I’ve been bouncing this thought in my head for a while now.
So I keep seeing news of new materials and new energy storage ideas that could be just around the corner, things that could revolutionize our current technology. Thing is they seem so simple in design, carbon air batteries, graphene creation with tape. My question to Gregorius is, what would you do if they invented something that:
vastly changed our current tech standpoint
Was made from simple materials
totally broke our current technological progression tree?
I’m thinking the accidental invention of the match and similar scenarios.
Basically someone invents a thing that you could build with simple tools and materials, something simple that no-one has thought of before or a material we already have that turns out to have some superior quality we didn’t realize or when mixed with something else, and thus would make tiers of materials and tech essentially redundant?
You mean like when I added that Titanium-Gold Alloy? Yeah Progression is difficult in those situations.
All in all I would say it just depends on the Tech itself, maybe I would not even add that new Tech to the Earlygame and add something you need from Lategame in order to make such a thing. In Minecraft its hard to solve, but for my own Game it would be quite simple actually, since there I would have an Intelligence Stat that I could base Information related Stuff on.
Like for example you have two Gold Ingots with you, both of a different size and both of them having their weight written on them:
With an insanely low INT Stat you couldn’t even read that Text because you dont know what “Karat” are (reading itself would be a separate stat on a per language basis), and you would not even be able to tell those two Ingots apart (as in they stack together in the UI, even though in the internal Data they are different)
With an average INT Stat you know “yeah those two Ingots are different”, so you can take the Stack of 2 slightly different Ingots apart and make two separate Stacks without ending up on RNG for which Ingot you have grabbed out of the Stack.
With a high INT Stat you would end up even knowing how much each Ingot is worth in addition to that.
And with a very high INT Stat you would notice that someone screwed you over and that the Text on the Ingots saying how much Karat they are was actually a Lie, and that they are worth much less! (and you dont even need a Scale to notice that)
Ofcourse with such Stats you can do a Research System based on that and unlock Recipes that way. And then those way new Inventions that nobody thought of but are insanely Low Tech do make sense not being available to you.
People with a low INT Stat would also not just ruin the Game for themselves, there is ways other than doing it yourself to unlock Stuff, such as NPCs who you can tell to do the Research for you in some way shape or form. Or just go to the Library to get a Book with the Recipes you need, unless you cant read ofcourse.
Also if you do Research yourself you should have a Book and something to write with on you, that way you can automatically write down your findings in whatever ingame Language you selected for Recipe Books. or with a high INT Stat you could even encrypt those Books some way so others cant read them even if they DO know the Language.
The idea of uniquely identifying an object is an amazing concept, it opens up whole avenues of creation.
It reminds me of the unidentified object game trope but on an entirely different level. Where an object is truly unidentified until it has been fully examined, its material, construction technique even the quality of the construction itself. You could guess to its type and use but unknown to you could contain some hidden use or a rare mysterious material.
you could have for example a bucket, but vast variations of that bucket be possible, its shape, size, quality, material and so on be unique to that bucket. In that sense a player could make a bucket identical to another players yet ever so slightly different.
I’m recalling stories in game lore of enchanted tools and devices, created by long dead mages and ancient civilization. That only a few of these objects had been created or survived, and their construction method lost to time.
Note though that I am trying to keep the Data optimizable in some sense, so it might be very easy to craft an actually identical Bucket, should you have at the very least the same stats as the ones used to craft the original. Now for things like Armor, there is a LOT of unique things to that, since I plan on making Player Models vary in Size for example, some Players might even have a working Tail, so that could make taking Armor from others very problematic since it wont fit your Size in a lot of cases, especially since Players can vary in tallness in intervals of 0.25m (1 Block is 0.25m) and go from absolutely tiny (1 Block) to gigantic (I dont know where I would cap that, being a Giant has already a lot of downsides because of Size).
There is a lot of things that I need to figure out Gameplay Mechanics for to actually make things playable. Items stacking together even though they are slightly different being one of them, because you dont want to have a Basket full of 100 single Apples, you want just “Basket of Apples” without having to manage all Apples inside individually, sure you could take your time to unstack and look at each and every single Apple to see if there is a rotten one or so, but you cant tell that at a glance, unless maybe I add a Luck Stat or something ridiculous like that and see “at the top of the Apple Stack is a rotten Apple, better take that one away”.
And yes I am seriously thinking of a Luck Stat, and ways to not make it too OP, and yet possible to make it insanely OP using cheats. XD
Data allocation is always a problem. You could code the world but good luck trying to run it.
luck is always around in the form of random chance, your ores appear to work in that regard. Being lucky can sway odds in your favor and some players may just have better stats than others.
A ring of luck is always a welcome addition but you could also employ detrimental effects, a naturally unlucky player or cursed items for example.
I would suggest however you don’t broadcast it, a ring of luck does not need to be labeled as such. Keep stats hidden, allow a player to get a feel for their character rather than abuse statistical advantage, killing off new characters if they don’t meet some sort of bar.
Luck could also factor into object creation. An object has a set of prefigured parameters, for simplicity lets say material and quality. Two buckets, they are both wooden, but one is made with high INT and another with low. Luck and INT would determine the quality of such a bucket and that could in turn determine its effectiveness and durability.
If you wanted a simplified view of the world you could make luck determine how many apples had gone bad as part of an ‘apple go bad calculation’ algorithm and update the basket accordingly. Basically a little Schrödinger’s box where the item doesn’t have properties until evaluated.
Yes LUCK and INT would be part of making a Bucket, also probably some other Stats, just those two Stats in particular dont do much, you could be dumb as a Brick but still be a good Blacksmith.
LUCK would only make the difference between 2 levels of Quality at most, so if you make 100 of something, luck determines the rough ratio between good bucket and slightly better bucket, meaning you would if you spammed crafting end up with only 2 different Types of Buckets, that is how minimal the difference is.
You wont get Legendary Items by having Crap Stats but high Luck. You would end up with either a Crappy Bucket that doesn’t even work or a Crappy Bucket that barely works, when it comes to the lowest Tiers.
LUCK basically just gives you randomly a +1 to the output Quality Tier of your Stats with a random Chance, kindof like a Critical Strike Chance for example. So 100%-ing your Luck if it was even possible, would net you just a +1 increase of every other Stat for example.
When unstacking Items the random Item you’ll get could for example be the most “different” one from all other Items if your LUCK is high, so you could get the best Apple or the most rotten Apple with one pick (ofcourse you should still examine it first to see if you got good or rotten in that case).
Edit:
Also the LUCK Stat would be the same for every new Player, so you dont end up scrapping players just because you somehow managed to find out you have a bad LUCK Stat. Another thing I would do is letting the LUCK Stat fluctuate a little, so you have days where you have more LUCK than usual, or worse LUCK.
Edit 2:
Said Stat would also be defaulting to 50% Luck, so it makes more Numerical Sense to have a 50:50 Chance on a Coin Flip.
Luck would be the only truly random one though, all others would only fluctuate because your sick, hurt or hungry or you just ate a heavy meal or whatever drains your bodies energy.
