Imbuements Imminent?

[gorboth]

Greetings!

This isn't quite Common Board material, so I'll just bring it to the Forum Faithful for digestion, speculation, comment, flame, whatnot.

As my in-game title has suggested for a very long time, I have been hard at work on the concept of random imbuements for items. This has been an idea that I have been fascinated by ever since the first time I played Diablo by the almighty Blizzard. I just love how the idea that something truly wonderful might be ready to fall unexpectedly into your lap at the next victory in battle manages to make an otherwise repetetive and mundane task (repeatedly killing monsters over and over and over and ...) fun again.

This, in fact, is what I hope can be the very thing to cure Genesis of its grinding blues. I have taken some core concepts from the design builds of other well-realized games that use these concepts and tried to build them into the plan for Genesis. I'll drop some details:

• All weapons and armours get a dice roll which, if successful, gives them a random mod (permanent magic effect)
• This only happens for items that spawn on npcs, not those purchased in stores or crafted
• There are many dozens of different effects possible
• There is a deep lore involved, which will allow serious players to gain a type of mastery over this system through their knowledge.
• The magic effects will be something players can harvest from modded items they find, store in special magical receptacles, and eventually put to use in crafting their own specialized mods on items of their choice.

That is all I will say for now. The layers of complexity are many, and the degree of randomness truly staggering. Much of this was nothing more than some foundational base-code and original mock-ups I had created until a truly fantastic wizard by the name of Lavellan came along and waved his magic wand (literally!) As a result of his *very* hard work, the imbuement library is now complete, and I am looking foward to a rollout of this new game content sometime in the next few months.

Many thanks to Lavellan! I think this will have a chance to really revitalize some of the worst and most boring aspects of the game!

If people want to ask questions, feel free. Most of the specific details I am going to leave up to players to discover once the stuff goes live, but I will probably be happy to answer certain types of questions here. Who knows, something you have to offer might actually make more sense than the current plan - meaning it'll help us with a better implementation!

G.

[OgreToyBoy]

Great work but ...

Jokes aside, will be interesting even though I wont find much use for it I think.

[Laurel]

Why? Imagine 2 imbued sledgehammers hitting your opponent. Let's say the imbuement on one often does 105% dmg and on second rarely does 150% dmg ...?

The questions for now:

Lay/craft guilds required (in any form - by skills/commads/rooms available only in those guilds?) to find/remove/apply/store/use?

Mana required to use (ogre negative bonus)?

Let's say I kill krougs each day for hours - will they have a chance to drop countless small enchantments that I will be able to merge into few big ones and apply those onto my 2 sledgehammers for my ogre-friend to use (seconds cheat mode possibility)?

How far into current gameplay will those enchantments go? Enchantments that make 2handed weapons available to be wielded in one hand? Enchantments that make it possible to wear shields as some sort of bucklers AND use 2 handed weapons? (touching the topic of totally unusable 2 handed swords and axes here) Or just the usual Diablo concept - fire/frost/poison/lightning/slow/etc. dmg on hit?

Is mana/life-stealing/regaining going to be available through enchantments?

[gorboth]

Why? Imagine 2 imbued sledgehammers hitting your opponent. Let's say the imbuement on one often does 105% dmg and on second rarely does 150% dmg ...?

Remember, no mods on anything but npc-spawned items. Stores and crafted items = no mods. So ... like OgreToyBoy said ... Ogres have a bit of an issue there.

Lay/craft guilds required (in any form - by skills/commads/rooms available only in those guilds?) to find/remove/apply/store/use?

Mana required to use (ogre negative bonus)?

No to both.

Let's say I kill krougs each day for hours - will they have a chance to drop countless small enchantments that I will be able to merge into few big ones and apply those onto my 2 sledgehammers for my ogre-friend to use (second cheat mode possibility)?

It will just be a dice roll that determines if a mod rolls on an item. In this way, yes, plowing through a billion small npcs is likely to be a way to harvest lots of mods. Crafting will, indeed, allow you to imbue the item of your choice. Limiting factors will include steep price and harvesting requirements.

How far into current gameplay will those enchantments go? Enchantments that make 2handed weapons available to be wielded in one hand? Enchantments that make it possible to wear shields as some sort of bucklers AND use 2 handed weapons? (touching the topic of totally unusable 2 handed swords and axes here) Or just the usual Diablo concept - fire/frost/poison/lightning/slow/etc. dmg on hit?

Is mana/life-stealing/regaining going to be available through enchantments?

I won't be giving away any of the specific mod powers. You'll have to wait for rollout to see for yourself!

G.

[Laurel]

So do I get it right, that even being an ogre I could harvest enchantments on low level mobs and enchant my 2 spiked tesstos with them? (the "why would I use tessto over sledgehammer?" question aside here)

If crafting will be needed to imbue my chosen item, will it also be needed for removing an enchantment? Example - I collect a few enchanted items and:
a. can remove the enchantments even without being a member of the craft guild + sell the worthless unenchanted item + store the enchantments in a herb jar
or
b. can't remove the enchantments as a non-member of the said craft guild, but need the help of a friend/second to do it?

[OgreToyBoy]

I like the idea of imbuements, but I don't think you should be able to get let's say a crystal axe and slap on up to 3 modifiers on it making it even greater for those who enjoy it.
Let's take warhammer from thanar boss, it's slightly above average for a two-handed club. Perhaps it got room for 2 good or 3 medium imbuements, it is to good to have the very best
modification imbued, instead you get the option of slapping 2 good enchantments on it making it perhaps almost as good as a sledgehammer . Not just improving hit and penetration
values, instead perhaps adding speed or flames or whatever. Now instead find you in the scenario of only having the supreme mighty axe from dwarf king, perhaps it got room for 2 super imbuements or maybe 5 good etc.
As long as we don't get 50% of the population collecting imbuements, holding over armageddon and then run about with random weapon of instant death because they put on 3 super imbuements on
a weapon such as kitiaras sabre or mergulas sword or whatever. Also will the imbuements carry some drawbacks? Like flames might decrease the durability of said weapon or increased penetration
value maybe lower the hit chance etc.
I'd like the option of eating said imbuements, my stomach been acting up ever since some white-robed guy stuffed me with some berries.

[gorboth]

To answer some questions from Laurel and Ogretoyboy ...

Only weapons found naturally on npcs will be able to roll for mods on their own. However, you can craft imbuements onto any weapon you like, including things like sledgehammers.

The imbuement setup does not involve any craft guild at all. Originally, this was going to involve an enchanter guild, but I think instead it will simply provide another service that is much-needed in the game - a serious and profitable money-sink. Harvesting imbuements and crafting items will be a very expensive enterprise. So ... all players can participate equally in this economy, limited only by their own time, money, and knowledge investments.

As for whether or not certain combos and crafting options will break the game ... the answer is ... I think it might! But, very very rarely. The idea here is that crafting takes a lot (and I mean a LOT) of hard work, careful saving, and management of the imbuement economy. The depth of the mod setup (variety of effects) and the requirements for crafting will make it sufficiently rare for players to craft the truly powerful and frightening types of things that will give them the ability, for as long as the item lasts, to roam the game with somewhat unbalanced power.

As with everything, there will be an important period in which the players help establish the proof of concept of the build, and wizards will need to carefully monitor and adjust if things seem too easy or too hard. My philosophy is to start too hard and make it easier if things seem to be no-good. (Ask an Ogre how long it has taken them to get to the top of their skill-training ladder!)

G.

[Rhynox]

Any advantage for smiths (notice they have imbuements even if not able to recognize which ones, just like they can recognize magical items but not their magic)? This could bring me back to Genesis.

[Recoba]

Sounds very cool, Gorboth!

[gorboth]

Any advantage for smiths (notice they have imbuements even if not able to recognize which ones, just like they can recognize magical items but not their magic)? This could bring me back to Genesis.

I'll ponder this ...

G.