ok lets get to the point, people hate modified cosmetics being rng based. this is a suggestion for vanity
i propose a new merchant in the merchant caravan who offers a new service: paints
when you go to him he’ll have 4 tabs and a quest available at level 130:
Buy, Sell, Contracts, Unpaint
the quest would be “Proving Your Skill” or something
in buy you can buy his paints for 500 galleons each, with a stock of 10 each. they’re all locked at first but that’s where contracts come in
sell you can sell stuff
contracts are where it gets interesting. you have a selection of 7 contracts, where each one involves digging up 5 treasure spots. there’s 1 contract per modifier, and in order to progress you must dig up treasure spots containing that modifier. it would only start counting charts after you complete that quest from the merchant asking you to prove your worth by fully digging up a treasure chart that’s uncommon+.
once you fully complete a contract, the paint for that modifier will be unlocked
unpaint simply lets you remove a paint for the same price as dying an item
HOW PAINTS WORK:
when you apply one to an item (and they can be applied to any item), it will not change the stats, but it will change the appearance and give it the overlay of the modifier. notably, the name will not say “modified” but “painted” (e.g. it wouldnt be Blasted Fighting Armor, it would be Painted Fighting Armor). additionally to prevent scamming there would be a red paint splat icon in the upper right corner of the item border, looking something like this
paint item mockups:
archaic
superheated
pros:
-adds more variety to the merchant caravan (currently its just a gem guy and a dyer)
-adds feasible progression towards vanity from treasure charts
-lets you give a modified appearance to otherwise unmodifiable items (blasted calvus armor lets go)
cons:
-possibly damages vanity trading economy -harms trout population
im just saying it wouldnt waste so much dev time if we do that
but hey the suggestion i made is cooler and adds more stuff for completionists to do (5 spots per modifier unless vetex lowers it)
Terraria dyes would be cool (specifically the kind that add effects to your armour).
Only way to improve this suggestion further would be to specify that it would make use of a blacksmith’s/dyer’s shop ui instead of a regular one, allowing you to directly paint your equipment (and hopefully weapons too) to prevent inventory bloat.
Overall good idea if it didn’t require vetex to script an entirely new type of modifier, but I quite like it (especially since it holds endless potential since there could be more types of paints than there are modifiers, I’m looking at you, terraria dyes).
like stocksounds said earlier it wouldn’t necessarily be a new modifier type, it would just be copy-pasting the old modifiers with new names and no stats
This change is like an envoy for the vanity items to be removed from treasure chart pools (therefore making them less grindy and terrible) without the main downside it would entail
