Crafting / Looting

[Diethe]

Hrmm...well we could either make RV too complicated (Items needing additional RV) or like Schwer suggested have additional stats only from Special Reagents. Not sure if we want to limit Special Reagents to just 1 slot per item and have a lot of Special Reagents as well as very rare ones. The solution would be to increase the numbers and types of special reagents.

So here's a sample rough draft of crafting:

Iron Sword (WP:6)
Requirements: 100 Metal RV, 20 Bronze RV
Level Requirement (See Below): 7

Special Reagents samples that may be placed (Suck with names. Bear with me):
-Padding (HP+10) (More for armor but eh..do we have to make different reagents for different types of weapons and armor? That'd be exhaustive.)
-Studs (HP +20)
-Plate (HP +40)

-Something (MP+10)
-Something (MP+20)
-Something (MP+40)

-Something
-Something (M-At+1)

-Something (Spd+1)

-Engravings (WP +1) (Easier to get, but still rare)
-Gems (WP +2) (You know, like Gemmed Swords or Gemmed Armor nobles wear)
-Meteorite (WP +4)

-Wings (Ev +10%)
-Dragonwings (Ev +20%)

-Fire Orb (Add: Fire) (Of course, only chanced)
-Mossfungus (Add: Death)
-Stardust (Effect: Gravity)
-Dragonfang (Effect: Fire)

Thoughts:
-You can name your own gear I guess. We just probably need the base stat so we know what type of weapon it is and what tier I guess, like Excalibur (Copper Sword, WP:2, Add: Sleep)

-In effect, we are creating a lot of Special Reagents for different types of stats, but of course we still have to fix the rarity of them especially the powerful ones. These are still gonna be rare, and probably added to Loot Bags with rarity that also scales with the loot bag tier. You can for example get meteorites only in the last tier loot bags at like..5% chance.

-Are we okay with people stuck with like..Copper Armor for a few levels? Iron Armor only obtainable up to Level 13? I suggest maybe like..people may be able craft items 2 tiers above them while they can only wear items 1 tier above them. So for example, a Level 1 dude can wear either a Copper Breastplate or a Bronze Armor. This way we can allow a bit progression in armor and so people can catch up with craftsmen's progression as well as limit low level characters from equipping Diamond Armor. Basically though, the equipping won't be much of an issue here. The limit of 1 tier above seems fair for it. However, the crafting limit we have to discuss since, for all you know, someone who crafts the entire game can be stuck at level 1 thus we aren't allowing him to craft the high end gear even though he's been crafting the whole game.

-As a coinsink, Special Reagents may be removed from items for a price, though I don't suggest using an entire turn for that. Maybe an alchemist/enchanter NPC concerning special reagents alongside the Merchant and Black Market NPCs we already have. We're starting to have a cool cast of NPC vendors here like the bartender, merchant, Guildmaster and Poacher from the original FFT.

-What will we do about crafting time? Enough time for a smith to actually profit and at the same time not be haunted by the end of the game's version. Our options are either to allow multiple crafting per month (Like a job order list) or make items instantaneously be crafted per month (It has its share of problems aye. But will it be countered by the fact that people can only get so much resources per month as it is?)

-Also Mord, show me a sample RV cost list on the tiers based on the diminishing returns idea you gave. Lets take a look especially if it could further balance the system. Aye we have to look at Level 1-Level 40 player relationships with regards to crafting, equipping, etc and set checks and limits.

[sunspawn]

I think that JP should be used for the first level of a crafting skill and from there making it level up by crafting and getting craft skill XP. And making the items you can craft dependent not on your level, but on the level of your craft skill, meaning that a level 1 blacksmith can still supply the level 30 knight.

[Schwerpunkt]

While that sounds good, it means more information to track. This crafting system is already complex enough as-is.

And I suppose we could allow up to two special reagents, but I'd rather not start stacking weapons with eighty bajillion special effects.

As far as item tiers, people can get over themselves if they have a problem wearing copper armor. The entire point is for weapons to get better and more interesting as you level. Besides, they're not liable to be lowbies for every long.



@mord: Point. Not sure what I was thinking, but the scale needs to be changed.

[kablizzy]

I'm the same way about special effects, I really, really, *really* don't want someone trying to make an Add: Poison, Add: Sleep, Add: Doom, Add: Berserk, Add: Herpes Shotgun / Rifle hybrid of doom with six elements. I also don't want them to succeed in making that.

[Mordred]

Item Price vs Loot Level :: This is a graph I ginned up to show how we can scale prices with level to avoid having to resort to level caps. 14 items per item class is one possibility that spreads evenly across 40 levels.

This graph also shows us how to set the values of "base" materials so we don't need to have monsters dropping 38 pieces of leather or whatever. Once the total value of a monster's loot drop exceeds value X, it simply is upgraded to the next-best type of material.

Basically, the way to bang this whole process out is like so:

• An item suitable for a given player level should cost an amount of Gil to buy as shown on the graph. Example: a Mythril Sword is suitable for characters of level 10. The chart tells us a Mythril Sword should cost 6700 Gil. Since the character is presumably equipped with a 3300 Gil Iron Sword (suitable for lv7) that can be sold back for 1650 Gil, the effective cost to upgrade by BUYING a new sword is 5050 Gil.
• Decide how many encounters it should take for a character to move from 1 gear tier to the next (i.e. to level up 3 times, assuming there are 14 items per class spread as I suggest). Ex: Assume 1 level up per encounter. That's 3 encounters per total gear upgrade.
• This is the number of encounters it should take to gather enough Gil to BUY all-new items of the new tier. So, with 5 equip slots, that's X encounters to earn 5*(price of next tier's level-appropriate gear). Ex: A total gear upgrade from level 7 to level 10 requires you to earn 5050 * 5 = 25250 Gil.
• Now, divide that total amount of Gil by that fixed number of encounters for each tier level. You see how that increases steadily with tier? Ex: 25250 / 3 = 8417 Gil per encounter starting at level 7 and ending at level 10. The Gil per encounter will rise at level 10.
• At this point, let's assume a non-fixed number of level-appropriate monsters per encounter. What you have to do on a battle-by-battle basis is divide the total encounter drop value by the number of monsters you actually field. Ex: Let's say it's a lone man fighting a mating pair of Minotaurs. Each Minotaur yields 8417 / 2 = 4209 Gil worth of drops. If there were 2 peeps in the party, each Minotaur would have to yield 8418 Gil worth of drops.
  
• Once you've got the per-monster drop value, determine the proportion of Gil to Loot of what they drop. Remember, monsters must drop both to prevent inflation/deflation of Gil. The proportion of Gil to Loot will determine how attractive doing your own crafting is as an alternative to buying from a crafter or the market. Remember, drop figures are determined according to the Gil you can get by selling the loot, not crafting with it. Ex: One-third of the Minotaur's drop value is Gil, so the Minotaur drops 1403 Gil and 2806 Gil worth of Loot. That means SELLING the Loot to the market would yield you 2806 Gil, so the crafting value of that loot is actually much higher - assuming traditional 50% market sellback, it's worth a whopping 5612 Gil to a crafter!
• The concept of 50% sellback already builds in a notion of discounts for crafting rather than buying. Ex: So, using the current example, it would take you three of these minotaur-pair encounters to gather the Gil to buy all new equipment suitable for Level 10, and you will gather the last Gil needed to upgrade your stuff to Lv10 at the end of the same battle in which you actually level to 10. How convenient! But, if you're crafting, you will gather the money-equivalent much more quickly - each Minotaur actually yields you 7015 Gil-equivalent, rather than 4209, so you will actually reach your goal a whole 66% more quickly, meaning you will have a full set of Level 10 gear by the time you hit Level 9 (i.e. after completing 2 encounters rather than 3). Pretty nice, eh?

So, that's half the battle right there. Whew, that took a while. In part 2, coming soon, I'll come up with some kind of half-assed scheme for determining what constitutes "level-appropriate" gear and spreading those attributes across some number of tiers of loot material.

At some point we also have to discuss monster level/difficulty scaling as compensation for party versus monster numerical disparity. But that's a somewhat different conversation.

[Diethe]

Aye, hopefully with that idea people will also be forced to use the player economy. As I see it, money comes. It also balances the system as levels go higher. As I see it, gil is injected into the economy starting from monster loot drops and gets taken out of it by selling to NPC merchants. Discouraging people to actually 'save', just like any economy, is our target.

Here are a couple more rough ideas that just popped off my head and basically just thrown out:

Exchange Rate
Fluctuating currency? Like we'd give a value for loot-gil every turn depending on player demand like a foreign exchange market? Seems to complicate the system a bit more, actually. Just an idea tho. Heh.

Crafting System Time:
Monthly slots. I sort of figured out the Crafter skills. Initial crafter skills may be bought through JP like 'Blacksmith: 200 JP', etc etc for example then as someone crafts more and more experience, of course they level up, decreasing RV costs for an item. I'll take the crafting skill system and use it to determine this idea of mine, 'Crafting Time Slots' where players are given like for example, 3 crafting slots per PT used for crafting where a crafting slot is equal to the job order needed to craft an item. However, as the item tier increases, the slots needed to make it also increases.

Example: Beginning Smith has 3 crafting slots.
He can either make 3 (Tier 1) items, 1 (Tier 2) Item and 2 (Tier 1) Items, or if he's making a Tier 6 Item he has to continue making it for a total of two months.

Sorry for the balance but yeah that was the rough idea of it. It also makes sense for medieval-time work orders where craftsmen have lists of what to do. Of course, levelling up your crafting skill will net you more slots per Craft PT.

[kablizzy]

So, would I take it to mean that you can level up your crafting to a point where you could potentially make 1 (Tier 9) item, 2 (Tier 8) items, 3 (Tier 7) items, and so on?

[Diethe]

Nah. That'd just be allowing one person to dominate the market and let everyone go to him instead of allowing competition. We'll need to balance between rewarding masters and allowing competition still.

What I'm thinking is maybe for beginner crafstman to be able to make a Tier 1 to cost like 2 slots (2/3 turn for him) while a Tier 9 costs like 18 slots (6 turns). That means he can create 1 tier 1 item per month plus 1 halfway done.

By the time a craftsman is a master, he'd be able to make Tier 9s using only 9 slots (3 turns). We can adjust it to 2 turns if you like, but 18 is a pretty good common denominator. Either way, being able to attain mastery would be hard, and I guess we can reward him with like 2 months creation time for a Tier 9.

Some simple math and probably a bit scaling and we have a crafting time table. Sorry, in a hurry. I'll add later. After this we'll discuss PC shops/bazaars.

[Schwerpunkt]

Let's step back here a minute. We need crafting timers why, exactly? What purpose does this serve? It bottlenecks production (making crafting less viable), it provides more information to track (thus irritating us and players), it requires that players pay for and plan for events several months down the line (which just isn't reasonable), and, in return for all of this, it gives us nothing. Hell, it's not even realistic; if you can't forge a sword in a month, you're arguably the most incompetent blacksmith ever.

Other that, I agree with basically everything Mord said.

[Diethe]

Actually, the system DOES answer your concerns. It allow you to craft a sword and a half in one month. Also, it isn't concerned with time, at all. I'll lay down the positives and tell me what you think.

The Pros of this crafting slot system technically helps solve both multiple crafting (in one month) and crafting times at the same time. It isn't about time actually, more of slots. Not really crafting 'timers' per se, but items requiring slots per crafting PT. While a beginner might be given 3 slots per crafting PT and lets them create tier 1 items (that require 2 slots), a master is given 6 slots per crafting PT, allowing them to make a tier 9 item (requiring 18 slots) in 3 months, which takes a beginner a whopping 6 months to make.

As for being complicated or having more things to keep track of, the only real thing to keep track of is an item progress being tracked like Crafting: Iron Sword (2/3 complete with the denominator being the total slots needed to craft it). You can even mix and match your Crafting PT so you dont bottleneck and focus on a Tier 9 order you're making, like allotting 2 slots in another order instead. Actually, I'm up for not complicating the Craftsman skill and making it into just 1 single Craftsman skill without Blacksmiths, Tailors etc. It'll solve the problem of items with multiple ingredients. Tracking them down is simply putting a link of your previous unfinished work from your previous turn's PT.

Example:
PT Action: Smith - Beginner
-Iron Sword (1/5)
-Iron Sword (2/5)
-Copper Sword (1/2)

or

PT Action: Smith - Master
-Copper Sword (1/2)
-Copper Sword (2/2) Complete!
-Diamond Sword (1/16)
-Diamond Sword (2/16)
-Diamond Sword (3/16)
-Copper Breastplate (1/2)

or even

PT Action: Smith - Master
-Copper Sword (1/2)
-Copper Sword (2/2) Complete!
-Copper Breastplate (1/2)
-Copper Breastplate (2/2) Complete!
-Copper Sword (1/2)
-Copper Sword (2/2) Complete!

Here's a tentative table for crafting slot requirements.
Tier 1 Item: 2 Slots
Tier 2 Item: 4 Slots
Tier 3 Item: 6 Slots
Tier 4 Item: 8 Slots
Tier 5 Item: 10 Slots
Tier 6 Item: 12 Slots
Tier 7 Item: 14 Slots
Tier 8 Item: 16 Slots
Tier 9 Item: 18 Slots

Craftsman slots Per PT:
Novice: 3
Apprentice: 4
Journeyman: 5
Master: 6


Like I said, Novices can craft 1 and a half items per month while a master can craft 3. Tier 9s take much time and effort to craft and master, part of the fact that they're supposed to be rare as well added with the fact that they need a lot of RV to create. It allows the craftsman discretion of what to work with throughout the month, customize his workload and plans and be able to deliver whatever's needed.

Apart from that, well we can go with an alternative or adjust crafting. What do you think? Is it workable? Rather than having an item-per-month system that technically would also go unbalanced. Unless we have another working plan that's better ofcourse I'm all for it.
 
And yeah. We'll use Mord's tables with regards to values on loot. We'll just have to figure out the per-monster loot system. Most likely we'll divide the loot evenly throughout the monsters but have the same scaled level value.

Also...two Special Reagents per item: Agreed with Schwer. We can also probably limit this to 1 Stat increase and 1 status effect/spell cast to lessen the uber weapons Blizz pointed out.
Loot-Gil is pretty much balanced thanks to Mord.
No more crafting limit? A beginner can create a tier 9 if he wants, he'll just have to craft longer.

So how about lessening the crafting skills to just 1 'Craftsman' Beginner skill costing a 1 time JP purchase which gains experience?

[Diethe]

Woops. Blizz confused me. Schwer only posted 8 tiers I think. We can make it 9 for simplicity of an 18 common denominator though. Dunno if it'll affect the scaling you established Shwer. We could adjust the 40 levels to 9 tiers, or have the 9th tier go above the level requirements, being a sort of ++ weapon tier. 

[kablizzy]

Haha, sorry. In either case, when building the system, leave room for stuff like that, so if the system needs to be flexible and expand, we can do so.

[Schwerpunkt]

I still don't like it.

Think of it this way. If you're a super-awesome swordsmith, you have 6 item slots. Bob walks in the order and says he wants you to create the World-Breaker, a super-awesome tier 9 sword. The problem is that it requires 18 slots. You only have 6. In order to finish this sword, you need to spend three entire months on it.

That's fine. Now think about the opportunity cost. Every item slot you devote to this is one less item slot that you can devote to other things. It's one less slot you can turn a profit with. This means that the client has to compensate you for the missed contracts. Opportunity cost is a bitch and now he has to foot the bill. Suddenly you've tacked 25% onto the base cost of the materials simply to justify, for the blacksmith, why he's spending all this time and energy on a single weapon.

On top of that, the system doesn't jive with an AP-based PT system (which, like it or not, is indisputably the best PT system in the entire sim community).

And, of course, there's the sheer hassle of tracking this. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be the GM responsible for verifying that yes, Bob has in fact spent 18 slots crafting that super-sword, especially when that could be spread over up to 18 different PTs (likely not, but you get the idea). It's just make-work for the staff.

It's so much easier to just make 'Craft Item' a 2 AP thing for the PT. Then anyone can spend as many AP as they want (as long as they have AP to spend, of course) crafting. A low barrier to entry and a user-friendly system will actively encourage players to craft. And that, at the end of the day, is the entire point behind this complex system.

[Diethe]

Well, we could let players 'buy' multiple crafting PTs so like a beginner may spend 4 AP for their PT which totals to 6 slots to counter opportunity cost..or..eh, you have a good point though.

[Mordred]

Exchange Rate
Fluctuating demand for loot items affecting prices will happen naturally as long as the only SOURCE of loot is player activity. The NPC market should be happy to buy loot from players at 50% (or whatever %) sellback, but there should not be an ability to buy loot. Remember, the whole reason loot exists is to incentivize monster hunting over buying. If you can just buy the loot, crafting becomes a free money multiplier for wealthy parties rather than an incentive to go out and keep killing bigger and meaner shit.

Skills lowering RV costs for items
This will break the economy by making crafting too OP compared to buying. Don't do it. Find something else for higher skill levels to do.

Crafting Time Slots
Sure, I guess, but remember... every character in the game will need 5 new items every 3 levels. Assuming everyone gets an encounter every turn, that's 1 level per turn, meaning every player in the game needs 5/3 an item per turn. The PC crafters need to be able to meet this demand. If you don't expect more than 10% of the player base to seriously go into crafting (I don't), then that means 1 crafter needs to churn out 50/3 items per turn... roughly 17.

Your uber-restricted crafting time slot scheme is waaaaaay too slow. Way. Minimum to avoid total game breakage is 10 per turn.

Also, if it takes 6 turns to forge a sword, that sword will already be useless to the character by the time it's delivered. Items need to be built fast and they need to be built in large numbers if we don't want to rely on the NPC market for the majority of purchases. Any system which requires more than 1 turn to forge an item is not suitable for use.

The Promised Part 2
The key here is understanding the scaling per-encounter loot drops. As there need be 14 tiers of equipment, 14 levels of "base" drop would be a natural solution. This means that for the exemplar Level 7 character saving up for his Mythril Sword, Round Shield, Barbuta, Chain Mail, and, uh... I dunno, Power Glove? (all suitable for Lv10), his mobs should be dropping Mythril Ingots or something like that.

This lets us easily price "core" crafting lootz. Depending on how many moving parts we want here, a Mythril Sword could be made out of a single Mythril Ingot, or we could require two Mythril Ingots and a Weirwood Stick. I don't know. Anyway, assuming that only a single piece of the base material in question is dropped per player per encounter, here's some ideas.

Item ++ Level ++ Crafting Value (Sell Value is half)
Cloth ++ 1 ++ 440 [not that it matters because Cloth is the default tier]
Leather ++ 4 ++ 2,200
Copper ++ 7 ++ 6,050
Bronze ++ 10 ++ 11,110
Iron ++ 13 ++ 17,490
Steel ++ 16 ++ 25,410
Chain ++ 19 ++ 36,080
Mythril ++ 22 ++ 47,300
Gold ++ 25 ++ 57,200
Diamond ++ 28 ++ 73,700
Platina ++ 31 ++ 86,900
Crystal ++ 34 ++ 106,700
Adamant ++ 37 ++ 123,200
Legendarium ++ 40 ++ 146,300

Notice how it scales up. Yowza.

Also note, this assumes 14 tiers of equipment, not 9. Nine tiers does not spread evenly across 40 levels, just a warning. Picking a number of tiers now will save everyone heartache in the long run. I guess 9 is better than other numbers; we can front-load the first upgrades.