In-Game Weapon & Item Generator (Prefixes, Suffixes, and Power Levels)

Tiberonmagnus

Join Date 02/2008

In-Game Weapon & Item Generator (Prefixes, Suffixes, and Power Levels)

Do you think that Elemental would benefit from randomly created items and weapons? For example, like how Diablo has prefixes and suffixes for their items and weapons? For those that don't know what I'm talking about.

Prefix Longsword Suffix ----> Holy Longsword of Divinity

For example's sake, I'll just post the links to the Diablo wiki.

The prefix list

The suffix list

The better your city, the better the items that shopkeeper can have. For example, a level 1 city only has very basic items, while a level 4 city has a chance for some really great items. Also, the higher the quest/dungeon level, the more of a chance for a better item.

For example's sake, I'll use Blizzard's item colors (I'm not saying use this scheme for Elemental, It's just for reference)

Gray Item - bad quality

Green Item - Average quality

Blue Item - Rare item, pretty powerful

Purple Item - Very rare, very powerful

Orange Item - Extremely rare, extremely powerful

With these types of methods, there could be a lot of different types of weapons, armor, and other items in the game, since it generates it's own. For purple and orange levels (again, just for example's sake), they could be handcrafted by Stardock, while some of the purples, blues, greens, and grays are generated by the game itself when needed.

Of course, Elemental could have it's own system for this, and it's own color scheme. For example, below is using a "hot" color scheme. White being average, yellow being hotter, orange being even more hot, and finally blazing hot red to represent the items power level and uniqueness.

White Item - Common, item normal power (70% rarity)

Yellow Item - Rare Item, pretty powerful (15% rarity)

Orange Item - Very rare item, very powerful (10% rarity)

Red Item - Extremely rare item, extremely powerful (5% rarity)

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Goldmos

Quoting Nenjin,

reply 24

Do. Not. Want.

It was fun in Diablo. It was necessary for WoW. It was tired in Titan Quest. It was tired in Borderlands. It's a "radical" idea alright.

Just because it's been used everywhere for over a decade now doesn't mean it's a standard answer to RPG games that don't have enough detail.

There was a time when we expected developers to put out real effort to create content. They created original content, and we judged them on their performance.

Stuff like this seems like a pass for them. "Oh, just put in 100 hours writing prefixes, and let the game sort the rest out."

If anything, that kind of thinking is exactly why Elemental is in the shape it's in now.

Frankly, using a randart system ripped straight from the last 10 games that used it would be a bigger sign to me than ANYTHING that Elemental is dead as a unique product, and is well on it's way to complete and total mediocrity.

Because in the end, I find randart systems using the identical prefix suffix method to be lazy. It feeds the gamer's need for shinys, while delivering very little in the way of actual content. Nothing takes the fun out of getting an item more than knowing it wasn't some nerdy dev who put it there for your enjoyment....but just the way the rand system shook out.

Bah, screw it. Just reading over the replies, it seems people just want more of the same mechanics they've been playing since they were teenagers. I've been on the fence with Elemental since I purchased at release. "Adding some Borderlands" is exactly the kind of thing that would help me make up my mind, I guess.

For what it's worth, I partially agree with you. Yes it's not new, yes it's mashed, yes it's a system that create the weapon. For that I totally agree with you. But since we are with the "new" here what do you want most: bland weapon that we can buy at our shop or find it in the crate or weapon that we can create/find with some diversity? Myself, I never ever encounter a Startegy/RPG game that use this system. THAT would be new. Ok, it's not what will make this game breaking new limit and make you hit the "one more turn" moment, but it sure will be more pleasant to hit some quest for "unique" item than found some armor/weapon that you can buy. What could be fun is if we could "mix" some spell and create some new effect, or having 2 spellcasters casting spell at the same time and combine the effect with synergy (water/electrycity for example). That would be cool. For me, what will keep me playing is the "tech" tree. Like Galciv2, it's a BIG tech tree. I always though: that would be cool if there was more to it because it's where the fun is for me. I love the tech tree in Elemental because yo can always research "better way" to something and give you an incredible edge late game (wich normally I play because I'm a turtler/alliance type of player). But, just for curiosity, what idea/mecanism would you like to have?

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