Tradeskill Armor
So the login screen tells me the Devs want suggestions . .
ok
TRADESKILL ARMOR
I envision 2 origins for player-made armor;
'technological', and 'biological'.
The method of creating this armor is similar
except for the base materials.
Technological:
- start with a sheet of QLX plasteel purchased from vending machine.
the QL of the metaltype determined the QL of the armor.
when you find a machine selling the QL of armor you want,
you would buy 7 pieces if you are going to create a complete suit.
- now treat the plasteel with protective layers.
the layering material should also be bought from vending machine.
of course, no armor should be able to have 1000 in all ACs,
so limitiations must be in place. the simplest solution may
be just to have a set recipie for all the existing armor types.
but i can also think of a more creative option.
just allow 3 'prime' ACs layers of the builders choice to be covered
for the max that QL allows, 3 'secondary' ACs with reduced protections,
and the remaining 2 'lesser' AC layers with the obilgatory weaknesses.
now why would a player want armor with 2 weaknesses when most higher level
armor only has 1 weakness? i explain why below.
- after the plasteel (or whatever substance you call the base material)
is coated with the protective layers of the builders choice,
it must now undergo a final blending stage. in this stage, there are
several ways (using different tradeskill items) to 'finish' the materials
that then determines which body attributes will be required to wear it.
*this is what will make player-built armor more desirable to some*
so say, if you melt the material down, it will require agil/str.
if you use 'gravity-binding' to cemement it, it will requite stam/str.
if you weave it, it will require sense/agil .. etc etc
however the actual #'s required to wear it will be based on the QL.
- now the finished material must be shaped.
there should be a body-armor form, a sleeve form, a boot form . . etc
(all available from tradeskill booth)
and the material is then applied to the form and that piece is completed.
viola!
except for one thing . .. what would it look like?
here's what i hope is another great suggestion.
after all of the above steps there is still 1 more
optional step that can be applied to the armor.
coloration.
to make life easier on the devs/designers and also
make players happy at the same time, make all
player-made armor use one standard model.
something very generic that any class/breed could look alright in.
make it some off-white color. something bland and unfinished looking.
now allow painting/decals to be applied!
how hard would it be to have bukets of red paint / blue paint / green paint / etc
in the tradeskill machines and then when used it just changes the texture on
the armor model. not hard i'd assume, because you've already done the same thing
most of the armor in the game. there are about 4 models with various different
colorations. . and the base color often shows for a moment while zoning. lol
anyway, this gives the players more control and creativity which everyone wants.
and then may i also suggest some sort of decals available too?
perhaps slightly more difficult to implement (requiring a few more textures)
but just being able to put an omni or clan insignia or some other designs
on the armor to personalize it would be really cool.
and after his long post i'm only half done!
Biological:
the second method i'd like for creating armor would be 'biological';
using the hides of dead monsters.
now there wouldnt be much room for customization here,
but let me try to simply outline how i'd like to see this work.
most mobs drop monster parts, some should also drop skin.
or perhaps you could harvest the skin with some tool after killing the beast.
you could then apply this skin to the body forms i described above.
the armor you get would be determined by the skin you use.
for example, if i create a pair of pants out of Level 120 Blast Lizard,
I would get QL120 Lizard Armor pants. You would have to kill 7 Blast Lizards
for a complete set.
I also really like the idea of making this armor more different thru
adding some modifiers on top of the AC.
now this would require actually designing a few new armor types,
so only certain mobs could be made into armor.
may I suggest:
- Leet Armor (for laughs mainly, easy to get skin for,
and you could hand it out to newbies): very weak protection.
- Bronto Armor: made only from large brontos. first real quality protection.
- Prowler Armor: made from all wolf/cat mobs. perhaps with a + runspeed mod?
- Spider Armor: made from nightcrawlers etc, with small + evade modifiers as well.
- Lizard Armor: made from dragon-type mobs, not sure what trick to give it tho.
thanks for reading (especially if you're a Dev).
I just want AO to keep getting better.
