[crossfire] Re: Introducing item fatigue

[Mark Wedel]

Lalo Martins wrote:
>
      And so says Yann Chachkoff on 11/20/05 20:55...
     >>
      - Every complex action generates an amount of fatigue proportional to its 
     >>
      difficulty;
     >
      ...
     >>
       A cauldron is made of metal. You put it on fire, throw ingredients that react 
     >>
      sometimes very savagely inside and apply magical forces as well on it 
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      whenever you use one for alchemy. It thus sounds reasonable that it slowly 
     >>
      degrades with use up to a point it isn't reliable anymore. I see this as a 
     >>
      two-fold process: 
     >
     
     >
      On the other hand, if the cauldron lasts long enough, it becomes
     >
      "seasoned" - better than a new one.  The same would apply for shoes,
     >
      tools, and even some weapons.
     
  In some cases, may be reasonable (repeated heating/cooling of some objects 
does make them stronger).

  But something like shoes will never last for ever.  They do get broken in 
(more comfortable).  But I'd argue that if you do something that stresses the 
shoes and they survive, that more indicates it is a well made/high quality pair. 
  In any manufacturing, especially that using natural goods, you are going to 
get some variation in quality.

  One could see this in terms of a blacksmith.  In some cases, he might get a 
quantity of quality metal - the goods produced by the metal will last longer and 
be better quality.  In other cases, the metal may have some impurities that are 
not readily noticed, but cause weaknesses.  There is also the variation of just 
the skill of the workman.

  However, one can't really discover what case you have until some amount of 
use.  So in a sense, if it survives, it may more be proving that it was a good 
batch of material.

  All that said, some things, like orc weapons, would have a fairly low quality. 
  In terms of the fatigue rules, it could mean that they have already suffered a 
fair amount of fatigue.

  However, the one problem this leads to is collecting those items.  I really 
don't want to have 200 different long swords in my inventory after looting a 
dungeon because each has slight differences in fatigue.

  So I would suggest that a limited number of levels (maybe 10) be set, so it 
reduces clutter (perfect shape, excellent, good, average, mediocre, poor, 
broken, etc).

  I'd also say that adding temporary fatigue for objects makes things relatively 
complicated and/or annoying.

  In the cauldron case, it just means I have to wait however long for the 
cauldron to cool.   While realistic, from a game play perspective, not 
particular interesting to play.  Or maybe it means I have 5 cauldrons to shuffle 
through.

  From a programming perspective, it gets complicated on how items loose that 
fatigue.  For players, its easy - they are living objects, so whenever they get 
their hp back or whatever, get some fatigue back.

  But most objects don't have speed.  But the fact that some do mean you just 
can't give them speed and take it away - doing so would likely break some 
objects.  Not that this couldn't be handled in some way, but nothing obvious 
comes to mind right now.