Update #58: Crafting with Tim Cain!

[Nonek]

Do enemies arms and armour degrade also? I'm just thinking that if i've been busily smashing an axe into my foe, will their armour become less effective? If I loot that armour from their corpse will that damage i've inflicted show, and the item state be maintained?

 

Can I mitigate wear and tear through use of disposable items such as whetstones, oiling and polishing my armour etcetera, or is this upkeep reflected in the crafting skill?

Edited July 3, 2013 by Nonek

[mousehopper]

Nonek, that was a very good question re enemies armor.  However, I just wanted to add that I thought this was a great update.  I do read them all but rarely comment.  However, I found this one to be very informative and helpful.  Thanks to Tim Cain for providing it.  Oh, and by the way I do like the idea of being able to craft and upgrade armor, etc.

[jethro]

Do enemies arms and armour degrade also? I'm just thinking that if i've been busily smashing an axe into my foe, will their armour become less effective? If I loot that armour from their corpse will that damage i've inflicted show, and the item state be maintained?

 

 

Since the degradation seems not to be something happening every two or three fights for a specific weapon or armour and the effect seems to be quite small, I would guess it is not a mechanic you can exploit tactically in fights. 

Edited July 3, 2013 by jethro

[Flatfingers]

1. Will item repair components have weight/encumbrance? Obviously this will determine whether we can be effective at repairing degraded items in the field or have to make frequent trips to the nearest cache of supplies.

 

2. Will crafting skills and other skills pull from one pool of available character skill points? Or can characters (possibly of only certain classes) maximize both crafting and non-crafting (i.e., combat) skills at the same time? (I know this was hinted at in the conclusion to today's update.)

 

I could argue this one both ways. Allowing fully separate tracks lets players enjoy more of an RPG's expensively-created content. But pulling from the same pool sends the important message to players that non-combat content is considered as important as the usual destructive skills -- the same cost implies the same value.

 

3. As some others have said, I think I also detect a whiff of MMORPG conventions here. Item degradation is sometimes applied as an economic whip, and potions-as-buffs is also popular. (I personally have zero use for buffs; they are the crack cocaine of RPGS -- it's best never to start using them so as to avoid addiction.)

 

On the other hand, both item degradation and temporary skill enhancers have appeared in single-player RPGs I've enjoyed (System Shock 2, Skyrim). So these may be coincidences. But my antennae are up; I truly did not like the skills system in Dragon Age that was obviously copied-and-pasted from MMORPG conventions. I'm not convinced that PE is going that route -- it's just a small concern.

 

4. The most important note I can offer about crafting systems in RPGs is that they're nearly always designed solely around game mechanics. More specifically, crafting is usually treated as nothing more than a secondary support system for the all-important killin'-and-lootin' gameplay. I have more than once read reports of crafting being handed off to a designer whose experience and preference were in designing combat systems; little wonder that crafting often feels perfunctory, or that it's interpreted as mass-producing junk to beat other players in an economic competition subgame.

 

I long for an RPG in which "crafting" is designed to be about "craft" in all the original connotations of the word for that concept: handcrafting, craftsmanship, craftiness. Crafting as an RPG system (particularly in a semi-medieval setting) ought to be designed by someone who understands the pleasure in the skillful personal fabrication of things that are both functional and beautiful. *That* is what "crafting" ought to feel like in an RPG. If not, then it's just a timesink and doesn't need to be implemented.

 

(Note: I have a similar rant on how the joy of "magic" in RPGs is always sucked dry by being implemented as a mechanical science, rather than as a wondrous and terrifying power. I suspect that this and the tedious, grindy, gameplay-uber-alles concept of crafting are closely related.)

 

In short: crafting-as-fixing-broken-stuff feels a lot less interesting -- maybe not even worth doing -- than crafting as the perceptive and creative fabrication of individual items that are highly functional and artistically appealing. To the extent that crafting mechanics in PE tend toward the latter definition, that's the extent to which I'll *want to* craft in PE rather than the not-fun feeling that I *have to* craft.

 

Again, though, I know that designing any system in an RPG is tough, and people will aways be unsatisfied. I appreciate the effort that Tim & Co. are putting into crafting and everything else in PE.

[clippedwolf]

Previously I said my bit on what I thought of hearths, but I held off on repairing.  Honestly, it makes me uncomfortable.  I think the idea of it comes from the idea of being "realistic".  But realistically blades could be handed down for generations.  What would degenerate to the point that it wouldn't last the few years that might be the span of the game?  Bow strings?  Crossbow or firearm components?  Boots?  Any trained warrior should know how to care for his weapons and armor.  A whetstone, oil, and rag aren't heavy and shouldn't necessarily be present for the player to look at.  Crafting weapons and armor seems like it could be fun.  A master crafter might be able to make blades better balanced (faster), hold an edge better (more damage), or make nicer pommels (prestige: alters NPC reactions [if you have a jewel encrusted pommel with gold inlays you have money and/or power]).  However, arbitrary blade-degradation-to-be-fixed-with-a-few-clicks-on the-next-trip-to-town on the alter of "realism" is not fun or have a basis in reality.

[Gfted1]

1. Will item repair components have weight/encumbrance? Obviously this will determine whether we can be effective at repairing degraded items in the field or have to make frequent trips to the nearest cache of supplies.

 

As described in post #1, repairs cannot be performed "in the field", only at Forges or Vendors. Also, inventory has no weight so you should be able to carry every conceivable material required to repair, make potions and cook food/drinks.

[pseudonymous]

Item durability?  Swords break at the worst of times, I don't think it's really that big of deal, well unless you need surgery...

[Nixl]

Alright, I may be in the minority, but I like durability and crafting. I know that many people will disagree with me, but I think System Shock 2 made item durability matter.  Engaging a creature or using one weapon over another was a decision going into each fight that I appreciated. 

 

I like the potential for a survival mechanic/theme, but the balance of such is a fine line. 

The line being, in my opinion, the availability of gold, materials, and  weapons.  If the player is awash with materials and gold then I feel that the durability requirement becomes trivial and without much meaning. 

 

I would like to see upper difficulty levels truly reduce the amount of gold and materials that one can find.  That to me, would make the mechanic meaningful. 

 

Another aspect to potentially play around with is if certain creatures and attacks had a greater chance of hurting durability. 

[decado]

Alright, I may be in the minority, but I like durability and crafting. I know that many people will disagree with me, but I think System Shock 2 made item durability matter.  Engaging a creature or using one weapon over another was a decision going into each fight that I appreciated. 

 

I like the potential for a survival mechanic/theme, but the balance of such is a fine line. 

The line being, in my opinion, the availability of gold, materials, and  weapons.  If the player is awash with materials and gold then I feel that the durability requirement becomes trivial and without much meaning. 

 

I would like to see upper difficulty levels truly reduce the amount of gold and materials that one can find.  That to me, would make the mechanic meaningful. 

 

Another aspect to potentially play around with is if certain creatures and attacks had a greater chance of hurting durability. 

I agree! I'm hoping the durability mechanic grows more important with the increase in difficulty level.  I wouldn't mind it being ignorable at lower levels of difficulty, but  more important if I was playing a harder game.

[Iyanga]

Seriously, are you guys kidding me? THIS is what we get for 100k USD? Find the recipe, find the materials, click a button?

[Ieo]

Item durability?  Swords break at the worst of times, I don't think it's really that big of deal, well unless you need surgery...

It's not durability in itself that I take issue with but the implementation approach. Durability itself has no mechanical meaning in the PE world except to manipulate the player into the crafting mechanic. I've seen this general development approach many times in many ways in different games, and they're always negative. 

 

Examples:

A developer created a bunch of discrete content, like mini-dungeons, and found that players played only certain ones multiple times. In order to "encourage" players to utilize the other content, the developer decides to reduce the rewards in the popular mini-dungeons. 

 

A subset of players does not participate in crafting. To make crafting more "attractive" to this group of players, the developer decides to make certain highest-level gear shinies crafted-only. 

 

It boils down to this concept: When a choice is not choice in terms of either normal play or "decently efficient" play, it becomes mechanical manipulation, and that's just wrong. (Edit to add: This is outside the context of actual content; if you want to run the difficult dungeon to earn something, that's still a good choice to make.)

 

In general I like crafting and I don't mind durability (for the reasons it's implemented in MMOs, fine), but the only way to remove the semblance of outright manipulation is to make alternatives roughly/equally viable, giving back choice. 

 

Or separate the crafting mechanics from durability proper, and make durability a legitimate resource management issue, and crafting gets its own cool items and effects.

 

A good crafting system should not need an arbitrary mechanical crutch to lend it value. It should stand on its own merits.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Ieo

[Gfted1]

Seriously, are you guys kidding me? THIS is what we get for 100k USD? Find the recipe, find the materials, click a button?

 

No, you also have to travel somewhere every ~5-7 fights to fix stuff.

 

I sure hope my stronghold is nice, I have a feeling Im going to be spending a lot of time there resting and repairing.

[forgottenlor]

Personally I'm rather neutral to both crafting and durability. For me they are absolutely non-essential to enjoying an RPG, but I also don't find them annoying. I did use crafting in both KOTOR2 and NWN2. I think it might be a good idea if you could disable the whole system (no durability and no crafting) at the beginning of the game. That would make a lot of players happy, I think.

[Fearabbit]

What an Arcanum-esque update. Crafting was my favorite part of that game and it sounds as if it'll be even more fun in Project Eternity. (I do hope that Crafting will allow me to create some unique stuff once I get the right recipes, as it did in Arcanum.)

 

Oh, and I actually like durability as well. I especially like it the way it's done here, where you don't lose the item if it's fully damaged and where the damage doesn't gradually make the item worse. That way it won't be annoying, but it will feel more realistic (and also I like the little roleplaying of "do I go to the blacksmith or do I do it myself?"). Very cool.

 

I just hope there will be an easy menu for selecting the items that should be repaired. In Arcanum, I had to transfer all my companions' broken items over to my main character's inventory, get them repaired and sort them back in the various inventories. That was annoying as hell.

 

But yeah, one thing that's been discussed in the forums a lot is the price of crafted items. I think it would be best if they didn't have any value at all (or rather, I think it would be best if the player couldn't sell stuff at all, but I realize that I'm in the minority here). Crafting items already eliminates the need to buy things at all, even services like repairs can be done by yourself... but not only destroying one money sink, but actually turning it into a money source, by allowing you to sell crafted items, that would be too much.

[jethro]

Too bad the degradation topic overshadowed the much more important topic of the overall crafting system.

 

While I like crafting generally, the crafting in nwn2 left me cold. You could craft anything you could also find as loot which made finding items boring. It also made legendary items mundane as you saw the underlying mechanic of the item system too clearly.

 

While the system Tim Cain described in the update sounded very much like the nwn2 system he wasn't really definite on some of the concepts, so I still have hope. Here is what I think crafting should look like:

 

1) Loot != (aka not equal) crafted items. There should be lots of items only available through loot and lots of items only available through crafting. None of these should be essential to finishing the main quest or killing a specific type of monster (but they could be essential to solving a side quest, there is no rule that all quests should be solvable by anyone).

 

Why? Because obviously crafted items and vendor items can't be consistently better than anything found in loot, otherwise finding stuff will be as exciting as in Diablo 3 (and I'm sure that D3 will be on any curriculum in game design courses for how not to devalue loot). But to be relevant it has to be better at least sometimes. That is a real conundrum if you can craft anything that you can find. Even if you can balance the game so that they are comparable you still make any loot substitutable by crafting and vice versa. "Oh damn, I couldn't find a good sword yet, I have to run around with the vendor sword. What glorious surprise if I find one" is replaced by "Oh nevermind, I plugged all the big holes with crafted items. If I find a cool sword, it will just be marginally better". Sure, it is less random, but also less exciting as you always have good items in any slot.

 

The solution is clearly to separate items for loot and craft. For example: Amulets that boost constitution are only found as crafting recipes (maybe with the exception of a few vendor items of lower quality) while amulets that boost accuracy are only found as loot. You can play the game without the crafted amulets, no question. But if you want to do crafting you get a real bonus for the skill points you put there. And that without invalidating any loot you might find as accuracy amulets are still relevant to your archers.

 

 

2) No spreadsheet. Don't make it so regular that wooden plank always gives +1, iron plank +2, smaragd gives fire damage, opal gives cold damage... This is a wonderful system for database programmers (yes, a database should be normalized, a game not), also it is easier to implement no doubt. But a) this is mundane, boring,  b) it means that as soon as all your stuff is +1 and better, wooden planks are useless anywhere in the world, especially in the inventory of all the traders and in yours. There should be really cool and mighty items to forge that need a lowly wooden plank

Edited July 3, 2013 by jethro

[Monte Carlo]

Why does Sawyer answer important questions on SA and not here?

[Archmage Silver]

Forges & Labs, Recipes - [Like]

• I like the way these are being implemented in general
• Would it also be feasible to allow the player to discover alchemical recipes randomly through experimentation with the ingredients?
• Or do you want to limit meta-gaming by not having instantly available recipes via experimentation? I can understand the sentiment if that's the case here

 

Hearths, Cooking - [Question]

• Right now this sounds like something that overlaps with potions
• How do you plan to implement this feature without making it partly redundant and possibly even superfluous?

 

Item Degradation, Repair - [Dislike]

• I dislike these features altogether, IE games did well without them

• Purpose in PE? In MMOs and multiplayer games (e.g. Diablo) it's a gold sink, nothing more
• If implemented, why can't items go all the way and break? Seems unnecessary to have a repair system if there is no risk

• Only some items get worn out in combat, and those don't include helms(!), cloaks, boots or gloves? Those usually take damage in combat
• Where's the consistency with the aforementioned plan?

• You're basically penalizing players who don't want to craft? Where's the wisdom in that?
• I think these features should either be revised or removed

[Ieo]

 

Why? Because obviously crafted items and vendor items can't be consistently better than anything found in loot, otherwise finding stuff will be as exciting as in Diablo 3 (and I'm sure that D3 will be on any curriculum in game design courses for how not to devalue loot). But to be relevant it has to be better at least sometimes. That is a real conundrum if you can craft anything that you can find. Even if you can balance the game so that they are comparable you still make any loot substitutable by crafting and vice versa. "Oh damn, I couldn't find a good sword yet, I have to run around with the vendor sword. What glorious surprise if I find one" is replaced by "Oh nevermind, I plugged all the big holes with crafted items. If I find a cool sword, it will just be marginally better". Sure, it is less random, but also less exciting as you always have good items in any slot.

 

The solution is clearly to separate items for loot and craft. For example: Amulets that boost constitution are only found as crafting recipes (maybe with the exception of a few vendor items of lower quality) while amulets that boost accuracy are only found as loot. You can play the game without the crafted amulets, no question. But if you want to do crafting you get a real bonus for the skill points you put there. And that without invalidating any loot you might find as it is still relevant for your archers.

 

 

I believe it was LotRO that had the concept of "comparable incomparables."

 

The basic idea is to reward players with roughly equivalent shinies through different paths of progression. So a player who couldn't or didn't want to sit for four hours straight in classically difficult end-game content (e.g. raiding) could eventually craft raid-quality gear. But the paths are very different, and the shinies themselves also differed in stats, but were roughly equivalent in quality. The raider would earn tokens from the big fights and barter or get something as loot. The crafters would have to work their way through multiple levels of faction reputation and buy expensive materials or find something behind a puzzle and the like.

 

It was an approach lauded by that community because it celebrates multiple playstyles without depreciating the items received from other paths, which have different cosmetic appeal and some different stats.

 

It could work in PE. Maybe you could craft your way to an awesome 2H sword given enough time and elbow grease, or you can get that glowing awesome 2H axe in the mega-dungeon. Maybe one has special on-hit abilities and the other has on-use. Or maybe they both talk but have different personalities. But in battle, they're both pretty much equally awesome.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Why does Sawyer answer important questions on SA and not here?

 

I answer questions in both locations.  I can't log to OEI at home and these updates almost always go up after I've left for tutoring on Tuesdays.

[TheUnoNameless]

I believe it was LotRO that had the concept of "comparable incomparables."

 

The basic idea is to reward players with roughly equivalent shinies through different paths of progression. So a player who couldn't or didn't want to sit for four hours straight in classically difficult end-game content (e.g. raiding) could eventually craft raid-quality gear. But the paths are very different, and the shinies themselves also differed in stats, but were roughly equivalent in quality. The raider would earn tokens from the big fights and barter or get something as loot. The crafters would have to work their way through multiple levels of faction reputation and buy expensive materials or find something behind a puzzle and the like.

 

It was an approach lauded by that community because it celebrates multiple playstyles without depreciating the items received from other paths, which have different cosmetic appeal and some different stats.

 

It could work in PE. Maybe you could craft your way to an awesome 2H sword given enough time and elbow grease, or you can get that glowing awesome 2H axe in the mega-dungeon. Maybe one has special on-hit abilities and the other has on-use. Or maybe they both talk but have different personalities. But in battle, they're both pretty much equally awesome.

 

 

This is the problem, you are comparing an MMO to a Single-Player game. In MMO, it's a viable choice to either grind dungeons or participate in crafting. Single Player game should have "dungeon grind" option to begin with! MMO is persistent and rewards time investment, neither of these things is true for single player games.

 

EDIT: In the same way, money sinks aren't needed in SP, story-based games. You decide how much gold will be in game when you create it. There's no continuous influx, unless you have procedural content like Skyrim. Single Player games don't have economies to balance, so they shouldn't have "gold sinks", they should have items for sale that give value to gold.

Edited July 3, 2013 by TheUnoNameless

[Ieo]

 

I believe it was LotRO that had the concept of "comparable incomparables."

 

The basic idea is to reward players with roughly equivalent shinies through different paths of progression. So a player who couldn't or didn't want to sit for four hours straight in classically difficult end-game content (e.g. raiding) could eventually craft raid-quality gear. But the paths are very different, and the shinies themselves also differed in stats, but were roughly equivalent in quality. The raider would earn tokens from the big fights and barter or get something as loot. The crafters would have to work their way through multiple levels of faction reputation and buy expensive materials or find something behind a puzzle and the like.

 

It was an approach lauded by that community because it celebrates multiple playstyles without depreciating the items received from other paths, which have different cosmetic appeal and some different stats.

 

It could work in PE. Maybe you could craft your way to an awesome 2H sword given enough time and elbow grease, or you can get that glowing awesome 2H axe in the mega-dungeon. Maybe one has special on-hit abilities and the other has on-use. Or maybe they both talk but have different personalities. But in battle, they're both pretty much equally awesome.

 

 

This is the problem, you are comparing an MMO to a Single-Player game. In MMO, it's a viable choice to either grind dungeons or participate in crafting. Single Player game should have "dungeon grind" option to begin with! MMO is persistent and rewards time investment, neither of these things is true for single player games.

 

 

There are factions in PE. I'm saying that, at the higher development level, it may be feasible to implement different paths to shinies anyway, when talking about crafting versus loot. You're saying that it's not viable to craft in SP games?  (I guess you mean SP games should "not" have 'dungeon grind to begin with'.) Take out the whole scary "MMO" bit for a moment and consider that Obsidian has already been designing different paths to different things, like shifting xp/reward to quest objectives to make noncombat roleplay viable.

[Undecaf]

This might've been asked already, but I'm curious. What is supposed to make the player care about the durability scale if it holds no effects until all "life" is depleted from the item - if having full 100% condition is the same as 1%? And as there seems to be "lots" of durability units so it seems a rather long thing to wear an item down, I see no drive to ever want the item in full health. I mean, isn't it just an occasional busywork with no real tangible effects this way?

Edited July 3, 2013 by Undecaf

[J.E. Sawyer]

I'd like a sincere answer to this question, though I know not all of you are of the same mind: what do you want to spend (in-game) money on?

 

I worked on IWD, HoW, TotL, and IWD2.  In virtually all of these games, I heard these two complaints over and over and over:

 

When unique items were in stores:

* I don't want to buy unique items in stores.

 

When unique items were in dungeons:

* I have nothing to spend my money on.

 

In all of these games, items you found on adventures were almost always one of the following: a) directly usable (i.e. gear or consumables) b) wealth items or c) quest items.  If something wasn't usable, it was usually a wealth item (gold, gem, etc.).  A wealth item only existed to give you gold, but for gold to have some sort of value, there needs to be something you want that costs x gold.  If high-value items aren't what you spend your gold on, what do you spend your gold on?  In PE, you may spend gold on your stronghold, but there's no guarantee of that.  And according to a lot of you, you don't use consumables, so if consumables aren't used, they're just wealth items -- not something you would want to spend gold on.

 

Part of the reason for having a crafting system was to make consumables less common in the world.  Only people who want to make/use them would see a relatively large quantity of them.  Since crafting ingredients are stored and sorted separately from other items, their presence subtracts nothing from the carrying capabilities of players who ignore the system entirely.

 

There are recurring trends I'm seeing:

 

* Don't like crafting.

* Don't like durability.

* Don't like consumables.

 

Combining those with with the two points at the top, it's hard for me to figure out where the gold is going to go.  There is also the possibility that players don't actually want a long-term gold economy in a SP game, that gold in the mid- and late-game is ultimately something to accumulate and that most/all forms of gear upgrading simply happens through quests and exploration.  That's not an invalid way to go, but I'd like to hear thoughts on it if you have the time.

[Sensuki]

edit: just read your post - shoulda started a new thread perhaps?

What about having crafting not as a skill, kinda like it was in BG2 or KotOR2 ?

Keep the item, skill, talent requirements of the recipes, but just have it so that anyone can do the crafting, that way we don't have to have item durability either - it seems to partially serve as a function to make crafting useful.

There's probably a way to make crafting and vendors work with that as well (such as just paying a gold value or equivalent instead of ingredients).

I'd also like to see BG2/ToB style artifacts in there but YMMV.

---------

Answer to your question:

I will spend money on anything I need. I was fine with the mix of items found in shops, in the world and through crafting that was present in Baldur's Gate 2. At the start of the game, you went to the Adventurer's Mart and bought stuff you needed to go take on the harder quests for a low level char (like Umar Hills).

The Baldur's Gate 1 feel was good too though, where you used mostly items you found in the world and then when you had the money you bought your suit of Full Plate Mail, or your Large Shield +1 or your Short Bow +1. There was significance in that. BG however did not have crafting.
 

The amount of player outputs I can think of are: Buying items, paying for crafting or buying crafting materials, paying for magical service (such as healing, restoration, identify etc etc), Real estate (Such as the stronghold or player house) and Quest inputs such as the $15K gold to pay the Shadow Thieves to take you to Spellhold in BG2.

 

I think one of the reasons the amount of items for sale in IWD was noticeable because a large number of them were in the same place, for instance Conlan's Blacksmith - that was your shop for pretty much half of the game whereas in the BG games there was High Hedge, Beregost Smith, Bentley Mirrorshade and Feldpost's Inn that all had shops with unique magic items before you got to Baldur's Gate which had a few more.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Sensuki

[Jotra]

I really don't like the idea of item degradation, and don't really agree with your reasons for it. Firstly if as you say it's there to make crafting skill valuable for more than one crafter character to me that sounds like a big argument for separating crafting from rest of the skills. Basically still the only use you will get from having more than one crafter is that their items break more slowly. That just sounds like a really poorly designed skill from gameplay perspective as it is simply just extremely boring skill, and in my opinion adds no gameplay value.

 

Secondly you say it's a money sink and while that's certainly true I really don't understand the need for money sinks in single player game. You control every money faucet and should be able to pretty accurately control how much money average player will accumulate during a playthrough. What you can't obviously control is if the player will spend it, so a player who just saves it all is going to end up with a lot more than a player who buys everything available. This seems like an really minor issue that you are planning to fix with a sledgehammer of using almost universally disliked mechanic.

 

All in all I hope you can mostly ignore crafting even on higher difficulties. I hope you aren't balancing fights based on players crafting buff foods, potions and what not like some kind of MMO raid.