Shattered Kingdoms

Two double enchants somehow went into each...

buh?

Peso doesn't do well with math.

I went back and reread your initial arguments in the the thread where you proposed changed to enchant armor, Edoras. I'm thinking maybe I've just gotten into the habit of being contrary and arguing with you. I probably would prefer for enchants to be targetable, at least if this was balanced properly so that spellcasters didn't become worthless.

I do find it funny that one of your main arguments was that even a skilled player would just die to charm, though. I do think the need for super suits that take many hours to enchant would disappear if CP and a couple other spells were balanced out.

But consideration needs to be given to which classes and races this change would buff, and whether those buffs are good for gameplay or if they would result in OP combos. While every class would superficially get a buff, certain classes and races would get a bigger boost than others. High HP classes, BoG vulnerable classes/races, and Giants would all receive relatively high buffs. Would this be good for game balance or should steps be taken to nerf these combos to keep things balanced?

I could've sworn I made a reply to this explaning what Peso meant by the double enchant bug, but maybe the post got removed because I said something no no, or maybe I screwed up posting it. Either way, not going to redo it.

I'm just going to interject here that almost any change to enchant armor is going to kick-off a huge series of balance changes. When they finally wound down, how people play the end game would be nearly unrecognizable from what it is now. That doesn't mean I don't want to do it, but it does explain why I haven't touched this even though people have been clamoring for it for years. Once we change this, I'd estimate the fall-out will soak up 6-12 months of coding time.

Not if you "balance" it so that the probability of you getting what you want is exactly the same as it is now by ensuring a greater fail rate for targeted enchantments.

The dedicants will still enchant, and the posers won't.

I am pretty sure you are overexaggerating this. Those that enchant just waste their time these days to get what they actually want. That, and everybody tends to think that they need to be decked out in adamantite armor before they can even begin enchanting.

It would be better if there were limits on the amount of saves one could put on their armor, like 15 points, and the available art for classes cut in half. This would still give mages like sorcerers and warlocks about a 50% chance to land their spells. It would also take a lot of the burden off of players of priests and sorcerers who have to do the actual enchanting, and might want to be spending their time doing something else. It would also help relieve the unfair burden that the hellion class suffers under with the necessity to have so many stat trains placed everywhere. I would also object to any limit placed on magical resistance enchantments, just to make it more appealing for casters to enchant for.

Of course, I am sure that with all the games I have played and forums I have trolled there will still be players that are completely clueless as to how to put the system into effect. I am also not sure it is a problem that players can be protected from spells. Even at their best under such limitations, 1 in 4 spells will land. Depending on race it might fluctuate a little, but that is the general gist of it.

I seriously do not see much of a balancing issue here, when there are far better things to balance, such as racial weaknesses and strengths.

Word.

I'll agree with the rest who responded to this: If it's done in a way that makes enchanting a suit with 100+ targeted enchants substantially easier, then yes, it will change the game completely. If it's done in a way that makes enchanting a suit with 120+ targeted enchants the same, but conversely makes enchanting a suit with 60 targeted enchants (still overall terrible) possible within 2-3 hours of enchanting, then it will be a good change.

It would also be great if this change also made higher level items have a much lower change of exploding so that you could actually reward people who go get the "hard to get" armor in the game instead of punishing them by making them have to either A) settle for terrible enchantments or B) make a group of 6 people wait around while they kill some deadly NPC 10 times to get a suit that works well. Places like the Iron Citadel and Dreamscape are almost completely a waste of time to travel to, because the armor there has been improved by IMMs who put max AC, 4 MP armor on NPCs that can be traveled to in 10 minutes from recalling while solo, or summoned.

If the spell is changed in a way that enchanting a mid-level (As in one with 30 protection and 20-30 enchantments towards one specific save) is possible through maybe 2-3 hours of enchanting, but enchanting a suit with 100+ targeted saves takes the same amount of time as it does now on average, then the end-game will not change, and new players will not be completely turned off by the massive timesink that enchanting introduces into the game.



As a side note, the last "end-game" style group I ever saw roll around was the Crucible's starting group, which was Jurithiel, Hutin, Ilyash, Nyoethai and Sakhul. They spent probably 10-30 hours enchanting each individual suit that they had, and they possessed sick saves. Then one day someone walk-in FSed 4 out of 5 of them while naked, destroying all of that work, and that same person was IMM-rezzed maybe 2 or 3 days later. Those guys never really returned to the PK scene, and I understand why.

My point is this: Right now enchanting requires you to dedicate an -absurd- amount of time into it even if all you want is one save and some MP, because you have absolutely no way of controlling what type of enchantment you get. The only thing that will happen if enchanting is fixed correctly will be that people will actually be able to spend less time enchanting and more time playing SK. That seems like a good change to me.

The way I read Dulrik's post wasn't so much that making the changes you propose would make the end game different, but that if he changed enchanting he would also change the end game balance intentionally. There is no way for us to predict what those changes will be.