Let’s Talk Enchanting!

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Yes, I've played with this kind of system for ~12 years. Never p2wed it, but did fight against people who did. And I could still win against them due to OE giving them low benefits and being super pricey to get too high. Loved the system for all 12 years and whenever I wanted to go higher in power, I'd just prepare for it. Just like any person would have to, in a system that just requires you to spend days grinding something to get enough resources to go up by +1.

Imo it's not Intrepid's responsibility to think of all the people who don't think about the consequence of their actions, while wanting the results of said actions. If a person knows that there's a risk in OEing their gear and yet still goes with it w/o preparing a backup - that's on them. And if they leave the game because of that action - that's still on them.

And I want the system to be as expensive and rare as possible exactly to protect the people who would just throw themselves against the risk w/o thinking through it. But if you need to engage 20+ people from your guild to farm some stuff for the OE and then you need to use the best crafter in the guild (or server), all on top of having the best gear at your lvl of progress - that's a ton of barriers to overcome before risking your things, and at least several steps that can make you ask yourself "do I really want that 3% bonus in dmg?"

I understand that people dislike this kind of approach, and if Intrepid decides to go away from "risk vs reward" design when developing their enchantment - I'll be fine. I'll just hope that I'm wrong and that the game won't turn into "everyone has insane power lvl after a year of playing and now Intrepid has to account for that when designing the next expansion".

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Because I personally like that kind of system. I've already explained my reasoning behind it and why I dislike other systems.

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• It holds back playerbase's power creep
• It equalizes the overall power lvl of the server w/o introducing equalizing mechanics
• It follows the "risk vs reward" design goal of Ashes
• It's a very strong mat/gold sink for the strongest people on the server
• It's a great indicator of status and personality. If you see a dude with some highly OEd gear, you'll know that he's either insane or the wealthiest strongest dude on the server, or both
• It provides a near-endless treadmill for those who want it, w/o much devtime
• It allows Intrepid to better pace their expansions' power creep, relating to both the mobs and the gear

Those are the main ones I could think of rn.

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If you have a 100% chance to OE smth and increase its power, sooner or later everyone will get to grow their power by some amount and now the next expansion will have to introduce gear and mobs that are stronger than the median power lvl of the game.

If you have a chance to break your gear when OEing it, only a fraction of the playerbase will be stronger than the base power lvl of that gear. And the new expansion can add gear that is on the same lvl as the top OEd old gear or just marginally better. And the new mobs can be just hard enough for those with OE gear, while quite a bit harder for those who're still at the base, which would make them go farm new gear. This way the power creep of the whole game is slower.

Destroying gear during OE also allows Intrepid to balance the gear upkeep costs in such a way where people would still want to use their top lvl gear w/o fearing that it'll decay too much and they won't have the resources to play with their shiniest toy.

Although, as I've suggested in my alternative enchanting system, you could go the opposite way and have enchanting increase the upkeep costs, but be completely safe and controlled. This way you'd keep a gear sink at the very top of progress lvls, while still allowing people to use their cool toys if they don't care about going higher in power lvl.

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Yeah, and as I've said in this thread before, if the repair costs after a failed OE are the same as they would be if you had destroyed the item completely and had to rebuild it from the ground up - I'd be fine with that, because it would serve the same purpose.

We have not received permission from Mag7spy to share the quoted post.

And instead of coming up with several difference systems all you'd have to do is just have destruction on a failed OE and you can hit all the points I've listed. Ashes will already have a ton of intricate and self-dependent systems, so overcomplicating enchantment too could be too much for some people. Although, again, I've given an alternative system that achieves all the things I've listed w/o rng or destruction, so I know full well that it can be done. Which is exactly why I said it would be pointless to continue discussing these among ourselves because our views and preferences for this feature are just too different.

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The only mmo I've meaningfully played is Lineage 2.

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I've seen the full range of OE system setups and I consider the one I proposed here the most optimal and simplistic. And as I've said several times already, I'd be completely fine with any other system that achieves the same results that I've listed in the previous post. But if I had to choose, I'd go with what I know already works.

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And that exactly what's planned right now. Vertical and horizontal enchantment.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

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Also, literally the same could be said about pvp in Ashes. Or "risk vs reward" design. Or "there won't be only winners in Ashes" design. Or "flying mounts are only for the top ~10-20 people on the whole server of over 10k people" design. Or "instances will only comprise 20% of content and will mainly be story-based" design. And I'm sure there's more design choices taken from older games that will definitely not fly with quite a few people in the "current gen of gamers" crowd. Yet here we are, interested in a game with such designs. Funny how that is.

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And if new gear acquisition is easier/faster than OEing gear (which I'm suggesting it is), then you can still find your unique stuff and be happy about it. And then you can OE that unique stuff and be super powerful too.

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L2's gear system was very straightforward because that served the functionality of the game overall.

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Again though, we're on a forum for a game that's based on its Lead Director's nostalgia for the better times. I find this critique of the OE system quite a bit ironic.

There's been quite a few people that yell about pvp killing the game as loud as you're yelling about OE destruction doing the same.

Or all the time-casual people begging for a crumb of content that appeals to their difficult life with 30 kids and 10 wives.

It's all just a personal preference of one Dude (pun intended), who had enough money to make his nostalgia a reality. Of course he might change his mind under the pressure of the masses, but we'll have to see about that when we come to it.