L
Luke Carjacker
Guest
First of all, thanks a lot for putting a lot of work into an old area to make it more fun, and for listening to player concerns in recent weeks. Definitely a huge thumbs up on both counts. I don't have great characters on Origin, but I puttered around for a while and think it will be great fun to explore and maybe get some new items.
Which gets us to the main point of this post, the items available in the new Shame loot system (and I assume other dungeons as they are rolled out). I think there's a real flaw and I hope that the Devs will give it some real thought before this new system gets too entrenched and rolled out to all the old dungeons.
The problem is that items are only useful as they are incorporated with other parts of a suit (weapons may be different). In other words, if someone goes down into Shame and pulls out a super-duper-uber bracelet or helmet or whatever, it's unlikely that it will do them much good until they build a suit around it. They might have to re-balance resists, or maybe the new item gives HCI where none existed before, but since most people these days (via imbuing) are capped in most of the critical attributes, just subbing in a new super-artifact piece won't make any difference.
Which leads to the question of, who's going to spend considerable time, resources or gold to construct a new suit around an item that is cursed/brittle/cannot be repaired? Would someone really spend 30 hours gathering resources & building a suit around an item that may only last a few hours of play-time? It's absurd. And of course, since these items are so unique, there's not even the remotest possibility you could replace the cursed/brittle/non-repair item once it wears out or is lost; rendering the rest of the suit useless.
So you say, don't invest all that time building a suit, just throw something together to take advantage of the powerful new artifact? What would be the point in that, when you can get better overall results without using these new loot drops.
So, I think within a few weeks everyone will come to realize that these loot drops will be by and large useless. Sure some lower-end items with currently unavailable attributes might prove to be good starting points for imbuing, but I can't imagine why anyone would spend any time building suits around cursed/brittle/non-repair items (the -100 luck I can see, that's not a major negative in some situations).
The Devs have stated that it will be extremely rare to find higher end items that don't have the major negative attributes, and exponentially rares still to find such an item that actually has positive attributes that fit together. If it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of play time to find such an item as has been implied, I can't imagine most people will waste their time trying to do it (once the initial interest wears off).
One suggestion might be some artifacts with a fixed set of useful attributes that can only be acquired in the new dungeons and will always be cursed/brittle/low-durability. Let's take an Ornament of the Magician as an example. I use it in a number of templates, and if it were only available cursed/brittle, I'd still incorporate it into suits if more could be acquired, because it is useful enough.
I think this system would work because people who want to farm for items would have a ready market for these powerful but cursed/brittle artifacts. And people who want to build more powerful suits could incorporate such artifacts, knowing that they may have to pay (or farm) to replace the items once they are lost or wear out. Under the current system, I think it would be very difficult for people to sell artifacts from the new loot system because, once again, even powerful items probably won't fit the suits of other players.
Currently, there's very little demand for cursed doom arties because non-cursed versions are available. What if there were some new, desirable artifacts that were only available as cursed/brittle versions? Definite risk/reward scenario, for both pvpers & pvmers. You could build a more powerful pvper and potentially die less...but when you do it'll cost you; you could build a more powerful sampire suit and kill faster...but if you die in a crowd you could get looted.
I don't know if this would work, but I wanted to give a constructive suggestion after pointing out the flaws in the newly introduced system. I just don't want to have the new system put in just to find out in a few months after the newness fades that people have zero interest in these items because they simply are not useful by and large. People like to spend their time playing the game, I think very very very few would be willing to spend 30 hours gathering materials & re-building their suit to just so they can take advantage of a new arty for a couple of hours before it crumbles to dust (or is lost or taken).
Which gets us to the main point of this post, the items available in the new Shame loot system (and I assume other dungeons as they are rolled out). I think there's a real flaw and I hope that the Devs will give it some real thought before this new system gets too entrenched and rolled out to all the old dungeons.
The problem is that items are only useful as they are incorporated with other parts of a suit (weapons may be different). In other words, if someone goes down into Shame and pulls out a super-duper-uber bracelet or helmet or whatever, it's unlikely that it will do them much good until they build a suit around it. They might have to re-balance resists, or maybe the new item gives HCI where none existed before, but since most people these days (via imbuing) are capped in most of the critical attributes, just subbing in a new super-artifact piece won't make any difference.
Which leads to the question of, who's going to spend considerable time, resources or gold to construct a new suit around an item that is cursed/brittle/cannot be repaired? Would someone really spend 30 hours gathering resources & building a suit around an item that may only last a few hours of play-time? It's absurd. And of course, since these items are so unique, there's not even the remotest possibility you could replace the cursed/brittle/non-repair item once it wears out or is lost; rendering the rest of the suit useless.
So you say, don't invest all that time building a suit, just throw something together to take advantage of the powerful new artifact? What would be the point in that, when you can get better overall results without using these new loot drops.
So, I think within a few weeks everyone will come to realize that these loot drops will be by and large useless. Sure some lower-end items with currently unavailable attributes might prove to be good starting points for imbuing, but I can't imagine why anyone would spend any time building suits around cursed/brittle/non-repair items (the -100 luck I can see, that's not a major negative in some situations).
The Devs have stated that it will be extremely rare to find higher end items that don't have the major negative attributes, and exponentially rares still to find such an item that actually has positive attributes that fit together. If it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of play time to find such an item as has been implied, I can't imagine most people will waste their time trying to do it (once the initial interest wears off).
One suggestion might be some artifacts with a fixed set of useful attributes that can only be acquired in the new dungeons and will always be cursed/brittle/low-durability. Let's take an Ornament of the Magician as an example. I use it in a number of templates, and if it were only available cursed/brittle, I'd still incorporate it into suits if more could be acquired, because it is useful enough.
I think this system would work because people who want to farm for items would have a ready market for these powerful but cursed/brittle artifacts. And people who want to build more powerful suits could incorporate such artifacts, knowing that they may have to pay (or farm) to replace the items once they are lost or wear out. Under the current system, I think it would be very difficult for people to sell artifacts from the new loot system because, once again, even powerful items probably won't fit the suits of other players.
Currently, there's very little demand for cursed doom arties because non-cursed versions are available. What if there were some new, desirable artifacts that were only available as cursed/brittle versions? Definite risk/reward scenario, for both pvpers & pvmers. You could build a more powerful pvper and potentially die less...but when you do it'll cost you; you could build a more powerful sampire suit and kill faster...but if you die in a crowd you could get looted.
I don't know if this would work, but I wanted to give a constructive suggestion after pointing out the flaws in the newly introduced system. I just don't want to have the new system put in just to find out in a few months after the newness fades that people have zero interest in these items because they simply are not useful by and large. People like to spend their time playing the game, I think very very very few would be willing to spend 30 hours gathering materials & re-building their suit to just so they can take advantage of a new arty for a couple of hours before it crumbles to dust (or is lost or taken).
