Crafting / Looting

[Ilium]

This really needs to be posted before I continue my input in classes, especially Thief.

Basically, what is everyone's opinion on how crafting should be handled in the game? I personally am heavily in favor of the looting mechanic that is in FFTA2. Players received loot from fallen enemies and completing quests. This loot was taken to a 'Bazaar', where you would trade in different loot combinations to gain access to new weapons.

In this game, Loot would be handled in a similar way. PC's keep whatever Loot they receive from enemies they down. Loot is then subsequently divided out amongst the party if the quest/monster hunt/whatever is successful. The player would then  take that Loot to the Bazaar, where they could sell it for gil or have weapons, items, accessories, and shields built for them. This would be the fastest and simplest way to handle the crafting mechanic in this game, and it would make it much easier for everyone to gain new items without having to necessarily pay gil each and every time. Looting combinations would not be secret in this game, there would be a list right from the beginning allowing everyone to know which loot combos supply which new item.

This would also fix the steal mechanic for the Thief. That job would have steal commands that if successful, would provide additional loot. In this way the Thief does not actually steal the equipped items from the target.

[kablizzy]

Huh, nifty, kinda. I'm not sure how I feel right off the bat with this, although the concept seems sound enough. I do like the Thief = Loot thing also, that was kinda my idea surrounding the Thief anyway.

Insofar as crafting, I loved the way HoC: China did crafting back in the day, and I always wanted it to be slightly more immersive. For crafting, I want players to be able to dedicate PTs and JP to that (Not like it was in HoI v2, though; That became a messy clusterfucky mess), bettering their skill in crafting. Dedicated crafters would be rewarded with higher-quality stuff per investment, and eventually, I'd like for some of the better equipment in the game to come from player-run shops, as I'd love to see the NPC shops go by the wayside. I recall PC-run shops in HoC: China making items that were generally better than those you could get in the shops, but they were quite a bit more expensive (I recall my PC bidding against entire kingdoms to buy some of those items). I'd also like it if the player wants to focus on Gil and items, that they have an avenue to pursue that in lieu of more rapid character development.

Just some base musings.

[Schwerpunkt]

NPC shops are lazy. They dilute the market with an infinite supply of gear and basically render it impossible to make an effective living as a crafter. Mord's already demonstrated quite clearly that you don't need NPC crafters (although they're making a very limited return in the next WotD for balance purposes, but that's only for a gamble type of crafting), so I don't see why we'd willingly follow any other model if we actually have the player base to avoid needing NPCs to craft.

So here are my thoughts.

In broad strokes, I figure we're going to have different crafting skills for: clothing (including the glove accessories), armor and shields, regular weapons (swords, spears, knives), exotic weapons (katanas, ninja knives), cloaks ('mantles' from the original FFT; they basically just prove Ev), potions (Chemist could make a showing as a sub-group for crafting restorative items), staves (just all the MOJ rods), and instruments (or whatever we end up doing with those hippy classes). These skills would probably have two ranks in total. The first lets you craft the stuff, the second reduces the amount of resources required or reduces the time (depending on how we're working that angle). So the first tier would be fine for anyone to achieve working functionality, while the second tier (probably more expensive) is ideal for shop owners.

HoC's current system basically involves hunting down individual metals (or whatever) to combine together and then use in crafting. While that's extremely clunk there (it's entirely RNG), it makes more sense here, especially if we award better crafting goods from props and MHs. Or, hell, have rare crafting goods available from poaching (after all, where else are you going to get dragon gut string for that uber-bow?).

I'd also like to see crafting at least award JP, if not JP and XP.





In the case of battle loot, I'm fine with perma-dead units coughing up some of their shinies (but, for the sake of balance, not all of it). But if we're using an Heir system, we can't do that with PCs.







An option for Thief might be to explore giving them unique items they can't use or sell ("You've stolen an Ornamental Snow Globe from Hvitnaflod! Congratulations!"), which would then be turned into a collector of some sort in return for a reward. Basically, you'd be stealing stuff on behalf of people who want certain things stolen.

Thoughts on that?

[Diethe]

So let's make a loot list then that would then branch out into useable items. The unique items that can't be used or sold by thieves seem alright, but that seems to be being selfish for just one class and the fact that other players won't even need thief as part of their parties where there are other classes that would be more useful.

So how about this? We have metals for weapons and armor(Mythril, etc), leather and cloth for clothing, magicite for rods and staves, wood for staves also and bows and the other stuff Schwer said? Combine this with what Kablizzy said about taking time in your personal turn to develop great weapons and you have a formula from which to craft items, multiplied by the player's skill in that profession? We have smiths for metalworking, tanners or tailors for clothes, enchanters for magic-related items, trader for exotic stuff, etc?

And if people don't like thieves and chemists looting useful stuff, how about 'loot bags' which can either be opened for a random loot or sold at a much lower price than raw materials at the market? Or of course, sold to a PC at whatever price. Not sure if we can level the loot bag like 'green' loot bag for small items like potions and 'red' loot bags from bosses for random good stuff, sort of like an 'unidentified item' in Diablo or D&D. Chemists can have some passive skill that allows them to increase loot at the end of the battle (lorewise from scavenging, quartermastering, etc) while thieves can loot each NPCs (or even PCs) only once per battle for a loot bag?

[Diethe]

Basically here's my proposal: (Flexible, of course.)

We have crafting tables for each loot right? Like for example 8 metal for 1 armor. How about, with each craft, you increase in your skill as a stat? So a very experienced smith may be able to create a better piece of armor?

Smith Skill: 1 + 8 metal = Iron Armor (Armor: 5)
Smith Skill: 20 + 8 metal = Iron Armor (Armor: 8 with a chance to add a random stat like +10 HP like Iron Armor of the Stout or something)

[kablizzy]

NPC shops are lazy. They dilute the market with an infinite supply of gear and basically render it impossible to make an effective living as a crafter. Mord's already demonstrated quite clearly that you don't need NPC crafters (although they're making a very limited return in the next WotD for balance purposes, but that's only for a gamble type of crafting), so I don't see why we'd willingly follow any other model if we actually have the player base to avoid needing NPCs to craft.

I agree entirely, but in the past, there's been no way to flood the market early with the goods needed, and as such, NPC shops have traditionally been the solution. I never liked this, so anything we can do to fix it would be awesome.

In broad strokes, I figure we're going to have different crafting skills for: clothing (including the glove accessories), armor and shields, regular weapons (swords, spears, knives), exotic weapons (katanas, ninja knives), cloaks ('mantles' from the original FFT; they basically just prove Ev), potions (Chemist could make a showing as a sub-group for crafting restorative items), staves (just all the MOJ rods), and instruments (or whatever we end up doing with those hippy classes). These skills would probably have two ranks in total. The first lets you craft the stuff, the second reduces the amount of resources required or reduces the time (depending on how we're working that angle). So the first tier would be fine for anyone to achieve working functionality, while the second tier (probably more expensive) is ideal for shop owners.

I don't care as much about the specifics, except for the concept that I would like there to be some development at least mirroring the remainder of the sim. I think the way Civilian was done in v2 was kinda inelegant, and there were just way the Hell too many things to conceptualize, and I'd like to have a couple ranks total, with the ability to master a specific trade and be able to make more unique and higher-powered stuff as the trade progresses.

HoC's current system basically involves hunting down individual metals (or whatever) to combine together and then use in crafting. While that's extremely clunk there (it's entirely RNG), it makes more sense here, especially if we award better crafting goods from props and MHs. Or, hell, have rare crafting goods available from poaching (after all, where else are you going to get dragon gut string for that uber-bow?).

I'm okay with this also, rare items should be made by rare materials, and if we want to edit the system, we can do it user-end by adding more materials.

I'd also like to see crafting at least award JP, if not JP and XP.

This'd be cool too.

In the case of battle loot, I'm fine with perma-dead units coughing up some of their shinies (but, for the sake of balance, not all of it). But if we're using an Heir system, we can't do that with PCs.

An option for Thief might be to explore giving them unique items they can't use or sell ("You've stolen an Ornamental Snow Globe from Hvitnaflod! Congratulations!"), which would then be turned into a collector of some sort in return for a reward. Basically, you'd be stealing stuff on behalf of people who want certain things stolen.

Intriguing. I'd like to explore this quite a bit more. In terms of perma-dead, I dunno if I care about them coughing up their own loot, but yeah, this all was stuff I wanted to do with v2, and failed miserably because no one ever worked on it.

[sunspawn]

About NPC shops - to make them less prevalent later, the staff can slowly reduce their wares and stock due to the war, making player crafting more important as the crafters' skill levels rise. So with the war pooring everyone around, the only way to get decent equips will be either by making them yourself or going to a PC crafter.

[Schwerpunkt]

Well, sunspawn, I like the notion but it'd just be extremely hard to track. I think it'd be easier to include only a few NPCs selling goods and they'd be selling goods at inflated prices. That way you clearly encourage PCs to eventually buy from PCs (especially if NPCs stop selling goods at like Tier 3 and PCs need Tier 5 gear or whatever) without having to worry about tracking resource scarcity for them.

So, same basic idea, but a bit easier to implement.

I agree entirely, but in the past, there's been no way to flood the market early with the goods needed, and as such, NPC shops have traditionally been the solution. I never liked this, so anything we can do to fix it would be awesome.

We have three real options.

1. Allow NPCs to sell all items at all times. This is basically what RTKO does (note, for those who have never played it, that RTKO almost always made the worst possible decision at every branch; and I say this as a former staffer). Under this system, PCs would produce the same gear, just cheaper.

2. Implement a WotD-esque system where you simply do not have NPC shops (or, if you do, only in extremely niche roles for the sake of balance).

3. Implement a system where NPCs either stop being viable (their stuff is too expensive, they don't sell high enough level stuff, etc.) after a bit.

I personally think that if we use Option 3, and have NPCs stop selling gear beyond level 10 or so (which gives them the first two or three tiers of loot), we'll be good to go.

I'm okay with this also, rare items should be made by rare materials, and if we want to edit the system, we can do it user-end by adding more materials.

It'd be a fantastic way to implement Poach -- kill high-level mobs, collect high-level components, and then you can either sell the components to crafters or use them to craft gear.

Basically, we'd be replacing the traditional "I guess I'm going to Mine in this PT because I have nothing better to do" system with "I want to make some extra money, so I'm going to go kill a dragon and loot his fangs." The latter also has the benefit of giving JP/XP instead of being a bland PT action.

Intriguing. I'd like to explore this quite a bit more. In terms of perma-dead, I dunno if I care about them coughing up their own loot, but yeah, this all was stuff I wanted to do with v2, and failed miserably because no one ever worked on it.

Well, I figure they'd either cough up gil, one of their items, or a consumable of some sort. This would balance the fact that we probably wouldn't reward gil for MHs.






Alright, there are basically three ways to do item crafting.

1. Invest money, get item. This is probably the simplest. WotD uses this (although you need special items to get special effects) and so does pretty much everyone else.

2. Crafting is primarily resource driven. You'd collect metals for armor and metal weapons, wood for staves/rods/sticks/bows, and cloth for clothing. Separate from this you'd be Poaching more unique items (Dragon Fangs might give the weapon a fire element bonus, Chocobo Feather might be needed for items with +move, Gut String might be necessary for high-level bows, etc), which is then used to create items with special effects. With this system, every resource you can collect has an inherent Resource Value (RV) and you'd have set numbers of RV to achieve for each weapon.

3. A combination of resources and money. HoC uses this system. I'm not a big fan; I'd rather have people work for (or buy) their components and then use them.



I kind of like 2. So, using Diethe's suggestion, I'd make a system like this.

- Tailor I would let you craft funny hats. Tailor II would let you craft those same funny hats but at a lower direct cost to you (say an item requires 20 RV; you might be able to do it for 16). Tailor M (you'd only get one M-tier crafting skill) might reduce that further to something like 12 instead of 20.

- Every relevant item you add would confer a set amount of RV. The primary source of resources would be from MHs; you'd be rewarded with gil and a resource like Iron (or the level-appropriate material) for completing it.

- Special effects would be achieved through Poaching mobs and collecting unique reagents. See 2 for examples of what those might be. These would be tacked on in addition to the base item, but only one per item (so you couldn't make an Ancient Sword with +Fire from Dragon Fang and +Water from Mindflayer Tentacle). Naturally, harder mobs would have to drop better reagents. If you poach a mob, you get the item; no RNG involved (since there's already RNG determining when they show up).

- When it comes to different item tiers, you'd be able to mix-and-match. If you have a bar of mythril worth 20 RV and the item you want is 30 RV, you can fill in the rest with 5 RV iron ingots. Or you can use just iron ingots to make that mythril sword because requiring specific metals is irritating. Additionally, if you use that 20 RV ingot on an iron sword (costing 10 RV), you'd get two iron ingots back. Basically, RV is basically a currency unto itself.

[Ilium]

NPC shops should be something we role with exclusively going into the beta. There will be times when items will need to be adjusted, crafting formula changed, and by keeping all of the information centralized then damage control becomes exponentially easier. Going into v3, once we know what we want from crafting/looting will we allow PC's their own shops.

[Mordred]

The role of crafting can't be discussed until we're all on the same page when it comes to the role of money in the economy. As I've said before, there are three currencies in the game: XP, JP, and Gil. Every character needs to get equal utility out of all 3. Where Gil is concerned, that means every class needs to have the same need to buy new shit as they advance in power, which means each item class needs to have roughly the same number of options within it - unlike FFT, where there are 10 Knives versus 19 Knight/Swords versus 8 Rods. The availability of new and more powerful items to follow you through your XP progression is paramount to making Gil a desirable currency for all classes.

That said, the means to acquire these items needs to be scaled somehow. A Mithril Sword costs 1600 and an Iron Sword costs 900 in FFT. The extra point of WP has a premium. Upgrading from Iron to Mithril requires a player to gather 1150 Gil (including assumed 50% sellback on Iron Sword).

This is an important consideration because Gil rewards need to be scaled differently than XP and JP rewards. In FFT, you never need more than 100 XP to level up, so the XP formula is easy. However, you need more and more Gil as the game goes on, which makes sense, because if Gil requirements didn't rise geometrically, you would jump right to the high-level equips instead of progressing gradually. You don't get your 100th level before you get your 2nd, after all.

This also explains why Breaks and Steals are not appropriate for a multiplayer game, incidentally.

For that reason, any crafting solution that doesn't incorporate progressively more-expensive recipes is not going to fly, which means mob drops need to become progressively more valuable as the game progresses.

What needs to be done is a formula needs to be developed that links Gil drops to XP level. The question to be answered here is, "how many encounters should it take for a character to earn enough Gil to advance to the next level of gear?" This number of encounters should be the same as the number of encounters it takes for a character to progress sufficiently in XP level that the next level of gear is required.

+++++

NPC shops are totally unnecessary if the crafting mechanic is sufficiently robust. Every character should have easy access to "civilian" skills in addition to their combat role; no one's combat role should, however, depend on their economic utility. It's unfair to the Thief or Chemist that his party uses him as a loot grinder, and it's unfair to everyone else that they need a Thief or Chemist to grind loot for them. This means that Secret Hunt on Thieves or anything else of that nature, such as Move-Find Item on Chemists, will not fly.

I think it's kind of silly for mobs to drop loot that you then sell for Gil to buy items; the loot itself can be cut out in most cases. Rather, you ought to have most mobs drop Gil directly, but as their levels rise, they start having the potential to drop special ingredients required to make especially powerful weapons.

Parties that craft their own equipment should be able to craft most items directly out of Gil, with the aforementioned rare loots being used to make special items. These loots can also be used to control inflation; after a certain level of cost (say, 25k Gil) acquiring more money won't do you any good unless you also have a Treant trunk or whatever to make your Defender out of.

OR, alternatively...

All mobs drop loot that has a given Gil value such that if you sell the loot from [X] encounters' worth of mobs, you get enough Gil to buy the next tier of equipment from the NPC market (keeping traditional 50% sellback in mind, this means that mob loot would have a price valuation of twice what you actually sell it for). Since the loot->item conversion here has cash as an intermediate stage, the kind of loot you've been finding doesn't matter.

But, if members of your party have invested in craft skills, they can instead craft the loot directly into items. Many items, especially low-tier ones, can be crafted out of any old piece of shit you drag in. Crafting new gear yourself gives you something like a 10-25% discount compared to buying from the shop. This incentivizes crafting as opposed to using the NPC shops.

Both of these methods incentivize a PC-driven secondary market for loot, since the NPC market would serve solely as a loot sink. If you're looking for a particular type of loot to make a particular high-tier weapon and you can't get it yourself, you'd have to turn to the PC market.

Some caveats: Loot drops need to be balanced geographically and across encounters. If a Tiamat Wing is needed to make Secret Clothes, but Tiamats never show up anywhere, that's a problem, especially if the Malboro Eye needed to craft a Rod of Zeus drops every 20 seconds.

Gil is an extremely important resource and items/cash should NEVER be given out indiscrimiately. This is regardless of any other consideration. One over-generous GM could absolutely fuck the entire game if one party got access to the next tier of equips too early.

[Diethe]

Nah. Loot won't be dependent on these two classes I mentioned, merely a booster in gaining stuff. You don't need the chemist or thief to actually grind loot, and I doubt people HAVE the time to actually grind in the game as I pretty much assume they're here to progress and level. Everyone basically has a 'need' or 'role' in every dungeoneering party ever since D&D and I don't think giving classes like this a role like 'boosting loot' a) won't be too much of a big deal for those who don't have these classes in their party and b) at the same time will give these classes an extra 'reason' to be around. Loot grinder seems to be a demeaning word for a roleplay game, not much of a multiplayer MMO.

Need to post later. Probably a diagram of what the economy would look like. Schwer already built up on my idea, which was built up from Illium and Blizz, and I'll build up on everything.

[Mordred]

I'm sorry to say it, but I think you completely overlooked the substance of my post. I admit, I tend to ramble.

tl;dr: Gil needs to be treated just like XP and JP because just like those currencies, Gil is the path to unlocking character power.

That in mind, I read your last post like so:

May 2, 2013 16:27:28 GMT -6 Diethe said:

Nah. XP won't be dependent on these two classes I mentioned, merely a booster in gaining XP. You don't need the chemist or thief to actually grind XP, and I doubt people HAVE the time to actually grind in the game as I pretty much assume they're here to progress and level. Everyone basically has a 'need' or 'role' in every dungeoneering party ever since D&D and I don't think giving classes like this a role like 'boosting XP' a) won't be too much of a big deal for those who don't have these classes in their party and b) at the same time will give these classes an extra 'reason' to be around. XP grinder seems to be a demeaning word for a roleplay game, not much of a multiplayer MMO.

Grinding for Gil is exactly the same as grinding for XP, because both of those things increase your character's power. If you see why certain classes shouldn't have a privileged status when it comes to XP acquisition, you see why the same is true for Gil acquisition. Skills that enhance a character's ability to gather loot like Secret Hunt are fine, but they need to be equally available to all characters regardless of class.

Classic D&D should not be your template when it comes to designing balanced classes, because D&D was terrible at it prior to 4th.

[Schwerpunkt]

XP is directly tied to JP. In addition to getting you levels (and therefore your secondary and prestige), it also gets you skills. Gil merely allows you to better exploit your skills and increase survivability. In terms of sheer importance, it's not hugely vital (unless we wind up like FFT and dropping +100 HP bonuses on mid-level gear). It isn't as vitally important to character progress as XP is. Moreover, there's a point at which gil becomes less useful as items receive diminishing returns and eventually just need special reagents to improve in quality. Note also that items will have level requirements, so even if you're super rich, you can buy as many level 40 katanas as you want -- but you can't equip them.

However, I agree that no class should be given a serious bonus to it because, yeah, it would skew the balance of power.

That said, this does not mean getting a bonus to gil received is a non-starter. It's important to remember that the Thief is merely one part of the party and if, of five people, one gets an effective increase in gil received of 20%, that's not inherently game-breaking. This is especially true since the primary method of actually thieving is to either use Purloin (which otherwise negates your turn) or equip a support ability from that class (which, naturally, comes at the cost of all other support abilities).

It's also unlikely that you'll roll with more than one Thief simply by virtue of the fact that they don't front-load damage like the more physical classes (and they sure can't take hits like many of them). If five guys on a MH get to collect an extra 100 gil because they brought a Thief along, the game probably isn't going to implode.

[kablizzy]

I also agree that "No bonus to any gil, JP or XP ever" is an awful idea, because there are a lot of other things to take into account with the game, especially if that's 1) the flavor and concept of the class (In terms of Thief) and 2) not as combat-effective in their skills (Again, I think Thief and also Calculator, who it TOTALLY makes tons of sense to get both Gained JP up and Gained XP up, as well as really cool support abilities that mess with speed and number of equippable reaction/support/move abilities and crap).

I understand the concept and for the sake of fairness, it's an admirable idea, but there are also trade-offs that can be measured in as equivalent to said gains, and we can balance stuff like this in relatively easy.

[Mordred]

Whoa now, no one said "no bonus ever." What I said was, "it's really bad form to have one particular Job have limited combat utility in order to give it the ability to gather more resources for his party mates."

Any kind of bonus to Gil gathering that's available to any character, great, but justifying a weak class on the basis that it is an extra-good resource grinder is not fair to the players who pick that class. It turns them into a liability - they become a dog that their partymates bring along because it's profitable for them, not because they bring anything to the battlefield in and of themselves. It would be like if Gimli was just the Fellowship's blacksmith and spent the whole time at Helm's Deep repairing chain mail.

Final Fantasy games are about gear. 20% of the game is spending time in shops selling stuff and buying better stuff. FFT especially, with all the Equip skills running around. Arguing that Gil isn't a power-granting commodity on the same scale as XP and JP is just plain mistaken.

Also, level requirements on items suck. It should be possible to receive an item that's technically too advanced for your level as a reward from a Prop or other event, and for the player to feel good about wielding it like a mini-trophy. Scaling Gil drops appropriately to make it feasible to buy items only in the "correct" progression accomplishes the same goal as level caps but does it in a way that doesn't rely purely on meta-game considerations. "Good shit being too expensive for a scrub to afford" makes intuitive sense to anyone, whereas "good shit being physically impossible to use until you reach some arbitrary level of mastery" is kind of an alien concept.