Item Enhancements (Customize Your Gear) Also, Cookies

[Saix 0]

In many ways this is almost intended to function paired with my Leveling System that is happily entering a form of "Open Beta" for those interested. So, what is 'Item Enhancement'? Well, in my eyes it is another way for us, the players, to sort of customize our game experience for the role we want to play in the game. Only instead of leveling up and selecting Skills that change how our characters respond to the world, we instead have the option to focus on our gear. Let's look a little deeper.

I: The Cannon

In the cannon, players would regularly upgrade equipment so that they might continue to use it for several levels without having to replace equipment. Examples of this include Kirito's Anneal Blade, Elucidator, Dark Repulsar and Asuna's Lambent Light. These high quality items were intended to be enhanced, several times, and allowed their wielder to use a weapon long after they obtained it. In the first Sword Art Online Progressive Novel, Kirito explains the Enhancement System and how it works, basically stating that SAO had 5 enhancement types. And that in order to enhance an item, special materials had to be used by a good enough Smith. These Item Enhancement Types were; Sharpness, Quickness, Accuracy, Durability, and Heaviness. All items in SAO that could be upgraded used these 5 Enhancement types, and they formed the backbone for how weapons would modify a player's combat stats. This is actually a very easy system to adapt and use here on SAO:RPG.

II: The Enhancements

Alright, so we know that we have Sharpness, Quickness, Accuracy, Durability, and Heaviness available as far as Enhancements go, but what does that mean? Well, in the vein of making this simple and easy to use, here is what I propose.

Sharpness: Increases damage done by 1 (Weapon Enhancement)

Quickness: Increases evasion chance by 1 (Weapon/Armor/Trinket Enhancement)

Accuracy: Increases hit die by 1 (Weapon/Trinket Enhancement)

Durability: Increases damage reduced from armor/blocking by 1 (Weapon/Armor/Shield Enhancement)

Heaviness: Increases damage by 2, decreases evasion change by 1(Weapon Enhancement)

Pretty simple, right? So, lets look at some examples. Let's say, that we have a player who is wanting to build a tankish type character. This hypothetical character is a Smith, and goes on a few topic/quests to gather materials so that he will be able to enhance his weapon and armor. Since this hypothetical character uses a two handed sword, and heavy armor, with the intent of functioning sort of like a tank (Totally not Shard), he chooses to enhance his sword with a Heaviness and Durability enhancement. His sword now does two extra damage and decreases his chance of evading attacks by 1. However, since NotShard wears heavy armor and does not particularly care about evading attacks because he plans on blocking with his sword, it also decreases incoming damage by 1. Whats more, he Enhances his armor with another two Durability Enhancements, further improving his defense by an additional 2 points absorbed.

III: Keeping it Fair

So, what is to keep someone from using Enhanced Items to become super powerful? An excellent question, self! All items in SAO had a limit as to how many times they could be enhanced. This limit was absolutely ridiculous, sometimes upwards of 60 or so times. We will need to adjust that. So, as far as limits go, I propose we go with a series of Enhancement limitations that are drawn from the Item Quality itself. So, lets look at it from the Crafting Prospective.

Bad Item: This is a pretty normal item level, think Starter Gear. It cannot be Enhanced.

Good Item: This is a little bit better quality, normally a quest reward. Sort of like Anneal Blade. It can be Enhanced twice. Either two +1 Enhancements, or one +2 Enhancement.

Uncommon Item: Now we are starting to see a much higher quality, this type of item is normally associated with a Smith or extremely difficult quest reward. Sort of like Kirito's Queen's Knight Sword or an item obtained from the NPC Smith Pepper from the Blade of Dreams Quest. This item can be Enhanced four times either four +1 Enhancements, or any combination there of.

Rare Item: Representing especially high level of craftsmanship, Rare Items are almost always Smith created or dungeon/boss loot. Sort of like Kirito's Dark Repulsar or Asuna's Lambent Light. They can be Enhanced six times, at any combination of Enhancements the player desires.

Perfect Item: The best of the best, described by some as 'demonic swords' and usually obtained only through either the highest echelons of crafting or Floor Boss last hit bonus drops. Sort of like Kirito's Elucidator. These super rare items can be enhanced eight times, at any combination of Enhancements the player desires.

Wow, that's pretty cool, but what does it mean exactly? Well, for starters, it means that player interaction will be very important. Suddenly it is much more important to be able to ask a Smith or Tailor to help you maintain your equipment, because through Enhancements you will be able to further customize your character. But how exactly do you go about Enhancing them?

IV: Enhancing Items

I'm glad you asked, self. Alright then, in order to enhance your item, you will need to gather specific materials. These can be gathered in small numbers from completing very specific tasks in your topics. Our lovely GM Oske, has started compiling a rather awesome list of 'special' materials that I feel would be a wonderful example of a way that would work very well.

The Material Described below is written by Oske, I am quoting it here as an example.

Tamahagane

• [*:p5mq1oyx]1. Kill enough skeletons to obtain at least two bones.
  [*:p5mq1oyx]2. Crush the bones down into <>
  [*:p5mq1oyx]3. Burn the bone dust until it's charred and black
  [*:p5mq1oyx]4. Kill enough iron skeletons to get one <>
  [*:p5mq1oyx]5. Crush the iron block until it is <>
  [*:p5mq1oyx]6. Mix them together and put it back in your inventory in a bag to give to Smith (In total, it will make 2 Tamahagane ingrediants)
  [*:p5mq1oyx]7. Mix the <> and the <> with water until it is all goopy and clay-like
  [*:p5mq1oyx]8. Wait until it hardens, then use it like any other smith material.

That sounds just like the kind of quest I would imagine undertaking if I were questing for material to Enhance my sword. By gathering materials like this, that require mixing/matching or tackling hard mobs, a player collects the specified amount of special ingredients. Taking these ingredients to the Smith who will perform the Enhancement, the Smith prays to the Random Number Gods, and makes the Enhancement Attempt. Wait, attempt? Yes, attempt, an Enhancement Attempt can fail.

So how what does it take to succeed on an Enhancement Attempt? At least a six on the Crafting Dice. If this Enhancement Attempt Fails, the materials are used up, and a player must go about gathering them again for another attempt. Enhancing a weapon or armor, can become a very long and drawn out process if Enhancements are failed multiple times. In my Leveling System, I included Crafting perks that can make it a little easier, but gathering the required materials can still be very time consuming. However, this is a VRMMO, grinding and time consuming is how things are supposed to work.

V: How Do I Calculate Enhancements?

Well, for starters, Enhancing Items only works on weapons, shields, trinkets, and chest armor. We don't want to let dice modifiers get too far out of hand, by enhancing all individual armor pieces.

Also, since most high quality weapons have requirements to be wielded in many MMO's, a weapon/shield/trinket/or armor cannot give you a higher skill bonus then you already have. So if you manage to craft a high level sword early on, and work your way to getting a Sharpness +3, but only have a One-Handed Straight Sword Skill Rank of 1, you will only receive a +1 to damage, even if you have an Enhanced Sharpness +3. This is intended to ensure that a player must invest at least as much time spent improving their own stats to match the stats of their item to get the full effect. A high quality item should not be a game changer that turns a level 2 swordsman into the equivalent of a level 6 swordsman just by equipping a single weapon.

VI: Enhancement Materials

I'm going to leave this blank at the moment, and let some of our Smith's chime in with potential Crafting Materials that could be used for each of the 5 Enhancements. We would need at least 3 materials for each, one for Weapons, one for Heavy and Light Metal Armor, and one for Tailoring. For examples, I believe that this topic posted by Oske, from which I quoted the Tamahagane recipe, would be a great resource to look at. I would not dream of using some of Ms Oske's materials without her permission, so I will not use them here without first securing her blessing. Materials List

Sharpness:

Quickness:

Durability:

Accuracy:

Heavyness:

VII: Oops

You were talking about this last week, what took you so long to finally post it? Errr... well, you see, a game called Titanfall came out earlier this week, and I had Wednesday night off to play with 9Lives. So... yeah. On a side note, I am level 34 on Titanfall, so that counts as something right? Kidding aside, I have been pretty busy the past week, and Titanfall really did come out this week. I am not really level 34, I was just using that as a joking example of having played too much. I am actually level 29, which I guess isn't really too much better.

In any case, please vote what you think. Smiths and Tailors, lets hear some ideas for a material for each of our Enhancements. Remember, one for weapon, one for Heavy and Light Metal Equipment, and one for Leathor Equipment. Remember, the weapon and heavy/light equipment doesn't necessarily have to be different, they can be the same material. Tailoring will however have to have it's own material, since we can't very well use metal for leather armor.

[Zeke 0]

Any idea to make this a more interactive experience is good on my part. Nothing that stands out to me except for the things we have yet to incorporate that help with this idea. I give it a pass for what it is worth from just a member and also have no option on the poll that suits my needs. Why oh why?

[9Lives 0]

Are we saying materials just for upgradeing or for crafting or both. It seems that most of the materials they are compiling are for certain types of weapons and/or change the appearance of the item. And their list is primarily for the purpose of crafting. Would we need to use the materials from construction to upgrade or are we saying that set materials added to an item (regardless of what its made from) will add the effect desired.

Also does this mean that items crafted will have no base stats even if they are a high roll. Lets look at the sword I made as an example. Its got a +9 modifier(s) from creation. Are you saying that I could further upgrade it to add an aditional 6 modifiers to it if I upgraded it? That sounds way over powered.

As a different option why not have any item upgradeable up to two ranks higher than its creation. A bad item or started item can be upgraded once to good and then again to uncomon. A perfect weapon thus could not be made better. Since you would have to get the mayerials to upgrade and theres no garantee it will work it still puts value in item creation but allows a player to keep their cherished item even if the stats arent great at creation.

Then you just have to hut down the materials used in the items creation to upgrade it. This makes more sense then putting metal into a crystal compsition blade.

[Hunter Yagami 0]

This idea seems fun and would always keep the player grinding

[Saix 0]

Are we saying materials just for upgradeing or for crafting or both. It seems that most of the materials they are compiling are for certain types of weapons and/or change the appearance of the item. And their list is primarily for the purpose of crafting. Would we need to use the materials from construction to upgrade or are we saying that set materials added to an item (regardless of what its made from) will add the effect desired.

Also does this mean that items crafted will have no base stats even if they are a high roll. Lets look at the sword I made as an example. Its got a +9 modifier(s) from creation. Are you saying that I could further upgrade it to add an aditional 6 modifiers to it if I upgraded it? That sounds way over powered.

As a different option why not have any item upgradeable up to two ranks higher than its creation. A bad item or started item can be upgraded once to good and then again to uncomon. A perfect weapon thus could not be made better. Since you would have to get the mayerials to upgrade and theres no garantee it will work it still puts value in item creation but allows a player to keep their cherished item even if the stats arent great at creation.

Then you just have to hut down the materials used in the items creation to upgrade it. This makes more sense then putting metal into a crystal compsition blade.

The listed materials created by Oske were simply an example of a process that required going on a quest/topic to receive a specific material to upgrade the weapons. It would not require special materials for the creation of the item, just for a specific enhancement. In the name of trying to simplify things, I would say that our Enhancement Materials should be rather broad, so that we would need only the minimum amount of materials for our Enhancement process. There is no need to have 8 different options for a single Enhancement when we only need one for metal items and one for leather/cloth items.

As for new items being created, they would basically have blanked enhancements. This would not affect already made items, as they were given stats/enhancements by the GM team before this system was ever proposed. If you possess an item that already had been given enhancements, either up too or exceeding what was put forth here, then you would not be able to further upgrade it.

I like your concept of upgrading the quality of an item, and believe that it would also make for a good addition to the proposed system. It also gives a player hope of improving a Good or Uncommon Weapon into a badass weapon through hard work and epic questing, which would promote more Rp, and please the Rp gods. It looks like we have reached 5 votes, I will poke at Dellis next time I see him on to have him present our case to the other GM's, since he had mentioned being willing to do so.

[Shanok 0]

I do find your lack of cookies disturbing, however, I think this is a good idea and could be implemented in the future. Personally, I don't see the difficulty your system could bring, the crafter/enhancer just has to keep in mind the quality of the weapon before enhancing it, which also means, if you order a weapon/armor from a smith, he'd have to tell you the quality of it so you can use that as reference when you want to enhance it later. But like I said, I think this idea's good and it could bring some improvements to the equipment system.

[Nikki Styx 0]

On this note I was wondering if anyone had thought about base weapon stats in comparison to each other. For example, would an axe do more damage than a sword, but have a lower chance to hit? does a two handed weapon have better stats than a single handed weapon? This can then work into enhancements as a larger weapon might have room for more upgrades. Just a quick thought.

[Saix 0]

On this note I was wondering if anyone had thought about base weapon stats in comparison to each other. For example, would an axe do more damage than a sword, but have a lower chance to hit? does a two handed weapon have better stats than a single handed weapon? This can then work into enhancements as a larger weapon might have room for more upgrades. Just a quick thought.

As much as I would like the added realism, I think that for the purpose of use here on the board we should try to keep things as simple as possible. Increasing statistics for a weapon through the Item Enhancement concept would be about as complicated as I want to push things. I believe that while the diversity and customization options available are very important, we should not push that too far if the result compromises new players being able to easily slip into the game. Keeping things nice and simple and then allowing players to decide when and were to push stats is a nice balance between customization options and ease of use, in my opinion anyway.

[Nikki Styx 0]

Sounds good. that will leave things much easier to work with. I was just checking so that I understand more for our open running beta.

[Shard 0]

We should probably have specific mat's for enhancing equipment, rather then dual purpose things.

Of course, the way mats work right now, any differentiation is somewhat nebulous. Everything is freehand, so really there is nothing to stop someone from gathering on mat type, then later changing it and simply saying something like "PC traded the old mats for these new ones!". That ties into our none existent Col system, where if we had Col, we could charge for switching mats, which would make sense.

[9Lives 0]

before we can start any of that, we need to determine what the materials are in the game and what they are for.

we could divide it into crafting materials and enhancement materials. there will be a lot of crafting materials because this includes all the professions so the materials need to be further broken down by the professions. Since everything created is purely for aesthetic value, the materials need to listed with what properties they give the crated item. in cooking these would be like appearance and flavor or smell, in armor it would be color and appearance. lastly each material need to state where it can be found such as what floor and specifically what area on that floor. if its something that will be received by defeating monsters then there needs to be a list of the monster and what the loot die needs to roll on its defeat to attain it.

Enhancing should be a set of materials that the profession can use to add attributes to their item by inserting them into a "slot". this can be used for every profession. continuing with the example of a cook and a smith: a cook would be able to add spices or herbs to their food to gain temporary benefits like health, agility, speed, strength. a smith could take enchanting materials and add properties to their creations like durability, and quickness. for this we need a list of enhancing materials broken down by profession, what abilities they bestow, and where they can be found like above.

until that is done we have nothing to build the enhancement system on.

[Nikki Styx 0]

In the even of color related Materials, those could even be universal between crafting and tailoring. Just having specific dye drops than can then be used to modify specific items.

Dye's could be rare drops for specific monsters, but then certain colors could be quest rewards, Boss rewards, or freebies from the GM's to reward characters.

[9Lives 0]

I know dye is a universal thing in mmos but o hoped I would nevr see it here. I think the person making the item should be able to make it look as they please not just gray. I especcially dont want to grind forever to dye my armor guild colors. The only way I would suppost dye is if it was after creation. The crafter could make it look like anything then the person can change it with dye.

If we do dye though I think it should be something craftable by the potion maker.

[Nikki Styx 0]

Hey that's even better using a potion maker to get the dyes. They would then need special mats and such to get that to work.

N I wasn't thinking that Items are made grey, no instead, I assumed the Dye's would be more for changing colors after, if for example you later hated yer green sword, you could get a dye, see a smith and have it turned blue.

[Saix 0]

Hey that's even better using a potion maker to get the dyes. They would then need special mats and such to get that to work.

N I wasn't thinking that Items are made grey, no instead, I assumed the Dye's would be more for changing colors after, if for example you later hated yer green sword, you could get a dye, see a smith and have it turned blue.

Not only would that do, it would give the Alchemists something besides Health Potions and Poisons to make. Just too clarify I still believe you have a little freedom with what color an item is created based on the materials you use. Kirito's black coat was made from Black Dragon Leather, and all that.

[9Lives 0]

well then wed need to make a list of materials needed for dyes as well. speaking of potions, why cant a potion maker make practical use items. health and poison are nice but what about invisibility, potions that make stats better like strength potion or agility potion. potions to increase crafting rolls, potions to increase loot find. on the offensive why not have poisons that do damage over time or poisons that lower accuracy rolls or the target. it would be easy to incorporate.

running off the crafting system you could have certain ingredients that have certain effects. the better the roll the longer the effect lasts.

1-4=Reactive Fail (potion reacts badly, lose mats if crafting)

5-7=No Reaction (potion doesn't mix, materials recovered)

8-9=Good (potion mixes, effect lasts 3 posts)

10=Uncommon Potion (Effect lasts 4 posts)

11=Rare Potion (Effect lasts 5 posts)

12= Perfect Potion (Effect lasts 6 posts)

Aggressive potions (poisons) could be applied to a weapon then would come into effect on hit. they could also be thrown at the target and are subject to attack rolls. all poisons work half the time of creation effect. this means that a perfect poison works for 3 posts, while a perfect potion works for 6.

[Saix 0]

well then wed need to make a list of materials needed for dyes as well. speaking of potions, why cant a potion maker make practical use items. health and poison are nice but what about invisibility, potions that make stats better like strength potion or agility potion. potions to increase crafting rolls, potions to increase loot find. on the offensive why not have poisons that do damage over time or poisons that lower accuracy rolls or the target. it would be easy to incorporate.

running off the crafting system you could have certain ingredients that have certain effects. the better the roll the longer the effect lasts.

1-4=Reactive Fail (potion reacts badly, lose mats if crafting)

5-7=No Reaction (potion doesn't mix, materials recovered)

8-9=Good (potion mixes, effect lasts 3 posts)

10=Uncommon Potion (Effect lasts 4 posts)

11=Rare Potion (Effect lasts 5 posts)

12= Perfect Potion (Effect lasts 6 posts)

Aggressive potions (poisons) could be applied to a weapon then would come into effect on hit. they could also be thrown at the target and are subject to attack rolls. all poisons work half the time of creation effect. this means that a perfect poison works for 3 posts, while a perfect potion works for 6.

I definitely think that some stat boosting items would work, though probably on a 1-4 scale based on the Good, Uncommon, Rare, Perfect scale. I also like your idea of how long the potions will last. For healing potions I believe that we could go with something similar to this.

8-9=Good (Regenerate 2 Health over 2 Turns)

10=Uncommon Potion (Regenerate 3 Health over 3 Turns)

11=Rare Potion (Regenerate 4 Health over 4 Turns)

12= Perfect Potion (Regenerate 5 Health over 5 Turns)

In the canon, the potions are specifically said to be far less efficient than the crystals, as they require a heal over time effect and apparently taste quite awful.

I also believe that our Crafting Players can help come up with suitable Enhancement Materials. Specifically, a metal and leather/cloth variation of each of our 5 Enhancement types. The Enhancement Materials should probably be different then the current materials used for Item Creation, but universal enough that we don't need 10 of each. I really liked Oske's crafting materials, and would hope that we could create a similar feel for our Enhancement Materials.

[Nikki Styx 0]

Hey that's even better using a potion maker to get the dyes. They would then need special mats and such to get that to work.

N I wasn't thinking that Items are made grey, no instead, I assumed the Dye's would be more for changing colors after, if for example you later hated yer green sword, you could get a dye, see a smith and have it turned blue.

*Sigh* lol I had a pretty bad typo there. I meant to say that items Aren't automatically gray.

Dyes could also work if you wanted an item forged in an outlandish color... Out of nowhere make a hot pink blade, or something to the effect.

I do like the ideas in regards to different potions and poisons, and if this si a system to be implemented I might look at having potions as my trade.

[Saix 0]

Interestingly enough, in the Sword Art: Progressive 1 novel, Kirito mentions Diabel (The Boss Raid Leader from Floor 1) as having used some sort of dye or item to change his hair color to the green seen in episode 2. Just another little thing that the Alchemists could do, beauty products and all that. At higher levels it could even allow for a change in hair style, etc, not just color. This is a game after all, and most MMO's include some 'barber shop' function for minor appearance changes. It would allow for some truly anime-ish/mmo-ish hair colors in blue, green, pink, etc.

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That said, I would like to see some ideas from our Blacksmights and Tailors as to what type of materials we would use for the Item Enhancements. The idea behind Enhancements is that it would require specific materials gathered through the Rp for each type of enhancement. This is to ensure that we are roleplaying actively so that we might get our cake, and stab things with it too. As I had said before, I am a big fan of Oske's, Shard's, and Dellis' listed crafting materials on the Smithing Material page, and would like to implement something similar.

I believe that one type of metal/ore and one type of fabric/silk for each Enhancement would be perfect. That would let players know exactly what type of loot they need to go collect.

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Also, and this is a side point. But for upgrading an item from one tier to the next, I would really like to require killing a specific field boss for the required item. This would be undertaken as a quest, requiring players to defeat a respawning Field-Boss with a set health, (42ish) or something like that. And upon completion of the quest they would receive their item to upgrade their equipment. (Essentially taking a crafted item and turning it into the next highest tier of item quality, like going from a good item to an uncommon item). Changes in item quality could then be reviewed by a GM for approval just like crafting. This quest would likely require most players to have a party, and would only reward the upgrade item to the person who initially took the quest. Only one party member may have the quest at a time. Much like the monthly boss event, this serves as a chance for our players to get used to how a boss fight works, as well as add incentive to get player crafted items.

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One final point, that I feel needs to be addressed again since it may have been missed in the first read through of the proposed Enhancement System.

Also, since most high quality weapons have requirements to be wielded in many MMO's, a weapon/shield/trinket/or armor cannot give you a higher skill bonus then you already have. So if you manage to craft a high level sword early on, and work your way to getting a Sharpness +3, but only have a One-Handed Straight Sword Skill Rank of 1, you will only receive a +1 to damage, even if you have an Enhanced Sharpness +3. This is intended to ensure that a player must invest at least as much time spent improving their own stats to match the stats of their item to get the full effect. A high quality item should not be a game changer that turns a level 2 swordsman into the equivalent of a level 6 swordsman just by equipping a single weapon.

I want to break this down, as maybe some people did not understand it. However, in order to get the full effect out of the different Enhancement Modifiers, you need to have invested the same amount of points into the correlating skill. This is true for all enhancements except accuracy which improves your chances of hitting the opponent.

Sharpness: The Weapon Skill of your Enhanced Weapon

Durability: The Equipment Skill (Directly affects how much damage is reduced)

Quickness: The Sprint Skill (Directly affects Evasion attempts)

Heaviness: The Weapon Skill of your Enhanced Weapon

Accuracy: No Inherent Skill

To put it bluntly, you will only receive as much of a bonus as you have invested in your skill. Just because you have a Sharpness +4 One-Handed Straight Sword, does not mean you will receive +4 damage unless you have invested 4 Skill Points into your One-Handed Straight Sword. If you had, say only 2 points in One-Handed Straight Sword, then you would only receive the +2 damage. If you had +4 Durability Light Metal Armor, yet only 2 points in the Light Metal Equipment Skill, you will only get a -2 to incoming damage. This is to prevent low or mid level characters suddenly obtaining uber power thanks to one super lucky crafting attempt. As you level and get more Skill Points, and improve your stats, your higher Enhanced Items will be able to give you their full bonus as you match your Skill Points to your Enhancements.

That means that spreading your points around a little has a quicker benefit, but investing points in a single enhancement is a long process to give you a maximum effect in one area.

There is no wrong way to calculate your skills and enhancements, it is all left to the player's choice in creating their preferred build. Which is exactly what we set out to do when we proposed this system in the first place.

[Nikki Styx 0]

I agree very much with this, It forces you to build yer character accordingly, if you want to get maximum use out of a weapon or Item. It also adds the extra element of specialized classes. For example a tank going in just Armor and durability, or a DPS working in just Damage and accuracy... It will essentially give even more options to leveling a character, and gaining a broader rang e of skills.

I can see someone wanting to invest three into their armor, and using a trinket to put 3 points into armor, and 3 points into damage. If all they have invested in their armor is 3 they still get the +3 from the item, allowing them to soak more, but they can then focus on other skills to further them to specific points.