I recently cleared out trash materials from the inventories of my characters. I had an add-on that views their relevant recipes, and I was rather saddened by the sheer variety of unique yet obsolete equipment in the game.
Could the devs perhaps implement a system that updates the stats of low-level equipment to match the stats of equipment closest to a player’s level?
Take the Viper rare bow for example. (https://tos.guru/itos/database/equipment/163104)
It has a base attack value of 1550-1894, boosts dex by 15, deals 346 poison damage, and lowers poison resistance by 186.
A Blacksmith NPC could accept certain resources to ‘promote’ the bow to match the stats of a similar weapon.
A level 390 player promoting a Viper would see its stats grow to match a level 380 rare bow. In this case, a promoted Viper would now possess an attack value of 3421-4181 (the attack value of a 380 rare bow.)
The extra stats of the promoted weapon could also grow by 10% for each equipment level group it passes through on the way to its promoted group.
Since the Viper is a level 170 bow, it would go through five weapon groups to match the closest equipment level of the promoting player. (170 > 220 > 270 > 315 > 350 > 380)
The dex, poison damage, and poison weakness bonuses of the Viper would then be increased by 50%.
Dex 15 becomes Dex 22
346 Poison damage becomes 519 poison damage.
-186 poison resistance becomes -279 poison resistance.
Players would need a rare resource to promote their equipment. Say… Crystals of Recognition. ALL monsters have a 1% chance of dropping crystals of recognition, but only if they are within 30 levels of the player killing them.
The wider the gap between the item’s level and the player’s level, the more Crystals of Recognition (CoR) you would need. You would also need more CoRs for higher-grade equipment.
Normal equips can’t be promoted
Magic = 125 CoR per level gap
Rare = 250 CoR per level gap
Unique = 500 CoR per level gap
Legend = 1,000 CoR per level gap
Since the Viper is a rare weapon, it would need 250 Crystals of Recognition per level group upgrade. The upgrading player is 390 and the Viper is a 170 bow, which means 250 CoR x 5 group gaps = 1,250 CoR to promote the Viper from 170 to 380.
The numbers would be tweaked for balance, of course, but such a system of promoting equipment ought to make unique but outdated equipment relevant again.