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CRAFTING EQUIPMENT VS BUYING IT
Posts
Trihan
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CloseThis is somewhat of a corollary to the topic about naming conventions, as something LockeZ said made my brain go off on a tangent about the role equipment plays in an RPG and what I want it to mean in my game.
A very good point was made that traditionally as the player progresses through the towns in a game the shops will store progressively better equipment for progressively higher costs, which may or may not be offset by the amount of money the player is getting from treasure/battles. However, the salient point was that this is largely useless in most games as the new equipment tends to either be not much better than the stuff you had before or not so much better that it justifies the price tag.
I was thinking about other ways to implement equipment in my game to keep this from being an issue for those who don't think the progressive nature of equipment adds anything to the game, and my first thought was crafting. I think Master of the Wind did this quite well, and I'm thinking of doing something similar with Tundra. That is to say that enemies will drop materials and such and the primary method of gaining equipment will be to use materials and craft it yourself.
However, this also presents potential drawbacks, in that you'll have to rely on luck to get the drops you need for the equipment you want. It also means that you'll have to balance money gains to make sure the player doesn't have so much money that other purchases become meaningless (because they're not spending money on equipment, or not as much as they otherwise would have). I'd also make it make a modicum of sense in the materials required for the equipment made, which would also limit the kinds of materials an enemy could feasibly drop. It's a good idea, but it still has flaws.
What other kinds of equipment "system" can you guys think of? What have you seen done in games that you think approached this topic particularly well? Perhaps you're doing/have done something cool with your own game. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't asking this hoping for some discussion that will generate ideas for myself, but I'm also curious as to what other people's opinions on this are.
A very good point was made that traditionally as the player progresses through the towns in a game the shops will store progressively better equipment for progressively higher costs, which may or may not be offset by the amount of money the player is getting from treasure/battles. However, the salient point was that this is largely useless in most games as the new equipment tends to either be not much better than the stuff you had before or not so much better that it justifies the price tag.
I was thinking about other ways to implement equipment in my game to keep this from being an issue for those who don't think the progressive nature of equipment adds anything to the game, and my first thought was crafting. I think Master of the Wind did this quite well, and I'm thinking of doing something similar with Tundra. That is to say that enemies will drop materials and such and the primary method of gaining equipment will be to use materials and craft it yourself.
However, this also presents potential drawbacks, in that you'll have to rely on luck to get the drops you need for the equipment you want. It also means that you'll have to balance money gains to make sure the player doesn't have so much money that other purchases become meaningless (because they're not spending money on equipment, or not as much as they otherwise would have). I'd also make it make a modicum of sense in the materials required for the equipment made, which would also limit the kinds of materials an enemy could feasibly drop. It's a good idea, but it still has flaws.
What other kinds of equipment "system" can you guys think of? What have you seen done in games that you think approached this topic particularly well? Perhaps you're doing/have done something cool with your own game. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't asking this hoping for some discussion that will generate ideas for myself, but I'm also curious as to what other people's opinions on this are.
Killer Wolf
1235
If your equipment system depends on item drops for your ingredients, don't make them low percentage drops. There is almost nothing more annoying than forcing a player to grind an area for hours just to get enough Unobtanium Fragments, that only drop 5% of the time, to build their next weapon.
You can control the equipment vs area progression by controlling your recipes. That way, the player has to go to new areas to find things to get stronger, they can't just keep recombining starter materials until they're over-powered. Unless some extremely rare item is required for the construction of ultimate level gear, don't force people to rely on luck for drops. Either give them what they need or don't. In a crafting based system, I would even prefer that the ultra-rare ingredients are things the player can find in the game world. Make the journey to get that component serve as the price paid to earn it.
If you want the Ultra Sword of Death Killing to cost 10,000gold, put the materials it takes to build it at the end of challenging dungeons or optional boss encounters. The player still pays the price for the new gear in inn costs, restoratives, and travel.
When it comes to price point, think outside the shop!
You can control the equipment vs area progression by controlling your recipes. That way, the player has to go to new areas to find things to get stronger, they can't just keep recombining starter materials until they're over-powered. Unless some extremely rare item is required for the construction of ultimate level gear, don't force people to rely on luck for drops. Either give them what they need or don't. In a crafting based system, I would even prefer that the ultra-rare ingredients are things the player can find in the game world. Make the journey to get that component serve as the price paid to earn it.
If you want the Ultra Sword of Death Killing to cost 10,000gold, put the materials it takes to build it at the end of challenging dungeons or optional boss encounters. The player still pays the price for the new gear in inn costs, restoratives, and travel.
When it comes to price point, think outside the shop!
I completely agree with you regarding rarity of drops. If I do go with a system like this, rest assured that common materials will be easily obtainable and there will probably be several routes to getting the rarer stuff.
You just sparked in idea in my head. Why not do both? Make certain items be created by the player, and you can use or sell your creations. And if you sell this creation, you can use the money you earned to buy equipment you want from the store!
Mainly because having equipment available for purchase in the store completely invalidates the point of having the crafting system in the first place. If you can buy equipment from the store, why would you need to craft stuff? Unless you're suggesting that the crafting system be the main money-generating method, but then it literally doesn't matter what you craft. You could be making demonic rubber chickens as long as you could sell them to someone and buy equipment with the proceeds, and then it just becomes another middleman in the process of equipping your characters.
Muninn
2233
How about instead of using a crafting system, you have something more along the lines of "Augmenting" or "Enchanting". Basically, you still have to buy the base weapon in a store/take it from somebody's corpse/whatever, but the things that your system would use as crafting components instead become augments or spell components for enchantments to boost the power of the weapons you find by adding additional effects to them.
This can also lead to the players having to make a choice: When you find base weaponry superior to the ones that you're currently using, do you switch over immediately in order to take advantage of the better eventual potential of the new weapons? Do you stick with the old one, because its current (enchanted) state is better than the unmodified new weaponry? Do you backtrack to re-collect old components so you can enchant the new weaponry to contain all of the effects you had on your old one?
This can also lead to the players having to make a choice: When you find base weaponry superior to the ones that you're currently using, do you switch over immediately in order to take advantage of the better eventual potential of the new weapons? Do you stick with the old one, because its current (enchanted) state is better than the unmodified new weaponry? Do you backtrack to re-collect old components so you can enchant the new weaponry to contain all of the effects you had on your old one?
That's a good idea, though I personally will avoid that approach because it still goes with the expectation that later towns in the plot will contain better weaponry when, suspension of disbelief aside, there's no logical reason for that to be the case. I mean sure, you could build a reason for this into your plot, but it'd be a pretty hard sell for people who like a bit of logic with their mechanics.
The main thing I'm trying to get away from is the trope of every successive town having better stuff, a slightly more expensive inn, and the next level of magic (magic in my game will be created by the player as well).
The main thing I'm trying to get away from is the trope of every successive town having better stuff, a slightly more expensive inn, and the next level of magic (magic in my game will be created by the player as well).
Killer Wolf
1235
Have a character early on explain "They can talk about how fine _country_name_here_'s blades are, but steel is steel. The only thing that makes one weapon superior to another is the warrior behind it."
If "steel is steel" all shops can sell the same basic items, but the player will train with them and improve in skill. Maybe you have areas where weapons can be altered, which increases their base stats. I'm thinking lightening it by cutting material away, sharpening it, making it heavier to drive through bone easier, balancing the handle.
The player gets a weapon at an early shop, trains with it to get better, customizes it as they wish... but maybe they find out it isn't perfect against all enemy types. They invest in another starter weapon, at any shop along the way since "steel is steel." They train with it, improve it, etc.
Instead of making different towns have "better" weapons, maybe they have regional specialties. One place makes excellent spears because they had to, to deal with the monsters in the region. Maybe instead of bare bottom starter weapons, some places that specialize in a type of enhancement sell weapons with that feature already.
If "steel is steel" all shops can sell the same basic items, but the player will train with them and improve in skill. Maybe you have areas where weapons can be altered, which increases their base stats. I'm thinking lightening it by cutting material away, sharpening it, making it heavier to drive through bone easier, balancing the handle.
The player gets a weapon at an early shop, trains with it to get better, customizes it as they wish... but maybe they find out it isn't perfect against all enemy types. They invest in another starter weapon, at any shop along the way since "steel is steel." They train with it, improve it, etc.
Instead of making different towns have "better" weapons, maybe they have regional specialties. One place makes excellent spears because they had to, to deal with the monsters in the region. Maybe instead of bare bottom starter weapons, some places that specialize in a type of enhancement sell weapons with that feature already.
Two suggestions from two games:
In Dark Cloud 2, you start out with a weapon. And you can just keep that weapon if you'd like. Basically you took the items you found on your journey and put their qualities into your weapon. Each weapon had a cap of stats, and at a certain point you can transform your weapon into different ones. The weapons they transform into are dependent on how you invested into the weapons stats, if you fulfill all the requirements for all different transformations you get a choice and one choice isn't necessarily better than the other and is dependent on your preference. Also, the reason this really worked is EVERY ITEM you got could be synthesized. Another cool thing is you can still buy other weapons and find some which you can level up for a while and then if you decide later you don't like the new one, you can synth the properties of the new into your old for a much better weapon overall. I've always loved DC2.
In FFXIII-2 you sort of have both. There's a progressing line of weapons that is dependent on how far you into the story and a progressing line of weapons that is dependent on what materials you have. You can do whichever one you want and you'll be fine. Also, there's a reoccuring character who sells them to you which is the main problem with integrating this system into your game.
In Dark Cloud 2, you start out with a weapon. And you can just keep that weapon if you'd like. Basically you took the items you found on your journey and put their qualities into your weapon. Each weapon had a cap of stats, and at a certain point you can transform your weapon into different ones. The weapons they transform into are dependent on how you invested into the weapons stats, if you fulfill all the requirements for all different transformations you get a choice and one choice isn't necessarily better than the other and is dependent on your preference. Also, the reason this really worked is EVERY ITEM you got could be synthesized. Another cool thing is you can still buy other weapons and find some which you can level up for a while and then if you decide later you don't like the new one, you can synth the properties of the new into your old for a much better weapon overall. I've always loved DC2.
In FFXIII-2 you sort of have both. There's a progressing line of weapons that is dependent on how far you into the story and a progressing line of weapons that is dependent on what materials you have. You can do whichever one you want and you'll be fine. Also, there's a reoccuring character who sells them to you which is the main problem with integrating this system into your game.
Dyhalto
7536
One of my now-defunct RM2k3 projects involved segmenting the game into chapters, and each chapter had it's own batch of unique craftable weapons/armors to complement the usual store schlock. An example recipe : 10 Spider Silks, 5 Wolf Fangs, and 300 gold. I also made it so that the sell price was 3x or more than the price of selling the components and avoiding the smithy's fee, so the player could make mad bank if he wanted to.
The drawback was that it involved grinding, so bleh.
I was going to mention the region-specific idea, but killerwolf beat me to it. Romancing SaGa 3 did this in a small way. The basic idea is to make weapons less of a stat booster and more of a functional decision. Will you equip the Great Axe or the Speed Tomahawk? High defense Bone Armor with a fire weakness, or ho-hum Silver Armor with projectile resistance? But those are lame examples. The more creativity you add, the better ensemble of goodies the player has to work with.
The drawback was that it involved grinding, so bleh.
I was going to mention the region-specific idea, but killerwolf beat me to it. Romancing SaGa 3 did this in a small way. The basic idea is to make weapons less of a stat booster and more of a functional decision. Will you equip the Great Axe or the Speed Tomahawk? High defense Bone Armor with a fire weakness, or ho-hum Silver Armor with projectile resistance? But those are lame examples. The more creativity you add, the better ensemble of goodies the player has to work with.
author=Trihan
Chocolina is actually a pretty disturbing character once you find out who she really is.
My reaction was more of "Oh my... That is SO cool!!!"
You could make it so that purchased weapons just cost alot but are the same as crafted weapons, that way they have incentive to craft but they can buy it if they don't want to deal with it? This would make it so that all the weapons are available but the better ones are harder to get.
I think for the purposes of moving away from having better equipment in the next town over for no reason other than to make it easier to fight the monsters there, Killer Wolf's idea is probably the best: having a static set of equipment that can be improved using materials. That way the basic stuff is available everywhere and your progression is limited by what you pick up.
I suppose the next inevitable stop on my logic train then becomes "well why are the enemies more powerful in the next area over?" which I think I have a solution for but I'd like to mull over that one in a bit more detail before I discuss it in depth.
I suppose the next inevitable stop on my logic train then becomes "well why are the enemies more powerful in the next area over?" which I think I have a solution for but I'd like to mull over that one in a bit more detail before I discuss it in depth.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Instant Messenger chat log: relevant to your interests.
Conversion is with zombero, the creator of Soul Shepherd. His game has a system where killing enemies causes them to randomly drop their souls. These souls have multiple uses; they can be equipped to gain that enemy's stats and learn new spells, they can be fractured into soul shards that grant passive abilities, or they can be synthesized into equipment at shops. Souls are definitely at the core of progression in his game.
Conversion is with zombero, the creator of Soul Shepherd. His game has a system where killing enemies causes them to randomly drop their souls. These souls have multiple uses; they can be equipped to gain that enemy's stats and learn new spells, they can be fractured into soul shards that grant passive abilities, or they can be synthesized into equipment at shops. Souls are definitely at the core of progression in his game.
Zombero:the verdict isn't in yet on what role equipment shops will have in leu of synth shops
Zombero: so shops is a more complex question
Zombero: but synthing has no town-based milestone; you can synth the same stuff in every synth shop in the game, you just need to have collected the enemy souls you need as ingredients
LockeZ: They shouldn't sell equipment at all, they should sell equipment recipes that you have to take to the synth shop
Zombero: haha
LockeZ: Because fuck normal equipment shops
Zombero: considering you buy the individual pieces of equipment, I'm not sure about having to buy recipes, seems pretty obnoxious
LockeZ: I mean I guess the first two towns need to sell equipment normally, since the first synth shop is in the third town, so you can't delete equipment shops entirely unless you want the game to be way more difficult at the beginning
Zombero: they don't -need- to, but it's not terrible for them to
LockeZ: Well having normal equipment shops competing with synth shops seems very hard to balance, but maybe you could have one equipment slot that's only buyable
Zombero: it's theoretically doable
Zombero: considering you have a boss immediately before every town
Zombero: so you have motivation to synth all the EQ you can
Zombero: but I don't think I like the idea
Zombero: what's likely to happen is a town will just have an item shop and a synth shop
Zombero: and maybe the item shop will have 1-2 pieces of equipment
LockeZ: How most games deal with it is that gear from synthesis and such is simply better than gear bought with gold, but there are a lot of gaps in the synth gear
LockeZ: So you use shop equipment until you kill the things needed for synth gear, then upgrade about half your slots to synth gear (because there isn't synth gear for the other half)
LockeZ: Then maybe find a couple items in treasure chests to replace a couple of the remaining non-synth items you're using
Zombero: odd
LockeZ: Then reach the next town and repeat
Zombero: synth should have -fewer- gaps than normal shops
Zombero: it's like a continuous shop
Zombero: instead of a milestone based shop
LockeZ: They're typically considered the rarer type of item, harder to get
LockeZ: Also they're typically less boring
LockeZ: It's easy to make an item for every slot that has no effects except +def
Zombero: just ask every piece of equipment on the NES
Zombero: slight exaggeration
LockeZ: very slight
LockeZ: FF9, FF12, Tales of Symphonia, Kingdom Hearts, UOSSMUD all deal with it the way I described though
Zombero: I think it's safe to say my synth system wouldn't quite be typical
Zombero: and synthable items certainly don't have to be rare at all
LockeZ: Etrian Odyssey's is more like yours, the only "normal shop" equipment is level 1 equipment
LockeZ: A few items are from quests or chests, everything else is synth
LockeZ: In UOSSMUD, buyable equipment gradually becomes less and less common as you level up, which is a thing I like
LockeZ: Around level 80 it just stops
LockeZ: But all the other vectors keep going until 130
LockeZ: Well, boss drops keep going until 130, everything else keeps going until 115
Zombero: yes, EO is much nearer to the idea
Zombero: actually FF9 and such are a totally different system
Zombero: because you're actually making the item out of normal equipment
LockeZ: FF9 and ToS are like that, yeah
LockeZ: FF12 and KH are more like yours and EO
Zombero: ah
LockeZ: ToS is kind of a hybrid, you need both old equipment and item drops, but the items drop based solely on monster class - all beasts in the game drop beast fangs, and beast fangs continue to be used in synth shops for the whole game
LockeZ: So it makes you go out and find monsters to fight each time you want an item, but it can be stuff around the first town
LockeZ: Which is kind of goofy
Zombero: that's pretty goofy
Zombero: I believe my original motivations for the synth shop were:
1) I was coming up with more uses for souls
2) I wanted a more continuous flow of new equipment
LockeZ: Both good things, and both accomplished
Interesting conversation, and I'll definitely take a look at Soul Shepherd.
I'd actually played with the idea of having an Etrian Odyssey style shop for items and weapons (and in fact did a script commission for RMVX that facilitates that very thing, though it wasn't done for me so technically I can't use it) but that only really works if you have a single central shop, otherwise there's suspension of disbelief when the shopkeeper in town C is able to sell you the Wyrmslayer made by town A after you sold all the materials required to make it.
I suppose you could have unlocked equipment only buyable from the shopkeeper who made it, but that would get pretty tedious especially when it comes to remembering what you unlocked and where.
I'd actually played with the idea of having an Etrian Odyssey style shop for items and weapons (and in fact did a script commission for RMVX that facilitates that very thing, though it wasn't done for me so technically I can't use it) but that only really works if you have a single central shop, otherwise there's suspension of disbelief when the shopkeeper in town C is able to sell you the Wyrmslayer made by town A after you sold all the materials required to make it.
I suppose you could have unlocked equipment only buyable from the shopkeeper who made it, but that would get pretty tedious especially when it comes to remembering what you unlocked and where.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Yeah, he has one synth guy who follows you around from town to town, like Watts from Secret of Mana. It's a little silly, but it's less silly than the alternative. You really only have to halfway explain the synth guy's presence the first time it happens unexpectedly; after that people will take it for granted.
You could always go the Princess Princess route and have the synthesiser/alchemist be one of your party members. That way the following you around part is sort of built-in.
Dragon Quest 8 did it quite well as well, with the explanation that synthesis is done in a big pot that travels around in your cart with you.
Dragon Quest 8 did it quite well as well, with the explanation that synthesis is done in a big pot that travels around in your cart with you.
Or hire a guy at a town to follow you as a party guest - this way you can choose different people - a shop keeper or an alchemist? A blacksmith or a weapons dealer? (I was actually considering this for one game.)
That's an excellent idea on paper, Lib, but when you break it down to its component parts all that's really doing is forcing the player to travel to location X when they want to craft item type Y. In a game where all the people are relatively close together that doesn't matter--but then what's the point of having that restriction in the first place? Conversely, if they're all far apart enough and dotted around that the choice becomes a tough decision instead of an easy option, the player might just get fed up with constantly going back and forth to get the weapons dealer once they finally get that final material they needed for the +5 Sword of Ermahgerd after just having left him behind to make some potions from a guy who lives five towns over.
