Crafting systems and other stuff

[SuperMasterSword]

So I wanted a crafting system for my game, at first I was going to request a script but right before I did I decided to google search it. I found a script, but then I realized I could easily do that myself through common events, but by making a bunch of "recipes". At first I just thought it would be annoying and clutter the player's inventory but then I realized it would provide a much simpler way of restricting what the player can craft rather than just restricting his resources. It wouldn't allow for the interface I had originally thought of but it works just as well. For anyone who cares how it would've looked open the spoiler.

Spoiler

list of craftable items in a column on the left. Over-sized icon of the selected item in the top middle of the left-over area, with a list of required items below it. Whatever they couldn't make or whatever material they didn't have enough of would be either grayed out or red.

Also I wanted to make it so pretty much you can customize the main character. Like he can be a mage, or a warrior. But that made the skills complicated, because then he can basically learn every skill, and that could clutter up the skills menu. (You can get other party members but you choose if you accept them so you can basically solo through the game if you want) I was wondering about a system where maybe if you use "Fire" a certain amount of times you get "Greater Fire" and so on. And about it getting cluttered I was thinking maybe have an NPC in one town who could delete your skills, but only if you had the next, ex. you can only forget "Fire" if you have "Greater Fire" and so on.

So basically what are your thoughts on the crafting system or the skill system? Would you get annoyed having a bunch of recipes? Or maybe get sick of scrolling through all the skills to get to that one skill you want? Either one of these would be appreciated.

 

[Wavelength]

I do like having crafting, character customization, etc., even if it clutters things a little.  If it gets too cluttered, you could probably figure out ways to sort it.

But you seem pretty new to RPG Maker, and if that's the case, I'd focus on game content before you try implementing mechanics like this.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

I have to admit, I was let down when I opened the spoiler. I expected to see a picture but, moving on...

I don't think there's any problem with having a bunch of recipes. You may want to create a way to categorize them for easier navigation within the menu tho. And having a way to equip an amount of skills rather than roaming through a list would be nice as well.

 

[??????]

I have to admit, I was let down when I opened the spoiler. I expected to see a picture but, moving on...

Same. :/

 

[whitesphere]

You can reduce skill clutter by associating certain skills with certain items.  For example, the Mage needs a Fire Wand to cast Fireball.

I'd agree with Wavelength as well.  If you're just starting out with RPG Maker, make a much simpler, basic game before you start on your "dream project."  Until you're proficient with the basics, you'll probably get completely overwhelmed when you try to create your most ambitious project.  

Ever hear the phrase "My eyes were too big for my stomach?"  It's the same thing "My dreams were too big for my skill."  That doesn't mean your skill can't improve immensely over time, but you need to realistically look at where your skills are right now.

It's sort of like saying "For my first day driving, I want to race the Indianapolis 500"  There are just a ton of little details that go into creating an actual game, and it takes practice to get them all right.

 

[SuperMasterSword]

I guess you're probably right. And about the picture, I had made one but every time I press the image button it freezes up and I have to refresh the page, I can't figure out why.

 

[Onomotopoeia]

Ah. Well. SuperMasterSword, considering that I've got my own development project(s) in the works, both of those topics were on my mind already. You need not experience any clutter, as long as you can setup the Scene and Window classes to properly show what's relevant.

Spoiler

In implementing a crafting system, I do have some quite lengthy diatribe-like opinions; but for the sake of brevity and your original post, what I'm aiming for is more of a "natively supporting crafting" in an editor and engine. It might not make too much sense to go off-track in this thread, but I'll be posting on that, at the link in my signature.

For the skills-improvement aspect, I'm not sure how to do that except for using some note tag that parses back to some usage-tracker scripting, and after some number of in-game uses, what you specified as the upgrade or improvemnt is unlocked. (It wouldn't even have to be a skill being "deleted" but rather replaced in situ by the stronger one.)

 

[SuperMasterSword]

Well I decided to make a (probably short) game with the normal premade RMXP stuff. Also because the idea for my game was that it was in present-time, but there was still gonna be magic, (I thought it would be interesting) but almost all the tilesets are medieval, I could use a few like the woods or swamps but I'd need new town ones. Well basically I would need A LOT of resources.

Edit: Also, I had just been playing around with what I could do so far anyway, hadn't really gotten into making all the custom stuff yet.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

If you want to drop some dough, there is a modern tile set you can buy. Or you could peruse the available shareware tile sets others have created.

 

[Zoltor]

This coming from someone who opts to event game systems/feature over scripting, since I'm not good at scripting from scratch, because I don't like the idea of other people having developed one of my game's features.

I could easily event a high quality crafting system, infact I have invented, andevented much more complex systems/feature with eventing before, as well as recently(real recently), However I saw a script that did exactly what I was going have the events do anyway, so I just sucked up my pride.

Why you may ask? Simple, crafting is gonna be a huge part of my game, and there may well be upwards of 100 craftable items. Doing all this in event, is just silly, when there's another option. Not only would such a huge system eat up a metric ton of space, but even with knowing exactly how to event it beforehand, there's so much eventing involved, it will probally take a 100 boring/dull(because It's really just eventing 101 stuff, I could literally do it in my sleep, which is good, because that's what I would need to do, to event that long winded snoozefest) hours.

Needless to say, I made this one of only 4 scripts that I use, that directly effects the game(all the other scripts are just development tools).

Yanfly's Ace Battle Engine-Ace Battle Engine: The default battle system in Ace, is an abomination of mankind, and such can only be changed with scripts.

Yanfly's System Options: This just because holding down a button to dash, sucks, and has always sucked. If your game is gonna have dashing, it might as well be the default speed or it just becomes annoying.

The Crafting System: (reason above)

and finally

A quest Log: I was gonna event this, and thanks to a procedure I came up with to event a way to connect rooms/modules for a module based map generator, this would have been easy, but much like the crafting system, It's beyond long winded. However I was gonna still event the Quest Log, because none of the scripts did what I wanted, it just so happens, about the same time someone created a Quest Log script that works the way I wanted.

That is it, all the other scripts I use, are development tools or bug/oversight fixes to the editor.

Some things are just not worth the hassle, if there's another way, and crafting(if It's a big part of your game), is definitely not worth it, to do it all through eventing. All the time, and space being wasted on that, could be better used for other things

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

There are a few crafting scripts out there. The one I like the best is Falcao's MMORPG crafting. It's fairly straightforward and pretty simple to set up. Plus, he made a demo for it.

There is a script (although I don't remember who created it or what it's called but you can try searching a master script list) that lets you learn a new skill by using a known skill a certain amount of times. It requires enemy note tags and basically says if you use fire 1 on X enemy Y amount of times then you'll learn fire 2.

Perhaps these suggestions will help you out.

 

[captainproton]

Couldn't you set up a skill's traits to add 1 to variable X every time it was used? Then set up a common event to swap out Fire for Mega Fire when that variable reaches N?

I have crafting inmy game, but it's set up more like the alchemy in DQIX. I use Mister Bubble's alchemy script, and I love it.

I also put in a quest log which acts more like a journal, where pages are added by certain events as you go along. I'm using the Xail journal script, and it's easy to use, but I do keep running into an issue with icons.

(Obviously, I have no qualms about using other people's scripts. I know my limitations.)

Things like these can be a lot of fun for the player, if they're correctly implemented. If you want to put crafting into your game, I say go for it.