Something worth Grinding For.

[Ungood]

I was just running some theory craft schemes and semantics.

The more I delve into the idea of a Heroic and Epic version of this, the better it sounds.

The Heroic Levels are very different then the Epic, where in heroic your class denotes what you can do, in epic, it's the ED that functions as a 'class' which means, you can change your class every adventure if you wanted to.

Splitting it up would make it so that the Grinds would be different:

• The Heroic one would only require all the Heroic Weapons (with players being able to sub in epic-ed versions if they wanted)
• The Epic One, would require only the Epic Weapons, Not the old Epic Upgraded Heroic Weapons, but the 20+ Level content weapons.

Thus people who where on a ETR train would be going after the Epic Version, and the people on a TR Train, would go after the Heroic, with the people who are running ITR, and Dual TR, going after both.

This would to some degree eliminate the "everyone looking for the same dang shard" complex, that DDO Suffers from.

[Annex]

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

Legendary Weapons were introduced into Lord of the Rings Online back in 2008 so Turbine developers have a long track record with "weapons that grow with you".

"Unusual Swords" appeared in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide back in 1979. They featured Intelligence, alignment, speech, rarely telepathy, and a host of special powers. All such weapons possessed an Ego rating, and if the Ego + Intelligence of a weapon exceeded the Intelligence + Charisma + Level of a character wielding it, the weapon would sometimes dominate the user, allowing the sword to execute its Special Purpose. An earlier version of Dungeons and Dragons may feature such weapons, but I lack the books to verify this.

Living weapons make their appearance in literature far earlier. Many readers encounter their first living weapon in the form of Stormbringer, a rather sinister sword first created by Michael Moorcock back in 1961. The oldest living weapon I could track down is Sharur, the "Smasher of Thousands", an enchanted living mace wielded by the Sumerian god Ninurta circa 1000 BCE.

As you can see, the concept has a rather long and storied history.

[Ungood]

"Unusual Swords" appeared in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide back in 1979. They featured Intelligence, alignment, speech, rarely telepathy, and a host of special powers. All such weapons possessed an Ego rating, and if the Ego + Intelligence of a weapon exceeded the Intelligence + Charisma + Level of a character wielding it, the weapon would sometimes dominate the user, allowing the sword to execute its Special Purpose. An earlier version of Dungeons and Dragons may feature such weapons, but I lack the books to verify this.

Living weapons make their appearance in literature far earlier. Many readers encounter their first living weapon in the form of Stormbringer, a rather sinister sword first created by Michael Moorcock back in 1961. The oldest living weapon I could track down is Sharur, the "Smasher of Thousands", an enchanted living mace wielded by the Sumerian god Ninurta circa 1000 BCE.

As you can see, the concept has a rather long and storied history.

I would like to take a moment to point out, that the lore and concept of those weapons is intrinsically different then what I have proposed here.

In many ways, those weapons where inherently powerful and did not "grow" with their user, they simply waited for a user strong enough to use them.

My idea is built on the frame work that this weapon is fused to the player, a part of their soul has to bond to the weapon..

Oooooo.. now that I am thinking about it, it could even require a TR to activate.

Oh that would really set it up nice. Thanks for the brain storm.

[Stormraiser]

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?

The post you quoted was specifically against a concept of a final and perfect weapon. There are quite a few collectors who most likely have almost every weapon of their preferred type, and would be able to make it really soon. Then you TR, equip your Maul of Awesomeness and keep it. Then you TR into a different melee with a race which prefers greatswords. Are you going to get your bank toon to transfer over greatswords when you have this cool Maul? Are you going to spend AP in to greatsword bonuses? Are you going to regrind for another greatsword? Not likely. How much of a bias are you going to have against creating a 2WF when you both need to grind for 2 of these weapons AND you already have the Maul of awesomeness.

Fast forward a few months, and the cool kids all have their Awesome weapon of Awesome Random Procs of Awesome. But base weapons are not equal, and if they Awesome weapons follow the same specs, you're going to have mostly Greatswords, Greataxes, Khopeshes, Rapiers and a few others, if all else is equal. Now a new expansion comes out, which has a Godly Heavy Pick of Boss Slayer VIII, either that has to be better then the ultimate heavy pick, or worse. If it is worse, no one is going to want it, because everyone has their awesome weapon or it will be better, in which case people are going to rage that HEY this item is better then one that took me 6 months to farm!

LFMs for really hard content might have "link your awesomium to join"

Stormraiser

[Arianka]

this seems to b going no where huh?

so sad.

[Ungood]

The post you quoted was specifically against a concept of a final and perfect weapon. There are quite a few collectors who most likely have almost every weapon of their preferred type, and would be able to make it really soon. Then you TR, equip your Maul of Awesomeness and keep it. Then you TR into a different melee with a race which prefers greatswords. Are you going to get your bank toon to transfer over greatswords when you have this cool Maul? Are you going to spend AP in to greatsword bonuses? Are you going to regrind for another greatsword? Not likely. How much of a bias are you going to have against creating a 2WF when you both need to grind for 2 of these weapons AND you already have the Maul of awesomeness.

First, I want to thank you for your post. You bring up some good points, and I got a chuckle out of the whole "Awesome awesome of awesomeness"

Now to answer some of your questions and concerns. Yes, some players would well on the way to getting this item very soon, that is by design, but, they would not have put in any less work to get it, they just put the time and effort in already.

In fact, it stands to reason that a newer player might be facing less of a problem to get most of the items, as players who already have them, would not be bottle-necking with them for the exact same things.

As for making additional Items, it will happen. I have made this pretty clear that this was designed with the people who are looking for something worth grinding for, something to work towards. This was never intended to be a week-end spam run, but something a player may take months to acquire, that would assuming they even feel inclined to peruse such an item.

Actually, as far as milti-weapons go or variable weapons go, I honestly expect people to go after more then one weapon at a time, I believe the kind of player that would be the first to peruse these weapons would be informed on what the process involves, most likely have a list of every "living weapon" they want, what they need to get it, where to get what they don't have, and even have an idea how long it might take them, as well as a few friends willing to help put their hands in the box for them, or at least people they know who are not looking the same thing.

Now lets talk about the player who had a Penchant for Mauls. Well, lets be honest here, they would have to have a thing for mauls to start with to even bother going after a "Living Weapon" - Maul. That kind of player would not suddenly swap to Great Swords for a barb life anyway, and typically already builds around the gear they have, thus would have ways to have Maul Builds.

No different then say, when GS first game, people would sometimes spend as much time planning their GS weapon as they did farming for it.

In that regard, while some weapons are meant to be short term, this is not among them.

Fast forward a few months, and the cool kids all have their Awesome weapon of Awesome Random Procs of Awesome. But base weapons are not equal, and if they Awesome weapons follow the same specs, you're going to have mostly Greatswords, Greataxes, Khopeshes, Rapiers and a few others, if all else is equal. Now a new expansion comes out, which has a Godly Heavy Pick of Boss Slayer VIII, either that has to be better then the ultimate heavy pick, or worse. If it is worse, no one is going to want it, because everyone has their awesome weapon or it will be better, in which case people are going to rage that HEY this item is better then one that took me 6 months to farm!

LFMs for really hard content might have "link your awesomium to join"

Stormraiser

LOL, "Link your Awesomium to Join", and this would not be any different then Pot Buy in's, Link BB's, BYOH, Zerg, Know it, Be useful, Don't Suck, and a slew of other LFM's that have creeped up over the years.

Lets be honest, this might not be a bad thing, it would keep the gaming segment who are into that mind set to themselves, truth is, if you were not the kind of player who would devote themselves to quest after some "Awesome" TR weapon, then there is a chance, you would not fit into the group dynamic that felt the need to require you have one anyway.

As for your other Point. There would still be legions of players who did not feel that the grind would be worth it, players who don't get into TRing, be it ETR, ITR, or HTR, and players who as you pointed out, were not fixated towards one weapon type, and thus don't see the point to devote so much effort towards getting a single weapon, much like I myself was never attracted to the prospect of framing after one of the old epic items.

As far as New Weapons and items coming out, no, they would not and should not be designed to Compete against the Living Weapon, that is not their place, However, as stated in the OP, players may be required to get said items to re-activate their Living Weapons.

I hope I have given you the answers you seek.

[EllisDee37]

To clarify, I really like the basic concept. My only complaint is having a single weapon that is always best for all situations. A weapon that's best in 95% of situations is totally fine, just not 100%.

As an example, I really like my fighter's epic antique greataxe because it's very good against almost everything. But I also like that I have incentive to acquire and situationally use a +++ maul.

[Ungood]

To clarify, I really like the basic concept. My only complaint is having a single weapon that is always best for all situations. A weapon that's best in 95% of situations is totally fine, just not 100%.

As an example, I really like my fighter's epic antique greataxe because it's very good against almost everything. But I also like that I have incentive to acquire and situationally use a +++ maul.

I have been taking this into consideration as I work on a more refined approach to this idea.

Also, the more I mull it over, the more I like the idea of an Epic and Heroic Version of this type of weapon, as opposed to trying to build from 1 - 28.

I think it would have a better synergy in that direction with the introduction of ETR process.

[EllisDee37]

In the spirit of throwing ideas at a wall to see what sticks, I'm thinking of ranger favored enemies and the new combo-banes. Maybe you could gradually add more and more banes to a living weapon via some sort of target-based (maybe monster manual related?) unlocks. Kill enough rare humanoids and you get greater humanoid bane added, etc...

I think my magic number on weapons is three, but even just two would make me happy. One weapon you could use for almost everything: trash, bosses, and DR breaking. This weapon would have a very nice crit profile as one of its primary dps features, similar to how and why eSoS is so good. Maybe even toss a very high seeker on it just to drive the point home. Big crit numbers are fun! And you would still have incentive to slot exceptional seeker in gear.

A second weapon you use for crit-resistant mobs. Give it a very large base damage but poor crit profile, and have its dps procs be screaming VIII (or whatever), that radiance blast thing on mournlode weapons, and then add greater disruption and greater smiting. Essentially give it good (but not best) "universal" dps and then on top of that add the best-in-game situational dps procs for undead and constructs.

Yeah, I could really like a setup like this. And due to the nature of how their usefulness is designed, they could both get aligned/metalline/slash/blunt/pierce/everbright and still not be best in slot 100% of the time.

Is there a lore way to make a pair? Like they need each other to work/survive? (Break one in a quest, like the construct one during secrets of the arties quests, and the other stops working? heh.)

[Ungood]

In the spirit of throwing ideas at a wall to see what sticks, I'm thinking of ranger favored enemies and the new combo-banes. Maybe you could gradually add more and more banes to a living weapon via some sort of target-based (maybe monster manual related?) unlocks. Kill enough rare humanoids and you get greater humanoid bane added, etc...

I think my magic number on weapons is three, but even just two would make me happy. One weapon you could use for almost everything: trash, bosses, and DR breaking. This weapon would have a very nice crit profile as one of its primary dps features, similar to how and why eSoS is so good. Maybe even toss a very high seeker on it just to drive the point home. Big crit numbers are fun! And you would still have incentive to slot exceptional seeker in gear.

A second weapon you use for crit-resistant mobs. Give it a very large base damage but poor crit profile, and have its dps procs be screaming VIII (or whatever), that radiance blast thing on mournlode weapons, and then add greater disruption and greater smiting. Essentially give it good (but not best) "universal" dps and then on top of that add the best-in-game situational dps procs for undead and constructs.

Yeah, I could really like a setup like this. And due to the nature of how their usefulness is designed, they could both get aligned/metalline/slash/blunt/pierce/everbright and still not be best in slot 100% of the time.

I admit, I had not put thought into this direction, I had first thought to make the weapons tier along 'paths'

IE:

• Melee Path
• Ranged Path
• DPS - Stealth Path
• DPS Caster Path
• Pale Master Caster Path
• Divine Healer Spec Path
• Etc.

Something like this:




This when you start the weapon at level 1, you pick it's path, but the more I worked on that Idea, the less I liked it. It felt clunky, and even with adding some slots, it still did not feel like it would offer players what they were looking for.

I have since scraped that idea, and have been building a new idea on how to make this work, I should have something done in a few days, and I'll post it up, with work, playing, and life in general, I don't get much time to Theory Craft.

As I See it, there no limit to the number of living weapons a player could make, I personally would be looking at for my main would be a pair of Dwarf Axes, and a Ranged weapon, Most likely a Throwing Axe.

I feel that most people that would go after something like this would at the very least seek out a ranged and a melee option.

While I am sure some players may only seek out a ranged OR Melee option, and just go with "whatever" for their other means as they view it a secondary fighting style and have enough gear to handle a TR easy enough as it is, and don't see the need to go after this.

Case in Point, I play mostly as a Melee player, and a quirk, I play a Dwarf every life, so I would first go after Dwarf Axes, and then, consider maybe a Throwing weapon or a Bow. My Wife has made it a personal challenge to go AA every life she TR's, so she would go after a Longbow first and then consider melee options.

So, for most players, I feel that they would seek out, maybe not at the start, but, eventually, they would seek to have all their slots filled IE:

• Ranged
• Two Handed Weapon
• One Handed Weapon(s)

This again, would contingent upon any quirks they have. Some may follow a theme, others may try to just crunch numbers. Everyone could have their own thing.

Anyway, when I get a bit more ready to show a new plan, I'll post it up, and you can peruse that and I hope give some good feed back.

[Firepants]

This is probably one of the most boring and unimaginative suggestions I have ever read. "Lets just make one awesome weapon that is, like, made of a bunch of everything else, AWESOME!". No. It's not awesome. It's intellectually lazy and thematically mundane.

[Ungood]

I will say, working this system out has taken quite a bit of work, so keep in mind that I am not getting paid for this, and need to do this around my work/play schedule. As such, there is going to me some amazing limits on what I have the time to do.

What I have started was a "Build Plan" for this weapon, as I see it, I have no idea how LOTR does their weapons, so, if this is similar, then I apologies, but, for me, this all pretty much unique to what I had planned.

I should have something I can show by the end of the week.

[EllisDee37]

Case in Point, I play mostly as a Melee player, and a quirk, I play a Dwarf every life, so I would first go after Dwarf Axes, and then, consider maybe a Throwing weapon or a Bow. My Wife has made it a personal challenge to go AA every life she TR's, so she would go after a Longbow first and then consider melee options.

This sounds like you still want a single melee weapon that's always the best weapon for every melee situation, which I feel would be a bad game design.

[Ungood]

This sounds like you still want a single melee weapon that's always the best weapon for every melee situation, which I feel would be a bad game design.

You mean like the eSOS which has been around for going on 4 years, as the Best weapon in the game and yet the game has not crumbled to dust because of it.

Truth is, It would only be bad design if it was made easy to acquire

[EllisDee37]

You mean like the eSOS which has been around for going on 4 years, as the Best weapon in the game and yet the game has not crumbled to dust because of it.

Truth is, It would only be bad design if it was made easy to acquire

Yes, the sword of shadows is also bad design. Just because the game hasn't crumbled to dust doesn't mean that all the items in it are designed well.

[Ungood]

Yes, the sword of shadows is also bad design. Just because the game hasn't crumbled to dust doesn't mean that all the items in it are designed well.

I am going to respectfully disagree with you on this. The eSoS was a great design in both it's inception, and it's progression.

Not only was it one of the hardest Epic Weapons to get it, having not one, but two parts of it drop in a raid, thus justifying the amazing stats it possessed,in that front, it was amazing design.

But beyond that, even after the "epic" move of MotuD, and Shadowfell, with level cap going from 20 to 25 and then to 28, along with 2 new end game raids, level 23 and 25th, the Sword of Shadows STILL held it's lead, justify the grind people put in for it.

The eSOS embodies something that was designed with both the imminent elements considered, and long term prospects.

So, if you feel that the eSoS was a badly designed weapon, then, we shall simply have to disagree on what is good vs bad design.

[Ungood]

OK I finally have a Schematic that I am happy with.

This outlines both the "Theme" and the progress of the weapon.



Ok now to explain this:

Each branch represents an emotion, this emotion is linked to the player soul that they are unlocking.

The core emotions are The Primary colors (Red/Blue/Yellow), Notice the line liking them. These are what the player can chose to progress in. The secondary colors, (Green/Purple/Orange) are secondary emotions, and can only be unlocked by unlocking 2 of the other emotions that make the color.

IE: You need to unlock 1 Red, and 1 Blue to get the Purple Emotion.

The Dark colors denote "Key points" which will grant special abilities when they are unlocked. It's important to note that only 1 of any of the special abilities can be unlocked at any given time. Also the player only gets to pick 9 abilities, and depending on what they pick, will unlock the other abilities. I'll have a explanation and pretty graphic chart of that coming soon enough as well, I am still working on it, as this stuff takes time.

Anyway, I am not breaking down the benefits and abilities of each emotion, and I should have something more soon.

As you can see, this is quite the project, but I am enjoying many of the challenges you have put forth, ideas about how to keep it in check, while being progressive and versatile, after all, the best weapon in many cases is contingent upon the build that is using it.

[toaftoaf]

i do like the idea of being able to have the epics also be used as non epic. that would save some space at least if you get what i mean. being able to use lets say epic mask of comady at lv 5 BUT is uses the non epic stats

[Chai]

I am going to respectfully disagree with you on this. The eSoS was a great design in both it's inception, and it's progression.

Not only was it one of the hardest Epic Weapons to get it, having not one, but two parts of it drop in a raid, thus justifying the amazing stats it possessed,in that front, it was amazing design.

But beyond that, even after the "epic" move of MotuD, and Shadowfell, with level cap going from 20 to 25 and then to 28, along with 2 new end game raids, level 23 and 25th, the Sword of Shadows STILL held it's lead, justify the grind people put in for it.

The eSOS embodies something that was designed with both the imminent elements considered, and long term prospects.

So, if you feel that the eSoS was a badly designed weapon, then, we shall simply have to disagree on what is good vs bad design.

The problem with the eSOS is not the stats , but the inability or unwillingness to make something better for 5 straight years now. Xuum should have at least paralleled the eSOS if not slightly exceeded it for instance, but they would not build a weapon that even came close. Xuum also required the same, if not more grind. Sands epics were the toughest to get good items out of. The bow and battle ax from sands should still be top weapons given this logic, and they are not - handedly beaten by easier obtained gear.

The eSOS also highlighted how broken twf was in its day, because in order to make a thf weapon that could beat out twfing easily farmed lit2 khopesh, they had to make it 4d6, x4 crit, 18-20 threat range - the first iteration of the eSOS, pre nerf. Its poor game design because instead of making adjustments to the entire system to balance it out, they put a weapon into the game with insane stats which are not even beaten in their entirety today almost 5 years after the fact.

[Ungood]

Xuum should have at least paralleled the eSOS if not slightly exceeded it for instance, but they would not build a weapon that even came close. Xuum also required the same, if not more grind. Sands epics were the toughest to get good items out of.

While, you understand that the principal premise is that the reward be worth the grind, I am going to disagree on the Xuum should have been better. Xuum the base weapon was not that hard to get, I have gotten several of them, where at the same time I have only ever got one SoS, and that I had to roll on it.

Not to mention, Xuum was able to be sold, which meant half the parts could be simply bought, in that venture, I am going to have to respectfully disagree that Xuum should have been better then the eSoS.

The only reason why Sand epics were looked upon as hard to get, was because it was a list of 63 items, and the list had a ton of items that players considered junk and did not want.

Which is something I am trying to address with this design concept, I don't want people bottle-necking all going after the same exact 25 items.