Tool Rebalance Proposal Mk.II

[ikabod-kee]

This draft covers some issues I had with tool balancing in an attempt to make it more clear to the player what different materials pros and cons are. Here is what I got:

Wooden Pickaxe: Its role is to be the starting pickaxe, thus it breaks easily and is quickly replaced.

Copper Pickaxe: The next tier after stone (which I will be modifying later on in this draft.) Its role is to act as the metal of choice between the stone and iron age, and also works as a nice filler metal for damage and durability, as it's the lightest metal.

Iron Pickaxe: Its stats are extremely middling, providing decent damage and durability at the cost of a swing time penalty.

Silver Pickaxe: Silver acts as a middle-ground between iron and gold. Its durability is slightly lower, but does provide a bit more damage than can cross the threshold on mining certain ores instantly. It also allows for gem and stone encasing!

Gold Pickaxe: Gold is the next tier. It is heavy, making it the perfect material for some extra damage; though it has the drawbacks of having slow swing times and low hardness. It's better to use gold as a filler material rather than it be THE material of choice for the pickaxe.

Uranium Pickaxe: The cream of the crop metal, uranium, is lighter than gold and harder than iron. It is the best metal as its benefits outweigh its drawbacks. This material is a reward for the player for managing to make it so deep within the world and living to tell the tale.

Tipping: Tipping in theory should still work. Here's an iron pickaxe, then another with a uranium tip.

So, what's going on internally?

• All materials give a flat increase to the tool, period. There's no multipliers or averaging. It's all summing. I can re-add multipliers in select spots if need be.
• Elasticity was removed from the equation entirely.
• Swing speed is reliant on modifiers rather than density.

What still needs to be done?

• Balancing the other materials like stone, gems, and etc.
• Tools besides pickaxes.
• Slight adjustments to block hardness to account for balance changes.
• Durability balancing
• Grip. The best feature in any video game ever.
• Maybe remove diminishing returns on certain modifiers?? Big maybe.

Why?

• Depth comes from simplicity, not complexion, so having a unified system for this helps keep it from becoming over-tuned and beginner unfriendly.

No, but why make the swing times like, a modifier instead of a stat?

• It's better for controlling the balance of swing-times, which is currently very confusing. If you can find a better way of doing it, please do tell.

I would really like to hear your opinions on these, or perhaps even help build onto the idea. With a pull request maybe. I know I'm not a programmer, or a mathematician; I'm not really qualified to even make this pull request, but I can't help but feel that the whole system is heading in a bad direction, and I just want things to be simple for the sake of the players. After all, it's not just a game for developers and mathematicians, it's also for artists and gamers.

Also @Argmaster, try to let some other people chime in first.