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Thoughts on Obsidian Crafting

Discussion in 'Release 28 Feedback Forum' started by Sara Dreygon, Apr 3, 2016.

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  1. Sara Dreygon

    Sara Dreygon Avatar

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    First off, the Obsidian stuff looks amazing. A few friends went to Hilt Fortress for a few hours and crafted a set of Obsidian plate and some various weapons. First impressions are:

    1.) The armor and weapon durability is far too low. The chest max durability is 20, leggings 15, and gauntlet, boots, and helm 10 so for being the top notch armor and weapons, they're remarkably useless for anything other than short battles or battles with Obsidian creatures. The armor durability skill helps somewhat (at level 40 it gives 10% bonus) but still not nearly enough to keep you from having to run to the forge every 30 minutes to repair. The weapons have a max durability of 10. One fix for this would be to increase the durabilities 2.5-3 times (still low compared to other materials) or possibly allow the durability to be enhanced by adding more Obsidian ingots at a later time (like 1 bonus durability per ingot or something like that) so that it can be something you can wear for longer periods of time.

    2.) The Obsidian forge did not seem to be giving any XP. At least from what @Oba Evesor could see. This may be a bug. Every time Oba was attacked while crafting the forge bugged and he had to re-log.

    3.) The armor only currently comes in only one style called Obsidian Plate (no epic, quarter-armor, etc.) and no two-handed weapons are currently craftable; only one-handed swords, one-handed hammers, one-handed spears, etc. Obsidian bindings cannot be made so bring some meteoric or bronze ones with you.

    4.) The armor cannot yet be gem-socketed (at least that I can tell) unless this also has to be done at the Obsidian forge.

    5.) The weapon bonuses are very situational to fighting Obsidian creatures but not much use fighting other creatures. The Obsidian spear I have has 11% critical chance (does not stack if you have two spears equipped as it is not a modifier - just the weapons base crit %) and +200 damage versus Obsidians while my bronze halberd has 3% critical + the 6% bonus crit chance so the total crit chances are similar.

    6.) The armor bonuses from the Obsidian sheets equals a 20% melee damage reflection which is VERY nice but once again, you cannot wear it for very long without it breaking and it is only good for fighting melee. Compared with my bronze plate set that gives 13% damage bonus I end up doing far less damage than if I were wearing the Obsidian set. I can see the weapons being a nice alternate weapon to switch to when you're fighting an Obsidian boss... the armor might be useful when tanking against a melee boss. Currently my bronze plate set is much better and FAR easier to make and maintain.

    7.) I very much enjoyed getting a team together to go on the crafting adventure. Just the armor took 4 high-level players including an (essentially) GM smith to make in between 2-3 hours. Two players could manage but the crafter would get interrupted much more often by the fire elementals and obsidian golems that spawn regularly. One player wouldn't make nearly - if any - progress as the amount of mobs wouldn't allow much - if any - uninterrupted crafting time.

    8.) The % chance and time required to craft was low enough to make crafting the items challenging but not unbearable.

    Looking forward to hearing everyone else's take on the games penultimate crafting material and items.
     
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  2. Noric

    Noric Avatar

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    @1. I'm not sure that we want Obsidian to suddenly outclass everything else... situational might be decent(particularly while they keep playing around with crafting bonuses).

    @6. Are you confident on the impact of these numbers? 12% of 7-22 is .91-2.86 damage.... bronze armor doesn't really add much. Even after crits that isn't a big difference. If the damage reflection is reducing incoming damage by that percent of total damage... it is a notable impact.
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2016
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  3. Time Lord

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    Well @Sara Dreygon ,
    Daggers and knives have not gotten any love at all. They are the lowest rated weapon and I'd like to see something come along that meets the damage of at least the lowest sward, yet has a dagger or knife's swiftness...
    Dare I say, an Obsidian knife or dagger should be better or the best of all others? :)
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Just some fuel for thought... ;)
    ~Time Lord~:rolleyes:
     
  4. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    it is REflection, not DEflection. a mob hitting someone in this suit receives a portion of the hit's damage as well.
     
  5. Katrina Bekers

    Katrina Bekers Localization Team

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    The team enjoyed, too! ;)

    Got a lot of silver, between waves.
     
  6. Oba Evesor

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    Just gonna echo @Sara Dreygon basically.

    Works, but really buggy. Might not just be the forge though, been having issues w/trade windows even when not in The Forge.
     
  7. Bowen Bloodgood

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    Just a couple comments..

    Remember that crafting skills are not fully implemented yet. It is entirely likely, that all current bonuses and durability results are based on a default skill level of 0. Once the crafting skill trees are fleshed out and balanced it's very likely we'll see much better numbers. As it is, the only real benefit to mastering a crafting skill is success rate. Given enough fuel, even a total novice can craft a decent set of epic plate right now.

    Secondly, SotA is not a gear driven game.. or at least strives not to be. If Obsidian is so much more powerful without appropriate balances then suddenly it would be. Nobody would want anything else. So if it's that strong, then some crippling factors may be necessary to offset that power.
     
  8. Weins201

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    In no way is Obsidian stuff "penultimate", that is a very strong assumption. It is VERY specific stuff. It does some VERY specific properties and the low durability is there for a reason, and you can repair all of it, sooo ???

    So all your negatives are actually PERFRECT for the items made.

    The ONLY issues I could even remotely agree with is lack of variety, Need more weapons, and possibly some way to integrate it into something light, like ring mail or something.

    Other than the graphic glitch the Forge works perfectly, experience is not being given anywhere as far as I can tell, and will bug report it soon.

    And as already stated crafting is in such an infancy stage there is almost no way to even begin to understand its full capacity.
     
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  9. Noric

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    That would make it less effective. I'm assuming you've checked logged numbers to confirms this?
     
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  10. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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  11. Noric

    Noric Avatar

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    @Alley Oop
    "reflects damage back against attackers" does not say "deals equivalent damage back to attacks as % dealt to player". I'm not saying that it must mitigate damage, but its ambiguous enough that i'm not going to believe it until i see numbers to back it up or a dev confirming that the player receives full damage
     
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  12. Sara Dreygon

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    Cannot test today but I'll try to tomorrow night.

    The question is whether an attack of 100 damage would deal 80 damage and reflect 20 damage back on the attacker or do the full 100 damage and reflect 20 back, correct?
     
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  13. Noric

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    Yes, exactly. I appreciate you taking the time!
     
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  14. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    By it's nature, obsidian is quite brittle - which would explain the reduced durability. ;)
    However, a max durability of 10 or 20 seems a bit excessive........ o_O
     
  15. Black Tortoise

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    Hey all, would you mind posting directions on how to get to the forge? I ran around the Hilt fort for a while and couldnt find it. Im not GM anything so Im not uber enough to kill the lich mage near the bottom, but can solo anything else in the dungeon (it seems).

    Due to a login bug, I once logged in on the other side of the lich mage room. I expected the forge to be in there, but was nothing but 2 ghosts and a purple glowing crystal thing. I clicked around on everything in the room and couldnt find any further doors or tunnels etc. So from my perspective, Ive explored the entire Hilt fortress, and havent found the forge (or fire or other elementals either...). I must have missed a door or tunnel somewhere.

    Has anyone got a map drawn up by chance?
     
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  16. Noric

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    There is a hidden switch that opens a door in the room with the ghosts. Forge is at the end of that passage.
     
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  17. Black Tortoise

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    @Noric thanks, ill look harder. Might need to turn on the ol' night vision next time.
     
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  18. Black Tortoise

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    Found it :) Very ultima-9 style. I dig it :).
     
  19. Tiina Onir

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    Even against obsidians I found the obsidian longsword kind of 'meh,' and wielding one in my offhand against obsidians should be THE use-case for the weapon, and it just doesn't perform well. While I don't regret partying and holding the forge long enough for us to make a suit and some weapons (which was fun), I cannot think of any case where I would actually use it. It's gone in one of my storage chests for now. I also wasn't particularly wowed by it's appearance. It really just looked like my bronze swords.

    Definitely should add in 2-handers.

    I also completely agree that something needs done about the armor being only plate. I'm fine if that "something" is just allowing us to make some kind of "obsidian studs" for light armor. I don't think ringmail should be the direction in the short term though. So far, our system considers mail to be "heavy armor" for the purposes of skill useage, I really want to see an obsidian option for light armor users.

    When we were down there, we had to periodically have the smith log out and back in because we kept losing the ability to trade (we held it for 2.5 hrs, so everyone brought supplies).
     
  20. Skyo

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    Great post Sara, the problem really is however everyone's running around shooting each other with lightning. Obsidian armor gives protection and a offense element melee engagements. Still no answer for chain lightning over and over and over again.

    Obsidian armor should also reflect a % of magic damage!
     
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