RNG enhancing systems: How would I "fix" it

dux1

For me, these systems feel like the developers had no better design idea for gear progression and went:
"What about we make it so people, when trying to make their gear better, actually have a chance to lose their gear and have to grind again for one of the same exact gear?"

You just have some kind of stone/scroll on you inventory, an "enhancing" interface, you press a button and have X% of chance of the weapon going stronger: it just makes no sense whatsover to me. Why a character that doesn't know anything about weaponsmithing or magic can make a weapon stronger? Sometimes it is a legendary weapon, and it becomes 3x stronger because a level 5 noob smashed some stones into it and was lucky.

So, the problems for me are:
- +1 +2 +3 doesn't mean much
- No good reason why smashing stones to a weapon make it better, and the same item is used for all armors.
- Everybody has the same proficiency in enhancing weapons

How would I fix it:

1. Instead of +1 +2, I would add a "purity" score to the material of the weapon/armor. It makes sense to me that these sword X is better because its steel is more pure than other sword. Imagine having a 90% pure steel sword OR a 85% pure valyrian steel sword. These "percentages" would be translate to colors (90~95% is red for example). It could be a lore thing to know that "the more pure the metal, the deeper it cuts" or something like that. magic would flow better in a pure wood staff too.
2. Weaponsmiths would do some procedure to bend the steel and remove impurities using a hammer made with a rare metal. A cloth crafter would need to use an oil made a really rare flower to enchant the cloth, making it more resistant to magic.
3. The better the weaponsmith is, the higher the chance to bend the steel, be able to remove the impurity and bend it back again without breaking it. A leather crafter would need to precisely cut the leather and patch it back again without cutting it.

Still RNG: you need a rare drop AND you have a chance of failing. But now it feels real in this fantasy world: an oil makes a cloth shirt more resistant to magic, removing impurities makes a sword stronger and I want the better weaponsmith in town to enhance my legendary sword.

I'm silently follow the game since 2017 and I'm loving what Intrepid is doing. Thank you guys.

WMC51

Completely disagree. I believe it is a risk vs reward system for those why want to chance it just to make their weapon a little better. It's something they liked from other games and not something they threw together because they couldn't come up with good gear progression.

It sounds like the devs have experience from about every MMO so I doubt they have issue developing good gear progression.

The over enchanting is going to be awesome. It is the main thing I remember back to "The Realm". Destroyed a lot of swords to get one with extra enchants.