Blacksmithing Services | Patreon Weekly #164

Hey Patrons!

Firstly, there’s a new Shattered Secrets this week! $10+ Patrons will get to take a first look at some new artwork that might be coming in the future!

In this weekly I’m going to go over some early concepting I have for the blacksmith quest and rewards!

Basic Quest Concept

I plan to redesign the blacksmith’s quest to be a sort of minigame where the player goes into a sub-level of the dungeon in order to mine for ore the blacksmith needs. Some of the behind the scenes changes in 1.3.0 are helping enable this, as its now possible for the quest to take place in its own sub-map!

The player will have to dig for rare ores or gems while avoiding dangers. The area the player enters might have a time limit, or hazards that get increasingly dangerous, and they would be given the ability to mine through walls to find special treasures or bonus rooms. This might be reminiscent of games like motherload, where the ultimate goal is to get as much loot as possible in a limited time.

I’m currently trying to fully flesh out some of the quest details, such as how the level may be shaped, what enemies you may face, and what mechanics will limit the player’s exploration. Expect more info on this soon as I get into more detailed concepting.

Potential Rewards

Currently the reward for the blacksmith’s quest is pretty lacklustre. A free upgrade is nice, but it is very limited in its application and feels quite weak when the 3 other quests almost always give naturally upgraded gear.

My current idea is for the blacksmith to offer a variety of services in exchange for your help. The more ore/gems you’re able to collect for him, the more things he’ll be willing to do for you! I don’t have these ideas finalized just yet, but here’s a tentative list to give you an idea:

• Firstly, being able to reforge items isn’t going anywhere. While it is limited, there’s no real reason for this service to go away, and it will likely be fairly cheap compared to the other options as well.
• Another one might be just directly upgrading an item. This option would be pretty expensive compared to reforging and will probably only apply to low levelled gear. In this way the blacksmith’s quest might be able to provide an upgraded item similar to the other quests, but with a lot more flexibility.
• The blacksmith may also offer to harden an enchantment, glyph, or curse, to make it resistant to being cleansed by upgrades. This won’t be a 100% chance (that would make magical infusion pointless), but it should provide another avenue to upgrade items higher before risking losing an enchantment.
• Finally, the blacksmith may offer another reforging service that gives you new items. The player would sacrifice two items to get a new item based on the inputs. This would let the player use up lower tier items to get a higher tier, and possibly also let them transfer upgrades in the process.