A bit of background: The rpg thing I wanted to do on forum games has basically grown into a project I've been toying around with in visual studio, a roguelike that features a lot of roguelike elements but battles are played out more like shining force/ff tactics in that it turns to turn based strategy. The problem is, I really, really want to have a lot in the way of roguelike feel to the game as in a lot of randomized stuff, and stuff you can do. I've been playing around with equipment systems and I've come up with code that spits out a random piece of equipment based on a "value" given in. However, I want the player to also be able to craft items using materials as well, and encourage the player to, instead of tossing weapons or armor or just selling them, salvage materials from them as well. How complex should it be? What I've currently got semi-coded and rest on paper is: various skills govern ability to use various materials: ie blacksmithing for metals, tailoring for cloth goods, etc. core stats (str, dex, int, wil, vit, cha) can affect crafting. user picks what they want to make, and the two materials they want to make it with. dependant on the skill it can be either be so badly done the item isnt made, made shoddily, or goes up to even being a masterwork item at a high enough roll. the problem I'm having is in the HUGE diversity of materials i've already got coded in - some materials can do better things than others, and a lot of the difference in possible crafts looks like it can come to just trying to min-max stat values. Is this a bad thing? Or should I try to make it more "hand-holdey" where it just does it for you? Or should I just scrap the idea of allowing users to spend time making their own things altogether?
You could divide the crafting into a number of steps. For example, 2 wools to make a yarn, 2 yarns to make a cloth, etc. You'd only be revealing partial recipes for the finished, usable product until they actually have the materials in the final step for said product. You could make it so that exceptional products require more materials, rarer materials, and have a higher chance of failure. If the crafting fails, smash the materials into a random amount of smaller pieces that the player will have craft up again. Also, how does charisma affect crafting?
Charisma, since it's so limited in what actual applicable use, will affect luck slightly by bumping unfavorable rolls up slightly. So, if a call for a d20 rolls a 3 it might bump it to 4, or even rarer 5, assuming a charisma check is *that* high. I like your idea for steps in crafting. That could be a neat approach to it. I've also somewhat considered the Sword of the Stars - the Pit method of how you can find (or in this case even be trained) in the creation of the item, while also being allowed to attempt to craft an item "in the dark". However, I really don't like how if you fail to make something useful in SOTS:TP it just flat out breaks your crap.
Here's a snapshot of a HUD in progress, along with a playerpawn test. Items generated onto him are randomized. The code currently works, the interface can be toggled between bar and number display for bars, messages post correctly to either the message box (bottom) or to the infopanel (middle, right.) About to start working on a "game state" support. I wanted to go for a sort of "ultima"ish look for the way the HUD is. Everything in there is hand drawn, save for the font (Which is Gold Box Games font, bonus points to those of you who know what this font actually is from.) What do you guys think?
You're going to have the player control multiple people? Thats stepping away from standard roguelikes. I would add that complexity is fairly central to the genre which is one of the reasons I'm not generally a huge fan of it but if you're making something in the genre its good to do it full bore! The hud looks pretty good to me
