Crafting Recipes

Discussion in 'Crafting & Gathering' started by Strumshot, May 18, 2015.

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  1. Strumshot

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    I hereby submit the notion to put in place a simple system that would allow for multiple items to have the same inputs and input totals.

    Let me start by saying that the system as it stands is beautiful.

    However, I fear that as the game rolls on and more recipes are added there may come a point where a bandana takes 42 bolts of cloth. Given such, no one will ever make bandanas, as more bolts not more better! Allowing redundant inputs would eventually mean a very easy-to-expand catalog of craftables and a wide variety of displayed gear on players in the game.

    I will take it a step further as to offer a simple solution. Perhaps the recipe is a required input in the crafting? Double-clicking the recipe in the book puts all of the ingredients - including the recipe - on the table. The recipes would not have to be carried by the player, because they are in the book. The only element of the current system that would break by this method is the ability to guess a recipe, aka look it up online; circumventing the recipes items and vendors you worked so hard on. This now-broken element is to me, the least immersive element of the crafting as it stands today anyway.

    Feel free to use that. I mean its my idea, but you can use it; I will let you. Let's not lie, you were going to steal the idea anyway, so why not give you permission? Go ahead.

    Thanks for your time!
     
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  2. Mercury74

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    Another option that would not impact the discovery aspect of the system would be to have some way to indicate to the crafting station what you are trying to make at a high level. You indicate you want to makes boots and put ingredients on the table, if there is a recipe for boots with those ingredients you would make those boots. You could then have the exact same ingredients and specify gloves and you would make gloves.
     
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  3. Strumshot

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    That was actually my first idea but then two gloves designs could not share ingredients, and it would still casually eat into the discovery approach. I landed on menu based being the second option behind using the recipe. I'm sure there are many other ways as well, hopefully they address this in some way.
     
  4. Morkul

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    I have been suggesting similar system before so I really hope that the devs are listening because the current system will only be confusing and illogical when they start adding a lot of items.
     
  5. Strumshot

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    Ok, so maybe it wasn't my idea alone (I only added that for comedic value) but I hope they head that way as well!
     
  6. Brightstar

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    There are a few issues I have with crafting. First the crafting book is going to be HUGE if you add every recipe with all the variations of all the items. For this I suggest a general category of items. Ex: for making "boots" you would have the basic recipe for a pair of boots, and a drop down list showing the other various types of boots you've discovered, like boots of power (add leather strap), boots of defense (use hard leather), etc. OR an alternative could be, you list the item: boots of power and click on it and it expands to show the ingredients that are needed. ;)

    Regarding crafting materials itself, the amount of material you get when you make something is way out of proportion. For ex: not counting tools and raw ingredients, it takes a crazy amount of wood to make ONE wooden pole. You need 8 wood, to make 6 timber to make 1 pole? Really, I should get at least 4 poles out of that (or more). Like Strumshot mentioned, 42 bolts of cloth for a bandana? I could make a suit of cloth armor and a tent out of all that material. :p

    Now I can understand, if you have level modifications you may end up using more materials than necessary only because you're not experienced enough (ie. made mistakes, cut it wrong, didn't fit right, messed it up somehow). :(

    Otherwise, I love the fact you have LOTS of items you can craft (add more please), and that you need items and advanced material/items to make them, and maybe need a certain skill level to make high end items.

    One last thing to add, you need to increase the amount of resources one gathers when scavenging around the world. Ok, I'm done for now. :rolleyes:
     
  7. Strumshot

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    I think part of the oddity of some of the recipes is due to that very fact, that hey must be unique recipes.

    Also meticulous harvest handles the harvesting numbers, but it is turned off right now due to client exploits until they can fix it.
     
  8. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Well since it's being brought up again I will reiterate one of my ideas to mitigate the issue.

    Much like molds for smelting and smithing.. I would include blueprints and patterns. These would indicate what it is you are trying to make. ie a table blueprint would work for all tables. A 'footwear' pattern would work for all shoes and boots.

    For cooking you use more tools. Like you'ld need a pie dish to make pies or a pot to make soups or stews..
     
  9. Strumshot

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    Yeah, I personally could work with this. It still for me doesn't solve the similar inputs question, but it does subdivide it. A wizard hat couldn't have the same inputs as a bandana. But I always am a fan of another step into immersion and involved crafting. I could see the two approaches mixing together.
     
  10. Dorham Isycle

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    So then you could use the same ingredients for gauntlets as another recipe for gauntlets but with a different blueprint/pattern, the gauntlets would look different & be called different but have the same material bonus stats, although their base stats could be different... Right? If so, I like it.

    There will be literally 100's of variations
     
  11. Strumshot

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    That is 100% the idea. It becomes much more scalable and logical in an immersion sense.

    To diverge a bit, I would also love an added element where there are some mobs in the game that drop different weapons/gear that is generic and not worth using, but look cool; different than the recipes you can buy. Such as a lich's axe. Take that generic, no mat bonus item, put it on a table, and "reverse engineer" it and the output is a recipe.

    Boom.
     
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  12. Bowen Bloodgood

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    The original idea I had come up with oh so long ago.. was to do something similar to Minecraft.. since Richard had said he liked that system.. that relative placement of components on the work space actually be part of the recipe. Granted, while that works well with weapons, not so much armor I suppose. Components would've needed to be more specific than they presently are. At the time though crafting hadn't even been designed yet so everything was pretty much up in the air.

    Still, I like patterns and blueprints. Molds seem to work pretty well with blacksmithing (even if arguably unrealistic).. basically the same thing.
     
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  13. 4EverLost

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    I like.......especially for the Minecraft reference. Anything to do with Minecraft cannot be all so bad. :p
     
  14. Strumshot

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    In theory the mine craft approach could solve it. In the end I think the goals should be immersion and scalability. I really do love the system so far, but both of these are a pinch worrisome long term. The immersion is close for now but will break more the more recipes are added.

    Either recipes/blueprints as a crafting ingredient and/or arrangements seems a simple fix to me.
     
  15. redfish

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    If we're already getting into things like blueprints, maybe it also makes sense to just step back and see how the recipes can be broken down into smaller steps.

    For example, leather boots according to the wiki requires 3 yards of leather and some tailoring scissors.

    But lets say in order to make shoes or boots, you first have to construct the soles. Here are some instructions on how to construct medieval shoes: http://www.the-exiles.org/Article makingmedishoes.htm

    The ingredients it lists:
    • Sole Leather – 4-7mm thick vegetable tanned
    • Upper leather – 1.5 – 3mm thick vegetable tanned
    • A square of canvas about 40 – 50cm each side
    • Two saddlers needles (heavy duty blunt needles)
    • Linen thread
    • An awl – diamond section, very sharp.
    • A Stanley/Craft knife
    • A tape measure
    • A pencil
    • Scissors
    • Leather thonging
    • Beeswax
    The first step, according to this set of instructions, is to cut out the soles using a pattern you create.

    Then, in the game, the recipe for a shoe or boot could use a leather sole, or wooden sole, or whatever type of sole as a base item, and this is what would let the game know you're trying to create a shoe or boot.

    This would be similar to how swords require a hilt and a blade. And its possible a lot more of our crafting recipes can be broken down logically like this to prevent the necessity of redundant recipes.
     
  16. Bowen Bloodgood

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    That ingredient list is already beyond early thinking for the max number of ingredients on the highest level craft stations.. which I think was 10. Anyway, the wiki is terribly out of date. The actual recipe for boots is currently..

    2 yards of leather
    2 metal bindings??
    wax
    rawhide mallet
    scissors.

    R17 introduced some new tools which help break things down a bit more.. it's a good step but I think we can take it a little further. Rawhide mallet, bone needle, hot chisel & wire pliers.

    Some of my early ideas I'm sure were simply just too expensive to do.. and at the time crafting was designed the budget was still around the 2 million mark for the entire game. So while you'll find most of the concepts that went into crafting here on the forums.. a lot of it was simplified or just not used. Still, a lot of backer ideas went in to form the foundation of what we have now which is pretty cool. :)
     
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  17. Strumshot

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    +1 for immersion! Never a bad thing in my book. One of my main goals with this suggestion is for a variety of items visually in particular, without needing 1000000 hard coded unique recipes. So that would still need to be addressed, but I like it!
     
  18. redfish

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    Ah okay, I haven't checked the new recipes in the game.

    Still, it would make sense to make soles before making the shoes, and for the use of soles in the crafting recipe to tell the game "I'm making shoes". That's also where the pattern would come in -- a pattern for cutting the soles, and then you fashion the shoe or boots around the soles.

    Metal bindings would be for buckles , or for fastening the soles , etc ?
     
  19. Morkul

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    First off: Minecraft idea might be a good one if you are designing a game that only have a limited amount of items. As the numbers of items grow and every recipe needs to be unique the amount if ingredients will grow or the amount you use will grow so much so it would be scalable. So I sincerely hope Richard drop this approach and that fast!

    I really like the idea of blueprints but there is concerns. If you take swords as example: When you make a sword you will decide on a design you like, or if you you customer order a sword with a design in mind. Then you start making the items for that sword, yes there is several parts like the blade, pommel, grip and guard but all are made in one design and are made to fit one sword. I cant take the guard from one sword and just put in on another sword, specially if it's a completely other design (example: short sword vs 2h sword). What I'm trying to say is that there is okay if there is some kind of multi step production but there is no logic to first produce 100 hilts then 100 blades then to make 100 swords because that makes no sense at all.
     
  20. Bowen Bloodgood

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    There was another idea that was intended to work with the Minecraft concept.. it would've allowed you to essentially manipulate the shape of components. If you've ever played SPORE, just think about how they did vehicle and building parts and you'll get the idea. You would then be able to commit the modifications to "memory" in order to reproduce the results. 1 recipe would be able to produce thousands of variations in appearance with no change in the materials or process.

    Recipes were also suggested to be a little more modular than what we have but I guess they think that would be far to complicated to code so they went with individual recipes instead. Again with design and implementation being limited by budget and schedules. We do at least see some modular aspects in a few recipes but I'm not sure if they're actually coded that way or the craft book is made to give that appearance. (recipes that call for either maple or pine boards for example).
     
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