Should you be able to craft Legendary items?
I played a game a few years ago call Ultima Online, and in that game once you gained the level of Master, you got to put your mark on what you made. Mostly armor and weapons, but people would know it was high grade stuff, and paid more for those items. I don't remember if there was a Grand master in that game, it has been awhile for me.
Anyway, now looking toward AoC, and thinking about crafting over all. Should there be a point a craft can make a legendary item? It would be over what they can do with an item made as a Master or Grand Master level, and IMO very rare to pull off if done. But still have the opportunity to make said item.
I will even add another idea from the early version of Dark & Light, before they changed it into what it is today. Have the weather effect how the legendary item will take shape, if your trying to make whatever at different points of the season.
I don't believe you have to take a trip into the mountains to forge a sword of the great mountain blizzard for example, just when your carting at different times of season, you it will effect how your items come out, and get mark that way.
Even if you don't gain a legendary item, you can still mark it as Scorched Earth sword of Fire, if made in the heat of the summer, or Soft Wind Bow of Spring. Your get the idea. Then no matter if your Master or Grand master, you still get to mark the item with your name.
Even if you fail to gain the legendary items, you still will have to fall back of the Master crafted items, so your not losing much when trying to get the rare legendary.
It's my thoughts on an old topic, and one I still would love to see added into the game. We still don't know much on how crating will play out in the game, just that we will have a deep one.
So what are your thoughts on the topic?
Comments
- A crafter maxes a profession and gets a vision from the gods. He then goes on a long journey collecting many specific items (possibly max quality processed items) and forges it in a specific location on a specific day.
- A group dives deep into a dungeon and finds an armory. A spirit/the forge detects a master crafter and a zombie/spirit comes back to attack the group. When they defeat him the crafter gains a one-time recipe.
- If the crafting is complex enough, creating a weapon out of max quality items by a maxed out crafter could push it up a tier into legendary. This could come with a bonus stat or a special effect. This would be more of a generic legendary rather than a fabled item like you'd find through exploring and doing difficult content.
Regardless, I do like the idea and maybe the named ones/fabled ones could be unique per server. Once they are destroyed, it could be discovered and made again. Maybe make them timed (rl-month or two) so that people will use them because if you make them have a durability but no timer, they'd just hold onto them. And please don't have them BoE. I hate bind on equip. I can't imagine finding a legendary bow as a tank and just having to use it or waste it. Allow them to be traded and sold. This would not reset the timer (timer is displayed).Master crafters should be able to sell there stuff just because they are great. Don't allow a master crafter to just churn out legendaries... it would detract from what makes them special. Unless you are going to make them obscenely expensive to make then I guess it wouldn't be too bad.
We will have to see how uniquely a Grandmaster will be able to specialize - as in, whether or not the Grandmaster of enchanting Ice weapons can also be a Grandmaster of enchanting Fire weapons.
But, we also should be seeing some of that unique diversification due to the Grandmaster's choices in racial, social and religious augments.
Seasons will have some effect on crafting and what can be crafted - even if that doesn't affect the name of the product.
1) You need to be a "Grandmaster" level crafter in that specific crafting type. Intrepid has mentioned multiple times that being a jack of tall trades won't allow you to reach the pinnacle of skill in any given trade, and that being a "grandmaster", while being limited, allows for much higher expressions of skill and power.
2) You need the requisite materials, which would need to only be obtainable (dropped) through high level content. Whether you manage to find it/ get lucky enough/ buy it off someone, shouldn't matter, just as long as you have the materials. We also know that certain gatherers will be able to be "grandmaster" gatherers, so maybe you NEED them to get the materials for you, which kind of starts a micro economy right there (gatherer-processor-crafter).
3) Within a grandmaster crafter class, there needs to be some level of specialization that comes with it. For example, a blacksmith should not be able to make a legendary version of every type of weapon, and every type of armor, and every type of trinket. They should choose either one category of armor (heavy, medium, or light), and/or one (maybe a few more, depending on the variety of physical weapons) type of weapon. This limits their availability to cater to everyone, and really makes them feel that their choice has weight, whether for good or for bad.
4) Skill. Even if all the previous requirements are met, there still needs to be the chance for failure. If several crafters (cus lets be honest, even if it takes a while, eventually there will be tons of high leveled crafters) can continuously churn out legendary items, it does slowly diminish both the value of the word "Legendary" and the other crafters around them.
5) A timer. I've seen some people commenting that there should be a limit of one, and I don't feel that that really captures the idea of a legendary crafter. The great smiths of old that signed their work and were known throughout the lands, were well known because they had made more than one item. One item would be rather easy to hide, but once you pass a certain point, people will start to know who you are. In order to allow player crafters to fulfill the fantasy that they can be a legendary smith, they would need to be able to craft multiple items. However a timer meets the middle ground. They can't spam Legendary items to sell like crazy or supply a large group, and they still get to make more than one (hey maybe there can even be ways to shorten the timer during events or by meeting certain qualifiers).
6) A quest of some sort. Even after the weapon is crafted, there should still be some quest to christen a sword with powerful ancient blood, or an orb in immense magical auras. Not sure how this would be done, but I don't feel like a person who's buying the item should have a super easy time of obtaining it as well. (Extra thought: idk I think it would be cool if a player can give the item to the node management to distribute in the game world as drops; the player still makes money off of the transaction, and the system gets to randomly give someone the drop, still feeling like these legendary items come from the world itself, but just a thought)
These six points aren't perfect, and obviously it's not like I'm an expert in game design or super knowledgeable about what makes a game playable or not, but I do think that maybe these are steps to allowing a crafter to feel good about their craft, but not necessarily allowing them to break the balance of the game.
On a side note, I REALLY like the weather idea that a lot of people put forward. I think it adds a little flavor to the game, and depending on the different stats, it could make certain items more beneficial in certain times of the year, which is good for refreshing which gear you're using. However, I don't think that it should be mandatory for the weather to line up for an item to get a certain augment. With the proper materials, an item should be craftable regardless of the season. Perhaps the seasons add an augment if the types line up, but making it mandatory for the season to line up just seems kinda limiting. For those that have already replied to this thread, did you mean that the season requirement would only apply on legendary weapons, or all weapons? If it's just legendary, then (as much as I'm stubborn and don't like it) it's another good way to mitigate the spamming of certain legendary items, and that's good, but if it's on all weapons, that just seems TOO limiting, and unhealthy for the game in my honest opinion.
OK, super long post, sorry for the crazy read, but hopefully I made sense!
Intrepid have stated that the best items in the game will be a combination of boss dropped components and player crafting.
That said my goal is the first legendary caravan!
Yes, but as a grandmaster, you will be making top level items in the game. legendary items would be the rare types you could make, just very hard to pull off IMO.
- i doubt it would due to constant de-level/ destruction of Nodes
But Player Trading .... hmmm .... lots to considerShifting from " being able to craft Legendary Gear " ... what if there are 100+ Gears Pieces for each LvL ? ( i.e. Bracers, Leg-Guards, Chest-piece, Wristbands, Helm, Boots, etc ... 100+ for each)
That way, it wouldn't really matter what you craft