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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place 5+ days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
SUGGESTION: System for end-game crafted gear/items and balancing
Prodigle
Member
Just thought I'd throw a quick suggestion out there on a few design choices I think would fix a lot of potential problems that exist with balancing crafted gear alongside end-game raiding gear.
Raid-adjacent crafted gear completely blows out the need for raided gear as no-matter how difficult or hard the gear is to create, time brings enough availability that it becomes expensive, but common place.
Classic WoW kind of addressed this by severely limiting the range of gear that end-game crafter's could create, allowing for a few crafted pieces to be at top tier, but the majority being from raid gear. This was always a bit sad on both ends as raider's would be upset at the availability of rich characters to just buy this gear, and crafter's would be upset that the market for this limited gear had a fairly specific audience, and say 6 months in, the market has basically dried up as the farming and production of the materials needed are no longer as commonly done, leaving newer raids and PVE methods the more cost-effective and quicker way to achieve end game gear.
I think keeping to the spirit of the node system particularly adds a lot to the game and reinforces the differences between areas. So I propose that every node in the game has a recipe for a piece of end-game crafted gear/item attached to it. This crafting recipe only becomes available at metropolis level when a specific Rare Recipe Shop building is built, potentially changing the type of recipe based on the node type (militaristic -> weapons/armor, economic -> tools, useful utility items, etc.).
These recipes would be limited use (e.g not permanently in your list of recipes), perhaps 1-5 uses, and would decay within say 1 month of being bought. This would mean that if you bought a recipe, you'd have 1 month to craft the maximum amount, and after that point would need to be re-bought. They would also require rare node specific resources if possible, as this add's a mix up to where high-end economic gathering/raid/world boss farming takes place on the map from recipe to recipe.
Where this system links to the rest of the game design is that Node's can be destroyed, new metropolises can be built, and in different locations. So if 10 metropolis' currently exist, that's 10 limited time/use crafting recipes for end-game gear/items. If a metropolis is destroyed and another node built into one, then not only is a new end-game crafting recipe available, but the previous recipe will now be in high demand as it will be unavailable once the 1 month period is up. This is doubly interesting as it can majorly shape the economic landscape of the world, Node's with high activity as gathering bases for rare recipes could lose their attractiveness if the siege is lost, also pulling in people living in those nodes to get involved as multiple areas become economically linked, rising and falling in status together.
This, I feel, creates a nice sense of differing rarities of items throughout the lifespan of the game (e.g a crafted legendary item seen at the start of the server for 2 months may re-appear 8 months later), but also means the variety of this gear changes per server and per moment in time. It might be possible for a hardcore player to have a complete set of crafted cloth Armour and weapon if the luck of what recipe's have been available is on their side, after perhaps a year or so, but the majority of end-game players may have one or 2 pieces, all vastly different from each other.
It also makes each new metropolis have just an extra unique identifier to it. A militaristic metropolis with a fantastic weapon and a scientific metropolis with a recipe for a magical gadget that allows you to teleport back to that specific metropolis a set number of times before breaking means not only are these metropolis' different by their type, but metropolis' of the same type are ALSO different, and thus more or less attractive, adding an extra layer of uniqueness.
Overall I think this would add a lot of variety to the game as it links in with almost every aspect of it. Transporting recipes across the world in caravan's gives a wonderful feeling of unique local commodities that could reasonably be sold for huge profits (as the expiry date of this gear is essentially unknown month to month). It gives incentive for crafter's to travel the world or change their home base on a semi-regular basis as it could majorly disrupt the economic centers of the world if a particularly amazing recipe becomes available. It also dynamically changes what rare resources will be heavily farmed (Recipe A may use rare resource from SW side of the map only, Recipe B may require a rare material found only in a specific set of public dungeons).
The most obvious issue is when the community know's a siege is happening and will probably succeed, stockpiling of a recipe would be so intense that for the next month, the cost of having this item crafted will drop and drop, as their is a DEFINITE expiration date on this item, and the amount of recipe's in the world far exceed the demand.
My simple solution for this is to immediately stop the functioning of the "Rare Recipe Shop" mentioned earlier once a siege has been declared, allowing for no emergency stockpiling as the second a risk is presented to the metropolis, the ability to stockpile is already gone. This would create a better curve of supply/demand for the following month, as directly after the siege this recipe would be in extremely high demand but average supply, and as the month reaches the close the need to sell would become so high that the price would be dropping steadily. You can imagine this as the day after the siege the cost being 500%, dropping to 30% on the last day before expiry.
P.S while writing out all the above it seems more likely that this rare recipe shop should be a staple of all metropolis' and not a building choice
The Problem
Raid-adjacent crafted gear completely blows out the need for raided gear as no-matter how difficult or hard the gear is to create, time brings enough availability that it becomes expensive, but common place.
Best Solution Implemented Currently
Classic WoW kind of addressed this by severely limiting the range of gear that end-game crafter's could create, allowing for a few crafted pieces to be at top tier, but the majority being from raid gear. This was always a bit sad on both ends as raider's would be upset at the availability of rich characters to just buy this gear, and crafter's would be upset that the market for this limited gear had a fairly specific audience, and say 6 months in, the market has basically dried up as the farming and production of the materials needed are no longer as commonly done, leaving newer raids and PVE methods the more cost-effective and quicker way to achieve end game gear.
My Solution
I think keeping to the spirit of the node system particularly adds a lot to the game and reinforces the differences between areas. So I propose that every node in the game has a recipe for a piece of end-game crafted gear/item attached to it. This crafting recipe only becomes available at metropolis level when a specific Rare Recipe Shop building is built, potentially changing the type of recipe based on the node type (militaristic -> weapons/armor, economic -> tools, useful utility items, etc.).
These recipes would be limited use (e.g not permanently in your list of recipes), perhaps 1-5 uses, and would decay within say 1 month of being bought. This would mean that if you bought a recipe, you'd have 1 month to craft the maximum amount, and after that point would need to be re-bought. They would also require rare node specific resources if possible, as this add's a mix up to where high-end economic gathering/raid/world boss farming takes place on the map from recipe to recipe.
Where this system links to the rest of the game design is that Node's can be destroyed, new metropolises can be built, and in different locations. So if 10 metropolis' currently exist, that's 10 limited time/use crafting recipes for end-game gear/items. If a metropolis is destroyed and another node built into one, then not only is a new end-game crafting recipe available, but the previous recipe will now be in high demand as it will be unavailable once the 1 month period is up. This is doubly interesting as it can majorly shape the economic landscape of the world, Node's with high activity as gathering bases for rare recipes could lose their attractiveness if the siege is lost, also pulling in people living in those nodes to get involved as multiple areas become economically linked, rising and falling in status together.
This, I feel, creates a nice sense of differing rarities of items throughout the lifespan of the game (e.g a crafted legendary item seen at the start of the server for 2 months may re-appear 8 months later), but also means the variety of this gear changes per server and per moment in time. It might be possible for a hardcore player to have a complete set of crafted cloth Armour and weapon if the luck of what recipe's have been available is on their side, after perhaps a year or so, but the majority of end-game players may have one or 2 pieces, all vastly different from each other.
It also makes each new metropolis have just an extra unique identifier to it. A militaristic metropolis with a fantastic weapon and a scientific metropolis with a recipe for a magical gadget that allows you to teleport back to that specific metropolis a set number of times before breaking means not only are these metropolis' different by their type, but metropolis' of the same type are ALSO different, and thus more or less attractive, adding an extra layer of uniqueness.
Overall I think this would add a lot of variety to the game as it links in with almost every aspect of it. Transporting recipes across the world in caravan's gives a wonderful feeling of unique local commodities that could reasonably be sold for huge profits (as the expiry date of this gear is essentially unknown month to month). It gives incentive for crafter's to travel the world or change their home base on a semi-regular basis as it could majorly disrupt the economic centers of the world if a particularly amazing recipe becomes available. It also dynamically changes what rare resources will be heavily farmed (Recipe A may use rare resource from SW side of the map only, Recipe B may require a rare material found only in a specific set of public dungeons).
Problem and possible solutions
Siege Lockout
The most obvious issue is when the community know's a siege is happening and will probably succeed, stockpiling of a recipe would be so intense that for the next month, the cost of having this item crafted will drop and drop, as their is a DEFINITE expiration date on this item, and the amount of recipe's in the world far exceed the demand.
My simple solution for this is to immediately stop the functioning of the "Rare Recipe Shop" mentioned earlier once a siege has been declared, allowing for no emergency stockpiling as the second a risk is presented to the metropolis, the ability to stockpile is already gone. This would create a better curve of supply/demand for the following month, as directly after the siege this recipe would be in extremely high demand but average supply, and as the month reaches the close the need to sell would become so high that the price would be dropping steadily. You can imagine this as the day after the siege the cost being 500%, dropping to 30% on the last day before expiry.
P.S while writing out all the above it seems more likely that this rare recipe shop should be a staple of all metropolis' and not a building choice
0
Comments
Steven said in his interview with Asmongold that crafting recipes will have limited usage.
Top crafted gear requires mats that are more commonly tied to open world raid bosses, open world epic raid bosses, CHALLENGING instanced dungeon bosses.
Alternativelly: endless grind. Endless.
Top crafted gear should be EQUAL to rare gear looted from bosses.
Epic gear should be very few items per server (10-20).
There are after all Legendary Crafting stations.
Boss drop crafting material.
I believe intrepid will make crafters to have the need for both epic gathering mats and epic boss drops to craft epic gear.
It would work well with the rest of the systems.
Two people want to duel for loot. They each bring a low lvl friend. They slay the low levels to become corrupted and then 1v1 for the loot. I wouldn't do this haha. . . . but I would bet money on a winner!