Method Revision

Crafting Revision

I have had a long think about what I want out of the game and how I would like it to play. I have played a good amount of Trickster online as inspiration since I love almost everything about how that game works and I have come to a conclusion. I had been working a long time on how classes would work with crafting and such. I have made a large list of cooking items with descriptions and stats already and I was about to post some of it to show you. However, realised I have been focusing too much on the realistic way items would craft and I didn't think enough about how this would effect everything in the game. It's impossible to have a logically sound game where all crafting options make sense. I started to wonder how I could even make enough monsters since they would have to vary from real creatures at some point. I tried to vary them but then I was still making logical connection with what the monster was and what it dropped. Like a cow like creature drops milk and milk is used to make cheese. This may sound OK in the short term but when you really think about how this could progress you get issues. I thought about how Trickster did it and realised that the items had practically no relevance to the monster other than a slight theme. Random items would come out of the ground and from the monsters. OF COURSE! I thought. It IS a fantasy game anyway! Why would I focus on so much making sense. Games always have had things that don't make sense. Then I realised that it didn't really matter what I said mixed with what as really as long as they made some sort of sense is all that matters. Considering this, I have decided to start again on the items and instead of focusing on the items first and figuring out the rest later, I am going to figure it out in order of how a player would play the game. Mission by mission. I will come up with a character NPC and what items they want. Then I will invent a monster and crafting options based on that. That way things will always make sense quest wise and things shouldn't get too confusing and out of hand. For example, say at the beginning of the game there was a writer who wanted to write about your adventure ahead. He says he forgot his papers so he asks you get him a certain amount of ink and a certain amount of paper. So where do you get them? Well you can get paper from the wood monsters outside and an ink pot and pen set which can be crafted out of found items from a squid-like monster (the ink sack of the monster) when fishing (which is a skill you can level up) and a feather which you can get from a bird-like monster. Can you see it now? Exactly! It is a lot better to understand this way and I think this will work out a lot better in the lot run. Hopefully this will be a good way of working for me.

Classes and Characters Revision

I also thought long and hard about how the classes should work and looked towards Trickster again. It seems complex but really it is rather simple. It is the amount of choices that makes it seem complex since the game has been going for so long. More and more items have appeared and they don't all relate to your character class or until you are higher level. So taking Trickster as a guide I have a made a simple set up of stats for the characters and I hope this makes sense and I can stick to it for once.

Warrior stats (group of stats that generally relate to a warrior type build)

Physical Attack Power

Physical Defence

Magic stats (group of stats that generally relate to a magic type of build)

Magic Attack Power

Magical Defence (defence against elemental spells instead of physical attacks)

Hunter stats (group of stats that generally relate to a thief or archer type of build)

Accuracy (affects critical hit chance and increases chance of an enemy attack missing)

Speed (affects speed of which you attack)

Of course items will affect these stats but the stats will NOT be restricted to each class. A certain couple of stats will automatically be higher when you choose a certain class such as the warrior will have automatically more physical attack power and physical defence. Then these stats will increase by a certain amount per level up. However, you will also be given a certain amount of points to add to ANY of the stats whenever you level up. Using this you can cross elements of one class with another to make a unique character. For example, a good combination of skills would be a Warrior class with extra Accuracy so those strong attacks can deal even more damage. However, this doesn't allow for too much bias as when you add to one skill you will be always be neglecting another. If you add equal amount of points to say physical attack power and Accuracy then you will have even levels of both but both will be lower and so you may struggle to handle situations of really high strength requirements and you will also have to sacrifice some physical defence for it to. Everything comes with a sacrifice which should make for rather unbiased gameplay and plenty of reason for replay ability.

Crafting and Class crossover effects

I have also thought about the crafting options and considering the changes to the classes and stats system, I decided to organise this in a similar fashion. So below are the crafting options (liable to change still).

Blacksmithing (warrior's natural skill)

Cooking (warrior's natural skill)

Mining (warrior's natural skill? not sure about this one)

Alchemy (mage's natural skill)

Enchanting (mage's natural skill)

Tailoring (mage's natural skill)

Harvesting (mage's natural skill? not sure about this one. This one is about getting stuff from wild plants. plant knowledge for potion making will make the mage good at this skill)

Fishing (hunter's natural skill)

Gardening (hunter's natural skill. This one is about actually growing the plants yourself instead of getting it from the wild like with harvesting)

Taming (hunter's natural skill)

Digging (hunter's natural skill? not sure about this one)

pottery, carpentry and glass making were considered options but in the end they are not needed so they have been removed from the list. As you can see, certain skills attain to certain classes. However, these skills are not restricted. In the same way as the battling stats, certain skills are naturally higher than others when you start with a certain class but then you can practice a skill and still level up in another one. However, natural skills for the class will level up much faster than other classes. Each class will also have special passive abilities they automatically have that only that class will be able to have that may help with a certain skill. For example, a hunter may have an passive skill that ups the changes of a successful capturing and taming of a creature by an extra 10%. You can still use other characters to capture and tame a beast like a hunter can use traps which he could make with the blacksmithing skill or buy ready made traps and the mage could use trap spells and the warrior could pummel the beast into submission with a certain percent chance of the beast being tamed with greater chance depending on how quickly you killed the beast or how high a level you are above the beast etc. Of course this means that this method could be less effective with other classes as they would always have less chance since they can't defeat them that quickly or beat an enemy with a significantly high level to them as they wouldn't be powerful enough but a warrior would be. meaning this is the best option for a warrior and the other options are better for the other classes. A mage would be better at using spells so using trap spells would be much better for them. The hunter would be best with traps as the other two will be a disadvantage to them since they lack the natural skills towards them. Make sense? These options may be made possible with combinations of the skills such as enchantment combined with taming can mean you can use great taming spells as I mentioned before. You could put the spells on the traps so enchantment can work with blacksmithing to. You could use plant knowledge with gardening skill to make much faster growing crops. Perhaps I will make it so you need certain levels of certain combined skills to be able to utilise a usable passive or temporary skill you can buy from a skill shop and then activate.

Weapons and Armour characters stats and crafting skill points

As far as weapons and armour are concerned, they would be slight variations of each weapon e.g. one mage cape may have loads of extra magic attack power whereas another mage cape may have less attack power but adds a little better alchemy results and a little defence. It would be up to the player to choose which type of stats they would prefer above others. However, certain ranges of items would be only for certain classes much as a mages cape would only be equipable for a mage and not a hunter or a warrior and vice versa etc etc. This would restrict the class stats to certain extent but not completely as little bits of other skills and stats from other character classes would be available such as a tiny bit of taming ability and physical defense on a mages cape. But since they are restricted to the type of armour or weapons, I would choose how much leeway I give to the player. If they find a good combination then good for them! I will try not to worry too much about it all.

Crafting box and how it works

Last but not least, how you could actually craft something. Similar again to Trickster but a little simpler. For example, the interface I will try to make as simple as possible coz no-one likes a complex interface on your crafting screen making it way too hard to craft something that should be easy. It should be as simple as, you choose the item you wish to make (ONE item in a little box) and then next to it there would be a few boxes for items to create that item. It will tell you what you need (if you have the recipe, found or given by an NPC) and then you just put those items in and press create. Your skill level will determine the percent chance of success. And viola! Simple right? Crafting items for quests would require more and more items, which are harder and harder to get either coz they come from a plant which requires high gardening skill or a monster who requires a high level or just a rare item to receive from a monster. Combining items with armour and weapons will be the same. I might try to restrict the items to only 3 max for crafting something to stop anything getting too confusing.

So I am going to try and organise my items creation in a different manner because of all this. Wish me luck in the new system. So what do you guys think of all this? As far as I am concerned, this is the most solid plan I have come up with so far. Sorry to give you lots of random brainstorming and not much actual building content but every game comes from humble beginnings like this and I want to share it so I can see it all for my reference and so everyone can see from the very beginning how this game was made. Wish me luck with the new ideas and tell me if you like the ideas so far! :3

Story

PS I am also going to try adding a story to it. I wasn't sure whether we really needed one but I have decided that is the best way forward. However, it is going to be rather simple. The story will be to rule the world. That's it. Most people don't bother with the story in a long online RPG and this game is no exception as the story will be only with dialogue boxes and such. Most of the time, the story will barely effect the game or be mentioned at all. However, it will become more prominent and move a little bit with each new town you have to go to. In the end, you will be ruler of the land and sitting on a throne. Then you will be prompted to start again with another character. I may add more characters over time when the basic game is done and more areas till you get to the end.