Clothing Customization and Viability - Community Theorycraft Project

Greetings Devpeoples,

This post is part of the Community Theorycraft Project. Something where multiple members of the community gather together to discuss existing and potential new additions to the different elements of this wonderful game. Things we'd like to see, we'd like to change, and ways to go about doing so.

This particular post is about Clothing customisation and end game viability. It should be noted that this particular topic is focused upon the descriptive of a process, and so includes much more written depth in the design and function of the process itself, rather than focusing on suggesting individual items or materials. We thank you for your patience and time in delving through our writings.

The Goal: To allow all clothing to be potentially viable at all stages of the game, and dramatically enhance choice in statistics and materials for greater freedom in playstyles and appearances.

• It defines a potential process which gives the Player a significant amount of freedom in customisation of their preferred clothing.

• It provides customisation in the material components involved in the crafting, to allow players tremendous freedom in what statistics to apply to their clothing.

• It aligns the different Tiers of all potential parts involved to allow for intuitive understanding and ease of access.

• It achieves making all clothing viable at all stages of the game from the point the individual recipes are acquired, all the way through to end game (and beyond).

• It would work hand in hand with a Dyes and Alteration system (Transmogrification), without devaluing the individual pieces of clothing themselves.

• It allows a player to progress their clothing easily and intuitively along the path of progression.

• In doing so, it also relies on a lot of already existing processes where possible, using existing augments, categorisations, menus, and crafting processes.

As always, we would like to thank you for your time and continued development of this wonderful game we all love.

Clothing Statistical Progression System:

Clothing is sorted into Tiers, T1 / T2 / T3.

Tier 1 clothing has 2 material component slots, and are made on Simple Sewing Benches (T1).

Tier 2 clothing has 3 material component slots, and are made on Refined Sewing Benches (T2).

Tier 3 clothing has 4 material component slots, and are made on Excellent Sewing Benches (T3).

All current clothing should be resorted, tier wise, to fall within these categories, for ease of understanding. When you purchase the individual clothing recipes, that clothing is unlocked for all tiers equal and higher than its base Tier (meaning there is a Tx-T3 version of all clothing pieces). When a Player interacts with a Sewing Bench of a particular tier, they are presented with the option of crafting all the recipes applicable to that tier only. A Refined Sewing Bench (T2) will only show all available Tier 2 Recipes. It will show the Player a T2 Simple Capelet, which has 3 material slots, because on the T2 Sewing Bench, it is a T2 clothing piece.

If they already have a crafted piece of clothing of a lower tier, the Player is given the choice of upgrading the item to the next tier, provided the Sewing Bench is of the next Tier, by only needing to submit materials to the newly unlocked material component slot.
For instance, a T1 piece of clothing can be upgraded to a T2 piece of clothing, by adding the T1 clothing, and then the material for the 3rd material component slot.

This allows a Player to up tier their preferred clothing easily, without needing to recraft and convert the old to essence simply because they unlocked the next tier of progression.

In addition, we propose the Tier of the Augment must be equal to, or higher than, the tier of the Sewing Bench, in order for it to unlock the material slot. This means a T2 bench requires a T2 augment. As part of this, we have included a list of potential additional thematic augments suitable for these categories and tiers, to ensure a variety of augments exist for all options.

This particular choice is not mandatory, but it is thematic and also logical. Should you choose not to do this, then we recommend removing the Tier from all existing Augments, as currently the Tier has no purpose to reference, and removing it will increase simplicity and ease of use.

The type of material components used in the 3rd and 4th slots are not fixed, material wise, but they are refined item wise per material. To the right of the slot, the Player can select which category of material they wish to use in it, the choices of which are determined by which augments are affecting the Sewing Bench. The Player can choose a Metal component, or a Gem component, etc, but each component is a fixed item used to craft. The Metal component may be Buttons, Buckles, etc, the Gem may be a Raw Gem, Cut Gem, Gem Powder, etc. These can be fixed based on the item type, to simplify art design. The importance is to allow the material type to be chosen, to allow for a high range of variability and versatility in both statistics and appearance.

Listed beneath this section and the following Case Example, we have included a list of material categories, the augment categories which unlock them, and an assortment of addition augments to fill each of the categories with Augments of appropriate tier and theme.

It should be noted here that a choice exists, design wise, to determine whether to allow material stacking in the 3rd and 4th material slots of clothing, provided by T2 and T3 clothing.

You can allow the selection of the same type of material category in each slot (meaning the Player could select Ores/metals in -both- the 3rd and 4th slots), -or- make it so the Player selecting one material category excludes it from being selected again (slot 3 and slot 4 cannot -both- be Metallic).

Depending on how you wish to handle the 1st and 2nd material component slots, allowing stacking in the latter slots is certainly feasible. Though until more diversity exists within each category (and between the different material categories), it does present the fact that should stacking the same material category be allowed, it will very likely gravitate toward Metals at this time. (This can already be seen in that part of the limited use frustration regarding clothing is that very few pieces of clothing have 2x Metal component slots, because at this time Metals are the strongest single material stats wise in the game, for the vast majority of stats which actually matter)

Case Example:

Smithing Gloves – T1

Purchasing the recipe of these gloves, the Player can craft them by interacting with a Simple Sewing Bench (T1), which shows the recipe as Smithing Gloves (Tier 1), which have 2 material slots, both of which are fixed and cannot be altered. The Player crafts these, and is wearing them.

The Sewing Bench has two Augments, a Blacksmith augment (Anvil – T2), and a Jeweller augment (Table Magnifying Glass – T2).

The Player acquires the recipe for the Refined Sewing Bench (T2), and replaces their old bench with the new one, keeping the same augments. Interacting with the Refined Sewing Bench, the Player is shown the recipe for Smithing Gloves (Tier 2). Selecting this recipe, the Player is shown the gloves now have 3 material slots, and an option for upgrading (since wearing the gloves).

Option 1 – Upgrade: Clicking the upgrade option, the Player can submit the existing T1 Smithing Gloves, and then select the 3rd material slot, which can be either a Metal piece (Buttons x2), or Gem piece (Raw Gem x2). Selecting the material as Buttons, the Player clicks craft, and their gloves are upgraded to the next Tier, and the new materials stats are added to the existing gloves resulting in:

Slot 1 – Felt

Slot 2 – Refined Fibre

Slot 3 - Buttons

Option 2 – Craft New: The Player selects the materials for each material slot. Slots 1 and 2 are fixed, the type of material cannot be changed from what is shown. Slot 3 shows that the Player can select the category, choosing from either a Metal piece (Buttons x2) or a Gem piece (Raw Gem x2). Selecting the 3rd material as Raw Gem, the Player clicks craft, and receives the item Smithing Gloves – T2, which has 3 slots worth of material stats:
Slot 1 – Felt

Slot 2 – Refined Fibre

Slot 3 – Raw Gem

As shown by this example, the Player has the ability to easily scale new and existing gear upwards along the progression path, allowing each clothing recipe to remain viable and function effectively. It allows the Player to enjoy their style of clothing with end game capability of stats.

It relies upon the existing Tier system, though it requires realigning the clothing to actually line up with the existing Tier lists, which actually helps ease of use and understanding.

It is logical to follow, and once used it would be extremely easy to navigate.
Any concerns about the addition of augments to this should be easily addressed, since -many- of the augment categories involved are already required for specific clothing types to be crafted. This process just gives them an additional value, and it makes the actual Tier of the augments matter, which for the moment they do not. The listed tier is meaningless, until this process comes into play.

Note 1: The individual clothing items will still be governed by the Soft Cap / Hard Cap system statistics wise, so any concerns about whether stacking stats becomes problematic should be easy addressed using the existing caps system.

Note 2: We request that each of the clothing items have a slight variation in statistics and/or material components in slots 1 & 2. Smithing Gloves, for instance, have the same statistics as Simple Gloves, and the same material components. With this suggestion, giving Smithing Gloves even a 5% Fire Resistance statistic is enough to set them apart in a small and thematic way.

Note 3: On top of this process, we suggest a minor transmogrification system using the Dress Form Augment. This system can function to apply Dyes to the different parts of the clothing, to select clothing patterns and textures, styles (long sleeve vs short sleeve, short dress vs long dress, etc), embroidery, even cleanliness. Essentially all the small changes that allow the Player to tailor their appearance to their desire, using the different clothing items as the basis to work from.

The combination of this Clothing Crafting System + Detail Transmogrification System give the Player a huge range of freedom in available clothing, the statistics usable to expand potential play styles, and in customisation of said clothing.

We believe this would account for the vast majority of cases of Players requesting greater customisation, and it relies very heavily on already implemented systems, hopefully minimising development time.

Material Slot Category List:

Bone – Hunting Augments

Hide – Tanner Augments

Fibre – Tailor Augments

Flower – Gardening Augments

Gem – Jeweller Augments (New Category)

Ore – Blacksmith Augments

Stone – Mining Augments

Wood – Woodworking Augments

Augment List:

Blacksmith

Smithing Hammer – T1

Crucible – T1

Bench Vice – T2

Coke Sieve – T2

Large Sand-Casting Frames – T3

Gardener

Gardening Trowel – T1

Decorative Vase – T2

Pruning Shears – T3

Hunting

Bone Knife – T1

Beading Rack – T2

Scrimshaw Collection – T3

Jeweller (New)

Bench Pin & Files Stand – T1

Geode – T1

Stake Anvil w/ Brass Hammer – T2

Table Stand Magnifying Glass – T2

Small Sand-Casting Frames – T3

Jewellery Stand – T3 (has rings etc on it)

Mining

Bird Cage on Stand – T1 (without canary)

Gold Panning Pan – T2

Mine Cart – T3

Tailor

Dress Form – T1

Sewing Board – T2

Basket of Fabrics – T2

Embroidery Rack – T3

Tanner

Leather Scraping Tools – T1

Awls & Leather Punches – T2

Guillotine Lever Shear – T3

Woodworking

Two-man Saw – T1

Bow Saw – T2

Bench Vice – T2

Hand Drill – T3

Contributors:

Apothete, Kahz, Phylon, Shrike