OK, This is for Bort's Benefit. I am trying to put this someplace where he can see it all at once and work from there. This is going to be a LONG post. My apologies.. but I have +8 SA in 'Wall of Text'.
Alternative Advanced Equipment Idea:
There needs to be a system that is Balanced, but also worthwhile for higher level players. The initial implementation has not made many people happy. A higher level player sees only disadvantages from taking a shopping trip. The item they get is virtually guaranteed not to be as useful +5 points they had from previous 'Basic' Equipment.
Also, something needs to be done so that Advanced Equipment is not the 'only' option. If it is too desirable, there would ne no reason at all for the basic equipment. So any plan must accomodate these two things. #1 - Being worthwhile for players and #2 - But not being so good players completely abandon Basic Equipment.
My System:
#1 -- ALL Players, when they are first created, should have 5 training points. This is enough training points for a player to train once on intense or to get a shopping ticket (or two) to go shopping. This allows a brand new player the opportunity to go shopping for an advanced item to start their player off with.
#2 -- Basic Equipment prices would be changed. The original Equipment would still cost 500$ for one piece of equipment. Future upgrades though to 'Basic' Equipment would cost 1/2 their present value ($100,000 to upgrade level 24 to Level 32 equipment)
#3 -- Advanced Equipment will cost $4,500 to purchase at first level no matter what the 'random' bonus is. This means a Level 1 player can buy their first training and still afford to buy a single piece of advanced equipment.
#4 -- I would scrap all the various 'levels' of Advanced equipment that exist presently. While the idea of being able to purchase random, higher level equipment was conceptually interesting, its really just not easy to implement something that produces worthwhile results that makes everyone happy. Also, the system become punative if you, as a player, go shopping and find absolutely nothing worthy or nothing that fits your player concept, you have to go train again to get a new shopping token to go reset and its entirely possible you get more crap you don't want/cant use. (Silly colours, crappy bonuses, etc)
#5 -- Basic and Advanced Equipment would be purchased in much the same manner. To have access to the Advanced Equipment shop, you have to have a shopping token. When you present your advanced shopping token, you are taken to another equipment purchase screen that looks exactly like the basic equipment screen. You can choose to browse Helmets, Shirts, Gloves or Cleats and you can choose the colour of the item you want to buy. Additionally there is an 'Upgrade' choice in the top bar, but this can not be used yet See #7 below)
Additionally though, below the display of the items and their colours, are three 'upgrade' choices. These upgrade choices are _random_ each time you present a shopping token and like the present system, reset if you buy an item, or use a shopping token to 'reset' the shop. No matter what equipment slot you are viewing, the three upgrade choices at the bottom of the screen remain the same.
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EXAMPLE:
Joe Blowski Decides he would like to buy a piece of advanced equipment for his level 1 player. He uses his initial 2 of his 5 training points gained on character creation to work out normally with a side trip shopping. He then goes to the Equipment Purchase screen. He goes to the 'advanced' section of the store. In the advanced section This looks just like the 'Basic' At the top of the screen it lists 'Body, Feet, Hands, Head' and if one of these is selected a set of icons is presented representing different coloured versions of these items. BELOW these are Three randomly generated bonuses. No matter which item location he is on, these three bonuses remain the same until he buys an advanced item or resets the shop.
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What Joe can do is chose which location his advanced item is going to fill and what it looks like (People don't want to be forced to wear pink shoes.. seriously). Once they they have selected location and appearance they select the one of the presented bonuses and click a 'Continue with this Advanced Item Purchase' link.
This takes them to the next page, which is the same as if they had taken the 'Choose this Color' button on a Basic Item.
This puts their attributes in the top of the screen, just like presently, then below this shows the new item, just like it does presently, and the item shows its stats which will include the selected 'Advanced Item Attribute' chosen from the three presented.
The player then gets to chose a single attribute to provide an additional +1 bonus. Just like Basic Equipment.
In this Case, Joe - An Offensive Tackle Choses a Grey Shirt. He had three choices for its 'Advanced' ability. +1 Tackling, +1 Absorb Pain SA, or +3% chance to hold a block. He likes the Absorb Pain so choses that and hits continue. On the next screen he sees his Grey Shirt with +1 Absorb Pain SA and then he adds +1 to blocking and finishes.
Joe has his new Advanced Item and his account is debited $4,500.
#6 -- Leveling up the equipment. Since this equipment is just like basic equipment with a little 'juice' whenever a player reaches an appropriate level, they can go to the _standard_ Equipment Management screen and 'Upgrade' the equipment. When they do an upgrade through this manner, it takes them to the same upgrade screen for basic equipment, they pay the appropriate cost (present values fort basic equipment) and get +1 to whatever attribute they chose.
NOTE: Advanced Equipment keeps the present 'Upgrade' costs ($2500, 12,500, etc) while 'basic' equipment upgrade costs are lowered by half ($1250, $6,125, etc)
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EXAMPLE:
Joe achieves Level 8. His Advanced Item can now be upgraded, as can his Basic Equipment purchases. He goes to his Equipment page and clicks the 'Upgrade' button. For the Advanced Item, the upgrade costs the same amount that Basic Upgrades cost presently. This is $2,500. This allows him to add +1 to a stat on the Advanced Item (A normal stat.. NOT a special ability) just like Basic Equipment. Since he had some money he had also bought 3 Basic Items. He can Upgrade each of these to 'Level 8' equipment but because it is only 'Basic' Equipment this only costs $1,250 per item location. (Creating a reason to use 'Basic' Equipment.. Players could even have multiple sets based on how they are going to play that game)
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#7 -- Enhancing Advanced Equipment. Players can also choose to make the bonuses on their advanced equipment even better. This requires a purchase of a bonus upgrade.
#7a -- Once a player has earned enough Bonus Tokens (10) their equipment screen will trigger an 'Advanced Upgrade' button to appear (Just like hitting level 8,16,24 etc... creates a standard upgrade button). If the player has a Shopping Token and 10 Bonus Points and selects the 'Advanced Upgrade' button on their Advanced Equipment it takes you to a screen where three random bonuses are available you can choose to add to that equipment. These bonuses remain until either they are used (through purchase) or reset by spending a shopping token. If you don't like the bonuses for the item you selected but you have another advanced item you would like to put one of those bonuses on, you can cancel the transaction and go to the other Advanced Item's 'Advanced Upgrade' screen.
#7b -- Once you have selected the Advanced Upgrade and the Advanced Item you want to upgrade, you can complete the transaction. At this step it moves to a confirmation screen where a price is displayed. The Price for the upgrade is determined by a number of factors.
#7b.1 -- Value of the bonus. A +1 to an attribute has a low value and may only cost $5,000 to add. a +1 to a Skill Tree Attribute might cost between 5,000 and 25,000 depending on the attribute and its usefulness. Each possible bonus would have its dollar value set manually in implementation and could be changed by the GLB admin staff as further play/testing shows relative adjustments in value of the upgrade.
#7b.2 -- If the bonus already exists on _ANY_ Advanced item in the players possession, the cost of the bonus is multiplied by a factor, based on the value of the bonus above. For example a +1 Attribute point has a low value, so while its base bonus of +1 costs $5,000 to add, if you already have a +1 Advanced Bonus on the same or another Advanced item, the cost factor multiplier is say 1.5x. So the second +1 to an attribute coming through Advanced Upgrades costs $7,500 ($5,000 8 1.5) and subsequent bonuses of the same type escalate likewise with the third +1 to the same attribute costing $11,250, the fourth $16,875 etc. This seems minor but a very valuable SA that costs $25,000 base, and has a multiplier of x5 costs $25,000 to add the first +1, $125,000 to add another +1 and to add a third +1 to that SA would cost $675,000.
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EXAMPLE:
Joe Blow is level 17 presently has a Advanced Item: Grey Shirt with +3 Blocking (all bought with normal attribute bonuses at Lvl's 1, 8 and 16) and it has as its initial Advanced Attribute the +1 to the Absorb Pain SA. He's earned 10 Bonus Points and has a shopping token so when he goes to his equipment screen he sees that the 'Advanced Upgrade' button is available for his Shirt. He selects this and is taken to the Advanced Upgrade screen. On this screen he sees +2 Blocking, +1 Absorb Pain SA and +1 Strength. Joe Jumps at the opportunity to get another bonus to Absorb Pain. Since he has only one advanced item, he has to add it to his shirt. He selects the bonus and hits the complete transaction button. This takes him to a confirmation screen where the price is displayed. For arguments sake, the base value for the Absorb pain SA was $10,000 and its multiplier is 3x. Since this is his second Absorb Pain purchase it is $10,000 * 3 or $30,000. Joe has that much and he buys the +1 to his SA so now his Advanced Grey Shirt has +3 Blocking and +2 Absorb Pain SA.
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NOTE: One can see how adding _MULTIPLE_ Bonuses to ones items could be very cheap as long as you aren't doubling up. This can be balanced by adding another multiplier based on how many Advanced Bonuses exist on an Advanced Item. Second bonus may be x3 cost, Next after that x6, Next x12.. etc. Using the above example instead of paying $30,000 Joe would have had to pay $90,000 as it was the second and if later he wanted to add a third it would be $180,000, then $360,000 etc.
#8 - Addition of 'Rares': Rare items could be inserted by adding occasional new choices under the four main headings (Head, Feet, Hands, Body). When the player goes to 'Advanced Purchase' there is an exceedingly rare chance that under one of the headings a new icon/item will show up as available for purchase. These items may have an additional Advanced Bonus already built into them so a First level Advanced Item that is 'rare' may have +1 to an SA ability AND the player gets to choose one of the three random abilities so they get a great item for quite 'cheap'. This 'extra' ability is not factored in when they do later Advanced Upgrade purchases.
To keep these exceedingly rare, I would seed the chance as a very small fraction, perhaps modified positively by the characters level. So higher level players have a better chance to achieve a rare. The chance for a rare is determined when a player enters the advanced shop and 'resets' to get the three random abilities. If there is no random item, it will not be checked for again until the next time the player buys an item (and the three available bonuses are rest) or until the player purchases another shop reset with a token. This means players can't keep going to the shop repeatedly until a rare shoes up. It is limited by their number of tokens.
#9 -- The addition of 'Sets': Even rarer still would be 'Sets'. Sets appear in the same manner as above. If a Random 'Rare' is indicated there is an additional chance that this Rare is part of a set. A Rare Set item does not have an additional Advanced Bonus ability. Instead It has an affinity for other items in the same Set. When combined with these items, the Set provides an additional Bonus at that time. These bonuses will be cumulative with the bonuses the players place on the items but do not count towards the number of purchases when a player adds an ability to their set. Because these are exceedingly rare the bonus should be significantly better than a standard bonus, but not by too much. These items should be 'tradeable' with other players. EG the player should be able to put 'Set' Items up for sale via a marketplace. 1 Item in set acts simply as a normal Advanced item with whataver bonus the player had assigned from their three random choices. Paired with a Second Item from the same set, they get a new bonus. Add a Third Item and another bonus or enhancement to the first bonus is added and with the 4rth item, yet another bonus or additional enhancement is made.
CONCLUSION
What this does is accomplishes two things. First, Advanced Items are worthwhile for any player. All players can start with one (to the exclusion of other first level equipment until they earn a salary/bonus) and it works like Basic Equipment so fits within the current basic mechanics. There is an element of randomness, and players can not abuse the system as they have to reset the shop to get new bonuses. There is also an element of design/character customisation as the player still gets to select the colour and location of their advanced equipment. This gives the player more control and adds to player satisfaction. Since the item 'levels' as Basic Equipment does, it has parity with that equipment. No matter what level you buy the Advanced equipment the basic bonus to ones stats can be the same as any other piece of equipment. This negates the current problem where Advanced Items are worth 'less' and provide less of a bonus, then would Basic Equipment the player likely already has. This gives the players motivation to buy/use Advanced Equipment.
Secondly, because of the lowering of the cost (half cost) of Basic Equipment to upgrade attributes, there is a significant incentive to forgo Advanced items. You can, at first level add +4 to your attributes or you can add +1 to an attribute and have an Advanced Bonus. Depending on finances, at 8th Level, the player who chose to buy the advanced item may have bought some additional basic equipment so can add +1 to their advanced and then up to +6 more for their Basic Equipment but the person who chose basic only equipment could have two sets of +8 equipment that provides benefits to different stats so they can swap pieces in and out based on their teams gameplan and their role in that game plan and they have that flexibility for significantly less cost.
I believe an Advanced Equipment option like this would provide benefits for all players while addressing the concerns the present Advanced Equipment system presents.
Since it can be leveled and added to (at increasingly severe costs) players have another route of character customisation and uniqueness they can engage in to try to build a character that suits their 'visions'.
Rares and Rare Set items are truly valuable because they have additional enhancements that do not increase the cost of later upgrades. But by their acquisition are rare enough that they are truly something you shouldn't see outside of 8th to 10th season players who have been trying for months of real life time to find the pieces to their set. And even then, while valuable, the bonuses would not be too much and make a player unstoppable.
I'm open to criticism and suggestions/questions. This system is coming 'off the cuff' so to speak so there are certainly holes that can be addressed.
Still I believe it is a much better implementation that would make most everyone happy.
-Enks
just skimmed, but under your proposal it fits, even though I feel it is over complicated.
