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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Crafting Resources? Tiered raw materials versus blends and alloys?
ArchivedUser
Guest
Somehow my original topic disappeared (bug? contacted Intrepid about it), so here again:
I've a question and comment on crafting resources (the type not obtained from mobs): will AoC go for the common rail road system (each metal for example has a tier and and they become obsolete) or go for a complex, open ended system with alloys? The ESO strategy for potions comes to mind, first 1 liquid and 2 ingredients, then if you unlock it 1 liquid and 3 ingredients etc etc.
I much prefer the alloy version for several reason:
1) you don't have to add countless new metals later on but can make more complex alloys
2) alloys allow customization by the player for metal properties
3) alloys allow you to stay in an area rich in a certain metal instead of having to spend your "life" a nomad even as a crafter and going further and further. Crafter don't enjoy forced travel or such, not a good design strategy.
4) The value of areas does not diminish and you don't run into the "all empty after game matures" problem where you waste design effort and landscape. And if people indeed can stay in an area then they are more likely to remain playing and develop social structures among each other. Home and hearth and community and all that instead of people moving on and on ...
5) The market ingame stays longer viable if higher level miner for example still gather "low level" metal. Basically you don't choke off a local area for newbies and their goods if the majority is now higher level.
Even for stone that can be done (concrete and other mixes, bricks from mud versus concrete etc), wood too (treating wood with oils and infusions to make it more flexible, more weather proof, higher durability or rot etc),
I've a question and comment on crafting resources (the type not obtained from mobs): will AoC go for the common rail road system (each metal for example has a tier and and they become obsolete) or go for a complex, open ended system with alloys? The ESO strategy for potions comes to mind, first 1 liquid and 2 ingredients, then if you unlock it 1 liquid and 3 ingredients etc etc.
I much prefer the alloy version for several reason:
1) you don't have to add countless new metals later on but can make more complex alloys
2) alloys allow customization by the player for metal properties
3) alloys allow you to stay in an area rich in a certain metal instead of having to spend your "life" a nomad even as a crafter and going further and further. Crafter don't enjoy forced travel or such, not a good design strategy.
4) The value of areas does not diminish and you don't run into the "all empty after game matures" problem where you waste design effort and landscape. And if people indeed can stay in an area then they are more likely to remain playing and develop social structures among each other. Home and hearth and community and all that instead of people moving on and on ...
5) The market ingame stays longer viable if higher level miner for example still gather "low level" metal. Basically you don't choke off a local area for newbies and their goods if the majority is now higher level.
Even for stone that can be done (concrete and other mixes, bricks from mud versus concrete etc), wood too (treating wood with oils and infusions to make it more flexible, more weather proof, higher durability or rot etc),
0
Comments
I love the idea of implementing MATs and resources into end game crafting by using the potion and alloy blending concept, but the increased complexity may come at the cost of other in-game features.
TL;DR. The downside of this system is of course that it becomes increasingly complex the larger a craft tree becomes. Especially so when considering that Processing and Gathering may come into account with this system as well. Lets imagine a Cook tree with this system to draw examples from. At stage 2 Processing, meat preparation consists of salted or smoked and then wrapped and unwrapped along with various other methods of blended prep that are accessible as one levels up the stage 2 Cook tree. Even with a high demand for lower level MATs by stage 3 Cooks, stage 2 Cooks won't receive as much experience as they would processing higher level MATs, and unless the demand was very, very high for low level items this would probably hold true for currency as well. So, offering distinct recipes requiring various levels of a crafting tree would keep low-level resources relevant, but would almost certainly become tedious and unrewarding for high level crafters. That is just with a cooking tree only looking at one ingredient, and not even taking stage 1 Gathering professions into account. Then we have larger craft trees. Can you imagine a system like this for breeding? That sounds like an entire game in of itself.
This system is probably easier to implement with stage 3 Professions for simpler crafting trees, such as Smith, but would be rather difficult to replicate across the board, and would likely not be worth the features it would impose on.
Thoughts?
-Magi
Let me give you an example:
Level 1 cook - one ingredient, one preparation step
Level 2 cook - one ingredient, can do 2 preparation steps or 2 ingredients and one preparation steps
Etc etc.
No loss in experience gain, but anyone can use anything. This could be further tweaked by allowing ingredients to be either raw or pre-processed. Get little from raw ingredients, get more from pre-processed ingredients (or raw spoils/corrodes/degrades quickly, so hard to trade or store - think BDO raw fish that has 24 hours before it goes bad but you need more of dried fish for cooking).