The CRAFT System

[Tynian]

Hey! Here's my initial thoughts to the system.

A:  Too complicated.
B:  Silly if it wont let us craft items that can compete with quest items/mob drops.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a system with multiple steps.
What I don't like is that if I wanted to make a sword, I'd have to go to person A, B, C and possibly D to make a sword for myself. I'd rather see that you could as a metalworker make both armour and weapons.. I'm saying 'and' but what I really mean is OR, I mean how many master weaponsmiths do you believe made armours?

I'd propose a simplified system for crafting really, but make the materials slightly more rare, more of an effort to get them maybe and that way justify them being equal or better than quest items.

I mean I'm not a questing person, but why can't I be allowed to make, with my time, a weapon as good as this quest item if I put the time into it? An armour as good as what someone gets off a quest, as long as I put an effort into it.

Also about the extra positions, don't you all agree that there are already (too?) many equipment slots, I personally don't believe we need another 3-6 slots.
To me there's a limit on how much you can tack on a person without it feeling bloated and making the crafted item those extra slots. Not interesting imo.

Enchanted weapons, great idea, but why not a mentalist class to actually enchant weapons, quest rewards, crafted, drops, anything.

[Kvetch]

Hey Viri.. thanks for taking my idea and posting it while I was busy with Asmo on the build port.  Remind me to never tell you anything before I post about it myself.  

Let me expand the thought though - since I spent most of my day thinking about it.  I gots 4 pages of notes so give me a bit to sort it all.  It's all about the crafting system but is all jumbled.

Viri had it right when he said making it a general skill tree.  So whether you chose to be a warrior or mage or whatever class, you would have some points to choose a craft of some sort - whether it's to start being a blacksmith (or metalworker depending on what system we use) or a tailor (textileworker) or Armorer (Leatherworker - note: armorer should also be under metalworker...).    If worked out by Molly's system as she posted - the profession would be (take leatherworker as an example) Leatherworker.  At level 1, they would have the ability to skin and tan hides (that's the basis for any leatherworking).  AT level 5 (for example) they would become a Furrier and also be able to do.. whatever it is that furrier's do (according to Webster online, that would be a fur dealer) so now instead of just skinning and tanning hides and selling them, they can also sell the furs as well.  AT level 10 (again, just for example) they would become a shoemaker and be able to make footwear for people to wear - boots, shoes, whatnot and either sell those to mobs or to players.  AT level 15 They would become a glovemaker so can make gloves for people to wear and sell those to mobs or players and at level 20, they would be a full fledged Leatherworker and can do all of the above plus make armor (or armour as some like to spell it).

In between those levels would be other things like saddle making, bagmaking, etc, etc, but the 5 levels shows the subskills as Molly has it listed above and fits so well into the "new" skill tree system that I couldn't help mentioning it that way.  

The reason I think these should be general instead of only under gypsy is because each class should have their own general tree that they'd like to follow.  For example,  a warrior would be more inclined to do metalworking (because of the weapons) or leatherworking (because of the armor) while a mage may be more inclined to do glassmaker, woodworking, or tailoring (wands, staves, clothing).  It's because it's the craft that would help that class best.  Though, if there is better money in leatherworking, I can see a mage deciding to pick that up even if it wouldn't really benefit them.

And, now on to Asmodeus's post, I'd thought of that as well.  (yes, I was very, very bored during my hour lunch and had taken this stuff with me to look at.)  

My basic thought is this:
Let's say you have a woodsman that is a herbalist/botonist (they can define and pick flowers) and they pick some belladonna.  They have the following choices:
1) sell it to a shopkeeper who would pay 50 gold (for example) - said shopkeeper would probably sell it for at least 100 gold to someone that wants it.
2) sell it to a player that can use it (brewer for a potion?) who would be willing to pay 75 gold for it.  
The herbalist would win (make 25 more gold than selling the shop) and the brewer would win (pay 25 gold less than buying from the shop) if choice 2 was taken.
I would want it so players would WANT to sell to each other, but the shop WILL buy it if needed.

And having said that, personally, I would like to get rid of most of the potions, wands, staves, etc, etc that are in the shops and have that be mostly player run (you would still get eq, potions, wands staves from mobs).  Now continuing on that point, this is how I'd see this system working if we used the level based skill system like we're planning for the regular skills:

Let's take the sword mentioned before as an example:
1) The warrior who has decided to create said sword happens to be a metalworker so he's able to forge his own blade.
 - he's rank 20 in metalworker which is what you have to be to make weapons and he decided to use iron for his base material (material components needs to be discussed as well in antoher thread probably). Now he needs to
2) Find a woodwoker to make him a hilt.  To do this the Woodworker has to be at least a Carpenter (level 10) and our warrior can't afford a level 20 woodworker so he takes the level 10's ability (this would of course be less ability and better chance of failure than the level 20's).
- Note: at this point in time, the sword CAN be used, but there is nothing special about it.  Warrior wants it even better so he goes and finds
3) A leathermaker to make the grip.  To do this a leathermaker would have to be at least a Glovemaker (level 15), but getting a real Armourer to do the job would make it even better with less (almost no) chance of failure.  Warrior can't afford an Armourer so he goes for the glovemaker.  He still wants it better so he goes to find
4) A stoneworker for a pommel.  To make a pommel a stoneworker has to be at least a Stonecutter (level 10) who our warrior finds to get his sword completed.
Best he could have gotten would have been a Rank 20/20/20/20 (= 80), but what he got was a 20/10/15/10 (=55) sword and that should somehow figure into how good the sword is balance and speed wise.  That would be a coder thing though so I won't bore anyone else.
Of course as stated before he can make it better by adding gems (gemcutter).

Note: I would say that any time there is a failure it sets the player back 1 creation level - so if they've got the hilt and sword and the leatherer fails on adding the grip, the warrior would have to go back and get another hilt.

And again, I would like to say that this should be a PLAYER system - if for any reason we had mobs that could do these same things, I would say that the mobs should make far weaker items than the players can, but my thought is to keep the mobs out of it.  As to any worry that because of the lack of players, there may be a shortage of something, I say - that's why we make alts.    (I know there are those of you cringing at this - after all, the alt characters of a player shoulnd't know each other and I say sha right.  You think you wouldn't make an alt because of this?  I'd wish that were true.  My big wish though is that we'd have a system going and people wouldn't NEED their alts.)  My big worry about the possibility of having mobs do this is the fact that it wouldn't be a player system and no-one would interact with other players, just use the mobs - even at a higher price or what not.

[Kvetch]

<thought continued>

I had initially thought to limit people to 1 craft tree but then realized that some people may like to have mostly gathering skills (like mining for ores, skinning animals for hides/fur, botonist - for those pesky flowers and herbs, etc) so I was thinking that like the normal skill tree players could get points but only for their crafting tree and only by using thier crafting skills. So, let's say you only get 20 ranks in a skill - the max a player would get for crafting would be 20 ranks (just an idea) and if there were 6 (as Molly has 6 listed) main professions, then someone that wanted all of the "gathering skills" would have about 4 points in each - so not able to do much other than gather.

Though, another idea is (thinking back to my example of the sword) if someone doesn't have to be of a particular rank to do one of those steps - only of the particular profession, these guys could possibly work on the sword/whatnot though a high risk of failure and a low benefit from them doing it.

I think I'm done now.

Kvetch

[Tocharaeh]

I have to agree with Viri on this one. I don't want to see NEW pieces of eq being pumped out when 4D is filled with perfectly good sets of it's own. Instead, this crafting system should be about item alterations be they superficial improvements, or otherwise. I think that gems should be the means to gain innates, and that all current innates should be removed. There are way too many of them, too many repeats, and they ultimately remove the importance of having a caster in your group, or in the game for that matter.

[Tocharaeh]

Also, additional eq slots ordeal. I want more but not too many. I'd FLOATING (for neat things like birds, spirits, enchanted gems, blah), SHEATH (to put an extra weapon or an RP item weapon..no bonuses are gained, but it's nice to look at and could be useful for an auto-wielding function should you be disarmed). Shoulders would be nice. I also REALLY want "SLING" so that players can sling musical instruments in my zone over their shoulders, or maybe even bags and backpacks could become SLING so this way we would see

"<Slung over your shoulder>  A bag of Severed Heads"

I like eq slots, and I think they can really add to a players look.

[Virisin]

After extensive talk on 4d, I'm going to post up what I think would be the best way to implement crafting into 4d. I don't think crafting brand new equipment will ever work, and I don't want to see crafted equipment compete with quested equipment - that goes entirely against what 4d is all about. I think adding new wear locations to solve that problem is a poor strategy.

I would like to see crafting become a way of changing a weapon type, or changing armour class. For example: I am a knight and I want to be in a full suit of shining armour and I just did an extremely hard quest for some really good dagger.. But I don't want a dagger, I want a longsword. I think with the right amount of ore, or whatever other natural resource, collected, I should be able to remove the blade from my dagger, and forge a new blade out of all my ore as well as making a new hilt out of all my woodchopping. The stats of the dagger remain the same, however instead of being a 30cm piercing weapon, it is now a 200cm slashing weapon.

Or, I just did an extremely difficult quest for a really good shirt.. This isn't going to cut it, so I gather the ore (obviously I just pay some weirdo crafter guy who loves doing that kind of stuff) and get someone with the right skills from the general crafting skill tree to forge me a breastplate to add to my shirt so it's no longer just a bit of cloth, it's a bit of cloth with some serious armour inside it.

I don't think it will ever be possible for 4d to have it's limited (although extremely extensive when compared to other muds) number of quests be balanced so 10 quests of equal difficulty give out an equally good weapon but of a different class. Hence why I think this is a good way of allowing crafters to be useful, indeed, extremely useful, without making crafted eq have to compete with quested equipment.

This would then open up the possibility of having weight and things actually mean something. So a knight in shining armour would have good armour class but limited mobility whereas a thief in raggedy clothing would have poor armour class but great mobility. It also fits in with spellcaster crafters being able to make gems to put into weapons gemslots to add innates.

I will let Toch expand further because I am basically just rambling and not in a literate mood.

[Asmodeus]

if 4d is all about questing, then involve it in crafting.  Make people quest to earn a craft maybe?  Then they can craft any mineral/material into anything (blacksmiths can use any ore into any piece of metal equipment, each type of ore can mean something different, etc) and get better at it, and the better they get, the less sucky their creations will be.

Now different ores can mean different things in terms of weight, durability, basic things... but when it comes to stats like HR/DAM etc, you're worried crafted equipment will rival quest equipment.  Well make special ores and special materials that could possibly give stats attainable only by quests.  Then you can either use that to create a new item, or whether if item is already made, you can use toch's idea of gems or other items to add onto the weapon/armor/whatever to give it more properties.

I think its dumb to earn quest items and then be able to change them to fit whatever need you could possibly want.  You're questing for something specifically made, with specific stats for a specific body part/purpose, and thats related to the story of the quest.  If you're questing for Excalibur, do you really think you should be able to change it into a dagger just to keep its stats?  To me, that sounds like a stupid idea.  If you want a dagger, find a quest that gives you a dagger.  If there isnt one, learn how to craft a good one, and quest for good materials to give it stats.  Or something along those lines... these are just ideas.  I know, we already change things by perzing them, but just because you perz a dagger into a two handed sword doesnt mean you should all the sudden be able to behead people with it.

If you want to make questing the main priority here, then involve it in crafting, but dont make a half-assed crafting system that essentially is just a free restring, but with other benefits.  Molly already said players shouldn't be allowed to restring items themselves, so that would count this out.  What i'm suggesting would give you an item with a preset name depending on the item and what it was made from.  You'd still have to pay whatever to change the name, but at least the stats and everything are what you'd be looking for.  

Not to mention you'd probably have to quest more for a crafted item like this to get the stats you'd want on it, when you can already just do one quest for an awesome item with lots of stats already on it.  Crafted items with stats would be more valuable because they took more time, but would be equal probably to normal quest items.  And this way, if there isnt a quest item already with the basic stats you want on it (armor class, wear position) to maximize your character stats, you want, you dont have to defile another quest item.

Dont forget that with crafting could come player-owned shops, which would be cool.  Especially if you could craft up your own potions and such!  Of course, if you have to quest for items to give your own eq stats, that might be tougher to figure out how to be allowed to sell it... but thats for a later discussion.

[Virisin]

Christ...

if 4d is all about questing, then involve it in crafting.  Make people quest to earn a craft maybe?  Then they can craft any mineral/material into anything (blacksmiths can use any ore into any piece of metal equipment, each type of ore can mean something different, etc) and get better at it, and the better they get, the less sucky their creations will be.

What do you mean 'if'? 4d brands itself as a questing mud where you have to be intelligent to gain an edge. It's what makes us unique and what we plaster all over our voting sites and things. There is no 'if' about it. Any change away from 4d suiting intelligent players would take a hell of a lot of work and go against the last 15 years of work.

'if 4d is all about questing, then involve it in crafting.' ... I think you mean, 'Because 4d is all about questing, crafting should be involved in quests'. I don't want our quests to be some little mini-feature in an extensive crafting system.. I want crafts to be an addition to our extensive questing system. Making people quest to learn the knowledge of crafting is just like current subskills, and all it really does is encourage blabbing because of the demand for crafting. And I don't think just doing 1 quest should be an excuse to then make all other 200 quests redundant because someone can craft things that are just as good.

Now different ores can mean different things in terms of weight, durability, basic things... but when it comes to stats like HR/DAM etc, you're worried crafted equipment will rival quest equipment.  Well make special ores and special materials that could possibly give stats attainable only by quests.  Then you can either use that to create a new item, or whether if item is already made, you can use toch's idea of gems or other items to add onto the weapon/armor/whatever to give it more properties.

This completely goes against the idea of crafting. Most people that want to craft don't want to quest. Making people HAVE to quest in order to craft essentially just makes our current fairly simple quest system a heck of a lot more complicated. And yes, gems are likely to become involved in customizing and enhancing equipment already. I don't really get the second half of that paragraph to be honest, it doesn't make sense.

I think its dumb to earn quest items and then be able to change them to fit whatever need you could possibly want.  You're questing for something specifically made, with specific stats for a specific body part/purpose, and thats related to the story of the quest.  If you're questing for Excalibur, do you really think you should be able to change it into a dagger just to keep its stats?  To me, that sounds like a stupid idea.  If you want a dagger, find a quest that gives you a dagger.  If there isnt one, learn how to craft a good one, and quest for good materials to give it stats.  Or something along those lines... these are just ideas.  I know, we already change things by perzing them, but just because you perz a dagger into a two handed sword doesnt mean you should all the sudden be able to behead people with it.

I'm sure Seti really had extremely important Sandals, Achilles was well known for his super Armour, the whole Rainbow Serpent quest is all about skinning it... You do realize that most quests have very little to do with the end reward at all right? Quests are about themselves, and the rewards are a way of enticing and rewarding players who complete the quests. Currently because players are generally so open about which zones items come from, and which quests in particular, players generally only do certain quests that they KNOW will have a reward suitable for them. If it were possible to alter rewards through a crafting system, more of the previously less favoured quests might find some new interest as their rewards are able to be customized to fit the character.

I think if I do a very hard quest and the result is Excalibur, and I am a Thief, I actually do think it would be awesome if I could work with a good crafter and melt the blade down and reforge it into an Excalibur dagger, yes.. I think that would be seriously sweet. 'If you want a dagger, find a quest that gives you a dagger' - exactly, that is currently how things work. And because players only ever want to use cleave/behead or encircle, no quests that give anything other than weapons that allow those skills are worthwhile. Now think about the new system, where we plan on making skills and characters more in depth so fights won't just be 'cleave;cleave;cleave;cleave;cleave', do you want the builders to then go through and alter all the current equipment in the game so there is a balance between weapons of all types scattered through quests of equal difficulty? Do you have any idea how much work that would be? Or, we could leave it how it is, and give crafters the ability to do that work for us, which is already fairly logical. If I have a mythril suit of armour, and I melt it down into liquid mythril, I could then turn that into a chain-linked mythril shirt. Not only is it realistic, it's badass.

To be honest, I think currently allowing us to make a two-handed sword look like a dagger by perzing is more ridiculous than making a two-handed sword into a dagger through crafting... 'What the hell, that guy just beheaded that troll with a dagger... Oh wait, that's not actually a dagger it just LOOKS like a dagger.' or 'What the hell that guy just backstabbed that troll with a dagger... Oh wait, that's not strange at all, nifty dagger he's got though, it's got Excalibur written into the blade...'

If you want to make questing the main priority here, then involve it in crafting, but dont make a half-assed crafting system that essentially is just a free restring, but with other benefits.  Molly already said players shouldn't be allowed to restring items themselves, so that would count this out.  What i'm suggesting would give you an item with a preset name depending on the item and what it was made from.  You'd still have to pay whatever to change the name, but at least the stats and everything are what you'd be looking for.

What? I can't believe you've played 4d all this time and are saying this. 4d's main priority is ALREADY questing, we don't need to involve it in crafting in order to accomplish this, and by the way, I don't think involving questing in crafting is a good idea anyway, because people that like crafting don't like questing.. That's why they craft. You are intentionally making a strawman here, the system I propose is nothing at all like a free restring, I havn't even mentioned being allowed to change the name of the item, but it would be a great addition. Changing the weapon type or armour class is a MUCH more significant change, it's not just 'other benefits'. I don't understand the second half of your paragraph..

Not to mention you'd probably have to quest more for a crafted item like this to get the stats you'd want on it, when you can already just do one quest for an awesome item with lots of stats already on it.  Crafted items with stats would be more valuable because they took more time, but would be equal probably to normal quest items.  And this way, if there isnt a quest item already with the basic stats you want on it (armor class, wear position) to maximize your character stats, you want, you dont have to defile another quest item.

So you want quests to stop giving out rewards and just give out natural resources... I honestly think that's just crazy. Seems like it'd just be a way of advertising ourselves as a crafting mud when we're not actually at all. 4d isn't all about 'whatever takes more time should be worth more'.. That's why we have tokens and tradepoints. There is a difference between intelligent problem solving and mindless repetitive tasks..

Dont forget that with crafting could come player-owned shops, which would be cool.  Especially if you could craft up your own potions and such!  Of course, if you have to quest for items to give your own eq stats, that might be tougher to figure out how to be allowed to sell it... but thats for a later discussion.

Potions is from brew, and I have no problems with that. Potions are completely different to equipment and I would totally support potions being removed from mob run shops altogether and either be found in certain load spots in the game or in player shops. Brewing isn't crafting though. And my idea for crafting would still require player interaction, as long as the crafting skills were in some kind of general skilltree.

[Virisin]

I've just spoken with someone who plays a pretty serious crafting mud, here's some quotes with amusing CENSORED flags added:

"With crafting there, a "standard" of eq becomes available to people with zero incentive for them to quest and explore, which is one of the bigger reasons why CENSORED has such terrible zones.  There isn't any room for quest eq"
"The problem with the standard is that players are basically guaranteed a set of somewhat great equipment, whether they make it themselves or from hand-me-downs from others"
"And then, people do nothing but craft all day because it's much easier to take a longer route, but exert zero effort, in order to get the good equipment"
"Well, not zero effort, but when I compare making a nice enchant on CENSORED to doing a high-end quest on 4D, one is obviously harder than the other"
"Molly's solution to crafts is to make unique slots for them.  I find that a rather weak way to solve the problem.  Imo, I don't think people should be required to craft if they don't want to"
"Rather, have unique stats or rare combinations of stats and have the pieces timered, but not too difficult to get.  Perhaps how much ore a player puts in affects how powerful the item becomes"
"I don't view crafts unlike tinkers and staves just so you know"

I think this brings up another potential idea, if players could wear something like 5 crafted items, and crafted items could actually be BETTER than quest equipment but also be timered. Much like tinkers now.

Further discussion brought out another possibility taken from a different game to the heavily crafting one mentioned earlier:

"Items in the game come with between 1-5 slots, which can be filled with graft materials"
"Graft materials by itself pretty much don't do a lot.  They might offer +1 HP, or +1 mana, or +1 spell defense, and that generally is a minuscule bonus"
"Of course, there's something like 15 item slots in the game, and if they each had at least 1 slot, getting +1 HP in all of them does make a difference"
"The neat thing about the system is that if you combined certain colours of materials together, they can give additional bonuses"
"A lot of combinations existed in 3 slot combos, so there was a huge market for items with 3 or more slots"
"Especially items that gave a pretty good bonus by itself.  You could add an even nicer bonus that way"

Just other possibilities, personally I like what I detailed in my last post but I'd be open to some of these suggestions.

[Molly]

Interesting discussion, keep it going. Hopefully something useful will come out in the end.

Just some comments about what would be basic to me, too avoid too many side-tracks:

The keywords being:
1. Attract a new player group
2. Player driven system and economy
3. Promote player interaction and if possible more RP
4. Complex system, to avoid botting
5. Involve Questing, but only to some extent
6. Skill trees

1. Crafting would appeal to a different group of players than is currently typical to 4D. Crafters usually are roleplayers, and crafting gives them a platform to start their RP from. Crafters usually don't LIKE to quest, (or don't have the skill for it), and they usually don't like mass-killing either. That's why they craft, instead of pursuing the other aspects of the game.
So, to sum it up: I don't expect every player in 4D to indulge in crafting, if we implement it. But, hopefully, a good crafting system might attract a new player group, and as you all know, we really need more players. It also might give at least some older players, who tired of the usual grinding, a new purpose in 4D, which might make them stay active for a bit longer.
This is basically the reason why we even consider making the rather big effort of introducing a crafting system to 4D - to build up a larger playerbase.

2. Naturally Crafting should be player driven. There will be some Trader mobs to buy crafted items, for a reasonable price compared to the time and skill put into it, but the main buyers would be other players.
Hopefully it would result in a player driven economy, where Crafters could sell their products in their own shops.
I also think that all crafted weapons and armour should suffer damage from use, i.e. have a timer. That way we could also have Repairman as a profession. Repairing an item should be easier than crafting the original item, but not too easy.
As usual our comparatively small playerbase is a problem here.

3. The idea behind the crafting system I presented was to achieve player interaction, by involving several different crafters in the production of each major item. I don't quite agree with Kvetch's picture of a player running round from crafter to crafter to improve his basic sword however.
What I had in mind was rather that the player would seek out the local Forge, to put an order for the sword with the weaponsmith, and said weaponsmith would then do the running around to collect the parts, or perhaps buy the parts in advance from other crafters. After a couple of days the customer would return to collect his order. That would be the IC way of doing it.
Again the small player base is a problem.

4. Crafting must have some amount of complexitivity, it shouldn't be too easy. I don't want a system where a player could sit at Recall, with a bot script to forge swords all day long, in the off hope that they'd get lucky and produce a good one.
The rewards you get in 4D can usually be interpreted in time and skill. It could be the time it takes to kill a tough boss mob for the item it drops, the time it takes to crack a hard quest, or - in the crafting case - the time it takes to produce a good weapon or armour. And although skill to some part is based on the individual, you also spend time improving that skill, or rather improving your knowledge of the game.
(As an example, I've heard players say that they spent over 2 hours to kill the Gojira, and I know that Omega and Fenix, who were the first to crack the Seti's Tomb Quest, both spent around a month separately, before they figured out what to do. In all fairness the Gojira case also involves getting a strong enough player to even have a chance of surviving the first blow. But you could also argue that behind solving the hardest quests lie months of solving easier ones, to get a hang of the questing technique in 4D).
The simple way to make crafting take more time is of course to add more or less long waits at each step of the procedure, or to add a percentage chance of total failure, where you'd ruin the item and have to start from the beginning again. But both these measures would result in a boring and frustrating system, similar to or even worse than mob grinding.
This is why I think it would be better with a system where the time would be used on either collecting the raw materials yourself, like mining for ore, skinning animals and tanning the hides for leather, or chopping down trees and processing the trunks to usuable pre-products - i.e. some knowledge about how to procure the materials would be needed.
Or buying these raw materials from other players, who specialise in collecting different types of raw materials - i.e. player interaction and trading would be needed.
Most of the raw materials already exist in the game too, you just need to know where to look for them.

5. I think Questing and Crafting should basically be kept apart, for several reasons. Crafters shouldn't be forced to also become questors.
That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be some initial quest to achieve the different professions,  but this should be fairly easy. Basically you'd seek out a Trainer mob, who would then give you some simple tasks before taking you on as an apprentice and introducing you to the profession.
I'm not sure that I am happy about the idea of being able to change the type and stats of existing quest rewards with crafting, but it's simething that I'll at least think over before taking a stand for or against.

6. Naturally the crafting system would be ideal for Skill trees.
I just think that it should be kept totally separate from other skill trees, with an individual number of practice points to spend. Choosing what craft you want to pursue shouldn't be dependant on whether you are a fighter or a spellcaster.
I also think that each player should be allowed to learn just two crafts, possibly only one. At least that could give some extra purpose to the alts.
I admit that the idea of giving a larger number of crafts to gypsies is tempting at first sight, but I think it would be the wrong way to go. There are other skills we could give to an utility class like Gypsies, but that's food for another thread.

[horus]

Ah, I can finally contribute in something in this discussion. While I cant add anything to the finer points of crafting, what I can say is crafting trees should be available to all classes. However, crafting should not be treated as separate from the normal class skill/spell trees, nor should anyone receive more pracs to compensate for these extra trees. What I mean by this is, the number of pracs issued will allow a player to prac 8 ranks in each skill/spell, so lets say for argument's sake, this totals 200 pracs. Now we expand on crafting into many crafting trees - I still say we leave the players with 200 pracs, and its up to them to decide whether they want to be a full time adventurer, or a full time crafter, or a combination of both.

The logic is simple - someone adventuring wont have the time or the exposure to build great pieces of armour, compared to someone who makes armour every single day. As they increase in ranks in a particular craft, they are able to use magical materials to create pieces of work - so for example, rank 10 armourers may be able to use composite steel to create full plate armour, whereas rank 15 may be able to use mithril, and embed magical components (either in the forms of magical gems, or other pieces) to their own creations. The higher the rank, the higher the "effects" are. A rank 15 armourer may be able to embed a gem that gives someone a rank 5 stoneskin innate, but a master armourer doing the same thing may result in a rank 15 stoneskin innate.

In terms of questing, quest eq may come in the form of items that have spare "slots" to embed magical gems. But to be able to embed these gems, they will need to get a master armourer/weaponsmith/etc. A master armourer cannot create eq that has slots, so this could be a limiting factor to stop the botting.

From what I have read so far, I think the crafting system appears to be too complex - there are too many variables that go into crafting. I think a much simpler model will work well, as we already have limiting factors in place - ie. limited pracs, skill ranks that affect the ability to make the item, quest eq, getting materials like gems, etc. Having too many interwoven crafters to produce one item, while realistic, is just too complex. One system that was quite addictive but very simple, was when the Final Fantasy series first introduced the gem slot eq. Some eq had one slot, some had more slots with less stats.

Bear in mind as my earlier example, innates also have various ranks, and so, in fact, I wouldnt even mind if we allowed rank 1 armourers to be able to embed gems, because they will only produce rank 1 innates. But I really dont mind if we limit lower ranked armourers to just common materials etc. Either way, it works well.

So the point of my long rant is, we already have lots of nice variables, lets not overcomplicate crafting.

[Asmodeus]

Virisin, don't be mad at me because i dont agree with you for once

Your post, however correct it may be, just completely misses the point I'm trying to make, and that is this... I KNOW 4d has its heart in questing. I KNOW some things I were proposing go against the idea of crafting.  I KNOW crafting and questing should remain separate.  However, you made it so perfectly clear that a normal crafting system is stupid and would never work (which I disagree with), that I'm just trying to come up with an alternative and tailor it to 4D's world instead of get rid of the idea all together.  So that idea was dumb (because again, i agree questing and crafting should be left apart), big deal.  But, I'd rather try and think of ways we can fit it in and try to accommodate those of us who think REAL crafting (not your version) could be a good thing here, instead of giving countless ways in which it wont work.  Put your powers to good use!

If you cant create/take part in the creation process from the beginning, its not really a complete crafting system, and thus kind of pointless.  It would help greatly with player driven economy, and (can't believe i forgot this, but Molly hit the nail on the head), it could possibly give oldbies a new reason to play again (yes, theres a new hack'n'slash system, but when it comes down to it, its still hack'n'slash).  Personally, killing is fun, but if i could level off of crafting weapons and armor, and sell them for profit, i might be more inclined to play again... i happen to like crafting thank you very much!  But, if your crafted goods cant have stats and cant be good after enough work at it, what drive is there to craft at all?  Not to mention no one will buy your goods.  And yes, it will help with RP too, but come on, that alone is not enough incentive to spend all the time it will take to become a master at whatever craft you choose.

And I hate to say it, but I'm a player who likes crafting, killing, RP, AND questing.  I take pride in the fact that i could enjoy and explore each one, but if theres no incentive for me as a crafter (no stats on my work, no way to sell it, no point to it at all basically) why would i choose crafting?  Why would anyone choose it, for that matter?  Especially those who ONLY like crafting.  You say you think crafting should be used to improve weapons/armor (i.e. quest items, since most non-quest items arent really THAT good)... well if you only like crafting, you're not going to be getting quest items to improve.

All i meant by a quest to learn the trade was what molly mentioned.  Sorry i said 'quest', what i meant was more along the lines of finding the trainer, and then participating in an interactive help guide to teach you how to do your craft, by going around and getting ores and then practicing blacksmithing by completing things the trainer would want.  Its a much more interesting way than sitting there reading 'help blacksmith', and it saves time in the learning process.

PS - did you notice Molly WANTS to appeal to new players through crafting and help grow the player base?  Hmm, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?  Wait... that goes against your "If they dont like questing, they should find another mud, period." mentality.  Uh oh... bye bye player base!  

[Tocharaeh]

So here is my brief take on this whole thing:

1) This is looking too complex.
2) Even if a player doesn't like questing, 4D is a quest mud so...go quest anyway.


I feel that crafting should be a simpler item enhancement/alteration system for items that already exist. Maybe make a couple extra slots to give it a tiny bit of spice, but that's about it.

Crafting can be a great form of advanced restringing for players who train in it. This is much better and a tad more realistic than just regular restrings.

Puppy goes questing and gets a the sword of memory. Cool sword, but he's a thief, and would rather have a dagger.
Puppy has become skilled in crafting and has the ability to grind down, and rebalance the weapon himself through a series of rabid heating, and cooling cycles at the billows.
Puppy gathers extra ore items, coal, water, and so on and goes off to the smithy to do his work (he also needs smithing tools).
Puppy goes through the process of changing the sword into a dagger with a long and short of his liking (following strict guidelines that have be put in place for item naming).
Puppy now have his Legendary Dagger of Memory Loss.

This is simple, not all complicated and it uses what items are in the game. You can either alter items like above, and/or enhance them. How can crafting enhance an item?

Based on armor: Weight, AC, and Location armor %age (in worth) would be the main things that would be effected.
On Weapons: Balancing, changing length, moving from pierce to slash and the like. Speed, and accuracy. Damage dice alterations may be a possible idea as well to add to their list.

You would have to work within reason with things. Obviously you cannot turn a wooden cane into a gleaming longsword...but you could attach a blade to it and turn it into a madu or something. Ultimately, we should be taking and playing with what 4D already has. Go get ore, and tools to use for the item improvements.

My opinion on Gems is this: Great idea. Get rid of innates on everything NOW, and put them on gems.

I want to see a huge stat point limit reduction for all eq. Quest eq stats need to be nerfed all around. QEQ needs slightly different array of stats along with the slot additions to separate them from everything else. They are all varying levels of heroic equipment, and thus should stand out attributes wise.

I have an enchanting system I'd like to see come it for HR/DR improvements, and item restoration (this can be useful for both enchanting and crafting). I'll post my enchanting system in a little later because I don't have time atm..there used to be a post somewhere where I palced it, but it's gone now.

Ultimately I think all eq stats should be parse, and limited. This leaves room for player improvements UPON said items through a very simple system of crafting, gemming, and enchanting. Here are some things I want to see:

1) Growing risk of item destruction as you try to hit the limits.
2) Requirement of the following things per profession type:
    Crafting: Ore, tools, and a shop.
    Gemming: rough gems, tools, shop
    Enchanting: Spirit particles (or something), and magik ingredients to create magic stones to use
                     as enchanting focuses which are destroyed with each casting attempt.
3) ZERO competition between questing and the crafts above. They should either compliment each other or the crafts
    should play second fiddle, so that we do not lose focus on questing.
4) DR/HR enhancement through enchanting should only apply to weapons.
5) AC enhancement should apply to Armor/Clothing only (this is a duh statement, but I'm saying it anyway.)
6) AC should never exceed -10 on any item at any time (this would be difficult to achieve, but if you get it, sweet.)
7) HR/DR should not exceed 5/5 on any one weapon after enchantments. (I'm going to post enchanting later)
There should be no attribute bonuses provided by anything but gemming. I think this creates a nice niche for gems since not only can they possibly bring innates to an item (those would be questy gems), but also stat bonuses.

This is what I have for now. Again, I'll post the enchanting system later, before I leave for Japan for sure.

hope this was a good post.

[Virisin]

I agree with Toch, he seems to see what I'm getting at. I also agree with Horus in that crafting shouldn't be entirely different practice sessions in a skilltree, otherwise everyone can be an explorer AND a crafter which is just silly. Skilltrees work by making people make choices, and if players want to craft they do need to sacrifice other potential skills otherwise there will be no player economy, everyone will just do everything themselves.

I'm not sure that I am happy about the idea of being able to change the type and stats of existing quest rewards with crafting, but it's simething that I'll at least think over before taking a stand for or against.

Not stats, just type. If I find a 3 damroll longsword and melt it down and reforge it into a dagger, it will still be 3 damroll. The main stats will be the same, just the weapon type and length and weight will change.

I honestly believe a crafting system that is completely separate from questing would be the death of 4d. It would be impossible to balance so that equipment from either would rival each other, and even if it was, I know many people would lose all interest if someone could just spend 3 hours mining ore and end up with some item just as good as an item it took 3 hours to quest for. Time should not be the determining factor, otherwise I don't know why we even have tradepoints.

I don't really know what else to say because no one seems to have actually really read and responded to my post.. Maybe it was too long. My second post was shorter though..

[Tynian]

I obviously only speak for myself as an oldie and a non-quester.
But I feel that a crafting system that requires a lot of diffrent things to be done
and yet doesn't turn into a massive quest for the special ore would probably interest me.
And I REALLY like the idea where if you want to be a strong adventurer you can't afford
putting a lot of pracs into crafting as where if you watn to become a really good crafter
you won't be very good at adventuring (alone, TADAA incentive to group, you soloing bastards)

I also hate how some seem to think that 4D can't possibly cater to other people than
the quest lovers. (I also resent the comments made by certain parties that I for example
as a non quester, am a lesser intelligent and therefore less valuable member of the community)

I'd love if I could contribute to the adventuring types and get more rp into the game
if crafting allowed me to make good items provided I work on getting the materials (non quest)
and all the diffrent bits and parts of making the weapon. Maybe also involve a certain time
investment to SLOW the crafting down a bit aswell so it wouldn't flood the game.

Innates on items, remove them and make it gems/runes/inscriptions on the items, enchantings as
it were. Would also make crafter valuable and able to improve those items the adventuring types get
from quests.

Also when it comes to getting ores, I wouldn't mind mining for materials and whatever dangers it'd involve
tunnelling trogdolytes, kobolds, goblins, spiders, drow and duergar(god I went deep there?) Maybe I'd need the assistance of the questing/adventurers to keep the mine safe while mining. Would make the whole thing an adventure in itself and promote RP.

Also in a related note, if I were a crafter I won't quest, hence I won't get that many tokens (if any) so I'd like that if someone likes questing to show off his intellect, let him but give us an auction / shop system where people buy items with tokens since that'd also help with any inflation.

Also if it were to 'confine' someone to being a crafter or strong adventurer, I'd (personally) like some limitations on alts, sort of making people choose, that way, if you're a quest lover, by all means go for it but you won't do crafting (at least not very good items). Just ideas and suggestions.

*expects a long flamy post by Virisin so.. *
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