Following the release of our latest Developer Update earlier today, we wanted to put together a special Inflexion Reflections going deeper into what players can expect with crafting updates arriving in our Update 0.2 next week, as well as our vision for the system’s future. 

If you haven’t seen the video yet then take a gander below. 

CHANGES SUMMARY

With Update 0.2 there are several refinements to the crafting system. Some of the changes reflect feedback we’ve received since the last update, while others evolve core fundamentals of the crafting system as we continue to expand functionality and find the right balance for players. This isn’t the crafting system in its final form, but it is a significant step forward.

The most notable changes are:

  • The ability to stack attributes returns! You can once again use the same material multiple times when crafting gear 

    [Note:  In a future update, we’ll be introducing a soft cap and a hard cap system to make stacking attributes more sustainable and to continue encouraging crafting variety - see more below]

  • Items will now receive attributes from resources used in crafting - even if the item doesn’t possess the attribute originally. This benefits players with a lot more optionality in crafting (For example, if you're crafting a gun that doesn't normally have the 'Stealth' attribute on it, using a resource with 'Stealth' will then apply it to the gun)

  • The number of attributes has been consolidated and adjusted to make attributes more intuitive and valuable - making crafting more accessible while retaining depth 

STREAMLINING ABILITIES‍

Firstly, let’s get into that last point on streamlining attributes. The way crafting an item has worked until now is that an item has a set of baseline stats, and as you add new resources to the crafting recipe, those stats get multiplied by the resources. This means that if one of those resources has an attribute of zero, its output stat is also going to be zero. Unfortunately, we found this was unintuitive for some players. 

So for the next update, we've made a change that says if an attribute is on a resource, it will apply to the crafted item. If a gun you're making doesn't have the 'Stealth' attribute by default, but the material you're using does, then the gun you craft will now have ‘Stealth’ applied to it. 

To balance out the fact that we're going to have a lot more attributes on items, we're going to make a change across the board so that resources will have a reduced number of attributes pulled from three categories. Here’s the new list:

Resilience

  • Health Max (Flat Number)

  • Stamina Max (Flat Number)

  • Weight Limit (Flat Number)

  • Environment Resistance (Percent)

  • Injury Resistance (Percent)

Athletics

  • Melee Damage (Flat Number)

  • Ranged Damage (Flat Number)

  • Critical Damage (Flat Number)

  • Health Regeneration / s (Flat Number)

  • Stamina Regeneration / s (Flat Number)

  • Movement Speed (Percent)

  • Stealth (Percent)

Intellect

  • Magick Power (Flat Number)

  • Fire Resistance (Percent)

  • Poison Resistance (Percent)

  • Maleficium Resistance (Percent)

  • Ice Resistance (Percent)

‘Stamina Efficiency’ has been removed (players can improve stamina more effectively by other means), ‘Blocking Efficiency’ has been combined with ‘Injury Resistance’, and ‘Environmental Resistance’ is now one attribute (covering hot, cold, blight and wet resistance).

A excellent workbench

Attributes that we’ve removed (such as ‘Strength’ or ‘Fishing’) will now become part of the identity of certain items - so rifles will shoot farther, and the better fishing rods will fish better. Charms and Minor Realm Cards will still be able to modify these attributes. We also fixed a bug with magick damage scaling - it should now scale appropriately. 

This update across attributes and resource balancing will apply retroactively, so you will notice some changes in your equipment’s performance, including increases and decreases in weapon damage, health and magic power. However, this overhaul enables you to enhance any piece of equipment, offering more flexibility in how you gear up.

ATTRIBUTE STACKING

In our last update, we made some changes to players being able to stack attributes onto items in crafting. There were some issues with this system: it discouraged exploration and experimentation, there were a number of unintended exploits, and it also triggered a bug wherein it was bloating player profiles - preventing them from logging back into the game (we’ve subsequently fixed this). 

Originally, we had intended that players wouldn't be able to use the same material multiple times to gain the same benefit, because it would make players only ever want to use a few materials when they were making a crafted item. Instead, we were hoping that players would explore the world and find new materials to fit their playstyles.

When we updated this as part of the fix for ‘Infinite Stacking’ in our previous update, we discovered that players liked how it had previously been working - as they could focus on specific attributes and have more consistent colour options for gear. We have always valued this kind of feedback from our community, so we've turned this back on and are implementing it in a way that’s more designed and sustainable.  

a crafting menu

We know that in reverting back to attribute stacking, some players will be concerned about the lack of variety in crafting. We hear you, and we’re going to continue to iterate so that players will be encouraged to discover different resources and experiment with different builds that would fit their desired playstyle. 

One way we’ll be tackling that is by introducing a soft cap and hard cap system. As we’re now expecting players to put the same material into an item multiple times to stack attributes, they’ll eventually reach a point where that item starts to produce diminishing returns on its benefits - eventually reaching a hard cap. This feature didn’t quite make it into 0.2 but will be coming very soon.

And that’s it for today! We’re excited to share the 0.2 update next week, and to get more feedback on the changes we’ve made. If you want to chat with us about the latest update then jump into our Discord and we’d be happy to tackle any questions you may have. See you in the Realms!

  • The Inflexion Team

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- Nightingale Team.