A simple way to make crafting a more interesting skill path

Create items that are exclusive to crafting that are better than items you find on the dungeons floor. Do you agree?

 

No, I've implemented this in my own dredmor mods and i found that it is not fun because it forces the player to use a specific skill or skill combination.

 

Isn't that the purpose of a skill? Each skill has different spells that could be used in different situations. It is not like I take Swords and expect to be able to shoot fireballs.

The benefit of crafting would then be you get unique items specific to your trade. You cant expect some1 who had never made any items before to all of a sudden have an urge to create some legendary weapon. No. That would be expected from someone that had mastered their art, hence the necessity of a skill to unlock said items.

 

I no watcha mean, that's kinda what I mean tho. Its not necessarily a reccomendation for using a random build, I got the idea while I was building the clockwork gear. Basically after having to build up the necessary resources to build the crossbow, I had found one immediately afterwards on dungeon floor. It just felt like a waste of a skill slot at that point, ya no wat I mean? That's y I think exclusive gear (on top of the already existant recipes as well, of course) would b a good motivation to continue picking the crafting skills. Than again maybe it came down to my rotten luck : P

 

Actually, what Ruigi meant there is that it would make crafting skills must-have ones.
Sure, right now crafting skills aren't the most useful ones you can take, especially with the inventory hassle they add. But they can still be used to reliably give yourself decent equipment, so you can take crafting and be safe, knowing that you'll always have something decent to wear. There is a chance that you'll find something better, but in the case that you do not, crafting skills allow you to have some sort of fall-back.
Now, if the best equipment could only be crafted, there would be no point in choosing other skills over the crafting ones, as you'd almost never have the chance of getting anything nearly as useful as you can craft, and the knowledge that they won't be as strong as they could be if they don't fill their inventory with crud they normally would change into lutefisk on the spot would only serve to aggravate many players.

 

Perhaps with the addition of the sub bags in the future (as responded to by the lead designer in the other thread) the inventory issues will b less cumbersome and this will b a more viable addition to the game

 

I sort of envision this working in a way that the items still have a chance of being found in the dungeon randomly however if you want to guarantee getting said item only one proficient in the crafting could make the item.

I.E
Player 1 does not take crafting skill:
He can not craft the item
However he can find the item

Player 2 takes crafting skill:
He can craft the item
He may also find the item

 

The trade off for having the nicer gear exclusive to crafting would be lacking the abilities granted from utalizing other skills trees, and vice versa.

 

Blitzcracker's originally posted idea (which you supposedly agreed to, and which is the idea that I disagree with) is about weapons that are stronger than what you can find in the dungeon, that can only be gotten through crafting.

Making equivalent items, or minimally worse ones (since they are pretty much guaranteed if you have crafting), on the other hand, is what crafting is supposed to allow us to do.

 

I do agree with the original post, however I also like seeing everyone finding an idea suitable to both parties. So I tried to morph it slightly to something that might appeal everyone

As it is I see it completely fair and balanced if something can only be gotten through crafting. However, because the rng can be cruel to the items it chooses to spawn, I also see it viable to allow something to have a random chance to spawn(At least some point in time another adventurer may have had those items and fell victim to the dungeon so it is logical that it may spawn).

 

...that is...already how the game is?

 

No, because any1 can find the crafting tools to craft with as is. And if they find items to increase their skill such as tinker goggles then they didnt need to take the crafting skill

Think of it as hidden recipes that can only be unlocked by taking a crafting skill

 

It's a shame hidden recipes completely ruin any guarantee crafting could provide. It's fun to find the Serpentine Plate recipe on floor 13 while you're carrying a stack of Imperial Plates.

My opinion on crafting skill balance:

1. Alchemy

• Potions: Health/Mana/Invis/Teleport/Purity are good. Rest are mostly average and not usually worth it. Elemental potions need a buff (the fire one has a broken proc). Armouring potion is a joke. Need better melee potions (e.g. Killing Blow / Swashbuckling in potion form).
• Thrown Weapons: Brimstone Flasks and Blink Dust are great. Acid Flasks suck, they should create a cloud not a puddle.
• Items: Orbs/Staves are worthwhile. Metal Orby recipe should be unhidden, Jingly Jangly recipe should be hidden. Tempted to give Orbs some kind of defense proc so they're interesting to more than just pure Mages.
• Booze: Always useful.

Overall it's fine. ​

2. Tinkering

• Bolts: Must-have for Archers. Needs recipes for the new RotDG bolts. Maybe some way to upgrade / combine basic arrows so you don't end up with a Bronze/Iron/Steel stack using up 3 inventory slots.
• Thrown Weapons: Okay. The upgrading recipes (Makeshift Bomb -> Iron Bomb -> Grenade) are annoying. Need scaling damage or just more single target damage to be worthwhile compared to Brimstone Flasks. Maybe all explosives should have knockback?
• Items: Good since the last patch. Not sure why the new crossbow recipes are in Smithing though.
• Traps: Suck. Horrible waste of resources considering how annoying they are to use. These should be the highest damage dealers of all.

Overall it's okay.​

3. Smithing

• Thrown Weapons: Mostly okay. Same problem as Tinkering arrows where you end up with Darts, Kunais and Throwing Stars. Needs more special thrown weapons (like the Bolas).
• Items: New expansion items made this better but I still hate hidden recipes.

Needs improvement but I still take it all the time just because I like crafting gear.​

​

4. Wand Crafting

• Items: Horrible. All the recipes are 90% style, 10% substance. Swapping a Bolt of Squid for a 1-4 charge Tentacle Wand? Dumb. Three raw ores to make a 3-12 charge Rock Wand that deals 15 and knocks back? Horrible compared to every other ranged damage source. Aetheric Power Cylinder (that needs 4) just to make a 3-12 charge Wand of Laser? Not to mention how much inventory you'll waste carrying these ingredients all the time because you can't craft a stack of wands.

Needs a complete overhaul.​

[/huge whine post]

 

Which is why I believe both myself and Blitzcracker find it balanced to give powerful items that may be crafted if you take the skill. It is not game breaking because there is no guarantee that you can get that epic weapon. However if you do, then the crafting skill wasn't just a waste of inventory space.

 

In regards to the specific crafting exclusive items affecting how people will choose to build their characters, that's really a subjective decision to make. I'm sure there's a specific skill set that works best for every player, and I hope that player doesn't choose to use the same build each playthrough, but that would be their decision. Idealy, with this in mind, the build you choose would have more to do with fun factor, and the crafting would balance your characters seemingly eclectic skill set out with gear featuring greater stat potential. The only reason I would include crafting into an intentional build currently would be for the stat values they grant as it is, the way I see it, the crafting would do more for an experimental and/or random build.

 

Right now the best weapon you can craft (as far as I can see from Dredmorpedia) is the Hexaxe which does 36 damage. And that's a hidden recipe! It's not hard to find a weapon from a Chest of Evil later in the game with at least 50 damage. Heck, there are relatively inexpensive items in shops that are easier to buy than it is to find the Hexaxe recipe. The Mace of Windu has a base value of just 17,600 Z and it does 31 damage. I bought one after clearing only 75% of level 2 on my current playthrough! The ease of getting items like that puts the current hidden crafting recipes to shame.

If Smithing had secret recipes to make exclusive items that did around 50 damage then that wouldn't necessarily be better than what you can find, because you need to include Chest of Evil items in the what-you-can-find list. They're random, sure, but so are secret recipes. And secret crafted items can be made even more rare if they take rare ingredients to craft.

I think the game would be perfectly fine if you could craft a unique 50 damage sword. It would not force the player to take Smithing because they can just get lucky and find an equally good evil item. But for the player that does take Smithing, it gives them an opportunity to do something unique.

All skills grant unique abilities. By taking Smithing you are giving up other skills that grant unique abilities. Right now I don't think Smithing grants a unique enough ability because the items I can craft are almost always trumped by items I find during the game. It's very rare for me to take Smithing and use it after level 1 or 2. I'd need to take 2 points in Smithing and find a whole pile of ore in order to make something as simple as a Triple Sword, and that does a mere nine damage.

 

I've always loved being able to decrease the uncertainty with which I will be able to effectively equip and re-equip myself, via crafting in many games. It doesn't feel as rewarding as it should in DoD, though, for the effort and materials... the sheer amount of clutter crafting causes mandates creating stashes which are an inconvenient method of inventory management. DoD (and many other roguelikes) are absolute HEAVEN to lootwhores like me and restrictive inventory mechanics with no forms of relief (sacks, bags of holding, quivers etc) hurts. And seeing my meticulously crafted goodies get surpassed by drops or shops almost as soon as I craft them hurts too.

 

I think an interesting feature to add to crafting skills would be to upgrade items. Instead of creating a whole new item, if you have the right materials you should be able to make your item stronger than it was previously.

Lets say I have a copper sword that does 3 piercing
I should be able to use some copper ore or maybe a whetstone and increase that damage to like 5 or something.

I wouldn't put a limit to how many times you can upgrade something however, more ingredients would be required for the crafting/upgrade recipe. ( I feel no limit is balanced because there is no guarantee that you will always find the required items to upgrade with)

 

I think 1.10 has actually given crafting a big boost - by simply making some good utility items available at low levels.

For example - allowing me to make Thief gloves at alchemy level 2? Awesome. It's a way to get +1 Traps, which is a huge boost to my pure mage character. Will I be wearing those the whole game? No. But I really want them on floors 1-3, and it makes taking Alchemy really useful early on. I actually took Alchemy before getting my Wyrmling, because I thought the traps skill would be that useful.

Top-level crafting is fine - it's a guaranteed of pretty good items, and probably early on. It's low-level crafting that really needs some love, and it looks like it's getting it.

I do agree that hidden recipes can be a bane - just weighting the chance to find recipies for the crafting skills you have would be a big help.

Regarding wand crafting - I sort of like the style, and I think using ore as an element is very clever. But I agree that in terms of actual usefulness... it's lame.

Here's my suggestion - give us a way to add charges to a wand. The old wand-lore tree had this, and it was probably too good. But a recipie to recharge wands? 1 Wand + 1 common thing = + charges (number of added charges could go up as you increase wand lore skill). That would make it worthwhile to craft some of those very expensive wand recipes - since you could theoretically recharge them with the right stuff. Wand of Tentacle recharges with offal? That would be totally cool.

 

I dislike nerfing things in general but bringing the shops down a notch somehow - limitations on stock, frequency etc. - might make crafting more attractive, along with a better way to manage reagent clutter.