On a possible gem/shard system - The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

[Zwiebelchen]

I have discussed this with other people ingame before;
So I had this idea about a Diablo-style gem system (In the case of Gaias it would more be a "shard" system since the term "Gem" is reserved for Mage offhand items), using the charge count of items to display how many shards are forged into an item (just like the Psionic Blade displays it's charges with a small number under the icon).


The Good

Players could basicly use shards as usable items on other items (like weapons and armors) to attach them to this item permanently. To view what shards are attached to what equipment item, you can simply left-click this item, which would open a hidden spellbook with an ability icon for every shard attached.
Here you can view and remove any attached shards (destroying the shard in the process) again, in case you want to get rid of it.

Shards could give a number of bonuses depending on the type, quality and level of the shard, like increasing the chance to trigger weapon procs, increasing certain item stats, etc.


The idea is to have this shard system as one of the primary gold sinks of the game, with many shards being crafted items that require expensive vendor goods or recipes.
Sounds great in theory and I have no doubts that it could play out amazingly.


----------------------------------------

The Bad

I am pretty sure that people will probably just ignore the shard feature completely until reaching the endgame content. Which imho is acceptable, but a large reason why I wanted to play with this idea was to add more stuff to do in lower levels.
The downside of rooting such a thing into being a major gold sink is that people won't invest gold if they don't have to. Which kind of defeats the purpose.


----------------------------------------

The Ugly

After doing the math on it, I noticed how problematic such a system would be in regards to the save/load length.
As players can have not only a backpack, but also up to two stashes total, the number of digits it would add to the code length is enormous.

Let's just say I allow a variety of 10 different shards per equipment type (to have 3 types spread over 3 different level ranges) and up to two shards attached per item:
10 available shards ^ (24 equipment slots * 2 shards each) = 10^48 possibilities = 48 digits in a base-10 save/load.
Converted to the base-56 system Gaias uses:
56 ^ 28 = 9*10^48

... so this system would add a whopping 28 digits to the already bloated save/load code (and remember that the maximum string length you can input into a chat message to load your hero is heavily limited by the game engine to just about ~100 characters).

For comparison: the same 28 digits would allow me to increase the maximum number of items in the game by factor 100.

 

[SHBlade]

So maybe separate char code from stash code like soul vault. Anyway I guess many of us would love to see snow area content first and then while we farm new bosses etc. add new systems and extras.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

So maybe separate char code from stash code like soul vault. Anyway I guess many of us would love to see snow area content first and then while we farm new bosses etc. add new systems and extras.

That would make the game too inconvenient. Besides, it wouldn't work for exploit reasons. There is a reason why souls (when still being in the inventory) can not be saved and why the soul vault is essentially free... it's because people could exploit the fuck out of it if that weren't the case.

I know where you are coming from with the "content first" statement. But it's not that easy, unfortunately.
The removal of "dropped" abilities has removed some early-mid game goals from the leveling experience, which must be compensated for with something else to do at these level areas. The first 30 minutes of a game are the most important ones to leave an impression. And right now, these first 30 minutes aren't incredibly interesting.


---------------------------------

Another idea on the topic: If I limit the amount of "sharded" items that can be saved on the character to three, the amount of required digits would drop down to 7 (10 digits for 5 items). The game could essentially warn the player if he is about to save a character with more than 5 items sharded.
The reason why the amount of required digits is so ridicolously large in the first place is because I need to account for the possibility of the player having 24 items with shards in the inventory at the same time (as unlikely it is, if it is possible, it must still work). So to reduce the added complexity, I must find ways to essentially reduce the numbers to store without sacrificing flexibility. This could be done with a sharding cap. Or with shards being unique as in: you can only have 1 per type in your equipment at any time.

 

[Jumbo]

Good idea. I don't agree with the compensation need at the low lvls. Boss drop spells have always been a pain and a detriment to the developing of characters (unlucky people being forced to Korean-rpg style farming the same boring thing over and over with no luck).
So - I don't believe the low lvl stuff needs that kind of change to be more fun for newcomers. If anything, you should add a more action packed feature (for example escorting a merchant for money from Riversdale to lumber camp/trade route camp. This quest could be a repeatable but randomly spawning npc.

Back to the shards:
This is a brilliant idea and addition to the game in my opinion. How about calling it weaponsmithing/blacksmithing and only enable the feature for weapon items (only main weapons, not offhand). This would counter the limit problem for the most part: who needs to save more than 5 different weapons with shards? . Also it would make the most important items of the game - main weapons - customisable, thereby giving unlucky White weapon players at lower lvls a chance to be not be crushed by everything.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Good idea. I don't agree with the compensation need at the low lvls. Boss drop spells have always been a pain and a detriment to the developing of characters (unlucky people being forced to Korean-rpg style farming the same boring thing over and over with no luck).

I agree on that one. I never liked the scroll farming myself (but I know people that do!), but it also at least added something interesting to the boss droptables.
The lack of items in lowlevel content (and the item balance aswell) is a bit of a problem, so to speak, especially now that base classes are limited to only 4 spells (instead of the former 5/7 depending on scroll luck).
Adding new recipe stuff to the lowlevel would be great, but there is always the "risk" that people just ignore it because it is easier to just go D1 once and then just move on with the leveling.

People just rarely even bother with anything related to crafting, even if the items are better than most of the stuff you can get for free (like Gladius, Thaumaturgists, etc. ... the only item I almost always see crafted is the Glowing Emerald, but this is more because the item is borderline OP at the level you can use it).


... hmm... maybe all this is just a bit of useless hysteria and I should just add some new equipment items to the lowlevel content and move on (for example, "healing ranger" gear to make remedy relevant or some headgears outside of D1).

So - I don't believe the low lvl stuff needs that kind of change to be more fun for newcomers. If anything, you should add a more action packed feature (for example escorting a merchant for money from Riversdale to lumber camp/trade route camp. This quest could be a repeatable but randomly spawning npc.

I thought about randomized quests before and I have some ideas for that or how it could work, but the problem is mostly the available loot; there is just not enough stuff as possible rewards to make it feel interesting.

Back to the shards:
This is a brilliant idea and addition to the game in my opinion. How about calling it weaponsmithing/blacksmithing and only enable the feature for weapon items (only main weapons, not offhand). This would counter the limit problem for the most part: who needs to save more than 5 different weapons with shards? . Also it would make the most important items of the game - main weapons - customisable, thereby giving unlucky White weapon players at lower lvls a chance to be not be crushed by everything.

The idea itself is okay, I just don't feel well to put an arbitrary limit to it. It feels like a cheap solution.

 

[Jumbo]

How about making a shrine/deity (Gaia for instance) statue. You can activate it for a price in gold which will start an event where the deity tests your 'worthiness' by spawning and sending waves of mobs against the shrine. These mobs get increasingly harder to kill, perhaps ending with an 'epic conclusion' of a miniboss. If the players defeat all the mob waves they are given a 25 minute blessing buff, for instance, increased xp gain. If the players run away or die, they will get nothing and lose the gold.

This will create an opportunity for a gold sink, as the spawned mobs will give xp, so the xp you gain from the event - even if dying and not getting the buff - will outweigh, or at least reduce the urge for reloading to save the gold.

After the event is finished - succesfully or not (dying or running away), the shrine goes inactive for an arbitrary (within a time range of min 25 minutes-max 45 minutes) amount of time. This prevents the risk of spamming the shrine and ignoring other content.


On the shards: calling it weaponsmithing and be done with it is my best bet. 5 share limit is not a problem in my book.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

What about..

1 Shard per item
Each Shard would give a different bonus depending on what slot its attached to
Saving limit of 5 sharded items per character
Saving shards themselves should be allowed?

I don't thinkkkkk people would repick to avoid the gold sink of attaching shards to items. But it would kind of suck to get a very high quality shard before getting the piece of equipment you really want to attach it to. Personally I don't think we should be able to detach the shards either, it should be a permanent attachment.

I think having them give different effects on different inventory slots is important though. Otherwise I think people will just want to slot everything with AP or Crit% ones and ignore everything else. Or on the flipside, having low armor characters able to slot everything with defense boosting shards could lead to over 50% of the characters total armor coming from only shards, which I think would be a bad look, and perhaps a bit OP given certain characters intended lack of armor by design.

Also simply having some shards being intended to be BiS come from a shop would create a decent gold sink on its own. Small little powerup items like these coming at a high gold cost is good design, imo.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The problem for an arbitrary limit of saved sharded items is: what would happen in case a player saves 6 items with shards? Would it just save the last item empty? Would it display an error message? How would the system choose which items to prioritize?

That's why I personally don't like this solution. If anything, it should be a solution that feels intuitive and logical, not arbitrary.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Well, could it perhaps be limited to the one of each equipment type allowed. So essentially if you already have a weapon with a shard in it, you'll need to drop or sell that weapon before you'll be allowed to create a different sharded weapon. This could lend itself to the people who want more customization in their builds this way as well. Instead of sharding all of their gear and alternative gear, they'd actually have to make critical choices in what they'd actually like to be sharded and what not to.

I guess its not the most intuitive design, as I cant think of a logical reason as to why something would be preventing someone from having multiple swords with shards in them. However I FEEL like it would be an important thing to distinguish for sake of game balancing and potentially adding value to the choices the players actually have to make.

I think such a system that encourages customization is just really neat, and I dont think a bit of artificial restrictions should be too frowned upon. From a gameplay standpoint I think it makes sense, even if from a logic standpoint it may not.

Edit: And I wouldn't worry too much about the low level game here. Perhaps starting the game off with really cheap shards available in shops to act almost as a tutorial would be a benefit to them. Essentially the progression through the low levels is too quick for people to be too concerned with fully gearing in a certain area. Its not until the foothills where we're actually holding gear for longer than an hour of gameplay and it becomes a good idea to start looking for a full set of gear. I don't know a work around for this, no matter how many things you throw at low levels it just wont be appealing to intentionally stay at a low level to farm gear.

 

[TooMuch]

You gotta ask yourself this question, "is there anything I do in these low level areas, besides teaching me the basics of the game, that affects my end-level/end-game content?"

Normally the answer to this is no. Leveling is a formality. Is was designed to teach people the basics at most. Not to force others to go through pointless content that didn't even matter later.

Now im not implying that gaias' early game is bad or anything. Im am implying that if there is anything to make the low level areas more interesting and player grabbing, it would be a system that incorporates low level content into worthwhile end game content.

So, adding the idea of the shard system. We get another form of the soul vault farm that's only worthwhile end-game. Why waste these shards on low tier items? right?

Solutions? here are some ideas
First off, Shards need to be a flat bonus that is beneficial throughout all levels. D2 was brilliant in upgrading gems and runes so you don't have wasted low level junk. With this in mind, you can use the disenchantment ring to combine "smaller" shards into stronger shards. So you have worthwhile low game content that can go with you into end game content. however, this can only work effectively if you can remove the shards and keep them. also, the combine costs can cost gold with maybe rare material requirements...

The way to managepeople on these shards is well... make a "shard bag" like the material bag. You can hold only 6 (or have stacks of 3 for 18 if you're not worry about limits. the shards should also have 3 tiers so to speak. so "lowlvl" "midlvl" "highlvl" shards.

Adding a limit to items now; why not just make it so you can only shard certain items? So you can only shard your main hand, helmet, chest. I exclude accessories cause to me most of them already got a "gem in them and offhands cause they seem to be the more unique item that shouldn't be capable of being much stronger than what they already are.

the coding problem, im not too sure really... I managed to decrease it by 2 saved items since no accessory or offhand. we'll come back to this.

The other thing I like to add, not sure if it relates to the topic much but ill make it short.

How bout an item that is part of a set, yes "set items", that can be upgraded (costs good amount of gold and maybe mcs) from low level to high level gear. So if you happen to get a low level set item, it wont be wasted cause you can very well keep and use it, instead throw away for the next highest green item. Not to mention if you have a complete set (lucky bastards) your hero can get bonuses related to his build (items and skills) or it can be generic buffs to just keep it simple.

 

[Risk.frishers]

Excuse me if I get a bit of rambling going right now, just got back home from a fun and exciting night, and my usual routine starting up the computer is typing in that H and Enter going straight to all the Gaias threads.


I see a LITTLE bit of sense in having a gold sink. But is it really needed?
Gold isn't really balanced in this game. Any group running with a Bishop will be at a huge advantage, making resurrection even more imbalanced, making Druid healers less acceptable/convenient. What better support than the one that prevents you from ever losing gold (Shards?) or the one that is way more intuitive and unique, feeling a lot more like its own touch and a bit of a fresh breath with the amount of times healers have been just pressing Q+LMB one time after another over again, while using the (previously) incredibly overpowered bubble.

I used to like the idea of a gold sink when it first surfaced the forums, but lately I've realized that gold is really not something most people have actually deserved, it's about whether they've taken the risks or whether they've been playing it safe most of the time. Or the biggest injustice of all. The crazy amount of people with 50k+ gold, maybe or not hacked, but most likely (Not pointing any fingers) not acquired in any other way but either illicit or just mind-numbing grinding.


I really love Gaias, its got some amazing atmosphere, nostalgic feelings, but when I've been playing as of late I can't stop myself from fooling around... Not every now and then anymore, but very, very, often. The difficulty nowadays comes with actually staying alert, it's become something of a chore.

I think one thing that particularly puts me off, is the excessive grind for XP. Souls need to be fed, everybody wants level 50. I think that one good habit I've seen in plenty of MMO/O/RPGs is when leveling, or farming gold... Isn't a necessary part of 'maxing' out your character.

The feeling you get when you used to get that item you wanted, used to be a very fulfilling feeling, when that Green text changed to something Blue/Purple, or when you managed to kill that one boss you've been trying at for ages and finally beat. Whether or not you get an item or not the first time usually leaves you with a feeling of accomplishment. Which is something a lot of people love about computer games. ESPECIALLY RPGs.

However. Take for example, when you're aiming to buy Staff or Eternal Embrace, or maybe vault. Every time I've gotten the cash, it hasn't given me a rush, or any other positive feeling... Other than relief.

I used to play The Elder Scrolls Online. A lot of people did. Then they introduced Champion Points to cater to the people that just wanted to keep getting better and better without much of a limit. (Its a diminishing system so it is somewhat limited). This caused a huuuge outrage in the entire community, and every time I've looked back at the threads to just check the news, there has always been at least one frequently spammed thread about just that.

I can't speak for everyone, but I myself love it when I finally finish building up a character, all the items I wanted, the "back-up items", the right build and not to mention the spells!

I think that ITEMS should be harder to get than LEVELS. Sometimes luck is against you, something you happen on a row of bad luck, but despite all that bad luck you've had, the surprised happiness that comes with it usually (at least for me) makes it worth it.

HOWEVER. Farming levels, or gold for that matter, is a chore. Its great for learning the basics, but unless there is a trading system I think gold should be treated as its been so far, if not even remove the "legendary" gold sinks we already have. Farming gold isn't going to give me the kick I search for in RPGs, but epics and trinkets have done that for as long as I can remember.

Games aren't supposed to be without end. Reaching the end is satisfying, whether it comes to a book, a movie, a story-line, all kinds of things really. But prolonging the life of ANY of these things past its expiry date has proved a VERY futile business. Many TV shows went on for far too long and got watered out.

Has anyone ever read a book, arrived at the conclusion and felt like you'd want MORE? A sequel, a prequel, side-plot, fun facts? THAT is the kind of feeling people should be having when they decide to hit the sack and ALT+Q+Q.

Zwiebel, you make incredible content ; It is a blessing to play through (ESPECIALLY) the first couple of times, but for a perfectionist or people craving completion, raising the bar with these grinders-only medals is in my opinion lowering the bar on the quality game-play I know you can deliver.

The quest before Gargoyle is a great example of effortless grinding. Please don't release the next 'season' just to fill it with fillers. Take your time with it and go quality over quantity! Just like the terrain, the terrain hasn't gone down even the least bit, but I feel like the grindy feeling is just getting harder and harder to shake.

That's all for me, sorry for ranting, TLDR: Gold sinks equals grinding/hacking

 

[satoshikid]

Since the two things you're worried about is low to high level transition and item saving, rather than having shards for each and any equipment, how about make a "shard" specific item (here i'll dub it "bracelet")

For example, you can have a quest (or have one of the non-equip reward quest) give a "bracelet." Obviously, this'll be in the lower levels. From there, like TooMuch suggested, have tiered shards with lower tiers requiring less gold and higher tiers requiring much more. Now, to make up for the fact that this system has shards applied to only one item, you can instead have it so that the "bracelet" has an upper shard limit of 5~6.

Now, for the fun part. We can also have a "shard upgrade" system. What I mean by that is let's say a lower tier shard gives you a boost you really like (say +stun proc). Rather than being forced to destroy that and reapply a higher tier shard that may give you something that ends up being less than desirable, you could have it so sacrificing x shards (of the next tier) and y gold to upgrade that +stun proc to the next tier ver. (++stun proc or +stun proc and +att spd or etc.) However, to keep it from being a straight upgrade to upgrade, you could add a success chance.

Also, for those that want diversity, you could also make it so shards can be removed and stored at a price (with higher tiers requiring more). This may be necessary for this system since people won't be able to freely shard everything, but also keeps a level of prioritization.

;TLDR In short, a "bracelet" system with a shard limit helps to work around the save code issue. The "shard upgrade" system and "bracelet" system helps keep sharding relevant from low level to high level. The shard safe removal allows players to experiment, but also keep a level of prioritization.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

^ I don't think that would quite work. You're basically replacing your accessory slot items with a new shard item. I guess it'd be kinda cool to build your own accessory, but at the same time the entire system becomes redundant because theres already accessories that work for every class.

 

[ALEXz407]

Risk.frishers said some very interesting things, I want to add my two cents to his ideas:

Grinding > Fun ?
Soul vault was a "distress call". Exp grinding in all beauty. Now we see a thread about money grinding for another gameplay mechanics. Who in his sane mind will receive fun from repeating mob killing? It isn't challenging or fun, it's just time consumption for ... another grinding with bosses?

Other games use grinding to make game "harder" for players with limited time, so they will buy some "premium time" to be on same level with other players. They receive profit from players staying here and really, they don't think about player's fun, just about money income.
Grinding could be a good thing for leveling, or as an addition to endgame content.

Solution?
Generate new content, new challenges instead of making more grinding features.
Some grinding things can be replaced with more satisfying solutions:

- Soul leveling.
Make it completely raiding thing: after boss kill, each soul have a chance to gain new level, chance is based on difference between soul level and killed boss level.
Base chance 70%, each level of difference adds(if boss is higher) or substracts(otherwise) 10%.
This will add some degree of challenge and grinding for endgame bonuses (you can even make heroic versions of bosses with much higher levels for bigger challenge and max soul level).

- Ressurection penalty.
It punches player in the face twice: wait minute before res and pay 20% gold for it.
Why not change it in that way: you can res immediately, but you will pay gold for it, or you can wait minute and res for free.
Ressurection cost also can reduce over time, because "time is money", so you will show res button and another button with cooldown as a timer. Res is free till level 10.
Example: right after death res will take 20% of player's gold, after 30 seconds it will cost 10%, after 57 seconds it will take only ~1%, and from 60+ seconds it's free.
This will kill two birds with one stone: new players will not leave game after death (cause omg, wait for a minute?!), old players will not repick a hero after death (meh, better to wait a minute, i'm too lazy to copy'n'paste code again).

-Crafting.
Random^Grinding = sweet combination for some items it's pretty rudimental, but I guess it will shine in endgame.
So it's good as is, just maybe increase material drop rates for low-mid game?

-Abilities.
Biggest grinding will disappear with new skill system (no more 100+ Zibnix kills to get Meteor Strike ), but early game progression will change significantly.
Well, it's not about grinding, but more about progression feel. I hope you will keep current guaranteed 4 skills at level 10 rule.
Otherwise begginer experience will be too dull (omg, this game have only 2 abilities per class?? exit, exit!), especially if some choices will be combinations of toggleable and passive skills.
I hope it will be something like this.
Base class: 1 core + select first ability immediately, +1 ability at level 4, next at level 9 (end of begginer's zone), new ability at level 15 (trade route).
Advanced class: 1 core + select new skill at level 25, after that abilities at levels 29, 34, 40 (total 10 buttons, it's possible with smart pet control

---

About shard system.

Do not you think it's just a reworked and overengineered old attributes system?
It will anyway end in mono stats for better perfomance, so why add this? For gems that increase weapon/item proc chance? Sounds as overkill and very situational.

And who recommend to use only 1 item for gems - don't forget, you can equip only one item, but your backpack can hold up to 6 same items with gems, and you can place even more items into stash.
So, without additional weird limitations, it will not fix bloated savecodes.

Gem systems are good for games like Diablo or WoW, where you can receive awesome item and upgrade it to superior item with gems/chants, and eliminate everything for bunch of levels or be a bit better than others in endgame.
You already have system similar to gems - soul system. Why you want to add another instance of same thing?

In terms of gameplay, you can replace gems with tattoo system:
- Add 4 (8?) slots for tattoo to the backpack's command card, or add tattoo spellbook to the hero.
- Make a pool of passives for tattoo, you can not draw 2 same tattoos, but you can select similar from a pool, for example:
-- +3 STR, -1 DEX, -1 INT (white)
-- +6 STR, -2 DEX, -2 INT (green)
-- +9 STR, -3 DEX, -3 INT (blue)
-- +12 STR, -4 DEX, -4 INT (orange)
-- +2 STR (white)
-- +4 STR (green)
-- +6 STR (blue)
-- +8 STR (orange)
(so you can use +20 STR setup, or increase main stat with some drawback +35 STR, -7 DEX, -7 INT)
- Base class can draw white (cheapest) and green (normal price) tattoos.
- Advanced class can also draw blue (high price) and orange (high price + special ink from boss) tattoos.
- This will require much less save code place to save.
- Require only 5 icons for items (1 per rarity + 1 boss ink).
- Also this will add some diversity to the builds, because player can not just stack same stat without penalties.
- I guess this system will work good with main stats and HP/MP, because secondary stats already have a nice place at items. Also secondary stats will be increased from main stats (need some buff to formulas?).

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Just to clarify: limiting the shards thing to just a specific type (or instance) of an item won't solve the save code issue, simply because you could just fill up every slot in your backpack and stash with these items.
If I restrict shards to weapons, for example, nothing prevents me from just collecting 18 weapons, so I don't save any space in the save/load at all.

The only way to effectively reduce the number without having to reduce the flexibility is to have a limit to how much items can be sharded at the same time.


About the "gold grind" discussion:
The idea of a "true" gold sink as in having stuff to buy is to get rid of the arbitrary gold loss when dying, that serves no other purpose but to annoy players or forcing them to take ressurection when they'd much rather wouldn't. It would make for a much more balanced game feeling.

But I still see your point with that. I personally am not a friend of mindless grinding either, but there simply are many people that dig it and it would be wrong to eliminate all grinding from the game whatsoever in that regard. The key is finding a balance here.
Think about it this way: What will be left to do in the game as soon as you hit level 50 and maybe got all your gear from the endgame bosses? Currently, people will still farm bosses a bit to level up (since there is no way to progress beyond level 47 without killing bosses). That will obviously be gone in the next update, so people will play it, figure out the bosses and farm their gear and then... essentially never play again until the next update.
The idea behind some grindy content is to allow players to do something beyond the current endgame content. Something that isn't important on paper, but still feels like a bit of an accomplishment.
That is why so many games these days have achievements.



I am currently coding a system for randomized "rare" mobs, aswell as randomly spawning treasure chests with randomized loot (after a certain ruleset to balance it out, of course), just to allow players to deviate a bit from the boss grind (and also so people have more singleplayer options).
It would be great to have some new stuff I could reward the players with here instead of the same old gear we had for years now.
@Box: btw, I could need someone designing some new low/midlevel items for me. Especially some alternate gear for other specs we've been missing in lowlevels, like healing rangers. Some classes also miss some crucial items like headgears or suitable misc items.


@the "soul grind" thing:
The idea behind the soul leveling was, that players would have a certain benefit of playing lowlevel characters again, despite having their favorites maxed already. Basicly, souls were designed to allow players to say "hey, I could help you guys level, but I want the blue souls that drop" or say "hmm, well, doesn't hurt leveling a magician even though I don't like this character that much, at least I can level my souls with that".

 

[ALEXz407]

The idea of a "true" gold sink as in having stuff to buy is to get rid of the arbitrary gold loss when dying, that serves no other purpose but to annoy players or forcing them to take ressurection when they'd much rather wouldn't. It would make for a much more balanced game feeling.

The choice "pay gold and ressurect now or wait a minute and ressurect for free" lies on the surface, why you don't implement it?

Think about it this way: What will be left to do in the game as soon as you hit level 50 and maybe got all your gear from the endgame bosses? Currently, people will still farm bosses a bit to level up (since there is no way to progress beyond level 47 without killing bosses). That will obviously be gone in the next update, so people will play it, figure out the bosses and farm their gear and then... essentially never play again until the next update.
The idea behind some grindy content is to allow players to do something beyond the current endgame content. Something that isn't important on paper, but still feels like a bit of an accomplishment.

But isn't it a normal situation? When all goals are achieved, what a point to play?
Grinding is a tool to achieve some goals, not the goal itself.
I mean, what a point to grind some minor upgrades to you character if all bosses defeated, quests completed and PvP doesn't exists?

And game without new content will stagnate anyway.
Yep, new features are interesting, because they change something, but they don't add new goals to achieve.

Only PvP battles have good replayability, but with current balance and 6 players per game it's a bit hard to make interesting.
With 10 players that could be viable, but anyway will require good balancing.

That is why so many games these days have achievements.

But achievements != grinding.

Achievement adds a goal and a way to show that goal completed to others.
You can add achievements and provide different rewards for players: titles (alters player name in chat), visual effects (glow / locust pets / etc), sound effects (plays sound for all when event occurs).
They can be both "account-wide" (storage save code) or "character-specific" (hero save code).

Well this will require a lot of scripting to make system and good achievments. Also it will require additional UI elements, so it can be good thing to spice up game after all endgame content will be released.

@the "soul grind" thing:
The idea behind the soul leveling was, that players would have a certain benefit of playing lowlevel characters again, despite having their favorites maxed already. Basicly, souls were designed to allow players to say "hey, I could help you guys level, but I want the blue souls that drop" or say "hmm, well, doesn't hurt leveling a magician even though I don't like this character that much, at least I can level my souls with that".

Oh, I see, interesting solution.
Anyway soul upgrade with boss kills in addition to current logic can spice up it a bit and add some endgame enhancements.

 

[Jumbo]

Totally agree with Alex. Adding extra little features won't increase the longevity of the game by much.

Now, this is exactly the reason why, again and again, I argue for harder content. The best kind of longevity is imo 'everyone can do something, but not everyone can do everything'. This is exactly the reason why vanilla Wow is still played to a big extent on private servers. There is room for people who want to just play once in a while and maybe do a MC, ZG, or Ony run. But there is also room for the hardcore raider who plays with dedicated allies to complete the hardest bosses and items.
There is a long ladder from top lvl 60 to startout lvl 60 and not everyone will get to the top. However, for all those who don't, it is still great fun to be somewhere in the middle.

THIS ladder is what creates longevity for the largest possible audience. And Gaias needs more of that. Trust me, Gaias will have a perfect feel to it, when everyone can get early high lvl gear (foothills), most people can get snow area gear, a moderate amount D4 gear, and only a small group max out on best items.

No one will cry about not doing the hardest content in the first take or 3 because the feeling of achievement and reward from finally completing it is that sweet.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Hmm, wow, I guess this is actually the first time Jumbo ever convinced me about dropping an idea. :/
I guess you are right... all this extra mumbo-jumbo won't progress the game any further or add more "fun" to the game at all. It just adds new pointless grinds that I personally don't care much about.

We have talents, souls, (now) ability choices and crafting ... I guess it's time to accept that Gaias doesn't really need more stuff at this point.
Instead, I will fully dive into new content and just ignore all the little shortcomings of the lowlevel content for now. Maybe the raremobs and lockboxes alone (and of course the new spells) will already be enough to spice things up a bit.

 

[Jumbo]

Haha I am honoured :-D.

Hmm, wow, I guess this is actually the first time
Maybe the raremobs and lockboxes alone (and of course the new spells) will already be enough to spice things up a bit.

Wait those are two new cool features that I didn't hear about. Have you written anything about them somewhere? Lockboxes and raremobs I mean. I know we have discussed the rare mobs before, but purely on an idea & brainstorm basis.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

I dunno, I don't particularly agree with Jumbo or Alex.

I think adding more little things DOES extend gameplay, at least to a certain extent. If for no other reason than it gives us more reason to play out favorite characters for longer, rather than quickly finishing our characters, and then moving on to our less desired classes if we want to continue to play gaias. I certainly think adding more things does extend goals and adds incentives to continue doing content. Assuming the content itself is interesting, and not something like grinding ogres for 5 hours to get a mindbreaker, then there really shouldn't be much issue.

Also I really really really disagree that content needs to become so difficult that only a handful of people will be able to complete it. Considering Gaias doesn't really have direct voice chat communication, and there seems to be a HUGE language barrier between a lot of the members of the community. It works for WoW because it has a much larger player base, so its easier to people to naturally slot into different tiers of progression. I don't think it'd playout so well here with such a smaller audience.

I dunno, small little things to marginally upgrade BiS for those who enjoy playing certain characters over one another does have a lot of potential to keep people playing. Some people would go for them on every character, some would only go for them on their favorite character(s), and some wouldn't bother at all, since small little upgrades aren't really game changing at all, and thus not worth bothering with in the first place.

Personally, my largest enjoyment comes from progressing my character(s) to be as strong as they can be. Certain elements of grinding are required to make this non-trivial though. Needing to repeat bosses to actually max out our characters should be required. I don't see much purpose in just killing a boss once and being done with it, I guess I see the achievement factor a little bit, but it really feels like an empty achievement if ultimately I just logout and never need to play the game again after I kill it.

 

[Jumbo]

To answer some of your points Box:

"Also I really really really disagree that content needs to become so difficult that only a handful of people will be able to complete it. (..) It works for WoW because it has a much larger player base, so its easier to people to naturally slot into different tiers of progression. I don't think it'd playout so well here with such a smaller audience."

I dont mean THAT difficult. Also, keep in mind that unlike old Wow where 25-40 people are required for raids, you only need 4-5 in Gaias. A good example of what I mean is the Firelord boss in the pre-foothills Gaias versions. Back then, not everyone could defeat Firelord. Actually most people could not. But that was just a small part of the big package of D3. The "epic challenge" saved for last. THAT provided longevity and something to look forward to. You knew that getting 1 D3 item was not enough to take him on. You'd have to work on the other bosses to get to the final part (Firelord).


"Needing to repeat bosses to actually max out our characters should be required. I don't see much purpose in just killing a boss once and being done with it, I guess I see the achievement factor a little bit, but it really feels like an empty achievement if ultimately I just logout and never need to play the game again after I kill it. "

I did never say that I wanted bosses to be a one kill-be done with it experience. I simply said that it should be (or feel like) an achievement when you kill the endgame bosses for
the FIRST time. Of course you should be required to farm bosses 5, 10, 50 times if you want to get the full top gear. You completely missed my point here.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Ah alright. Sometimes it can be difficult to decipher somebodies true intentions without actual specific examples. I shall have to agree with you given the new perspective.

However I dont think these points need to be exclusive from a potential shard system. Sharding items could simply be small upgrades for the players who enjoy hardcore grinding to maximize their characters. Just neat little things that adds a bit of real customization is a good thing imo.

 

[Risk.frishers]

Ah alright. Sometimes it can be difficult to decipher somebodies true intentions without actual specific examples. I shall have to agree with you given the new perspective.

However I dont think these points need to be exclusive from a potential shard system. Sharding items could simply be small upgrades for the players who enjoy hardcore grinding to maximize their characters. Just neat little things that adds a bit of real customization is a good thing imo.

I've got a perfect solution to that. Take all boss loot tables, tier every single item into one of 3 categories with slightly higher stats, when that item drops there'll be a 10% chance for that item to be the 'highest' tier, 70% 'basic' tier and 20% medium tier.

Simple, elegant, like those warforged items from WoW, feels great getting one of those. Now you who want that 10% gear can keep farming with that one char. Would probably be a breeze to program, and would cover those 100 extra items we could use those save-digits for

 

[BoxOfFaith]

Sure, that could work.

Or...

Something like a shard system that makes more sense, as it diversifies content and provides something to do other than farming bosses endlessly with groups. Just because something requires some amount of time investment doesn't mean its necessarily grindy. I understand you don't like grinding in games, but it is possible to introduce systems that provide benefits to gameplay that doesn't come from group bossing.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I guess this discussion is going in circles now.
Upgrading items is a fixed (and already semi-done) feature of 1.2C, meant to bring new life to some old items that people have forgotten about and to give players something to do after getting max gear.

This has nothing to do with the proposed shard system. And I think people are missing the point if they suggest another mechanic that is related to boss farming.
The point of any such system is not to add cheap content, but to add a gold sink. Stuff that drops from boss kills won't help here.

 

[Ihazdialup]

I would really like to see shards enter the game, and it would be nice to see different tiered shards not only in rarity, but also in level tiers

So having a shards that would work in between level gaps, like 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-49, then level 50 shards would be neat. This way you have a gold sink in each level range, but also your not hoarding shards till higher levels.

I also think about that code length issue, is that the players can only have 1 of each type of equipment sharded at any given time would be good. So only 1 weapon can be sharded, 1 misc, 1 helmet, 1 armor, 1 accessory.

It would be nice as well I think, if shards were labeled in what they do generally, as opposed to souls, so if you get a shard drop it would be a "Precision Shard" that increases critical chance or something to that effect.

 

[Risk.frishers]

Why do we need a gold sink?

What are really the ways to acquire gold in Gaias? And what are the best ways of keeping it?

 

[Risk.frishers]

Sorry about that, I just cant see a point in adding a system that only benefits hackers and bishops. Both need a nerf already in my opinion, and with the current gold system and the reasons people actually would have gold to spare makes it a fine example of giving pearls to swine.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Sorry about that, I just cant see a point in adding a system that only benefits hackers and bishops. Both need a nerf already in my opinion, and with the current gold system and the reasons people actually would have gold to spare makes it a fine example of giving pearls to swine.

Gold is one of the primary resources in the game. It literally serves no purpose right now and the 20% gold loss on death is arbitrary and unbalanced and not here to stay forever.

 

[BoxOfFaith]

I think his point is that the only way to obtain gold is through grinding. And because he seriously dislikes grinding, he sees no purpose in gold even existing as a resource in the first place.

I do think a better method of gold accumulation could be used though. Especially if boss drops are going to be used for enchanting/crafting system, this makes obtaining large amounts of gold even more difficult since the opportunity cost of excess items becomes greater.

Anyhow, I do think a shard system would fit well in the grand scheme of a gold sink. Having sharding items give marginal benefits, like +3 main stat or something that is hardly game changing, but works as a sort of trophy type thing for those of us who want to go above and beyond whats required to defeat the hardest encounters. If you don't enjoy grinding, you're not really missing out since the benefit is rather small, but it still provides incentive to continue playing and helping other people achieve their standard gear goals while we try to achieve our shard goals. Assuming you find a way to implement such a system without inflating the save codes too large, I don't see what the downside would be.

 

[ALEXz407]

Gold is one of the primary resources in the game. It literally serves no purpose right now

It's because gold doesn't have good application "rules" currently. Let's breakdown it a bit.

How to acquire gold:
- Kill mobs (small income for each kill)
- Complete quests (unpredictable and usually small reward)
- Sell loot from mobs (normal income, but depends on luck)
- Sell loot from bosses (good guaranteed income)
- Steal things (only for a thief)

How to spend gold:
- Learn new abilities (will be removed in next update?)
- Buy items (but assortiment of items is small)
- Buy consumables
- Pay death penalty

So, I can highlight some major flaws of current realization:
- Abilities are more important than items, so new players usually run literally naked until trade route skill is learned.
- Item stock is too small. There are no items to buy when player earns money.
- After some gold investment there is no good application for gold at high levels, except potions.

Solutions?

1. First solution will appear with next update.
Character's abilities progression will be fully based on experience, so gameplay will evolve smoothly without gold investments.

2. Second solution comes from first.
Players will have more gold and this gold can be used to buy items.
Here we need some "ruleset" for list of things that vendors can sell.

I guess something like this:
- Item quality gradation:
White = common drop from mobs, vendors.
Green = rare drop from mobs, weak bosses, vendors.
Crafted Green = materials from mobs/limited vendors + recipe from vendor.
Blue = very rare drop from mobs, normal bosses, vendors for MC+Gold.
Crafted Blue = rare materials from mobs + materials from bosses + recipe from bosses/vendor for MC.
Orange = hard quest rewards, expensive vendors for MC+Gold(only weapons), craft from rare boss materials.
Epic Orange = drop from hardest/unfarmable bosses.
Why crafted is better than drop? Because item drop is guaranteed from bosses, when materials farm is purely random. So crafted item will require more time investment than boss drop.

- Cheap white items must be available for all level ranges. It's a base for unlucky players: weapon, helmet, armor, armor based accessory, some misc items for melee (shield/dagger). White items are weak, but better than nothing (especially with armor).
- Vendors also must have green items with moderate/high price. It's a way to exchange unsuitable loot and keep your character at a normal level of combat readiness. Also this will help initially equip character, because currently some classes can not buy Misc item unless level 26.
- Some blue items can be added to lategame vendors too, just to speed up farming for a high cost. They can be limited to weapon and armor only, buyable misc/accessory/helmet will be only white and green.

Pros?
- Solves gold sink problem during leveling.
- Solves problem with "partially naked" solo/duo players that can not kill bosses and hence - obtain Misc item till overleveling.
- Smoother game progression, party can do dungeon several times and buy a bit weaker substitutes for desirable items that don't drop during runs.
- Normal equipment even with unlucky drop.
- Easier to balance content, because you can easily see guaranteed item bracket for players.
- Easy to implement: just take all white and green items and add them to vendors with appropriate price.

Cons?
- The number of vendors will increase at least two-three times.
- Endgame gold sink problem is still here.

---

Main problem with endgame gold sink is that solutions are not real sinks.
Shards for example - yes, player will invest some gold into them, but when all shards are bought, sink dissapears. Yes you can make this sink larger with higher costs, but it will still dissapear.
Same with storage slots, player have a goal until second storage bought, and after that gold becomes only useful for potions.
And because game is save/load based, you can not use some kind of gambling to burn excessive gold. Player can just reload game again and again until desired result.

So, here are three ways:
- Add some grinding things with exponential increasing prices and small influence on core gameplay. Just like bubble gum for grinders. (I personally don't like it, because you can not feel completeness of character).
- Add more consumable things: buffs/blessings/devotions/etc. This could work, but you must balance things to make it optional and useful at same time.
- Do not bother. Just make new content

 

[BoxOfFaith]

I don't think its necessarily about creating an infinite sink. I think its meant to give reason for gold to exist. As you just stated at the start of your post, the uses for gold at the moment are virtually non-existent.

Since we're not dealing with player to player trading, we don't need an infinite repeating gold sink to counteract gold brought into the game because we're not actually dealing with a functioning economy. We only need a gold sink to work as a purpose for farming resources. Its perfectly fine if we get to a point where gold no longer serves a purpose, as long as it DOES serve a purpose at one point. This actually adds an extra benefit of truly feeling like theres an end point for characters as well.

Im also not a huge fan of worrying about the low level portions of the game, and increasing the number of things to "Farm" for. Low level game should be about farming experience and levels, whereas in the end game, we can worry about farming gold and resources. I don't think introducing more things to farm for low levels would really work out, most people will still power through the content, skipping most things they could have farmed for before moving on. In a perfect scenario, where we perhaps have a lot of new players constantly joining the game, a system similar to what you suggested would work. On top of that, creating a whole bunch more new items for low levels to use would just create a lot of redundancy, since we're mostly dealing with such small numbers to begin with. Its very difficult to really create a different variety of stuff without doing something pointless, like throwing intelligence on a sword for a squire.

With that being said, the middle game probably does need some sort vendor/shopping. Maybe some more green items from the trade route area that can be purchased. We don't need to convolute it too much. Hell, maybe make D1 items purchasable from somewhere in the trade route, and d2 items purchasable in Mytargas. Most people seem to skip the dungeons as they level up these days anyway, may as well let them spend their gold on these items as they progress, since they can't purchase skills anymore. I don't think we end up with more than 5k gold as we hit level 25 anymore, so its not like we'd have instant access to everything as we progress anyway.

I, and I think many others enjoy being rewarded for our time investment into doing something. Having small benefits for those of us who wish to put in extra time and effort into "grinding" through stuff would be most ideal in my opinion. If you don't enjoy grinding for small, marginal benefits, then thats fine. We can still play together and still do content together. I don't see who would lose in such a system (well perhaps a bit of elitism might sink in here, but generally I think the gaias community is rather humble).

Edit: For what its worth Alex, I think your ideas are perfectly fine if we were building a game from the ground up. But I think spending that kind of time and effort on something that already has a working infrastructure is a bit overkill. In theory and on paper, I think they're very logical and would be something I'd enjoy seeing, but given the reality of how MOST people seem to approach the early levels, I think more simplicity is a better approach. I know we've had our differences in the past, and I actually felt terrible about some of the things that got said. Im glad you've stuck around and continue to give feedback and I hope you continue to do so!

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I never said that we need a true gold sink in the way of an MMO-esque treadmill. That would be insane.
I just want to have a larger variety of stuff to buy, simply because the only investments a player will ever make is potions, abilities and the stash upgrades.

Gold sinks throughout the leveling process mostly don't work and many MMOs have proven that already, unless the investment stays relevant in endgame content or the resource does not carry over into highlevel (for example, RIFT had a number of different tokens on each level range that you could buy equipment with; the tokens only worked within a certain level range and became useless once you outleveled them), in which case it becomes a throwaway resource that is not much different to random gear drops in the first place.


WoW actually had one major gold sink throughout it's leveling process in Vanilla: Mounts. Getting the 100g needed to buy your first mount on level 40 felt like a monumental task and achievement for every player back in the days.
Many people didn't even acquire one before hitting level 50 or even level 60.

I tried to replicate that with stashes, since mounts would be virtually useless in Gaias (which doesn't mean it will never come... I actually enjoy doing some animating every now and then for a change and there is currently nothing else on my to-do list in terms of animations), but as there is not that much gear variety, most people don't actually use stashes all that much.


I have a lot of new recipes planned for 1.2C (mainly for equipment upgrades of droppable gear), which will probably eliminate the problem of having stuff to buy and find aside from boss farming already.
The thing is: it's not done with just gold. We also have MCs as another super useless resource.

 

[ALEXz407]

With that being said, the middle game probably does need some sort vendor/shopping. Maybe some more green items from the trade route area that can be purchased. We don't need to convolute it too much. Hell, maybe make D1 items purchasable from somewhere in the trade route, and d2 items purchasable in Mytargas. Most people seem to skip the dungeons as they level up these days anyway, may as well let them spend their gold on these items as they progress, since they can't purchase skills anymore. I don't think we end up with more than 5k gold as we hit level 25 anymore, so its not like we'd have instant access to everything as we progress anyway.

Yeah, you get my idea .
And yes, I'm talking about reuse current items, not create new. We already have good itemization (well, maybe only INT Ranger and INT Mystic items are lacking currently).

I guess selling all d1 and d2 items will be weird. Also main idea here is to sell items when they are needed to player, not when he leveled and can say "oh, why i didn't met this merchant 5-10 levels ago?".

Here is quick list for base classes.

Riversdale

>> Weapon rack (add items)
- Knife

>> Armor rack (add items)
- Gauntlets of Life
- Copper Gloves

>> Skinner Francis (add items)
- Gloves of Mana
- Bandit Gloves
- Linen Gloves
- Gloves of Attack

>> Exclusive armor rack (new vendor)
- Polished Scalemail
- Studded Leather Armor
- Robe of the Gnoll Magi
- Gnoll Helmet
- Bandit Bandana
- Gaelas' Cap
- Ring of the Troll Magi
- Ring of the Rogue
- Ring of the Wolf
- Shield of the Brootherhood

>> Exclusive weapon rack (new vendor)
- Strong Greataxe
- Reinforced Longbow
- Staff of the Wolf
- Sword of the Wolf
- Torn Book
- Sharp Arrows
- Brandished Knife

Trade route

>> Weapon rack (new vendor)
- Heavy Mace
- Heavy Waraxe
- Copper Axe
- Composite Bow
- Great Bow
- Kris
- Heavy Staff

>> Armor rack (new vendor)
- Cotton Robe
- Strong Tunic
- Hardened Leather Coat
- Copper Mail
- Scale Armor
- Stuffed Gauntlets
- Steel Gauntlets
- Silk gloves

Camp before Mythargas

>> Exclusive armor rack (new vendor)
- Holy Book
- Sparkling Jewel
- The Wall
- Well Crafted Harness
- Robe Of The Magus
- Samurai's Vest

>> Exclusive weapon rack (new vendor)
- Glowing Emerald Staff
- Piercing Longbow
- Sturdy Halberd
- Staff Of The Ogre Shaman
- The Cunning Sabre
- Splendid Rapier
- Kitchen Knife

Not sure about advanced classes - Lumberjack camp have nice vendors currently, maybe 35+ items lacking a bit.

But I think spending that kind of time and effort on something that already has a working infrastructure is a bit overkill

So this will not take too much time for realization, because it's just 6 shops which selling already created items.

I, and I think many others enjoy being rewarded for our time investment into doing something. Having small benefits for those of us who wish to put in extra time and effort into "grinding" through stuff would be most ideal in my opinion. If you don't enjoy grinding for small, marginal benefits, then thats fine. We can still play together and still do content together. I don't see who would lose in such a system (well perhaps a bit of elitism might sink in here, but generally I think the gaias community is rather humble).

Hmm, maybe some kind of permanent progression for character could work? In outline:
- At level 50 talents learn button replaced with "Gaia's worship" spellbook. (after talents reset, spellbook can be hidden/moved temporary, until all talents selected)
- Special NPC "Priestess of Gaia" can perform a ritual and grant new powers to the hero
- Each next ritual is harder and requires more gold to perform
- Total number of rituals is 11, you can perform them in any order, but you can't remove selected bonus
- You can use all 11 rituals, so it's impossible to "fail" hero, because you will open all of them over time
- Bonuses are minor, but useful, so this will not change balance cardinally

Example:

Ritual	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Gold cost	1000	2000	4000	8000	16000	32000	64000	128000	256000	512000	1024000

Effects

+40 HP

+20 MP

+4 SP

+4 AP

+4 Ar

+4 ArP

+3 Int

+3 Str

+3 Dex

+5% AllR

+3% Ev

Common player will open 4-6 rituals, when hardcore player can open all.
What do you think?

offtopic

I know we've had our differences in the past, and I actually felt terrible about some of the things that got said. Im glad you've stuck around and continue to give feedback and I hope you continue to do so!

Different points of view is the engine of progress. I'm glad too

 

[Jumbo]

I never said that we need a true gold sink in

I tried to replicate that with stashes, since mounts would be virtually useless in Gaias (which doesn't mean it will never come... I actually enjoy doing some animating every now and then for a change and there is currently nothing else on my to-do list in terms of animations), but as there is not that much gear variety, most people don't actually use stashes all that much.

Yes YES YES. ADD MOUNTS!! I disagree that they are pointless in Gaias. In the case of Mytargas Forest and Snow area - 2 huge areas - a mount would save the player a lot of time.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Hmm, maybe some kind of permanent progression for character could work? In outline:
- At level 50 talents learn button replaced with "Gaia's worship" spellbook. (after talents reset, spellbook can be hidden/moved temporary, until all talents selected)
- Special NPC "Priestess of Gaia" can perform a ritual and grant new powers to the hero
- Each next ritual is harder and requires more gold to perform
- Total number of rituals is 11, you can perform them in any order, but you can't remove selected bonus
- You can use all 11 rituals, so it's impossible to "fail" hero, because you will open all of them over time
- Bonuses are minor, but useful, so this will not change balance cardinally

Example:

Ritual	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
Gold cost	1000	2000	4000	8000	16000	32000	64000	128000	256000	512000	1024000

Effects

+40 HP

+20 MP

+4 SP

+4 AP

+4 Ar

+4 ArP

+3 Int

+3 Str

+3 Dex

+5% AllR

+3% Ev

Common player will open 4-6 rituals, when hardcore player can open all.
What do you think?

This is one of the examples of how not to design endgame content - 101. It's tedious, boring and doesn't even present a proper reward for all the dedication invested.

Think about this: what is the most popular feature ever added to WoW for players that have beaten all the endgame content? It's not reputation grinding, that's for sure. It's also not about squeezing that last bit of spelldamage out of your gear after you got your full Best-in-Slot equipment.

It's transmogrifying. I kid you not. Players go out there and hunt for obscure and rare items of any level, just to collect new skins for their wardrobe. People invest literally thousands of dollars for some shiny cosmetical things in MOBAs or your run-of-the-mill f2p MMO.


What I'm trying to say is: at some point, it's no longer about raw power. It's about coolness. If a feature doesn't feel "cool" or "different" from others, it is just not worth it.
How would such a progression system add anything to the game beyond just some higher numbers? Does it add diversity of builds? Does it add to the sense of acomplishment? Does it feel fun or rewarding without pressurizing the player into doing it? In the end, I could accomplish the same with just a super expensive gear upgrade. The result is pretty much the same.

To some extend, I already see that in Gaias here and there: I have seen people literally grinding firelord for Phoenix, even though it isn't even the best in slot for many classes, just because it looks cool and is a shiny legendary. There is no power gain from it, just the sense of "you know, I did it because I could".


Shards are different in the way that they at least add some diversity and choice beyond the obvious gear progression.
Souls are different in the way that they are shared across all characters, so playing your character X does also benefit character Y.

 

[cheno3556]

Can you make shards give some kind of glow to items? To make it cool ya know. Or anything that gives some kind of animation to the character.

 

[Ihazdialup]

Cheno's idea is actually really cool in my opinion, or have a mixture of both, shards that give stats and others that just particools

 

[ALEXz407]

Glowing items are cool, +1 to Cheno

It's transmogrifying. I kid you not. Players go out there and hunt for obscure and rare items of any level, just to collect new skins for their wardrobe. People invest literally thousands of dollars for some shiny cosmetical things in MOBAs or your run-of-the-mill f2p MMO.

Maybe that's it? Transmogrifying!

From logical side it looks smooth:
- Add vanity storage with 4 slots (can be bought similar to warehouse).
- Use same restrictions as main backpack when placing items here:
-- Can place only 1 item of same type.
-- Can place only equippable items (both type and level checks).
-- Drop accessories? (they anyway don't have models).
- When hero equips new item, check vanity storage first, if there are item with same type: show it instead of equipped.
- Save vanity storage in the hero code (so, need place for 4 additional item links)

Well, this will not work if item model effects are attached to items and not added via triggers, but i guess you use triggers everywhere

This is one of the examples of how not to design endgame content - 101. It's tedious, boring and doesn't even present a proper reward for all the dedication invested.

Yep, but it is one of possible ways to reward players that join games and kill bosses again and again without any further progression. (i don't like this [post=2776343]first solution[/post] too

From another side, now you can save some kind of "account statistics" to the vault code. So it's possible to aggregate boss kills, save them as integer in the code, and give titles for players.
For example: count Firelord kills (count up to 50) and bosses +1-5 to hero level (count up to 1000).

Anyway it's achievements system again.

 

[Risk.frishers]

Well. Im just saying, most people that have more than 10k usually have exactly 50k+ the things they gained that game when they die and you check their tombstone. Add more consumables? Different potions, elixirs or such, that add TRUE diversity. Not the same stats we've always had.


Who here actually feels like they've never had to worry about gold and feel like they have wasted time 'farming it?'

Getting gold in other MMOs and such is an actual achievement, getting gold in Gaias is only a skill if you play bishop.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

Yes YES YES. ADD MOUNTS!! I disagree that they are pointless in Gaias. In the case of Mytargas Forest and Snow area - 2 huge areas - a mount would save the player a lot of time.

Here's the catch (I only said it's easy to make, not that it's cheap, right?):
250kb added filesize in total to add the proper animations to all heroes. And that would be for only one mount per base class.

To put that in perspective: that is the same space 12 new unique armor skins take. Pretty costly for a glorified speedbuff...
So unless we get another patch that increases map size or I remove more B²M house models and replace them with Sword & Stone constructions, this is not really an option. And I absolutely DONT have the time to remake huge parts of the city.


@Alex:
Transmog is planned for later content (but only for armors). Basicly as an added option for the customizer NPCs that allow to display/hide the helmet and change hair colors. The reason I haven't done that yet is because it's low priority and the amount of skins in the game is not that large so far (1.2C will add a few new ones, though; I still have about 10 new designs resting comfortably on my hard drive, waiting for the 1.2C release).

 

[Jumbo]

What if it is the same mount model but different skins? Like just 1 horse models with different padding/armor/heraldic armor and glow effects. That will make expensive mounts stand out and look great. A shapeshifting amulet would also do the trick. It wouldnt require new models or animations, just shapeshift into, say, a spirit wolf or whatever.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

What if it is the same mount model but different skins?

Wouldn't change a thing. The problem is not the animations itself, but that every hero would need a copy of them.

A shapeshifting amulet would also do the trick. It wouldnt require new models or animations, just shapeshift into, say, a spirit wolf or whatever.

That would be super lame, don't you think?

 

[Jumbo]

hmm... how about adding the hero model on top of the horse as an attachment? Will that look ugly no matter what?

 

[cheno3556]

Here's the catch (I only said it's easy to make, not that it's cheap, right?):
250kb added filesize in total to add the proper animations to all heroes. And that would be for only one mount per base class.

To put that in perspective: that is the same space 12 new unique armor skins take. Pretty costly for a glorified speedbuff...
So unless we get another patch that increases map size or I remove more B²M house models and replace them with Sword & Stone constructions, this is not really an option. And I absolutely DONT have the time to remake huge parts of the city.

You can always surpass the 8mb limit, we just need the file to play +8mb maps...

 

[Hawajska]

I would love to see option to change 1 or 2 stats in item, so It would alow players for more customization / combos, boss spec ect.
So would: enchant option, set item, and ofcourse item abilties like %to trigget shit, or improvement to hero skill.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

hmm... how about adding the hero model on top of the horse as an attachment? Will that look ugly no matter what?

That would look super lame, as then I have no way of attaching equipment to the hero or change the hero skin.

But I just experimented with a system that handles unit-to-unit attachments under the premise that the relative X,Y,Z position of the hero to the mount remains the same in all animation cycles.
It actually looks decent enough for units that don't bounce or jump hard during their walk animation cycle. I checked the MPQ and there are at least 5 unit models that would qualify as mounts that fit this criteria (including the classic horse).

If I add a proper riding animation to all heroes (legs spread out, weapons sheathed, arms to the front), I think I can make it look convincing for these units without having to include costly merge animations.

 

[Jumbo]

That would be a dream come true for me. Always wanted mounts for Gaias. Especially when the new large area comes out. Maybe have a mount available at lvl 20. Then tier 2 expensive horse at lvl 50 (or maybe 45) and tier 3 legendary at lvl 50. If it makes sense.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

I got to say, this looks much better than I anticipated (well, except for the horrible horsemodel of WC3)... even during the walk cycle...

Though you have to say that the riderless horse model is almost perfect for this stuff, since there is almost no movement of the horseback on both stand and walk animation. I guess other units won't look that good.

There is also some minor clipping going on with weapons going into the horse, but I think this is acceptable. I think I can fix that easily by moving the weapon attachment point a bit higher.

 

[Jumbo]

That's very cool Zwieb. I agree that the horse model isn't exactly beautiful, but it'll do. The rider animation looks good.