Welcome to Gaia! ::

First idea: Potion Bases
Potion Bases are, essentially, a catalyst and filler material, sold by Nicolae.
Potion Bases would, for a relatively small price (5GC for a single, maybe a discount if you buy in bulk.), allow players to create their own powerups.

There would be two general types of potions craftable with these Bases.
The first would be "Basic" Potions, which have effects similar to current powerups.
These would require loot, in fairly decent amounts, to create potions.
While you wouldn't be able to create currently-existing powerups, you could create similar ones.
Taking a Potion Base, a dozen Clutch Claws, some Garlic Essence, and some Stems, one can craft a Simple HP Potion that increases your current HP by 15%.
A Potion Base with some Snake Eyes, Wing Tree Leaves, and a couple Twigs makes a Simple Stamina Potion, which gives you 20 Stamina upon use.
Note that these are all ingredients that are obtainable within the first few areas.

As you progress through, you'll gain access to new loot, which will let you make "Advanced" or "Expert" HP/Stamina Potions, which would heal, perhaps, 30% and 50%, respectively.

Other things, such as the rewarding and requiring of Crafting-related badges, could make potion-making and crafting a sort of profession on Gaia and within zOMG!.

To give an example:


You get the idea.

This would have a secondary effect, making powerups cheaper and more common, meaning people will be more likely to use, and hopefully become somewhat dependant on, using them.

There could be a number of other potions to make, as well.
Grass Fluffs could rarely spawn as "Lucky Clover" fluffs, which drop Four-Leaf Clovers, an ingredient in a rare luck-boosting potion.

There could also be other craftable powerups.
The first to come to mind would be "Sweetheart Sweets", craftable with special Chocolate ingredients available only from Valentine's Day fluffs, which provides an effect identical to Sweetheart, only in a consumable Powerup form.

Which brings me to the second type of potion.

Potion Bases are made from a secret mix, one ingredient of which is *dramatic pause...*
Null Crystals. O:
Because Null Crystals act as both a dissolving and bonding agent, they're ideal for potion making.
However, it also gives them a secondary effect.
The ability to dissolve and absorb rings.

A Potion Base, when combined with a buff Ring, creates a limited-use Power-up Form of a ring, ideal for playing solo, or in small groups.

The specifics of this idea can be discussed, but here're a couple of notes:

The CL of the ring should have no bearing on the CL of the Powerup. We don't want people buying their way through the game again. So, when used, it's applied at the person's current CL.
IMO, CL should have no bearing on the Powerup created at all. But it could affect the number of charges. A CL1-3 Ring makes a 5-charge Powerup. A CL 4-7 Ring makes a 10-charge Powerup. A CL 8-10 Ring makes a 15-charge Powerup.
Again, IMO, Powerups should be set at Rank 1. Perhaps additional uses could increase the rank, or CL could increase the rank. If Additional uses, I'd up the number of charges per powerup mentioned earlier.
Should be obvious, but once a ring is used to make a powerup, it's gone. This works as an alternative to salvaging.
Perhaps set Powerups to be like Rings, in that you can only swap them in the Null.

Potions: One thing I know, this would flush out the loot out of the Marketplace and fast. Another thing I know, people would buy superchargers anymore.
Double-edged sword much?
Of course, you fix it with the "Potion base" idea.
This is pretty balanced up (read: *I personally* don't think its either brokenly easy nor too punishing to get), I'm impressed. There is one point I see hugely in favor though. Rewards for getting badges. That detail isn't being done enough justice with this. We still need some reward for playing the game long, and this could be it. Of course, someone ought to say its unfair that even if you have the components you can't gain benefit from it... :/ zOMG! is baby's first MMO isn't it? I thought MMO were advocating pointless grinding. (Oh wait, the gold nerf...)




I've heard both these ones before. Have you posted them long ago?
Even outside of the suggestion in general, I agree that we need more power up variety. stare
If we go into stats like this we would never stop again! Oh god, it's the new passive ring all over again! GAH!

Ring Powerups: Reading Diagonally, he following examples seem to be a solution to what to do with those HUNDREDS of rings we have, in conjunction to the above in case we just don't want orbs. I can't stress how damned weird its hearing someone say "OMG, I got 20 orbs from that!", when I'm sitting on over thousands of them myself. I must be one of the few people who actually adblocked orbs instead of gold.

There's one kind of pointless concept I'm going to talk about right now which is the "orbconomy". If we think about orbs in the same way we think some concepts of Gaia gold, we can try to see that it has a "granting point" and a "sinking point". Right now, the granting point is greatly exaggerated, that being, you can get so many salvage orbs that you can go past your TCL. As for the orb sink... It's non-existent. This is such a huge issue that there's suggestions for what to do with them all over the place.
This actually helps with that issue, well, just a bit. It cuts the entry point by a minute amount, while having some people spend a small fraction of their orbs in the craft. Gives us a reason to spend rings somewhere beforehand, so orbs end up being less of an issue.
It won't help that much, but it's a thought. sweatdrop

I like that CL has no direct bearing. Maybe it's for the best to just not add any Cl bonus to this in terms of "power", as it might end up getting out of hand, not to mention, the people who have most rings to spare are also the ones getting them at higher levels as well, so we'd end up seeing absolutely no lower CL ring market at all, not to mention people would abuse end-game... again.



And I'd rather both agree and disagree.
Unfortunately for your idea, I also don't like the prospect of overpowered features, at least so without a reason to have them.

FFTA2 had lots and lots of overpowered tactics. Kind of bullshit how easy some were to pull out. Incredibly gamebreaking how some could be (infinite loops gonk )But I forgiven the game when I saw "the last mission" which was a 5-in-a-row series of battles against CPU using tactics just as much bullshit as the ones I had... And on level 99 to boot. That alone made me just not care for the fact I steamrolled the game up until that point. All that overpowered feel eventually went somewhere.
But what does zOMG! have? Promises?
Still, if I had any power, specially if it was incredibly overpowered, I would get so, so mad if they added something like "durability" or "aging". It's just something I hate, specially in MMO's (not that many have done it, thankfully (I'm looking at you S4 cunts)). It's a cheap way to make the game longer than the point of "too long past long".
See, it's maybe just me, but I wouldn't like the prospect of some huge, awesome power if it had no reason to be placed in first place, and at the same time, I wouldn't be able to live with that power knowing that at some point, it would be gone, unless I kept working to keep it around, like a chore. And there's even the issue in the middle of both those conflicts, which is such a difficult to obtain power be found "too overpower" and be nerfed, after all my work was already placed into it.

Since we're touching the subject of overpower, why should anyone be allowed to equip more than one of these? talk2hand I'd screw gold and equip a bunch of defense charms, namely dodge. Can anyone say "The return of the Ninja Set"?

Also, I'd scrap that "taunt charm" idea, and maybe make a dedicated "tank" charm that uses both Taunt rings and Defense Rings to be crafted. Psh, let's not follow the existing sets so straightforwardly.

Ah yes, I forgot praise rolleyes
Another of those tiny little issues is player differentiation. This would effectively be the thing doing it as you put it, it'd make people approach "classes". Reminds me of the Ghi Auras suggestions actually.
We DO need that.

Sit down, truth bomb incoming:
The game is... easy, and you are punished for NOT being a freelancer capable of doing everything, as the crews tend to do taks in a more streamlined manner if anyone can do anything and do it as required, people aren't truly crewing, they aren't truly working together. there's no "dependency" to other players. Everyone is playing a solo game while taking advantage of the fact that you get more buffs and ghi stats around other people. The most you can do to be different is doing something people find "pointless", like being the dedicated "Adrenaline Spammer".
If the game wanted to go somewhere, it would need two things. Both an incentive to differentiate, and a punishment for not assigning roles. They completely ruined this with the "crew-wide buffs" update. To get it back, we either need to revert several buffs to single target only... or make something else that makes people prefer a play style. Oh, and of course, smarter and tougher monsters, no more mindless swarms. Otherwise, we'll end up having just new "Bucaneer Boardwalks" being added. Areas that no one really sees the point of as it's "more of the same", unless it is the new highest paying place.
This suggestion is one of the steps going that way. I've liked and supported any and ALL suggesting doing it. And I do this one as well.

Possibly, but like you said, they'd be getting money from Potion Bases instead.
That, plus, Super Chargers would still be better overall.
They'd be easier to obtain, since you don't have to gather materials.
They'd have more uses, and so you don't have to worry about replacing them as often.

I just want to get people using Powerups.
A perfect example is Arrows in the game, Mabinogi.
Arrows come in stacks of 100. As you run out, you have to drag more arrows out of your inventory, and into your secondary weapon slot.
It's kinda a pain to do repeatedly.
But, that game's Cash Shop offers Arrow Quivers that stack up to 1000.
It costs something like 30 cents, but it's convenient.
I don't do archery, but Exiled's bought a number of them.

My point is; Once you get someone using something, they're more likely to start paying money for a more convenient version.
Which is kinda what I'm hoping to accomplish with adding more, cheaper Powerups to the game.

Yeah, like I said, it's not a main point of the idea.
I don't think it's unfair at all that you need to play the game in order to profit from the game.
And really, you're going to get more than 50 kills gathering loot, anyway.
It's mostly just so you can't buy 2g loot off the MP and make high-leveled potions when you're still in VG.
You need to make it to Otami, to use the loot from Otami.
That's all.

Yup.
Last week, I believe.

It was in a fairly unnoteworthy thread, I believe. Surprised you remember.

That's just the thing.
Economies imply some sort of flow.
There's no flow. There's no more of an orbconomy than there is a dustconomy or a cobwebconomy.

One thing I didn't mention was the possibility of higher-ranking charms to require orbs regularly to function.
This could be done by having them expire after X days, turning from a "Divinity Charm IV" to an "Inert Divinity Charm IV".
From there, you can craft "Inert Divinity Charm IV" with 50 orbs, to make "Divinity Charm IV" again.

I have a ton of ideas for orb sinks.
I'll make that a tread, too, don't worry.

...and I'm going to stop there, for the moment, as I'm getting a tad hungry.
xD;

So I'm guessing the Divinity example is merely, well, an example.
Because, 8 stamina regen and 20 luck is quite a bit. And that comes in stack gonk .

Also, I think Red might have missed just how ludricous the requirements are. For the last one, you need a total of EIGHT of the the level 3 charms.

It's a lot. its a LOT of LOT! It's the one reason why I'm not offended with how abusive its power is.

*sees below*
or maybe he didn't. He's just of a different opinion on the concept altogether.

Which is why I'm trying to appeal to both that that "effective cap" I mentioned.
You'd be the type to go for the readily available I-III versions of several Charms.
I'd be the kind to go after the V version with reckless abandon, forsaking other Charms for the most part.