Crafting / Looting

[Diethe]

Okay, this has been happening in quite a number of threads now and we need to work a bit faster. The pattern I'm seeing is that we build up ideas, share them manage to make a merging of good ideas and then suddenly be sidetracked by a completely different idea or opinion on how to do things. This leads us to delaying the proposals all together. We need to work on this now rather than 'We need a PT first' or 'This won't work trust me' cause thats whats gonna happen in the other threads aswell. I'd rather that we build upon ideas and strengthening it and making it more balanced rather than completely disagreeing with the established ideas with our own personal ideas. So let's do this teamwork stuff, here and in the other threads. It's a group effort and lets take the positive, adaptable ideas and merge them.

We already established some fine ideas for crafting and looting. I'll work on a diagram tonight concerning gaining loot, linking it to merchants (Which wont involve them selling gear much apart from essentials) and eventually the crafting.From there we can build upon it and look for strengths and flaws. Any other thing we might miss we'll test in our beta. We don't have to create an idea from scratch again.

[kablizzy]

This is precisely how v2 HoI development went, and it's burning me out far more quickly this time. I don't even feel like I can make a suggestion without a heavy-handed "No, impossible. Under no circumstances." from everyone involved. I don't have the time to hash over the merits and flaws of everyone's ideas like I did ten years ago, and this was also what the Goals thread was meant to prevent, which no one save for sunspawn has really taken seriously. And that's hindered development a lot. My goals for the sim are pretty clear and concise (And I certainly hope that I've been acting in-line with them thusfar), and if no one else has the same goals, then it's gonna be really hard to reconcile everyone's individual opinions of what the game should be. I even talked about exactly this at-length in said goals thread. We've all got good ideas, and most of our disagreements are largely semantic. Basically, if we're all not in-line with each other's goals, then we can't very well decide on what direction we're even headed, and the sim either won't launch, or will be v2 again (Which I know none of us wants). The reason v2 was a clusterfuck is because v2 development was a clusterfuck. In short, what we are headed towards currently. So, I'd suggest that we all at least elaborate a bit what we want for the sim, hopefully in similar terms, and discuss a bit how we're going to get there, without using specifics. At that point, using those broad strokes, we can all agree on a direction for each section of development and top-down kill this thing, instead of bottom-up like we're used to.

[Diethe]

So here's my proposed player economy we could all pitch in and edit. It was basically created from all the good ideas you all made and the ideas that solves some of the 'but what ifs' in the thread and other threads. It's gonna have a few loopholes and problems here and there but I wanted to make it as player-centric as possible and we can tone down from there. If we can come to a consensus and agree that we can work with this, then I need your help fixing, balancing and suggesting stuff for it, not quoting every part of my post and saying how bad or impossible it is. If not well, okay. But if we all agree to work from this then from here on out we all work on improving it and not trashing.

Currency

Gil
Generally for buying generic equipment and raw materials. It can be obtained through battles, selling raw materials to NPC merchants (At a small price) or selling war spoils (At a smaller price). Apart from that, the system encourages you to trade with players by either buying raw materials or war spoils from people at the same time encourages crafting, another aspect of the game certain people might be interested in pursuing as Blizz said. Aside from that, we'd have to think of other coinsinks that run the economy and make sure coins are spent, such as perhaps the 'airship travel' we all talked about. We're gonna have this style of gameplay that people can pursue as where they are buy, create or sell goods. It's something other can pursue completely or as an option alongside fighting whereas some people like to be that top-stat meathead focused on fighting and killing demons. You can craft and learn to make items better, go train and do push ups, or whatever else in your PT but its an option open for other people that allows you freedom of choice on how you want to build your character.

Raw Materials

Hide
Leather Armor, Sword Hilts, Book Binds
Cotton
Cloth Armor, Hats
Ore
Weapons, Heavy Armor, Arrow Points for Bows
Magicite
Staves, Rods
Wood
Bows, Staves

We still need to balance all the raw materials I guess, but some, like Arrow Points for Bows would involve minimal items. And while I noted below the price of cruddy NPC gear ranging around 200 gil or something, a PC might be able to create the same items with 3-4 raw materials so thats only around 150 gil. Other gear crafted by players would generally involve a lot of raw materials especially for greater items which might range in the thousands. The trick is where to get these raw materials, and in abundance, so I'll discuss that next.

War Spoils 
The loot system would be something similar to what Illium said. It would be the skirmish's war spoils. My proposal is to have loot spring up from each unit (body) taken down during the battle. The logic for this are scavengers after a fierce battle, who search the dead bodies for random loot they might pick up. Some pick up random swords, loose change, even a bit of cloth here and there. Randomly, you might be able to pick up either gil, loot bag or raw material from each body (Perhaps a 1:2:1) chance, but it still depends on balance. Personally picking up gil a lot would be a risk to the economy.

The gil amount would either be bigger (to be divided among the party) or smaller (especially if there's only 1 person fighting) I'm not sure yet, but maybe we could balance that and say the gil depends on the number of party members. Let's talk about it.

The raw material could also be divided, although at a smaller division like 2-3 ores among the party.

The loot bags are a random piece of item (Sort of like a surprise box in different games, except we dont require you to pay for the key to open it) which may or may not be a gamble to buy or be of use. We can have a thread that lets you redeem loot bags, you can sell it to NPC Merchants for a quick buck, or you can sell it to a crafter at a lower price than raw materials. You can make entire economies out of trading loot bags that fit well with the crafting system. Crafters need war loot from battlers. Battlers need good gear from crafters, or you can be both but of course someone crafting in PT all the time instead of mixing between training skills would have better gear. And in the middle you have gil that runs the transactions.

Green Loot Bag (Cant think of a name yet)
These contain 2-3 pieces of raw materials or 1 potion at a rare rate. We'd have a table which pics at random from a list of possible items.

Red Loot Bag (5-10% Drop Rate or only from bosses, depends)
These contain good pieces of equipment.

Certain NPCs would be have support abilities to help in the crafting portrion of the game. A thief may be able to loot from a still standing enemy when they use an action perhaps (Though only once per body) or more chances of finding gil, a knight might have a support with more chances of finding raw materials, a chemist with support that adds 1 or 2 loot at the end of the fight or just more chances of finding potions, a merchant prince will basically shine in the crafting/looting department, etc. We'll discuss about them in the individual class threads, but I hope at least we agree that we CAN actually have a multiplayer-friendly way of getting items from others as thief without it appearing out of thin air heh, but that's a discussion we all started in another thread.

NPC Merchants
NPC Merchants simply called the 'Market' or the 'Bazaar' or the 'Tradehall' shall be available only to sell war spoils to for a very small gil price and raw materials for a small gil price. The ones open in the cities also sell the basest of equipment (With most of their expertise being used by the armies) which at least, allow you to go equipped with something enough to weather a fight with as suggested by Schwer. Lorewise these are the marketstand guys who sell small goods, trinkets, pieces of small armor etc. (Maybe eventually we'll have hidden shops that let you buy decent-er stuff like once a year and travels around, but I want to emphasize player economy here) Guys, I want your opinion on whether or not we'd let crafting involve potions and status effects or let them be sold by these NPC merchants at a price. Personally, I'd prefer not, due to the different kinds of potions and status effects.

Sample Price List for NPC Merchants
Buying
Potions: 200 Gil
Iron Sword (WP:3): 250 Gil (The weak stuff. Sort of like how Castle-forged swords are more sought after in ASOIAF.)
Raw Material: 120 Gil
Selling
Potions: 50 Gil (Or else we'd have people rich from selling their potions)
Loot Bags: 25 Gil (A waste really, like selling that unidentified gear in D&D and would be more lucrative selling to crafters or crafter middlemen. See the possibilities?)
Raw Materials: 30 Gil (Also a last-resort waste, as I encourage player-to-player economy use.)

Crafting
Crafting in-game generally involves 3 things: Raw materials, a Personal Turn and your experience in crafting. Being a craftsman allows you to exceed and create items. Like in real life, these craftsmen, like seasoned warriors, would be sought after by a lot of people for their craft. You can either train crafting (For a smaller experience) or craft items (For a bigger experience gain) in your PT. But generally, the greater your experience for crafting say weapons (Not sure how to categorize yet, like weapons, armor, clothing, exotics. Something like what Schwer said) the greater the item.

Say an Iron Sword requires 4 ores and 1 hide. A novice would create an Iron Sword (WP:3) while a master with the same number of raw materials would be able to either create an Iron Sword (WP:5) or Iron Sword of the Knight (WP:5, HP+10) or even a rare chance of creating an Iron Sword of Biting (WP:5, Chance: Lifesteal) It's a bit conceptual so we need lots to talk about in this area, especially crafting time, item balance, item lists, etc. Hopefully we can work on this as groundwork and start from here.

[sunspawn]

Good job cutting that knot Diethe. And I agree pretty much entirely with your ideas.

Potions and other consumables should get their own crafting skill as well, imo. Making Chemist a craft skill instead of a job and using all sorts of reagents and raw materials (gettable from loot just like the rest or by spending a little time from the PT* picking up berries and whatnot for the less exotic materials) to make potions. And just like with the Iron Sword example, a better chemist would be able to make a potion with the same ingredients, but healing a little more HP, as well as giving some minor buff for a turn or something.

*If the PT will have a max value and action values like in HoI.

[Schwerpunkt]

While Diethe's idea's good, I think he's getting a little too focused on the individual components required to track stuff. My thinking is we start with extremely basic reagents:

So our primary categories are:
Metal: This is primarily used for making weapons and armor for the POJs. It will show up irregularly elsewhere (maybe the higher level oracle reinforces his rod with metal).
Cloth: This is primarily used for clothing and accessories.
Wood: This is used pretty evenly across all three trees (spears, rods, bows, staves, etc.).
Leather: This is primarily used for accessories (shoes and cloaks primarily), but will sometimes show up in clothing.
Gemstones: These are used primarily in sticks and staves, perhaps showing up in higher level weapons of other sorts.
Plant-related: These are all the berries and grasses that you use for potions.
Special Reagents: These are used for adding special effects.

Each category has various tiers of items. Let's start by looking at metal. For the sake of convenience, I've broken it down into eight separate classes (which should be sufficient to cover ~40 levels).

Diamond: 9500 RV (ilevel 37-40)
Chromium: 5500 RV (ilevel 33-36)
Mythril: 2500 RV (ilevel 29-32)
Pyrite: 1000 RV (ilevel 24-28)
Steel: 350 RV (ilevel 19-23)
Iron: 100 RV (ilevel 13-18)
Bronze: 25 RV (ilevel 7-12)
Copper: 5 RV (ilevel 1-6)

So, in keeping with the theme of gil having diminishing returns at higher levels, we see something similar here: RV initial squares itself, and from there is reduced rather consistently until you get to Diamond, which isn't even worth twice what Chromium is worth.

These names, of course, are just placeholders. They broadly represent a scale of the hardest metals according to the Mohs scale (except Diamond and Mythril, which I include because it's Final Fantasy). The alloys (steel, copper) don't really belong on the list with base metals, but whatever. They'd probably show up anyway. We may need to tweak this list a bit.

This can easily build on Diethe's loot bags. If we establish that the loot bags rated for ilevel 19-23 have a value of 900 RV, maybe you open it up and get two steel ingots and two iron ingots -- or maybe you open it and get eighty bajillion berries, enough to make more potions than you ever knew what to do with. More accurately, loot bags will probably reflect multiple classes, so you might open it and get a bar of steel, a roll of wool, a small ruby, and a fistful of berries.

You'll also notice I've used the ilevel shorthand here. Basically, those materials would be built primarily using that mineral at that level. However, if you were trying to make a Bronze Sword (50 RV required) and only had one bar of Bronze, you could supplement it with 5 bars of Copper and still hit the cap. Similarly, you could throw a diamond ingot (lol) at the guy and, after he's done picking up his teeth, he can give you chromium in return.

Basically, the metals work to classify and clarify what level stuff is. But rather than being hard to convert between tiers, they do so automatically through transmutation (or, on a slightly more serious note, through the involvement of the equivalent of a central bank). It may be necessary for 'conversions' to take a set fee (say, 10% of the RV) to prevent it from too easily changing hands.

Thoughts so far?

[Diethe]

Interesting take on the Raw Materials, to say the least. The RV solves the problem of scaling a bit. Basically having a hard time to look for hard to get reagents especially for the upper levels. I'm pretty sure it would be a scaling nightmare to have to create a Diamond Sword using individual components. (Required: Ore 80, Hide 40, etc) I actually left out tiers in my idea using only Ores and Hides, but this might be the solution to it, seeing as, for example, Mithril could be converted easily. Like winning a Level 25 Battle might get you a piece of Mithril Metal so you translate it into RV in your profile? Basically stats will involve something like:

Crafting Materials:
Metal (550 RV): 2 Iron Ingots, 1 Steel Ingot
Leather (40 RV): 1 Cured Leather (25), 3 Hides (5) 

Did I assume correctly in your concept Schwer?

Anyway, but how about items that require more than 1 type of reagent? Will there be such items? And will total RV count to that? Will they look like this?:

Iron Sword (Required: 100 Metal RV, 20 Leather RV), plus an additional RV list for special reagents and status effects like for example Add: Poison (500 RV Special Reagent needed)

And lastly, will we actually need crafting experience for the crafting or will it be unnecessary, and if so how will it affect the end product?

[Schwerpunkt]

Yeah. RV would be kept as a distinct resource for each of the five primary categories. Special Reagents, by virtue of being special and having specific effects tied to each (Dragon Fang might add Fire to you sword, for instance) would not be converted into RV. The whole ingot thing was intended to articulate how RV changes hands moreso than anything else (because, unlike Gil, RV has no physical representation; ingots and such solve that dilemma).

And I'm all for higher level stuff requiring multiple categories worth of stuff. That makes it harder to farm by yourself and reduces access to high-level stuff early.

I haven't really considered melting down weapons to be viable because the other classes don't really have that. Maybe 'salvaging' them returns a quarter of their initial RV value. That'd work -- it's also incentivize you to resell it instead (even if only at half value).

Other than that, yeah, spot on.

I'm fairly certain that the notion on crafting thus far is that you will need to take the basic skill (extremely tentative names we haven't discussed yet: Blacksmithing I, Tailor I, Chemist I, Cobbler I, Artificier I, Carpenter I) to be able to craft (and salvage) in the first place. You'd then take the next rank (____ II) to reduce total cost. You'd get one ____ M ability, representing your mastery of a particular art, which would be mutually exclusive with the other mastery crafting abilities. This mastery ability would further reduce the cost of crafting (and maybe even have a chance to add a low-level special effect without requiring a reagent).

[Diethe]

It'll look something like this, at least in the view of the player:


Chapter: Economy and Crafting

Gil

Gil is the universal currency used throughout the continent and has long existed as gold coins minted with the face of the local monarch. In the game, it is generally used for buying generic equipment and raw materials and can be obtained through battles, selling raw materials to NPC merchants (At a small price depending on the raw material's tier), selling War Spoils (At an even lower price), or trading with Player characters, which keeps the economy stable through the Warrior/Gatherer-Crafter relationship. This allows the player to pursue a different gameplay other than grinding and fighting people left and right and allows one to gather, craft and profit from buying and selling goods and materials.

Raw Materials

Raw Materials are the rare crafting ingredients needed to be able to craft the different types of equipment in-game. These can be bought at shops at a high price, looted from enemy bodies or acquired randomly from opening War Spoil Loot. While there are different kinds of raw materials that can be found in the land, these materials can reliably be measured according to their tier and amount of RV they cost. A finished product usually requires a certain amount of RV to be crafted and scales up as the item's quality increases. The different categories of raw materials are as follows:

Metal:
Primarily used for physical classes' weapons and armors, these are also required in high level gear for other types of items such as bows and rods.

Diamond: 9500 RV (ilevel 37-40)
Chromium: 5500 RV (ilevel 33-36)
Mythril: 2500 RV (ilevel 29-32)
Pyrite: 1000 RV (ilevel 24-28)
Steel: 350 RV (ilevel 19-23)
Iron: 100 RV (ilevel 13-18)
Bronze: 25 RV (ilevel 7-12)
Copper: 5 RV (ilevel 1-6)

Cloth:
Cloth is used for creating clothing and accessories for mage classes and those who stay light-footed.

-Wyrmweave 5500 RV
-Featherweave 2500 RV
-Cashmere 1000 RV
-Damask 350 RV
-Silk: 100 RV
-Linen: 25 RV
-Cotton: 5 RV

Wood:
Wood is used in a variety of weapons such as bows, spears, rods and staves.

-Dragonwhisker 2500 RV
-Whalewhisker 1000 RV
-Ivory 350 RV
-Bamboo 100 RV
-Cypress 25 RV
-Oak 5 RV

Leather:
Leather is usually tanned for accessories (shoes and cloaks primarily) and some bulkier clothing.

-Pantherskin: 100 RV
-Cured Leather: 25 RV
-Hide Leather: 5 RV

Magicite/Gemstones (Undecided):
Stones and gems containing the mist and the remains from the cataclysm are infused in sticks and staves, as well as expensive gemmed heirlooms and weapons.

(Something about stone size or gemstones? Dunno.)
-Stone
-Crystal

Herbs
These are all the berries and grasses that alchemists use for potions.

Special Reagents:
These are unique items with their own qualities, used for adding special effects to weapons such as Add: Poison or Add: Blind and are not convertible to RV.

-Mossfungus (Add: Death)
-Stardust (Effect: Gravity)
-Dragonfang (Effect: Fire)

War Spoils

War Spoils are various battle trophies scavenged from your fallen enemies bodies and are mostly a mystery box containing random categorized Raw Materials that might be useful for a different craftsmen. They are the easiest loot to obtain from enemies and are recorded and received after the battle, though it is still possible to obtain either Gil or Raw Materials at a lower chance. The loot bags, along with the gil or raw material gained, scale in level alongside the enemy slain, and contain mostly RV calculated raw materials or the occasional useful weapon or armor stripped off a worthy enemy.

Opening loot bags can be done at the Black Market Thread where your friendly neighborhood fence doesn't mind the morality of taking a king's crown off a corpse. Loot, depending on the tier, will usually hang out Raw Materials from a random Raw Material Category. Loot Bags may also be sold to the Black Market Thread as a last resort for a very low price, taking off that extra piece of baggage from you, but are usually and lucratively sold to crafters who wish to buy raw materials at a lower price, especially when the need for different categories of Raw Materials arise. Even the experienced high level warrior will have some use for lower level newbies and give them opportunities to earn easy gil. Fighting, in a way, sell their loot to crafters who in turn sell their goods to fighters; creating an economy using gil.

Various classes also have different types of ways to gain loot easier or in a more predicable manner. These shall be discussed in the specific class threads.

Loot Table

-Heirloom: Rare pieces of weapons and armor looted from corpses of distinguished heroes or villains. Contains a random piece of weapon or armor. (Not sure if we should scale this too, depends on whether you guys want item drops from enemies to be very rare or not. If we want to have at least 1 item drop per fight, I suggest scaling these heirlooms.
-X: (ilevel 37-40)
-X: (ilevel 33-36)
-X: (ilevel 29-32)
-X: (ilevel 24-28)
-Bag: (ilevel 19-23)
-Satchel: (ilevel 13-18) Contains a random category Raw Material worth 40-80 RV.
-Sack: (ilevel 7-12) Contains a random category Raw Material worth 15-30 RV.
-Pouch: (ilevel 1-6): Contains a random category Raw Material worth 1-10 RV. (Might have to change this, especially considering you get multiple loot per battle.

NPC Merchants
The various flea markets, bazaars and tradehalls throughout the continent is home to many merchants who sell and peddle their wares and trinkets at exorbitant prices due to the war going on, so many choose to take up professions instead and forge their own gear. However, many still consider middlemen and merchants reliable, especially the nobles who have no qualms about parting with their gil. NPC Merchants are readily available in cities, and buy or sell lower-quality equipment, raw materials and war spoils.

Sample Price List for NPC Merchants
Buying
Potion: 200 Gil
Bronze Sword (WP:3): 250 Gil
Raw Material: (Scales with the tier of the material)
Selling
Potions: 50 Gil (Or else we'd have people rich from selling their potions)
Bags: 25 Gil (A waste really, like selling that unidentified gear in D&D and would be more lucrative selling to crafters or crafter middlemen. See the possibilities?)
Raw Materials: (Scales with the material tier)

Crafting
Crafting is the process of creating equipment through the use of Raw Materials. A basic skill in the category is needed to be able to craft items of certain types, as well as the required number of RVs an item might need to be created. As crafting skill increases, the lesser the RV is needed to create the item and eventually even allows for more complex items with additional stats. Iron Swords (WP:5) for example, might need a Metal RV of 100 and a Leather RV of 5 to craft. The player must then accumulate the total number of RV and use their personal turn to craft the item, spending their Raw Materials in the process. The Special Reagents may be added to either an existing item or an item being crafted to add status effects or additional stats to weapons. Also note that you can only craft items 2 tiers higher than you and can only equip items 1 tier higher than your character's tier level. 

Generally, a character would probably have a section in their character profile that looks like this:

Crafting Materials:
Metal (550 RV): 2 Iron Ingots, 1 Steel Ingot
Leather (40 RV): 1 Cured Leather, 3 Hide Leather
Cloth (0 RV):
Wood (0 RV):
Magicite/Gemstones (0 RV):
Herbs (0 RV):
Special Reagents (0 RV):

I forgot...so we basically need JP to upgrade our crafting skills or shall it be based on experience from crafting? Guess it could make sense, seeing as we can indirectly through our PT increase our JP I guess so that'll be like crafting? But I dunno. Increasing experience through crafting and crafting and crafting until it makes you a master seems also a good idea and is fairer to those who crafted throughout the game than people who just gained enough JP to buy the crafting master classes.

[kablizzy]

Indeed. I'd also love to see Recipes for high level stuff that are like... In order to make a Gungnir Lance (Let's say, WP 15, Gravity Elemental), for instance;

3x Diamond Ore
1x Chromium Ore
1x Wyrmweave Cloth
1x Stardust

And voila, you have yourself a Gravity-Elemental spear! But I'd also love to see players able to make their own weapons through experimentation. Say, if they didn't want to make a Gungnir, they could start messing around with materials, and if their crafting skill was high enough, they may use almost the same materials as above, slightly different, and find out that by using three dragonfangs, you can increase the WP by 1 and add Fire elemental, and have it be an entirely different thing. Just an idea.

[Diethe]

Not sure myself whether increse in HP+ or WP+ would depend on crafting experience (Which we need to decide on) or if not I'll come up with Special Reagents that add to stats.

[Schwerpunkt]

I think the idea was that players would sink a certain number of RV to get a weapon tier they want (so, you spend enough to get Tier ## and your spear has 12 WP and 10 P-Ev), then slap on a special reagent to give it an element. Then name it whatever you jolly well please. You can call your spear the 'Sky Breaker' and play Lu Bu for all I care.

The crux of the issue will be having enough special reagents, of various levels and qualities, to actively encourage crafting. If crafting costs the same as buying, people probably aren't going to care. If it costs half as much and requires a marginal AP investment, people still might just choose the path of least resistance. But if it has the potential of costing less and yielding a better product even if it still requires an AP investment, people will do it.

That said, I can totally get behind 'epic' tier weapons. But that's something to look at for the full game, not beta.




Also, I really don't think the base RV should govern anything except weapon type, WP, FP, and Ev. Everything else, from elemental affinities to bonus attributes, should come from special reagents.

[Diethe]

We'll have to see a good balance for the costs then. Our priority of course, would be the player-economy instead of NPC merchants so we'll have to make it as unpleasurable as possible.

And yeah, I approve of the god weapons that need great numbers of RV and different categories. I also approve of player-customization and mixing and matching reagents. It'll cost very great of course but there will be a maximum amount anyway, seeing as we can only put one Special Reagent in an item. We'll also have to limit the tiers you created (Nice job with that by the way. Good markers) and the players able to use them so Level 1s dont run around with Gungnir, heh. Selling them to other PCs would be okay and would net such a big amount of gil of course, but it would be impossible with our system (No stealing of permanent equipment) for a Level 1 to get it anyway.

For now, let's finish the tables, come up with sources and names for:

Raw Materials
Special Reagents (And their effects. Like ___Dust that adds blind?)
Loot Bags. I ran out after 'bag'.

[kablizzy]

Insofar as costs, the cost of the reagants cannot be near the cost of the item, since if we want PC-run shops, they'll need to turn a decent profit. The secret ingredients, so to speak, would be time and skill. The time it takes to make items should be longer than instantaneous, but I'm not a fan of "One item every X months per PT action," unless we're doing BTs, in which case, I could see BTs making multiple items per turn per person. But skill has to be factored in so that not everyone can just whip up a diamond lance on their first PT.

I'm about off to work, but I'll input a bit later on this.

[Mordred]

Misc thoughts on Diethe's big econ write-up post

The amount of Gil dropped from an encounter needs to scale based on the number of party members, otherwise it incentivizes people to work alone. That's no fun; why go to all this trouble to balance classes into party roles if we're going to disincentivize partying?

Gil and loot both need to be dropped from enemy encounters because without a supply of Gil in circulation you're forced to engage in an item-for-item barter economy. Which is OK, but kind of impractical, for all the reasons that any barter economy is inferior to a money economy. This means you have to balance Gil drops against loot drops to prevent long-term inflation or deflation of Gil currency.

Offering the ability to craft certain small bonuses into otherwise-normal items is a great way to incentivize PCs to invest in crafting skills or spend additional time in their PTs on craft actions.

May 2, 2013 22:31:20 GMT -6 Diethe said:

Okay, this has been happening in quite a number of threads now and we need to work a bit faster. The pattern I'm seeing is that we build up ideas, share them manage to make a merging of good ideas and then suddenly be sidetracked by a completely different idea or opinion on how to do things. This leads us to delaying the proposals all together. We need to work on this now rather than 'We need a PT first' or 'This won't work trust me' cause thats whats gonna happen in the other threads aswell. I'd rather that we build upon ideas and strengthening it and making it more balanced rather than completely disagreeing with the established ideas with our own personal ideas. So let's do this teamwork stuff, here and in the other threads. It's a group effort and lets take the positive, adaptable ideas and merge them.

I can't agree that tying economy skills directly to combat classes will ever be a good idea. Economy skills should never compete with combat skills for a player's limited in-battle ability equip slots. I don't mean to be an ass, especially if I'm misreading your above-quoted post, but if what you mean by the above is that I shouldn't participate in the discussion without that agreement, then I have nothing else to contribute to this conversation.

++++++

@schwer, you have the diminishing returns relationship backwards, I think. Resources need to be exponentially more expensive as you go up the quality curve, so that you can't cheaply acquire the resources needed to make endgame items by selling off lower-tier resources. Using the exponential decay relationship in your extant list, that makes the marginal utility of each piece of junk on the bottom end ever higher as you accumulate more of them - not what you're going for at all.

As for mixing and matching components to make either Gungnir or some homebrew alternative, that's 100% compatible with the way items need to grade up with character level. The number of points of RV, as Schwer calls them, is the important thing.

As long as there's a relationship between the final stats of the item and the RV invested, we're in good shape. To roll out a full system like that, someone needs to sit down and decide a relationship between each point of RV and each point of +HP, WP, P-EV, M-EV, etc.

I suggest a geometric progression between how many RV a stat costs and how many of that stat you buy, e.g.: when building a weapon out of RV, your first point of WP costs 10 RV, your second costs 15, your 3rd costs 20, 4th costs 40, etc etc and on up and up. The best strategy is for the RV value of resources to rise commensurately with the combined RV cost of additional upgrades to the weapon.

[kablizzy]

I'm really excited about where this is going. This is basically everything that never got finished (read: finished well) in v2.

I'd also like for there to be room for other materials if we so choose, so if the system could have that flexibility built-in for the final version, that'd be nice also.