My thoughts about itemization and crafting

[Zwiebelchen]

I feel that the crafting in this game is really lacking... due to the limited possibilities on item variety due to the save/load constraints.
And I always go by the rule that if you can't make something good, don't make it at all...

So what do you think about the crafting in the game so far? How could it be improved? Or should I get rid of it to make room for something more interesting?


There's a huge number of problems with the current crafting system:

1) limited inventory prevents implementation of more diverse base materials and makes the crafting mechanic itself really annoying. I basicly wanted to implement a method to disenchant gear at some point to gain crafting components from green/blue items, but then decided against it simply because adding even more crafting components in addition to ores, plants, cloth and skins (plus non-stackable rare materials) seems like a bad idea.

2) crafted items have to be untradable due to possible duping, which kind of destroys any possible ways to make it part of the character customization (as you can't "sell" your crafted items, every recipe will only be used once and then sold) ... nobody really enjoys when a boss just drops a recipe instead of an equipment item as it basicly just transforms into an equipment item, just with a tedious farming mechanic attached to it.

3) crafting bloats up the save/load stronger than non-crafted items, as every crafted item basicly counts twice (1 for the recipe, 1 for the final product plus any incredients)

4) it adds a certain element of imbalance to the game... as some classes get their gear for free as drops, whereas others have to farm for a recipe ... for the weight of 1 recipe and crafted item, I could also implement 2 possible "upgrade tiers" for dropped blue stuff instead.


Don't get me wrong... I think having a crafting system in an ORPG is a great idea, but the execution is severely lacking imho.


What do you think? Should I remove the system? What could be ways to make it more interesting and fun? Do you have other ideas what the crafting system could be used for? I'm currently thinking about revamping the crafting system to make it more like an upgrading system, in which you can "reforge" certain items into one of two possible ways, to add additional abilities (in case of weapons) or stats.

 

[satoshikid]

One idea I have is to use the crafting mechanics as an "upgrade" system. That is, certain items could be upgraded by using the various materials found around the game. That would help reduce the "grind" as you'd already have a weapon and, instead, given a choice to make it stronger by spending time grinding for materials or just keep it as is.

 

[Ihazdialup]

I think making old reds upgradeable would be good, and I was thinking it'd be neat if there were different paths you can take when upgrading an item, I know it'd take up a lot of space but it would be neat.

Also making old recipes upgradeable would be a good place to start to. Or make some legendaries be only from crafting or something.

Also some of the blue items Box and I made that are kind of like inbetween in stats were meant to be recipes, you can pick and choose which ones are and arn't. Atleast I think we made some Blue items that arnt level 50, or you could make all the ice-themed miscs (whoops I gave a spoiler) be made from rare mats from the mobs with the recipes sold in the dwarven town

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Yeah that's my thoughts exactly. Currently, I only planned to make old legendaries upgradable (like poltroonery or phoenix) to get item stats adjusted to level 50, but I might also expand the system to allow upgrading endgame blues aswell. I figured that this might be more fun than simply having items to craft.

Also making old recipes upgradeable would be a good place to start to.

I've recently played a lot of Archeage, which basicly features an item system that heavily focuses on crafting. Every tier you can craft is based on the previous recipe in that game; which means you start crafting a level 20 item and then upgrade it to level 24, 30, etc. ... until you reach level 50, in which there are 4 more tiers to make the item truly epic. There was some stupid RNG involved in this, but the general idea of having to "upgrade" a basic crafted item was fun. The problem was that this basicly rendered boss drops pointless, as crafted items were always better than dropped items.
If I were to apply such a system, I think dungeoning would become very dull, as everyone would just run dungeons for incredients, while the drops would end up as vendor trash. So a system like this would require a huge change in the entire game drop mechanics to work. I guess this is not a valid option, unfortunately.

Also some of the blue items Box and I made that are kind of like inbetween in stats were meant to be recipes, you can pick and choose which ones are and arn't. Atleast I think we made some Blue items that arnt level 50, or you could make all the ice-themed miscs (whoops I gave a spoiler) be made from rare mats from the mobs with the recipes sold in the dwarven town

Yeah I see what you mean. I haven't decided yet where to put the individual items... I'm still not sure what to do with the crafting system, honestly. As, again, I'm currently thinking about getting rid of it or changing it so that you can only upgrade certain equipment pieces instead of making them.

On a bright note, getting rid of the crafting system (and the material bag) in general would free up a quick interface button to allow displaying a sixth player in groups.

 

[Ihazdialup]

The way I think the crafting system should be is having basically two options.

First option is upgrading current items that you deem worthy.

The other option should be Blues that are crafted that arn't quite as high of quality as boss drops, but the mats can be farmed from the random trash mobs.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The other option should be Blues that are crafted that arn't quite as high of quality as boss drops, but the mats can be farmed from the random trash mobs.

Then again, such "mid tier" items could also be part of a different mechanic, like farming tokens via a quest (kind of like the garg hammer quest) and then have that mid tier item as the quest reward. There's no real justification for an entire crafting mechanic just for the purpose of having a gear progression not tied to dungeoning.

My point is: the crafting system takes away a lot of resources, both in terms of time investment for map developement and in terms of save/load weight. In order to justify that, the crafting must be meaningful - but not up to the point that crafting makes group content irrelevant. Currently, it's just an annoying side activity that is mandatory for some classes, but pointless for others.

 

[Ihazdialup]

That is also true, and the same could be used for upgrades as well.

If the quest token system going to be only late game, or early game as well?

If you make it early game as well, then it'd give low level players an easier way to level helping the early game curve a bit without readjusting levels, and making some of the more interesting early game gear, like merc sword and basiliks talon, somewhat easier to obtain.

Also could be useful for getting the lumberjack craftables.

And I imagine that if the crafting system is tossed for the quest token shop or upgrades then would all the droppable recipes just drop the item itself instead. To do with the mats if the crating system to that drop from bosses, I think keeping them available as extra drops like in the lumberjack quest hub area is a good idea for just an extra gold drop.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The quest token system was meant for level 50 content only, as it's based on the idea of repeatable quests. But the quest token system was not meant to obtain gear directly; it was more thought as a method to reward unique bonuses, like temporary buffs, an additional skill/talent point, etc.

But surely, I could make some repeatable quests available for pre-50 content aswell (those quests that do not involve combat).

I actually intended one quest to be like some kind of "treasure hunt", where items could spawn at random places throughout the world and you needed to collect 3 of them to complete the quest.

 

[Ihazdialup]

ahh okay thats fair enough, I was just trying to think of a way to make the lower tiered craftable items we currently have obtainable through a different means.

I like that idea of obtaining tokens through whatever means would be good, make repeating quests that don't give any gold or xp rewards but they would reward the player with the desired item like Collecting an X amount of whatever from bandits in the lion's den and then turn in the quest to get the basiliks talon

 

[Zwiebelchen]

A different approach would be to take one or two types of items completely out of the droptables and make them obtainable only through crafting. Like Misc items or accessories.

That would make crafting more interesting, as it would benefit both the group players and the solo players.

 

[Hawajska]

Crafting is just fine...

its good way for some supercool item possible to get in more ways than just loot or quest.
You can make a legenary recipe with several mats from few places, few quest, add questline... this what makes game even more epic

 

[Jumbo]

Finally bringing trade into the game:
I have a few suggestions regarding this:
1.make all common and uncommon materials buyable at new vendors: 1 in Riversdale with the lowest tier materials (for items lvl 1-D1), one in Mytargas (items Past D1-D3), one in lumber Camp, and finally one in the new Dwarven town with final materials.
All these materials should come at steep prices, encouraging farming, but at least giving an extra opportunity for people. However, boss drop (and perhaps some special rare materials) are NOT buyable thus preserving the point in farming for such items.
My reason for this suggestion is that farming certain normal mobs is extremely tedious and therefore giving the opportunity to reduce time spent on that gives more time for the funny parts of the game

2: Make an 'Auction House': here players can sell recipes and most rare materials for fixed extreme prices. The idea here is an NPC which has a 'put on auction' system that allows the player to choose a material or recipe from his inventory (non-materials/recipes will give an error) to put on auction. The player will then be given Info about the selling price and can then confirm or cancel. When confirmed, other players can then buy the item from another auctionerr NPC for the fixed price within 10 minutes. If the item is unbought after this time, the seller will only receive 10% of the selling price and the item is 'sold' anyway (i.e. disappears). If the item is sold the buyer will receive 50-60% of selling price (depend on Zwiebs choice what the value is).
With this system people who sell items cannot cheat and reload to get infinite gold since the item is taken from the player as soon as the auction is started.

This system is only possible if the items working in the system are BoP in all other instances.

Let me give some examples: D1 dagger recipe is possessed (it is BoP with the new rules no matter if saved or not) by player 1. He wants to sell it to player 2 who actually needs it. Therefore they both travel to the auction house in Mytargas where player 1 puts the dagger on auction. Player 2 can now see the active auction and can buy it for 800 gold. This is of course quite a lot at their lvl but he decides that since he has gathered all materials but didnt have luck finding the recipe himself he buys it. Player 1 automatically receives the 800 gold (-interests whatever Zwie sets them at) and player 2 can go create the dagger without a tedious farm for the recipe. The recipe upon buying is created on the buyer as a new copy of the same item bound to the buying player.

The interest part is of course very important. If set too low, some people will become extremely rich far too easily. Set it too high and the auction house will be less used by sellers and therefore by all. Fixed high prices for weaker recipes and materials and extreme fixed prices for rare and powerful mats/recipes is a must due to the anticheat idea behind the system (i.e. selling items to your friends for 3 gold and other such abuse).

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Finally bringing trade into the game:
I have a few suggestions regarding this:
1.make all common and uncommon materials buyable at new vendors: 1 in Riversdale with the lowest tier materials (for items lvl 1-D1), one in Mytargas (items Past D1-D3), one in lumber Camp, and finally one in the new Dwarven town with final materials.
All these materials should come at steep prices, encouraging farming, but at least giving an extra opportunity for people. However, boss drop (and perhaps some special rare materials) are NOT buyable thus preserving the point in farming for such items.
My reason for this suggestion is that farming certain normal mobs is extremely tedious and therefore giving the opportunity to reduce time spent on that gives more time for the funny parts of the game

2: Make an 'Auction House': here players can sell recipes and most rare materials for fixed extreme prices. The idea here is an NPC which has a 'put on auction' system that allows the player to choose a material or recipe from his inventory (non-materials/recipes will give an error) to put on auction. The player will then be given Info about the selling price and can then confirm or cancel. When confirmed, other players can then buy the item from another auctionerr NPC for the fixed price within 10 minutes. If the item is unbought after this time, the seller will only receive 10% of the selling price and the item is 'sold' anyway (i.e. disappears). If the item is sold the buyer will receive 50-60% of selling price (depend on Zwiebs choice what the value is).
With this system people who sell items cannot cheat and reload to get infinite gold since the item is taken from the player as soon as the auction is started.

This system is only possible if the items working in the system are BoP in all other instances.

Let me give some examples: D1 dagger recipe is possessed (it is BoP with the new rules no matter if saved or not) by player 1. He wants to sell it to player 2 who actually needs it. Therefore they both travel to the auction house in Mytargas where player 1 puts the dagger on auction. Player 2 can now see the active auction and can buy it for 800 gold. This is of course quite a lot at their lvl but he decides that since he has gathered all materials but didnt have luck finding the recipe himself he buys it. Player 1 automatically receives the 800 gold (-interests whatever Zwie sets them at) and player 2 can go create the dagger without a tedious farm for the recipe. The recipe upon buying is created on the buyer as a new copy of the same item bound to the buying player.

The interest part is of course very important. If set too low, some people will become extremely rich far too easily. Set it too high and the auction house will be less used by sellers and therefore by all.

Trading of bound items can always be exploited to duplicate items, no matter the implementation. In the method desribed by you, player 1 can set the item into the auction house and player 2 can "buy" it. Then player 1 can just reload a game save prior to selling the item, to effectively get it back, thus, the item has been duped.

The system can also be abused to create massive amounts of gold for a player: player 2 just buy trash items from player 1, generating player 1 more gold than if he would just vendor the items, then he just reloads to get all his gold back.


The system described only works if two conditions are met:
1) selling the item in the auction house must yield the same or less gold as vendoring it
2) buying the item from the auction house must cost a lot of gold, so that the possible duplication of items still has a reasonable punishment for the duplicating player.

As you can see, 1) and 2) kinda contradict themselves. Also, duplication of items is always bad, no matter the gold investment.


There's 3 things that will never work in a multiplayer map due to the fact that you can always "go back" to old save codes:
1) trading of any items that have been saved already
2) trading of gold
3) any kind of gambling

A note on the third point: I went through all possibilities to design a working gambling system, as I intended to add such a system to Gaias (to add a gold sink to the game kind of like in Diablo 2), but I found out that there is no way in which it couldn't be abused through save-scumming.

1) If I'd make the item determined through a dice roll, obviously people could reload until they roll the item they wanted.
2) Even if I determine a random number directly after gambling and then have it fixed until the next gamble (stored to the save code), so that the next result will always return the same, people could just go back to a save before the first gambling to bypass the fixed random.
3) If I determine the next random number based on the position in a fixed random seed (maybe obfuscated by a string hash of the player name), I'd have to store a progressive integer to the save code (basicly, a counter to how often you gambled). So with each gambling, the save code would get longer and longer, as the number goes up, but never down again. If I, at some point, go back to the beginning, all following items would be drawn in the same order. So there's a chance the player will never get the item he wants no matter how often he gambles. Also, as the string hash will always return the same number, the gambling would never be truly "random". Item A will always be followed by Item B if two players are at the same position of the random seed.... though this is just a matter of making the seed long enough so that this is unlikely.

Gambling even with a fixed random numbers would only work if I would store ALL following random numbers to the savecode aswell (or store a progressive int that counts how often you gambled). And due to the limits of the save/load, this is simply not possible (unless I restrict the total number of possible gambles to like ... 10000 or something).

 

[BoxOfFaith]

One idea I have is to use the crafting mechanics as an "upgrade" system. That is, certain items could be upgraded by using the various materials found around the game. That would help reduce the "grind" as you'd already have a weapon and, instead, given a choice to make it stronger by spending time grinding for materials or just keep it as is.

I like something like this. It would make for a good gold sink for all levels. Allowing every blue item to be slightly upgraded to +1 or +2 by bringing relevant materials + gold to a blacksmith to make them slightly better.

D1 upgraded blues would be better than greens from the next area, but d2 standard blues should still be better than a +2 d1 blue for example.

D3 reds should still be allowed to be upgraded to level 50 type items like Ihaz was saying, but I think the crafting system as a whole would be interesting to be used to upgrade items rather than create whole standard items.

 

[kevs926]

dont use alot of mats, use old equips instead

1 mat + 1old equip + ...

this way we revisit old dungeons too. i miss fire lord

 

[Jumbo]

I see your point with duped items Zwie. It is sad that this is impossible to control. Even preventing reloading does not fix it because people will simply remake and create infinite amounts of an item for all their friends :-(.dunno why I didn't realise this problem before writing. However, if with some smart system the auction house could check whether items were saved or not, this could fix the problem along with disallowing the 2 save/loads for people who have used the auction house for either selling or buying. This would at least allow people to trade in a reasonable way from player X char to player Y, who after a drop which his other char needs reloads to that char items can only be sold in the game they were created in (given no saving has been done) therefore no dupping is possible.
At least this can spare the player the pain (at a high AH price) of seeing an item their other char needs just being vendored.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I see your point with duped items Zwie. It is sad that this is impossible to control. Even preventing reloading does not fix it because people will simply remake and create infinite amounts of an item for all their friends :-(.dunno why I didn't realise this problem before writing. However, if with some smart system the auction house could check whether items were saved or not, this could fix the problem along with disallowing the 2 save/loads for people who have used the auction house for either selling or buying. This would at least allow people to trade in a reasonable way from player X char to player Y, who after a drop which his other char needs reloads to that char items can only be sold in the game they were created in (given no saving has been done) therefore no dupping is possible.
At least this can spare the player the pain (at a high AH price) of seeing an item their other char needs just being vendored.

I don't think that the untradable items are such a big deal honestly. You can freely "trade" items that haven't been saved yet after all (so if someone finds an item while you are afk or at the other side of the world, you can still get it).

It seems that the majority of people approve the idea of a crafting system that mainly provides updates to existing equipment. And I kind of agree with that. The beauty about this is that it wouldn't necessarily require me to change the existing recipes. I could just add more "upgrade recipes" as I see fit and change the focus to upgrades at level 50 content.

I think it also makes a lot of sense to make some D2 and D3 items with unique skins upgradable to level 50 with level 50 incredients. Just to allow people to use those visuals at level 50 aswell if they like it. Kinda adds to diversity and I'm all for that.

 

[Jumbo]

You missed my point Zwei. My point was to allow unloaded characters to be loaded AFTER an item drops and obtain that item through AH. Example: player x plays Assassin during a dungeon. In the run a good necro item drops, which player x wants for his secondary necro char. He therefore asks player Y to take the item to AH after the run so that he (player x) can load his necro and buy the item from AH. Get it?

 

[grekern]

I like the idea with upgradeable items or perhaps just crafting to change the appearance! You could also add consumable crafting for minor buffs, almost always requiring a rare material. This can be good (or bad) for hard core players to have to farm some "old 45-50 bosses" for a specific material together with newer players that are farming gear.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

You missed my point Zwei. My point was to allow unloaded characters to be loaded AFTER an item drops and obtain that item through AH. Example: player x plays Assassin during a dungeon. In the run a good necro item drops, which player x wants for his secondary necro char. He therefore asks player Y to take the item to AH after the run so that he (player x) can load his necro and buy the item from AH. Get it?

Tbh I like it more the way Zwieb has it now. We used to just run dungeons in our max efficiency roles and pass gear to our alts. I like it better needing to actually play the alts to get the gear. Yes it sucks when somethings drops that someone needs on an alt, but nobody needs in current loads, but I dont mind it. If you really want to gear your necro, then play as your necro . Having it this way at least you have experience with your characters, rather than getting a max geared crusader and then having no clue how to play it effectively.

 

[SHBlade]

1. AH thing is bad - game will become even easier and shorter than now.
2. Upgrades>Crafting - cuz i think gear upgrades are better reward for farming mats than just piece of equipment. Also if u mind giving more than one combination of upgraded stats (f.e. I - +1 str +5 sp; II - +3 int; III - +2% eva +3 str) on a single item, it will put diversity into the game, which is good thing.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Im just wondering if there would possibly be a way to add an ability or something to either the actual character or backpack or mat bag or something for upgrades to items rather than creating a whole new item, because with every upgrade or different upgrade path a whole new item would have to be created.

So im wondering if theres a way to give the chracter an ability that would have it be so that player X has item Y in their inventory player X gains a Z bonus to strength (or whatever the upgraded version does), and the ability would come from using the recipe with the required mats in the inventory rather than actually making a whole new item....

 

[Zwiebelchen]

You missed my point Zwei. My point was to allow unloaded characters to be loaded AFTER an item drops and obtain that item through AH. Example: player x plays Assassin during a dungeon. In the run a good necro item drops, which player x wants for his secondary necro char. He therefore asks player Y to take the item to AH after the run so that he (player x) can load his necro and buy the item from AH. Get it?

Don't worry, I understood you very well. It was actually possible to trade items within a game to characters that had not been loaded before the item dropped. I actually went out of my way to prevent players from doing that (hence the additional restriction), as many players felt that this trivialized gearing of twinks.
I know that the holy trinity thing is a problem, especially if the average group only has 3-4 players, not 5, but that's also why I try to establish zerkers as a possible third tanking class and bards as a possible third healing class.

Im just wondering if there would possibly be a way to add an ability or something to either the actual character or backpack or mat bag or something for upgrades to items rather than creating a whole new item, because with every upgrade or different upgrade path a whole new item would have to be created.

So im wondering if theres a way to give the chracter an ability that would have it be so that player X has item Y in their inventory player X gains a Z bonus to strength (or whatever the upgraded version does), and the ability would come from using the recipe with the required mats in the inventory rather than actually making a whole new item....

The impact on the save/load system would still be the same, so there's no real point in doing that. Also, I feel this would break immersion a little.
Let's not worry about the save/load system too much here. Adding 20-30 upgraded items to the game won't really break the system. If we really reach a point where saves get too long, there is always the option to seperate character saves from stash saves. This would shorten the codes by at least 40% (and triple the item capacity of the game).
This feature will come sooner or later anyway, as it would allow me to increase stash capacity even further (and include a material stash).

 

[Jumbo]

Hehe I can fully understand now why an AH wouldn't work. But you know me, always write these long suggestions that may or may not work. Think of it as brainstorming .

Anyway, I agree with your ideas on upgrading/crafting. But I hope you will let the current crafting items stay in any case since they are enjoyable to craft, especially at low levels.

 

[Shamu]

Would it be possible to have a bag with fixed positions for gear slot, so something like

1 2
3 4
5 6

with 1=weapon, 2= offhand and so on, and to then craft upgrades that go into that specific bag, not for the item itself? So basically upgrading a slot rather than an item. This would allow for fewer items, since there would technically be no upgraded items, only the slot-specific upgrades. This would mean that to have several differently upgraded items of one base item, you would not have to farm the item several times, you would only have to craft the different upgrades. This could allow for more flexibility, since the crafts are not bound to an item.

It would suck to get a really good item and then upgrade it, find out that the upgrade would probably be way cooler and have no option to remove previous upgrades. However, this could be fixed by including a downgrade option, but this would be less forgiving if you would lose the initial upgrade cost (but I think it's OK if it is somewhat unforgiving, given that you should have a motivation to think before you craft).

 

[Zwiebelchen]

That would suck, imho. Simply because those items would lose their 'enchant' as soon as you unequip them, etc.... i think just going with a fixed set of items upgradable looks and feels better in the long run.