Crafting: What I Want and What I Expect : V - Skyrim

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:26 pm

dark messiahs method of making swords..........best ive seen to date.

I got that game for free with my graphics card

On topic though, I don't want Skyrim to be choked with essential minigames, that would piss me off

To above post, you could also shoot down birds for the feathers on the back of te arrow (Fletching I think it's called)

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:52 pm

Arkane Studios game Arx Fatalis,

Awesome game, I used to be a 3rd person exclusive player before playing that game and now I'm 1st person exclusive.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 2:18 pm

If an ES game had Demons Souls Combat, and weapon upgrade/Crafting system it would be the best Action RPG ever. Demons Souls was amazing.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:21 am

I think you're being way too pessimistic about mining..

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:43 am

I think you're being way too pessimistic about mining..

As a born pessimist I am rarely disappointed.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 6:59 pm

Woodworking, Smithing, Leather working, Bone crafting, Cloth crafting, cooking, Gold smithing (making jewelry) and each of these crafts have a level associated with it. Items that are made for each of these would have a level associated with it. As you make things the craft skill levels up and you are able to make a wider range of items or High Quality items of lower level crafts. (ex: Your Woodworking skill is 20; Elm wood bow = LV5 woodworking recipe; You try to make it at LV20 and you get an Exceptional Elm Bow which has a higher base dmg then a regular Elm Bow. )

If your skill is LV20 and you are making an item that is between 5 lvls lower and 5 lvls higher then your current skill the HQ versions will be more rare, if your skill is 10 LVs above the item being made HQ versions will be more frequent. If nothing else it could offer another source of income not that money was hard to come by in Oblivion but this is just a different way of making the money along with giving the player a since of accomplishment.

These skills must work together in some ways on some recipes for instance, with Bone crafting while you would be able to make bone knives and bone axes you could also make bone arrow heads. You couldn't do anything with the bone arrowheads with Bone crafting alone. You need wood working skill also to make a Bone arrow. Other craft skills could work together in a similar way.

I hope something like this system is added to TES I know I would enjoy it at least!

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:11 pm

You kind of assume they will just do what you think only worse, but they can approach this in a completely different way. It's all just speculation and wishing at this point.

Now for my speculation and wishing.

That video of dark messiah crafting looks very cool. I hope they do something like that. Maybe have a meta game where you gather different molds, ores and forges that each give a different bonus when you use them. You can make a system that complex and still sell it. You just have to make sure that you are making choices on each click and not just mindless clicking. I also want to see crafting tools done better then they have been. I want them to be full on items with different metal types and enchantments. Like weapons you use for fighting metal

.

I just thought of this, but what if they let us hold the ore in are hands. Put it like a weapon and let us add it to the forge that way. Not going into a crafting menu, but doing it all inside the game world.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:56 pm

I feel that a person with say high medical skill should actually still need tools like a bone saw, or tweesers, or a scalple. Just because you have a high medical level shouldn't mean you can stitch your arm that is almost falling off with a potion and some air.

In the same sence, I feel that a sword smith should have to use the tools needed to make a sword. You're not going to reach into the flaming hot oven to get your red hot ingot with the molten metal in it with your bare hands. Youre not going to hammer your sword into shape with your fist. And these tools shouldn't just magically apear with an animation, and then disapear when your done with them. And better tools should factor into how well you make your weapon as well. A master swords smith may be able to make a blade out of a rubber band, a toob sock, and a paper clip, but you're not a master. At least not yet. Crafting should be its own ocupation, something a character could put almost their entire life into, not just something a warrior does to get a better weapon on the side.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:55 pm

I think medical skills are irrelevant in a world where magic is at work. Maybe I'm alone on that.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 7:24 pm

I think medical skills are irrelevant in a world where magic is at work. Maybe I'm alone on that.

Not everyone uses magic so having some medicine or skills in medicine wouldn't be out of place

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:43 pm

Not everyone uses magic so having some medicine or skills in medicine wouldn't be out of place

But why bother with a whole new skill for healing yourself when you can learn healing spells or healing potions.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:51 pm

I just hope that woodcutting has something to do with cooking and that we will have a way to set up an actual camp (tent, fire, etc) while out adventuring in the great white north. Like woodcutting gives you wood in your inventory (no pun intended) and you can use wood to set up a campfire/camp to cook ingredients for alchemy, etc. I am hoping that raw ingredients can still be used for alchemy, but cooking ingredients gives us different/better effects.

This would make for some great immersion with my woodsman characters--no more "wait for 8 hours" and pretending I set up a camp.

Another thought with woodcutting--once you cut a tree down will it be gone forever? Or will we just whack at a tree a couple times and see some wood fly off onto the ground? What do you guys think? It would be kinda cool to level a small stand of trees and then see saplings grow in their place after some time passes.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:47 pm

Not everyone uses magic so having some medicine or skills in medicine wouldn't be out of place

Yes it would because in this world the doctors are restoration magic users and pharmacists are alchemy users.

Surgery = Restoration
Antibiotic = Potion

gives you wood

That would be a sixual innuendo not a pun.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 3:10 pm

MMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm!!! :drool: Freshly baked Sweetrolls.

Salmo your legacy will live on.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:18 pm

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/9459/crafting1.jpg.

good lord almighty...............i hope thats not concept art for our characters. :facepalm:

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:48 pm

I just really hope it's as diverse as we're all expecting. And if not, well, CraftyBits, you are the realization of our dreams

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:22 pm

I have no expectations for crafting other than I better be able to make stuff that's worth while.

If all you can craft are mundane items when not enchanting them, why spend the time and effort on it when it would probably be simpler to take the items off a corpse, steal them, or simply purchase them in a store?

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:57 pm

I have no expectations for crafting other than I better be able to make stuff that's worth while.

If all you can craft are mundane items when not enchanting them, why spend the time and effort on it when it would probably be simpler to take the items off a corpse, steal them, or simply purchase them in a store?

I think Bethesda realizes that and will make crafting of weapons similar to FO3 where you could only craft unique weapons.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 2:33 pm

Crafting will be exactly like it is in FO3: You go to a work bench, and if u have the right ingrediants, you click and viola, the item apears in your inventory.

It plays an animation of you hitting a sword with a hammer, no matter what you are creating.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:10 am

dark messiahs method of making swords..........best ive seen to date.

hell yah

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:41 pm

dark messiahs method of making swords..........best ive seen to date.

Take that method and couple it with needing to gather ore and smelt it into metal instead of just finding a broken sword piece to re-forge, and hell yeah.

» Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:07 am

Woodcutting
What I want to see: Tree felling. Wood materials produced with this activity to be used in all sorts building and crafting like bow and arrow fletching, traps, torches, storage containers and even a log cabin.
Possibility for mechanics:Swing axe at tree x # of times - Fell tree - Chop into logs or carve into planks.[/i]
Should take into account axe sharpness, char. strength, wood hardness, tree's size?

What I expect to see: Realistically I'm expecting it to be nothing more than fuel and as such will tie into cooking and smithing.
Possibility for mechanics: Swing axe at tree x # of times - get wood material.
I'm hoping to see at least some form of wood crafting, even if just arrow shafts

Cooking
What I want to see: I'm envisioning expansive cooking with all edible and non edible foods in game as ingredients. Bread, cakes, stews and sandwiches.
Possibility for mechanics: Way too extensive to break down but simply all non edible foods such as rice, flour, eggs, etc..will have to be cooked, mixed or other wise prepared to become a usable ingredient along side other ready to use ingredients(which they themselves may also be mixed or altered to create new ingredients) such as milk, water, fruits/vegetables, cheese, etc...
Inedible food. Nice oxymoron. ( :turned: ). I don't expect to see much here unless they develop eating (more so than many other games have) If cooked food is only as useful as uncooked food, I don't see the point spending too much time on it. Nutrition? Minor buffs? Affect character development? If you eat a lot of fat, protein, and sugar should you get fat or buff? Scurvy? Beriberi?
I DON'T want to see food give things like health buffs or attrib. buffs. Maybe MP and Fatigue buffs for expensive / pseudo-magic foods (More like how candy, protein bars, nuts, etc, could be considered high energy food). However, seeing attrib. damage/drain effects because of bad nutrition might be cool.

Mining
What I want to see: Specific types of mines throughout Skyrim each producing one or a combination of resources including but not limited to; ~~coal, iron ore, copper ore, nickel ore, silver ore, gold ore~~ and mithril ore. Bituminous coal, hematite / magnetite/ limonite, malachite / native copper / tetrahedrite, garnierite, Tetrahedrite (again) / native silver / galena, Native gold, etc. unless your skilled or read up on rocks, a layman doesn't know what one rock is from another. One shouldn't just wander into a mine and expect to know whats valueable. It would be cool to see the walls of a cave change as you descend from one rock layer to another or wander through a vein of ore.
Possibility for mechanics: Swing pick at rock x # of times - get related resource.
I'd like to say I don't want to see mining become a time sink as in Runescape. Yes, realistically mining is time consuming, but swinging a pick for 8 hrs a day is not entertaining.

Smithing
What I want: The ability to make 2 to 4 different kinds of unique weapons and armor for each class as well as lock picks, lanterns, cook ware and of course a roasting spit.
Possibility for mechanics: Put fuel in furnace(first wood then coal) - smelt ore in furnace - remove liquid metal - put liquid metal in mold to form ingot - place ingot in furnace - remove hot metal - forge into desired item.
Making steel is a bit more involved and some types of ore require more than just adding heat. Its this metallurgic complexity that leads to different types of steel, as well as the historical prevalence of one metal over others(aluminum wasn't discovered until the 1800s, and was very hard to extract. It was at one point as expensive as gold. Tho steel is a very old metal, the bronze age was known as the bronze age for a reason). I'd like to see different types of metal have different requirements to smelt.

And like with mining, the intricacies of smelting should not be obvious to a novice. I'm not recommending a level requirement here for types of metals, I don't have a problem with a Lvl 1 char making any kind of material, but materials should be hard to get (but hopefully fairly plentiful if not infinite) and should require player (not necessarily PC) know-how to achieve. Add some books. Add quests for knowledge. Etc.

What I expect to see: The ability to make 1 or 2 unique weapons for each class, lock picks and maybe a roasting spit(tie to cooking)
I don't expect to see unique craftables (tho I'd like them). Some people will complain that they don't want to HAVE TO do smithing to get a specific cool sword. I'd like to be able to specify how thick the blade should be, how sharp (is this an axe or a sword or a sword with an axe-like edge -- see falchion) how long, Inlaying? etching? how long the hilt is, how heavy the sword is overall, where the center of balance is. Am I crafting armor? How thick should it be? Do I want to cover my whole hand or leave out fingers? do I find I often leave 1 part of my body exposed in combat? I should be able to craft armor to cover it better. Am I worried about being shot in the back? Or do I plan on facing every archer I encounter? But, this is what I want, not what I expect. It will be years before this is feasible in a game.

While it's true I would of liked them to provide me with what I wanted, I am still very pleased to be getting something like what I expect because it is a foundation to base a more extensive crafting system on when modding comes to town. I'm very happy with the possibilities for modding that these new mechanics will provide the community. I thoroughly agree with you here. This is a step in the right direction.

If you like these feature, and can tolerate ASCII graphics and a vertical learning curve, you should try http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/.

edit: bold wasn't bold enough to be obvious, sorry if it's too bold now. Let me know.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 3:31 pm

@.Bob.

This forum doesn't allow quotes within quotes so to quote you i have to do it manually, very annoying. Next time add quote tags to break up the text and reply out side of them so i can quote you in one click. Thank you. I'm not doing a lot of work this morning so I'll just quote you directly when necessary.

I appreciate that your trying to flesh out the effects of the mechanics but that is not the point of this thread. I can Imagine very well what those effects should be and how they should work but it's not relevant.

Inedible food. Nice oxymoron. ( :turned: ).

As for using the term Inedible food, I couldn't think of any better way to describe items in game that are obviously foods but cannot be consumed without preparation such as dried rice, flour, etc.

Your spiel about minerals is way beyond the average persons knowledge and doesn't belong in a video game. What i described is all the complexity that would be needed and even then it is a little much for the avg gamer.

Mining as a time sink is not what i was shooting for and certainly not on any level associated with RuneScape. This is a single player game so mining the ore will not take the most time, carrying it to the forge will and given fast travel that is a non-issue.

This isn't a simulation and mining and smithing involving the complexity you describe would not be fun.

I don't expect to see unique craftables (tho I'd like them).

You obviously haven't played FO3. Bethesda is taking great strides to reduce the redundancy in the game and crafting items that already exist in the game is beyond redundant. Just like FO3 you will only be able to craft unique items.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:45 pm

Perhaps crafting should be a dlc so that they can give it more depth.

» Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:34 pm

Crafting will be exactly like it is in FO3: You go to a work bench, and if u have the right ingrediants, you click and viola, the item apears in your inventory.

It plays an animation of you hitting a sword with a hammer, no matter what you are creating.

There's not likely to be a "skill" for it, either. With only 18 skills, I can't picture them adding crafting, cooking, or anything else at the expense of MORE of the previous skill set, with the possible exception of "Smithing". Probably a "perk" or "recipe" for the rest, if not for smithing as well. If you take the perk or find the recipe, you can make item X just by having the "ingredients" in inventory and clicking the "Craft" icon or equipping the proper crafting item. A quick animation, and it removes the ingredients and deposits the item in their place.

I'd much rather have a learned skill, with possible failure or poor results if you try something that taxes your abilities. No failure for "easy" tasks within your skill range, though.