A suggestion for crafting/decay/enchanting system

I had a post in the Enchanting thread that I'd like to get more reactions/critique to. This suggestion would have the scaling upkeep, would have a good gold sink, mats sink and a potential gear think in it w/o rng in the OE (overenchanting). Hear me out.

Let's say that each piece of gear consists of 4 part during a craft. Those parts have their own multiple parts too, but when you're about to press the button to "craft the Sword of Awesome" you need to have 4 particular items in your inventory that represent 4 parts of said gear.

Those parts would be linked to the crafting dials and would represent some stats of the full gear, which the dials would then control. Horizontal enchantment would add more effects on these parts. So let's assume we'll be able to horizontally enchant each piece of gear 4 times (once for each part).

Now let's assume that gear decay is not dmg-based, but instead time-based. The decay timer would tick only when you're wearing the gear. Intrepid would decide how long that timer is based on their own calculations of potential time-to-farm-for-repairs. And we could even prolong that timer by using high quality mats and services of a top tier crafter, so each part of the piece of gear could add some amount of time to the decay timer.

Let's say we only need mats for repairs when the timer runs out. But if you have just the base version of said gear, at the end of the timer only one part of that piece will break (at random). So to bring back the timer to full you'd just need to use the material that is used to craft that part of the gear. This would be our main mats sink.

Horizontal enchantment would remove some amount of that timer (the amount would probably depend on the power of the enchantment), because it's putting some burden on said part.

To represent ware and dmg to the gear we'd have some decrease in its power at certain intervals of the timer. And to bring the power back we'd buy "honing stones" (or whatever alternative for different pieces of gear) at the node stores (with tiers of those nodes relating to the lvl of the node). This would be our gold sink.

Now we come to vertical enchantment. I suggest having +8 as the max vertical enchant level. Here's why. When you vertically enchant a piece of gear for "+1", you pick a part of said piece and increase the stats that this part provides (enchantment included). By doing so you double the amount that horizontal enchantment removed from the timer (or if there was no HE, you just remove some fairly big amount). And on top of that you make this part always break at the end of the decay timer. So now you'll have 2 parts break and will have to use more mats to repair the gear.

Once you repeat this +1 on all parts, you'll have a way shorter decay timer and you'll have to pretty much recraft the whole piece of gear once it decays fully (but all your enchantments and power remains). This will be our main gear sink.

And after that step you can now OE that piece. OE is just a repeat of the first round of vertical enchantment and it puts "strain" on your gear parts so you now have to use double the mats to repair any +2 part. And this way at +8 you'll have to double the crafting mats to repair your gear. And if you're going for this kind of OE, you'll just HAVE TO use the best mats and craft at the best crafter, just to balance out the decrease of the decay counter. This would be our great gear sink, meant only for those at the very top of the game.

I think this kind of system would keep the RPGness of the game (because to keep the timer from ticking, you'd be switching to other sets of gear). This system would provide several resource sinks that, in theory, should keep the power creep from growing too much. The vertical enchantment resources should be even rarer in this system (because of the 100% success), so the power growth of the whole server would be fairly slow. There'd be no RNG involved, but OE would still be a huge hit to anyone who tries to play with it. Also, this kind of vertical enchantment would empower the horizontal one, so in a way it'd be DIAGONAL! And ain't that just super cool

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Yeah, this could just be seen at a crafting stall probably. You'd see that your item decayed to 0. You'd go to a crafter stall or your favorite crafter buddy and look what mats you needed to fix it. This part can definitely be streamlined and simplified visually and mechanically to not seem as burdensome as it might here.

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I'm used to the enchant increasing both stats on weapons. That was the way L2 did it so there's a chance Ashes will have the same vertical enchantment? Not sure though as we barely have any info on that.

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Time is just a simpler visualization for it. It could be a direct timer that ticks down to show that it's going down (and in my suggestion it'd go down when worn) or it could be an energy bar on the gear icon that would lightly glow when being used.

Having it tied to uses would muddy the waters way more imo. Like, does any amount of dmg decrease it by one point out of some amount? Does bigger damage remove more points? Does me dealing dmg to different things decay my weapon differently? That kind of math tracking would be too much for any non-math-liking person I think. While a timer just tells you "your weapon will break in 10 days, ya better get to farming those potential repair mats"

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I was basing my suggestion on this picture which is also very similar to how L2's crafting system worked. You'd have the item's main mats + a few craftable resources. None of it would be optional, but the item mats would be the "main" component.

I split it into fours just so it'd be easier to enchant and repair later on, because you'd know what your item consists of.

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Imo enchantments should be part of the "risk vs reward" system (the vertical part is already that). When you make your item stronger, there should be a higher price to pay for keeping it as strong as you made it. As I see it. Though obviously it's up to Intrepid to decide how they want to balance it out.

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You'd only need to look at what you need for repairs when the timer runs out. Before that it's only the "honing" part and that could be removed from the system completely w/o influencing it at all. I just added it for an extra gold sink, cause in my head the timer would be fairly lengthy (I was thinking a week's worth of gameplay for a hardcore player and 2 weeks for casual), so having a gold sink within that time seemed reasonable.

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If the PKer drops gear - that's on them for being a PKer, so I don't see that as an issue. Otherwise people don't drop gear.

As for destruction w/o repairs, I don't think we've heard about that. There's a few quote from Steven mentioning destruction after a failed OE, but even then he says that the item would just be unusable, so there's a chance that items don't get destroyed ever. We'll have to see.

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Yes, I was thinking of how to simplify this system to the max. The best I could come up with was this.

You'd have 3 gear presets (just for example). You can set them up however you want. You'd have 3 buttons near your skills bar that would change you into that preset. Intrepid don't want macroses in their game, but I think a gear preset system-based macros should be fine.

For the visuals of decay I thought a small glowing line at the bottom of the gear icon would suffice. It would change color based on its honing stage (that is if we were to keep that mechanic as a gold sink. It could definitely be removed if seen as too much). It would lit up when the gear is worn indicating that the timer is ticking. I had it change color with the honing stages because those were tied to some timer intervals, but, even if we remove the honing mechanic, the color change could still stay to indicate how much time you have left (ideally colors would be customizable in the options of the game). When you hover over the item icon, you'd get detailed info and would see the precise timer at the bottom of that window.

The preset buttons next to your skill bar would have the same glow (to indicate which set is on and ticking) and the color of the glow on the button would indicate the decay timer of the set (ideally you'd be able to change this indicator to be "the lowest decay timer in the set", "the highest one" or some other possible options). Considering that you'd equip the whole set at once, I'd imagine that in most cases the whole set would have roughly the same timer so this should be somewhat easy.

So just as an example of how you'd check on your gear day to day: You'd just equip it and take a quick glance at the glowing colors. That's it. Intrepid is already planning gear decay to be a thing, so I don't see how my system would add any more complexity to it.

As for the repair complexity, as I said before, when you see that the timer has run out - you just go to a crafter and see what you need to fix it. And as I stated in the post above, I was envisioning these timers to be fairly lengthy, so you'd have ample time to farm up the mats for a recraft, with higher tiers of gear getting harder and harder to upkeep so that they require you to use better quality mats and higher proficiency crafters. And by the time you get to high tiers of gear you'd be completely used to the system and it wouldn't seem complex at all (as any other system in any other mmo always does).

And on the topic of those gear presets, when thinking about that kind of mechanic I thought there'd have to be some base equipment that you'd have to wear w/o worrying about it decaying. And I thought that having artisanal sets of gear (achieved through artisan quests and achievements) that would be "evergreen" (cause I thought that green would be a good color for a "top20% decay timer"). They also have transmog slots, in the case people wanted to wear their own stuff to show off. But if you don't have/want transmog, you can just wear your artisanal gear and only use your battle presets when you need them.

This would not only show others who you are in the game (which might lead to you meeting new people cause they asked you smth about your profession), but would also just lest you run around w/o worry for your gear and not naked. Obviously in the best case scenario we'll have different options for this kind of gear (racial, location-based, etc) and we'd be able to recolor it however we'd like to make it more personal.

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Yeah, and I suggested that some of the non-main mats would represent "parts" of the piece of gear. So the crafting process wouldn't change. Only at the enchantment stage would you interact differently with it. Though I get how it'd be a bit too overcomplicated at the scale of the full gear set.

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That's mainly cause I see enchantment as something that you do later on in your character's life. Intrepid might be more lenient than me and that'd be completely fine with me.

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I mean, that's already the case in the currently presented design. There'll be unique legendary pieces of gear that will be singular on the whole server. I'd assume they'll be quite strong. And there'll be decay (whichever way Intrepid designs it). And in order to repair that gear you'd need to somehow get more super rare items, that might even come from disassembling your own unique weapon in order to be able to recreate some of its parts in crafting later on.

So the system will already be punishing to the people at the top of the food chain. And I see that as a good way to control the difference between casual and hardcore players w/o necessarily completely equalizing gear power. With this kind of system hardcore players will need to pay for their power more than weaker players, which would allow weaker players to have some time to catch up, because top players won't just be able to amass even more wealth.

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Good point. I could see an option where you can use a fraction of all crafting mats required for the item to replenish the decay timer. And if you forget to do that, you'd only need some particular kind of mat, but the full amount (in case we went with my suggestion of enchantment influencing repairs).

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Yeah, like I said the honing part doesn't impact anything else so I'd be completely fine with removing it. And it could maybe get added in later expansions if by some chance gold amount on the server gets too high and Intrepid wants some way to sink it (that is if they don't come up with smth else).

Alternatively we could have some atk buff for an hour or 2 after honing. So you not only fix up your dulling weapon, but also get a boost for doing so. And now we have a positive reinforcement for the gold sink. Though that could bring its own balance problems.

Thx for the feedback though, definitely good points.

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As I said in one of the posts, I saw the lower tiers of gear have timer of around 2 weeks of casual play and 1 week of hardcore play (assuming that casual players wouldn't minmax their timer, while hardcores would). And by the end of that time, in my system, you'd only need to have one of the 4 crafting components, which would most likely be easily acquirable by the second week, so any casual player could just go and buy them on the market.

Enchantment could follow the same logic. Low tier enchantment (both in terms of gear being enchanted and the quality of the enchantment itself) could barely decrease the timer, so that, even at lowest levels of progress, casual players could still just go buy some materials and repair their gear, or have ample time to just farm it themselves.

We don't know the current decay and repair system so it's difficult to say which one is harsher towards casual players. Maybe in the currently planned system you need a fraction of all crafting materials every few hours. Or if it's based on active use, then any casual could get harassed by "pvpers" and their gear would just die within a day of playtime. So in a way, my system could be even better for casuals (though I doubt it).

I put some penalty on enchantment because, as I see it, enchantment is an increase in your character's power lvl. And imo that kind of increase should come with a price. And assuming that horizontal enchantment will most likely be widespread, the base price of enchantment will probably be fairly low, which is why I added a material sink on top of that.

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And yet Ashes plans to have this and it'd be even worse than my suggestion.

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And yet Ashes plans to have this and it'd be even worse than my suggestion.

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The chances are, all people who's gonna be in a guild will have their crafter friend who'll repair stuff for free and the guild will help them farm mats for repairs so that will also not be a gold sink. So casuals will still be punished for existing in the game, cause, again, they can be attacked and their durability will go down and because they're attacked they can't farm money/mats, so they won't have anything to repair their gear with.

My suggestion allows them to have their gear for 2 weeks w/o worrying about attacks from people and at the end of that time they'd need to only buy 1/4 of the mats to repair their gear.

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Yes, and imo that is a good system. You can play w/o enchantments, as a casual, and be completely fine. Enchantments should become a "requirement" only if you're planning to go hardcore, where each % of your power is important.

And even then, as I said in a different comment here, low tier enchantments could be very lax in their penalties so casual players can still add some elemental attacks/defenses to their gear and not really feel the consequences too much.

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Oh, it has been criticized to hell and back. You can check out this thread for that. But this system was inspired by L2's overenchantment and there your items would get destroyed after a failed attempt.

And my initial post was made precisely to address that destruction. But I personally like L2's system and what it represents (that being a big money/mats sink), so I just came with a system that would save the goal of the system while removing the rng and "feel bad" associations that come with it. I kept the planned decay system, I kept the "risk vs" reward" theme (you risk not having enough mats/money for the repair vs the reward of higher power) and I might've even made the system more casual-friendly, though we'd obviously have to see Intrepid's implementation first to know that for sure.

But I think uncle Ben's approach to high/over-enchantment works best. You wanna be strong? You gotta pay for it.

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That's the thing though, pvp was the environment in L2, and afaik in AA too. You'd go out farming mobs and you'd know that someone could come there and fight you for the same mobs. You'd go to raid a boss with your guild and you knew that the enemy guild would most likely come to contest it. The world itself was a pvp environment. And I'm guessing that Steven liked that feature so much that he even allows pvp in cities (at least so far), while L2 didn't (maybe AA did?).

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Pretty much all games from that time had upwards of a million (or sometimes even several) players. The grindy Korean ones didn't have as many in the west exactly because they were grindy. But they were still popular in Korea or just the east (L2 was and somewhat still is pretty huge in CIS countries).

And any mmo that came out after WoW had to fight against a giant. The only one who managed that was FF14 and even then it was only possible because it was led by a very smart person who also had a shitton of money behind him, AND WoW was killing itself in the process. I'm 100% sure that FF14 woulda stayed somewhat niche if WoW didn't fuck up most of the updates and changes in the last decade, with all the internal scandals being the cherry on top.

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You don't notice your loops of grind in those games, unless you smurf. Due to rank ladders and matchmaking the power of your opponent is usually the same as yours. And for some people, constant struggle is not fun. While in pvp mmos you can see the hours you put in directly. Your attacks are stronger than other people's who played less. Your life in the mmo world is easier exactly because you spent a long time getting to a point where it becomes easier. It's the payoff for your hard work.

And even outside of that, mmos are usually rpgs, so there's a character that represents you. And this representation grows with time. This character gets a reputation and respect (if you were going for that). And sooner or later it can become "you". While in all other pvp genres you get an already preestablished character. With preestablished abilities and potential (that is if we take the games where you can level up within a match). And in most sports game it's not even a character but a whole team with, usually, real people in it. None of those games give you the same feeling and experience as an mmo does.

And considering that there's barely any pvp mmos out there (with most of them being p2w to all hell), while there's a shitton of pve ones, I think it's fine for Ashes to go a different route and take that niche for themselves.

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To me personally, yes, that's good content. I put in time to build up my character so I think I should be stronger than those who didn't.

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Yep. I truly do not care for how my character looks or what pretty mount it has. If top stats gear looked like torn up pieces of cloth covered in shit - I wouldn't care because it gives me best stats. I personally hate the sheer concept of transmog because it hides other people's power.

Now I know I'm a rare breed these days, but, exactly because of that, I try to make my voice heard so that, when the genre goes even deeper into "let's all be friends on rainbow horses" direction, I could at least say "I did my best to try and point it into another direction". I'm not trying to stop the movement itself, I'm just trying to say that we could have both (even though the ratio would probably be smth like 1:10).

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Yes, the function of your character is the same as any other character of the same class/gear/combat ability, but all those other things is exactly what I love about mmos. The relationships I build throughout my path to my character's peak function. The rivalries I have at the top. The 500+ pvps that I had with people, through which we earned respect for each other and which might lead to us playing other games together or making our own new guild if our last ones fall apart.

That is the exciting part in an mmo for me. Showing off a pretty costume that I spent weeks doing quests for is not. And other pvp genres don't provide you with that kind of experience. You just grind them until you can say "oohh, look I spent thousands of hours on this game and the only thing I have to show for it is this shitty high rank".

And most of the time, the higher rank you have, the more toxicity there is in those games, because everyone sees each other as a barrier to getting even higher rank. You might spend 30-50 minutes with some player and you could hate him because he failed some simple task or you could see him as a friendly person but you'll never see him again because your ranks might diverge too far.

Now you could try to send a friend request and play games with him in the future, but after talking to hundreds of people that I met in L2, who played those other pvp genres, I don't think I've heard of any of them making long-time friends in those games (if any friends at all). What I did hear and experience though is years-long friendships, marriages, long time relationships and visits across the world - all because they played an mmo together. That is what interests me in mmos.

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That may very well be the case. And it may lead to Ashes failure, if Steven decides not to change his core designs. Which in turn would lead to me not playing anymore mmos because, at that point, I'd be completely sure that my kind of mmo gameplay is a thing of the past and no one else is interested in it. And that's fine, times change. I hope new generations of gamers get to experience the same things I did back in the day, in whatever way they themselves prefer.