An idea about reducing cookie-cutter gear builds

saebrin

Before I start, let me say that I know this is unlikely to ever happen in today's MMO market

What if when you quest for a rare item or go hunting for it, the item was actually... you know, rare? Rather than seeing a hundred people with the Sword of Infinity or whatever; no, instead of being FORCED to use the Sword of Infinity because it's the best sword for Warriors at level 40 and blah blah blah no group wants sub-par gear... what if rare items only dropped once? After that, the quest reward would change to something else, the monster wouldn't drop that same item again? This only really applies to items that wouldn't be found in mass quantities. I'm sure there are thousands of magic rings that give bonuses to agility or something like that, but why should they ever be something that you're expected to have at a certain level? Rare items are supposed to be a blessing, something you'd get excited about finding, not something the rest of the playerbase forces on you because they all have it too.

 

And if making enough items for enough people to have a chance of finding something special is a problem (and everyone in a MMO can't have it or it shouldn't even be considered special at all) what if there were some sort of system in place for generating random magical items for situations like that? Ones that tie into the lore should be one-person-only anyway. Why would two (much less 1,000) people ever have the fabled sword that slayed the mighty dragon Vvrtro anyway? Because "waaah, it's not fair that one person gets to have it and the rest of us feel bad!" If you want it, you should (be able to) just go kill the guy who has it, take it away, or offer him something for it. The same way anyone else should be able to do so if you're the only one who has it.

That's my opinion anyway. What do you think?

 

 

 

galapagos

Spot on post!  I couldn't agree more.

 

To do this, a game could easily stipulate the frequency of an item, perhaps ranging from common to unique (with several levels in between).  At the high end of the chart are extremely rare (only a few per server) and artifacts (one per server). 

In the interest of fairness, there must be many many artifacts, so that no one single sword is the "best" for any given class at any given level.  But, everyone looks different and has a different build and different abilities.

 

For the sake of balance, a system would need to be designed that "rated" the properties of an artifact.  For example, our warrior's sword may be +10 to hit and +50 damage.  No matter how many expansions we go through, the best sword for that level will NEVER be better than this (I  hate equipment inflation.  Why should a sword that was "to die for" 2 years ago now be junk just because of a couple of expansions).  The next time a similar artifact dropped, it would not be any better or worse, just different, perhaps +8 to hit and +60 damage.  Later, one may drop that is +2 to hit unarmoured or lightly armoured foes but +15 to hit anyone wearing platemail.  As the item keeps dropping, it changes, each sword being "unique" -- a true artifact!  (a GM would need to balance these items using the rating system.  Eventually the swords can have abilities, procs, spells, etc to make each one not better or worse than the other, just different. 

 

Chealar

It would need a whole lot of very careful balancing, loads of stats, and a huge amount of work from content designers just to get the description, art and background straight for each item.

But I LOVE it!

Although, I wonder if it could be applied in a crafting system too? Like someone who is a master in their craft, has an infinitesimal chance of getting a true "chef d'oeuvre".

Squal'Zell

what you can have is a difference between unique and rare

unique being there is only 1 with those stats (lets keep stats simple for sake of argument)

unique sword

+10 agility +10 stregth +3  consitution there is only 1 of those in the server.

it can't remain inactive (not able to store in a bank) and suffers from decay and has a 10% chance of "being stolen" per day character does not log on

just so one person simply does not keep it to to avoid someone else not having it.

then you have rare swords

+10 agility only

or

+10 strength only

or

+ 8 stregth +8 agility

those are just very hard to find boss grind or raid grinds etc...

then you have uncomon

+6 stregth only

or

+6 agility only

these are found in treasures or other semi boss or lucky drops

then you have common

which anyone and their grand mothers can own and find

+3-5s

 

 

 

Cephus404

I'd love to see it.  Make it bind on pickup, cannot be repaired and as soon as it breaks, it vanishes and becomes a legitimate drop again, but there is only one on any given server at any one time.

You can't sell it, you can't give it away, every time you use it, it breaks a little, but while you have it, you have amazing powers and then... it's gone again.

But you're right, it'll never happen because people can't swing their e-peens around for long enough under those conditions.

drbaltazar

Originally posted by saebrin


Before I start, let me say that I know this is unlikely to ever happen in today's MMO market
What if when you quest for a rare item or go hunting for it, the item was actually... you know, rare? Rather than seeing a hundred people with the Sword of Infinity or whatever; no, instead of being FORCED to use the Sword of Infinity because it's the best sword for Warriors at level 40 and blah blah blah no group wants sub-par gear... what if rare items only dropped once? After that, the quest reward would change to something else, the monster wouldn't drop that same item again? This only really applies to items that wouldn't be found in mass quantities. I'm sure there are thousands of magic rings that give bonuses to agility or something like that, but why should they ever be something that you're expected to have at a certain level? Rare items are supposed to be a blessing, something you'd get excited about finding, not something the rest of the playerbase forces on you because they all have it too.

 
And if making enough items for enough people to have a chance of finding something special is a problem (and everyone in a MMO can't have it or it shouldn't even be considered special at all) what if there were some sort of system in place for generating random magical items for situations like that? Ones that tie into the lore should be one-person-only anyway. Why would two (much less 1,000) people ever have the fabled sword that slayed the mighty dragon Vvrtro anyway? Because "waaah, it's not fair that one person gets to have it and the rest of us feel bad!" If you want it, you should (be able to) just go kill the guy who has it, take it away, or offer him something for it. The same way anyone else should be able to do so if you're the only one who has it.
That's my opinion anyway. What do you think?
 
 
 

in aion you can customize after level 30 or 35

want to have a staff that look like a lvl 1 staff yep just go see the vendor bring in the stff with the good stat

put the other weapon (the look you want stire and voila you get a unique looking weapon with the stat you  had

Caleveira

I dont see it as something practical, however good the rating system its likely to overwhelm devs resources to make unique items. And if stats mattered at all, diferent combinations woould not be the same. You'd have some players getting unbalancing items while others would receive stuff little better than npc fare. It would become more of a lottery than a special quest. As for giving GMs power in this respect... lets just leave it at they have other things to do.

Something of a pipedream imo.

Dewm

 

Me thinks you havn't play'd much more then WoW.... But possibly.

 

FFXI had "legendary" wepons....and they where just that. I know "elegidly (sp?)" there where around 30 of these items... maybe more maybe less, and when I was playing (4 years after release) only about 3 of these items had been found/droped.....out of ALL of the servers. One was the agis of somthing rather (a B.A. sheild)  I actually saw the dude that had it...it was awsome.

 

Anyways but yeah, some games actually have wepons that not everyone in the game can get....