Spellcrafting!

[kan-]

Has destoyed the game. I know, i use SC armour on my necro, but i still dont agree with it. An RPG is supposed to be all random, if you find a weapon with some great stats on, then cool, u deserve it, you either went on a hunt or bought it from someone.

These days weapons and armour aint worth shit, once you get to 50 most people already know the best SC template for there character. How random is that?

these days, its not about hunting, its just pay the gold, get your armour / weapon and off you go.

I mean, when people went hunting for weapons and items, and they got them, they deserved them. They deserved the +stats and so on, for RvR.

I dunno, i just dont agree with it. I do like unique items though, it adds alot to hunting, and farming items. Its just shame SCing was put into the game. What do you think?

 

[trigali]

I don't agree with you.

If you go down that route, then weaponcrafting is wrong too, because 100% quality weapons are just so much better than the drops, and they are so expensive only "rich" characters can afford them.

Fletching, too, of course, for the same reasons. The crafted bows are just too good, compared with what can be found in game.

Crafting is one component of the game. Given enough time, you can get the money as well.

On top of this, I really, really don't get why you say "I use it but I don't like it".

If you don't like it, how about you stop using it, then come and post again ?

 

[VodkaFairy]

Hunting monsters in PvE isn't very exciting either. Only epic monster hunts are nice and then it's still not random 'cos the mob will get farmed day and night as soon as it spawns.

 

[Wend]

No. PvE is normally very boring and farming for items is downright tedious. Nerf crafters even more will you.

Having said that I would agree SC makes it too easy to cap everything. Resists are out of control nowadays.

 

[Sharma]

tbh, SC is a nerf in itself, it makes everyone do REALLY small damage to each and as mythic want "prolong battles"

 

[bredo]

Amen man. Sc totally destroys the joy of item hunting as well as the randomness of characters. As you said all high lvl ppl have practically the same items now, which really sucks... It's all about cash, and everyone is gonna get enough for the top notch stuff in due time.

And to the poster saying that weaponcraft etc is just as bad, NO. If spellcraft didnt exist, then the ppl going for crafted weapons would have no bonuses at all on their weapons, just the 100% qual, which is good, but then drops and quested weapons would in many cases be better which imo it should.

I really hope they nerf SC'ing soon, cause this really takes out alot of enjoyment for me.

 

[Archeon]

Personally i agree with you, i can understand it being introduced its breathed life into the trades which were killed by epic armour... umm, ok its breathed life into armourcrafting

Before, what was the point in having AF102 - 100% armour? None really when you could get AF100 - 100% + Stats. Now you can have AF102 - 100% + Custom stats.

Sadly its an un-arguable case, as much as people agree it kills certain aspects of the game we're in the minority. A large number of people like their SC armour and a large number of people have SCed armour and spent much plat on it. So what can Mythic do?

They can either...

- Nerf Spellcrafting Stats, thus decreasing the power of SC armour suddenly you have hundreds/thousands of people that have spent obseen ammounts of money on the armour and then gotten them imbued (more cost) suddenly find that their spending has been wasted because now they are (Example) 15 points below their stat cap on their main stats.

- Introduce new items that are more powerful than spellcrafting items. Again, it would take spellcrafting down a notch but maybe down too much. And how could it be done? AF104+?


Really Mythic should have tested the actual implications of spellcrafting in far more detail. Its funny really to me it only needs 1-2 small tweeks to make it worth getting but not overly powerful

1. Alchemy and Spellcrafting share the same 4 slots, you could have your uber stats, but at the cost of your uber procs and visa-versa

2. Two handed weaponary can hold double imbue points. Really that was a huge cock up by Mythic, its more or less forcing people to use shields even if they don't want to. Wheres the sense in that?

3. Standard armour can hold limited numbers of imbue points (less than current). However there are mobs that Very-rarely drop stones of some sort which can add imbue points To blank armour brining then, for example up to current levels. That way SC would still be avalible as a 'stat-capper' but it still holds aspects of PvE hunting in order to obtain it (as if finding some of the items wasn't hard enough... oh wait SI quests...)

...Still, why am i bothering? as i stated SC represents far too much of an in-game finantial investment on the part of too many players. To make any radical changes to the current system would destory Mythic.

The only way it might be possible is if they wiped all SC effects from all crafted items in the game on the basis that its the least expensive portion of the crafting... But then it still takes time to SC the armour and make the appropriate jems. Then theres the actual wiping of the stats, how do you do it? more to the point how do you get it right?...

<Sigh>

No matter how you look at it, no matter how flawed and over-powering it might be the truth of the matter is that Spellcrafting (and its younger cousin Alchemy) are here to stay.

Not that i think people shouldn't be able to cap their stats, i just think it should take more effort and be a real achievement that'l have people going

'Wow, XXX has all his stats capped. How cool is that!!'

and now

'Oh look, XXX got his hands on some 99% qual AF102 plate. Capped most of the important stats and is Owning in emain with his leet buffbot...'

Oh well, i guess only time will tell what Mythic has in store for us...

(Few guesses, 'See Camaflage' Ability, Primary tanks get an always on 'Total resist' effect that negates all magic attacks, Mages get a similar spell for Melee... Oh and of course Archer fumble and miss rates are increased to 100% any actual firing of an arrow results in a 5 hour animation where the archer traps a small animal and makes sweet, sweet love to it while singing Barry White songs very loudly )

 

[Wend]

"The joy of item hunting"

I find item hunting to be really tedious actually.

 

[kan-]

trigali

Your very rude.

I stated in my post that i knew i used it. I was just asking everyone what they thought about SC in the game.

Dont post anything if your gonna act like a tard towards others.

thx

 

[findannain]

dunno when i went on item hunts and got something good i was like "Yeah look at my stats, bet i will have better or can match <insert player name> stats now. wonder how we would be in a duel" was realy excited then. with sc it is "Sooooo got me some mp pieces armor some 99% swords.....hmm sc'd em....ok...let's log off and watch some tellie" see only thing i needed to do to get that gear is spending some very boring days in cash farming. after that you spend some very boring hours in tnn or whatever crafter spot to find a crafter who is willing to help you out. don't forget the very boring hours after you got your gear that you need to find that sc'er and alc to imbue your gear. where's the fun? afterwards in the frontier where you can be proud of your uber armor and weaponry? hell no cause everyone else there has the same as you. see, my point is it's only boring to get sc gear and people that won't to spend hours and hours in cash farming won't have the joy as they used to do in the frontier cause with them cheap dropped gear the only thing they are good for is run around in zergs and get some rp's there since solo they will just suck.

 

[Balbor]

Spellcrafting should of followed along the lines of the diablo gem/weapon slot line. Mobs sometime drop these gems and player can get them added to items (by either player or enchanters). Gems can only be crafted up to say L30is, the high level gems are only dropped by mobs.

People now have there perfect templates for there characters from how they spend there 30 points when they roll to how they respec at 20 and 40 and finish up with the SC weapons and Armour at L50. They then run around saying there uber when all they've done is follow someone elses rules for making there character.

 

[bredo]

Wend

The only reason you find item huinting boring is because you know you can get better with sc stuff anyways. If the case was that many drops could be alot better than sc stuff, you would be very excited when you got something.

This whole sc thing really ruined it for me. Now i don't have much to look forward at. After i hit 50 and do 1-2 days with some rvr i bet i will get bored with the game. Nothing really driving me on. And as some guy said too, it's no fun when you know that every single lvl 50 got exactly the same as you, no chance of being better. Everyone will get enough cash for top sc'ed armour at some point, so cash farming isn't fun either.

And they can nerf it, by lowering stats possible to imbue with sc'ing and rather introduce an npc or something that will take sc'ed eq, de-sc it and give you alot of gold back.

 

[old.Tohtori]

And noone thinks of the children...

What about low levels? Special items at low levels is ..well..nice.

What about those who don't make a cookie char and want something different in their weapons? Like as an example, finding a special axe is really becoming a bitc...thorn in the backside.

It's not all about lvl 50 RR10 kilkill huk!

 

[Tjorn]

Originally posted by trigali
........On top of this, I really, really don't get why you say "I use it but I don't like it".

If you don't like it, how about you stop using it, then come and post again ?

I totally understand why he says that, he may not like it but has to use it in order to compete. I too think the whole SC thing was very badly implemented, its too powerful, i havent even bothered to do my epic yet because the armour is now redundant.

 

[Madonion Slicer]

There is no way i am going to spend the weeks of xping to go striaght to SC Armour, cant wait to get my Epic and wear it proudly.

Stuff the stats like 5str or 4 con really going to make a difference when you have just been mez/stun and pbaoe.

 

[Draylor]

Originally posted by kan-
Has destoyed the game. I know, i use SC armour on my necro, but i still dont agree with it.

If you dont like it dont use it.

Necros gain virtually nothing from it anyway, so you wouldnt be at any disadvantage.

 

[Jebelious]

i aint using sc'ed equipment at all and im lvl 44, i seem to be coping alright, ive got alot of good unique items now . and other items are from places like barrows etc. so you do have a choice u just seem to think you need sced stuff to cope

 

[granny]

High quality player-made gear & SC'ing is difficult to obtain for most players. We're not all in large guilds with top-class crafters and the costs of 99% or MP equipment is enourmous for most of us. I hit 50 with my first character a couple of weeks ago and have since spent almost all the money I built up levelling to 50 on a some nice player-made weapons with SC'ing and procs (thanks Ken, Isus & Olezdad).

As a result it's going to be a *long* time before I can afford to replace my epic armour with a SC suit.

So you could look at it one way and say that I'm now totally out-classed by the NP/Wot7thS/LoE etc people with capped stats/resists cos of their nice SC suits and from that point of view then yes, SC'ing unbalances the game.

However from the point of view of a "normal" player then these SC'd items are not easy to come by, there is significant effort involved in obtaining such gear and to be honest I like that - the game isn't just about the l33t guilds (much as they like to think it is ) and in that respect I don't think the imbalance is huge.

 

[Wend]

Originally posted by bredo
Wend

The only reason you find item huinting boring is because you know you can get better with sc stuff anyways. If the case was that many drops could be alot better than sc stuff, you would be very excited when you got something.

This whole sc thing really ruined it for me. Now i don't have much to look forward at. After i hit 50 and do 1-2 days with some rvr i bet i will get bored with the game. Nothing really driving me on. And as some guy said too, it's no fun when you know that every single lvl 50 got exactly the same as you, no chance of being better. Everyone will get enough cash for top sc'ed armour at some point, so cash farming isn't fun either.

And they can nerf it, by lowering stats possible to imbue with sc'ing and rather introduce an npc or something that will take sc'ed eq, de-sc it and give you alot of gold back.

I don't really pve much at all, my Skald is 50 and my healer is 50, and my second healer is close to 50 now too.

I still don't agree though with the basic premise of the thread- SC has killed the game. But maybe it's just me. I've been playing my Skald since day 1 of release. Just after release, there was no DF, no epic armors, no epic zones (Malmohus), etc. The high level dungeons in Alb/Hib weren't even itemized I think (meaning they had no drops only cash).

In Mid, Spindelhalla was the place to get gear at the time, hence all the old screenshots with people in Twilight weapons. Towards the end of beta Grizlas gave me a TL sword and said it was the best sword in game. It was nice to get a TL drop back then, it invariably meant someone could replace their green weapon with a more suitable item. Of course it also meant everyone was running around in what we would now consider to be very bad gear. That wasn't really a problem though, and in the first month or so you could go to Emain and do wel at level 30ish.

It was fun, but then again most people were still fairly new to the game, even if you played the EU beta.

But there was still clearly a disparity between those people that had a solid guild and farmed the better items and people that just relied on pickup groups in Spind. So even back then you could be uber through items, it just meant you needed to camp a lot for drops.

Later on they added the epic zones. Malmohus had better drops effectively making the old Spind items obsolete. So people started to camp there, not just for exp but also to replace some of their items. Flamewrought Rings and GA hammers were particularly sought after since they drop so rarely, as well as the various armor pieces you could get there.

Then they added epic armors, effectively making camping for armor obsolete. Epic is superior in a lot of ways to all drops but the most high level ones, and they look unique.

Then they added DF, introducing even more items and making them available easily.

Finally we have SC, and the silly amount of SI quests you can do to get top end items. You can get all or almost all of your gear from quests.

Since release I've probably chucked 90% of my drops because they've been superseded and I've stared at the same mobs for far too long to be honest. Item hunting to me means chain killing the same mobs over and over till you get that coveted item. It's lost it's appeal a long time ago, to be honest. But it's also decidedly not what the game is about (well for me anyway). Nowadays I basically just want to rvr. I'm glad I no longer have to spend a lot of time to get (item x).

Or maybe I'm just being long winded and have played too much. Sorry about that.

Your comment about rvr stands out though. But- for me the game is about realm vs realm, and if you ask me, a level 50 in epic and decent jewelry has a good chance in rvr.

I could also write a long winded rant about crafters, and how I feel crafters should be able to make the very top end gear. But I'll save it for now.

 

[kan-]

If you dont like it dont use it.

Geez some of you people. Of course im going to use it while its available (and if i have the gold)

Im just saying that its a shame it was implemented, or maybe it was implemented wrong as some people have said.

 

[nerve]

Re: Re: Spellcrafting!

Originally posted by Draylor
If you dont like it dont use it.

Necros gain virtually nothing from it anyway, so you wouldnt be at any disadvantage.

Euhm, what ? Lol!

It's not because some stats don't transfer to the pet that necros shouldn't bother to SC their gear at all...
There's still INT, DEX and all magic resists you know...STR is nice too to carry stuff. And I'm betting at some stage (patch) the melee resists, and who knows, CON and STR might transfer too.

Totally agree on the fact that SC'ing has taken out the fun of drop hunting btw... 99% of all drops << SC'd gear. Wish it was never implemented really.

And on the big guild remark...saving up for SC gear is not that hard you know, has nothing to do at all with being in a big guild, do you really think big guilds just hand out dosh toward their members ? Go farm, like most of us have to do (Darkness Falls, SI salvage drops...)

B-bye.

 

[old.amoeba]

I agree, SC is a pointless exercise in giving the game more 'content'. I dont think its ruined the game as such, but its definitely a step in the wrong direction for it. It now means everyone is identical, everyone has maxxed resists, everyone has maxxed stats.

Whats the point in having a game where;
- everyone is the same
- to get maxxed you just kill mob X Y times and then buy your maxxed eq off a player

The game should be about hunting for drops and eq. Thank god it looks like jewelrycraft has been cancelled.

And as for weapons being better than dropped - I disagree. Alot of the SI weapons kick the crap out of player crafted because they are the same dps AND have nice procs and stuff.

IMO cancel spellcraft and tone down alchemy so its more like adding cool affects to dropped equipment. The game should never have been 'player made is always better than dropped' it should be 'player made is best until you find a good drop'.

 

[Simius]

Everyone seems to be forgetting something, the crafters themselves. Believe it or not, some people in this game like crafting, it's quite an achievement to get a LGM crafter and gives a much needed break to the game and an added dimension. Without spellcrafting, having a crafter was little more than a status symbol, and if you are going to have player crafted items at all in the game what is the point unless they are worth having? Yes there is far too many searching for the uber-template, but that is no different than most people playing a class and going for the cookie cutter spec, so why have specialisations? Hell just have it so everyone is level 1.

Spellcrafting has had less impact than realm abilities yet a lot less people are screaming to take these away.

 

[bredo]

Old-Amobea

Thank you, you pointed out all my feelings about this, i couldn't agree more.

And to the next poster saying that being a legendary crafter should be more than a status symbol because it takes alot of dedication. Well it is very possible to do so and at the same time nerf it to be slightly below the best drops.

Crafted items will still be the best before you get very high lvl, simply because you are to weak to hunt for the real good items. And being able to craft your own top notch eq at will is a very powerful ability too, even if its not the absolute best you can get. Also having high trade skill allows you to salvage which is a much faster way to cash.

All they need to do is reduce the max for spellcrafting to the point where it is not possible to be better than the top drops. I'm talking like remove it or nerf it completely.

 

[Esoteric]

1) I agree with RA's it rewards players who are dedicated to their endgame character. You have the choice to add individuality to your character which adds a different mix of variety in rvr. If you like to play alts fair enough but at least those who stick with their main char are rewarded for the time and effort. Plus its exciting bringing down tough opponents.

And imo it leans away from the CS "everyones the same" bar a few bits of cash to buy the best rifle.

2) Spell Crafting/Alchemy. This is one of the best things that has happened to the game in a long time. The classes who are forced to solo can do so better. Battles are longer and harder which is great and is especially better for the caster community who now have the chance of surviving in a battle rather than going down in 2 hits (or in the case of duel handed light tanks like zerkers 1 hit). When I planned my sc I could not "cookie cut" my plans and had to carefully plan and match what I wanted with items I had or needed.

I also know of people who still use dropped items because they are better than what they could have spellcrafted/procc'd. Plus si quests and drops arent exactly poor quality.

Conclusion
These are my opinions whine if you must but I think these specific changes are good.

Edit: Just a minor point but a long time ago before most of you were born ingame, there were no epics. Players relied on crafted armour from people who had painstakingly worked up to legends. When Epics went live all the armour crafters lost alot of business and it practically nurfed the skill they had obtained. SC has now brought their craft alive again and they deserve it.

Using player crafters and haggling prices or cutting deals is very much part of a good mmorpg and adds a wonderful business edge to the game, which people enjoy.

 

[Wend]

Originally posted by old.amoeba
The game should be about hunting for drops and eq.

Heh says you.

The game should be about rvr and defending the realm.

Edit: A lot of people seem to actually enjoy pve. Mind boggling, but it does explain the resentment towards SC.

 

[Draylor]

Re: Re: Re: Spellcrafting!

Originally posted by nerve
It's not because some stats don't transfer to the pet that necros shouldn't bother to SC their gear at all...
There's still INT, DEX and all magic resists you know...STR is nice too to carry stuff. And I'm betting at some stage (patch) the melee resists, and who knows, CON and STR might transfer too.

Int and dex work correctly.

Magic resists are intended to work - but appear to be bugged (as with so many things necro related)

Id guess melee resists, con and str are highly unlikely to ever transfer since the pet resists/con work in the same way as mobs - very different to players. These not transferring is working as intended. A con buff on a necro pet decreases the damage it takes fairly dramatically - if you dont play a necro try duelling a unbuffed/buffed necro pet some time to see the difference.

Add to that necros gaining no benefit at all from alchemy (the necro is never hit so procs are useless, we cannot use charged items in shade mode after patch) and maybe youll start to see my point.

Ive had a set of crafted cloth/staffs vaulted for my necro for a while now - but havent bothered to have it SCd so far since Ill get virtually no benefit from it.

SCing was BADLY needed since before it there was no point in using the majority of crafted items. Maybe its slightly overpowered - but I think overall its just about right.

The problem with item hunting is that you cannot just swap 1 item for another without unbalancing the overall combination of stats you currently have. Thats been made more obvious by spellcrafting - but is not new.

Maybe my original reply needed to be slightly longer

 

[bredo]

The game should be about rvr and defending the realm.

Heh well who says it can't still be with sc nerfed abit? end game would still be about rvr, but now you will have more diversed characters, and not absolutely everyone with maxed everything. It's much more fun when maxing everything only becomes possible in extreme cases, so working on your eq will play a part even at rr5+