[Suggestion] Epic Weapons.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

Now, there's usually one or two threads doing the rounds discussing the merits and flaws of increasing the CP Cap for Gear (currently 160).

There are benefits and flaws to that debate, but I am thinking of a different solution.

Epic Weapons

The idea for this comes from a not very popular TTRPG called Earthdawn. Wherein once you get a "magic weapon" to unlock its full potential you need to unlock its "story" its history.
Finding out about a previous owner who was, for example, a renowned demon slayer could give the weapon a passive bonus to damage, or armour penetration, against demons.

That type of thing.

Now how to make that work for ESO. The basic idea I had was Traits / Enchants. As things stand a weapon can have one Enchant and one Trait. How about if we unlocked the story of our weapons we could access a 2nd Trait, or Enchant.

Now this would require a non-crafted weapon. And a new type of NPC - The Loremaster - to whom we could take our Epic Weapon and they could help us unlock the history of it. A research quest here, a slay X monster quest there, and a small narrative that could be adapted to many different weapons.

Let's say that Epic Weapons are always Blue quality to start with. Just identifying the "true name" of the Weapon would upgrade that to Purple. Another quest down the line and we'd have a Gold weapon. A few more quests and we unlock the ability to add a second Trait. Same again and we add a second Enchant.

Maybe add a new class of Weapon Enhancement called "Slayer" so that a weapon always does 10% more damage against certain types of mobs.

Now the thing is this gives Zeni a lot of control over how rapidly we advance weapon progression, and they can use that to slow down hoe fast current content becomes "end game grind farming" and thus adds a little longevity to content.

New content could be the vehicle by which new "unlock quests" appear. A new Guild (Loremasters) could be introduced with a Skill Line and Daily quests.

And how we choose to advance our Epic Weapons could be use to offer customisable builds and build diversity.

Just a thought.

All The Best

Zuuman

Sexy on paper, but this would destroy the whole endgame weapon farming because this would be the BIS choice no matter what.

I doubt ZOS will scrap this whole layer of gameplay over these if it doesnt generate any income.

Huyen

You realize this type of gameplay is currently in WoW Legion, and is a huge fail right? I dont want another game where I have to spend weeks on grinding some kind of stuff for a weapon, only to figure halfway that I want to play another spec instead. And I'm sure most people feel the same way.

Gandrhulf_Harbard

Zuuman wrote: »

Sexy on paper, but this would destroy the whole endgame weapon farming because this would be the BIS choice no matter what.

I doubt ZOS will scrap this whole layer of gameplay over these if it doesnt generate any income.

These Epic Weapons would become the new endgame weapon farming.

Player would want the "right" (for them") set of traits, and set bonuses.

I'm basically talking about taking the current end-game set bonus weapons and letting us "enhance" them as we progress further through existing and new content.

So, instead of just finding, for example, a Healing Staff of Trinimac's Valour.

We'd find a Trinimac's Healing Staff Of Rufius The Daedra Slayer.

However, we'd think we had a Healing Staff of Triniamc's Valour until we took it to a Loremaster and completed a few quests, that would lead us to it belonging to Rufius (and we'd get the chance to unlock and extra trait or enchant), then later on - maybe when a new content drop has happened - we'd get to go back to the Loremaster and and complete some quests in that new zone and discover that Rufius was a renowned Daedra Slayer, and so unlock Daedra Slayer (10% extra Armour Pen or Dmg to Daeadra) for example.

Have it so it would be possible for example for me to research the weapon above, even if it wasn't bound to me, as I unlock more history (and power) for the weapon it becomes more valuable. I could spend days of in-game time completing quests to research the weapon and then find it doesn't fit my build, so could then sell it.

This could be tied into the Lormaster Skill Line, so that with more SP invested in that line I could research weapons quicker, maybe at max level in that skill line I could research more than one weapon at once.

All The Best

Gandrhulf_Harbard

Huyen wrote: »

You realize this type of gameplay is currently in WoW Legion, and is a huge fail right? I dont want another game where I have to spend weeks on grinding some kind of stuff for a weapon, only to figure halfway that I want to play another spec instead. And I'm sure most people feel the same way.

Yes, and I also realise that some elements of what I describe are in LOTRO as well.

Just because those games got it wrong (WoW totally IMO, and LOTRO partially) doesn't mean it can't be done correctly.

Where I think both failed is that earning what amounts to XP for the weapon is an interminable grind that is layered over end-game grinds. What I would do is have researching XP for the weapon tied to very specific activities with the Lorematsers' Guild. have daily soloable Loremaster Guild quests, have a weekly group quests that may have one player searching for certain lorebooks and another farming specific drops from certain mobs all in the same dungeon.

What WoW got totally wrong was in having skill trees that really only give one or two way to define the weapon. LOTRO got it right there by allowing the player to decide exactly what traits and bonuses the weapon should have, so it can be built to suit their build and play-style exactly.

All The Best

Duckbutta

Hmmm, maybe these epic weapons could drop from some sort of arena? That would be cool. It could be like an endgame quest or something, you could meet a guy who would send you into this really difficult place, and if you somehow win, you could get this "magic weapon". Maybe it would be good, maybe it would suck, but like, if you farmed this place, maybe you could get a truly leet weapon to epeen with.

And ya, I agree, it could definitely add to build diversity. Like some builds wouldn't use them at all, some builds would say you should use it on your front bar, and some builds would dictate you use it on your back bar.

It would be cool too if the different weapon types had different enchantments on them, that would really make them stand out from each other. Maybe some would be better for PvE, and some better for PvP?

Idk, these are just random musings IMHO, would be cool though if ZOS could implement something like this someday.