Artisan Archive
Thread: A Crafting Model (Long, boring, but maybe useful if you're up for it :)
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CPark
Fri Mar 05, 2004 4:27 pm
#1
I posted this over on Weaponsmith. It got 5 stars -- so there might be some good in it. But I'd like to get folks to comment on it and help make it better. Thanks for anything you can contribute
There’s been a lot of talk about making the fictional act of crafting more like a real crafting activity – providing a balance between chance, strategy and preserving the potential for extraordinary success.
Here is a simple crafting model. I know it needs a lot of work. But I hope it will kick start a discussion that can provide developers with better documented ideas of what players want. Also, I suspect that in Beta there were a lot of similar discussions. If any of the folks that participated in those are around anywhere I know we would all value their insight into the issues.
In truth, there may not be any chance for revamping the crafting mechanism further. But as a guideline for our discussion, we can't make the changes be too different from what we have now. The game’s mechanics need to be preserved at least to the extent that the results of crafting still fit in with the rest of the game. If we get too radical we most certainly won't get any changes.
So here’s the starting proposal:
* Crafting would proceed in two stages as it does now: assembly and experimentation.
* Assembly would be based on the quality of components.
* Experimentation would be based on the results of assembly.
* Crafters would have, as they do now, assembly and experimentation skills.
* The quality of crafting tools would decrease the variability of assembly results.
* The quality of crafting stations would decrease the variability of experimentation results.
* The complexity of items would increase the variability of both assembly and experimentation results.
* The number of experimentation attempts a player would have would increase with the level of the player on the skill trees just as it does now.
* Racial crafting bonuses would help the player as a novice but the crafting skill maximum would be the same for all players. For example, a human crafter would start out at skill level 2 rather than skill level 1 but would still max out at skill level 10
* Skill tapes would act like racial crafting bonuses and cap at 2 skill levels.
Issues Addressed:
* Even bad resources have a chance of producing good results. Problems with low quality resources are minimized.
* Even novice crafters have a (long shot) chance of producing good quality products.
* The crafting process is more understandable and with crafting tool efficiency in the hands of the player the level of variability is more visible.
* One mechanism works the same way for all crafting disciplines and for both assembly and experimentation.
Player Strategies:
Players can decide to use good or bad tools, there are actually advantages to each. They can decide to experiment or not, there are advantages to both strategies depending on the outcome of assembly and the skill of the crafter. Its not impossible for high quality materials to create a high quality product without any experimentation at all. Crafters can choose where to spend their experimentation points. And since there is a chance that each experimentation attempt will produce a maximum value, multiple characteristics of the final product have a chance to be maximized as well.
The model details:
For those of you inclined to look under the covers, this is just a normal distribution with the mean set to the skill level (between 1 and 100) and the standard deviation set to the skill level / final tool effectiveness values (with a min of 1 and a max of 30 – the max of tool effectiveness). The cumulative proportions are then normalized to 100% (they are less then 100% because the tails of the distribution being clipped). So the math for lookup tables is simple.
The major “knobs and dials” on the model are:
* the center point of the experimentation proportions – set now to 1 with a min of 0 and a max of 2, allowing even mediocre components in the hands of a master crafter with good tools to produce excellent results.
* the impact of tools – set now so that the max tool value minus the max complexity will yield a standard deviation that insures a master crafter with the best tools will have a good chance of producing the best possible product.
An example with a fake product:
The “Energy Unit” uses 5 units of mineral and 10 units of chemical. It requires overall quality for it’s “recharge rate” characteristic and potential energy for its “power” characteristic. The max recharge rate is 10. The max power is 10. The resources used are “Mina”, a mineral with OQ of 600 and PE of 0 and “Chema”, a chemical with OQ of 500 and PE of 700. The complexity of an Energy Unit is zero.
Crafting tool effectiveness runs from 1 to 30
Crafting station effectiveness runs from 1 to 30
Assembly:
The “Basic Value” of Mina and Chema to the Energy Unit are:
For recharge rate: 5*[Chema’s OQ of 500] + 10* [Mina’s OQ of 600] = 8500/15 = 567.
For power: 5*[Chema’s PE of 700] + 10*[Mina’s PE of 0] = 3500/5 = 700 – Notice that if the resource doesn’t have a necessary characteristic it is not counted in the calculation. If no resource has the necessary characteristic the value is set to zero.
For assembly, the basic values of components determine the maximum values of the final product. A 100% assembly would produce, in our example, a recharge rate of 5.67 and a power of 7.00.
Novice: assembly, skill level 1, crafting tool effectiveness 1, crafting station effectiveness 1. Skilled: as above but skill level 5. Master: as above but skill level 10
Chance of getting
______ (25% or less) (25% to 50%) (50% to 75%) (75% to 100%)
Novice_ (93%) _______ (7%) _______ (0%) _______ (0%)
Skilled (22%) _______ (28%) ______ (28%) ______ (22%)
Master_ (20%) _______ (24%) ______ (27%) ______ (29%)
Clearly, there’s only so much that can be done without a good crafting tool. Even so, with assembly alone it is possible for crafters to produce very good quality products.
Now let’s look at the assembly numbers when using crafting tools with an effectiveness of 7 and an effectiveness of 15. Notice that the complexity of the Energy Unit is zero so that does not modify the impact of the crafting tool used. If the complexity had been 7, the impact of a 7 effectiveness tool would have been reduced to 1, the minimum value.
Chance with eff = 7
______ (25% or less) (25% to 50%) (50% to 75%) (75% to 100%)
Novice_ (100%) ______ (0%) _______ (0%) _______ (0%)
Skilled (0%) ________ (53%) ______ (47%) ______ (0%)
Master_ (0%) ________ (0%) _______ (8%) _______ (92%)
Chance with eff = 15
______ (25% or less) (25% to 50%) (50% to 75%) (75% to 100%)
Novice_ (100%) ______ (0%) _______ (0%) _______ (0%)
Skilled (0%) ________ (56%) ______ (44%) ______ (0%)
Master_ (0%) ________ (0%) _______ (0%) _______ (100%)
Notice that because tools make the results more consistent they help better crafters more. A skilled crafter actually has better chance of doing well with a poorer tool because it gives him some chance of getting a higher value assembly.
Experimentation:
Unlike assembly, experimentation can go wrong, reducing the value of characteristics. But like assembly, more skill produces better results and better tools produce more reliable results. Each experimentation attempt begins at the point where the previous assembly or experimentation attempt ended up. The cap for the characteristic can not be exceeded. But there is some chance that each experimentation attempt could max out the characteristic – though that is not likely for less skilled crafters.
For example: If the outcome of our assembly produced an Energy Unit with power of 8 and recharge rate of 5 then the following table shows the chances of each result as skill levels increase.
Chance of getting
_________ (50% or less) (50% to 100%) (100% to 150%) (150% to 200%)
_________ (4 or less,) _(8 to 4,) ___ (8 to 10,) ___ (10,)
_________ (2.5 or less) (5 to 2.5) __ (5 to 7.5) ___ (7.5 to 10)
Novice _(1) (93%) ______ (7%) ________ (0%) _________ (0%)
______ (2) (53%) ______ (39%) _______ (7%) _________ (0%)
______ (3) (34%) ______ (38%) _______ (22%) ________ (7%)
______ (4) (25%) ______ (32%) _______ (27%) ________ (16%)
Skilled (5) (22%) ______ (28%) _______ (28%) ________ (22%)
Master (10) (20%) ______ (24%) _______ (27%) ________ (29%)
Notice that novice crafters are almost assured of getting a bad outcome from experimentation. But the impact of skill on experimentation goes up fairly rapidly as skill increases.
Similarly, a crafting station, like a crafting tool for assembly, would virtually assure a maximized product for simple products. But since the maximum complexity of objects, currently in the 20’s, would materially reduce the impact of crafting stations on experimentation, there is still a need for the best tools at the high end of crafting.
An example: if our Energy Unit was complexity 24 instead of complexity 0 our master crafter with a maxed out effectiveness 30 crafting station would have an effective efficiency of 6 and the following chances of producing the various results.
Effective tool efficiency 6
___________ (50% or less) (50% to 100%) (100% to 150%) (150% to 200%)
___________ (4 or less,) __ (8 to 4,) ______ (8 to 10,) _____ (10,)
___________ (2.5 or less) _ (5 to 2.5) _____ (5 to 7.5) _____ (7.5 to 10)
Master(10) __ (0%) _______ (0%) ________ (14%) _______ (86%)
Here is a simple crafting model. I know it needs a lot of work. But I hope it will kick start a discussion that can provide developers with better documented ideas of what players want. Also, I suspect that in Beta there were a lot of similar discussions. If any of the folks that participated in those are around anywhere I know we would all value their insight into the issues.
In truth, there may not be any chance for revamping the crafting mechanism further. But as a guideline for our discussion, we can't make the changes be too different from what we have now. The game’s mechanics need to be preserved at least to the extent that the results of crafting still fit in with the rest of the game. If we get too radical we most certainly won't get any changes.
So here’s the starting proposal:
* Crafting would proceed in two stages as it does now: assembly and experimentation.
* Assembly would be based on the quality of components.
* Experimentation would be based on the results of assembly.
* Crafters would have, as they do now, assembly and experimentation skills.
* The quality of crafting tools would decrease the variability of assembly results.
* The quality of crafting stations would decrease the variability of experimentation results.
* The complexity of items would increase the variability of both assembly and experimentation results.
* The number of experimentation attempts a player would have would increase with the level of the player on the skill trees just as it does now.
* Racial crafting bonuses would help the player as a novice but the crafting skill maximum would be the same for all players. For example, a human crafter would start out at skill level 2 rather than skill level 1 but would still max out at skill level 10
* Skill tapes would act like racial crafting bonuses and cap at 2 skill levels.
Issues Addressed:
* Even bad resources have a chance of producing good results. Problems with low quality resources are minimized.
* Even novice crafters have a (long shot) chance of producing good quality products.
* The crafting process is more understandable and with crafting tool efficiency in the hands of the player the level of variability is more visible.
* One mechanism works the same way for all crafting disciplines and for both assembly and experimentation.
Player Strategies:
Players can decide to use good or bad tools, there are actually advantages to each. They can decide to experiment or not, there are advantages to both strategies depending on the outcome of assembly and the skill of the crafter. Its not impossible for high quality materials to create a high quality product without any experimentation at all. Crafters can choose where to spend their experimentation points. And since there is a chance that each experimentation attempt will produce a maximum value, multiple characteristics of the final product have a chance to be maximized as well.
The model details:
For those of you inclined to look under the covers, this is just a normal distribution with the mean set to the skill level (between 1 and 100) and the standard deviation set to the skill level / final tool effectiveness values (with a min of 1 and a max of 30 – the max of tool effectiveness). The cumulative proportions are then normalized to 100% (they are less then 100% because the tails of the distribution being clipped). So the math for lookup tables is simple.
The major “knobs and dials” on the model are:
* the center point of the experimentation proportions – set now to 1 with a min of 0 and a max of 2, allowing even mediocre components in the hands of a master crafter with good tools to produce excellent results.
* the impact of tools – set now so that the max tool value minus the max complexity will yield a standard deviation that insures a master crafter with the best tools will have a good chance of producing the best possible product.
An example with a fake product:
The “Energy Unit” uses 5 units of mineral and 10 units of chemical. It requires overall quality for it’s “recharge rate” characteristic and potential energy for its “power” characteristic. The max recharge rate is 10. The max power is 10. The resources used are “Mina”, a mineral with OQ of 600 and PE of 0 and “Chema”, a chemical with OQ of 500 and PE of 700. The complexity of an Energy Unit is zero.
Crafting tool effectiveness runs from 1 to 30
Crafting station effectiveness runs from 1 to 30
Assembly:
The “Basic Value” of Mina and Chema to the Energy Unit are:
For recharge rate: 5*[Chema’s OQ of 500] + 10* [Mina’s OQ of 600] = 8500/15 = 567.
For power: 5*[Chema’s PE of 700] + 10*[Mina’s PE of 0] = 3500/5 = 700 – Notice that if the resource doesn’t have a necessary characteristic it is not counted in the calculation. If no resource has the necessary characteristic the value is set to zero.
For assembly, the basic values of components determine the maximum values of the final product. A 100% assembly would produce, in our example, a recharge rate of 5.67 and a power of 7.00.
Novice: assembly, skill level 1, crafting tool effectiveness 1, crafting station effectiveness 1. Skilled: as above but skill level 5. Master: as above but skill level 10
Chance of getting
______ (25% or less) (25% to 50%) (50% to 75%) (75% to 100%)
Novice_ (93%) _______ (7%) _______ (0%) _______ (0%)
Skilled (22%) _______ (28%) ______ (28%) ______ (22%)
Master_ (20%) _______ (24%) ______ (27%) ______ (29%)
Clearly, there’s only so much that can be done without a good crafting tool. Even so, with assembly alone it is possible for crafters to produce very good quality products.
Now let’s look at the assembly numbers when using crafting tools with an effectiveness of 7 and an effectiveness of 15. Notice that the complexity of the Energy Unit is zero so that does not modify the impact of the crafting tool used. If the complexity had been 7, the impact of a 7 effectiveness tool would have been reduced to 1, the minimum value.
Chance with eff = 7
______ (25% or less) (25% to 50%) (50% to 75%) (75% to 100%)
Novice_ (100%) ______ (0%) _______ (0%) _______ (0%)
Skilled (0%) ________ (53%) ______ (47%) ______ (0%)
Master_ (0%) ________ (0%) _______ (8%) _______ (92%)
Chance with eff = 15
______ (25% or less) (25% to 50%) (50% to 75%) (75% to 100%)
Novice_ (100%) ______ (0%) _______ (0%) _______ (0%)
Skilled (0%) ________ (56%) ______ (44%) ______ (0%)
Master_ (0%) ________ (0%) _______ (0%) _______ (100%)
Notice that because tools make the results more consistent they help better crafters more. A skilled crafter actually has better chance of doing well with a poorer tool because it gives him some chance of getting a higher value assembly.
Experimentation:
Unlike assembly, experimentation can go wrong, reducing the value of characteristics. But like assembly, more skill produces better results and better tools produce more reliable results. Each experimentation attempt begins at the point where the previous assembly or experimentation attempt ended up. The cap for the characteristic can not be exceeded. But there is some chance that each experimentation attempt could max out the characteristic – though that is not likely for less skilled crafters.
For example: If the outcome of our assembly produced an Energy Unit with power of 8 and recharge rate of 5 then the following table shows the chances of each result as skill levels increase.
Chance of getting
_________ (50% or less) (50% to 100%) (100% to 150%) (150% to 200%)
_________ (4 or less,) _(8 to 4,) ___ (8 to 10,) ___ (10,)
_________ (2.5 or less) (5 to 2.5) __ (5 to 7.5) ___ (7.5 to 10)
Novice _(1) (93%) ______ (7%) ________ (0%) _________ (0%)
______ (2) (53%) ______ (39%) _______ (7%) _________ (0%)
______ (3) (34%) ______ (38%) _______ (22%) ________ (7%)
______ (4) (25%) ______ (32%) _______ (27%) ________ (16%)
Skilled (5) (22%) ______ (28%) _______ (28%) ________ (22%)
Master (10) (20%) ______ (24%) _______ (27%) ________ (29%)
Notice that novice crafters are almost assured of getting a bad outcome from experimentation. But the impact of skill on experimentation goes up fairly rapidly as skill increases.
Similarly, a crafting station, like a crafting tool for assembly, would virtually assure a maximized product for simple products. But since the maximum complexity of objects, currently in the 20’s, would materially reduce the impact of crafting stations on experimentation, there is still a need for the best tools at the high end of crafting.
An example: if our Energy Unit was complexity 24 instead of complexity 0 our master crafter with a maxed out effectiveness 30 crafting station would have an effective efficiency of 6 and the following chances of producing the various results.
Effective tool efficiency 6
___________ (50% or less) (50% to 100%) (100% to 150%) (150% to 200%)
___________ (4 or less,) __ (8 to 4,) ______ (8 to 10,) _____ (10,)
___________ (2.5 or less) _ (5 to 2.5) _____ (5 to 7.5) _____ (7.5 to 10)
Master(10) __ (0%) _______ (0%) ________ (14%) _______ (86%)
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