Update #58: Crafting with Tim Cain!

[Nixl]

 will any recipes require the blood/internal organs of elves?

 

 

I hope this makes it onto any future update about crafting. 

[Chrząszczyrzewoszyczanin]

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?

Bribes.

 

Buying Information/Knowledge: The more obscure, illegal, dangerous is that knowledge the more expensive it is and the harder to get for "free".

 

Unique items but less in "infinity+1 sword of epicness" way which should in my opinion be either in dungeon, reward for quest, or even lie down somewhere in grass forgotten and more in: equipment for various enviroments, art ("make me statue of me for 5000"),

 

Tutoring

-Especially for obscure and forgotten languages

 

Getting others to do something for us when we are short on time, or it outright impossible to something without any help because we would have to be many places at same time.

[Cultist]

Knowing about Chris Avellone dislike of elves - GO FOR IT! Go full Ramsay with them! Always wanted to have full set of human skin armor in BG2 not just chest armor.

[Lephys]

I see what you are saying, but in the end, all crafting in all games will boil down to a spread sheet. I think it is just a quality of the medium. While I completely agree that crafting can get quite boring and predicable, over complicating the process just makes it more likely that it might be ignored. In the 15 minutes or so I played Skyrim I hated the crafting system with the hate of a thousand suns (warning: previous sentence contains hyperbole). Of course, this is just one kobold's opinion.

Every callable value in the entire game is pretty much a spreadsheet, and yet games don't typically feel like you're just playing through a spreadsheet.

 

I'm not asking for over-complication. Just a healthy dose of mild, mysterious, dynamic complexity. If you have a 20% quality/effect range depending on your skill/the specifics of your exact crafting process, then you don't NEED to make every single possible result within that entire range.

 

The best way I can think of it is similar to the effect of chance in combat. It kinda sucks when you just have static values, because there's never anything to react to/overcome/adapt to/figure out, etc. You have an attack value of 17, and that guy's defense is 16? You will hit him. Hit that guy. Don't hit the guy with an 18 defense, 'cause you won't hit him.

 

That's why we have dice rolls.

 

I think the reason crafting often becomes so mundane is that it's all static: You have the recipe and 25 skill? You make an iron sword. You don't have the recipe? You don't make an iron sword. You have 24 skill? You don't make an iron sword.

 

We need some friggin' grazes and critical hits in there, instead of just static hits and misses, ya know? And no, I don't think simply tossing RNG in there solves the problem, if you're still just dealing with success/failure. I just think DEGREES of success are in order. Variation, factors, dynamics.

 

In combat, if you miss an opponent, you don't LOSE COMBAT, so it's not a good parallel for games to say "well, you failed to properly craft this sword, so IT JUST DISSOLVED AND YOU GOT NOTHING! MUAHAHAHA!" Maybe you just make a sword that starts at 50% durability, or maybe if it's a slashing weapon, it deals less bleed damage than other "normal" swords of the same type. But then, the chances of that, as well as the extent of that, should depend upon your skill versus the challenge at hand. If it's a 20-difficulty sword, and your skill is 19, you should have a pretty good chance of making a good sword, and a pretty small chance of making a crummy sword (and only SO crummy a sword, at that... like 90% durability, minimum, instead of 50%, or maybe it can only deal 1 less bleed damage than another sword, instead of 5, etc.).

 

Maybe the initial quality of the sword (I'm just rolling with sword examples here) dictates how easily it can be reforged/enchanted/otherwise-altered. Or maybe how many times? If you're a bamf at smithing, you can make an Iron Sword that's can be made significantly better over time. If you're a noob at smithing, you can still make a legit Iron Sword, but it's only going to be able to be reforged/honed so many times before it simply breaks or is no longer usable.

 

I dunno. There are a billion possibilities, and all of them aren't a perfect fit for a game like P:E. But, the default RPG crafting system is DEFINITELY overdue for some innovation. The rest of the game hides the spreadsheet in the guise of actual gameplay. Why should the crafting system just "meh" it up and say "Just look for the row with your skill level on it, then cycle through the columns to see all the stuff you make at that skill level. When you improve, move on to the next row."?

 

I don't want the whole rest of the game to have oodles of replayability, then have the crafting system be all "Oh, you're at 20 Smithing again in this new playthrough? You get to make Iron Swords again!" Seems like there can be SOMEthing that makes it more dynamic than that, so that I can feel like I'm crafting in a different way/style than in another playthrough/with another character. *Shrug*

 

Maybe I'm just crazy.

[Giantevilhead]

I'd like to use money to

 

• manipulate a region's economy
• influence a region's politics
• buy intangible things like respect, secrets, and silence
• frame/incriminate/trick enemies that I cannot easily confront directly

[Lephys]

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 think the best focus for this is for the support of playthrough personalization. In other words, anything that makes sense to cost money, with how much money you spend, when you spend it, and HOW you spend it affecting various factors in your playthrough, whether they be sticking to your favorite style of equipment, crafting the stuff you want to craft, bribing people to get things, buying cool stuff from prestigious shops, supporting your character build/skillset, etc.

 

I like to think of money as kind of like another progression resource.

 

I don't think there really needs to be much worry about some kind of game world economy, at least not past a rudimentary level. The more important thing there is simply the player-to-world economic relationship, which is mainly just a balancing concern. But... it's kind of like skill points. You try to make sure that 5 skill points, spent in whatever fashion, have the same overall value as 5 skill points spent in any other fashion. It's a lot trickier with money, surely, but I think that should be the general idea. It should be a versatile tool, rather than THE means of doing a handful of things. It should be A means of doing all manner of things.

[GrinningReaper659]

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?

 

...

 

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.

 

...

 

There are recurring trends I'm seeing:

 

* Don't like crafting.

* Don't like durability.

* Don't like consumables.

I am definitely not a fan of the proposed crafting system, and have been put off by the crafting systems in games such as NWN2 for a few reasons:

-Being able, as an adventurer, to craft any possible weapon makes little sense to me.

-Crafting seems to diminish looting and buying when you can make any weapon of any power through the annoyance of collecting every scrap of material you find.

-I have never found this process fun.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed crafting as it was done in the BG games, it was simple and made a lot of sense. Find all the pieces, and have an actual master craftsman put them together for a fee. This maintains the looting and buying systems and gives a greater sense of accomplishment when you are able to get the pieces and craft an epic, unique weapon of some sort.

 

What to spend money on:

-I don't really have anything against consumables, and they're a good money sink that make sense to me

-The availability of unique, epic equipment for sale in stores can be understadably off-putting for some, but there could be ways of buying such items apart from in generic stores: special merchants that you run into while travelling or potentially an NPC that you run into that is impoverished to the point of having to sell off a powerful family heirloom, and you have only the one chance to buy it, retired adventurers that you come across that may be willing to sell some item from their former adventuring days if the right price is offered and the right words said. I don't have a problem with some of these epic and expensive items being in Adventurers' Mart type stores, but there are plenty of ways to put them elsewhere that make sense, give the player the opportunity to spend money, and don't make the player feel as if they can buy every possible piece of equipment in the game from a single merchant.

-BG2 style crafting of unique items which are expensive to create, it makes sense to have to pay a small fortune to have a legendary piece of equipment recreated for you, especially if there are only a handful (or less) of people capable of doing it.

-Potentially some occasional bribery options to make certain jobs go easier; or a monetary gift to impress or bend the will of a faction leader whose coffers are getting light.

 

In short: potions, ammunition; paying the best smith in the land to recreate that legendary weapon from its pieces; expensive items found in stores, on traveling merchants, in the homes of retired adventurers and in random encounters with NPCs; and potentially some bribery and gifting of money.

 

 

As for the proposed equipment degradation system: it seems somewhat pointless as proposed, just a money sink and an annoyance of trudging back to town or having to keep a craftsman and materials in your party. That being said, it doesn't seem like it will be a hugely noticeable annoyance, so it's not something that will bother me too much.

Edited July 3, 2013 by GrinningReaper659

[Gumbercules]

Regarding the money sink issue, I wonder if it might be feasible to estimate how much the average player would need to spend on equipment upkeep over the course of the game, and then just remove that much money from the game world. It'll probably be tricky and might have to wait until most of the content is in the game (or you could put more effort up front into determining how loot and reward gold affects the economy), but it would give the same basic result without the busywork.

 

Then, after the stick has been removed for those who dislike crafting, a good carrot would be just a wide variety of potions and enchantments. Go beyond just the basic stuff and include potions with weird effects or applications that aren't immediately obvious. Have potions whose effects interact with each other in curious ways. Have secret potions and enchantments without recipes, which you only get if you have a high enough skill level and/or happen to combine the right materials. For potions, maybe take the Toxicity effect from the Witcher games and allow the effects to be mitigated if you have enough of the right skill. For enchanted equipment, have it so you can apply more enchantments to a single piece of equipment or can swap/modify enchantments as your skill level increases. You don't have to use all of these ideas, or even any, but crafting should be appealing in and of itself, not because the game is worse if you don't do it.

[J.E. Sawyer]

 

I've never heard anyone complain about having too much gold in BG for instance.

 

I've heard people complain about having too much gold in every game I worked on.  Until the end of F:NV when we introduced (entirely optional) GRA unique weapons that cost a fortune.  Then people complained that the items cost too much.

[radioactivelullaby]

as i said in the other thread, i wouldn't mind item degradation if it's implemented the same way it was in BG, i.e.  non-magic weapons would break but as soon as you have a magic weapon you don't have to worry about it, although this won't make it a mony sink.. anyhow, since P:E has roughly the same level range as BG, i hope it will be more like BG regarding acquiring magic items and full plate armour - the feeling of accomplishment for getting these (rather basic) stuff in BG was great.

[Jarmo]

Frankly, I don't understand people who have a problem with buying unique or nice items.  As long as they are appropriately priced, how is buying them somehow a derogatory exercise?  

 

 

To me it's not buying them as such.

It's the poor starving village peddler with seventeen hundred millions worth of loot in his shop trying to eke out a living.

Such stupid peddlers.. I'd just want to strangle them right away but unfortunately that'd only net me the 15 copper pieces he had on him.

 

Now that silken robed obscenely wealthy merchant in the capital with golems and elite guards protecting his emporium?

Don't mind the wondrous items in the inventory at all, I'd rather expect to see some.

 

But then I'd also expect it to be worth it to do a bit of night burglarizing there...

 

 

---

I'm getting used to the idea of PE item wear, not hostile anymore, almost liking it already.

Two things though. I don't like the mechanic of crafting skill preventing the wear, that's just gamey.

Second. I hope there won't be stuff like fixing swords by adding more steel. (wouldn't mind switching locks for firearms or stuff like that).

Edited July 3, 2013 by Jarmo

[Lucas]

I'm not entirely sure that a solution is needed at all costs for the "too much gold" problem, especially in a SP game.

 

- There are min./max. players who will find the most effective way to spend their gold;

 

- There will be players strictly stickying to the RP aspect, even putting restriction by themselves in order to have an even more realistic/immersive experience, so they might modify their gold usage (usually they will spend and hoard less).

----------

 

So, regarding money sinks, I tend to agree with what Gumbercules wrote: although you are experienced developers, maybe you need to wait a bit more and see how exactly the money will flow (from fallen enemies, shop prices, both buying and selling ones, crafting prices etc.) in relattion to game lenght, story and party formation.

 

Personally, I like to be immersed in the world, meaning that I will spend more money on decorations for the stronghold, clothes/mundane equipment (if any, of course I'm not expecting something like Skyrim) and, why not, some famous artifact.

 

In the end, yeah, I still think that a large part of the playerbase will have a surplus of money that they will spend on the "final boss" fight: I did that in BG1, but know what? The journey to get there was great, so who cares if I had an obscene amount of potions/arrows/whatever to rely on during the Sarevok fight?

Edited July 3, 2013 by Lucas

[Rostere]

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.

 

Making wealth meaningful is very important, and something which is not usually accomplished well in any RPG I have played.

 

The most important thing is to create many uses for money, so many that the player will never afford to explore them all. This way, wealth will feel realistic. You will not achieve the feeling of a realistic economy if there are not things the player can't afford.

 

Make it meaningful to hoard money. Often many skills in RPGs are more less directly focused on making/saving money, such as "Haggle" and "Repair" in Arcanum and Crafting in PE in the sense that it prevents costful equipment degradation and makes it possible to create items you could otherwise buy. However, these skills are usually meaningless in the sense that they don't unlock any additional story/content. I think many players will just instinctively invest in the Speech skill - or whatever it's called in PE - and disregard all the others, since they are pointless from a player's point of view. Gamers want skills, or in-game properties of their character (such as wealth) to affect story and allow access to different in-game content - that is the reactivity which is the core of what role playing means.

[Nonek]

Personally I like item degradation, it feels intrinsically right to me, whether that be a spear thrust bursting through the rings of your mail corselet and holing your gambeson or whatever. It seems like a nice touch of added flavour for the player who likes to immerse himself both mechanically and narratively, however I can see how many players used to more streamlined modern systems simply wish to maintain a combat ready state without too much preparation. Perhaps the mechanic should be optional?

 

What I usually spend money upon varies per game, in the infinity engine games it was without a doubt magic items. In Betrayal at Krondor it was the array of very useful miscellaneous inventory, rope, elven slippers, whetstones, armourers hammers, rations etcetera. In the Witcher it was without a doubt the books, covering monster lore, alchemical recipes, history and such. I did not need to purchase or collect dropped loot in the latter game because my inventory was limited to a realistic amount, and my weapons were superior to the common mass produced armaments of the soldiery.

 

Edit: I'll admit i've complained about playing a virtual Croesus numerous times.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Nonek

[J.E. Sawyer]

So, regarding money sinks, I tend to agree with what Gumbercules wrote: although you are experienced developers, maybe you need to wait a bit more and see how exactly the money will flow (from fallen enemies, shop prices, both buying and selling ones, crafting prices etc.) in relattion to game lenght, story and party formation.

 

It's true that we will have to tune whatever values we wind up using for money you get and money you spend, but my higher-level concern is systemic.  If there aren't core systemic drains, many players will simply wind up with a lot of money toward the end of the game.  Many of you don't seem to care about this, but as I said earlier, I've heard complaints about it on every game I've shipped.

[rjshae]

If you've played a successful game, shouldn't you always end up with an excess of money at the end? I guess you could always endow a scholarly chair somewhere.

[Jarmo]

Until the end of F:NV when we introduced (entirely optional) GRA unique weapons that cost a fortune.  Then people complained that the items cost too much.

 

 

Good thing I never got around to purchase that add-on (because I thought it'd just be a pile or free loot).

I'd have hated overly expensive stuff like that.

 

One thing to keep in mind. Don't listen to the folks writing in forums.

They're all freaks with all too much time in their hands and unhealthy relationship with the games they write about.

 

... and that says something about me as well. Yeah.

[SunBroSolaire]

 

So, regarding money sinks, I tend to agree with what Gumbercules wrote: although you are experienced developers, maybe you need to wait a bit more and see how exactly the money will flow (from fallen enemies, shop prices, both buying and selling ones, crafting prices etc.) in relattion to game lenght, story and party formation.

 

It's true that we will have to tune whatever values we wind up using for money you get and money you spend, but my higher-level concern is systemic.  If there aren't core systemic drains, many players will simply wind up with a lot of money toward the end of the game.  Many of you don't seem to care about this, but as I said earlier, I've heard complaints about it on every game I've shipped.

 

I care about this! New Vegas had a really great game economy. I've been hoping you would do similar things with PE.

[Ieo]

 

 

I've never heard anyone complain about having too much gold in BG for instance.

 

I've heard people complain about having too much gold in every game I worked on.  Until the end of F:NV when we introduced (entirely optional) GRA unique weapons that cost a fortune.  Then people complained that the items cost too much.

 

 

How about a progressive taxation system based on the player's chosen home faction, real estate and stronghold location? Even if a player doesn't opt for the stronghold, they still get a house, right? 

 

Let's see. I seem to remember the BG2 Thieves Guild stronghold required weekly payments or something.

[Histrion]

If I may...

 

• Durability : I hate it, but... I'd find it less a waste of game time if it were only tied to crits ; for example, crits might damage armor/weapons/shields (why not even wands and other magical artifacts), and it could be required to perform something specific to "repair" them (I mean a "special" repair, not something any adventurer could do).
• Crafting non-magical weapons/shields/armors : I hate it, but... I'd find it less a waste of time if it were something specific to a class / subclass which does not have access to magical items.
• Crafting items : why not, as long as it allows to craft non-magical-but-class-specific items (e.g. craft traps for characters who can use them, scrolls for mages, potions for clerics etc.) ; but I'd hate that an all-powerfull crafter could craft anything craftable (is this a word? English is not my mother tongue sorry...).
• Crafting magical weapons/armors/shields : very very rarely please ! and not without the need for a dragon encounter to provide the correct temperature, or a similar should-i-really-ask-him situations where the output is all but certain.

I do not enjoy crafting, and I quite honestly do not enjoy looting any more, as I've seen too much game where those were used as a bad simulation of reality, rather than a true immersive gameplay feature. But when I find a game where it's done the "roleplay" way, I like it... So please, please do not make it a rythm killer. 

 

By the way. As said earlier on this thread, just go mad with the food! Books with lunatic recipies are always my favorite in a dungeon!

[Labadal]

 

So, regarding money sinks, I tend to agree with what Gumbercules wrote: although you are experienced developers, maybe you need to wait a bit more and see how exactly the money will flow (from fallen enemies, shop prices, both buying and selling ones, crafting prices etc.) in relattion to game lenght, story and party formation.

 

It's true that we will have to tune whatever values we wind up using for money you get and money you spend, but my higher-level concern is systemic.  If there aren't core systemic drains, many players will simply wind up with a lot of money toward the end of the game.  Many of you don't seem to care about this, but as I said earlier, I've heard complaints about it on every game I've shipped.

 

 

People will complain about everything. I'd rather have a lot of gold left than have to focus on repairing items in this type of game. If item degradation is in the game for the sole reason of making the player spend money, I think it is a bad reason to include it at all.

[Inertia]

Just wanted to add that if importing your char into project eternity 2 or dlc whatever is still a thing then having a bunch of extra gold @ the end of the game might not be such a bad thing.

[LadyCrimson]

I like crafting - most of the time. Sometimes a game doesn't do crafting in the way I enjoy. It happens. But I do like having crafting there, in some form or another, because I like "busy-work" and long term goals to work on independent of leveling or "winning" the game. Yes, even in single-player games. That said, I don't want crafting to feel mandatory, either.

 

I've heard people complain about having too much gold in every game I worked on.  Until the end of F:NV when we introduced (entirely optional) GRA unique weapons that cost a fortune.  Then people complained that the items cost too much.

This is because humans are fickle creatures who often think the grass will be greener.

 

It's often hard to truly know if you're going to really like a method of implementation until one has it in front of them to try. We can postulate based on past experience what we will/won't like and want, but occasionally that past experience may let us down, too, so to speak.

[Lucas]

 

So, regarding money sinks, I tend to agree with what Gumbercules wrote: although you are experienced developers, maybe you need to wait a bit more and see how exactly the money will flow (from fallen enemies, shop prices, both buying and selling ones, crafting prices etc.) in relattion to game lenght, story and party formation.

 

It's true that we will have to tune whatever values we wind up using for money you get and money you spend, but my higher-level concern is systemic.  If there aren't core systemic drains, many players will simply wind up with a lot of money toward the end of the game.  Many of you don't seem to care about this, but as I said earlier, I've heard complaints about it on every game I've shipped.

 

 

I understand the concern, which is also common in MMOs, although the scope in those games is different (especially in DIKUs, while I find it more akin to SP games in sandbox MMOs).

 

You know, you could take an harsh route, making the economy system even more detailed, but maybe at expense of fun. You won't be able to sell certain high quality weapons in small villages because the local weaponsmith won't have the money, so you'll have to wait to get to a bigger hub. But in the bigger city, sometimes what you consider "high quality" might be mundane and sell for less. Also, you could only sell weapon/armors to blacksmiths and general goods to provisioners and so on (much like it happened in IE games, if I recall well). So what? the party will simply travel to the big hub no matter what and buy/sell at the best rates. Then, at that point, you could discourage constant travelling for other in-game reasons (or random encounters), so that players will need to take decisions about their equipment/survival based on the "right here, right now" and not be travelling mules at all times .

[Tsuga C]

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?

In-game money should be spent on:

 

* consumables (potions, rations, common & uncommon [but not rare] spell components, etc.)

* lodging (when appropriate)

* transportation (e.g. booking passage for an ocean voyage)

* luxury items (e.g. snazzy threads for the royal ball)

* bribes

* hiring men-at-arms, specialists, sages, outfitting militias, etc.

* devotional tithes (raise a temple, maybe?)

* strongholds and improvements to surrounding infrastructure (think NWN2)

* charity

* self-indulgence

* arms & panoply purchases/upgrades that involve low-to-mid-level equipment and common & uncommon (not rare) materials

 

 

One thing I'd like to request regarding crafting is that we be able to select the particulars of how the item will look. For example, if I'm crafting a sword I'd like to be able to choose the specific blade, hilt, and pommel. I'm of the neutral-negative outlook regarding crafting, but if we're going to have it then I'd like to make it both simple to do and detailed in effect.

 

As I noted earlier, I'd like to eventually out-level the need for maintenance on my gear. At low-to-mid-levels I can understand this mechanic, but if we're able to ascend to the point of wielding near-artifact or actual artifact-type equipment, then we really shouldn't have to do much more than give it the occasional bit of oil or wax to keep everything in top condition. I will be, after all, playing P:E for its entertainment value. I have plenty of flies, lures, and broadheads to sharpen and firearms to oil if the urge strikes me, so let's not get carried away with drudgery in the name of realism. Disarming opponents and impaling them with my spetum beats working burrs out of the blade by a country mile, my friends.

Edited July 3, 2013 by Tsuga C