[MUD-Dev] Crafting/Creation systems

[Ron Gabbard]

From: <amanda at alfar.com>
> Ron Gabbard <rgabbard at swbell.net> wrote:

>> Am I missing some fundamental principle in MUDdom that says that
>> crafting must be unprofitable in a fixed-price, NPC-driven
>> world... especially when that profit made on a sale to an NPC
>> would become virtually worthless as the economy inflated over
>> time?

> At a guess, two reasons:

>   - Crafting is lower risk than combat, and most MMO games try to
>   tie rewards to risk.  This is not just philosophical, it is tied
>   to:

>   - Any activity that combines a reward with low or zero risk
>   (crafting, sitting on a perch and repeatedly killing a
>   respawning mob that can't get close enough to you to hit back,
>   etc.) will get "gamed".  Macros or scripts will appear that will
>   allow people to run their characters through that action for
>   many unattended repetitions.

Ahhh, macros... Thanks Amanda.

I don't necessarily buy into the risk reward thing any more because
of the real 'risk' involved with combat is already low and steadily
decreasing.  In fictional-theory, fighting dangerous monsters is
high risk.  In reality, the risk is very small -- the character
respawns upon death with maybe a very-temporary skill decrease, they
often respawn with all of their equipment, and they lose a little
bit of XP.  The actual risk difference involved with dungeon
crawling versus sitting under a tree crafting is very small and
doesn't really justify the difference in rewards, IMO.  This can be
mathematically proven by working out the expected values in terms of
cost in time for the two activities.

Assumptions:

  Both crafter and adventurer invest an hour into a game.

  Both crafter and adventurer will receive similar progression in
  their chosen skill tree per hour.

  Both crafter and adventurer receive similar levels of 'fun'
  pursuing their chosen activity.

  No PD

  X% chance of dying while adventuring per hour.

  A dead character will return to group after respawning.

  Y coins are needed to be earned from activity outside crafting to
  fund one hour of crafting

  Z coins are earned per hour from activity above

So...

  crafter risk = 1 hour + .Y * Z

Let's be generous and assume that a crafter can fund one hour of
crafting from coins gathered from one hour of some in-game activity
that has no risk of death (just to keep things simple).  In this
scenario, the crafter risk....

  1 hour + (1 hour of crafting/coin * 1 coin/hour) = 2 hours of
  'risk' per hour of crafting

  adventurer risk = 1 hour + X%(time needed for corpse recovery) +
  X%(time needed to replace lost equipment) + X%(time needed to
  replace lost XP) + X%(time needed to return to group) + X%(time
  needed to recover from 'death effects')

If the characters respawn with all of their equipment, the first two
factors are 0.  Let's assume it takes an hour to replace XP lost to
death penalty and 30 minutes to return to group OR 10 minutes to
recover from 'death effects' if resurrection-type skills are
available that allow characters to immediately rejoin the party.  In
a world with very low to nil item decay/consumable combat items
and/or spell components, the time required to earn funds to buy
equipment is negligible approaching zero.  If the chance of dying in
any given hour is 5%, the actual 'risk' of the adventurer is...

  1 hour + 5% (0 hours) + 5% (0 hours) + 5% (1 hour) + 5% (0.5
  hours) = 1.075 hours of 'risk' per hour of adventuring (or 1.066
  hours with 'insta-regroup')

In this scenario, crafting is actually higher risk than adventuring.
If crafting is self-funding (Y = 0), adventuring is still only 6 to
8% higher risk than crafting which hardly justifies the dramatic
difference in rewards.

However, macros are a different issue.




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