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Author Topic: Crushing Fine Gems  (Read 584 times)

lonnarin

Crushing Fine Gems
« on: May 20, 2009, 03:09:57 am »
Mechanically speaking, shouldn't one be able to take any fine gem they made and crush it for gemdust to use in alchemy?  Maybe not get much XP for it, a pittance compared to chipping and polishing it, but still.  Only the surface area of the gem would be affected by gem polish, with the majority of the mineral within available for grinding.  It shouldn't be too much of an issue of chemicals either, since the flawed gems can be ground after failed attempts to polish them with the very same oils.

It would help a whole lot in storing fine gems which could have future use in either alchemy or jewelry.  Right now alchemists either need to carry tons of stacks of gem dust which results in server lag, or store lots of raw minerals which weigh 5.5lbs each.

Of course, this practice should undoubtedly be forbidden to Berylites, who would see the crushing of a finely chipped and polished gem as sacrilege.
 

darkstorme

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2009, 01:17:26 am »
I seem to recall this argument showing up before... and I'm right!

I think the points mentioned in that thread remain valid, most notably, Dorg's:
Quote from: Dorganath

Really, there's only one main issue here: no other craft allows a person to take finished or semi-finished, non-defective goods and convert them into some form of raw CNR. Sawdust cannot be made from finished staves and such that no one wanted, finished armor and weapons can't be melted back down into ingots, and so forth. But if we add the ability to grind up cut or fine gems, this is exactly what we'd be doing....and I'm pretty certain that other crafts would want something similar.
But essentially, that is exactly what you are asking for here. When you craft, you make certain decisions about what you should make with the resources you have. One cannot take a form of intermediate or final CNR and transform it into another. You decide what to do with your resource and that's the track you need to follow.
 

SteveMaurer

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2009, 08:14:06 pm »
Quote from: darkstorme
I seem to recall this argument showing up before... and I'm right!

I think the points mentioned in that thread remain valid, most notably, Dorg's:


"When you craft, you make certain decisions about what you should make with the resources you have. One cannot take a form of intermediate or final CNR and transform it into another."

So what this is saying is: The reason one cannot take a form of intermediate or final CNR and transform it into a another (more basic form) is because...   "One cannot take a form of intermediate or final CNR and transform it into another".    We do it that way because... we do it that way.

If the GMs feel this is an issue of play balance, that is acceptable.  But the statement above is a non-answer.

There are lots of solutions to this that don't have the unrealistic result of saying that people can't grind up finished items.   The most obvious one is to set the XP you get from such a conversion to zero.  (I've personally never understood why grinding anything up is anything less than trivial anyway - I mean, come on.)   You also might reduce the amount of dust/sawdust you get out of the item, as compared to grinding up raw materials.

But if play balance is really the issue, the result you should be really aiming for is to make it easier to create one-off items than it is to create "stays around forever" type items.  (Otherwise the world fills up with junk that never goes away, barring charity drives.)   So any conversion from the latter to the former should be clearly allowed, if not encouraged.
 

miltonyorkcastle

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2009, 09:15:31 pm »
Quote
We do it that way because... we do it that way.


It's not so much the above statement as "It is already established like this, and in order to change it would require a complete overhaul of the current system, which of course would require full balance tests for every craft and craft-overlap. So, since we're not willing to put in the time for a complete overhaul at present, and since we can't apply this suggestion to one craft without doing so to the rest (without a complete overhaul), we must choose for now to leave things as they are."

Hope that makes sense as to what was/is the intent behind noting that no other crafts are designed to have the finished good turned back into something useful.
 

Dorganath

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2009, 11:32:13 pm »
*points to milty's post*

It's a general balance thing plus a matter of how much work it would take to really add the concept of recycling into all aspects of crafting...to make everything that can be produced by CNR to be broken down into one or more components after a successful crafting attempt.  We'd have to adjust the overall crafting XP downward (or add some other cost) to compensate for the increased "craftability" of any given bit of raw CNR.  I recognize that the 0XP for recycled goods has been mentioned but that doesn't change the inherent "bonus" one would get by being able to craft even more things from the one bit of CNR and get experience for both.

Currently, there are options for recycling some items in crafting, but (as far as I can remember) they are all as a result of failing a crafting attempt and with a rapidly diminishing return.  Mangled metal as the byproduct of failed smithing attempts or flawed gems as a result of failed polishing or enchanting attempts...These are examples of things that currently have a built-in "second chance", but again, only as the result of failure, not success.

Now, looking at crafting as a whole, we have some crafts which lend themselves to recycling and some that don't.  It can well be argued that woodworking, any metal-smithing and gemcrafting/jewelry (and possibly tinkering) are conducive to recycling of both intermediate and final products, but where is the recyclability in alchemy, cooking, tailoring and poisoncraft?  Simply put, it's either minimal or non-existant.  Some can also easily argue that some crafts are already over-emphasized than others, so adding yet another facet to some may widen that gap even more.

I'm sure there's something else, but those are the balance aspects that we keep in mind.  Beyond those, there's the other aspects, like the mechanics of recycling.

We currently have 2183 recipes in the CNR database, and at least half of those, if not more, might well qualify for some form of recycling.  Now, believe it or not, the "easy" way would be to create new recipes to allow this conversion of one item into another.  I say "easy" because it would require no extra code to be written but would largely be a very non-trivial effort.  The other option involves (potentially) no new recipes but rather the creation (and scripting) of dedicated recycler devices that are hard-coded to turn X into Y, though this would effectively be a break from our currently available recycling options, and as such doesn't appeal to me much at all.

So in truth, the suggestion makes plenty of logical sense, but when we look at it from the greater angle of balance, the scope of applying meaningful and fair recycling to the whole of CNR becomes a very non-trivial exercise.
 

SteveMaurer

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2009, 12:11:54 pm »
Thanks, Dorganath.   A fair and complete answer.

I must say that play balance should be a consideration only after you've decided that the current system really is play balanced.    And right now, as we all know, it flat out is not.    No one, for instance, does poison crafting, because it provides no benefit.   (And if I had a single thing I would like to see changed, it would be to either make poison useful - add poisons of paralysis, blindness/deafness, contagion, confusion, etc. - or simply remove it)

Cooking too, while providing an amazing amount of XP, doesn't actually lead to anything useful (other than the RP enjoyment one gets from distributing pies) for example.

But in general to this, I say so what?   This isn't a mini-max powergamer server.   Most players are here for the RP anyway, so I doubt things will ever get away from you.   And people really will pursue things just for the RP enjoyment.

Insofar as general play balance is concerned, the important thing is to never have cycles within a single craft.   Pounding and re-pounding metal into a sword should not be possible.  (And the easy RP explanation is that swords are mixtures of metals that can't be easily separated.)

But I think, overall, it would be easier for you, if you allowed people to turn permanent items (like swords) into some form of disappearing CNR (a potion or spell ingredient, for example).   People would then have a motivation to get rid of junk in a way that wouldn't have to involve a charity drive or mulling.

And it could work from an RP perspective as well.  For example, imagine some high level magic potion whose ingredients are: eye of newt, toe of frog, filings from an adamant sword that has brought death to an enemy.

Just... think about it.
 

Dorganath

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2009, 12:30:51 pm »
Quote from: SteveMaurer
Thanks, Dorganath.   A fair and complete answer.

Glad you enjoyed it.

Quote
I must say that play balance should be a consideration only after you've decided that the current system really is play balanced.    And right now, as we all know, it flat out is not.    No one, for instance, does poison crafting, because it provides no benefit.   (And if I had a single thing I would like to see changed, it would be to either make poison useful - add poisons of paralysis, blindness/deafness, contagion, confusion, etc. - or simply remove it)
Poison application durations were increased a few updates ago over the Bioware standard durations, making them more useful in combat. Though it is agreed that the craft does remain primarily a craft for RP purposes.

Quote
Cooking too, while providing an amazing amount of XP, doesn't actually lead to anything useful (other than the RP enjoyment one gets from distributing pies) for example.
 Food and drink can now provide healing benefits, per a recent update, thanks to orth, so there is in fact a mechanical benefit.

Quote
Just... think about it.
Noted :)
 

ycleption

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2009, 12:42:24 pm »
Quote from: SteveMaurer

Cooking too, while providing an amazing amount of XP, doesn't actually lead to anything useful (other than the RP enjoyment one gets from distributing pies) for example.


Food now gives as healing benefit too, and I personally think that the RP benefit to some things shouldn't be underestimated in terms of the value of the craft.

I would also argue that the new charity system allows characters some more flexibility in getting rid of of their unwanted goods. I know we had a discussion ICly about the value of charity, and that many characters like yours would rather just throw things away - I would encourage you to try and find or start something that your character does value to contribute goods too. Seeing the little numbers go higher on the temple donation page is something that I personally find rewarding.

And yes, there are certain aspects of the crafting system that I agree are rather broken, and that unwanted items are a difficult part of the game economy and can be challenging to RP. Most of these things have been discussed to death in other threads, so I don't want to get into them here, but I do want to say I like the direction in which you're thinking, but you also have to realize that there have been definite improvements made recently.
 

cbnicholson

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2009, 09:00:20 am »
Quote
Cooking too, while providing an amazing amount of XP, doesn't actually lead to anything useful (other than the RP enjoyment one gets from distributing pies) for example.
*coughs* What about all those fine scrolls Darth has purchased recently from the angels?  Cooking is the paper those scrolls are made from and there's a certain scruffy rogue hauling bucket after bucket of water behind the scenes. :p

Cooking is integral into many many other crafts. Its subtle, but very profound in its scope.  Nut oils and juices go into essences  that are required for making mighty bow parts (Cooking - Alchemy-Tinkering), Sandpaper - scrollpaper plus gum and sand-  plus wood make the shafts that go into infusing or the bows used by archers. (Cooking - Woodworking - infusing, more woodworking) These are just a couple of examples off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more.  :)  Don't be so quick to make statements like the one above until you get some levels in just about any other craft, soon you will be asking for a good cook to make you something vital.

Having been on the ground floor of trying to build a crafting system elsewhere from scratch, I am continually amazed at the level of detail I see in Layo's crafting system, is it perfect..nope..but its better than most in terms of completeness and balance.  That said, I still like to see well worded questions to Dorg or him being called on a non answer, steve.  It allows the rest of us to see how his mind works. ;)

Sorry I got so far off track.
"Give a man a mask and he will show you his true face." 

Oscar Wilde
 

Dorganath

Re: Crushing Fine Gems
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2009, 10:36:46 am »
Quote from: cbnicholson
 That said, I still like to see well worded questions to Dorg or him being called on a non answer, steve.  It allows the rest of us to see how his mind works. ;)

You may not want to delve too deeply there. ;)  It's scary in there.