Mid-Tier Masterworking and Enchantment

I've been thinking about how to make Masterworking and Enchantment more fun for players, while keeping some of the challenge and penalties that currently exist.

Currently, the biggest issue is that failure (which occurs a lot, even with high skill), instantly destroys the item being worked on. This does properly limit high-tier gear, but it does so by deal the craftsman a harsh blow financially, as each attempt requires a ton of resources.

What I propose is to modify the "on fail" so that it continues to be a blocker for high-tier items, but does not instantly destroy the item being worked on. Failing a Masterworking and Enchantment would 1) "use up" that attempt, so attempting again on the same item would use the next lower chance of success, and 2) decrease durability. This can easily be done by adding another (unnamed) effect to the item, with no benefits and a -20 durability cost.

Craftsmen will still be able to strive for a "perfect" item, with no failures and the right bonuses, but at least failures can either be sold, used, or salvaged in the mean time. With the extremely large number of resources necessary for basic items, I don't see this impacting gathering significantly. And most importantly, this turns the biggest pain point in crafting from a feeling of time wasted to a feeling that you can do better.

Yes, this will increase the number of mediocre items on the market. However, I don't feel that is a bad thing. Many players would prefer something that is usable, even if its not perfect. The highest tier items are (and should be) extremely expensive, and should be something to strive for. With the way Masterworking and Enchantment works currently, there is very rarely anything in this range available, because it is the most likely to be destroyed while attempting to create a higher tier. This will fill that gap.

 

I've been thinking about similar things for a little bit. Block the progression of the failed items, but do not destroy them. Or at least, make total destruction a 1% chance or something.

The middle-tier market would likely drive more player-to-player purchases, and give people an option other than using a COTO to repair an item they like. If there is a chance to pull useful components out of the failures, then the failure is less painful.

 

At least make failures return a portion of the Gold, Silver and Gems used, perhaps factoring the player's Salvage and Repair skill. The game already knows how many Masterworks and Enchants have been applied to an item.

 

Sure, but this could still be done without an all-out destruction at failure. You could have the option on these items that no longer can be progressed to either sell it, or just salvage it. That way you get something back from it. I am pretty sure that Port has stated that eventually they would allow actual components to be returned during a salvage, so instead of just scraps we may be able to get, for example, the blade of a sword.

 

Give me something back somewhere at least. Masterwork and Enchanting is the only crafting feature that destroys the base item on failure. Everything else just destroys the fuel; whether that should be true is a different argument.

 

I look at the gold and silver as the "fuel" of the process. I'm not sure why Silver is necessary for masterworking, as it should actually be something related to the process (acid to etch metal, silver for inlays; polish and oils for woods; etc), but its just the mechanism used to turn an ordinary item into a masterpiece. I'm fine with consuming the precious metals. I'm not fine with destroying the item itself, which is dozens of hours of gathering, refining and crafting.

 

I really prefer the idea of max durability reduction on failure rather than items simply going *poof*.. and salvage should be able to return components with a high enough skill.

 

Dropping a + or locking the + would be very helpful

The scraps are a slap in the face lol

 

I would be very happy for a loss of durability on a failure and eventual loss of item. The other issue is the lack of durability on hands and feet items, without an exceptional hit on those enchanting/masterworking them are fairly lackluster. There is currently no good way to 'boost' exceptional chance other than making 100 getting 25 to 'try' to enchant and masterwork and ending up with a few 'good' pieces. Now factor in either the time to mine or the cost to purchase ..and folks this is why +9 and greater cost so much.

Losing the durability on a +1 item from the failure would make me so very happy. (and understanding that it's maybe a one time thing)

 

simply costing durability if fails or succed and not getting destroyed sounds ok to me.

 

So basically, what you are proposing is that instead of an item being destroyed on failure, the only negative is a hit to the item's durability and it gets bumped up 1 tier on the Masterwork/Enchant scale?

I think that is a great idea and I am all for it!

From a realistic standpoint, losing durability when "Messing up" on trying to improve an item is understandable and I think would be acceptable for the risk being taken. And messing up should make it harder to make "better" the next attempt, so the tier bump makes sense too. But messing up should not destroy the item entirely. It is very disheartening to see all your hard work go up in smoke over a dice roll. I've been saying that since this system was added!

I think the component of bumping up the MW/Ench tier is vital to making this work though. Without that, anyone could endlessly try to improve the same item. While I personally think that would be OK to be able to keep trying... I realize it is bad for the game if there is no diminishing returns on the attempts. The market would be flooded with the best items.

So, as long as the failed item takes a durability hit AND it goes up a rank on the % chance scale with every failure... it would be a very fair alternative to what we have now.

I still believe that a successful MW/Ench should ADD durability and not DEDUCT durability because your skills are good enough to make it better so why is the item getting weaker? But that's a topic for another thread.

 

Maybe specific enchantments could be tied to lunar calendar? Players would have to be in the right time in the right place to perform some kind of rituals? Luck factor would be involved too, but with less punishing effects

 

Yes, exactly. We'd have to have some kind of field crafting ability*, maybe with a travel toolkit for each crafting discipline. It would bring new purpose to certain areas, like thrones and altars and stuff in dungeons and ruin scenes.

(*Or special crafting stations could be inserted into the scenes. But field crafting would be cooler and offer more fun things like campfire cooking and mixing potions and preparing special arrows in the field, etc.)

 

I think this idea can fund the middling goods market, because it eliminates middling goods being valued as only skiller throwaways. Instead the cost of those failed goods sold can go towards offsetting the cost of goods consumed to succeed at rares, which by design is exponentially too high.

Although it depends how much this game is reliant on RMT whales to fund the economy, certainly those paying with Earth money as a hobby/work enterprise will not flinch at buying rares that are truly sold for the price of goods consumed. Even though Portalarium is only selling decorative items, they are allowing player RMT for power items, and even providing them a forum to do so, even for those with established real world biz in trading items.

But if the game is intended to have a gold economy and not RMT, I think this can be a good idea.

 

How do you know that it is not? Realize major fix last patch was getting the astronomical skies to be correct because players caught them faking it, obviously players that expect such a thing already in a RG game have already been tracking the skies.

 

I see the RMT selling silver for what 1000 for 20 bucks .. 1000 silver ore is nothing it takes hundreds of thousands of ore to be mw, and then actually more of other stuff to make the +1 to make it worth the mw/ then to be really good you need the enchant which is hundreds of thousands of gold ore to get that up there.

Are folks really going to spend 10k in real money to get their mw and enchant up to a level to make items that no player can afford right now? I get your idea of concern but not sure it is a concern cause no one could afford the whale's merchandise, and if they bought it in an unbalanced game both of them are kinda fools.

 

I don't, but probably Devs would put some info in patchnotes about it when lunar calendars will work with crafting.

 

Not disagreeing with your opinon after all a fool and their money are soon parted. But isn't this game funded by people spending tens of thousands of cash, whose only reward was a castle and yard ornaments that gives no power in the game? Why would they not spend thousands of cash to buy power in the game when that same money can bypass a bad luck time sink? SOTA is not the only game with such levels of absurdity that goes way beyond reasonable hobby spending.

While you look at absurd levels of gold economy, you have to realize this is a real world cash economy and the cost in gold is meaningless.

Nerfing failures so they can offset the price of rares can only make it cheaper to buy rares. Are you sure that is what the whales want? Portalarium can easily set themselves up to tax these transactions so that they get their piece, yet stay true to their claim that they do not sell power (themselves)

 

great idea. Still keeps rare items rare and still gets a usable product in the end.