From the Twitch Q&A: enchanting and ceiling

[Idara]

Personally, I would like to see obsidian tread a middle ground between what I understand Josh to be saying, and the way it worked on PoE. For both roleplay and aesthetic reasons I do have a tendency to get attached to certain pieces of equipment, and I loved not needing to trash my favourite items in order to progress through the game (some games I have been know to hang onto underpowered equipment way past the point of sensible builds, just because it looks cool with my character). On the other hand, it was a bit odd to be able to enchant almost any weapon to the same degree.

 

Perhaps it could cost more (resources etc) to enchant an item that was more rubbish to start with? eg it could be much harder (and need much fancier reagents) to make a superb dagger out of a butter knife than it would if you started with an already enchanted silver-etched heirloom dagger, but you *could* make them up to the same standard if you wanted it badly enough.

 

( I personally don't understand players who need the constant motivation of 'better loot' to explore, but then, I'm a miserable old grognard ;-) )

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

After playing Tyranny one thing I really liked was how they riffed on Pillar's item system by adding "scaling" depending on what level you found a weapon at.

 

Find it early, it has a light enchantment

Find it late, it has top level enchants

 

I hope they adopt that system for this game also.

On high levels we have a lot of money and we won't be able to even spend this money enchanting items because they will already have best enchants.

That's useless and bad for economy.

 

There's a chance you meant another thing but i pray to Eothas you didn't.

 

 

 

Have any of you criticizing this actually played Tyranny ?

 

The way it works is basically 

 

1) Take a given item like you'd find in PoE -- say, Leadspitter

 

2) The unique enchant (rending) doesn't change)

 

3) the quality enchant (fine, exceptional, accurate 1, accurate 2) changes depending on what level you do the content. 

 

What this means in practice is that you can find very nice items early in the game because the devs don't have to worry about locking the "best" gear behind high-level gates, and then you can keep upgrading them all along throughout the game, which is exactly the thing everyone was just saying they like about PoE's system.

 

 

PoE 2 is going to be extremely open world. Allowing scaling on random loot in open world games allows for a lot more freedom -- I don't have to feel locked in to doing content in a specific order so I can get loot at "optimal" levels and so forth.

 

Obviously scaling can be overdone and it's a matter of hitting it "just right" so that you can still overlevel content without other content becoming trivialized by advancement elsewhere. But it's doable. 

Edited February 26, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Boeroer]

Yes, I did. Several times.

Still don't like the concept.

[anameforobsidian]

I normally don't like this argument, but level-scaled loot breaks normally breaks immersion, creates ludonarrative dissonance, diminishes verisimilitude or whatever you want to call it.  Leveled-loot nullifies inherent purpose of the leveling system (showing progression), which ends of setting the leveling system against the narrative.

 

Game difficulty should be thematic to region, faction, and character.  It doesn't make sense for Fallout's Enclave troopers to be using pipe rifles or for random tribals to be wielding laser weapons.  The worst example is Oblivion, where an ancient Lich was a pushover while lategame bandits were hauling around daedric armor.  Even if a weapon has a unique enchantment, it's frequently the case that average late-game mooks have better weapons than early leaders.

[hilfazer]

What this means in practice is that you can find very nice items early in the game because the devs don't have to worry about locking the "best" gear behind high-level gates, and then you can keep upgrading them all along throughout the game, which is exactly the thing everyone was just saying they like about PoE's system.

That's cool, i just don't understand why loot should have higher level enchantment when found on high lvl? I have a mountain of gold, let me spend some of it on enchanting.

[Boeroer]

Actually when I killed the Adra Dragon for the first time and went to her treasure I felt so sorry for her being so poor compared to me that I tossed some thousand coins onto her corpse...

Edited February 27, 2017 by Boeroer

[oddrheia]

I don't like the enchantment ceiling idea either, as I fall into the category of people who keeps an item for its looks first and stats second.  I absolutely LOVED that I could mold certain armors/weapons to be usable till the end, no matter how they started.  ... I also was one of the people who kept most companions in their starter armor and enchanted it later (sometimes replacing it with a new piece, if I liked it though..)

 

Now, I love finding new shinies as much as the next person, but help me god,  if I end up mismatched in all colors of rainbow because new items' stats leave the conceptually cooler looking equipment in the dust...

Edited February 26, 2017 by oddrheia

[algroth]

 

To me it really depends on how they're re-implementing crafting. I believe their plan with regards to crafting is to have it be more unique and related to the properties present in each individual weapon, which is cool because I think it allows gear to remain unique and not be standardized by being all able to be enchanted in the same way. But in turn I could see how, say, a flaming sword that initially only gives a small bonus fire damage might eventually reach a ceiling by not offering a greater amount and variety of crafting branches than the more "complex" weapons we may see later in the game. In all honesty I'm pretty intrigued by their re-evaluation of crafting and if an item ceiling acts as something of a sacrifice to make for it, I'm cool with that.

 

I actually think uniqueness is an admirable goal and should be explored. what i am wondering is the generic accuracy bonus stuff. so its fine to have only one flaming sword the whole game but if i cant bump its accuracy i will have to use another sword in late game due to scaling issues. Maybe this wont be an issue but we need more info.

 

I'd assume the generic accuracy/damage enchantment will still exist, just, you won't be able to add kith-slaying abilities to a weapon without them, or burning to a non-burning weapon, or an attribute bonus to an item without them.

[draego]

 

 

To me it really depends on how they're re-implementing crafting. I believe their plan with regards to crafting is to have it be more unique and related to the properties present in each individual weapon, which is cool because I think it allows gear to remain unique and not be standardized by being all able to be enchanted in the same way. But in turn I could see how, say, a flaming sword that initially only gives a small bonus fire damage might eventually reach a ceiling by not offering a greater amount and variety of crafting branches than the more "complex" weapons we may see later in the game. In all honesty I'm pretty intrigued by their re-evaluation of crafting and if an item ceiling acts as something of a sacrifice to make for it, I'm cool with that.

 

I actually think uniqueness is an admirable goal and should be explored. what i am wondering is the generic accuracy bonus stuff. so its fine to have only one flaming sword the whole game but if i cant bump its accuracy i will have to use another sword in late game due to scaling issues. Maybe this wont be an issue but we need more info.

 

I'd assume the generic accuracy/damage enchantment will still exist, just, you won't be able to add kith-slaying abilities to a weapon without them, or burning to a non-burning weapon, or an attribute bonus to an item without them.

 

 

Yes you for sure wont be able to add the secondary and slaying options like in POE1 which i think is fine but they have made it seem like the accuracy and damage wont scale. I have even heard them on twitch mention that you can only improve or enchant the item once. They were not clear what they were referring to but i assume this is the accuracy stuff because elsewhere they mention being able to augment your flaming sword for example in different flaming buffs. So these to things sound separate to me. I am all for the unique stuff being unique like they mention dragon slaying sword and flaming sword so those are the only ones that can have those enhancement which can be cool. But if that flaming sword is an early sword i find and the only flaming weapon in the game which they said is true and i want to my character role to include this flaming stuff to synergize with other flaming stuff they heavily implied you wont be able too by virtue of not being able to get it past one enhancement. I really hope i am wrong and really want them to explicitly say how this is going to work but from what they said it doesnt look good. This will also kill aesthetic reasons to want certain gear because it wont be useful later on.

 

The other thing they can do is remove the accuracy and damage weapon buff completely from the the game. This way later unique weapons wont outpace earlier ones they will just be different. This could also solve all the issues and i would be fine with that because then you would not have to get rid of your gear if you really like it. 

Edited February 27, 2017 by jnb0364

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I normally don't like this argument, but level-scaled loot breaks normally breaks immersion, creates ludonarrative dissonance, diminishes verisimilitude or whatever you want to call it.  Leveled-loot nullifies inherent purpose of the leveling system (showing progression), which ends of setting the leveling system against the narrative.

 

Game difficulty should be thematic to region, faction, and character.  It doesn't make sense for Fallout's Enclave troopers to be using pipe rifles or for random tribals to be wielding laser weapons.  The worst example is Oblivion, where an ancient Lich was a pushover while lategame bandits were hauling around daedric armor.  Even if a weapon has a unique enchantment, it's frequently the case that average late-game mooks have better weapons than early leaders.

 

 

That's exactly why I like the Tyranny setup though -- the type of item doesn't change, so you don't get endgame mooks running around in daedric or whatever. They just have really high quality bone clubs or what have you. I'll agree that there's an immersion issue to be dealt with though.

[Ericles1557]

I liked finding Azuriths Stiletto, or whatever it was called, with Jolting Touch on crit. And carried that **** through the whole game, dual wielding with another stiletto and maxing them out. Let me tell you how satisfying it was to Shadowing Beyond, sneak up to Concelhaut and annihilate him while the rest of my party was panicked and struggling. That wouldn't have been possible without that specific weapon.

[amazeing4art]

I have to disagree with most people here... I think a ceiling is a good idea. Why? Because it seemed very silly to me that some crappy unenchantd mace you pick up in the starter ruins of Cilant Lis can be enchanted so it's basically 80% as good by the end of the game as any other (non-soulbound) mace in the game. I still remember the massive disappointment and frustration I felt after finding all the pieces of the blade of the Endless paths, going down a dozen dungeon levels, and then brought it to Dunstan to be forged... and found out that it's nearly the same as any other Estoc I might enchant myself. Sure it has speed or whatever, but those enchants takes up space too. It was so disappointing to realize that as I leveled, I could just craft out of thin air, at a moments notice while sitting half dead in a frozen riverbed, with no special blacksmithing or enchanting training, weapons that are nearly as good as any others anywhere in the game. What happened to skilled blacksmiths, hard to find enchanters, etc? The weapon enchant system at first was incredibly boring and uninspiring to me. They fixed this quite a bit with soulbound weapons, happily. But yes, let's go even farther. That crappy driftwood staff your wizard is using at level one, yes give us lots of interesting ways and options to find better things as the game moves along. Please do not leave us automatically upgrading it over and over as we level, with no training or special enchanting skills or meeting legendary wizards needed!

[Katarack21]

I have to disagree with most people here... I think a ceiling is a good idea. Why? Because it seemed very silly to me that some crappy unenchantd mace you pick up in the starter ruins of Cilant Lis can be enchanted so it's basically 80% as good by the end of the game as any other (non-soulbound) mace in the game. I still remember the massive disappointment and frustration I felt after finding all the pieces of the blade of the Endless paths, going down a dozen dungeon levels, and then brought it to Dunstan to be forged... and found out that it's nearly the same as any other Estoc I might enchant myself. Sure it has speed or whatever, but those enchants takes up space too. It was so disappointing to realize that as I leveled, I could just craft out of thin air, at a moments notice while sitting half dead in a frozen riverbed, with no special blacksmithing or enchanting training, weapons that are nearly as good as any others anywhere in the game. What happened to skilled blacksmiths, hard to find enchanters, etc? The weapon enchant system at first was incredibly boring and uninspiring to me. They fixed this quite a bit with soulbound weapons, happily. But yes, let's go even farther. That crappy driftwood staff your wizard is using at level one, yes give us lots of interesting ways and options to find better things as the game moves along. Please do not leave us automatically upgrading it over and over as we level, with no training or special enchanting skills or meeting legendary wizards needed!

But I *LIKE* having the ability to enchant low-level items and make them powerful enough to keep with me and use. One of the things I *really* enjoyed about Pillars of Eternity is that if I find a weapon that I really like in the first dungeon, I can keep that ****er with me through to endgame if I wish.

 

That's freedom right there. That's choice. That's giving the player the option to use what they like instead of forcing them to abandon it and go with what you as the developer decided is the appropriate weapon at such-and-such level.

[Boeroer]

I agree 100% to that.

 

It's ok though (for me) if they limit fancier enchantments like burning lash and so on to weapons which are appropriate - like a flaming sword. Or if you could only put a corrosive lash on a weapon like Bittercut. This may lead to more interesting weapon "paths" and prevents that every end game gear has the same enchantments, ok.

 

But the quality enchantments which raise ACC and dmg bonus should stay in the game. I think it's stupid if you have to throw away a weapon that you like very much (not only the enchantments, but also the looks!) just because you can't enchant it past "fine" or so. This will also limit the build options (which weapons with which class with which talents/abilites) severely. Every charbuild will run around with the same end game gear then. Boring and lame.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Boeroer

[illathid]

I agree 100% to that.

 

It's ok though (for me) if they limit fancier enchantments like burning lash and so on to weapons which are appropriate - like a flaming sword. Or if you could only put a corrosive lash on a weapon like Bittercut. This may lead to more interesting weapon "paths" and prevents that every end game gear has the same enchantments, ok.

 

But the quality enchantments which raise ACC and dmg bonus should stay in the game. I think it's stupid if you have to throw away a weapon that you like very much (not only the enchantments, but also the looks!) just because you can't enchant it past "fine" or so. This will also limit the build options (which weapons with which class with which talents/abilites) severely. Every charbuild will run around with the same end game gear then. Boring and lame.

 

I don't know... this could help make gear more of meaningful choice. You may have to decide between using a weapon with an awesome ability but inferior quality or a weaker ability and superior quality. That's usually an interesting choice.

[hilfazer]

I have to disagree with most people here... I think a ceiling is a good idea. Why? Because it seemed very silly to me that some crappy unenchantd mace you pick up in the starter ruins of Cilant Lis can be enchanted so it's basically 80% as good by the end of the game as any other (non-soulbound) mace in the game. I still remember the massive disappointment and frustration I felt after finding all the pieces of the blade of the Endless paths, going down a dozen dungeon levels, and then brought it to Dunstan to be forged... and found out that it's nearly the same as any other Estoc I might enchant myself. Sure it has speed or whatever, but those enchants takes up space too. It was so disappointing to realize that as I leveled, I could just craft out of thin air, at a moments notice while sitting half dead in a frozen riverbed, with no special blacksmithing or enchanting training, weapons that are nearly as good as any others anywhere in the game. What happened to skilled blacksmiths, hard to find enchanters, etc? The weapon enchant system at first was incredibly boring and uninspiring to me. They fixed this quite a bit with soulbound weapons, happily. But yes, let's go even farther. That crappy driftwood staff your wizard is using at level one, yes give us lots of interesting ways and options to find better things as the game moves along. Please do not leave us automatically upgrading it over and over as we level, with no training or special enchanting skills or meeting legendary wizards needed!

Ahh, I was waiting for this for so long.

 

Nice theory you've got there. But what about some practice? What's that? People are using unique items pretty much exclusively. Who would have guessed.

 

I've already seen a number of people complaining they can enchant an estoc to be 'as good or better' than Blade of The Endless Paths. But none of them have mentioned that you can only enchant ONE such weapon per game (i'm talking vanilla POE and Superb quality here). I wonder why?

BoTEP isn't really "nearly the same" with 2 properties you cannot enchant yourself.

 

But yes enchanting in the middle of the forest is bad, i hope it will be gone in POE2.

[Katarack21]

 

But yes enchanting in the middle of the forest is bad, i hope it will be gone in POE2.

 

No, that's an anti-frustration feature. I don't want to have to travel through four loading screens and two maps to upgrade the enchantment on this blade by one bloody step. That's super annoying.

[AndreaColombo]

Also: Let me play my fashion game without penalizing me for it

[George_Truman]

Blade of the Endless Paths rocks socks though. Speed and marking on an estoc is

[Stratagemini]

I actually like the idea of limiting enchantment to make switching weapons more desirable. I also really like the idea that there will be a limitation on the sort of enchantments you can add to a weapon based on what the weapon is (like flaming burst only going on the fire sword). Both of those seem like cool changes to me.

[draego]

This confirms what I and others have been saying. http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/157791066261/hi-josh-question-about-enchanting-in-deadfire. Weapons will only be upgraded to next quality step. This stinks

 

I actually like the idea of limiting enchantment to make switching weapons more desirable. I also really like the idea that there will be a limitation on the sort of enchantments you can add to a weapon based on what the weapon is (like flaming burst only going on the fire sword). Both of those seem like cool changes to me.

 

Ye but when loot is static this makes weapons you want to use arbitrary. For example the flaming sword, if its designated an early weapon with no enhancement then it can only go to fine. Then if later a corrode sword is designated a late game weapon with a superb enhancement. Then there is no choice to make, late game you will use corrode sword even though you made a priest or paladin or something else that has developed his whole identity around flaming abilities and weapons but because some dev decided the flame sword is early game then you are screwed. And what is worse is if you choose a skill like scion of flame (if still there). This doesnt add cool choices it limits how you can build you character from a role playing, power gaming and aesthetic gaming perspective. This almost feels like going back to the stupid +4,+5 stuff in BG. 

 

It would be better if they remove the enhancement enchantment altogether. So no fine, superb enhancements at all and just scale the game accordingly. Then ye it interesting to find the only flaming sword in the game and its unique but you dont have to throw it away for a corrode sword if you dont role play corrode damage. 

 

This also further requires metagaming in order to not build your character wrong which is an explicate goal they want to avoid.

Edited February 28, 2017 by jnb0364

[oddrheia]

This confirms what I and others have been saying. http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/157791066261/hi-josh-question-about-enchanting-in-deadfire. Weapons will only be upgraded to next quality step. This stinks

 

 

 

I actually like the idea of limiting enchantment to make switching weapons more desirable. I also really like the idea that there will be a limitation on the sort of enchantments you can add to a weapon based on what the weapon is (like flaming burst only going on the fire sword). Both of those seem like cool changes to me.

 

Ye but when loot is static this makes weapons you want to use arbitrary. For example the flaming sword, if its designated an early weapon with no enhancement then it can only go to fine. Then if later a corrode sword is designated a late game weapon with a superb enhancement. Then there is no choice to make, late game you will use corrode sword even though you make have a priest or paladin or something else that has developed his whole identity around flaming abilities and weapons but because some dev decided the flame sword is early game then you are screwed. And what is worse is if you choose a skill like scion of flame (if still there). This doesnt add cool choices it limits how you can build you character from a role playing, power gaming and aesthetic gaming perspective. This almost feels like going back to the stupid +4,+5 stuff in BG. 

 

It would be better if they remove the enhancement enchantment altogether. So no fine, superb enhancements at all and just scale the game accordingly. Then ye it interesting to find the only flaming sword in the game and its unique but you dont have to throw it away for a corrode sword if you dont role play corrode damage. 

 

This also further requires metagaming in order to not build your character wrong which is an explicate goal they want to avoid.

It would be better if they remove the enhancement enchantment altogether. So no fine, superb enhancements at all and just scale the game accordingly. Then ye it interesting to find the only flaming sword in the game and its unique but you dont have to throw it away for a corrode sword if you dont role play corrode damage. 

 

Damn, that's sad about the next step only....  jumping one accuracy/damage level, it's almost as if you couldn't at all. Perfect example there about early game flame sword. Don't suppose they can change their minds?

 

For me, it's honestly more about the visible pieces, but I can totally see how item availability dictating the playstyle is going to peeve a lot of people.

Edited February 28, 2017 by oddrheia

[hilfazer]

Funny part is that the reason for this change: "some players didn't like they can enchant early game weapons to maximum level" is not even true.

[Boeroer]

All I can say is: BOOOOOOOOOOO!

[JerekKruger]

Well that sucks. We're being given less choice in terms of weapon aesthetics and effects because of a perception that there's something wrong with not regularly replacing your gear.

 

Funny part is that the reason for this change: "some players didn't like they can enchant early game weapons to maximum level" is not even true.

 

If you mean by that that you can't enchant early game weapons to Mythic then sure, but honestly I'd treat Mythic as something separate since not only can you not enchant weapons to be Mythic, the few* Mythic weapons there are in the game are fairly niche anyway. If you're a class that relies on your weapon to do damage then, realistically, Legendary is the top quality enchantment tier.

 

*I am being vague because I know you didn't want spoilers in another thread regarding numbers.