Questions and observation on the lack of depth for people who like crafting to define their character
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@FibS said in Questions and observation on the lack of depth for people who like crafting to define their character:
There's no such thing! Either you have soulbound gear or you don't.
Maybe you're not getting me, not sure. If changing the name to soulbartered or soulloaned helps then sure, but if there's one thing I've learned from this game, this community, there's no absolutes or molds unless someone makes it. Creativity and laughing at the norm has been a staple of this forum, so why stop now? The name may be the same (or not), but that doesn't mean the concept has to be.
This is a standard non-solution that many MMOs use to pretend to limit broken parts of the game, and it's borrowed time; players only need to become expert [job]s once and then [gated content] is in the economy forever.
Other MMOs use it to cover and patch over, but who says Fractured has to as well? With other games, gated content is typically outright better. It's an old money tactic that feeds on player's egos like Halloween candy. No gear provides a complete and utter advantage here; only a different advantage that can be rendered mute by some skill and thinking. Having soulbound equipment means nothing if you like the tactics to counter reduced health, and if you do, then that encourages other players to get better in their gameplay. Yes, there will be a gate of meeting a good enough crafter, but between the diversity of mind among the players and some tweaks like the ones below, it will be more like a hurdle than an actual gate.
Are you implying that a master crafter can only soulbound gear to themselves?
Absolutely not! At least, not only. It could be set up so that all soulbound gear requires a crafter and client pair, regardless of the client's crafting skill, or if master crafters are allowed to create their own soulbound gear, then the process is significantly more laborious due to the lack of someone else's involvement.
This idea could work if the soulbound item (or any other blessing granted by the god) is temporary. As in "a few hours" temporary.
I like the temporary idea, yes, but a few hours seems a little too brief, especially considering I meant for the journey to acquire a single piece of soulbound gear a little extensive. Maybe a day, day and a half?
In the case of a blessed weapon, characters should further be limited to only have one blessed weapon at a time. If they want to make another one it must replace the one they have.
That makes sense, yea I'm with it.
I say have items that do this, but are not merely soulbound - they cannot be taken off. This would then be a classical cursed item rather than a soulbound one per se.
This actually goes along better with the idea I'm getting at
The name could use some work though; after all this soulbound sounds too advantageous and cursed might be too negative for some players to explore. Something largely neutral with the direction this is going would work.Removing the curse should transform the item to a mundane state, removing all benefits alongside its curse. After removing a cursed item, the player's max life remains penalized for at least a few hours and they cannot put on another cursed item until the debuff wears off.
All benefits? That might be a little too much. Though it's partially a gift from a god, there's still benefits from it being worked on by a master. That aspect of it should be kept, so like it still has higher durability than common gear, and say a third (rounding down if need be) of the buffs are kept. That way, if they're caught outside and the blessing lifts, they have a chance at crawling back home instead of basically digging their own grave right there.
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@Rafiqi said in Questions and observation on the lack of depth for people who like crafting to define their character:
@Tuoni There isn't an exact problem, more so people simply desiring soulbound gear. It's a game after all; no desire for anything and Fractured would have little monetary backing. Soulbound gear or anything like it is a reasonable desire considering we've all likely played countless games that involve soulbound gear and it's something many are used to and enjoy. It's a wanted, but not needed, addition for some based on what I've read. Personally I'm fine with or without it cause I still plan on playing this game regardless, but I'm just contributing ideas as they come
Perhaps some people desires soulbound gear but usually those are more a thing in themepark MMOs and are more rare in sandbox games. I am not against soulbound system and I think that works fine e.g. in games such WoW. However, games which have a player-driven economy and full loot rules it would be problematic to fit soulbound system in the same concept. In Fractured the idea is that players will drop gear when they are killed and they can sell their gear if they want to even they have used that before. Because of these reasons I would say there is no room for soulbound system in Fractured.
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@Tuoni said in Questions and observation on the lack of depth for people who like crafting to define their character:
Perhaps some people desires soulbound gear but usually those are more a thing in themepark MMOs and are more rare in sandbox games. I am not against soulbound system and I think that works fine e.g. in games such WoW. However, games which have a player-driven economy and full loot rules it would be problematic to fit soulbound system in the same concept. In Fractured the idea is that players will drop gear when they are killed and they can sell their gear if they want to even they have used that before. Because of these reasons I would say there is no room for soulbound system in Fractured.
For the traditional cookie-cutter soulbound system, I agree that won't work for Fractured. No one should want that in this kind of game. I'm talking about something different though
What FibS and I were discussing could work. Not every piece of gear, regardless of rarity and power, is going to be bound/blessed like we discussed. That way players can still sell all kinds of gear as they please, but if a player wants to keep a piece of gear or they're planning something, they have limited time to enjoy it worry free. If they wanted to sell that gear, they need to decide that before taking the final step to get it blessed/bound/marked (whatever we're going to call it lol).
Players with this kind of gear are still going to drop some gear; the process to create this equipment should be complex and limited to x number of gear pieces per player. For example, if they die they may not drop their sword and helmet, but everything else is yours to take, and what they kept isn't gonna be enough on its own to track you down and revenge kill you
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@Rafiqi Okay, this sounds a reasonable concept and I liked the name blessed gear because it makes some gap to traditional soulbound system which can be understood easily wrong. First I want to say that I am not sure if Fractured needs this kind of system especially because we have PvE planet where PvP and full loot is meant to happen seldom. However, I have for long wanted to see (in any game) some kind of part loot system so there would be some variation between zero drops and full loot. I once saw a game where you got loot points but I do not remember what game that was. Anyhow, maybe we could still talk about this hypothetically, because I am interested, but still skeptical.
Now based purely on my personal opinion, I would limit the blessed gear to just one (two at max) gear piece at the time. I would restrict that the blessed gear won't work in Tartaros because I am sure that most of the players who want to play there would hate this system, and this would also make sense that blessings are not working in demons world. I would tie the blessing system for advanced crafting or system where players needs to sacrifice something to applicable God or maybe even some kind of combination of these two processes. I would make this process rare and valueable rather than common and cheap.
And for pros and cons; This kind of gear protective system can promote people to use their best gear also in open world and not just in safe areas or when hanging out in the towns. Furthermore, this can also encourage people to participate more on open world activities when it feel less penalizing if you get killed by other players. However, this also makes the full loot system less interesting and less desirable, and can easily get a negative receiving from a good amount of players.
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In a full loot system, everything must be able to get stolen. Thus the name "full loot system".
This is why soul bound gear does not fit in, from the aspect of being protected and not able to be stolen.
At most you could have some items that are soul bound, which, "when stolen", other player could not use (equip), but he would for example still be able to break it into materials, and use those materials for other purposes.
So soul bound items, sure why not, but rare, not common (and still subject to theft).
Protected gear: NO, definitely not.
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I don't see the appeal of soul-bound gear at all, in any variation, including time-limited blessed gear or not being able to equip items looted from other people.
One of the important things in losing gear is that it keeps the economy running, allowing gatherers, refiners and crafters to keep doing their activity at any tier. Eventually, the markets will be flooded with items and the devs will have to find ways of getting rid of them faster. The most common solution in this regard, which will probably be implemented by Fractured quite early is a chance per item to get trashed when the player dies. Having accessible blessed gear means that instead of losing 3 expensive weapons and chestpieces in a big zvz, players only lose one. It just goes against the main idea of keeping the economy healthy.
PS: If the blessed gear is not accessible enough to buy it in a situation in which you'd die with expensive stuff multiple times, then there's no point in using them.
