next »

[Ben_Hurr]

So fellows of TIG, have any good ideas for weapon crafting?


Specifically of the magic wand/rod/staff variety in a game. 

I wanted to make a weapon crafting system half the fun of the game I'm making, but I can't think of any very good examples of a crafting system that was really honest to goodness fun, and wasn't simply ingredient A + ingredient B = output C to some extent.

[Zetsaika]

A Tetris minigame where certain blocks united in certain shapes create different itens?

[Azure Lazuline]

I think "ingredient A + ingredient B = output C" can work as long as you put a lot of thought into it. Swordcraft Story 2 comes immediately to mind as a game with fun crafting, even if it's basically just that. Let me go into details here:

- Component A, the shapestone. Determines what type of weapon (sword, spear, drill, etc). There are just 5 of them.
- Component B, the material. Iron ore, lightning ore, ninja scroll, demon horn, cat figurine, etc. There are about 40 of them.

Choose one of each and you get your weapon, which has unique graphics for each combination (a lot of the fun is seeing what the new one will look like, since they're all awesome). Some of them have special effects, like giving you new attacks or spells, or having passive abilities like elemental damage or life drain.

Note that combat is real-time and you control the character directly like a fighting game, so the different weapon classes (and sometimes individual weapons) actually behave differently and have different attacks, not just doing different damage when you select "attack" on the menu.

You can upgrade each weapon with up to 3 additional materials, boosting its stats. There are also specific combinations of materials which give additional effects/attacks/spells - think runewords in D2 if you've played that.

(if you skipped the rest, at least start reading here)
Now, here's what I think is the clever part, and what makes me want to make weapons as often as possible, instead of just finding 1 that works. There's a stat on each weapon called Technique that rises over time as you use that weapon, up to a certain cap. Now, when you disassemble the weapon, you get the shapestone back, but lose the materials. However, based on the Technique stat, a certain percentage of the previous weapon's stats are permanently added to the shapestone, so the next weapon you make has those added to its base stats. This encourages the player to make weapons very often so the strength will increase over time, but at the same time you want to use each one for a while to get the technique up. The end result is that you're upgrading and re-forging weapons a lot, trying out all sorts of different abilities.

A big problem with most weapon crafting systems is that you tend to just get to the best one as quickly as you can, then the rest of the weapons are useless. But that one little detail pretty much undermined the whole thing and made me continually switch weapons, even very late in the game when I had already gotten the "best materials." Even once I beat the game (multiple times) I was still finding new things and figuring out ways to get even stronger.


I'm not saying you should copy this directly, and I'm not even sure if it's helpful advice - I just thought that explaining in-detail why I really enjoyed a particular crafting aspect would give you a bit of insight into what makes a good system.

[LiquidAsh]

a weapon crafting system half the fun of the game

What's the other half of the fun?  It's often helpful to think about how the two halves will effect one another, and integrate them into a whole; greater that the sum of its parts.

[peous]

Good idea Azure to keep a percentage of the old weapons for the new ones! But I agree with LiquidAsh, without knowing the other half, hard to have the best system ever.

Anyway, I like the Doogle God principle:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Badim/doodle-god

[mirosurabu]

It's easy to design an elaborate crafting system. What's hard is to actually balance it, that is, to actually make each permutation has it's own unique use.

Basically, when you have hundreds if not thousands of different permutations you will be forced to render most of them as either inferior, meaning they are simply dumb use in all situations; unoriginal, meaning they do not really differ from other permutations; or worse, invalid, meaning players can't even use them and so effectively shooting yourself in the leg.

In the end, you'll always have a small number of key permutations and a huge number of inferior ones. The result is a tech-tree with a puzzle flavor.

So why bother with crafting system at all? Just go and make a tech tree.

[unsilentwill]

I say look to the stories, not about what sort of spells and stats it gives. How it was made, from what secret materials or alchemy processes, or maybe it gains properties when used or blessed by wandering holy men you have to seek out. Maybe it was a demigods walking stick left in the care of his mortal parents. Parts of it may be from a mythic beast, or need the words to a song sung over it. Magic used to be secret and sacred, even a punishable offense, dealing with dark celestial forces. Now it's found in blades of grass and every other box in thieve's caves. Rethink magic, like Loom or Wind Waker.

The idea of what separate a normal item and a magic item is untouched by our medium, beyond giving everything magic a green glow. I also suggest as Azure did making the items special and treasured, something you'd never think about replacing, it not for  its effects, but for the process of creating it.

[Ben_Hurr]

I say look to the stories, not about what sort of spells and stats it gives. How it was made, from what secret materials or alchemy processes, or maybe it gains properties when used or blessed by wandering holy men you have to seek out. Maybe it was a demigods walking stick left in the care of his mortal parents. Parts of it may be from a mythic beast, or need the words to a song sung over it. Magic used to be secret and sacred, even a punishable offense, dealing with dark celestial forces. Now it's found in blades of grass and every other box in thieve's caves. Rethink magic, like Loom or Wind Waker.

The idea of what separate a normal item and a magic item is untouched by our medium, beyond giving everything magic a green glow. I also suggest as Azure did making the items special and treasured, something you'd never think about replacing, it not for  its effects, but for the process of creating it.

Yeah I know right?  Magic in stories was usually something rare and spectacular, like causing a 1000 mini suns to rain on a city.  Or create a whole brand new species by cursing a single individual.

But what you're suggesting pretty much amounts to doing obscure puzzles to acquire a unique item.     (which is another thing entirely)

It's easy to design an elaborate crafting system. What's hard is to actually balance it, that is, to actually make each permutation has it's own unique use.

Basically, when you have hundreds if not thousands of different permutations you will be forced to render most of them as either inferior, meaning they are simply dumb use in all situations; unoriginal, meaning they do not really differ from other permutations; or worse, invalid, meaning players can't even use them and so effectively shooting yourself in the leg.

In the end, you'll always have a small number of key permutations and a huge number of inferior ones. The result is a tech-tree with a puzzle flavor.

So why bother with crafting system at all? Just go and make a tech tree.

Usually what I see happen in games with crafting, besides your observations, is that you make one of everything then have no need to craft anymore unless something is consumable.

What I would like to do is somehow incorporate player skill into the process, so how good you are actually results in a better weapon rather than just finding superior materials.

[Lynx]

You could use components obtained from monsters or found in places that are defended by monsters; the more difficult the monsters, the better the components.  Or make fighting the monsters part of the crafting process, i.e. if you want to make a flaming sword, it must be heated in the breath of a red dragon, then quenched in the dragon's body, in the same fight.  (poor dragon!)

You could allow players to 'refine' or 'reforge' a magic weapon, thus developing the "legend" of the weapon.  Maybe they'd start as plain weapons, and you could etch runes into them, which you then imbue with mystic energies, or add settings for gems, or replace the blade with harder/sharper materials, the headpiece of a staff, etc.

If you want to make weapons feel like part of a player's legend, don't make them make a hundred weapons, let them stick with one and customize it to their tastes.

[Ben_Hurr]

Well, I originally thought of making it so you could find enchantable objects in the game that are one of a kind,

ie - various rods, staves, orbs, etc. that had a specific effect, but you could modify that effect through enchanting.

So for instance you could only have one Iron Rod, but you could make it an Iron Rod of Flame, a Venomous Iron Rod, or Iron Rod of Slaying or whatever.

[Lynx]

"Wait, so what about all these enemies I'm killing, don't they have weapons I could take and use?"

I'm not sure why limiting players to having one of any given type of item is useful, unless you want to give players an arsenal so they can choose which of their items they want to bring into play at any given time.  If items simply increase in value, then players will use whichever one has the most power.  I would suggest instead, players discover item UNLOCKS so that once the player has obtained an Iron Rod, the player can then make Iron Rods.  This way the player doesn't have to farm Iron Rods to attempt to craft better ones-- this is just a grind, not fun gameplay.

Anyway, with respect to your desire to make player skill figure into the process somehow...  Puzzle Quest had a crafting system where you attempted to forge new weapons using runes you had gathered.  It was basically match 3, like all the combats in the game, but you were attempting to bring together 'anvil' icons that were scattered across the board.  Harder weapons required more anvils to be collected, and if you ever ended a turn without any more matches possible, you failed the craft.

Crafting didn't feel any better 'connected' to the game as a result, because it was still basically the same game no matter what kind of weapon you were trying to make.  Instead, imagine if each enchantment you were trying to add to your staff added a new rule that must be satisfied-- a Greater Flame rune requires you to match 5 red gems, or a Speed rune that increases your movement requires you to finish your craft within a time limit.

[JasonPickering]

you could always go with like a jewel idea from Infinity blade. perhaps an Oak Wand does 15 base Damage. well you add a Fire Handle. the Fire handle gives the wand + 5 Fire Damage. so now the weapon does 15+5 damage. then you add a Heal Gem so now it does 15+5 damage and also heals you +1 each attack. these parts could also be procedurally generated when a new wand is found, and then the player can always dismantle a wand to get its base components. so you are constantly building the best wand possible. basically think of it as like equipment but for your weapon. so instead of having a +2 Boot you have a +2 Gem for the wand. Also you need to be able to see the weapon if thats the case. not ingame, but at least as I craft it. just you a paper doll system of overlaying the items, but if I design a bad ass wand I want to be able to see it.

[edh]

you could always go with like a jewel idea from Infinity blade. perhaps an Oak Wand does 15 base Damage. well you add a Fire Handle. the Fire handle gives the wand + 5 Fire Damage. so now the weapon does 15+5 damage. then you add a Heal Gem so now it does 15+5 damage and also heals you +1 each attack. these parts could also be procedurally generated when a new wand is found, and then the player can always dismantle a wand to get its base components. so you are constantly building the best wand possible. basically think of it as like equipment but for your weapon. so instead of having a +2 Boot you have a +2 Gem for the wand. Also you need to be able to see the weapon if thats the case. not ingame, but at least as I craft it. just you a paper doll system of overlaying the items, but if I design a bad ass wand I want to be able to see it.

vagrant story (and others) did that a decade before infinity blade. but yes, its a good system. in vagrant story each weapon had affinity against different types of monsters so you could have a range of weapons to choose depending on the enemy, or you could just go with your best one, weapons trained the affinity by killing that type of monster anyway.

[Fegon]

As above said. Check out Vagrant Story. The game might not be for eveyone but the crafting system in itself is realy good. I also remeber liking the one in Legend of Mana witch has a more classic, find material -> imbue kinda system. But fun

[Liquisync]

When designing your own weapons in a game, you always want to keep one aspect in mind. Repetition is gross! Players like the items they painstakingly quest for to constantly increase in aesthetics and of course, ability. Another key device when creating weapons that do specific tasks is to augment effects and animations triggered by that weapon. This will often give a player a sense of improvement. This also refers back to my first point, but more along the lines of functionality. You wouldn't want to do a quest chain consuming 3-4 hours of your life and have the reward be similar to something you already have or just plain insignificant all together. On the side of development, you should format your weapon unlock system in accordance to the maximum level cap or in-game progression. Make the more bad-ass weapons look.. well bad-ass and make sure the capabilities are to par with the collective efforts it took to design that item. As far as specific details, that really lies within your concept artist or yourself. Not so much as artistic skill, but try to find inspiration in similar objects or ideas.

Example: You must kill a boss for a Staff. The Boss is a Pheonix dragging a carriage through the air and requires tactical placement of attacks to subdue. Say there's a phase in the fight in which he summons a Reinsman to apply pressure to healers by means of ranged attacks or crashing the carriage into your team. So the fight ends, the boss drops loot for the group and your Staff looks more like "Inferno Spire" or "Tower of Afterbirth". Wicked looking flowing wood pole with a little pheonix spirit flying around the top and it could have a special ability unlock like "When you dodge an attack, you deal Fire damage to nearby enemies."

For the sake of time and my wrists, I will pause here. I could be here all day generating ideas =)