Items with limited but renewable use

[jupider]

Okay, topics a little confusing, so I'll elaborate. I know some or even most of you have seen this mechanic in a particular online game revolving around wars between societies that are a secret, but I like the idea of needing one particular item to use another. Just one example, equip a slingshot in your mainhand and a dodgy cigarette lighter in your offhand, and you have a +Hot damaging ammo until you run out of lighters; then it's back to your random projectile bag (yes, of course you have one!).
An alternate (and I believe more creative) method is to create an LE "Item Launcher" (for lack of a clever name) that creates an extra equip slot (or allocates the offhand) for this purpose. You could equip any item that could be discarded or autosold into it and specific items could do additional/bonus damage (like the lighter) whereas other items would do normal damage (like, say, candy corn) while others did less damage (soggy bread) buy maybe had positive effects (like prevent an attack or delevel). It'd be a shitload more stuff to come up with every time you make a new item, but it may have positive effects on the economy if done right (items that seem to be flooding the market can have a desirable outcome when "fired.") Alternatively, to make combat more exciting, rather than have one specific item equipped that you can shoot, just have a combat button "Launch an Item with your Item Launcher" which brings up a list of all the applicable items in your backpack to choose from.
Obviously, if this were to come to fruition, a lot of kinks would need to be ironed out.
Start ironing.

[jimmyBUFFET]

*drool*

jupe is now the king of A.D.D. and also the king of good idea for the LE item he thought of.

-jB

[Cowboy]

Pros
-Good idea
-Would be fun
-More strategy is involved instead of just autoselling all items (some would no longer be useless)
-Would be a popular item

Cons
-A shit ton of work whenever new items are released

Maybe only certain (100 or so and more every now and then) can be fired instead of every item?

[commandermack]

Yeah, I'd consider cutting down the things that can be fired to maybe just not combat or useable items. So the list wouldn't include any foods or drinks or equipments or combat items, it would just include the useless leftovers like sugar packets and lighters and stuff. Asking for an item that is going to take over a month to get working right definitely isn't a good first step to getting it made. lol.

I personally don't like the idea, but many do, and that is what matters. Either way, I'd say wait several months after Beta release for the player base to increase before judging things worthless... more players = more collectors and such. Someone will want that worthless item.

[Gobberwart]

It's an interesting idea as a way to make "useless" stuff useful and that's something we're definitely wanting to achieve at some point. I'm not sure I like it as an LEI, however, because it limits the number of people who can use it, and I'm *definitely* not keen on anything that requires extra work every time we change anything. Maybe someone can come up with a way around that?

Mack raises a VERY interesting point with regard to the collectibility of "useless" items. People have an incredible range of personal reasons why any given item may be important to them but to nobody else. Taking KoL as an example... gobs of wet hair and wart cures... Not massively useful or interesting items on their own, but if your name happens to be "Gobberwart" it's a different story.

[commandermack]

You could make the items used by it deal damage equal to their autosell values or something, in random elements. lol.

[Cowboy]

Yeah, then Dazzling Chainmail Shirt would do 5000 damage!

[commandermack]

i think

Spoiler:

combining 500 of an item together

kind of makes it worth that. lol.

[Cowboy]

Yeah it would just either be overpowered or useless. If there was some tough boss you could beat it at any level. Otherwise there is no use.

[commandermack]

assuming it wasn't overly resistant to the element it randomly generated. lol.

[Cowboy]

In which case, it would be useless...