Massively exclusive: Luvinia Online equipment education
Gear in MMOs isn't just about making a fashion statement; it's often the difference between life and death, success and failure, envy and pity. So it is with Luvinia Online, as gear will be a primary focus of any adventurer who doesn't want his lifespan to be measured in minutes.
Outspark has been gracious enough to treat us to a comprehensive introduction to how gear works in Luvinia. On top of the expected stats and rarity values, Luvinia has a few interesting ideas about how to modify gear and trade it between characters.
Luvinia Online finished closed beta last month, but is heading for open beta fairly soon. Hit the jump to start your edumacation in the fine art of equipment, courtesy of the development team at Outspark.
Why You Want It
While you may choose the gear, the gear also chooses the hero. Along with helping make your character look dashing and debonair, the big reason players want gear is for the stats that come with the items. In Luvinia Online, there are six main stats and two minor stats for players to focus on, and here's a brief overview of what each stat does:
Strength (STR) – Primary stat for warrior classes that increases physical attack power as well as add some critical strike, defense, and dodge.
Agility (AGI) – Primary offensive stat for rogue classes which increase physical attack power along with hit rate, defense, and dodge
Stamina (STA) – Defensive stat that increase a player's health pool and hitpoint recovery rate while also increasing your physical defense and resistance to toxic, stun, bleed effects.
Intellect (INT) – Caster stat that increases magic attack power and magic crit chance
Wisdom (WIS) – Caster stat that increase spell cast rate and magic crit rate
Spirit (SPI) – Defensive stat that increases your mana pool and mana recovery rate while also providing magic resistance to paralyze, root, and mesmerize effects
Charm – Increase the successful bargain rate with NPC merchants and increases reputation gains with factions.
Luck – Increases occurrence of rare events
On top of gear having individual stats, there are also certain stats for collecting a set of gear. These gear sets are focused around helping a particular class fulfill their role better in a group, and so collecting the set helps your hero shine.
Where You Get It
A warrior in the world of Luvinia needs to be prepared against the perils, and because of this there are many ways to find the vestments of a true hero. Gear can be obtained in one of three manners: adventuring, purchasing, or crafting.
Players that kill tough monsters or complete quests in the game will find a nice variety of armor pieces to help them in the quest for glory. The rewards from quests during an adventurer's travels will help ensure proper gear for their level and a health progression. Monsters also randomly drop gear when defeated, with tough bosses dropping some of the best loot in game
When it comes to purchasing your equipment, you can take the easy route of ponying up some hard-earned dough for gear at a local merchant. What's even better is that if you have a good Charm rating, you can sometimes even finagle a lower cost for what you are trying to buy. Another method of buying gear is using the player trade system in which players can buy and sell items from one another to help get the exact gear that you want. One last way to purchase equipment is through your prestige in the game. As you run quests, dungeons, or do other tasks in the game, you'll gain medals which can be used to help purchase even better items. The prestige system helps players work towards the items they want without having to rely on the luck based mechanics of random boss drops.
The final manner of gaining gear is though crafting them on your own. We'll go into the process of crafting gear in future feature, but crafting does allow players to make some of the best gear in the game, though not without some time, effort, and resources required.
How Do I Know What's Good?
So now you know what's on your gear and how you can get it, but how can one know if what you got is good without looking through an entire database of items? Well in Luvinia Online, all gear has a different quality associated with it. The scale goes as follows:
White – Ordinary, nothing particularly special about the item
Blue – Fine, slightly better stats but nothing to brag about
Green – Excellent, better stats and it shows
Purple – Superb, top shelf armor
Dark Gold – Legendary, extremely rare and hard to find
This allows players to easily ascertain the quality of the item and then they can look at the individual stats to see if the item is right for their playstyle.
Unleash the Energy
In an upcoming article we'll be discussing the enchantment and crafting system in great detail, but we wanted to preview one small way in which players can improve their gear, through energy stones. These stones allow players to add a special effect to their current weapon for a limited number of uses. There are a variety of stones to choose each with a different effect. Once the energy stone is applied to the weapon it is consumed, and the effect will last for a certain number of uses, whether it be on hit, on spell cast, or based off other factors. This allows players to further energize their gear and pick the energy stone that best fits the situation they are in: grinding a new level, battling PvP opponents, or taking down extra difficult dungeon boss.
Security in What You Own
So now that you've got the cool gear, what's the best way to make sure it stays yours? Well, in the game, a lot of the gear is unbound to the player, meaning that you can easily trade them to other players until it is equipped. Once you equip a piece of equipment, it will become bound to your character. If at a later date, however, you find that you have outgrown a piece of armor, you can purchase unbinding stones that allow you to make it back into a bind-on-equip item, that you can then trade, sell, or barter with for better items.
On top of being able to bind and unbind your gear, Luvinia Online also has a way of "freezing" gear to your character. Freezing goes one step further in making sure that the item cannot be sold, disenchanted, or destroyed. This is an extra security measure added in for those who might worry about bad things happening to their account and having the character stripped of all the hard earned items they've acquired. Additionally, players can also add a password to their in-game bank account, for top level of security.
