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Information is flowing out of Carbine Studios this week as we get another blog talking about crafting.
WildStar’s items are built on a system we internally call the Circuit Board Crafting System (CBC). This system is used for pretty much any piece of gear that you can equip. It is the basis for one of our two crafting systems, and is also used by non-crafters to modify their items. This post will focus on how we expect Modding to play out. Think of it as a teaser for crafting as well, which I know we are planning to talk more about in the coming months.
CBC consists of single Schematics per item that can be filled out with various Microchips that give stats and special abilities. Depending on the item’s level, it will have a base amount of Power that it can distribute between different stats and special abilities.
Keep reading to find out more.
Here is a brief example of how the mod system works and what the attributes are:
- Power Amplifier (Amp) – These provide additional Power to the item, effectively giving it a bigger budget for stats and specials. The item above has a Blue Power Amp, which in this case gives it 263 Power (roughly 26 stat points).
- Attribute Relay Chips (ARC) – These are casually referred to as Stat Chips. They convert 10 points of Power into 1 point of an attribute. They will convert all of the Power if they are in a terminating socket (the last socket in a branch), or some adjustable percent of the Power if they are not.
- Special Circuits – Specials are broadly defined as anything on the item that grants a special function to the item, instead of attribute points. They are subdivided into three groups:
- Ability Chips – These can provide a wide variety of bonuses from wearing the item, such as a chance to reflect damage, to poison an enemy, increased movement speed, or whatever we like, really. Most Specials fall into this category. The example above has an Ability Special called Power Shift. It comes from the chip with the crown itcon.
- Set Chips – These provide set bonuses. I will not be going into the details of this system.
- Item Challenge Chips – I will likewise leave this up to your speculation for now.
Ability chips seem like a very interesting way to develop items. It seems to me that it’s a bit more detailed way to do WOW-style enchanting, however in this case when you are creating weapons, you have a certain point total, and different ability chips seem to use different amounts.
More than that, there is a tease of another type of mod, Item Challenge Chips. I will speculate that this gives your weapon an ability to “level up”. By putting in specific chips, you can grow them by doing specific achievements. One wacky example would be that every time you fall from a certain height you gain falling experience. So the higher you fall from, the more experience you get until you level it up and get the ability to Slow Fall!
Seems like an interesting system.
In the end, here is what they have to say about their goals concerning the system.
Think about how this is going to play out in the Elder game; you may kill a boss that drops a vest that come with a locked in Critical ARC. You then have to kill another boss that gives an item with Chest-Only Special on it you can salvage. Now you have to track down a Purple Power Amp, and you have still have to figure out what you are going to do with the last two Attribute sockets.
So there you have it. We were going to wait to introduce this when we talk about crafting, but we actually have a really good reason to get this information out now: We are going to be creating a few new Item Slots, and we wanted you guys, the community, to give input on what those slots will be. It will be a lot easier for you guys to come up with some awesome new item types if you understand how our items work in general. Keep your eyes peeled for more information on this exciting, collaborative opportunity! The Community Team will be providing more information on this soon, so bug Aether if you don’t see it shortly. Image may be NSFW.
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You can read the rest of the blog by following this link and learn about how items are modded by using microships.
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