I've been exploring crafting on Armageddon with my past few characters, and while it's very fun, it can also be horrifically frustrating. I've come up with an idea that I don't think will imbalance the game, but will help make things a little less confusing. It concerns using "craft <item>" to figure out what you can make from something.

I would like to suggest that when you type "craft <item>" and you get an itemized list of the things you can make, at the end of each item, in parenthesis, you see the name of the skill that you will be using to create it. To me, it doesn't seem to make sense to see an item on your list that your character can make and not have the faintest idea what kinds of tools you might want to use, or even why you're making it. But if you see that you can create the item, and it uses your "steelcrafting" skill, then you'll at least have a general idea what kind of thing you're making, instead of seeing something like this:

You could make an artificial meteor from that.
You could make a long metal tube from that.
You could make a flat piece of steel from that.
You could make a small, curved bowl from that.

With my suggestion in place, you'd see something more like this...

You could make an artificial meteor from that. (steelcrafting)
You could make a long metal tube from that. (weaponcrafting)
You could make a flat piece of steel from that. (automobilemaking)
You could make a small, curved bowl from that. (bongmaking)

It wouldn't necessarily give you any additional crafting recipes, but it would give you an idea of what you're working toward. Code-wise, this doesn't seem at first thought like it would be TOO difficult to implement, and it would help a lot with some confusion that I don't really think is particularly necessary. After all, I would like to think that a person with even a little ability in a skill would know what kind of thing he's trying to make.

Suggestions? Comments?

I like the idea, its probably worthwhile doing as long as someone doesn't have to go through every craftable item in the game and add the <steelcrafting> to end of the line that says the you can craft a blah blah out of that.

As far as grabbing a tool to make something, I just usually go with what makes sense. If I want to carve something out of wood, a chisel might be more useful than a woodcarving knife. Sure, an assess on the chisel says its good for stone, but damn it, I'm not going to whittle this plank into a shield, I'm going to carve it with a chisel!

I would like to suggest that Kuraci merchants get the bongmaking skill.  

But seriously folks, while it would be nice, I think that adding that kind of feature would encourage spam-crafting twinks.

Quote from: "Cuusardo"

But seriously folks, while it would be nice, I think that adding that kind of feature would encourage spam-crafting twinks.

Just pointing out this is the same basic argument that everyone loves:
DON"T DO IT IT COULD BE TWINKED


I'm not going to go into the typical refuations and counter-refuations, because we've heard them all before.

I, however, will..

OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU PUT STRENGTH AND AGILITY IN THE GAME!
THATS GOING TO BE USED BY COMBAT TWINKS!..

done.

Quote from: "Cuusardo"
But seriously folks, while it would be nice, I think that adding that kind of feature would encourage spam-crafting twinks.

How so?

I'm with Halasturd ... How?


Creeper

I like this idea.

As for twinking... well, people are going to twink no matter what.  That's just a fact of the game.  The question is would any idea be good for the average player.

I vote a solid yay.

Twinks are not going to be able to abuse this, since people would realistically know whether the majority of the work on these thick sandcloth armbands is going to be stitching and tying (leatherworking) or padding out and reinforcing them with leather (armormaking).

This will also allow players to spot mislabelled crafts and report them.

I don't like it, if only to remain consistent with decision like removing %s from 'skills'.

TMI.

I've never seen %s on my skills..

I don't think it's too much information.  Knowing that you are as good with shields as you are with dual wield could be twinked because the char could decide to practice one over the other, or focus more on two handed weapons.

Same with weapon types, spells, languages or whatever.


Knowing what sort of crafting skill you would need to create an object is not *really* secret, I think.  It's not as though we have a system where you are shown every possible craft for any given item and that makes you guess whether you can make this or that.  (In other words, showing you spearmaking items when your only crafting skills are cooking and dildomaking).

Right now, you are always shown crafts that your character can make.  I don't think if it's such an issue if your character knew whether some work was mainly tailoring or armormaking, for example...and I think it could even assist the crafting emotes.

Quote from: "Sir Diealot"I've never seen %s on my skills..

He's talking about the way things used to be.

Personally I think this is a good idea because my character is going to have a better idea than I do what skills are being utilized when making something.  If you've never had multiple crafting skills let me tell you, it can get sort of confusing trying to figure out if that jewel-encrusted, silk headband is a Jewelry_making craft or a Cloth_working craft and while you will emote using the best available tools for the job, codewise it's documented that holding/wielding the right tool helps you be more successful.

It all makes sense to me, if you have the knowledge of what you can make out of something, you should know what skills you will be using to make it.

Maybe you could also add a conjecture to the difficulty of the crafting. For example:

You could quickly make a cloth bandana from that. (Cloth_making)

It would take you a long time to make an obsidian sword from that. (sword-making)

It would take you a few hours to make a pair of slacks from that.

ect.

I like it.  It would help in accurately being able to predict, for instance if you were talking to a customer, if you really can make that leather armband very well (clothworking or leatherworking or jewelry?).  It would help with choosing the right tool for the job.  It would help in being able to point out inconsistencies to the staff.

I'd also like to suggesting adding the clan in a similar way for clan specific items.  Or having two "pools" of suggestions, one regular and one clan, or something.  For instance, in deciding what to craft in a public place.  Or in deciding whether it is appropriate to sell something that you made...

Quote from: "Halaster"

Quote from: "Cuusardo"
But seriously folks, while it would be nice, I think that adding that kind of feature would encourage spam-crafting twinks.

How so?

I was thinking along the lines of the people who will sit and spam-craft one skill just because they want to branch something off of it.  The people I had in mind were the kind who would sit and craft and craft and craft, ignoring the world around them and not bothering to emote.

On the other hand, it could definitely be a boon to someone who is trying to get into a bustling market, or even to corner the market on a particular type of item.

Quote from: "Cuusardo"I was thinking along the lines of the people who will sit and spam-craft one skill just because they want to branch something off of it.  The people I had in mind were the kind who would sit and craft and craft and craft, ignoring the world around them and not bothering to emote.

Do you think that they'll suddenly get up and role-play just because they don't know what skill they're practicing when they spamcraft?  Is there anything stopping from doing this now?

Your concern is absolutely ridiculous.

I'm saying it could encourage them, just as having available to you what levels of proficiency your skills are at could.

Quote from: "EvilRoeSlade"Your concern is absolutely ridiculous.