Rules: small Development News

[Eonwind]

The team as a whole is continuing the effort to smooth the rough edges of PlaneShift to improve the gameplay and overall gaming experience. As of now we are working on small side projects. In particular:

• the experimental implementation of random crafting modifiers already released, has proved to be too much expensive in term of inventory capacity, producing lots of non stackable items. Starting from the next update we decided to only calculate the chance to get the modifiers on the final item transformation. This will reduce the problem of stacking too many intermidiary items.
• Support for recycling lootable steel and leather items: starting from the next update metal workers will be able to produce small amount of molten steel (low quality) from metal weapons, armor and even some leather piece from leather armor pieces. Miners will still have the advantage of producing higher quality ores.
• Starting from next server update miners will be able to produce more than a single ore for each mining attempt.

Thanks to Ravna for providing the necessary engine support.

[Illysia]

Sounds great, thank you.

After thought: Do you mean that players will have to wait until they get to the finished product before they can get a modified item and intermediate items will have no affect on that?

I think this is how Wurm Online got around the stacking problem: each time a special version, a rare, of an item is made, it is given a set modifier which allows rare items to stack. However, I like the PS idea of a variable modifiers better though I see how it makes a problem with intermediary items.

The way Wurm seems to have dealt with intermediary items is that the item is rare but has no end state modifers in and of itself. What it does have is a fixed chance to pass on "rare" status to the next item up the ladder. If I understand it correctly, this makes it so that all "rare" intermediates of the same item are actually the same kind of "rare", allowing for stacking of items. This also means that the end result item has a better chance of becoming rare if more rare intermediates are used.

Part of the reason I bother to bring this up is that rewards schedules can help players get through tedious/repetitive mechanics. However, for it to work it needs to happen on a regular schedule even if the precise timing unpredictable. For instance, if it takes days and day to get special items then it will lose the power of anticipation to help ease the tedium, but if someone knows they will get at least one a day it is a better incentive. I just randomly choose those time frames to illustrate a schedule.

If it is possible to not flood inventories with unstackables this way, could it be done so that the intermediates do have a special status and give a fixed chance to make the next item made from them special? The intent is to give players periodic "rewards" throughout the whole crafting process.

[Migg]

I don't really know the exact mechanics behind this feature, so please bear with me while I explain my ideas that may prove to be off the mark.

Items have a quality variable that can differentiate them, and automatically group them in different stacks e.g. when mining or fishing. Different quality items or stacks can still be stacked, and the resulting stack will have their average quality. Crafted items on the other hand have a quality setting that affects them in that they might get an extra qualifier, such as extraordinary.

If the new modifier gets a new variable, say rarity (or some entirely different metric,) assigned to it, then stacking could be done and the result would be a stack with averaged metric, which could result in the new stack getting the same qualifier, a lower one or none at all depending on the new average. Crafted items on the other hand could inherit the metric from their components using some formula that could also include some random element. Then they too could be stacked by averaging the metric's values from all stack elements.

Just an idea, and again I am not saying I am sure this can be implemented, but if it can it would solve the stacking problem.

[Illysia]

I think part of your post might have gotten cut off there Migg.

[Migg]

Artifacts of having the forum automatically log me off while writing the post. Not cut, but rather stray extra text appended to it. Fixed now, thanks a lot!

[Illysia]

Ah ok. It's an interesting idea if it can be done.

[Eonwind]

After thought: Do you mean that players will have to wait until they get to the finished product before they can get a modified item and intermediate items will have no affect on that?

Yes, only the final process, the one before creating the final item will have the possibility to get a modifier.

The stacking system do not allow to stack items with a different properties, and this is good, otherwise it would be impossible to retrieve a given item within a stack.

Initial idea was to allow the gain of a random modifiers along every step of the process, however it's true the number of intermidiate items can get easily out of hand, and what would have been conceived as a feature becomes an hassle and that's not good.

How often the bonus is given also depends on how difficult is the crafting in term of necessary number of steps required to craft the final objects. There are some simpler crafting, like herbal where it's really easy to produce a final item and it doesn't take long at all. Likewise for cooking there are short recipes and longer recipes.

On top of this I should add getting to the final items instead of repetedly crafting a single intermidiate items usually gives more practice points. Encouraging the creation of final products may ideally speed up training as well. One problem often reported was the lack of primary items to continue crafting after a final item has been produced. This is why we are introducing "recyling" recipes, this will somehow extend the availability of material adding lootable 50q items to the list of items usable to train on.

In the end how often a given modifier is attributed can be controlled by setting a different chance depending on the crafting or the minimum chance to get it.

[Illysia]

Yes, only the final process, the one before creating the final item will have the possibility to get a modifier.
...
In the end how often a given modifier is attributed can be controlled by setting a different chance depending on the crafting or the minimum chance to get it.

Alright that can work, as long as it doesn't take too long to get a rare it can have the same affect. The idea is just to give the player a little unpredictable extra to look forward to. Thank you.

[Eonwind]

Yes, only the final process, the one before creating the final item will have the possibility to get a modifier.
...
In the end how often a given modifier is attributed can be controlled by setting a different chance depending on the crafting or the minimum chance to get it.

Alright that can work, as long as it doesn't take too long to get a rare it can have the same affect. The idea is just to give the player a little unpredictable extra to look forward to. Thank you.

I agree! Finding out the right setup may not be easy. However once the system has been setup we will collect player's feedback and adjust the settings accordingly. Afterall changing the chance involve changing a single number. It's 5 minutes task.

[Illysia]

Not bad, I first made 8 charmflower teas. 2 received the "valuable" modifier on it. I made another 13 charmflower teas  and 19 snowbud with no modifer. Looks like it's working so far.