Suggestion Weapon Customization System

[Thac0]

Introduction

Ship customization has been a community favorite ever since its launch on December, 2011. Where there were once only three (until the brig was released) ship types and three classes, for a total of nine player-available ships, now there are near limitless possibilities to make your pirate ship a reflection of personality!

Not only do custom ships look beautiful, but saving up for the materials by playing Ship PvE with crew mates or your guild is one of the more enjoyable and repeatable parts of the game. This post represents a fully fleshed out system to adapt ship customization, along with all of it's benefits, to the staple of pirates everywhere- weapons!

Basics

Players will access the customization menu through blacksmiths for swords and daggers, gunsmiths for guns, and gypsies for voodoo dolls and voodoo staves. As with ship customization, there will be two levels of upgrades: basic and advanced. Different advanced upgrades are only accessible through specific basic upgrade paths. Basic upgrades require common crafting materials, while advanced will require rare materials. These materials will added to the loot tables for land enemies. Though basic upgrades will not change the look of a weapon, advanced upgrades will add particle effects/auras around the pirate wielding it.

Materials

The following is a list of crafting materials, and the enemies which drop them:

Basic Upgrades

Swift:

Brutal:

Mystical:

Advanced Upgrades

Duelist's:
Available through the Swift tier.

Berserker's:
Available through the Brutal tier.

Witch's:
Available through the Mystical tier.

Hunter's:
Available through the Brutal and Mystical tier.

Smuggler's:
Available through the Swift and Mystical tier.

Examples

Here is a quick mock-up of what this would look like implemented:

I've reached the attachment limit, so I can't post the rest here, but this is the basic idea. Note: the abilities that the Mystical tier increases are the weapon's abilities. So a "Mystical III Plaguefire Blade" would have the abilities "Blood Fire Rank 3" and "Venom Strike Rank 4."

Advantages

The benefits of this customization system are many. First, as with ships, a pirates weapon is now his or her own, tailored to fit their personality and play style. Second, PvP options would be limitless, allowing players to form deep strategies and weapon combinations. Finally, by adding many faction specific crafting materials, it encourages players to explore, rather than grinding the gold room for hours.

I'll try to update this on the weekend to iron out any details that I missed.

-Thac0

 

[Divine]

Very interesting system. This could make some very good weapons if you take the time to farm materials like that. I think it would be a great addition, seeing as you can just copy and adjust some ship customization files.

 

[Jacksharkben]

*adds 30X scope to flintlock pistol gets head shot on a lvl 50 from a another island*

 

[Malsdurr]

Wow, the amount of thought you've put into this makes it already look like a part of the game. I'd endorse this. It looks pretty good

 

[tlonge]

Hey Thac0 -
I like the idea, but honestly I have to say that this seems like a whole lot of grinding — so I'm going to play a bit of devils advocate here: would each undead drop 1 "ectoplasm" or 1 "bone shard"? If they did, you'd already be at 300+ enemies to kill to get one legendary with this idea (50 for Rare, 100 for Famed, 150 for Legendary) for just 1 weapon. Unless Rare / Famed / Legendary are different ranks? (please correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't yet reached endgame on TLoPO )

Furthermore, would all these materials take up inventory space? I like the idea of being able to add weapon specials, but in the back of my head I can't help but think this would result in a LotRO-like system (which I'll explain a bit about below).

Spoiler: Critique about LotRO

Lord of the Rings online, for those who don't know, has a system of "legendary-items" - items that you could customize (completely different method than the OP suggests here however) with health bonuses, skill bonuses etc. The base items were dropped from mobs, and one simply "identified" the LI at a forge-master. Then you could upgrade the weapon through questing / killing foes etc. All this was fine until the developers lately tried to make them more "customizeable" with recent update additions to increase DPS and skill bonuses. However, in doing so, they inadvertently raised the need to grind for materials astronomically. 300+ item upgrade scrolls that require daily quests to obtain and 4 days to get 1 upgrade. This meant a casual player, such as myself, fell far behind those who have hours on end to spare. To be frank, this was part of what drove me away from LotRO, and I'd hate to see this happen to TLoPO too .

*If you are suddenly curious about the LotRO weapon system, check their wiki: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Legendary_Items
"Imbuement" was added in May of 2015, but has been expanded since (much to my chagrin).

As much as I want to agree with your idea, Thac0, my first impression is please, not for TLoPO.

To make up for my slight criticism, I'm going to offer a compromise idea you may critique as much as you wish — see below

Spoiler: tlonge's idea

I'll call it "combining" for now. Basically would require just two weapons with bonuses. Once you have them, you'd be able to take, i.e. the roundhouse boost from one weapon with 2 bonuses, and replace the bonus on another. To do so, you'd choose which item you'd want to keep, and which bonus you'd want to replace. I'm not sure if the other weapon would be discarded or no. Granted my highest pirate is in the 20s, so I'm not real familiar with current legendaries in TLoPO, but it would eliminate the grinding of more materials aside from coming across weapons with the desired bonuses (which is a chore in itself).

I think that this is sort of what you were addressing with your OP — that it's hard to come across the desired sword-class and bonuses just through looting (and do correct me if I'm wrong).

I would envision "combining" being able to be done with any level item differential between the two weapons - i.e. even a level 40 sword and 10 sword. Most pirates (I imagine) are aware that taking a +1 cleave from a level 10 sword would obviously not be as powerful as replacing a +3 sweep, but if that was the skill you wanted to boost, it'd be a much easier sword to come across in low levels instead of looking for another same level weapon. I would think that 2 or 3 bonuses is the most a weapon should have (and how it currently is?)

Let me know what you think!

 

[Thac0]

Wow thanks for the insightful reply, I thought my thread was dead lol

Regarding grinding, my thought was this: if pirates are grinding already (and let's be honest with ourselves: late-game TLOPO is a grindfest), why not grind towards an achievable goal in multiple locations, rather than grind the same spot for hours for that one legendary or famed drop? Also, by the time weapon customization would be relevant to a pirate, they will have already most likely gathered the majority of the materials they need for upgrades. For example: in Guild Wars 2 crafting materials are a natural part of game progression, and I never felt like I was grinding for materials, but just playing the game. For pirates close to or at the level cap already, you are right. As for inventory space, there should be a separate tab for materials. I don't remember if one exists already, but I think so.

I like the idea of combining, but I think there could be some balance issues, and testing would require a more involved study of each weapon and unique skills.

Again, thanks for the reply! I hope this starts to generate more discussion

Edit: I came up with this system after the game closed at the beginning of march, so the drop rates and average gold per hour wasn't fresh in my mind. Obviously if the values I've shown for gold and material requirements are too high or low, they can be altered. That goes for the stat values as well. I would be very surprised if my first attempt was a perfectly balanced system lol!