Ideas for getting crafting items?

[SaintInix]

So I'm running into an issue with the Crafting. I know what I want to craft, have the script, that's all fine and good.

What I'm wondering about is feedback on the WAY to get crafting materials.

I planned on adding some to enemies, but I don't want to run into the 'grindy' farming of crafting stuff.

So my thought is this, balance the costs of the items (To sell, after creating them) with the cost of individual crafting mats. Make sure that the end result item isn't an easy way to make money by upping prices on mats from shops.

In this case, it would make it useless to just buy stuff and make things to sell.

On the other side of the coin, a player that is missing one or two mats for some item, could buy them to finish the project, but it would reduce it's profit margin.

Essentially the individual mats, added together, would cost more than the item could be sold for.

Making you pay for the option of not having to grind that rare mat for your DIY Smartwatch that does...whatever it's going to do.

Does this sound like a good system? Or do you think folks would be turned off by it?

 

[Andar]

Some simulationist gamers might be against the materials costing more than the finished products - because that way no NPC would ever be able to live from crafting.


The usual solution is to have the special items contain mats that can't be purchased (but perhaps easily collected), and make the crafting a small gold gain - not enough to make the grinding worth the time for the player, but enough to simulate a true economy.


For pure story gamers who don't grind, that would be no problem either way...

 

[Ralpf]

If you have an NPC do the crafting for the player, that NPC could charge for the work, bridging the gap between cost of materials and sell price of final item. So the cost of the material would be less then the item sells for, but when you add in the cost of crafting it wouldn't be viable to buy everything and craft it to make money.

I personally like your original idea, but Andar's point is valid.

 

[Takeo212]

My personal set up for collecting my crafting materials is as follows:

- Many materials can be found through enemy grinding - money is not gained in battle however (I'm trying for a "money has value" thing and not "ooh 1million gil, whoo!")

- Some materials, such as ores and wood, are gained through mining and woodcutting. I'll also have a feature once you get a spade you can find plots to dig and get some items that way. Maybe even scavenge a little.

- Stores will sell some materials, mostly common things to help the player level up various skills instead of wandering everywhere for the same ore or that.

- Job system/quests. Some NPC's, such as a blacksmith, can reward you ores and such if you help them from time to time.

Also, having no profit will discourage players from wanting to craft.

Do you have just a craft system, or is there levels implemented with it?

I personally love crafting and would spend ages doing it if there was levels involved, but have your stores only sell half the materials for most things, so the player has to go get that other material themselves.

Ensure though the player gains atleast a small profit from the crafted item, to fund for any other possible supplies (potions, ect if relevant) as well as maybe get more items for bigger craftables.

Even make the player break even with costs if they bought everything, that way, if they want to earn money, they have to go collect materials themselves.

 

[SaintInix]

Wow, all great points.

Takeo, very good ideas there.

I was thinking that, in some ways. Not to bring my project too much into the discussion, but it's modern.

Some things just aren't easily produced by one person, nails and screws, PCB boards, LCD screens.

It's gonna be a little Tech-Punk in essence. With Instructable-like build-able items to aid in battle or boost stats. It's either gonna be a break-even kinda situation, or maybe take a little loss, but it's worth it for the item, type thing.

Thanks for the input guys, helped me get it formed up in my mind as to how to do it.

Not sure about the level thing, maybe, but if there is, there won't be many. Under the assumption that anyone with the Internet can learn to do pretty much anything.

 

[Wavelength]

You do get some natural leeway because of the convention of selling items at half-price back to vendors - so if the price of the materials is 1000g, and the price of the completed item is 1500g, then you still can't make a profit solely using the buy-craft-sell cycle because you can only sell that completed item for 750g.  This naturally prevents abuse.

In a game where the materials to craft an item are easily available at shops, I'd probably find the crafting system to be an unnecessary chore - why can't I just buy the item for 1000g in the first place instead of looking at the recipe, remember all the ingredients, trekking to the store (or across the map) to buy them, then trekking back to the crafting event to make the new item?  If there are supply-and-demand factors at play, or some sort of skill or random factor involved in the crafting process, then it becomes a much more intriguing and rewarding activity.  (It's also somewhat rewarding if some of the ingredients can only be dropped from battle, etc., but it sounds like you don't want to do this, which I think is reasonable.)

Every crafting system will probably have its frustrations.  I can't think of one that would be all fun, all the time.

 

[Takeo212]

Yea, the best way to counter something like "why cant I buy it instead" or "why should I craft when I can x"

You can just not sell the craftables all together. Having only a materials store would mean, if the player wanted say, that HP potion, they'd have to invest in materials or collect them as they go to craft that said item - or make it you can find say, that potion, in a certain chest or from enemies.

I'm glad you got it formed out though SaintInix