Reverse shards subguild idea

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osma
Posts: 179
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 05:09 am
Location: Mississippi

Reverse shards subguild idea

Post by osma »

Full disclosure: i got the germ of this idea from Youlon, so he deserves partial credit (and flames if you dont like it, which many wont).

Many (many, many,...) items in the game are magical, and completely useless. My personal favorite are the stone clubs of fire resistance or something stupid like that. These items are often so stupid that you dont bother to pick them up, since even with glow they are only worth 300 silver. Other items are fairly good cash value, but still something that even a newbie in a portal sickness dream wouldn't use, such as a copper shortsword of acid.

So here is the idea: create a subguild (profession type) that trains people to manipulate magic to the point that they can extract it from items. At low skills it would most likely not work at all, providing you with a ordinary stone/gem (which at least would be worth carrying back to town). With high skills, along with a few other modifiers, you would end up with an inferior (or with very high skills, maybe a minor) shard of magic which could be imbued on something useful.

Examples are as follows:
Lead handaxe of regeneration (2hpr).
Low skills - greyish stone with yellow bands (aprox 5000-10000 silver)
Medium skills - inferior shard of regeneration (or whatever 1hpr shard is called).
High skills + modifiers + luck - minor shard of same

Modifiers:
Higher material (iron, steel, iceron, whatever): greater the material, better the bonus to success.

Higher skills: better chance of success/better common gem.

Higher quality item: slightly better chance of success

Lbd skills/masteries: higher chance of success and better chance of getting a minor shard.

Higher int/wis: better chance of success


Items with multiple magical bonuses would give only one shard, randomly from what is available. Items that are "eq" or "df" (ratling rapier) would have a very good chance to create a shard with mid-grade skills. No shard would be created minor unless the magical bonus is at least +2. No shard would be better then minor (you aren't going to get better then a +2 shard, even of fire resistance from wyvern earrings for example.)

Why would you join: Shards, even worthless ones, are great df items. You would be able to transfer all that usless item glows into valueable stone or even more valueable shards, which could then be either used or sacced. Since no combat skills are involved, would be a profession subguild.
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belannaer
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Post by belannaer »

I've been tossing a similar "disenchanting" idea around for a long time and while it would be very very nice thing to have it has several bad sides.

Firstly it makes the shards more common and especially affects their "randomness" factor when players can stockpile and farm certain types they desire. Some bonuses like +damage would lead to huge farming of those types and soon everyone would have them on their equipment. This would devalue some shards a lot which is of course a bad thing in the bigger picture. Currently when certain shards drop they are a big deal and worth millions due to their rarity and high demand. As the good shards are rare and expensive there is also a choice involved in use of them and making them more common would remove this feature also.

Secondly it would destroy what little there is player economy in game at the moment. Not that many items are sold from player to player except df and shards (which are also df in a way). When shards were introduced a totally new currency or commodity caused money and items (even good gear) to move from player to player, especially towards smaller players who have also good chance of gaining good shards to use or sell. Having a guild that could produce them with fair easeness, no matter how hard it would be to make them, would shift the focus to bigger players who would be the producers.

Thirdly such guild would be nearly mandatory to every player, like some players consider chronos to be. Everyone who can get it would get it since the shards are needed by everyone from level 1 to 100. If there are high costs involved it again directs it towards the bigger players.

I had some other stuff on my mind but hard to focus while listening interesting lecture so anyways I like the idea but the problems prevent from implementing it.
osma
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Location: Mississippi

Post by osma »

ok, so downgrade it signifigantly.

make some shards impossible to get (damage).
Make the highest possible shard a +1 on stat and +2 on skill/resist.

This would basiclly make the guilds less of a "we have to do this to farm tons of shards" and more of a "we can use the skill to make gems from otherwise worthless magical items, and maybe we can get a shard that we could use for df. Personaly, i would just spend all my time making df quality shards and trying to get cantos ring and leatherworking knife to give me leatherworking shards.
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goderic
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Post by goderic »

Or a minimum threshold for the stat on the glow in the first place? Live only '+3' or better gear may be used in the first place. Gives +1 shard on a basic success, +2 on a rare, lucky crit.
osma
Posts: 179
Joined: Wed Aug 17, 2005 05:09 am
Location: Mississippi

Post by osma »

Or a minimum threshold for the stat on the glow in the first place? Live only '+3' or better gear may be used in the first place. Gives +1 shard on a basic success, +2 on a rare, lucky crit.
This would work, except for the fact that it would again leave the problem of lead clubs with magenta glows that annoy me so much. Would still need the Fail=gemstone.

And some items could still be farmed, although not many items give good +3 bonuses, some do. wyvern earrings, 3str armour, and hunters trappings come to mind.
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belannaer
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Post by belannaer »

I might have figured out a solution but it requires a bit more planning and thinking (and work). It is a bit different approach but you are probably gonna like it (a lot) if it happens :)
apog
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Post by apog »

Maybe a (sub)guild that could suck the power out of these useless items and use them for themselves for the rest of the boot.

In the case of your +3 club of whatever, you could cast a spell and suck out that +3 and give it to you. Of course, the wizzes would add some limit on the power from an individual item and total power from all items.

And for the wizzes, it adds another much needed gold sink.
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goderic
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Post by goderic »

I'm actually in favour of the boosts being temporary. Since shards came in, doing eq seems less profitable, and players power level has gone up a tad too much IMHO. In short, getting good gear is looking a little too easy these days, so increasing the availability of (good) shards looks like going a bit too far. A temporary boost, on the other hand, might be something we can all enjoy
osma
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Location: Mississippi

Post by osma »

Osma imagines...

look at locker

You see
Copper dagger of Strength named "1str" x8
Stone club of damage x4
Stone earrings of Health x1
Lead axe of Regeneration x1
Lead club of Fire x7
Tin shortsword of damage x4


People would horde great glow/low quality items for days when they could spend hours exping, then pop one of each till they had all the boosts they needed for the day, and go monster exp.
This would not be bad per-se (would be something newbies could sell for reasonable price on sales) but giving someone a boot-long boost, and letting them boost multiple times (or multiple types), while being better then shards that work forever, would possibly be a bit extreme.

You are under the following effects:
Boost of damage
Boost of fire damage
Boost of Str
Boost of fire resistance
Boost of Constitution
Boost of Hpmax
Boost of Dexterity
Boost of Epmax

Would be like one day blessings in addition to any other blessings that you have, and if you store alot of them to use at once, could really make a person uber. Again, this might not be a problem, since each boost uses up an item, but it might be. Balance would have to be determined later with a possible downtune.
apog
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Post by apog »

apog wrote: Of course, the wizzes would add some limit on the power from an individual item and total power from all items.
As you can see, I already mentioned this. Additionally, there are many ways to tune the idea.

1.) Change the duration from boot to X hours (based on skill, spell, level, phase, time of day, etc)
2.) Put limits on the number of different boosts allowed
3.) Make boosts fade with time (and unable to be renewed until it's completely worn off)
4.) Make mutually exclusive boosts (can't have str if you have con)
5.) Limit certain boosts to certain guilds
6.) and the list goes on
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iluth
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Re: Reverse shards subguild idea

Post by iluth »

Not to totally hijack the main idea of the thread. But random glows could be disenchanted into totally useless "grey item" shards, which would have the same df/silver value as the item before it was destroyed. Only the essence would be near weightless, and a better option than lugging around buttloads of mauls and stuff. Especially so for Mages and stuff, who don't have a lot of carry space.
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