Artifacts/Legendary Items Implementation

[JohnOldman]

Me and a guildmate, WarAngel, were bouncing ideas off each other for something like this and i think i like where we ended up at so I'm sharing it here.

Similar to Ultima Online, we would like to see Artifacts as special items with unique names and tailor made stats that separates them from the anything able to be crafted by players, such as mods that you cannot see anywhere else and unique 3D art, they could be any type of item from weapons to armors to trinkets to fishing rods.

That's where the similarities stop on our idea, the main flaw on a system like that is that if there are plenty of them it just becomes an expensive gear upgrade and diminishes player agency on crafting, it also foments hoarding and most likely not many of them would be used, instead they would be siting dust inside player houses or banks.

So to counter most of their shortcomings and fomenting large scale guild activities we have arrived at this conclusion.

Instead of durability these items have a time counter of seven days, always ticking, after a week they will vanish whatever you do, so if you get one you might as well use it instead of hoarding it.

And where would they drop? Well that one is also a nice one we think, Once a week, lets say Friday night on EU or any other peak time window, all dungeon bosses reset and their first kill that week would guarantee these artifacts. We could have One Themed after every single dungeon boss, and big guilds would have to carefully select witch artifact would they aim to get that week.

Some other artifacts could be tied to dungeon floors or secret places with players having the knowledge on where they do spawn and also having the need to pick them up from a locked chest or using the pilfering skill not implemented yet, either way plenty of wits, luck or cooperation would be needed in order to sneak in the loot for yourself or your guild.

Some other minor ones could be random instead of guaranteed, for example getting them by fishing at certain places, or having a chance when killing certain mobs, with still the only one per week limit.

It would foment a lot of PVP activity around the PVE content for a limited time every single week, enough reason for dungeons to be way more enjoyable yet not enough for them to feel forceful, giving big bragging rights to guilds or individuals who would be able to snatch these unique items for a temporary time.

What do you guys think?

 

[Calcal]

While this is an interesting idea, it has a major flaw, this:

"Once a week, lets say Friday night on EU or any other peak time window, all dungeon bosses reset and their first kill that week would guarantee these artifacts. We could have One Themed after every single dungeon boss, and big guilds would have to carefully select witch artifact would they aim to get that week."

It's a bad idea to have a completely predictable drop on a valuable item. The end result will be more wealth and power concentration of a few guilds/players while the rest are unable to catch up or compete.

If anything the game needs more diversified and unpredictable ways of getting valuable loot.

 

[JohnOldman]

While this is an interesting idea, it has a major flaw, this:

"Once a week, lets say Friday night on EU or any other peak time window, all dungeon bosses reset and their first kill that week would guarantee these artifacts. We could have One Themed after every single dungeon boss, and big guilds would have to carefully select witch artifact would they aim to get that week."

It's a bad idea to have a completely predictable drop on a valuable item. The end result will be more wealth and power concentration of a few guilds/players while the rest are unable to catch up or compete.

If anything the game needs more diversified and unpredictable ways of getting valuable loot.

This value gets reset every single week, the point is to mobilize guilds for stuff worth doing and force big fights over these items, its like you tell me lets not do a League of legends worlds event Asians are going to win either way.

 

[KebekLorde]

While this is an interesting idea, it has a major flaw, this:

"Once a week, lets say Friday night on EU or any other peak time window, all dungeon bosses reset and their first kill that week would guarantee these artifacts. We could have One Themed after every single dungeon boss, and big guilds would have to carefully select witch artifact would they aim to get that week."

It's a bad idea to have a completely predictable drop on a valuable item. The end result will be more wealth and power concentration of a few guilds/players while the rest are unable to catch up or compete.

If anything the game needs more diversified and unpredictable ways of getting valuable loot.

I like the idea since it sounds cool to have artifacts in the game that reset each week. Besides, the way to obtain them could be anything from killing a boss to an artifact randomly spawning (or is placed by a GM) in some random area in the whole map (like it could sometimes appear in the underwater jungle cave just sitting there) or as metioned fishing.

 

[Albanjo Dravae]

While this is an interesting idea, it has a major flaw, this:

"Once a week, lets say Friday night on EU or any other peak time window, all dungeon bosses reset and their first kill that week would guarantee these artifacts. We could have One Themed after every single dungeon boss, and big guilds would have to carefully select witch artifact would they aim to get that week."

It's a bad idea to have a completely predictable drop on a valuable item. The end result will be more wealth and power concentration of a few guilds/players while the rest are unable to catch up or compete.

If anything the game needs more diversified and unpredictable ways of getting valuable loot.

Yes no more zerg directed content.

 

[JohnOldman]

Yes no more zerg directed content.

They can be implemented in multiple ways, not all of them must drop the same way, on top of that what sort of content do we have that is Guild VS Guild right now? Also i doubt that there is a guild that could get more than one of these at the same time. plus its not like they should give almighty power, they will be more like a trophy that you have to fight for every single week if you want to hold it.

 

[Albanjo Dravae]

They can be implemented in multiple ways, not all of them must drop the same way, on top of that what sort of content do we have that is Guild VS Guild right now? Also i doubt that there is a guild that could get more than one of these at the same time. plus its not like they should give almighty power, they will be more like a trophy that you have to fight for every single week if you want to hold it.

Absolutly everything ingame Is potential gvg. No need to cattle players into it.

I don't like it, very themeparkish suggestion. I like artifacts and shit but i don't like how. I mean this game requires less zerg and brute force and more strategic gameplay and better content for small groups rather than zerg content.

 

[JohnOldman]

all big guilds are doing right now is dodging each other, once we have TC that will change, but i wouldn't mind more reasons for guilds to clash with each other and have clear winners out of the fights, it will also give long term goals to smaller guilds because i doubt big guilds would be able to be everywhere at once. Plus its not like a single item will increase a big guild power level that much, its more about bragging rights.
Also people are gonna use them because they will be vanishing in a few days, so you will see them swapping hands constantly through the week most likely. think about all the narrative and healthy beef we could have whenever any of these would swap hands.

 

[Albanjo Dravae]

all big guilds are doing right now is dodging each other, once we have TC that will change, but i wouldn't mind more reasons for guilds to clash with each other and have clear winners out of the fights, it will also give long term goals to smaller guilds because i doubt big guilds would be able to be everywhere at once. Plus its not like a single item will increase a big guild power level that much, its more about bragging rights.
Also people are gonna use them because they will be vanishing in a few days, so you will see them swapping hands constantly through the week most likely. think about all the narrative and healthy beef we could have whenever any of these would swap hands.

I rather see other things being taken care of instead of piling up more trivial content. Like a rework to pve, pets, combat, crafting.

Building on top of broken content just makes everything feel more artificial. Im up for organic encounters rather than fixed locations for zergs to fight for exclusive content. This game needs to encourage plurality of groups and different scales of conflict before adding zvz content.

 

[JohnOldman]

I rather see other things being taken care of instead of piling up more trivial content. Like a rework to pve, pets, combat, crafting.

Building on top of broken content just makes everything feel more artificial. Im up for organic encounters rather than fixed locations for zergs to fight for exclusive content. This game needs to encourage plurality of groups and different scales of conflict before adding zvz content.

First, like i said not all of them should be rewards for zvz.

Second, all the things you are asking for are not mutually exclusive with this.

Other than the 3d art for a few of the artifacts this task is not that time consuming, these Artifacts can be pretty doable by some of the designers while others devs are busy writing code for other stuff yet to be implemented like elementalism or al weapon skills.

This content may be trivial for you for whatever reason but i asure you stuff like this will indirectly benefit you, the more goals big groups have the less bored people on those groups and the more active the player base becomes overall. i think mechanics like these will help retention a lot.

 

[Albanjo Dravae]

First, like i said not all of them should be rewards for zvz.

Second, all the things you are asking for are not mutually exclusive with this.

Other than the 3d art for a few of the artifacts this task is not that time consuming, these Artifacts can be pretty doable by some of the designers while others devs are busy writing code for other stuff yet to be implemented like elementalism or al weapon skills.

This content may be trivial for you for whatever reason but i asure you stuff like this will indirectly benefit you, the more goals big groups have the less bored people on those groups and the more active the player base becomes overall. i think mechanics like these will help retention a lot.

It doesn't have to be exclusive and that shouldn't be an excuse, you are right on that. It aint trivial either, i appreciate your effort to suggest another layer of content but like mentioned before i believe other things have to be in order before adding any more content into the game, otherwise It's like making a massive building that has rotten foundations.

I myself have a very different perspective on what content should be and what it should involve. Not gonna lie it feels like a placeholder idea, something thats not round from the initial concept. I'd like to see some degree of crafting involvement in most if not all content just to make crafting and the wide variety of filler mechanics/items mean something more than it actually Is. And then i think the game needs to encourage a wider spectrum of activities for small mid sized groups instead of zerg content.

I mean we have been there in MO1 and people did suggest these kind of conflict environments, for example they added unique relics dropping from the sky "randomly" and these relics had been even the motive for extensive sieges. But hardly done properly.

I don't like the fixed nature of events" it feels super artificial in a game that should encourage organic encounters.

Game needs to sort small scale events before Jumping into zerg content. In my eyes obviously.

 

[Xunila]

We had artifacts in MO1. They could be looted from meteorites falling at random locations from the sky and showing a beam like the priest beam in ghost mode. Once I looted a sword, I don't remember if there had been bows or other weapons. The items could not be banked and dropped on death and on logout.

 

[JohnOldman]

We had artifacts in MO1. They could be looted from meteorites falling at random locations from the sky and showing a beam like the priest beam in ghost mode. Once I looted a sword, I don't remember if there had been bows or other weapons. The items could not be banked and dropped on death and on logout.

I never knew about this, its cool that they dropped on logout but if you had to TC the enemy to get them its a huge overtaking for them to swap teams, i think them fading into the ether after a week is much better than dropping on logout but that's just me.
As for them being artificial i think something like this can fit lore wise, you can say the ether is constantly pulling them back , instead of durability it can say: Will Fade Into The Ether in X Days Y Hours Z Minutes

 

[Emdash]

Nah straight on any more artifact like items. I would be cool with player crafted rares though that are a bit better, occasionally. MO1 artifacts were just like OP things that bypassed whole game mechanics. It was stupid. Pet level artifact. It's like... at that point the game has become a joke.

Fix the core of the game and make TC work! That's basically all. Make TC something more about ENHANCING than GATING, make the gating be done by players. Stop adding trash content like this. Sorry John.

 

[JohnOldman]

Nah straight on any more artifact like items. I would be cool with player crafted rares though that are a bit better, occasionally. MO1 artifacts were just like OP things that bypassed whole game mechanics. It was stupid. Pet level artifact. It's like... at that point the game has become a joke.

Fix the core of the game and make TC work! That's basically all. Make TC something more about ENHANCING than GATING, make the gating be done by players. Stop adding trash content like this. Sorry John.

they where stupid because you had to fight a keep in order for them to swap owners. if they fade in 6-7 days you would not have that problem, If TC is more than enough drive for Guild vs Guild content you can still do these artifacts in a way that helps smaller groups.

For example, what about a Wandering Fisherman NPC that walks all around the map constantly and offers one Artifact fishing rod once a week, he can ask for an especial currency on top of that or request a different rare fish type every single week as payment.

These artifacts I'm talking about can be implemented on so many different ways, they will give the kind of memories and anecdotes that one never forgets, i sill remember all the big fights i had on ultima online fighting over Power Stats scrolls on raid bosses, or the first Zyronic claw i ever got and i was able to get that one solo. People are getting lost into the weeds because my first example was advertised for ZvZ content but they can be implemented in so many ways.

The Zyronic Claw can be acquired in the dungeon Doom in Malas. It has a rarity of 10 and therefore spawns approximately every 32 days. A minimum of 100 (Grand Master) stealing skill is required.​

 

[Rhias]

In MO1 you had those "demonic" weapons and armors, that couldn't be banked and disappeared after some time.
I think it was dropped by meteors?
I loved those random Meteor drops. I hope we will get them again together with other random Events such as Risar or Sator Invasions.