Shattered Kingdoms

Alright, here's my take on enchanting armor in the game right now.

Enchanting armor is a HUGE time-sink, but sadly enough, a very necessary one should a player ever want to get involved in real PvP. (Anyone who's ever been subject to a charm scroll knows what I'm talking about.) In my opinion one of the worst things about enchanting is that not only does it take a very long time, it also is completely random and uncontrollable: Even if you do manage to land eight or ten enchantments on a piece of armor before it explodes or fades, there's almost always going to be a decent amount of MR on it, which might leave you more screwed than you were without it.

Someone mentioned in another thread about how death is a very small price to pay compared to losing EQ, and that's true. I would like for the game to move away from this, at least a little bit.

But before I even start proposing ideas of changing enchant armor, I'd like to know what everyone else's opinion on such a change would be. I for one would personally favor changing enchant armor to be targetable and more reliable for the first 3-4 enchants, then have it be less reliable after that mark (Perhaps dependant on level as well.)

What I really want is to change enchant armor to take less overall time to get desired enchantments: In my opinion it will make the enchanting process MUCH more fun, and also encourage PvP more, while discouraging whining about gear.

It would also be a severe nerf to spellcaster classes...

And you don't think they need it? I'm personally tired of seeing 1 shot wins from spellcaster classes with charm person: And every spellcasting class has a straight damage spell that, due to the last code change which factors in the save after MP, will always put out some damage. Priests can harm, sorcs acid blast and charms, warlocks magma, and necros are fine.

And again, I don't want to make it easy for everyone to have an uber 30+ enchantments in each category suit: But I would like for someone to be able to achieve 30+ enchantments in MP and some other save (Will, for example) in a relatively small amount of time without having to worry about MR in the process.

Personally my opinion would be make it so people can enchant their armor however they want it. FULLY customizable. However, limit the enchants you can have on armor so people can't make "super suits."

An example.

C 'enchant amor' legs willpower. puts a willpower enchantment on the legs. However, let's se the cap at say...a guaranteed maybe 3. That's moderate. Anything after that has a chance to fade or blow up, the higher you go the more risk there is and make it absolutely impossible to go past 6 or maybe 8. That way people can customize their suits to have either a mild everything or focus on one aspect, MR, MP, Con, Fort etc. That's just my idea. Refine it how ya like.

i'd rather the spell be removed from the game, actually.

5 armor enchantments maximum per piece, selectable by the enchanter from saves, stats, hp, mana, pe, and hp/mana/pe regeneration. This gives most characters 70 or 75 enchants to divide up between a lot of desirable possibilites. It means making some kind of tactical choice, not just spamming enchant and regathering things when they explode until you random get something good enough. Hard choices are more fun and interesting than grinding.

Enchanting is not hard at all. Seriously. Just time consuming. How is it any different from brewing 20+ vials for somebody? If you want to stand a chance in PK, you have to put effort into preparation.

You can extremely easily get 6 enchants (no MR) on all your eq, boat loads of cloth/mithril/diamond/addy/energy START WITH 4-5 ENCHANTS. 7 armor pieces, 6 jewelry pieces. 6 x 13 = 78. Not even counting shield/about body.

If you want better than that, all it takes is a bit of time. Bump that 6 per piece to 8, and you've got 104 enchants total, at minimum.

And yes, spell casters might seem more powerful. Most likely because all the current non-spell casters are complete idiots. All it takes is one teeny, tiny mistake for a caster to die. If they have some idea of wtf they're doing, they can be hard to kill. That's how it is for EVERY class though. I mean, can someone name a competent PC warrior/adventurer to me that is currently around? The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Sakhul, and guess what! He hasn't died recently! I mean, I feel more comfortable with Lathron or Losquaty in my group than most of the warrior PCs in the game.

I mean really..Edoras, are you drunk, or what? Making enchanting EASIER isn't going to do anything but encourage spam dying and make death mean even less, since it'd be such a breeze to replace your eq.

I understand that, and that's my point: It's nothing but time consuming, and even worse, it's nothing but a huge dice roll that can end up screwing you just as much as helping you. (Exploding armor, fading it, or putting MR means that you just spent a vast amount of time enchanting something and now have nothing to show for it)

I would -like- for enchanting to be like brewing: At least if I take 20 vials and start brewing heal potions, I know I'm going to come out with some heal potions. If you extended the enchanting system to brewing, then half or more of your brewed potions would actually cast harm on the subject rather than healing him.

I mean honestly, with one-hit-win spells like charm person in the game, PvPing in anything less than a 30+ will suit is instantly going to make you lose -everything- and have to start over. Are you really saying that you're happy with the fact that hours have to be spent just for the prospect of a decent suit? Do you really wonder why of your last characters, your sorceror is the only one you haven't rage-deleted after dying? That's because getting a decently enchanted suit takes a ridiculous amount of time.


Let me restate: I'm not trying to make enchanting an "uber-suit" -easy-. nor encourage spam dying (most priests won't enchant anything for a spam-dying player regardless of how easy it might be), I just think that enchant should have some sort of direction to it rather than a big fat time-consuming game of chance.

Would you like to give me some numbers for that? Seriously, I'd appreciate it. How many hours for a SIX enchant on each piece suit without MR? And how many are willpower enchantments? Because I'll tell you, if at least 30 aren't, then ALL those enchantments are going to get jlooted by someone else.

My character has a few things that look like.

Greater MP. Greater Willpower. Slight Willpower. Moderate Fortitude. (On a single piece of eq.)

Trust me. 6 enchants is cake.

As I think I amply demonstrated on some Druids a while back, putting all your saves into one area is idiotic. Unless you want your warlock/rogue/priest/sorc to get petrified by a scroll, then depetrified and destroyed in a round or two against a charm.

FoD. Petrification. Blindness destroys people and takes like half a round to cast.