New concept of crafting system

Ideas for cool stuff in the future.
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tangar
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New concept of crafting system

Post by tangar »

SIMPLE crafting system for roguelike (TomeNET)
Why crafting is important to online game? It gives people more things to do. Sometime you get too bored of just killing staff again and again and its great to have some other things to do. Some players like to gather resources, hunting for items, trading & etc. So crafting system gives people more opportunities and more choices what to do in TomeNet.

I've already mentioned design of fishing skill there - viewtopic.php?f=7&t=743 It wasn't really good cause of complexity of its design. I wanna propose my new idea about crafting.

Of course such system is a huge work to implement but we could start from basic - essential gathering skills:
1) Fishing
2) Mining
3) Woodcutting

Today I wake up and thought that crafting would be perfectly fit in TomeNet if we design it minimalistical. As you could know there are several ways to implement crafting skills in MMORPGs:

1) crafting skill level based at overall experience (so when you raise lvl you could put some points in crafting skill, but you sacrifice your combat skills for it)
2) crafting skill value based at skill use (when you use skill - you have % chance to gain it per 0.1 for example, so you need a lot of attempt to raise your skill)
3) my idea (didn't meet it in any MMORPG) - SIMPLEST to develop for TomeNet: no special crafting skills at all. Success of crafting attemp is based at area difficulty (10 zones, see picture below) and some other factors via simpe formula.

Image

So there wouldn't be any new skills for characters in-game (no need to change TomeNet skills system). Success of using crafting skill could be based only at area lvl (in compare to player lvl): the furthest you got from 32-32 coordinate - you could get more interesting items (but also more chance to to summon powerful monster after attempt - risk VS reward concept) - really simple formula.

In future its possible to make it a bit more complex if we would add different types of instruments (its hard to get mithril with rusty pickaxe), race influence (elves good at woodcutting, dwarves at mining, people at fishing...) & etc. It would be quite simple formula still. No need to change character development system and game balance!

What exactly is needed to develop this system:


1) add several new items:
a) 3 instruments - fishing pole, woodcutter axe, pickaxe
b) some "decorative" items to sell them to NPC
c) add some fuctional items which is totally duplicate potions and scrolls effects (see explanation below)

I've already wrote an example (draft) list of all this items. Its below.

2) add a new option of using instruments near certain types of objects (fishing pole at water, axe near tree, pickaxe near). Blue, is it possible to add such condition in TomeNet? Its most hardest thing here as I see (with my newbiew programmer eye).

3) perform an action based at certain simple formula. Options of actions:

Fishing - use a fishing pole near water:
1) nothing changes (0.5% that your instrument could be broken)
2) generate a fish in inventory. Fish works as healing-type potions like cure, restore abilities & etc, no need to reinvent the wheel! Eat fish - gain result.
3) low chance to get a special item. Generate in inventory a random item - shoes, rubbish... super rare could be magical rings :)
4) summon monster (aquatic), sometimes even several of them. People cant just go fishing and afk. Crafting is dangerous in TomeNet ;)

Mining - use a pickaxe near mountain or rock:
1) you got nothing (or your instrument could be broken)
2) you got an ore. There are several types of ore. For a mining there could be special feature - not generate item, but just add to you purse an equivalent of ore which you found as silver (as when you dig a vein in dungeon)
3) low chance to get you got special items - magical gems which could work as potions (except healing-type - they are for fishing)... again no need to reinvent the wheel - just use potions mechanic and there would be any harm to TomeNets' game balance)
4) you got monster! orcs and goblins, elementals & etc. Don't dig afk, my friend :)

Woodcutting - use a axe at tree
1) you got nothing (or your instrument could be broken)
2) wood (different types). As wood can't be added to a purse as ore, you have sell it to NPC. Elven wood could cost a lot :)
3) low chance to get special items - bark, sap & etc. They acts the same as magical scrolls)
4) summon forest monsters.

Сatch for fishing (names of fishs could be changed to real ones like perch, roach, eel & etc):
Name / effect of potion / where to catch
1) Lake fish / works as food ration (rare as lembas?) / catched at 32 32 - zone 1
2) River fish / cure light wounds / zone 2
3) Deepwater fish / Cure Serious Wounds / zone 3
4) Sea fish / Cure Critical Wounds / zone 4
5) Jellyfish / Restore Life Levels / zone 5
6) Ocean fish / Curing / zone 6
7) Octopus / Healing / zone 7
8) Ancient fish / acts as Sprig of Athelas / zone 8
9) Dark fish / *Healing* / zone 9
10) Magma fish / Life / zone 10

// note that catch a fish - its not simple thing to do. When you fishing in high-end location - you could catch fishes from previous locations, so ancient fish and higher-tier fish is very rare. Its general rule of all crafting system: you get items from previous locations: in zone 10 you get items from zone 1 sometimes. Also at high-end location its a big risk of summoning pack of dangerous aquatic monsters while fishing. Although zones close to Bree quite safe though (rarely you could catch not really dangerous monster).

Special fishing items which you could rarely catch are based at player lvl. It could be:
1) rubbish - you can throw it away or sell for 10-20 g to General store (good help for a new players)
2) random boots
3) pearls, corals & other decorative staff to sell it to NPC
4) common (non-magical) rings and amulets which you could sell for a good price
5) very rare - resources and reagents from other professions (mining and woodcutting).
6) super rare - magical rings.. :)

Ore from Mining. Name / how much silver / where to get:
1) Iron / 3-5g / could be found at 32 32 - zone 1
2) Bronze / 5-8 / zone 2
3) Copper / 8-12 / zone 3
4) Aluminium / 12-15 / zone 4
5) Silver / 15-20 / zone 5
6) Gold / 20-30 / zone 6
7) Pyrite / 30-45 / zone 7
8) Titanium / 45-70 / zone 8
9) Mithril / 70-100 / zone 9
10) Adamantite / 100-150 / zone 10

// I think it would be interesting to have different style and amount of income for each skill. Mining skill very often has high success of receive some ore, but this ore do not cost so much in compare to fish and wood. So for mining you could stay near the same rock and dig it for a long time, have slow, but guarantee income.. No need to go to town to sell ore to NPC (as I wrote before - its could be made as mechanics of digging veins, when you get silver equivalent of metal). Of course its always a danger to wake up a monster.. Even a Barlog if you are digging for adamantite ore :)

Special mining items - gems - which you could rarely get. They are has equal to certain potions effects.

Name / effect of potion / where to get:
1) Amber / Heroism / catched at 32 32 - zone 1
2) Citrine / Berserk Strength / zone 2
3) Tourmaline / Enlightenment / zone 3
4) Moonstone / *Enlightenment* / zone 4
5) Malachite / Resistance / zone 5
6) Ruby / Speed / zone 6
7) Amethyst / Invulnerability / zone 7
8) Sapphire / Augmentation / zone 8
9) Emerald / Experience / zone 9
10) Diamond / Learning / zone 10

// Finding a gem - is very rare event. Much rarer then catch a boots when you fish :) But its quite rewarding, as you see. It could be protected from harrasment by adding very good chance to summon monster If you found high-end gem. Then you have choice - try to run with your finding or stay and fight.

Items for Woodcutting. Name / how much silver would you get for selling it / where to get:

1) Normal wood / 50 / catched at 32 32 - zone 1
2) Oak / 70 / zone 2
3) Ash / 100 / zone 3
4) Yew / 150 / zone 4
5) Willow / 200 / zone 5
6) Willow / 250 / zone 6
7) Maple / 300 / zone 7
8) Walnut / 400 / zone 8
9) Mallorn / 700 / zone 9
10) White Tree / 1500 / zone 10

// As you see, woodcutting has different gameplay from Mining. You have to collect wood and bring it to vendor. Its heavy. But it cost much more then ore per attempt. And of course all this numbers needs to be rearranged, its very approximate values.

Special woodcutting items which you could rarely get. This items could be used as scrolls.

Name / effect of scroll / where to get:
1) Glittering shavings / Identify / catched at 32 32 - zone 1
2) Glowing bark / Word of Recall / zone 2
3) Magical fungi / Wilderness Mapping / zone 3
4) Fresh amber / Remove Curse / zone 4
5) Luminescent bark / Holy Prayer / zone 5
6) Snarling branch / Enchant (random?) / zone 6
7) Snakesprout / *Enchant* / zone 7
8) Mandragora / *Remove Curse* / zone 8
9) Crystal shards / Acquirement / zone 9
10) Fire seeds / *Acquirement* / zone 10

====================================
1) Also it would be interesting to implement in future crafting quests. You get a quest from different NPC to bring him certain amount of resources and he reward you with a deed. For example:

Ja-Far the Alchemist (sells potions and scrolls in Bree) asks player to gather 5 amber.
Luar-El the comely (sells General Items) asks to bring him wood 20 oak wood.

& etc - it would be cool and interesting quest system based at NPC in shops (mayor also of couse :)

2) Of course this system could be made more complex and interesting in future. We could add some special zones with very special resources. In some zones there could be more chance to find certain resources.

Conclusion:

No need to create something extreamely complex at once. Lets start from simple algorithm which would generate certain items with certain probability at certain condition via standart fuctional.

Example of algorithm:

Player push "m" key (select skill standart functional)
Player push "e" (choose "crafting" section of skills)
Player push "a" (choose "fishing").
Then it checks if you got a fishing pole, if you have - its checks is there water around. If its true - you have to wait 5 second and get or do not get a new item in your inventory :) There could be -1 stamina for using fishing.

For a beginning and tests it could be made only for a zone near Bree. Lets it would be fishing (or any other skills) with very limited functional - it still would be fun to have something to do exept killing staff :) Also more options for role-playing!
Tangar's tileset, addon, guides & maps: English TomeNET page ||||||| Russian TomeNet page
http://youtube.com/GameGlaz — streams in English // http://youtube.com/StreamGuild — streams in Russian
My chars @ angband.oook.cz
C. Blue
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Re: New concept of crafting system

Post by C. Blue »

Nice work.
We have thought about crafting in Tomenet before, maybe we will add it.
Currently the item density (item acquisition by players while playing) is very good, with the "non-hunting" form of stealing from stores available. Adding more ways to obtain items might need some global rebalancing in item acquisition, if it's accessible by everyone (the easiest way, no skill required, as you pointed out). I think we could have such a system mostly for "fun" and it it in without any rebalancing trouble if it's something like fishing, which won't upset item balance much. However, for things like blacksmithing I think we might indeed need a separate skill to train to counterbalance it globally. I'm not sure about this yet, because actually I don't like having specialized non-combat characters much (like Stealing characters who don't fight monsters).
Anyway, there are some interesting ideas in your post, thanks for contributing. Currently we're still tied up with other things, unfortunately the development queue in Tomenet is rarely idle, a lot of stuff is piling up (Istar spell tiering is next, also quests have high priority), so big projects like crafting might take a while to actually get their turn of experimental implementation.
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tangar
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Re: New concept of crafting system

Post by tangar »

Thanks :)

Blacksmithing could be tricky, true. And specialized non-combat characters isn't really fun. I'll try to think about further crafting evolution.

As for the time - roguelike players always ready to wait :) Would be awesome to got quest system!
Tangar's tileset, addon, guides & maps: English TomeNET page ||||||| Russian TomeNet page
http://youtube.com/GameGlaz — streams in English // http://youtube.com/StreamGuild — streams in Russian
My chars @ angband.oook.cz
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tangar
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Re: New concept of crafting system

Post by tangar »

An idea about future crafting system of complex skills like blacksmithing. I see two approaches (exept onces which is already implemented for stealing):

1) to create separate skill sheet for crafting skills. Every new level character would receive several skillpoints for fighting skills (as right now) and several for craftings skills gain which he could add to special crafting skill list. Lets make this points quite limited so it would be possible to have only two skills max for a 50 lvl character (or several skills trained by a bit). For example, crafting skill (like blacksmithing) and resource gathering (for example, mining).

So each character could be crafter in profession by his choice. No need to receive penalty and be less strong in combat if you want to craft. Then people do not need to create "special" crafting characters. Stealing could be moved to crafting list too I suppose.

2) more simple system: just attach crafting system to character lvl and existing battle skills. so every character could craft an item if he got mats (materials) and has necessary battle lvl and skill lvl. For example, to craft a shadow dagger you need:
1) to be lvl 20 character
2) to have 20 points in Sword-mastery and 5 point in Earth magic
3) to have resources (for example, 5x iron ingots and 1x shadow resdue)
4) to have smiths hammer and stay near anvil (could stay in city or at house. I like city more - so game would be more alive).

// Why there is Earth magic? To make crafting more interesting and challenging. It would make people try new builds and play different characters.. But may be it could be better without Magic reqs. - we need to think about it - make it more difficult to craft or not.

There could be some interesting influence to crafting result by race, attributes (str, dex & etc) and instruments which makes crafting even more unique.

p.s.
Again, its concepts for the future, right now I think it would be awesome to have simple system which I described in 1st message.
Tangar's tileset, addon, guides & maps: English TomeNET page ||||||| Russian TomeNet page
http://youtube.com/GameGlaz — streams in English // http://youtube.com/StreamGuild — streams in Russian
My chars @ angband.oook.cz
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tangar
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Re: New concept of crafting system

Post by tangar »

I'm exited to continue this important topic :)

Lets go from stuff which we already have in TomeNET. What do we have from "crafting-like" stuff? DIGGING. Yes. We even already have such skill in the game. Lets think, how it could be possible to make digging more exiting thing to do? Right now I don't bother to dig veins cause the only you got from it - its quite small amount of gold... Its very rare to get something useful from digging. Some raw ideas about it:

1) create new dungeon, special for mining

- 3x time more mining nodes around :)
- there are no doors and corridors, only rooms and a lot of stone around; if you want to move from one room to another - you need to DIG :)
- you can't use dig spell there.. only steel! :mrgreen:
- layout - like orc caves at beginning; deeper there would be dragons, golems, elementals and more "earth-like" mobs.

2) raw idea add special "nodes" in open world; random spawned; lets they give more gold then underground ones. So players could mine at surface :)

3) very raw idea to add suffix "of digging" to more items types (not only at digging tool like right now). So players would try to wear digging items - more dangerous to fight (less resistances), but more effective to dig :)

Please add your suggestions :mrgreen:
Tangar's tileset, addon, guides & maps: English TomeNET page ||||||| Russian TomeNet page
http://youtube.com/GameGlaz — streams in English // http://youtube.com/StreamGuild — streams in Russian
My chars @ angband.oook.cz
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tangar
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Re: New concept of crafting system

Post by tangar »

... continue previous message:

4) give chance to get some gold even from digging granite or other wall-types without veins. The higher digging you have - more chance to get some gold from digging dull stone %) For example with 10 digging you get 1-10 gold from digging each wall. With 50 digging let it would be 10-50 gold.. Amount of gold depends at wall type and deepth of lvl

5) Give character with digging skill new ability (m -> c -> ..) - to find all veins in some range (low digging - small range, 50 digging - whole lvl).
Tangar's tileset, addon, guides & maps: English TomeNET page ||||||| Russian TomeNet page
http://youtube.com/GameGlaz — streams in English // http://youtube.com/StreamGuild — streams in Russian
My chars @ angband.oook.cz
Lightman
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Re: New concept of crafting system

Post by Lightman »

Ok, so you said add new items "fishing pole", "woodsman axe", "pickaxe" for fishing, lumber and mining.

1) Fishing pole could use spear fishing. Spears already exist in the game.
2) Woodmans axe - Axes already exist in the game as weapons - Initially I'd re-use those axes.
3) Pickaxe - Definitely exist already in many forms

So for fishing, chopping and mining there need be no new items initially. A first step could see you put in just a new command for each that does something a little random, quite useful but not risk-free or taking over the whole game. ie. Balanced.

Fishing could give you rations of food but also spawn AQUATIC monsters to level up on - like the ones found in fountains. These could be an endless supply of not too risky monsters to get xp from. I would say if you keep doing it for too long the risk would go up. It won't take over the game then.

Wood cutting could give you staffs. Occasionally you could get a really nice one that was somewhat magic. It could also spawn ents or poison ivy.

Mining could give you $ - Actually, it already does when you dig in * squares. What could be added is spawning of various monsters - Stone giants, wall monsters etc. Good XP, and not too risky if you don't keep on doing it all day.


So I would say start with what we have. 2 new commands for fishing and chopping on water and tree squares, modelling what it does on sipping a fountain. Some monsters may get generated. Some items may also. At least one "spear" or "axe" must be in your inventory to do it. Beef up mining a bit with some encounters with monsters.

Bingo Phase One compelte!

Then maybe play with items like logs and ores and raw fish - The new crafting/smelting/cooking/fletching commands.

Hope this is a helpful idea.
Lightman
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Re: New concept of crafting system

Post by Lightman »

Instead of smelting/smithing, the weapons store could simply buy ore and wood from you.

Instead of cooking, the food shop could simply buy raw fish.

scroll stores could buy wood for paper

potion stores could buy ingredients

staff/wand/rod stores could buy ore and wood

These items could be purchased from the player but not relisted (like when I sell a potion of salt water it isn't relisted)
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tangar
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Re: New concept of crafting system

Post by tangar »

TomeNET: crafting dreams
Crafting system could be very good implementation in TomeNET.. Currently I got problem with my hand and I can't play in fast-paced mode to dual-hand/explore dungeons. But in TomeNET - exploring dungeons is the only thing to do atm. It would be fun to have an alternative gameplay, to be able to spend the time in favorite game even if you can't run around with numpad :cry:

It would be fun to have skill-based gathering system - so you could fishing or gather ore... Sometimes run from dangerous things. Move this ore to town, sell it or craft from it.

It has to be less effective (in terms of time/gain) system, less rewarding than killing monsters.. but more safer (so you don't need to react too fast, or would be able to do it.. erm.. with one hand, sorry for my egocentrism)

Nowadays a lot of players having thiefs characters and it's quite profitable and _very_ safe way to get income in the game. The only problem about stealing - it's doesn't give RPGish feeling of progress. If there, for example, would be skill-based system, it would be much more interesting. EX: if you attempt to steal an item, there is a chance that you would gain 0.1 skill point out from 100 (like in Ultima Online or other skill based games).
Tangar's tileset, addon, guides & maps: English TomeNET page ||||||| Russian TomeNet page
http://youtube.com/GameGlaz — streams in English // http://youtube.com/StreamGuild — streams in Russian
My chars @ angband.oook.cz
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