Suggestion to make Maxwell's Gear Mechanic More Interesting

[LDee]

Currently, there are 4 tiers of shadow equipment that scales Maxwell's damage:

• Tier 1: All amulets
• Tier 2: Magician’s Top Hat, Dark Sword, Night Armor, Thulecite equipment
• Tier 3: Bone equipment (when fueled)
• Tier 4: Shadow Thurible (when fueled)

In my opinion, there are two issues that if fixed would not only better balance Maxwell but also make him a much more interesting character to play as.

1. I think Tier 2 items are just too easy to get for a permanent buff to your shadow servants.  Experienced players can easily get these items within the first 5 days and when you consider Maxwell's duelists allow him to beat enemies without having to engage with them, your dark sword and night armor effectively never lose durability.  Because of this, I think night armor, dark sword and Thulecite equipment should all slowly lose durability scaled based on the amount of shadow duelists that are currently summoned. Lore-wise this makes sense as the duelists are drawing power from these equipped items.  This shouldn't apply to Tier 3 and Tier 4 items because beating Ancient Fuel Weaver, in my opinion, warrants an effective permanent buff to your duelist's damage.  This change shouldn't affect brand new players as maxwell's duelists really don't need any boost in order to effectively deal with non-boss mobs.

2. The second and I think more important issue is that since it's so easy to get Tier 2 items (arguably easier to get than T1), Tier 1 items will basically never be used.  To change this so that the player will be incentivized to use Tier 1 items, I propose that equipping an amulet adds an effect to Maxwell's spells at the cost of amulet durability.

For example, if Maxwell is using the Magiluminescence and summons shadow duelists, his duelists will get a speed boost or an attack speed boost at the cost of some of the amulet's durability.  If Maxwell uses shadow sneak with the Magi equiped, the shadow sneak will emit light until it is triggered.

Same for life-giving amulet: if Maxwell wears it, then it buffs the HP of his summoned duelists at the cost of durability.

Chilled amulet could make shadow sneak have a cooling effect until triggered, and have an AoE freezing effect when triggered.

 

I think doing this will not only solve the issue of Maxwell players never using amulets, but also make the character much more interesting by opening up more potential for innovative strategies that are balanced by the cost of making amulets.

[Cheggf]

Magi gives a huge speed buff which helps a lot for fighting. It losing durability just to offer a roleplay perk would be annoying.

[LDee]

3 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Magi gives a huge speed buff which helps a lot for fighting. It losing durability just to offer a roleplay perk would be annoying.

If you don't want it to lose durability, just unequip it when you summon duelists. Doesn't that solve the problem?

[Pig Princess]

I'm not sure how I feel about thulecite gear loosing durability: it's not that much of a buff, but most importantly loosing durability over time doesn't look interesting or fresh. If there were other conditions (more interactable), that could be another matter.

I also disagree about magiluminescence buffing shadow sneak (seems unnecessary and doesn't match spell's theme), but everything else - about amulets - look interesting. I would like to see what ideas OP has regarding green, orange and purple amulet, and as for chilling amulet, it could buff shadow prison in the following way: as long as player manages to continuously keep mob there (recasting should not reset timer), prison could apply freezing effect the stronger the more time entity is locked there, and maybe make entity in there perform actions rarier/with slower animations to certain cap (which would reset once shadow prison is broken).

Amulets themselves could use a tweak outside of Maxwell rework: it would be cool to have similar to chilled amulet effects on hit and/or with other way to activate it with certain (durability?) cost. Magi could create visually distinctive short-lasting trace were everything allied to players would be sped up; life giving amulet could heal some health upon hit at the cost of some durability, and preserve player from dying at the cost of it breaking entirely; chilled amulet could apply freezing in AoE; lazy forager could teleport attacker or player upon hit, direction could be opposite from attacker/player and distance could depend on hit strength; nightmare amulet could spawn 2-3 nightmares that attack attacker once and then despawn; as for construction amulet, I didn't come up with anything of such sort yet.

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, LDee said:

2. The second and I think more important issue is that since it's so easy to get Tier 2 items (arguably easier to get than T1), Tier 1 items will basically never be used.  To change this so that the player will be incentivized to use Tier 1 items, I propose that equipping an amulet adds an effect to Maxwell's spells at the cost of amulet durability.

For example, if Maxwell is using the Magiluminescence and summons shadow duelists, his duelists will get a speed boost or an attack speed boost at the cost of some of the amulet's durability.  If Maxwell uses shadow sneak with the Magi equiped, the shadow sneak will emit light until it is triggered.

Same for life-giving amulet: if Maxwell wears it, then it buffs the HP of his summoned duelists at the cost of durability.

Chilled amulet could make shadow sneak have a cooling effect until triggered, and have an AoE freezing effect when triggered.

 

I think doing this will not only solve the issue of Maxwell players never using amulets, but also make the character much more interesting by opening up more potential for innovative strategies that are balanced by the cost of making amulets.

Rather than making it the default I think a interesting idea would be Maxwell can enchant items these items giving the option to have these effects in exchange for making them passively break faster when equipped. But for this to really be worth doing I think Kiel should increase the durability of amulets overall(minus the magiluminescence since that one is already fine. I don't think magic items you just break easier on him by default however that would just make things needless annoying even if it seems more lore accurate.

[AdamWilson21]

To make Maxwell's Gear Mechanic more interesting, consider adding new and unique mechanics such as the ability to craft custom gears, designing and testing gear assemblies, and introducing challenging gear-based puzzles. Add a level system to reward players for their progress and incorporate different gear materials with varying properties to add depth and strategy to the game.