-=The Basic Idea=-
- A player has a weapon or armor for which they want to upgrade the attack or defense stat.
- That player obtains an upgrade item (an "upgradifier") and brings it and the equippable item they wish to upgrade to an NPC.
- They surrender both of the above items to the NPC and in return receive the same equippable item for which the attack or defense stat (as selected) was increased by X and its requirement level increased by Y.
- A player can upgrade the attack and defense of any equippable item in the game, provided that the resulting required item level is less than 50.
- The player can upgrade the attack and defense of all equippable helmets, body armors, accessories, right hand items and left hand items.
- When a player brings an item with only the attack or defense stat, that single stat is automatically upgraded for the player. If a player brings an item that has BOTH an attack and defense stat then he chooses which to upgrade.
- The player uses the services of an NPC so we can avoid the addition of hundreds of new combinations and still keep true to the spirit that items combined in the inventory give you a new combination recipe.
- The NPC would allow multiple upgrades at the same time if the player elects to give the NPC multiple upgradifiers. The NPC would stop upgrading the item if the number of upgradifiers would push the item required level over 50.
- The NPC can still work only at one stat at a time, so if the player has 10 upgradifiers and wants to increase an accessorie's attack and defense 5 times each he will have to speak to the NPC twice.
- Later on it may be possible to upgrade other stats attached to an item (Max HP/MP%, Critical%, Run%), but ONLY if those stats already exist on that item.
I'm still working to finish an Excel spreadsheet of all the equippable items in the game, so these are more of a guess.
For this idea I would start with the assumption that the required level increase per upgrade would increase by either 1 or 2. This seems to be the approximate level difference between regular weapons and their lefty versions.
I see two ways of increasing the attack/defense number: fixed point increase or percentage increase. The point increase may be the simplest approach. If the stat is increased by a percentage, then it can be increased directly (attack * (1 + percent/100)) or via compound interest where n=number of periods, i=true interest rate ( %/100 ), PV=Present Value, FV=Future Value.
Some numbers with which I've had some success was 5 as a fixed increase and 0.11 as a percent increase in the compound interest formula.
-=Ways to Balance=-
Thankfully there are several "levels" that can be controlled to make upgrading items easier or harder. These would in large part depend on whether you decide that upgrading items should be "easy" (with upgradifiers dropping roughly as often as leftifiers are at high levels) or "hard" where the items drop rarely. Of course the bonus granted by each upgrade would vary according to how hard or easy the upgrade is to perform.
- As mentioned above, the first way to balance is determining the drop rate of the "upgradifier" item. Since the item would be consumed each time a player upgrades, I'm leaning towards making them either easier to find or some kind of middle ground.
- Once a player finds an "upgradifier", he may be required to convert it to upgrading attack, defense (or another stat in the future) via a combination recipe. For example: combine with Titanium Plating to add defense, or a Dirty Needle to add attack.
- The NPC who does the upgrades can exist in a fixed location, or can be found ONLY via a random encounter in a particular hunting area.
- To make finding the NPC even more challenging, the NPC could shift to different areas from day-to-day with the Wise Sage potentially giving a clue as to where the upgrade NPC is located.
One thing I'm completely clueless about is how to store the huge variety of resulting items in the database. If you take something like the Monocle item that has both attack and defense stats the it can be upgraded to make dozens of unique items!
Also, I'm unsure how upgraded items should be displayed in the market. An upgrade notation such as ( +X) can be used where X is the number of times upgraded or just a * added to the item name to show that it has been upgraded. Either way, for better or worse, the player will be looking at the item description to see the specific stats.
In closing, I feel that this idea can be a fun and challenging way for players of all levels to extend the shelf-life of their equipment and provide an interesting new game mechanic. Please let me know what you think!