Item System
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I think from a crafting perspective the item system is pretty good though i'm not a huge fan of only requiring gold for upgrading items. It should require materials instead.
its also a bad idea to have everything crafted. Consider a system such as the following.
crafting system as it is now + semi-random ( ie Grim dawn/diablo style, found in chests and places where it makes sense etc) drops and finally cursed drops ( found off of special named enemies and chests and can be either a craftable item(cursed material) or a drop but is cursed either way).use a system called magic toxicity where equipping too much magic can have negative effects on you like lowering your stats, regeneration etc. Crafted items would be the least toxic, most dependable, least powerful. Dropped items medium toxicity durability, power, and cursed items highest toxicity, lowest durability, highest power but also serious drawbacks. Cursed items can also be de-crafted to remove some of the negative effects and raw power.
this sets up a game where a player will try to balance the three different types of items to the greatest effect and opens the door for different kinds of play since you can play conservative, balanced or aggressive, and manage the toxicity accordingly.
most players would end up balanced with maybe one cursed item, a few drops and rounded out with crafted but you could do as you wish.
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During the last test, it was indeed noted that having only gold required to upgrade items wasn't good, and the last time this topic was discussed, the devs were looking at alternatives. When the next test is upped, we will see what they did decide on the matter.
Random is a bad word, don't use it. Fractured Devs don't like random stuff!
In all seriousness, this game right now is strictly adhering to the concept that everything is player crafted. I don't think that there is any intention to deviate from that path.
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i see. I consider semi random to be like finding things where you would expect them. Like finding armor in a chest or on a fighter but not on a bear or wolf.
Its difficult to balance crafted with dropped items but i think with a toxic magic system you can achieve it since equipping all found items doesn't generally make your character stronger and adds a layer or two of depth to it trying to figure out the best combination to squeeze that last bit of power out of it.
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@Rungar The Devs have set out a hard line in regards to the item system being completely player driven and crafted. There will not be 'findable' full items, only materials and reagents for creating crafted goods with finite durability so that they will cycle through the economy.
I personally like a little bit of RNG, but the Devs and many of the player base shot that down completely when it was brought up recently as well, so don't count on it.
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I suppose they could add magic and cursed materials and achieve the same dynamic gearing system ( with the magic toxicity system) without requiring specific gear drops.
magic materials being more prevalent in Wildfolk territory and cursed being more prevalent in demon territory. Balanced in the human areas.
just to expand:
Regular crafted (current system): high durability, lowest power, low/no toxicity.
Magic crafted ( from magic drop materials) medium durability, medium power (+10-20%), medium toxicity. Resists looting if possible (other equipped items looted first)
Cursed crafted ( from cursed drop materials) lowest durability, highest power(+30-40%), highest toxicity. Cannot be looted but also have significant downsides.i would also let armor be repairable but each repair permanently degrades the durability. So after like 3 or so repairs its toast but you could also salvage the item and the more you repair it the less you get from it.
to balance it then you could put in enemies that have special attacks that target durability rather than just damage and also enemies with armor that you could use these special attacks to break their armor to get at their hitpoint pool just to add a little strategy to combat.
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The imbuing system is similar to that. It is how we currently make magic items.
You get a gem, put it on an imbuing table, add specific reagents and it becomes an imbued gem. For example a gem that increases mana regeneration.
Then you socket this gem into an item, and now you have a magic item with the mana regeneration property.Now, imbuing comes in 3 levels of quality.
Tier 1: Minor effects. Can be done with low quality gems, which you can find in many common loots. Requires reagents which are found very easily.
Tier 2: Average effects. Requires good quality gems, which are found in treasure chests and mining. Requires reagents which are harder to come by and you probably need to visit specific locations.
Tier 3: Greater effects. Requires flawless gems, which are rare drops from some high level mobs and most importantly require the legendary reagents dropped by the legends.
Each legend drops a specific reagent, so different planets will necessarily have different legendary reagents.
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i saw that and it is neat but i'm a big fan of "pros and cons" more so than just how hard something is to collect. Item system seems to be lacking any major cons/strategy other than not being able to use certain abilities with certain equipment.
I think you need three kinds of items with unique parameters over an above the enchantments, with the minigame being how you choose between the three to maximize your power.
in other games say like elder scrolls you achieved this by selecting different sets based on their inherent bonuses but it also had enchanting (similar to gems here) and while not the same goal as here it had the depth to it since choices were strategic on multiple levels.
im not saying this game should have set bonuses but it should have something over and above the enchantments preferably with real disadvantages built in for the more powerful stuff.
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There's always pros and cons in your build, be it the character stats itself (in order to go high in one stat you have to sacrifice the points in another stat) or on the gem enchantments (pretty much the same as in the character stats, you have to sacrifice for example defense against magic dmg if you want defense against physical dmg, or you go for a balance but aren't that good in one or the other). So there is always a choice you have to make in terms of character and gear bulding. I would even go so far to say it's deeper than in ESO, but i haven't played that in a while so i might be wrong.
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well I'm only going on information I've seen but it doesn't appear to require much theorycrafting on the part of the players. There doesn't seem to be any form of item/set interaction type layers.
I'm all for a more horizontal development but you need those interaction layers imo to replace the lack of vertical progression.
I mean once I choose to be a mage type character and make some light armor and put some gems with the stats I want in it, is that it? Or is there more too it I cant see?
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Heheheh, there are many different flavors of 'mage' in fractured. Each would have very different enchantments on their different favored equipment pieces and would be used in different specific situations.
Are you going;
single target build? aoe? bounce?
Auto attack focused or spell focused?
Melee? medium range? long range?
high mana cost burst? sustained moderate mana cost? low mana cost?
High mobility? low mobility?
Crit build? high min damage? High max damage?
Battle field shaping/ debuffer ? Team buffer? Taunter ? Healer? Tank? Glass cannon?
High defense ? high evasion? high sustain?
Which elemental focus? Arcane? Electrical? Acid? Fire? Cold? Poison?
Remember that you have to fight mobs (or trade) to get gold coins to upgrade equipment, have to harvest materials to make equipment, have to wait for crops to grow, hides to tan, metal to smelt for all of that.
And have to repeat the process every 40? hours of game play (not pvp, it wears stuff out faster) to replace the equipment.
How do you plan on getting the materials for that? use your good equipment? some specialized mob hunting equipment? or run around naked armed with just your spells? (patched, not so possible now)
As you progress and find new skills and talents your preferred or 'optimal' play style will change and your equipment will have to change to fit.
In all of the tests I played in I rarely actually wore out a piece of equipment. I was far more likely to phase it out as my build grew and expanded.
In many ways mages are blessed and cursed with choices compared with archers and melee (for now). Presumably each archetype will have as much variability and choice as each other and -some how- balanced (good luck DM's!)
So the only static build in game will be the one that you decide to settle on while ignoring all the other possibilities. Happy in your rut with your specialized build against your specialized target, happily farming away on them for the materials (which is totally valid and possible, one guild of 10 ppl did this and were hugely successful, in their niche) but not venturing far from the familiar.
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thanks for the explanation. How much of what you have there is equipment vs the talent trees?
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All of those builds are a mix of skills, talent trees and equipment.
I'd say 60% skills, 25% equip, 15% talents.
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Agreed. You could easily focus an entire build around the synergy of two skills you just picked up.
Talents may have a bigger factor than 15% in my opinion, but they are also the easiest to switch around, followed by equipment and skills last only because you have to go out and learn each skill from mobs and can take a moderate amount of time, especially if you are going to some 'optimal' combination you saw posted somewhere.
Once learned skills are as easy to swap around as talents and then the most time is spent on equipment changes.
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Talents were 25% before the last test.
The new talents are not as important to the builds.
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Getting to the end of the talent paths still give game play altering abilities. The path there is less empowering than before is all. I would like to give more specific examples but I did not take notes on the new tree and the wiki still has the old talents listed XD.
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Also note, another hard line in the sand the Devs have drawn is that they won't have repairs for gear. They want a dynamic player driven economy where your gear wears out and you replace it as needed with new combinations of gear.
