From the Twitch Q&A: enchanting and ceiling

[Boeroer]

 

The biggest pro for me is that the ceiling means there will be more meaningful choice in regard to gearing my character and party. 

 

I don't understand that. Isn't there actually less choice? How can there be more choice if you take away options?

 

When you are preparing for a race and have the following options:

 

a) repair and pimp your old but beloved red racing car (maybe it's not as fast and nippy as a new one, but you know it inside out)

b) get a new fancy green racing car (highest speed)

c) get a new gorgeous blue racing car (best acceleration)

 

Now you take away option a):

 

b) get a new fancy green racing car

c) get a new gorgeous blue racing car

 

How is there more choice? Or why is the choice more meaningful? And I don't want to nag or something - I really don't understand what you guys mean with that.

Edited March 5, 2017 by Boeroer

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

The biggest pro for me is that the ceiling means there will be more meaningful choice in regard to gearing my character and party. 

 

I don't understand that. Isn't there actually less choice? How can there be more choice if you take away options?

 

 . . . .

 

How is there more choice? Or why is the choice more meaningful? And I don't want to nag or something - I really don't understand what you guys mean with that.

 

 

 

Well, PoE 1 had a design goal of no magic items found later being clearly superior to ones found earlier. Everything was supposed to be at least slightly different. This led to LOTS of variety in the itemization which was great, but people didn't get to replace Sword +1 with Sword +2 and then with Sword +3 etc and people expect that progression in an RPG (especially if people didn't mess with enchanting, which is a lot of first time players).

 

IF you remove that design goal and allow overlapping "clearly better" weapons, and ALSO if you simultaneously add a lot of (Sword +2 with X) and (Sword +2 with Y) or even (Sword +3 with X + B) or (Sword +3 with Y +A), then you might be increasing player choice and variety. And if you do that, then it makes sense to cut off upgrading lower-level gear after a certain point (because you're probably missing some better piece of new gear that you should be upgrading instead). 

 

But in that scenario cutting off upgrades of low-level gear is more a policy side effect of revamping your itemization generally after you've added lots more high level options. Otherwise, as you say, you're just cutting off player options to no purpose. 

 

it's an itemization and loot issue at core, not really an enchanting one.

Edited March 5, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[draego]

 

 

 

The biggest pro for me is that the ceiling means there will be more meaningful choice in regard to gearing my character and party. 

 

I don't understand that. Isn't there actually less choice? How can there be more choice if you take away options?

 

 . . . .

 

How is there more choice? Or why is the choice more meaningful? And I don't want to nag or something - I really don't understand what you guys mean with that.

 

 

 

Well, PoE 1 had a design goal of no magic items found later being clearly superior to ones found earlier. Everything was supposed to be at least slightly different. This led to LOTS of variety in the itemization which was great, but people didn't get to replace Sword +1 with Sword +2 and then with Sword +3 etc and people expect that progression in an RPG (especially if people didn't mess with enchanting, which is a lot of first time players).

 

IF you remove that design goal and allow overlapping "clearly better" weapons, and ALSO if you simultaneously add a lot of (Sword +2 with X) and (Sword +2 with Y) or even (Sword +3 with X + B) or (Sword +3 with Y +A), then you might be increasing player choice and variety. And if you do that, then it makes sense to cut off upgrading lower-level gear after a certain point (because you're probably missing some better piece of new gear that you should be upgrading instead). 

 

But in that scenario cutting off upgrades of low-level gear is more a policy side effect of revamping your itemization generally after you've added lots more high level options. Otherwise, as you say, you're just cutting off player options to no purpose. 

 

it's an itemization and loot issue at core, not really an enchanting one.

 

 

Your right but they already stated they are going to limit itemization if i understand you terminology. So one flaming sword and one dragon slaying sword the entire game there will be no other weapon with that property. So you better hope your idea of a build doesnt get stuck with an early weapon drop. i agree though if that was not the case then it wouldnt be such a big deal. I would still prefer they allow quality enchantment to "(Sword +2 with X) and (Sword +2 with Y) or even (Sword +3 with X + B) or (Sword +3 with Y +A)," because then you wouldn't have to drop a million swords everywhere but what you are saying would still be preferable to what they plan to do because if Y was flaming and you wanted to use flaming then you would have choices and not just one sword, however this wouldn't solve the person looking for weapons and armor to use based on aesthetics also since the original Sword +2 with X could be the best looking sword as well.

Edited March 5, 2017 by draego

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

Your right but they already stated they are going to limit itemization if i understand you terminology. So one flaming sword and one dragon slaying sword the entire game. So you better hope your idea of a build doesnt get stuck with an early weapon drop. i agree though if that was not the case then it wouldnt be such a big deal. I would still prefer they allow quality enchantment to "(Sword +2 with X) and (Sword +2 with Y) or even (Sword +3 with X + B) or (Sword +3 with Y +A)," because then you wouldn't have to drop a million swords everywhere but what you are saying would still be preferable to what they plan to do.

 

 

 

Right, exactly.

 

If there's only one sword in the whole game that does fire damage, and you can't upgrade it, then you also can't make a build around it (fire godlike, bonus fire damage talent, etc). If there's four swords in the game that do fire damage, though, maybe you can. 

 

It all depends on how exactly they limit itemization. If they allow for some functional overlap (one sword does fire damage base type, one sword does bonus fire damage, one sword does bonus fire damage over time, one sword does slashing damage but procs fire damage Foe AoE) that's one thing. If they keep it really strict (literally only one one-handed weapon that does fire damage, period) then the removal of enchanting upgrades will REALLY hurt. All depends.

 

There's also a problem with weapon proficiencies. You specialized in swords? well, whoops, the next fire weapon is a warhammer. . .

Edited March 5, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[George_Truman]

How is there more choice? Or why is the choice more meaningful? And I don't want to nag or something - I really don't understand what you guys mean with that.

The way it us right now almost all special items have a similar number of special effects. What happens frequently is you find a weapon that has two good secondary effects in the early game (daenesys, bittercut, or tall grass) and it becomes red, blue, and green all in one. It becomes optimal to use that weapon the whole game. In that case it seems like there is no choice at all.

 

That is super boring for a lot of people. When you are limited to how much you can upgrade an item, you eventually face the choice of synergy vs quality. It also allows designers to add powerful items to the early game that may not scale well, like the dragon sword in Dank Souls.

 

Limiting enchanting and expanding weapon specializations like they plan can lead to cool choices throughout the game. Maybe you find a high quality polearm that seems like an obvious upgrade, but you feel that you are getting more out of the modal for your weaker estoc. Maybe you can switch between the two depending on the situation now that you don't lose 6 accuracy. What I mean is that limiting quality adds a new dimension to choosing your weapon other than its extra properties.

 

The way it is now with the white march: you pick your weapon, you slather it with durgan, and you are good to go. I actually think durgan is also lame as it even further diminishes incentive to use multiple weapons.

 

As far as creating whole-game builds I think the change creates more depth as it encourages you to flow from weapon to weapon instead of having a very singular plan.

[JerekKruger]

I think a large part of the difference in opinion originates from a difference in the way the two groups play. People like Boeroer like to plan builds ahead of time: looking at the selection of gear available in the game and trying to come up with interesting synergies to design builds around. By reducing the ability to enchant early game weapon's quality enchantments to end game levels, the selection of weapons available for this style of build design is reduced and hence so are the number of interesting builds.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you sound like you prefer a more organic style of build development where you choose abilities and talents based on the current in game situation. You're not looking ahead at a list of items present in the game, so if you find a good weapon early on and you have the ability to enchant it's quality all the way to Legendary you're not likely to switch it out. In some sense you want the game to force you out of the easy choice of sticking with the first good weapon you find.

 

Does that seem accurate?

 

The way it us right now almost all special items have a similar number of special effects. What happens frequently is you find a weapon that has two good secondary effects in the early game (daenesys, bittercut, or tall grass) and it becomes red, blue, and green all in one. It becomes optimal to use that weapon the whole game. In that case it seems like there is no choice at all.

 

Only if Obsidian make quality enchantments the only thing that differs between early, mid and late game weapons. Consider the following (possible) example:

 

Early game: Sword with Fine and Burning.

 

Late game: Sword with Superb, Corrosive, a corrode based bound spell and an attribute bonus.

 

Even if you allow the early game sword to be upgraded to Legendary, it's not equivalent to the late game sword, but at least doing so allows someone who has designed a fire based, sword wielding Priest of Magran (a pretty natural build from an RP perspective) not to feel like their build is completely unviable in the late game.

 

Maybe you find a high quality polearm that seems like an obvious upgrade, but you feel that you are getting more out of the modal for your weaker estoc.

 

This sounds pretty horrible to me. I absolutely hate having spent talent points only to find that I'll get no use from them later. If Deadfire has a respec function then, in this situation, I would simply respec and pick the modal for the pollaxe.

 

The way it is now with the white march: you pick your weapon, you slather it with durgan, and you are good to go. I actually think durgan is also lame as it even further diminishes incentive to use multiple weapons.

 

I agree that Durgan Steel was bad, though more because it made almost every soulbound item worse than using a non-soulbound item which was a shame since soulbound items were a really cool idea and were often quite flavourful.
 

As far as creating whole-game builds I think the change creates more depth as it encourages you to flow from weapon to weapon instead of having a very singular plan.

 

Not really. Let's say the game has 10 early game weapons and 10 late game weapons. Previously this would give a selection of 20 weapons for the final build, but under the new system it results in 10 for the final build. Yes, there are more options on what to wield before getting your final weapon, but this isn't really build diversity.

Edited March 5, 2017 by JerekKruger

[draego]

 

How is there more choice? Or why is the choice more meaningful? And I don't want to nag or something - I really don't understand what you guys mean with that.

 

you eventually face the choice of synergy vs quality.

 

And i think this is where the word choice looses its meaning and where i dont understand the argument. What you call choice i call forced selection. if you find weapon that synergizes with your build and later you find weapons whose quality way outclasses your first weapon when facing hard monsters there is no choice you will go with quality first. Also this change sets up arbitrary drops because we know as of right now that weapons will be so unique that the property will only occur once. So when certain properties synergize (could be multiple for example i like for my melee ranger marking, coordinating and wounding) with your build and all those properties could be dropped early and oh well there goes your build (This could happen easily if say my ranger like maces and sabres and if the said properties only occur on those weapons on early drops especially if i use proficiencies in those). If you allow the quality enchantment all the way for one weapon or if you replicate the properites to other weapons later then the devs dont have to worry screwing users build. This is what choice means. I look at weapons 1, 2, and 3 and can choice any one of them. looking at weapons 1 2 and 3 and having to take 3 because the quality is so good as to make the other weapons near useless against later enemies is not choice. 

 

JerekKruger - I actually think the way they are going forces you to metagame more. The more organic way would be to allow quality enchantment upgrade because you are punished less for not finding the right end game weapons

Edited March 5, 2017 by draego

[AndreaColombo]

I agree wholeheartedly with everything JerekKruger and draego said.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I think a large part of the difference in opinion originates from a difference in the way the two groups play. People like Boeroer like to plan builds ahead of time: looking at the selection of gear available in the game and trying to come up with interesting synergies to design builds around. By reducing the ability to enchant early game weapon's quality enchantments to end game levels, the selection of weapons available for this style of build design is reduced and hence so are the number of interesting builds.

 

 

  

 

Just to re-emphasize this from another angle:

 

There aren't many RPG's  that allow the degree of freedom that PoE 1 does. It's a near-perfect sandbox for that particular style of play, because character stats are wide open, because there is such a wide variety of items, and because of the freedom afforded by the enchanting system.

 

People who want Sword +1, then Sword +2, then Sword +3 have literally every other RPG in the world to play. PoE's freedom of build design is something relatively rare and worth preserving.

 

Like, y'all did a great job! Don't *#@! it up!

Edited March 5, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[MaxQuest]

I'd prefer V1, but I think you're being disingenuous regarding the pros of a ceiling.

Indeed I am. I can hardly imagine other pros of ceiling approach, that would also not be applicable to no-ceiling.

 

The biggest pro for me is that the ceiling means there will be more meaningful choice in regard to gearing my character and party.

Tbh, I had to google what exactly a meaningful choice is in order to know that we discuss the same thing.

 

And judging by that definition, I don't understand why the mentioned pro is exclusive to ceiling only.

 

I think a large part of the difference in opinion originates from a difference in the way the two groups play. People like Boeroer like to plan builds ahead of time: looking at the selection of gear available in the game and trying to come up with interesting synergies to design builds around. By reducing the ability to enchant early game weapon's quality enchantments to end game levels, the selection of weapons available for this style of build design is reduced and hence so are the number of interesting builds.

Makes a lot of sense.

When you are going for 2nd, 3rd, 4th play-through, the joy of discovering new items is greatly diminished. It's substituted by planing and joy of efficient usage.

[illathid]

 

 

The biggest pro for me is that the ceiling means there will be more meaningful choice in regard to gearing my character and party. 

 

I don't understand that. Isn't there actually less choice? How can there be more choice if you take away options?

 

When you are preparing for a race and have the following options:

 

a) repair and pimp your old but beloved red racing car (maybe it's not as fast and nippy as a new one, but you know it inside out)

b) get a new fancy green racing car (highest speed)

c) get a new gorgeous blue racing car (best acceleration)

 

Now you take away option a):

 

b) get a new fancy green racing car

c) get a new gorgeous blue racing car

 

How is there more choice? Or why is the choice more meaningful? And I don't want to nag or something - I really don't understand what you guys mean with that.

 

 

This might be pushing the metaphor, but here's how I see it: If revamped the red race car is the obvious choice for this racetrack. So if you allow the revamping there's effectively no choice as the red car is the best option. If you don't allow the revamping then you have to make a meaningful choice between all three cars. Maybe the you'll decide that even with the lack of top speed and acceleration, the investment of time and knowledge you've put into the red car will better than the other two. Maybe you'll decide against that. But at least you'll have a meaningful choice unlike if you allow the revamping.

 

That's what I mean when I say that ceiling for enchantment will allow for meaningful choice.

 

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me like there's a tension between having diversity of builds from gear selection and a diversity of gear from build selection. Just a thought I had.

Edited March 5, 2017 by illathid

[JerekKruger]

People who want Sword +1, then Sword +2, then Sword +3 have literally every other RPG in the world to play. PoE's freedom of build design is something relatively rare and worth preserving.

 

Sadly for us, if these people sufficiently outnumber us then from Obsidian's point of view this isn't something worth preserving, particularly when these people claim that PoE's system ruined their sense of discovery and excitement.

[JerekKruger]

This might be pushing the metaphor, but here's how I see it: If revamped the red race car is the obvious choice for this racetrack. So if you allow the revamping there's effectively no choice as the red car is the best option. If you don't allow the revamping then you have to make a meaningful choice between all three cars. Maybe the you'll decide that even with the lack of top speed and acceleration, the investment of time and knowledge you've put into the red car will better than the other two. Maybe you'll decide against that.

 

Again, I think the is a problem with the itemisation in Pillars rather than the ability to upgrade the quality enchantment without limit. In vanilla PoE most unique weapons had one or two non-quality enchantments (rarely three) selected from a rather limited set of which a handful were substantially better than the rest, so if you found an item with Wounding, Speed etc. early on then adding a lash and keeping the quality enchantment maxed out made the weapon top tier. The variety of enchantments was improved in the two White March expansions, but because these weren't end game content this resulted in the new weapons being available fairly early on, so it didn't fix the problem.

 

However with Deadfire Obsidian can carefully plan itemisation as I described in my earlier example:

 

Early game: Sword with Fine and Burning.

 

Late game: Sword with Superb, Corrosive, a corrode based bound spell and an attribute bonus.

 

Which, I think you'll agree, does provide a meaningful choice even if we're allowed to upgrade the Fine enchantment on the first sword all the way to Legendary (in fact, I'd argue that not allowing us to do so removes an otherwise meaningful choice).

[draego]

 

 

 

The biggest pro for me is that the ceiling means there will be more meaningful choice in regard to gearing my character and party. 

 

I don't understand that. Isn't there actually less choice? How can there be more choice if you take away options?

 

When you are preparing for a race and have the following options:

 

a) repair and pimp your old but beloved red racing car (maybe it's not as fast and nippy as a new one, but you know it inside out)

b) get a new fancy green racing car (highest speed)

c) get a new gorgeous blue racing car (best acceleration)

 

Now you take away option a):

 

b) get a new fancy green racing car

c) get a new gorgeous blue racing car

 

How is there more choice? Or why is the choice more meaningful? And I don't want to nag or something - I really don't understand what you guys mean with that.

 

 

This might be pushing the metaphor, but here's how I see it: If revamped the red race car is the obvious choice for this racetrack. So if you allow the revamping there's effectively no choice as the red car is the best option. If you don't allow the revamping then you have to make a meaningful choice between all three cars. Maybe the you'll decide that even with the lack of top speed and acceleration, the investment of time and knowledge you've put into the red car will better than the other two. Maybe you'll decide against that. But at least you'll have a meaningful choice unlike if you allow the revamping.

 

That's what I mean when I say that ceiling for enchantment will allow for meaningful choice.

 

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me like there's a tension between having diversity of builds from gear selection and a diversity of gear from build selection. Just a thought I had.

 

 

And i dont want to seem like i am dismissing your arguments. I am trying to understand. I think that their plan to take away the monster and lashing enchantment would satisfy your side of the argument for example there will be one flaming sword and not flaming lashes for any weapon and there will be one dragon slaying sword and not beast lashes for any weapons and I assume the same for coordinating , marking , wounding. So lets say my character likes swords and maybe one other weapon type and i put proficiencies in swords i doubt may people will use more than one or two weapon proficiencies. All i am asking for is that at the end of the game i can choose which property of all these properties works best for me in given circumstance. however this will not be possible if say the wounding, coordinating and flaming all drop early with no quality enchantment or fine enchantment because later on if say the dragon sword is legendary and the marking sword is superb at drop time then there will be no choice of which property to use. I will only use dragon slaying or marking thats it, accuracy and damage are to important to make any other choice.

 

I think most people on here are just wanting the quality enchantment to keep up not all the other enchantment in poe1.

 

also as others have mentioned you could also maybe combine late game enchantment like flaming marking sword to fix issue but as of now they seem to make clear enchantment will be uniques for the whole game

 

sorry for repeating kinda what JerekKruger said heh was typing to slow and beat me to the punch

Edited March 5, 2017 by draego

[Boeroer]

You guys describe it way better than I ever could.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

People who want Sword +1, then Sword +2, then Sword +3 have literally every other RPG in the world to play. PoE's freedom of build design is something relatively rare and worth preserving.

 

Sadly for us, if these people sufficiently outnumber us then from Obsidian's point of view this isn't something worth preserving, particularly when these people claim that PoE's system ruined their sense of discovery and excitement.

 

 

 

There's some truth to that, and we want the game to be something those people would enjoy.

 

On the other hand, the weirdos like us who have 600+ hours clocked are the ones who end up writing guides, telling our friends to buy the game, etc. 

 

My personal hope is that Obsidian ends up:

 

1) Allowing the base enchants (fine, excellent, Damaging 1, Damaging 2, etc.) to be upgraded all the way

 

2) Implements a wider range of itemization and weapon options, and

 

3) allows for some *overlap* of low level weapons by high level weapons, if not actual "replacement" -- i.e., low level sword with bonus % burn damage,  higher level sword with burn damage DoT/Debuff, top level sword that procs burn AoE, etc. 

 

#2 and #3 together should (ideally) be enough for the "casuals" to feel like they get real upgrades, without cutting off the option of upgrading for the rest of us.

 

I think the players who both 1) only do one playthrough and just want sword +1, sword +2, sword +3, AND ALSO 2) understand the enchanting system well enough to feel that it "ruined" their play by rendering upgraded gear moot, are likely to be a small though perhaps vocal minority of players. I know I didn't even bother with enchanting until I'd played through the backer beta multiple times. I suspect the "real issue" isn't so much that enchanting and upgrading "ruined" playthroughs, as that the design choice to never have gear "overlap" in features led to people on their first playthrough not finding clear upgrades (because they didn't bother to learn the enchanting system).

Edited March 5, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[George_Truman]

.

 

Maybe you find a high quality polearm that seems like an obvious upgrade, but you feel that you are getting more out of the modal for your weaker estoc.

This sounds pretty horrible to me. I absolutely hate having spent talent points only to find that I'll get no use from them later. If Deadfire has a respec function then, in this situation, I would simply respec and pick the modal for the pollaxe.

But they have announced that you get multiple weapon specializations and that they only compete with other weapon specializations. So no matter what you get redundant weapon talents.

 

That change is why I think that mapped out builds won't be quite so hurt. For instance in PoE if I want a sword and shield barbarian that inflicts disorienting I can choose between the early game spear or the late game hammer. The hammer is better IMO because I can get zero recovery with speed pretty easily (it has 1 extra enchant). So now I have two options: I can hold off weapon focus and grab the spear for the effect, or get early focus and use a different weapon (or have a wasted talent). With the new system I can grab both focuses with little/no downside and use both to their full effectiveness.

 

Thats what I mean by fluid builds and that is why I dont think preplanned builda will hurt too much - because the new system drastically opens up weapon possibilities.

 

This system would allow high perception builds to use strikehard and resolution early, then godspalunker and purgatory late etc.

 

They are closing one door but I think they are opening quite a few more.

 

 

 

How is there more choice? Or why is the choice more meaningful? And I don't want to nag or something - I really don't understand what you guys mean with that.

you eventually face the choice of synergy vs quality.

And i think this is where the word choice looses its meaning and where i dont understand the argument. What you call choice i call forced selection.

What I mean is this - an attack speed build is going to favor a superb blade of the endless paths over a mythic abydon's hammer. Durgan's plays a role but even then both items have unique properties but one nets me much more with high speed and interrupt.

Edited March 5, 2017 by George_Truman

[draego]

 

.

Maybe you find a high quality polearm that seems like an obvious upgrade, but you feel that you are getting more out of the modal for your weaker estoc.

This sounds pretty horrible to me. I absolutely hate having spent talent points only to find that I'll get no use from them later. If Deadfire has a respec function then, in this situation, I would simply respec and pick the modal for the pollaxe.

But they have announced that you get multiple weapon specializations and that they only compete with other weapon specializations. So no matter what you get redundant weapon talents.

 

That change is why I think that mapped out builds won't be quite so hurt. For instance in PoE if I want a sword and shield barbarian that inflicts disorienting I can choose between the early game spear or the late game hammer. The hammer is better IMO because I can get zero recovery with speed pretty easily (it has 1 extra enchant). So now I have two options: I can hold off weapon focus and grab the spear for the effect, or get early focus and use a different weapon (or have a wasted talent). With the new system I can grab both focuses with little/no downside and use both to their full effectiveness.

 

Thats what I mean by fluid builds and that is why I dont think preplanned builda will hurt too much - because the new system drastically opens up weapon possibilities.

 

This system would allow high perception builds to use strikehard and resolution early, then godspalunker and purgatory late etc.

 

They are closing one door but I think they are opening quite a few more.

 

 

Im not sure about the no downside part if you pick a weapon specialization talent you are picking a talent instead of some other talent. So there is a downside. Unless i misunstand what specialization means i thought they were replacing 6 weapon focuses with 20 different weapon specialization (not looking at the total number of weapon types). So i dont see why anyone would pick more than one maybe two because you dont get returns from picking talents you dont use.

Edited March 5, 2017 by draego

[George_Truman]

They aren't talents anymore. They are their own thing that only compete with other weapon specializations.

[JerekKruger]

They aren't talents anymore. They are their own thing that only compete with other weapon specializations.

 

Still, until we know how many points we get and how many points can be invested into each weapon, they're still not something you'll be wanting to misspend.

 

EDIT: I will say, however, that I like this change a lot. No long will my rapier wielding duellist need to take two talents to also be good with the pistol, whilst strangely picking up an aptitude with clubs and maces along the way.

Edited March 5, 2017 by JerekKruger

[draego]

EDIT: I will say, however, that I like this change a lot. No long will my rapier wielding duellist need to take two talents to also be good with the pistol, whilst strangely picking up an aptitude with clubs and maces along the way.

 

 

I also am not averse to this change either and i think its interesting.

 

 

 

Thats what I mean by fluid builds and that is why I dont think preplanned builda will hurt too much - because the new system drastically opens up weapon possibilities.

 

This system would allow high perception builds to use strikehard and resolution early, then godspalunker and purgatory late etc.

 

They are closing one door but I think they are opening quite a few more.

 

I believe that is what we are arguing for more diversity it just so happens that the decision to limit quality enchantments will drastically curb that.

Edited March 5, 2017 by draego

[illathid]

 

This might be pushing the metaphor, but here's how I see it: If revamped the red race car is the obvious choice for this racetrack. So if you allow the revamping there's effectively no choice as the red car is the best option. If you don't allow the revamping then you have to make a meaningful choice between all three cars. Maybe the you'll decide that even with the lack of top speed and acceleration, the investment of time and knowledge you've put into the red car will better than the other two. Maybe you'll decide against that.

 

Again, I think the is a problem with the itemisation in Pillars rather than the ability to upgrade the quality enchantment without limit. In vanilla PoE most unique weapons had one or two non-quality enchantments (rarely three) selected from a rather limited set of which a handful were substantially better than the rest, so if you found an item with Wounding, Speed etc. early on then adding a lash and keeping the quality enchantment maxed out made the weapon top tier. The variety of enchantments was improved in the two White March expansions, but because these weren't end game content this resulted in the new weapons being available fairly early on, so it didn't fix the problem.

 

However with Deadfire Obsidian can carefully plan itemisation as I described in my earlier example:

 

Early game: Sword with Fine and Burning.

 

Late game: Sword with Superb, Corrosive, a corrode based bound spell and an attribute bonus.

 

Which, I think you'll agree, does provide a meaningful choice even if we're allowed to upgrade the Fine enchantment on the first sword all the way to Legendary (in fact, I'd argue that not allowing us to do so removes an otherwise meaningful choice).

 

 

I don't see the meaningful choice there. The second sword is better in practically every scenario regardless of whether the first can be upgraded or not. That's by definition not a meaningful choice. Now by having the second sword only available late game you allow the possibility to upgrade from the first sword which is better than having them reversed, but it's still not a meaningful choice.

 

Let me try to state my position again. I want both the quality and the other properties of an item to factor in to making a decision about which gear to use.* In my opinion, if you don't enforce a ceiling on quality enchantment, then quality is no longer a factor in the decision making process. You just pick the best property and enchant it to the highest quality.

 

I understand the other side of the argument as well. Since in PoE1 quality is so important if you enforce a ceiling on quality enchantment, then the properties are no longer a factor in the decision making process. You just pick the weapon with the best quality. I have a few issues with this argument (i.e. if quality was important as everyone says all late game builds would be centered on Abydon's Hammer and the Unlaboured Blade, & it assumes quality will be as important as it was in PoE1), but I won't focus on them here.

 

Rather, I would be just as upset if the only factor in gear decision making was quality. However, as I see it making quality be a factor in decision making can only happen with a ceiling, while ensuring properties matter in decision making can be achieved several different ways (e.g. reducing the delta between different qualities, increasing the power of non quality properties, give diminishing returns for accuracy overkill, etc.). This is why I favour the enchantment ceiling. If Obsidian screws it up and makes properties a non-factor in decision making I'll be just as upset as everyone here.

 

*Aesthetics are another possible factor in decision making, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms. Sorry AndreaColombo.

[JerekKruger]

Okay, I think I understand your point of view illathid, though I still don't agree with it.

 

One thing I will say though is that if, as is the case in PoE, there's a limit on the number of items you can enchant to the highest quality tier then quality is still a factor is decision making. Perhaps that limit was a bit high in PoE (two superb and two legendary) but if in Deadfire you had the ability to upgrade a single weapon to the highest quality, you'd still need to weigh up quality when choosing weapons for the rest of your party.

 

By the way, I'd say the main reason there aren't more builds using Abydon's Hammer as their primary weapon even though it is one of two mythic ones is (a) Durgan's Steel and (b) the +4 Might bonus being arguably better for damage dealing spell casters than melee characters.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

It might be helpful to focus this discussion on a particular, specific character and specific weapon(s), rather than the abstract.

 

There are a lot of weapons in PoE 1 that have unique properties -- Spelltongue stands out as a really good example. You can design a whole character build around Spelltongue if you want (usually with a barbarian), in fact you can even design a whole party setup around Spelltongue (with casters giving the spelltongue wielder buffs, etc.).

 

But (in PoE 1 with upgrading) Spelltongue isn't clearly "better" than any number of other weapons -- it's just different. You can do a Godansthunyr barbarian instead, or you can do a two-handed barbarian with the Grey Sleeper or St. Ydwen's.

 

Now let's posit a Spelltongue-equivalent weapon in PoE 2. With one upgrade, that would take it to about level 12. So the first half of the game you'd keep it, then the second half you'd have to respec, because your build wouldn't make nearly as much sense any more -- especially if you had taken things like Noble weapon group and Two-Weapon fighting to maximize use of Spelltongue.

 

For someone who roleplays even a little bit, having to do a complete respec halfway through the game really is "ruining", because it breaks your character concept. 

 

And I only see two ways out of that problem. Either

 

(1) make sure there's a "Spelltongue 2" later in the game, which is just sortof boring (and presumably reduces item variety, since they're placing "Spelltongue 2" somewhere they could have placed something actually new instead), or

 

(2) let people upgrade Spelltongue.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[illathid]

It might be helpful to focus this discussion on a particular, specific character and specific weapon(s), rather than the abstract.

 

There are a lot of weapons in PoE 1 that have unique properties -- Spelltongue stands out as a really good example. You can design a whole character build around Spelltongue if you want (usually with a barbarian), in fact you can even design a whole party setup around Spelltongue (with casters giving the spelltongue wielder buffs, etc.).

 

But (in PoE 1 with upgrading) Spelltongue isn't clearly "better" than any number of other weapons -- it's just different. You can do a Godansthunyr barbarian instead, or you can do a two-handed barbarian with the Grey Sleeper or St. Ydwen's.

 

Now let's posit a Spelltongue-equivalent weapon in PoE 2. With one upgrade, that would take it to about level 12. So the first half of the game you'd keep it, then the second half you'd have to respec, because your build wouldn't make nearly as much sense any more -- especially if you had taken things like Noble weapon group and Two-Weapon fighting to maximize use of Spelltongue.

 

For someone who roleplays even a little bit, having to do a complete respec halfway through the game really is "ruining", because it breaks your character concept. 

 

And I only see two ways out of that problem. Either

 

(1) make sure there's a "Spelltongue 2" later in the game, which is just sortof boring (and presumably reduces item variety, since they're placing "Spelltongue 2" somewhere they could have placed something actually new instead), or

 

(2) let people upgrade Spelltongue.

 

I think this gets to other stuff besides just enchanting, like player preference and the like. Making a build entirely based around a single piece weapon sounds like the old spiked chain fighters of DnD, i.e. cheesy and something to be discouraged (not trying to insult anyone). But that's just my opinion, and I know other people like doing stuff like that. It just seems like setting yourself up to have a bad time.

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯