+15% Death Ray Damage Enchantment

DarkStarr promised us a weapons life drain enchantment from necromancy. However what we are getting is +15% Death Ray damage. While I want to believe this means +15% life drain when I strike with my weapon, but I fear it means exactly what it states, +15% Death Ray damage when you cast Death Ray with the weapon equipped. If this is indeed the case it is a poorly conceived implementation of what DarkStarr told us was going to be in the game. Beyond this a Death Ray damage bonus on a melee weapon is a waste of an enchantment. My melee deck has no ranged attack glyphs in it. +15% Death Ray damage would be marginally useful on a bow, but I have yet to be offered gem specific enchantments on a bow having tried both Tempest and Necromancy (I kept trying until the bows blew up on the alchemy table). +15% Death Touch damage would make much more sense for a melee weapon enchantment.
A life drain enchantment on a weapon is something I have wanted to see for a long time. DarkStarr's announcement was the most exciting development in the game I have heard in a long time. However like much I have seen in the game what was an exciting prospect has turn out to be a disappointment.

 

Agreed another poorly implemented tweak to the crafting system.

I do not agree that is should mean the weapon deal death ray effects but the skill if set up like this needs to be something selected from ( I hate having to say that). But if you are going to make them skill specific then they need to be something the player can choose. If they are just an added spell affect for the weapon then GtG.

But I agree with you I think it is exactly as worded and therefore another poorly implemented modification.

 

There is a life drain effect...it's just that you don't always get it as an option.

It's called "life drain" you can't miss it. (when it's an option)


Oh and I find the changes to the crafting system to be AMAZINGLY well implemented. I love them and I hope they expand on these changes so that we have 10 times as many options as we do now, for every tree and skill.

 

Thank you. That is good to know. How many tries did it take for you to get the life drain option? +15% Death Ray damage was offered every time I tried. I still think +15% Death Ray damage is not a very good option for a melee weapon. What about bows? Have you gotten any spell bonuses or spell effects on a bow?

 

I was lucky and got it on my first try.

I tried another 10 times and only got it twice I think.

 

Mmmm random crafting, so terrible, imo.
Portalarium sure loves putting random exactly where it's the most punitive. Random combat UI. Random Ranged Targeting. Random crafting effects.

 

The random crafting enhancements are the worst. They can totally render worthless many hours of tedious grinding in a single instant.

The other thing that I very much dislike is that enhancement is now a completely separate skill that is not tied in any way to the advancement of the main crafting skill. So, your ability to create say a "masterwork" sword is not based on your skill as a blacksmith.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the random stuff.
Last time I looked the Plan was to give crafters the ability to creat EXACTLY what the customer wants.
My guess is that we can Wave Goodbye to the random effects pretty soon.

 

I like it, as it's been implemented.

I think it does a good job not allowing people to flood the market with high level stuff. The big thing now is to get more options that keep players from spamming the crafting machines to get exactly what they want.

 

Two scenarios:

1/10 times it's life drain
3/10 times it's Death Ray
6/10 times it's something else

vs.

Recipe for Life Drain Enchantment = 10% chance of success (90% chance failure)
Recipe for Death Ray = 30% chance of success (70% chance failure)
Everything else = 60% chance of success (40% failure)

First scenario people can say "I have no way to predict my enchantment! This sucks!" (But at least you always get a result)

Second scenario people can say "I hate enchanting and getting nothing!" (But at least nobody can yell "I hate random crafting!")

 

Or it could be like most other crafting systems and you craft exactly what the customer wants, because you can pick from a list.

 

If you make it so easy to get what you want, then where's the challenge? The whole reason I've having fun is because I'm not guaranteed to get what I want. We ALL want the most powerful things, there's no mystery to that. But we all can't have that or the economy is harder to manage and crafters are going to be a commodity, not a specialty.

 

Random ≠ Challenge

 

Currently? The challenge is advancing the weapon skills, getting the gems, harvesting the materials, refining them, getting the recipes, and then skilling up all the necessary crafting skills.

If that's not enough challenge, make any/some/one of/all those steps more difficult, as in requiring more time, knowledge, or some other variant of "skill".
Just throwing a horrifically punitive RNG at the end is the epitome of lazy, imo. It also nullifies all the "challenge" (effort) of every other step, because it destroys all the end products in the process of failure.

And I don't want "the most powerful things" I want an item that suits my play style, my build, my character or my role. "powerful" is subjective, especially in group play.
Let me customize every aspect of my character and I'll play forever. Destroy all that time & effort and most would stop playing immediately. Once again, too much stick, not enough carrot.

 

Ah, here's the problem!

Everyone wants (and expects) to be self sufficient. That can't be the goal for the economy if we want it to be player driven and meaningful.

When you craft, you should not just be crafting for yourself otherwise you're not really a crafter, you're an adventurer that can craft. On a micro level that might be frustrating and is very different than other games that don't care about roleplaying and don't care about REAL player driven economic challenges (like where do I find what I need?).

But that's it, that's why you don't like it. Because the design (goal) is so that you can't make everything yourself, you have to get help from other specialized crafters.

 

How does random make any of what you just said valid?

 

Nope, that is not the reason, and I'll thank you to not put words in my mouth. Attack the message, not the messenger.

And I am self sufficient, and I have to be, to play in single player offline mode. ( I will play the other modes, too, never fear)
I can't need help from anyone to produce exactly what I want, in single player offline mode.
That doesn't change my opinion that random crafting is punitive and reduces the target demographic.

 

Wasn't trying to attack you. I used your words to conclude what seemed like a very logical stance. (and still does, even in single player mode)

Single player mode is very different in some ways. You could get help from NPC's of course, but I don't believe that's intended. For the purpose of this discussion however, it's very important to talk about single player mode in its own context however. Otherwise we'll never get anywhere in the discussion.

Which btw, I don't really care about because I'm talking about multiplayer.

 

Assuming we're talking about multiplayer, someone that doesn't want to perform all the necessary actions to "get what they want" can simply go to the open market and find a player who is. That person would be a true crafter looking to make a profit or working through the challenges because they put their time there, or both. There's no reason for any player to feel like they have to craft anything, you can go out and get gold some other way and buy what you want from another player.

 

Random doesn't determine who can and cannot be a crafter (nor should it). Also, the results (the what, not if) should not be random. This only leads to frustration.
The what should only be governed by your skill level. If you're not of sufficient skill then you can't make it with the better properties. If I know that I can't make something because my skill is too low then it gives me something to work toward and there's no frustration.