Too much fat on the crafting system

[Dutchguy234]

As I see it, there are massive issues that a piece of classic advice can sum up:
”Given the opportunity, a player will optimize the fun out of a game”.

In this post I want to look at gear: the crafting of it, and some other aspects that I noticed

First, the raw equipment.
With the introduction of facets, getting the desired piece of gear+facet has become a numerical nightmare.

1. Weapon, players will want to stick to their weapon and its moveset. meaning they’ll need an absurd amount of luck with a random drop, or craft it.
   Relying on random weapon+facet drop means you have a 1/100*1/18 = 1/1800 chance of getting your weapon+facet on each weapon drop (only if there are 100 weapons and all facets (incl. no facet) have an equal chance of spawning). On 1000 weapon drops, there is a (1-1/1800)^1000=0,573 → 57,3% chance of not getting your weapon+facet and a 42,7% chance of getting 1 or more of your weapon+facet. Which is ridiculous to rely on even in these fortunate–equal spawn chance–circumstances. (And there might be more than 100 weapons)
   Relying on Crafting means you have better odds, but you now need to grind resources. Let’s hope all the facets, including no-facet, have an equal spawn chance. So (1-1/18)^10 = 0,565 → 56,5 %chance of getting 0 of what I want and 43,5% of getting 1 or more of my weapon+facet in 10 crafts. Crafting 10 weapons would require 30 bear hearts, 60 silver, and 80 birch planks if you make the mayhem greatsword.
   Once again, this is just a silly amount of effort for just the weapon+facet.
2. Armor, armor is way more lenient in drop chance or craftability as there are 4 categories that behave the same: Cloth, Leather, Mesh, and Plate.
   This makes the RNG doable… as long as you don’t care about fashion, because if you do care about a matching outfit, may god help you, for the same math as above now applies to you. I, for one, care about looking cool, as I believe many do.
3. Suggestions:
   Introduce an Ember that can tranfer/remove a facet.
   Let Facets behave like weapon runes that need the smithy to take/place one on equipment.
   Introduce a system for crafting that 4X~5X the resource cost, but you can select the facet you want on that crafted equipment.
   Just anything but the current RNG/grind-heavy system.

Second, Enchanting.
The orb system is a brilliant solution to fix the endless rerolling of enchantments. It really streamlines crafting and returns the player to the heat of combat faster, but I do have some feedback.

1. Fallen Ember, only one real use: rerolling downsides on corrupted gear. I’d suggest making it so Essence Embers can transfer downsides, and you no longer need this Ember diluting the Ember pool.
2. Awakening Ember, fine ember, does what it needs to do.
3. Corrupting Ember, Idem
4. Void Ember, Hearsay: I’ve heard that this can take away the facet. If true, remove that, and the Ember will be fine. Edit: this is false info, Ember does no such thing
5. Essence Ember, the perfect Ember, it makes all the loot you get interesting while simultaneously transforming the enchanting system from RNG hell into something targeted and effective. It streamlines the crafting system while also making it more fun to gather equipment drops. Well done.
   The only issue: there are too few of these embers, I’d up the spawn chance on these
6. Radiant Ember, another good Ember. I’d want this ember to also lower the effect of corrupted downsides to make them less annoying.
   Furthermore, I’d also increase the spawn chance of these Embers.
7. Exalting Ember, I hate that it randomly picks an enchantment. For the love of god, do not introduce equipment-bricking RNG as the last upgrade step of said equipment. Obviously, this also applies to normal exalting.

Third, Durability.
This system is a massive trap for Moon Studio.

1. Nothing interesting happens when gear breaks; it is just time-wasting tedium.
   Worse, even if it happens during a boss fight, you lose, respawn, and see broken gear. Nothing is more demotivating than losing and being forced to do something tedious. That is I-think-i’m-done-for-today amounts of annoying.
2. The enchantment systems that make use of the durability are obscure and don’t seem to work too well. For example:
   I have an armor with ‘Damage resistance increase by 9% of current durability’, ‘durability increase by 75’, and the gem: ‘enchantment power increase with 50% at full hp’. These are 3 synergistic effects that can cause an exponential effect and, as such, are very hard to balance.
   Furthermore, as a player they’re hard to understand, so I make assumptions on how they work and get annoyed when what I imagined isn’t happening.
3. So I’d advise not implementing these exponential systems, granting the balancing team better sleep at night. Though as a designer, I also understand that you want to implement something explosive. For this game I feel simple is better.
4. Getting rid of durability should be joined by reducing the tool slots to max 4.
   EDIT: sounds like we’ll get 6 tools, ohh boy more resources to stuff in our small resource pouch

fourth, verisimilitude.
If players feel like they need to create 5~10 extra realms just to purchase the necessary amount of crafting/enchanting gear there is something wrong, because this breaks immersion, and nothing is as silent and deadly a killer as the breaking of immersion. It immediately lets the player know “this is a game, why are you trying so hard to get that build going? I could be doing something more fun.”
And this is where we return to the opening quote, don’t let your players optimise the fun out of the game. because once they see that the optimal path forward is one of grinding and arbitrary actions, they’ll drop the game.

In conclusion: Cut out as much tedium and grinding from the systems so that when a new player rolls credits after 40~60 hours they think: “wow, I had a really effective shortbow build, but the magic also looked cool, or maybe I’ll make a thorns tank. I’ll start tommorow” instead of: “man, My bow build was very good, magic looks fun too, but no way I’m spending 20 more hours grinding or realm hopping just to get the weapon I want”.
I’d aim for Elden Ring’s 20-hour runs with effective builds than Diablo’s 20-hour grind for 1% dps increase.

Thx for listening to this TED talk
Edits: proof reading is for cowards, I fix my typo’s in production server

[YeahThatGuy]

@Dutchguy234

I’d suggest making it so Essence Embers can transfer downsides, and you no longer need this Ember diluting the Ember pool.

yep, or reuse the corrupting ember on an already corrupted item to extract it that way, or have a new ember but give us more inventory space, because its an overall issue for every inventory group.

They stick with it because they really want housing to be a thing so they bully it onto us as the storage option, when they should focus more on refinement and crafting, which they put next to vendors for free…

imagine the tailor telling you: yeah of course you can use everything in my house, i’m just trying to make a living, but go ahead use everything for free and directly compete with me. WITH MY OWN TOOLS. Maybe also train AI with it so you can completely run my business into the ground. thanks hero, for saving the town while ruining the economy. (boy, that turned into a rant^^)

@Dutchguy234

Void Ember, Hearsay: I’ve heard that this can take away the facet. If true, remove that, and the Ember will be fine.

doesn’t take away the facet

@Dutchguy234

I’d want this ember to also lower the effect of corrupted downsides to make them less annoying.

yep

@Dutchguy234

Third, Durability.
This system is a massive trap for Moon Studio.

1. Nothing interesting happens when gear breaks; it is just time-wasting tedium.
   Worse, even if it happens during a boss fight, you lose, respawn, and see broken gear. Nothing is more demotivating than losing and being forced to do something tedious. That is I-think-i’m-done-for-today amounts of annoying.
2. The enchantment systems that make use of the durability are obscure and don’t seem to work too well. For example:
   I have an armor with ‘Damage resistance increase by 9% of current durability’, ‘durability increase by 75’, and the gem: ‘enchantment power increase with 50% at full hp’. These are 3 synergistic effects that can cause an exponential effect and, as such, are very hard to balance.
   Furthermore, as a player they’re hard to understand, so I make assumptions on how they work and get annoyed when what I imagined isn’t happening.
3. So I’d advise not implementing these exponential systems, granting the balancing team better sleep at night. Though as a designer, I also understand that you want to implement something explosive. For this game I feel simple is better.
4. Getting rid of durability should be joined by reducing the tool slots to max 4.

will be ignored. durability is fine with this update they even gave it an upside, the extra super commitment to durable facet plus extra enchantment, plus plate armor, plus a conditional gem looks like commitment to me, not exploit. and it finally makes sense to keep your gear topped up because you’d loose a lot of benefit because of it.

And it only requires you to use the repair powder. you can also unlock its recipe at any time now and you can buy a repair utility rune. at this point what you do is just affluent-neglect whining. i don’t want to know how your flat looks like, or your shoes, or your car or your bike, or your desktop, because real maintenance is more than just the press of a button, it requires you to value and appreciate what you have and own, especially as an extension of yourself… (recommendation: healthygamergg channel on youtube)

@Dutchguy234

fourth, verisimilitude.

yep major pain point, lots of complaints moon should 2-3x ember drop rates.

@Dutchguy234

proof reading is for cowards, I fix my typo’s in production server

child’s play. post something half finished and then edit it, and then re-edit it again to completely change its meaning while people are already replying to it

[Lombix_4]

@Dutchguy234

”Given the opportunity, a player will optimize the fun out of a game”.

Exactly everything that’s wrong with this game.

@Dutchguy234

Weapon, players will want to stick to their weapon and its moveset. meaning they’ll need an absurd amount of luck with a random drop, or craft it.
Relying on random weapon+facet drop

Correct.

@Dutchguy234

as long as you don’t care about fashion

In fact we are punished very strongly by the game if we want the drip.

@Dutchguy234

Introduce an Ember that can tranfer/remove a facet.

Facet were made this way on purpose to be rare and tedious and hard to make, which is obviously a mistake, but I don’t think they’ll change this aspect of Facet.

@Dutchguy234

Enchanting.

This is my idea to solve the problems: The RNG Problem, Enchantment System & Gem System “TOGETHER” (Update)

@Dutchguy234

The orb system is a brilliant solution to fix the endless rerolling of enchantments.

In theory yes but in practice I have already talked about it in the Details here:

New Ember Type: Desecrating Ember

The problem is that we are working with two fallacious systems: The New sublimation which is terrible, and the embers both built around the RNG without any benefit because the RNG should improve the experience by adding variability and variety, and instead here it is used to make the duration of the work necessary to obtain embers and gear indeterminate and unpredictable. And Embers like all currencies in this game will always have this problem of either being too rare or too common. It’s a d…

New Ember Type: Desecrating Ember

Pain is exactly the right word, the fact is that when working in a game becomes suffering I think there is a problem. It’s correct that to achieve something in a game you need work, effort, skill. But when the system is not fair, like when you add RNG in the Wong place, the work becomes suffering. Used in this way RNG creates alienation between the work and its result, the gamer does not know at what point in the process he is at because in reality he is in a loop from which he will exit bas…

We can't play endgame anymore with this drop of embers

This is what I think about the new embers: The game is much better thanks to the new embers, they give the player much more control, but often They don’t solve the problems they mitigate them and and it’s even worse when the problem shouldn’t exist in the first place. The ways to obtain them have not been thought out well: More than half of the embers I found were found by fishing, It seems a bit ridiculous to me and not very intuitive I found the others from The Seneschal and missions. Afte…

@Dutchguy234

Third, Durability.

This is my idea to solve the problem: What is the purpose of weapon Durability in NRFTW? (Is Death punish mechanic, but let’s talk about it)

@Dutchguy234

The enchantment systems that make use of the durability are obscure and don’t seem to work too well.

Agree.

@Dutchguy234

So I’d advise not implementing these exponential systems,

Agree.

@Dutchguy234

tool slots to max 4.

They are planning two new tools.

@Dutchguy234

If players feel like they need to create 5~10 extra realms just to purchase the necessary amount of crafting/enchanting gear there is something wrong,

Agree.

@Dutchguy234

In conclusion:

Sorry if I’m throwing a lot of links at you, but it seems like you’re interested in criticizing the same arguments that interest me, I’m sure if you click on my profile you’ll find a lot of topics that interest you.

@Dutchguy234

proof reading is for cowards, I fix my typo’s in production server

The best always do it this way

Don’t forget to vote, you can vote at the top left next to the title, you can also vote on your own topic.

[Dutchguy234]

@YeahThatGuy

yep, or reuse the corrupting ember on an already corrupted item to extract it that way, or have a new ember but give us more inventory space, because its an overall issue for every inventory group.

They stick with it because they really want housing to be a thing so they bully it onto us as the storage option, when they should focus more on refinement and crafting, which they put next to vendors for free…

imagine the tailor telling you: yeah of course you can use everything in my house, i’m just trying to make a living, but go ahead use everything for free and directly compete with me. WITH MY OWN TOOLS. Maybe also train AI with it so you can completely run my business into the ground. thanks hero, for saving the town while ruining the economy. (boy, that turned into a rant^^)

Agreed on the housing/inventory issue, The inventory management isn’t fun it’s once again tedious filler. They activly makes me resent the house I needed to buy just to solve my lacking inventory space for crafting materials. Making a problem and selling the solution makes me hate both the problem and the solution.

@YeahThatGuy

doesn’t take away the facet

Thanks, fixed

@YeahThatGuy

and it finally makes sense to keep your gear topped up because you’d loose a lot of benefit because of it.

So you agree that without these benefits durability isn’t worth the effort?

@YeahThatGuy

And it only requires you to use the repair powder. you can also unlock its recipe at any time now and you can buy a repair utility rune. at this point what you do is just affluent-neglect whining. i don’t want to know how your flat looks like, or your shoes, or your car or your bike, or your desktop, because real maintenance is more than just the press of a button, it requires you to value and appreciate what you have and own, especially as an extension of yourself… (recommendation: healthygamergg channel on youtube)

Once again: chores, busywork, tedium. It simply isn’t interesting. It’s useless friction that takes me out of the action/adventure loop. It is a very mild “Sigh, ugh, fine, I’ll press the button”. And a system that is ‘solved’ by one press of a button isn’t a good system.

Furthermore, I’ve already invested quite a bit to get the gear I want with the enchantments I want. So the Durability busywork isn’t making me ‘appreciate what I have’.

Last note, Maintenance and chores are part of daily reality because it is just that: reality. Maintenance and chores in a game are fake, not real. And even in reality we made things like dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, Etc. just to reduce chores and free up time for worthwhile things. So please spare me this weird accusation of how I’m lazy based solely on my not wanting to do fictitious busywork.

@YeahThatGuy

child’s play. post something half finished and then edit it, and then re-edit it again to completely change its meaning while people are already replying to it

Diabolical, to be fair, I did pretty much that because I pressed Ctrl+enter instead of Shft+enter, So I quiclky had to add and fix things

[Dutchguy234]

@Lombix_4

Facet were made this way on purpose to be rare and tedious and hard to make, which is obviously a mistake, but I don’t think they’ll change this aspect of Facet.

Hopefully, they realize that the number of customers lost to this system exceeds the number gained. Though this is based on my insight, maybe internal polling has shown something different.

@Lombix_4

This is my idea to solve the problem: What is the purpose of weapon Durability in NRFTW? (Is Death punish mechanic, but let’s talk about it)

@Lombix_4

This is my idea to solve the problems: The RNG Problem, Enchantment System & Gem System “TOGETHER” (Update)

I did skim these topics, and I agree with the essence behind the RNG problem.
Though I do differ a bit on the Durability view. For example, when I played Ghost of Tsushima I died quite a bit on certain bosses, and it recommended me: “Would you like to play on a lower difficulty?” First of all: how insulting! secondly it took me out of the flow of respawning, learning, dying, and respawning as I now needed to select “No” each death. It was a single small question that, now 2 years later, I still remember as one of the worst parts of the game. In that moment they managed to: insult me, interrupt my flow, and question my ability to learn through dedication.

Maybe I am a weird outlier, but any game that forces a break onto me while I’m doing my utmost to learn and progress is not something I’ll see as a positive, no matter the shape or form. Please let me die 20 times without interrupting my zen-like learning state.

Anyway, it seems like our general views and issues line up quite a bit, we seem like similar gamers.

@Lombix_4

They are planning two new tools.

thx for pointing that out, fixed

@Lombix_4

Sorry if I’m throwing a lot of links at you, but it seems like you’re interested in criticizing the same arguments that interest me, I’m sure if you click on my profile you’ll find a lot of topics that interest you.

agreed

[Lombix_4]

@Dutchguy234

For example, when I played Ghost of Tsushima I died quite a bit on certain bosses, and it recommended me: “Would you like to play on a lower difficulty?”

Terrible, I agree.

But the difference here would be that the “Tiredness” Bar is something you can see at any time it’s not a hidden pop up it’s a game mechanic that you know exists, and you see the bar fill up when you die and gradually go down as you stay alive.

Then the repair powder still exists, it becomes something different like coffee but it still exists, also the “Tiredness” Bar requires more deaths to fill than the durability and I propose that change as a half way idea rather than removing this aspect of the game altogether.

[askan94]

@Dutchguy234

Introduce an Ember that can tranfer/remove a facet.
Let Facets behave like weapon runes that need the smithy to take/place one on equipment.
Introduce a system for crafting that 4X~5X the resource cost, but you can select the facet you want on that crafted equipment.

I Couldn’t Agree more

@Dutchguy234

proof reading is for cowards, I fix my typo’s in production server

Wouldn’t it be kind of nice if vendors, merchants, smithy’s, tailor’s etc. should improve/change their sold wares after what we sell to them and based on how much we sell to them individually? (Idea is free to take or change to your liking)

In every game ive played wether it is arpgs, rpgs, mmorpgs, hacknslash, etc. theres one constant fear everyone seems to talk about and that is spending resources if they make so that you have to spend to get more of those resources faster then add that to the burning. (im saying this because ive never felt this fear, i dont work towards any goals in games, i only play for fun)

[Dutchguy234]

First off, thanks for the engagement. It makes me work/word out my ideas better and hopefully be more helpful with feedback.

@Lombix_4

But the difference here would be that the “Tiredness” Bar is something you can see at any time it’s not a hidden pop up it’s a game mechanic that you know exists, and you see the bar fill up when you die and gradually go down as you stay alive.

Then the repair powder still exists, it becomes something different like coffee but it still exists, also the “Tiredness” Bar requires more deaths to fill than the durability and I propose that change as a half way idea rather than removing this aspect of the game altogether.

Yes, the Tirdeness system would do those things, but what does it add/improve?
It just trades one bar for another. Object names or visibility of the bar is a moot point for me, honestly.
Knowing me, I’d get distracted by the bar anyway, or get annoyed by the idea/pressure of ‘Only have 15 more tries, got to play better’. Even if the bar is mechanically perfect and won’t get in the way of my gameplay, I still feel like it might get in the way*,* and that on its own is a problem.
(A weird similarity for Feel is with Senua’s Hellblade where the player is informed of a creeping death mechanic, more deaths=bad stuff happening to Senua. And it is just a straight-up lie from the Dev to pressure the players. Weird side tangent, but I hope to point out how effective feeling something can be, positive or negative. If I feel like I need to do something annoying soon, even if I never actually need to do it, it still makes me feel annoyed.
Maybe Wicked should also just lie to us and say: “dying spreads the pestillence and makes NPCs sick.” Like they do with dragonrot in sekiro.)

I see no reason to add any punishment for dead other than the boss is full health again. And maybe add grouped enemies, and if any enemy of a group is alive when you die, the whole group respawns.
(That would impair low-level players from slowly going through a high-level area. Though honestly, I don’t see why you’d need to do that anyway, let the crazy nutball go through a high-level area if they have the perseverance. An average player will see the skulls above enemies and turn around.)

So, to get back to the main topic, Durability (or similarly, Tiredness) does not add positively to the gaming experience/feel, nor is it good/interesting friction.

That’s where I stand. Does it make sense why I don’t think Durability or Tiredness fixes the problems I describe/experience?

[Dutchguy234]

@askan94

Wouldn’t it be kind of nice if vendors, merchants, smithy’s, tailor’s etc. should improve/change their sold wares after what we sell to them and based on how much we sell to them individually? (Idea is free to take or change to your liking)

This goes beyond the topic as I see it. I have opinions on merchants, but that should be addressed on its own.
On your second point, resources having scarcity and value are extremely integral to all games. Again, this is too broad a subject and too vague as to what exactly you mean.

[Lombix_4]

Since essentially everything you wrote in this message is related to my topic, I have responded also on my topic.

@Dutchguy234

So, to get back to the main topic, Durability (or similarly, Tiredness) does not add positively to the gaming experience/feel, nor is it good/interesting friction.

@Dutchguy234

That’s where I stand. Does it make sense why I don’t think Durability or Tiredness fixes the problems I describe/experience?

Yes, I think the “Tiredness” Bar has a certain respect for the original idea, but also solves most of the problems. But at the same time, removing the durability without any compensation could still be the best solution.

[askan94]

@Dutchguy234

Weapon, players will want to stick to their weapon and its moveset. meaning they’ll need an absurd amount of luck with a random drop, or craft it.

If they want/have a specific idea or build in mind yes that is true.

@Dutchguy234

Void Ember, Hearsay: I’ve heard that this can take away the facet. If true, remove that, and the Ember will be fine.

Misinformation yes

However if you have slotted a Gem into the enchanted armor and/or weapon, and use a void ember on it the Gem will also get removed/deleted!