| Subject: Crafting Overhaul: Answers from Vex .........Aug 28 2001 |
Author:
Synergy
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Date Posted: Wed, Aug 29 2001, 12:02pm
In reply to:
Synergy
's message, "Crafting System Overhaul............. Aug 28 2001" on Wed, Aug 29 2001, 11:58am
Crafting Overhaul: Answers from Vex
There is a long thread on the UO.com boards concerning the proposed changes “In Concept” started by Sannio.
Several updates and changes will occur that will eventually affect all of Ultima Online’s crafting systems. The goals of these changes include: creating a consistent interface for all crafting skills, allowing the player to understand a greater level of detail about his crafting activities, greater CPU efficiency, and adaptability & expandability as crafting systems are modified at later dates. The following skills will be affected by these changes:
- Alchemy
- Bowcraft/Fletching
- Blacksmithy
- Carpentry
- Cartography
- Inscription
- Tailoring
- Tinkering
The specifics are listed here.
All players should feel free to comment on these proposed changes within this thread.
=========
Sannio
Online Community Coordinator, UO
Origin Systems
A lot from of questions were answered by the Designer Vex from OSI in this thread, so I will just post his responses and the quoted questions he included in this replies here:
PLAYER: I am assuming that the tinkered items (shown in shot as coloured) will retain their old-style (unhued) colouration if you use iron ingots as opposed to any other metal?
VEX: Correct -- using iron produces the "normal" item as it looks currently.
I specifically included the candelabra to get feedback on the appearance when hued. Since that isn't a "partially hued" piece of artwork, it means that the entire sprite is colored, including the candles and flame.
PLAYER: Will any other carpentry or other craftables be added along with these changes if they go through?
VEX: That is still up in the air at this point. The overhaul itself means a complete regression test for QA, and right now we might not have any spare bandwidth for any new items. However, this system will make expanding and adding on to the crafting system much easier to code and test in the future.
PLAYER: Will the metal working choices default to not having to click the color metal if you only have one color in your pack? Same with tailoring and the cloth in your pack?
VEX: So, to give more detail about metal selection: The way it works is, there is a button right above the "Exit" button, and next to that button is the name of the metal you have selected. When you click that button, a new menu page comes up with all metal types listed. You select the one you want and are returned to the main menu.
If you have, say, Verite selected, but only have iron in your backpack, then you'll get a failure message saying you don't have enough metal to make the item.
Now, tailoring is a bit different. Here are more details:
First, bolts of cloth will no longer be directly usable to tailor items. Instead, there will be a new menu option that will take all bolts of cloth in your backpack and turn them into yards of cut cloth.
Another menu choice will search your backpack for all cloth, and transform it into the same type. So, suppose you have stacks of cloth using different graphics, after using that option you'll have a single stack of one type.
Both options will of course differentiate color. So, if some of your bolts or stacks of cloth are blue and some are red, you'll end up with one single pile of each color.
You will have to cut bolts into cloth before using them to tailor, but you can use cloth of any type in any number of stacks as desired.
As far as color goes, when you attempt to create an item, the system will automatically use the color of cloth that you have the most of. So, if you have 200 yards of blue cloth and 150 of uncolored, the item will be made with the blue cloth. This way, you still don't have to target the material. Also, it should be easy enough to control the color of the resulting item just by juggling stacks of cloth in and out of your backpack.
PLAYER: Will All the crafting tools be craftable by tinkers?
VEX: Yes, and to address another question I saw, none of the components will be particularly expensive. The new tools will appear on appropriate NPC shopkeepers and be creatable by player tinkers.
PLAYER: And you left out Cooking, .
If Crafting is going to be overhauled, then this is the time to overhaul cooking as well.
VEX: I'm still working out the details of how to do cooking properly, but I do want to get it on the list. Sannio thinks we should introduce "a cookbook" as cooking's tool, and I wanted to use the frying pan graphic. Of course, we could do both -- all crafting skills that use tools now use multiple tools.
PLAYER: This would also be the time to make paper, books, spell books, blank maps, and blank scrolls craftable.
VEX: I'm still not sure about how many new items we can get in at this point, but these are good ideas. I am not promising anything, but I will keep this in mind.
PLAYER: Is the chance for exceptional items the TOTAL chance, or the chance to make something exceptional IF one makes the item in the first place?
In other words...
Does 50% and 5% mean
50% failures
45% success
5% exceptional
... or...
50% failures
47.5% success
2.5% exceptional
(5% chance only for success results)?
VEX: The first one. Actually we've decided to add a third line to that display:
Failure Chance: 50%
Standard: 45%
Exceptional: 5%
This should make the meaning more clear, since the percentages will add up to 100%. 50% of attempts result in failure, 45% in normal success, and 5% in an exceptional item.
PLAYER: Does the window "have" to close and re-open? Can't the window be updated dynamically? Just concerned how it will be affected with lag.
VEX: For right now, yes. For the initial release, this sytem will use what we call "generic gumps". This is how we can dynamically generate interface elements from the server without requiring a client patch. Unfortunately, generic gumps are limited in their capabilities and can't update dynamically with new content from the server. They have to close and then re-open.
Some time down the line, it is my hope that we'll be able to improve client-side support for interfaces. Ideally, it would be done exactly as you describe -- the window is persistent but updates dynamically.
PLAYER: Since all targeting is getting rid of I guess we won't be able to copy books by inscribing anymore.
VEX: Targeting is getting rid of where feasible. Book copying will continue to use the old interface, where you invoke Inscription from the Skills Window, target the book to copy, then target the destination book. You'll also have to target a container for tinker traps.
PLAYER: With regards to scrolls not stacking: I noticed that the scrolls don't stack properly when I inscribe using my faction character. When I inscribe using my mule, they stack fine.
VEX: This is a side effect of the prompt to make the scroll a faction item. It actually has to keep the scroll separate until that prompt is answered. I believe I can fix it so that if you don't imbue the item, it will be stacked with any other like items.
PLAYER: While these new changes seem long overdue, they don't include any changes that UO-Assist hasn't already done for the last year. Well, with the exception of the target metal type.
VEX: UO Assist is not an OSI product and not all players purchase it. We can't allow the existence and capabilities of UO Assist to influence how we modify the UO interface.
PLAYER: I saw the option to 'repair' for smithing but didn't notice the new repair option for bowcraft/fletching (bows, etc.) or the repair option for tailoring (clothes, leather armor). Any plans to implement one?
VEX: This is up in the air, and really depends on what the rest of the team thinks. (Thanks, Evocare, for thinking this overhaul was a good idea in the first place!!)
PLAYER: Are there any plans to incorporate secondary skills into the crafting process? Integration of Taste ID for Alchemy, Arms Lore for smithing/tailoring. Lumberjacking possibly for bowcraft/carpentry. (wood comes from somewhere)
VEX: I can't answer this right now. Calandryll has hinted at some special crafting stuff for upcoming scenarios, though. The thought is on our minds. :)
PLAYER: I see the tinkered golden goblet in the screen shot. This item is currently 'rare'. Not much of a question, but since you are destroying this rare, why not make some other rares craftable too?
VEX: Actually, that is the goblet you can tinker currently, made out of verite. It looks a bit distorted because it's at high zoom-in with the Third Dawn client.
PLAYER: The notifications window displays the success/failure instead of displaying the information in the corner. Personally, I prefer to have a viewable means to know if I crafted something or not. UO-Assist doesn't open the craft window... how am I suppossed to see this notification window?
VEX: The crafting window immediately re-opens after you make the item. So, say I hit the "make now" button next to "world map" in the Cartography menu, it makes the attempt and then immediately the window returns and notifies me whether or not I succeeded.
PLAYER: The menus take up too much of my 800x600.screen. If they can't make them smaller, making them semi transparent is probably the best way to go.
VEX: Unfortunately, we have text height limitations. We have to leave enough room for Simplified Chinese and Kanji, both of which require a certain text height. Also, for many languages, a word or phrase can be quite a bit longer than the English equivalent, meaning we have to leave extra horizontal room on the menu as well. Making the menus smaller is pretty much out -- I'm glad you like the transparency! :)
PLAYER: Thanks for starting to look at the crafting system. Been waiting a long time for these changes.
VEX: Me too. My first UO character was a tailor, and since then I've built characters around most of the other craft skills.
PLAYER: Nit: From a role playing perspective, it doesn't make sense to require materials to be in your backpack... It would presumably be sufficient to have the materials at hand in your workshop. This makes things less convenient for those adventuring crafters who have to unload everything they're carrying (and find containers that have enough lockdowns to hold it) when they want to, say, make plate chests. The "materials-must-be-in-backpack" requirement is one of the things that helps make carpentry somewhat tedious now...
VEX: I can certainly see this. The change to require everything be in the backpack was motivated more by the need to reduce the number of checks and the need for the targeting cursor. We want to make the interface easier to deal with. Requiring materials to be on your person also eliminates many special checking that needs to be done and eliminates many avenues of exploitation. By keeping the rules simple, the system is also much easier to cleanly re-code.
PLAYER: My couple of questions:
How will it work when I click to create 100 recall scrolls? Right now, I would have to wait for mana to regenerate. I am curious as to how you are handling this problem.
Hued Weapons? I dont really care either way, just curious....
VEX: To clarify, multi-make will not apply to any items you can't already make in bulk. For instance, when fletching, the system automatically makes as many arrows as possible using the available shafts and feathers in your pack. Since it already works that way, the multi-make option will continue to be available.
We have no plans to add multi-make to anything where it isn't already supported (like potion grinding or inscription). You'll still have to make them one at a time.
Incidentally, all crafting skill delays will be shortened as part of this change, probably to around 1 second. So, while the ability to use a mortar and pestle's "make last" function by targeting it instead of a reagent will go away, Alchemy will gain the Last Ten and Make Last buttons, and you won't have to wait so long for the potion to actually be ground. For making scrolls, you'll still have to wait for mana to recharge.
We did talk about having multi-make work for other things, by having the server loop through the task for you -- but that would just encourge unattended macroing. :)
PLAYER: Will Tinkering with colored ingots require the appropriate skill level for each particular color?
VEX: Yes. Your Tinkering skill will correspond to the same skill requirements used for colored metal elsewhere. So, in order to tinker Verite, you'll have to have 95.0 or more Tinkering skill, and Valorite will require 99.0 or more.
PLAYER: Vex, will the crafting tool settings be saved in the object or the character using it? Right now when a crafting tool breaks, 'make last' resets..
VEX: We're changing it so that crafting menu state is saved on the player. So, when you switch tools, your Last Ten and Make Last entries will be saved. Also, the window automatically re-opens to the same page you were on before. So, if you are in the Tinkering menu looking at the Assemblies category, when you come back to the menu one minute or one week later it will re-open to that page.
PLAYER: My only real concerns are will this new menu system aid crafters, or hinder them? I haven't crafted in a while because after I work 8 hours a day, I am not inclined to go 'work' in UO for another 1 or two hours. Most of the skills are repedative at best, and hidiously tedious at worse. That's not including what one often has to do just to get the matierials to make them with.
VEX: I think that the overall net effect will be a vast improvement. I certainly like the way it feels as I test it on my development standalone shard. Let's compare:
Before, in order to hammer out platemail, I would use my last object/wait for targeting cursor/last target macro. I'd make one item manually first to get the last target set, then sit there and hit the macro (I use F3 for that one), make the menu selection, then let the ingots be targeted and wait for the result. Now, I make the item once, then click "make last". Since I don't have to wait for the client-side last target macro to target the ingots for me, the process is slightly faster. After the attempt is made, my menu pops back up without me having to hit the macro key again, and the result of my last attempt is very visible in that window.
PLAYER: Is anything being done to ease the.. burden on crafters? I think they should be able do things fairly painlessly and enjoy a proffit. I hunt now instead of crafting, it's more fun, gets me other loot than just gold, and doesn't take as long.
VEX: Right now, there isn't much that we can do about the repetitious nature of crafting. I do want to make it more interesting, and require some actual thought. Right now, pounding out plate chests feels like playing a slot machine. There is some appeal to that (C'mon 5% chance of payout! Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!), but the whole deal could definitely be much more fun and interesting.
Keep in mind, though, that part of what makes it possible to be a crafter is the barriers that keep it from being a piece of cake. As crafting gets easier, there will be more competition and therefore slimmer profit margins. For example, suppose you could grind 100 potions straight into a keg all at once? Suddenly, it takes next to no effort to produce entire kegs, kegs are being made in bulk by everyone, and the market is flooded. Those who have the patience to juggle three or four mortar and pestles at once and drag bottles onto kegs are the ones who reap the benefits of being able to run a potion vendor.
In other words, I understand that the barriers in place for crafting suck, and make the process tedious. But those barriers need to be there. The real challenge to the UO Live team is to transform those barriers in a manner that make the game more fun and makes them seem less like ugly obstacles. :)
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