I've been playing about with the combat simulator all morning and have finally settled on initial stats for crystals. The system is going to be coded in a way that it can be changed at a later date if it is found to be unbalanced or leads to a lack of variety in crystal usage.

I'll leave it to players to work out the best crystals for the best items as it's incredibly complicated and situational. I imagine it will be possible to tailor make your item set-up to defeat certain players, for example... the exact usefulness of damage is based on your opponents armor and hit points. Having more speed or damage than required renders any excess useless and so on.

Fragments and Shards will not be socketable and can only be used to make larger crystals.

Null (Speed), Pink (Def), Orange (Melee), Green (Gun) and Yellow (Proj) Crystals:
Small +4%, Medium +8%, Large +12%, Giant +16%, Perfect +20%

Void (Armor) and Fire (Damage) Crystals:
Small +2%, Medium +4%, Large +6%, Giant +8%, Perfect +10%

Air (Accuracy) and Water (Dodge) Crystals:
Small +1%, Medium +2%, Large +3%, Giant +4%, Perfect +5%

I'm going to release with these values and no diminishing returns for stacking crystals on one items. Any changes to the system will come with free unsocketing of items.

The percentages of all socketed crystals will be added up before being applied. So 4 perfect fire crystals will grant +40% min and max damage on a weapon. Still lots to code and test, feedback is welcome and things will be tested on the Dev server before being implemented here.

Back in the office finally, although it's technically a bank holiday. More information about the crystal stats will be coming soon. For now I've added the gift boxes for this year, bit of new art work for you guys instead of the usual change of colours.

I've created a one off crystal crown to celebrate our move towards crystal socketed items along with a new gift box design (spared every expense)... Have fun!

Busy month is busy. I've got 2 days back at work then I'm off again until after the week end. Wedding preparations and a stag party in Europe if you're curious, which I'm sure you're not.

Will further delay updates as I'm barely getting enough time in work to keep up with my tickets and general maintenance. Last warfare round scores are below, again sorry for delays. I'm still alive, roadmap is still en route.

Warfare: January - March 2014
1: Blade of Dawn - 1,721,270 points
2: Outcasts - 1,191,800 points
3: Dark Flame - 993,470 points
4: Chapter - 561,800 points

Congratulations to all involved, keep collecting crystals they'll be useful soon!

Still working on some things, I'll be away quite a bit this week and next so things may get pushed back. I've been playing about with the combat simulator and reading the thread in the main forums. Right now I'm leaning towards diminishing return percentage crystals.

The problem with flat stat crystals diminishing or not, there will end up being a certain set of crystals that is good regardless of your build. Players will likely decide damage, armor, dodge and accuracy are what they care about and put the same 4 crystals on each item. With no thought given to the items they're going on.

The percentage based system doesn't have this problem. You would be a fool to put damage crystals in to a Rift Gun or accuracy crystals in to a Void Sword. You wouldn't want to use crystals to bolster the items weaker stats, for the greatest return you would want to boost their best stats.

My other concerns about percentages are then addressed by diminishing returns. Putting 4 damage crystals on a Void Sword wouldn't be insane because of the diminished return of each crystal of the same type.

In my opinion such a system would keep crystals varied, you also wouldn't be able to do broken things like put damage on your armor, or armor on your weapons, etc. Let me know what you think below.