Future Itemization

Discussion in 'Developer Roundtable' started by Wigin, Oct 21, 2013.

  1. Wigin Developer

    Hail, Telonians.
    As we get closer and closer to the release of Cave of Wonder, we want to share with the player what the update will look like. You’ll be getting a couple more of these updates in the coming weeks. For now, this developer roundtable topic surrounds itemization.

    In the past, Itemization hasn’t been perfect. Every player has their own wants, and we couldn’t make individual items for each person’s needs. Players are creative and come up with unique ideas and strategies that require very different itemization, and sometimes even different itemization at different times!

    When creating itemization for an entirely new raid dungeon, we knew that we would need to create a system that solved both of the above issues, and more importantly, created groundwork for progression into future content. We really wanted to make a system that empowered players to make their own unique choices on the stats they wanted and let everyone have unique feel to their character. We came up with a modular system that allows players to pick and choose every aspect of their gear, letting each one of our players decide what exactly they want from each piece of gear.

    The system is built on the enhancements system already in game. Each item will have a set of sockets on their item and will choose which items go in which socket. Items like chest pieces will have more sockets than earrings, but will use the same sockets and the same augments. The only limitation will be is that each item can only have one of each specific augment. There are four socket types: Core, Enrichment, Special, and Defiance. Every augment comes in three flavors: minor, regular, and major.

    Core Augments grant one of the six attributes.
    Enrichment Augments will grant the other statistics such as Damage, Critical Chance, or Heal Effectiveness.
    Special Augments will not be available on every piece of gear and will be used to grant Equipped Effects, Activated Abilities, or Set Bonuses. Many of the loved items like the Book of Morfare will eventually be able to be converted into Special Augments and those with Activated Abilities will each receive its own unique cooldown.
    Defiance Augments is a new stat that will relate to raid progression. We have more to talk about with Defiance in a future roundtable topic.

    Here’s an example the Cores of Constitution.
    [IMG]
    When you get gear from Cave of Wonders, it will look like this.
    [IMG]
    And after decking it out, it will end up looking something like this:
    [IMG]

    All of the choices are laid out before you and not restricted arbitrarily, which will hopefully be a large benefit to you as a player. Clerics will be able to customize their plate gear according to their build and needs, while warriors will be able to customize theirs according to their own build and needs.

    Better yet, as players get new gear, they don’t have to entirely abandon all of their old gear, and will be able to unsocket their upgrades and apply them to a new piece of gear.

    That’s all for now. Keep your eyes peeled for future topics concerning the new stat, Defiance, and how crafting is involved in the new itemization. And of course, get ready to sink your teeth into some new raid encounters when it’s ready to test!

    See you in Telon,
    Wigin
    P.S. I will be the one riding the Rainbow Space Whale.
    Schiller, Tinkiebell and Koralith like this.
  2. Fogerty Active Member

    Don't forget bards. our instrument mods could be handled this way and it would be awesome!
    Koralith likes this.
  3. TheFM Member

    Its a great start.Im sure there will be some needed tweaking.But being able to custom an item to your play style/class sounds very helpful.
    Im sure it would make things easier for the dev team as well.Since we bitvh about stats and slots we dont want.
  4. Kimja Active Member

    I like it.

    However I have two potential gripes.

    First, VG used a mathematical slider to indicate how many points an item would have based on (a) item level and (b) item rarity. Those points were then distributed by the dev team to create their base attribute, stat and rating pool modifiers. If I were a crafter (which I'm not), I'd be upset because you are bound by this same system when creating items. It was great in the beginning of the game when heroic crafted pieces were Best in Slot. It's not anymore. What's the solution there moving forward if crafting has any place in this game outside of creating consumables?

    Second, if this is your system moving forward then I would like to know how the armor and aug slots are going to look different from a tank-type drop and a caster-type drop. I mean AC looks like the only base benefit to gear now. Are dps types going to be allowed more Enrichment augments and tank-types more Core slots?

    P.S. "Gold member required" on the augments? So there will be a new consumable in the SC store to put those in the gear?
  5. dravid Well-Known Member

    What about the aug types of the past - Rune, Primal, Ethereal and Imbued etc?
    Are those going to be added to the new armor or left behind?

    Personally hoping to see them not added to the new stuff.
    Schiller, Kilsin and Tinkiebell like this.
  6. Wigin Developer

    Crafting is something that we want to make much more involved in progression gear then it has been and we will be having another developer round table to specifically address crafting and how it will fit into the system.

    Tanks will have to focus on putting their augments into more survival based stats like Con or AC to do their jobs properly but they will have the same amount of Augment Slots on their gear.
    Schiller and Tinkiebell like this.
  7. Wigin Developer

    General gear will not contain any of the old socket types(excluding soul slots) but there may be some special rare gear with some old socket types on it.
    Schiller, Tinkiebell and dravid like this.
  8. Azraell Active Member

    Why am I feeling this is Virak armor with new names and augments.. Not feeling it atm i think i need more peeps to explain to me better.. Its still early to pass judgement so I will leave it as is...
    Kilsin and Isoel like this.
  9. Jakkal Well-Known Member

    Exactly what I said when I saw this. Really hope it's not another Virak. I'll wait and see though. Really depends on how one earns the augs.
    Isoel likes this.
  10. Wigin Developer

    We will be going through how they are earned in future posts on this forum. I can say however it will not be random. If you want Constitution you will work to earn the Constitution Augment that you want and not be subjected to getting Intelligence or Vitality Augments that you don't want until you are blessed by the RNG.
    Schiller, Tinkiebell and Koralith like this.
  11. Gresteh Active Member

    First I must say that I’m not a fan of the system you are laying out, I guess is not absolutely horrible but I don’t really like it, it’s more of the same, more Vir’ak weapon, more BoD weapon… and we all know how this worked. This time may be different, it looks better than previous attempts but still it seems flawed… I can’t put a finger on where’s the problem but I don’t think it’s going to work.

    Is not that the armor is bad, it’s not bad, perhaps once it’s fully augmented it will be worthy but right now I don’t see it replacing PoTA, perhaps as a replacement of PotA T2… Unless augmentations can be slotted (perhaps you could fit old augmentations here), in that case it could be a nice upgrade.

    All of this is just my impressions from the screenshots and it may not reflect the final iteration of that armor… perhaps I’m biased against this kind of upgrading due to previous experiences… I don’t know...
    I’m willing to give this system a chance, you may get it right this time and customization is always a great thing… but I’m not convinced.
    Isoel likes this.
  12. Azraell Active Member

    We all know we are all going after the shiny purple augment... Nothing but the best right???
  13. Kimja Active Member

    It fits the removal of caps and customization argument very well. It also helps characters with various playstyles (ranged rangers, shamans) build their gear like they want. Heck, even blood mages should be rejoicing over this.

    The new thought that I have is this:

    One would be led to believe that the Core Augments will modify every base statistic (armor class, endurance, hit points and energy) along with attributes (as shown) but are we also to believe that it will modify regen? Because if that's the case and we're relying on VG's RNG to gift us with the augment that we're looking for ... well that very well may NEVER happen. There are 4 base stats, 3 base stat regenerations that tick every 6 seconds and then 6 attribute pools. Not even accounting for the way that skills and resists work (one would assume those fall under Enrichment Augments anyway) that's a lot of combinations.

    Depending on rarity ...
    Attributes go from 0 to 40?
    Stats go from 0 to 200? 400?
    Regen goes from 0 to 10?

    Work out the math. You're never going to get that perfect build on an entire suit of armor and jewelry unless crafters are involved in further customizing the augments (player controlled and distributed). The odds just don't play well.

    Perhaps this is in their new design document to prohibit people from creating the alpha builds?
  14. Apaelias Well-Known Member

    I'm not real sure how I feel about this "new" itemization. As others have stated, it seems exxactly like Virak and we all know how that worked out.

    One of my major concerns is that all the old augments are going away. A lot of us worked hard for our Augs (Runes, Imbueds, Infuses) and now they seem to be pretty worthless.

    Looking at the screens I hope you are steering away from specialized point systems. What I mean by that is getting rid of Spell Damage Rating, Melee Damage Rating and Ranged Damage Rating. Replacing them all with generalized "Damage Rating." Same goes for every other stat that will fall into your "Enrich" catagory.

    I also hope all crafting involved is proactive and not reactive. I don't want to have to farm for a piece then give everything away to a crafter and wait. I'd rather get all my crafting components out of the way up front so that once I get whatever I need BAM I have my gear. ApW was a nice way to incorporate crafters into gear progression IMO

    I'm also kind of worried how this is all going to play into the Stat system change. I'd hate to get all this sweet new gear from CoW then find out you're gonna nerf it all with a stat revamp afterwards. Or you change stats and all our old gear is better then progression gear.
    Ghostchild likes this.
  15. Filzin Well-Known Member

    Well, not a fan of all the work that people have done on their toons over the last 5 years is basically being thrown out the window, but I'll take it if the content ahead is truly challenging. Frankly, my future in Vg hinges on it. If its, Alagon and Merc difficulty then there is no real reason for me to hang around anymore.
    Isoel likes this.
  16. Wufei New Member

    It would be nice if you can make it to where we can convert our old augs to fit into the new gear specialization. We all worked hard getting those augs and for it to be thrown away like that it's pretty harsh. Of course, nerfing the stats down a little for converting them would be totally fair. Also, u can implement more crafting into this too.
  17. Wigin Developer

    It will take a lot of time for anyone to want to get rid of all of their gear. The transition between old and new gear will take a long time and we expect many players to mix and match between old and new gear for quite some time and those with the best gear now will have an advantage for quite some time.
    Tinkiebell likes this.
  18. Wigin Developer

    Crafting is very important in the new system and will receive its own developer roundtable in the future.
    Schiller and Tinkiebell like this.
  19. Fogerty Active Member

    Question. What do I do with 30 rorrs now? Your old system had them as the best thing. I spent a couple years rounding them all up. Now with the new system they will be worthless? All my wealth is built off of them. Essentially I will be poor now. :( Unable to build off of past achievements? that sounds pretty harsh. How about a trade-in program for some credit on something useful under the new system? Otherwise it's a huge gut punch.
    Ghostchild likes this.
  20. Redver New Member

    This sounds crazy to be honest really has to be done correctly or its a game killer in the making.If you agree or disagree endgame raid content is crucial to vg of course open for debate.

    However lets make some assumptions 8 chest slots 6 normal 2 other...

    Helm,Legs,Face,Neck 6 slots ?
    Hands,Arms,Wrists,Shoulders,belt,Rings,Ears 5 slots ?
    Main/offhand/ranged/ammo 6 slots?

    Total guessing of course thats 91 Slots at total guess so assume maybe somethings are differently itemised call it 84.

    Throw in 16 blank items to aqquire thats 100.

    Doubt you can have Purplez right away take 3 augment levels to progress through thats 300.

    24 man content with active player group of 30 thats 9000 items ..

    This is of course probably waaay overboard in estimates but even if figures were 10% of those i suggested thats still gonna require content of a quality and abundance in excess of apw.

    Havent even mentioned vanguards RNG ....

Share This Page