Crafting Suggestion

[Cerelum]

Right now, you basically have to analyze a completed or craft randomobjectname to see if you can make anything from it.

This is cool, but the problem comes when multiple different crafting skills use the same material, say a agafari branch.

get agafari.branch trunk
You get your long agafari branch from a heavy agafari trunk.
It is very light.

115hp 112mv 117st>
craft branch
You could make a short agafari haft from that.
You could make a few woodsplints from that.
You could make a set of small wooden blocks from that.
You could make a group of wooden shield spikes from that.
You could make a couple of long arrowshafts from that.
You could make a simple wooden fork from that.
You could make a simple wooden spoon from that.
You could make a large wooden spoon from that.
You could make a long arrowshaft from that.

Now as you advance in skills, I'm sure this list will get bigger and broader as we go.   But the problem in my eyes is you don't know what skill governs what particular end product all the of the time.  So tool use become an issue.  If I'm going to make an arrow, I'll use a straightening wrench, but if I'm going to make a spoon I'll use a woodworking knife.

So my suggestion is for a simple ooc label to be added to tell you what is what.

craft branch
You could make a short agafari haft from that. [Woodworking]
You could make a few woodsplints from that. [Woodworking]
You could make a set of small wooden blocks from that. [Woodworking]
You could make a group of wooden shield spikes from that. [Woodworking]
You could make a couple of long arrowshafts from that. [Fletchery]
You could make a simple wooden fork from that. [Woodworking]
You could make a simple wooden spoon from that. [Woodworking]
You could make a large wooden spoon from that. [Woodworking]
You could make a long arrowshaft from that. [Fletchery]

Right now this character is relatively unskilled and just has a smattering of skills, but I can only imaging the torture that will come when he has branched every crafting skill and has ten different tools designed for ten different crafts trying to figure out what to use with what.

I think it would definately take some time, but would make the crafting life of people with subguilds or main guilds much easier.

[Barsook]

That has been brought up before, but I don't remember what topic that is.

[Nyr]

Do we really need to spell out that an arrowshaft might be made with the fletchery skill?

[Cerelum]

Do we really need to spell out that an arrowshaft might be made with the fletchery skill?

No.  But some things don't really tell you what they are.  Plus some are deceptive.

help tool making
Skill Tool Making                                                   (Skill)

  Toolmaking is, as the name would imply, the art of making tools.  Many
tools are useful when crafting other items, or necessary to perform certain
actions.

I don't have this skill, yet.  However.

You could make a few wooden toolshafts from that.

Which is a little misleading.  Lots of the crafts are so interwoven with each other, and I think I get it so that Merchants are the only ones who -easily- make good stuff on their own.

While sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not at all and you're left wondering which of your x amount of skills is working on making that doodad.

Mostly this only matters because of tools, some straight up say "I'm used for fletchery" some are more vague and that's probably a whole different thread, but they'll say things like, "This is used for polishing" and leaves you wondering, polishing what exactly?  Jewelry, rocks, bones?

[Lizzie]

Agree with Cerelum on this. There are several things you can make with rocks, that -seem- like they'd be part of the stoneworking skill but are, in fact, part of the jewelery-making skill. And vice versa. Some finished wood items are part of woodworking, some are lumberjacking. The skills necessary to make the product that makes arrowshafts, is not fletchery. But if you're a woodworker, you can't make arrowshafts, even if they're made out of wood. Also, arrowheads that are affixed to arrowshafts, aren't even crafted items. You can't make an arrowhead, that gets crafted to an arrowshaft, to make an arrow.

Though most of the finished products have obvious skills attached to them, they're not all intuitive, and some are remarkably vague and counter-intuitive.

So I agree that having some way to tell which skill you have, is giving you the option to result in which finished product, is helpful. A cross-reference woud be even nicer, in addition to Cerelum's idea:

craft.woodworking plank
[Woodworking]
You can make a blah blah axe-handle.
You can make a muh muh axe-handle.
You can make a hoohah pair of wooden shards.

craft.axemaking plank
[Axemaking]
You can make a hohum axe.
You can make a doodah axe.
You can make a wahwah axe.

craft.axemaking plank handle
[Axemaking]
You can make a blah-blah-handled hoohum axe.

[Barsook]

Nice idea, Lizzie.  I dig it!

[Nyr]

You should be able to (in the majority, if not all cases) use common sense to figure out what skills create what items in an existing item list as you are suggesting.  If it's not the first thing you're thinking of, it's probably the second thing, or the third thing.

If you don't know what a tool is useful for, find out IC by asking someone or find out in-game by trying to use it.

In the rare cases where that doesn't seem to work and IC help/in-game finagling gets you nowhere, asking a helper is a good next step.  Maybe they are familiar with the crafting system to a greater extent than you are, and have run into this issue before, and can offer help.

In the cases where they can't really offer an answer and there is a problem, they'll likely suggest that you file it as a bug/typo/idea in-game.

[Nyr]

I'm not saying that crafting is perfect or ideal.  Crafting could definitely use some work overall, even though it is functional and does a lot of things in a cool way. However, this is like a nitpick compared to what needs to be done to make it ideal/perfect.

[Cerelum]

You should be able to (in the majority, if not all cases) use common sense to figure out what skills create what items in an existing item list as you are suggesting.  If it's not the first thing you're thinking of, it's probably the second thing, or the third thing.

In most cases I agree with you.  However it's the ones that don't make sense I'm worried about.

If you don't know what a tool is useful for, find out IC by asking someone or find out in-game by trying to use it.

I mostly was thinking this code suggestion would be a good idea for independent crafters or say crafters in the south who don't have an abundance of crafting materials to "test" out things with.  While I think it's awesome and good IC to ask, lots of times when you ask icly about OOC mechanics "What works best with..." or some variation you're opening yourself up to popular assumption of the player.  Maybe Amos the Ranger thought for years that this doodad worked for X, but really it doesn't, now through the method of "Ask" you've gained bad info and it dominos from there.

In the rare cases where that doesn't seem to work and IC help/in-game finagling gets you nowhere, asking a helper is a good next step.  Maybe they are familiar with the crafting system to a greater extent than you are, and have run into this issue before, and can offer help.

I agree with this.

In the cases where they can't really offer an answer and there is a problem, they'll likely suggest that you file it as a bug/typo/idea in-game.

Now I would ask one question as a summary to all of these points, some of which I think are fine, some I think are just skirting the issue.  I understand that things like this need discussed amongst the leadership of the game.  Honestly though, look how long it took you guys to add some type of skill indicator to skills (outside spells), what like ten years or more? I don't think a single person has complained once about having a general idea of how good they are at something.

If you instituted some way, some method to tell what end product used what talent, I think it would universally be loved.  Maybe I'm wrong, but on this, I doubt it.

[Yasbusta]

The only reason one would want to know this if for skill gaining.

Don't need to know which skill you are using to make a certain thing, how to emote it.

So basically your asking to streamline your twinking.

If your char thinks a tool works to make a certain thing it does. Just because your not getting a coded benefit.......

Come on.

[Cerelum]

The only reason one would want to know this if for skill gaining.

Don't need to know which skill you are using to make a certain thing, how to emote it.

So basically your asking to streamline your twinking.

If your char thinks a tool works to make a certain thing it does. Just because your not getting a coded benefit.......

Come on.

No you're wrong.  I emote damn near everything I do, and when I have an audience sometimes I probably over emote it.

If you're a crafter who only has two branches, and you want to know what will help you succed the best, then you need to know the skill to know the tool.

Honestly if tools were removed it would be a non-issue, but if you're going to give us tools, let us know what skill is used for the item creation so we can figure out which tool will work.

edit: Or make tools more pointed in what they do.

editx2: Actually, it looks like some tools are vague and some crafts are vague, if you fixed both those problems it would be all good.

[Nyr]

You should be able to (in the majority, if not all cases) use common sense to figure out what skills create what items in an existing item list as you are suggesting.  If it's not the first thing you're thinking of, it's probably the second thing, or the third thing.

In most cases I agree with you.  However it's the ones that don't make sense I'm worried about.

Okay, I'll amend that to all cases.  You will always be able to figure out what skill on your skill list corresponds to a craft you are trying to make.  If it's not the first thing, it is the second or the third.  There is no "the ones that don't make sense."  You have a finite list.  It is one of those things!

If you don't know what a tool is useful for, find out IC by asking someone or find out in-game by trying to use it.

I mostly was thinking this code suggestion would be a good idea for independent crafters or say crafters in the south who don't have an abundance of crafting materials to "test" out things with.  While I think it's awesome and good IC to ask, lots of times when you ask icly about OOC mechanics "What works best with..." or some variation you're opening yourself up to popular assumption of the player.  Maybe Amos the Ranger thought for years that this doodad worked for X, but really it doesn't, now through the method of "Ask" you've gained bad info and it dominos from there.

If you don't have the materials to test things out with, this is an IC issue.  You will definitely get over it IC.  If someone gives you bad IC info, that's how the game works.

In the rare cases where that doesn't seem to work and IC help/in-game finagling gets you nowhere, asking a helper is a good next step.  Maybe they are familiar with the crafting system to a greater extent than you are, and have run into this issue before, and can offer help.

I agree with this.

Please utilize this, then.

In the cases where they can't really offer an answer and there is a problem, they'll likely suggest that you file it as a bug/typo/idea in-game.

Now I would ask one question as a summary to all of these points, some of which I think are fine, some I think are just skirting the issue.  I understand that things like this need discussed amongst the leadership of the game.  Honestly though, look how long it took you guys to add some type of skill indicator to skills (outside spells), what like ten years or more? I don't think a single person has complained once about having a general idea of how good they are at something.

If you instituted some way, some method to tell what end product used what talent, I think it would universally be loved.  Maybe I'm wrong, but on this, I doubt it.

We do not decide to implement things based solely on popular demand, and if we did, sideways sniping at "how long" it takes to get stuff done certainly wouldn't encourage us to do so.  As mentioned before, this is a relatively minor "issue" that you are having and in the end it does not affect your play one iota.   It is not high on the list of priorities, and at this point it's probably safe to say it isn't on that list whatsoever. 

[Nyr]

edit: Or make tools more pointed in what they do.

If you assess -v a tool, it should tell you what it is useful for.

[Yam]

I haven't played a crafter in a long time but I do remember having some confusion with what items was under the domain of what tradeskill. Leatherworking and armorcrafting were especially confusing. I rarely knew what was a leatherwork and what was an armorcraft when it came to leggings, vests, etc.

Swordmaking and knifemaking might also have cases where the sdescs are ambiguous.

I've never had component crafting but it sounds like it could be easily confused with other tradeskills.

[Cerelum]

I've never had component crafting but it sounds like it could be easily confused with other tradeskills.

To my knowledge I think this only comes on magickal type guilds.  So outside of extended subguilds or the one or two crafts you can get from subguilds.  It's probably not as rough as say a merchant.

Merchants eventually get everything I think, and I asked these questions because if you make it to that one year played merchant who can do it all, you're gonna be confused every damn item.

[Nyr]

Leatherworking and armor crafting is something we've actually gone over recently.  If it's more leather than armor (ie, purely leather with no reinforcement by other gear), it should be leatherworking.  If it is more armor than leather (ie, leather with reinforced x or y, or something reinforced by leather, or whatever), it should be armor crafting.

I looked at all sword and knife crafts.  The sdescs do not appear to be ambiguous.  In the cases where the word is not specifically a common word for a sword or a knife, the definition of the word gives pretty clear indication that it is indeed in line with being a sword or a knife.

[Dar]

While technically there are very rare circumstances where I would find myself uncertain which skill I got a particular craft from, it was never enough of an issue for me to really care. Until I read this thread anyway.

[Twilight]

Its rarely finished goods that are ambiguous.

its more like:

A stone haft

Now...I just happened on this particular stone when I was a fully branched merchant.  Is it a tookmaking thing...or an axe making thing...or a stone crafting thing?

While that is not necessarily relevant to making the haft...it is typically relevant to then figuring out what I can make -with- the haft.

[AmandaGreathouse]

Not just that, but whether you'd want to make stonecutter or general crafter to be able to make it with said subguild if you wanted to be able to craft it with a nonmerchant.

[MeTekillot]

Another crafting idea: partial and total failure.

Partial failure means you get to keep the items you put into the craft (this would be very nice)

Total failure means you break everything like you do now.

I know there are some crafts IG that just say you fail the craft and you keep your stuff, but it seems whoever implemented crafts went the extra mile on most of them to make sure you lose your items when trying to craft.

Such as:
Separating the flour, you spill some.
You drop the meat in the dust.
You poke yourself in the eye with your needle and die horribly. (citation needed on this one)

[Lizzie]

Another crafting idea: partial and total failure.

Partial failure means you get to keep the items you put into the craft (this would be very nice)

Total failure means you break everything like you do now.

I know there are some crafts IG that just say you fail the craft and you keep your stuff, but it seems whoever implemented crafts went the extra mile on most of them to make sure you lose your items when trying to craft.

Such as:
Separating the flour, you spill some.
You drop the meat in the dust.
You poke yourself in the eye with your needle and die horribly. (citation needed on this one)

FWIW almost all my crafting submissions have come with at least -something- left over upon failure. If I can take a ratty old cloak and *salvage* a few scraps of cloth with it, then there's no excuse not to be able to salvage at least -one- scrap of cloth if you fail crafting something made out of cloth. Same with leather and scraps, and wood vs. splinters. If you're just trying to polish a stone, there's no reason why you should lose any of it upon failure. You simply would result in - not getting it shiny enough. If you're trying to *cut* a stone then sure, you stand a risk of losing it, unless that stone is available in shards, in which case you should end up with a shard. Same with bone vs. splinter or shard of "small piece" of bone.

[Synthesis]

One of the worst things you can do to idea threads (and your own idea) is shit them up with different ideas that have nothing to do with the OP.

If you have a different idea, make a different thread.

FWIW, I was pretty annoyed with it, but let's be honest:  the only real reason this matters is when you're trying to skill up something like armorcrafting, but you don't know if the recipe you're using is for leatherworking or not, and you don't want to waste your time and raw materials on a skill you've already mastered.

[Nyr]

Its rarely finished goods that are ambiguous.

its more like:

A stone haft

Now...I just happened on this particular stone when I was a fully branched merchant.  Is it a tookmaking thing...or an axe making thing...or a stone crafting thing?

While that is not necessarily relevant to making the haft...it is typically relevant to then figuring out what I can make -with- the haft.

It's an unfinished thing, apparently.  At first I was going to say that the description of the item lends it to you knowing what it would be (again, back to using common sense and best guess, it's probably one of two or three things), but after looking at the crafting database, it can't be used to make anything.  It's just a haft.

So now you know.

One of the worst things you can do to idea threads (and your own idea) is shit them up with different ideas that have nothing to do with the OP.

If you have a different idea, make a different thread.

Agreed, though the idea suggested already exists in some fashion and we've even had submission requests in the past to modify that here and there (and have modified it in a lot of cases where it makes sense).

[Twilight]

And here I meant to mask what I was refering to and used somehting else so it wasn't IC and forgot that that was actually an item too.

Next time, I'll use metal as my theoretical!

[Nyr]

It's an unfinished thing, apparently.  [snip] it can't be used to make anything.  It's just a haft.

So now you know.

Twilight, since you noticed it, feel free to toss in a request suggesting a use for it (maybe there's an existing item it can make) complete with a crafting recipe/item.  I can adjust the haft a little to make it look like it goes with whatever it goes with, eliminating this as an issue for future players.

[Lizzie]

NT

wow didn't we used to be able to delete our own posts? I posted something that was incorrect, and resulted in nothing to post at all. Feel free to delete this post.

[a small rock]

I rather like the idea of the simple functionality of something like:

>Craft chitin [armormaking]
...
...
...

And have the game return objects which could be made with that material under the 'Armor Making' skill. While experimentation and the application of "common sense" is fine now, I feel the added functionality would help players who can craft lots of objects parse out specific items they're working on.

Another option may be to parse it via a generic item type, and let players suss it out from there. For example, a player could type:

>Craft branch [weapons]

And get a list of weapons a player could make from the branch, assuming they have a weapon making skill which uses the branch. Searching for [furniture] or [tools] might return various furniture or tools a player could make, and prevent useless craftspam associated with having a bunch of other craft skills. This allows for both the use of a little cleverness on the part of the player, and cuts back on the list of items to sort, hopefully increasing a bit of useful playability.

Just a thought.

[Barsook]

That wouldn't work because based on your idea of the craft branch, it will show all of the things that you make within that branch.  Or did you mean by "could" being what they can make at that certain time and level?

[a small rock]

That wouldn't work because based on your idea of the craft branch, it will show all of the things that you make within that branch.  Or did you mean by "could" being what they can make at that certain time and level?

"Could" means whatever the PC can make at that time. So, currently, the crafting system works something like this:

>Craft branch
>You can make an awesome spear from that.
>You can make a sweet sword from that.
>You can make a couple of okay daggers from that.
>You can make an average arrow from that.
>You can make a broom handle from that.
>You can make a wooden flute from that.
>You can make a left-handed hammer from that.
>You can make a chair leg from that.
>You can make a didgeridoo from that.
>You can make a wooden spaulder from that.
>You can make some wooden scales from that.
>You can make a crappy bow from that.

What I'm suggesting is that an extra variable could be added, which would allow players to parse the giant list down to something which makes more sense for what the crafter may be looking to make at the time. Thus:

>Craft branch [tool]
>You can make a broom handle from that.
>You can make a left-handed hammer from that.

>Craft branch [weapon]
>You can make an awesome spear from that.
>You can make a sweet sword from that.
>You can make a couple of okay daggers from that.
>You can make an average arrow from that.
>You can make a crappy bow from that.

>Craft branch [instrument]
>You can make a wooden flute from that.
>You can make a didgeridoo from that.

Etc. You'll notice that the "weapon" category in this example may still return several different weapon crafting skills, in this case things that could be in spearmaking, sword making, knife making, fletchery, or bow making. At that point, it's up to the player to figure out which is which, and it should be fairly straightforward. The idea is to make generic categories for items which are open enough that players still have to use a little common sense and their own intuition to figure stuff out, but narrow enough that a player with a highly skilled master crafter PC doesn't have to sort through a million things each time they want to search for something new to craft.

Granted, it's been a really long time since I played with crafting, so it's possible that there are ways to narrow down your searches that I've missed. But I think something like that might be a good happy medium which adds functionality for players.