Ichor was presented as this wonderful endgame system that allowed players to customize their top tier equipment based on their preferences and needs but that didn’t worked out as planned, the whole system is time consuming, expensive, stressful and painful. For a top quality ichor you need to the highest rarity equipment, have the higher end of number of stat lines, get stats that align with your character and get it in high value, this alone is a considerable hurdle setup yet it can all go to waste when extracting the ichor itself. With that in mind i’m suggesting an Ichor Fusion mechanic that will cover up most of these elements based on the concept of failing faster.
To back up some of the system complaints i’ll have two other threads related to it as additional issues with identifiable equipment.
With the new dual ichor equipment, ichor extraction and streamlined stats for all equipment pieces it is possible to build a new system to enhance the ichor system as a whole for non-static equipment, fusion. The idea is simple, ichors based on non-static equipment can be combined into stronger ichors according to the maximum number of lines it can contain and the stat cap.
Take a look at this simple example
Simple fusion
Ichor A
CON +40
DEX +20
Ichor B
Fire Property Resistance +65
Fused Ichor
CON +40
DEX +20
Fire Property Resistance +65
The worst thing to happen when getting unidentified equipment is have it with 1 or 2 stat lines only, most, if not all, players will instantly dismantle the equipment as it doesn’t have enough latent potential as a high quality equipment, after all even an undesired stat in low value is better than nothing. A simple system like that on its own can make low line equipment highly desired even if the usage fee were high, not to mention it allows players to roll stats individually for more control on the final product.
If done as that this new feature will come with an issue as well, it will limit Ichor fusion to matching line numbers and prevent it to grow and change. With that in mind it is possible to have two new rules to address ichors stats and how they interact, ideally stats present in both ichors should be preserved and different stats, when beyond the ichor stat limit, should be randomly assigned based on value proportion.
Those two deserve their own examples but i also need to bring up some other important things to cover.
Overlapping fusion
Ichor A
CON +40
DEX +20
Ichor B
CON +55
Fire Property Resistance +65
Fused Ichor
CON +??
DEX +20
Fire Property Resistance +65
Among the options to assign the value for CON we have floor, ceiling and special, the first two will flatten the system depth and will make it either a flop or a simplistic upgrade system, this is where a third option comes handy. It could be expected for it to roll a number between the minimum and maximum value and this sounds good on paper but it will end up with players doing line by line fusions instead.
To compensante for that we can have a proportional chance based on value ranges, taking lower stat value, higher stat value and their average. From that we take the difference between higher and lower value and summed to their average, the lowest value stays as floor while the summed value becomes the ceiling, decreased to stat cap if beyond that. The server will roll a number and based on these measurements the stat will value will be assigned, as such fusing ichors will grant the lower value at worst and a value beyond higher at best.
Stat range suggested formula
Ichor A +40
Ichor B +55
Lower Value LV
Higher Value HV
Floor LV
Ceiling (HV + LV)/2 + HV - LV
(55 + 40) / 2 + 55 - 40
95/2 + 15
47+15
62
Range = 40~62
For conflicting stats the solution can be proportion of value and cap, all non-matching stats will be compared in their proportion and will roll the dice to see which one stays. The chance can also be applied based on the proportion, favoring mismatching stats that have higher proportional value yet keeping a smaller chance for the opposite side.
Missmatching stats
Ichor A - PDef 100 out of 500, 20%
Ichor B - CON 40 out of 80, 50%
20% = 2/7 = 28.5%
50% = 5/7 = 71.5%
PDef Chance = 28.5%
CON Chance = 71.5%
In a way this allows players to decrease unwanted stats and have them more likely to be overwritten later on, if they manage to get a lot of good lines and stat values from a single extraction.
The only exception for that is 2h based ichor as it has higher floor and ceiling for stat lines, for this matter it can still be fused with simple ichor but will stack up and keep as a 2h type. In this scenario it could be possible for 2h weapons to have line range of 1~6 and have it to be fused in all sorts of combinations.
For that to be possible the ichoring process for this kind of equipment has to become easier, be that by increasing the success rate, remove the material cost or give higher chance based on equipment enhancement and/or transcendence, the major flaw with this system is the investment x return it takes and the constant frustration from the last filter. The key for a system to strive is the ability to fail faster, have the ichoring itself to be easier while the other elements will consume more time and resources, possibly a sink, while being satisfying to use to some degree.
As a last important aspect that needs to be changed is the way ichor is applied to equipment, for it to be perfect the equipment tie has to be removed completely, allowing boots ichor being applicable to rapiers and shield ichor to top, with 2h being an exception as their own group. With that even 2h swords with magic stats can be converted into staff ichor and each equipment piece can be selected, removed, upgraded and/or replaced dynamically with the only limit being time, effort and silver.