So playing around with a design wanted to get some feedback. The economy in this game has a lot of item destruction/creation, and overall power should stem from economic output.
The basic idea is that magic comes from items. So characters don’t have magic inherently, items have a magic reserve and a max amount they can expend over time. And magic is more of a recognized release of energy, it’s still magical but also has a technology angle to it. Environment is mid/lower fantasy.
There is a metal, let’s call it Vanadrite, that is the source of all magical energy in the world.
To release the energy takes a catalyst. The catalyst determines the type of energy released. Fire, Lightning, life drain, healing, etc…
Items can all be crafted with some amount of Vanadrite and catalyst infused into them.
It takes a minimum amount of each for energy to be released.
Every 1% of Vanadrite over the minimum increases energy output by 1%.
Every 1% of catalyst above minimum increases duration by 1% (if applicable).
Every 1% over a threshold, say 30%, decreases effectiveness of the base material by 1%
Every 1% over a threshold, say 50%, decreases item durability by 1%.
Would probably need Vanadrite to actually be two elements, one metal one wood.
The overall idea is provide more strategic choice in crafting items.
There are classes which usually focus in one or two types of energy, and skill lines within that which also specialize. For that I’m thinking that there are class specific jewelry that you have to wear, and you can construct them using the same item rules to give a boost to skills that use the same energy type.
Actually I think it works better if every 1% of catalyst increases the max amount you can expend. With that amount regenerating over time.
Edit: Nm actually that is the same as power output. So maybe catalyst controls regen rate?
Thinking about it, it seems that negative effects should come from the combined value of vanadrite + catalyst. Forcing more of a trade off between them.
If this is a key mechanic of your game, create a test build (preferably webgl) and put it here, or on Feedback Friday. It’s very hard to simulate it all in my head and spot any problems just by going by your descriptions.
I’ve got a feeling you’re going to want to go for a KISS approach with this. This just sounds like you’re going to give the player a bunch of sliders and tell them to find their own sweet spot. That probably means that the player will just make the same item, but tailored for individual edge cases.
It sounds interesting, but a less complicated way of doing it would be to simply create several tiers of each weapon that the player can choose from when crafting. 5% of each, 10% of each, 25% of each, etc, increasing in power. Going to 1% granularity will seem somewhat confusing.
What you’re going to end up with anyway though is a large number of cheap items on the low end with little magic ability, used by new players and as throw away items, and a large number of maxed out items. Middle of the road items are usually not liked by players because they are usually much more expensive than cheap items, while still being considerably inferior to maxed out items, so why not just save up for the maxed items? Your system though puts an emphasis on customization of middle range items, something that players don’t really want. My opinion at least
I agree tiers would be simpler. Re middle of the road items, in this game items get destroyed really fast. The economy is very much like Eve online in this respect. There are vehicles (boats) plus you have a mini army of npc’s under your control that you have to equip also. The game is designed so you field what your economic output allows you to lose. So in theory if a max item is good, so is anything in between, you field what you can afford.
Maybe there is a better approach, but hope that clears up the design intent somewhat. Basically I’m trying to tie all sources of power back to the economy. So instead of magic being something characters just have, it needs to be a property of an item in some way.
Correspondingly the entire resource gathering/crafting system is designed for quantity. So creating and equipping stuff has mechanics that make it not a big deal. Your npc’s manage some of it, boats allow you to carry around extra supplies, you can setup templates for both npc’s and boats, etc…
Your Eve Online example just reinforces what I was saying about middle of the road items though. Once you have the skills for tech 2 items in that game, you just use tech 2 items. If you don’t have the skills for tech 2, then you use meta 4 items unless you are simply broke.