If Items Had Upgrade Slots...

[GrimyBunyip]

What kind of upgrades would you want?

 

So I'm almost done with my current project and I'm looking ahead to the next one.

 

Here's the premise:

It's a smithing/loot overhaul. there will now be "rare" versions of each weapon/armor that are unidentified when looted. These items will gain a random number of properties and upgrade slots when ID'd.

 

You can use your smithing skill to fill in the upgrade slots for these items to improve them. And by leveling up and unlocking perks, you can unlock new upgrade possibilities.

 

So this means I need to think of lots and lots of upgrades. A least a few dozen for each armor slot and more for different weapon types. I'm thinking ideally 128 possible upgrades for each item type. Which is ALOT and I would totally need help brainstorming that many ideas.

 

If you guys have any ideas, thoughts, or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

[Deleted1308005User]

Waait.. It's YOU behind that mod :biggrin:

 

I feel enlightened. Again. And delighted, now I know that mod is pure quality :D

 

I like the upgrade idea, identification ETC.

 

Maybe "converting" current enchantments into upgrades?

 

I'll just throw in couple, AND hope people start posting their ideas as well.

 

Extra damage against undead/werewolves (Things that are harmed by silver) Works really well with silver weapons.

Upgrade that sets enemy on fire for long(er) duration. (Good with fire spells)

 

For armor

 

Chance to negate incoming damage.

Increase armor rating.

Increase move speed.

[Hotemochick1992]

I'm with shadow on this one. Maybe add certain gems to the weapon/armor for said "upgrade". Similar to Diablo i guess, but with a skyrim twist.

 

Some examples being;

Ruby = Health

Sapphire = magicka

emerald = stamina

Garnet = ???

 

Get the idea?

[GrimyBunyip]

thanks for the ideas so far guys.

 

I think the idea of taking enchantments is very interesting, but I'm not sure how I would convert an enchantment into an item property atm.

 

and yeah I will definitely implement a health/magicka/stamina/etc system.

 

I've given it some thought and here is the current vision of the slot system. Instead of just currency for "upgrade slots", I'm going to make it multicurrency.

 

a rare item will have an overall slot count.

if that runs out, you can't perform *any* upgrades anymore.

 

it will also have a gem slot count.

Gems give passive bonuses like health, magicka stat regen, etc.

slotting gems consumes both gem slots and upgrade slots, and you can't add more once you use up the gem slots.

All gems consume 1 gem slot, but higher quality gems will consume more upgrade slots.

 

Now I'm contemplating what other slots I can add.

 

I could add a "hotkey ability" slot, so armors/weapons can unlock new hotkey based abilities.

critical effect slots for weapons

a slot for each directional type of power attacks and bashes?

 

anyways I like diversity in slot resources better than a single upgrade slot meter.

Edited May 30, 2013 by GrimyBunyip

[Armornv]

I'd agree so far. I was always happy with the systems in place in Diablo and WoW [runs for cover]. While I know hardly nothing about the combat mechanics of Skyrim, things like +chance to hit/crit, minor run speed increase, armor "rating"... again, if those exist in game. Maybe longer range for spells/bows? Quicker cast/draw? Going with what Shadow said, extra damage against certain types of enemies would be a big plus. I absolutely think this is a brilliant idea though. Just what Skyrim needs IMO. Just my 2 cents of course. Last time I checked, they were only worth about 1 cent total. :)

[GrimyBunyip]

@Armornv

I appreciate the advice, but it still seems like people are too worried about what's possible or impossible to implement.

And yes every everything you said is possible.

If anything, I think impossible ideas are the ones that really get me thinking.

 

I'm still torn on the "extra damage vs certain enemies"

Because I feel like they're generally not very interesting when you're actually in combat.

They just kinda encourage gear swapping, which I feel like isn't the best game mechanic.

 

I'm not above doing something like that, I just personally don't enjoy it when other games implement stuff like extra damage vs certain enemies.

For now I'll probably just add a silvered enchantment for undead and a skyhunter enchantment for bonus damage vs dragons that are flying in the air.

[imperistan]

Perhaps you could add in the ability to add one of the specialization effects (Bleed, extra crit chance, ignore armor) to a weapon of a different type? Then you could balance it by having the new specialization effect change the weapons main specialization effect, and may be even the other properties of the weapon.

 

For example, you could call the upgrade "Jagged Edges" for maces, and what it would do is add bleed damage to maces. But at the same time, it would lower the ignore armor chance due to having a less hefty head (Due to the weight taken out by making the edges more jagged). Going further, the weapon weight, speed, and even base damage could change due to this, both for "roleplay" and gameplay reasons.

 

Another one is increased effectiveness against magic. In the same vein of the silver weapon effects, this one would enable the weapon to be stronger against magical targets, in particular mages using armor spells. This one might be a bit more difficult as I know in the vanilla game mages using such magic aren't that much stronger, so this kind of upgrade would probably necessitate the use of a magic rebalance that would make it matter.

 

Building off the specialization effects, you could create upgrades for armor that defend against these specific specializations.

 

 

I also think this:

 

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Category:Modifiers

 

Will help generate some ideas. First thing I thought of when I read the OP was how Diablo 2 handled items and their various effects.