Crafting Suggestion

[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.