Supporter newsletter 47

Supporter Newsletters
← #46 January 5, 2014	Issue #47 Published January 13, 2014	#48 → January 19, 2014

Issue

This is a copy of Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #47, published by Grinding Gear Games.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

You’ll all be happy to learn that Joel made it through his wedding, so after a few weeks honeymoon he’ll be back to continue work on Unique Maps again.

I’ve given Rory the task of writing up some thoughts on item design. Rory writes about downsides on unique items below:

The Upsides and Downsides of Downsides

This week, I’m going to give you some of my design thoughts on placing downsides on items. Not every item needs a downside and these rules aren’t set in stone, but they should give you somewhere to start when it comes to creating an item with a downside.

Adding a downside to your item is an easy way to boost the power of some other part of the item. It has always been said that a Unique should never be superior to a well-rolled Rare item, but by adding a potent downside to your item we can bend that rule. It can even enable all new ways to build your character, as seen on Lightning Coil.

Bad Downsides

The worst kind of downside is one that isn’t really a downside for the character that gets the most benefit from the item. Here is an example:

Take 100 Chaos Damage whenever you cast a spell +40% Spell Damage

Though the concept is sound, this downside is completely mitigated by Chaos Inoculation, and mostly inconsequential to Totem users. At the end of the day, we have to balance around the most viable use of the item, so though the item would be suitable for the Chaos Inoculation character after values were reduced, it wouldn’t be worth the effort for the non-CI character.

The only time this would be a good thing is if the item isn’t as powerful on Totem and Chaos Inoculation characters - This makes the item usable for normal characters if they spend the effort mitigating the downside other ways (Regen, leech etc.), and usable for the characters that mitigate the downside naturally because they get a smaller bonus but without having to pay the full cost.

The other bad kind of downside is one that is used on other items - If we made a ring that said “You can’t use chest armour”, it’d be effectively free to use with another copy of the ring, or with The Bringer of Rain. Again, this could be a good thing if you wouldn’t usually want two of these items, or it doesn’t synergize with a Bringer of Rain character.

Also of note, any item that can have a socket can’t disable another item. We broke all kinds of things implementing The Bringer of Rain, so never want to do so again!

Offence for Offence

There are a few kind of offence for offence items - My personal favourite is Void Battery. They’re generally hard to balance, but there are a few ways to make them interesting: less damage now for more later, or less damage for a more reliable average damage.

Defence for Defence

Another type of downside is one that penalizes one kind of defence but increases another. An example of this would be Immortal Flesh. Generally, we have to make the conversion lossy or the bonus to be very small, otherwise players will switch this item out whenever they need one defence over another, unless the defense gained is almost always inferior to the one lost.

Defence for Offence

Abyssus is a prime example of defence for offence - Put yourself at great personal risk for a bit of extra damage. Too many of these items will mean that some players that only care about damage dealt will take far too much damage, but generally we make sure the damage taken can be mitigated in some way by building a character around it.

Offence for Defence

With Hardcore leagues in PoE, an item that trades offence for defence is a very dangerous one to introduce - We try to keep these away from end game, or have the defensive bonus be one that doesn’t compound with other defensive bonuses. Blood Reaper is one of the few examples of this design type in the game.

Utility for Defence or Offence

These are hard to do right, and again we see very few of them in the game. The most notable example is Kaom’s Heart; Giving up the possibility of your biggest source of linked gems doesn’t necessarily reduce the damage of the character, but it reduces their flexibility and perhaps even the enjoyment the player may have. Not all characters are negatively impacted giving this up, but we still have to be careful with these.

We’ve only been talking about the two primary stats on an item rather than the balance of the whole item, but hopefully this is enough to get you thinking about adding a downside to your unique design.

Insider Info

Here is some concept art for distant future content:

http://i.imgur.com/X4RLLPG.jpg