I think re-specing is a pretty hot-button issue in the world of online gaming right now.
Games like Pathfinder, many MMOs, and the original Diablo don't allow you to respec; you are who you are. Whatever you've learned and experienced is what you've learned and experienced, and there's no way back.
But some newer MMOs, and Diablo 3, have raised an interesting counterpoint: Not allowing characters to respecialize can carry with it many unfair burdens. When the game is patched or modified or rebalanced, certain characters, built on something that was great, become less useful. Certain builds may end up being "objectively better," and unless the game designers are willing to patch that build to make it less outright superior, any players who chose NOT to pursue that particular build are at a disadvantage.
So, what will the policy be towards Pathfinder: Online? I know it won't have a traditional level-up system like other MMOs, but I imagine this question still has some bearing on the game.
Goblin Squad Member
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For my part, I hope that any "respec" is limited to changing our Attributes, and not changing our Skills. If there are ways to alter our Attributes in-game without a full "respec", then I think even that becomes unnecessary.
If the devs make profound changes to a particular set of skills, I don't have a problem with them refunding the time spent to train those skills, and allowing the player to spend those points elsewhere - but I would hope that would not happen regularly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think re-specing is a pretty hot-button issue in the world of online gaming right now.
Games like Pathfinder, many MMOs, and the original Diablo don't allow you to respec; you are who you are. Whatever you've learned and experienced is what you've learned and experienced, and there's no way back.
But some newer MMOs, and Diablo 3, have raised an interesting counterpoint: Not allowing characters to respecialize can carry with it many unfair burdens. When the game is patched or modified or rebalanced, certain characters, built on something that was great, become less useful. Certain builds may end up being "objectively better," and unless the game designers are willing to patch that build to make it less outright superior, any players who chose NOT to pursue that particular build are at a disadvantage.
So, what will the policy be towards Pathfinder: Online? I know it won't have a traditional level-up system like other MMOs, but I imagine this question still has some bearing on the game.
IMO it shouldn't be needed in the game for skills, it becomes a much bigger issue in games of which have a cap, and a permanent limit to how many skills you can train. If a major change occours, which hopefully GW can avoid to begin with, worse case scenerio is something you trained is slightly less useful than before, or something new becomes worth your time to train.
IMO respeccing is only needed to prevent a character from being permanently gimped, I overall prefer for more or less most skills etc... to have uses even if they aren't super powerful etc...
Now attributes, since those are set at creation, I think they should be changeable, but not frequently. Maybe every few months or so, possibly one free one a week or so after start to help people who didn't know what they were doing at creation. What I absolutely don't want to see, is people re-speccing twice a week for a perfect war build, then back to the dungeon running build etc... IE how people did for raid/pvp builds in WoW. Respeccing should neither be that cheap, nor easily access-able.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't expect a re-spec option for trained skills. There is no skill cap, so there is no need for one.
As for attributes, I would rather see them build up over time, and deteriorate when they aren't being used. So if you are doing something that would build strength, you gain strength, and if you cease that activity, you would lose strength. In this way attributes should be maintainable with ease, so gaining an attribute would take 20 units of time, and keeping it at it's level would take 1 unit of time.
Due to the time requirement for skill training, I think your equipment will play a larger factor on how your character performs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Due to the time requirement for skill training, I think your equipment will play a larger factor on how your character performs.I'm hoping not, otherwise it just becomes an equipment race.
Not necessarily. The theme park MMO's have got many people into thinking of equipment as a straight line
crap < decent < good < great < awsome < epic < super epic
Prior to greensteel and the like, DDO was one of the first MMO's to overall break that trend. Overall specialized gear, Silver, flaming, lawful, weapons and armor that cast or use a specific spell or ability etc... There were dozens of pieces of equipment that could be great for X, but mediocre for other things etc... Freezing, cursing, poisoning, casting fear, AC or DR etc.... Lots of lateral steps that make you good at one thing, or just add an extra nifty trick that you didn't have otherwise. (when they went to greensteel and past, it started getting silly because they pretty much allowed people to put EVERYTHING on a single weapon, kind of negating the choice portion of it).
The bottom line is gear doesn't have to be "my new sword is 4x greater than my old sword, I can just scrap the old one". Gear can in fact, give characters options they wouldn't otherwise have, but not be better 100% of the time. Personally I would like to see going to my armory and picking my gear for the day or run, to be a meaningful and non-obvious choice, and not to be like WoW's, "Oh my tier 5 raid set since I'm raiding" or my "pvp reward set" as the be all end all. I'd like gear to be good for some dungeons, or good for some opponents in PVP, but not always good for all opponents in all pvp matches.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I sure hope there's a baseline set of gear that's acceptable for anything, even if there are other pieces that are better for specific situations. Since there's a chance I'll lose everything I don't have equipped, I'm going to be very hesitant to carry around a bunch of unequipped gear. If the game mechanics require me to do that, I'll probably get pretty frustrated. If I can just use my decent gear and make up the difference with skill (both my character's and my own), I'll be fine.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I sure hope there's a baseline set of gear that's acceptable for anything, even if there are other pieces that are better for specific situations. Since there's a chance I'll lose everything I don't have equipped, I'm going to be very hesitant to carry around a bunch of unequipped gear. If the game mechanics require me to do that, I'll probably get pretty frustrated. If I can just use my decent gear and make up the difference with skill (both my character's and my own), I'll be fine.
I fully agree on things being significant enough to be "required" for any situation. While I did love DDO's situational gear, I did kind of hate the way it was all rapid change based on the situation. I don't care how light the clothes are, one should not be able to swap shirt, pants shoes and weapon, mid swing without missing a beat.
That is why I was describing gear choice for the day a "decision", not a "bring your water breathing, and featherfall, and death ward shirt along just in case you need one of them". IMO it should be a decision, not a bag of holding full of crap. I do agree few and far between should be situations that cannot be passed without X gear (and ones that do should have ways to figure out that they are upcoming).
My biggest distaste though is the idea of straight line all encompasing superior gear, IE WoW's, you must have tier X gear if you want to go to X dungeon and not be 1 shot. Which also leads to the straight line gear war. IE fights that are won or lost before they even start.
The issue with the straight line is people keep working towards the end of the chain. If there is no difference, if the gear isn't clearly better, than what's the point, why would people go after it. If it is clearly superior, than your gap between the best and weakest characters grows larger every upgrade added to the game. Resulting in less and less impact for new players, and longer times for new players to feel like a contributing part of the world.
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Goblin Squad Member
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An interesting and related point...regearing in situations like Onishi describes in DDO is essentially a mini-respec. I am all for being able to wear different armour...and even being able to switch based upon necessity, but it does take an estimated 15 minutes (and that is probably with help).
So, while I support these situation respecs (switching gear), it should take an appropriate amount of time (as an intended drawback to better protection, called balance).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I sure hope there's a baseline set of gear that's acceptable for anything, even if there are other pieces that are better for specific situations. Since there's a chance I'll lose everything I don't have equipped, I'm going to be very hesitant to carry around a bunch of unequipped gear. If the game mechanics require me to do that, I'll probably get pretty frustrated. If I can just use my decent gear and make up the difference with skill (both my character's and my own), I'll be fine.
I think you might be missing how carrying items around for situational use will be both beneficial to you in the active short term, as well as beneficial to the economic model if/when you die and the stuff goes poof (or into a bandits pocket). If you carry around that trusted sturdy bow forever, bowmakers will never have you as a customer. the economic trail is pretty easy to pick up from there...
What i hope, like you Nihimon, is that base line gear is "effective enough" to be everyday equipment. That way there's little personal impact when i get made into a mini-loot pinata and i'm ok with being inclined to go replace my shooty/smashy/stabby alternative to my equipped stuff. If there's too much specialization required to be successful, or if the economics of generic gear is too harsh, Then the obvious emergence behavior is to "carry null", but even in that case, supply and demand models would predict a reduction in prices anyway (at least in a perfect world).
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Goblin Squad Member
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An interesting and related point...regearing in situations like Onishi describes in DDO is essentially a mini-respec. I am all for being able to wear different armour...and even being able to switch based upon necessity, but it does take an estimated 15 minutes (and that is probably with help).
So, while I support these situation respecs (switching gear), it should take an appropriate amount of time (as an intended drawback to better protection, called balance).
To aleviate boredom though I would say that 15 mins could be bypassed within a house or inn. Namely just because not many people would want to spend the first 15 minutes after they signed on waiting for their gear to switch that particular day. The balance issue of time is far more important of a factor in the field, than in safe areas.
Even within the field, 15 mins is probably more than most would find enjoyable. 2-5 mins IMO is far more apt, considering the issue itself is more or less greatly mitigated by the risk of losing unequiped items on death as is.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As for the time to switch gear, I would imagine the path of least resistance is to simply disallow certain changes in combat. However, one of my favorite solutions to this problem was back in ArcticMUD where you simply lagged out for a number of heartbeats after switching gear. I'm not sure it's realistic in an MMO, but it sure made for some interesting times :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I sure hope there's a baseline set of gear that's acceptable for anything, even if there are other pieces that are better for specific situations. Since there's a chance I'll lose everything I don't have equipped, I'm going to be very hesitant to carry around a bunch of unequipped gear. If the game mechanics require me to do that, I'll probably get pretty frustrated. If I can just use my decent gear and make up the difference with skill (both my character's and my own), I'll be fine.
I really dis-like the constant equipment grind of most MMO's. The most fun I've had in on low magic roleplay servers. One of the appeals of PFO is via the skills system which means your character trains while offline. This mean that casual gamers like myslf won't be penalised by falling behind others who can play 24/7. If PFO beccomes a neverending grind for the latest equipment then the casual player won't be able to keep up or compete with the hard-core gamer.
I'd guess I'd be in the minority but I rather have +2 weapons and above be like epic items. Rather than everyone running around with +5 vorpal bane weapons. Or better yet introduce legacy items that can gradually scale with your character.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope baseline gear is...base level, non-magic gear. This is all I intend to primarily use unless I have access to Masterwork level crafters who like me.
If everyone starts running around with uber gear of godliness +32, the game has gotten to high fantasy for me. I am not saying there should not be magical items...only that the stuff worth having (that is better than what an expert crafter can make) should be as rare as the stuff an expert crafter can make...and I hope they give real meaning to the term "expert crafter". Making "expert" crafting easy and accessible only turns it into average crafting.
It should take you the 2.5 years of gaming it takes to capstone to put together your single uber gear collection.
Goblinworks Founder
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I hope baseline gear is...base level, non-magic gear. This is all I intend to primarily use unless I have access to Masterwork level crafters who like me.
If everyone starts running around with uber gear of godliness +32, the game has gotten to high fantasy for me. I am not saying there should not be magical items...only that the stuff worth having (that is better than what an expert crafter can make) should be as rare as the stuff an expert crafter can make...and I hope they give real meaning to the term "expert crafter". Making "expert" crafting easy and accessible only turns it into average crafting.
It should take you the 2.5 years of gaming it takes to capstone to put together your single uber gear collection.
You always seem to mirror my thoughts.
*Dons gold-plated tinfoil hat|
Goblin Squad Member
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I hope baseline gear is...base level, non-magic gear. This is all I intend to primarily use unless I have access to Masterwork level crafters who like me.
If everyone starts running around with uber gear of godliness +32, the game has gotten to high fantasy for me. I am not saying there should not be magical items...only that the stuff worth having (that is better than what an expert crafter can make) should be as rare as the stuff an expert crafter can make...and I hope they give real meaning to the term "expert crafter". Making "expert" crafting easy and accessible only turns it into average crafting.
It should take you the 2.5 years of gaming it takes to capstone to put together your single uber gear collection.
You always seem to mirror my thoughts.
*Dons gold-plated tinfoil hat
While I don't disagree entirely, what is the expected balancing point to... well grant the mid level crafters business? Say 2.5 years later, we've got 30ish of the origional 4,500 who have reached expert crafting status, with a line outside of their door to sell to the 1 year in players who are paying everything they have to get one of these epic sets from one of these expert crafters.
Now there are 200 amature crafters, with virtually nothing to contribute, a year and a half of doing jack squat but waiting for skills to train before they can reach the ranks of the expert crafters etc...
Now my counter proposals for this to solve this concept.
Option 1. Deteriorating gear, Even the top, most expensive gear that took 2.5 years to master, and takes resources that may take a month to gather, still shows wear over time. Using that uber awesome item foraged from the rare dragon, purified by the finest of refiners, mixed with the most rare and precious metals and jewels, and combined by the finest crafter one could find, still is a temporary item, good for a limited usage, and is generally saved for epic battles, when either one discovers a new great dragon, or when one's hometown is under attack by a serious threat. When cutting up boars, guarding basic cargo etc... players would be likely to use low/middle of the line gear, as to not damage their most precious valubles.
Option 2. Varied gear. Learning and mastering any one type of gear is a fairly simple process, can be mastered in a month or so, but there are so many possibilities it could take years to master everything. No specific item is necessarally the best, you could take 2 months mastering a shield of lightning resistance, or 2 months mastering a shield of fire resistance, or 2 months mastering an amulent of curse protection, or poison resistance, or disease immunity, or feather falling etc... etc... In the end you could spend your life focusing on making the most diversified crafter in the game, and have more unique goods, and if you truely master it, you could become a one stop shop for any one persons needs. But a fairly inexperienced person, could right off the bat learn one item that you don't have, and sell it right next to your booth, and make some business himself. You'd still be raking in far more business, as having mastered 10x as many items, the odds are 10x better that you have what the next adventurer to pass by is looking for than the newbie apprentice next to you, BUT he still has a viable ability to sell something, even with your competition nearby.
Or some combination of the 2. IMO several variants is far better for the overall game balance than X is better than Y, which is better than Z, both for the balance of new vs vet players, and for the balance of expert/amature crafters. Anyone who's crafted in vanilla WoW (and probably current WoW, I haven't played it in years) can tell you what the straight progression of crafting does to the crafting industry. Anything short of the best, is sold at a pure loss, because nobody is going to pay money for the 2nd best gear. However variation and sidesteps can make more alternatives viable, and gear having cost/use (IE destruction) puts durability and cost as other factors in sideways equations. (IE a sword that deals 25 damage a swing but as it takes damage in a fight costs you the equivelant of 3,000 coin worth of materials to repair, may not be as practical to use for an easy fight, as one that will deal 15 damage but only costs 50 coin worth of materials to repair, when hunting for cheap boar meat. But when your kingdom worth 20m coin is at stake, you break out the big guns.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I hope baseline gear is...base level, non-magic gear. This is all I intend to primarily use unless I have access to Masterwork level crafters who like me.
If everyone starts running around with uber gear of godliness +32, the game has gotten to high fantasy for me. I am not saying there should not be magical items...only that the stuff worth having (that is better than what an expert crafter can make) should be as rare as the stuff an expert crafter can make...and I hope they give real meaning to the term "expert crafter". Making "expert" crafting easy and accessible only turns it into average crafting.
It should take you the 2.5 years of gaming it takes to capstone to put together your single uber gear collection.
You always seem to mirror my thoughts.
*Dons gold-plated tinfoil hatWhile I don't disagree entirely, what is the expected balancing point to... well grant the mid level crafters business? Say 2.5 years later, we've got 30ish of the origional 4,500 who have reached expert crafting status, with a line outside of their door to sell to the 1 year in players who are paying everything they have to get one of these epic sets from one of these expert crafters.
Now there are 200 amature crafters, with virtually nothing to contribute, a year and a half of doing jack squat but waiting for skills to train before they can reach the ranks of the expert crafters etc...
Now my counter proposals for this to solve this concept.
Option 1. Deteriorating gear, Even the top, most expensive gear that took 2.5 years to master, and takes resources that may take a month to gather, still shows wear over time. Using that uber awesome item foraged from the rare dragon, purified by the finest of refiners, mixed with the most rare and precious metals and jewels, and combined by the finest crafter one could find, still is a temporary item, good for a limited usage, and is generally saved for epic battles, when either one discovers a new great dragon, or...
Oh no, no...don't misunderstand me...I fully support and argue for your options 1 and 2...in addition to what I stated above. I had assumed that uber set of gear you collected would be like a family heirloom, not used for chopping wood and such...only broken out for special occasions. I am all for deteriorating gear, but I hope it deteriorates with use, not just over-time. Of course, I would also except a deteriorates over-time too as long as preventative maintenance can prevent it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My thoughts on attribute re-specs.
As far as skill respecs go. No. Not unless there is some kind of cap on the number of skills you can have... which I am VERY opposed to.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Due to the time requirement for skill training, I think your equipment will play a larger factor on how your character performs.I'm hoping not, otherwise it just becomes an equipment race.
Let me clarify.
Your equipment defines your character, the 'strength' of the equipment is a small factor, but your skills determine what you can do.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One of my personal pet peeves about D&D and its derivatives in general is just how much equipment defines you.
I couldn't agree more.
For me, the best example is Aragorn fighting off 5 Ringwraiths with nothing but a torch. I seriously doubt it was a Vorpal Torch with 948 Finesse and 1,250 Block Rating...
No, but the ringwraiths are very light sensitive. Not that that makes Aragorn less badass.
At any rate, I agree with both points. Gear dependency sucks and respecs aren't necessary.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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One of my personal pet peeves about D&D and its derivatives in general is just how much equipment defines you.I couldn't agree more.
For me, the best example is Aragorn fighting off 5 Ringwraiths with nothing but a torch. I seriously doubt it was a Vorpal Torch with 948 Finesse and 1,250 Block Rating...
Now consider how foolish it would be to try to fight 5 orcs with a torch, or 5 ringwraiths with a sword.
The skill involved was knowing that a flaming brand was the right weapon to use, and that the best outcome possible was escape, not knowing how to wield a torch.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would really like to see a different system that the one every game has, where gear has stats. I'll poke in my repeated suggestion to make the best physics simulator mmo to date, and give items physical and magical properties, that behave by a set of laws based on RL science, and pseudo-physics. They key is finding a balance between fun and hahahioneshotyoubecauesofscience!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't know that a really elaborate physics simulator is the best way to go. I just don't see how that can be done on a shoestring budget.
For me, it's all about restraint. Just because you can put mega-stats on every item doesn't mean you should.
Personally, I would really like to see magic gear based on functionality:
[list]
Shoulder Pads that make you smarter just seems wrong to me. But I admit it's totally a matter of style, and I probably won't freak out of GW doesn't do it the way I want.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A good start would be to never see a "magic store." In fact, I would rather not even see magic item crafting skills, unless they are really rare and hard to get, and even then, the amount of time/resources needed should be big.
Keep magic items rare. Pretty please. =)
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Goblin Squad Member
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Oh man I agree. I would love it if rather than having the traditional helmet of (+30 strength, +50 Constitution, +20 Health Regeneration) That your helmet purely give damage resistance or make you harder to hit but weigh you down/lower your maximum effectiveness in agility type abilities/arcane magic.
The cool part would be giving random items you carry with you modifiers based on their use. You have a climbing axe? +5 climb. +5 climb again if you have a 50ft rope.
Trying to fight a granite golem? That basic sledge is going to work a lot better for you than that elven mastercrafted longbow.
Trying to command troops? That signal horn is going to drastically increase the range you can command them from. Especially if you are trained in using it.
Trying to carry all that junk on you at once along with 7 days ration, a tent, a blanket, a bedroll, and 500 spare arrows? Don't expect to be moving fast or doing anything that requires much agility. Also expect to be getting fatigued quicker while traveling.
Armor/trinkets have been an over-emphasized aspect of MMO gear, tools/supplies have been an under-emphasized aspect of MMO gear for a long, long, long time. I really enjoy the Oregon trail type part of a game where you go through a long list of supplies and say "What am I likely to need, and what is likely to just weigh me down?" It's one of my favorite aspects of Pathfinder and D&D.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rare magic items instantly create winners and losers and make it almost impossible for a loser to become a winner. Expect Magic to be as common as it is in virtually every other fantasy MMO.
Why not just universally under-emphasize them? Make it so the best magic sword you are going to get does a bit of fire damage and extra damage to undead or something rather than (+500 strength, +1000 constitution, +3000 WTH13371337PWNJ00! and +3000 CHUCKNORRIS) Or that those magic robes give you some extra spells or spellpoints or whatever magic works off of rather than (+1000 intelligence, +1000 wisdom, and +6000 MINDBULLETS!!!)?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Expect Magic to be as common as it is in virtually every other fantasy MMO.
Any opinion on whether you will aim for a style where the bonuses on a specific piece of gear make sense? Such as not having +Int on a pair of boots?
I think a more straightforward solution would be to require merit badges to either activate certain magical effects, use multiple magic items at once, or both.
That seems like a really good idea. So, there would be two skills:
1. Use Multiple Magic Items2. Use <category> Magic Effect
Your Skill Level in 1 would determine how many Magic Items you could use, and your Skill Level in the various instances of 2 would determine how powerful a Magic Item of the given category you could use.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rare magic items instantly create winners and losers and make it almost impossible for a loser to become a winner. Expect Magic to be as common as it is in virtually every other fantasy MMO.Why not just universally under-emphasize them? Make it so the best magic sword you are going to get does a bit of fire damage and extra damage to undead or something rather than (+500 strength, +1000 constitution, +3000 WTH13371337PWNJ00! and +3000 CHUCKNORRIS) Or that those magic robes give you some extra spells or spellpoints or whatever magic works off of rather than (+1000 intelligence, +1000 wisdom, and +6000 MINDBULLETS!!!)?
I think it is worth pointing out that ryan's comment was entirely to the frequency and commonality of them, and not the total power. I also do agree with Andius's point, IMO top, best, rarest tier gear should be at best 2-3x the damage of the easiest to get/replace gear (with of course inbetween of 1.5x at a moderate price). Assuming equipment damage existing, for 75% of situations it should make more sense to use mediocre gear, and it not be a difference between 2 shotting, and 25 shotting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don’t mind if magical items are common, it’s the power of those items that plays a big effect on the game. I would love to see +1 weapons as being considered as the norm, +1 weapons with a special bonus (such as +1 vs goblins or adds minor fire damage) as being considered infrequent and sought after and straight +2 weapons as being extremely rare. The balance can be achieved via merit badges, skill levels, and rare material components.
In addition to crafting it would be great if the equivalent of the legacy item system was available, I could see this being used in two ways;
1. Acquire skills and merit badges to create legacy items.
2. Acquiring skills and merit badges to unlock (awaken) legacy items
Imagine buying a generic (but cool looking) +1 longsword. Over time you adventure and dedicate yourself to fighting lycanthropes. During the course of your adventuring career the sword named ‘moonsbane’ gains the ability to do extra damage to lycanthropes, grants low light vision, burst into flame (doing extra damage), and eventually allows you to recognise lycanthropes in human form. By the time your character is level 20 Moonsbane may be the equivalent of a +2 flaming longsword that grants low light vision and warns of lycanthropes within 20’. Instead of having to constantly upgrade your sword you have a weapon that you have actual investment with, and wouldn’t sell for the world.
If that weapon is passed onto someone else than they may be able to access the most basic abilities of the sword, but require skill, training and merit badges to unlock all of the abilities of the sword. So the advantage of creating a legacy item is you get to choose what abilities to add to the weapon, while gaining a legacy item you need to attune yourself to the weapon and awaken the abilities, which may be a quicker process to creating a legacy item.
The above options would provide 3 ways characters can gain powerful magical items, crafting, creating legacy items and awakening legacy items.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don’t mind if magical items are common, it’s the power of those items that plays a big effect on the game. I would love to see +1 weapons as being considered as the norm, +1 weapons with a special bonus (such as +1 vs goblins or adds minor fire damage) as being considered infrequent and sought after and straight +2 weapons as being extremely rare. The balance can be achieved via merit badges, skill levels, and rare material components.
+1 weapons are masterwork, they should be as rare as master crafters. Why not just have no bonus gear the foundational gear everyone uses, it is after all the "common stuff". I also agree with the sentiments above about uber/magical gear...make it either exceedingly rare or non-existent. Instead make how you play the game and how you interact with others the deciding feature of whether you win wars/battles. Allow skills such as intimidation, performance, and acrobatics (etc.) to provide synergy bonuses with certain weapons and/or types of combat...making them just as, if not more, important than ones gear.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I really don't have a problem with there being lots of magical gear. But I would really like to see a game that didn't put +Int on Boots...
I don't have much of an issue with thematically questionable bonuses, but I want there to be lots of choices about gear, not just one. (If +int is available on every slot, then 'maximize +int' is one choice)
One way would be to have multiple highly desirable effects be mutually exclusive on a single item and available on only one slot- boots of great strides (explore faster) could not also be boots of dodging, for example. That choice of which foot slot bonus to have is made moot if there are also bracers of great strides- but it is also moot if there are bracers of deflection that have effects mechanically similar to the boots of dodging. (yes, I know that in PnP they would be different- I couldn't figure out a better example)
Don't make the actual choice be isomorphic to "Here's a list of 100 possible benefits; pick ten.", make it more like "Here's 10 lists of 10 possible benefits each: pick one item from each list."
Even better if there are actual cost-benefit determinations, rather than just opportunity cost-benefit. I'm not sure how to implement that in a fantasy MMO at this point, and I've never seen it done.
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Goblin Squad Member
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..."Here's 10 lists of 10 possible benefits each: pick one item from each list."...
I like this a lot, but I still feel a certain affection for the PnP limitations as the apply to "slots" on the body. Head items = mental stats, Boots for movement bumps, etc. I feel like these types of bonuses are well considered and already somewhat balanced.
Whatever the case, the key is to maintain a hard limit on "bonus inflation" so that magical equipment will never directly dominate the pile of bonuses we all hope to apply to our awesome super skills of kickassery. One of the basic truisms of 3.5/PFO is you'll benefit more from a pile of smaller bonuses than trying to lump all your resources into one big kick ass item. Of course at the end of the day, one will benefit much more from a pile of kick ass items, but there are plenty of ways to avoid this (hard limits on equipment lifespan, etc).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Or...how about instead of magic items giving a hard bonus to an attribute, give points based upon the character point buy system. It creates a system of diminishing returns, a soft cap. A STR 10 guy/gal who gets +3 Str gloves can use them and have Str 12, a guy/gal with Str 17 wearing those gloves would only be 1/5 of the way to Str 18 (which they can augment with other gear).
This allows the continued increase in powerful gear needed for traditional fantasy RPG and MMO "progression", without overpowering individuals.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Or...how about instead of magic items giving a hard bonus to an attribute, give points based upon the character point buy system. It creates a system of diminishing returns, a soft cap. A STR 10 guy/gal who gets +3 Str gloves can use them and have Str 12, a guy/gal with Str 17 wearing those gloves would only be 1/5 of the way to Str 18 (which they can augment with other gear).
This allows the continued increase in powerful gear needed for traditional fantasy RPG and MMO "progression", without overpowering individuals.
I'm not sure how that makes more sense than to just stick with whole numbers and apply them directly. As long as there's a hard cap on the enhancement bonus, the difference with yours is purely a perceptual one. Also I can see it leading to confusion/anger if you get a +4 item that better serves a lower level player than you. They get to more easily match your level without having the same stat...
My thinking is somewhat grounded in the kind of math you see in the PnP game (specifically for damage, not hit or saves etc.) Set up the right feats and class skills, and at a paltry level 3 you can be doing 1d8+8 with a Longbow, but only +1 of that is out of magical enhancement. I know the comparison is not strictly accurate from a systems point of view, but I think it illustrates my point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Alternatively, a +1 sword grants you an additional point of damage and increases your chance to hit by 1 ........
I severely doubt that anyone would follow the WoW Model which has resulted in what is delicately termed a 'Number Explosion'. We jumped from 2-3 thousand health to 20-30 thousand health between Vanilla and Burning Crusade, and then jumped even further again in between BC and Wrath, and in Cataclysm it just got silly with characters, especially tanks, having a quarter of a million hit points towards the end of the expansion.
Stick with the Tabletop theme here and ensure that while we won't have squillions of hitpoints, they are still meaningful. A single point increase is meaningful, regardless of where it happens, be it in an attack roll, a save or whatever.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can see it leading to confusion/anger if you get a +4 item that better serves a lower level player than you.
If it's listed as "+4 Strength Rating" or something, then I don't think there'll be a problem. Most MMO players are familiar with the way this works, where you need more and more Rating as you get closer and closer to the top end of some stat.
For example, Block Rating.
I severely doubt that anyone would follow the WoW Model... We jumped from 2-3 thousand health to 20-30 thousand health... it just got silly with characters, especially tanks, having a quarter of a million hit points...
WoW's expansion plans revolved around raising a level cap. I don't think PFO has any plans to raise any level caps. I could easily see PFO running for 20 years without ever feeling the need to allow characters to gain more than 20 levels in a given archetype.
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Goblin Squad Member
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WoW's expansion plans revolved around raising a level cap. I don't think PFO has any plans to raise any level caps. I could easily see PFO running for 20 years without ever feeling the need to allow characters to gain more than 20 levels in a given archetype.
Adding on top of that comparison as well, WoW also likes the differences in characters to more or less be the difference between a semi truck and a Schwinn bike in a demolition derby. WoW's intention is for every 5ish levels leading up to cap, and every tier of gear after cap, to be such a monumental difference that the predicesor is but an ant to them. Basing Ryan's comment on a level 1 character, not losing to a level 20 character 100% of the time, I would say that is a huge fundamental difference, both in gear and in level variances.
On the item game; we already know that Ryan doesn't want equipment to be the defining factor. For that reason, I expect we will see degradation of items (and possibly quick degradation) which can be repaired but ultimately reduces the durability of the item in question. For example, I find a longsword of awesomeness which has 10 durability maximum. I use it for a few hours and it drops to 4 out of a maximum 10. I take it to a blacksmith who repairs it but it reduces the maximum durability to 8.
Now, an expert or master smith could lessen that drop which both a) drives the economy and b) permits me to keep a favourite weapon for longer but eventually I have to give it up because the next time I use it, it'll gain the broken condition.
I wholly expect the 'magical arms race' to be fairly flat. Will a +5 longsword beat a +1 longsword? Sure. But if the +5 is in the hands of an amateur and the +1 in the hands of a master then the master should still win as long as the amateur doesn't get a number of crits in a row.