Enchantment, anyone?

I replied to this on the email, but I don't see my reply here, so this may result in a double post.

The problem with enchanted gear is that if everyone has enchanted gear, no one has enchanted gear. What you end up with is normal gear, since that will be what everyone will be carrying. If enchanted gear is the new normal, why even have it at all?

If I repeat myself, it's because people repeat themselves with same lame requests. Let's have enchanted gear, lets have magic gear, let's have epic gear drops, and it all boils down to the same thing. You end up with everyone having the exact same thing anyway, so where is the carrot? It's an illusion.

Everyone may as well have the same stock gear just as it comes from the crafter. At least that method is much less of a pain in the butt than getting a new sword from the smith, then running to the enchanter, then running to the priest to have it blessed, or whatever silly 'enhancement' someone is going to suggest next, because they think somehow that is how they are going to get something 'special', when in reality, it's just a tedious way to get exactly what everyone else is getting.

I've seen it to many times for it to be of any interest.

 

gear = crafting

 

@Owain I'm certainly not going to argue on that point but I will suggest that perhaps a clever combination of variety and rarity may alleviate that problem a bit. The argument you're making here is precisely part of the reason why I prefer a 'low magic' world. If enough people have the same thing it's no longer special.

However, I'd rather spend what time is available to us here to look for ways of solving that problem. So I'm curious. How would you approach this? Should we not have player crafter enchantments? Or is there some other viable restriction we can put on it.

My current thinking is the utility rather than power approach. It also might be an interesting dynamic if most enchantments only came on loot. But the risk there is having a limited number of potentially overpowered players. When everyone should have the same opportunity. Still, loot only forces you to make decisions about what to use and when to use it.

 

I think all we need is player crafted weapons. Since gear wears out and has to be replaced, every time you replace a weapon, do you really want to run to a smith for a sword, run to an enchanter for an enchantment, run to a jeweler for the +2 ruby of agility, run to the shaman for the blessing of the bear (or whatever), and then run to the tinker to have him add a bottle opener? And that's just the weapon. You want to do that for every piece of armor as well?

Just give me my new sword, and keep the bogus gear grind to a minimum.

 

lol but a bottle opener would be a great addition I should think but seriously I did consider this in part when I suggest using gems for the enchantment.. rather than having it redone all the time you take the gem off the old item and have it mounted on the new to cut down on the tedious aspect of having new gear made.

I guess it should also be said that no amount of enchantment should make you unbeatable by someone with no enchantments.

 

Then the enchantment is purely cosmetic? If so, why have it? If it is necessary, then everyone will get it, and it will be one more tedious step when replacing gear.

 

Right now, I suffering through legendary weapons on Lord of the Rings Online. At first, it was cool. Now I have a golf bag of weapons, one for undead, one for ancient evil, one for orcs, one for the unseen, one for beasts, and one for general purpose. Each weapon has fittings, gems, gem settings, and another player crafted doodad to afix to it, and each weapon has about 8 attributes that can individually be upgraded. It is an incredible pain in the butt, because every 10 levels on the darn things, you have to reforge them, and redo all the attributes. Recently, they had an update that required me to redo every legendary weapon in the golf bag I have to carry them all around. That took me about a half hour of just button clicking before I could do anything. Fun fun fun.

I would prefer if they chucked the whole system, and let me carry just one weapon. Let ME figure out the best way to use it against orcs/undead/etc.

Features like this are cool the first few times you use them. SotA is going to be around for 5 years or more. After the hundredth time you have to screw with something like this, it makes you want to say cram it. I'm going to play a game that doesn't bore the crap out of me with tedious busy work like this.

 

Now you should know me well enough but now to know I wouldn't suggest something like enchantments to be simply cosmetic. Just not overwhelmingly powerful. RG doesn't want exponential increases in power with leveling.. so I should think that would apply to item enchantments as well but if they have no use at all then there's no point.

It's all about striking the right balance which we unfortunately can't do until we have a game to play.

 

Why bother having crafting then?

 

Do I need to belabor the obvious? Items need to be made. That process can be as laborious and annoying as crafters are willing to put up with, and if that included jewels, and quenches in potions, and arcane rituals on the part of the smith, I'm fine with that, because that is something I don't have to mess with. I'm looking for the finished product, not something I need to fiddle with forever after, as I mentioned is the case in Lord of the Rings Online.

 

Well you don't want cosmetic and you don't want enchantments.

Pretty much is all that is left is making a normal item. That's not fun or rewarding

Haven't played LOTRO in a year or 2 but I liked the crafting systems. It's better then the EQ2 system, that's for sure.

 

Enchantments? Yes please, in any way you can fit them into the game. I have always found it interesting. While I shall never craft, I will hunt and loot things which will allow me to modify my stuff.

Duke don't mind Owain much, he is very vanilla, I've no idea what really excites him about this game since all I've seen from him is that he wants to form some sort of quazi nazi police force.

I have to say I am surprised, there are some interesting ideas having been tossed out there. But Acid, an apple tree? LAWL. Now, where is my new battle axe of Apple Bane +69? Can't find it! Hey, guys, have you seen George Washington?

 

Hehe.. I sort of agree with you insanemembrane.. much of what owain has professed as his idea of what makes an MMO good I completely disagree with, Sounds very boring/uninteresting/very little to do.

However, I do agree with the sentiment that excessive item modification is a bad thing. I would not condone a combination of jewel setting and enchanting and applying +armor +damage bonuses via sharpening stones and patches... 1 item modification, that is it. I didn't like all of the item modification in Wow..Why make it so you Have to buy all of these things since you can't be all of them? I was buying tons of stuff at the AH because your 1 character can't make it. I'm fine with buying things from other crafters, but item modifications just annoyed me. I didn't mind buying some crafted cloth/leather/plate armor and weapons, the modifications just annoyed me.

So, key things for item modification/enchantment

1) Make it so Most people can do it, don't make item modification part of a certain crafter's abilities.

2) Make it part of the system of removing items from the game (destroying items) This keeps crafters busy/necessary beyond the basic durability loss. (I want people to be hungry to find/buy items)

3) Don't make it necessary, a slight boost? yes please. necessary to be competitive? no.

If enchanting/item modification follows those rules it becomes something else to do for those that enjoy that risk/reward. You don't like it? no worries, you don't have to in order to be competitive.

Crafters will already be in high demand for repairs and making our equipment, So I propose it is linked to some non-crafting ability.

 

I personally like magic items, but I have played low magic games and understand the appeal.

What if enchantments was ritual based to be not only expensive with components but required specific locations at certain times of day or season? In addition, these enchantments could wear as well lasting longer than a normal spell but still something that waned with time. Enchantments don't necessary have to be something powerful.

For example:

Enchant your weapon to glow in the dark.
Starts to dim after 3 weeks during which weapon takes %5 more short term damage during combat.

Requires:
Enchanter and 2 Mages
2 Clear Gems (consumed)
A Focal Apparatus (craftable, consumed)
A weapon (chance of long term damage on failure)

Ritual:
By Moonlit Lake after midnight on clear night.

This would be a great group activity to enchant weapons. With damage to item it has a risk vs reward to the decision. You also can only produce as much as component, people and location/times are available. However, I imagine this would be no easy task for the Devs.

 

I admit, I'm a little surprised at the backlash at what I thought was a pretty cool idea.

Nobody wants to turn the game into a "gear treadmill" or whatever. I was only thinking of spicing up the crafter economy and increasing, just a tiny bit, the amount of customization one gets with gear. The time, gold and effort it requires to create an enchanted piece of gear would be the balancing act, and the rewards would generally not be overpowering and certainly not to the point of "I need this weapon in this zone, this weapon here, this weapon over there..." causing people to lug around 7 suits of chainmail and a dozen swords just to be "viable" or what have you.

I'd much rather see twenty variations of long swords in use than just one. If this is such a bad idea, then isn't being able to craft "superior" versions of equipment and even the affinity system a bad idea too?

But again, it depends on how its implemented. Giving a huge bonus to anything is certainly not conducive to the itemization and even PvP/PvE environment as a whole, but original enchantments can add a whole new layer to the gameplay.

Think those cool little unique magic items from the old D&D days - masks of waterbreathing, bags of holding, daggers of returning, boots that let you walk on air, swords that talk, gloves that create fire...

The possibilities here are far greater than lolgearcheck.

 

Check out my "Gear Race" thread. I suggested maybe allowing 1-2 slots on weapons or armor to add augments. Maybe weapons, wands, spell books, etc could have an enchantment placed on them as well.

I haven't figured the whole concept out yet, but i'm working on it

Looking at capped gear stats then 1-2 augment slots +/- an enchantment. The augments can be interchangeable and the enchantments could be used as buffs in a limited fashion (1/hr , last 3min, etc)

Augments made via crafters , enchantments via alchemy / magery ? Something along those lines.

Different encounters may require different sets of augments/enchantments.

Example: An undead red devil might be more susceptible to a Silver augment and Frost enchantment.

 

I may be over reacting to my current annoyance with Legendary Weapons in LoTRO. They overdid it to the point of aggravation. I'd rather the devs err on the side of caution in SotA. I'd rather have too little than too much, and it's very tempting to do too much. Too little keeps you hungry for more. Too much makes you wonder why you are putting up with this nonsense.

 

@Owain : Totally agree, the Legendary weapons in LOTRO is what made me leave the game. I have to level my weapon now? I didn't get it.

 

And talk about screwing over crafters! Anyone who had a weapon smith had to wonder, after Legendary Weapons at level 50, "Why the Hell did I spend so much time and money to learn Weapon Smithing???"

 

LotRO's system does sound terrible, and I admit that there is merit to the argument that if implemented poorly an enchantment system can break the itemization to the point of making all other gear obsolete (nearly instantly). That's why you have to do it right!