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Solving Content Obsolescence - Artifact Everything
thefabricant
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 5,248 Arc User
There is a major problem in Neverwinter right now where only the most recent content is viable and old content becomes quickly obsolete, resulting in there being a lot of old content which is "dead." Here is my attempt to remedy that problem. Please note, all values used in this post are examples to illustrate the point and are not representative of what the final numbers likely should be in such a system.
Short Version:
Say if every piece of content in the game rewarded something which was intended to be BiS forever. Lets start with a campaign zone. Lets say the dread ring campaign, on completion, rewarded these arms which were always intended to be BiS. They would not start out as BiS, but after heavy investment they would eventually get there. Initially they start out at say item level 50. There are then campaign tasks which reward shards which could raise it from item level 50 to item level 500, each shard adding 5 item level at a time. These shards would be unbound, so once players have finished restoring their own item to item level 500, they could then sell the shards they acquired to another player. This both provides an incentive to older players to continue running this old content if they so wish to and provides a catchup mechanism to new players.
Then comes the dungeon for that campaign, lets say in this case Valindra's Tower. VT could then drop shards that further enhance that item from item level 500 up to say Item Level 1000. How about crafting you ask? Shards to go from 1000-1500! These shards would also be unbound and once again, upgrade the item level at a rate of 5 item level per shard. Due to the sheer number of shards you would need, actually grinding them out yourself is unfeasible and so the shards then act as an AD sink, causing players to buy shards if they want to expedite the process, or sell shards if they no longer need them in order to recoup AD.
As there are people that still obviously care about different item appearances, alternate skins could then drop as bound items in different dungeons and trials, acting as the "vanity items" that people have to show for beating content.
The advantage of this system is firstly that it prevents old content from ever becoming obsolete. Lets say in 30 mods down the line all of the item slots are now filled with items like this, all they need to do is in the next piece of content, add a new set of shards for one of the already existing items at say item level 1500, which would take it from there to item level 2000 and the content would be viable. In the process, no old gear was made obsolete and no content was phased out either. Everything remains a part of the game's ecosystem, practically forever.
Secondly, it acts as an AD sink. Players need shards and its not feasible for you to farm every shard you need. There are simply too many shards for a single person to acquire them all. This means that if a player wants to upgrade all of their gear in a reasonable time frame, they will be buying shards. This creates a demand for shards, which leads to trade within the game. The buying and selling of shards leads to AD being removed from the game's ecosystem, which is healthy for the economy.
Thirdly, it removes the risk of upsetting players because you phased out items that they were currently using. Players already know the item they are investing in are going to be the ideal item, practically forever. This means they can go full in investing into it, because they know they aren't going to lose out in the near future. This does introduce the issue that it limits item choice, but there is a way to circumvent this problem, by making the bonuses on items something that can be changed and by pieces of content dropping "bonus unlocks." The choice then moves from the item slot itself, to the bonus on the item.
Fourthly, this slows down the rate of power creep considerably. At most you are upgrading 1 item slot every 3 months (although you can upgrade many bonuses in 1 mod). It makes progression much more horizontal (in the form of most of the choice is on item bonuses) whilst still retaining an element of vertical progression to provide a carrot for people to chase after.
Fifthly, this system is much easier to tweak in terms of dev work, with only a small amount of time needing to go to actually tweaking the items, with almost all of the work being shifted over to the bonuses.
Lastly, it removes the pressure players may feel that they "need" to run a specific piece of content. If they don't want to run a piece of content, they can run something they do want to run and then trade the shards from one piece of content for shards from another piece of content. There could even be item shards in PVP, so that PVP players have something to sell without setting their feet into PVE.
Net Result TL;DR:
Short Version:
- Each piece of content has 1 item which is intended to be BiS for the entire duration of the game.
- This item starts at a low item level (example 50).
- The piece of content which drops this item also drops shards to enhance the item which add 5 item level each time, up to a specific threshold (for example, 500 item level).
- Completing the piece of content only rewards a single shard.
- Those shards are exclusive to that item. You cannot use shards for boots to enhance arms.
- Other pieces of content can then exist which drop a shard which further raises it from its current threshold (for example 500) up to the next threshold (for example 1000).
- This item and its shards are unbound.
- Dungeons and trials could then additionally have interesting bonuses which drop which could be "crafted onto" the items to further develop your build.
- They could also drop bound appearance changes, to incentivize people to run that content if they want unique appearances.
Say if every piece of content in the game rewarded something which was intended to be BiS forever. Lets start with a campaign zone. Lets say the dread ring campaign, on completion, rewarded these arms which were always intended to be BiS. They would not start out as BiS, but after heavy investment they would eventually get there. Initially they start out at say item level 50. There are then campaign tasks which reward shards which could raise it from item level 50 to item level 500, each shard adding 5 item level at a time. These shards would be unbound, so once players have finished restoring their own item to item level 500, they could then sell the shards they acquired to another player. This both provides an incentive to older players to continue running this old content if they so wish to and provides a catchup mechanism to new players.
Then comes the dungeon for that campaign, lets say in this case Valindra's Tower. VT could then drop shards that further enhance that item from item level 500 up to say Item Level 1000. How about crafting you ask? Shards to go from 1000-1500! These shards would also be unbound and once again, upgrade the item level at a rate of 5 item level per shard. Due to the sheer number of shards you would need, actually grinding them out yourself is unfeasible and so the shards then act as an AD sink, causing players to buy shards if they want to expedite the process, or sell shards if they no longer need them in order to recoup AD.
As there are people that still obviously care about different item appearances, alternate skins could then drop as bound items in different dungeons and trials, acting as the "vanity items" that people have to show for beating content.
The advantage of this system is firstly that it prevents old content from ever becoming obsolete. Lets say in 30 mods down the line all of the item slots are now filled with items like this, all they need to do is in the next piece of content, add a new set of shards for one of the already existing items at say item level 1500, which would take it from there to item level 2000 and the content would be viable. In the process, no old gear was made obsolete and no content was phased out either. Everything remains a part of the game's ecosystem, practically forever.
Secondly, it acts as an AD sink. Players need shards and its not feasible for you to farm every shard you need. There are simply too many shards for a single person to acquire them all. This means that if a player wants to upgrade all of their gear in a reasonable time frame, they will be buying shards. This creates a demand for shards, which leads to trade within the game. The buying and selling of shards leads to AD being removed from the game's ecosystem, which is healthy for the economy.
Thirdly, it removes the risk of upsetting players because you phased out items that they were currently using. Players already know the item they are investing in are going to be the ideal item, practically forever. This means they can go full in investing into it, because they know they aren't going to lose out in the near future. This does introduce the issue that it limits item choice, but there is a way to circumvent this problem, by making the bonuses on items something that can be changed and by pieces of content dropping "bonus unlocks." The choice then moves from the item slot itself, to the bonus on the item.
Fourthly, this slows down the rate of power creep considerably. At most you are upgrading 1 item slot every 3 months (although you can upgrade many bonuses in 1 mod). It makes progression much more horizontal (in the form of most of the choice is on item bonuses) whilst still retaining an element of vertical progression to provide a carrot for people to chase after.
Fifthly, this system is much easier to tweak in terms of dev work, with only a small amount of time needing to go to actually tweaking the items, with almost all of the work being shifted over to the bonuses.
Lastly, it removes the pressure players may feel that they "need" to run a specific piece of content. If they don't want to run a piece of content, they can run something they do want to run and then trade the shards from one piece of content for shards from another piece of content. There could even be item shards in PVP, so that PVP players have something to sell without setting their feet into PVE.
Net Result TL;DR:
- Content is never made obsolete by new and better gear becoming available.
- AD is removed from the economy.
- Power creep is drastically slowed down.
- Players are not pressured into running content they don't want to run.
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if there was more loot to go around, coupled with Sharps suggestion above (which i like), then all of the content would be playable by all of the players instead of this crazy stupid divide between new players and end gamers that the devs keep thinking they have to fix by nerfing things instead of just making the loot more accessible to everyone.
and from a guild leaders perspective, the divide is real and it is a problem if you try to run a guild that is all inclusive. new players are just not up to the level of end game, but of course to get better they want the end game gear. it causes all sorts of elitism within the game and division between new and old players. pretty sure that it has something to do with new player retention in the game as well - like its next to nothing. but i spose if the new peeps keep turning up and trying to spend money to "get caught up" then the devs are doing what they do best, shortsightedly looking after their bottom line.
thanks for your suggestions Sharp, lets hope it pokes the devs into thinking inside or outside a different box.
Guild Leader - Valaurakari Ascension
VA is the creator and proud member of The Round Table Alliance
The big problem with crafting in the game is that it alternates between being able to make "must-have" items (most recent examples being masterwork weapons and certain pants) and not being able to make any viable gear. If crafting was essentially redesigned to primarily upgrade existing gear (upgrading their IL or adding bonuses), then crafting would always stay relevant, even as new content is being released.
I like crafting - I have all professions at 80 with max-rank masterwork and 25+ level 80 workers, but right now crafting is just...well, irrelevant. I am afraid they will just release a new tier of masterwork or something like that, which would make crafted items BiS again for a short time, and then become irrelevant again, as new content with BiS items is released.
We really need a long-term solution, and something along those lines would fit the bill - but unfortunately it seems nobody is interested in my suggestions or feedback.
Perhaps something like your "shards" could upgrade the stats of an item, while crafting could increase or change the item bonuses ?
I assumed the shards were bound and the item unbound in your idea but you said both unbound so I think is better to remove shards
The problem with this is that people could buy the items to upgrade his item (this is not neccesary bad)
Another problem I can see is that some items wont be BIS so that content is not run, but well, we have that problem now so... I assume you can get more items from each instance, because there must be variety not only the best items. Some could be situational or good for some builds.
Overall I like the idea.
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Since the goal of a module will only be to upgrade say 1 item through the campaign and 1 item through the dungeon, you have 6 mods worth of items to upgrade before you have a new "tier" of item level. By design in this system, the items will always be desirable and always be BiS, because there are no other items to replace them with. You could allow these items to be heavily customizable (for example, unlock alternate stat distributions for them as well as either set bonuses or individual item bonuses) to simulate the current "variety" of items, but because of the way the system is set up, if you want to upgrade your gear, every single piece of content in the game is always important for character progression, because you have no choice in terms of what items you are using, only how those items function (stat distribution, bonuses, appearance, etc).The reason why the shards in this system have to be unbound is simple - New player catchup as well as alts. If the shards are bound a player who decides to gear an alt suddenly has to go through the entire game's worth of content in order to play it. In addition to that, it allows players more choice. If a player absolutely does not want to do PVP for example, they can choose not to do it. But at the same time you could add shards to PVP so PVP players can earn something while playing their favorite game mode as they can just sell them to anyone who does not want to PVP. Likewise, players that don't want to set foot in say spellplague could just buy the spellplague shards. By making the shards unbound, you are allowing people to choose what they want to run.
The reason why the shards exist in the first place is to tie the progression of a single item to multiple pieces of content. It is essentially the artifact system, but where you need special RP depending on the level of the item.
Obviously, you would phase this in very gradually and not just convert everyone's items into transmutes. You would first add the base items in as well as the upgrade paths and because they are much more versatile players would over time switch to them. Eventually once you are past a certain threshold, the old items can all be culled into transmutes and any players that have not already switched can have their items converted into their current level equivalent. That or there could be some trade in system.
I like the idea but all the items should be "very customizable" to give the builds some variety. The item bonuses could be something you can craft then like jewels for example. Or something that drops in dungeons.
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Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I remember when I talked about it I used the Lion Heart weapon as an example. imagine if to refine or even restore an LH you needed Old weapons like Alabaster or even older modules like chult or SKT. discarded items would no longer give RP, but Fragments similar to your example, but these fragments besides being specific to the type of item, arm, ring, boots, etc., they would have distinct ranks that could accompany the modules for example, M15, fragments of R15 (just as an example, this can be done in several different ways). the question is, if i did TIC and got the Lion Guard helmet I now need to restore that helmet to be able to equip it (or say that this helmet comes ready to equip but with low level item like iL 50 following your example). now i need to go back to the old modules to make fragments of helmets of different ranks according to the module until i can leave my LG helmet with current item level for this module, something in that sense. that is, all equipment would have a refining system that would not use RP, but I believe that there needs to be a limit on how far this can go. for example, TIC M19 I take the Lion guard helmet and do this process, however in the M20 comes a new stronger helmet, I do not agree that I can make the Lion guard of the M19 strong as the new helmet of the M20. We can even add a few more fragment systems to rank 20 now, but we have to ensure that players who get this new M20 helmet have some advantage over an M19 helmet with an M20 upgrade. on the other hand, Players who just got the new helmet from the M20 will have to do the chicken farm again, then low ranks or buy them at AH. with that we would not be frustrated to drop alabaster weapons repeated in the MEs, or Lion Hearts repeated in the TOMM, as we would know that the fragments generated by them would be useful to bring Zariel's weapon to its maximum potential.
I suggest that Shards be used to upgrade gear using an Enchantment. We'll say that one is given to each character during the tutorial, and that they are non-transferable (shards would be, though, for twinking). More may be attainable as the game progressed, though they would have to be hard to come by.
Shards could be broken into stats; for example, I might break down an artifact that has +800power and +800 crit strike. 100 stat points = 1 Shard, so I would get 8 Shards of Power and 8 Shards of Crit Strike. I could then empower my Enchantment with those shards and apply it to whichever gear I am using. I could also transfer this Enchantment to new gear as I level up, and modify the shards to better balance my stats.
The enchantment would have slots; for sake of this example let's say it has 4. So I empower my enchantment with 2 Shards of Power (200 power) and 2 Shards of Crit Strike (200 crit strike). You could also upgrade shards, so let's just say I collect 10 Shards of Power (1,000 power). I could refine that into a Blue Shard of Power which would grant the 1,000 power but only take up 1 Enchantment slot. So now I could have my 4 slots filled with 1 Blue Shard of Power and 3 Green Shards of Crit Strike (1000power, 600 crit strike). These would be upgradable to Mythic, allowing for crazy amounts of stats (in this example, Mythic Shard of Power=1,000,000 power).
The enchantment itself could have modification via Cubes of Aug, perhaps adding a special bonus effect. Initially the enchantment would have a +5% bonus to XP, but it could have other effects as well unlockable via Cubes of Aug. You could also have a way to upgrade the enchantment; let's just say you have to fill the enchantment with all Green shards to get the option to upgrade to Lvl 2. At lvl 2 the effect bonus would climb, so instead of +5% bonus XP you would get +10%. This allows for your base enchantment to grow along with your character, and gives another use for Shards outside of simply boosting stats. It could even be that the Enchantment must be of a certain tier to accept shards, so the natural progression would be to upgrade your enchant from Green to Blue, then upgrade shards to Blue, rinse and repeat up the chain.
Something like this could really make a huge impact to viability of running old content and stat distribution. Obviously my numbers are a bit large, but I think it helped get the point across. This would add a system that could be worked on as you progress into end-game, and would provide a resource for all old/useless artifacts without having to modify stats/tiers of those items independently.
So this MOD1-2 idea by Sharpedge * Barovian hunts seems like it'd be a good idea.
Length*difficulty modifier item =/= Reward(s) implemented.
Essentially, a Watcher Run without the nasty RNG inside of RNG...
Since we already saw it possible and implemented several times, I think it'd be a good idea to give it a try at least.
Downside to all of it is guaranteed for the first 2 years since that's how things work around here.