Will you ever wear ephemeral armor from Despise?

[blinkdog]

Given how much work and calculation it takes to make a decent suit, and how changing even one piece can throw a suit off completely, will anyone ever really use randomly-generated ephemeral items like the ones the new Despise wisp will sell?

If you haven't seen it yet, the wisp generates a bag full of random high-mod loot like you might get from the lower levels of Shame, assigns prices to each piece, and allows you to buy them with the tokens you get doing the mini-game which is replacing Despise. Except these pieces are, yeah, ephemeral. That means they are good for about 25 hours of combat and then disappear forever.

I am of the opinion that you'd have to be bonkers to build a suit around a random temporary piece of armor.

 

[Promathia]

Its for newbies....

 

[Tjalle]

I´m on Siege so sure, why not?
Question is though, will we get the new Despise...?

If anyone can snap a pic or two of the pieces, feel free to post here.

 

[blinkdog]

Its for newbies....

It sucks, so it must be for newbies, is that it? As an excuse that doesn't even make sense. Newbies junk is supposed to be dependable but relatively low-powered. This stuff is the opposite of both those things.

 

[cazador]

By its for newbies means its very easy to get..and it's nothing extravagant and in all honesty it's good for siege and characters that are training..nothing really pvp wise

 

[MalagAste]

Stuff that is only good if you spend hours and hours farming it is not worth having or using.

I've no time for such BS.

And with outfitting dozens and dozens of characters I don't want to be wasting time on stuff that I'm going to have to constantly be farming more to replace I've got other things in game I'd rather be doing.

I want my stuff to last. So I can spend my time role-playing.... attending EM events and gathering things so I can imbue nice items for folk who are returning to UO.... I don't want to be having to constantly worry about do I need to get more silver to replace my faction crap????? Do I need to start farming stuff in this or that dungeon to replace this or that item... I just want to play.

If I have to stop occasionally and repair my suit so be it..... but I don't want to have to rework my suit every time I lose something.

 

[Gorbs]

Short answer is no because the system will not have enough replay value.

I would consider it if I had a good handle on the expected hours of grinding v. 25 hours of use projection. If it was something like a 1 hour effort to grant me 25 hours of use, I'd be fine doing it from time to time if the system was not too dull.

 

[Joey Porter]

I am wearing some at work right now. Not too bad....chafes a tad though. Real test will be the lunchroom battle.

 

[NuSair]

I might for something like fighting Grizzle... then take it off and only wear for certain encounters.... then again, if there is a boss creature that takes say 30 minutes to kill... and the emphemeral is for like 26 hours, I'd have to decide if the armor is worth 52 runs of fighting that boss.....

Right now I am going to say no. But, I'll have to mess around with it on test center before making a definite decision.

 

[Tina Small]

How long do ephemeral items last on non-dexxer characters? For example, if I have a faction thief that never fights anything, just steal sigils, removes traps, and spies on people, how long would the items last? And how long would they last on a tamer mage or a bard mage? What's considered "combat time" for a mage if there's little to no physical contact between your character and an aggressive monster?

 

[cazador]

The way I have heard is it is 1 durability drop per 6 minutes of active combat..so at 100 durability it'll last 600 minutes of active combat which is 10 hours..which is a lot I think..I would wear it on my thief/crafter even tamer some interchangeable pieces..my wonder is does it drain from pets in combat? Or say you're using it for training skills on a dummy/golem or just casting spells?

 

[cazador]

And replying to a few posters about the grind..it's relatively easy to solo 3-4k putrid hearts in about an hr or so..so you could easily farm 15-20k in a few hours and get a full suit pending its on the wisp

 

[Cetric]

i've only used ephemeral stuff thus far while being impatient and waiting to get the non-ephemeral versions. i'd say i'd do the same with the despise versions.

Artys.. that is.... why does despise have like, ephemeral regular items dropping or something? Cause if so..no...

 

[Joey Porter]

I am wearing some at work right now. Not too bad....chafes a tad though. Real test will be the lunchroom battle.

Dominated at lunch and I can wear this stuff for at least 4 more lunches.

I am liking it.

 

[NBG]

It takes just as long to get enough points to claim one fake item as to get a real arti drop on the third level.

So no.

 

[Tina Small]

The way I have heard is it is 1 durability drop per 6 minutes of active combat..so at 100 durability it'll last 600 minutes of active combat which is 10 hours..which is a lot I think..I would wear it on my thief/crafter even tamer some interchangeable pieces..my wonder is does it drain from pets in combat? Or say you're using it for training skills on a dummy/golem or just casting spells?

But what is considered "active combat" for a mage, a tamer, a bard, a thief?? Sounds like you're as in the dark as I am!!

 

[Tina Small]

Okay, I did some digging for old posts from developers to try to get the definition of "ephemeral" straight from the horse's mouth:

Mike Moore, May 17, 2012: "The ephemeral property deducts maximum durability at a rate of one point per six minutes, while the item is equipped AND the wearer is actively fighting. Being in war mode does not count, nor does simply being the target of aggression. You have to actually be fighting. Also, it deducts from the 25-hour "lifetime" in 10-second increments; if you spend 10 minutes in a fight but only spend half that time in actual combat, your ephemerals will only lose 5 minutes of lifetime. The current durability is repaired to max durability frequently. The intent is for ephemerals to last for 25 hours of actual fighting time without having to worry about keeping them repaired." Few notes on 'Wayback stream' | Stratics Forums

That's all I could find from a developer about the ephemeral property.

 

[blinkdog]

By its for newbies means its very easy to get..and it's nothing extravagant and in all honesty it's good for siege and characters that are training..nothing really pvp wise

"Hey newbie, congratulations on all that time you spent farming the new Despise! Sure you've gained no gold and no skill, but at least you got some nice items! Oh yeah the items are all going to disappear! TIME WELL SPENT EH NEWBIE?!"

This is another example of the devs just having no bloody idea what the players want or will consider a reward. Two thirds of respondants have completely rejected this ephemeral crap out of hand. Man when the new Covetous came out most of my guild was ANGRY when they realized what ephemeral meant.

 

[G.v.P]

I might for something like fighting Grizzle... then take it off and only wear for certain encounters.... then again, if there is a boss creature that takes say 30 minutes to kill... and the emphemeral is for like 26 hours, I'd have to decide if the armor is worth 52 runs of fighting that boss.....

Ephemeral is a powerful mod given the right circumstances, but I don't think Despise will allow us a full suit of ephemeral armor, right? Still, Grizzle would be fun if we had a full suit.

 

[hen]

Never in a million years. A dev fail.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

considering a player with a lvl 15 opposite side pet could 1 hit kill every monster in first two levels of despise, which would yield a putrid heart for every kill, so ya at most 2 hours of playin and you got a ephy artie thatll last 25 hours of fighting. Why not wear it if it offers the legendary new loot arties without other negatives.

 

[puni666]

Ephemeral regular items sound like a great idea. While you're at it make a throwing weapon that has moving shot and disarm with 18-22 base damage please. (I bet the dev's won't understand this sarcasm)

(I just remembered... they won't read this)

 

[Petra Fyde]

considering a player with a lvl 15 opposite side pet could 1 hit kill every monster in first two levels of despise, which would yield a putrid heart for every kill, so ya at most 2 hours of playin and you got a ephy artie thatll last 25 hours of fighting. Why not wear it if it offers the legendary new loot arties without other negatives.

Please let me know where to get a level 15 pet. My pet said it was as high as it could go at level 10

 

[Xalan Dementia]

if your on the good side you can possess a evil pet and it will level up to lvl 15
they stay grey until around lvl 3-4 then become blue. same but reversed if you have neg. karma

 

[blinkdog]

Its for newbies....

Who won't be able to use it because it has Stygian Abyss stats on it and thus requires them to go spend $30 before they can equip it. Fail.

There's that whole "it's for newbies" argument dead and gone. But thanks for playing.

 

[cazador]

Why newbies only play older expansions?

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Ephemeral is just the Dev's obsession with introducing tons of negative properties taken to its (il)logical conclusion. I can see how they'd be might be useful for things like Grizzle or even Harbringers, but a full suit of random mod ephemeral crap is just that...crap.

I bought a few ephemeral Hephaestus shields for a ridiculously low sum for use on chars that barely see any combat, but I'd never use one on a main. I'd never waste my time gathering points to purchase them myself.

 

[blinkdog]

Why newbies only play older expansions?

They don't start with SA and asking them to drop an additional $30 on it just to enjoy their "newbie" gear is ridiculous.

 

[NuSair]

I might consider using Ephemeral Armor on characters who don't see combat that often.

Here's what I think the devs don't get. For Ephemeral to be viable it has to do one of 2 things, more than likely both.

1- It has to be better than a runic/imbued equivalent. They have to show that an Ephemeral piece of armor will outlast other types of armor, while at the same power level or higher. Which given the way it functions, will never happen.

2- the more important one. It has to be so much better than anything else you can get. As it is, you can pretty much imbue/runic your way to a pretty much max suit, or near enough where it doesn't matter. Unless they let Ephemeral Armor break the caps, given the current way it's handled, it will not get used in any major capacity.

 

[puni666]

I might consider using Ephemeral Armor on characters who don't see combat that often.

Here's what I think the devs don't get. For Ephemeral to be viable it has to do one of 2 things, more than likely both.

1- It has to be better than a runic/imbued equivalent. They have to show that an Ephemeral piece of armor will outlast other types of armor, while at the same power level or higher. Which given the way it functions, will never happen.

2- the more important one. It has to be so much better than anything else you can get. As it is, you can pretty much imbue/runic your way to a pretty much max suit, or near enough where it doesn't matter. Unless they let Ephemeral Armor break the caps, given the current way it's handled, it will not get used in any major capacity.

WHAAAA?? This makes to much sense... knock it off!

 

[Merus]

Even more than a Mage or a tamer, both of which can flag a monster, I would be very curious how ephemeral would count on a bard who discords a target then uses a bard song for a hunting parties benefit. Would seem that it could last forever on such a character.

 

[G.v.P]

I might consider using Ephemeral Armor on characters who don't see combat that often.

Here's what I think the devs don't get. For Ephemeral to be viable it has to do one of 2 things, more than likely both.

1- It has to be better than a runic/imbued equivalent. They have to show that an Ephemeral piece of armor will outlast other types of armor, while at the same power level or higher. Which given the way it functions, will never happen.

2- the more important one. It has to be so much better than anything else you can get. As it is, you can pretty much imbue/runic your way to a pretty much max suit, or near enough where it doesn't matter. Unless they let Ephemeral Armor break the caps, given the current way it's handled, it will not get used in any major capacity.

That's why the Grizzle is one of the few thoughts to pop up. I mean, people have solo'd the Grizzle with a GDrag or through melee, even with a mage, just takes awhile. And at the end of the day, the Grizzle isn't the hottest target...I mean, I guess it's cool to get the grizzled mare statuette, or perhaps the grizzle armor set. But if you had a suit of armor that was entirely ephemeral you'd never have to worry about pieces breaking during a Grizzle or ooze-based fight.

 

[NuSair]

Grizzle or the Bedlam champ spawn. And with Grizzle, he doesn't take that long if you prepare before hand. Personally, I like archers with serious SSI and casters with 7/12 casting.