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Material Relevance and Recipe Structure

Problem to Solve

Most MMOs make older materials worthless because crafting is built as a straight tier ladder. Iron replaces copper, steel replaces iron, mythic ore replaces steel, and everything below the current band becomes trash.

This design should avoid that entirely.

Core Rule

Materials should be defined by role and property, not only by tier.

An advanced item is not made from one top-tier material. It is made from a combination of structural, binding, processing, and special materials.

Material Roles

Every recipe should pull from some mix of these roles:

  • core: the main body or substrate
  • frame: handles, shafts, plates, supports, housings
  • binding: thread, glue, resin, leather straps, rivets
  • fuel: charcoal, coal, peat, lamp oil, spirit fuel
  • temper: salts, oils, brines, powders, quenching fluids
  • finish: dyes, waxes, polishes, lacquers, wrappings
  • catalyst: alchemical or magical activators
  • lining: padding, cloth, fur, felt, insulation
  • packaging: vials, crates, barrels, satchels, wax seals

Common materials dominate several of these roles forever.

Property-Driven Crafting

Materials should expose properties instead of only rarity labels.

Example properties:

  • hardness
  • flexibility
  • weight
  • insulation
  • edge retention
  • conductivity
  • corruption resistance
  • resonance
  • preservation value
  • toxicity
  • absorbency

Recipes care about the property mix. A rare material may provide one exceptional property, but the rest of the recipe still depends on common support materials.

Anti-Obsolescence Rules

1. Rare Materials Modify, Common Materials Support

Rare materials should change behavior, add an affix, or unlock an effect. They should not fully replace core industrial inputs.

2. Every Advanced Recipe Uses Bulk Staples

High-end crafting must still consume large amounts of:

  • timber
  • leather
  • cloth
  • iron or common metal products
  • fuel
  • salt, oil, wax, resin, or solvent

3. Repairs and Maintenance Consume Staples

Even when a player stops making beginner items, they still need old materials for:

  • repair kits
  • restringing bows
  • reforging edges
  • repadding armor
  • replacing wagon parts
  • restoring camp gear

4. Refinement Has Byproducts and Dependencies

Turning raw rare inputs into usable components should require common reagents, fuel, and containers.

5. Town Projects Create Permanent Bulk Demand

Granaries, docks, walls, mills, wells, workshops, and caravans consume huge quantities of staple materials throughout the game.

6. Consumables Keep the Floor Hot

Meals, medicines, traps, arrows, oils, torches, and expedition kits should constantly consume low and mid-grade materials.

Recipe Structure

Every crafted item should use a layered recipe model.

Weapons

  • core metal or bone structure
  • grip or haft material
  • bindings and fittings
  • temper or finishing reagent
  • optional rare augmentation

Example:

A late-game frost spear may still need ashwood for the haft, leather wrapping for grip, iron or steel fittings for balance, whale oil or salt brine for temper process, and only one rare frost-drake spine shard as the signature input.

Armor

  • shell material
  • lining material
  • straps and closures
  • reinforcement plates or ribs
  • finish treatment
  • optional rare reinforcement

Tools

  • working head
  • shaft or handle
  • leather or cloth wrapping
  • oil or resin treatment

Alchemy and Cooking

  • active ingredient
  • base liquid or fat
  • stabilizer
  • container
  • seal or wrap

This keeps glass, cloth, wax, salt, grain alcohol, herbs, and oils relevant forever.

Substitution Model

Recipes should allow limited substitutions with tradeoffs.

Examples:

  • pine shaft is cheaper but less durable than ashwood
  • bone plate is lighter but less stable than steel reinforcement
  • fae silk lining improves magic interaction but worsens repair cost

This creates market depth without forcing a single best material path.

Tier Model

Player advancement should unlock:

  • better yields from the same materials
  • more efficient refinement
  • higher-quality assembly
  • more recipe slots or optional inputs
  • special interactions between materials

It should not simply delete the need for early materials.

Item Progression Model

The better approach is breadth plus specialization, not vertical replacement.

Players improve items by:

  • crafting higher-quality versions
  • selecting better property combinations
  • adding situational augmentations
  • reforging or retrofitting existing gear
  • producing expedition-specific variants

Salvage and Recovery

Old or broken gear should return part of its material stack through salvage. This keeps earlier materials circulating and reduces total dead-end waste.

Salvage outputs can include:

  • scrap metal
  • usable fittings
  • cloth strips
  • leather offcuts
  • powders and residues
  • monster part fragments

Technical Model

Core Data

Store:

  • material_template
  • material_property
  • recipe_template
  • recipe_input_role
  • recipe_substitution_rule
  • item_blueprint
  • item_component
  • item_trait_roll

Build Calculation

When a craft completes, calculate the resulting item from:

  • recipe template
  • ingredient roles filled
  • ingredient properties
  • crafter skill
  • workshop modifiers
  • random seed within bounded quality rules

Readable Output

The player should be able to inspect why an item is good:

  • what materials were used
  • what properties they contributed
  • what special effect came from the rare input
  • what repair materials the item will later need
  • gathering and resource ecology
  • crafting professions and workshops
  • repair, salvage, and town demand
  • regional markets and price floors