Something worth Grinding For.

[harry-pancreas]

I think this would give us even less thing to grind for.

First, the guys who feel like they've done everything, probably have many weapons to complete the "living weapon" already.

2nd, after i get the living weapons, what else would i want ?

[EllisDee37]

I don't understand this, what would be the motive to grind across the entire game, every pack, raid, and expansion, to create this "final weapon" just so you invariably have to swap out?

Not particularly related to this thread or your idea, I just am not a fan of any "one weapon to rule them all" setup. Changing weapons, even if it's only occasionally, is good. Always using the same weapon can contribute to boredom.

If there were maybe two or three living weapons that once farmed would reliably handle every game situation, then I'd be on board. (For example: One to handle every evil mob in the game, and a second to handle any neutral or good mob in the game.)

[Ungood]

Not particularly related to this thread or your idea, I just am not a fan of any "one weapon to rule them all" setup. Changing weapons, even if it's only occasionally, is good. Always using the same weapon can contribute to boredom.

If there were maybe two or three living weapons that once farmed would reliably handle every game situation, then I'd be on board. (For example: One to handle every evil mob in the game, and a second to handle any neutral or good mob in the game.)

I would like to express once again, I do not intend this to be something that "everyone" will get, in fact, the Dwarf Axe example with only 7 was a bit misleading, I am thinking that since there are 25 Long Bows, and even more then that in Quarter staffs, that somewhere around that range is what it would take. So for my above example, it would most likely take, All D-axes, hand Axes, Battle axes (which would be 18 weapons, I would wager that a few more items to round it out, would be fitting) now that spans several raids, a ton of quests and whole lot of luck to get those items. Really, if you were that bent to get a Dwarf Axe, why would you be bored of using it?

To give an example, I look forward to taking my GS Dwarf Axes out of my vault every life, and they serve me from 12 - 20, I honestly, did not get tired of them. This life I might use The Mountain's Fist, only because I have it, and want to try it out to see how it hold up against my GS, I also have a set of Alchemical, but they are crystal/good and were made for one specific mob in mind, (But I still trounce Rusties with them, *Evil laugh*)

In the end, I actually would wager that most power gamers would quest after at least 2 of them: 1 for Melee, and 1 for ranged, which in and of itself, I would hope would prove to be a daunting task while also be reminiscence of the "old" epic questing, just on a grader scale.

I could also see that some players might go after a 2H version as well as Single handed for Shield/Weapon or Dual Wield. I am sure debates will arise again as to which one would give the most DPS, and with some stances needing shields, that too might add to what weapons players will go after. It may be cliche' but there is never true contentment among gamers.

In that regard, my hope was not some "One weapon to Rule them All" but more along the lines of "What weapon do you feel is signature to your character that you would scour the world to get the best of it's kind"

My feeling on why it would so able to break DR however, is because from a Lore Point of view, it's alive, it's sentient, (it shares a soul with the character) as such, it will transmute to adapt to the situation, not to mention, it is forged from the aspects of every other weapon, which will provide it pretty much everything it should ever need to do what it needs to do.

That is my view on things at least.

[EllisDee37]

Really, if you were that bent to get a Dwarf Axe, why would you be bored of using it?

Switching weapons is part of the active combat that makes DDO so good. Removing it completely would be a net loss, IMO.

Not just switching during combat, but also consider the longer view. Looking forward to pulling your greensteel out of the TR cache at 12 is fun, and subsequently rewarding once you finally do hit 12. A living weapon ends all that.

[EllisDee37]

The base stats of all "Living Weapon" would be +.5[w], and No matter the type (IE: Axe, Sword, Bow, Dagger) of weapon it would do: Piercing, Slash, and Blunt damage. It would aligned, metalline, and made of Crystal.

Is crystal immune to oozes? If not, toss everbright on there.

(While I wouldn't recommend it on reasons already stated, I do enjoy theorycrafting. hehheh.)

[Ungood]

Is crystal immune to oozes? If not, toss everbright on there.

(While I wouldn't recommend it on reasons already stated, I do enjoy theorycrafting. hehheh.)

The Crystal makes it immune to ooze and Rust monsters, as well as bypasses the DR of Dreaming Dark.

[Ungood]

Switching weapons is part of the active combat that makes DDO so good. Removing it completely would be a net loss, IMO.

Not just switching during combat, but also consider the longer view. Looking forward to pulling your greensteel out of the TR cache at 12 is fun, and subsequently rewarding once you finally do hit 12. A living weapon ends all that.

I see what you are saying, but that is not how it is for me.

For me, I have a TR cache full of weapons, and I have a pile of dwarf axes for my TR, I have them ready for every level as I go from, from level 2 festival force ritual twink d-axes all the way up to epic level dwarf axes. If it was put into the game for me to save those near 40 slots that just my dwarf axes take up, by consolidating them all into one weapon, one weapon that I could take out of the bank at first level, I would be a very happy player. To me, that would be something truly worth questing for.

In fact when I just finished my monk life on my main, and I finally get to clear out all the hand-wraps I have collected over the previous lives in prep for my monk life since that life is now passed, the kinda sad part is was, that they became worthless junk overnight, however, if I could consolidate those hand-wraps into one hand-wrap, that I could have set aside for my monk life, when it came, that too, would have been something worth going after, something worth the prep for, and something worth holding on to after my monk life was done.

Some players might even make missions out f it, like: getting "Living Handwraps" for a monk life, a "Great sword" for a barb life, a "Longbow" for my AA life, etc.

Now do I look forward to pulling my green steel out, yes, I put a good deal of work into making them, all 4 of them, 2 Min II's a Con-op and a Trip Pos heal stick, I was prepping for both melee lives and caster lives, but would I be far more excited the day I finally got my living weapon? Oh very much yes.

Would I be excited about pulling that bad boy out at level one, again, very much so. Would I ever say "You know, I really feel the need to have to swap to my muck bane because of these ooze" no, in fact, there are a lot of times I just forget to do that anyway, and when my twink axe breaks half way though the 4th ooze infested sewer crawl harbor quest because I also forgot to repair it, it's more annoying then giving me the feel of "Wow, I really love the dynamic of this game"

As I see it, there will still be enough people who need and use various situational weapons, and as I said, not everyone will own one of these living weapons, so the people who are not amused by them, would not need to get them, like all the people who are content to take a Cleaver over grinding for a eSoS.

[Golddragon87]

Good concept overall. As a named item collector I would have no issue with what you propose at all. As many people are not such avid collectors however perhaps make it a weapons of legacy type item with different tiers being unlocked based on current favor total? Perhaps even have a special buff applied to it by each patron as a reward for achieving the max favor for that patron? Just another idea.

[Ungood]

Theory Crafting this is harder then I thought.

I hope to have something done in a few days, I have not spent a lot of time on it, so I'll try to get something done soon and post it.

[die]

Being a Roofer and road Bike enthusiast, I believe in hard work. But No I DONT Like this idea, I am so sick of grind,

[Ungood]

Being a Roofer and road Bike enthusiast, I believe in hard work. But No I DONT Like this idea, I am so sick of grind,

Well the Positive side, is that you don't need to get involved in it.

Much like many people did not get involved with Epic's, Nor do they raid, and others enjoy staying at cap and running ED's while others enjoy TRing, there are many facets to the game, and in that front, this idea is not designed to cater to the people who do not enjoy grinding after something.

[Annex]

It's an interesting idea for a collector, but one need only look at Legendary Weapons in Lord of the Rings Online to see what Turbine developers will likely offer in this game:

1) It will offer lateral advancement at level cap
2) Everyone will get one
3) The store will offer numerous bypass options
4) It will outperform all other weapons, forcing players to buy in (literally)

Your idea involves a lot of programming for a very small segment of the player population. There is no money in it for big T.

[jimcricket]

/not singed

sorry not interested in anything that is going to make people want to collect named items rather than turn them over to new players, also all the people that have a stash of named weapons will have a big head start.

[Ungood]

OK, I kept hearing about these Legendary weapons from LOTR, and their system seems to be built around the idea that this is stock gear. Ok in that setting, it may work.

But in DDO that type of system fails.

See the massive grind involved, is not just about a grind, but a purpose. It has a reason to be like this, and for it to work right, sadly, it pretty much needs to go like this. See the Preparatory grind, of having or acquiring every weapon of a type is integral to the nature of DDO's loot system, and disrespecting that is not a good thing, because, as a developer, designer, and even as a player, you need to realize that if this idea went live, for the people that went after it, it would replace every item of it's kind for that player.

That means once they got a - Living Weapon - it would replace every weapon of that Type: IE If they Got a Great Sword, they would never need another Great sword, ever again, for any level, of life, as long that toon existed.

Literally, They have the "End of the Game" Weapon, the Final Weapon they will ever own of it's type, as such, since this replaces ALL other weapons of its kind, it needs to require every other weapon of it's type to complete it.

Now I understand that "need" is a strong word but, realize this, if they just put in some "leveling weapon that everyone can get" they pretty much insult and degrade the effort that vets put in amass the collections of twink gear and items they used for their TR's, and on top of that, they would pretty much force Vets who have spent years and may real world dollars acquiring these items to destroy them as they would no longer serve a purpose for that toon, ever, again. Thus if they are going to have to get rid of the items, the items should at least be put to a final use, otherwise, you will have some very, unhappy players.

[Hafeal]

Ungood, my initial reaction is that the weapons are too powerful.

I do like the concept of having a 'best in class' weapon for EVERY weapon type. Please, let's move away from everyone grinding for ESOS.

I like your idea better with the prior suggested augment system, perhaps. I also think that a weapon like this should have restrictions on it - for example, instead of a ML requirement, a minimum TR requirement.

As my pnp days date back to AD&D other than DDO; is there anything in 3.5 akin to what you propose? The devs have mentioned 'sentient' weapons on the horizon, are they similar to this?

[Ungood]

It's an interesting idea for a collector, but one need only look at Legendary Weapons in Lord of the Rings Online to see what Turbine developers will likely offer in this game:

1) It will offer lateral advancement at level cap
2) Everyone will get one
3) The store will offer numerous bypass options
4) It will outperform all other weapons, forcing players to buy in (literally)

Your idea involves a lot of programming for a very small segment of the player population. There is no money in it for big T.

I'll try to answer this as best I can:

1: I have no idea yet, this is a wait and see.

2: While Everyone could get one, in the sense nothing would be stopping anyone from getting one, I doubt everyone would get one, much like Everyone could get an epic item, not everyone did, and not everyone wanted one either.

Case in point: I was not a fan of Epic's when I started playing, so I did not do them, the few times I ran them, I found the people and whole environment surrounding them to be a massive turn-off due to the stress and egotism was typically at all time high for the few Epic level pugs I did join. As such, I simply bought a heart from the store and TR'ed, and when I made 20th again, I bought a heart again, and TRed again. It was not until my 3rd life, that even bothered with Epics, and earning my 20 tokens to TR again, and even then, I still had no urge or need to make an epic item, even if by the time I was on life 6, by just farming my epic tokens, I had the parts to make a few of the older epic items, nothing major, but a few of them.

So each person would find what they wanted from the game, there is no Universal Play style, or anything even remotely close to such.

3: Not Saying that this Could Not Happen.

4: Yes. This is simply by virtue of the fact they would need to be better, to justify the grind to get them.

However I have considered the Possibility that this weapon could be just for "Heroic" content and thus cap at 20th.

That would leave the door open for the Epic Game to continue on as it currently is, with plenty of room new items/raids in that development stage of the game.

That might give a Definitive split between those that like to TR, and those that enjoy the End Game, and each would have their own things to grind after, as opposed to both groups trying to be ushered to quest after the same things.

There is a lot of room to Theory Craft in regards to this.

[Ungood]

Ungood, my initial reaction is that the weapons are too powerful.

I do like the concept of having a 'best in class' weapon for EVERY weapon type. Please, let's move away from everyone grinding for ESOS.

I like your idea better with the prior suggested augment system, perhaps. I also think that a weapon like this should have restrictions on it - for example, instead of a ML requirement, a minimum TR requirement.

The grind itself for the most part enforces a TR requirement if you plan to use it a lower level.

And I have to agree with you, I was never a fan of the limited and near shoe horned feeling of what was the best weapon to have for any specific type of build, it bottle necked the game, and not in a good way.

As my pnp days date back to AD&D other than DDO; is there anything in 3.5 akin to what you propose? The devs have mentioned 'sentient' weapons on the horizon, are they similar to this?

I have no idea what the Dev's had in mind, or what direction they were thinking of going in in regards to Sentient Weapons, I am not sure, but I think I put this up before they announced that they were considering that idea.

[EllisDee37]

I have no idea what the Dev's had in mind, or what direction they were thinking of going in in regards to Sentient Weapons, I am not sure, but I think I put this up before they announced that they were considering that idea.

This thread predates that annoucement, yes. It does appear that your idea inspired them, so kudos on that.

[Silken-Akira]

Yeah, me too.

Another idea has struck me - rather then being a storage item that holds all the different weapons, what if the "Living Weapon" itself was the container? You do "something" to get the living weapon - maybe run high-end raids to get one to drop, or maybe even buy one via CoV for an exuberant amount.

When you first get the living weapon, it has some raw stats, it's alright, nothing too amazing. But, when you store a particular named weapon in it, that's when the Living Weapon gets a buff. For weapons that have different versions based on difficulty, the higher the version, the stronger the buff, and overrides lower ones. A named weapon may add to the Living Weapon's enchantment modifier, or some damage, provide a little toward special abilities, etc. That way, someone can continue to build up its strength as they run around collecting more weapons. Also, when new weapons are introduced, the living weapon doesn't get completely reset, it just has the potential for more powers.

I like this concept that it is the weapon that collects the traits too. (reminds me of a sword that is in the Fables comics) when you win against a quest and get as reward + defeat certain opponents it will activate a certain "extra" (this way you can add more defeat/achieve this in the requirements for those that have very few to collect).
Also going with you through your life and TR it should regrow with you as you level up. For example it already contains an extra that is actually meant for a level 16 character but you are level 12 so it isn't active yet. also this way if you for example didn't get that level 8 weapon yet then that extra won't open up for you just yet but wouldn't bar the level 12 extra you got from another weapon.

[Silverleafeon]

I like a weapon with can grow with me.