Three suggestions in one!

(This was two suggestions originally; now it's three. Enjoy!)

This suggestion revolves around cutting out some fluff in the random item drop system and adding a materials and crafting system. The first suggestion pretty much leads to the second one.

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Random Item Drops

Currently, when you kill an enemy, he either drops his equipped items, or he does a random item drop:

1. Nothing
   
2. Heart Container
   
3. Nothing
   
4. Magic Container
   
5. Nothing
   
6. Bomb Amount: 1
   
7. Nothing
   
8. Unknown Ring
   
9. Nothing
   
10. Scroll #1 based on affinity
    
11. Nothing
    
12. Scroll #2 based on affinity

Some of those, though, seem a little random. Heart and Magic Containers along with Rings will be staying in the random item drop, reducing it down to $1d6:

1. Nothing
   
2. Heart Container
   
3. Nothing
   
4. Magic Container
   
5. Nothing
   
6. Unknown Ring

Although bombs would randomly drop from enemies throughout the Zelda series, that just doesn't seem to fit for ZURPG. And scrolls can easily be not useful, either because no one has the right affinity, or because they've already used three of that scroll and have no use in another.


So where are these items going instead? Behold, part one of the next suggestion.

All Enemies Drop Items

If an enemy has equipment that drops, it's still going to replace the random item drop. However, all enemies are going to have an additional drop, and this will be on top of either the equipment drop or the random item drop. Yep, that's right, enemies will drop even more items than before, unlike Diablo III.


But what are these items? Depending on the enemy, a different item will drop. Bombs would drop from enemies that explode when die, like Real Bombchus, Dodongos, and Armos. Scrolls would drop from corporeal enemies like Wizzrobes, Poes, and Wisps. Deku Babas still drop Deku Nuts or Deku Sticks, depending on how you kill them.


Most enemies, however, are going to drop something that's normally useless on its own - a material. For example, a Stalfos will drop a bone. A Skulltula would drop Silk Thread or a Skull Shell. Additionally, all materials dropped will have an affinity attached to them. A Stalfos is Shadow Affinity, so the bone will also be Shadow Affinity. A Skulltula would be Arcane Affinity, so either of its material drops would be Arcane Affinity as well. Aquamentus would drop Dragon Skin (Fire Affinity). A Bee would drop a Stinger (Shadow Affinity).


Now we go to part two of this suggestion - the crafting system.

Crafting

Crafting, for now, will not involve synthesizing new items. It will only include enhancement of existing items. In general, the system will use a series of recipes, which show which items you need. Each recipe will apply a bonus to the type of item that it's called for. Remember that you can only apply one bonus to each item. Also, there is literally no point to buying recipes. Just think about it, and you'll realize what's wrong with that. But there will be a cost for crafting the bonus on.


The recipe system, however, is diverse. Let's try out a few examples. Let's say I want to enhance my shield.

• Sturdy Shield

  Requires a Shield, Silk Thread and costs 30 Rupees to craft.

  • The silk thread wraps around the shield, increasing its sturdiness.
    
  • When defending, your roll is increased by 1 dice.

  Add Sturdy Shield Bonus to a Shield

  Code:Select All

  [b]Sturdy Shield:[/b][list]
[*]The silk thread wraps around the shield, increasing its sturdiness.
[*]When defending, your roll is increased by 1 dice.[/list]

Seems simple enough - you got your shield, you got your material, you got your Rupees, craft away. Now let's try one with two materials.

• Burning Skull

  Requires a Sword, a Fire Affinity Material and a Bone and costs 80 Rupees to craft.

  • Requires Fire (Level: 1)
    
  • A burning skull is added as an ornament to the hilt of the sword, giving it Fire affinity.
    
  • When you kill someone with this sword, the sword does an additional 3 burn damage (neutral) on its next successful attack.

  Add Burning Skull Bonus to a Sword

  Code:Select All

  [b]Burning Skull Bonus:[/b][list]
[*]Requires [Fire 1]
[*]A burning skull is added as an ornament to the hilt of the sword, giving it [Fire] affinity.
[*]When you kill someone with this sword, the sword does an additional 3 burn damage (neutral) on its next successful attack.[/list]

Here's the cool part of the crafting system - there's multiple ways to craft that bonus. Obviously, you still need the sword. But you can use a Dragon Skin, which is Fire affinity, to fulfill the Fire requirement, and then use a Stalfos' Bone (which is Shadow Affinity) to fulfill the Shadow requirement. Heck, a Water Affinity Bone could work there. If you happen to have a Bone that's also Fire Affinity, it'll fulfill both requirements.


A note, just to avoid confusion, a material will always be one affinity. No more, and no less. Any enemy that normally wouldn't have an affinity would be Arcane affinity, which fulfills the roll of being a neutral affinity. Scrolls can actually be used as materials, too, if the recipe calls for it.


Some materials may even fall into categories. While some recipes would specifically request a certain material, others might just require a material of a category, which would be a broader spectrum. Categories might include Organic, Skin, Pottery, I dunno. I'm just listing random ideas.

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Naturally, as you reach higher levels, enemies drop higher level materials. I'm not going to specify the exact amounts of this yet until the system is close to being implemented (I'd just be throwing guesses right now), but in general, you'll be able to combine lower level materials to get higher level materials.

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That's basically the system. I'll have more up next week - basically, a list of some materials, along with a list of some recipes. Lemme know what you guys think about it, along with if anything seems wrong with it.


I don't intend on implementing this system until all of the current quests are finished, so... by the end of the month probably.

This next suggestion isn't actually related, but I figured I'd put it up here since no one ever looks at anything more than the top thread of the non-database forums.


Currently, if you look in this thread, it talks about how your race gives you Passive Bonuses to your character... quite frankly, we all keep forgetting these exist, and while they all seem like "more customization" initially, if more people want to be that race but want different customization, it's then forcefully altering your character in the wrong way. Granted, you can go without the bonuses too, but combined with the fact that we never remember them, let's just fix the bloody issue in general.


Race bonuses will still provide a Passive bonus, but only for roleplay purposes. For example, Lizalfos can run quicker than others in a footrace. Something like that, and this would just be listed in your description. However, to replace the in-battle bonuses, races will now get Active Skills, and these will actually be added directly to your own set of Active Skills, so we don't forget about them. These actually are intended to make sense. I'm going to list a few here as examples, but not necessarily what they'll actually be, because that's still up to the first person that makes a character of that race:

• Goron - They can roll up into a ball and then quickly barrel roll-charge at someone.
  
• Sheikah - Fires a Deku Nut at the ground, which simultaneously acts as an improved escape and a way to make everyone Woozy.
  
• Guardian Angel - Can quickly fly to Cover an ally when they're under attack, but with reduced successes when defending. This would disable all other Cover Skills.
  
• Lizalfos - Can whack someone with their tail.
  
• Kokiri - I would actually keep this one, with the $init increase.

Short suggestion there, lemme know what you think about that one, too.