How Crafting makes the world go round....

Hail and well met!

I believe that SotA has a chance to bring back gaming the way gaming was intended.

Crafting, in my opinion can do this.

Just think if there was a crafting system in a game where the players craft custom armor and weapons. When I say craft custom armor I mean actually design it themselves. A design tool would pop up and the players would "draw" their own helm. Depending on their "skill" level the tool would allow them to zoom in according to their level to see the impurities in the helm. The lower the skill the less impurities they're able to see. Impurities would be physically hammered out.. the whole point to this is to bring actual skill to crafting besides getting a pattern and the material needed and press a button.

After you've made the first "helm' in full you'll learn that pattern for future use. You'll still have to bang out the impurities but the time would be cut down.

One thing that I've alway wanted to see in a game was the ability to choose your own stats on items.

Lets just say a Helm that is made by a Grand Master Armor Smith has 0 Impurities. It has a total of 100 out of 100 possible stat points. This Smith sells his Helm on a vendor. I buy this helm and am now able to choose my own stats.

I choose

AR - 30
Stam - 20
Int - 20
Dex - 10
Fire resist - 10
Cold resist - 10

You get the point... I can choose the stats... I can then take it to a GM Smith to reset the stat points as well.

So that would be how I would love to see Armor and Weapons crafted in game. Put it into the players hands. Not sure how that would be on the server side for memory but I'm sure they could figure something out.

Add ons or Enchants on these items...Similar to Diablo's rune system or WoW's enchanting/jewelcrafting with a twist..

Using the same type of design tool that you used for the Armorsmithing... you design your weapon enchant.

Example: I'm out farming Air Elementals and after 100 kills I found some cool gems... 3 Red gems, 4 purple, 2 blue 5 diamonds. I open my design tool and place my sword into it. I then drop 1 red gem into it. This gem gives me the option to give it a red glow. I drop 1 more red gem.. the glow intensifies..... another red gem the glow starts to turn into fire... ext.. you should get the point... purple gems could be extra swing speed modifiers, blue could be +cold damage... ext..

Crafting: Spells

How many people have played a game were at level 1 you get "Fireball"... at level 10 you get "Lava Blast" ext... been there done that... boring....

How about making your own spell... you pick if it's a damage spell, healing spell or buff... Pick the color and animation effect.

Example: I'll use the Farming Air Elementals again... Ok after 100 kills I have those gems... Open up my design tool and select spell. The Diamond is used as the main modifier. So 1 diamond would be +10 damager or +100 healing ext....

So I name my spell "Fire Blast"

2 Diamonds +20 Damage
2 Purple +20 Yards(it's a ranged spell)
1 Red +10 Fire Damage

I think that should paint the picture pretty good. Now these would be capped obviously with level or magic skill level...

Not everyone will like this style but I think it would be very unique and open up a totally new type of gaming experience and sense of pride/ownership that has never been seen.

A unique crafting system will really help fuel the ecosystem... You'll have everyone gathering resources out in the wild, PK's looking for these gatherers, Anti PK's guarding the gatherers..... one happy little eco system.

 

I'm very reluctant to see stats on gear. A helm should just be a helm.
I'm all for letting players design the look of gear but I don't know how to police it if they design something that is offensive.
I'm not necessarily against a system that lets players add flair to spells.

 

"draw" your own helm? If the image that comes to mind is accurate then I don't see how this is practical. You're basically suggesting that the player can shape their own viable 3D mesh in-game and have that be a helm or whatever other crafted item. This could be extremely expensive (if I might use the dev's own terms) to do and thus not very likely.

Now what would be easier is to select from a number of options for a helm and then morph it with sliders.. and possibly add a limited assortment of accessories.

As for impurities, I'm sorry that just sounds too tedious for anyone other than a hardcore crafter. Impurities in materials should be handled during processing materials, not the final craft.

I suggest the following discussions for reading.. There are several other good ones but these two are specifically geared towards the crafting system and item properties.

*Shameless Plug*

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=craft-system-brainstorm
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?topic=item-properties-enchantments

 

err forgot to add. Love the idea of crafting spells. I know they're planning a lot of variety and potentially mutliple schools of magic but there isn't much info available on the subject yet.

 

I do like the idea of crafting your own helm visually, but not really 100% 3D modeling, because as has been said already, we could have very offensive helms (or a Hello Kitty helm, lol).

However, having a templating system allowing for different components to be combined to create custom equipment would be nice.

Helm components: top cover (just a bowl on your head), side plates to add protection to the sides and or back of your head), face plate / visor, horns and spikes, jewels, chain-mail drape, etc. Have a number of different variations on each, and allow them to be interchangable at the time of crafting, with the possibility of each individual part to break off eventually if not repaired in a timely manner. This would allow for a sort of "battle damage".

Depending on your crafting experience level (or however that will be figured out), you can add more and more parts to the helm, increase both its durability, protective capabilities, but also its complexity and materials required.

Example: you have a helm with top cover, side plates, horns, and now want to add a visor to it. This is complex enough at this point that you fail on your first attempt, but with no real negative effect. You try a second time, fail again, but this time the helm suffers a base durability loss. Third attempt succeeds, but you still have that slight loss of base durability from that second attempt.

Later you try making a helm identical to it, but you put the visor on BEFORE the spikes, since spikes should be easier to mount on a helm than the visor, and everything works out as you want on the first try. You then take the first helm and salvage it for scrap, and sell the second one.

 

Yes, I should of been more clear on "Drawing" your own Helm... Obviously you wouldn't have to CAD the thing. There could be templates but you add the spikes, visor ext and use sliders to alter them a bit.

I'm just saying that making crafting more viable would ease the strain of farming items in dungeons.

 

So basically morphing, component variety and accessories. Sounds good to me.