At Least One Thing You'd Love To See in DTN

Your guild idea gave me another guild idea. Hear me out, it may or may not be a good idea. lol

Guild loyalty levels. When you found a guild the leader and the initial members that found that guild get a guild xp booster for the duration of this. Here's how it works. First you have a guild progression system that unlocks an assortment of nifty little things ranging from cosmetics, XP or coin drop bonuses or really anything you'd find in a detailed guild system. From there you begin to level up the guild and maybe gain skill points to invest in these things. As the guild levels up so do these perks. They go through tiers. And your level with the guild determines which tier you have access to. The way this works is each member levels individually with the guild. This can be done in a number of ways: Donating a small siphon of your XP to the guild when grouping, maybe bonuses for grouping with guildees, or any number of other things (guild writs or quests if they're available ect.)

For the sake of the argument, let's say you would have a founder later in the guild's life leveled up have access to say a tier 3 cosmetic perk that offers some cool looking cosmetic gear from a guild merchant. Maybe something like a crimson red and royal blue dye. Then a newbie joins up. After a bit of patronage with the guild they hit a guild level and gain access to level 1 of the cosmetic perk and they get some basic blue and red. Not as flashy but something. If you can provide some handy perks and such for being in a guild this would be a good incentive to find a good guild for the long haul as guild hopping would reset the guild level.

There's a lot to play with there.

The Crafting Want
This brings me to my thing and that's the thing I always hope for in any MMORPG and am often disappointed, a detailed procedural crafting system. Something that's a bit more hands-on like Vanguard's but taken to the next iteration. I want a robust crafting system that isn't click-it-and-forget-it. Nothing worse to me than a crafting system where you load up your bag, have a seat in town, and hit "craft all" then go make a sandwich. Vanguard's system may not have been perfect, but it was involving. There was a process to making components and then a process to crafting items, each with the possibility of complications and an action point pool that you had to manage or end up with anything ranging from a pile of molten slag or a Grade D crappy piece of armor instead of that Grade A shiny rare armor. Add to that each crafting profession relied on another, or sometimes multiple, to craft components for various items. In my case I was a blacksmith that for a while was one of the higher level crafters (yes crafting had it's own levels if you never played Vanguard, it took just as long to level as adventuring) on the server I played on. This got me a bit of a reputation for a while as the guy to see about the blacksmith parts for boats. And at one point I was so busy when I logged on I had backlogs of orders from people. Busy but fun. lol

Stuff like that makes crafting desirable. It's a lacking thing in modern MMOs as most of them make crafting so simplistically easy pretty much everyone is doing it and flooding the market. The name next to that deluge of items is irrelevant.

What I would like to see if a system like Vanguard's that allows for a robust selection of crafting, a leveling system for it, a process like it had, and then a deeper integration into the itemization. By that I mean let's say you get an uber rare sword from a raid boss. This sword is say 75% or so of what it could be. As would be the case with all items. They would need a crafter in one of the various professions to bring them to their full potential. You then have a choice. You can live with that, or you can gather this rare mat and take it to a skilled crafter. There may be a reagent or two more than can increase the success chance by either providing a few more action points to the crafter or warding off a single complication. From there you hope you've found a good crafter that knows their stuff and hasn't been skimping on the skills or gear. They then proceed to the forge and one of about four possible outcomes will happen.

1. Critical Success - You chose well and the crafter is a true master of the trade. With every strike the blade strengthened, never faltering for a second. The crafter was so skilled they found a way to strengthen the blade more (a rare critical crafting strike) making the blade not 100% stronger, but 115% stronger + a random proc/effect. Rejoice!

2. Basic Success: The crafter knew their stuff. They navigated the complications with skill and avoided any mishaps, strengthening the blade further. The blade is increased from 75% effectiveness to between 76% to 100%.

3. Failure to Minor Failure: There were some...complications. The crafter seemed to have made some errors in judgement either through lack of skill or mistaking the branding iron for his forging hammer after an all night bender. You should have known better by the confused and glassy-eyed look he had. Not to mention the strong smell of ale on his breath. Blade Effectiveness reduced from 75% to between 30%-74%.

4. Critical Failure: Where did you find this guy? I think you mistook the local drunkard for the blacksmith. The only thing you know for certain is that if this guy ever goes near a forge again it'll be because you're throwing him in it. The crafter lacked even the most base knowledge of metalworking. He was a bumbling bafoon that has now made you think of creative places to put that smithing hammer he's clinging to.

Epic and Critical Failure: This imbecile with a smithing hammer brings what's left of your blade back in a handkerchief. Judging by his drunken demeanor, you're surprised he hasn't mistaken the pile of slag for a biscuit. Blade reduced from 75% to a small pile of slag and dust.

I hope that explanation was at least mildly amusing. ;p


If you're not happy with the results you can try again for X rare mats but each subsequent attempt increases the chance of catastrophic failure. Maybe even critical success. Risk vs reward.