items and manufacturing skills

From: darshan
Date: 2002-01-31 20:29:49

Here's a draft.

1. Items are arranged in a hierarchy. The leaf nodes in the hierarchy are actual items, but all the higher level nodes are abstract items, ie. items that don't actually exist in the game but serve to establish type relations between similar items (eg. weapon (abstract) -> sword (abstract) -> hilosyph sword (real item))

2. Associated with each player character is a list of the items (leaf nodes of the hierarchy) that he can make. Associated to each of the items is a description of how good he is at making it.

3. There are no 'create X' skills.

4. The making of an item requires a) knowledge of making the item (see 2) and b) a proficiency in the (passive) material-working skill corresponding to the material of the item (for example carpentry, masonry or blacksmithing).

5. Knowledge of manufacturing trickles down the item tree: Making a hilosyph runed broadswordincreases your ability to make not only more hilosyph runed broadswords, but also hilosyph swords (an abstract item) and to a lesser extent swords and to an even lesser extent weapons.

6. If you gain knowledge of making an (abstract) hilosyph sword, your knowledge of making all its child items (say, hilosyph runed broadswords, hilosyph ceremonial two-handed sword etc.) will also rise - provided that you already have >0 proficiency in making the child items (the >0 is to prevent a hilosyph from learning to make chrein weapons without ever seeing one). This means that by making enough hilosyph runed broadswords you'll improve your skill in making hilosyph ceremonial two-handed swords as well.

7. If a hilosyph weaponsmith at some point learns to make a chrein short sword, his knowledge of making them will immediately rise, thanks to his existing knowledge in swords and weapons.

The representation of skill levels

If a player knows how to make an item of type X, he probably has a clue about what a perfect X would be like. Depending on his perception-like stats, the player will, upon making an item, get some feedback regarding how well he succeeded. The feedback could be a bipartite message relating a) how well you succeeded in relation to your average level, and b) how good the item is compared to absolute perfection.

A player's proficiency in passive skills will have to be told with an ordinary list, probably of verbal descriptions.

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-02-05 04:58:29
In-Reply-To: 462

off topic, but just as an addition to the nodal arrows, either the top "weapons" category or (preferably) each weapon type (swords, daggers, etc.) should split into "usage" and "crafting"

crafting weapons increases your strength and knowledge of the weapons, therefore making you more proficient in using them
weapon usage makes you more knowledgeable about the properties of the perfect weapon (weight, balance, things like that)

From: origon
Date: 2002-02-01 12:40:33
In-Reply-To: 462

ok, if a smith knows how to create a hilosyph sword, he will then advance in all weapon types more or less. Could he then make a 'standard' dagger, as well as a 'standard' spiked club. Or would he have to encounter the weapon class first, alternatively learn how to forge weapons of the class?

From: sweatshop
Date: 2002-02-01 02:53:47
In-Reply-To: 462

Sounds good to me, but how would a player learn how to make their first item? or do all players start off with a basic level in most (if not all) skills?

From: darshan
Date: 2002-01-31 20:30:57
In-Reply-To: 462

A mistake in #1: the node-to-node arrow thing should be
weapon (abstract) -> sword (abstract) -> hilosyph sword (abstract) -> hilosyph ceremonial two-handed sword (real item).

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-02-01 10:33:29
In-Reply-To: 468

Maybe all pleyers don't even know certain skills exist. If you are tought about skill something called 'fighting with swords upside down' :) Then you will get the oppoturnity to start learning it.

From: beregar
Date: 2002-02-01 10:41:10
In-Reply-To: 474

This thread is about item creation skills, not about combat skills. Items are not that different from each other so I believe that every player will recognize a sword when he or she sees one. Darshan already stated that there is an abstract item in the item creation (ie hilosyph sword). So no Creith can create a hilosyph item unless he or she learns the hilosyph abstraction.

- Beregar

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-02-01 13:06:20
In-Reply-To: 485

I'm not really sure what a standard dagger is.

I suppose almost every item is in some way connected to some type of culture, and every item the character is capable of creating is defined by a blueprint he as memorized. In other words, he could certainly try to build a dagger that he has a blueprint of, it's just a question of what type of blueprints we will give to the characters.

From: darshan
Date: 2002-02-01 13:37:06
In-Reply-To: 489

Exactly. Designers should keep in mind that there is no such thing as a "standard X" when there are various cultures in the game.

From: origon
Date: 2002-02-01 13:53:59
In-Reply-To: 489

Have i got this right? You need a 'blueprint of X' to produce item X. this blueprint only enables you to do the item, or do blueprint quality also modify your chances? If you have created several items X, and you loose the blueprint, can you still make item X?

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-02-01 13:57:21
In-Reply-To: 493

Yes, you need a blueprint of item in order to create an item. Hence, the items the characters can create must be carefully considered, and I suppose there will be a lot of them for each character.

The blueprints will be memorized by the characters once acquired, so you don't need to carry around a piece of paper with you all the time.

And yes, blueprints come in different qualities.

From: darshan
Date: 2002-02-01 14:08:19
In-Reply-To: 494

That is not how I envisioned it. A blueprint is an abstract object which represents the knowledge of making an item. It is does not have a physical form in any stage.

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-02-03 15:36:43
In-Reply-To: 495

Yes. Now that I consider it, being able to write blueprints on paper would/could mean that players would be able to learn to create every item in a matter of minutes. Indeed this should be avoided.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-02-03 18:01:00
In-Reply-To: 512

yes, if books can be made by players, then someone could create a book of all items possible to make, and sell it/trade it/fight for it and a newbie character would be able to read the book and learn everything there is to know.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-02-03 19:04:29
In-Reply-To: 513

He can't make a book unles he is himself able to do everything he wants to put there.

Eg. he needs to know how to do item X with quality Y in order to put instructions for X with Y. If he does'n he have to write X with Z or R with P ;)

And one book can't contain all that information. There is only a limited space in books.

From: harum
Date: 2002-02-03 21:00:17
In-Reply-To: 514

And we can make learning from a book much slower than learning from a teacher. Also, the amount of pages needed could increase rapidly for higher skill levels.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-02-03 23:38:48
In-Reply-To: 515

True. But what to put there?
Whoa, I have the book of boat building.. hmm, I learn but see no information.

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-02-04 04:23:40
In-Reply-To: 516

I say to make written blueprints possible, and even books of them, but it should give maybe only a little larger effect than just seeing the item (ie, see the item in someone's hand = +1
see the item and examine up close = +2
see the blueprint and examine for a while = +3)
this would also be affected by your perception (talked about in another topic)

oh, and to one of the points from darshan
"
7. If a hilosyph weaponsmith at some point learns to make a chrein short sword, his knowledge of making them will immediately rise, thanks to his existing knowledge in swords and weapons.
"
are you saying that if you get 1 skill point towards a "chrein dagger of torment", but have 86 points in "weapons" that it will automatically raise the points of the dagger?
what I was thinking was that all the levels were taken into account by some equation that determines your success rate (maybe as simple as "weapons + sword + hilosyph sword + hilosyph scymitar of dismemberment")
that way, you wouldn't have to worry about adding to other skills, only to parent ones
and if you saw a chrein dagger, you would be able to forge a fairly good copy based on your level in "weapons" and "daggers", even if you had never seen a chrein dagger before
the player would never see this, merely see the final result of the equation (ie. they'd see a skill of 98 in "elven ceremonial razor-edged knife", but it would actually be a skill of 12, supplemented by 17 in elven knives 25 in knives and 44 in weapons)


on the other hand, since all weapons would follow a cultural trend, raising your skill in chrein swords may raise your skill in chrein daggers and possibly chrein crossbows

From: darshan
Date: 2002-02-04 08:53:14
In-Reply-To: 519

No, I still object to blueprints being real objects.

As regards the skill equation bit, yes, that's a better way of putting it.

From: sweatshop
Date: 2002-02-05 06:24:26
In-Reply-To: 576

you sure it's not supposed to be the other way around?

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-02-07 01:58:29
In-Reply-To: 577

what do you mean?

From: sweatshop
Date: 2002-02-07 02:44:52
In-Reply-To: 605

[Quote]
"crafting weapons increases your strength and knowledge of the weapons, therefore making you more proficient in using them
weapon usage makes you more knowledgeable about the properties of the perfect weapon (weight, balance, things like that)"
[/Quote]

It would seem more logical (at least to me) if crafting weapons would make you more knowledgeable about properties, while weapon usage would make you more proficient in using them. No?

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-02-07 22:10:50
In-Reply-To: 609

oh, that's what you meant

well, of course you're right, I was just mentioning how they overlap somewhat to explain why they should benefit each other