Loot vs Crafting

ArchivedUser

So I had a couple thoughts, If you want to push player economies and trade. One step would be realistic drops. Giant wolf boss would drop fur, bones ect. no sword of +5 demon slaying inside his stomach. But give these rare materials bonuses when used in certain types of crafting recipes which brings me to next part of crafting, Allow npc shops to sell very minimal basic gear but anything of use would come from crafting. Then make crafting something actually with worth no gather materials, click sword of godliness and watch a bar. Due to your team, and recent kick starter sucess how about pushing craftings boundries? Use a modified Maya/3ds max/or whatever other prefrence of 3d modeling you prefer. Have a sword blueprint in multiple forms so "Roman Style Sword" use the 3d modeling programs tools in a modified fashion to say use a hammer as a took to push in the model based on the size of the hammer "brush tool" in mudbox then have players attempt to match the schematic, the twist would offering several tiers of schematics so a good player with practice might be able to knock out a plain looking sword in 20-30 minutes but if they wanna push through and create a refined better looking sword with much higher stats then maybe it will take them 4-5 hours. next stat influences could depend on materials used, aka iron roman sword at a medium quality would be better then a top tier bronze roman sword, maybe using a harder wood adds durability, while a lighter wood adds faster speed to swings. This could enforce importing materials if certain supplies only come from certain area's it also makes crafted items extremely valuable and rewarding. now craft that sword with the bones of a dragon hardest substance known to man! you get the idea, the main limiter would be to slow down progression of learning, such as a player needs to research materials and how to use them just how hot should i heat iron? or ebony, mithril, dragon bones? offer research branching where the player needs times and amounts of the material to waste figuring things out? Do I want to spend 2 months learning how to crafting dragon swords or maybe a week to start crafting ebony weapons. This again will add value as players will have different things researched, maybe someone skips learning about wood well time to find a carpenter to make me a hardwood handle for this sword at the highest tier. This would also help force interactions between crafters and most likely set for growth of trade/crafting based guilds. It would be difficult to fully refine but would add a unique aspect that every other games crafting has not come anywhere close to.

ArchivedUser

About the realistic drop, i think it was mentioned that this was the path they were trying to follow, so as to reward crafters. 

As of the "complex" crafting process, I really like the idea, it would make it really interesting and give each weapon a unique feeling, but I'm not sure how viable is it on a large scale.

ArchivedUser

I'm not really sure either, most of the framework is there but would require licensing a 3d modeling program, would require separate server hosting like you enter an instanced building. most likely and the issue would be with model density some comps would absolutely die with a complex sub-divided model vs comps like mine which can handle 100 million polygons without crashing though considerable lag still lol. As for the unique feeling on each weapon can give them a +5-5% deviation off the schematic as well to allow for some customized flair. issues i could see would come into play with normal maps/AO/texture unless after you complete the weapon it could be auto baked onto a low res model kind of how Zbrush can auto scale down to a low res model. I feel like it would be rough to implement but would allow for the next generation of mmorpg progression lol.

ArchivedUser

would be amazing. However i think it might be a bit much for now though if they added that during an expansion as a rework for crafting i wouldn't be opposed. Now for a simpler solution maybe do something where you do have to research and everything that was talked about but instead of doing a 3d modeling program a loading bar is still fine at that point. with the effort required to research materials, how many of each i want to use, how high of a quality do i make each piece, do i do some special process to give some extra fie resistance or durability etc etc. only true crafters would go down this route of creation as even though you aren't doing the 3d modeling it would still take an hour or two for a complex item. 

ArchivedUser

I'd like there be a system that allows NPC Vendors to maybe restock items that the players have sold to them. Maybe not exactly at the vendor you sold to, but someone that would actually sell it. For example selling weapons to a General Store type NPC would have it "sell" the goods to the closest Blacksmith and he might then sell the weapons to the players or use it as materials.

ArchivedUser

I agree that crafting should be more important than looting, but I believe that "loot" should be a way to reinforce crafting.  That loot, by nature, will increase the specialty (or complexity) to specific crafters and designs.

I'm also pretty sure this is how they intend the system to work to promote crafting as well as environment-specific drops, adventuring, etc.

It's all super exciting!  But I really hope that the crafting system isn't crazy time-intensive.  I'd much rather set a 5-hour crafting job and watch a progress bar (so I can do something else) than manually being interactive for that period of time... after a couple of those, I'll literally feel like I'm wasting my life away on a video game instead of spending 5-hours on a real skill.

ArchivedUser

true it would get repetitive and time consuming quickly, maybe something where once you have crafted something you can repeat craft it at twice the time with a progress bar lol. Just some idea's to get crafting to the point where you actually craft something, not just gather mats and afk a progress bar but have an actual investment into an item. Also extremely long times would be for producing gear on legendary levels, customizing the look maybe adding in some gems on the hilt for pure cosmetics something that shows off dedication to actually being a crafter, not like most games where everyone has 2 crafting skills mastered on their dps warrior because its cheaper to enchant your own gear with max level enchants. Something to reward those the specialize and delve into the deeper mechanics, or maybe limit mass production buttons to those white quality crafted items in other games and anything beyond that requires attention. but in a game where everybody on day 2 can spam out a blue sword item prices with tank quickly while material prices will be 20x what the finished materials would give you lol just because everyone's trying to level up and there's a ton of surplus crafted stuff as opposed to if you want to craft your looking at investing a lot of time which would limit things and preserve the economy, I know several people that would full time craft if given the choice and if it was interesting enough to keep a person's attention. There are even games out there on steam where the entire game is just crafting items most are low end games and some browser notables like shop hero's. Not everyone wants to be the sword wielding magic using, dragon slayer but current rules dictate its not very fun to do anything else because nothing else gets as much focus as combat in any mmorpg.

ArchivedUser

@JustJestering

While Reading your inital post, I was imagining old-Final Fantasy for some reason

While I'm not familiar with Maya - but have heard of it - ... would you be suggesting in comparing Blueprints of other Weapons and then Reconstruct a New Weapon via "piece-by-piece"? 

ArchivedUser

Pretty much, basically have multiple tiers of each item. designs would range from simplicity to highly complex and add additional bonuses durability/damage/speed ect. swapping materials would also further allow you to customize the items. Grading of items could be done partially based on skill levels as well like a % tolerance on how close you match the finished product to the schematic with higher skill levels allowing for a greater tolerance deviation or even letting your barely F grade sword barely sneak into the D grade tolerances, research of use of materials such as Minerals/cloth/crops or mob drops such as bones/furs and tendons/animal meats would make it so if you want to learn how to use specific items it will take you awhile allowing specialization. but something like a weapon wouldn't just be smack a blade and done. you would have a guard, blade, pommel, handle, maybe find a leather worker to do the wrap on the handle. Maybe work with an engraver to etch the sword and add magical abilities. possibilities would be endless.