Feedback:User/Avaera/Scaling Equipment
Scaling Equipment | |
|---|---|
| User | Avaera |
| Categories | Items Mechanics |
Suggestion #1: Remove all level requirements from weapons, armour and jewelry.[edit]
Level-based equipment makes no sense from a realism perspective, and only serves as an anti-immersive money sink. The ‘gear treadmill’ is ultimately unsatisfying as a progression mechanic, and so closely linking crafting progression with PvE overall progression makes the crafting content extremely grindy and not enjoyable to focus on.
Suggestion #2: Make all statistics on weapons, armour and jewelry down-level to match the level of the player who equips them.[edit]
This mechanic already exists in the game for when a high-level character enters a low-level zone, and gear that attunes perfectly to the wearer’s level aligns much better with the intent of allowing a character to be equally matched to the content they are attempting. It also avoids the tedium of constantly replacing outleveled gear to ensure optimal play.
Suggestion #3: Add a ‘durability’ or ‘wear’ statistic to each item that decreases over time and on character death, until the item is destroyed.[edit]
Note the exception - Legendary weapons do not degrade.
Suggestion #4: Remove all repair NPCs from the game. Crafting skills & gems can serve this purpose.[edit]
Currently, armour has a chance of being either damaged or broken randomly on each character death, but this can be easily fixed by visiting a repair NPC and paying a small fee. While this is an effective money sink, it doesn’t add anything to the crafting subgame nor encourage long-term equipment rotation.
If equipment now scales with your level, there needs to be an equivalent money sink that also interacts with crafting. My suggestion is to add a durability statistic on each item that represents the ‘wear and tear’ through use. The maximum durability on any item might vary on a number of factors, for example the crafter’s skill and the prestige of the item. Every day that the equipment is not in a bank slot (that is, it is either in someone’s inventory or worn), the item loses one point of durability. Every time the character dies in PvE, all carried items also lose 1 point of durability.
The starting durability would be fairly high, so that you are not constantly in danger of losing your equipment with every death. For example, a newbie crafter producing a simple piece of armour might give the item around 50 durability. A master crafter using a complex recipe might obtain an item with around 500 durability.
Suggestion #5: Redesign crafting levels for equipment-based professions so that higher skill accesses more complex recipes, provides higher durability, and allows more detailed dye patterns.[edit]
With equipment no longer level-dependent, each crafting tier no longer needs to simply replicate the same basic patterns merely with increasing, broadening stats. Instead, the craftsperson can focus on collecting different recipe styles, while their skill determines the quality of the items they can make.
- Novice (0-74): Can make basic (white) gear using default skin recipes only. Durability is slightly randomized but mostly between 25-75. Crafted gear has only one dyeable slot.
- Initiate (75-149): Can make basic or fine (blue) gear using default skin recipes only. Durability is slightly randomized but mostly between 50-100. Crafted gear has only one dyeable slot.
- Apprentice (150-224): Can make basic or fine (blue) gear using vendor-bought or default skin recipes. Durability is slightly randomized but mostly between 75-150. Crafted gear has up to two dyeable slots.
- Journeyman (225-299): Can make basic, fine or masterwork (green) gear using vendor-bought or default skin recipes. Durability is slightly randomized but mostly between 125-200. Crafted gear has up to three dyeable slots.
- Adept (300-374): Can make basic, fine, masterwork or rare (yellow) gear using vendor-bought or default skin recipes. Durability is slightly randomized but mostly between 175-300. Crafted gear has up to four dyeable slots.
- Master (375-400): Can make basic, fine, masterwork, rare or exotic/legendary (orange/purple) gear using vendor-bought, rare drop or default skin recipes. Durability is slightly randomized but mostly between 250-400. Crafted gear has up to four dyeable slots. Can create expensive consumables that restore a small amount of durability to worn equipment of their type.
Blue equipment should cost a lot more than white to create, green cost a lot more than blue, and so on. As an optional further enhancement, discovery could be a repeatable process that consumes a large number of resources (destroys them) for a chance of obtaining a new unlearned skin recipe (or just getting a fluff item instead).
Suggestion #6: (Optional, maybe jumping the shark) Allow extremely rare critical successes at every crafting level to produce an extra special item.[edit]
It would be great if there was a very tiny chance (<0.1%) of obtaining a very valuable item through your crafting as a result of a critical success. Just like grinding through hundreds of NPC kills offers the side incentive of a very rare and valuable item dropping, it would be equally nice if grinding through crafting recipes had the incentive of a very rare and valuable item that you could potentially be rewarded with, even accidentally.
These could be items of the appropriate quality level for your crafting skill (white/blue/green/yellow/orange) but using a very rare or holiday-only skin.
