Crafting has the potential to be the true end game content. A new ingredient based crafting system is coming to replace the current one. I have some ideas to share. I will keep it high level and rough on purpose.
Monster attributes, add Critical weakness (see the other post about go big or go home), and elemental attributes.
Elemental attributes: All things are made up of elemental materials/forces. A fire monster should not fear flame as much but weaker to ice etc.
Elements: Fire, Ice, Earth, Holy, Demonic (was thinking negative but we got demons already so, Demonic it is).
Fire > Earth > Ice > Fire.
Holy > Demonic > Holy (so they are weak to each other).
How does it work?
Fire damage will do 150% damage against the element it is strong against, in this case Earth. Earth will do 150% against Ice, and Ice will do 150% against Fire.
Holy will do 150% against Demonic and vice versa.
Element is strong against itself, thus Ice damage will only do 50% damage against Ice based monster.
Element will do normal 100% damage against other elements.
Monster can have multiple elemental attributes, its type is determined by the highest elemental score.
For example Zombie:
Critical weakness: 0
Fire: 10%
Ice: 10%
Earth: 30%
Holy: 0%
Demonic: 50%
A weapon can also have multiple elemental attributes, its type is determined by the highest elemental score.
For example Holy Avenger:
Critical Base: 5% oops, another attribute I inserted here. Basically the base critical chance of a weapon that is modified by player's CR rating. Thus some weapons will be more crit prone while others are not so much.
Fire: 5%
Ice: 5%
Earth: 30%
Holy: 60%
Demonic: 0%
So the Holy Avenger will do 150% damage to the example zombie. A demon weapon will do 50% damage and the rest will do 100% damage.
However there are exceptions to this rule, called Elemental overload (think critical block).
Let's say we have a weapon that is so dripping with evil, even the evil monsters cower in its presence.
Ragamont's Morning Breath:
Critical Base: 5%
Fire: 5%
Ice: 5%
Earth 30%
Holy: 0%
Demonic: 160%
there are special crafting methods involved here to breach the normal 100% elemental rule. I will detail later.
This weapon, a demonic weapon, will normally do 50% damage against the example zombie. But since its evil is so wretched (as 160% - 50% demonic attribute of the monster > 100%), it actually does 150% damage as if it's a holy weapon. So in effect this weapon becomes strong against two types of monsters, demonic AND holy.
Recall the highest elemental score determines the monster's type. The same weapon however will not be able to overcome let's say something more evil than a regular zombie. Elban for example might have a demonic stat of 80% or even 100%. Thus for a demonic weapon to become strong against it, its demonic attribute will need to be further enhanced.
Crafting Methodology:
Crafting an item will need:
1 crafting manual.
5 elemental ingredients.
crafting manuals for more mundane weapon types should be sold in the Hometown. Things like Long sword, Scimitar, Falchion, Staff, Mace, Pistols, Hand-canon etc. More fantastic stuff should be event rewards or high end boss drops, like Holy Avenger and the aforementioned Ragamont's morning breath.
The manual will tell you which type of elemental ingredients must be used for crafting.
For example Holy Avenger will say at least 3 Holy ingredients (of varying quality) and no Demonic ingredient.
A normal long sword crafting manual will not have those kind of restrictions, you can craft your demonic longsword by using more demonic ingredients or fire sword with fire, ice sword with ice etc.
Ingredients have different levels of rareness and quality. Higher tier ingredient are more pure, able to infuse more of the specific element into the final product. For example a lower tier fire ingredient might be 50% fire, 20% earth, 20% holy, 10% demonic. A higher tier one might be 70% fire, 20% earth, 10% holy. Higher tier ingredient will have a higher % influence on the final product as well. The exact equation I will leave for the Devs to decide.
The damage range of the craft weapon is determined by the crafting manual (how rare it is, for example Holy Avenger might have a higher damage range than a normal long sword). Its weapon speed and critical base are also determined by the crafting manual. However using extremely high quality elemental ingredients will also buff the base stats some whereas lower quality ingredients will do the opposite (Plus Minus 20%?).
Armor crafting will follow a similar method. The elemental ingredients will afford some elemental protection vs elemental based damage/attacks. For example the slow/hp drain will be less effective against someone wearing a lot of negative protection armor. The effect calculation can be something simple as below:
Monster: Ghost
...
Demonic: 50%
...
Player wearing gear has a total Demonic protection of 25%. That means Ghost attacks are 100% effective against the player since player's demonic protection 25% is < 50% of ghost's demonic attribute.
If player's demonic protection is 100%, then Ghost attacks are only 50% effective against the player.
If player's demonic protection is 150%, then Ghost attacks are only 33.3% effective against the player etc.
Ok final piece, how to get high quality elemental ingredient.
Elemental ingredients are drops of various tiers. Harder the monster/boss, higher tier ingredients drops are possible. But when you first receive it, it's not in its final form.
For example: Ragamont's Tear
Highest tier Demonic ingredient.
Its final refined form is 180% Demonic, 5%fire, 5%earth
Its rough form is 150% Demonic, 20%fire, 20%earth.
You need to refine this ingredient for its effect to be maximized in crafting process. It's a very powerful ingredient in its rough form, just not quite the best. For the OCD amongst us.
To refine a ingredient, you use XP as an input. Oh yea here is another wrinkle. Cap champions level to 2000. Gained xp after that is another input cost for refining ingredients.
There is basically two tiers to the crafting process. The normal tier and the end game tier. The normal tier you are just making weapons and only worried about having one element dominate so the weapon has an elemental bias, ala fire sword, ice sword etc. The end game tier is for people that is looking for elemental overload gear (along with that +20% buff to the base dmg attributes by using the highest tier ingredients).
As far as how to get other game stats onto the crafted equipment (things like CR, AR, Power etc), the ingredients can come with random attributes. The crafting process can run some math on those input and give a final stat outcome.
Monster attributes, add Critical weakness (see the other post about go big or go home), and elemental attributes.
Elemental attributes: All things are made up of elemental materials/forces. A fire monster should not fear flame as much but weaker to ice etc.
Elements: Fire, Ice, Earth, Holy, Demonic (was thinking negative but we got demons already so, Demonic it is).
Fire > Earth > Ice > Fire.
Holy > Demonic > Holy (so they are weak to each other).
How does it work?
Fire damage will do 150% damage against the element it is strong against, in this case Earth. Earth will do 150% against Ice, and Ice will do 150% against Fire.
Holy will do 150% against Demonic and vice versa.
Element is strong against itself, thus Ice damage will only do 50% damage against Ice based monster.
Element will do normal 100% damage against other elements.
Monster can have multiple elemental attributes, its type is determined by the highest elemental score.
For example Zombie:
Critical weakness: 0
Fire: 10%
Ice: 10%
Earth: 30%
Holy: 0%
Demonic: 50%
A weapon can also have multiple elemental attributes, its type is determined by the highest elemental score.
For example Holy Avenger:
Critical Base: 5% oops, another attribute I inserted here. Basically the base critical chance of a weapon that is modified by player's CR rating. Thus some weapons will be more crit prone while others are not so much.
Fire: 5%
Ice: 5%
Earth: 30%
Holy: 60%
Demonic: 0%
So the Holy Avenger will do 150% damage to the example zombie. A demon weapon will do 50% damage and the rest will do 100% damage.
However there are exceptions to this rule, called Elemental overload (think critical block).
Let's say we have a weapon that is so dripping with evil, even the evil monsters cower in its presence.
Ragamont's Morning Breath:
Critical Base: 5%
Fire: 5%
Ice: 5%
Earth 30%
Holy: 0%
Demonic: 160%
there are special crafting methods involved here to breach the normal 100% elemental rule. I will detail later.
This weapon, a demonic weapon, will normally do 50% damage against the example zombie. But since its evil is so wretched (as 160% - 50% demonic attribute of the monster > 100%), it actually does 150% damage as if it's a holy weapon. So in effect this weapon becomes strong against two types of monsters, demonic AND holy.
Recall the highest elemental score determines the monster's type. The same weapon however will not be able to overcome let's say something more evil than a regular zombie. Elban for example might have a demonic stat of 80% or even 100%. Thus for a demonic weapon to become strong against it, its demonic attribute will need to be further enhanced.
Crafting Methodology:
Crafting an item will need:
1 crafting manual.
5 elemental ingredients.
crafting manuals for more mundane weapon types should be sold in the Hometown. Things like Long sword, Scimitar, Falchion, Staff, Mace, Pistols, Hand-canon etc. More fantastic stuff should be event rewards or high end boss drops, like Holy Avenger and the aforementioned Ragamont's morning breath.
The manual will tell you which type of elemental ingredients must be used for crafting.
For example Holy Avenger will say at least 3 Holy ingredients (of varying quality) and no Demonic ingredient.
A normal long sword crafting manual will not have those kind of restrictions, you can craft your demonic longsword by using more demonic ingredients or fire sword with fire, ice sword with ice etc.
Ingredients have different levels of rareness and quality. Higher tier ingredient are more pure, able to infuse more of the specific element into the final product. For example a lower tier fire ingredient might be 50% fire, 20% earth, 20% holy, 10% demonic. A higher tier one might be 70% fire, 20% earth, 10% holy. Higher tier ingredient will have a higher % influence on the final product as well. The exact equation I will leave for the Devs to decide.
The damage range of the craft weapon is determined by the crafting manual (how rare it is, for example Holy Avenger might have a higher damage range than a normal long sword). Its weapon speed and critical base are also determined by the crafting manual. However using extremely high quality elemental ingredients will also buff the base stats some whereas lower quality ingredients will do the opposite (Plus Minus 20%?).
Armor crafting will follow a similar method. The elemental ingredients will afford some elemental protection vs elemental based damage/attacks. For example the slow/hp drain will be less effective against someone wearing a lot of negative protection armor. The effect calculation can be something simple as below:
Monster: Ghost
...
Demonic: 50%
...
Player wearing gear has a total Demonic protection of 25%. That means Ghost attacks are 100% effective against the player since player's demonic protection 25% is < 50% of ghost's demonic attribute.
If player's demonic protection is 100%, then Ghost attacks are only 50% effective against the player.
If player's demonic protection is 150%, then Ghost attacks are only 33.3% effective against the player etc.
Ok final piece, how to get high quality elemental ingredient.
Elemental ingredients are drops of various tiers. Harder the monster/boss, higher tier ingredients drops are possible. But when you first receive it, it's not in its final form.
For example: Ragamont's Tear
Highest tier Demonic ingredient.
Its final refined form is 180% Demonic, 5%fire, 5%earth
Its rough form is 150% Demonic, 20%fire, 20%earth.
You need to refine this ingredient for its effect to be maximized in crafting process. It's a very powerful ingredient in its rough form, just not quite the best. For the OCD amongst us.
To refine a ingredient, you use XP as an input. Oh yea here is another wrinkle. Cap champions level to 2000. Gained xp after that is another input cost for refining ingredients.
There is basically two tiers to the crafting process. The normal tier and the end game tier. The normal tier you are just making weapons and only worried about having one element dominate so the weapon has an elemental bias, ala fire sword, ice sword etc. The end game tier is for people that is looking for elemental overload gear (along with that +20% buff to the base dmg attributes by using the highest tier ingredients).
As far as how to get other game stats onto the crafted equipment (things like CR, AR, Power etc), the ingredients can come with random attributes. The crafting process can run some math on those input and give a final stat outcome.
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