On this note, it might behoove you to have some basic recipes unlocked, and a unique "heirloom ingot" in your starting loadout so you can craft your weapon style of choice.
OK a crazy idea for Heirloom Blade. Each level gains a Heirloom Diary. Additionally, Each enemy killed has a 5% chance of dropping a Heirloom Shard, plus a couple extra percent per level. (Ideally we'd have bosses with a 100% chance of dropping them but oh well.) 4 Shards craft to a Heirloom Ingot. Heirloom Diary can be crafted by itself into: Heirloom Blade (3 slashing, 1 piercing) Heirloom Blade + Heirloom Ingot + Heirloom Diary can be crafted into one of: Ancestral Noble's Blade (5 slashing, 2 piercing, 1 counter, 1 edr) Ancestral Workman's Blade (5 slashing, 2 piercing, 1 block, 1 crit) Ancestral Cutthroat's Blade (5 slashing, 2 piercing, 1 dodge, 1 sneak) Any of the Ancestral weapons + Heirloom Ingot + Heirloom Diary can be crafted into one of: Historical Barbarian Blade (8 slashing, 4 piercing, bonus when fighting animals) Historical Crusader Blade (8 slashing, 4 piercing, bonus when fighting undead) Historical Slayer Blade (8 slashing, 4 piercing, bonus when fighting demons) Any of the Historical weapons + Heirloom Ingot + Heirloom Diary can be crafted into one of: Legendary Blade of Nomads (12 slashing, 6 piercing, +4 nimbleness and caddishness) Legendary Blade of Prophets (12 slashing, 6 piercing, +4 sagacity and savvy) Legendary Blade of Hunters (12 slashing, 6 piercing, +4 burliness and stubbornness) Any of the Legendary weapons + Heirloom Ingot + Heirloom Diary can be crafted into one of: Mythical Smouldering Blade (15 slashing, 7 piercing, 6 conflagratory damage and resistance) Mythical Glacial Blade (15 slashing, 7 piercing, 6 hyperborean damage and resistance) Mythical Fulminate Blade (15 slashing, 7 piercing, 6 voltaic damage and resistance) Any of the Mythical weapons + Heirloom Ingot + Heirloom Diary can be crafted into one of: Eternal Blade of Mastery (20 slashing, 10 piercing, 4 crit, 4 block, 4 counter, 4 edr, 4 block) Eternal Blade of Magic (20 slashing, 10 piercing, artifact quality 10) Eternal Blade of Power (20 slashing, 10 piercing, 5 melee power, 5 armor) There's still the option of having a blade inherit -all- bonuses from its previous generations. (so you could have an Eternal Noble Barbarian's Smouldering Blade of Nomad Mastery) You'd only need... uhhh... 364 recipes. But most of those could be generated automatically.
Vegan supports Swords better than Unarmed, because the unarmed AoE is too easy to hit animals with on accident.
Personally, I think it would be better if we started with something like a small dagger, or a rapier you mentioned, on the first level of the skill, with every next level giving us 2 forms you can get to for every one of the lower-tier forms. So there would be 2 second-tier weapons, 4 third-tier ones, 8 fourth-tier ones, 16 fifth-tier ones, 32 sixth-tier ones, and if you ever get insomniac enough, 64 seventh-tier weapons. Some of those could be hidden (you'd only have one path to progress from the weapon you got, so you'd know that there's a hidden recipe), and that way you'd be able to make a lot of weird weapons for higher replay value (need I mention that this way every possible character type, whether it's a wizard, rogue, warrior, berserker, spellsword [gish], etc., could find something to use), because that gives you enough end-game weapons to make more than just swords (heck, that way it would synergise with the weapon skills well, because you'd have a trusty end-game weapon of the type you chose). And it has the bonus of only needing, like, 126 recipes (if you make it a seven-tier skill, which you'll probably do) plus the switching recipes. And I think that the "material" it needs should either be something varied (I wish you a happy Hanukkah if you want to do that), or the same thing that could be crafted from every possible ingot at a 2-to-1 ratio (the preferred solution) with the amount of it needed varying from craft to craft, though most often being equal to 1. Thanks, you just made my day.
Cool idea, Zara. Crazy, but cool. A few wrinkles and considerations: IIRC at the moment the game can only give one recipe per level up. We definitely wouldn't want 364 hidden recipes, or else all other crafting would be hosed at the book-cases. I think what Lorellian was asking for was that perhaps the weapon type be modal, as in I might make a sword, an axe, a mace or a staff. So that's x4 recipes. Even with just what you've got above (not the inheriting bonuses bit at the end) that'd bump it up to 80 recipes. The human brain starts to encounter trouble when choosing from much more than 7 (+/-2) different options. Given that the skill is likely to appeal to folks who wanted to dabble in crafting but aren't happy with the amount of micromanagement in the current crafting skills, this may not be ideal. re: the Mythical weapons and damage/resist types. You probably do not want to make the mythical tier quite as parallel. See the "Exotic Damages and You" thread for details, but the upshot is not all resist and damage types are equal. Of the three you listed, you'd either choose the Mythical Smouldering Blade for the bonus (since it's the most common of the three damages to encounter on monsters or traps), or choose the Mythical Fulminate Blade for the bonus (because hardly anything resists it). Unless you happened to be building the weapon while on Ice Floor 6, it'd always be the weakest option to choose the Glacial Blade version, at least as long as the number of points of resist and damage were the same for each type.
Here's a totally different idea for Heirloom blade: Make it a new weapon class, like "axe" or "sword" is now. You are forced to use your initial weapon for the entire game, if you want to make use of the other skills. So at level 1, you get the Heirloom Blade, which is type "heirloom". It does maybe 4. But if you stick with it, it becomes a totally awesome weapon by the end. That seems much more thematic - and clear - than giving new weapons as you progress.
Well, in my suggestion the recipes would not be hidden, but you'd only have at most two or three options available based on your current ingredients (the bug where your equipped items are not available as recipe ingredients not withstanding) It's pretty simple to generate gigantic piles of items and craft recipes by code. Here is one I made a while ago for a project that didn't pan out: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3923260/dred.txt I agree with the Hyperborean issue. Would Voltaic / Conflagratory / Aethereal be a better mix? (few use or resist, several monsters use or resist, many monsters use or resist)
The only problem with that one is, it's a solution that is inaccessible to us now. There are no hooks to change a weapon without either kronging it, corrupting it (haha... no), or using it as a crafting ingredient for another weapon. And it's impossible for us to make a new weapon class, so we can't just classify the weapon as such.
I'd rather it be something with a bit more synergy with the existing weapon skills. I know they're sometimes lackluster, but I have faith that either Gaslamp or the modding community will get them jazzed up somewhere down the road. There's a thread or three about this with some really good ideas. It's totally on my to-do list if Essence or Fax (or Gaslamp Games) don't beat me to it.
Someone said they did once, and that it worked. But IIRC, they never posted the finished mod, so we only had their word for it, and I don't know if they tested thoroughly to find any bugs or ripple effects. It's somewhere in the modding subforum, from many months back. Pre-1.0.9, I think.
You could make the weapon have a proc which scales on levels or primary stats. For instance would give it its relevant mundane type depending on the weapon. could give it a non-mundane type depending on weapon like or or . could give . Levels could give procs which only work when you have the weapon, which could give a proc when you hit. So for instance giving a chance to drain mana based on , life based on , and then maybe both with . Or it could give a buff that gives with , with and with . Not sure how to ensure you keep using the sword other than wasted skillpoints.
Sadly, after much research, I have realizex that there's just no way to do an Heirloom Blade that can turn into any kind of weapon. It will have to be a sword. Right now I'm looking at 4 stages with conversions at levels 3, 5, and 7, and powers that use various buffontriggers to make the same skill levels do different things with different blades (in addition to having effects on the blades themselves) . This is gonna be a big project and it'll probably take a long time, but I'm liking where it,s going so far.
If I may know, why is that? Problems within the code, or does it simply not mix well with the theme you want it to have? I feel your suffering, Essence. After all, I am doing something like that now (maybe not right now, hellish work schedule and all). But hey, it's fun, and I think it'll be amusing to play.
That's the one, Aegho. Without making 90% of the recipes unhidden (which I'd rather not do), there's just no way to make all weapon types (or even any 3 weapon types) available. I was considering making it able to be either sword or axe (you know, the BLADEs), but it'll be cooler if I stick with just swords.
