Temp soulbound gear-set suggestion page
 could look like before being re-textured and re-shaded. |
Hi, created this page because I (Squanto) am unable to type/post to the forums in the discord as I'm having issues verifying my discord account. (requirement to be able to post)
I have a suggestion to make the game much less harsh for all players by making the full loot pvp a bit more forgiving. This is a very basic first pass just to see if something like this would be considered; if so, it can be theory crafted and fleshed out much more.
BASIC IDEA:
The basic idea is to add a few 'soul-bound' gear & weapon sets to the game. For the rest of this post, these will be referred to as "Expeditious sets". For steam launch, I suggest adding rank 20 and rank 40 gear & weapon set variant's with the option for adding more in the future for higher gear tiers as the game progresses. There are a lot of ways you could add to obtain these sets, but I suggest tying them into the racial warfare and making them purchasable from a shop using a new currency or as rewards from racial sieges/control points.
These gear sets would come as a full 10 piece armor set package, giving the player the choice to choose either a mage/hybrid set or a destroyer/heavy set. The sets would each come with a staff & bow and then again allow the player to choose their 2 handed weapon (greatsword, greataxe, greatclub or polearm) and then also choose their 1 handed weapon (sword, axe, or club).
There is plenty of cool mob gear already modeled for all races in the game and could be easily packaged together & texture/shader swapped (the mage/hybrid sets would use a metallic shader for helm, boots, gloves & pants pieces with the rest being set to use a matte shader) - (the destroyer/heavy set would use a metallic shader for all pieces and would use similar mob gear to the mage set and retextured to look a bit different.)
Ok, so now that you have an idea as to how you would implement them, lets talk about why these should be added and how to stop them from being abused.
The biggest problem with Rise of Agon is that it takes too long for new players to farm and create pvp viable gear sets and its too easy for them to lose them. They could spend upwards of 6 hours farming the materials on the current legacy server to make one q3 fullplate r50 gearbag, and lose it in just seconds to a veteran player. I expect this to be much harder and more time consuming on steam launch. There is no way casual players are going to stick around, unless something is done. Adding gear sets that are not lost on death would be a massive win to player retention, as it would allow people with limited time to compete and join in on the fun in pvp with a lot less risk, and much more simple to re-gear.
Ok, lets get into the mechanics. So you obtain the gear set from a shop or as a reward from control points or racial sieges- I suggest you pack these sets into a container that is tradeable to other players. When the container is opened, it pops up with a gui window that allows you you to pick your weapons and then your mage/hybrid set or destroyer/heavy set. Upon unpacking the container, the items then become soul-bound aka un-tradable and do not drop on death but can still be banked (not in clan banks). These gear and weapons should have similar durability to other items of their tier. When a player bleeds out, get's ganked, or dies in water, or when the gear reaches 0 durability through use - the gear becomes 'damaged'. When it becomes 'destroyed' it is immediately unequipped from the paperdoll, and placed in the backpack, and can't be re-equipped until repaired. To be repaired, the gear needs to be taken to a Blacksmith NPC. A new 'Repair' tab is added to blacksmith NPC that checks your inventory for 'Expeditious armor & weapons'. If the gear is say 40% durability from use, it will cost 60% of the total gold cost of a full repair. If it is 'destroyed' from being ganked, bleeding out, dying in water, or reaches 0 durability, it will cost the full amount. The costs for repairing this obviously depends on the economy, but as an example given the current economy on Legacy: (Example: Expeditious 60B Set: A rank 60 tier mage/hybrid set - equal to approximately 4 pieces of full plate and 6 pieces of bone armor in protections with a staff equal to a Sortilege, a bow equal to a Gravesong, a greatsword equal to a Deepblade, and a one handed sword equal to an Omrog when fully broken could be 105k gold to repair when 'destroyed'. If a player bleeds out, gets ganked, or dies in water - 75% of the cost to repair this gear set (so 78,750 gold in this case) is dropped on the players grave to reward other players who have killed them.
This system if implemented correctly, should approximate the crafted value of a gear set and be around 50% higher price in gold to repair the gear set than it would be to craft one with materials. It should be similar, but approximately 5% less in protections and damage than player crafted equipment. This risk vs reward would allow casual players to participate in pvp without being forced to farm hours for materials to craft gear sets - while still providing a reward to players who kill them and a punishment for dying that stings less than losing your entire player crafted gear set in full loot areas.
As I said, this is a very basic Passover of this system. I have discussed this idea with many veterans in the community and a majority of them agree farming/creating gear sets for new players is a massive hurdle to be able to get into pvp. This would make it easier for newer players and casuals to get into pvp without having to farm for hours to make a single gear set, while at the same time providing both a punishment for dying and a reward to whoever kills them that is much less harsh than the current system.