Imbuements

[Chanele]

If your goal is to make areas that are rarely visited more appriciated why not increase the chance of imbuement drops in those areas?

I also think the current system removes the "gambling" feeling since most areas are cherry picked. Increase the drop rate and remove info upon examination might be a solution?

[Johnny]

I don't mind it too much, the trick is to find a place no one ever goes that is too far out of the way or just too bothersome to get there. Then just keep grinding it

[Zingil]

Just as a little clarification, I was under the impression that a number of people were dissatisfied with the cherry-picking way of finding imbued items and that Cherek's suggestion of having the items appear at the death of the NPC rather than the spawning, while solving the cherry-picking problem, would go against the imbuement lore as the items should have had the spirits bound in them from the beginning.

My suggestion of having the imbued items shown-at-death rather than cloned-at-death would of course have meant the same end result, that players would have had to kill the NPC to see whether it had anything interesting or not instead of just looking at it.

I agree with Earth that keeping the imbued items visible upon NPCs to make people run around visiting remote parts of Genesis will work for a very short time only after Armageddon. A bit of a post-armageddon rush and then people wont bother as someone else will most likely have checked all remote areas already.

But I do think that keeping the items hidden will make people change their grinding patterns if they want to find imbued items. When people grind for experience they will generally choose to go after the biggest opponents they can, to maximise the reward and while this will give them good xp it might not result in a large amount of dead enemies to find imbued items on. Hunting smaller enemies, which you can kill more of in a shorter time span, would on the other hand offer a greater chance of finding imbued objects, but on the down side less experience.

People already do this today, like Johnny says, but if you are a bit short of time you would be hard pressed to be able to clear an area of small monsters and wait for them to respawn with hopefully imbued items. Keeping the imbued items hidden will make it possible for people to find imbued items from the very first kill rather than having to clear an area first and waiting for it to respawn.

-Zingil's player

[Cherek]

Zingil: Okay I see the difference. Allthough from a player's perspective its exactly the same if the imbument is _added_ at the time of death or if it is _revealed_ at the time of death. We wont notice the difference. The difference is however that the particular NPC will or will not benefit from the bonus of the imbuement. And for it to make sense, I suppose you are right that we need to add the imbuement when the object loads and then "hide" it. If you get hit by ice damage when fighting an NPC you'll know he has that imbuement on him... even if you cant see it. But if you dont get hit with ice damage and find the imbuement when he dies... it will seem a little odd? So I say lets do as Zingil says and hide it.

Its all about making up the story so it works no matter how you solve it technically though I think. If we say that "imbuements are there but you cant see them until you actually investigate the item" then thats what we as players will believe.

Anyway, I still think it should be done. Lots of people have added lots of good arguments for it I think.

One problem with not being able to see if things are imbued is that monks for instance will break both weapons and armours that are imbued without knowing it... But I suppose it does makes sense storywise.

Chanele: Actually, areas with smaller enemies do have increased drop-rate since they are much quicker to kill. Other than that I dont know how to justify increased drop rate in some places story-wise? The energies are stronger in some areas for some reason? I suppose it could work... but I am not sure I see why? I thought the idea was to make grinding a little more fun, if we have grinding areas and imbuement areas it will just be another type of grinding. Grinding for XP or grinding for imbuements. The good thing is of course you get a choice of what to do, but if the goal is to make grinding more fun, then people should grind as they always did.

So I dont see that argument that it would be bad if people continue grinding as they did before, for me that was exactly how I thought it was gonna work. Grind as you did, but now it will be a little more fun doing it.

But will this dramatically change how people use to grind? I cant see how it would. If you script you just add a trigger to pick up unusual items to your "on NPC death"-trigger. And then just keep going. Imbuements add a another thing to trade with people, and a way to use bonuses to get skills and stats, etc you could not have otherwise. But will it completely change how we grind? No I dont think so. Its just grinding with a little lottery at the end, and why not? I think its still almost as boring to grind, but just a little bit more fun when you do find something. And a little bit more fun is still something.

[Gub]

I've been having a lot of fun adventuring into areas I dont normally go and hunting for imbuements. Its also a lot of fun as a casual player to get on for just a little bit and hunt for an "unusual" or two.

If this is unfair for the majority of the player-base, I guess it should be taken away.

And by hunt I mean "cherry-pick".

[OgreToyBoy]

I'm one of the retards who go 'respawn' areas for others who just rush about pick the goodies.
Personally it would be a whole lot better for me if the magic stuff went visible first after death. In the past when I really needed the skulls I wouldn't mind as much clearing throngs of peasant, but now it gets a bit annoying when you pretty much reset an area for others.
Had 1600 kills and got one item, then at other times one can get 4-5 items in just a few hundred kills. Could just be bad luck as well I guess

[Booger]

I guess I was unclear in my old post too, then. The idea I had in mind was to just have the imbuement not seen (= remove the "unusual" part) until the mob was dead ("hiding the imbuements", as i said). Felt like the easiest way, codewise.

I've not bothered arguing too much, since I've felt the idea of trying it out before patching it, as Gorboth suggested, seemed like a good idea.

Turns out it's been pretty much in my favor:
I've adapted to this system, so I've written a few aliases to scan the Sparkle domain for imbuements, skipping a few tunnels in the graveyard that can only be reached 3 times per reboot, and only checking parts of the first floor of the dungeon. Otherwise I think I've got it all.
Takes me about half a minute to see if there's any imbued item loaded. Mostly there's nothing. Sometimes there can be 2-3 items.

Unfortunatly I'm still stuck to this domain. Otherwise I would have been travelling the world, just looking for imbuements.

So, feel free to change how things work if you like. It's probably a good idea. Or am I the only one with cherrypicking aliases?


Ps. Wonderful money drain! Brought me from 2000pc to broke in a couple of days, been working hard for money ever since, and there are still lots of things I need identified.

[Davvol]

Looks like there is bug with some racks and imbuements. Atleast in Templar of Takhisis items left in racks for Arma are loosing their imbuements.

[Hektor]

Yes other racks are experiencing the same bug... much to my dismay

[Ilrahil]

I've noticed that if you examine those items that had imbuements, you will find the enchantment normally returns.