Crafting balance: situational traits

[LightningLord2]

One thing I have decided upon is to make equipment progress focused around crafting more than just buying them or trying to get them as rare drops. While balancing out availability is not that much an issue, a problem would be the access to gear resisting elements or status effects. The thing is, the logical location for e.g. fire resistant gear is in an area where there's an abundant amount of fire using enemies, after which there's often not many, if any fire enemies left to fight, letting you get the fire resistant gear only after you completed the dungeon. Is there a smart way to avoid running into this problem without bloating the number of late-game locations?

 

[Bex]

Try a more classical aproach:


In your Areas (NPC Settlements and Dungeons) you increase the difficulty of the Monsters along the Journey road.


Just let them Buy better Element Gear along the Way.


But give them the Choice to Buy all of them. For example:


Heroes Arrives in Area1 Town1, The Shop got Fire, Water, Earth Armor...


But in this Area are no Earth Monsters, Many Fire Monsters and just a few Water.


So buying Water Armor armor would not be the best choice if you prepare to take on the Fire dungeon near the town


but if you take fire armor you would have better chance while earth wouldnt give you neather advantage nor disadvantage.


Thats just a simple example.


If you do a kind of Zelda Game, than your Aproach seems correct to me.

 

[Wavelength]

Crafting IS the solution to this!  As long as the stuff you need to imbue elemental resistance into gear can be found anywhere earlier in the game (an earlier fire-themed dungeon, an earlier heat-loving monster in a non-fire dungeon, shops, mines, etc.), the player can craft/upgrade gear with elemental resistances as they need it.

 

[fallenlorelei]

I know what you're talking about, and it's something I've considered too. Why farm for Fire Resistance when by the time you complete the set, you're out of the fire dungeon anyway?


The way I've handled this before is to add some kind of attachable augment (or crystals, or whatever) to only crafted gear. That way users can choose what kind of resistance they want. They can have a ton of fire resistance for the dungeon - adding slowly over time - and then when the dungeon is over, they can replace the augment with something else, assuming they have it.

 

[ShadowHawkDragon]

an area where there's an abundant amount of fire using enemies, after which there's often not many, if any fire enemies left to fight

This honestly is probably my biggest gripe in most games and in my personal opinion is bad design.


Why stop at 1 dungeon per element? why not have split element dungeons? why limit elements outside of those dungeons? perhaps dungeons could have a different element per room/map?


Basically when designing elemental armour and deciding its availability you should always contemplate the design and availability of elemental enemies. If fire enemies are rare before and after the fire dungeon then fire armour should be available early in the dungeon or as special rewards (quests) beforehand. If however there are other fire heavy areas and the weaker equipment can just be upgraded at reduced cost (less money/materials) then gaining the armour in the first place can be slower (near end of first fire dungeon).


It also helps to telegraph which elements are more active in which areas, especially if the player has a choice of different resistances they can equip/buy/craft at any one time (screen tints?)

 

[Dr. Delibird]

Honestly all you really need to do is allow for the crafting materials to be a bit more creative.

Your fire resistence example is easily fixed by making the material needed to imbue fire resistance is something not of a "fiery" nature. Maybe there are flowers that bloom underwater and when their season is over the flower bulbs break off leaving them to drift to shore. Also the real world Aloe Vera plant has a substance in it that is commonly used to treat burns, you could use this specific plant in your game as the material needed to add fire resistance.