Crafting, RNG and Specialisation

I thought of that, but it might be a lot more tricky to implement than a straight-up consistent cost every time. Also, I feel like I would be more likely to use all of my components making actual items, but I'd probably always have a bunch of ingots handy while crafting. Though I suppose if all this was actually implemented, I'd be less inclined to make as many items as possible using up all of my components looking for exceptionals.

 

Exactly, but ideally, to not impact the economy too much, you want to not reduce the consumption of materials. Impossible to not impact it at all, crafting and the economy are intrinsically linked.

 

THIS this this! Please. It completely undermines the meaning of the word "masterwork" to have masterworking available to lower-skill characters.

 

Oh, that was a mistake! I meant additional ones only available with GM or Spec.

 

I dunno. Wasting dozens of hours collecting materials so that you can play a slot machine and see if you get a quality item or a piece of junk is not my idea of fun.
The in game economy is completely out of wack. Raw materials are so much more valuable than the items you can create from them.
It takes how many swords-worth of materials to make one quality weapon? (ie "With all the materials I used to finally make this sword, I could have made 15 swords"...or..."It took me making 15 junk swords to finally get this quality sword").

Can't see spending hours and hours and hours, grinding the same loops to get materials just to make dozens of junk that doesn't sell for even a mere pittance of the value of the resources.
It's just not fun.

 

@Spungwa Hi, I read your 10 page manifesto, lol, JK. You have some really great ideas in there as well as some rather obtuse concepts. Overall , I think it is a good expenditure of effort and fairly well written. My major concern is not the economic impact this will have, but more the hundreds of manhours the coders would have to spend to implement even some of these changes. This should be considered by all who have "Radical" fixes to the current troubled systems. That is going to be a HUGE blocker to fomenting any type of change. I think due to the current state of affairs and the rather massive "To-Do" list already on the docket, there just isn't the resource available to make any of these changes. Your concepts and ideas would be best suited for an aspiring developer who is planning how he is going to build his or her own system. I am afraid for us at SOTA however this ship has already sailed and is currently stuck in a sandbar somewhere. I am glad you took the time to compose this and would like to say Thank You for giving me something to think about.

 

Exactly. When Chris said that on the stream (that they couldn't remove RNG because it would screw up the economy), I was thinking "The economy is already so screwed up it's not worth saving!" It may be a temporary shake-up, but it would lead to a better economy in the long run.

As for the workload, yes, I get that. But crafting of gear is so foundational to other parts of the game (obviously, the economy and combat) that I think it's worth putting in extra effort to get it right. I like your sandbar metaphor, @Fenrus MacRath. An expedition can't operate without supplies, and as long our game's supply ship is stuck on that sandbar...

 

Unless my character is unique somehow, gear lasts a very long time once you get it. Some of my armor ive had going on 3 years now so being able to get the armor you want right away I don't think would help the economy in the long run unless (and im nto sure anyone wants this due to protests in the past) gear was made to wear out to an unrepairable state way quicker.

We'd need a more fluid market for gear that moves quicker at the same time we get a quicker/easier/cheaper way to get that gear. right now the only reason I buy gear is to upgrade what I already got, which is a direct result of the crafting RNG.

 

Sota is a skill ''power ''based game - While in other games characters have to obtain certain equipment to be able to overcome a certain difficulty ... in sota most of the character power comes from skills , food , potions , buffs ... this makes low to medium quality gear very undesirable ...the crafting market can turn a profit but only if highest level is achieved...perfect or close to perfect items . Because a character crafted gear makes up only 20 % -30 % of its total power ( sometimes even less ) most players prefer to invest in what comes free or very cheap ( like skills or food potions blessings) rather then gear .

The current crafting system ( up to this day ) made everyone self sufficient ... this didnt help the crafting economy much either ...if everyone crafts his own gear ...we cant talk about a crafting economy.

The non existent leveling progression in crafting . If everyone is a crafter its really hard to get your products to the surface and make people buy them . Without a special something to differentiate crafters , were gonna have 100 crafters trying to sell crafted gear to ...100 crafters . Some get lucky with rng and sell , some dont get lucky and take the loss . As it stands right now rng is probably the only factor in crafting that can still make goods move ...once/if rng is removed ... the ''crafting economy '' will be pretty much dead.

There are other issues also but gonna stop at these for now .

Solutions

1. Increase the power players get from crafted gear ( 50 % for gear , 50% for rest skills..food potions..)
2. Make leveling crafting matter ... if im 120 in a profession i expect to craft lot better gear then someone whos 100 ...if im 141 i should notice a difference from someone whos 140 ..even if its small..right now ...you only gain something every 5-10 levels and even then its barely noticeable ....

3. My solution for crafting is a simple one ..it involves applying the same system we have for artifacts in crafting Legendary Crafted Gear .

Chris already said in multiple streams he will adress most of the issues i already pointed out ..to what extent we will have to wait and see ... all we know so far is we gonna get rerolls ...i hope were not gonna be asked to invest hundreds of mil xp just to get some rerolls ... would be..dissapointing to say the least ...with rare and legendary artifacts ingame ..but no possibility for crafters to match the scales .... the future for crafters doesnt look very bright.

 

Chris just called the status of crafting "embarrassing", said it was the primary motivation for dropping the highly structured schedules. But I'm not sure whether that meant they were motivated to fix crafting or motivated to lessen the likelihood of people complaining about what wasn't delivered on schedule. But it sounded good at the time, at least. (Starting at 00:58)

 

@Elrond I agree with what you are saying, except for the part quoted here. Primarily because , I don't understand why you say this. Can you please elaborate on why you think RNG is the only reason goods move? and why its removal is the death of our economy. I think I have a grasp on the fact that if you get exceptional random rolls and make an amazing item, it will move. My question is , Why do you think this is the only factor ? Why do you thinks its removal will kill crafting, and lastly does modification to the system qualify as the same as "removal".

 

To make a profit in crafting you have to craft perfect or almost perfect items ..that means getting lucky with rng ... if you are successfull the resulted item has value ( anywhere from 100k to few mil ). Once you remove rng and you craft only perfect items the value of perfect items drops to material costs and eventually lower ( anywhere from 1k to few kk )...

Well there are other factors but they dont have anything to do with crafting ( as rng does ) so i didnt mention them as i didnt wanna make my post too long ..for example vendor location ..which town is placed , how close to the entrance , how often you advertise ... all these also impact your sales .

If you are reffering to the upcoming changes '' Rerolls '' for enchants , masterworks ... im not sure making high end items easier to craft will fix our current problems . What do i see as the biggest issue with crafting ...if you craft something it has to have value and people should want/need to buy it ... currently the supply exceeds demand by far ...all that rerolls will do is replace current garbage gear on vendors with better gear ...but the demand and supply will remain the same . I think the biggest problem for crafters is not making the items but selling them ( prefferably to players )... so bringing in rerrolls and new enchants and presenting them as a fix for the crafting economy is just a smokescreen which will eventually lead to same issue we have today once the market is saturated with the new stuff.

The fix for this would have been the solution i proposed for legendary gear ... that would have translated in the economy by creating scarcity of raw materials therefore on crafted goods . But after watching Chris stream today and talking to him about it i realised it was not viable to combine crafted gear to get next tier, because of different gear stats based on crafters level , instead Chris had a better solution which i hope he will follow through in the future ...that is combining at raw material level ..basically combining 4 ingots to get a next tier ingot and so on ...the resulted combined ingots will also allow for better stats gear .... what we would have today would be common ingots ... combining 4 would result in 4 uncommon and so on until legendary ingots ( ofc names can be different like pure ingot so on ) ..but the idea is sound and can really tip the scale towards more demand then supply . Just to make a legendary bronze plate set would require the combination of 4992 bronze ingots that is alot of ore for just 1 armor set but the result has to match the huge task of crafting it ... the vendors would be out of gear and ore in no time .... and we would have a viable economy for crafting.

To conclude ..Legendary gear (creates scarcity for ore and other crafting materials , increases demand for crafted gear, 1 legendary plate set = 64 normal sets ..that means less gear on vendors ) + rerolls ( makes the system less punishing )+ new enchants /masterworks ( ensures variety ) + crafting level that matters ( motivates people to level their skills , time sinks, gold sinks , high demand for all harvestable goods that can translate into craft xp)...and we will finally have a complete /viable crafting system ..remove any from the equation and the system becomes either too punishing or too boring , too easy or unrewarding.

 

I advocate the removal of most RNG from crafting. It's not fun for the majority of people, and therefore, shouldn't be in the game.

But, it's not wrong that it'd break the economy (more than it is). That's why when I advocate for the removal, it's part of a larger equation. There's pairs of game mechanics that work together. For instance, Eve Online has minimal-RNG, but with almost everything is destroyed in the long run. It'd destroy Eve's economy if it worked the way SOTA's does currently.

RNG is a stop-gap answer that's only needed because everything surrounding crafting is fundamentally borked, and exists as a local maxima. It'd like being trapped below deck in a sinking ship, and finding a pocket of air. This pocket of air is only seemingly useful because it's the only immediate solution and it seems counter-intuitive that the solution to your problems is to dive into the water, away from that pocket of air.

 

People complain about loss of equipment... but that's already happening. Instead of out in the battlefield, it's in the crafters' shops.

Edit: Let me rephrase. Item loss is happening, but instead of out in the field, shouldered by more people, it's happening in the crafters' shops, with the brunt taken by fewer people

 

I like the ingot combining idea, but not if rng is still a major factor. 4000 ingots and still ending up with gear I don't want is the worst possible change to crafting I can think of.

 

Why not allow an additional optional ingredient that helps improve the RNG towards a specific stats? Like buying say, 'Blessed water of Courage' that cost 100 gp from the devotional caretaker in Resolute. This additional ingredient can give masterworking / enchanting a +50% (% can be dependent on crafting specialization level) chance in strength related options.

It can act as a gold sink and let crafters have a better chance at the stats they want.

 

There's a better way of handling crafting than a stark RNG system. Use resource/component/item Qualities.
Junk/Low/Average/High/Exceptional/Perfect. With a combination of character crafting Skill Level and Quality of items when you put them together, you can limit items crafted by players.

For example, a lower level crafter is able to competently work with up to Low quality resources/components/items without mucking them up. They can combine low quality wood (and fuels) to make low quality timbers. Then work the low quality timers into low quality boards, etc. Each time the crafter makes something, there's a SLIGHT chance that the quality of the result is lower quality, or higher quality (but never 2 steps above the character's skill level). If the character works with resources/components above their skill level, they'll just ruin the components and drop the quality (because they marred it, over heated it, etc).

That means that you would need a really skilled Mill worker to make high quality and higher components. And high level final-item crafters would be able to fully utilize higher quality components into making high end gear. It moves from RNG at the table (a soul crushing endeavor to see your hard gathered material poof away into some piece of junk), into the gathering side of the equation (ie, "I was out chopping wood for 2 hours and got 30 low quality wood, 20 average quality wood, 10 high quality wood, 5 exceptional and a 1 perfect").

Basically, items created have the limit of their ability/power based upon a) the skill level of the crafter and b) the quality of the components they are using to make the items. The power of the items moves from being based upon frustrating RNG mechanics ("Dammit! I have a 130 skill level in Blacksmithing, and I'm specialized! And I've made 14 pieces of junk with totally the wrong stats because RNGesus is against me!") to being based upon quality of resources..which is more palatable, since people are already gathering raw materials by the thousands.

If you wanted to extend the crafting system, you could have different fuels and other additives when crafting, which gives added bonuses (ie the random bonuses we get with the current RNG system) in addition to the base properties of the raw material being used to make the item (ie, Copper vs Iron vs Bronze etc). So, if you want a STR bonus to your sword, you would add in some Ironwood Temper (or other dropable/harvestable/craftable item).
OR....you could add new "techniques" under the Specialization which allows you to embue an item with additional bonuses (ie, Sharpen technique adds bonus damage to the weapon, or Lighten technique makes the item lighter and swing faster, etc).

 

Exactly. Make people lose gear when they die, unless they succeed at a corpse run. You can tweak how many pieces drop, how long they stick around, etc, and have some of those pieces enter the loot pool instead of vendored garbage that no one is ever going to want. Then strip out the vast majority of RNG and have any RNG you leave in scale with skill. Also add a bunch of other non-RNG stuff that scales with skill (e.g. instead of exceptional, cut a bunch of endurance off every item and have base crafting skill add endurance to the result). This has the effect of both gear becoming cheaper and demand being higher which starts the economy moving. It also pulls some of the losses from the economy away from crafters (who are currently shouldering all of it) and onto other players, which makes crafting feel less miserable.

 

We already have "Exceptional" items. I see it all the time when making timbers, boards, ingots, etc. Why don't those exceptional values account for anything?

The numbers I used were just example. I don't mean to say that should be the spread. Just means that the economy grows when there are more options of raw materials/components. I mean, ANYONE can find a perfect raw material...which should be valued more than a low or average quality raw material. Just saying, the current RNG system is horrible, makes no sense (as it's not tied to skill at all) and it's frustrating as hell. There are better ways to "control" the items created (which I am assuming Portalarium is doing by using the RNG system...controlling what items go out) than by using an RNG system and frustrating players.