Spellcrafting

[Dark Tyranny]

I would love to see spellcrafting come to the shard. As of now you can improve weapons with levelable deeds, but you can do nothing whatsoever to improver armor and jewelry. Spellcrafting is a great system and would alleviate this.

[OldManAlewar]

armor upgrade system is in the works, its my 'code for school' project

edit: the system itself has been done for a month, but im still in the process of tinkering with the quest to get the 'parts'

[Velius]

spellcrafting has its pluses but in my opnion as a former staffer on another shard, it is either way to powerful, or not needed.
It allows players to get "ubers" and to make other items extremely powerful throwing off balance.

Imagine putting +25 hp on every piece of your gear, clothes and all, that would be a ton of hits.
And with scaling up hit points you find that things that were harder to kill in a team you easily solo.
With that you become either bored or amass wealth at an exponential rate.
With that for balancing people with ungodly powers monsters have to be scaled up.

Which ends up with monsters that 1 hit kill.

I'd say I'm not a fan of Spell Crafting at all

[Glyph]

I can see your point about the Spellcrafting creating uber gear and throwing off the balance of a server (creating in essence an "arms race" between players/monsters). However, this is already skewed to a point, on this server with the ability to use EDs to change layers on gear (using Jackals Collars as shirts, etc...or Omni Magnus Spellbooks as ear rings, etc) thus allowing players to go beyond the normal range of gear bonuses (imagine the hit points gained with some Spirit of the Totems layered strategically as shirts/sashes/capes, etc...all legal here if done using EDs).

Toss in the packs of Noble Steeds which for some reason only take one follower slot, or the bio-pets that are all the craze. Add a dash of the special Quest armor and we already have the need for monsters that can smack around a lesser geared person just to balance out those that have played a while and have some of these advantages. It's been a balancing dilemma for most every "custom" private server. Unless you maintain TRUE OSI style playing and gear, monsters will need to escalate to match custom gear.

The one thing that mostly causes one hit kills is when shards add custom mobs that use dragon breath. I forget the actual formula, but the amount of damage dragon breath does is based upon the monster's current hit points. For example: if a custom fire breathing monster is added, and to make it harder, it was simply scripted with tons of hit points, let's say 50,000 hps, even if the dragon breath is 10% of total current hps, that first fireball is equal to 5000 points of damage before resists are factored. To avoid this one hit kill, avoid the dragon breath feature on uber mobs and just give them more resists (so they take less damage) and more strength to hit more, but not always insta-kill. But even that can be made moot with the use of the existing Enchanted Grove spell (AoE healing).

So, really, is Spellcrafting going to cause any more damage? I think not. I agree on a fresh server that has very mild ways for players to do damage, it would unbalance. On Excelsior, with Nobles, Collector gear, Bios, and item layering, it will just blend and at least give some variety to player gear.

[Velius]

I can see your point about the Spellcrafting creating uber gear and throwing off the balance of a server (creating in essence an "arms race" between players/monsters). However, this is already skewed to a point, on this server with the ability to use EDs to change layers on gear (using Jackals Collars as shirts, etc...or Omni Magnus Spellbooks as ear rings, etc) thus allowing players to go beyond the normal range of gear bonuses (imagine the hit points gained with some Spirit of the Totems layered strategically as shirts/sashes/capes, etc...all legal here if done using EDs).

Toss in the packs of Noble Steeds which for some reason only take one follower slot, or the bio-pets that are all the craze. Add a dash of the special Quest armor and we already have the need for monsters that can smack around a lesser geared person just to balance out those that have played a while and have some of these advantages. It's been a balancing dilemma for most every "custom" private server. Unless you maintain TRUE OSI style playing and gear, monsters will need to escalate to match custom gear.

The one thing that mostly causes one hit kills is when shards add custom mobs that use dragon breath. I forget the actual formula, but the amount of damage dragon breath does is based upon the monster's current hit points. For example: if a custom fire breathing monster is added, and to make it harder, it was simply scripted with tons of hit points, let's say 50,000 hps, even if the dragon breath is 10% of total current hps, that first fireball is equal to 5000 points of damage before resists are factored. To avoid this one hit kill, avoid the dragon breath feature on uber mobs and just give them more resists (so they take less damage) and more strength to hit more, but not always insta-kill. But even that can be made moot with the use of the existing Enchanted Grove spell (AoE healing).

So, really, is Spellcrafting going to cause any more damage? I think not. I agree on a fresh server that has very mild ways for players to do damage, it would unbalance. On Excelsior, with Nobles, Collector gear, Bios, and item layering, it will just blend and at least give some variety to player gear.

Touche'

also if they already have all said systems in play then another system for customizing would seem almost redundant to a point I'd think.

[Glyph]

True about the redundency, but it might also allow players to gear up to the point where you can have some variety in hunt styles (currently I would say there are the Druid spell hunters -trees and volcanic erupts, tamers -most players fit here with packs of nobles/mules/Cu's/etc- and the over the top gear players who have spent tons to layer artifacts in unusual places - not many here in this group as it is a pricier way to play)

Maybe leveling the playing field, so to speak, would allow players more than the "All kill" hunting style, for example. We do have a weapon leveling system which will allow some very intense weapons at top level, but since most of the play styles above eschew melee attacks as opposed to using pets/bios/spells (which no longer level weps), so leveling weps is tedious and slow.

Time will tell. I always prefer to have more options than less.

[Velius]

True about the redundency, but it might also allow players to gear up to the point where you can have some variety in hunt styles (currently I would say there are the Druid spell hunters -trees and volcanic erupts, tamers -most players fit here with packs of nobles/mules/Cu's/etc- and the over the top gear players who have spent tons to layer artifacts in unusual places - not many here in this group as it is a pricier way to play)

Maybe leveling the playing field, so to speak, would allow players more than the "All kill" hunting style, for example. We do have a weapon leveling system which will allow some very intense weapons at top level, but since most of the play styles above eschew melee attacks as opposed to using pets/bios/spells (which no longer level weps), so leveling weps is tedious and slow.

Time will tell. I always prefer to have more options than less.

with that said I can see your point there.
Personally I dislike using pets other than for mounts, and even then I'd tend to use an ethy if I could over a normal mount.
I'm not a fan of taming, but likewise I'm not a fan of ubers, but balance.
The plausibility of helping alleviate some disruption in play styles could make for a very valid point.

Although I do feel being able to re layer some items in a way feels cheap to me. I'm afraid I'd end up getting in trouble for laughing at some individual for making a full sott armor set, regardless if he spent real money or not doing so; to me that just screams bad play style. But as some would say to each their own. I think bio pets are rather nifty, but the point of creating a bio merc is almost insane in my opinion when merc scripts exist. As for nobles and cu's having taken only 1 follower slot is something I've yet to experience since I'm not an individual who "prizes" taming or pets. On osi cu's took 3 slots if I remember right. With pets like that why not introduce greater dragons? I have a set of them scripted up he could look at and or drag and drop if needed. (dragon, shadow, and white wyrm) Sadly, that is neither here nor there. I suppose the Spell Crafting system could be balanced on here if you take in to effect all the play styles that are currently used on here.

[Glyph]

I think I misled you on the Cu's. I listed them as favorite hunting pets among some, but I do believe they take 3 slots. But with Cleric Spell healing and bandies, they become meat shields for newer players.

Also, you can increase the number of follower slots through using EDs (another reason this is a "tamer" shard). There are critters out there to level the playing field with tamers (some what), but unfortunately, one of the pinnacle features of the server is the Collector's quest which has exceptional armor as rewards (at least compared to most other gear available on Excelsior) and this is where many of those critters reside. Thus to do the quest, you again need pets, bios, or uber gear. Some of these critters include special dragons (Fire Ruby and Flesh Eating dragons and the Ice Wyrm come to mind). There are a few more scattered thru the realm (black onyx dragon and others). Same problem that I mentioned before...high hps = devastating fire breath, one shotting players that walk a different playstyle than those listed, but still managable by those who have the proper set up (pets/bios/gear).

I would like to see critters that took very little damage, deal more (not one shot type), and negated things like Enchanted Groves or made pets angry so they attack the pet owners (I have encountered mobs like that elsewhere and it's hilarious watching the tamer hunters whine because they can't think of any other way to hunt other than "All kill")

Remember gamers: All kill = no skill

As a footnote to your comment about the entire suit of Sott, not sure about full suits, but several prominant players do like Jackal's Collars for the massive dex perks. Most that layer start with changing to a shirt so as not to give a clue to anyone else since you can't see it. So, if you want to avoid the temptation of saying something when you see layered gear, don't open paper dolls around here....lol.

Peace!

[Velius]

I think I misled you on the Cu's. I listed them as favorite hunting pets among some, but I do believe they take 3 slots. But with Cleric Spell healing and bandies, they become meat shields for newer players.

Also, you can increase the number of follower slots through using EDs (another reason this is a "tamer" shard). There are critters out there to level the playing field with tamers (some what), but unfortunately, one of the pinnacle features of the server is the Collector's quest which has exceptional armor as rewards (at least compared to most other gear available on Excelsior) and this is where many of those critters reside. Thus to do the quest, you again need pets, bios, or uber gear. Some of these critters include special dragons (Fire Ruby and Flesh Eating dragons and the Ice Wyrm come to mind). There are a few more scattered thru the realm (black onyx dragon and others). Same problem that I mentioned before...high hps = devastating fire breath, one shotting players that walk a different playstyle than those listed, but still managable by those who have the proper set up (pets/bios/gear).

I would like to see critters that took very little damage, deal more (not one shot type), and negated things like Enchanted Groves or made pets angry so they attack the pet owners (I have encountered mobs like that elsewhere and it's hilarious watching the tamer hunters whine because they can't think of any other way to hunt other than "All kill")

Remember gamers: All kill = no skill

As a footnote to your comment about the entire suit of Sott, not sure about full suits, but several prominant players do like Jackal's Collars for the massive dex perks. Most that layer start with changing to a shirt so as not to give a clue to anyone else since you can't see it. So, if you want to avoid the temptation of saying something when you see layered gear, don't open paper dolls around here....lol.

Peace!

I agree on the all kill style of fighting, but against dragons breath why don't you use evasion from the bushido class?
that should deflect the d breath and you should just place it on an auto macro loop and poof instant dodge, or for people with high fc fcr use ninja clone technique and make it impossible to be hit in melee, since each hit is reflected on to a clone, and you can cast that spell and fight (no animation). the cleric spells are rather massive, and I think people put too much into the grove thing with druids, on the shard I ran with 200+ dex the grove can't out heal bandies, and with hit mana leech weapon you never run out of mana especially if you use it with armor ignore. Figure that into vamp for for poison immunity and 100% life leech its rather imposing. not to mention a necro / chiv build can be quite imposing on most monsters, especially ones already weak to fire. A simple corpse skin, enemy of one and enchant weapon and your dealing massive damage to that moble. I've yet to see this imposing armor but I'll take a look into it. As for layered or ided items I'd id an apron into bone armor chest to look imposing, not for bonuses imho. but that's just me.

[Glyph]

That would have been a solution if Evasion worked properly here like it does on OSI. Alas, such is not the case...