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JDCollie

No Durability / Weapon Sharpening

36 posts in this topic

Before you all rage at me, yes, I did my obligatory forum search and did not come up with anything that matched the idea I wanted to propose.

Also, please read the post before you criticize. Thanks ;)

No Durability for Weapons

Background:

In the days of yor, when men were men (at fourteen) and women were wenches, a sword was an excessively valuable commodity. A good steel sword could be passed down for generations. It seems odd to me then that our TFC swords break after pummeling an irritated corpses or two, or beating a few hug-obsessed shrubs.

Goal:

My aim with this suggestion is to increase the player's investment in their weaponry, in how they use their weapons, how they make their weapons, and the attachment they feel toward them.

Concept:

My suggestion has four parts:

  • Durability
  • Production
  • Maintenance
  • The-really-critical-secret-part

I. Durability

Weapons, specifically swords and maces, would not have durability like normal tools. How this is implemented is different for swords and maces.

NOTE: this only applies to metal weapons; items like axes, scythes, and picks would not be changed.

Swords:

In place of normal durability, swords would have sharpened durability.

  • At 0 durability, the sword is 'dull' and only inflicts as much damage as stone tools (such as a stone axe) It's still better than your fists though.
  • Swords would start at 0 durability when first forged.
  • To restore durability, a grindstone or whetstone must be used (see below)
Maces:

Maces would be without durability in any form.

  • A mace is a big chunk of metal and as such does not require sharpening.
  • Because they cannot be dulled, a mace is capable of inflicting its maximum damage from the moment it is forged.
Balance:

At first glance, maces seem to be a far better option than swords. The following balance this out:

  • Sharpened swords inflict more damage than maces.
  • Maces weight significantly more than swords, and as such drain your hunger/thirst bars faster when being used.
  • Sharpened sword damage scales well with material quality; mace damage should not. (if possible, material density should be the factor that improves mace damage, but the scaling should still be poor) This means that sharpened high-metal-tier swords would inflict significantly more damage than maces.
Essentially this means that maces are a solid option for adventurers with only low tier metals, but as the available materials improve, the sword should become more and more attractive.

II. Production

These unbreakable weapons are not your run-of-the-mill bismuth pickaxe; their forging requires effort and materials far beyond your mundane tools.

Plans:

The plans for sword blades and mace heads remain the same. Both weapons now require a secondary component, with a plan for each.

Hilt:

Posted Image

Haft:

Posted Image

Forging:

While the plans remain unchanged, the materials used in those plans have not. Additionally, the process to create a weapon has increased in complexity.

Swords

The Blade:

Materials Required:

  • 1x [metal sheet 2x]
  • 1x [Plan: Sword Blade]
Process:
  • Begin by working the [metal sheet 2x] on an anvil with the [Plan: Sword Blade]. This produces a [Rough Sword Blade].
  • A [Rough Sword Blade] must be heated to workable temperature, and then exposed to water while still workable, (any conditions that refill the player's thirst bar will count for this) producing a [Quenched Sword Blade].*
  • A [Quenched Sword Blade] must be heated again to workable level, producing a [Tempered Sword Blade].
* If the blade cools below workable temperature before being exposed to water, nothing will happen; the blade must be reheated.

The Hilt:

Materials Required:

  • 1x [metal ingot]
  • 1x [Plan: Hilt]
  • 1x [Leather]
  • 1x [Gem] (the kind of gem doesn't matter, you just need one)
For ease of programming, the hilt and blade must be of the same metal.

Process:

  • Work the [metal ingot] on an anvil with the [Plan: Hilt]. This produces [unfinished Hilt]
  • On a crafting table, combine the [Leather] with the [unfinished Hilt] and [Gem], produces [balanced Hilt].
Posted Image

Final Construction:

Combine the [Tempered Sword Blade] with your [balanced Hilt] on a crafting table. Produces [Dull (metal) Sword], where (metal) is the type of metal used to make the sword. (I.E., a tin sword would be [Dull Tin Sword])

Posted Image

Maces

The Head:

Materials Required:

  • 2x [double ingot]
  • 1x [Plan: Mace Head]
Process:
  • Weld the two [double ingot] together. Produces [unshaped Mace Head]
  • Work [unshaped Mace Head] on an anvil with [Plan: Mace Head]. Produces [Mace Head]

The Haft:

Materials Required:

  • 1x [metal ingot]
  • 1x [Plan:Haft]
For ease of programming, the [Haft] and [Mace Head] must be made of the same metal.

Process:

  • Work the [metal ingot] on an anvil with [Plan: Haft]. Produces [Haft].

Final Construction:

Weld the [Haft] and [Mace Head] together on an anvil. Produces [(metal] Mace], where (metal) is the type of metal used. (I.E., [iron Mace])

III. Maintenance

(only applies to swords)

Sharpening:

Sharpening swords can be done with two tools: Grindstones and Whetstones.

Grindstone:

Various proposals for how to make a grindstone have been scattered all over the forum; I'm not going to waste your time by making another. (Choose your favorite design and imagine that here)

Whetstone:

Right clicking on the top of an exposed sedimentary stone (mudstone, claystone, sandstone, etc) will convert it into a whetstone.(essentially the same process as creating a stone anvil or food preparation surface)

Posted Image

Operating the whetstone requires a bucket of water. Clicking the "Sharpen" button incrimentally fills the arrow. When the arrow is full, the [Dull (metal) Sword] will move to the output slot with full 'durability' as a [(metal) Sword]. The water is consumed by this process (though obviously not the bucket.)

Using a whetstone is laborious and slow, and consumes a significant amount of hunger, making the use of a grindstone preferable when one is available.

NOTE: Sharpening restores a sword's ability to inflict its normal damage; it does not make the sword do more damage than it normally could.

IV. Naming Your Weapons

I think we should be able to name our weapons. I mean, come on, if you took all the time, effort, and materials to make your [steel Sword], and then you go and kill fifteen creepers with it, wouldn't it be awesome if you could name it [Creepersbane, Steel Sword]? :wub:

I would prefer is this could be done at a point after forging and assembling, but I don't have any specific ideas as to how this should be implemented. (Having the weaponsmith's name permanently affixed to the weapon would be cool too, like a second line on the tooltip: Forged by JDCollie, or whatever)

Part of my stated goal with this suggestion is increasing the player's investment in their weapons; being able to give your prized weapon a name would go a long way towards that end.

--------------------

That's my proposal; feel free to criticize, shred, and generally complain this-has-already-been-suggested-and-you-should-learn-to-use-the-search-feature-moron. :lol:

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I LOVE this suggestion to death. Seriously, best one I read in these forums.

It's novel game-play, it makes combat more interesting, it's just brilliant. Watching damage output go down as your durability goes down is awesome.

I propose an exponential decrease in damage output as the durability goes down, meaning that a sword's damage goes down rapidly for the first part of durability loss, then slowly for the rest. That way, if you want a really awesome sword, you constantly have to put time/effort into it, but if you don't, it's going to stay pretty sharp for a while, just not at its peak.

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I'll admit, I looked at this title and then the top of the suggestion and thought "OMG NO" then read on and then I was like "OMG YES"

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I LOVE this suggestion to death. Seriously, best one I read in these forums.

Posted Image

Can't tell if serious or trolling. . .

Curse you internet and your inability to convey linguistic nuances!

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I'll admit, I looked at this title and then the top of the suggestion and thought "OMG NO" then read on and then I was like "OMG YES"

I have a chronic fear of reposting old suggestions, and it's been a long time since I've been here, so I'm not sure which titles currently will bring out the pitchforks and melt faces :
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Can't tell if serious or trolling. . .

I'm entirely serious :). This suggestion makes sense on so many levels. In fact, I have similar game design documents lying around from a previous game I worked on in 2001, that are basically the same idea. In that game, the restrictions on carrying items were also very restricted, so that you couldn't carry around more than two or three swords (to avoid players gathering 70 swords from different players and selling those).

I think that making items that you have to really invest in, but that then last forever are a very valid and cool gameplay mechanic. I do see a few small issues with the specifics in this idea, but overall, it's my favorite suggestion yet.

For example, I'd leave maces at their current state, to offer the players two gameplay styles. You could either go for maces, where durability matters and where you always make new ones (the current way), or opt to make a sword, which lasts forever, but requires maintenance (and which is more valuable, dying suddenly becomes a big problem).

Sure, I like the new design for maces better, but offering two distinct play styles trumps that, because the golden rule of game design is that more gameplay options ALWAYS trumps anything else. (Caveat: except in cases where one gameplay option is vastly superior in a competitive environment).

Combine that with sensible ranged combat, which ALSO has different options (fast, short range bow, slow, long range bow or strong, expensive bow?) and suddenly players are making decisions. Whenever you have to make decisions (especially in sand-box games), you are having fun.

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Whenever you have to make decisions (especially in sand-box games), you are having fun.

Well, it does help if those decisions have consequence, but I think you're right.
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This guy wins the internet. Seriously, this is a beautiful proposal. Adds a distinction between the two weapon types, makes both far more interesting, then jacks up the price in time and metals to make for balance. I love it. I want it.

DUNK. READ THIS THREAD.

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Ah good to see you again

Glad to see your absence hasn't reduced your post quality

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Well, it does help if those decisions have consequence, but I think you're right.

Yeah, I'm on the fence, I do like your mace idea. And yeah, they obviously need to have consequences. Aside from that, it's hard to balance, since either swords need to be REALLY good to compete with red/blue steel maces, or you have to nerf the high end maces. With your system, a blunt object is a blunt object, which makes it a lot easier to balance.
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Yeah, I'm on the fence, I do like your mace idea. And yeah, they obviously need to have consequences. Aside from that, it's hard to balance, since either swords need to be REALLY good to compete with red/blue steel maces, or you have to nerf the high end maces. With your system, a blunt object is a blunt object, which makes it a lot easier to balance.

Yeah. I really found that simplification (and really, just a more sensible change over all) to the maces.

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Yes. I want to see this in the mod, especially if it requires the blacksmith to have new stations and working devices, I hate how all we need is a bloomery, and anvil.

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Yeah, I'm on the fence, I do like your mace idea. And yeah, they obviously need to have consequences. Aside from that, it's hard to balance, since either swords need to be REALLY good to compete with red/blue steel maces, or you have to nerf the high end maces. With your system, a blunt object is a blunt object, which makes it a lot easier to balance.

Eh, there's a lot of room now to make a small change add up in combat I don't know what we have for health now but it's a lot more than vanilla, so balancing for long term would be easy and wouldn't require more than a few points of damage to tip the scales in a longer fight.
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Yeah, I'm on the fence, I do like your mace idea. And yeah, they obviously need to have consequences. Aside from that, it's hard to balance, since either swords need to be REALLY good to compete with red/blue steel maces, or you have to nerf the high end maces. With your system, a blunt object is a blunt object, which makes it a lot easier to balance.

That is kinda the idea right there. As I am envisioning this, a red/blue steel mace would not be significantly more effective than a bismuth one. (Yes, it would be more effective, but the return on the material improvement would be much much less than the difference between a bismuth sword and one made from red/blue steel.) So yes, this suggestion does essentially constitute a nerf to high-end maces.

Additionally, if people are really in love with maces, flanged maces could bridge the gap nicely. They would still require maintenance, (as they are edged) but they would retain the look and feel of a mace. I didn't include them in the original suggestion because I felt the post was complicated enough as it was, but I still like the idea of them.

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Ah good to see you again

Glad to see your absence hasn't reduced your post quality

Thanks! I'm still in your signature too :D

Eh, there's a lot of room now to make a small change add up in combat I don't know what we have for health now but it's a lot more than vanilla, so balancing for long term would be easy and wouldn't require more than a few points of damage to tip the scales in a longer fight.

This is why I wanted some weapon permanence; in vanilla, you weapon and armor can be replaced so easily that they essentially have no relevance.

"Oh dear, I fell lava and lost my full set of diamond armor and tools, woe is me! I guess I better go craft some more from my double chest of diamond. *sigh*"

Hell, in vanilla, you can pummel the enderdragon to death with snowballs. Seriously, you can kill an ancient extra-dimensional wyrm of doom with a item that cannot even hurt the player. In truth, you never actually need weapons/armor in vanilla, though they are nice to have.

In TFC, your weapons and armor are expensive, difficult to acquire, and difficult to manufacture (especially if you're solo), and they make a difference. Even leather armor can often spell the difference between some annoying health loss and a smoking crater with a long walk from spawn. Sure, maybe you can survive on the surface without armor and weapons, but you'll spend a lot of time running and hiding. And Bioxx help you if you should ever wander into a cave like that...

Still, regardless of the difficulties imposed by TFC, there comes a point where you have the resources where replacing a weapon is inconvenient, nothing more. Once you have a decent stock of ore, your weapon loses that 'special' quality it once had when it was all that was standing between you and becoming spider-food. After that point, metallurgy in TFC is a tech mod with a complicated crafting system.

This suggestion aims to rectify that. With these changes, I could easily see a guy in redsteel armor who still has the zinc sword he made because he killed fifty spiders with it back in the day, named it Sting, and now has it framed above his mantle in his four story fortress. That is a sword that would not be easily replaced; that is a sword he cares about.

And come-on, how cool would it be to make a sword you only use for livestock slaughter just so you can name it 'Pigsticker'? :P

TLDR: Weapons really are important in TFC, but their current implementation doesn't reflect that importance any better than your average tech mod. I would like to see that changed.

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I don't think things that last better will have any more value if you cans still make 1200 of them all equal.

I'd agree more fully if we didn't have the ability for stockpiles of ore as is, not as bad as Vanilla, sure, but still it exists, what should we do with it? Honestly I think vanilla enchanting/anvil finally does this pretty well(from a gameplay/end result, not logical/process perspective) you can invest in items, build them up, make them stronger, repair them, make them better than they would be. There's a cost involved, and it imparts value into an item, it sucks when your carefully crafted, multiple enchanted investment gets lost at the bottom of a ravine. And you don't even consider just making another, you go back and get the damned thing.

I'd honestly like the system you're talking about combined with an enchanting system(or something similar) where you invest something into the items besides an initial application of ores that will let it more or less grow and develop as the character sees fit.

I'd love to impart more value into items, but I don't think making every weapon last forever does it very well alone, Why would you risk recovering an item in a dangerous situation when it would be literally worth exactly the same as a newly crafted one, and you have ore to spare?

If it needs to hold value we need to be able to invest more than the initial construction into it. The items need to be unique, not identical.

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I'd love to impart more value into items, but I don't think making every weapon last forever does it very well alone, Why would you risk recovering an item in a dangerous situation when it would be literally worth exactly the same as a newly crafted one, and you have ore to spare?

If it needs to hold value we need to be able to invest more than the initial construction into it. The items need to be unique, not identical.

To be honest, I agree with you; the problem is in the nature of suggestions: nest too many together in one post and faces start to melt. (moderately simple suggestions are a lot less likely to be rejected wholesale than those that package together several ideas) :D

I'd love an upgrade system where the player was able to improve their weapons and/or armor over time, and that would obviously improve a player's pragmatic and emotional attachment to their weapons -- permanent weaponry is the cornerstone to such an idea; however, such a system would also contain enough content to constitute an entirely new suggestion, and isn't within the scope of this topic. (Though I might make a new one :D )*

*And yes, I know there are already tons of similar topics :P

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Just a bit of a tangent: how do we feel about killing fifty spiders actually adding an enchantment versus spiders to your sword?

With TFC2 and the ominous "arcane" stuff coming, this doesn't feel very relevant, but still, it's an intriguing proposition if we were to have permanent weapons, since it would make enchantments a lot more viable too.

I have a similar suggestion ready for smithing and enchantments that I'll try to write up, which is even more interesting, but not suited to this thread.

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Just a bit of a tangent: how do we feel about killing fifty spiders actually adding an enchantment versus spiders to your sword?

Hmmm, very split feeling. On the one hand, the idea that your use of a tool could actively improve its abilities is neat. On the other, it encourages grinding, which isn't really the point of the weapons in my eyes.
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Hmmm, very split feeling. On the one hand, the idea that your use of a tool could actively improve its abilities is neat. On the other, it encourages grinding, which isn't really the point of the weapons in my eyes.

Very fair point. I should do some deep thinking to find a way to make that work, without resorting to either a grind, or vanilla-like hand-waving.
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bumping to say, brilliant, only nitpick is maces(but I read ahead and found in the comments something that satisfied that) so now I have spent a few minutes liking your post. I'd say the level of advancement behind this though belongs somewhere in the TFC2 section.

on to business: Other weapons, tools even. How does/could it apply?

Breaking: even the best smith makes shit weapons, and you can lose a weapon this way.

Reforging(repairing said broken weapons): this a thing, or you just sticking with immortal steel?

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on to business: Other weapons, tools even. How does/could it apply?

Breaking: even the best smith makes shit weapons, and you can lose a weapon this way.

Reforging(repairing said broken weapons): this a thing, or you just sticking with immortal steel?

I've been working on a system that combines this idea with durability in a way. It's not something I would want, but I'll post it here anyway, since you showed interest in something like that.

What I was thinking is that you start with a blunt tool and you have to sharpen it. Sharpening it means the durability goes down and the tool becomes sharp. That way, any tool has a limited amount of times you can sharpen it.

It's not very realistic and it's not very well thought out, but I saw your post, so I thought I'd share in case it results in meaningful discussion :).

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Sad to see that nor Bioxx nor dunk at least commented this wonderful idea.. i hope they read it and considered to implement this thing in future..

Well great idea, i will be really happy if weapons could be enhanced like this..

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I have two comments.

1. Swords should have a chance of breaking based on how long they've been used(maybe not) and their sharpness. Read: more force is required to hit someone with a full sword.

2. And I think this had already been said, but they're should be a way to add enchantments/improvements to a sword to actually make it worth it to keep a sword.

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