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Gear and Crafting System suggestion

As This game is still under development, it's still unclear to us how the crafting and the gearing system will work, however i m opening this discussion so we can talk about the best system out there that the studio can implement for a better long lasting experience and give the players the flexibility to adjust their gear stats based on their preference, but before we start, there is one thing i'd like to mention, the gear system should be really applied to both PVP and PVE, I'm not sure if the studio is planning to separate gear into two categories, but my recommendation is one type of gear compatible for all, that way, you don't have to adjust your play style in order to enjoy both worlds.
To start, as i have played so many games since 2006, been jumping from an mmo to another, there is only one game that i can really refer to as the best gear/crafting system in the mmo genre, from 2004 till this day, the in game market economy is still existing with active players crafting selling, and as well buyers,
now the first thing you have to understand about this game, is that there is no way you can get gear, only by crafting it or buying it from the in game market, Low level gears can be simply dropped from low level monsters to help you start you journey but as you progress through your leveling experience, the drop rate becomes extremely low, and in end game, there is none, so simply the only way you can obtain gear again is by crafting it yourself, have someone craft it for you, or buy it from the market/another player.
since we are talking about the gearing system, here how this game handle the stats, so basically you have a variety of items as you progress through leveling, and based on the class you choose, there will be some type of gear that are only compatible to your class, you are still not limited or locked to that specific gear, you can wear any type of gear you like that exist in the game as long as you have the level condition for it, but you are just simply choosing stats to make your character stronger, then every piece of gear will give different stats, some of those stats are useless and the others are beneficial, as i will just give an example,
EG : let s imagine you dropped a dragon helmet for level 10 minimum at 10% drop rate and the stats will be as follow
STR : 26 (15 to 30 )
Health : 20 (15 to 20 )
Dex : 15 (10 to 15 )
Ciritical attack boost : 1% ( Only 1% )
Resistance : 2 damage (1 to 2 Damage resistance )

Now allow me to elaborate, what we are seeing is a piece of gear that can be equipped by all races and all classes in the game, however it'd be best if a class that rely on strength to wear it, but as you notice i've put in stats as STR : 26 ( 15 to 30), which mean that piece of gear that i obtained gives only 26 but it can give a maximum of 30 if i'm lucky, or unlucky it will only give me 15 , so when i dropped this item from a mob, those stats can be given at random "from ~ to", and the same apply for the rest of the stats,
Now the reason why i love this type of gearing system, cause it always makes you want to look at your gear and really focus on those stats, and makes you want to improve it, so my options here, is i d probably go out and grind to get a better one, OR CRAFT IT.
Now before we move to crafting, i want to make something very clear, you may have dropped this dragon Helmet at 10% drop rate from a level 10 monster, but if you are at max level let's say 50, and you are looking to obtain the lvl 50 Pikachu Helmet that gives of course highest stats. you can only and only Craft it, you can't obtain it just from loot or quest ( Quest is subjective, but if ever Ashes of creation decide to go that route, i'd highly recommend that they make end game gear obtainable through a long complex set of quests just to obtain that Pikachu helmet lvl 50),

so to conclude for gearing system, it would be better to label the gear just by levels, meaning that you can only wear the gear with a condition of your level, and increase the stats of gear that you can obtain as you progress ( For example craft or drop Dragon Helemet2 at level 15 that gives you more STR and stats with a drop rate of 8% ) , and keep lowering the drop rate of the items from monsters till you have none for end game gear at max level, no class or race lock, if it's gender lock gear, for male and female, i'm okay with it,

Moving on to crafting, we'll keep using the same example lvl10 Dragon Helmet, and as a player my options here is whether to go and grind it from monsters in a specific zone to obtain it, or i can simply craft it, and before i can craft it, i need to comply with the condition of crafting, and that is my crafting profession level has to be at least level 10, or any other type of condition that the devs wants to apply, as long as i need to have at least some experience in crafting, and i did gain some experience, and i was able to unlock the recipe in my crafting journal, now that i'm able to see that i can craft it, i can simply see what are the resources/recipe i can get to craft it, i wouldn't recommend adding any additional requirement, such as equip a needle or equip a specific gear to be able to start crafting, just simply interact with a crafting machine at the workshop and start crafting, so once you collected all the resources, whether you dropped them or bought them from the market, you can go ahead and create the item,
NOw here is my catch if we want this crafting system to last long, as a crafter, i can only craft the item, and since we are creating the Dragon Helmet, it's not a guarantee that i will get the maximum stats, it can be at random, so in order for me to craft the maximum stats, i need to keep crafting the same item over and over till i create one that gives 30 STR, 20 HLT 15 DEX and so on(I m still using the example above of the Dragon Helmet), you got the point, Crafting doesn't mean that i can make the best gear, but let s say if i grind too long, and i got a lot of resources but never dropped the Helmet itself, i can go ahead and simply make it, or make a lot of them, till i hit the perfect jackpot. and sell the rest i don't need or destroy them for materials,

Now it may seem so harsh and grindy on how to get that Dragon Helmet, seems too long of a process to get the perfect stats,
well first of all you don't really need always the max stats in order to continue your journey as we are talking about low level monsters(rememebr you just started your journey and the reason why you can drop gear is because the system is helping to start your journey and not run around naked ), but of course i'd agree with you it will be so much grindy for end game, and here don't worry cause i have two solutions that can both be added to the game, and make thing interesting and slightly easy,
So let s say now you are level 50 or even a perfectionist level 10 who wants the maximum stats from the start,
1) Solution 1, is to make another Crafting profession, that s called Enhancer, so an enhancer will save you the time whether for himself or other players, he can enhance gear to maximize STATS, whether you want to maximize, STR , HLT or DEX, or all of them, but there is more, the enhancer, can go beyond the maximum limit stats of that specific gear, if the max is 30 STR, the enhancer can give you 31, but with the condition, he will have to take that away from another stat, so if you have 15 DEX on your item, he will have to Take 5 Dex to give you that additional 1 STR to add up from the maximum, of course, there will be materials needed to enhance, ( In game Material, whether can be collected by miners, or only collected by destroying items, anything but not P2W enhance stones ) and to make it spicier, the dev can add the success rate to the enhance system, so you can experience failure as well, and not make it a dumb system for lazy people, with of course, gaining experience before you can do stuff for high level end game gear, whether your profession level or any other condition that the devs want to go with,
2) 2nd solution, is to simply buy it from the market, the market will always be there, Crafters and enhancer will always have the chance to sell their products, whether they do it for fun or they just want to get rid of the extra stock, they can sell, and you can skip all the hassle and buy it,

So Conclusion, this gearing and crafting system i suggest may be too complex, but no in fact should be so easy, you progress through your profession, you level up, unlock more recipes, craft more items, and at max level you are a god, can craft all game gear, AOC is free to divide it, whether to tailor, shoemaker, jewelry maker, or anything, and enhancer, not to make it easy, but a risky profession, and that way you ll always focus on what you are wearing, you ll feel pride wearing, and confident if your stats are good, and not really just put anything the games throws at you and never look back at that piece of gear like many other mmo's do, and encourage players to communicate and help each other, especially if a player is not crafter,
I'd really hope that this system reach the eyes of the devs or Even Steven himself, they are free to take away any mechanic i mentioned and implement it in AOC, or even learn a bit from it, and i'd love as well to hear your feedback.

Finally the game i'm referring to called Dofus , it s a 2D role playing French game, they have the best gear and crafting system out there that survived more than a decade, what they currently have is a more in depth complex system, but i only covered the basic.

Comments

  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    I'd suggest you read up on the currently planned design, because 80% of the things you suggested are already the case and the other 20% are already planned to be designed better than the grindy version you suggested (at least imo).

    https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Crafting
  • @NiKr Indeed man, thanks for the link, i appreciate that,
    the one thing I'm not a fan of, is Crafting Recipes, you will have to go out and grind for it or buy it from another player or market, which mean that on your crafting Journal will be empty as long as you don't fully engage in recipe's Hunt or gain knowledge about the different items, so whoever want to take this profession seriously, will have to rely on Guides and websites to make a progress, instead, why not just have a journal, where you can see all the recipes available at your level of profession, and grind for it, and if it's a legendary item, you ll need to obtain the recipe to unlock it. it doesn't have to be recipe's hunt all the way from the start.(maybe i'm wrong)
    I might be wrong about this statement cause I still don't know what the actual finale plan is, and i'm really open to try what they have in place, it needs to be tested for sure before we can make a final review but please feel free to share your opinion about this .
  • LudulluLudullu Member, Alpha Two
    Paradras wrote: »
    the one thing I'm not a fan of, is Crafting Recipes, you will have to go out and grind for it or buy it from another player or market, which mean that on your crafting Journal will be empty as long as you don't fully engage in recipe's Hunt or gain knowledge about the different items, so whoever want to take this profession seriously, will have to rely on Guides and websites to make a progress, instead, why not just have a journal, where you can see all the recipes available at your level of profession, and grind for it, and if it's a legendary item, you ll need to obtain the recipe to unlock it. it doesn't have to be recipe's hunt all the way from the start.(maybe i'm wrong)
    Dunno how it was in Star Wars Galaxies (as that is one of the inspirations for the crafting system), but this was the case in Lineage 2 (another big inspiration for the game) and it worked just fine through word of mouth and market sales. If you found a rare new recipe that no one else have gotten yet - you get big money. And you now have the info to sell to other people too.

    Obviously there'll be some guides, but considering how the Node system will work, I highly doubt those guides will be too helpful for people. Some guide might say that a particular mob in Node 23/45 (when that node is at stage 4) drops a particular recipe. But when you go to your server's Node 23/45 you see that it's not even at stage 2. So now you can't even use that guide and have to either find another way to find said recipe or just craft smth else.
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