Crafting Integration

[AltarofScience]

The other thread is mainly about my demo game right now, which is missing a lot of the main game functions.

One topic I am particularly interested in is the different crafting skills and their integration.
Now one issues is alchemy and crafting. Potions made by alchemists will have the ability to altar natural resources to make them more useful for various tasks. For instance, certain potions can be used in forging ingots that will later be used in creating weapons and armor. It will give them bonuses to various stats. For instance it would increase their strength, or lower their weight, much like alloys. Certain potions can also be used in the process of crafting an item, say, a sword, to give it a sharper edge. In additions, when enchanting items, one thing you can do is carve words into the weapon to give it affects. Now in general better enchanters can put more power in a word. And better materials can hold more charge. But also, the definition of the characters matters. Usually the metal smith will carve the words in, but you could also use a potion purchased from an alchemist to get a more precise engraving. Because a weapon has a limited amount of this which can be done before damaging its integrity, being more precise means being smaller which means fitting on more magic.
Further, certain professions can affect the total magic capacity of a sword. This is called, aligning the matrix. Potions or magic use in crafting the weapon could arrange its physical characteristics to be more receptive to magic. So a high level alchemist or enchanter could allow you to use a stronger spell on an iron sword than would normally be possible.
A whole bunch of professions in the game have this sort of crafting interaction. These sorts of things benefit capital, like plows or picks or hammers as well as weapons or armor. Magic can affect the power of potions, and vice versa. Magic or potions can cause crops to grow faster, and possibly magic can be used to breed new plants, although this is somewhat iffy.
These sorts of things can allow multiple classes to have better gear in questing, for instance a player with better metal craft can use better metals and forge superior weapons, but if you have lower metal crafting but high level alchemy or magic, you could make equipment of comparable quality.
Additionally various classes would be able to make cosmetic changes to items, like coloring metal or wood, and other such things.
I know many people would consider this to be incredibly complicated to code, but I am pretty sure I know how to do it without spending a lot of time.
What I am more concerned with is the player reaction. I know players love to customize, and lots of min maxers would be excited about all the ways to improve a weapon and that they can play lots of different types of characters without harming their ability to craft or quest or what not. But for casual players, I think it might be confusing to have all these options and also, players willing to spend a lot of time in game could produce vastly superior items.
I really would enjoy a game where this is possible obviously, or I wouldn't be making the game, but what do you guys think about this kind of thing?

[Chris]

Too many words, not enough numbers

Each sword can have up to 10 magic points. Magic points are like slots for enchantments. Enchantments can be bought from an enchanter, some enchantments (cheaper/more powerful) might require more than 1 magic point.

The amount of magic points depend on these 3 categories:
- material used (metal)
- blacksmith skill
- anvil level + forge location (if you are forging inside the "vulcano of thousand crafts" you get +2)
The final magic points is the LOWEST of the 3 categories plus bonuses (up to +3).

certain potions can be used in forging ingots

I have trouble visualizing this... A dwarf is smelting some iron then takes a bottle and pour it to make the alloy better That's completely unrealistic because everyone knows magic can not withstand the temperatures of smelting iron, it can be applied only at the finished or nearly finished product :-P

[AltarofScience]

Too many words, not enough numbers

Each sword can have up to 10 magic points. Magic points are like slots for enchantments. Enchantments can be bought from an enchanter, some enchantments (cheaper/more powerful) might require more than 1 magic point.

The amount of magic points depend on these 3 categories:
- material used (metal)
- blacksmith skill
- anvil level + forge location (if you are forging inside the "vulcano of thousand crafts" you get +2)
The final magic points is the LOWEST of the 3 categories plus bonuses (up to +3).

certain potions can be used in forging ingots

I have trouble visualizing this... A dwarf is smelting some iron then takes a bottle and pour it to make the alloy better That's completely unrealistic because everyone knows magic can not withstand the temperatures of smelting iron, it can be applied only at the finished or nearly finished product :-P

items have a set amount of inscription space. inscriptions that are more prescise allow for more powerful enchantments. if you can write smaller inscriptions you can have more total. you can reenchant an item so even if you have an enchantment whose level is not as high as the inscription you can put a better one in later. there are ways to uninscript an item in order to add smaller or more precise inscriptions.
items can also recieve temporary spell buffs from people who know wizard/sorcerer type magic, the power of these is limited only by the material and then wizard.

potions are not explicitly magic, but also chemistry. a potion can be used to remove impurities if the alchemist has higher skills than the smith. also potions can be used on other items like wood and such where its not so easy to refine. they can also be use to change metal properties, such as when an alchemist or wizard aligns the matrix to allow the weapon to accept more powerful magic buffs. so aligned iron as opposed to standard iron.

numbers are not really so important in conceptual design, although you are free to disagree.

capital, such as an anvil or hammer can affect smithing ability, and also smiths skills. mage smithy can also be used, this is more complicated. and also alchemy products as described. there is no location bonus. materials also matter.

[AltarofScience]

I have made a decision in regards to mats. I think I will borrow the random addition to mats method of SWG crafting. I have been trying to distill the most interesting aspects of really popular crafting systems, and I think a large part of SWG was that aspect. I finally figured out why. It is just like the randomness of diablo loot drops. It takes that aspect and moves it from adventuring to crafting and it worked really well.

I think that I really like these things in a crafting system:
A lot of mats
Some random and useful variation in mats
Many kinds of mats
Many craftable items
Crafting tools that can get better
Many areas of crafting
Crafting with multiple steps
Interdependent crafting
Magic enhancements to crafting
Crafting items that are not crappier versions of loot drops
Crafting that makes generally unique items
Not having to craft 500 identical shitty items to level
Crafting that allows players to be recognized for their items
Crafting where making many of a specific item type makes you better

I think I have determined nearly all the aspects of crafting I want my system to have, and in many cases how to implement them, and even how to code them. I think I am ready to get down to work. Still got other aspects of the game to work on, but I think Ive got my crafting plan down.

[arai]

everyone knows magic can not withstand the temperatures of smelting iron

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I have made a decision in regards to mats. I think I will borrow the random addition to mats method of SWG crafting. I have been trying to distill the most interesting aspects of really popular crafting systems, and I think a large part of SWG was that aspect. I finally figured out why. It is just like the randomness of diablo loot drops. It takes that aspect and moves it from adventuring to crafting and it worked really well.

I think that I really like these things in a crafting system:
A lot of mats
Some random and useful variation in mats
Many kinds of mats
Many craftable items
Crafting tools that can get better
Many areas of crafting
Crafting with multiple steps
Interdependent crafting
Magic enhancements to crafting
Crafting items that are not crappier versions of loot drops
Crafting that makes generally unique items
Not having to craft 500 identical shitty items to level
Crafting that allows players to be recognized for their items
Crafting where making many of a specific item type makes you better

I think I have determined nearly all the aspects of crafting I want my system to have, and in many cases how to implement them, and even how to code them. I think I am ready to get down to work. Still got other aspects of the game to work on, but I think Ive got my crafting plan down.

SWG did an excellent job of applying behavioral (and humanistic) psychology theory to their crafting system, which is normally devoid of both.  It wasn't perfect though.  The problems I had with SWG's resources were twofold...

• Unlimited resources available to the characters within a given interval.  Their entire approach of setting the week's (or few days) resources then applying them with a mining efficiency coefficient just felt clunky.  A more realistic (and more interesting) approach would have been to define veins of a given resource and set a finite maximum amount of material which could be extracted.  No time-limit, but as you mine a given spot, your rate of return will drop to 0 as you exhaust the resource.  This would let people who didn't have large mining operations quietly scrape of the top of a sweet vein and still be very competitive.
• No ability to artificially synthesize a resource.  While I thought the specific naming of "types of coper" was cute, we have another name for that in the real world: alloys.  You can mix ingredients in certain ratios to formulate a specific alloy of metal, which in certain cases has properties exclusive to it (and not to it's ingredient materials).

Developing a model where your mineral's properties are based on the ratios of elements included in them would be fantastic.  If you set it up so the veins you discover just happen to be random alloys, and characters have the ability to refine and remix alloys and you'd have a metalurgist's wetdream.