Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Comments
It would create a narrow meta very quickly, ruining the cool visions of uniqueness that you have right now.
i don't quite understand.... why is it a "balance nightmare"? I am not talking about boosts to stats or anything like that, just a note that says who made the item and when.
Went into more detail in previous posts, but essentially it lets items that aren't inherently valuable (like a lvl 6 sword) become valuable due to either its age (maybe it was crafted in the first week after the server came online and you got it 4 years later), due to its users (maybe the note also says who had the sword, so if you get the sword of the most powerful player on the server, that can increase its value (and if you think that is bs, i will tell you look at how much autographs and such sell for in the real world)) or due to what it did (maybe it was the sword that dealt the fatal blow on first dragon killed on the server)
Again, stats are the same as a brand new sword, its an items history which makes it valuable
in a word: Yes
But the Relics from the title is directed more for the "server firsts". First dragon kill, first player kill, whatever random and unique achievement Interpid comes up with (we will help if offered the chance).
The reason is simple. When you start an MMO, it kinda feels that the world started with you. Rationally, you know that the game has been out for 2 years, but you don't see it in the game. There is no indication that battles have happened and cities have fallen.
With something as simple as this, a name, a date and an server first items, it gives the world history. You go to the market place and see 2 swords. One was crafted 2 hours ago and another was crafted 1 year ago, it took part in 3 sieges and has killed 5 dragons so far. Which weapon do you buy?
Let me be clear, i know that for some people it will be "the cheaper one" but i think that is at the start. After you get some money, you can buy items that give you bragging rights. I have this helmet, i have this sword and so on. It would wonders for role-playing, it would make (some) old items relevant and desirable even my late game players, it will create a small community of players that are looking for specific items, maybe to make sets. It only has advantages and tbh, i cant see any disadvantage to having a system like this. If someone really dosen't care, they are not forced to interact with it, they will always pick the cheaper option and be happy.
Yes, items would have the same stats and appearance. And even if you don't care about it, it dosen't hurt you. On the contrary, if you do get an item that is special (in the ways i said above), you can then sell it and get a nifty profit for it. There will be collectors, and there will be dealers. I don't think that a system like this will be ignored by anyone for this reason
I mean, I like the idea, I just don't see it as being technically worth it.
Now, maybe something associated with the freehold or something could cool but I'm not entirely sure what you'd want these relic artifacts to do per se based off the wiki's current information.
If FFXI a 20 year old game can do it....
Because that game aimed to implement many other ambitious, complex systems.
I don't have an answer for this, not a game dev, so i have no idea how much data it would be. However, considering everything else in the game, this seems like small potatoes to me? Its just text on the item, so, i can't imagine it to be that taxing
So, FFXI weapons keep track of things like how many players they have been used to kill, which raid level mobs they have been used to kill, and every player that has used them, as well as potentially hundreds of other factors that could deem a weapon unique?
By all means, give me more info on that.
and regarding the database issue, I‘d suggest to stay with only world first achievements marking the item and seasonal top scores being able to go to a scribe to engrave it on an item… like „[Username]‘s Bloodspiller [Date/Season#]“
And giving crafted Items history, is just an addition to the Item Info. Giving it depth and awarenes of how long the game is going. Or even make it a nice effect seeing that you got an early item crafted by the now world best master. Regarding the database issu we could limit it to top masters, so when the tops cycles we get kind of history kept wothout oversaturating or taking meaning.
and due to it not changing the stats, it would only add an extra layer like titles and add an additional system for collection like mounts.
You're thinking of Magian Trials backward here.
FFXI has entire systems built around 'this weapon in particular was in your hand when you killed this many of this enemy type'. They use it for quests to enhance the weapons in question. There are... probably about 1000 of these 'Trials', but they each only apply to a given weapon, so it's less. Data costs rise exponentially the other way.
That said, this is just 'titles', but applied to gear or weapons. So, I'm in support of this. Titles on players are actually less interesting because players just have one title displayed, even if they change it.
Title Tracer bitmasks on the player don't even get into the megabytes for most games, but memory is memory, so there's that.
Arguing against this as a whole is functionally arguing against Titles though. The same system as in most games 'this item loses all previous progress when sold through an Auction or Stall' would reduce the bloat over time if you wanted to keep the 'Hey track the progress of each weapon I use, in terms of how many Servants of the Ancients it has killed'. For Ashes, you could add 'if it was in storage when the Node or Freehold was destroyed'.
In the end, if it's still concerning, @Lejee has the right of it, World Firsts only, or only a select set of tracers that something was going to track anyway. The bigger question would be if everyone in the raid/group would get some item 'engraved'.
If it‘s a group content we could argue about „last player hit gets it“ or each member of the „party last hit“ (i guess a system similar to the looting system in action would be the easiest way)
Well, they are building system regarding last kill and how much damage you need to do to count as your kill, so just use that system, no need to add a new one
that is a fantastic problem to have. If that's your problem, you ain't got a problem
World First i think we can all agree that would be fantastic. Now keeping track about of every weapon seems a lot of data, but tbh, I expect them to do already, outside of this discussion. Keeping track of which weapon is the most dominant and which one is the least used helps a lot in balancing. If you see a weapon that has 30% more kills that any other weapon in the game, well, that weapon needs a nerf. I don't know if they track stuff like this, but in my mind needed.
True, having a counter for each individual weapon is an extra layer, but not by much. The data from the weapon is already going to the server for the big, all weapons of this type together, so just show the number in a weapon's stat block before.
Nut this argument is kinda meaning less, its not up to us to say whether they can or can't do it. The thread is about "would you as players like something like this?" because if it can't be done, they will say it, and that's it. Debating tech stuff serves nothing.
From a players point of view, I don't see any way in which the system as described before harm or even inconvenience the game. Even if a player doesn't care about it at all, if they get their hands on a titled weapon or a relic or something, they will sell it for loads of gold. They are happy, the one that buys it is happy, it encourages social elements (finding collectors), competitiveness (getting a special weapon) and will add to the server history, something that will be essential in server identity.
In terms of player perception, I agree there is no negatives to it.
The only negative I see is the potential server overhead.
While not a perfect analogy, picture it like this.
Each weapon needs to be given a row on a spreadsheet, and each effect you want to track needs to be given a column. Then, you enter nothing in the appropriate field if a weapon doesnt have the thing, or enter something in thei field if it does have a thing.
For players, there is one entry in this spreadsheet per character. Anything that needs to be tracked on à character can be entered here - from titles to the amount of coin the my have to the state of each quest they are working on. Literally all of it is just entries here, that the game then reads and translates in to what we see and understand as we play.
Now, if you start tracking things on weapons, you suddenly need a second spreadsheet, with a row for each weapon in the game, and a column for each thing you want to track per weapon.
Since most players will have multiple weapons per character, this already means this spreadsheet has many times more rows in it than the character spreadsheet.
Again, this isnt a perfect analogy as Intrepid wo t be using spreadsheets for this, but rather a database. However, it is easier to describe using something that we all have experience with.
I'm sure with this, you can see why I can see how it is possible that the overhead on server resources may not be worth it. That is not to say it couldn't be done, but that there may be better uses for that compute power.
It may even turn out that there is a better way to do it than having a dedicated database, and it may even be that the game will already need a database for weapons like this (to account for player input on stats when crafting). These are all things I don't know, nor does anyone other than people working at Intrepid.
All I am saying is I can see how it may not be viable. However, I'd like to reiterate my point from earlier that I do like the idea, and think it would be a good addition to any MMO - if the developers consider it worth it.