New imbuing system

[Drax-GVA]

Before I say anything else...

Thanks for the hard work on the system! I know there have been many sleepless nights, and likely more to come as you all tweak this new system.

There are several things I don't like about the system though (along with many which I do like).  However one of the latest changes has made me just ... confused.

The new requirement that you can't just imbue a little, then a little, then a little to ultimately get a lot of an intensity.  

What's the goal with this?

If I want 20 LRC, if I add 10, then I can't add 10 more, I have to add 20.  This means that, to get 20, I have to spend the resources of 20 (the higher priced and/or harder to get resources) to get 20.

What's the point of that?  What's the point of even HAVING the lesser intensities available?  If I want a max intensity, I'm going to have to spend the max resources regardless!

Here's an example which will clarify my confusion.

Let's say that I want a "good" ring in Pandora.  A "good" ring in Pandora would be one with 7 max intensity properties since I can have that without any chance of breakage, and, therefore, that should be the MINIMUM of a "good" item.  Going beyond that...now we're talking about the uber stuff.

So, I'm out looting my Balron and find a GOD DEATH ring (in terms of what can actually drop).  It has:

FC 1, FCR 2, 19% LRC, 7% LMC, 24% DI

God Death.

But, in terms of PANDORA it is not so great.  Not even good.  But, man, it is a GREAT ring for imbuing!  Isn't it?

Nope.

I have to spend max resources to get FCR3, 20% LRC, 8% LMC, and 25% DI.  And I WANT those intensities at their max else I have to use up one of my 7 properties on one of my OTHER pieces of jewelry to reach cap.  

So, I would be better off, from an imbuing perspective, to have found a ring with the sole property of FC1.  (This is because I would have a better chance of imbuing the other properties at max intensity - and I HAVE to imbue at max intensity regardless.)

I'm just confused as to the goal.  Is it to prevent players from getting to max intensity without expending the hard to find resources?

So why have the limited number of times one can imbue an item? Why on earth would ANYONE imbue at a lower intensity at any time to begin with if their goal was to achieve max intensity (and the vast majority of times one imbues it would be with a goal of reaching max intensity) when - in the end, to achieve max intensity, you have to expend the resources anyway?  (And, then, at a lower chance of success as a result of your earlier and utterly useless enhancement.)

If someone wishes to go "little by little" to get a lot at the end, exchanging his limited number of imbues for an increased chance of success and less expenditure of resources, what's wrong with that?    Isn't that how it is intended to begin with?  Isn't that why there IS a limited number of imbues allowed?  As it stands now, to get 10 at max intensity, you would have to be an utter fool to go for a lesser intensity at any point, let alone properties 8, 9, and 10.

However, if you go "little by little" you use up your limited imbues, thus limiting yourself as to total imbues, or, at the very least, forcing you to go for max intensity on properties 8, 9, and 10, with the corresponding possibility of failure and BREAKAGE for the more "uber" stuff.

Further, it will make finding that "God Death" ring on that Balron an actual happy event.

[Ely]

I agree, if you find an item with 90-95% of a prop, you should not have to use the mats needed for 100% just to get that last bit.

A better way to stop ppl stacking half or a thurd intensity would to drop the 20 max imbues to a lesser number, so if you want a 10 prop item you can only creep up a few of the props, the rest you have to do at max intencity.

Also I take it gems still spawn on mod they spawned on before as well as all elementals?

[Drax-GVA]

Yeah.  Well, in for a penny ...

The other major issue I have with the new system is the difficulty (almost impossibility) of obtaining the ingredients to imbue at the (required) max intensities - especially relic fragments.

As I understand it, relic fragments can only come from items with legendary magical weight.  Those items appear to only be Doom artifacts and (possibly) Major ToTs.  (And, this is true of only the new artifacts and only some of them.)

What?  You mean that to imbue my 7 property item, I would have to melt down a much better item to have a CHANCE at an 8 property item which, even then, would STILL be less powerful than the item I melted down?

Huh?  I'm at an utter loss here.

What purpose is there in critter fighting?  There is no possibility of getting a "legendary" item in critter fighting - they simply can't spawn.  (This excludes fighting those critters which will, uniquely, spawn those imbuing ingredients which can't be found elsewhere - except, maybe, in some champs).

Personally, I don't play UO to fight critters.  I do, but the ultimate end for me is PvP (which I'm finally able to do at my low level as I have gear which is comparable to the old guard).  But many play to loot.

But, what loot would be considered good loot now?  You can't even melt it down for anything other than the odd enchanted essence.  None of it is even marginally "good" even at the highest number of properties at maximum intensities.  (Here, again, "good" would be a 7 property item at maximum intensity - the level one can imbue something without any chance of breakage.)

I see a few potential "solutions" to this issue.

First, simply step up the intensities of the various "packs" of loot so that there is the potential of spawning (based on the value of the pack) items which could result in obtaining a relic.  Now, since there are few critters in Pandora which can't be soloed (even champs and peerless) this has the obvious problems.  This would require that critters actually drop "legendary" loot - which from the perspective of critter fighting would be cool since you could actually wear some of the stuff you find on the corpse of the vanquished critter.

Second, the requirement of obtaining a relic could be dropped to "rare" rather than "legendary."  (Can't be "epic" because I don't think that even those spawn under the current spawn rules.)  This would likely make them too frequent.

Third, you can start allowing people to imbue and to unravel again.  (As it is done in the normal game to obtain the harder to obtain essence and relics.)  This is the way to go.  It's how it's done in the OSI game for a simple reason - relics are too hard to get otherwise.  It has the additional beneficial effect of making HUNTING actually something which is useful as you could find something to either imbue or to sell.

For example, using my earlier example, the ring, this would be a GREAT item to imbue (if the ability to imbue at lesser intensities is available).  With a little effort, and expenditure of resources and time, it could be further imbued to give a relic.  Or, it could be sold on a vendor to someone who would do one of the two.  Likewise a Slayer with nothing but Hit Lightning at 50% would be VALUABLE simply because of how many relics it would take to imbue hit lightning.  Etc. Etc.

The problem, apparently, is that it was "too easy" to obtain a relic by this method.  I don't agree, but, that is neither here nor there.  If the thought is that it was "too easy" then, the answer is to make it harder, not to make it impossible.

If you allow players to imbue then to unravel, this makes HUNTING (just about anything) a worthwhile endeavor.  You get an item with a couple of great properties at high intensity which, if you were to imbue them would cost you fragments, but, when unraveled would only give you RESIDUE, and you don't have to just throw it away.  You could spend time and resources to make it legendary and melt it down and get a fragment.

The question here is - Just how hard should it be to get that fragment?  Apparently, it is believed that it was too easy, so "harder" is the goal.

I suggest something along the lines of the following:  Nothing of any substance.

Why?

Because the necessary change to make it "harder" has already been implemented, i.e., BREAKAGE (and to a lesser degree, the failure rate itself - especially as the number of properties increases).

The goal of the imbuer by imbuing and unraveling is to get a relic.  He has to have a Legendary item to do so.  That's 9 or 10 properties (unsure about this) but at least 9 - at max intensity.  Now, to imbue anything at max intensity, one is going to have to spend hard to find resources (at least essence no matter which property is selected).  And, if the choice is to try to do it by increment, then that multiplies the chance of breakage.  But, to be a time and economic effective method of getting relics, then the imbuer will necessarily do it incrementally.  At some point, the consumption rate of the lesser ingredients (essence and special ingredients - even "normal" gems with the most current change where you can only get imbuing gems from Elementals) becomes cost and time inefficient.  (Unless you really need the relic, because, at some point, relics are going to be less common than a hen's tooth...)

Now, EVENTUALLY, the imbuer will get his relic.  But, the time and resources used will be significant.

What is wrong with that?  What's he going to do with it?

He's going to either sell it to another imbuer or imbue something himself, with the attendant chance of failure and breakage.

[Drax-GVA]

As to my original point (ability to attain max intensity by imbuing a little bit at a time without being forced to apply max intensity and, therefore, expending the hard to find resources required to imbue at that max intensity), the breakage factor would seem to handle that wouldn't it?

For example, if you're applying imbues for a 7 property item and know that you'll never go over 7 properties on your item (unwilling, perhaps, to even chance breakage), then how do you do that without it being "too easy" or "too inexpensive" in terms of hard to find resources?

For the most part, the current system already does that.  Most of the properties seem to start requiring the "special" resources at one intensity below 1/2 of max intensity.

The result of this is that, to preclude being forced to expend those hard to find resources, one would have to imbue each of SIX of the properties THREE times and the 7th TWICE.

This means that, no matter what (if the requirement to imbue EACH property is set at requiring a special ingredient at less than 1/2 of max intensity) the imbuer will be forced to spend at least ONE of the special ingredient to reach 7 properties at max intensity.  (Six at Three imbues, 1 with 2, making a maximum of 20 total imbues - and at least ONE of those at more than 1/2 max intensity.)

Of course, the number of special ingredients would increase as properties 8-10 are applied, requiring that, for each one added, the number of imbues at less than 1/2 intensity decrease.  Of course, someone could go max intensity each time for the first 7 imbues (leaving 13 for the last 3 properties), but this would result in expending max resources each time (including failures).  Then, of course, even if the imbuer splits his 13 remaining imbues over those last 3 properties, he has a failure chance each time along with his chance of BREAKAGE.

Sorry for the additional posts...just new thoughts as I try to wrap my mind around this...

[William Darkage]

I also don't really see what's the point of having to spend the total ressources to imbue something even if you don't start from scratch.

I mean to me imbuing was about finding a good piece with stuff you wanted on it and making it better. But now that's completely useless cause even if i find let's say a ring with 10% HCI, i'll still have to waste the full amount of ressource just to imbue that last 5%. What's the point of wasting my time searching for that item, might as well just start from scratch since i'm gonna waste as much ressources anyway.

It's not like imbuing smaller intensity little by little is cheaper anyway. Take hit lightning for example, sure someone could imbue 50% twice to get the 100% and have a smaller fail rate. But that person is gonna spend twice the relics. Because even at lesser intensity, the system takes Essences, Residue, Relics first. So sure they have less risk to fail, but they spend more ressources and more imbues, so they have less for other stuff.

Now all that stuff is useless, your better off taking a npc bought ring with nothing on it and imbue it as it's gonna take as much ressources as it would take you even if you found a very nice ring that only needed a little added. I don't think that's the point of imbuing. I believe imbuing was created to actually enhance stuff you think are worth it.

[King Kong]

Every champ boss drops a relic. You can burn through 20 baracoons a day if you wanted.


If you don't want to unravel a legendary arty, your call. (most of those artifacts are not what exactly your looking for in your suite)


BUT if you do feel they are better, keep those instead cause Imbuing isn't for you.



Imbuing is a luxury to tweak stuff that is in normal game play. You can do it or you cannot. Everyone has their goals in UO, if yours is only PvP and not PvM then buy your stuff.


Now, we are in process of turning lessers ToTs and Virtue Artifacts and such Imbueable, in turn will give players a pretty good jump off point.


But yeah, not for everyone. But it really sounds like is you people who don't like it simply don't want to put in the work. Do champs. Burn through them no problem.

Remember Imbuing is fairly new to UO. It's a luxury, an option, not a right.

[King Kong]

By the way, the jewels on critters? What's the point of having it in there when you can buy 999 Rubies at one Jeweler, all that does is waste mine and your time.

By the way, like 1 out of 10 elementals will drop what your looking for. Now if you REALLY cannot do that.

Then don't Imbue.

Simple as that.


Not here to make things easy, not here to make things hard. We're here to give players more and more stuff to do with more and more options.

Your choice.

[King Kong]

Sorry - the dang forums don't have an edit button.



But remember Imbuing is a evolving thing, we change as it goes. We make changes when changes need to be made. Right now we wanted champs active, guant active, and a whole new economy created. Not to mention people using dungeons they never used killing elementals again.

Now you can see how all this ripples and ripples into a very active shard.  


Imbuing is a end suite thing. It takes a ton of time to  get the perfect suite, which is the main pursuit of players and what makes it fun. You can still get a great suite by all the hundreds of artifacts, good loot, etc etc without imbuing.. Oh but "Hey it would be nice to have 50% lighting on this weapon"

OK I'll work for it. By no means do we want a complete suite completely imbued from nothing.

[Kronen]

you see, it does worry me a bit that it's now this hard to imbue items to high intensities, because it could make a huge void between the 'haves' and 'have nots' on the server.  and from a more personal standpoint, it makes it harder for me to gear up my mates that have just started here and get them suits remotely comparable to my own.

BUT, if it takes that bit longer to imbue some sweet stuff, it can keep people's interest and activity on the server for longer.  compared to the rate of progression for a new player on osi, it's still very much accelerated here.  and the greater the time invested in something, the more loyal and attached people tend to become to it, so my hope is that we'll keep getting more new players and a higher percentage of them that stick around.  

and as i think i said in another post, i see these changes being ever so good for the economy.  more items that are of value to more players, more ways to get stuff, more stuff that's useful in diff ways to diff players.  you don't have to build your entire suit around uber imbued items now, there's some very sweet gauntlet artis.  if kon & his staff do make tots and virtue artis (and the replicas that champs drop?) imbuable, then there's some reasonable items with acceptable base properties to imbue up as well.

all this leads to greater diversity of suit types (no longer an immediate best in slot item that trumps any other options - i remember ely saying something about this in the doom gauntlet arti threads).  it's just that hardly anyone's taken on board the benefits of building one of the new doom artis into their suit yet and you still mostly see people running around in imbued gear.  

so before we start complaining too much about how much more effort is now involved in imbuing an item, let's give it a fair trial first?  give the market a couple of weeks and i'm sure you'll see new imbuing mats vendors springing up, and enough people champing at once to give a certain raiding guild a hard time policing the lost lands ^^  prices will undoubtably be over the top to begin with, but they'll fall in time (compare this to when the change that required you to eat power scrolls in order 5-10-15-20 came in - 105s were selling for 1-500k in the beginning, now they're 15k a pop).

an mmo player is required to adapt or gtfo regardless of what game he or she is playing.  i certainly intend to go with the first option ^^

[Drax-GVA]

I've been fairly good at my evaluations of game mechanics over the years.  

Five Doom artifacts in exchange for the chance at a single property on a single item = out of whack.  

This leaves Champion spawns.  Maybe there will be the opportunity to do "20 a day" for some guild somewhere which has both the time and the freedom from raids for such a guild to somehow sneak in some, but are those fragments going to hit the economy?  Unlikely.  Some will, to be sure, but not many.  Getting 5 of those for the chance at a single property on a single item (regardless whether that item is FC1/FCR2/19%LRC/7%LMC) = out of whack.

Understand, I'm not one who is going to "suffer" as a result of this.  I've got "uber" stuff and a few dozen relic fragments, a couple of thousand essence, and can solo champs in my sleep.  

But, I ain't new.  Neither at the game nor on Pandora.  I've had sufficient time to gear up and make my fortune.  I'm not one who doesn't "work" for what he wants.

By the same token, I AM one who has played long enough to see problems, and am willing to say something about it and back up what I say with actual argument.  I think I laid out my objections in clear form.  We'll see how it all plays out.  

As to the notion of "adapt or gtfo" - sorry.  That is not only the wrong way of thinking, it is counter-productive both to game play and the success of this shard.

If you think you see a problem that impacts game-play, you shouldn't simply "adapt" to that problem; you should bring it to Kon's attention.  If he agrees (timer on cure potions) that the issue is actually a problem (timer on apples) then he will attempt to do something about it.  If he isn't informed of the problem, then it can't be addressed.

Never have been an advocate of "stfu and suffer in silence" model of living.

[William Darkage]

Like i said in the other thread, i really like the new imbuing it think its a HUGE upgrade compared to the other system which relying pretty much only on roughs and relics.

The fact that relics might be hard to get don't bother me either. I mean it's not like you can't do anything without relics, there's alot of stuff that can be imbued without them. From what i see only the very best / most useful stuff require relics to imbue which is normal in my opinion. You can still add some decent stuff to your armor / weap without them. Sure you won't get hit lightning but you can still get a hit fireball without spending any relics.

Only thing that bothers me is the fact that you need to spend as many ressources if you want to imbue like the 10% intensity missing on a prop than if you want to imbue 100% intensity. I agree Imbuing should be at the end when you wanna complete your gear and make it even more awesome, that's exactly my point. Let's say someone has been playing for a while got himself some pretty decent gear, in his gear he has let's say a nice looted necklace. Necklace has some random props and let's say 10% HCI. He really like his necklace so he decides to make it a little better and upgrade the HCI up to 15%, he has to spend the same amount of ressources and (correct me if im wrong) has the same failing rate of someone who's gonna get a necklace without any HCI and apply 100% intensity from scratch. That's pretty much the only thing i dislike about the new system.

I don't really care like others how hard this and that is to get, if it wasn't everyone would be running around with awesome imbued gear (even if it's the case for most vet players). But atleast it gives newer players something to work for. If it was too easy everyone would have their gear imbued after one week and then get bored because everything is too easy, i don't think that's the way to go.

[knoxrub]

The reason it was changed, so that for example if you wanted 50 hit lighting, you couldn't just imbue 25 and 25... is because it more closely resembles OSI's system.  It allows you to set the value where you want it.  To raise it or lower it as you see fit.  When this imbuing system was first released it wasn't working as intended, because you didn't have to use any of the special ingredients to get maxed values on any bonus.  Obviously that was a flaw.  Now that it HAS been fixed, it wouldn't be an issue to allow imbued items to be unraveled again.  And change it back to where purple and pink items could make frags like it was originally.  It would take a lot of imbuing ingredients now to get max values on an item to raise the weight up to like 550 or so and turn it into a frag.  That sounds fair to me.  
Xeen is looking into drop rates, soon he will determine what it is gonna be and also preparing a guide for this stuff.