Looting Idea's

[Aschy]

How do you guys like to loot be honest do you guys like not having the chance that you will get loot from a boss having a wow like looting system. Or would you like one like Ragos ORPG where you choose specific loot from a boss? Note that in the orpg I'm making it may not be easy to gear up fast

Choose your loot (Like Ragos) or random loot (Like wow)?


Or would you like a system that almost uses dkp points and spend them on items (like Ragos). The system would have the option to buy a (and every boss would have set loot too):

Common Item with: (100% for common item)
Rare Item: (75% chance for rare item)
Epic Item: (40% chance for epic item)
Rare Epic Item: (10% chance for rare epics)
Legendary Item: (0.01% chance for legendary)

 

[Super-Sheep]

Wow system. :l

 

[~Void~]

How about "Like no other game"? I like that idea better :]

How about creeps have inventories and you get whatever items they have on them. That way in order to get a really nice item you have to battle someone who's using it.

That will also prevent low level characters from getting really lucky and finding a badass sword that will ruin the rest of the game.

 

[Super-Sheep]

Or just add lvl requirement for items.

 

[Aschy]

That is a cool idea void... yet again


But in my game I want the items to be a secret that drop. In a year from the release day I want to see items still getting discovered or longer.

And yes there will be level requirements Super-Sheep.

But I forgot to say if I was going to use a ragos orpg loot system. Then it would be like the

Common Item with: (100% for common item)
Rare Item: (75% chance for rare item)
....

way. You just would buy an item called either "Roll for Common Item" or "Roll for Rare Item", etc, etc. But the chance that you would get a common item then a legendary item is 99.99% more likely. And if you have an item that the boss has then you wouldn't get a double of it, unless it was a one handed weapon(But not drop one if its unique).

But the wow system where everyone fights for items is pretty cool to, but people can get really bitter when they lose on a item. And it eliminates the can I buy everyones roll on X item person.

 

[~Void~]

Hmm, well if you want endless possibilities, try making an extremely large database of items and have them be able to be formed by combining various components with basic weapons and armor and enchanting them, like you get a basic steel sword, you find a magical gem, go to the town's weaponsmith and have him make it into a Steel Sword of Strength +1.

 

[Aschy]

Yeah I was going to use a similar system, one like in Dungeon siege. Where there are enchant able items because thats just the easiest way to make enchanting rather than making thousands of items with different enchants.

 

[~Void~]

That works I guess. Just a suggestion though, don't make items so much better than each other that the more common items become useless. And 0.1 is really fucking rare lol, there had better be a lot of legendary items. In fact, that would be really nice, but make sure they appeal to almost everyone. IE no items that are class-specific, just generically great items. I suggest you make about 20 of them, that way there is a 2% chance to get one, but you never know which you will get.

 

[Aschy]

Thats a good suggestion I never really thought about that before. But enchanting in my game is a profession with a level and it probably be a very long time before anyone will master it.


But say if someone had 99 Enchanting, they would be able to enchant the item to be almost or as good as any other common item. Also every enchant able item will only have one enchant available to them, unless I decide to make the bonuses from items in triggers but for now thats all would make it.

The enchants would prolly be like life steal, mana steal, extra damage, attack enabled abilities.


But thanks for the suggestion I was never really looking out for that before.

 

[~Void~]

I must suggest further that having crafting levels is lame. But I can't think of a substitute. I think what you can craft should be based on your attributes, i.e. in order to make a finely balanced sword, you would need strength to pound it into shape but also a bit of dexterity for the hand-eye coordination and intelligence for craftsmanship.

 

[Eleandor]

Don't know that... Crafting levels sounds pretty logical to me. A level is basically a substitution of how much experience you have in a field. So if I am level 5 in smiting, it's simply a sign that I've done this a lot and am finally getting experienced in it. Basing it off attributes would cause someone who has never done any weapon smiting to be better at it than someone who simply isn't as strong as him but has been doing it for his whole life?

 

[~Void~]

Crafting shouldn't be a scalar. I hate how you have to make X swords in order to make an axe, and then X axes to be able to make a big war mace. It's stupid; I think if your character is strong enough and smart enough, he should be able to read some instructions and make a fucking hammer. Of course, practice would play a part in this, and by blacksmithing, a user would gain some strength and most likely some intelligence too. For other things, for example alchemy, a user would gain a lot of intelligence due to the extensive knowledge required to brew potions correctly, and the chance to succeed in making said potion would be modified by the user's intelligence attribute. (just like in D&D, which actually did things right for an RPG)

 

[Aschy]

Sadly you both are right...


I have thought about this before Void but as Eleandor said, you could just be someone level 10 with the best gear in the game and be making way crazier shit then someone who is level 1 and thats the only thing they do is black smith or w/e.

But that doesn't mean that we can't make crafting skills realistic. As I learned this year working under a carpenter that carpentry skills would mean nothing if you could not get your materials from the store to where you need to cut them, place them, etc but you couldn't make the shit strong enough unless you had previous experience. This is why you both are right.

Now that Void has gotten me interested like always. I would like to make a system that is Dependant on your attributes, but also want that level 1 to do the same crazy shit that the level 10 can. Im so confused!

 

[Eleandor]

Crafting shouldn't be a scalar. I hate how you have to make X swords in order to make an axe, and then X axes to be able to make a big war mace. It's stupid; I think if your character is strong enough and smart enough, he should be able to read some instructions and make a fucking hammer. Of course, practice would play a part in this, and by blacksmithing, a user would gain some strength and most likely some intelligence too. For other things, for example alchemy, a user would gain a lot of intelligence due to the extensive knowledge required to brew potions correctly, and the chance to succeed in making said potion would be modified by the user's intelligence attribute. (just like in D&D, which actually did things right for an RPG)

I never said anything about requiring 10 swords to make an axe... I'm not talking about components yet, that's a whole other story. We're talking about skill requirements.
I said that my skill in smiting would likely have to be measured in levels too. You shouldn't expect someone to be able to make a "Sword of the Champions + 9001 dmg" when he's never touched a smiting hammer or seen a blacksmith in his life, just because he happens to have a strong arm. It takes more than strength to do something, it takes skill. Skill is, in the end, acquired through experience.

It's not even a balancing thing because anyone skilled could still give the ubersword to a noob. Let me give a very easy example: bicycling:
You can be as agile as you want, if you've never been on a bike before you'll undoubtedly have trouble riding it. After a while, you'll get used to bicycling, and you'll be able to do it on yourself, but even the best bicyclist has once in his life not been able to ride a bike. Not because he wasn't agile or strong enough, but simply because he didn't have the technique to keep his balance on a 2-wheel thing. Granted, everyone here will think the technique is easy, but it's still something everyone needs to learn.

With something like writing or smiting it gets a lot more complex because, really, you need to have a lot of experience in writing before you can be called a poet. And not all intelligent people are poets. At the contrary. A "tradeskill" is mainly measured by talents and experience, not by attributes.

That, ofcourse, doesn't mean attributes can't contribute. To extend the bike example: it's not because you can drive a bike that you can win the Tour de France. It takes strength and stamina on top of much biking experience to win a tour.



In real-life, things are even more complex. You can't really "scale" skills. You can only say "I'm better at it". You can't say Lance Armstrong has 1231 skill in biking while Oscar Pereiro only has 1228 in biking. But let's face it: it's a game and you got to use some sort of measuring system. The discussion wasn't really about how to measure it, but what to base the measurement on. Void suggested to measure it through attributes, and I disagree for the reasons I've summed up.

They both do play an important role in skills. However, I think:
- learning skills heavily depends on attributes.
- using skills heavily depends on your "skill level".

It's a fact that intelligent people simply understand mathematics faster. It's a fact that strong and agile people have more chance to become a GOOD bicyclist. But it's also a fact that you don't have to be strong and agile to bicycle. You don't have to be intelligent to understand mathematics, as long as you spend enough time in doing so to get experienced in it. Being intelligent just helps.



My overall suggestion:
Skills should keep track of a separate experience rate. This rate is influenced by the attributes (the more agility the faster you learn how to bicycle) but can only be increased by using the skill. You only get better at doing something by doing it, and you get good at it faster if you have good attributes.
"What" you can do with the skill should be mainly dependant on the level of the skill. I'd say the chance you successfully make something should be 95% dependant on the skill level. That means you're still able to smite a sword of leetness at a low smiting skill, but you're gonna need a LOT of luck to do so. But as long as you have ingredients available you can keep attempting at making the sword, and each failed attempt would increase your skill experience. If you're strong and agile, this would mean you'll learn faster from your mistakes.



Something on ingredients: it might only require a hot fire, a hammer, some iron and an enchanted gem to make a sword of leetness. If you fail at making it, you've lost the ingredients but you increase your smiting skills. Therefor, if you have 1 hammer, 10 iron parts and 10 enchanted gems, and you're low skilled but have high strength, you'll probably have a higher skill and therefor a higher chance at success by the time you're using the 10th piece of iron...

EDIT: although in this specific example it's probably more logical to split the process in:
- Create a sword

Requires:

1. Hammer (static)
2. Hot Fire (static)
3. Iron (variable)

Skill: Blacksmiting [Strength]
Result: Iron Longsword
​

- Create enchanted sword

Requires:

1. Iron Longsword (variable)
2. Enchanted Gem (static)

Skill: Enchanting [Intelligence]
Result: Sword of the Champions
​

Variable requirements would be consumed upon using the skill (thus: smiting a sword will use only iron, but require a hammer and fire too. If it fails, the iron is no longer useable)
I've split this example in 2 parts because enchanting a sword to a magical sword of champions wouldn't make much sense if it was dependant on your smiting skill

 

[~Void~]

I think the only way to do that suggestion without making things stupid is to use more than 3 attributes. Example:

Strength [STR] -- Your strength. Affects everything from how hard you hit and how heavy objects you can lift to how fast you run and how easy it is to make weapons and armor with a blacksmith's hammer. Hybrid stat.
Toughness [STR] -- How tough you are, really. It affects how much damage you take from attacks (unarmed strikes will do less damage to tough characters, it also gives a HP bonus). Also affects disease and poison resistances. Combat stat.
Agility [DEX] -- Increases dodge chance and chance to avoid traps etc. Combat attribute.
Dexterity [DEX] -- Nimbleness; a high Dexterity allows you to pick locks and craft small items better. Crafting attribute.
Knowledge [INT] -- How much you know. Affects spells and crafting (especially things such as Enchanting and Engineering). Hybrid stat.
Perception [INT] -- How you can apply your intelligence for practical uses. Increases your ability to sneak and detect hidden enemies as well as giving increased repair skill and other helpful little bonuses. Hybrid stat.

 

[Aschy]

Thanks Eleandor thats an excellent way of including attributes, that way someone who is level 1 and wants to get 99 smithing will have a difficult time or they are forced to do some quests and some dungeons.