innociv.. you impress me yet again. i remember when I 1st started reading alot of your post I disagreed with alot.. but this is impressive. well thought out

Yeah the more we discuss this the more I like it .

I'm sold already, I love it, I'm just trying to come up with something to refine the internal workings. It is true that there is a fair amount of complexity, and making that complexity appear simple but deep is key to making it work properly.

First off let me say this sounds like a great improvement on the current system.  It will logically group items by the stats they give.  It would be easier for new players to simply buy an item in a store and then expect that they can upgrade the item to better but similiar stats.  Intuitive is a good word to describe this method. You earned yourself some +Karma my friend.

Secondly, let me say I don't understand this "I don't study games" mentality.  If you want to be the best at a game you will have to play it often and "study" it.  There is no reason why some new player should be able to pick up demigod and beat an experienced player.  I agree the overwhelming factor should be kept to a minimum but eliminating deep strategic decisions is not the way to do this.  Allow the beginner few choices in the beginning then it will branch out as they have time to learn the upgrade trees for the item.  In conclusion, Demigod has been stated many times that it is going to be a competitive game like CS or DotA.  If the fact that the game is going to have deep strategy and skill requirements to be good then Demigod may not be the game for you.  You can still enjoy it on a casual level but don't think you'll be awesome if you never want to spend anytime actually trying to get better. BTW this isn't an attack on anyone particular just me ranting about how we can't sacrifice strategic depth just to make it so anyone who picks up the game understands it completely in 50 minutes(try to name any competitive RTS/RPG style game where this is true).

Nice idea innociv!!. I got some more idea to share too. How about there's 1 upgrade blacksmith that do as you explain, upgrades things. But i think starting with basic gear that has no stat boost at all and start upgrading from zero is better, no need to buy any base item at all. This way it'll become like a skill tree with gold instead of exp. But it will reduce the complexity to choose between every base items and have to consider all upgrade paths and stats. 

Now for additional idea, how about we have 1 more shop, to add 1 "special passive ability" to items. Like you choose a boot, and add life stealing on it or choose a helm and add reduce cooldown. Just add those "Passive" things on it, to reduce complexity of the stat upgrade tree.

And for another ultimate shop, add 1 "active skill" to your items. This way we can throw away the Artifact shop and just put this shop instead. Less items with the same result. Of course this active skill upgrade should cost more gold to do than PASSIVE and normal stat upgrade.

This way people will have it easier to get what they want. Let's have a look at the example :

1. i need some thing that boost my armor!! ---> go to stat upgrade shop to get upgrades in armor branch.

2. Damn i can't run away from my enemies, i need teleport!! ---- > go to Active skill upgrade shop and get blink upgrade on one of the item

3. our team lacking in overall damage, what should i do?? ----> go to Passive skill upgrade and get +Damage Aura upgrade.

And for the dev team, it's easier this way since we no need of new items and unique skill tree upgrade for each items, just 5 trees for stats (1 for each type helm, boot, armor etc.) 5 sets of passive skills to upgrade (1 for each type same as for stats) and 5 more sets for active skills.

Why having different sets for each type of item? That's for balancing purpose. Say, you can't make all your items have +25% walking speed, or you can't have all Active chain lightning for 5 of your slots to spam (making it have the share the same cooldown just make it frustrating for new player that think they can make uber chain lightning spam).

Hope these idea help out

   I don't think starting with a blank item is better though.
   I think this way is better because the devs can still control balance.
   I think it's ideal to have the tree exactly like that for each item. 2 choices for the first upgrade(upgrade 1, or upgrade 2), 2 choices for the 2nd upgrade(the other upgrade, or lvl 2 of the current upgrade.)  And then the last upgrade is forced based on the first 2 upgrades.

  Like one item should have a +damage aura, yeah, as one of the 3 paths.  But you might have to choose upgrades before it that you don't like.  (Like in my example say I want that middle example that gives all "%chance skills/abilities a 10% increased chance to trigger".  I might want to have higher IAS instead of some IAS, some amor, but I sacrifice some IAS to get that bonus instead of the double-hitting chance.)

  I thought about single level upgrades(have items like the current ones, have like a lvl 2 and lvl3 upgrade that boosts its stats across the board, maybe adds a new stat at hte very end.)  And I thought of being able to simply add whatever you want..
  But I think this way would be best for the variaty, gameplay, and flow of the game.

  If you could just put any upgrade to any item, people would be more likely to always pick the same ones.  The tree requires you to make choices

I think what they mean by a blank item is that it would be level 0 and upgrade to the level 1 items that you would put in the store.  This would let you combine the store and the blacksmith and have only one building to click on.

Actually, what i mean is just like putting 5 base items into a starting point of the tree, it'll be easier to consider all the possibility of upgrading in a single page. Better than clicking at shop to see base items and then click on upgrade shop to see how we can upgrade them.

What i mean is there's still a tree for stats boost as you suggested, just passive and active to be added. And not you can add any, there's a set of skills to added into boot for example: you can add only +10% movement aura, +10% armor aura on boot. We can make balance by changing cost to add the skills and removing skills from this set.

This way the combination is so vast and you can make it suitable for countering your enemy play style during the match. Say if you are forced to get ability depend on the upgrade stat tree, sometime you may end up getting some stats that don't really needed and that's not the best for the situation you're on for sure. Also i consider this to be a way you can get active skills earlier in the game by just getting active skill first, stats boost later. but yeah the cost should be reasonably high to balance thing out between choosing stat boost and active, passive skills bonus.

Ahhhh I see what you mean.

Have blank boots and you upgrade them to "Boots of Strenthening" for example.

Not a bad idea but i think it works out the same.  If anything it might be more confusing with people seeing blank items in the shop.

The only way that'd work intuitively is if you started out with blank helm/boots/gloves/etc in your inventory, with no shop for them, and you go right to the "blacksmith".  But the issue i'd have there is that i couldn't pick 2 boots, or 2 breastplates.    I personal want there to be some stacking.
Otherwise people would be like "why do the items in shop have no stats??" if you could pick two boots there.(two boots of a different type, of course.)

Ah, please let the Artifacts be something special. At least they're artifacts!

Let them be good but expensive. They shall have the potential to turn the tables, support your domination or just give some cool additional gimmick. Like the -right now overpowered- Teleporting-Wand (posted something to this item in another thread).

Upgrading them wouldnt fit them, imho.

Also stacking is one thing. The most things should be able to stack like: Dmg, attack speed, move speed, crit chance, crit damage, mana/hp (+regen)

But also stuff that shouldnt stack like: reducing cooldowns (only Abrahams right now, but shouldnt stack its just to strong), dodge, chance on hit to activate something (exp. Lightning strike), also the % of lifesteal shouldnt stack.

An Aura + Item ok, but i dont like to see Rnd-DPS hero with 6x the lifesteal ring or stupid things like that. Maybe to keep it "real", you only can have 1 breastplate, 1 helmet, 1 boots, 1 gloves, 2 rings if you want and the additional cons + artifacts.

So long,

Aspartem

Yeah my idea is for that you can only have 1 type of item for each helm, breatplate, boot, ring and guantlet. This is for RPG sake!! Try visualize your Demigod wearing two different type of shoes!! And for another RPG sake, you can keep the artifact, but that is to "imbue" the artifact into your equipment so it have special ability.(an RPG setting for Active, Passive skills upgrade) LOL

Oh yeah they'll be more expensive, but I'm saying still have an upgrade path..  It would give more options for activatable abilities.

But i guess not having them upgradable is fine too.

And Abrahams isnt' the only thing that stats.  There is an rob too with -25%.  If you get both it's -50%.
I think EVERYTHING should stack because then you have a question of "does this stack or not?"  It's easier to answere "everything stacks" not a list of what does and doesn't
It's more than abrahams should be 15%, and the orb 20%, so you can only get 35% with both or something.  And life steal needs to not be overpowered like in DotA (I dont think it currently is, just saying.)

And you wouldn't be able to get 6x lifesteal ring because you can only have 1 of each item.  There might be two, MAYBE 3, lifesteel items across the board.

For the record i think using 2 boots is fine..  or 2 breastplates.  I don't think gameplay should be hindered because "lol wut i can put 2 armurs on mah ruk?"

And Zeneroth, I think it's important to have the tree how i described it.  There is the whole "do I want to buff this one (set of) stat(s) on this one item, because those are the stats i want the most?  But I don't want the "bonus stat" at the end of that line as much, so should i choose to go for stats upgrading i dont want as much in order to get the "bonus stat" i want?".  You can only use one of the same item, so you can't get 2 of them to get the stat upgrades you want and bonus stat you want all the time.  It makes you make more decisions, and it will help with balancing out the items with balancing out stat upgrades vs. the bonus stats.
You only have 3 upgrades to choose from on every item.
I think that's a very good dynamic.

If you think you should only wear 1 helm, 1 breastplate, 1 boots, 1 gloves, then instead of selling those items in the shop, the shop should sell "crystals" that have all the stats, and you put that crystal in ANY item you want.  So you have "of Strenthening" which gives 15% ias and  150 armor, and you can boot that in boots to make "boots of strenthening" or a helm to make "helm of strengtehning" in which case you have 15% ias and 150 armor helm.

That way you can still get all the items you want..

I do like this rather alot. Not much to say other than I support this idea.

Then they should remove the -% Cooldown , or reduce it to one item, and make all items "unique" so you cant wear two times the same item. Or something like that. If everything stack, you cant do something powerful unless for a huge ridicoulus price so you can only afford one in a normal lasting game.

I just dont like, it doesnt feel well for me. I can live with 2 Helms or 2 Plates etc. but no Itemstacking. With your idea itemstocking would be reduced anyway, because you have to upgrade it first etc. etc.

Nontheless.. Thumbs up for your idea

you CANT wear 2 of the same item at the same time.
There is two DIFFERENT ones with -%cooldown.

15+20% wouldn't be bad.

All items need to be balanced around stacking.  If some things stack, and others don't, it makes it confusing for new players.