters are the only ones capable or adjusting an items stats. You just found a shiny new +30 strength item, but you are built around dexterity, find a local crafter and have them modify the item for you. It is likely to cost less than buying a new +30 dexterity item from the AH.
Perhaps high level recipes can only be created by crafters. This comes into play even more so if those truly rare recipe drops are Bind on Pickup. Super Villain Thomas drops the recipe for the Train Engine of Doom, but if you don't have a crafter to grab it when it drops, it becomes vendor trash and no one will get to have one crafted. While this may seem a bit heavy handed, requiring a crafter to be in a group for a chance at a drop, when it does drop, everyone will be glad that the crafter was there.
For more common use, consider consumable items. Players can go to the local merchant and purchase a rank 2 med kit, but if you want a rank 5 med kit because you are pushing new high end content, find a crafter.
The biggest concern with crafters, and the part that I see broken most often, is that the items dropped in the end-game far outweighs anything a crafter can usually make. Nothing upsets a dedicated crafter more than knowing that what they craft will be outdated inside a few days time. One option, is to have high level craft materials as part of the loot table. These materials can be used to craft items of an equivalent level, but will require you to find a capable crafter, thus, actively encouraging a few, dedicated players, to craft.
There are several methods that can be looked into that would make crafting a valid choice for a player without severely crippling the crafter or off-balancing the game, it simply require a bit of ingenuity and a lot of math.
/end long-winded rant
tl;dr: Crafters are good, but need to be carefully balanced.
Oh and I never said I don't want other people to craft, only that I thought the crafting system as it was had a bad effect on the game as a whole.
I can't help but think there are ways it could've been better.
and I have seen some good Ideas on these forums.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse/pub/3185/Crusader-Game-Books
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48O9dPcNVdeyNM4efAvX6w/videos?view_as=subscriber
Speaking as someone who started playing WoW around the same time I got into CoX... I enjoy WoW's crafting system to a point. I like farming and making stuff, up until I can't actually level it anymore. Then I just do it for the in-game cash and it's a little tedious at that point.
But, I like cooking from an RP angle, and first aid, and the archaeology skill is fun when I have no other missions I'm fussed about clearing.
I like the idea someone had for only being able to create things you have the powers for. Say my PC, "Amazon Sally", a level 10 Tech hero, has a mounted movement style, electric powers and a rapier. She could learn first to build a motorcycle, then an electrified rapier. As time goes on, she can buy schematics for upgrades (extendable blade! turbo boosters! an off hand stun glove for her costume!). But, schematics for, say, an Ice wand, or a cape that boosts flight speed, will be useless to her and she can sell them, donate them to a friend or SG, or just delete them to clear room in inventory.
Khione, Boreal Princess of Phantoms/The Riveter, Hammer of Liberty/Rosa Amarillo, Sweet Belle with a Six-Shooter
Magical Girl in a Marvel Comics World
Instead of a binary system that only lets you craft things that are directly related to your specific powers and prevents you from being able to craft other things I'd prefer a system where it was relatively EASY to create things you're familiar with but HARD to create unfamiliar things. The key difference is that everyone should be able to attempt to craft anything they want, even if some of those things are much harder to do than others.
So maybe your Amazon Sally could relatively easily create a motorcycle or electrified rapier but perhaps (for whatever reason) she also wants to dabble with a magical ice wand. Sure since she's tech-oriented it might be say 5x or 10x harder for her to figure out the wand, but there should always be chance of doing it no matter how small. Roleplay opportunities (like crafting) should allow players to mix-n-match anything to any character. If you decide you want to keep your Amazon Sally strictly tech oriented that's up to you. But maybe my version of Amazon Sally would be a tech character whose magical bother taught her a little bit about magic and maybe she knows just enough about it to be able to make and use a crude wand in emergencies.
See what I mean? Nothing about crafting should ever be absolutely exclusive to one character or another. It should just be geared so that some things are clearly harder to do than others.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
This all comes down to the central "philosophy" of crafting (and also the market, they are heavily linked) in the game - there is a spectrum. CoH was on one side - anyone could craft anything that your little heart desired and components were drops and there was a market for all items/drops. Middle ground are many of the fantasy MMOs where anyone could craft and harvest, but you had to level it to make the good stuff and there is a wide mix of markets. The other end of the spectrum is the "Crafter Class" which is the aim of one other game in development (Camelot Unchained, which will have no market) and I think DAOC where you create and level a crafter, that's what that character does and only those characters can harvest and craft complex items. That last philosophy takes incredible commitment from the devs and community. The middle of the spectrum, to me, adds complexity and economically favors crafter-focused players unless there are a huge number of crafters (I don't see that as being likely in this game, but could be wrong). CoH's system, with tweaks, is the most user-friendly and economically reasonable form of crafting. How hard/expensive should elite-equipped characters be to achieve? The harder it is to craft the items, the more expensive it will be for players to to realize their final builds. This was a central complaint for new players towards the end of CoH. Vets (and especially vet crafters/marketers) had no issue leveling and creating their optimal builds, which is typical in any game as they have the funds for instant purchase if it came down to that. In CoH, if you didn't want to craft, you bought SOs/DOs or could buy IOs on the market. If you did not have endless funds, you could play to get what you needed, easily craft (was very simple), and work towards your goal independently.
I must say I have not seen anything from the development team as to where in the spectrum of crafting and markets, don't think this is a priority, but I think these discussions are good - albeit passionate at times. This early in development, I think it's best to focus on what we think was good about a particular system and what could be better for Titans, help this spiritual successor be successful.
Crafting should help players make their characters specialize to specifically how they want to play them, just like many of the Fantasy games. There will always be natural optimal builds, but CoH's IO system allowed players to create uniquely designed ATs and also create independence from require specific other skill sets to play effectively (for instance needing a Kin on the team to keep up a fun pace). But, OTOH, sometimes forcing team play is beneficial (had my wife's, may her soul find peace, character not needed a Kin I would have never met her...). City was nice in that it was really not impossible for players to gather, craft, and create a great build. It was also not prohibitively hard to make money on the market, even if there were those (my wife was one) that raked it in on the market for those players that could not wait - that's just how they chose to play the game.
Ok, sorry for being all over the board there...
"it's a long road to wisdom, but it's a short one to being ignored." The Lumineers
Which is eventually the conclusion I came to with that notion. Everyone is CAPABLE of crafting anything and everything (as in, you're "allowed" to do so), but crafting things related to what your character build includes in it makes your character MORE EFFICIENT at crafting those specific things. That way you wind up with a system where there isn't a "lockout" barrier to being ABLE to craft stuff, but there is an optimization path to being able to ... specialize ... in the crafting of certain things.
The thread about it all is lying around here somewhere ...
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I agree there is a "spectrum" of crafting among various games. But another thing to consider is how important crafting is to the type of world the game is set in.
Crafting (in the classical MMO sense) is well suited to the Fantasy MMO setting because there's the built-in idea of creating the items that pretty much everyone uses (such as swords, armor, wands, staves, etc.) to succeed in the game. On the other hand the Superhero genre is typically much less suited towards that type of crafting. Sure there's the notable exception of the "gadgeteers" who are fully based on the concept of 'crafting' unique items to fight crime (i.e. Batman and Ironman). But beyond that narrow specialization there are a whole host of other types of superhero characters for which crafting is completely foreign/pointless - how often do characters like Supergirl or Thor have to "craft" anything to succeed?
So when considering a crafting system for CoT they probably ought to keep things pretty open and generic (like CoH was). To be fair I could see at some point having a specialized "gadgeteer" class that totally relies on crafting as the means to gain greater powers/levels. This could be handled as a unique class/system (like the Kheldians were in CoH). But beyond that there should probably be a pretty straightforward system of crafting that everyone else could use on an optional basis. Things like having to "level up crafting skills" for superheroes just doesn't really make sense outside the unique situation of the gadgeteer subset.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
At a holistic level, I agree - but that's really just semantics. "crafting" covers the gamut, but there are ways to name subcategories of crafting to fit various "origins" such as Gene-Splicing or Modification for mutants, training or focus for naturals, Imbuement for magic, device crafting for tech. Then, it might take a little added descriptive creativity to expand crafted items that can be sold to others, but I think once you have the philosophy applied to this genre, this next step comes more naturally.
The big however would be if any crafter can craft any origin (should this be a route taken for immersion).
"it's a long road to wisdom, but it's a short one to being ignored." The Lumineers
Since the whole "Origins" thing is a legacy of City of Heroes that will be dispensed with entirely in City of Titans, effectively "banishing" the entire purpose and concept to Fluff Text™ in the Bio ... the entire quibble on this point is rendered moot even before asking the question.
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
But if nothing else, outside of personal bio, refers to and/or uses origin in such a way then what would be the point?
It would just waste dev-time in creating otherwise identical items to craft that are only named differently just so they can pay some form of homage to origin.
Lothic, Insatiable...just in case you did not know, post 25 in this thread
http://cityoftitans.com/forum/barmy-limitations-crafting
Tannim discuss a possibility (sadly no confirmation or promise) of a way to specialize in aspects of crafting. This might be something that suits your preference for the crafting system.
I don't have a general problem with the idea of having a system in CoT that allows players to somehow specialize or otherwise "get better at" certain types of crafting, especially if such a system is completely optional AND open to every character class equally.
My specific concern (again in this superhero based game) is balancing the crafting opportunities so that a player could choose to play a character who doesn't really bother to craft without significantly gimping themselves. For instance could I effectively play a clone of the Flash (a character who isn't really known for making things to enable himself to be the Flash) without falling behind another player who's playing a Batman clone and making full use of whatever the crafting system can give him? Would crafting in CoT provide so many significant universal advantages that pretty much everyone would have to do it in order to be "maxed out" regardless of character concept?
As we all know crafting in CoH (in the form of slotting abstract enhancements) was open to everyone and was generic enough that you could rationalize the activity for just about any character concept. But if crafting in CoT takes the form of creating physical objects or somehow allows you to gain skill points/XP by doing it then it suddenly becomes something pretty much everyone is obligated to do or else face putting yourself at a self-imposed disadvantage.
This is why I suggested the possibility of a distinct gadgeteer "class" that's uniquely oriented towards crafting. With such a class of character you could have a unique system of crafting skills and specialties that are fundamental to how a gadgeteer works. They could create actual physical weapons and armor that are key to their power. They could be balanced so that they MUST use these weapons and armor the same way a Mastermind was designed to rely on his/her minion pets. In this way a gadgeteer (with their crafted equipment) would be roughly equivalent in power to another character who does not rely on gadgets as the source of their power.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
We don't have that many solid detail on the planned crafting system for CoT, but if the system was similar to CoH's crafting then I would guess that there will be ways to get a pre-crafted 'thing' rather than requiring you to craft it yourself. In fact I think Tannim actually spoke about that in the thread I linked to...... yup in post 38 of that thread.
I do agree that crafting should not be a requirement but more of an optional activity.
I really really really hope that CoT does not veer this far from the CoH model. I do not want crafting to become what amounts to gear acquisition at all.
I am not that worried this will happen though.... its been said a few times that they are not planning to have a traditional 'gear' system.
I actually like the idea of specialist skills being an optional power pick (or mastery system choice) in a CoH style crafting model.
But I am intrigued by a specialist class. I would love to discuss it further as I have many questions about how you would do things and a few suggestions of my own. Would you be willing to start a thread on it as I am not sure how well the idea fits in this one?
I agree is trevor on this, I hope they don't veer from CoH. I genuinely like the idea of crafting in MMOs and the vast majority of them have some form of crafting to help players specialize their characters. I liked CoH's system (SOs/DOs/IOs and the various levels of sets). I also think there should be areas of content, raids/zones, dungeons of some form, etc. that scale in challenge (not everywhere) to drive players to optimize their builds and continuously immerse themselves in the various aspects of the game. Maybe not force people to craft, but at least use the resulting enhancements or at least use something to buff their abilities.
But, there may always be those other people that will be willing to carry the person who just wants to select powers and do nothing else. I find this to be a rare thing in MMOs in general and every MMO I have played requires players to, in some form, use some sort of item either crafted by them or someone else.
I don't personally care if there is some element of immersion in crafting to help players make sense of why there is crafting in a super hero genre MMO. It's there just because... now go, kill skulls.
"it's a long road to wisdom, but it's a short one to being ignored." The Lumineers
Traditional "crafting" fits most MMO genres because most MMOs are based on all player characters needing either swords and armor (for fantasy/medieval type games) or blasters and energy shields (for sci-fi type games).
What makes the superhero MMO setting different is that there are many character concepts that don't really need "crafted gear" to work. If I had the time I could probably rattle off hundreds of comic book characters that don't technically need or use "gear" the same way that characters set in other MMO games do. This makes coming up with a useful crafting system that works equally well for all characters in a superhero MMO a relative challenge.
The compromise system that CoH used, again where it limited itself to abstract enhancements which were not technically physical gear, is probably the best baseline model to use for CoT. This will allow everyone the freedom to "craft" things without forcing every character to basically become a Batman-like gadgeteer. As far we know CoT is going to be based on a similar system. This is really the only way you can get around the idea that some superhero-type characters use gear and some don't.
But as I mentioned earlier I realize there's a strong tradition of the gadgeteer-type characters in the superhero setting. The problem then becomes how you support/balance that kind of crafting without basically forcing everyone to become a gadgeteer. In other words if crafting physical gear was open to everyone then no one would want to just play Batman-clones - everyone would want to play Superman-clones (with innate superhuman powers) WHILE ALSO using all of Batman's toys. The game would devolve to everyone using armor and weapons regardless of character concept. At that point we might as well be playing Halo instead of the spiritual successor to CoH.
My suggested solution was to make the gadgeteer of CoT a specialized kind of class and/or powerset. By keeping that type of traditional weapon/armor crafting isolated to a unique class/powerset it can be balanced the same way Masterminds were balanced in CoH. If you recall a Mastermind was designed with his/her pets in mind - a Mastermind running around without pets was very weak/vulnerable but when combined with their pets they were balanced. I think the same idea would go with a gadgeteer. The whole purpose of the gadgeteer would be to craft his/her own physical gear and the activity of crafting itself would be a fundamental part of how the gadgeteer gains skills/XP to rise in levels. Another distinction could be that while the stuff that a gadgeteer creates for himself would be permanent/superior in quality they could also be allowed to create temporary/limited items that could be sold/traded to others. This would let your Batman-clone give your Superman-clone friend a temporary Kryptonite shield power for a mission without making your Superman-clone friend overpowered.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Shadow actually mentioned a kind of gadgeteer earlier in the thread.
To summarize, it could be an epic class that has the option to switch roles but only one at a time.
That idea is a bit different than I had in mind. I was thinking more along the lines of a support class that could create powerful (but not unbalancing) buffs for a team and self but only one at a time with a bunch of smaller buff as further support. The attack powers would use the craftable temp powers from the game at a much greater efficiency and power than other characters. This would require a pretty big list of craftable temp power to be in the game already and that each would have to be balanced to not only be used for gadgateers but all characters.
Arguably, Shadows is the better and easier to implement idea than mine.
However it is done I do agree with Paladin (who first mentioned something like it earlier), shadow and Lothic in that a gadgeteer is a super hero staple and warrents inclusion. However I would not like it or think it should be included if it brought with it a gear based system. I am pretty sure that's not what you were implying Lothic, but I felt it was important to clarify my position on that aspect.
To be clear the "gadgeteer" as a superhero RPG concept has been around for decades - I can assure you none of us posting in this thread (including myself) originated this idea.
That said my suggestion for a CoT implementation of a gadgeteer was distinct from Shadow's because frankly I really have no idea what he meant with the phrase "we could create a crafter class that could build modules that could do any job - but only one at a time." I have no idea why a gadgeteer crafting class would have to be somehow limited in what they could make or how many of those things they could make. I likewise don't really know what you meant by the phrase "that has the option to switch roles but only one at a time".
To me a so-called gadgeteer would be based on an entirely separate crafting system independent from the abstract non-gear based "enhancement" styled one that everyone could use. Under this unique system the gadgeteer would function more or less like the traditional gear crafter from other MMOs. They'd need raw materials and recipes for building certain physical items. They could have a whole skill tree that would let them get better at crafting certain things over time. Depending on what they craft they could either make cool superior/permanent items for themselves or cheaper versions that would essentially serve as temporary/limited powers for other people. This is important because gadgeteers would NOT be making permanent gear for everyone in the game - they would only be able to make permanent gear for themselves because that gear would be the core basis of their power. And yes obviously since any kind of crafter class like this would require a great deal of extra work/balancing I wouldn't expect something like this to be ready on Launch Day.
Again I see no reason to lock gadgeteers into "roles" or only being able to craft one kind of thing at a time. Perhaps my vision of this is far more simplistic than what you guys are proposing. This is why I took credit for this version of the idea above and beyond whatever Shadow was talking about. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yup, said so in my last post. Just pointing out others who have brought this up to include them in the discussion. My pointing to Shadow was just to show that the devs are already considering the suggestion. I wasn't taking anything away from you or trying to belittle your idea.
My phrase was just a rewording of shadows phrase. I am not sure but my assumption about shadows meaning is traditional mmo roles of support, dps and tanking. His hint of a possible gadgeteer class was most likely intentionally vague (as I'm sure you know).
I'm not sure how much need there would be to create a separate crafting system, but the core idea is pretty damn good. Instead of a new crafting system I would suggest that the gadgeteer would be able to craft the same temporary buffs, powers and enhancements as everyone else with the exception that if the enhancements were slotted by the gadgeteer they get a bonus and the temp powers/buffs would be improved and/or become permanent until replaced. If those same crafted powers/buff were given to others they could have an extended duration or greater bonus than if other ATs had crafted it but less than if the gadgeteer use it personally. I would be less inclined to allow gadgeteers to make improved enhanements for other ATs, as you say avoid the permanent benefits for other ATs....its too close to a gear system.
The skill tree and material/recipe concept you had is good and fits perfectly with either your idea (obviously as you thought of them together) or my tweaking. I would assume there would be some kind of system in place that would allow new characters and broke older characters to still gain powers/buffs.
I didn't mean to imply and don't think shadow meant that only one kind of thing could be crafted at a time. In my suggestion the idea of 'one at a time' was one big buff with smaller buffs to support it to give the gadgeteer a versatility for all situations but not be over powered. I assume Shadow was also thinking along the same lines....the prevention of a tank mage class. If you want I can explain my idea better, but in truth my original idea is not as interesting (good) as yours or shadows.
Again, I really wasn't trying to take any credit away from you and if I did I apologize. My intention was one of inclusion not assigning credit. My wording was poor and I can understand why you might take it this way so again...sorry.
Just for the sake of clarity, what Shaodw referred to is a type of classification. It wouldn't be based upon the necessity of materials or use the existing nor require a new crafting system. For one, it would be highly unlikely to create an entire new form of crafting for one specific classification to use and using our existing system or any materials based version would make it highly unlikely to be reliably viable.
Also, in the case of the classification mentioned, exists from a very early concept stage prior to much of the pre-production design of our classification functionality and power design system. It remains to be seen if it will exist or in what form it will exist when we get to the the actual design phase.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
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[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I have been advocating the idea that crafting should not be a way to enhance a character to much.. It should be more about adding visual elements and perhaps gear to bases etc... This would make crafters relevant, and keep them entertained and then keep us from having must have gear.
I love crafting and my favorite game as a buyer was EQ2 as I bought mostly house items. My characters usually could craft any gear I wanted, but like I said.. I don't like gear crafting. As a crafter in UO I would give away the best armor for free when I was crafting for myself. It was so easy to make etc and not really worth much, the drops were better so normally it was newbies who took my armor. My vendor turned over enough of the gear to continue to make it, but as I said it was cheap and mostly bought by newbies or people who did not want to get PKed and raided. Of course the PKers created a hoarding magic item mentality so actually most of us had mastercrafted gear with little in the way of magic. Really weird when you think about it.
I'm of the idea that [i]The Best[/i][sup]tm[/sup] gear should be crafted but the components that makes it [i]The Best[/i][sup]tm[/sup] should be rewards from end-game content, preferably from raids and/or top-tier PvP. Of course for this to work out in the long then we either need NPC crafters that can anything possible or making PC's be able to set their characters into a form of NPC mode when logged out.
To me it never really made sense that perfectly fine and readily usable gear drops from raid bosses and such, especially if they are of suppose to be ancient and just woken up again. For me the best crafting system I have come across was the one in SWG (at least for gen 1 and 2) where, outside of DoT-weapons, everything worthwhile equipting/using was crafted and some even needed really specific component that drop (instead of the more common harvesting) to reach maximum potential. The only I had against, in retrospect, was the constant shifting in quality of resources and no way of refining that quality. Maybe the major reason for me liking it so much is because the game as whole didn't really solely on combat to be entertaining to people, at least for gen 1.
Twice in one week, Blacke... what's wrong with us? I'm agreeing with you unconditionally.
Ever since playing Dofus 10 years ago, I've held the belief that if a game is going to include crafting, the best thing it can do is make the gear only available through crafting. And the materials for crafting that gear require tackling the content. The best gear would require tackling the best content.
As others have mentioned, the people who race to max level would have a hard time dong it without crafters also leveling up with them. I think it is healthier for the the game and for the game community to create this dependency. We wouldn't need to worry about crafters levelling,however, if we don't actually have a crafting system that requires crafting skill. If the only thing we need is a recipe and the mats, then we wouldn't need to worry about crafters levelling, we would just need to worry about tackling the content with the mats you need.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
So, it seems obvious to me that doing this end-game content can not require the use of [i]The Best[/i][sup]tm[/sup] gear, or else how can the first players to reach that content finish it? Unless that was what you meant by NPC crafters, I suspect that there's a verb missing after the word "can"; but even with that fixed I think that last sentence will not be an "of course" for me.
I'd agree with you on this one, but with CoT not using "gear" in the same sense as other games, I can see arguments either way.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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Most games let you have like 25 or fewer pieces of gear equipped. CoX had slots for like 100+ Enhancements, right? Assuming CoT is closer to CoX than anything else, we're talking about a lot of slots to fill. I'm betting most of those slots will be filled with not-the-Best items for a long time, for most people. I NEVER had any one of my toons totally "done" in CoX, at least not after the IO system was introduced. I would like that to continue in CoT. It would be good to design it such that it might take a VERY long time to get all of my toons fully kitted out with all of the best possible items in all 100+ item slots they might have. That gives a long term reason to play a capped toon, to me.
And the best gear didn't fall ready-to-use in CoX post-IOs. You had to take the Purple Recipe and craft it to make the IO, though that was basically a cakewalk.
As a hero, if I'm going to have to do something to produce items I want, as a crafting labor, I would personally prefer that such labor be expended in the doing of heroic things, like fighting crime, etc. I'd rather set a project up on my workbench in the personal lair, tell my NPCs to keep working on it while I go out and apprehend more evildoers, then come back and check progress than have to sit there in the lair actively crafting stuff, or worse, have to go gathering raw materials like a scavenger hunt. I'm against the idea of adding more tedious goldfarming BS into the game. I also really doubt they would put harvesting nodes in a game like this. That seems way more "DnD" than "superheroes" to me.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I like the idea of using XP gained since the start of work on the item to gauge progress toward completion. And for level-capped people that XP gain will still be tracked, though you don't actually go up in level any more. In GW2 there are some items that are intermediate components needed to make Ascended gear. In every case, the ascended item requires some number of components that can only be crafted once ever 24 hours. You can BUY them and sell them, but to make one, you have to wait 24 hours in between crafting jobs. I could see placing a time limit on crafting, though I hate that one in GW2, but I think just making people have to "work" for their crafting jobs feels better. With that system, you could make it take some measurable amount of XP to craft a thing, more for better stuff, then have bonuses and shortcuts in various places, etc.
Whether or not the items that are crafted are ONLY available from crafting is another issue. Are we saying that you will not be able to craft a high-end item then sell it? If we're not saying that, then are we simply saying that the high-end item never drops fully ready to use off of defeating bosses etc? Because if so, that's CoX basically, you had to take Recipes and craft Enhancements with them in that game. I think every high-end item ought to have some unique ingredient or part that it requires in order to make it, and that such ingredients ought to drop at random off of bosses and at the end of TFs etc, like recipes in CoX, but not called that. You could call them Essences or something. When you do the TF, you might get an Essence of {item name} to drop and when you do, you now have the ability to make one {item name} which consumes the Essence in the process.
How much flavor text there will be is also an issue. Some people want to make techy toons and probably don't want to be using ancient magical spells to do it, others making magic toons don't want to have to use a circuit board to make a thing. If the item crafting stuff were kept pretty generic then you could probably get a system that has very little actual flavor but is equally acceptable to everyone.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
That applies regardless of if the gear is crafted or directly dropped, so effectively a moot point. No content can actually require [i]The Best[/i][sup]tm[/sup] gear ever and still provide "upgrades" or other such things as rewards since, as you imply, it gets you into a Catch-22 situation.
Content can require [i]The Best[/i][sup]tm[/sup] gear ever but the same content can't provide it.
However, end-game content is not limited to the hardest thing ever but rather the content specifically designed to be done once you reach level cap, and most often in large groups.
True, but that depends more on the concept of ones own character for CoT in this case. CoT's augment system may not have the same representation as in other games in terms of gear but that is more out of necessity since there are so many "sources" for ones gear/powers that this is the best way to do it.
This is just rehashing previous conversation, but you reminded me how important it is that we not "wear" our gear. I want to design my hero's look and not have it encumbered by whatever powers, enhancements or "gear" I pick up along the way. In this way CoH was perfect. That said, one of the cool things about the card game Magic the Gathering in the early days was how the best and most detailed artwork was often on the rare cards so you could SEE the difference in power. If we want the high-level heroes to look and FEEL powerful, their *powers( should be scaled visually to match. For example, a fully buffed "Blaze" attack should LOOK stronger and feel more powerful than a level 1 unenhanced Blaze.
If I make enhancements, if I have crafted enhancemetns and effects, why not have visual changes to match (without helmets/armor that cover up our carefully crafted costumes)?
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This summarizes my hopes and dreams for CoT. Check it out if you'd like.
I really like this idea.
I think the mark of a great idea is an idea that is so simple and intuitive that you kick yourself for not thinking of it already. This is one of those. It makes sense and it rewards the crafters who have put the time and effort into tweaking their powers.
I don't like unlimited power creep. But if you can put three augments into an ability and you put three power-ups into it, then it should look more powerful by 3. If you add three DoT into it instead, then you should see those DoT in the power animations, not just the flying numbers. And if you add Vampiric augments into your ability, you should see that, too. ...and so on.
The visual representation of augmentation is a brilliant idea.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Thank you :)
It's actually an old idea that, like many others, is slowly resurfacing as I remember my days of CoH. The best part about this idea is that if you have a fire/fire blaster and I have a fire/fire blaster, it's not only our costume that's different between us, but the PRESENCE based on how we built him/her.
So I guess the next question if enough of us think this is a hot idea; how do we make sure the CoT devs see this?
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This summarizes my hopes and dreams for CoT. Check it out if you'd like.
That could work, but only if I have the option to turn it off because it can lead to people slotting not for mechanics but rather for visuals since it has the potential to "screw" with peoples concepts.
As for implementation I think that having 3 or 4 tiers for these effects based upon percent improvement where applicable and the direct equivalent for others would be a better way than mainly going for number of augments slotted since I think it will be easier to handle in the long run.
I prefer the original thought of completely separating the look from the numbers. Let there be different animations and graphics options for powers, but let people choose which ones they want, not have to slot the right Augments etc to unlock them. I'm not against selling animation packs in the cash shop, but making those thing separate from power-mechanics enhancers would be something I'd try to do.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
This all depends on how the augmentation system ends up working. For instance, if there will be unlimited power creep, then changing the visual of the power based upon how much it is augmented could be problematic. However, if we have three slots to choose from for each power then it becomes supremely manageable.
For example, let's say I want to kick fireballs like in the video demonstration MWM put out last spring. If I put a +damage augment in that ability, the fireball is a little bit bigger and brighter. If I put three +damage augments into it, it should be bigger and brighter still. If I augment it with +penetration so that it bypasses evasion and block abilities of the defender, then maybe the fireball flies in a corkscrew path. Three augments of +penetration would be a wildly unpredicable looking path.
I can see how some of you would be afraid that some special augments would have some special visuals associated with them that could only be obtained by having that particular augment or set assigned. Such as an augment set that gives your ability a green aura in addition to whatever other augment benefits it provides. I don't think that was part of neither Jordan's nor my own concepts; but now that you've mentioned it, I could see that as being an interesting cash shop idea. I don't like it, but it is certainly a possibility.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Hmm, after a bit more thought I'm not sure that the amount of time will be well spent if they implement this due to the challenges in making it actually good.
Size and intensity increase have to be distinct not only from itself but also from other animations and/or just choosing another color. Adding on animation effects based upon added/changed secondary mechanical effects that are not part of animations where such mechanics are standard (both primary and secondary) is a bit strange to me.
It's also not so easy to just have the same sort of change for every animation, thinking primarily melee vs. ranged attacks here. Other ones would not be suitable based upon the "origin" of said power like having a simple ("natural origin") rifle shot wildly change direction while in flight.
So in the end making a system where such changes and/or effects are actually noticeable without a direct comparison to the original and that won't interfere with a person's concept for that toon will essentially necessitate that you decouple it so that people can freely choose said effect, which then makes it largely redundant since it would most likely be more efficient to just fold it into the costume creation process. The thing that might actually be worth it here would that you can add another effect if you have X augments slotted and yet another one for having Y augments slotted, though I would still put the actual selection in the costume creator.
There's nothing stopping you from tweaking your own power effects as you level up or augment...
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]