Give all forging modifiers practical implications

Silvarien

Hi there.

Currently, forging modifiers seem to be largely cosmetic, but they can get very expensive. I was thinking -- why not go through all those modifiers and add each one to have some sort of practical effect? It would require a giant heap of calculations for balance, but I don't think it would require the system itself to be changed. What we have wouldn't have to be reworked. What I am talking about would be an addition more of a modification. There's nothing that needs to be subtracted, just added.

For example, look at the diamond-edged weapon modifier for Master and higher. It's expensive. I mean, looks are something, but wouldn't it make sense to make an effect for that? Mastering diamond-edged takes a fortune, and not a small one. Making it have a practical effect would make us have incentive to master it, and it would make sense for the modifier itself to exist, because there's more to it than cosmetics.

As for the effects, you really could go to town. To-hit, lightning resist, blunt damage, critical hit bonus, etc etc etc etc -- to infinity. Literally anything could be added. Armor, weapons, whatever. The caveat is you can only have like 2 modifiers, so you can't have everything. Tons of combat implications result as people make a strategy of adding combat-related or hunting-related modifiers. You could even make modifiers impact gathering, harvesting, or alchemy extraction. Or even impact the efficiency of concoctions or venom-making.

The natural objection is it would make artie stuff shit, but then we could take forging and "temper" artie weapons to give them the effects of whatever modifier, be it diamond-edged, or skull-festooned, or sharp and pointy. So, you just add the modifier to artie weapon. Also, there's nothing inherently sucky to the cosmetic effect of "diamond-edged Logosian longsword." The effects of Logosian remain, you just get the forging modifier, and you just made forging tons more useful, and the artie stuff is still useful.

The other gigantic bonus is it would really make sense to work on virtually any modifier, not just lacquer-based ones that get you to Legendary Smith faster. You'd need EVERYTHING now to be a truly effective Smith.

Thank you for reading my idea.

Kresslack

That would effectively contradict the standardised weapons format now. And descriptors already offer a chance of additional points depending on who forges it.

Tharvis

not to mention the sheer cost and time that'd have to go into balancing each specific descriptor into their "niche"

Aerek

The danger of a change like this is that, inevitably, all descriptors would not be made equal; some would eventually emerge as obviously superior, and serious combatants or hunters would be ushered into using the "best" descriptors for their respective goals, thereby making obsolete all other descriptors. It's essentially the same thing that happened with rapiers vs all other weapons.

This is especially important if you factor in the cost. Imagine that the "diamond-edged" descriptor turns out to be great for combat, and everyone uses it. Now, even if you hate the mental imagery of swinging around a Minecraft sword, you're required to find a Master Smith and pay 40k per weapon just to participate in combat, which is also essentially what happened with rapiers under the old system. (Granted, 40k was cheap for a good rapier!)

It's a neat idea, and it would go great in a single player game where the balance of the descriptors wasn't all-important, but that would be almost impossible in a game like this, and we would eventually end up shackled by mechanics into using weapons that all looked the same again. It might feel like a waste of potential, and I won't disagree with that, but purely cosmetic descriptors is still the way to go.

Nim

It'd be neat if the descriptors decided what the (currently) random bonuses went to, either via weight or favored stats or something else, but probably more work than it's actually worth. On the other hand, it'd be neat to have some descriptors vary in generally negative ways, like Training currently does.

Kakotas

@Aerek I could however see over time limited changes to some of them either in price rebalancing (for the extremely costly ones that don't do much if that is determined to be the case) or perhaps we could add slight things to them that wouldn't affect combat what those ideas might be I have no clue off the top of my head but ideas might help there. It wouldn't turn them into old rapiers but it would add some flavor or balance out costs so that we don't have 50 credit swords for nothing more than flavor text.

Bronislav

Fire/Cold/Lighting/Magic/Poison damage add-ons based on the descriptors could encourage lessons spent on the relevant miniskills, and make hunting a little more strategic - a player might deal a bit more damage to undead denizens with a fire-enchanted sword, for example, but such a weapon would do a bit less damage against the denizens in Nuskuwe. Beyond that, I'd be hesitant to add anything more for the exact reasons that @Aerek had mentioned.

Kakotas

My only qualm about that is the sheer amount of rework that would be required to do that though as I understand the hunting system. It would require types and additional formulas.

Aerek

Bronislav said:

Fire/Cold/Lighting/Magic/Poison damage add-ons based on the descriptors could encourage lessons spent on the relevant miniskills, and make hunting a little more strategic - a player might deal a bit more damage to undead denizens with a fire-enchanted sword, for example, but such a weapon would do a bit less damage against the denizens in Nuskuwe. Beyond that, I'd be hesitant to add anything more for the exact reasons that @Aerek had mentioned.

That's still the same result. If you could add fire/cold/electric/magic/poison damage to your weapons, why would you ever not? You're essentially mandating one/two of those descriptors on every weapon forged. There's really not any middle ground here; either the descriptors have mechanical advantages and the "best" ones make the others obsolete, or the added bonuses are so small and inconsequential that they truly don't matter, so why take the time and effort to implement them?

Makaela

But artefact weapons would not benefit

Draekar

Forging modifiers as they are now are more of a gold sink for flavour txt and RP much like jewellery and tailoring etc. I think this is fine as it is and I wouldn't really expect there to be additional mechanical advantages due to these modifiers.

The standardisation of weapons is also a good change as is the new varied forms of Knight combat to use these weapons. My only two thoughts are as follows.

1. The secondary weapon for each Knight spec could be more balanced I feel, in that I'd like to see it so Knights would be more comfortable using either or in general combat and not relying in most cases on the primary weapon (or faster weapon) for each spec. I know the arguments for both sides in this one, and it is a huge improvement over 98% of all knights using rapiers. I am just saying it would be nice.

2. The other thought that crossed my mind was that you could look at lowering base decay times and perhaps giving small increases to this from the modifying tiers of forging. This would give forgers a tangible benefit to their efforts and cost of forging and bring the skill more in to line with all the other consumerable tradeskills (through the increased demand). I know this isn't that well thought out as an idea but something I thought might be worth considering.

Kakotas

Draekar said:

Forging modifiers as they are now are more of a gold sink for flavour txt and RP much like jewellery and tailoring etc. I think this is fine as it is and I wouldn't really expect there to be additional mechanical advantages due to these modifiers.

The standardisation of weapons is also a good change as is the new varied forms of Knight combat to use these weapons. My only two thoughts are as follows.

1. The secondary weapon for each Knight spec could be more balanced I feel, in that I'd like to see it so Knights would be more comfortable using either or in general combat and not relying in most cases on the primary weapon (or faster weapon) for each spec. I know the arguments for both sides in this one, and it is a huge improvement over 98% of all knights using rapiers. I am just saying it would be nice.

2. The other thought that crossed my mind was that you could look at lowering base decay times and perhaps giving small increases to this from the modifying tiers of forging. This would give forgers a tangible benefit to their efforts and cost of forging and bring the skill more in to line with all the other consumerable tradeskills (through the increased demand). I know this isn't that well thought out as an idea but something I thought might be worth considering.

1- please. This is a bit awkward at the moment.
2-I think I prefer longer decay times because it is made out of steel. However I could see some of the less durable ones being less expensive and maybe readjusting decay times based on what they are made of?

Aerek

1) I'm not sure what you mean here, I think the system is pretty good. Each Knight spec tends to use one weapon more than the other, saving the alternate for special situations, but that's no different from Monks or Blademasters using one stance more than the others, because they have their practical uses. You can't really make every weapon a viable choice except by removing the differences between them, thereby making them simple cosmetic choices, and that seems dull to me.

2) Forged items' decay times dropped to 60 months because Alchemists are draining the continent of primes to make their minerals, and all of Achaea's steel has become low-quality trash as a result. We need to get a mob together and lynch the Cauda Pavonis.

Kakotas

@Aerek -Two handed the hammer portion needs help. It's great I think weaponmastery is just new and will be needing tweaks for the next several sessions. (A few more hammer skills or balancing it so both weapons are viable in each spec would be nice. I've not played extensively but some of them seem kind of heavily weighted towards one side or the other of their spec.

Alyana

I just wish that SnB knights could viably use anything other then a buckler. I love the spec, but after being excited about getting to not have to wield rapiers, it was a bit of a disappointment to find it necessary to go from dainty fencing swords to a dainty shield.

Kendrick

Alyana said:

I just wish that SnB knights could viably use anything other then a buckler. I love the spec, but after being excited about getting to not have to wield rapiers, it was a bit of a disappointment to find it necessary to go from dainty fencing swords to a dainty shield.

Didn't they create a balance cap of like 1.8 seconds so there'd be no reason to use a buckler?

Aerek

The opposite. They did cap S&B combos at 1.8 or so, but only longsword/buckler can actually reach that cap. Level 3 longsword/SoA gets close, but I've never seen it actually go below 2 seconds. You don't specifically need to get that fast, you can fight with a forged/banded well enough, but there are a few little tricks that only work if you're swinging at a <:02 balance.