Other > General Game Discussion

Would better gathering/crafting systems be possible?

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Eternauta:
I think it's best to post this as a general idea and open the discussion instead of directly throwing the same idea into the Suggestions board.

I bet we will all agree that the FOnline player needs to spend much of their playing time getting resources and crafting to be able to have a reliable "income" of gear (weapons, armor, ammo, drugs) that allows them to participate in many of the game's activities. This is especially true for participation in "professional" PvP, which demands a lot of time getting the necessary gear.

These activities are varied and different from each other, they include crafting, farming, stealing from NPCs...

The problem is that these activities tend to feel like chores and they usually have even more activities attached to them (an obvious example is levelling an alt for stealing, an alt for farming, and alt for crafting...) - These chores make the experience of playing the game less enjoyable and also reduce the general "quality" of the game, especially when we think about 2238 as the multiplayer instance of Fallout.

Anyway so far I'm not saying anything new. What I actually want to discuss here is: would it be possible to have a better crafting system?

By a "better" system I am talking about a system that felt more comfortable to the player and that made it less necessary to do all the things players do to get gear: level tons of alts, spend a lot of time just clicking clicking clicking to craft stuff, or clicking clicking clicking to mine ore and minerals, stealing from NPCs, doing quests just to have enough rep with Gunrunners to be able to craft there (and then wait until they can repeat the quest)...

A "better" system would allow players to get gear through an activity that felt more integrated to the rest of the game, for example by needing less alts and doing it with team work.

I have personally been thinking about a crafting system based on factories. Basically the idea is: we have factories in our faction bases, and they require NPCs (slaves) to work. Slaves are taken to and placed in bases, and more slaves equals a higher production rate. Faction leaders/important members can use the base terminal to planify production and then wait for the items to be made. In a way it'd be similar to the production of rot gut, beer, cigarettes and nuka-cola.

But we'd still need to spend time getting iron, minerals, fibers, etc. So a new way of getting resources could be made, to go with the factory system.

I've always thought it was weird that you could walk into a town's mine and grab some of their resources without any cost. Instead of that, what about doing a mini quest to get those resources? for example, you talk to a NPC in the mine, and he hires you to protect the mine workers from the attack of wolves, raiders, supermutants, whatever. There could be different levels of difficulty with different rewards, so these quests could be done by characters according to their level.

This way we would be able to get resources and craft gear using our "normal" PvE characters.

Some notes:
1. Although you can always make an ad hoc team and share the reward, and personal bases already exist, this system would probably make things complicated for loners, especially for players who have just started playing. So maybe this could coexist with current crafting and gathering system, only to allow players to craft basic gear easily during their first steps in the game.
2. There are a lot of details that would require a rework. For example blueprints should work in a totally different way (making them work for the entire base factory and not for just one individual character?)

I think the idea is clear enough. Maybe I could have expressed it in a better way but I think it's easy to understand the general concept

Trokanis:
Hot damn, someone thinking!!!!  :'(

Now, I like where this seed is going, like you said it needs some work, my first thought is, instead of Just slaves maybe NPC's you can hire (like the homesteader in previous wipes)  Just cause well I'm not a slaver lol same concept though workers for the facility.  It's a tough call with having 2 different ways to get the materials because we all know players will choose the easier of the 2, so even if you limit stuff in the current mines to be helpful for new players but not great for mass production, people will still farm the crap out of it.  Maybe if you keep the current mines and rework purchasable mines where you have to purchase the area (for cheaper), defend it (from npc's) and then after a set time a small group mines for you, and you can mine there also til it 'runs dry'.  That way it's not a buy it throw slaves there and forget it thing, but it has things you have to be involved with.

IMHO I really didn't mind the previous seasons crafting system, I didn't use a bunch of alts, and I loved the thrill of getting a 22min CD full of HQ stuff while running my ass off.  My little 4 man gang back then could make what we needed of the good stuff and had plenty to sell, I didn't feel like it took up too much of my time, but that is again subjective.  Some people can mine all day, others do it for 2 mins and can't take another click.

Mrockatansky:
The new way of getting Ore/Min should be somewhat the old way when you could just enter an random location and start mining rockformations.
The contra argument of too large resourcelfow as it was brought up back then makes no sense since i can easily do the same thing with Farmer- and Scienealt on NPC encounters.
so:
-make normal min-ore again avialable on most random encounter maps.
-make all mines spawn HQ stuff.
-reduce/remove cooldown on unguarded mines.
-add HQ min-ore to Bunker.
-remove the resource cap from private mines.

>zomg people will stay in der bases forevar !!11!!

> The factioncrafter will stay in base. So what? Eter is right. Production (NPC-trading, farming and crafting) shouldn't be 80% of the Game.

A concerned wastelander:
Problem is when your goal is interaction with other players (generaly involving pvp), you dont want to waste time working for your gear doing pve farming and quests for npcs.

You should be working for your resources by risking player interaction, there should not be such a thing as a guarded mine or personal mine/bunker mine.

Things should be craftable like last session, having to massacre NCR for combat armor mk2 is what I would agree as a chore.

But the main real thing would be to prevent mass accumulation of gear, once everyone is loaded we all cry for wipe to come, gathering resources and making your gear should not be something you do the first 2 months of the server, it should be a constant struggle. A gathering timer would of course not work cause of fast relog, but, the mining animation and mining process being longer would prevent power mining.

Bring back the era of pvp mining!

Trokanis:

--- Quote from: A concerned wastelander on January 28, 2013, 09:46:05 am ---Problem is when your goal is interaction with other players (generaly involving pvp), you dont want to waste time working for your gear doing pve farming and quests for npcs.

You should be working for your resources by risking player interaction, there should not be such a thing as a guarded mine or personal mine/bunker mine.

Things should be craftable like last session, having to massacre NCR for combat armor mk2 is what I would agree as a chore.

But the main real thing would be to prevent mass accumulation of gear, once everyone is loaded we all cry for wipe to come, gathering resources and making your gear should not be something you do the first 2 months of the server, it should be a constant struggle. A gathering timer would of course not work cause of fast relog, but, the mining animation and mining process being longer would prevent power mining.

Bring back the era of pvp mining!

--- End quote ---

With Fast relog gone that shouldn't be an issue.  The truth is no matter how you get it there will ALWAYS be a mass accumulation of gear, it's what people do, and it is sort of needed since in pvp you can lose tons of gear and if you do it on a regular basis even if you're great at it you're gonna need more gear. 

I like the idea of mines being available in random encounters.  The guarded mines are there though and should stay because it's about the only way for starting characters to get anywhere, it's the players themselves who farm non-stop make soo much gear that they have too much and cry wipe later.  It's a choice, and one a lot of us to have to do because you can and often do lose a ton of gear.

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