In the recent stream with Cohh, when they killed the queen/final boss there were items that were dropped that looked like ingredients needed to craft an awesome sword. Joppa spoke on pantheon plus saying it was actually a pretty nice sword to be crafted.
First, I really like this idea and wouldn't mind if most of the game drops were like this....I hate seeing swords drop from rats, and armor dropping from wisp etc. I think this is a good move.
My question and concern though is this: How do we as players know if we should roll for the item or not? How do I know if that sword when crafted will be better for the warrior (with sta and str) or better for the paly (with wis/int) on it? There are several items that will generically be the same (sword, breastplate, rings, etc) but will certainly fit other classes better than others depending on their stats. I would hate a warrior to roll need on a sword or breastplate only to realize that its filled with wisdom or intelligence.
And kind of a subpoint of that, how do I know if the nice drop is better or worse then what I already have? I'm not greedy, so I don't want to roll need on everything just hoping it turns out to be better than what I already have, and it ends up being subpar than what I have; now somebody else in the group possibly missed out as well.
Do you see this as a problem and do you have any ideas how to correct this?
I could understand leaving it exactly as it is if it were only just a very few items like that within about 8 level ranges, but then we're back to having swords drop from rats again. Obviously we can get the actual item from orcs and humanoids, etc...but not NPC's are like that.
Something you should know about the crafting system that you may not already know is that the crafting process has customization. You can use Celestium Dust to add stats to metal ingots, and those ingots will carry those stats onward to the item they're used in.
Cohh picked up two Celestium Dusts of Might during his random looting. Those items can be added to the smelting of an Iron Ingot to make an Iron Ingot of Might. A sword could take, as an example, three ingots to make. Using three Iron Ingots of Might to craft a sword would result in a sword with a large Strength Bonus.
One can assume, therefore, that any item crafted out of a boss drop will have significant flexibility in what kind of stats are on the item!
Darchias said:Something you should know about the crafting system that you may not already know is that the crafting process has customization. You can use Celestium Dust to add stats to metal ingots, and those ingots will carry those stats onward to the item they're used in.
Cohh picked up two Celestium Dusts of Might during his random looting. Those items can be added to the smelting of an Iron Ingot to make an Iron Ingot of Might. A sword could take, as an example, three ingots to make. Using three Iron Ingots of Might to craft a sword would result in a sword with a large Strength Bonus.
One can assume, therefore, that any item crafted out of a boss drop will have significant flexibility in what kind of stats are on the item!
Hnmm interesting. Just curious, where did you learn this information? Just from these forums? I'm not a big crafter so I don't lurk around here too often, but I know VR hasn't really came out and said or explained their crafting system...especially not since Nephele joined recently.
I'm certainly not against that idea of crafting. I still have some concerns about it though. 1) It takes away some item identity. In other games when the "sword of ###" dropped, we all knew that was a pally sword because it had int/wis on it. We also knew that the "sword of ###" dropped specifically from the ### inside of the castle of ###. It seems now that we won't have much identity to items when they are crafted. The items that drop at full face value from a humanoid or whatever will still have identity, but the crafted swords will kind of blend together. "Oh you have the 'Sword of ###' cool. I also have it with str, and he also has it with int, and he also has it with agi."
Which leads to my 2), Now everybody can roll on it. If you can change the stats to whatever you want them to be by adjusting how its crafted, well now everybody wants the same sword. So now everybody if rolling on everything all the time. Seems....odd.
And 3) I still dont know how many "max" stats I can have on it, so I don't know if its better than what I have. Maybe I already have a sword with 8str on it. Well, I don't know if I can get 10str or if I can only get 5 str until I start to craft it right?
Hoiyay, I wrote up an article on Pantheon Plus that linked the two threads and a bare bones rundown of the details in the threads for a quick read. I'd link it directly but I believe that is forum no-no.
As per your question though there will still be dropped items, they had a blue quality chest piece also drop at the same time as the hilt. Crafted items will be significantly more flexible in final stats due to the nature of the process. So there will likely be both dropped named items you can search for and the ability to try and find a crafter that knows a combination of template and ingredients that can duplicate what you want, or something similiar. Getting the ingredients to make said item though will not likely be any more trivial than getting said dropped item.
I'm so glad people noticed that sword hilt :)
Some quick points in response to the discussion so far:
- Remember that in Pantheon almost all items are tradeable. So even if the item that you loot isn't directly usable for your adventuring class, there is nothing stopping you from giving it to a friend or guildmate, or even selling it if you choose. It's up to you as players to determine how to handle loot distribution in groups.
- For component drops like the obsidian sword hilt, what they will *usually* do is add non-attribute bonuses to the item. These can be other stat bonuses like dodge, parry, run speed, resist/acclimation, and so on, or they can be fancier effects like unique procs or set bonuses. Since they typically won't be linked to attributes, the items that they make will usually be good for any class that would normally use that kind of item.
- There are two other types of drops that can happen on difficult content - material drops and schematic drops. Materials are items that you use in creating lots of different things. There are common materials (for example, iron ore), rare materials (for example, a cat's eye sapphire), and exotic materials (for example, celestium shards of the inferno). "Schematics" are the molds, casts, patterns, and so on that you can think of like recipe templates. While materials can be used in many different items, dropped schematics can let a crafter make something with a unique look (and usually a few bonus stats or a special effect of some kind).
- Drop rates on things like schematics are going to be *very* low, because we want them to be special and semi-unique. If you get one, it should be a big deal for you and your friends/guild. Similarly, drop rates on components will be relatively low - they'll happen, but not on every kill. Again, we want these to feel special when you find them, even if you can't use them yourself.
Hope that helps. We absolutely do care about item identity, but that identity is also more than simply the attribute bonuses on the item in our system. Once we get into alpha with the full crafting system enabled, we'll be able to show some better examples of that :)
Tras, thanks I will look that up. Thank you.
Thanks Nephele for some further explaination. As I said, I'm not a crafter...but so far this system seems to be promising to the point I may enjoy it myself. I like how the loot/component system is being handled. Hopefully we can get a closer look/explaination when things are in a better place/polished for you.
So, to your second point...so that sword hilt, that was just a component for somebody/crafter that already has a recipe/schematic that would require that hilt? Or is that hilt just a component that could be "added on" to any other type of recipe that a crafter could already use....kind of like taking a regular "green" crafted sword and adding the hilt makes it a blue with a better non-attribute bonus?
Hoiyay said:Or is that hilt just a component that could be "added on" to any other type of recipe that a crafter could already use....kind of like taking a regular "green" crafted sword and adding the hilt makes it a blue with a better non-attribute bonus?
Essentially this. Words maybe don't do it justice but the idea is that it makes a more potent/powerful item than you would be able to make with a standard crafted component.
I am so not used to having a crafting Dev. I happen to know the answer to this one in general so I’ll answer it quick incase Nephele doesn’t have time to respond again today.
“Hilt” is a type of ingredient for weapon schematics. These could be vendor purchased, player made, or apparently dropped loot. The hilt you end up using in your schematic will effect the final stats of the item made with the schematic.
Now that looted hilt in particular though might be something else, or something else as well. Joppa and Neph alluded to the fact that the hilt was more than just a dropped ingredient, possibly a quest starter that may actually lead you to find the schematic that it was originally used in.
*edit* . . . . or he ninja posted me /end edit
Trasak said:Joppa and Neph alluded to the fact that the hilt was more than just a dropped ingredient, possibly a quest starter that may actually lead you to find the schematic that it was originally used in.
In the current implementation that hilt behaves more like a schematic than a component (this is a technical limitation that will go away soon) :)
Nephele said:Trasak said:Joppa and Neph alluded to the fact that the hilt was more than just a dropped ingredient, possibly a quest starter that may actually lead you to find the schematic that it was originally used in.
In the current implementation that hilt behaves more like a schematic than a component (this is a technical limitation that will go away soon) :)
That would make it more than just a dropped ingredient indeed. That does bring up an interesting idea of having some of the dropped schematics actually start out as broken items that you then need quest/reverse engineer into a useable schematic. There is a lot of flavor texting and hand waving that can be done to make it interesting and thematic.
Bonus points if you commonly find broken items as loot that often gets salvaged and you are only able to tell that it is special if both your Keeper level and crafting level is high enough to recognize a broken item as something more than scrap metal. Though it would be almost funny to salvage a stack of broken swords and get: iron chunk, iron chunck, iron chunk, iron chunk, star metal bits, iron chunk, iron chunk . . . . #@%#$%@# What did I just break?!?!
During one of the crafting streams it was mentioned that there were plans to have different "recipe" molds from different areas and different factions. Do these plans apply to hilts as well as blades?
I'm curious if the weapon models would be different depending on the blade/hilt combinations. As an example, if you took a Thronefast hilt and attached it to a Skar blade, would the resulting weapon model reflect that awkward looking combination, would there be a generic crafted weapon model used, or would the resulting weapon model come out fully Thronefast or fully Scar?
It would be interesting if a player could discern what parts make up a weapon just by looking at the model.
That would be pretty cool I think, but may be overcomplicating the process. Not worth the development resources IMO.
Darchias said:That would be pretty cool I think, but may be overcomplicating the process. Not worth the development resources IMO.