Hey Hunters, how are you all doing?

Today I wanted to try something a little different: talk about a system that is barely out of the drawing board, and could be one of the things that you will be doing as an endgame activity in Legend.

We are still a long way from implementing the items and gear systems, so talking about endgame concepts seems far-fetched. At the same time, I believe it is good to start thinking (and talking!) about these as soon as possible, to be sure they feel well-integrated into the experience and not just tacked on.

So follow me into the fascinating rabbit-hole of speculation and weird ideas, as we discuss the concept of the Item World in Relic Hunters Legend.

Item Rarities and Affixes

Very out-of-date Legendary item – notice it’s missing its Legendary and Intrinsic affixes

As you’ve seen in some of our preview images, items in Relic Hunters Legend have random attributes in them (like in Diablo or Path of Exile). These are called “affixes”, and the number and type of them depend on the rarity of the item, as follows:

Which affixes get assigned to an item is chosen randomly from a list that is based on the Base Item Type. For example, in the “Augmented Repeater of Razors” image above you can see below its name that its base type is “Light SMG”. This means that all “Light SMG” items share the same pool of possible affixes.

WARNING: incoming Math! Unless you are wearing your Glasses of Statistical Protection, simply skip the next paragraph.

Affixes also have random “rolls” that determine the intensity of the effect. For example, if an Light SMG affix gives you “Bonus Critical Chance”, it can range from +10% to +25%. These “rolls” follow a Normal distribution, which means that extreme results on both the high and low ends of the spectrum are rarer.

Ok, Math is over. What does this mean to players, though? If you want a specific combination of affixes on your Item it will require a lot of luck. If you also wish for a “perfect roll” in all of them, it becomes almost impossible, statistically-speaking.

That’s when the Item World comes in!

The Item World

We’ve been toying with some ideas on how to make the hunt for the perfect items more interesting and less reliant on sheer luck of the draw.

We know we want to give players the ability to manipulate item Affixes, as they would in a classic ARPG such as Diablo or Path of Exile. We don’t particularly enjoy straight-up “re-rolling” of items, though.

The problem with re-rolls is that it just becomes gambling with your in-game resources – the thrill of playing the game and dropping a cool item from a Champion or a Boss is what we are looking for here, not just farming for X amount of resources and then playing a roulette to see if you get the numbers you want.

Our current favorite idea for Affix/Rolls manipulation is the “Item World”, a name and high-concept we took from one of Betu’s favorite games: the Disgaea series. It turns your items into actual content, not just rewards! This is how it works:

• Players who venture to a location called “The End of Time” will be able to interact with a mysterious Timekeeper NPC called “The Collector”;
• If you have an Epic or Legendary item, you can talk to The Collector and ask him/her to open a passage to its “Item World” – a physical representation of your item’s timeline, containing all of its history. You will be able to enter this “place” and manipulate one of your item’s affixes.
• The Item World will be a Dungeon generated from the base item type and level of your item. You will also choose which Affix you want, and it will turn into a Champion enemy with abilities related to that Affix. It will also be stronger the closer your Affix is to its maximum possible roll;
• If you enter the Item World and defeat its Champion within a given time limit, you can Capture the Champion. This will remove the Affix from the item, but reward you with a very special item called a “Timelocked Affix“. More about that below.
• If you fail, the Champion escapes and you will have to re-open the Item World and try again if you wish. No damage will be done to the item.
• To open the passage to your Item World, the Collector will charge a fee that will be significant for Legendary items, but less so for Epic ones.

With your shiny new Timelocked Affix in hands, here’s what you can do:

• You can put it straight into an item of the same base type that has an open Affix slot. If your item does not have an open slot, you can enter its Item World and capture its Champion to turn it into another Timelocked Affix – this will free the slot;
• Timelocked Affixes retain their originally-rolled values, which means that you can put perfect rolls all into one item;
• The same item cannot have more than one instance of the same Affix, even if the values are different (i.e. you can’t add “+86% Critical Chance” to an item that already has “+51% Critical Chance”);
• If you don’t want to put your Timelocked Affix into an item, you can gift it to The Collector. By helping him/her complete the collection with all of the Affixes in the game, you can earn neat rewards and achievements.
• Maybe one day you’ll also be able to trade your Timelocked Affixes with other players?

Why this is exciting

This idea sounds pretty cool because it allows players to hunt for the “perfect roll” in their items in a very interactive and interesting way.

The item drops are also still interesting – even if you drop a Rare item, there’s still a chance that it might contain a perfect roll on that Affix you need for your main Legendary!

It also removes chance from the equation when it comes to actually manipulating the Affixes, and turn it into gameplay! Going into a crazy surreal time dungeon to fight a physical representation of your Bonus Critical Chance sounds much more interesting than playing virtual roulette with your farmed resources, doesn’t it?

On top of that, it provides players with massive customization powers – pretty much any Affix that can fit into your item type is fair game. Hopefully this will lead to a lot of build variety and creative Affix combinations!

Finally, it gives completionists a neat reason to go item-hunting in search of the missing Affixes for The Collector.

So, what do you think? You can leave your feedback on the original Kickstarter post or, preferably, at our Discord server. We would love to hear your thoughts, ideas and feedback!

Cheers,

~Mark