Mega Crafting Game (Design Discussion)

[tigerusthegreat]

I'm beginning to compile design documents for a game I am working on. Since this is a large community of game players, I ask for input on the design process. This will be an ongoing process.


Development Journal 1 - Initial Look (http://vgtheory.blogspot.com/2013/03/mega-crafting-game-development-journal-1.html)
Development Journal 2 - crafting section (http://vgtheory.blogspot.com/2013/03/mega-crafting-game-development-journal-2.html)
Development Journal 3 - world/adventure section (http://www.vgtheory.blogspot.com/2013/03/mega-crafting-game-development-journal-3.html)
Development Journal 4 - Crafting Process (http://vgtheory.blogspot.com/2013/03/mega-crafting-game-development-journal-4.html)
Development Journal 5 - Attributes (Skill System) (http://www.vgtheory.blogspot.com/2013/03/mega-crafting-game-development-journal-5.html)
Development Journal 6 - Combat Skills Overview (http://vgtheory.blogspot.com/2013/03/mega-crafting-game-development-journal-6.html)
Development Journal 7 - Stronghold and Projects (http://www.vgtheory.blogspot.com/2013/03/mega-crafting-game-development-journal-7.html)
Development Journal 8 - Worker System (http://www.vgtheory.blogspot.com/2013/03/mega-crafting-game-development-journal-8.html)

My goal for this game is to create a world that is completely dependent on crafting for all items used in the game (except cosmetic items and non-combat pets). The focus of the game will be primarily on the crafting side, though I understand that I must have a solid game on both fronts in order to keep players. Crafters can make everything they would like, but if there's nobody to use it, it doesn't matter.

[endoperez]

You have not yet described how player skill (NOT character skill) affects crafting.

Have you considered bonuses granted by knowing similar skills? For example, many roguelikes including ADOM and Dungeon Crawl make it easier to learn fighting with daggers if you already can use swords.

I don't think you have described the genre properly, but I assume this is an MMO RPG. That means you have to make a good combat system in addition to the good market system and good crafting system.

Describing the values in the scale of 0 to 1000 sounds like it'd make crafting boring. 956 there, 920 here, how rare is this, how rare is that... Deciding which materials to use would become a bother. It gets even worse for blueprints that require a material quality of a non-maximum value - let's say that a sword blade's rigidness or hardness should be 425. You'll need to design a really good interface for browsing though materials and comparing effects between different materials.
Will player or character skill affect material qualities? For example, there could be a process that affects the hardness of a sword blade so that material with rigidness of 500 is 450 instead, or a material with value 408 is the perfect 425.

[tigerusthegreat]

I havent It will be an mmo or social game (depending on final format. I think an android/ios app with facebook integration will be the platform with most access to a large player base).

Player skill is a tricky topic. I dont want it to be bpring minigames, but I also dont want it to be elite enough to alienate players. Skill will come in managing and finding resources, utilizing resources properly and the like.

I havent begun to work on the world skills yet. I imagine there will be skills that overlap and transfer between weapons and equipment.

In terms of resources i had two ideas. The one i described in the document is one. The other is having each resource have certain attributes that it adds to an item. Example, copper adds +10 damage, +10 armor, +2 level requirement, etc. when used to make armor, the armor value comes into play but not damage (and vice versa for weapons). Using better materials means the weapons require a higher level (can be reduced by experimentation).

Planning on writing up world skills later today

[Vauron]

Just as an FYI, but there are games where crafting is a big deal. Ignoring the likes of Minecraft and Terraria, basically everything by Gust uses Crafting/Alchemy/Grathmelding to make items, weapons, and sometimes important plot items. Games like Atelier Totori* and Mana Khemia: Alchemist of Al-Revis** might be worth looking into.


*PS3
**PS2 and PSP

[tigerusthegreat]

Just as an FYI, but there are games where crafting is a big deal. Ignoring the likes of Minecraft and Terraria, basically everything by Gust uses Crafting/Alchemy/Grathmelding to make items, weapons, and sometimes important plot items. Games like Atelier Totori* and Mana Khemia: Alchemist of Al-Revis** might be worth looking into.


*PS3
**PS2 and PSP

Unfortuantely I do not have a playstation or psp. I have played both minecraft and terrarria, and some elements of those games will go into the thought process of the design of this game. Also monster hunter and the like.


Updated with another journal. These first few are very nebulous ideas, and specifics will be gone into later. I'm trying to lay a framework and flesh it out in later posts.

[endoperez]

Unfortuantely I do not have a playstation or psp. I have played both minecraft and terrarria, and some elements of those games will go into the thought process of the design of this game. Also monster hunter and the like.

It is cheaper to buy a used console and one of the mentioned games and play these games than to create a game.

At the very least, read how their system works and compare it to what you're making.


I believe the material ability list would be more rewarding for the player than the static list of weapon + X, armor +Y.

In the first method, especially if the final attributes can be adjusted, good players can intentionally choose to make something weird that still works just fine. If Copper is a static +8 to weapons, then an Iron +10 weapon is always better. There are some really cool Bronze alloy swords with really intricate composition, and being able to make something like that would be quite cool.

The game would become a competition of "who can make the coolest sword", instead of "who can make the best sword".

That could perhaps be combined with a spell system where items are enhanced with powers, but only items using specific materials can be affected with any single family of spells. Or perhaps materials would give bonuses for the spells.

Say, Copper has affinity for Lightning series of enchantments, Coal for Fire. A Bronze sword would have copper and would be eligible for Lightning. A Steel sword would have coal and be eligible for Fire. You might get a sword that has a rock crystal pommel, an ivory handle wrapped with basilisk hide, connected to a bronze blade with silver engravings of birds. This sword can get Sharpness, Strength, Petrification, Lightning, Healing and/or Flight series of enchantments cast into it.

If you go with bonuses instead of requirements, specific Woods, and all Iron and Coal, and Rubies might all have affinity for fire, and you might have people aiming for game-breaker swords with wooden handle wrapped in dragon hide, ruby pommel, steel blade etc - all aimed at improving a single attribute. Perhaps there should be a cap for maximum affinity, e.g. 200 % the normal effect, so a superior-quality steel blade and a pommel made from a large ruby is enough for the Fire affinity, and the rest of the materials can be used for getting another Affinities in there.

[Vauron]

Atelier Annie is for the DS, if that opens any options up. There are also Lets Play's for several of their games, such as Atelier Iris 2 (http://lparchive.org/Atelier-Iris-2/), Mana Khemia (http://lparchive.org/Mana-Khemia-Alchemists-of-Al-Revis/), and there currently is one covering all three games of the Atelier: Arland trilogy (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3505064).

Something I want to bring attention to is how many facebook games limit the amount you can play at a time. You said you don't want to do this, but did you ever wonder why they did? Its for the same purpose of the daily bonus exp in WoW: the idea is to make playing the game part of the daily routine of your players. Extra Credits (http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/energy-systems) has a video on the subject you might find interesting.

[tigerusthegreat]

That is a very interesting video. I want to limit the energy/timer restrictions because I personally hate them. I do have a plan to get people to keep coming back, and that is the timer on the workers. Similar to the way Doffs work in STO, they will have missions that range in time from a few minutes to a day. It works on me in STO, as I play almost nothing else in the game, but log in habitually just to check my doffs.

I've thought a little, and realize that I could reasonably limit either crafting or gathering by putting an energy limit on them. This would force players to go into the adventuring part of the game, or just wait. I don't like doing this, and wouldn't want it done to me as a player. The focus on the game should be on crafting, not on adventuring, as it is first a crafting game.

That said, I don't want to limit the adventuring part either, as that is where the crafted items are used, and used up so people will have to replace them. Because of this, I don't want to use an energy system.

That said, I may want to set up timers and limit things like boss fights and other sources of high-end crafting materials. Perhaps a "rested" system like wow would be good for resource gathering, where the first X gathers have a better chance for rare resources.

[tigerusthegreat]

It is cheaper to buy a used console and one of the mentioned games and play these games than to create a game.

At the very least, read how their system works and compare it to what you're making.


I believe the material ability list would be more rewarding for the player than the static list of weapon + X, armor +Y.

In the first method, especially if the final attributes can be adjusted, good players can intentionally choose to make something weird that still works just fine. If Copper is a static +8 to weapons, then an Iron +10 weapon is always better. There are some really cool Bronze alloy swords with really intricate composition, and being able to make something like that would be quite cool.

The game would become a competition of "who can make the coolest sword", instead of "who can make the best sword".

That could perhaps be combined with a spell system where items are enhanced with powers, but only items using specific materials can be affected with any single family of spells. Or perhaps materials would give bonuses for the spells.

Say, Copper has affinity for Lightning series of enchantments, Coal for Fire. A Bronze sword would have copper and would be eligible for Lightning. A Steel sword would have coal and be eligible for Fire. You might get a sword that has a rock crystal pommel, an ivory handle wrapped with basilisk hide, connected to a bronze blade with silver engravings of birds. This sword can get Sharpness, Strength, Petrification, Lightning, Healing and/or Flight series of enchantments cast into it.

If you go with bonuses instead of requirements, specific Woods, and all Iron and Coal, and Rubies might all have affinity for fire, and you might have people aiming for game-breaker swords with wooden handle wrapped in dragon hide, ruby pommel, steel blade etc - all aimed at improving a single attribute. Perhaps there should be a cap for maximum affinity, e.g. 200 % the normal effect, so a superior-quality steel blade and a pommel made from a large ruby is enough for the Fire affinity, and the rest of the materials can be used for getting another Affinities in there.

This is a really interesting point and I will keep it in mind. I am writing up a post to detail step by step how the crafting process works.

Actually, I'm almost certain I want to use the affinity idea you proposed. I think I can combine it with a quality system for the resources themselves (so copper has an affinity for electricity spells, and low quality copper is about the same as low quality iron or low quality mithril). With the skill system I have in mind, I'm not sure that a level-restriction is even a good idea anymore

[endoperez]

I got the idea off of Ars Magica. Here's the relevant list:

http://www.atlas-games.com/pdf_storage/ArM5IndexS&MbyShape.pdf

You probably won't use all of it, but some of the objects there could be quite interesting. The latin words like Ignem, Auram, Imaginem are references to the magic system, either nouns that describe what is affected (fire, water, humans...), or verbs that describe how they're changed (destroy, control...).

Edit:

Also, I don't know if you want to have both crafting and enchanting be the focus of the game. If you want to focus on crafting over enchanting, perhaps the enchantments are only temporary, or there's a limit in their number?

Even if you don't go with temporary enchantments, being able to move most enchantments from one item to another would be really useful, because otherwise changing your current weapon to a new, better-crafted one becomes too expensive.

[tigerusthegreat]

Something like a gem or orb that can be removed would work. They can be crafted, have durability themselves and will eventually be destroyed.

[tigerusthegreat]

added an overview of attributes.

[tigerusthegreat]

I am torn between a couple basic ideas for resource attributes, and I would like some feedback on them:

Option 1: Resource Attributes

A harvested resource has certain attributes, as mentioned in the development journal. These attributes are used by different blueprints in different ways. Example: a blueprint needing high conductivity will produce a better item if it has resources that have high conductivity. Resource values will shift over time, but every bit of copper mined during a certain period will have the same attributes. However, after a shift, the newly mined resources will be different (read up on Star Wars Galaxies and their resource system for a better idea of how this works).

Pros: Items will always be different, resource gathering would be extremely profitable

Cons: The system is complex, resources may not always be well suited for what they are needed for (i.e. it may take time to get a resource of good enough attributes to be used to make the "best" items), it has a longer startup time than other methods to get high quality items


Option 2: Traditional Resource Model

In this option, it follows the traditional idea of certain resources being higher level than others. Each resource has qualities it passes to the items that are made (provided the item qualifies for the quality). Example: A copper bar may have the attributes +5 damage, +5 armor, and +1 level requirement. When used to make a weapon, it adds +5 damage and +1 level requirement, when used to make armor it adds +5 armor and +1 level requirement. Resources found in higher level areas are better, and have higher level requirements and other attributes.

Pros: Easily followed system that clearly shows what attributes will be passed onto the crafted item. Follows a traditional model that will make sense to gamers.

Cons: At highest levels, everyone will be using items made of similar materials. A very rigid system.


Option 3: Affinity System

Resources have both an affinity and a quality level. The affinity is based on their material type (i.e. Copper has an affinity for electricity), and quality is based on random chance (and difficulty of where the material was obtained). The higher the quality, the better the final crafted item (and the harder it is to make). Items can then be enchanted with spells, and if these spells match the affinity of their materials, the spells are more powerful (or alternatively, if it does not match the affinity, they are weaker). So, a copper longsword with a lightning spell on it is more powerful than a copper longsword with a fire spell on it.

Pros: A wide variety of weapons would be used, it fits well with the skill system envisioned (no level requirements, and a lot of customization), very customizable.

Cons: Affinity locks in specific combinations, it is different than many MMOs and may not be received well.


Thoughts?

[endoperez]

That's getting rather math-heavy if you want a good answer. I don't feel comfortable guessing on such an important design decision.

If you go with materials with varying abilities, you will need an extremely robust way of listing raw materials.

[tigerusthegreat]

Let me try to do some math comparisons (bear in mind that I am doing this roughly)

All assume you have a blueprint for a sword that requires 10 metal bars for the blade and 2 of any material for the handle. The handle counts for 20% of the stats of the weapon, with the blade counting for 80%. In any case, a perfect version of this sword would deal 100 damage and have a crit chance of 5%.

Option 1:

You look at your blueprint, and the item quality for the metal bars part is 50% malleability and 50% hardness (meaning each attribute affects the final product equally). You have copper bars with a malleability of 200 and a hardness of 400. The handle only requires hardness, and you have some wood that has a hardness of 800. Using this math, we have the blade's quality being 0.50 * (200) + 0.50 * (400) = 300 / 1000 = 30% and the handle being 400/1000 = 40%. Since the handle is only worth 20% of the overall quality, 0.20 * 0.40 + 0.80 * 0.30 = 32%. So this weapon will have 32 damage and a crit chance of 1.6%


Option 2: With this weapon, you have copper bars that each add +5 damage to the weapon, and a wood bit for the handle that adds 1% crit chance. When you make the sword, 10 copper bars * +5 damage = +50 damage. 2 Units of wood for the handle * 1% crit chance = 2% crit chance, making a weapon with 50 damage and 2% crit chance.

Option 3: You have a pile of copper bars of low quality (20% purity, affinity to electricity), and some wood of low quality (20% quality, affinity to nature). You make your sword, and it has 20 damage (20% purity * 100 damage max) and 1% crit (20% purity * 5% crit max). It has minor affinity to electricity (where the low quality copper affects it) and minor affinity to nature (where the wood affects it).


The math isn't great as they aren't purely comparable, but I hope that gives some idea of where qualities effect the calculations.

[tigerusthegreat]

added journal 6 on combat skills

[endoperez]

Skills:

I'm not a fan of "skill increases when used" mechanic. It ends up encouraging spammy actions, such as jumping up and down in one spot for ages to get better at jumping.

If you want to keep that aspect, look into Dungeon Crawl the roguelike. I don't know how the newer versions (called Stone Soup) work, but the original (Linley's Dungeon Crawl) had a really nice workaround. You get experience as normal, and it increases your level. This experience is then used to "buy" skill increases. However, this experience isn't allocated by hand, but instead used on skills when they're used.

This is a small difference, but it makes sure grinding is pointless. It also means that as you're fighting multiple enemies and get exp, continuing to fight them increases the skills you use to fight them.

However, when you manage to get a big boost of experience, such as from a quest or defeating a boss, you can "retire" for a while to train other skills safely, and the big pool of experience lets you do that for a while


How to keep the non-crafter's playing:

This is a rather big direction change, but...

What about tying it to a FarmVille game while you're at it? The "farm" should be something that requires weapons and other craftstuff the weaponsmiths make, so perhaps it'd be managing a fortress or something similar.
It wouldn't be a separate game, you could take your avatar from the fortress and take him adventuring, but there would be enough to do in there that some players would specialize in the fort.

[tigerusthegreat]

I'm planning on circumventing the elder scrolls jumping everywhere/running against a wall mechanic by making skill increases happen only during resources gathering, crafting, or combat. So, you can run around in armor all day if you'd like, but until an enemy is hitting you (and that enemy is of appropriate level for your armor skill) you won't get increases. Same for attacking, you can grind mobs well below your level for days, and you won't get much of an increase, but fighting mobs of around your weapon's combat level, and you will get increases.



I've thought briefly about running a fortress/workshop system with upgrade projects similar to the way Star Trek Online does fleet upgrades and reputation system. Basically, you are given a list of items to collect, can donate them, and then a timer starts to upgrade whatever you've decided to build. A fortress/workshop would also be a good place to grow crops for potions and the like.

[Jonzac]

Additionally take a look at the OLD Star Wars Galaxy crafting method...the one before they changed into their current form. Each material that you produced things from had several properties (I forget what they were, but it was five or six sub-properties). You could get the material from most anywhere, after you used your survey skill to take a sample and get the readings that showed the make up of the material in your area.

Now, you could go to a different area to find the another sample of "iron" with better sub-properties and then set up a mine if you did...the biggest impact to crafting was the better the sub-properties the better the final item in terms of DPS, + to hit, etc..

A whole social metagame was started (much like EVE's 3rd party market) where people would log in and take samples and it would go into a database.

The final kicker...after mining for a week or so you lowered the sub-properties of that area and now you had to go looking for a new source of "iron" to make the best of whatever.

Additionally, to "level" up you HAD to teach skills to other players. To become an Artiasan Master (which let you make speeders), you had to teach the lower skills to another player (via a "trade") and when you had "skilled" up enough you could see someone who was already an Artisan Master and he would teach the "master" skill to you. It was the same for all crafting and combat trees.

I REALLY loved the crafting in the old Galaxies system and when they dumbed it down I left.

[tigerusthegreat]

Additionally take a look at the OLD Star Wars Galaxy crafting method...the one before they changed into their current form. Each material that you produced things from had several properties (I forget what they were, but it was five or six sub-properties). You could get the material from most anywhere, after you used your survey skill to take a sample and get the readings that showed the make up of the material in your area.

Now, you could go to a different area to find the another sample of "iron" with better sub-properties and then set up a mine if you did...the biggest impact to crafting was the better the sub-properties the better the final item in terms of DPS, + to hit, etc..

A whole social metagame was started (much like EVE's 3rd party market) where people would log in and take samples and it would go into a database.

The final kicker...after mining for a week or so you lowered the sub-properties of that area and now you had to go looking for a new source of "iron" to make the best of whatever.

Additionally, to "level" up you HAD to teach skills to other players. To become an Artiasan Master (which let you make speeders), you had to teach the lower skills to another player (via a "trade") and when you had "skilled" up enough you could see someone who was already an Artisan Master and he would teach the "master" skill to you. It was the same for all crafting and combat trees.

I REALLY loved the crafting in the old Galaxies system and when they dumbed it down I left.


Yeah, this is something I miss greatly, and one of the inspirations for this game. However, I think I will be going in a different direction with this game, just for the sake of a different direction. If I wanted a clone of SWG, I would play one of the Emulators that are out there.

[tigerusthegreat]

Added an overview of the worker system