Feedback on Fletchery / Crafting

[Mills]

Although I'm not a new player, the crafting system didn't exist when I last played Arm. Since it is new to me I'm sharing the 'new player experience' that I had with the fletchery skill.

My character's class, Scout, starts with fletchery and I wanted to know how to make an arrow. I read the Crafting and Fletchery help files and also read some discussions on Discord about how to craft things. Based on what I had read it seems pretty straightforward and I figured I wouldn't have much trouble making an arrow.

My quest to make an arrow begins...

In the game my character saw someone making an arrow shaft so I asked them where I could get the materials to do the same thing. They directed me to an NPC shop where I could get some bones that I would need.

Before going to the shop, I happened across a piece of bone left on a table and tried to use the Analyze skill to see if it was what I needed for an arrow shaft. I got the following output that said I wasn't in the required clan to craft with this object. The related objects that use this bone in their recipes did not mention anything about Fletchery. Although the output about being in a clan was confusing I figured this bone wouldn't help me.

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anal bone
You aren't in the required clan to craft a piece of bone.
Your 'skinning' skill is not high enough to craft a piece of bone.

A bone could be made with the 'cooking' skill, using...
  a long length of bone.
  Crafting this would be very difficult.
A bone could be made with the 'cooking' skill, using...
  a short length of bone.
  Crafting this would be very difficult.
A bone could be made with the 'cooking' skill, using...
  a small heap of animal bones.
  Crafting this would be very difficult.
A bone could be made with the 'skinning' skill, using...
  a pile of assorted canine bones.
  Crafting this would be nearly impossible.
A bone could be made with the 'skinning' skill, using...
  a short length of bone.
  Crafting this would be very difficult.
'trio of bone dice' using the 'cooking' skill and combined with...
  a piece of bone.
  a piece of bone.
'collection of jakhal meat and spine bones' using the 'cooking' skill and combined with...
  a tubular cut of burgundy meat.
  a tubular cut of burgundy meat.
Later in a different playing session, I went to the shop that another character said had the materials I needed to get started. The shop sold multiple sizes and since arrow shafts are pretty long I figured I'd buy the long version.

I then used the Analyze command to see if I got the correct base material but it did not return any useful information related to Fletchery.

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anal bone
Your 'cooking' skill is not high enough to craft a long length of bone.

A bone could be made with the 'skinning' skill, using...
  a pile of bone lengths.
  Crafting this would be very difficult.
'single small piece of bone' using the 'cooking' skill.

Since I didn't get the results I expected, I spent more of my dwindling sid on other sizes to see if they would work.

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craft bone
You could make...
===================================================Difficulty=====Tool========
------------------------------------COOKING-----------------------------------
 1) a single small piece of bone                  very difficult | -none-
 
craft 1.bone
You don't think you could craft that into anything.
At this point I figured the PC I talked to may have lied. I then try to get some of my sid back for the 3 sizes of bone I purchased and can't use.

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offer bone
A sdesc of shopkeeper says to you:
     "I don't want that."
They don't want this stuff back so I'll take the hit to my funds and need to figure something else out. As a player I'm a bit frustrated at this point.

OOCly I figure that I'm missing something or I'm doing something wrong so I go back to searching help files and Discord. This research reaffirmed that Analyze and Craft should tell me everything I need to know but they are not in my experience.

In a session a day or so later, I talk to characters in the game telling them about my visit to the shop and not being able to do what I needed to. Since I couldn't really solve this ICly in conversation or OOCly with my research, I resorted to breaking character and using the OOC command in game with other players to ask what I was doing wrong.

The players using OOC were then able to explain that my Fletchery skill may be too low for the Craft or Analyze commands to show me information that would be useful. They informed me that I need to get a tool, hold it, and sit/stand at a workbench and this may boost my Fletchery skill to a point that the Craft and Analyze commands would work as described in other places and show me what I could make with Flechery.

As someone who has made arrows in RL, I didn't expect someone to tell me to use a wrench. I would've never figured this out on my own or in the docs.

Now that I understood the OOC specifics I was able to attempt one arrow shaft that failed and destroyed the material completely.

My quest to make an arrow continues, and I sympathize with new players who are having difficulty learning how to craft items.

Since new and returning players seem to be very interested in the complex Crafting system, I think the related documentation could be updated to be more prescriptive and helpful.

Here are some off the cuff suggestions that may help improve the new player crafting experience:

• In each of the crafting skill help files (Skill Fletchery, etc.)
  
  • Include information about how to use the Craft and Analyze commands to learn about recipes and ingredients.
  • Show skill specific examples that explain how to interpret the output of both the Craft & Analyze commands. The examples could be the most basic and obvious objects that a player with the skill should begin using.
  • Include a section that tells the player skill specific basic ingredients they should try to source and common ways they could obtain them.
  • Include a section that explains how tools and workbenches work.
  • List the most basic tools that each character starting with the skill should know about
• Make sure character classes/subclasses with crafting skills start at a proficiency level where the Craft and Analyze commands will show them their most basic recipes regardless of tool/workbench modifiers.

[Lizzie]

It looks like you tried two different commands. The first was analyze, the second was craft.

I've found that when I type CRAFT BONE I'll get a list of everything I'm capable of crafting using that piece of bone, given my current skill, and level of expertise in that skill.

ANALYZE BONE will tell me what that bone was made out of.

With the CRAFT BONE - you saw that you could break down your current piece of bone into one smaller piece of bone, and that this would make use of your COOKING skill. It also indicates in your example, that you aren't able to do anything else with that piece of bone, at the present time.

If you wanted to do that (break the bone down into a smaller piece) you would simply:

CRAFT BONE INTO BONE
or CRAFT BONE INTO SINGLE or CRAFT BONE INTO PIECE

If you were to buy an arrow or have someone let you take a look at theirs, you would ANALYZE it, to see if you have the skill to figure out how it's made. The same goes for partially-finished goods, like an arrowshaft (which has no function other than to be an ingredient in the "recipe" for making arrows).

tl;dr:

ANALYZE to see what something is made out of.
CRAFT to see what a raw material can create.

[helix]

First off - I sympathize. Also a returning veteran player, and while Fletching isn't the crafting skill driving me bonkers, there most assuredly is one that is driving me crazy enough that I put in a request to staff earlier today.

That said, couple things:

1: You're doing it right. Analyze will tell you all the things that that object could possibly be used for if you're using it on a raw material or a half-finished item.

2: Craft will tell you what crafts that that specific item can be used to create - so if you say: craft bone, you'll get one output, and if you say: craft bone spearhead (as an example) you will get a different list of items that you can create. Analyze is the way to go, to do what you're doing.

3: Staff has been, in the past, REALLY helpful in this regard - I've put in a Question request before asking for the basics, and they've always been very accommodating, especially when I was new. I know this doesn't really fix your issue, and you're 100% correct, in my opinion, in that basic recipes ought to be a little more available but... staff time is limited, and this would probably get you going.

4: Another option you have is to get an arrow from someone that has one and you can analyze that - it will tell you how it's made, and what ingredients went into making it.

I hope that helps. I feel your pain, bro.

[Big Red]

ANALYZE to see what something is made out of.
CRAFT to see what a raw material can create.

This isn't quite it. CRAFT will show you what you can create with specifically the items that you include in that command, but not all of the things that can be made from that item. i.e. if you do >craft branch, it will tell you what you can craft with specifically just that branch. But if you >analyze branch, it will tell you all the things you might make with that branch, even things that require additional ingredients.

Mills—I can see one thing in the interface that's for sure confusing, and it's the stuff around required clans. What the game was trying to tell you when it said "You aren't in the required clan to craft a piece of bone" is that, somewhere out there, there is a clan that has a rare recipe to make the item 'a piece of bone.' But, it doesn't mean you have to be in a clan to make things with bone in general.

I like your suggestions, they seem very good.

[Agent_137]

Last time I played a scout, novice fletchery didn't let me make any arrows without a tool.  All the recipes were too high to even show up with craft and analyze.

Maybe that's changed or maybe I could grind on rocks to make sling stones, but it's far from intuitive and does need some help in the help file.

[Riev]

Last time I played a scout, novice fletchery didn't let me make any arrows without a tool.  All the recipes were too high to even show up with craft and analyze.

Maybe that's changed or maybe I could grind on rocks to make sling stones, but it's far from intuitive and does need some help in the help file.

I believe this is the case, where occasionally the starting craft skill is set low enough that you need a tool to get the first few failures.

Fletchery may well be one of those skills where you need a tool to get you to that first skill hump. Maybe it should either start higher, or the beginning arrow/bolt shaft skills should be retooled to be lower.

[eska]

I thought help fletchery shows the basic crafts. It's been a long time since I checked this file but from my old times, I never needed to use tools to use this skill.

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Skill Fletchery                                                       (Skill)

   Fletchery encompasses several different skills: the art of making
arrowshafts from appropriate wood; the art of chipping arrowheads from
shards of stone; and the art of combining these with feathers to create an
arrow.  Merchants are usually trained in this trade, and may combine it
with skills such as dyeing to produce a wide variety of arrows.  Other classes
sufficiently skilled with archery may learn to produce their own arrows as
well.

Syntax:
   craft (item) (item2) into (desired result)

Example:
> craft branch into long arrowshaft

> craft branch feather into black-fletched crossbow bolt

> craft twig into small thornwood dart

> craft slender into bone arrowshaft

> craft shaft shard feather into black-fletched, obsidian-head arrow

> craft bone feather into simple, sharp tipped blowdart

> craft branch feather into simple, white-feathered wooden blowdart

See also:
   crafting, skill archery, skill feather working

Delay:
   after


[Bushranger]

...As someone who has made arrows in RL, I didn't expect someone to tell me to use a wrench. I would've never figured this out on my own or in the docs...

I agree that the fletchery skill can be quite annoying to work out. There are a huge number of arrows that can be made and most are not able to be made when you start out at the novice level. Good luck working on it to find the feather/shaft/head combination that fits your skill level and location to collect them.

I am writing this as someone who has also made arrows in RL that a fletchery "wrench" is not the same as a modern day wrench. The in-game wrench is referring to somthing like this ancient tool which is a hole in something hard to pull the rod through and make sure they are all straight and the same diameter. For some reason archaeologists/anthropologists have referred to them as an "arrowshaft wrench"  I personally would have called it a guage.



edit to add: I am not the person who introduced wrench as a fletchery tool in-game, just someone pedantic enough research why the tool was called a wrench in-game many years ago.

[Usiku]

My experience with fletchery was that it was incredibly easy in the north where you have access to wood, but much much harder in the south. Just going to have a snoop into this. Those are great suggestions for the help files, and a review of crafting help files is something we can put into the backlog, but if anybody fancies writing up improved versions of crafting help files and sending them in via request, then they could be improved much more quickly!

[Nao]

I thought help fletchery shows the basic crafts. It's been a long time since I checked this file but from my old times, I never needed to use tools to use this skill.

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Skill Fletchery                                                       (Skill)

   Fletchery encompasses several different skills: the art of making
arrowshafts from appropriate wood; the art of chipping arrowheads from
shards of stone; and the art of combining these with feathers to create an
arrow.  Merchants are usually trained in this trade, and may combine it
with skills such as dyeing to produce a wide variety of arrows.  Other classes
sufficiently skilled with archery may learn to produce their own arrows as
well.

Syntax:
   craft (item) (item2) into (desired result)

Example:
> craft branch into long arrowshaft

> craft branch feather into black-fletched crossbow bolt

> craft twig into small thornwood dart

> craft slender into bone arrowshaft

> craft shaft shard feather into black-fletched, obsidian-head arrow

> craft bone feather into simple, sharp tipped blowdart

> craft branch feather into simple, white-feathered wooden blowdart

See also:
   crafting, skill archery, skill feather working

Delay:
   after


If you have access to branches, you have no trouble starting out. But when you start in Allanak and don't think of making slingstones, you'll run into this issue.

This might be one of the major hurdles for new crafters, not just with fletchery - get these first few fails because so many crafts are unavailable with the starting skill levels (unless you've mangaged to find the specific tools AND know how to use them). This makes basic, useful, 'standard' materials for a craft seem useless because the recipes don't show up yet, and frustrates new players.

[Lips]

Last time I played a scout, novice fletchery didn't let me make any arrows without a tool.  All the recipes were too high to even show up with craft and analyze.

Maybe that's changed or maybe I could grind on rocks to make sling stones, but it's far from intuitive and does need some help in the help file.

I believe this is the case, where occasionally the starting craft skill is set low enough that you need a tool to get the first few failures.

Fletchery may well be one of those skills where you need a tool to get you to that first skill hump. Maybe it should either start higher, or the beginning arrow/bolt shaft skills should be retooled to be lower.

My experience is that nearly all, if not all, of the recipes in most help files can be made by a new character.  In this case:

Example:
> craft branch into long arrowshaft

> craft branch feather into black-fletched crossbow bolt

> craft twig into small thornwood dart

> craft slender into bone arrowshaft

> craft shaft shard feather into black-fletched, obsidian-head arrow

> craft bone feather into simple, sharp tipped blowdart

> craft branch feather into simple, white-feathered wooden blowdart

Unless they were trying to use that one specific bone, they might have trouble. If you start with wood you will likely encounter no trouble, so it seems to be a seasonal issue.

[FantasyWriter]

In the south, you will almost always require a tool to start crafting arrows from the most simple available recipes.  There use to be a plant that spawned thorny branches close to the city, but it was removed years ago.  Try finding a something something wrench or buying one from a PC toolmaker. That should open up making arrowshafts/bolts from bone.

[FantasyWriter]

I would suggest adding a couple of the thorny branch plants back to the south due to current season restrictions.  Make them spawn fewer branches total but regen more quickly so the largest number of PCs could benefit from them but no one person is getting rich off the addition.  Also, it would make a good place for raiders to hang out.

[Nao]

Thorny branches are very useful and would be valuable in Allanak because they're wood. Plants would likely be picked clean often, making them unavailable to newbie fletchers again.

I would adjust the difficulty on the 'bone arrowshaft' crafts so they show up with starting skill levels without the need for tools, and add that one to the helpfile.

[eska]

I would adjust the difficulty on the 'bone arrowshaft' crafts so they show up with starting skill levels without the need for tools, and add that one to the helpfile.

I totally agree. Bones are more common in the south. Lowering the difficulty of bone arrowshafts and bone bolt shafts would help a lot in this season.

[Lizzie]

I've noticed from my own experience that starting out making arrowshafts and arrows from /novice/ takes forever because the failure rate is pretty rough.  But once you get to low journeyman, it becomes increasingly easier to succeed. In the south, bone-shard-feather is in nearly unlimited supply, cheap, and easy to get yourself if you have even a little bit of combat experience. In the north, branches and shards are in unlimited supply, feathers not so much but cheap enough in Luir's that it doesn't matter.

I think that the help file should specify that straightening wrenches are useful tools to make bolt and arrowshafts, and fletching knives useful to make finished arrows and bolts.

In fact I think that every craft help file should include the "most commonly known" code-benefit tools. If it's obscure, then sure - Find Out IC.  The common stuff - any fledgling crafter or hobbyist would already have an idea of what to look for the moment they get out of the Hall of Kings.

[Athapaxis]

There's another type of ranged weapon ammunition that you can make with very cheap and plentiful materials and I'm pretty sure you can try to make these right from the start.

[Usiku]

I have lowered the difficulty of the simpler bone related crafts to be on par with their northern counterparts.

I will also say that there are already some branches available in the South. You might try exploring areas that are newer that you don't know so well and figuring out what's up.

[Patuk]

I have lowered the difficulty of the simpler bone related crafts to be on par with their northern counterparts.

I will also say that there are already some branches available in the South. You might try exploring areas that are newer that you don't know so well and figuring out what's up.

What?

[Kavrick]

There's another type of ranged weapon ammunition that you can make with very cheap and plentiful materials and I'm pretty sure you can try to make these right from the start.

I would 100% agree with this if it wasn't for the fact that certain classes have to use archery in order to branch, so it stops being a choice at that point.

[Riev]

There's another type of ranged weapon ammunition that you can make with very cheap and plentiful materials and I'm pretty sure you can try to make these right from the start.

I would 100% agree with this if it wasn't for the fact that certain classes have to use archery in order to branch, so it stops being a choice at that point.

I think he meant only in terms of using fletchery.

My only disagreement is that when people think fletchery, they don't think stone sling bullets. The first thought (if any) is stone crafting. So a new player is going to think they need to make arrows, and not check every item in the game to realize they can make slingstones.

I would suggest the helpfile be updated to add something like "craft stone into a few jasper sling bullets"

[Kavrick]

My only disagreement is that when people think fletchery, they don't think stone sling bullets. The first thought (if any) is stone crafting. So a new player is going to think they need to make arrows, and not check every item in the game to realize they can make slingstones.

I would suggest the helpfile be updated to add something like "craft stone into a few jasper sling bullets"

Ahh, fair. I think also there's an issue where base-level fletchery actually can't see sling-stone recipes. If you boot up a brand new scout, you have to hold a wrench to see the sling recipes. Lowering that so you could see them easier I think would help.

[Nao]

Yeah... established players know this, newer players will just try to make arrows and get frustrated, which is completely unnecessary.

[Mills]

Those are great suggestions for the help files, and a review of crafting help files is something we can put into the backlog, but if anybody fancies writing up improved versions of crafting help files and sending them in via request, then they could be improved much more quickly!

I submitted a request with the a draft update to the Fletchery help file and also included it below. I don't know the skill very well so some of the content may need to be corrected. If this seems like a good format, other players who are well versed in crafting could use it as a reference for their help file update request submissions.

Skill Fletchery

(skill)
Fletchery encompasses several different skills: the art of making arrowshafts from appropriate wood or bone; the art of chipping arrowheads from shards of stone; and the art of combining these with feathers to create an arrow or crossbow bolt. Character classes focused on crafting are usually trained in this trade, and may combine it with skills such as dyeing to produce a wide variety of projectiles. Other classes sufficiently skilled with archery may learn to produce their own arrows or bolts as well.

Syntax:
craft (item) (item2) into (desired result)

Example(s):
> craft branch into long arrowshaft

> craft branch feather into black-fletched crossbow bolt

> craft twig into small thornwood dart

> craft slender into bone arrowshaft

> craft shaft shard feather into black-fletched, obsidian-head arrow

> craft bone feather into simple, sharp tipped blowdart

> craft branch feather into simple, white-feathered wooden blowdart

Getting Started:
A good place to start is learning about the relevant crafting materials. Crafting materials can vary depending on what is available in a character's location. A widely known example is that in southern locations bone is more widely used and in northern locations wood is more accessible.

Players can utilize the Craft command to understand the specific items their character can make from raw materials. This command may return different results based on the different crafting skills a character has and the current skill proficiency level of a crafting skill. For example:

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craft bone
You could make...
===================================================Difficulty=====Tool========
------------------------------------COOKING-----------------------------------
 1) an one piece of bone                          very difficult | -none-
-----------------------------------FLETCHERY----------------------------------
 2) a few bone-crafted bolt shafts                very difficult | -none-
 3) a pair of bone-crafted bolt shafts            very difficult | -none-
-----------------------------------SKINNING-----------------------------------
 4) a pair of small bone pieces                  very difficult | -none-

Conversely, players can use the Analyze command to learn what craftable items are made out of. For example: (This example should be replaced with the output of analyzing a craftable arrow or bolt. I can't do it yet in game to provide it here)

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analyze bone
Your 'cooking' skill is not high enough to craft a short length of bone.

A bone could be made with the 'skinning' skill, using...
  a pile of assorted canine bones.
  Crafting this would be nearly impossible.
A bone could be made with the 'skinning' skill, using...
  a pile of bone lengths.
  Crafting this would be very difficult.
'one piece of bone' using the 'cooking' skill.
'few bone-crafted bolt shafts' using the 'fletchery' skill.
'couple simple, sharp tipped blowdart' using the 'fletchery' skill and combined with...
  a pale grey feather.
'pair of bone-crafted bolt shafts' using the 'fletchery' skill.
'pair of small bone pieces' using the 'skinning' skill.

Tools and Workbenches:
To increase the chance of successfully crafting an item, characters can hold tools and sit or stand at a workbench.

Characters with the Fletchery skill know that:

• Skinning various animals can provide raw materials they use.
• Foraging can provide raw materials they use.
• Some shops and other characters may provide them tools and raw materials.
• Chisels and hammers assist with working stone.
• Straightening wrenches assist with making various arrow and bolt shafts.
• Fletching knives are useful in finishing arrows and bolts.

 
See Also:
analyze, crafting, custom crafting, forage, skill archery, skill feather working, skill skinning, tools

[Agent_137]

What?

They added new places in the south which have branches.

[Dune Bunny]

Touching on how the skill help file for various crafts have beginner recipes/materials mentioned:

With Season 1 being focused on the south, and crafters starting off with southern materials, maybe one example of sling stones can be added to the various items added to the fletchery help file? This would be a big help for newer players, and current players not too knowledgeable about crafting classes/skills that are trying to get fletchery going on their beginning budget.

[Mills]

I have lowered the difficulty of the simpler bone related crafts to be on par with their northern counterparts.

Thanks for adjusting the difficulty!

Some of the difficulty of other related recipes adjacent to Fletchery may also need to be reviewed. The example I experienced is that my Scout has Fletchery now at (apprentice) and Foraging at (novice). The character is able to use the craft command on hand-sized chunks of stone and see that they can make bullets, but when using the craft command on blocky or head-sized pieces of stone, they are told they cannot craft anything from that.

This wasn't intuitive to me oocly since I would think that crafting bullets from a small piece of stone would be harder than breaking larger pieces of stone into smaller pieces. This led me to asking for help in Discord, and it appears that if my character had their Foraging skill at a higher proficiency then the craft command would show the recipes and allow the character to try and break bigger stones down. I haven't tested it, but this scenario may come up with different sizes of bone as well. You can see the recipe for bolts on a short piece of bone, but characters can break long pieces of bone so they don't get useful output when using the crafting command on long pieces.

It would be less confusing if the difficulty of breaking down base raw materiels like bone and stone into smaller pieces was easier and known by all classes/subclasses that know a crafting skill. If my scout could break down stone with only Foraging at (novice), I probably wouldn't of asked for help oocly.

I'll also submit this suggestion as a request.

[eska]

The example I experienced is that my Scout has Fletchery now at (apprentice) and Foraging at (novice). The character is able to use the craft command on hand-sized chunks of stone and see that they can make bullets, but when using the craft command on blocky or head-sized pieces of stone, they are told they cannot craft anything from that.

I think breaking down stones/bones to smaller useful pieces should require some skills. Assume you have a head-sized stone and want to break into two hand-sized stones. Without the proper skill when you try to break it, you break the stone so badly that you only get useless pieces of stones. This is why one couldn't break stones into smaller pieces with low forage skill.

The problem in fletchery vs forage, which Mills stated, happens to be the case with stonecrafting, toolcrafting, jewelrymaking, instrumentmaking and other crafting skills vs forage. The solution to this problem should not be decreasing the difficulty of forage recipes. I think creating new recipes for fletchery would be a better solution. Let's say, the new fletchery recipes could be a single bullet at 10 skill level, two bullets at 20 skill level and four bullets at 30 skill level from a head-sized stone.

[helix]

Keep in mind, you can also forage for keywords, too.

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forage stone for hand

You begin searching the area intently.

You pick up a hand-sized chunk of dark stone.

Does work, and it'll auto-discard anything that doesn't fit that keyword. I think, in-general, the crafting system probably need a bit of a revamp overall, but that's probably an enormous amount of work for an uncertain level of payoff.