Races

[sabinati]

Hmm. Does this mean you are going to continue making even more recipes that require specific materials?

If you are not convinced by that, I see your point. I'm not entirely sure how to resolve that conflict yet. It can be argued that if crafting recipes are learned on an individual basis, it doesn't even hurt as much that they are specific in the ingredients, since learning to craft e.g. stone and bone arrows would be two different events, rather than coming at once from one skill as they do now. The opposite can be argued as well, though. Like I said, it's an early thought.

The opposite has been argued. Reviving an old thread, but there were some changes made since the last time you commented on it: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1509

i really like the idea of crafting presented in that thread. i also like what loftar was saying about learning and teaching crafting recipes. i also really like what's been done with cheese and fishing, adding a lot of complexity and a bit of mystery to them. it would be great to see some implementation that combined these three concepts.

[Jackard]

The opposite has been argued.

Oh yes, well aware. :) I just reconfirmed that the argument still is valid. I related specifically to that thread by presenting the argument that the individual learning of recipes in some (but far from all) aspects makes it obsolete.

It is worth noting, that if we really can get it to the point where there are climate zones, each with their own localized resources and (consequently) crafts, that would create a situation which comes close to your initial suggestion, only that each character would still start out in a "blank" state -- the area in which he chooses (or happens) to start in would form his path of development in the way encouraged by the resources in the area (while he would, of course, also be free to ignore it and work against the elements), so you may see it not as a replacement of your "not entirely unconvincing" suggestion, but rather a specific implementation of it. ;)

I don't think that necessarily needs to be a problem; just consider the difference in climate (and thence available resources) between Schwarzwald region of Germany, the Alps, the British isles, northern Scandinavia and the Russian Taiga. It is not obvious what climates should be manifest ingame and how to meaningfully differentiate them in terms of gameplay, of course, but it doesn't seem that problematic.

If this is your aim, isnt my proposal strengthened rather than made obsolete? The player would still learn individual recipes for items, but the resources he chooses to use for crafting would depend on their availability and quality in his region.

Once a hearthling learns the making of arrows, they could adapt to the materials on hand. An arrow in one part of the world might greatly differ than one in another - without the need to dev a dozen or more different, restricted arrow recipes.

[loftar]

If this is your aim, isnt my proposal strengthened rather than made obsolete? The player would still learn individual recipes for items, but the resources he chooses to use for crafting would depend on their availability and quality in his region.

An arrow in one part of the world might greatly differ than one in another, without the need to make a dozen different and restricted arrow recipes.

Good point.

My original point, though not clearly explicated, was that given individually learnable recipes, it might be more meaningful to learn separately how to make e.g. bone, stone or metal arrows (which is an argument also backed by realism -- it is obviously very different to craft arrowheads from bone, stone or metal). The inability to learn to craft all the different varieties at the same time (only restricted by resources) would also encourage more specialization in the long run, given enough stuff. It is, however, also true that it's just obnoxious to have multiple recipes for what is essentially the same thing. Of course, it could be possible to make it so that various usages of inputs to the same generic recipe must be learned separately, but that just feels a bit ugly, and removes a bit of the mystery and exploration as well.