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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
A few ponderings on gear, crafting, loot and sieges
Gear #1: If most if not all gear comes from crafting how does AoC deal with avoiding having everyone run around with the same gear? One of the things I don't like from other MMORPG's is that these so called epic and legendary items are present in heaps. Maybe the game isn't supposed to have tons of different gear and all are supposed to have somewhat the same gear.
Gear #2: Since crafting is such a big part of AoC, Will there different tiers of crafting gear and tools? And if so what would that entail?
Loot: I think it would be super awesome if the loot tables were more around materials than actual drops, farming dungeons for bosses drop tables gets rather boring and 1 dimensional. But at the flip side I also seeing dungeons being like mining in eve online and they become rather tedious. So I guess mu conclusion is there should be some sort of balance between the two.
Sieges: If your node is suffering a defeat from a siege, what does that do to what you have in your house? A potential storage unit? your materials and finished goods? etc? Is it all lost or will you salvage some of it or?
Gear #2: Since crafting is such a big part of AoC, Will there different tiers of crafting gear and tools? And if so what would that entail?
Loot: I think it would be super awesome if the loot tables were more around materials than actual drops, farming dungeons for bosses drop tables gets rather boring and 1 dimensional. But at the flip side I also seeing dungeons being like mining in eve online and they become rather tedious. So I guess mu conclusion is there should be some sort of balance between the two.
Sieges: If your node is suffering a defeat from a siege, what does that do to what you have in your house? A potential storage unit? your materials and finished goods? etc? Is it all lost or will you salvage some of it or?
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Gear #2: Since crafting is such a big part of AoC, Will there different tiers of crafting gear and tools? And if so what would that entail?
Loot: I think it would be super awesome if the loot tables were more around materials than actual drops, farming dungeons for bosses drop tables gets rather boring and 1 dimensional. But at the flip side I also seeing dungeons being like mining in eve online and they become rather tedious. So I guess mu conclusion is there should be some sort of balance between the two.
Sieges: If your node is suffering a defeat from a siege, what does that do to what you have in your house? A potential storage unit? your materials and finished goods? etc? Is it all lost or will you salvage some of it or?
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As far as I can see, any game that has a lot of crafting will also have tiers. some seperated by players and some by the game.
and a interesting idea I could suggest for your problem is making epic gear incredibly hard to craft/ drop, and equally rewarding. the lesser tier armor will have several variants in appearance, as in when one guy makes it you get a blue colour, for someone else it's green...
or maybe multiple armors with essentially the same stat but different looks. people will have different tastes, for sure.
that's up to the development team. all this is just ideas that are good on paper
crafting is a big part of AoC- boss will drop both material and gear, gear will be more or less the same level as the crafted stuff.
PLEASE NOTE: all this is just a guess from my side, based on seeing other games with similar mechanics and my instinct.
It will be interesting to see how AoC tackles gear. I honestly hope to see a lot of different sets being common amongst higher leveled players as this will fuel diversity and uniqueness among builds and maybe further specialize crafters. I would like to see, maybe, some crafters choosing to create certain sets as they've experienced success with them whereas others create others for the same reason. If anything this is chalked up to gear variety and situational preparedness.
As far as crafting tiers go, DeathsProxy has two videos on that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cTYzZLnl40">Here (Part 1)</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h73ABkAnOY">Here (Part 2)</a>. Though it probably won't answer all you're questions you should take a look at both of those. (Part 1 makes a mistake but some of the info in there is still solid and still worth the watch.)
Materials vs Actual drops sounds like a good idea, though, I've seen other games do this and it still is a grind.. just a different type of grind.
Loot: I think it would be super awesome if the loot tables were more around materials than actual drops, farming dungeons for bosses drop tables gets rather boring and 1 dimensional. But at the flip side I also seeing dungeons being like mining in eve online and they become rather tedious. So I guess mu conclusion is there should be some sort of balance between the two.
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In EVE you actually don't farm everything you need. In early stages you mostly do your job (ratting, mining, exploring, trading etc.). When you need something, you buy it with the income you got from your job. And beside that, mining is mostly done by alt, <del datetime="2017-04-22T10:54:28+00:00">illegal</del> bot and Russians. :D
I still agree with you. Dungeon-ItemChance model is boring because I've been doing it too much and because getting the item you need too early or too late is a shame.
Gear #2: Since crafting is such a big part of AoC, Will there different tiers of crafting gear and tools? And if so what would that entail?
Loot: I think it would be super awesome if the loot tables were more around materials than actual drops, farming dungeons for bosses drop tables gets rather boring and 1 dimensional. But at the flip side I also seeing dungeons being like mining in eve online and they become rather tedious. So I guess mu conclusion is there should be some sort of balance between the two.
Sieges: If your node is suffering a defeat from a siege, what does that do to what you have in your house? A potential storage unit? your materials and finished goods? etc? Is it all lost or will you salvage some of it or?
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Well theres a will theres a way.
LIFESPAN + MAX GEAR TABLE = The more unique the gear, the harder it is to keep and the fewer in circulation.
The other games are doing it wrong **
Bosses dropping mats,glyphs for specific armour,weapon types could be no less of a grind than farming gear from bosses.....but the difference is dropping components requires crafting and dropping gear makes crafting obsolete. Besides, the 'grind' is a seperate issue ***
** The main problem with all the gear wars is that the gear progression is vertical with all buffs and no penalties. Once you give gear equal and opposite penalties to go with the buffs, every piece of gear is not only automatically and instantly balanced, which gear you choose is now build dependant and build specific. Thus it enforces and encourages variety. You can still have more powerful gear ...BUT... it also comes with more powerful penalties. So uniqueness and individuality with progress, rather than power. Even the new players remain 100% competitive at all times. They just lack the choices and options that the vets have. The Vets becoming ever more stylised, with unique but balanced skill sets
*** Grind is boring because the dungeon has the same mechanics with the same pattern, sequence. It is a script that is repeated ad nauseum. Dump the script, randomise and dynamise the dungeon and there will be nothing boring or predictable about it. You'll actually have to think on your feet and get skilful ...like the very first time ...every time. When a dungeon ceases to be challenging it becomes pointless and its drops worthless.
@Rizomon: thanks for the links, he has some great videos for sure!
@Rune_Relic: i like the ideas of the Buff/Penalty balance, it would be interesting to see implemented. Correct me if I am wrong but it has some similarities to Dark Souls and those kind of games (I know a completely different game genre). but gear is tuned to style, and those styles all come with pros and cons, and the gear as well?
Regarding the tiered crafting tools, let me expand a little on that, and please this is just a super simplified example. Consider a tailor that uses a loom to weave.
1. Rather than just having to buy an off the rack NPC loom, you would have to get it crafted and dependent on which materials was used it would be better at certain elements and worse at others
2. Imagine you have a cleric or a mage and there are patterns to make armour for both. You might use a tailor that has 1 of 3 looms.
Loom #1 is made so that it is strong at building mana regeneration,
Loom #2 is made so that it is strong at building healing powers.
Loom #3 is build so that it is strong at building magic power.
Depending on what you are looking for and what materials you want to put into your armour you might want to pick any of the 3 different looms, also your materials might be empowered with mana regeneration but you want to draw as much of their healing power as possible so you use Loom #2.
To further the complexities the Node's type would also have an impact of how much of these powers would be drawn out.
So not only does your crafting skill selection play a role in what you can do, but also where you live and who build your loom and with what materials.