Scalable Weapons/Armor/offhands

REVISED CONCEPT!

Weapons:

Talking to the weapon smith allows you to upgrade your weapon(sword/axe/hammer/spear/scythe/bow/daggers) with a new SUFFIX. +0% damage vs BLANK or +1 weapon mastery(based on the weapon not general for all weapons) 0%chance.

The cost would be 1 Platinum.

After you kill 25 of a particular monster type BLANK is replaced by that type and you move from +0% to +1%. Killing X more of that monster raises the damage by +1% up to a maximum of 20%

OR

Kill 100 of any monster type for the +1 weapon mastery to go up to 1% chance. Killing X more raises +1% chance up to a maximum of 100%

Weapons modified with these suffix's are automatically customized.


Offhands:

Talking to a weapon smith will allow you to add an inscription to an offhand.
For energy offhands you gain and inscription +1 items attribute 0% chance. Casting spells of that attribute raises this by +1% chance every X number of spells cast to a maxumum of 100%.
For shields you gain an inscription +1 armor vs BLANK. Taking 100 hits from one particular monster type will replace BLANK with that monster type. You then gain +1 armor vs that monster type for every X amount of hits you take from that monster type.

The shield/offhands modified are customized to that character.


Armor:

Armor Crafters will sell a BLANK insignia for 250g. Equiping that to a piece of armor allows that armor to gain +1 armor vs BLANK. Taking X amount of damage from one particular type will replace BLANK with that type(damage is cumlitive not required in a single hit). For each X amount of damage you take of the type you gain +1 armor up to a maximum of +20.
Damage type for armor boost: Lightning, Cold, Earth, Fire, Slashing, Piercing and Blunt.


ORIGINAL PROPOSAL

This idea is taken straight out of other games.

Many games have items that increase in power the more you use them. Implimenting something like this in GW might be a very good idea. This would create more reasons to focus on a certain weapon rather than have 25 different skins of the same weapon.

While this would become a grind issue the benifit should be such that its not needed.

We get 20% damage for customizing a weapon, so what if you could attain that 20% without customizing?

If you kill 500 foes with a weapon it gains +1% Damage, this could continue with a slight increase at each level ( 550 foes for +2% ect ) up to a maximum of +20%damage. The weapon would not gain any benifit if customized at that point, if it was customized before reaching +20% then the bonus would simply bump up to 20%.

This means a player could level up a weapon to gain the 20% bonus damage and still be able to sell/trade that item. It would not be mandatory since anyone could gain the 20% just by customizing(they would not stack).


For Armor I would like to impliment something where instead of adding an Insignia you could adapt your armor through exposure. Example if you take 1000points of damage from Lightning your armor would gain +1 armor vs Lightning(this would be overwritten if you apply any inscription to that armor) and would have a maximum of +20 vs one specific type of damage.
Only 1 type of protection can be earned ( you can't have +5 lightning and +5 fire for example) and once you reach +1 of a certain type no other type would be counted unless you added and removed an inscription(thus resetting that armor)


For energy offhands each time you cast a spell with a certain attribute you gain a chance of +1in that attribute up to a permant +1 of that attribute.
So for casting 100Air magic spells while that offhand is equiped it would gain +1 Air magic 1%Chance and would increase up to 100% with each level increasing at a slower rate( so 2%chance would require 250 spells, 3% 600spells, ect).

For sheilds the bonus could be increase stance duration. Spend 100min in a stance while equiped with the same shield and you gain +1 second to any stance you use. This would max out at +5seconds and would take the place of the shields inscription.


The idea is to create some "play powered items" to reward players for using the same items more often. The numbers are just off the top of my head and will need some adjusting but they give you a good general impression.

Good?
Bad?
Alterations/Variasions?

I actually really like the idea. It makes sense and it seems fairly reasonable.

Would different pieces of your armor be able to have different types of protection?

/signed
I find this an interesting idea and think it would add more to the game. Although it will probably never happen.

They're not going to completely revamp the weapon's system for a dead game when they've already got a sequel they're spending most of their time on. I really don't see how this is such a great idea anyway.

if you kill foes WITH the weapon or while WIELDING the weapon?
either way - farmers rejoice

I don't mind, as long as they work like normal weapons in PvP and they are obtained only in low stats, something like:
1-2 for daggers, and then you must 'train' it.

The problem I see with it is that it could be somehow bad for the market. People would stick to a weapon instead of chinging skins once in a while.

What could be done is to put the 'traineble' part in a PvE upgrade, something like a gem, a tag, a charm, etc that can be salvaged from a weapon and can be applied only to customized weapons.

That way, if you get tired of the skin, you salvage your charm, get or buy from someone a new weapon and attacks your charm to the new weapon.

A first charm could be obtained with a quest, and other 'empty' ones by other means, such a boss drops or chest rewards.

Hm. Sounds nifty.

/signed

Don't weapon usually get WEAKER after many uses?

Not if they're maintained correctly. The mechanic would be akin to "learning" your weapon, being able to wield it more effectively thus do more damage with it.

But isn't this what customization does? Or are you trying to get weapons with 20% more damage without being customized?

Actually, that's kind of what it sounds like. I'd like a bit more clarification before I finish /signing my name.

I agree with this idea. However, instead of your +1 lightning armor idea, I would change it to +1 elemental armor. If you gained +1 to both elemental and physical armor, you can then refine these for a fee at an armor crafter into +1 armor.

I suggested the 20% as a number that matched the customization just to keep the weapons all equal. So if you want the 20% you can either customize a weapon OR if its a skin you might trade/sell at some point you can just level it up.

Another idea I had was to grant the weapon +X% dmg vs a target monsters. So you kill 100 Mursaat and gain +1% dmg vs Mursaat up to the max of 20%.

I would think the armor would be all peices currently equiped. So if you take 90 points of damage then change your helm the helm would be at 0 while the rest maintained the 90count.

Armor would need to be specific to only one type of damage, covering all elemental or all physical would be to much of a bonus.


I'll explain the origin of the idea of the weapons so people might come up with a better variation than what I proposed.

In Castlevania :SOTN you have a sword called Muramasa. Each time you kill a foe, if he bleeds and you are hit by the blood, you gain 8HP(think vamp) and the sword kill count increases. After a number of kills the swords damage increases +1. To increase the weapons damage another 1 point you must kill the same number of enimies +X more. The weapon starts out at 5dmg but has no known upper limit. NOTE* not all foes bleed and when you kill a foe that does bleed its not guarenteed that the blood would hit you.

This brings Diablo 2's Blacksmiths into play, and the like for many, many MMOs with the Durability of each weapon.

It only makes sense, if you're smacking your sword against metal armor for 3 hours, it's going to get dull.

if this is implemented then I will have wasted 400kish on customizing weapons

/signed however

Original idea, though I think it's far too easy to 'farm' your upgrade.

Start a scrimmage, both use Mending, c-space to each other and leave them fighting overnight.

Needs some refining in my opinion.

i rather the +dmg increment or extra armor be tie to the character as compare to on the weapon/armor.

This way, players cannot make super powerful weapon then sell it for super high prize.

Also, the logic is, if the character has x amount of exposure to getting hit by lightning skill, they will have X amount of ability/armor to withstand said damages. and not the armor.

Also, i foresee lots of QQ thread on please make xxx character base instead of blah blah blah...

it actually is a good idea that I suspect GW 2 has.

"Speaking of running around the world, that's something you'll actually be able to do; run, jump, basically just dork around however you like. When you land in a new world, O'Brien explained, you don't want to have to read a bunch of skill descriptions, you want to run around and jump and swing, so that's what you'll be able to do in Guild Wars 2. It's meant to be a learn-by-doing sort of situation--rather than have overly complex skills that take an excessive amount of brain matter to understand, players will learn less complicated skills that they will be encouraged to test out in any situation they can think of. What happens if you use this skill while jumping, or that one while surrounded by monsters? Who knows? Give it a whirl and find out!"

I agree, good ideas

That's a lot of fkn weapons. Unless you mean the cost of said weapons?

Great idea, but what if I don't want a specific upgrade, or I'm aiming to get a different one? Perhaps a message should appear to notify you that a weapon/armor/etc. is ready to upgrade, and you can decide whether to accept or cancel the upgrade.

I also sorta liked where bhavv was going, in the sense that this system could allow people to obtain new PvE only upgrades.

/signed

The upgrades are based on how you play, so if you want a specific upgrade you need to play a certain way...

That being said while the armor had a reset option, by adding then removing an insignia, the same might work with weapons....perhaps at the weapon smith. Add an option for reforgeing weapon/offhands?

Holy mufuggin shit.

At 10g per customization (the price at the weaponsmith), that's 40,000 weapons.

What I see here:
*a very complicated complete overhaul of GW item system, it may be a hell to implement;
*a system that discourages customization (a bad thing imho)
*a bunch of entirely new effects available for shields/foci/armors - that's just crazy - I don't see any mention about them being PvE only, if those are meant to affect PvP aswell then /rotflmao
*a system which seems very easily abusable and thus pointless - if weapons can improve from just using skills, you can just easily set up a macro that spams 1 skill on recharge and go afk. If it's about getting hit, you can find low lvl mobs with specific dmg type, bring healer heroes and go afk. If it's about kills, you can kill hundreds of easily farmable mobs somewhere or even barrels in Isle of Nameless... Making this system not abusable in any way through a set of rules and restrictions would make it even more overcomplicated.

While the whole item system in GW PvE is utterly boring and hopeless and it could really benefit from various improvements adding more variety, but I think this is not a good way to do it. Maybe this idea could see some improvements to make it more reasonable, but if it added in it's current state it would be a total mess.

Wouldn't this promote grinding in a massive way?

I think using the same weapon all time is way more boring than changing every now and then...

Especially warriors and eles who usually have many different weapon sets would't like this idea

It is a good idea, just needs some tings to be thought over. Like if your being power leveled while weilding the weapon, would it still be building up points? Either way, it is just another way to get people to farm MORE... like we need that. I can see people in Kamadam... "WTS 15 Golds, all with +20% non customized!!!" and i'd imagine the price for having a weapon customized like that for you without you doing anything would be enourmous.

Any sugestions on how to improve this idea??

I do understand its a bit much to expect Anet to ever add this to GW, but it might work(or a variation) in GW2.

To prevent abuse I would think some limits such as you must take X amount of damage from X type in a single hit for it to count. (armor mod)
For weapons you have to hit a foe of equal or higher level to gain the mod.

You have to actually hit the target, powerleveling would have 0 effect.

Yes its more grind, but at least not really additional grind. You are ginding up money, now you get an additional bonus if your farming the same foe over and over.

It would be PvE only, you can't farm humans for a +20%dmg vs human mod (white mantle, kornans, Luxons, kurzicks all would get thier own mod)

As for the effect on economy...its a reward for using the same weapon, but you can get that same reward with the customization option. People might buy/sell these for a large sum, but they are achievable by anyone willing to put in time playing.


Definately needs more refining...but this is a good start I think.

Made some changes to the original concept.......