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Let’s Talk Enchanting!

VaknarVaknar Moderator, Member, Staff
edited June 2022 in General Discussion
Hello glorious community,

Let’s start a discussion on the Enchanting system! If you haven’t heard of it yet, feel free to read more about the mechanics we’ve shared so far here: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Enchanting

In a nutshell, Enchanting in Ashes of Creation allows for the vertical and horizontal progression of items. Vertical progression is an increase in power like more damage or increased mitigation for example. Horizontal progression is your situational advantage for instance doing force damage instead of holy damage because the monsters you're fighting are weaker to one over the other. Enchanting is one of the services that a player can provide at a player stall. One final thing to note is that Enchanting weapons may apply visual effects, such as unique glows or different colors!

With all that said, here are some questions to get the conversation started:
  • What aspects of the Enchanting system are important to you?
  • Are there Enchanting systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes Enchanting in those games good?
  • Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding the Enchanting system?

Please don’t feel limited by the thought starters above as we’d to read all your thoughts about the Enchanting system for Ashes of Creation. We can’t wait!
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Comments

  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Up to rank 10 enchantment level should be protected. No bdo rng. Rng is fine from rank 10 to rank 15.

    Cheers,
    Neurath.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    Lineage 2 over enchantment babyyyyy. Loved that shit. Spend a week grinding to craft a weapon just to burn it all to hell by failing to over enchant it. Kept the base gear lvl of all the players roughly the same, while the lucky ones were above everyone else.
  • LashingLashing Member
    edited May 2022
    My preference for Enchants is for them to not interact with the base stats of a weapon/armor. So instead of a +2 sword it would be a +2 Burning Enchant with its own specific buff or stats. This would make balancing them easier and make individual enchants more of a recognizable addition at a glance. Gear would also not necessarily need to be enchanted to the max when you first make it to be usable. Having iconic named enchants is more interesting to me than a weapon with some extra base attack power. This also lets you make an enchanting profession with unlockable keyworded enchants that people would want for specific builds.

    Edit: If you want to do the item destruction thing what you can do instead of destroying the item is reset it to the baseline and make it do you can no longer enchant the item. This means the person is not stuck with an empty equipment slot but the best option for the item is to deconstruct it and start over.
  • namcostnamcost Member, Intrepid Pack
    Well, two of my favorite MMO's would be WoW (obviously) and ROSE Online (Rush On Seven Episodes Online). In WoW items don't break with enchanting. You get your bonus as long as you have materials. On the flip side you have ROSE, where enchanting was a simple system of "leveling up the item" and the more levels you apply, the higher chance you have for the item to break completely (or simply fail the enchantment and losing materials). I would say that Intrepid should do whatever they want, and we will simply have to accept the choice. I can live with either system.
  • FohlenbratenFohlenbraten Member
    edited May 2022
    I am no fan of rng at all - maybe for the highest enchantment lvl it is fine - i would like having real high material requirements as you can work towards a goal even if it is a far away one.
    [Fleo Verum] Carolus Dynamicus - Py'rai - Rogue+Fighter
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I hate the BDO/Lineage style of enchanting with a passion. It fails to operate as a predictable gear-sink, it fails to reward players properly and slowly creates gaps which then require catch-up mechanics, and in nearly every game I play it's poorly balanced in other ways on top of both those things.

    I prefer enchanting systems where you are putting things into 'slots' and the quality of the gear determines which slots are available. Then, the team can tweak the slots, and for balance purposes, can 'return the materials'. e.g.. if a certain enchantment in a specific slot was deemed too strong, a good database design would simply let the devs 'remove all slotted instances of that enchantment and refund the materials', or remove any second one.

    I'm not an overall fan of gear homogenization in this way, but there are times you need it, and it's important to give yourself all the levers to pull, in the game design phase.

    I also have a sort-of out-of-context quote from another 'popular' thread that I'll just paste here in entirety as 'my preference for this sort of system being balanced'.
    Azherae wrote: »
    Sword A of Green Tier has 4 Enhancement slots. Sword B of Purple Tier has 8.

    The crafter can put Attack into all slots, but the more Attack in each slot, the harder it is to get the next one in. This is based on total number, not 'number relative to the weapon'.

    So it's equally easy to get an Attack +20 Green Tier sword as it is to get an Attack+20 Accuracy +20 Purple Tier sword, but it's really really hard to get an Attack +40 Purple Tier Sword.

    But 'casuals' don't have enough Evasion, let's say, for the Accuracy to be necessary. It's nice, but it helps more in PvE or against other 'hardcore' players. The Accuracy 'doesn't affect the fight much'.

    Now you have 'Green sword people' fighting 'Purple sword people' and the overall damage done is similar. This sort of design can't be described simply by things like 'gear power in tiers', so even attempting to paraphrase it, leads to concerns like yours.

    But if you ask someone 'how much stronger is Sword B than Sword A', in most games, the answer will be 35% stronger (assuming the semi-standard range of 200-600 accuracy and opposed stat calculations). It's 35% more effective than Sword A in fights against strong or equal enemies, but not when facing 'Casuals'. An Attack +40 Purple Tier Sword would be a 'casual slayer', but would involve a massive investment for a sword that might not hold up in 'even' PvP as well.

    tl;dr hardcore players already have time, tend to be number-crunchers, and collect tons of gear. Make them HAVE to do all that to be versatile without giving them as much advantage over 'casuals' unless they're specifically aiming to go out there and kill said casuals as a 'preferred enemy'.

    Personally I think that enchantments should focus on Accuracy being added to specific skills or types of skills, to prevent the usual terrible metas in games where the player is just told to get the max Accuracy they can first, then go for damage, then follow the meta-rotation.

    I still want to play another game finally where your enhancements and enchantments are targeted to your style of play, if only because it encourages more diverse builds or at least in the 'casual space', you can reasonably get more leeway by pushing your preferred abilities and style to their max instead.

    Even more stimulation to the economy, since a re-spec of certain kinds (changing Secondary) results in needing to grab some basic gear for that too.

    But I could go on about this forever, so I'll stop here.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • GabrialGabrial Member
    Oh god please no RNG in enchanting. What a let down to gather all these expensive mats for a high level enchant only for me to bring them to a casino? Screw that lol
  • StretchStretch Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited May 2022
    I like it when enchantments are meaningful. Like if there is a zone or area that will be tough, I want people to have to seek out enchanting stalls of a certain level to find the enchants they need that will actually make a meaningful difference to how you can progress through content.

    I liked enchanting in WoW: WotLK. I remember being an enchanter and making huge amounts of gold from enchanting gear for people. Hanging out in Stormwind advertising my services in trade chat. Either letting the player decide if they want to use their mats + a base fee or my mats (for an additional fee) + base fee.

    As for your system listed in the Wiki it does sound like it could be a lot of fun and meaningful. I'll of course wait until being able to test it to give proper feedback but I'm looking forward to it!
  • DeeBeeDeeBee Member, Braver of Worlds, Alpha One
    edited May 2022
    Over-enchanting items with a potential risk that the item decays or is destroyed if a safety margin is exceeded seems a bit to much for my taste , loosing your materials yes but destroyed does not sound like fun to me.
    I would like to see it as an % that goes up or down dependent on your skill and rarity of the enchant itself or no RNG at all.
    giphy-downsized-large.gif?cid=b603632fnhcrgri7scqf53yhgic6kfzhvnk9oronhq7tg7n2&ep=v1_gifs_gifId&rid=giphy-downsized-large.gif&ct=s
  • LinikerLiniker Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited May 2022
    Yessss we Need plenty of item and gold sink options in every aspect of the artisan system; over-enchanting should 100% be in Ashes for all gear, plus, legendary unique items should not be able to be repaired!

    Edit: please keep in mind that 90% of the people commenting and giving feedback here will not read the wiki, they are thinking BDO/Lost Ark levels of RNG when it comes to enchanting and have no idea how did it work in Lineage2
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  • RasgoonRasgoon Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Enchanting and failing at things is just a money grab for free to pay games. It shouldn't exist in a game in my opinion. Please don't add random on top of random. You already have to grind to get the item (or mats, totally fine with that). Don't make me grind to upgrade it, or if you do don't waste my time with downgrade/destroying. There is no fun in that.
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited May 2022
    Azherae wrote: »
    I hate the BDO/Lineage style of enchanting with a passion. It fails to operate as a predictable gear-sink, it fails to reward players properly and slowly creates gaps which then require catch-up mechanics, and in nearly every game I play it's poorly balanced in other ways on top of both those things.

    I prefer enchanting systems where you are putting things into 'slots' and the quality of the gear determines which slots are available. Then, the team can tweak the slots, and for balance purposes, can 'return the materials'. e.g.. if a certain enchantment in a specific slot was deemed too strong, a good database design would simply let the devs 'remove all slotted instances of that enchantment and refund the materials', or remove any second one.

    I'm not an overall fan of gear homogenization in this way, but there are times you need it, and it's important to give yourself all the levers to pull, in the game design phase.

    I also have a sort-of out-of-context quote from another 'popular' thread that I'll just paste here in entirety as 'my preference for this sort of system being balanced'.
    Azherae wrote: »
    Sword A of Green Tier has 4 Enhancement slots. Sword B of Purple Tier has 8.

    The crafter can put Attack into all slots, but the more Attack in each slot, the harder it is to get the next one in. This is based on total number, not 'number relative to the weapon'.

    So it's equally easy to get an Attack +20 Green Tier sword as it is to get an Attack+20 Accuracy +20 Purple Tier sword, but it's really really hard to get an Attack +40 Purple Tier Sword.

    But 'casuals' don't have enough Evasion, let's say, for the Accuracy to be necessary. It's nice, but it helps more in PvE or against other 'hardcore' players. The Accuracy 'doesn't affect the fight much'.

    Now you have 'Green sword people' fighting 'Purple sword people' and the overall damage done is similar. This sort of design can't be described simply by things like 'gear power in tiers', so even attempting to paraphrase it, leads to concerns like yours.

    But if you ask someone 'how much stronger is Sword B than Sword A', in most games, the answer will be 35% stronger (assuming the semi-standard range of 200-600 accuracy and opposed stat calculations). It's 35% more effective than Sword A in fights against strong or equal enemies, but not when facing 'Casuals'. An Attack +40 Purple Tier Sword would be a 'casual slayer', but would involve a massive investment for a sword that might not hold up in 'even' PvP as well.

    tl;dr hardcore players already have time, tend to be number-crunchers, and collect tons of gear. Make them HAVE to do all that to be versatile without giving them as much advantage over 'casuals' unless they're specifically aiming to go out there and kill said casuals as a 'preferred enemy'.

    Personally I think that enchantments should focus on Accuracy being added to specific skills or types of skills, to prevent the usual terrible metas in games where the player is just told to get the max Accuracy they can first, then go for damage, then follow the meta-rotation.

    I still want to play another game finally where your enhancements and enchantments are targeted to your style of play, if only because it encourages more diverse builds or at least in the 'casual space', you can reasonably get more leeway by pushing your preferred abilities and style to their max instead.

    Even more stimulation to the economy, since a re-spec of certain kinds (changing Secondary) results in needing to grab some basic gear for that too.

    But I could go on about this forever, so I'll stop here.


    The system you describe exists in the craft process. Enchantments will change armour penetration, damage types, damage resistance penetration, skill attack speeds, weapon attack speeds and many other stats related to the toon build.

    I do not want bdo rng at all. A system where you must locate 'magical dust' for example to combine for the enchantment sounds delightful. I do not want those ingredients to act like the craft ingredients though.

    Edit: added quote for clarity lol.
    My bad.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • CROW3CROW3 Member
    What aspects of the Enchanting system are important to you?

    First, I'd like enchanting to provide additional connection / synergy with my secondary archetype. If a class augment focuses on bleeds, I'd like my weapon enchants to amplify those effects. If my augments provide a certain defensive capability (i.e. v/bleeds) I'd like my armor enchants to help extend that protection. It would also be cool if enchants could also interact with the environment.

    Second, cool lighting effects (but not overwhelming flashiness). A flaming longsword can act as a torch when exploring dark caves.
    Are there Enchanting systems in other games that you feel are done well? If so, what makes Enchanting in those games good?

    I liked Divinity Original Sin's environmental interactions - if I have lightning arrows and it's raining, beware.

    For synergy building with enchants and augments, I thought Wolcen had some good thinking here. It didn't always work out for 100% overlap, but I like that I could swap my skill effects and weapon effects to be holy / fire / toxin-based because of a new environment, or enemy weakness, or I just wanted everything to burn to ash.
    Is there anything, in particular, you’re excited or concerned about regarding the Enchanting system?

    As a craft, I'd want enchanting to reward curiosity and experimentation. There are plenty of mmos and rpgs that used minigames for enchanting.


    AoC+Dwarf+750v3.png
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Neurath wrote: »
    Azherae wrote: »
    I hate the BDO/Lineage style of enchanting with a passion. It fails to operate as a predictable gear-sink, it fails to reward players properly and slowly creates gaps which then require catch-up mechanics, and in nearly every game I play it's poorly balanced in other ways on top of both those things.

    I prefer enchanting systems where you are putting things into 'slots' and the quality of the gear determines which slots are available. Then, the team can tweak the slots, and for balance purposes, can 'return the materials'. e.g.. if a certain enchantment in a specific slot was deemed too strong, a good database design would simply let the devs 'remove all slotted instances of that enchantment and refund the materials', or remove any second one.

    I'm not an overall fan of gear homogenization in this way, but there are times you need it, and it's important to give yourself all the levers to pull, in the game design phase.

    I also have a sort-of out-of-context quote from another 'popular' thread that I'll just paste here in entirety as 'my preference for this sort of system being balanced'.
    Azherae wrote: »
    Sword A of Green Tier has 4 Enhancement slots. Sword B of Purple Tier has 8.

    The crafter can put Attack into all slots, but the more Attack in each slot, the harder it is to get the next one in. This is based on total number, not 'number relative to the weapon'.

    So it's equally easy to get an Attack +20 Green Tier sword as it is to get an Attack+20 Accuracy +20 Purple Tier sword, but it's really really hard to get an Attack +40 Purple Tier Sword.

    But 'casuals' don't have enough Evasion, let's say, for the Accuracy to be necessary. It's nice, but it helps more in PvE or against other 'hardcore' players. The Accuracy 'doesn't affect the fight much'.

    Now you have 'Green sword people' fighting 'Purple sword people' and the overall damage done is similar. This sort of design can't be described simply by things like 'gear power in tiers', so even attempting to paraphrase it, leads to concerns like yours.

    But if you ask someone 'how much stronger is Sword B than Sword A', in most games, the answer will be 35% stronger (assuming the semi-standard range of 200-600 accuracy and opposed stat calculations). It's 35% more effective than Sword A in fights against strong or equal enemies, but not when facing 'Casuals'. An Attack +40 Purple Tier Sword would be a 'casual slayer', but would involve a massive investment for a sword that might not hold up in 'even' PvP as well.

    tl;dr hardcore players already have time, tend to be number-crunchers, and collect tons of gear. Make them HAVE to do all that to be versatile without giving them as much advantage over 'casuals' unless they're specifically aiming to go out there and kill said casuals as a 'preferred enemy'.

    Personally I think that enchantments should focus on Accuracy being added to specific skills or types of skills, to prevent the usual terrible metas in games where the player is just told to get the max Accuracy they can first, then go for damage, then follow the meta-rotation.

    I still want to play another game finally where your enhancements and enchantments are targeted to your style of play, if only because it encourages more diverse builds or at least in the 'casual space', you can reasonably get more leeway by pushing your preferred abilities and style to their max instead.

    Even more stimulation to the economy, since a re-spec of certain kinds (changing Secondary) results in needing to grab some basic gear for that too.

    But I could go on about this forever, so I'll stop here.


    The system you describe exists in the craft process. Enchantments will change armour penetration, damage types, damage resistances, skill attack speeds, weapon attack speeds and many other stats related to the toon build.

    I do not want bdo rng at all. A system where you must locate 'magical dust' for example to combine for the enchantment sounds delightful. I do not want those ingredients to act like the craft ingredients though.

    Edit: added quote for clarity lol.
    My bad.

    You can just replace 'Attack' and 'Accuracy' in my example with 'Armor Penetration' and 'Skill Cooldown reduction' and...

    Then you have ESO.

    I'm definitely not playing Ashes if it turns out like ESO.

    Craft 'optimal stats' onto gear and then possibly over-enchant RNG for even more broken stats? Building a game on quite that terrible a foundation is definitely not what I'd expect from Intrepid, but I agree that the things that were said before indicate that they could go this way.

    So obviously my feedback to Intrepid, is, and excuse my language because I feel this strongly about it...

    Seriously... just fucking DONT.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I wouldn't do skill cooldown reductions, Azherea. I would also love cosmetic racial designs in Ashes like ESO has.

    Balance is important. Individual power is important. Your system would see a bdo economy were everyone is poor and powerless except the ultra wealthy.

    Overenchantment risks item destruction. Rank 15 enchantment level on all armour, weapons, jewelry and cloak will take some serious effort in Ashes.

    Peace,
    Neurath.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Neurath wrote: »
    I wouldn't do skill cooldown reductions, Azherea. I would also love cosmetic racial designs in Ashes like ESO has.

    Balance is important. Individual power is important. Your system would see a bdo economy were everyone is poor and powerless except the ultra wealthy.

    Overenchantment risks item destruction. Rank 15 enchantment level on all armour, weapons, jewelry and cloak will take some serious effort in Ashes.

    Peace,
    Neurath.

    Do you know how one becomes powerful and super-wealthy in BDO? Never enchant. Leave that to some random noob.

    This is the way EU servers for BDO got, to the point where they had to mess with it. Because EU players are apparently less inclined to try to get ahead in this way or something? For a long time there were problems on their servers that the English Community Team had to acknowledge explicitly because the EU players in general just 'had the good sense to not enchant anything' and it resulted in everything high level being extremely rare and even more stupidly expensive.

    No money is lost when enchanting happens, just materials and gear. Concentrating your free cash economic power therefore allows you to buy gear from people after the initial period where those people are getting geared up. The people with the highest luck in enchanting then dominate the server, then they receive items for more high level enchanting, which they don't need, then they sell those items, and then whoever was waiting in the wings buys the item.

    Meanwhile everyone else is concentrating free cash flow into the hands of whoever is dedicated at providing the materials but sensibly NEVER enchanting, deflating the economy temporarily, until that person decides to splurge.

    I know this because I am that person. I don't care enough about BDO to get to the level of say, BladeBoques, but I know that enchanting is almost always a way for the less savvy to lose money (and therefore POWER), and 'buying things from the lucky few who spend all their money at the enchanting casino and need to break even by selling off some' is the way to always get strong and make money (and yes, I understand that it is not always possible, it just doesn't matter long term)

    This strategy is the one used by the 'ultra-wealthy' to stay 'ultra-wealthy'. Whether or not you believe me is entirely up to you, I'm just offering my advice as 'the person who exploits economies in games', on 'how to make one that I, and people like me, will exploit less'.

    Intrepid choosing to ignore that just gives me another game to exploit, so in terms of my POWER within Ashes it is in my best interest if my words are ignored. Such a fate.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • Please, for all that's sacred, do not make enchanting a chore like in Black Desert or Lost Ark. It's one of the most oppressive systems and it's only good for gambling addicts and I do not support developers that exploit people with these issues.
  • I am not sure if it's possible however I would love for specific enchants to only be unlocked after reaching some crazy milestone. For example, you enchanted 10,000 swords, now when you enchant a sword your enchantments are better or stronger. Creating a reward for the dedicated enchanters and a way for them to specialize in a way. I also realize this is not only easier said than done, but could be way more of a hassle than is needed to make the profession feel rewarding.
  • DygzDygz Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited May 2022
    I wonder what types of Enchanting there will be - kind of similar to Tailoring vs Blacksmithing.
    This past week, I've been reading the Darkthorn Academy novels.
    In that world, Blacksmiths use Runes to Enchant items. That caused me to wonder if Dünir might be more likely to be Blacksmiths, while Niküa are more likely to be Runesmiths.

    Ashes also has Magic Tattoos which can adjust stats. Does that fall under Enchanting?

    And we also have Enscriptions, which I think is for creating scrolls?
    I dunno if that would be associated with Runes or Enchanting.

    https://discord.com/channels/256164085366915072/256164085366915072/307521681210081281
    Expect Enchanting to have some RNG.
    "There is no RNG in Crafting, but there is a little bit on Enchanting."
    ---Steven Confirmed
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    You can find a rank 15 enchanted item in the wild or legendary bosses for example in Ashes.

    The same principle does not apply in BDO. You would get the gold item and then have to enchant to rank 5.

    I'm Ashes, fortunes and names can be made. In BDO you are placed on a multiserver auction house.

    In Ashes, a player can start the game, choose a profession and make a future. In BDO the same applies but with the red items after quest access (max item craft level last i saw).

    Still red items need to be enchanted for max efficiency.

    There are two concepts: dropped items and crafted items. I want neither like BDO but I do want L2 Overenchant.

    Much love,
    Neurath.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • AzheraeAzherae Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Neurath wrote: »
    You can find a rank 15 enchanted item in the wild or legendary bosses for example in Ashes.

    The same principle does not apply in BDO. You would get the gold item and then have to enchant to rank 5.

    I'm Ashes, fortunes and names can be made. In BDO you are placed on a multiserver auction house.

    In Ashes, a player can start the game, choose a profession and make a future. In BDO the same applies but with the red items after quest access (max item craft level last i saw).

    Still red items need to be enchanted for max efficiency.

    There are two concepts: dropped items and crafted items. I want neither like BDO but I do want L2 Overenchant.

    Much love,
    Neurath.

    Well, let's just disagree on that. I can't support games that prey on the gambling addictions of others when there are so many other good ways to implement it. I play BDO explicitly to inspire myself to study what not to do in design. Any game where 'time invested' and 'hard work' are trumped entirely by luck, solely for the purpose of economic control, just doesn't have a good enough economy designer.

    So I'll once again give something for free.

    The optimal way in my mind for this to work is actually MORE engaging and skill-increase related for the Enchanter, and could be fleshed out into a full system WITH a material sink that doesn't require pure destruction, just material losses with real choices.

    Step 1: Choose one target enchantment (probably with low success odds) and two related fallbacks, for a slot
    Step 2: Enchant... go, dice roll!
    Step 3: If target is achieved, rejoice! If not, go to step 4.
    Step 4: If Target not achieved, apply fallbacks 1 or 2 to the slot.
    Step 5. If player is unsatisfied with the result and want Target enchantment, clear the slot (no item refund) and return to step 1, otherwise proceed with less-than-optimal item until desired to return to step 1.

    Now you can build all sorts of weird trees of skills and augments and affiliiation stuff into the fallbacks, so that specific Enchanters will 'fail' in the way you are willing to settle for. Players can even create 'their own personal Legendaries' by getting the right combination of enchants from the right people.

    They already have 'you will need copies or similar materials to repair durability on items'. They don't need item destruction enchants too, that's just a gate, because these paths must have endings, and whoever reaches the ending no longer needs to do it.

    Technically you'd want MORE 'Frost Elder Sword' to exist, because then you don't have to make it so strong, or 'Best In Slot for fighting X other encounter'. Let the players control what is important to them, and INCREASE the amount of them so that we also increase the amount of repairs required for them. Economy improved all the way down.

    Overenchant is the solution one comes to when you don't have an Economy designer yet, imo. That is why I am hoping they will change it.
    Sorry, my native language is Erlang.
    
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Last I heard, enchantment is a function of npc player stalls.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • EazleEazle Member
    Basically, these are my thoughts, DO NOT BREAK gear. Just don't and don't let RNG decide everything. However, I understand we need a negative sink. So let me paint the system I have in mind.


    Solution:

    Enchanting should be fun, enjoyable, and part of the world. So minor enchants shouldn't really have any negative downfalls other than failed attempts with a cooldown on the item. However, for major enchants, we should be required to follow a questline. The questline asks us at the beginning which item we're enchanting, we pick that item from our inventory, and we begin.

    The questline drags us through the world acquiring special materials, defeating difficult bosses, completing raids, and more. Upon reaching the end of the questline, we go to one of the special alters for our enchant. Each alters has a different set of enchanting stats available, so players can do different sets of builds.

    With the chance given to the player for a powerful enchantment. They would head over to the altar and begin the ritual/enchantment process. Now if the item fails, the item is rendered un-enchantable with lowered stats. Maybe throw in weakness to something. During the questline, there should be an opportunity for the item to become corrupted by dying too many times, which then increases the failure rate.

    With a negative sink in place. These items can still be utilized by other professions to research them to improve their crafting capabilities. That way they are not entirely useless. The player also doesn't feel entirely cheated and we can even give a chance where these failed attempts could yield a clue to improving our next attempt. That way there is an upside to failures in some way as well.

    Sinks are important for the end game, but disguising them with intent, direction, and possibilities is far more important. Because blatantly breaking the item on failed attempt without a clue to why is just insulting. Give the end game something more, give them content to quest out for further than before.

    Final Thoughts:
    Having RNG is not inherently bad. But it's how it's been implemented into the game that makes it bad. Nobody wants a slot machine to be the reason they lost a powerful item. But end-game can't be easily obtainable either. Sinks are needed here, but hiding those sinks within lore, story, quests, and player interaction is how you handle the situation. Not smacking the dice roll and hoping. Give the player a better system by implementing ritual classes and enchanters needed to help with the questline. That way it takes a true effort in acquiring. Give failure an opportunity to turn into success next time. Leaving the player empty-handed without a reason other than RNG is just bad design.
  • I would like for the enchanting proces to contain as little RNG as possible and instead use Mini Games that may even reward creativity, patience and deciciveness (know idea how you would achieved that, sorry)

    As for how enchantments Work, I just hope its not the usual "Max power" But more utility. This would alow for a more divers meta since its usually Hard to Beet raw hitting Power with clever Strategie and niche synergies. A Bad example can best be observed in the glyphe System of lost ark Where almost all dmg classes prioretize the same perks.
  • Anything RNG is just pure shite. RNG is there for when people can't be bothered designing actual game systems. With all the superb effort put in so far, you'd be doing yourselves a disservice if you lowered yourselves to allowing RNG in any of your systems.
    This link may help you: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
  • CainoCaino Member
    Visual benefits of the enchantments are crucial. So often the weapons just adopt one of 5 "glows", some of which are only temporary when you use an ability.

    I think it would be great to see the effect of your enhancement in one of two ways:

    1. The weapon itself takes on a new form - eg) a new jewel encrusted hilt, a sharper cleaner blade, ornamentation or scabbard upgrade,
    2. A particle effect/ visual representation of the enchantment that is specific to the effect. So a fire effect would have flames moving along the blade, lightning enchantment would have actual electricity crackling with it's own unique animation. Frost, Void energy, holy damage, whatever it is, have it be unique and really cool-looking.

    It would also be cool to have a tiered system or rarity to some enchantments to help the player stand out visually. So people can visually identify that someone has - for example - a Tier 5 black lightning enchantment on their blade that is super rare as opposed to every single player standing around with 1 of 10 colours glowing on their weapon.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited May 2022
    Just the basic enchantment from L2, which steven knows all too well. It adds bonus content for hardcore players. A lot of gameplay time to go beyond others.

    As for the horizontal, I think it makes PvP even more of a chance game. I am against it like I was against it with the L2 augment system.

    In mmos players can adapt to their enemies class abilities, weapons abilities and other know game mechanics.
    Having horizontal enchantments, which I am sure there will be hundreds of them, will turn pvp into a pure game of chance on who got the luckiest "augment".

    Now... if you make the horizontal augmentation a consious selection of an extra power without the possibility of failure, not luck, then yes. Let us work hard for it and gain it. Then it does become part of a strategy.
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    I feel like overenchantment is meant only for pushing the peak of character progress. You can get you BiS, you can get additional effects on its attack/defense functions, but if you want to go up in power - you gotta risk smth. Just putting more resources into the weapon is not a risk, it's an assured way up through time.

    Imo enchantments for vertical progression of gear should be ultra rare. Someone over enchanting a weapon should be a damn event for the server. That one person will get 1-3% boost in power, but their reputation will be that of "someone at the peak of their progress". The whole guild should work for that kind of thing. And by the time that player gets to a chance to destroy their BiS weapon in an overenchant - they should already have a backup. And if they decide to risk a unique legendary - that'd be a great way for it to "change hands". But if they succeed to OE that legendary - they deserve the powerup, because their risk was gigantic.

    You can't be a gambler if you don't have the means to gamble. But you can take risks when the opportunity presents itself.
  • BracuBracu Member
    in my opinion Enchanting could have a few interesting aspects

    - i.g. to reduce the penalty on death (to please us casuals a bit more) while more hardcore people will focus on Stats
    - to personalize your gear
    - to enhance some professions skills / procs or lvl gain maybe

    for me WoW is a Prime example of that i just hope the glow effects are not going to be too visual, a bit is fine but it kills the vibe if it is too vibrant imo.

    it also adds a layer of stuff to do to gear up and min-max to keep that part of players interested

    im all up for it!


    AoC hype
  • NiKrNiKr Member
    CROW3 wrote: »
    First, I'd like enchanting to provide additional connection / synergy with my secondary archetype. If a class augment focuses on bleeds, I'd like my weapon enchants to amplify those effects. If my augments provide a certain defensive capability (i.e. v/bleeds) I'd like my armor enchants to help extend that protection. It would also be cool if enchants could also interact with the environment.
    I feel like getting some kind of a rune stone as a reward in all the augment sources, with an ability to combine those stones into one that enhances your gear in the same way your augments do to your character, would be great. And let us move that rune stone with us through the gear tiers.

    So at lvl 25 you'd get your main "class" rune and then with each additional augment from religion/social stuff/other sources you'd add effects onto this rune. So by the end of your character progress, your gear will reflect your lifestyle.

    Alternatively those rune stones could also give us a chance to add another school of augment from those sources, which would broaden our abilities, but I'm not sure if that's really feasible and/or even desirable.
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