Greetings, glorious testers!
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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Let’s Talk Enchanting!
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:
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!
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!
8
Comments
Cheers,
Neurath.
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.
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'.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
As a craft, I'd want enchanting to reward curiosity and experimentation. There are plenty of mmos and rpgs that used minigames for enchanting.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- 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!
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.