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Joan


Posts: 22
Likes: 5
Member since: v10-s2

Some suggestions and things that could use a fix/improvement.


This suggestion assumes a working, non-exploitable Unique/Soulbound(cannot be dropped) items system(the current one isn't).


Reward players generously by using the Unique item system's full potential.

Add things like Soulbound EXP fishes, Battle Tower Tokens, temporary infinite runes(an infinite ToT that lasts 24 hours, for example?), perhaps even some really powerful temporary equipment(you can give them an expiration date too if you want, like a week, and the expiring date should be written within the item's description).

You can also give players generous Soulbound items for level milestones, quests, etcetera(if a 20 Rebirths system is added, you could make this repeatable by reaching the milestones again, I realize this isn't enough to encourage people to Rebirth, but its a step in the right direction, also, if level milestone rewards are re-attainable from Rebirthing, they should have an expiring date as to avoid players from stacking them, and don't forget to make it so people cannot get them more than once in the same Rebirth(getting a level 300 milestone reward, dying to go back to 299 and leveling again to get another).
There's no reason to not be generous if the Soulbound system works properly.



Make the "Luck" stat really, really worthwhile without breaking the economy, that way players will be tempted to spend a lot of time and resources making a set of nothing but Luck Enchantments on ALL pieces, this would be a late game/high-end goal that would keep people busy for a long time. I don't know how worthwhile Luck currently is, but noone seems to care much if at all about it. Personally I don't care about it because there are no items worth farming for that would justify adding luck to my set, let alone making a full set of it. Can't think about a proper loot that would make this option tempting, but I'll bite anyway. The item should be:
*Something everyone wants regardless of their standing in the game, but especially late game.
*Something with reusable value, meaning its something you never have enough of.
*Farming it without a lot of Luck shouldn't be inefficient, as you want people to get really familiar with it, and spend a lot of time there, even without a Luck set. But it should seriously make you consider building a full luck set just to spend the rest of your life there, doing that.

One thing that comes to mind on what could this be is Loot Boxes, yes, yet another casino/skinner box predatory system. These loot boxes should be reasonably difficult to obtain by default(perhaps 0,10% or less drop chance, making it 1 out of approximately 1000 kills on average).
A full luck set should reduce the average number of kills significantly. These loot boxes should contain considerably valuable/rare items and give players one of those items randomly. People's interest for the average item in the box should be like that of Eternal Flames right now. The rarest items in the box should be extremely valuable and rare, perhaps even Loot Box-eclusive(The Knife? Ore bundle box with 100 or more Ores(more on this later), Gold Ingot bundle box with 10 of them(make them the 1kk "coin" item again, its beautiful)).
Perhaps make it so a full luck set with the best possible rolls(Max rolls) yields somewhere between +150% and +200% drop chance, and, if all your equipped items have 4 slots of Luck Enchantments in them(32(?) total Luck Enchantments), regardless of whether you got minimum or maximum Luck stat roll, you'll get a Luck bonus, one that doubles your equipment's Luck(so if all 32 slots make a total of +138%, it'd become +276% with the bonus, if its +200%, it'd become +400%). This could apply even for lower tier Enchantments, since the bonus doubles the luck amount, it shouldn't discourage people from getting a Grand Enchantment Luck set eventually, or you can make this bonus Grand Enchantment-exclusive.


Have considered adding a refine/upgrade system? a system where that lets players "refine" their equipment items. These systems generally have a maximum of +10/20/30/40/50. Each refinement level increases the base stats of the item, eg: a +10 ATK increase for melee weapons, so a +7 Artifact Chopper(Axe) whose base ATK is 276 should have 346 ATK, a +10 should have 376 ATK, and a +20 should have 476 ATK, these numbers are to be modified and balanced, of course. I'm not sure how would this work for defensive stats in equipment, I've never researched/cared about Tibia's equipment "Arm" stat formulas, but every +1 on a non-weapon equipment piece should add a bonus. An example could be an increase of about 1% physical resist(a +10 armor would have +10% physical resist). Then again, this could make RP/EKs absolute trash tier in PvP, this bonus I suggested is focused on PVM and not PVP and would require proper PVP adjustments. Also, refining beyond a certain point should be extremely difficult/expensive, so a realistic goal for most players should be a full +7 set(+7% physical resist per piece of equipment except the weapon if these numbers are used).
*Items should get a bonus at certain refinement points, eg: refining a weapon to +6 would yield +60 ATK, but by refining it to +7 you receive the +70 you would normally get, plus a bonus of 30 ATK, making it a total of +100 ATK. Something similar should be done for defensive items, encourage people to reach those special points, I suggest you make those special points +7 and +10(assuming +10 is the maximum).


Some numbers you could use as probability to successfully refine an item:

+0 > +1 > 100%

+1 > +2 > 99%

+2 > +3 > 90%

+3 > +4 > 80%

+4 > +5 > 60%

+5 > +6 > 40%

+6 > +7 > 20%

+7 > +8 > 9%

+8 > +9 > 5%

+9 > +10 > 1%

This system opens up a whole new world of content and possibilities, you could design stuff like "safe" refiners that help you refine items with a 100% chance to certain points(never +10, +10 should be EXTREMELY RARE, this should be a years-long goal exclusive to the most dedicated).
You could also add an item that, instead of making it a guaranteed upgrade, it cancels the negative consequences of a failed refinement, making it so, although the chance of success doesn't increase, your item will present no change if it fails.

Refining items should have 3 possible outcomes:

*Item successfully refines by +1.
*Refinement fails and item's refine level goes down by 1(high chance negative outcome).
*Refinement fails and item's refine level goes back to 0(low chance negative outcome).

When an item fails, RNG should define whether it goes back by 1 or straight to 0, with the highest probability being to go back by 1, something like 80%/90% chance of it going back by 1, 20%/10% of going back to 0.

Refining should require a specific Ore for Weapons and a different Ore for the rest of the equipment PLUS a certain amount of in-game currency(should be cheap). This can also give the Mining system more purpose than it currently has. Mining should be by far the most efficient way to obtain those Ores. Weapon Ores should be significantly harder to obtain than the one used for the rest of the equipment.


Regards, Zaul

#1388 Reply

Joan


Posts: 22
Likes: 5
Member since: v10-s2

It has been brought to my attention that people seem to believe my suggestions are for the current version we're playing at; they're not.

My suggestions are all something that needs to be done with a fresh start. I don't expect any change at all through this version of Cyntara.


Regards, Zaul

#1391 Reply

Diath


Posts: 190
Likes: 164
Member since: v8
Discord: diath#4938

I actually had an idea for item quality system where the monster loot would have a luck-based RNG aspect to it so that items could roll a higher (tiered) quality that would improve their base stats such as attack, defense and armor. However one problem became instantly apparent - it wouldn't apply to items obtained through quests and adding RNG to quest rewards wouldn't be a good solution at all. The refining system sounds like a good improvement upon this idea because it would let players choose which items they want to improve but this system isn't without its own problems either.

How would we foster the use of the refining system before players obtain their end-game gear? I don't see seasoned players bothering refining their "temporary" gear when they know that more powerful items are just ahead of them. On the other hand, new players would probably not use the system at all simply due to their lack of knowledge about it - despite our efforts with NPC dialogues and guides most players are simply ignorant and won't get to experience most of the features because they quit before they get a chance to find out about them. So to me, a system that would be only used by a handful of players, and only once they reach the end-game seems like a wasted effort. Perhaps we could make it so that refinements could be transferred over to other items of the same type (i.e. helmets to helmets etc).

The item attributes system is really inflexible and doesn't let us make individual item stats deviate from their defined base aside from a very few basic attributes (such as the attack, defense and armor). This means that we wouldn't be able to let people refine the stats suggested here (such as elemental protection) which in turn means that it would be mostly paladins and knights that would benefit from their weapon upgrades. Another option would be to completely rewrite the attribute system and replace it with something more flexible - something akin to the enchantment system. This however is hard due to the fact how the stock item attribute system was written like years ago and could prove to be very error prone. I'm not saying that this couldn't be done but if we were to go through the massive effort it would require we would have to address the first point first - make the system have more impact and use so that it's not a wasted effort.

Perhaps the two systems (item quality and refining) could coexist. That still leaves us with the two aforementioned problems - one of them could be potentially fixed by simply, other than RNG, letting people manually improve the base quality of their items by collecting some resources. This way aside from "temporary" gear with improved quality that you would be getting while leveling, you could also improve the quality of the end-game items obtained through quests.

I'm not sure how I feel about the lootboxes and luck set bonuses so I don't really have anything to say about them right now.

#1395 Reply

Joan


Posts: 22
Likes: 5
Member since: v10-s2

A few ideas come to mind, none of them perfect, of course, hopefully someone else can share some of their own. But first, I want to explain in-depth how the refinement system works in the games I took it from, and what motivates players to refine even the really awful low level equipment.

This idea is part of several MMORPGs, I've personally only gotten closely familiar with it in two MMORPGs, and they work slightly differently on both of them, however on both of them players do refine their equipment from early on whether its good or bad equipment, here are their similarities and their differences:

Game1: Refinement is extremely accessible, you only need a certain Ore that is looted with a 0,2% - 5% chance from a few monsters that range from the lowest to highest level. And the raw in-game currency cost of refinement is also very cheap, basically never a problem. This mixed with the fact that equipment in this game usually lasts you for 10-30 levels(from 3/5 hours to a few days) until "mid" and "late" game that you start getting equipment that you'll use for weeks, or in late-game's case; forever, makes it so it doesn't hurt to refine all your equipment to at least +4(safe limit) from early on into the game.
Game1: Refinement up to +4 is 100% guaranteed(Safe Limit), after +4 this changes, brutally, and the consequences for refinement failure in this game are harsh, there's only one outcome if the refinement fails: the item "breaks"(is permanently destroyed, ceases to exist, all materials and money invested in it aren't refunded, but this doesn't hurt at all, its the permanent loss of the item that hurts). Now, this most likely wouldn't work in Tibia, because unlike in that game, where equipment, from the worst to the best is all lootable/craftable(some are really tough to loot, and noone but the richest that have been playing for like 5-10 years(and/or regularly pay for Cash Shop($) items they can sell for in-game currency) could affording to over-refine the rarest/strongest items in the game, as the cost versus reward is unreasonable and inefficient to say the least), in Tibia the best equipment generally comes from one-time quests, meaning they're a one-time-per-character thing.


Game2: Refinement is equally accessible as game 1, you need some sort of Ore and some petty amount of in-game currency. Safe Limit here is +6, this game has three possible negative outcomes, two of them were the ones I suggested above, since they're more suited for Tibia: Item goes down by 1 refinement, item goes down to 0 OR, item breaks(NOT destroys like in game1 though), item simply becomes unusable until you use a really, really rare/expensive "restoration scroll" that you can either buy from the Cash Shop($) or get from very rare events and stuff that aren't accessible more than like once a year.
Game2: Equipment doesn't last long here, in fact, you switch equipment every like 5 levels, yet people are able to upgrade those items consistently because this is a linear MMORPG where you progress by doing certain dungeons and killing certain monsters that the game basically forces you to do/kill, those monsters loot the equipment for your level AND the specific type of Ore to refine that specific level of equipment, this makes it so everyone is able to upgrade their equipment to the Safe Limit at all stages of the game.


What do both of those games have in common despite "game1" being much harsher and newbie unfriendly in how they do it?: both of those games give you all you need to get familiar with this system from relatively early on, so that when you hit late game and finally obtain equipment you know you won't be replacing, you'll have to gamble and pay to max out that end-game equipment. This system works really well for both of those games and are the most end-game goal in both of those games, as an end-game player on "game1" the thing that tells others how long you've been around for/how much you've invested in the game is the refinement of your high-end equipment(which itself is not cheap nor easy to obtain at all), even though in this game refinement is very much NOT worth it, as the bonuses, although noticeable after a ertain point, are too small relative to the super high risk, and the consequences of failure are devastating. Its mostly a status thing.
For "game2" however, this feature is not only a matter of status, its actually the second feature that yields most income to the company(after costumes), since refinements there make items stupidly overpowered, doubling and tripling their stats with a single +1 after a certain point.

Now, "game2", which is a newer-generation game(2007), FORCES a tutorial on how to do it on you from a very low level. "Game1" on the other hand doesn't.

"Game1" is a 2001-2002 MMORPG and its just as newbie unfriendly as Tibia regarding relevant in-game tutorials and guides, it provides virtually no information to you upon log-in, and unless you've friends or you go do some research online you'll struggle to find out about refinement, this is a really tough thing to solve, because unlike Cyntara; people playing those games are usually immediately hooked to them for the awesome/cute aesthetics and such, and thus are willing to do anything to learn the ropes.


Now to some of the possible solutions:

Solution 1:
Make a quest for it, like the Mining quest(perhaps even make it a part of the Mining quest).
Make the whole system very accessible for everyone, so much that there'll be no excuse not to do it even on trash-tier equipment.
Add more hourly announcements advertising website guides/tutorials. Find a way to encourage(force) people to visit and navigate the website.

Solution 2:
Make a whole upgradeable set similar to the initial weapons. Make it so players upgrade their equipment with something, and make it so the final form of that set is one of the best sets in the game, this would encourage people to invest on that set, as they'll use it for a long time. But with this a very obvious problem arises: this defeats the purpose of all low-end equipment in the game. However, this doesn't have to be a bad thing; boss rare drop and quest equipment can still compete with this set, and actually complement it.
You could even further expand onto this, by making this initial equipment Soulbound(unable to be traded/dropped), and make it so this set yields resistance to some specific, relatively inefficient element. Then make quest reward equipment/rare loot equipment yield all sorts of unique effects and resistances, this way players would have to switch equipment from time to time depending on what they'll do and their initial equipment alone will never suffice.

You could make it so all the best equipment in the game(including the final form of the starting equipment) yields an equal/similar amount of ML/skill, but the initial equipment has one of the least useful resistances.

For example let's say the best mage armor in the game adds +10 ML.

There'd be several versions of this:
The Initial Mage Armor's end form: +10 ML, +xx% resistance to <Insert relatively inefficient element here>, +insert whatever else.

Jaul Boss super rare drop Mage Armor(1% or less drop): +10 ML, +xx% resistance to <Insert efficient element here>, +insert whatever else.

<Very Hard Quest> Mage Armor: +10 ML, +xx% resistance to <Insert efficient element here>, +insert whatever else.

Etc etc, if you get my drift.

Now, even the initial armor, whose elemental resistance, let's say Earth, is "relatively inefficient", people will still use and improve it, because there's virtually no other choice, as the rest of the end game equipment is very far away.
Plus whatever elemental resistance it is won't be completely useless, there'll be situations where you'll want that armor.
You'll have to make whatever item is used to upgrade these items very accessible, since upgrading a full set would take like 4-5 times more materials than the initial weapon.

I suggest you make the Death resist set by far the hardest to obtain, as that's what everyone will be looking for, and once they get it, they might forget all other sets. Perhaps make it as difficult to obtain as those ridiculous Vampire Tokens quests Red created that only Trith manages to do every reset because of how much effort and dedication it takes, perhaps even harder than that.


Solution 3:
I'm not even sure if you can do this, and even if its possible its probably more work than its worth: Make an in-game tutorial for it(and most other Cyntara-specific features), like RL Tibia's new character tutorial, or the old rookgard rope tutorial, where they wouldn't let you advance unless you did certain tasks, that, although very, very bizarre and difficult to comprehend, taught people about the game… those who made it past them at least, lol.
If you do this one though, I recommend you make the tutorials as idiotproof as possible.

This is all I got as far as solutions to this dilemma go, for now at least.


Probably no need to rewrite that many things, I didn't suggest various elemental resistances, but only physical, and that's what "Arm" is for, I assume.

These are the official percentage charts of the Refinement feature in "game1"
Let me explain what to look for and what those numbers mean:
Only pay attention to the percentages below "Lv. 4" and "Armor" as Lv. 1, 2 and 3 weapons are a game-specific thing that doesn't apply to Tibia.
The upper chart states the percentage per refinement attempt, while the lower chart states the odds of getting that refinement with one single attempt.
To get a level 4 weapon or armor from +0 to +10 in one single attempt in game1(item is destroyed if it fails once, so you actually have to do it with one single chance), you have a 0.0384% chance, if my horrible math doesn't fail me, this should mean that you have an approximately 1 out of 2200-3000 chance of successfully making a +10 item, this means that you'll need approximately 2200~3000 of this equipment item on average to get it to +10, this sounds insane, and that's because it is insane, but it has worked for them, and it makes them a lot of money.
You can see the business strategy here: they make it relatively easy to +7 items(+5, +6, +7, +8, +9 and +10 yield bonuses, making +7 the best "reasonable" milestone for the average player), it takes 10 attempts(equipment items) and like 50~80 ores on average to get a +7 one, which isn't a big deal. But to get a +8 one you actually have to destroy an average of 50-60 of this item, to get a +9 you have to destroy an average of (250-300?) of this item, and to get a +10 item you have to destroy an average of (2200-3000?) of this item, this is where it becomes profitable for them, even if they give the Ores like free candy and the cost is petty, its the amount of the equipment item that's unsustainable for anyone who doesn't pay.

#1398 Reply

Joan


Posts: 22
Likes: 5
Member since: v10-s2

Now, here are the actual bonuses per refinement, again, ignore all but Weapon Lv. 4 and Armors. Here's the thing, each Refinement on armor adds 0.66 DEF, in this game 1 DEF adds +1% resistance to Physical damage, I'm like almost completely sure that the Tibia "Arm" works similarly, you just have to figure out how much of this "Arm" translates into 1% physical resistance and then you can base the refinement system around this, this is assuming you want to use the numbers I proposed, of course.
As for the Wand/Rod damage, I have no idea how would you increase Wand/Rod damage with refinements.

Regards, Zaul

#1399 Reply