[Suggestion] Add some of the (lesser) champion-only weapons to the "shop"

from Elemental Forums

i have a little suggestion that might be worth considering.

in short (aka TL;DR ) : in addition to the mundane weapons/armor pieces, unlock some of the lesser champion-only weapons/armor pieces (like silver broadsword, toxic shortbow, warding kite shield etc.) to the shop. they could unlock with appropriate technology (i.e. add a champion-only shield to the shop at a tech that also unlocks a mundane shield for troops)

 

 

why i think that addition would be reasonable:

as it stands now, champions are in a good shape (IMO). they all serve a purpose and (can) change the gameplay significantly. melee/physical damage champs were finally brought in line with the improved itemization of the last patch. however, there's a small problem: if you don't luck out and actually find a decent bow/sword/armor/shield, they have a tendency to fall behind trained troops around the middle of the game (when troops start to become fairly powerful). that's a shame, since at that point, you invested quite some time into development of your assassin/warrior/defender and probably don't want him/her to be weaker than a group of generic swordsmen. it's luck based, for the most part. if you find that awesome shocking longbow or a druss blade or whatever, they still surpass the trained troops.

to reduce the element of luck, you could implement the above mentioned feature, which would also (in a sense) serve as a rudimentary "crafting system". you didn't find a good weapon and now your archer assassin is obsolete since basic archer troops do more damage? save up some cash (maybe also metal/mana/crystal/fame?!) and buy her a decent champion-only bow (that unlocked at the same tech as the mundane longbow, for example)

in a similar fashion, the magic tech tree could for example add adept/mage robes to the shop, and maybe also some of the champion jewelry (ring of ashes etc.)

i don't know how much effort it would be to implement that suggestion. if it's too late for the release, maybe you could add it as part of a "content patch" after release.

thanks for reading. 

11,562 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I definately like this idea.

However I would like to add that the shop items shouldn't cost this much and it would be better if you could pay in city production or materials.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

 

I don't know, does sound good but..

There's little enough variety in items per game even after patches that increased the amount. So I do usually find something worth wielding, even if not always the best gear for a particular Sov. Apart from that.. in my opinion items are more exciting to discover randomly. Every time I find a mage robe I exclaim "yeah!" it's awesome, is loosing that effect better than the risk of not finding decent gear?

You could say it departs from the fiction of the world, everyone is building a new empire.. they research towards their magic trinkets but the older weapons of power are out there scattered by the cataclysm and just waiting to be found.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

yeah i thought about that, too. i mean, the cool stuff (orange/purple/red color code - don't know what the formal names for those categoreis are) should still be drop only. there should be a reward for slaying that dragon or titan. but i think it wouldn't be unbalancing or removing too much excitemen if some of the lesser stuff (grey/yellow color code) were available as a backup plan. not sure about the mage stuff, really. i guess mages are powerful enough as is, they work quite well even without buyable caster robes (or rather, without any items at all ;) ). the concern was more that one might end up with no viable option for warriors/assassins (sucks to spec into axeman and never find a decent axe later on :) )

maybe add some fame to the cost - it's already the "hero currency" required for attracting heroes and building henchmen -i think buying champion gear could be an alternate option. this way you could also spend fame on stuff to improve your few chosen heroes and aren't forced to pick up more of those guys if you don't really want/need them.

 

 the mundane items such as basic short swords or chain armor could be made cheaper, i agree with that.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top


I was a bit thrown by your mention of toxic bow, isn't that pretty awesome? I seem to remember having to lean back from the screen in surprise because it did so much damage when my sov used it.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

hmm to be honest, i don't really know - i just remembered some item names that i picked up over the last few campaigns. maybe i messed up my list -if that item is too powerful, just pretend that i wrote something less powerful :)

they could also just create "masterwork" versions of some of the baseline troop items (maybe 50% more att/def than the default item) for the champions and leave the current champion loot as drop-only. if you don't find anything useful, you can at least buy your champs masterwork longbows/battle axes etc. instead of the basic mass produce items. 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Along those lines, it would be really great if it could show ALL items, but have the ones that aren't unlocked as greyed out. Kinda like what's done for troops.