WEAPON USE, BREAKAGE AND DETERIORATION SYSTEM

Before I start, this system is not directed at Spiral knights the game, but just for any future developed games in general. I just wanted to get some feedback on what you guys think and what can be improved.

1) Weapon use Durability:
1.1. During weapon use, the weapon will get dirty. This dirt can be monster blood/blood, mud, getting it wet, and other sort of effects. For every 10 minutes that pass while the weapon is dirty, the weapon’s durability will drop down by one. Some weapons take longer or shorter time frame for the durability to wear off.

1.1.1. Most dirt can be easily taken of the weapon by the player pressing a button for his character to throw that dirt off the weapon by swinging that weapon in midair. This allows the player to keep moving without having to constantly go back to town or carry a repair kit to bring back that weapon’s durability.

1.2. Weather effects:
Some weather effects can also drop the weapon’s durability if the weapon is not equipped with the proper protection. Weather’s such as rainstorms, sandstorms, snow, and others will get the weapon dirty if the weapon is not in a scabbard or equipped with a proper coating agent that protect that weapon from that specific weather.

1.2.1. This means that weapons like swords will be affected by that weather effects while in use when not in the scabbard, but can be rid of that effect when a player presses the attack button for his character to swing his sword and rid of that weather effect and quickly put the sword back in his scabbard.

1.2.1.1. But a weapon like a whip or a mace/club may not have a holster for the weapon to be completely protected by that weather. These weapons usually just have a strap that the player can equip on their character for them to carry the weapon, but the strap will not protect it from that weather.

1.2.1.1.1. These weapons can be equipped with a special coating to protect from that weather. An example can be to apply a bee’s wax coating to a mace weapon to protect it from the rain. Or to apply anti-freeze to a whip weapon to protect it from the snow types of weather.

1.2.1.1.1.1. The weather effects will not only affect the weapon, but also affect that player’s character. During a rainstorm, if a character is not equip with a raincoat or some other form of protection, the character will get a running speed percentage debuff for every piece of gear that is equipped without any protection applied to it. This means fast running characters will get slow and even slower moving characters will get even slower. Other weather types will create other sort of effects. It’s always good to be knowledgeable in this world.

1.2.1.1.1.2. Not all weapons are affected by every type of weather effects and not every weapon is as vulnerable as other type of weapons to the same weather effect. Steel is the most vulnerable type of weapon to most weather effects, but a weapon that is made of diamond is less vulnerable to most weather effect (But of course comes with its own flaw).

1.3. Extra:

1.3.1.1. Not all weather effects are bad. Some weather effects can aid weapon types depending on their attributes.
1.3.1.2. An example is a fire attribute sword will get enhanced fire damage/infliction rate in a volcanic sort of field. Or an ice attribute wand will get increase freeze status infliction and frost damage in a snowy sort of field.
1.3.1.3. The damage value increases though only affect monster types that are either weaker than the player’s mastery over that weapon or is not the attribute that the weapon the player’s character has equipped.
1.3.1.4. An example is if a player has an ice attribute wand and gets a boost in a snowy field. If the monster/opponent the player is fighting is an also ice attribute, then that weapon boost will not affect that monster. But if the weapon mastery of that weapon the player’s character has equipped is over or equal to that monster’s level (such as a weapon mastery of 80 which is higher than a level 30 monster), then that weapon damage boost will apply.

1.4. This weapon attribute can also be a negative if the weather type is the opposite of the weapon type. Such as having that same fire sword in a rainy area, then that weapon will get damage debuff when fighting in that kind of weather. Though these negative weather effects only apply if that weapon does not have a coating protection.

2. Durability in general:

2.1. Durability will never ever drop down to 0 in this world. The durability of a weapon does not determine that weapon’s attack power, but its status as the type of grade weapon it is. Here is an example. You have a steel sword quipped to your character. You keep using that “Steel Sword” for a very long time without paying attention to the weather or the dirt accumulating around that weapon dropping its durability fast. Once the durability drops pass a certain point, it will have reach a danger zone where the player has 30 minutes in game time to bring the durability over a certain threshold before the weapon goes through a permanent transformation. If the player ignores the weapon’s durability value while it’s in that crisis, the weapon will undergo the degrade transformation and turn into a “Rusted Steel Sword”. That rusted steel sword is now a weapon with a different skin with much lower attack power and maximum durability. This sort of downgrade transformation will affect every weapon in the game, but of course sense there is a downgrade transformation, there is also an upgrade transformation which I will talk about in a later time.

2.2. The color of the number of the durability of that weapon will indicate when that weapon is in that danger zone or if it’s over its maximum durability threshold. The player has to keep a constant heads up on the color of these numbers if he doesn’t want their weapon to go through a downgrade transformation.

2.2.1. The blue color is when the weapon’s maximum durability has been permanently enhanced through a blacksmith and has gone through an upgrade transformation (process will be explained at another time).

2.2.2. The green color is when the durability of the weapon has gone beyond its maximum value when it has been repaired by an expert/master blacksmith which is a temporary change in its durability value and will change to another number when repaired again.

2.2.3. The white/greyish color is when that weapon is at its normal standard value that it has been created with.

2.2.4. The (yellow) color is when the weapon is approaching the danger zone and can still be repaired without worrying about a time limit.

2.2.5. And finally the red color is when the weapon is in that danger zone and needs to be repaired pronto before it goes through that permanent downgrade transformation.

2.3. Weapon durability is reflected on more how the player uses the weapon and how much that player can spend time to take care of that weapon while going on their adventures.

3. Weapon use Attack power:

3.1. Weapon use will determine that weapon’s total attack. The more that weapon is used, the more sharpness/elasticity/edge it will lose.

3.1.1. For swords, it is sharpness. The more the sword is swung, the more its attack power will drop. Same thing for other weapons like a whip will be elasticity or blunt weapon its edge.

3.1.2. The amount of swings it takes for each weapon’s attack power to drop varies. Like a steel sword could take 200 swings while a rusted steel sword could take 50 or less swings. The value on how many swings it takes not only varies by grade, but also varies by the type of weapons. An example like a whip could take 300 swings while a spear could take 500. It a case by case sort of system.

3.1.3. The attack power of a weapon will never drop to 0, but can drop to a certain point that it will make it difficult to kill even the weakest enemy in the game depending on that character’s level/ and mastery of that weapon’s style.

3.2. The attack power of that weapon can be restored if you go to a blacksmith/crafter/or other field that can re-sharpen or re-establish that weapons need for each type of weapon. The player can also carry tools to do this, but will only increase the weapon’s attack power in small percentages. And will require the player have some sort of experience in the field of blacksmithing/other field.

3.3. I am serious when I say that a weapon creator will not only need to have knowledge of blacksmithing, but also other fields like crafting to create another type of weapon like a whip. Or to know alchemy to create a type of weapon like a mage’s wand.

3.4. Extra:

3.4.1.1. One last thing about weapon use is when it pertains to weapon mastery and weapon perks is that weapon attack power can also increase with higher weapon mastery and weapon perks.

3.4.1.1.1. The more you use a weapon, the more the mastery over that type of weapon will increase which will in turn increase the total attack power of that weapon.

3.4.1.2. And the more you use a weapon towards one specific creature (by getting their blood/monster part on that weapon), the more that weapon will gain a temporary damage boost towards causing damage to that one specific creature. The temporary boost will change the weapon’s title from “steel sword” to “zombie slayer steel sword” and can last for about 10 minutes. As that Zombie killer steel sword keeps killing zombies, it will have a title rank up to “Zombie eater sword” which will last for 20 minutes in game time and can keep ranking up until a 5th final rank with more increase time. The amount of kills to get that weapon perk is a set amount so that players will know how much time they will have to spend to get the highest perk on that weapon. Such as 100 zombies for a low damage perk to 1000 for a high damage perk.

3.4.1.3. These weapon buffs can become permanent if the player goes to a blacksmith that has a monster perk expertise in fusing monster materials with the weapon. A weapon can only have one permanent perk applied to it, but can have up to 5 temporary perk attached to it which means 5 slots total can be available on a weapon. Though for any perk to be active, a player will need slots open on that weapon that is available. If no slots are available, then the top slot will be pushed down and the new perk will replace the top slot and the bottom slot perk will be destroyed and the perk on top of that slot will be pushed on it.

3.4.1.4. For a player to change their permanent perk to a higher grade perk for that specific monster type or to get another monster type perk, they would need to gather the necessary materials and head to a blacksmith to either create the weapon themselves, or have that blacksmith fuse that permanent perk.

4. Weapon Breakage:

4.1. Weapon breaking is an integral part of almost any mmorpg game. In this system I have created, weapon breaking has more to do with chance percentage base on what monster the player is facing. The values that will clash for this chance to come about are the weapons attack power plus the player’s character attack power divided by that monster’s attack power. Then take that decimal value and turn it into a percentage value by diving it by 100 and that will be the percentage chance that the weapon might break. It might seem confusing from how I describe it, so let me give you an example.

4.1.1.1. First is the weapon’s attack value which could be a number like 200 and add that to the player’s character attack value when not equipped with a weapon (basically melee without a weapon) which could be 89. Add these two number and you get a total of 289. Divide that 289 by the monster’s attack power which could be 109. After dividing, you get a result of 2.5688. Divide that number by 100 to get a percentage result of 25%. This 25% chance is the chance that the weapon has to break.

4.1.1.2. Now once the chance for the weapon to break has gone through, the weapon will not break right away. The reason that is because the grade of that weapon gives that weapon so many chances before it breaks. A low grade like a rusted iron sword weapon could have 10 chances of the weapon breaking before it permanently breaks and either have to be sold or dismantled for crafting materials. While a high grade like a platinum weapon could have 30 to 40 chances before the weapon permanently breaks.

4.1.1.3. So this means that when the chance of a weapon breaking is 75% goes through and the weapon does break, then a low grade weapon would have 9 chances left while a high grade weapon would have 39 chances left before it breaks.

4.1.1.4. Now these chances are not always going to decrease only by 1. If a monster attacks and the attack value creates a percentage that goes over 100% such as a breaking percentage of 200% to 300%, then that weapon breaking will decrease by 3 or 2 instead of just 1. This means players have to be weary of the type of monster and how dangerous it is when facing it.

4.1.1.5. This breakage number can only be repaired or increased by the highest/rarest of materials found in the game. This means it is not something like a quick fix back at the blacksmith or repair kit. These sorts of materials are for players who wish to keep the same weapon and not use any other weapon for a while. Thankfully, finding a material to create the weapon is not as rare, though not inexpensive if you want to buy them of the market.

4.1.1.6. Lastly, Other sorts of gear such as armor, shields and other non-attacking gear such as accessories that give you boost will just use different values to calculate their breaking percentage. Such as armor using their defensive value + the character’s defensive value when not wearing armor. Then dividing that result by that monster’s attack when it hits the player’s character.

4.1.1.7. Extra:

Most weapon breakage can be avoided if the player uses counter when a monster is attacking instead of using their weapon outright to block the monster’s attack.