The one thing that is missing from this game is the chance for everyones character to be unique so why now let us design are weapons to look the way we want them and give them unique names because it gets boring when you see that everyone looks the same and the accessories don't really change the characters that much. One of my 5 star friends almost quit today because he was sick of looking like everyone else, and the fact that he had maxed out all of his stuff. Oh and by letting people design there own items you wont have to and depending on what parts they want to add to there stuff weather it be more shadow damage or more poison protection onto their armor you could charge them crystal energy. I know it would be harder to design and implement than im making it out to be but most of the players want originality toward their own gear.
Combining weapons and designing them
i wish you could desighn weapons. maybe the charge attack can vary on my idea of charge stones. a charge stone allows you to choose your swords charge attack when you bind the stone to the sword.
some stone scould have the qaulities such as:
1- charge attacks that over weapons already have.
2- a spreading wave attack that unleashes a staus and appears different to each. for fire, a wave of flame, for poison, expolding spores and so on.
3- other ideas
i say you should at least be able to choose a charge attack, and i know people are saying to just get another sword but imagine theres a weapon you love in everyway except for its charge attack. charge stones would replace it with the one they hold, charge attacks will also be stronger on weapons with more stars.
Its always fun in concept (very, very fun), but this becomes very hairy in PvP, and eventually goes down the road of "optimal builds" for PvE... which continues to ignore the concept of variety, and throws weapon balance out the window unless you, very carefully, build restrictions into the construction rules.
And just a note to your buddy, Pain. Its not the game's fault everyone looks the same.... whenever theres an opportunity for a mathematically optimal build, people will favor it. Even WoW, with its billions of armor models, is not immune to this. Guildwars sort of got around this by disassociating bonuses with armor models, and switched to a slotted system, but you still end up seeing the same 10 models since the pool is a lot smaller.
i suppose this might throw things a little of balance, but charge stones wouldn't do that.
This is a good idea but... To what degree can you change the weapons? If it's only looks then cool( destroys idea of accessories) but if it was actual attacks then OOO would have a hard time making all of this new material. Hit boxes of attacks and enemies would have to be changed, some players would be completely OP, and if there was a price tag on customization... Were gonna be charged out the wazoo! Lol
This is one of those ideas that sound awesome when you say it before it crashes into the cold-hard wall of reality, it would be a nightmare for balancing cause people would inevitably drift to (as was mentioned) an 'optimal' setup until the whole concept of been unique becomes self defeating as everyone would look the same, fight the same way, and have the same stats. There's a reason you don't see many games that implement something like this despite it been entirely possible to do so.
Of course people will complain and whine about this or that been OP, underpowered, etc. Of course if the devs attempt to re-balance things people will just shift to using the 'new' OP setup and the whole thing would just become a Sisyphus boulder push for the developers (Google it).
Plus if all you needed was a large amount of disposable income to buy all the best add-ons, UVS, etc, that would turn the game into one of those awful abominations where the winners are determined by who can flush the most cash down the toilet instead of who can actually play better.
If the issue is of appearance ONLY that is a different story and any sort of ability to make your character look unique is welcome (hopefully better implemented then accessories are now though).
oops
I wonder if it is possible to design equipment in game, freely. I think it always drops down to combining pre-designed elements. Even games with builtin map editors (like Sauerbraten for example) just offer a way of combining pre-designed stuff into a new map or modifying and existing map. To freely create your own equipment would mean to be able to create your own textures, grids, animations and effects and whatnot. How can this be made without using external tools? How many people would be able to utilize those external tools? You'd probably end up with just a few hackers and (semi) professional designers being able to make their own equipment. I wished everyone could do it, though.
Maybe it would be enough to pick your own colors/textures or even upload your own textures for every piece of equipment. Though uploading stuff that will end up being displayed on other peoples PCs can be quite a security hassle.
However, it would be cool to buy specific UVs into your gear instead of gambling. I would love to spend 1000 CE to add "Attack Speed Increased: High" to a weapon i already have.
Also, it would be nice to add UVs to equipment, that affects other equipment, like with the abilities of Swiftstrike Buckler, Chaos Cowl or Barbarous Thorn Shield, which affect attacks, even though they aren't weapons.
PS: Accessories add a number of combinations; so you can for example combine one piece of equipment with 8 kinds/colors of accessories here and 5 kinds/colors of accessories there. That equals 41 different looks of that particular piece of equipment. I think, that's a lot, because players equip multiple parts of equipment, too.