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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Over-enchanting attempt and failure RNG
RandomPlayer0001
Member
Have the mechanics of over-enchanting been finalized? I watched the update in which it was mentioned that over-enchanting would be a thing, and that doing so would carry a risk of loss. What will that mean, exactly? If you are attempting to enchant a +6 weapon to +7, and you fail the enchant, will it mean you drop down to +5? This kind of demotion RNG is one of the main reasons I quit playing Aion years ago. I wanted to bang my head against the wall. Failing an attempt to enchant is acceptable to me, but making your item even worse in the process is one of the most frustrating things I've ever experienced in an MMMO.
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It is100% optional, so if you can't afford the potential loss, don't over-enchant.
This is one of the main ways of removing wealth from the top 1% in the game.
It won't go down from +6 to +5, the item will be destroyed completely.
Maybe I'm not understanding it correctly then. What is over-enchanting vs just enchanting? If I try to make my hard-earned weapon or gear better by enchanting it but fail, I completely lose it? That sounds like massive risk for a slight possible reward.
Imagine enchanting goes from +1 to +10. You enchant your item up to +10.
Cool, all is good, You have no risk in doing this at all.
However, once you are at +10, you now have the option of over-enchanting it to +11.
This is where you start to risk things.
If all you do is enchant to +10, no risk. You go to 11, you have that risk.
Your call what you do - the only thing you can't do is complain if you lose the item by trying to enchant it to +11.
Over-enchanting will likely go higher than just that one step, but very few people will attempt to over-enchant actual hard to get items.
In a normal end-game of an MMORPG, BiS is obtainable through just doing all the high-end content in the vacuum of instanced PvE. If you can preform well, you will eventually get the gear. Then you quit playing until the next patch...
The over-enchanting system is taken from Lineage 2. It makes BiS more of something that you can gamble for over time to maintain an edge over your competition. Over-enchanted gear is the carrot on the stick that keeps end game players and guilds in constant competition for the open world raid bosses. Allowing another guild to down a boss is giving them the potential to have more rolls at over-enchanted gear. Which would give them an advantage in future conflicts for raid bosses.
In a way, this is just a system that encourages the rich to try and get richer. There is an actual trickle-down effect that is a net good for the entire server. Over-enchanting requires high amounts of materials per attempt. High-end players must by materials from average players who do not get into over enchanting gear. Since Ashes also uses the concept from Lineage 2 where low-quality materials can be used to make high-end materials. All materials end up constantly having value as they could be used in over enchanting.
The constant market pressure from over-enchanting materials means that those who gather and process materials will always see value in their effort. The loss of gear on failure is great because it means that people will constantly be buying new gear sets. Unlike other games where people get their gear once and quit.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
It's like this, lets say you are eating salads and you keep finding something you don't like mixed in, say peanuts for example. You will then be less likely to want to eat salads because you don't know what it tastes like without peanuts.
Note: I don't care if you like peanuts on your salads that is not the point of the example.
The problem with this is that it is just an excuse to not try a new way of doing things.
I watched a movie I didn't like, therefore all movies are shit. It's basically the same argument, and is no way to live life.
people live this way. I am not advocating for this sort of thinking, I am pointing it out as a common thought process for this system in particular.
Indeed they do.
My point is, I guess, just because some people do live this way, doesn't mean a game should be catered to those that do.
A game that did this would be very restricted.
God... yeah I actually had this same conversation today about a different part of a game I am currently helping make. I do not like it when games get changed just because a minority with a megaphone don't like something in the game.
And to clarify, I am fine with this sort of system personally. It's another material/item sink that really helps the economy churn.
It's probably one of the primary reasons I left that game. The P2W aspects were bad enough, but what really killed it for me was the item delevelling and the repair system, combined with how much more powerful a PEN item was compared to TRI. The grind to TRI, which was the last "safe" upgrade level was tolerable. Definitely far from my favourite system overall though.
What I want from the over-enchanting system in Ashes is:
1. No de-levelling of items. Unless the chance is very very small. I'd rather have to repair it from scratch several times than see it de-level. Yes, that means eventually everyone can get that +10 item with enough resources, but I am completely fine with that.
2. Don't have the power difference between max safe enchant and max over-enchant be massive. Definitely give the +10 enchant people an edge, but let the +4 people be competitive.
3. No complete item destruction. As in "poof, deleted".
The Wiki has it somewhat wrong on the destruction part I believe, so I am rather hopeful on this one. Well, it's confusing language by Steven, so I understand why. If you listen between 16:17 - 17:10, he pretty much twice says that "destruction" doesn't mean the item is wholly gone, but it will require materials and crafters to restore.
Listen to it to get a better understanding of the context.
I am ok with having to use rare/legendary materials to restore items on failure, as long as legendary items don't get completely deleted upon overenchanting failure, nor de-levelled.
Why have it in a game you aren't monetizing it for? What is it's role in the games over all design? How often will this feature be used by the player base? How will it effect the value of higher level items in the grand economic scheme of things? How will server culture effect it's market impact?
These are the questions that keep me up late at night. There are weirder design choices in AoC than this though.
Yeah I'd rather have no over-enchanting at all for sure.
The reason to have it in the game is simple. If my guild kills a top end mob and gets an item we can use to craft a top end item, good for us, right?
Now, we craft that item, and someone in the guild equips it. Good for them, right?
In most games, the item that they replaced with this new top end item would effectively be trash, as it is bound to that character.
In Ashes, this is not the case. That item can still be used by anyone at all that gets their hands on it.
What this means is that given time, as more and more players kill more and more top end mobs, and get more and more item upgrades, there will be more and more second, third or fourth tier items in the game, that can be bought and sold at will, and used by anyone at all in the game.
There are only two ways an item can leave the game in Ashes (that we are aware of). The first is to break it down for it's materials - which you would have the assume are then simply used to make another item, so this method is more of a re-build of the item than it is a way to leave the game.
The other way (and as such, the only real way) is to fail an over-enchant with that item.
As such, over-enchanting is the only real check on the gear economy in Ashes.
The current repairing system is already doing a lot in that regard. I don't think the material cost to repair is going to be insignificant. And from what Steven said last year, over-enchanting doesn't actually completely remove the item from the game either. "Destruction" doesn't mean deleting it, it means rendering it unusable until it is repaired by a crafter apparently.
As far as I know, the only way to delete an item is through direct deletion via inventory, or by breaking the item down for mats, the latter obviously being the most common.
Thank you mate, I thought I'd heard you can repair destroyed items after over enchant fails but I checked the wiki and read the replies in this thread and I doubted my own memories.
Since Archeage had a system of tiered penalty on failed over--enchants (or on that games equivalent), and the higher the attempted enchant was the higher the chance of losing the item, that is both how I have read what has been said, and how I expect it to be in game.
That said, I agree that reading it in this way isn't contradictory to anything that has been said as well, hence there not being enough clarification as yet on this.
The comments made last year where he said about items being disabled was all prefaced with "this needs to be tested", which is shorthand for "this is what I am thinking about in this regard, but we have not fleshed this system out internally yet".
I think we will all find that if there is no means of destroying items unwillingly, crafters will very soon find themselves out of work other than as repair bots, which I have to assume is an unwanted situation.
It does sound pretty cool tbh. Somehow forging a +40 weapon lol
But if you lose the item or it is deleveling thats not ok. Becuse in esseance this is Just a RNG system
I be way more happy if they cut the RNG out of the ecvation and make it so you can grind for the next level and then get rewarded for your time i investen.
I hope there aren't global messages about enchantment and other silly endeavours in Ashes. BDO global messages are a real bug bear and because the servers are all merged these days you have a constant stream of global messages cluttering the screen. You can de-select certain global message banners but you can't get rid of them entirely. I'd rather not have my screen cluttered with issues not related to my own toon or current escapade like sieges etc.
In terms of item de-levels, I haven't heard there will be item de-levels through over enchanting in Ashes. There must be risk/reward associated with over enchants and though I'm not much of a fan of RNG, I would rather not have the enchanting a simple material sink because there are two tiers of enchants - Safe Levels and non Safe Levels. In my mind, if you are enhancing a sophisticated item there is a chance of malfunction or ruination because the process shouldn't be a dead cert.
I agree, please limit server notification overuse.
Maybe those messages could go into a master-craftsman-only chat?
There is a means of enchanting without failure, where you just need to grind in order to get there.
There just happens to be an RNG system after that, for those wanting to use it.
If you are not keen on that RNG aspect, just don't use it.
Of you want to compete you have too.
RNG progression is bad design.
It will probably be designed so that either there is no "complete", or the top tier is so high that few items will ever get there.
I played Archeage for years, and only ever saw two or three items in total that were enchanted to the top tier - that is close to what we should expect to see in Ashes.
So, since "complete" is out of the question, each player is free to take on the risk that they are comfortable with, and not take on risk they are not comfortable with.