cRPG

Strategus => Strategus General Discussion => Topic started by: Tomas on January 30, 2012, 12:05:12 am

Title: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Tomas on January 30, 2012, 12:05:12 am
Allow Battle Commanders to gain automatic and non-random equipment crafting skills according to the gear used in their battles

I'd say you should gain 1 skill point for every 50 of an item used in battle.

So if I fight a battle and use 150 Lordly Light Kuyaks - then I will gain 3 skill points in Lordly Light Kuyaks. 

Further Notes
- It is based on items used and lost.  So it only counts if someone dies with the item on them.  This means you won't gain anything if your enemy is a no show.
- The numbers should be cumulative between battles - so if you use 50 of something spread over 3 battles then that still gets you your skill point.
- Battle Commander skill should be limited to 40 skill points so that the individual crafters are still important.
- Skills gained by commanders are seperate from skills gained by chadz text and will therefore not go down when you get chadz text for using different equipment.
- Your total skill = chadz text skill + Battle Commander skill
- It doesn't matter if you win or lose the battle

PROs
- Reward for fighting wars either defensively or offensively, win or lose.
- Reward for proper raiding with actual battles over picking off unarmed, 0 troop targets.
- Greater control of clans over what they gain skills in.
- No need to lower Strat Prices anymore since clans will naturally gain more skill in what they want to use as they progress through the game.
- Less importance on the loss of equipment through battles as it will be cheaper to replace the lost items as you lose them.
- Chance for high level Chars to gain skills by leading armies.
- Added choice for clans to either start quick using peasant gear and then have to start using better gear from scratch later on, OR a clan can start slow with good gear and get a headstart for the late game.
- Landless clans that are still active fighting can gain these skills.

CONs
- Big clans benefit more than loners because they will be involved in bigger battles with more troops/equipment.  However big clans already benefit and at least this way loners can craft everything they want to use instead of just what they can carry in cRPG. 
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: chadz on January 30, 2012, 01:07:11 am
this... sounds like a good suggestion
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: okiN on January 30, 2012, 01:45:03 am
I dunno, doesn't this mean that after commanding a few battles with armies numbered in the thousands, the generals of big clans will have max skill in all their stuff and be able to single-handedly equip any army? 40 skill is plenty for that, gives you a great discount. Anyone having more than that in any skill is extremely rare.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Tristan on January 30, 2012, 01:55:46 am
Imo, this will only reward the commanders more. Even though it is skill capped. We want to take focus away from the single persons commanding hordes of clones and droids.

Instead make an xp system that each player can distribute to skills after having played any strat battle. Each skill point can be use to make it easier to recruit, craft and movement speed.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on January 30, 2012, 02:36:34 am
The max cap may need to be lower say 20 points max from strat battles. Which acts as a base under your current crafting.

What I like most about it is the incentive to FIGHT! It will also make equipping my army again cheaper, and its a serious boost to raiders. Sure single commander in big clans gain a bonus but they can just PM their crafters and blam they have a pile of what ever they wish. It would make a serious difference to me if I could boost my rouncy crafting to +40.

I had a market related suggestion.

As crafting occurs it is treated as a glut in supply and cost of buying those items goes down in the market. So if a clan has a shit load of crafting in something say MW Arbalests and they drop out a fat load of them then BAM! You get a MUHASSIVE drop in the price of them in the market. This obviously can not effect crafting costs.

It could have some interesting out comes. Huge clans tend to bundle all their crafting into a few key items they have a lot of points in, so by having this in place it would cause deflation in the price and make those items more available to everyone else.

In effect if you over craft you just get hit with your own gear.

Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Jarlek on January 30, 2012, 03:05:21 am
Quote from: okiN on January 30, 2012, 01:45:03 am
I dunno, doesn't this mean that after commanding a few battles with armies numbered in the thousands, the generals of big clans will have max skill in all their stuff and be able to single-handedly equip any army? 40 skill is plenty for that, gives you a great discount. Anyone having more than that in any skill is extremely rare.
Quote from: Tristan on January 30, 2012, 01:55:46 am
Imo, this will only reward the commanders more. Even though it is skill capped. We want to take focus away from the single persons commanding hordes of clones and droids.
Let's say we have a big clan fighting big wars using only one commander. He will then get a really high crafting skill in the equipment they used. BUT! He would still only be able to craft one specific item at a time. So all those extra skill points he got from the fighting would then be "wasted" since he must first craft the 1h, then the 2h, then the poles etc. In the short run it would be OP for one guy to get all the crafting bonus, but not having multiple commanders would make you lose this crafting bonus when he reaches the max AND he would have to stop moving/commanding the army to actually craft the items.

Personally, this would make me want to have multiple commanders with multiple equipment sets so that we could get more out of it. And when one guy starts to craft he gives the army to someone else who then fights and gets the bonus. I think this would make it so switching between commanders would be more common to do.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Lech on January 30, 2012, 03:27:31 am
Bring 1000 full set to attack the city. Get 20 skill in each item. Do it few times and you have above 100 in every skill so you can craft 100 each hour at maximum discount. Bad idea.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Jarlek on January 30, 2012, 03:29:12 am
Quote from: Lech on January 30, 2012, 03:27:31 am
Bring 1000 full set to attack the city. Get 20 skill in each item. Do it few times and you have above 100 in every skill so you can craft 100 each hour at maximum discount. Bad idea.
You never read the part were the skill gain is limited?
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: okiN on January 30, 2012, 03:42:04 am
I think if this were to happen, the cap would have to be 20 skill at the very most (10 would be better I think) and the gain rate should be much slower.

Quote from: Zapper on January 30, 2012, 03:05:21 am
Let's say we have a big clan fighting big wars using only one commander. He will then get a really high crafting skill in the equipment they used. BUT! He would still only be able to craft one specific item at a time. So all those extra skill points he got from the fighting would then be "wasted" since he must first craft the 1h, then the 2h, then the poles etc.

Crafting with high skill is very fast, and having so many skills on one key player would give incredibly flexibility. Also, if the gain was this fast you could easily have a few people command a few battles, then you'd have several people with all these skills. Like Lech said, in its proposed form it's a bad idea.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: PhantomZero on January 30, 2012, 04:06:56 am
I think it should be done at a clan-level, so that way clan leaders can dictate which craftable items get the bonuses, and then everyone in the clan can choose from that. It would also allow generals to remain in the field, rather than playing hot-potato with troops and equipment.

Or why not just make a separate xp system for strategus? You could specialize in crafting, choosing to make things cheap or make quality. Heir loomed equipment would be more rare and valuable. (As it currently stands, most people don't even bother to make anything less than masterwork items since they cost the same.) You could also choose to be a peaceful trader, which could increase the number of crafted goods you get and a base % of faraway bonus. This would make it more profitable for neutral traders as they could craft more for less in towns their faction doesn't own.

You would gain Strategus xp by participating in strategus battles, this way large clans get hindered by forcing more of their battle XP to be spread out over more people. Splitting a large faction into smaller ones would not help to mitigate this, though they may try having armies attack each other, you could prevent this by disabling xp when a faction attacks itself. This would also reward active players, though you could make it so people from factions other than the attacker/defender get a reduced benefit, being mercenaries after all their services should be bought with gold, not xp.

More war-like players could choose to be generals, with focuses on defense, offense, and speed.
Defense would be things like, being able to recruit more soldiers at a time, decreasing the amount of upkeep you have to pay when the soldiers are in a fief owned by you, or extracting crpg gold/xp from the local population.
Offense could be a reduction of upkeep on soldiers currently in your army, or it could increase the limit before the cost goes up. For example, you could have 60 soldiers for free instead of 49. It could also give you more looted equipment at the end of the battle or when raiding. You could also give bonuses to your army, like +1 powerstrike, powerdraw or whatever.
Speed would be most appealing to traders and raiders, increasing the amount of weight your soldiers could carry, improving the base speeds or reducing exhaustion, and reducing their visibility. A skillful general could hide his army for a speed reduction, the more skill, the more troops he could hide.

Specializing down any one path would obviously make taking others more difficult, master of one or mediocre at all.

Ultimately I think this would favor more war, as peaceful factions would get little Strategus XP, and quickly find themselves outproduced, and outmatched by smaller factions and those that choose to fight.

None of this would have to affect crpg xp which would allow people who simply enjoy the more organized fights and different style strategus brings to continue ignoring the strategus map.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Jarlek on January 30, 2012, 04:39:01 am
Quote from: PhantomZero on January 30, 2012, 04:06:56 am
(click to show/hide)
THIS! This is really good!
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Tomas on January 30, 2012, 04:18:25 pm
Ok - i'll try to reply to eveything in one post

@chadz:  :D :D :D

@Okin: The discount bonus between 20 and 40 skill isn't that big - 62% compared to 54%, so only an 8% difference.  However being able to craft at only 20 per hour is pretty slow and i think 40 per hour is a better rate.  To be honest i'll settle for anything in between 20 and 40 though :)

@Tristan: Commanders do most of the work so why shouldn't they be rewarded.  Besides, this is actually a reward and encouragement for clans to have lots of active commanders.  If you only have 1 active commander supported by 19 semi-active guys then in order for that commander to craft, the clan will have to lose its only active player. 

@Frank: See reply to Okin on limit and thank you for the support :)

@Zapper: You got it exactly :D

@Lech: See Zapper's reply but also remember that in order to gain skill for using 1000 items you first have to buy or craft those items at the higher price.  Mathematically it is actually more cost effective to build slowly towards higher skills, crafting items at gradually reduced prices.  Of course cost effectiveness is not the same as efficiency, which adds an interesting decision for Strat Players.

@PhantomZero: Making it Clan based would be bad imo, as it will just mean some barely active players can gain a load of skill and craft all their clan's items without ever actually playing cRPG or Strat.  Earning Strat xp is a better idea since people actually have to take part in Battles but I fear it is very complicated with lots of loopholes that would need plugging.

Think that's it :D



Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Herkkutatti on January 30, 2012, 04:25:17 pm
All this but only for random people , not for clans  :wink:
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Tomas on January 30, 2012, 04:35:58 pm
Just a quick potential extra for the suggestion
- Every week your Commander Skills all go down by 10%.  This adds a very slow decay to your skills meaning commanders can't just fight a load of battles and then retire to a life of crafting for ever more.  This should also help soften the relatively high limit of 40 to skills that i suggested in the OP.  It is percentage based so that there isn't too much impact as you are gaining the skills.  This will be rounded down so that if you only have 9 skill or less you won't lose anything.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Lech on January 30, 2012, 04:59:53 pm
Maybe i missed something Jarlek, but if I would get max bonus(40), i would have 100 crafting skill in key things.  Crafting with 40 skill is enough to equip your army - you can do 40*24 items per day so assuming 3-4 key items for warrior you can equip 1000 troops army in a matter of 3,5 day (assuming you have gold)
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Tomas on January 30, 2012, 06:45:12 pm
Quote from: Lech on January 30, 2012, 04:59:53 pm
Maybe i missed something Jarlek, but if I would get max bonus(40), i would have 100 crafting skill in key things.  Crafting with 40 skill is enough to equip your army - you can do 40*24 items per day so assuming 3-4 key items for warrior you can equip 1000 troops army in a matter of 3,5 day (assuming you have gold)

40 skill is enough to equip a raiding army in a very short space of time (around 10-12 hours for 40 troops) but it would take a long time to acquire that skill level as you would have to have used 2000 of an item - for a raider that is a lot of battles.

For a large clan trying to equip a 2000 man army - it will take a long time.  50 hours for 2000 armour + plus another 50 hours for a weapon each.  Then you need 2000 helemts + arrows, bolts and shields.  All in all its probably 2 weeks of crafting for 1 person and that's without sleeping :D  In that time since you aren't attacking anybody, you will have had skill decay (see my addition post) twice and lost 8 skill points (assuming a strating point of 40) which will mean everything takes even longer.

As for ending up with 100 skill - that's possible anyway now and people will be there in another month or 2.  Unless there is a cap to crafting skills before that, but that cap will still apply so it doesn't really matter.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Jarlek on January 30, 2012, 06:57:28 pm
Quote from: Lech on January 30, 2012, 04:59:53 pm
Maybe i missed something Jarlek, but if I would get max bonus(40), i would have 100 crafting skill in key things.  Crafting with 40 skill is enough to equip your army - you can do 40*24 items per day so assuming 3-4 key items for warrior you can equip 1000 troops army in a matter of 3,5 day (assuming you have gold)
No. When you get the max bonus you will only have 40 in it. Yeah, you might have some normal chadztext skill in it, but are you saying that you equip a complete army with only items that the commander have crafting skill in? And 3-4 items is actually too little. That's a helmet, a body armour, leggings and one type of weapon. Yeah, you can quickly equip and army of only 2h/pole/1h-without shields, but it wont be an effective one. Also as Tomas said: You would need to spend a lot of gold to actually get all of this crafting skill, making the choice of spending a lot of gold in the start and get high crafting skill or craft a small amount get a small bonus at the start and then craft a bit with the new skills, gradually increasing the skill. Yeah, it can become very powerful when you finally get the 40 skill bonus on a lot of items, but giving commanders a boost is basically the point of this suggestion. And say what you want; those bonus crafting skills would most of the time be better to have spread out on different people. Not EVERYONE of a clan, but where there were before 1, 2 or 3 commanders, it would be 5, 6 or 7. Also when a commander got a lot of the extra crafting bonus, why use him to command the army? Better to let him craft and another one move the army and get the bonus.

Quote from: Tomas on January 30, 2012, 04:35:58 pm
Just a quick potential extra for the suggestion
- Every week your Commander Skills all go down by 10%.  This adds a very slow decay to your skills meaning commanders can't just fight a load of battles and then retire to a life of crafting for ever more.  This should also help soften the relatively high limit of 40 to skills that i suggested in the OP.  It is percentage based so that there isn't too much impact as you are gaining the skills.  This will be rounded down so that if you only have 9 skill or less you won't lose anything.
I was thinking of a decay myself, but I think that would go against the point of making different people command instead of the usual guys.  Maybe have a decay but let it stop at a certain point? 20 maybe? That means that raiders who fight often will constantly keep their high crafting, while a big army commander who only does big battles (and thus must spend more time gathering troops/equipment), would still have a good bonus. And it wouldn't be able to be abused (by attacking your own) since you have to actually LOSE the equipment.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Lech on January 30, 2012, 07:46:24 pm
Quote from: Zapper on January 30, 2012, 06:57:28 pm
No. When you get the max bonus you will only have 40 in it. Yeah, you might have some normal chadztext skill in it, but are you saying that you equip a complete army with only items that the commander have crafting skill in? And 3-4 items is actually too little. That's a helmet, a body armour, leggings and one type of weapon. Yeah, you can quickly equip and army of only 2h/pole/1h-without shields, but it wont be an effective one. Also as Tomas said: You would need to spend a lot of gold to actually get all of this crafting skill, making the choice of spending a lot of gold in the start and get high crafting skill or craft a small amount get a small bonus at the start and then craft a bit with the new skills, gradually increasing the skill. Yeah, it can become very powerful when you finally get the 40 skill bonus on a lot of items, but giving commanders a boost is basically the point of this suggestion. And say what you want; those bonus crafting skills would most of the time be better to have spread out on different people. Not EVERYONE of a clan, but where there were before 1, 2 or 3 commanders, it would be 5, 6 or 7. Also when a commander got a lot of the extra crafting bonus, why use him to command the army? Better to let him craft and another one move the army and get the bonus.
I was thinking of a decay myself, but I think that would go against the point of making different people command instead of the usual guys.  Maybe have a decay but let it stop at a certain point? 20 maybe? That means that raiders who fight often will constantly keep their high crafting, while a big army commander who only does big battles (and thus must spend more time gathering troops/equipment), would still have a good bonus. And it wouldn't be able to be abused (by attacking your own) since you have to actually LOSE the equipment.

You really need those:
-Armor
-Gloves
-Weapon of choice

If shielder/xbow/archer you need
-shield/bolts/2.5  stacks of arrows

Helmet and Leg protection are
a)cheap
b)not crucial

I have 54/36/60/17 respectively for shielder. I just need another commander who have arrows and gloves and bow. So i would have 94 armor/76 gloves /100 sword/57 shield. Do the math how fast i can equip troops after just one siege of some random castle ?
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Jarlek on January 30, 2012, 07:50:03 pm
Quote from: Lech on January 30, 2012, 07:46:24 pm
You really need those:
-Armor
-Gloves
-Weapon of choice

If shielder/xbow/archer you need
-shield/bolts/2.5  stacks of arrows

Helmet and Leg protection are
a)cheap
b)not crucial

I have 54/36/60/17 respectively for shielder. I just need another commander who have arrows and gloves and bow. So i would have 94 armor/76 gloves /100 sword/57 shield. Do the math how fast i can equip troops after just one siege of some random castle ?
And you completely ignored GETTING that skill? The cost of getting the skill is what balances it, together with the decay. This would only work for those that have a high skill (costs a lot) and fights (and loses the equipment) and then quickly crafts. It's a bonus that you have to do a lot for and that goes away if you don't keep fighting.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Lech on January 30, 2012, 08:01:30 pm
Quote from: Zapper on January 30, 2012, 07:50:03 pm
And you completely ignored GETTING that skill? The cost of getting the skill is what balances it, together with the decay. This would only work for those that have a high skill (costs a lot) and fights (and loses the equipment) and then quickly crafts. It's a bonus that you have to do a lot for and that goes away if you don't keep fighting.

I can attack tomorrow to gain 40 skill. Where is the cost ?

Didn't you said before no decay?

I think my faction would be ok with such attack if it would decrease my faction cost of raising future armies, and time required to do so.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Lt_Anders on January 30, 2012, 08:10:20 pm
Quote from: Lech on January 30, 2012, 08:01:30 pm
I can attack tomorrow to gain 40 skill. Where is the cost ?

Didn't you said before no decay?

I think my faction would be ok with such attack if it would decrease my faction cost of raising future armies, and time required to do so.

You might get less time to craft, but it still requires man hours to recruit. No speed increases there. You send 2k army to attack, yea, you'll get your skill, but you'll have to wait 2000 man hours for a new army.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Tomas on January 30, 2012, 09:04:21 pm
Quote from: Lech on January 30, 2012, 08:01:30 pm
I can attack tomorrow to gain 40 skill. Where is the cost ?

To equip 2000 troops with the equipment you want, you must have already spent the cash - that is the initial cost.

Then to craft the replacement items it will take you over a week by which time your skills will have started to decay already.  Also, you won't have full skill in all the items you want as a 2000 man army doesn't conatain 2000 of every item.

Next you are considering this idea from the current strat situation which is already imbalanced.  Its better to think of it from a fresh start - which is probably when this would be added.

Finally, almost every clan with land still on the map could attack a fief tomorrow and gain the same skill points as you are saying you will get.  Even some of the landless clans could do it.
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: Lt_Anders on January 30, 2012, 09:11:38 pm
Idea: Not owning land as a faction(IE the raiders/bandits(maybe traders)) could perhaps slow down the rate of decay by 25-50%. So that raiders can keep the bonus longer as they are often small enterprises. This would allow clanless, and small clans a slight edge over the larger factions. They get less battles, so they have less decay?

 :?:
Title: Re: Equipment Crafting Suggestion
Post by: FRANK_THE_TANK on January 31, 2012, 03:23:24 am
Good idea Anders. I like it because I am it :D The turn around time for me to get in a real fight is about 1 week.

The other point that you might be over looking Zapper is the whole loosing thing. Its a pretty big call to go get 500 troops and give them 500 items just to loose.

Its going to have a long term posative effect on the FIGHT!

Really I think everyone would like to see Friday-Sunday be a nice big strat bonanza! Getting together and duking it out. Like shield wall sundays on VikingR. Team work and fun. Its so much more exciting than another 20 rotations of the same map.

More incentives to fight I say!!! INCENTAVISE THE KILLING! DO IT!