Equipment guidelines

[xorex]

I thought this made more sense as a new topic

i think that the guidlines for how powerful an item can be should be reconsidered, particularly the added hp/mana/mv and wether an item is indestruct. an indestruct item is quite valuable, and that in and of itself should count as item points. stat boosts being increasingly less valuable at higher levels, maybe the number of points per item point could depend on level? 50 hp is a huge advantage at level 3, but is almost unnoticible at level 50, and completely irrelevant at level 151. just a thought.

I agree that the hp/mana/mv guidelines do seem low. It's a messy business keeping everything balanced in combat and our current set-up could probably use some adjustment. The best rule of thumb for now is the one given by Divebomb in his guide which says to try to keep your equipment in line with the current "best" equipment for that level/slot because everything works okay right now. A more powerful object will be unbalanced and a less powerful one just won't get used.

[kiri]

If Faustus, EB and DB want to redo the guidelines, I would be happy to reconsider them. EB and DB are very trustworthy and knowledgeable about these kinds of stats and I couldn't think of anyone else I would want to do it more than they.

[Everybody]

Is that a hint? ... Maybe when I get some of my other back assignments caught up with, though...

[Faustus]

As a quick note, the object guidelines that I included with the builder's guide was always kinda sketchy, and has always remained somewhat of an early draft. They were also designed specifically for mortal levels. I'm all for going back and looking at them, and seeing how they can be tweaked to better serve our needs...

[Alicia]

And if you guys can manage to keep them as simple as before you get a cookie!

Assigning a constant value for each point of each affect is a good thing.

And a simple method to calculate the number of points for a given item (read: level of the item times a constant) is also a good thing.

In fact if you don't see a problem with these restrictions it would be easy for me to add a dialog to the builder that let's you modify these constants and it'll do the point calculations for you - so you can look at how current objects fit with the system....let me know.

- Alicia

[Eviene]

What kind of cookie are we talking here....

[disaster]

i'm all for that alicia-sounds like a great idea. even if the system isn't going to be changed any time in the near future, i'm a big fan of being able to poke and prod at programs to change stuff like that anyways. if anyone doesn't want to, they can of course just leave the option box set to the standard values.

[SoulDrake]

For weapons, scrolls, wands, etc that are imbued with spells, what is the generally accepted guideline for these? I.E. does a weapon cost 4 more points if it has an attack spell such as acid blast on it, but cost 2 points less if it has something like Sanc on the mob?

I ask, naturally, because if my area is of hero level, I want to make sure the type of stuff I make that is intended for player use at least somewhat equal to other things that are available. I am unsure if I can pull off the skill at making things difficult in my area, but I am certainly going to try, and I don't want players to be disappointed by finding some equipment that "sucks." even though I tried to make it good/decent, but I don't want to make them overpowering either.

Also, has the code for equipment the mobs wear affecting them been implemented? I planned on using that to the mobs' advantage within my area.

SD

[Everybody]

Mobs wearing equipment have always been affected by any pluses and minuses on the eq they're wearing. The only thing to keep in mind as far as that goes is to make sure that you equip the items (E reset) instead of have it repop in their inventory (G reset).