Revive: Consolidated Upgrading Suggestion

[Ellyidol]

Hi community.

First of all, would just like to mention that the points in this thread are NOT fully my own, I've done some searching around forums and listing of upgrading suggestions and have decided to compile them as much as I can, as clear as I can.

Second, this is NOT a farmers suggestion to earn more money (Sagkai's is closed), so this is not for personal gain, but for the majority of players and content.

Upgrading

As most of you gamers know, upgrading is the process which you can improve your gear. It is not forging where you need to collect other materials and forge them into some "Enchanted" gear.

What I've been reading, and have in mind, is simply a "Blacksmith" type of upgrading where you can go from +1 above. Although enchanting would be good as well, this thread is mainly focused on upgrading.

Advantages

1. Prolonging content life - As we all know, Ao3 was great after it came out (4th of October I believe based from this thread : http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...ht=Alien+Oasis). Personally, it gave me about 2 weeks of intense playing, nonstop content and action when I logged in, and always had something to do. I don't think we can deny that over the past 3 weeks, that Ao3 content has dwindled down fast.

Upgrading would be able to relive and prolong, past, present, and future content. It would allow lower level gear (which twinks use/need) to be needed even more, Ao3 gear which everyone currently uses to be needed even more, and future content to be needed even more when they come out. This makes all gear wanted AGAIN and almost infinitely prolonged. Its no longer about just getting a void/rift/cosmos set, but a +10 set (or however you want to call the max upgrade limit).

2. Increases replayability - This idea was taken mostly from smoaes thread (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...uld-help-a-lot). Although his thread mainly focuses more on editing/adding current pinks, upgrading would simply just use the current pinks in game. It is somehow related to prolonging content, that instead of just aiming for a void/rift/cosmos set, it would be upgrading them to the max limit. It would give people more things to do when they get online, more reason to farm, and overall more fun.

3. Platinum Opportunity - This section is mainly for the devs, and personally I'm not a huge fan of it, but it will exist if upgrading comes out. Based off my previous experiences in F2P MMOs, they offer premium items that prevent "breaking" or "increases chances" of upgrading. I don't want to suggest that per se, since it would add extreme differences between players that can and cannot spend on the game. I do suggest though a platinum item that can increase chances of upgrading, since this is not required to play and would act mainly like the Luck Elixir (which most know is not needed in farming to get rares), which would give you a chance to re-roll your upgrade to save the gear. This would maybe,hopefully persuade devs to acting upon upgrading quick and implement on next update.

4. Bridging the gap between new/patron players - With the arrival of the new android market (YAY), player count should increase (I don't know if double, assuming as much people use android and willing to play PL) by quite an amount. Upgrading which would increase the need for lower level items (twinks) would allow these new players to "catch up" to the more established players from the iDevices. Personally, when I started, I had a really hard time especially until Ao2. I only maximised when Ao3 came out and started making money, before that it was slim pickins for me. I didn't know much about twink items and such since I didn't really see any B> advertisements and the usual thoth/isis armors would be cheap since one set was enough.

Disadvantages

I don't really see a clear disadvantage of upgrading, aside from the work from devs and such :P, but maybe because I'm biased towards thinking its a good thing. Would love your opinions and suggestions too. The only thing I see that could possibly make it hard for players would be adding a gold fee; another gold sink. Hopefully it would be fine since I heard from the PL Facebook site that they have upcoming plans to implement additional equipment :

Pocket Legends: We do have a couple of invisible slots still available (amulet and ring at the least). Nothing implemented yet, but tucked away for a future update.

How to

The basic idea of Upgrading in this case is, putting together 2 items of the same kind to have a CHANCE to upgrade it to the next level.

Gurgox Hammer + Gurgox Hammer = Chance of going +1, and so on to +10 with the chance getting lower. +1 Gurgox Hammer + a +0 Gurgox Hammer = +2 Hammer. +3 Hammer + +0 = +4, and so on.

Each time it fails, ONLY the higher +# item would be destroyed. The +0 item would remain. This would allow replayability again.

So after showing the advantages/disadvantages, I've been trying to think of a way on how to calculate the effects and chances of upgrading.

Right now the current sets give these stats+bonuses (these are the full set bonuses for void/rift/cosmos):

Void set gives a total of : 33 Dex - 24 % Dodge - 3 H/S 15 M/S - 94 Armor + Stat bonuses

Rift : 44 Str - 32 % Crit - 8 H/S - 163 Armor + Stat bonuses

Cosmos : 33 Int - 6 % Crit - 9 H/S 24 M/S - 86 Armor + Stat bonuses

So what I think upgrading should do is enhance the current stats of the sets or allow to have the set what it needs.

The void set (lets talk about armour) has 22 Dex - 16% Dodge - 2 H/S 10 M/S - 91 Armor. What does this set lack? Its a dex set therefore it might be able to use some crit yeah? So the standard upgrade for armour should add armour per upgrade. +10 Void Armor set (Leather + Helm) = +20 Armour. For the "need" of the set, which is crit, I would suggest adding these bonuses on milestone levels of a successful upgrade. These milestones can be set at +3, +5, +7 and +10.

The same for the rift set, we all know it could use some M/S, so along with the armour upgrade per upgrade level, the milestone levels can add some M/S. So at +3 you can get 1 m/s per armour. So a +3 ARMOUR Rift set would give 3 m/s. A +5 set would give 6 m/s, and so on.

As for the cosmos set, we know mages can definitely use some more armour or HP, so at those milestone levels, additional armour or HP can be given. Still the same concept as the previous milestone levels. For +3 cosmos armour set, you could get a bonus +2 armor and 5 HP. So a +3 Cosmos Armour set would give you +6 extra armour and 15 extra HP, +5 would give +12 extra armour and 30 extra HP, and so on.

As for the weapons, I've always had the impression that weapons should have separate stats as armors, in this case though they do have the same stats except damage instead of armour. So per upgrade would add a small amount of damage, milestone levels add a larger damage bonus.

More than just the stats, I suggest a "vanity" effect of upgrading. These milestone levels add certain "glows" to the equipment. For weapons, +3 adds a small glow and +10 would add a large glow. Armours should also have a glow though I'm not sure how to do a multiple armour glow effect. Furthermore, a lot of people with glows might increase the graphical lag. (Maybe an option can be implemented which you can turn off these glows?)

ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS :

1. Upgraded lower tiers should not be able to compare or exceed the ability of higher tiers. (Thanks Necrobane)

eg. +10 45 gear should only barely equal +0 50 gear.

2. Upgraded gear +1-10 CANNOT be traded and should be binded to the character. Only +0 gears can be traded/sold. (Thanks maneut)

3. The breaking down of green, orange, purple, and some lower valued pinks to allow "Magic Crystals" to be made. These crystals along with the 2 pieces of gear used for upgrading would allow a higher chance or a safety net for upgrading. (Thanks Htiek)

Eg. 1 orange = 1 magic crystal, 2 green = 2 magic crystal, purp = 3, pink = 4. Magic crystals can provide a safety net for +1-+3. Lets say maybe 10 magic crystals for +1 to +3 keeps it from breaking 100%. 10 Magic crystals from +3-+5 keep it from breaking by 50%. Figures are just rough estimates though.

4. Most complete and practical suggestion

UPGRADING
Increases the primary stats of the equipment: e.g. "Weapon Attack" for weapons, "Armor" for armors

• Upgrading of equipment should only require gold and the equipment to be upgraded
  
• With each success of upgrading, the equipment gains "+x" at the end of the equipment name. Where x = number of times the equipment has been upgraded successfully in a row.
  
• There should be a limit to how many times an equipment can be upgraded successfully in a row. The most reasonable number should be 10.
• The increase to the primary stats should be proportional to the number of consecutive successful upgrades.
  
• Failure in attempting to upgrade a piece of equipment may result to:
  
  • Loss of gold
  • Decrease the current number of consecutive successful upgrades the equipment has
  • Destruction of equipment
• What will be the result when failing an upgrading attempt should depend on the current number of consecutive successful upgrades.
  
• Equipments of a y tier should outshine equipments of a y+5 tier (But not by a lot). Example: A weapon of level requirement of level 50 with 10 consecutive successful upgrade should be able to out-perform level 55 with no upgrades.

• OPTIONAL
• Equipments can gain a glowing effect when the equipment is upgraded to a high level.
• Binding equipments at max possible upgrade on (a) Final Upgrade OR (b) First character/account to wear the equipment.

MISC

• Leave the crystals idea for another type of "upgrade" available to the equipments (aka. enchanting)
• IMO!! Only the pink grade equipments can be broken down into crystals.

(Suggested by LoonnooL)

END

So I'm hoping this thread was quite a comprehensive one and such. I've been thinking about this concept for about 2 weeks now and sadly it was just my final exams (which i finished today so BOOYAH BRING IT ON PL).

I would LOVE all your suggestions and such, this is again not for personal gain, this would make the game so much more fun for everyone. I'd love to have anyone agree/disagree with this thread, it doesn't affect me in any way since most of these points are again revived and I just added my personal points to some of them.

Hope this helps! Thanks again!

Recent Update:

With 1.5 implemented, the "How To" section of this suggestion is pretty much nullified. So the concept still stands, just the numbers are off.