Geoux
05-05-2008, 12:36 PM
<p>A while back, Denmom posted a message asking weaponsmiths for new ideas for non-consumable items, presumably for ideas that could go into the project Domino's currently working on. Well I set my brain on percolate and let it bubble for a while. Today at work I had a breakthrough. My problem was that I was thinking too small, stuff like variants of swords, tridents, whathaveyou. What I came up with is big, affecting not only weaponsmiths but all tradeskillers. It would be too big for a patch, and if used would make more sense to come out in the next expansion.Here is my idea.Add two more tradeskill classifications , "Artisancrafted (lvl *6)" and "Lorecrafted (lvl *9) " which would be the fabled/mythic versions of "Handcrafted (lvl *0)" and "Mastercrafted (lvl *2)".Right now weaponsmiths don't have a particularly big market. Why spend 75 gp or more on rare metal weapons when you can do solo content quests and get ones that are just as good, if not better. Also, most folks only need to buy maybe one or two weapons when they advance to a new tier. Armorsmiths have an almost automatic seven-piece sale, for example. Adding Aritsancrafted and Lorecrafted items would seriously boost the marketability and desirability for our good items.The first hurdle to overcome though is how to do it? You don't want a flood of items this powerful into the game's itemization. Well, you do it by making them take time to get parts for. To make Artisancrafted items, you would ned an improved version of the rare item for the Mastercrafted version. To do this, you would first need to do a quest to gain the ability to improve the material. Once you know how, it would require sacrificing rares in the combine. 5 Xegonite to make 1 Refined Xegonite, for example. Additionally, there could be an NPC available who could sell you the improved materials, but at a cost of 7 to 1, instead of 5 to 1.In addition, the ability itself would have a particularly long cooldown on it, say 8 hours. These measures would efectively serve to keep the flow of Artisancrafted to a managable pace. Metal = Refined MetalLoam = Purified LoamRough Gem = Faceted GemRoot = Preserved RootSevered Wood = Treated WoodHide = Pressed HideLorecrafted, of course, should be very slow to enter the game. In my opinion, the best way to do this would be making it a multiple inproved rare combine (three refied xegonite) *and* a secondary drop from an exquisite chest. It would be specific to tier, like the current (as of this writing at least) imbued material, and be able to use it for any tradeskill of the tier. Let's call our hypothetical tier 7 version Sherbertium. (I have a cat named Sherbert, sue me. =p ) So Tier 7 weaponsmiths would have four sets of books per tier, with the following recipie pattern.Pristine Adamantine Eecutioner's AxePristine Xegonite Executioner's AxeRefined Xegonite Executioner's AxeSherbertium Executioner's AxeOf course there would also be imbued versions of the two new tiers of weapons, but it would take more. 5 imbue material for the Artisancrafted, and 10 for the Lorecrafted. This same pattern would apply to armorsmiths, etc. Carpenters could make items with even more status reduction, woodworkers could make better totems and bows, and scholars could make Master 1 and Master 2 abilities. The only tradeskill that would have a hard time seeing benefits of this would be provisioners. Maybe by adding imbued material they could make food with higher stat bonuses?You can see why this idea would probably be best implemented with a full expansion rather than a live update. It would be ginormous. I have some other ideas that accompany this.Add a 4th tap to resource nodes. You would need special tinkered gear to do it, giving tinkerers a new product to sell. Have the recipie to make them be a quest reward. You would also need to have a minimum harvesting skill in order to be able to use the 4th tap gear. The net effect would, in the long run, increase the rares in market by 33% but this would be more than offset by the need to melt so many down to make Artisancrafted and Lorecrafted. This would just make Mastercrafted abit more useful.Make the new armor sets an actual set, with bonuses for having multiple pieces.Make the new recipies aquirable by faction, say 30K+ for Artisancrafted, and 40K+ for Lorecrafted.If this system would be put in place, give carpenters improved versions of their boxes that don't hold more, but weigh less. (75 and 50 lbs as opposed to 100 lbs. Not everyone can pack around a mid-sized car in carrying capacity)(specific house item request) We can buy tradeskill tables/forges/etc for our houses, but we still need to buy fuel, or sometimes other supplies. Could we get an item that functions as a limited broker? You could only buy crafting items out of it (from other people, just like a standard broker), and buy fuel.If any devs read this and like what you see, please drop me a line. nuke_em(at)comcast.net. I would love to be involved in implementing these ideas, or just knowing that there's some useful information in what I wrote out for you! </p><p>*EDIT* Almost forgot! Make the different weapon types have meaning again, and add diety-specific adronments. You could make the weapon types different by having different effects for swords, axes, etc. at the Artisancrafted and Lorecrafted levels.</p>