Changing the crafting fatigue system (need opinions)

[Kaeldorn]

I've noticed more than a few people (especially miners) are having a tough time with the length of time it takes for their fatigue level to drop, putting them 'out of business' for extended periods of time. While I want to keep the number of days it takes to fully recuperate as it is, I thought of a possible way to keep the economy in check while still not fully locking people out for as long as it takes now.

Idea is as follows:
The current fatigue level, with physical penalties on 50 and 75, and a maximum of 100 will stay, but instead of dropping 1 point per day it will drop 1 point every 8 hours. This time is then altered by 30 minutes * base Con modifier. So someone with a natural 22 con would have this time reduced to 5 hours instead.

In addition, another bar is added; the crafting focus bar. Starting out at a value of 100, it does nothing. However, when a fatigue penalty is incurred from gathering/crafting, crafting focus will take a hit of the same value. Up to a minimum of 0, which it will not go beyond (though it's still possible to craft/gather while this value sits at 0).

For every 5 points this value lies below 100, all gathering and crafting checks take a -1 penalty, to a maximum of -15 at a value of 25. This includes spell power checks made by assistants for magic crafting.

Crafting focus is replenished at 1 point per day, no modifiers possible.

In short: you'll not be prohibited from doing any crafting at all for as long as with the current system, but if you decide to continue doing it then you will gradually start to s*ck at it to a point where even the most ridiculous set of buffs and items just won't cut it anymore to circumvent the penalty. Though, for example, more skilled miners have the option to keep mining from veins with a lower DC more frequently (which will nonetheless hurt their long-term ability to mine from more difficult veins)

Thoughts?

[Phantom Lamb]

I sent you my first thoughts.

Firstly, let me state that I'm glad there's some form of limitations in here. Fatigue represents the real time it would take to mine ore. Also, it limits the number of results for the economy.

I think new users will like the system, but get frustrated when they max out on iron or normal wood and have too much fatigue for the good stuff they find later. I'd suggest having the fatigue cap increase as you level, or limiting the top end fatigue to something smaller for when you're lower level. Or, at level up, maybe you get 5 fatigue points back.

[Fezzik]

I like PL's idea, but I think I'd prefer that instead of recovery being augmented by level, maybe augment it by the skill level instead. Perhaps an average of the skill levels that incur fatigue? Someone that is experienced at all the major fatigue causing skill should be able to recover faster than someone that is a complete noobie at it. I'd guess that the coal miners who did it for years were a heck of a lot better than the ones that had been doing it for a week!

I can only see one thing happening with the system, which I like by the way . Bottlenecks. Getting people to balance out the system; the skullcleavers have a good idea with their "dedicated" artisan/craftdwarves, but lets face it, how many Thayans out there are going to want to go mine ... for themselves that is?

[Kaeldorn]

I can set a cap at 25 for pre-level 6, to fit together with newbie level rest-rules and equip-rules.

And there's a reason why I'm not factoring in skill level to the fatigue costs, it's because then you'll get the 'wait until I reach the level cap' syndrome, as well as favoring people with high int for modifiers and spells/buffs to increase it further. The idea is that a buff, sturdy warrior has more stamina to work the forge than some senile old wizard with a bard singing a song for him.

[Fezzik]

actually I was thinking more about fatigue recovery, than cost... so if a wizard want's to waste his precious points on mining or lumbering to decrease amount of time it takes him, more power to him. Maybe it could be something like the con modifier idea, but (skill level / 10) * 30 minutes; that way there is a reward for actual skill at those two things rather than just raw brute power? (they could have used dynomite or a nuke to drill through the alps, but they didn't )

[Kaeldorn]

The advantage of skill and caster level is that you get to make better items (or reduce your failure chance). Besides, it's not possible to increase recovery based on skill/caster level, because crafting fatigue encompasses all crafts/gathering at once. Your mining skill is not going to make you recover more quickly from sewing a dress

[Allielliot]

I was thinking today. the new craft system is amazing, but the cost to make low level stuff seems to outweigh the gains, especially for things that can be bought in stores. a.k.a. plate mail etc. with fatigue being so valuable. people are going to want something good to come from their efforts. So after talking to a few people we thought. maybe crafted items should have some benefits over store bought. more sockets or something. That way people will put more money into the pc economy instead of putting it into the computer shops where it would just disappear. As it stands crafting iron things is almost like throwing away fatigue and stags. Thanks

[Kaeldorn]

All the standard iron items made through smithing won't cost more than 1 or maybe 2 fatigue for a smith with decent strength and constitution (will explain those modifiers soon). The only exception being full plate.

As far as mining goes, I might further increase the amount of iron gained from mining those veins. Iron really isn't supposed to be worth much.

[Product of Void]

yet to gain anything trying to mine though pretty sure its due to skills/stats. The fatigue system is pretty smart in my view. Its a way to insure folks don't become craft masters in all things. While you can build a charactor who can do it all you won't due to fatigue will make it take months to do all the needed, mining, smithing, etc.

So while one crafter rest up, another crafter might get some business due to that.

I say keep it as is.

[DurinRustbeard]

Tho my experience with the new system is limited I would like to offer a suggestion, and perhaps an observation.

The suggestion Kael offers is somewhat difficult at least for me to grasp on the first couple read through so I will try to break it down and include my griefs. This is nothing to dillute the wonderful system you have put into place kael, but hopefully to aid in refining it to a more universally enjoyable system.

One issue with the implementation of the "Crafting Focus" is that it still requires a 24 hour recovery time for EACH point of focus, which is lost at the same rate as Fatigue.

Although the fatigue will re-coup three times as fast as the Focus; the focus lost (for every 5 points) will result in all crafting skills being reduced by one (To a maximum of Negative 15 skill in all crafting checks) The issue here is that I have a hard time figuring the recoup of this system, so I'll do an example:

Kilinar has 25 Craft armor/weapons

Kilinar Crafts a Cold Iron Dwarven War Axe at a cost of 11 Fatigue/Focus. He does this on Monday. He now has 11 Fatigue and 89 Focus with a -2 skill loss.

Tuesday - 24 hours have passed and Kilinar's fatigue has dropped 3 points now to 8, and his focus as raised one point to 90 he still suffers from a -2 skill loss.

Wednesday - 48 hours have passed. Fatigue is now at 5 and Focus is at 91 He suffers from -1 skill loss

Thursday - 72 Hours have passed. Fatigue is now at 2 and Focus is at 92 He suffers -1 Skill Loss

Friday - 96 hours have passed. Fatigue is at 0 and Focus is at 93 he still has -1 skill

Saturday -120 hours have passed , Kilinar makes an Iron plate mail and gives it +1 AC, he also adds +1 AB to his cold iron war axe He incurs 21 fatigue for this and -21 focus. His fatigue is 21, and he has 73 Focus. He is -5 crafting skills.

To shorten this to a point I'll end here:
For the following it will take over a month of recovering before he is fully capable and at 0 Fatigue and 100 Focus.

+1 Full Plate mail - Iron
+1 Cold Iron Dwarven War axe

This seems a bit strenuous to me for a video game(even tho the crafting time is likely in real life closer to that), and these items are no better than a store bought variation of them, other than that I was able to re-name them.. (we can still do that right? haven't tried +1ing something)

To sum up a rather lengthy post, trying to offer justification to my ending message I would suggest that Focus not be implemented, Fatigue reduction time lowered to possibly 12 hours and that the values for Fatigue of a variety of items and professions be re-thought and likely lowered. I hope that even though it was TLDR that if someone reads it they will understand it.

Thanks Kael for opening up a dialog on it and working toward refinement, I'm sure that everyone, (50 fatigue or none) has found your system to be enriching to the server and a great source of new found interest.

[Fezzik]

I would suggest, ontop of Durin's suggestion of 12 hours, if you're worried about things being made to easy, up the initial fatigue cost. I believe you said +3 stuff would be 50... why not make it really punishing and bump it up to 90? I bet you'd see a LOT less stuff than you might expect; of course, the price would likely to up and that might screw up the whole rebalancing thing too....

I guess we'll just have to see how things turn out in the next little while.

[DurinRustbeard]

I'd even agree with Fezzik's suggestion of incurring the stats penalty for +3 items, making them very rare. In the same way I endorse that I still believe that the items at the lower end of the spectrum be reduced in fatigue, mining iron, forging iron fullplates and possibly have some sort of redeeming characteristic that makes them better than the storebought goods, etc.

[Kaeldorn]

Durin, with your analysis in costs you're missing a key line in the wiki:

If crafting from a recipe will incur a fatigue cost on the crafting player, an amount will be displayed on the description of the recipe itself. This value is modified depending on the player's physical ability scores, of which only the base score (before item and spell bonuses come into play), to a minimum of 1. Which physical ability scores influence the fatigue incurred varies per skill/feat and can be found in their respective descriptions, accessible from this page.

Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing both have their physical stat penalty reducers on str+con. Craft magic arms and armor has it on 2*con.

So, let's assume Kilinar has 16 con and 18 strength base, which I'd consider normal values for a part-time dwarven warrior.

This means that the full plate is going to cost 5-3(from con)-4(from str) = -2 fatigue. But the minimum is always 1, so it costs 1 point of fatigue to make, not 5.

The Cold Iron Dwarven Waraxe will cost 11-3-4 = 4 fatigue.

Both the +1 enchants will cost 5-3*2 = -1, thus 1 fatigue each.

You are looking at 7 days to recover and not over a month.


The fatigue cost for early items is relatively heavily modified by your base physical stats, which makes it easier for strong and sturdy (and in some cases, handy) characters to produce simple items at a low cost. It's not until the more desirable, strong items and enchantments that you'll be out of business for weeks.'

Also, as PoV said, the system is intended to discourage doing magic and mundane crafting at the same time. You can invest all the feats and skillpoints you want in it, but you still won't produce anything more than someone with a single craft. Your only advantages are more choices in what you can craft, and the option to supply yourself with material components. Crafted components needed for other items tend to cost no fatigue at all.

Note that most wondrous items still cost no fatigue at all to make, same with imbue and jewelcrafting. So these are at the moment attractive options to take along with craft magic arms and armor for a spellcaster. All values are still in an experimental phase, however. And items that cost nothing to make now might do so later if appropriate...


Fezzik: gains from iron veins have more than doubled, and a few others have had increases of 25-50%. I noticed that miners were getting too little for the fatigue spent and made those changes to set that right. Top end veins on the other hand might need some of their amounts lowered, but I want to see how it works out first.

[Product of Void]

oooh so its NATURAL stats it reads so buffing up before hand has little help/effect?

say I want to mine if I boost my wisdom before hand and use some skill boosting stuff will that help? or not?

[DurinRustbeard]

In understanding in this then I would also perhaps take someones skill into account on mundane items besides just the stats. Some of the most legendary and amazing swords and armor weren't crafted by brute strength and endurance alone, technique I would think may be able to be considered. I'm not 100% on Kili's base stats for str and cons, but after checking he has 8 points of fatigue from the crafting of the cold iron axe. So i think he has 12str and 14 cons, which he generally augments with draconic might. Just as a suggestion perhaps every 5 points of the skill the PC has in the skill req'd will result in it being 1 less on fatigue when making something of that skill? That way the masters of their art don't have quite the same strain as a newer crafter who hasn't learned all the "tricks of the trade"?