Vector style icons with just 2 or 3 colors are commonly paired with prerendered graphics like these. I guess they still aren't the same style but they also don't clash as much as pixel art does.
Linking to your game is allowed, though this post may fit better in the "show off your project" forum or the "user interface design" forum. Let me know if you'd like me to move it to one of those.
hmm, I realize I spoke as if my opinion is fact, when there is a huge spectrum of philosophy on crafting and what makes a fun loot mechanic.
I agree that money quickly becomes worthless in D2, which kinda means my idea can't be applied to any clone of Diablo's item and wealth system. If money has no value but is the currency with which you purchase items from shops, none of what I was proposing makes any sense.
I agree with your disagreement, actually. I wasn't suggesting crafted items not be exclusive to crafting. I said there should be items exclusive to crafting, just not every item produced by crafting should be exclusive to crafting. Then again, I forgot about socketed items with gems in them appearing in shops occasionally, so I guess D2's gemmed items aren't technically exclusive to it.
Crafting components should indeed be rare and valuable. The problem I have with D2's system, is it almost feels like they intentionally made the gems too valuable to use. As Danimal mentioned, I would hoard my gems. Waiting for that one weapon that was both socketed and had the skill bonuses I use most. Yes! I found it finally! Plug in my top-tier gems to make it a few percentage points better. Then, inevitably, in the very next dungeon, I would find the same weapon that did slightly more damage, had one additional slot, and had a slightly higher skill bonus. I can't count the number of times I used my gems only to immediately find an item that I "should have saved them for". Did the designers intentionally make you regret using gems?
I guess I think crafting should be a game of resource management. You can either spend more gold (which has to be hard-to-come-by for any of this to work!) buying potions, or you can carry around more potion ingredients all the time and make your own potions on-the-cheap. One is not better than the other, you're just using different resources. Gold vs inventory space. Some times the item you want takes too many rare components, so it's better to spend a buttload of gold on it. Other times, it's way too expensive, so it's easier to kill a few extra mobs that drop that one component you need to craft it yourself.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (DCSS) is a roguelike as is Diablo, but DCSS's random loot seems so much more interesting to me. There are distinct classes of weapons with mostly predictable stats. "crappy hand axe"? It's going to, by default, deal 4 to 8 damage. There are multiple factors that could increase or decrease it from the default, but those factors are apparent. Quality of craftsmanship, enchantments, Materials. A mithril axe is going to deal more damage than an iron axe. A masterwork axe is going to have a better chance-to-hit. Enchantments are random, but they're from a common list of enchantments, so you know a Masterwork Mithril Axe of the Phoenix is going to have the same enchantment bonuses as any other item enchanted with "of the Phoenix". Every weapon type also has something that makes it special. Axes deal 'splash' damage to all targets adjacent to the one you're swinging at, sabers have a chance to riposte when a monster attacks you, spears allow you to hit your enemy (and occasionally push them back) before they're in range to hit you. Whips can cause additional "pain" effect, interrupting enemy mages from casting spells at you. I know Diablo kind of has that too, but it's pretty weak, IMO. A weapon's worth in Diablo can, for the most part, be reduced to a single stat: Damage Per Second. Yes, each class in Diablo has a favorite weapon type that gives bonuses, but it isn't anything I find really tactically interesting based on play style. Just job class.
There is a relevant discussion about Clint Bellanger's mechanics seeking to reduce degenerate play in FLARE: https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/possibly-a-bug-selling-items-by-ctrl-... Clint talked about discouraging players from the boring task of hauling every bit of loot back to town to sell it. Being more based on Diablo than DCSS is, FLARE has the same issue of gold suffering from inflation in the late game that Diablo 2 has. This is, in my opinion, exacerbated by Clint's solution to the back-to-town-treck problem: Insta-sell items directly from the inventory. No need to head back to town just to sell, but now gold has even less value now that its easier to obtain. DCSS's solution to both problems is that you cannot sell items. You can find gold, you can find items, and you can buy items with gold, but you can't get gold by selling items you find. "Wow! this staff would be amazing if I were a spellcaster. Alas, I'm a Berserker who has no use for magic" *item dropped*. This solution is pretty drastic for FLARE, and especially ineffective in multiplayer environments where players can simply trade items they can't use themselves. My point is, there isn't just one solution, and each solution come with another problem to solve. :/
@Jastiv: That's a good point about mining mechanics. I actually didn't know Diablo 2 had a mining mechanic. Must have really been boring if I missed it entirely! :P I don't know how you would make traditional mining risks be fun, but there certainly should be risks involved. I wouldn't say it's stupid that video games are safer (for your character) than real life is (for yourself). The point of games is being able to do something you wouldn't ordinarily have the skills to accomplish in real life, so it still needs to have gentler consequences for your character than it would for an actual miner. Real mining means collapse tunnels, toxic gases, etc, but any mechanic that incorporates those things will need to be more advanced than arbitrarily killing the player because 'real life be like that sometimes'. Reaction time, maybe? The game gives some hint that the tunnel is about to give. If you miss the clue or don't move your character fast enough, you take damage and/or lose a big chunk of the lode. I think making mining risky has some potential!
That isn't a crafting mechanic, it's an enhancement mechanic. You aren't using components to create a new item, you're taking an existing item and "improving" it. Also, diablo 2's gems violate both of my rules: #1) components (gems) aren't cheaper than the final product because components can't be purchased, making them priceless and too valuable to ever actually be used, which leads into #2) it doesn't work nearly as well if the results are 100% exclusive to "crafting". Most of the items should have multiple ways to obtain them, but D2's enhanced items are only ever available via gem sockets. And socketed items are not reliably obtainable. It's more like gambling than crafting.
IMHO there should be two advantages to crafting that make it viable:
Cost - items obtained through crafting are more affordable than purchasing the same item from a shop. The components used to craft an item are, in total, less than the cost of the final product.
Exclusivity - for the most part, you can obtain any item from a shop or random loot drop that you could from crafting, but a few select items can only be obtained via crafting. Although the components might be found in a shop, dropped by a mob, or randomly found in a treasure chest, the item itself never will be.
Oh dear! I didn't realize my content needed a license until I read the Game Ideas document: All that Cat-bat stuff is OGA-BY. I'll submit something more formal as well, but in the meantime please proceed knowing it is officially licensed OGA-BY.
Done.
The lorc icons may make for good replacement stand-ins: https://game-icons.net/
Vector style icons with just 2 or 3 colors are commonly paired with prerendered graphics like these. I guess they still aren't the same style but they also don't clash as much as pixel art does.
All caught up.
Linking to your game is allowed, though this post may fit better in the "show off your project" forum or the "user interface design" forum. Let me know if you'd like me to move it to one of those.
hmm, I realize I spoke as if my opinion is fact, when there is a huge spectrum of philosophy on crafting and what makes a fun loot mechanic.
I agree that money quickly becomes worthless in D2, which kinda means my idea can't be applied to any clone of Diablo's item and wealth system. If money has no value but is the currency with which you purchase items from shops, none of what I was proposing makes any sense.
I agree with your disagreement, actually. I wasn't suggesting crafted items not be exclusive to crafting. I said there should be items exclusive to crafting, just not every item produced by crafting should be exclusive to crafting. Then again, I forgot about socketed items with gems in them appearing in shops occasionally, so I guess D2's gemmed items aren't technically exclusive to it.
Crafting components should indeed be rare and valuable. The problem I have with D2's system, is it almost feels like they intentionally made the gems too valuable to use. As Danimal mentioned, I would hoard my gems. Waiting for that one weapon that was both socketed and had the skill bonuses I use most. Yes! I found it finally! Plug in my top-tier gems to make it a few percentage points better. Then, inevitably, in the very next dungeon, I would find the same weapon that did slightly more damage, had one additional slot, and had a slightly higher skill bonus. I can't count the number of times I used my gems only to immediately find an item that I "should have saved them for". Did the designers intentionally make you regret using gems?
I guess I think crafting should be a game of resource management. You can either spend more gold (which has to be hard-to-come-by for any of this to work!) buying potions, or you can carry around more potion ingredients all the time and make your own potions on-the-cheap. One is not better than the other, you're just using different resources. Gold vs inventory space. Some times the item you want takes too many rare components, so it's better to spend a buttload of gold on it. Other times, it's way too expensive, so it's easier to kill a few extra mobs that drop that one component you need to craft it yourself.
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (DCSS) is a roguelike as is Diablo, but DCSS's random loot seems so much more interesting to me. There are distinct classes of weapons with mostly predictable stats. "crappy hand axe"? It's going to, by default, deal 4 to 8 damage. There are multiple factors that could increase or decrease it from the default, but those factors are apparent. Quality of craftsmanship, enchantments, Materials. A mithril axe is going to deal more damage than an iron axe. A masterwork axe is going to have a better chance-to-hit. Enchantments are random, but they're from a common list of enchantments, so you know a Masterwork Mithril Axe of the Phoenix is going to have the same enchantment bonuses as any other item enchanted with "of the Phoenix". Every weapon type also has something that makes it special. Axes deal 'splash' damage to all targets adjacent to the one you're swinging at, sabers have a chance to riposte when a monster attacks you, spears allow you to hit your enemy (and occasionally push them back) before they're in range to hit you. Whips can cause additional "pain" effect, interrupting enemy mages from casting spells at you. I know Diablo kind of has that too, but it's pretty weak, IMO. A weapon's worth in Diablo can, for the most part, be reduced to a single stat: Damage Per Second. Yes, each class in Diablo has a favorite weapon type that gives bonuses, but it isn't anything I find really tactically interesting based on play style. Just job class.
There is a relevant discussion about Clint Bellanger's mechanics seeking to reduce degenerate play in FLARE: https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/possibly-a-bug-selling-items-by-ctrl-... Clint talked about discouraging players from the boring task of hauling every bit of loot back to town to sell it. Being more based on Diablo than DCSS is, FLARE has the same issue of gold suffering from inflation in the late game that Diablo 2 has. This is, in my opinion, exacerbated by Clint's solution to the back-to-town-treck problem: Insta-sell items directly from the inventory. No need to head back to town just to sell, but now gold has even less value now that its easier to obtain. DCSS's solution to both problems is that you cannot sell items. You can find gold, you can find items, and you can buy items with gold, but you can't get gold by selling items you find. "Wow! this staff would be amazing if I were a spellcaster. Alas, I'm a Berserker who has no use for magic" *item dropped*. This solution is pretty drastic for FLARE, and especially ineffective in multiplayer environments where players can simply trade items they can't use themselves. My point is, there isn't just one solution, and each solution come with another problem to solve. :/
@Jastiv: That's a good point about mining mechanics. I actually didn't know Diablo 2 had a mining mechanic. Must have really been boring if I missed it entirely! :P I don't know how you would make traditional mining risks be fun, but there certainly should be risks involved. I wouldn't say it's stupid that video games are safer (for your character) than real life is (for yourself). The point of games is being able to do something you wouldn't ordinarily have the skills to accomplish in real life, so it still needs to have gentler consequences for your character than it would for an actual miner. Real mining means collapse tunnels, toxic gases, etc, but any mechanic that incorporates those things will need to be more advanced than arbitrarily killing the player because 'real life be like that sometimes'. Reaction time, maybe? The game gives some hint that the tunnel is about to give. If you miss the clue or don't move your character fast enough, you take damage and/or lose a big chunk of the lode. I think making mining risky has some potential!
That isn't a crafting mechanic, it's an enhancement mechanic. You aren't using components to create a new item, you're taking an existing item and "improving" it. Also, diablo 2's gems violate both of my rules: #1) components (gems) aren't cheaper than the final product because components can't be purchased, making them priceless and too valuable to ever actually be used, which leads into #2) it doesn't work nearly as well if the results are 100% exclusive to "crafting". Most of the items should have multiple ways to obtain them, but D2's enhanced items are only ever available via gem sockets. And socketed items are not reliably obtainable. It's more like gambling than crafting.
Done.
I realize I forgot to bump some of the above so I'll get started on them in the next few days.
IMHO there should be two advantages to crafting that make it viable:
Interesting. I'll have to check this out.
Please make posts like this in the "Show off your project" forum.
[topic moved]
Oh dear! I didn't realize my content needed a license until I read the Game Ideas document: All that Cat-bat stuff is OGA-BY. I'll submit something more formal as well, but in the meantime please proceed knowing it is officially licensed OGA-BY.
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