How much equipment is too much equipment?

[fallenlorelei]

I am currently working on my database for armor and equipment, and came up with this inquiry. My game currently has about 4 to 5 "archs" with arch defined as, roughly:


1. New town


1.5 New party member


2. New sidequests


3. New "monster zone"


4. Boss fight


Each "zone," I have planned to incorporate 2 forms of equipment. 1) The base equipment you can buy at the store in the zone's town immediately, and 2) craftable equipment you cannot buy at a store, but instead make from materials found from the monsters in this zone (higher stats than the store's). I am using Yanfly's plugin to add item variation in the equipment you acquire, so that you can craft more of the same item for a chance at higher stats.


But looking at my items, I'm wondering if I might have too many. I can certainly "bloat" the zones by adding sidequests, but I feel like that's only a temporary solution, and may cause other issues down the road. I can remove the only-craftable equipment (#2 above), but my game has a heavy emphasis on crafting in general (I have a class based entirely around crafting) so it feels incongruous to do that. So because the game essentially revolves around crafting, maybe I don't have too much equipment?


Its food for thought! What do you guys think? How much equipment (in general, of course, not just my game) is too much?


Edit: So writing this out made me sit back and reevaluate a few things. Mainly: when is my player going to be using this gear? I came up with this formula:


Town -> Town Gear


Sidequest Zone -> mix of Town Gear & Crafted Gear


Boss -> Crafted Gear


Zone on the way to Next Town -> Crafted Gear


Next Town -> New Town Gear


Sidequest Zone -> mix of New Town Gear & New Crafted Gear


etc.


It needs some work but it might allow the use of more possible equipment~

 

[Vito The Boss]

Too much equipment, depends of the type. For example, sword, gun, etc. I say, that too much equipment, is 30 for type.

 

[taarna23]

I think that sounds good, actually. It sounds like you've got equipment the player CAN skip (craftable) but they might be hurting if they do. If you had a lot of equipment the player can skip with no consequences, that may be an issue.

 

[fallenlorelei]

Too much equipment, depends of the type. For example, sword, gun, etc. I say, that too much equipment, is 30 for type.

Interesting! Well, it depends on the length of the game. With my 4 archs, I have 8 magic head pieces, 8 magic chest pieces, 8 general head pieces, etc. Two for each zone. So yeah, 30 would be way too much, for sure, haha.

I think that sounds good, actually. It sounds like you've got equipment the player CAN skip (craftable) but they might be hurting if they do. If you had a lot of equipment the player can skip with no consequences, that may be an issue.

That's true. I think the fault lies in when the gear is finally crafted, after 1) acquiring the recipe, and 2) acquiring the materials. If you finally craft it after the zone's major boss, its only usable for 1 small area until you reach the next Town. Unless you make the crafted gear have better stats than even the new town gear.

 

[Aoi Ninami]

Edit: So writing this out made me sit back and reevaluate a few things. Mainly: when is my player going to be using this gear?

That's the key question. And you can't really answer it by planning out what you think the answer should be; you have to look at what actually happens in playtesting. If there are "too many" gradations of equipment and each one doesn't stay as the best for very long, then players may be unwilling to pay for all the tiers, and may skip some and hang on until the next becomes available. On the other hand, maybe that's fine as it means you are giving the player a wider range of viable choices.

 

[bgillisp]

What I did in my game was I divided the gear by chapters. So for instance:


Chapter 1: Starting Gear (Tier 1) and can buy Tier 1 Equipment, can find Tier 2 Equipment.


Chapter 2: Can buy Tier 2 equipment, can find Tier 3 Equipment.


And so on. Basically, I had you always able to find equipment one tier (sometimes 2 tiers if it was really hard to find) better than you can buy, but once you got the next zone you can buy all the equipment you didn't find. Late game I drew the line at Tier 11 Equipment, but you can find Tier 12 Equipment in the last dungeon, and Tier 13 Equipment was the ultimate gear (very hard to find or earn). Seems to have worked out well so far though in testing.

 

[fallenlorelei]

@bgillisp I like that idea! So you can theoretically have equipment you don't need to replace upon reaching the next town. So perhaps I'll have it so my crafted gear is almost the same, stats-wise, as the next town's gear. Or something like that.


@Aoi Ninami Very true! Playtesting is key. Rather, I might be planning it far in advance a little backwards. I'd like to plan out how much everything, such as the materials required for the items, the materials themselves, how much the shop items would be if they were crafted, etc. - to see how much gold monsters should drop, and then how many monsters I should have in each zone. A simple division in Excel would give me a good "ballpark" but of course, I'll end up refining everything once I get some playtesters through. I'm hoping getting these estimates are worthwhile!

 

[bgillisp]

@fallenlorelei: Right! If the player is a good explorer or does every side quest, there is a chance they will get to the next town and not need to buy anything at all. I figure it is a way to reward exploring and side questing.


Also, I did add a tier midway (I think it is 6 or 7) that doesn't exist in any town, and can only be found. I use this for early game quest rewards for really long quests. Or guarded by a hard to beat monster. Or waaaaaay out of the way. This way the player can find a couple items that feel powerful early on. Though, I will say you have to be careful with this, a 150 ATK sword might really break a game if found too early.

 

[Adam1013]

I kindof had the same issue in my game at first. Planning out equipment for me ended up being a slight waste because I ended up planning TOO far ahead and things didnt match up by the time I got there. 


I started with with basic equipment that you have / buy and tier 1 equipment available for purchase. Once the next story portion became available, the next gear tier became available. While making the tiered gear your average "shop gear" I also added optional quests / monsters along the way that dropped gear that was better than any shop gear available for 1-2 tiers. Basically, reward the player for going above and beyond to explore your game and do (challenging) side content. 


My crafting I did differently than just crafting equipment...I ran into the same problem you have. Why craft when you can buy? Why buy when you can craft? I ended up having my weapons and armor have one slot that correlated with the type. Ex: sword had "bladed mod" slot. You would then craft a bladed mod with the items you got from enemies, etc. to create attachable mods that you could use on various weapons and armor throughout the game.


Food for thought!   

 

[fallenlorelei]

Why craft when you can buy? Why buy when you can craft?

Exactly! By the time the player finishes crafting, they'll be in the next town already!


I think I'll remedy this by having the crafted items from the first zone be slightly better quality than that of the 2nd zone. Just enough to make it worth it, at least for those that care about that sorta thing.


And then I realized that the shop prices of the equipment are increasing exponentially. I counted up the material costs for everything to make the "total cost"-ish, and then multiplied that by 2 for the Shop Price. (Well, 2.2). So that the sell price is still the same as the material price. Still debating that decision, though. We'll have to see how it goes in game. Right now, zone 1 equipment (starting gear) is going for 100~200g, and then zone 2 is like 700g haha. Crafted gear goes for between that. *chinstroke*

 

[Adam1013]

@fallenlorelei Just curious, how many party members are there? Since that would definitely play a role in gold and item drops to outfit a party. 


I think thats a good call with crafting being better. It requires the player to do something instead of just grind and buy. Maybe the crafted equipment can have some cool effects from a rare item drop or an added fire resistance or whatever. Just something to make it worth it besides a couple stat points. 


It all comes down to balancing and how you want to do it  just some suggestions. 

 

[fallenlorelei]

Maybe the crafted equipment can have some cool effects from a rare item drop or an added fire resistance or whatever.

That's funny you said that cause I'm just now sitting down and figuring out the stats I'll be using for the game, haha! Fun things like changing Attack to Power, and then going through Ex and Sp parameters to see things I'd use commonly. (Pharmacology for sure!). I just wrote down your idea! Extra resistences and maybe even special effects. My characters have passives but I could add variants to those passives to the gear! Somehow. Through a plugin, I'm sure =P


To answer your question, the game will end with a typical 4 player party. You start with 2, get a 3rd in zone 2, and a 4th in zone 3. You're right about it playing a role to how much gold the player will have. Luckily the story is pretty linear and I'll know when the player will have how many party members. I wonder if it'll be as simple as multiplying the # of gold dropped depending on who's there. Again, that'll be for playtesting. But excel sure is fun to play equations with!

 

[Adam1013]

@fallenlorelei Thats probably one of the more fun things to do for me. I like to build the equipment in the game to give the player the choice to accent strengths, make up for weaknesses and specialize characters based on their role. 


Passives are another awesome way to customize the characters and further embed their role in the party, love it. Im sure with some of the yanfly plugins you could use some custom requirement notetags on the armor. If user is Stateaffected type stuff and then add your variances there. 


Definitely just add gold exponentially with party members, thats an easy one to do. However, the balance would be to not make them too rich unless they did a bit of grinding for it. 

 

[Niten Ichi Ryu]

really depends if you decide to adhere to JRPG trope of new town new gear, or depart from it a little.


regarding the craftable gear, I would say it depends how craft take space in your game world. If its widespread and even NPCs talks about the virtue of crafting a specific item, it gives hints to the player. If more confidential, maybe have something like "blacksmith digest magazine" to let know of interesting items to craft.

 

[Kes]

I'd like to pick up on @Niten Ichi Ryu's point about the trope of new town = new gear.


If you are going to be examining your whole gear structure because of crafting, then I think that by definition you have to rethink your shops and how they operate.  I'm biased in this, because I try and avoid allowing the player simply buying their way to excellence.  In fact, in my second game it wasn't possible to buy weapons (they could not be sold to civilians) for the first half of the game and in my third, there is only one place to buy any gear and you don't get there until 75% of the way through.  You have to explore, do quests etc to get better gear.


I am not suggesting that you do away with your shops (there has to be a very good story-driven reason for that), but that maybe your shops should never sell the really good gear until you hit the capital city.  I've made the reason for this explicit in my current project.  You hit a town and go to the armory.  The guy in the shop points out that most of his customers are fishermen and farmers and asks why he should carry a large stock of gear for adventurers when hardly any come that way?  Though he could do a very nice harpoon for you (sadly no one uses a spear).  This, I think, makes the game world fell more consistent, more realistic(!).  In your case it would help to provide an in-game reason why crafting your own gear is widespread.  Because that is one of the questions you have to face - if people craft, why are there shops?  Are they for the lazy? The incompetent? Because they require materials (e.g. iron or steel) that have to be imported, and to make it economically possible, that has to be done in bulk?  Why should the local blacksmith allow you to use his furnace + fuel when that means you won't buy anything from him?  How much does he charge for the privilege?

 

[bgillisp]

I second kes there that consistency to the game world is key. For instance, in my project, one town has a ban on selling weapons higher level than Tier 1 (the starting weapons). Another town is sold out of the higher level weapons due to a rush in purchasing them, but if you will wait a month I'll get more in? Stuff like that. And, that is how I explain why the earlier towns don't have the higher level stuff when you first get there.


As for why everyone sells weapons, in my world it is due to fear and a war that was ~30 years ago. Everyone is on edge and thinks they should keep a weapon on hand, just in case it happens again. So in my game, that shop in the little town in the middle of nowhere is still successful, just due to the environment at the time.

 

[BloodletterQ]

The way I planned on going about with equipment would arguably be a combination of FFX and Fire Emblem where the number of slots to customize matters most as stats wouldn't get that great of a boost unless it was special equipment like the Celestials or variants of the weapon such as Fire Emblem's Crit-boosting Killing Edge swords. I plan on having only about a handful of buyable weapons. Most shops would only sell the vanilla weapons and only rarely would the non-customizable weapons be available (In FE there are shops that sell only limited quantities of a rarer weapon while normally you can buy the basic weapons.)


And also keep in mind that better weapons per town doesn't exactly work since why would some snowy village in the middle of nowhere have a stronger weapon than the one sold in the busy port town? Of course, you could have the busy port town you visit early on sell ludacrisly expensive items you won't be able to get until 2/3s of the game in realistically unless you want to re-enact "Make Love, Not Warcraft."


Of course I'm going by the Augments plugin by Yanfly while you're focused on Crafting. @Niten Ichi Ryu has a good point about crafting-based upgrades for your party in finding hints and tips throughout your game world. I find crafting satisfactory once you know what you're doing but often it's a hassle if you don't like looking for advice in-game or even online. Might I suggest in random bookshelves or whatever that you provide recipes? Even NPCs can give some advice. What game inspired you to go with the crafting route? Dragon Quest VIII? Look at what worked and didn't work in that game with the crafting.

 

[Reapergurl]

Crafting?


Alchemy?


Enchanting?


Makes me wanna play Skyrim...lol


Hmm...as far as making craftable weapons, armors, and the like, I think that it shouldn't be as simple as having the materials, necessary funds, etcetera.


I think you, the player, should know the basics of what you need to do (implementing a command key prompt), and if you get it wrong, you get a screw up item that is ineffectual or does crap for damage in battle.


As far as balancing in game stuff, maybe have it like in Skyrim, where over time, the craft actually gets better. Like, that old wooden bow may have a little more luster now after your first refining, but later on, once you've kicked some butt and have refined a lot more, you can make that old wooden bow as spry as a sapling.


"Though, I will say you have to be careful with this, a 150 ATK sword might really break a game if found too early."


I agree with that, that is, UNLESS you come across a nasty encounter that has a DEF of 95 to 170 seemingly too quickly (I've played several games like this).