The first incarnation of the item comparison did in fact only show non zero values. As you can see it didn't really work out that well, since we dropped it.

I think the system I use now, to highlight the non-zero values but still display all, is the best.

When you view a single item, is better to have it.

If you compare more items, is still good but is better to have the various stats in a fixed place. For example you're browsing in the inventory for a Fire resistance item, you can click through it and keep your eye looking in the right row/column, is faster (I know because I tried it here while testing).

Taken from Winter Wolves' Twitter Feed:

got a snake, cobra, rhino, mammoth. I think is time to add some Ents and other typical fantasy/mythological creatures now

Wow! You got the bestiary/Codex fangirl in me Squeeing!

Hmm a fantasy adventure game without mythical creatures to fight... might be interesting to watch someone try to pull that off

Today implemented YET ANOTHER FEATURE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE 15 MINUTES BUT ENDED UP TAKING THE WHOLE MORNING (tm)



First you'll see a modified version of Loren's "you got a new quest" screen, showing the XP but also item reward:

http://i.imgur.com/fUhEU0c.jpg" style="max-width:100%">



and then once you've completed it, you'll see the reward:

http://i.imgur.com/kDBcyUZ.jpg" style="max-width:100%">



I'm going to have to block rollback in the final game since right now you can mouse up/down unlimited time and get every time a different variation of the item! pretty cool to test, but not really fair in the final game

I don't really like that solution. We can still save right before handing in and just reload, right. Better the quest rewards don't have random stats (just monster loot does), or the stats are determined (but not revealed) when we accept the quest rather than when we hand it in, which would probably be enough of a deterrent.

Well if anyone want to reload continuously the game, I can't stop that. Even for the encounters works the same. Though in general after trying a lot of times is not like you get very different items, I mean if I define the tier, all the rare items will be mostly same power. One thing is a completely random item like for loot, but in this case I define both the category and the quality (and as well the slot). So even reloading is not that will give you any big advantage.

For the biggest quests I'll have manually defined items obviously

Yeah fair enough. But you caught my interest with "tier". Is that some measurement of item power? Like in WoW you have something called item level which determines how much budget the item has to choose its stats from. Is it like that? 'cause it's a good system.

Yes exactly, I have 5 base tiers: Normal, Fine, Masterwork, Rare, Legendary (the unique items manually defined). There can be small chances that a Fine item has better stats than a Masterwork of course since they're randomly generated out of a pool of stats, but in general they'll be always worse.

Actually item level and rarity are separate mechanics in WoW. Typically the higher the rarity the more item level (=stat budget) for its level requirement the item has. But I get your system anyway. It probably works fine with so few levels. But if we had many levels it might be weird that some rare you acquired at level 5 is awesome even at level 50 because, well, it's rare and can only be beaten by legendary. You could consider that perhaps if SotW is gonna have 30 levels

Yes I understand what you mean (I haven't played WoW but I'm playing Diablo 3 so is similar). I am considering adding a level attribute to items, also restricting the usage of the item based on the level, but have to see if that would take too much time, since in practice I've spent the last 15 days doing "just small tweaks"

Otherwise in my case the rarity is "a global value", and this means that you'll get Rare items only towards the end of game or for particularly important quests. But anyway, when you have a party of characters and not just one (like WoW or Diablo 3) is not like one single rare item can change the game completely the impact is minor than when playing RPG where you only control 1 character.

stats are determined (but not revealed) when we accept the quest rather than when we hand it in

I vote for this solution.

Yes, managed to add that and I'm testing different items level. Seems to work, but now I need to tweak the base values...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkCvUgOCQAA1BBq.jpg:large" style="max-width:100%">



lol level 21 ring with +73 Defense, +37 Magic and +39 Speed!!

I'm glad you're entertained by your job



Now that you are using item levels, it begs another question about budget. In WoW you could find let's say two swords of the same type, item level and rarity. They would have the same damage but one would have +300 strength and nothing else. Now the other one could have both strength and agility, but how much of each? I bet your guess is 150, but actually it's 200. Else you would just brainlessly stack whatever stat was the best. If it also had intellect*, I believe the distribution would be +150 of each.



My point being of course that if these 39+73+37=149 points were all in one stat, they would grant less than 149 to that stat. Then we could also consider that +1 in a stat isn't necessarily as cheap as +1 in another. Stamina on WoW items gets a 50% bonus; the +300 strength would be +450 stamina. Also, using Loren logic, I would probably just pump up a character's Magic stat (even if they weren't a caster) if I wanted resistances, since that reduces overall magic damage taken, and if it's an actual caster it's bigger numbers too. Oh and more mana, right? Unless of course, resistances are a hell lot cheaper on the budget (or I want a specific resistance, not just overall) than Magic is.



*To the actual WoW players - yeah I know no such weapon exists 'cause no one would want to use it, it was the easiest example :p

Yes the four base battle stats (Attack, Defense, Magic, Speed) have a much bigger "weight" in the random generation than the others. Also, is impossible to have more than 1 resistance each item. So you'll never have a ring with 99 Fire AND Water resistance

That is a good decision. But there's no penalty for all the budget going into one single stat? Not as important an issue as the one you foresaw and fixed, but still

No since are randomly generated, not all "Rare items" are equal. Some are good, others less good. But you never get 1 stat bonus only I think (I need to run more tests).

Also, using Loren logic, I would probably just pump up a character's Magic stat (even if they weren't a caster) if I wanted resistances, since that reduces overall magic damage taken, and if it's an actual caster it's bigger numbers too. Oh and more mana, right? Unless of course, resistances are a hell lot cheaper on the budget (or I want a specific resistance, not just overall) than Magic is.

This is only partly true with the new autoleveling enemies. Since if I define an enemy caster with +50% Magic over the party average, surely those better equipped with Magic will still get more defense, but not like in Loren. Another big advantage of this new system, greatly reduces the amount of exploits possible

Hmm, what's the reasoning behind that system? That way you might want to wear worse gear to gimp your opponents. I'm totally fine with leveling up meaning that my enemies do so as well, but upgrading my gear shouldn't be a double edged decision. Unless the system counts your naked stats only.



Plus I find it exploitable. Imagine if there's a really strong caster boss, and now I know he will have +50% magic over our average. I set my party up to have high relevant resistances but as little magic as possible. His blizzards will be a summer breeze.

Hmm, what's the reasoning behind that system? That way you might want to wear worse gear to gimp your opponents. I'm totally fine with leveling up meaning that my enemies do so as well, but upgrading my gear shouldn't be a double edged decision. Unless the system counts your naked stats only.

To always provide challenging battles, WHEN NEEDED. I want to repeat, I can still define weak enemies. I can assign a level to enemies relative to the party. So if I want to have a weak encounter, I can.

If you wear worse gear, nothing will change: the relative strength will be the same.

Overall party Magic: 500 - Enemy with +50% = 750 Magic

Overall party Magic: 50 - Enemy with +50% = 75 Magic



Since the damage is calculated comparing the values, in both cases the enemies will do the same damage. Dropping all items won't change the encounter by much, only slightly (and not sure if better or worse).

Plus I find it exploitable. Imagine if there's a really strong caster boss, and now I know he will have +50% magic over our average. I set my party up to have high relevant resistances but as little magic as possible. His blizzards will be a summer breeze.

That's what happens in all RPG. Plan a strategy to defeat enemies. In this case it begins even before the battle. But now that I think about it, the boss won't have only 1 elemental attack anyway, and the AI see what is the damage can do. So if he has also a Fireball, or a Dark Magic, or any other attack, the AI will always use those instead of the Blizzard.



I've thought about this system for a long time and I'm really curious to see how the beta goes. I would be disappointed if nobody found an exploit, would be the first RPG in history to not have one, but if is not as obvious as was the first version of Loren (the infamous speed cheat) I'd be very satisfied with my work as game designer

And if you can't beat the challenge, you can't fix anything by getting "better" gear because it will improve the boss too, all you can do is get better relative stats, not better absolute stats. I don't know if I like that



"I got Loren a bigger sword, therefore the boss instagibbed Draco."