posting progress update

sorry I haven't posted in a while. been having problems at home which I care not to mention but lets just say I am now emotionally ill. Nevertheless, I think it would help to know I have a little task to do so I will try to continue to post on here but my posts may be a little spotty for a good while and I don't know when this will get better. Maybe it wont but I will aspire to keep posting ;3

I haven't been idol all this time as I have been creating the hard notes for the vegetables but it hasn't transferred much to this blog yet as more still to be done hard note wise. However, I am going to continue posting the raw foods item list (at least as much as I already have notes of and when I catch up I will post it in hard note and then straight to the blog so they are updated at same time). After that is fully sorted it will be time for the monster listings which I will be difficult and may require quite a bit of tweaking and large gap between each post because a lot of details need to be figured out and other previous posts will need to be edited so everything fits together. Bare with me on this. Then all that would be left would be items (which are mostly different grades of the same things and limited choices at the moment since most can just be reused in this instance whereas food is more complicated). Once this is done (this should be pretty short compared to the whole food process) things can really get going as we will need to sort things out which will be more interesting to you such as characters, dialogue, storyline and other details. This is where I may implement RPG Maker into the mix more to get a better idea of how to create these things to work within the program so you should see actual sprite work and screenshots at that point to see progress with your own eyes. Hope to see you then ;3

more concept art for locations

I have done a bunch of concept art doodles for the locations so you know how they are going to be designed. I only have Sanctuary Waterfall, Wishing Wind Plains, Screeching Depths and Heavenly Respite left to make concept art for. After that I will fill in some more details about the background of the locations and add them to the profiles and then the locations should be done for a good time at least.

No more fish likely to be created

Just a quick update saying I have now finished fixing the gaps in the fish list so now their should be a minimum amount of fish everywhere in the game there should be. That means all the fish are indeed done for a good while as I have already said they would be. I am very unlikely now to add any more fish to the game so this is pretty much the complete list now. I still have to add them to the proper posts but it is late so I need to get to bed so I will do it tomorrow if I can. Then I think I will do the profiles for the fishing rods I mentioned and make sure all that is OK and makes sense. Even if I do have to change a few things due to imbalance, I wont need to add or remove any fish as I can easily just reassign different fishing rods to the existing ones. Then once that is done I will do a bunch of concept art. Making good progress right now and I am happy :3

Fishing Items almost complete

Yes I have worked hard this week to try and make up for lost time. Sorry about that. I have had quite a few home problems that keep holding me back and they aren't going to stop soon but I will press on in the days I feel up to it and as you can see I can get a lot done in just a few days. I have reorganised and double checked all the website search links on the right hand side so they should all be working well right now. I have got rid of the search bar because I experimented with it and found out it only searches for words inside of posts and not tags so it is pretty much useless anyway. But on the lines of my wiki data base progress I have almost finished making a basic profile of every single fish in the entire game which is 82 fish so far! FEW! It will soon be 83 as the last fish I have to do is the Cherry Fish which is, you guessed it, another fruit fish as there is one for every tree in the game so when I added the Cherry Tree later on I have to make a fish to match it so the game stays consistent in some way. Heavenly Respite has few fish in it anyway so it would be good to have another one. I may also make a couple more for the less populated areas of the game which only seem to have one fish in an area and it is only a fruit fish or legendary coz that means unless you have certain fishing rods, you won't be able to fish anything from those locations and I'm not sure that is fair. The only made up fish I have other than the Legendary and Fruit Fish is the Puff Fish made out of clouds so I would like to make some more environment themed fish to fill these gaps although they wont be their own category like the fruit fish. This will literally only be about 4 fish at most to make and then it will all be pretty much done. The only thing the fish need now to have their profiles complete is the concept art, the sprites and the money value which (apart from the concept art) will all be done much later in development so I consider that a job well done :3. Next I would like to move onto adding more monsters into the game. I actually have a few for the first few areas in the game but I haven't transferred them to this blog yet as they are still in my note making spread sheet. I have quite a lot of stuff sorted for these though so they should be nice and easy to add on here and this will fill up the blog a little more and give a better picture of the locations and my intentions for what the game should look like and play like I think (if it wasn't clear enough already). After that, I have a section on basic food items of various basic food groups to add on here since they are also sitting around in my notes ready to go on this blog. Once all that is done, I will have pretty much moved everything from before I made the blog over to here and then I will get started with making tons of concept art doodles for all the fish, plants and locations. I may also work on making profiles for the fruits, nuts and other items dropped from the plants as the should be easy to make as well. This is the way my mind is thinking through this at the moment basically. Hope you are enjoying the content and don't forget to comment if you have any questions. See you in the next major update post, I am going to bed! X3

Game Progress Update

I have now pretty much finished all the fruit trees in the game except for in game sprites and creating the profile for the items they drop. I will now move onto the other plants in the game and/or working more on the games locations. I hope to work on at least a few new concept arts or new wiki entries every day from now on or at least one a week.

Progress with food and plant items

I have collected my notes by location to see where I am up to. I have almost everything ready for cooking item wise in Beginner Grasslands and Sunny Hills early areas. All the fruit trees and plants, nut plants and normal types of flowers are logged and categorised (but still to be transferred to here) and basic produce of meats, milks and eggs are almost sorted to. I am almost done with the food and basic produce parts of the game and now I am working on the last part of this which is the vegetables which are going to be dropped by enemies as to not crowd the areas with plant life. I am logging descriptions and their locations right now. Once this is done then monsters will be created for the items or the items will be allocated to existing monsters so they have a reasonable place to be collected from. Then I will move onto the next stage of development where I fix up the rest of the monsters based on material needs such as elemental items for magic and clothes material items for tailor crafting. Once this is done (which should be easier than the food section due to the need of less items per area and it would be less complex than the food) then I should be able to really start recording the items on here without fear of them changing majorly. Once all these main sections are done then I will be able to properly balance the money balance of each item accordingly. I have already completed the list of fish in the game which is a good indicator of value so I will use this as a guide. While I work on these things to make the other parts of this game substantial I shall use this info to update the info on the locations with the trees, nuts, plants and fish which have already been confirmed. Hope it makes sense. I hope to get this done soon maybe within a month. Then the ball will really start to roll as I can show you more on this site. the preparation will be done basically. Hope u enjoy this and continue to keep track and if you are revisiting thank you for taking an interest!

More updates coming soon and Elemental Typing

Hey guys! Sorry I left it so long but life just got in the way as it does you know. Been looking back at my notes and I have sorted out the element balance so check out the notes below to see what's what.

 

It shows the types which are strong which are NOT counting the main element in case you are wonder so yes they are still strong against ones of their same type.

 

 

 

the ones with question marks and brackets are not confirmed as much as the others. I am not sure whether to have that extra disadvantage to normal and advantage to holy type. Holy type will be one you get much later in the game so I want it to be more powerful than the others and normal is an early game one so it makes sense for it to be the weakest. The others are equally balanced but those two are not. That way Holy will only be matched by Normal type which ironically will be the easiest enemies otherwise. This puts an interesting spanner in the works in my opinion but if it makes the game too biased or unplayable in some way then it may be removed at a later stage. Also fighting and lightning type ma be removed for the case of simplicity if needed at a later stage. everything is subject to change later but for now I believe this is a solid ground to work on. I hope you like it. Tell me if you have any questions and if you see a problem. Will be working on some more of the data base tomorrow if I can since I still have a lot to add to this from my notes. I also have not too much left to fiddle around with in my notes before it is substantial for a basic crafting game so hold your horses coz lots of stuff may be coming your way soon. Anyways, sorry for the big gaps in development but I hope you like what I am doing and check up every now and then to see what's up. See ya tomorrow :3

A few ideas - books in the game and research progress

There are a few things I would like to point out as considered concepts I am now planning to put into practice soon but as you can see there are other things I need to take care off first but these are things I feel I need to let you know about what I have done or are going to do

 

1- I am going to have some large texts in the game in the form of books to show history of the land and some item and enemy details that may relate to the world and their culture. Obviously, I am not going to make as many as there are in a game like Skyrim. It will just be particular things I feel the need to expand upon such as legends, history and some profiles for more complex enemies.

 

2- I have been making sure to research anything I am unsure about when it comes to the fish, plants and food items in this game data I am creating. Although, this is a comedy game in some respects, I also don't want to use that as an excuse for laziness or lack of research into certain topics. All worlds need a proper way of working, even if it sometimes doesn't make sense. I have used some real facts in some descriptions and to aid with my information and possible uses of certain fish and plants in the game. The plants and fish I am planning to be mostly the same as our world to give this game a strong basis for its world. Don't worry, there are weird things in there to but having some normal stuff helps to get a better bearing on things and makes the weird things all the better in my opinion.

 

3- I have been doing some research into the exact scripts I may need for some of the operations I had hoped to implement in this game. I had done some basic research before but now I have done into more detail since I have a better idea of what I am creating at this point and I have uncovered the exact scripts I will be using in RPG maker to create some features in my game. I wont link to them here. Let's leave it a surprise until the demo comes out OK? ;3 no the demo is not soon, there is still a lot to do but you can watch every step of the way.

 

To give you an idea I have found a script for a live combat system (a simple one but not turn based combat anymore),

I have a script for growing times and plant growing and harvesting (if needed but may not use),

I have a script for a complex fishing system (but I will simplify it. No bait will be needed),

I have a script for harvesting minerals (sprite changes when item harvested. That is not as easy as it sounds in this program),

I have a script for a little button mash or holding mini game for using when crafting or harvesting (I hope to have this as a main feature but may need to tweek a little for my use),

I have a script for an enemy log book to see enemy info and info for other items (hence the purpose of the wiki is even more important as this info will be in the game. I may also use this code to figure out how to show a book with full text like Skyrim)

And I have a few more simple scripts to make things look a little nicer like making items visually appear on the ground and a fancier opening door animation.

 

I have been busy :3 but these things wont come properly into effect until my data for what I am going to put into the game is fully complete or at least to a very decent extent so these details will have to wait for later. If you are reading this and keeping an eye on this thank you and I hope you like what I have got so far and the content I am adding. Feel free to comment anything you like :3

Making this website into a wiki data base

OK just letting you know that I am creating a wiki for all the game data I am creating for this game. I wanted to try using a different website to make it easier but in the end it turned out it was much better to just make extra pages, posts and links here. They are liable to change at any time and they just reflect the finer parts of my game development progress. It is a great way for me to keep track of what I am doing and a great way for you to see even the little things I change so I don't have to keep specifying what I am doing and waiting till I can post screenshots or something. This way, if there is anything you think I have messed up like item values not making sense or that you don't like the concept art or something then I can hear specific feedback as I am developing the game. I hope this will make things easier and better for everyone. I have made some simple sample wikis already to test how I am going to organise and write them. I have lots more to add so I will get on adding them all when I can and from then on I can add as I make it. I hope you like and please feel free to give feedback or just comment on anything you want. It is always appreciated :3

item data entry - still working on it and I AM NOT GIVING UP!

Just letting you know I am not giving up on this project. I said it wont be regular and this is part of that. I had something happening at home and had to stop for a while and then I revised my ideas and changed a few things and have written up a bunch of item data. I would love to show you but as of now there is not enough information to show you. Don't get me wrong, I have done a lot but it is spread incomplete across several sections due to the sections being interconnected with each other due to the nature of the game itself. Therefore, anything I show you now has more stuff to add and it would be unfair to show you something which I know is going to drastically change. Therefore, I am waiting till I get at least one section moreorless done. Then I will show you some screenshots of my Excel spread sheet of item data to show you the progress :3 Hang in there guys. Its a long ride yet. Even if you aren't checking the progress I hope you like the game when it is eventually complete to a decent standard. Most of the game is the item data considering this game is a crafting game first and foremost so this part is very important and once figured out probably unlikely to change. These are the bench marks of the whole project and shows proper in game content potential so it should grab your interest when it is done. Again, so sorry I haven't updated in so long but this is the way it is. Oh yes! I have also spent some time gathering information on scripts I can borrow for certain features in this RPG maker program such as live action combat and crafting mini games. This should make things a little less stale when the game is made but they will need a bit of tweeking to get to be like I imagined. Gonna carry on working on the item data entry now. Toodles! :3

Tutorial and classes character designs

Tutorial

Just letting you know, I am still working on this. I am working on the dialog and quest, map, NPCs and monster plans for the tutorial areas. I am almost done with the concepts and dialog of the tutorial section and will post it soon hopefully. I am loving how the dialog and story is coming together so far so I hope you like it to. Warning you now, it is ADULT jokes and content 18+ game! Designed as an adult parody of MMORPGs (BUT it is NOT an MMOrpg. It will not be multiplayer. I just don't think I could get a server for that)

Character Designs

The character designs for the classes have had some more thought. I am thinking of having them as anthropomorphic animals. However, it won't be like a human with bunny ears or something. It's gonna be full on anime style animal sprites that move like animals to but they can talk and move flexibly. Think of it like animals in a cartoon such as My Little Pony where they look like ponies but they can do unnatural movements for their species and they are intelligent. Speaking of which, the following are the decided animals for the three classes.

Warrior = Pony
Mage = Dolphin (they walk on their back fin and float with magic so they can swim in the air to move)
Hunter = Wolf

The pony is related to the warrior class as horses are often associated with power and warriors anyway. Horse power! lol that was awful. sorry but I couldn't resist. The mage is a dolphin because well...reasons. They are intelligent creatures and I just thought it would be hilarious. And the hunter is the wolf because of classic anime fashion. I mean come on! It's gotta be an awesome wolf! So that's it for now. Will post the dialog and tutorial plans latter as I said. Look forward to it. Hope you like my ideas so far. Talk to you again soon! :3

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.

food categories and working

I have decided to sort out the details of cooking items by putting the foods into a few different categories. I will focus on one major object or two from each category and then work my way down from there. Details of simpler combinations are easily figured out once the components present have been sorted by using a larger recipe first. The categories are not necessarily game relevant but are more for my organising during game development. The following are the food categories with their corresponding main foods to develop for each (the items are only a basis and more options will be made afterwards)...

Fried and take away food (full English breakfast)
Fruit and Veg based food (soup, sandwiches and salads)
Fish based food (sushi, fish and chips and fishcakes)
Dessert food (cakes and cookies)

The English Breakfast is what I am working on now. I have almost finished with the details of each component so you will be able to see that soon. I have also had to develop ideas for unique names for the food and animals the food comes from to make it fantasy and not just a copy of Harvest Moon. I have some rather weird names for stuff but I sort of grown attached to them throughout the process. They are silly but that matches the comedy theme of the game. We'll see what you think when I post that stuff anyway. But something I would like you to know is that though making the food I have also had to come up with concepts for some of the enemies in the game of which you would harvest certain foods. I have some details but they are not fleshed out yet. I do have the basic designs though in concept art. Although I am NOT a great artist so they don't look to impressive but the game is going to be made in sprites in the end anyway so it doesn't really matter as long as I know what I am aiming for. The sprites will be better. Look forward to more updates on those things soon :3

progress on crafting and classes association

I have decided that the best thing to do would be to have the crafting work on its own accord and the classes to only affect the battling. It would work similar to Maplestory where you fight with basic class and light or heavy weapons and armour. You would fight tons of enemies and when you have collected the items instead of giving them to an NPC, you would put them together to craft things. Items from enemies and plants and items crafted from said items will only give you stuff for NPCs will not have any use other than that, except for food and potions which will obviously have healing and stat boosting qualities. This keeps the game simple and familiar in its gameplay.

I have also decided that crafting will be completely open to any class. The class will only determine the types of missions you may get or what armour and weapons and attacks you can have. It won't affect what you can craft. I decided to let people have freedom in that area. Of course, this might mean that some great combinations may be possible and they may be better than other options but I realised that there are biases in every game and it doesn't really stop people from enjoying it. Of course I will try to avoid game breaking biases but small ones I will let slip as if someone can figure out an awesome combination of crafting skill and class to get a strong character then cudos to them. They deserve the rewards. Not everyone plays like that and really, classes like the thief and hunter are made to make the game harder by making them weaker and people still like to play them. It should be the gamers choice whether they choose the most powerful character and work out the best way to do it or whether they would prefer a challenge by picking the slightly weaker class and crafting skills. It always adds to replay ability anyway. That is my decision. Things will move on in this fashion. I will focus on classes later. For now. The crafting details will be my focus as they are a major part of the game. See my 'food categories and working' post to see what I am working on now and how I will be working out the food crafting details.

progress on crafting categories and other details

This is also a rather complex state of affairs but I think less hard to figure out than the classes. So far I have a basic idea of some crafting ideas.

Cooking
Blacksmith
Alchemy
Tailoring
Enchanting
Gardening
Hunting
Pottery
Carpentry
Fishing
Taming

I will probably drop one or two of these but I am exploring the ideas of each one. Cooking, Blacksmithing, Alchemy and Tailoring I most certainly want to keep. Gardening and fishing and taming I am not sure about as they seem to relate more to things everyone can do at any time so I'm not levelling is even needed for these things. Maybe there could be 2 menus. One for class based skills and one for skills every character can learn. That actually sounds good. All of these can be implemented in some way but the ones that I am having trouble with figuring out are enchanting, cooking and alchemy mainly. you see they seem to relate to certain character types in particular and so when you give the other classes free reign on it such as warrior with enchanting skill then you could just get a character that is better than any others. I doesn't feel right to cut it out of the game but it also doesn't feel right to let the warrior use enchanting. That's why I was considering blocking certain skills for certain classes as I said in the previous post about classes.

I have considered certain things about how these skills could work together by changing the way they work a little as follows.

Cooking (less healing power and less stat boosts than potions but the materials are more readily available. Warrior able to eat more food than other characters. BUT then we would have to have some kind of fullness system and that is silly really and too complex)

Tailoring (clothes allow for more stat boosts than weapons and armour from blacksmithing)

Blacksmithing (can be used to create traps for you to use for taming enemies. Good for hunter class not only warrior. Able to enchant for better stat boosts. BUT then the tailoring would become redundant as heavy armour with strong boosting stats would be better than weak armour with stat boosts)

Hunter (better rewards from fishing)

Wizard (able to enchant pottery and carpentry for stat boosts and faster healing while eating with said pottery or using a certain chair. BUT if I do this then cooking will have more stat boosts and therefore would be redundant so here is a problem despite it being a good idea)

Wizard better at gardening.

Sorry went a bit disjointed but this perfectly explains my dilemma. There is always a catch no matter what I seem to pick. I need to think further but that is what I have done and thought about this so far. Tell me what you think will work and what wont. What do you want to see? I would love any feedback I can get! :3 I am currently working on some food categories and details for the cooking skill at the moment and I will get back to you on that when I have finished up some more of it but basically I am deciding what items can be crafted for cooking skill and its a long process to go through all the recipes in the world. I am started with an English Breakfast in mind due to its many spate components and I am branching it downwards from there. Once I am done with that I will show my progress here.

Progress on Deciding Classes and How They Work

OK, so far I have come up with several ideas for classes. They are as follows...

Warrior (strong character with high strength and defence but slow)

Wizard (strong with magic and spells. Low defence)

Hunter (strong with long range. Low defence)

I'm sure if you have played RPGs before you will know what these are. I started with these as they are the basics that are needed in my opinion. But this isn't all. I am contemplating whether to combine these characters together to create more classes. I've not finalised the idea yet and I'm not quite sure how it would work or if it is worth doing. It might be better to stick to basics for now so this will be put aside for a while. However, I will list them here for your contemplation anyway.

Magical Warrior (less strength and defence than pure Warrior but able to use magic as well)

Magical Hunter (now able to put magic to your ranged weapons for more damage and elemental effects etc)

Hunting Warrior (your strength is focused on long range so you become the best long ranged battler there is)

The main problem with these is that they seem too good. They are likely to overpower the other classes. Maybe this could be an option after finishing the game at least once or something.

Now let's get into the details of the three original classes we have. I have contemplated quite a few different ideas for the details of these classes including, specific skills that will directly effect the crafting side and vice versa and elements that will help the classes to be fair and different from each other. So here are the bigger details of the classes according to crafting (see 'progress on crafting categories and other details' post for more on what these crafting options are of which are mentioned here.

Warrior (unable to use alchemy crafting and is only able to food crafting and items as a healing source. However, naturally good at blacksmithing and so starts with higher blacksmithing level)

Wizard (unable to use cooking craft but is allowed to use alchemy. Naturally good with harvesting plants and so starts with a higher farming or plant harvesting skill)

Hunter (can use alchemy or food crafting but not both. Naturally good at with wild animals and so has a higher monster taming skill)

There is a big question in my mind of whether classes should be specific to fighting elements only and purely only effect your style of taking down enemies and leave the crafting as a separate thing to do after the items are collected. Then have the crafting levels go up according to whatever you decide to craft and you can craft any kind of thing at any time. OR whether to make the classes directly affect and limit the crafting you can use for more replay ability. I would like to make the game more complex but I don't want to feel like I am not giving the player enough freedom to do what they want.

But it's not just this relationship of the classes and what skills should relate to them I need to think about. The classes need to feel different so I also thought about special abilities and advantages they could have for battling.

Warrior (all around tough. High strength and defence but only from short distance. Also lower defence than Wizard in the end. Overall balanced stats compared to the other classes. Average damage to almost anything but no critical damage against any particular enemy)

Wizard (high defence. Able to use powerful stat boosts but only temporary. High damage to magical beings)

Hunter (average defence and average attack but long range. High damage to non magical beings)

But then I started thinking about how certain skills can associate with certain classes in combination with other skills and special abilities.

Warrior (can use magic to enchant their weapons and armour for better fighting power)

Wizard (can use magic to tame beasts. Can use magic to create a large weapon to be more like warrior class)

Hunter (can use alchemy to create flash bombs and stunning effects to better hunt prey and tame enemies. Can use potions to add magic effects their long range weapons)

These are all great idea but this mixes the classes and skills again though but I like the idea of different combinations allowing different things so if no restrictions where on the abilities for each class then these fun idea would be able to appear. But then we are faced with another problem. Some of the crafting ideas are rather similar so I will have to be careful with how I balance the special abilities of them so that the skills don't become biased (see 'progress on crafting categories and other details' post for more on this exploration)

But now when I think about it, I think there may be a way to do this. Perhaps each class could have a certain way of doing the same thing. Like for taming enemies the Warrior could beat them and have a chance to tame them when they defeat them. Hunter could use traps, stunning potions etc to make them easier to tame. Wizard could use magic to make them easier to tame. They are doing the same thing but in different ways depending on the character. That sounds like a good idea. Doesn't help with all the confusing issues of how the crafting links with the characters though. I think it might be best to keep them separate after all but that means working hard on making the crafting not biased in any way and that is gonna be hard to do. Tell me what you think about my little excursion. What ideas do you like? What ideas don't you like? Any feedback would be very much appreciated.