sets scaling and forge armors

As a matter of some urgency I have updated sets with engraves to scale
their bonuses to following stats - hitroll, damroll, strength, dex. The
other bonuses do not seem particularly troublesome so they have been left
alone. The bonus will diminish as a percentage so the more you substitute a
set with engraves the smaller they will contribute to fighting stats. I
feel this will sting to receive the news of but in the longer term, it is
better for the character overall experience to be able to make progress, and
less feeling of being stuck in a set because it is maxed engraves, religious
floater etc and a simple pry or hellstream can take away a huge bonus. This
is not the kind of feel I am looking for.

This does not come without an upshot... I also see that forging has been
thought of as very difficult. Who better than the dwarves to be masters of
forging? So true to their legacy, the dwarves will find they have steady
hands and excel at the hammer and grip part of the process. If you feel
lacking in confidence there, then find yourself a dwarf to get the job done
(they may however charge you fee)

We have worked hard on this over the last year or so, so I am also going to
use this as an opportunity to state I feel confident that our items are
officially in a much better place and I'm glad to finally take my attention
off it.

How come when there is like "an urgent fix" I always feel targeted?

*centers the crosshairs on grayden* Don't worry about it, when tenor prevented pass door, I sorely felt that one considering I was the only one with pass door that had tenor at the time.

*bends down to pick up a coin, dodging another bolt thanks to dumb luck.*

I will admit that using the codex to plan out pieces to replace in set has been a thing for me and this change will add another layer to consider.

As for forging I would love to see the ore required go down by 10 fold. Like where you needed 50 you now only need 5. I am ok with this just being a perk for dwarves (the lower requirements), but current forging takes a serious commitment.

Glad to see more emphasis on forging, but previous system I found it more productive to target area overlords and buy random items. I did like forging was more specific to what you wanted, but gaining a ton of ore + gem to screw up the timing really hurt.

That has been my experience and I did make a serious effort with forging before coming to this conclusion.

Been a long day so I'm having trouble wrapping my head around what this change actually means. Is it this:

BEFORE:

Set gives +4 hitroll bonus
You engrave a rare that normally give +3 hitroll, to replace one of the set's items, and now you get the +4 from the the set and the sweet +3 from the nice rare you just engraved.


NOW:

Set gives + 4 hitroll bonus
You engrave a rare that normally give +3 hitroll, to replace one of the set's items, and now you get the +3 from the nice rare you just engraved BUT THE SET NOW GIVES ONLY +3 hitroll instead of the +4 you'd get without using the engraved item

close enough but it scales as percentage so if its a 10 item set and a 15 damroll bonus that would be a 1.5 damroll reduction per item which may fall either way, but the second replacement will definitely be a loss of 3.

Cool thanks makes sense.

yes, we need threant thews to be more useless, great update! More nerfs to fighters, please!

About forging, it's the ore requirement that makes it hard not the hammering part

@Ceridwell

Set : Treant Thews : modifies armor class by 57 permanently
: modifies health by 30 permanently
: modifies hitroll by 4 permanently
: modifies damroll by 4 permanently
: modifies strength by 4 permanently
: modifies constitution by 4 permanently

1 piece engraved into set, thats a huge nerf right there

Set : Treant Thews : modifies armor class by 51 permanently
: modifies health by 30 permanently
: modifies hitroll by 3 permanently
: modifies damroll by 3 permanently
: modifies strength by 3 permanently
: modifies constitution by 3 permanently

itll feel better when i let you engrave forged armor. thats for later though. it should be fine to engrave a 4 dam item into a set - even one like that
unfortunately that set is chock full of affected stats also though. its double dipping hit/dam so its strong as a base set but eats penalty bad. it should have something else going for it. its just expected when the set focused heavily on fighting stats and nothing else. we could actually buff the base bonus now too

The con bonus on that set kept Kewlin in it til his dying day. This feelsbad. Thews is utterly useless at 50 unless its engraved.

If I'm reading this right, the con won't be affected by engraving, just the hit/dam/str/dex. I do think this is treating the symptom of the problem however, and not the root cause.

The root cause is this: Tenor/Torments/Wraith and other level 50 sets should not exist. We've taken already really good endgame eq and added ridiculous bonuses to them and are all surprisedpikachu.jpg when characters become absolute monsters. Trying to then treat the problem by nerfing the original items, or engrave, or whatever is totally missing the forest for the trees.

Sets should be at best a placeholder to help people get quickly back into somewhat fighting shape until they can get endgame rares or good gambled/forged items. In the meantime you could engrave like spiked gauntlets into Beast or something to try and shine it up a bit. The lowbie sets are also nice for helping teach newer players how to find eq and balancing it out.

I'm sure people will disagree with this, because hey, being an unstoppable monster is fun. But not so much for the people you're steamrolling through. That being said, I'm happy to have a respectful rational further discussion.

many tenor titans and hell tormentors have fallen to less geared foe, nobody is unstoppable.

just leave the con alone in sets, note said it wont be affected but it is and it sucks.


imma delete my char anyway as i dont have time for AR, so here is "unstoppable monster stats" with tenor, full self-spellup, bless etc:

https://prnt.sc/1tv692x

https://prnt.sc/1tv6a4r

Set : Titanium Tenor : modifies armor class by 34 permanently
: modifies save vs mental by 15 permanently
: modifies constitution by 4 permanently
: modifies damroll by 4 permanently

Honestly, maximum best in slot gear, can you even compare these stats to what Rhoa or Eurayel had or other top dogs? I think things have been nerfed enough not to care about them anymore...

also torments is probably the strongest set still because engrave wont reduce your spellbreak bonus which is the whole reason torments is so bonkers

i didnt mean to penalize con. see my note. Its just typo. we'll get it scheduled for fix this week.

Some sets have pieces that could not be engraved, I think smelly hides for malicious beast is an example, with this reduction update can we open up engraving to all pieces?

that is the original designers will, grayden, so we will respect it. engraves purpose was chiefly so there is a point to use the rares you obtain instead of dumping it all on the auction house

Maybe add that forging love to Duergars too? Otherwise, there will be a bunch of neutral dwarves spamming grimforge mines.

good call-out