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Down With Diablo(Crafting Mats As Loot)
Cuathon
Member Posts: 2,211
So one thing that has always wrecked the game for crafters is that loot tables from slain "bosses" and "rares" and "uniques" ala Diablo provide the best gear. The entire raid system is based on grinding essentially preset tiered raid gear.
Everything is loaded with colors too. Even GW has a color coded system.
How many of you would play a game where monsters dropped only mats and no gear? Obviously crafter and sandbox types are often on board with this. But some aren't and many themeparkers of course despise having to interact with crafters.
In my game the "boss" creatures whether they actually control groups of lesser creatures or are just solo types are almost totally unique in the sense that each creatures follows a sort of randomized but species based progression path. For instance you might get a dragon mage or a wurm that is dumb as a box of rocks.
We have relatively randomized mats from creatures and nodes in SWG. Did they allow for significant variation across creature types or was it krayt tissues for damage and thats it?
Ideally I would like to have general item classes that could be made out of whatever materials would work. For instance you would have the standard metals and alloys and some special ones for weapons, but you would also have the option of bone or stone or wood weapons. Most metals have stable magic containing qualities and a stable upgrade with certain crafting functions. But special materials would allow special functions.
Lets say you fought and killed the aforementioned dragon archmage. All of the components of his body, skin, bones, teeth, claws, and so forth would contain properties unique to his personal stats.
Magic in the world is generally gained by exploring certain locations before anyone else and picking up the magical descriptors found there to make spells and enchantments.
However with the dragon mage you have an alternate method. A sword of dragonbone from a fire dragon with extra magical control over fire capability would contain the "extra magical" property whereby based on his stats it could hold more powerful enchantments than say, a mithril sword. A magic-dumb dragon may have bones holding a charge consistent with say, iron or copper or w/e magically inert metal.
Additionally it may have built in magical properties. You may receive a boost to fire enchantments cast on the item. You might even have functioning enchantments on the item, such as inner heart or frost bane type things. Maybe the sword glows allowing night vision over a large area at your discretion.
This is actually an emergent function of the way mats work in my game that only occured to me as I was writing this. I was initially only thinking of things like hardness or w/e but this is consistent with the magical properties of the world.
In any case this would allow for some pretty unique crafting opportunities. These are inherent characteristics of the substance which aren't affected by your personal crafting skills and which don't count towards things like enchantment caps for items be it in power or number of possible enchantments.
In the case of the boost to fire it may be something like 20% bonus to effect, be it damage, or resistance, or other properties. You may also have a more specific bonus just to fire damage which may occur separately or simultaneously.
You could craft something like an enchanted dragon bone torch or obelisk which would permanently light up your city. You could also use other properties to light up a city, say phoenix feather orbs or something.
An item with fire properties could be used for any purpose that fire in real life could be used for. In theory you could make a dragonbone furnace which requires no fuel and which short circuits the crafting capital progression. Ie your skill in crafting a new furnace could be irrelevent to the power of the dragon bone furnace or it could be additive.
Another example would be a faerie bone or a tree of life limb used for a mortar and pestle where the item would leaks its properties into the potion. Higher regen for the tree or a longer lasting glowstick for the faerie bone. Maybe the fang of a magically endowed poison aligned wurm used as a stirring stick would make your poisons or acids more potent than they otherwise might be. You could also get a strong poison harvesting the venom sacks and its blood.
This is all perfectly possible to code although having high level graphics to render would be pretty hard to deal with.
Sound interesting?
Comments
Moar power to the crafters!
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And don't believe them when they tell you they can't make this. UO had a similar properties system in the 90s. At worst you sacrifice some graphical quality.
Also come on, who doesn't want a dragonbone smelting furnace? I have one. You guys know you are jealous.
Having bosses dropping crafting mats is not something new and in games like EQ2 they randomly drop some crafting mats once in a while.
If it becomes a common thing you however needs to have a less grindy crafting mechanics, which I assume D3 have.
I agree with the whole "Down with D3# thing, but because the real money auction house, not what mobs drop. In EQ2 you always became happy for those mats even if you didn´t craft, you always got a good price for them at the broker.
I know that some bosses drop mats occassionally. I want all creatures in the game to drop only mats. And actually all creatures in my game drop mats the same way as a "boss" but I figured that dragons and fire magic would be more exciting than say a stone elemental dropping some cuttable stones that a re w ater resistant and immune to erosion.
Also I wasn't referring to D3. I meant D2. That is what made color coded random loot bullshit and grinding bosses popular.
Too sandboxy!!!! Causual gamers would rather spend years grinding epic loot than buying it from a crafter!!!!!
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Also I wasn't referring to D3. I meant D2. That is what made color coded random loot bullshit and grinding bosses popular.
It would certainly cut down on the amount of vendor trash in your bags. However, they're not going to do it. The whole point of the game is the color coded random loot and grinding bosses. That and you'd just be trading random loot drops with random crafting drops. You can have all your random loot broken down into crafting materials anyway. The crafted items are already relevant to game play - they are (so far) some of the best items you can equip for your character.
However, in a game that isn't Diablo X, I can see this working very well. I might add humanoid mobs dropping armor pieces, but only as templates for crafting...i.e. to craft a chest piece of whatever, you need a steel chest piece to start with. You could loot the steel chest piece or gather enough iron and nickel to craft one.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I was referring more to the Diablo effect flooding outward into MMOs as opposed to rogue likes where it is the genre. My bad for not being clear. The crafting drops are semi random. Their properties a re determined by the creature you killed. There may be some random numbers for the value of the property although I would say the difference between best and worst would be 20% to the property value. Base value being 100 and max value being 120. The majority of the value being derived from the creatures own power level. And creatures are not just random spawns here in the sense of creatures in SWG or the static timed spawns of WoW. Sometimes I neglect information that is pertinent for people who haven't read previous threads of mine.
The property aspect is more interesting to me than the random bonuses though. Every player in the game cannot craft a dragon bone smelting furnace just be leveling their combat level or crafting level. Skills only add bonuses to the existing item rather than gating stuff like make 1000000 cotton shirts then you can use silk.
I would like to note that this is not all about crafting and gear optimizing per say.
A lot of it is about customizing appearances. I can easily imagine a guild who decides to produce most of their gear and structures from a small subset of substances as part of their theme. Going with the dragonbone theme, construct light sources out of a dragon head in the middle and then make the cage out of ribs. Use the long bones for roof beams and so forth. And bone carving and splitting of course. So that you can use an extra long bone to make several roof beams or something. And if you used a fire dragon for all all your construction materials your whole city would glow day or night. It looks pretty and it gives easier vision at night.
I was thinking of doing like a special carving and general processing UI where within the crafting screen material is solid and functional all the way through and you could use cose similar to the kind used to write the art elements in the first place and change the shape and then reenter the object into the general game. You probably wouldn't be able to see someone carving bone in real time in the game space.
I did play a game where mobs did not drop any loot at all, it was all crafting material, and while it sounded good on paper, it did not work out at all. Horizons (Istaria) did this, eventually they added loot to the game.
The problem was the adventurers got bored, and there were more of them than crafters. I did not use to craft, I have learned to like it over the years, but back then I was very bored. Why would I hunt down that mob, it doesn't give me anything I can use.
So the adventurer had no reason to play, and when they did kill a mob, they had to find a crafter willing to craft the item, meet up with them at the crafters schedule, wait for the crafter to actually do it, which may be instant or may take days, then meet up with them again to get it. In the end it was very frustrating for the adventurer.
The idea caters solely to crafters.
That being said, if there was a way for the adventurer to get the item being made quickly, say that enchanted tooth would be absorbed onto the sword... than they may still have some desire to slay the monster.
But be carefull, again this is one area that sounds good on paper, but did not work out like expected in practice.
I know what Istaria did. I don't think they took it far enough. It certainly didn't have the properties system I am using as the framework of my crafting/building.
The idea doesn't cater solely to crafters. The game caters to builders and strategists and social players and economic players and RP players. RP players do have to work, its not easy to create a city of 90% dragon bone materials. But you can do it.
I do not want to make diablo with more crafting. I want to get rid of diabloesque item systems all together.
My idea might not work as you think I expect it. It will work exactly as I do expect it.
Niche playerbase. Steep learning curve. High time commitment.
The whole point is to ditch the instant gratification of most MMOs. Yes, you have to work together with other players. Alternatively you could just craft the item yourself but it would only be half or a fourth as good.
I am intentionally changing the focus from quick and dirty mob bashing because I want something new and different.
I am not making a game like Diablo. I am making an MMO that is not a wannabe version of Diablo like themeparks are these days.
I REALLY DO want to replace loot drops with mats and force people to craft.
Vindictus comes to mind, and I don't like it. I like killing things and getting new items. Now, if those items can be broken down into materials and then used for crafting, that's a win win right there.
I find the diablo reference confusing, did you even play that game beyond singleplayer and the Skeleton King dropping his life stealing crown as a guaranteed drop not available in multiplayer, and diablo2 ?
The "drop tables" those times were completely different in structure, purpose and use to what we are used today.
It didn't seem particularly vindictus like to me. I dunno.
Um, this design is specifically so that you can't get completed gear from creatures. Your suggestion is the opposite of a win. Casuals and raiders and diablo fans get what they want but the population I want to serve is still fucked.
Raiders often cite that idea as a compromise but only because they don't really understand crafters and builders and socializers and economizers. That's not good enough. Luckily you guys have WoW and SWTOR to cater to your style but we have nothing.
Uh, I played diablo 2 online and offline. The loot tables are different, but the roguelike random loot system was an influence on todays MMOs. I dunno. Take diablo out of it and use WoW. Doesn't matter to me. Both systems are equally inappropriate to MMOs.
Op:
I agree that the reference to Diablo is wrong.
1: Diablo Classic: In this game the best loot does not always drop from bosses.
2: Diablo2 runeword expansion: Only 1 percent of players have legit runeword items, everyone else has cheated by buying / trading for duped or botted items.
......
Diablo1 and Diablo2 played on Blizzard BattleNett Realms has always been a cesspit of cheating / botting / Hacks etc. Blizzard are well known for turning a blind eye to this cheating, just go and check the official forums for proof.
Alright. My bad. Diablo was not the best name to use. Moving on now?
IF i would have to take a example of a MMO (maybe) influenced by D2 drop system (we didnt loot back then, we picked up drops
), it would be quite interestingly Lineage 2 (without boss jewellery), a game quite the thing you want to look up for mobs dropping crafting mats, not wow, sorry, there are worlds of difference.
Even in D2, teh horadric cube, rune words, jewels... overall a very simple but surprisingly broad crafting system dependent on drops from normal mobs and bosses alike, i have seen Stone of Jordan drop twice, every time from normal mobs.
Inappropriate? You mean "you do not like it".
There is nothing inherent "inappropriate" about it. It works in many successful games. I have yet to see a successful game using the drop system YOU describe.
Would be hard for a game to have it since I just made it up no?
I do not mean I don't like it. Diablo's system was awesome in diablo. I played Diablo2 for like 1000 hours.
I just think its wrong for MMOs.
Looks like this thread has hit a dead end of arguing over bad title choices. Ah well. Not something unexpected on this forum.
SWG (PRE CU) was the best... Most items were best if crafted. Occassionally items that are found were better, but that was unusual. All items had decay. Some items required components to craft that could only be looted, but not all the best items were like this, only a few different/unique items were.
What a refreshing balance it had!!
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Sort of only tangentially related, but better than the bad title posts. thanks worm.
And Diablo 3 is coming, which by all indication, it will be a great game.
I don't think there is right or wrongs for MMOs. You want it so much to be different from Diablo ... guess that is your pergoative. However, what if Diablo 3 is the convergence of MMOs?
There is no reason why MMOs, or at least some, to strive to be more like Diablo .... which is a hell of a good game. Convergence and mix-n-match of features have many success in gaming.
Borderland is so good, because it is a good mix of FPS and RPG.
Many action games have RPG elements added in, like Prototype.
Many single player games have MMO type open world.
There is no reason why MMOs cannot take more co-op or single player game elements if it make a good & entertaining game.
Lets avoid having the whole I don't t hink thats an MMO argument again. I think we both know we will not agree.
Do you have any comments on the actual first post and not the title?