Combining and steam punk - who did it first?

Formations for followers would actually be very useful.

 

I know not needing a forge doesn't make any sense - but! - I liked it because it was so simple. I don't see how it doesn't "count as being a mechanic". It allows me to do what I want to do, it's simple, it works and it's fun. Having more complexity is not necessarily a good idea...

 

"Especially if the game had been exclusively TB,"

What does TB stand for?

 

Tuberculosis, duh.

 

"Tuberculosis, duh."

Haha, I have a sneaking suspicion he didn't mean quite that.

 

Turn based. Full party control would disintigrate in real time.
As far as "complexity," all I'm really asking for are tools. What was my PC doing to make the feather-weight chain? Biting the heavy steel wire into links? Some of it is really, really bizarre, especially when you actually make things like that in the real world, or are remotely familiar with the sum of parts included. However, given the inclusion of coca leaves in the fatigue restorer, I have to give points to Troika for historical and even medical accuracy.

 

It doesn't count because the "crafting" is less a combining mechanic than a gathering mechanic...and it's not even fun!
"Get this, get that, push this button, get something cool." It is simply, it works, but it is not fun. Advancing characters is fun. Getting new items is fun, especially if the player actually generates these items. The item generation itself is lacking.

I'm opposed to qualifying requiring players to graduate to a new recipe as depth; I think it is just a grind mechanic to compel people to prolong their subscriptions. I think spending the Character Point to "buy" the next degree in a technological discipline is realistic enough, because these character advancement points are supposed to represent time spent studying or training for something (kind of like feats in pen-and-paper RPGs). The player is too busy advancing the story, engaging in combat, and just adventuring in general to role play studying for his advanced degree.
Rather than make this advancement realistic, just involve me as the player in the combination process! Completing some amusing little mini game to correctly combine items into a better item is sufficient. Monster Lab for the Wii did this very well by requiring players to weld or staple components together to create new extremities for their monsters. The quality of the creations were dependent on the player's accuracy and success at creating the new body part.
I haven't played any recent games that require players to pick locks (I'm nodding toward Fallout 3 here), but The Hobbit had an engaging way for the player to bypass locks and disarm traps. While the mini games did not actually emulate picking locks or disarming traps, they did demand some dexterity and good reaction from the player to bypass, and the translation worked well, even if it wasn't an accurate analog.

 

Fallout 3's mindless lock picking minigame was fairly fun at first. A dozen locks later it stopped being so and turned into an annoyance accompanying the remaining several hundred.

Now the hacking minigame, that's where the fun at.

 

I suppose "depth" was the wrong word, though I used it as a negative connotation. They dragged that mechanic into the mud. Depth was more in the vein of "depravity."