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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.
Thoughts... Gear Quality Options = Number of Class Tiers
This is probably far too late in the process to be incorporated into Ashes.
So this is merely a thread to post your thoughts.
We will have multiple levels of gear quality which will also increase in rarity.
We also expect to have complex and wide player build variety whose game play will be gated through a tier progress mechanism.
Player progress will also make them more and more of a unique/rare specialist.
We already have 2 class tiers with archetype and secondary as part of this specialisation
It occurred to me that gear quality, class and build variety can all be combined and rationalised into a much simpler and logical system.
Example system..
Tier 0 Player level = 8192 players of 1 specialist types (Normal Content - 1-2 player)
Tier 1 Archetype level = 1024 players of 8 specialist types (Fine Content ~ 2-4 player)
Tier 2 Class level = 128 players of 64 specialist types (Superior Content ~ 4-8 player)
Tier 3 Class level = 16 players of 512 specialist types (Epic Content ~ 8-16 player)
Tier 4 Class level = 2 players of 4096 specialist types (Legendary Content ~ 16-32 player)
At each level, not only is the gear components harder to harvest process create but the content is also harder to complete. At the same time the mutually dependant gather/process/craft/combat players are forced down an ever narrower 'tailored' specialist role which makes them ever rarer and unique and harder to obtain and maintain.
eg. The fighter with specialist tier 4 build 4096 also requires specialist crafter/gatherer/refiner build 4096 and only 2 each of these can exist in the entire realm to create that legendary gear. In contrast.... Tier 1 build 8 has 1024 gatherers/processors/crafters to provide the fine content of that level.
Now this actually makes the dungeon progress system gear drop dependency more open. As it allows PvP progress to also allow access to progress gated content. As progress is just a natural aspect of adventuring and whether the player wants to specialise to the legendary level or remain more generic in their preferred playstyle.
So this is merely a thread to post your thoughts.
We will have multiple levels of gear quality which will also increase in rarity.
We also expect to have complex and wide player build variety whose game play will be gated through a tier progress mechanism.
Player progress will also make them more and more of a unique/rare specialist.
We already have 2 class tiers with archetype and secondary as part of this specialisation
It occurred to me that gear quality, class and build variety can all be combined and rationalised into a much simpler and logical system.
Example system..
Tier 0 Player level = 8192 players of 1 specialist types (Normal Content - 1-2 player)
Tier 1 Archetype level = 1024 players of 8 specialist types (Fine Content ~ 2-4 player)
Tier 2 Class level = 128 players of 64 specialist types (Superior Content ~ 4-8 player)
Tier 3 Class level = 16 players of 512 specialist types (Epic Content ~ 8-16 player)
Tier 4 Class level = 2 players of 4096 specialist types (Legendary Content ~ 16-32 player)
At each level, not only is the gear components harder to harvest process create but the content is also harder to complete. At the same time the mutually dependant gather/process/craft/combat players are forced down an ever narrower 'tailored' specialist role which makes them ever rarer and unique and harder to obtain and maintain.
eg. The fighter with specialist tier 4 build 4096 also requires specialist crafter/gatherer/refiner build 4096 and only 2 each of these can exist in the entire realm to create that legendary gear. In contrast.... Tier 1 build 8 has 1024 gatherers/processors/crafters to provide the fine content of that level.
Now this actually makes the dungeon progress system gear drop dependency more open. As it allows PvP progress to also allow access to progress gated content. As progress is just a natural aspect of adventuring and whether the player wants to specialise to the legendary level or remain more generic in their preferred playstyle.
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For example, I would not gate a special "legendary token" that allows the crafting of a legendary shield, behind killing boss number X of the raid instance Y that requires 40 people. This is lazy and extremely not fun in my opinion. What you can do:
- make a really hard quest line that can even be completed solo, in which your skill in playing the game will have to show (scale content to player gear/level).
- create some special events, like some mobs spawning for a short time in a random area, having a chance to drop these tokens when killed. The fights should not be easy.
- after several castle sieges and other such large PVP battles, a giant god has a chance to appear, that wants to destroy the humans because they fight too much
- *insert any other hard thing to do that makes it worthwhile*.
The game will need to have individual loot from mobs, though (I do think it's a great idea to have this in any MMO).
Coming back to crafting, I would not hide the best stuff/recipes/etc behind raids.
Also, not sure how AOC does it, but gear with +1 strength +3 damage +2 wisdom is an old design (and bad in my opinion).
I would simply make a "rating" for each stat and "skill" a player can have (there should be many ratings
Having the possibility to fork into more than one path per skill should be possible, after completing some hard quests/events/etc, with the downside that any "rating" gained will be split between these multiple paths now.
Each race/class should have a more or less fixed list of "skills"/"stats" that they can improve (so as to not deviate from tank/healer/dps/support, maybe), with many that should be common (e.g. crafting, sprinting, horse riding, pvp defense rating, etc).
Anyway, this is an idea thread so that's how I would do it
I do with that there were more freedom to create items meaning that there be multiple ways to create the same item albeit different results/looks.
Lets say a blacksmith creates a short sword using steel.
- Short Sword lv 1
- Base stats 10-20
- Durability 50
And another blacksmith is able to create a short sword using a dragon scale instead of steel.- Short Sword lv 1
- Base stats 10-20
- Durability 100
I'd also love a crafting system that rewards experience more so than just level.Say you want a blacksmith to craft a short sword for you. Would you rather go to the shop that just opened in your city that can make a short sword but it be low quality
- Short Sword Lv 1
- Base state 10-20
- Durability 50
Or would you rather travel to a far off village to find a far more experienced blacksmith that can create the same short sword using the exact same materials but produce a much better quality sword?- Short Sword lv 5
- Base stats 160-200
- Durability 150
I don't want crafting to be an easy experience. I like the grind and difficulty of creating a master piece. It creates a sort of status and exclusivity among crafters that I think is missing from the RPG experience. I want to be known far and wide for my crafted wares. I want what I sell to have an impact on guilds, wars, fighting world bosses, etc. I want my weapons and armors to last on the battlefield and be trusted by the user and not fail them at the most critical of moments...which sort of leads to my next point.Armor and weapons should not simple be repaired when durability gets low or breaks. It breaks the immersion experience when all a players has to do is go to a shop and pay a negligible fee to repair their equipment. Why not make it so that if your weapon or armor could literally fail either by using below a durability threshold or literal quality RNG and force players to find a quick replacement until they're able to refit themselves with better equipment. Obviously you wouldn't want a legendary weapon to break and never being able to use it again so there should be durability limits set depending on the quality of the weapon.
Those are my thoughts at least on crafting.
Interesting
1. Firstly, you are talking about materials/components. That would indeed be very nice to have... with little to no restrictions too, e.g.: want to create a sword out of wood? no problem. Want to make it out of a rare crystal that is actually the poop of a dragon that flies overhead from time to time? - no problem - yet this is going to probably be better than the wooden sword.
2. I would even leave the basic recipes available to everyone, without needing to specialize the crafting skill. Everyone should be able to make a wooden or stone shield, don't they?! Now, sculpting and liquefying that dragon poop crystal, that's another thing.
3. About going to a more experienced blacksmith that is further away, I don't necessarily agree, because of three reasons: a) your town's blacksmith will be out of a job if everyone did that; b) why would anyone else pick blacksmithing when they know there's an experienced guy that everyone wants to go to? c) what happens when very few people are online? you'll be forced to ask a lower level one... but there aren't going to be that many (see b) ).
4. Having a really complex crafting system would be awesome. The problem is this idea of "uniqueness" that the developers must balance. Not everyone can play the same amount of time. Also, when the best guy on the server doesn't log on, what can everyone do? rely on the weaker ones? but they are useless otherwise because no one wants to hire them. With several thousand people on a server, this becomes an issue quickly.
How do you think this reputation system should be implemented considering these limitations? Something more luck based (e.g. a recipe drop from certain events/areas etc)? In other words, how can one become important to the world/server without blocking others from being effective also?
5. About repairing items, I kind of agree. Probably developers don't do it like that because of the time sink required versus what you get. For example, would you like to spend 1 week to craft a legendary item and then spend 6h (of farming/whatever) just to repair it? Each and every time? What happens if you forget to do that before a raid and you don't have a good enough backup? I think it adds too much complication for the reward.
Yet, I think AOC can do something different regarding this (somehow in the lines of what you said):
A) Disallow items from breaking from durability loss. Every weapon below 50% durability will provide reduced stats, damage etc. So, an item at 1% durability will have 50% (or lower) of everything, and at 50% durability will have 100%.
C) Players can build their own "repair stations" or go to a blacksmith. The more experienced the blacksmith is, the more durability is going to be repaired by a certain amount of materials (but not too much so as not to make everyone become a blacksmith). Probably blacksmiths should have a limited amount of repairs they can do for other players, too.
D) After upgrading your repair station, it can become almost as good as an experienced blacksmith, but upgrading it should require a similar time investment and such.
E) Add a chance for some minor buffs when you repair your items to 100% at a blacksmith above a certain level, or at your repair station (above a certain level). They should last until you repair the item again, at most. For example: reduce durability loss by 10%, gain "Unbreakable" for the next X times you enter a dungeon/raid, randomly improve one stat by 1-5%, gain "Unbreakable" for the next X pvp fights/duels/etc.
Just my 3 cents
I would argue that this is exactly what the node system is intended for. Each node will have their own specialties and player populations. Why should the players all have the same access to the same items? I haven't read enough on the node system to know for sure but I would imagine that in an economic node, player shops will be a thing so there wouldn't be a need for the player who crafted an item to be the player to sell it. Why not encourage the idea of players being merchants as well?
Secondly, I really don't want to see a system where mass production is the norm. So yes, I do think that there should be a sort of exclusivity that goes along some of the best crafted items. Before the min/maxers jump in and complain about having equal rights to all equipment. It's there, either find someone who is able to make the item you want or something comparable or make it yourself.
As for reputation, I wasn't implying that it should be a system driven approach but it goes along with the idea of immersion. Think of it more along the lines of a business brand, not just a title or a hobby.