Shattered Kingdoms

I mean come on, why wasn't this done a year ago?

Allowing for directed enchants was a really good step. I also understand wanting to preserve the strength of innate enchantments, hence the reasoning that innate jewelry enchantments stack, but placed enchantments don't. That's a great step.

However, there's absolutely no reason that the enchant armor spell should be as limited as it is. Since enchant armor is only able to add MR, MP or AP, there's a ridiculous stranglehold placed upon how useful a piece of armor can be solely based upon whether it comes with innate enchantments to will or fort. As a result, these pieces of armor are hoarded like crazy (along with all great save jewelry), and most characters are stuck with having a max will/fort save of fourteen or something -after enchanting- for it, and that's if they tank the other save.

Here's the good things about enchant armor in its current iteration not allowing for stacking saves.

A) It preserves the innate quality of some armors over another, which should (ideally) inspire players to group together in order to travel places to gather armor that needs a group, as opposed to just settling for easy to find armor and enchanting it.

Here are the bad things about enchant armor in its current form:

A) It completely invalidates entire sets of armor just because they don't come with innate will or fort. This list is -lengthy-. Absurdly lengthy. Don't forget that by invalidating these sets of armor, you also make it much less rewarding for anyone to bother venturing to those areas.
B) It makes the skin skill for scouts absolutely useless.
C) It encourages hoarding of the precious few sets of armor that come with innate saves, widening the gap of new players to veterans. Honestly, the last few times I've logged in, the player count has been the lowest I've ever seen, yet the amount of hoarded armor is actually higher than I can remember.
D) It upsets the balance of the game, making it so that casters with max art (Of which there are plenty due to the same enchant change) are going to have a very high level of success against any but the most prepared players.


Just make it so that enchant armor can also add stacking saves just like it already adds stacking MP. It would make the skin skill useful again. It would lessen the effect of the hoarding going on in the game. It would not unbalance the game towards non-casters, because people are already stretched thin on enchants for armor (Now they'll be split across five possible enchants as opposed to just two). It would not de-incentivize obtaining the more exotic armor: Difficult to obtain armor should have plenty of incentives -besides- whether it comes with innate saves. Things like material, starting level, AC and scripts should be the driving force behind more difficult to obtain armor, not whether it comes with innate will or fort.

This is the -astoundingly easy- first step to making the enchant system and loot gathering system more rewarding. It requires a code change on enchant armor and that's all. Does anyone have any objections to this? I'd love to hear.

On top of Eddy's suggestion, need to be able to add MP to jewelry.

It's so very odd how there was a MASSIVE decrease to enchantments across the whole game and....

Art never tweaked.

Magical damage never tweaked.

Magical devices/skills never tweaked.

A good set 3 years ago would include 40-50 MP, 25-30 FORT/WILL, 10-15 REFLEX.

Even with kits like that, people would get wrecked by spells/scroll/wands. And now you have warriors wandering around with literally less than 10 MP (if they have ANY), because they need armor protection and innate saves. "Well put MP on your armor", then they're either sacrificing innate saves and getting molested by I-Win spells, or sacrificing AP and being a fail warrior.

Magic Resistance, of both the barbarian and other kind, is way too powerful and convenient. A non-MR warrior has to put in hour and hours of enchanting, search to find the perfect eq with the right innates, and an MR barb just needs some [REDACTED] with AP slapped on, doesn't have to worry about jewelry and thanks to AoN will be on even footing with the other warrior.

MR barbs should cap at like half resistance innately, so they at least are required to put in some effort to get MR EQ to be at their 'full effectiveness'.

ETA - Also not sure why stuff like Iron Citadel eq is god awful. As evidenced by the quick wipe of everything in Taslamar, I don't think it'd be hard to tweak the eq in one high end area.

I'm pretty sure that impairment was tweaked with the enchant system, just so you know. That's all that I'm aware of however.

I see this change making casters feel after the change like warriors do before the change. The nature of the suggested change simply malforms who is at the short end of the stick, instead of evening things up appropriately. I can't begin to count the times where the conversation has gone from "art being OP" to "art being useless," and then "warlocks are terribad useless" to "warlocks rampage without regard and one shotting people who don't have racial buffs." These conversations exist because maintaining balance in enchantments is just a difficult process, especially in conjunction with making code adjustments and skill adjustments. Until the majority of item normalization happens, how (un)balanced things are is an unfortunately moot point because it's just too difficult to clearly tell.

I'm speaking only of my own opinion, and not the staff as a whole: but when we consider changes, we have to define balance first. What is an acceptable resistance rate for spells cast in combat? Should we consider the upper end of reasonable resistance to be 65% resistance rate? 85% resistance rate? What is that resistance rate against, 12 art? 6 art? When combat moves so quickly, and casters only get a chance to cast a few precious times (at times), should a well-enchanted warrior resist 2 out of 3 max art spells, 3 out of 4, or only 1 out of every 2?

Then we have to consider risk/reward. Should the well-enchanted warrior have to invest time into his kit to get that "well-enchanted" status? Should he have to go through difficult areas? Should it be some balance of both? Is 10 hours of max art enchanting reasonable investment, or should it be 30? 5 hours? Should a third of his kit be designed to come from difficult areas, should half of it come from difficult areas? What is difficult - what is the risk of him losing his entire kit in comparison to the chance of getting the piece or two he needs? How much more inept should an entirely unenchanted warrior be in comparison to a mildly enchanted warrior, and where should that latter stand in comparison to the well-enchanted warrior?

This is the price paid for targeted enchantments, and the nature of the ebb and flow of game adjustment. I can almost guarantee you will not see enchant armor being both targeted and stacking saves. Veterans will have to deal with the growing pains of adjustments, and newbies don't necessarily know any better to be hurt by it. If you want to truly contribute, turning enchanting easy mode isn't the correct response. I would consider suggesting an objective outline of what balance really should be, and then offering suggestions on how to get there. That might be the best way to see changes you want.

Broad-sweep changes like re-stackable enchants only serve to easy-mode things without answering the hard questions about balance. I think I can safely bet you will not see easily stackable enchantments out of starting kingdoms again, and if that makes those items useless to you, then they are useless to you.

(In case it wasn't obvious, the above is solely my opinion and does not reflect any actually official decisions about game changes).

One problem in the design of enchants/spells/saves, IMO, and a big reason this is hard to balance and people will always complain....To my knowledge, and perhaps I'm mistaken, all spells are equal in terms of landing or being resisted.

If you can be dispelled you can be cursed.
If you can be cursed you can be put to sleep.
If you can be put to sleep, you can be charmed.
If you can be charmed, you can be summoned.
If you can be summoned, you can be dispelled.

Those are all willpower saves. There's a huge difference between being dispelled/cursed and being charmed/summoned, but if I want super resistance to the more dangerous, cheaper two, I'm also getting super resistance to the less dangerous two (which you're more likely to see in actual combat).

First, was there a consensus before the change that warriors were underpowered? I certainly don't recall that being the case. Maybe I misremember. I thought the consensus was that enchanting was annoying as crap because you had to spend hours upon hours doing it and it was totally uncontrollable.

That being said, personal experience doesn't dictate to me that casters would get the shaft if enchant armor spell were changed as I propose. For one, casters gain a benefit themselves by being able to target enchantments on their own armor, not just warriors. Secondly, allowing for saves to be placed on armor by PCs would make it so that those enchantments which would otherwise have likely gone into MP will instead go into fort/will, meaning that casters' damage spells will actually hurt -more- than otherwise in most cases. Casters will just have to choose what type of spell to cast, whether damage or save-based, depending on their enemy.

Prior to the enchant changes, armor wasn't considered "good" by the veteran players of the game unless it came with at least 4 MP and 4 will/fort. And it wasn't considered "excellent" until you had at least 6 combined enchantments to both will/fort in addition to 4 or more MP. In addition, jewelry wasn't considerd "good" unless it had at least six enchantments to will/fort/reflex, and wasn't considered "excellent" unless it had at least eight enchantments or more to saves in addition to any MP that may have come about.

What success rate was that based on? From my experience, that level of enchantment allowed you go to into PvP with a reasonable expectation that you wouldn't lose to instant win spells like double petrification scrolls, cast petrification, charm person and sleep staves, although they certainly didn't make you spell immune, especially with impairment and the all-powerful dispel magic still available. It wasn't certain, of course. I was still hit with a powerful single petrification scroll at 20 fort with max CON and it still ate me alive.

Granted, that's based on conjecture and experience, but you basically needed at least 20 will/fort in order to have a "healthy" chance of surviving a max art spellcast in PvP, and that's just the first time you got hit, not counting impairment. Bear with me on this though: Under the current system, if I find 6 great willpower mods for jewelry, and enchant one with an additional 6 willpower (The ideal situation nowadays with regard to jewelry) then that means I am going to have a will save of 30. That certainly is plenty, but that assumes that
A) I was able to manage to grab all the heavily hoarded +4 will jewelry pieces, and
B) that I'm okay with having a fort and reflex save of 6, given that I am willing to enchant two of those jewelry pieces to +6 fort/+6 reflex as well. That means I am probably going to instantly die to the first double petrification scroll someone uses on me, and I'm not going to dodge any warlock spells or acid blasts for crap.

Granted, you can potentially include the container in that calculation as well, but the fact of the matter is that without saves on your armor, it's nigh impossible for you to get a combined total of more than 40 saves on your jewelry (4 * 7 for the innates, +12 for two enchants on will/fort separately) regarding will and fort: And again, that's assuming that -all- of your jewelry comes with innate greater saves and that you've also placed +6 enchants on two of those greater save mods. Those pieces are heavily, heavily hoarded, and placing +6 onto one is also going to take hours. That's also assuming that you completely throw reflex out the window. A more accurate theoretical maximum for the "average" player that doesn't have the right friends and isn't willing to spend hours upon hours just enchanting is in the realm of 22-30 enchantments split across his jewelry for will/fort (2-3 innate enchantments on each piece, with two +4 enchantments added in). And sure, while that's better than nothing, it's a heck of a lot lower than the standard certainly used to be.

TL;DR: With the current system, unless you can find armor with innate saves (It's all hoarded) then you're going to either spend hours finding and enchanting jewelry or have saves in the tank. If you let players place stacking saves on armor then you provide the possibility of being able to pick a save and -actually- excel in it, at the cost of either MP or AP. Veteran players still have the same saves as under the old system: The people who got the shaft are the unlucky players (and new players) that don't get to wear the few pieces of armor that come with innate saves.

Again, my main point is that there should be plenty of incentives -aside- from innate saves that should make exotic armor more desirable to obtain, including AC, material, and scripts. Being able to place an extra 2 fort or will on each armor piece will make moderate saves much more attainable to players that are willing to spend the time doing so, not to mention avoid the current ridiculousness of the game where entire sets of armor are practically useless just because they don't come with innate saves.

The price paid for targeted enchantments shouldn't be to invalidate over half the armor in the game and the skin skill. The price paid for targeted enchantments should be a lower soft cap for maximum enchantments, which was already implemented at the outset with the splitting of MP into AP and MP.

This isn't just about balance. It's about being able to play the game. This is about whether or not players are able to feel like there's any options available to them when they log in. As things stand, if I want to get decent enchantments on my armor, I have to wait until someone logs in who's wearing the good save armor and then kill them. That's the only option I have. And does still no one care about the fact that the skin skill was made completely useless by the enchant armor change?

As for balance, I think that someone who is willing to log into SK and that has time to spend with a friendly priest/sorc combo should be able to obtain at least 20 will/fort combined across his armor and jewelry if he's willing to make sacrifices in AP and MP on his armor to do so. I think this should be possible regardless of whether or not there are available armor pieces that come with innate fort/will, because 90% of the time, there won't be. I think this should be possible even if the greater jewelry saves are hoarded, because they probably will be. In my personal testing experience, having 20 WIS and 20 will still leaves you with over a 10% chance to fail the very first will save against a max art sorcerer. Having 20 wis and 10 will leaves you with over a 25% chance to fail the first will save. In my eyes, that means that having 10 will/fort is not enough to even compete, and having 20 will/fort is still not great (Because it doesn't factor in impairment and doesn't factor in damage-based spells), but it's at least able to compete with a reasonable expectation that you won't die instantly to petrification or lose instantly to sleep.

The problem with the enchant armor change is that the new system skyrocketed the demand for armor that comes with innate saves, yet didn't increase the supply of them at all. As a result, people who log into the game with a low playercount often find themselves unable to do anything useful at all with regard to their own kit, because without save-based armor or jewelry to start with there's practically no use in doing any enchanting at all, so they may as well just log out.

"If you give a mouse a cookie" comes to mind here. I think some veterans just need to reconsider their definition of "decent enchantments." Anyone who claims that items aren't being updated hasn't spent much time casting the identify spell.

Stackable enchantments would make time the only real ceiling factor on gear, and that's disgusting for casuals. Targeted, totally stackable enchantments make the enchantment game a Skinner Box, and that's exactly the kind of tactical gameplay I'm proud of not seeing. Anyone who has a bunch of time to play with friends should be out there roleplaying, not camped at a spawnpoint trying to slot machine themselves super armor.

I support the current system because the ceiling effect creates a new dimension of tactical loadout decision-making that actually makes the game require some thinking, planning, and experimentation.

Besides, they already stack. Check out HELP STACKING.

As has already been pointed out in some threads, easy to obtain armor has already received a heavy hit to material type and AC, two huge factors aside from innate saves that impact how desirable a piece of armor is.

The difference is that the AC of a piece of armor is much less likely to get you instantly killed than whether or not it comes with innate fort.

I haven't read all of this yet, as I'm on my smoke break at work. But I think if most armor started out with saves instead of ap/mp/mr, one could easily enchant/consecrate a desirable set. And it would make people mix and match more sets. (2 pieces from this set. 3 from that one. And one from this one.)
I would also suggest leaving a couple sets out there with mr/ap/mp, as saves might be less desireable and these suits should still have protection innates.
...of course they could also fade the saves.

Just my initial thoughts.