Itemization Updates Explained
(Note to community, itemization changes will be making their way into the game, starting with the next patch. The process will be ongoing.)
Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Artificer.
This message is to inform everyone of the plans for itemization. Recently, I have taken on the role of managing, solidifying and refining how we approach it as a whole. The upcoming content should showcase this, and we highly encourage feedback on it that keeps the following points in mind. Older itemization will be addressed in following updates.
To set the stage, it must be stated that we are itemizing this content in the game with 1.0 and beyond in mind. We want to avoid making and distributing items in the game in a way that does not move towards that goal, just to address issues in the now that would be solved organically as development continues.
1. Item distribution in Pantheon. Items not only provide your character power and progression, they are also an essential part of the game for driving player traffic through the world, helping it feel alive, and encouraging a more interesting/healthier player experience and bigger adventure. Many of you have noted that the amount of items available for a specific class/archetype in a level range feel rather thin, and this is intentional with our distribution model. As more content comes online that has a similar level range, this aspect of our itemization vision should feel much better.
2. Keeping stat inflation down, but making equipment acquisition feel satisfying. For launch, we wanted to keep our stats on the smaller side, so they don't go crazy soon after when more content comes online, however, Pantheon characters have a lot of gear slots! To avoid either watering them down per-piece, or inflating them overall, we're going to consolidate *most* stat bonuses to armor slots. This means accessory slots (which include waist and back as well for this purpose) are going to be offering ratings, resists, and non-stat bonuses (some of which have yet to be seen in game) to characters primarily, and will be less focused on stats.
3. Stat variety on items and "soft specs". With class abilities finally changing to utilize a wider array of stats per-class, we need to offer more gear that has a wider variety of stat bonuses. Those changes also give us a great avenue for horizontal progression, collecting layouts of gear that focus on different stats for a class to accentuate different abilities and playstyles. The total number of stats on items will be rising in general, but will also be more spread out. Like our item distribution, this will start to feel better as more content becomes available to hunt for items with different stat focuses in.
4. Making resists matter more. The itemization side of this involves increasing their availability, so that content can be created with more of an emphasis on utilizing them. Part of the planned system for resists, and utilizing them as a minor route of horizontal progression, is to use a bonus/penalty system. For example, a lower level or quality item might offer some fire resistance, but have a higher penalty to nature resistance. A higher level or quality item might offer slightly more fire resistance, but much less of a penalty to nature resistance, a different resistance, or perhaps none at all in the case of the best ones. The goal here is to offer resistances in amounts that matter, without inflating them too much, so rather than the amount of resistance always rising with an upgrade, one way the item can be an improvement is to have less of a penalty, or a different one that the player feels is less detrimental.
Solidifying and adhering to the above, is a large piece of the puzzle as the team works towards the unified vision of the game.
- Codeman, QA/Designer.