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Rare materials
Well, with the upcoming changes to trade based skills, I was thinking that some materials that have certain effects could be introduced. crafting materials that are very rare and serve as gold sinks, trade deals, and a general amplifier to some gameplay mechanics without becoming too broken.
The idea is that these items can increase the power of forged items, elixers and crafted items, giving them mild boosts that cause them to be the "best" while being extremely rare and expensive (hopefully)
For instance, if I find a comm item called "Meteor steel" or something like that, I can put it into the forge along with my 5 steel for a rapier, and it will allow me to have 1 extra hit with the hammer or something, slightly increasing the probability of forged weapons. or, you can forge an already forged item with it one more time (so you don't blow this rare material on a crappy rapier)
So, here are a few of the ideas I kind of had.
Pure salt/(some kind of rare herb) = increases the healing potential of a crafted elixer by 2% (elixers already heal approx 20%, would make one vial more potent)
meteor steel= allows for one more hit on a forged item
ruby/saphire elements = allows for a crafted arrow to have fire/ice effects rather than venom
purified gold= reduces the chance of destruction on magi augment
Okay, so I didn't have that many ideas, but here is the thing. These materials allow for some potent effects, but require materials that are very rare and difficult to find. Unlike most comms, they will not be riftable, and they will have a generally short decay time.
This prevents hording of these rare mateirals, and forces people to sell or craft with them. Crafted items with these have a normal decay time, so crafting with them is better than hording the element itself.
I do realize that an extra hammer hit and augment improvements would vastly change how rapiers work, so I would hope this only comes in tandem with the weaponry changes. no more speedknights plz.
These items would be indeed powerful, or have the potential to be powerful, but I would hope that perhaps there is only a set amount in the world at any given time, and are only gained through difficult means (trade deals, extremely rare drops). This adds a very mild flavor to the game, while keeping items that might be game breaking to a very low and expendable level.
Thoughts?
Comments
Well, I find it fun to squabble over things. Even nominal powers, titles are fun to contend, so long as the mechanics by which you get them are not too tilted in any faction's favor.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. The rare materials could be gained from both PvP (not necessarily combat, just anything that players compete over) and non-PvP sources, with varying rarities/costs.
One or the other what? PvP vs non-PvP (which no one else has brought up yet), or rare (regardless of obtainment method) vs pretty available but pricey?
GTFO my meteoric ore, bitch.
In all seriousness though, I don't like it. Regarding the comment about speedknights, btw, I am hoping that our new options aren't slow, lumbering hulks. In addition to which, I'll be ridiculously disappointed if they get rid of two weapon fighting. The spirit behind the knight changes was diversification, so eliminating options seems crappy. I personally think fighting with two long blades is stupid, but there are plenty of people who like that sort of thing. For instance, if @Batista ever comes back, it'd be weird not to see him swinging around two scims.
Both. What I mean is there can be some resources that are rare and randomly found, some resources that are infinitely available but have some sort of high cost (in gold, time, or other resources), some resources that have guaranteed but limited availability (for example, one resource spawns/stocks every Achaean month and you have to get it before others do), etc., there doesn't have to be just one method of getting them.
You mentioned PvP (people squabbling over resources), by which I mean any competition between players (including competing for limited resources, like denizens for bashing), not just combat.
I think a knight with a rapier is stupid, ever.
I personally think that knights will get flavor attacks that will not be an amazingly slow hinderance and fall in line with current dsl, or perhaps act like some other classes. no clue yet though. I just don't want 250+ rapiers available to people.
But I didn't... that's why I was confused, heh. Ah, but the way I mentioned relics would tend to indicate that I was mostly focused on PvP as 'squabbling'. I actually do mean the softer forms of squabbling as well, and those are really my main concern. Okay, I think we're on the same page now.
I think there is too much regular competition (non PvP), and I don't find it at all exciting to find areas constantly bashed out. Not even a little bit. I'd be even less enthused if I actually *had* to bash (or something similar, really, anything that isn't a straightforward purchase) in order to get decent armour or weapons, or worse, pay a king's ransom to someone who has what I want (it won't be much of a gold sink and I won't be too happy about it because I'll actually feel ripped off). I think a fair few people probably feel the same way, but there's no denying that there's a tenacious contingent of Achaeans who seem to want to live in a virtual Somalia.
To elaborate on Zoidberg's point, you're posting saying that you don't want 250+ speed rapiers available to people in an idea post -that you made- that would make such a thing possible.
Hmm. The Force is strong with @Trey.
If it makes you feel any better, @Aepas, you should stop picturing this -
and start picturing this -
It's not that I don 't want people running around with my forged weapons, and it's not like I don't salivate on thinking how great it would be if I had a 250+ rapier.
But I would never want such a thing to be a common occurrence. Those rapiers are rare enough as they are, and deserve to stay that way.
I want the rare materials to have a probability of making something great, but not really something that can be repeatedly farmed and used to break the game. That's all I mean to say.
Tbh, I'd like this idea a lot more if it didn't do anything to a weapon's stats, but rather, altered their appearance in-game. Unique weapons are a thing of beauty.
Additionally- a specific kind of metal that is extremely difficult to obtain, which can 're-forge' any one weapon to give it a short time boost (say, 20 IC months?) would be pretty nice. Can add a metal for armour.
250+ rapiers simply shouldn't exist unless there are 250+ artie rapiers and the game is balanced around them. If they (or approximations of them) exist, the game will have to be balanced around them, and if they're just "super rare", this is Achaea and enough people will obsessively seek them to be "super annoying". Forging was *never* supposed to produce the weapons it has, and it generally wouldn't have, either, if we didn't have a fairly big population of forgers obsessively trying to get one over on RNG (which is the flip side of why RNG is so horrible, because sufficiently obsessive forging can and has shifted player expectations of a constitutes a "good" weapon to the absolute upper limits of what is possible). At the moment we seem to have somewhat fewer obsessive forgers because it's "so hard" to find anything over 240 these days
I feel like you're not really qualified to make a statement like that.
This isn't about qualification, it's about the extremely low probability of 230+ speed rapiers with solid to-hit and damage juxtaposed with their existence in sufficient numbers that the player base expects them (and the upper tier wants 240+, ideally), and admin having to balance around extreme outlier statistics that determined forgers make a reality. Things fluctuate when a few of our power-forgers go to sleep too, so it's even more erratic. Tecton's comments on RNG in forging are not at all flattering, either, which gives me great hope it will die.
Even if it was 'never meant' to operate that way, forging's been around long enough that, if the admins wanted to change the way it worked, they would have. Instead, they've consistently balanced the game around the 'new normal' that these aberration weapons represent- so what the original intent might have been, when the system was implemented no longer really has relevancy on anything; given what Tecton's said about the code not being altered significantly in years, I can't imagine that, if it -was- an unexpected avenue that forgers took, the admins weren't/aren't okay with it, at the very least.
We don't know if they're changing forging.
Hopefully it is reworked slightly just to even out the odds, but maintain the low probability of exceptional weapons to make it competitive, challenging and fun. A friend forged thousands of rapiers a while back and the large, large majority of them were under 215 speed which, to say is a "usable" speed, is a relic of the past
I think similar results are gathered by most forgers, from what I hear of them talking.
Your "friend forged thousands of rapiers a while back and the large, large majority of them were under 215 speed which, to say is a "usable" speed, is a relic of the past" comment here isn't exactly an argument against what I'm saying (but maybe you're not actually being argumentative). Forging thousands of rapiers in an attempt to beat the cruel master that is RNG seems like the very definition of not fun. Actually succeeding and creating a new standard that means we have to keep doing it to have "usable" rapiers seems like the very definition of insane.
EDIT: pretty sure Tecton has specifically mentioned RNG at least a time or two, which is why I'm hopeful that that is *exactly* what they will be changing.
i didn't say it was fun, I said I hope it would be changed away from that. Seriously Jules I'm going to lose my temper one of these days.
It sounded like you were saying "change it a little (but seriously don't really change it)". If that's not the case, my misunderstanding.
Forging would be fucking stupid if they took out random chance entirely. End stop.
I guess if they, like, took out the RNG and decided not to put a more worthwhile mechanism in its place, but I still say they should make forging a vaguely minecraft meets disgaea affair.
Also maybe like orgs could have special materials to throw into the mix (probably all with the same stats or very well balanced differences, and probably mostly just cities and maybe orders), so they can create cool org weapons to bestow upon champions and stuff.
Organization equipment sounds like a cool thing.
Jules, I wish I was right next to you so I could put a finger on your lips and whisper "Shhh"
Anywho, while forging is a debatable topic, as well as the existence of outlier weapons, this be about rare materials and the implementation of them.
I almost suggested making it a full-fledged craft skill. Then I realized it would make triggers an absolute nightmare. A few org things could be manageable (since we do have various falcons, after all), and yes, neat.
The meteor steel doesn't seem super scary. If it's considered as the first forge step I think it's supposed to have a very high chance of success. That's not necessarily a bad thing. If you're going to use a rare probability based item that is one-shot, it should have good chances, or it would just be incredibly frustrating. If it were considered last forge step, it might actually suck and not even be worth it (and certainly wouldn't be overpowered). So with a hammer it could increase a rapier stat 4 points if it were successful.
If you can only add one meteor steel to any given weapon (which does seem to be what you're saying, and that's a good thing), it doesn't seem obviously out of line, and neither does the augment thing, since you didn't mention anything about being able to allocate the gained stats with either of these mini-buffs. That's also a good thing, especially within the context of RNG forging. My weapon stat runes, much as I love them, are probably already not super helpful to the cause of well balanced weapon stats overall (RNG or non-RNG), but in particular, being able to allocate your mini-buffs with RNG forged items would have allowed a runewarden to salvage ridiculous weapons with unusable to-hit or wimpy damage even more effectively than we already can.
The thing that does ring my alarm bells about your OP is that first you mention that you "hope this only comes in tandem with the weaponry changes. no more speedknights plz." but also say that "you can forge an already forged item with it one more time (so you don't blow this rare material on a crappy rapier)" which only makes sense if you really are talking about further enhancing RNG weapons that are already outliers (even if they aren't -250-). Again, you haven't suggested being able to allocate these, so it does seem like a minor buff (but a minor buff to weapons that are plenty ridiculous already).
The elixir seems reasonable. I can't speak to the arrows, as I don't know what creative combinations people might find for them, but they actually do seem neat, and it's not unheard of for weapons to have such effects.