Following @Queue’s recommendation to create a new thread for this suggestion as an alternative/replacement of the current transcendence. Perhaps it is already too late by now, but anything also helps. No spectacular title to think off as of now, I’ll just name it:
"The Household Attributes, Transcendence " a.k.a THAT
New addition to the initial post includes implementation suggestions. For a TL:DR version please go to the end of the post.
[How THAT works]
Similarly like how we get blessed shards and gems, through saalus (or some other way in which IMC dictates in future). Players are able to buy/sell/trade blessed shards/gems just like now.
Blessed gems are used to upgrade the team household. Household upgrades can be divided into 3 categories:
- Core Stats Category
Upgrades are patk, matk, evasion, stamina, hp, sp etc. These upgrades go upwards to a max limit of +100% and are exchanged in denominations of 2% per 10 blessed gems. The upgrades are like the guild’s forges and academies, and will affect all characters in the game account/team. So players can farm shards, contribute to this core stat and every character will benefit from it.
- Skill Augmentation Category
This are the so called ‘quasi-equip’ category. Each character will be given a max of 5 slots to add skill augmentations. A skill augmentation can be like the following:
- -2 secs cooldown to all skills
- Changes all attacks to 2 hit attacks (become fake multi hit, +10% damage total but divide into 2 hits)
- +100 fire element prop damage (and all other props)
- Changes basic attack to element prop
- % chance to resist negative debuffs
- % chance to freeze on attacks
- so on and forth.
Different skill augmentations requires different amount of blessed gems to purchase. For example a “-2 second cooldown to all skills” requires 20x blessed gems and a “-5 second cooldown” requires 100x blessed gems. Each skill augmentation only need to be purchased once and is available to all characters in the team. However, each character can only equip up to a maximum of 5 such skill augmentations. Players can change their augmented skills in the character select screen just how how they pair companions with the character. Players can come up with skill augmentation combos such as adding chance to change mob’s element property and having elemental damage that deals more to that property.
- Class Mastery Orbs Category
Apart from skill augmentations, players can purchase class mastery orbs. Previously in another post I highlighted about this idea, think it will be great to merge this with THAT. Here is the link to the previous idea (Thanks @Kupomancer for the name):
Basically as a limitation, each class can have a max 5 mastery orbs, with the limit of mastery orbs per character determined by the Rank of the character. A rank8 will have 8 mastery orb slots, a rank 10 will have 10. Each mastery orb can be purchased at a rate of 40 blessed gems per orb. For this purchase, the orb isn’t shared across all characters but is only for individual character. Once assigned to the character, the character can freely change where to put the mastery orb on which class their build has.
[Benefits and Cons]
Benefits of THAT
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Solves the problem of All for One, all characters will benefit when they contribute blessed shards/gems
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Gives more reasons to reroll, increasing longevity of the game
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Gives IMC a platform to fix classes via Mastery Orbs, MO upgrades can help improve how low ranking classes work in end game
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Allows more room for unique builds and creativity in builds with skill augmentations. There can be hundreds of augmentations implemented and with many combinations to choose from, even class builds that are the same will play differently. It also gives collectors another goal to strive for, to collect all the augmentations.
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Limited core stat boost also limits power creep.
Cons of THAT
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Shards become all the more important, which will affect market and economy.
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Players who have few characters will have to find alternative means to get shards (IMC can increase the drop rate and availability of them though)
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Saalus will become even more of a neccessity, but then it depends on how IMC implement where the shards will drop.
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Content need to be rebalanced to suit the new transcendence
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Equipment’s patk/matk will drop back to before, in line with the core stats but pale in comparsion with R8 skill damages, and this will need to be balanced
Compensation to players with existing/legacy transcended equipment
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All existing transcended equipment will revert back to their basic forms
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Players are compensated with the same amount of blessed shards as per how much they invest in their transcended equipment
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All current blessed shards and gems (armor/weapon) will be converted to the new ‘THAT version’ with a 1:1 exchange.
[New addition! - Implementation Suggestions]
Visuals and Appeals of THAT
Ever seen how empty and unappealing the character selection screen is? Who in the world will purchase Banquet Hall and Pyromancer Room? THAT can be implemented in a way in which it boosts the sales of such team/family lodges.
Implement upgrades in the core stat category as furniture/item upgrades in the team lodges. For example, a purchase of a +2% atk core stat will provide a small fireplace to the team lodge. An addition of a +2% mdef will add a table etc. It presents players some form of visual upgrade to the dull team selection screen. This will also appeal to collectors too who would want to see how the fully upgraded team lodge will be like. Different lodges will have different furnitures/item visuals, and this helps in the sales of alternate lodges.
I would propose graphic add-ons in phases, as getting to last phase requires a substantial amount of time from the design/dev team.
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Phase 1 - Static furniture/item visuals
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Phase 2 - Static character interaction with furniture/item
In this phase we can see our own characters interact with some furnitures, like some sitting on a table, some in front of fireplaces, some sleeping etc. Each time we come to the character selection screen the characters will be doing some other thing in the team lodge. -
Phase 3 - Animated character interaction with furniture/item
Characters will have some animations in team lodges. For example, some will be chatting near the fireplace, or a character is sitting down polishing his/her weapon until the player decides to bring him/her out to an adventure etc.
Just like phase 2, everytime a player visits the lodge, the characters will be doing something else.
Blessed Cube Implementation
The current blessed cube can be only acquired at saalus, which in turn makes it into a required daily to run for everyone. I propose the addition of a lesser blessed cube, this cube, unlike blessed cube,
- can only be rolled once (no rerolls)
- only give 1x blessed shard
Lesser blessed cubes can obtained from DG/mission cubes at a low rate. They can also drop from monsters as players farm/grind, with rates slightly higher than golden anvil/spell rods/hammer of dismantlement.
This allows players to continue doing what they like/set to do instead of relying only on saalus runs, lowering the need for dailies.
Ending Note
Blessed gem prices of THAT are raw and tentative, they are there to just serve to put the idea across.
TL:DR
- Change current transcendence into a more team friendly version, not restricting to a single character
- Everyone in team benefits
- Lowering dependence of saalus only to get blessed shards, less dailies
- Suggestion to make blessed gems a currency to purchase core/augmentation/mastery orb upgrades which benefits the entire team
- Visual implementation of upgrades to appeal to collectors
- Change and introduce more ways/methods to acquire blessed shards
- Propose compensation to current transcendence holders, reinburse and 1:1 exchange to new THAT shards/gems.
Link to the initial post: