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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 System Suggestion.
CasForelda
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
From my experience in A1, I have to say the crafting system was super barebones, and I do not fault Intrepid for it being such. Seeing as it is just now getting ready for a proper A1 release. I still have to say that there are plenty of improvements that can be made to significantly boost how much fun and interactive the crafting can be.
Firstly, I would like to address that, how the crafting is does not really matter to me. Be it a menu clicking experience, minor inputs for say adjusting temperatures, a clicking/button tapping game to time a hammer blow, or a full on minigame. To me that is just an additional way to add to the intricacy of crafting.
As such I will focus entirely on the fundamental parts of crafting in this post. Namely Material (post refinement I am only considering the inputs for a blueprint), Blueprint, Crafter, and Item (blueprint output) As for the steps for gathering and processing the raw materials, that is not all that pertinent to this post.
With all that out of the way, let us begin.
Blueprints - (out of order I know, but bear with me here)
Blueprints should have 2 variants. Normal and Rare. Where normal is the standard blueprint everyone knows and loves, and rare is a “variable” blueprint with a base rarity and a scale allowing for a potential higher rarity item to be created.
The scale would be based on the + system, in which you can have a +0, +1, +2, etc. and the plus would equate to how many tiers of rarity above its base you can craft. Ex. [(common) + 1] would have a chance at crafting both common and uncommon. With the chance at higher rarities being based on crafter skill, and material grade.
Blueprints should also have “slots” where players can place materials choosing the order in which they are used. (the reason comes later)
Blueprints should also use general items, as in “Wood”, “Metal”, and “Essence”, and not specifically call for “Iron”. The reasoning is 2-fold.
-1.) Allow for material variants of items i.e., “Copper Long Sword” (be it purely cosmetic, or base stat changing, doesn’t really matter for this post. Already enough to go through as is.)
-2.) Allow for different “Grades” of materials to be used in a given blueprint. Iron can be Grade 1, and Silver Grade 2. This could allow for having different levels of item, rarity of item, cosmetics of an item, and stats of an item to change just by using a different material.
Materials
Materials should be sorted into different grades, 1 through whatever you decide is the highest grade, and the grade of material should have some effect on what the base or slotted stats are on a weapon.
In the case of base stats, we could have copper give 5 dmg, iron 7, silver 10 and so on. While the slotted stats (reference the blueprints) can add more stats to the weapon in lieu of the stats we saw in the A1. An example of which could be +5% attack speed. This gives us the ability to choose what kind of stats we want on our items and diversifies the player landscape.
The materials should also have more than a single “Slotted” stat and have a set of slot stats that can be “selected” by using that material as the material cost of the item in a certain order. Ex. Say you want the second slot stat of a material, you would select another material as the first material in the cost, and then select the material you wanted the slot stat of as the second material.
As to whether or not the slotted stats are displayed on the material (for those in the crafting professions, no need to clutter up the display’s of those that information doesn’t really affect), or they are learned as you use them to craft is up to the devs.
Crafter
This one is simple. The crafters should only effect whether or not a given item is successful or not, and to what degree it succeeds.
If a item requires level 5 to craft (crafting level) and the crafter is level 1, the success rate should be abysmal, maybe like 5%. (getting worse as the gap widens, and this percentage is a percentage of the base success rate) And if the item requires level 5 and the crafter is level 25, the failure rate should be next to none, maybe .001%.
If the crafter succeeds at crafting an item, the success should be either lesser, normal, greater, or a perfect success. With the tier of success dictating a multiplier on the base stats of the crafted item. (something negligible between success grades. Like -2% for a lesser (barely made the item), +- 0% for normal, +2% for Greater, and +5% for Perfect.
The percentage chance for getting each grade should be dictated by item level requirement, crafter level, rarity of blueprint, and materials used. The higher the grade of blueprint and material the harder to craft. The devs can balance the success grades. Too much thinking for me.
Item
This is the easy part. The colors of the item will be dictated by the materials used. The base stats are dictated by the materials used. The potential rarity is dictated by the blueprint used. The Slotted Stats are dictated by the order of materials used to craft it. (Iron first, Redwood second, and essence third or whatever) The quality is dictated on how well the crafter succeeded in crafting the item.
Attached is a photo of a flowchart that may make this easier to understand.
Firstly, I would like to address that, how the crafting is does not really matter to me. Be it a menu clicking experience, minor inputs for say adjusting temperatures, a clicking/button tapping game to time a hammer blow, or a full on minigame. To me that is just an additional way to add to the intricacy of crafting.
As such I will focus entirely on the fundamental parts of crafting in this post. Namely Material (post refinement I am only considering the inputs for a blueprint), Blueprint, Crafter, and Item (blueprint output) As for the steps for gathering and processing the raw materials, that is not all that pertinent to this post.
With all that out of the way, let us begin.
Blueprints - (out of order I know, but bear with me here)
Blueprints should have 2 variants. Normal and Rare. Where normal is the standard blueprint everyone knows and loves, and rare is a “variable” blueprint with a base rarity and a scale allowing for a potential higher rarity item to be created.
The scale would be based on the + system, in which you can have a +0, +1, +2, etc. and the plus would equate to how many tiers of rarity above its base you can craft. Ex. [(common) + 1] would have a chance at crafting both common and uncommon. With the chance at higher rarities being based on crafter skill, and material grade.
Blueprints should also have “slots” where players can place materials choosing the order in which they are used. (the reason comes later)
Blueprints should also use general items, as in “Wood”, “Metal”, and “Essence”, and not specifically call for “Iron”. The reasoning is 2-fold.
-1.) Allow for material variants of items i.e., “Copper Long Sword” (be it purely cosmetic, or base stat changing, doesn’t really matter for this post. Already enough to go through as is.)
-2.) Allow for different “Grades” of materials to be used in a given blueprint. Iron can be Grade 1, and Silver Grade 2. This could allow for having different levels of item, rarity of item, cosmetics of an item, and stats of an item to change just by using a different material.
Materials
Materials should be sorted into different grades, 1 through whatever you decide is the highest grade, and the grade of material should have some effect on what the base or slotted stats are on a weapon.
In the case of base stats, we could have copper give 5 dmg, iron 7, silver 10 and so on. While the slotted stats (reference the blueprints) can add more stats to the weapon in lieu of the stats we saw in the A1. An example of which could be +5% attack speed. This gives us the ability to choose what kind of stats we want on our items and diversifies the player landscape.
The materials should also have more than a single “Slotted” stat and have a set of slot stats that can be “selected” by using that material as the material cost of the item in a certain order. Ex. Say you want the second slot stat of a material, you would select another material as the first material in the cost, and then select the material you wanted the slot stat of as the second material.
As to whether or not the slotted stats are displayed on the material (for those in the crafting professions, no need to clutter up the display’s of those that information doesn’t really affect), or they are learned as you use them to craft is up to the devs.
Crafter
This one is simple. The crafters should only effect whether or not a given item is successful or not, and to what degree it succeeds.
If a item requires level 5 to craft (crafting level) and the crafter is level 1, the success rate should be abysmal, maybe like 5%. (getting worse as the gap widens, and this percentage is a percentage of the base success rate) And if the item requires level 5 and the crafter is level 25, the failure rate should be next to none, maybe .001%.
If the crafter succeeds at crafting an item, the success should be either lesser, normal, greater, or a perfect success. With the tier of success dictating a multiplier on the base stats of the crafted item. (something negligible between success grades. Like -2% for a lesser (barely made the item), +- 0% for normal, +2% for Greater, and +5% for Perfect.
The percentage chance for getting each grade should be dictated by item level requirement, crafter level, rarity of blueprint, and materials used. The higher the grade of blueprint and material the harder to craft. The devs can balance the success grades. Too much thinking for me.
Item
This is the easy part. The colors of the item will be dictated by the materials used. The base stats are dictated by the materials used. The potential rarity is dictated by the blueprint used. The Slotted Stats are dictated by the order of materials used to craft it. (Iron first, Redwood second, and essence third or whatever) The quality is dictated on how well the crafter succeeded in crafting the item.
Attached is a photo of a flowchart that may make this easier to understand.
1
Comments
I think that crafting system is actually really cool and would actually love to see it in ashes. I do not like RNG in crafting though.
I think in a sandbox game like ashes it’s just easier to restrict the materials that can be used to the crafting level. For example at weapon smithing lv. 15 you can use iron in weapon making.
If anyone can do it, and be the same, then it's a bad design.
Although from what i understand the crafting system was not exactly as you described, all the components that you described like materials (which material and quality/rarity/freshness etc), blueprints with varying qualities and the crafter´s specialisation all contributed to the end product.
It also involved some kind of succesrate variable with different outcomes, although that´s an RNG component i would be totally ok with that if the rate is not too low and as such wouldnt skew with the outcome in the mid to long run.
You just have to realize that my approach to the RNG here is bases on the ratio between level requirements of the item crafted and the actual level of the crafter. If you are underleveled you will more likely have a lesser success or a failure. If you are equal in level, a majority of your crafts should be normal, and if you are overleveled you have a higher chance at a greater success. With perfect crafts being rare regardless of the levels in question.
You could even have a percentage modifier attached to whatever system is used for the actual crafting. The better or worse you do the better or worse the result.