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Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 7:43 pm
by Xerah
Making unpopular decisions for the long-term balance of a game is always the best choice. It's not a slippery slope at all, it is the entire basis of the correct approach to balance.

Ideally, when things are taken away, there is a consideration for the gold/time/etc. that the player put in to get the said thing, but that's not always possible.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 7:57 pm
by BegoneThoth
Scurvy Cur wrote:There's a helpful set of hypotheticals that may be illuminating here, regarding the persistence of artifacts:

A and B sit down to discuss builds. A observes that B's build is pretty MAD, but that he can probably get away with it if he swaps out conj focii and epic dragon knight for transmutation focii and one other feat. B's response is that, yeah, that would be a concern for most people running this build, but it's okay in his case to go for the much greedier set of focii because he knows his friend, C, has a trove of artis that will safely let him cap out a third stat.

A and B sit down later to discuss another set of builds. B asks A if he is worried about some of the usual melee counters to his class. A responds that he is not, because a friend of his has a quad set of AC artifacts that give him 7 AC more than is typical for his build, and he is expecting to get those items when his friend rolls the character.

D comes to A and B later and asks for advice on choosing between rogue and bard on his weaponmaster, as well as choosing between save feats and OWC. He expresses concerns that he is not comfortable relying on clarity and wands to protect himself from DC spells. "Not to worry", A and B reply, "While this is a concern for most people playing a 20/7/3, we have a set of artifacts that will cap your str/con and give you a combined +12 to your saving throws. You can go for the maximum damage route and have all the saves you'll ever need".

If any of these seem problematic to you, then you should probably not be okay with leaving existing artifacts be. If none of this seems problematic to you, you probably need a quick crash course on why we already prohibit OOC transfers of items between characters (it's just stinkingly difficult to catch, so people get away with it all the time).
A fantastic post and is exactly why randarts need to go.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 8:06 pm
by Lorkas
Marking the artefacts as plot would prevent the pass-along game described there, and also wouldn't leave any current characters feeling like they have lost a big aspect of their character.

That said, a long time ago when the artefacts were implemented, one of the devs made a cryptic post on the forums that went something like "...I sure hope there aren't any unforeseen long-term negative effects to characters who wield too many artefacts for too long".

I've been waiting for some awesome hidden system to be slowly discovered/revealed for a long time now thanks to that post. If the artefacts currently in play are being removed, can we please make sure that it's done as part of some cool story?

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 8:21 pm
by -XXX-
Making artefacts plot would probably be the fairest way to handle it. At the same time however, it would also incentivize players not to retire their well equipped character as their new one would never have such nice and shiny things. This might inhibit character circulation to a degree.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 8:45 pm
by BegoneThoth
If they opt to keep artifacts but mark them plot, there needs to be a reduction in power. Halving stats/skills/ac and rounding down might do it.

I don't think anyone wants to see a legacy equipped pvp god, when everyone else can never, ever, approach their ac or save levels.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:15 pm
by Ebonstar
the simple thing is you make artefact decay be permanent. they are afterall artefacts, not your daily gear. they are from a lost age of crafting one not attainable now, so repairing such should be unattainable as well.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:17 pm
by BegoneThoth
Another option is of course to just let people make boots that are four ac and four to two stats, or normalize artifacts to that level and let them drop.

And not making them repairable is not an option. Some builds make good use of artifacts and just never get hit. I've got fifteen days played on my wizard for example and suffered one point of durability loss, total.

So they would be around forever.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 9:18 pm
by Liareth
Ebonstar wrote:the simple thing is you make artefact decay be permanent. they are afterall artefacts, not your daily gear. they are from a lost age of crafting one not attainable now, so repairing such should be unattainable as well.
I don't think that would work - unless you added gear decay to PvP and at a much accelerated rate. Else, people just equip their broken artifacts for PvP. You don't really need them in PvE.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:12 pm
by dallion43
Items(that are no longer attainable) that give big advantage to one/group of players over the new players will upset all of the newer players plus all of the new players that didn't join yet.
And after a while those new players will hear about it.
Matematicaly and democratically(lol..) it is about the bigger part of the community.

Even if nwn had a BOE option (bound on equip) this would be only be a partial resolution.
-----
A player proactive(meaning players have to pm a DM with his art list and username+char) money value refund for existing artifacts until February 31th(example), on that date all(easier to do)/"broken"(harder to do) artifacts will be removed on all chars.

That money will be used by minority of current art holding players to buy in the future the alternatives that will come instead of the artifact system. Epic craft or/and epic art farm (with logical max stats, a bit better then attainable craft).

This is a standard company presigure in case of change of policies that hurt portion of older clients.
Arelith is a "company" to some extent, providing services to x clients. Sometimes to benefit the company (all of clients) some of the clients have to go thru a policy change.

P.C
Of course to make up for older clients (and newer as well) money has to have value in Arelith. That will be up to the new system in place of curent artifact runs :p.

"Power creep" on its own, while attainable by everyone isn't nessesary a bad thing. Some have it in their mentality, not nessesary to XZOR everyone in pvp but because even in RL they don't work 9-5pm with x salary :p.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:17 pm
by BegoneThoth
I agree that power creep is not always a bad thing.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:23 pm
by WinkinBlinkin
This is total blue sky thinking, but could you give each player the ability to use a command once and once only. They can create one of two ooc items, both rather like an essence, marked as plot itself (so they can't give it to anyone else). This item can either make one single item runic, or turn one other item into a special plot artefact. Then, on a prearranged day, any artefacts that haven't been marked as plot, get nixed. I have no idea how hard this would be to implement, just chucking an idea out there.

Each player gets either one boosted item, or one retainable artefact.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:31 pm
by BegoneThoth
Why do that? What does it accomplish?

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:43 pm
by WinkinBlinkin
It takes some of the sting out of losing artefacts, but also levels the playing ground by letting everyone have one item that's more powerful than usual. Its an attempt to be fair without pulling the rug out from under people's feet by stripping them of all their favourite possessions at once. It probably wouldn't be enough to make anyone hold onto a character longer than they would otherwise.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2017 10:58 pm
by BegoneThoth
Replacement system is up.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 3:00 am
by Dr_Hazard89
Dragons covet the items of adventurers in Arelith and descend on anyone with powerful artifacts in their collection.

Enchanters maybe celebrate, for becoming more useful? (I have no idea what the new system is, excited to find out).

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 6:21 am
by TheRagingGoblin
So, the replacement system is up. Does this mean player behaviour is going to stay the same; those people who farm artefact dungeons will continue to do so for the materials?

Then these new items of greater power are possibly going to be handed on to people's OOC friends..

Seems like a sideways improvement.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 6:35 am
by Terenfel
cant really say before we know more about it.. time to get that enchanter to epic and have a look..

i am looking forward to see what it is.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 7:41 am
by Miaou
Thanks for removal. Less mindless level 30 circle grinding, the better.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 7:52 am
by Durvayas
If the artefacts haven't been outright removed yet. I strongly advocate for them to be made plot, with the ability to (only once, and with DM supervision) pass a single artefact on to another character, for RP purposes of heirlooms and holy relics and such. As well, restrict artefact ownership to one item per character.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 7:56 am
by BegoneThoth
"Indeed, these fourth tier dodge and strength and fortitude boots once belonged to my father."

No, it's absurd. Remove them all. Copy the name/desc to a new item before the purge and treat it as the same. No reason to keep broken gameplay items for any excuse.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 9:37 am
by afreshstart
I think it'd be best if existing artefacts were set to 3 or 5(or maybe even 2) charges and made unrepairable. This way they'll be treated as powerful items that shouldn't be used unnecessarily, which suits the word "artefact", in my opinion.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 9:46 am
by BegoneThoth
Liareth wrote: I don't think that would work - unless you added gear decay to PvP and at a much accelerated rate. Else, people just equip their broken artifacts for PvP. You don't really need them in PvE.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 10:13 am
by Ramza
Huh, I gotta say seeing the same three to four people repeat how they want Artefacts gone while refusing any idea of this precedent not being present, and the fact removed items are still allowed to exist. Weavemasters were removed, was each Weavemaster force rolled or given Marks of Despair? No? Huh.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 10:16 am
by Shadowy Reality
Ramza wrote:Huh, I gotta say seeing the same three to four people repeat how they want Artefacts gone while refusing any idea of this precedent not being present, and the fact removed items are still allowed to exist. Weavemasters were removed, was each Weavemaster force rolled or given Marks of Despair? No? Huh.
I was about to type the same. Just because you have 50% of the posts in this thread that doesn't make you right.

Re: Artifact removal discussion.

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2017 10:20 am
by BegoneThoth
Ramza wrote:Huh, I gotta say seeing the same three to four people repeat how they want Artefacts gone while refusing any idea of this precedent not being present, and the fact removed items are still allowed to exist. Weavemasters were removed, was each Weavemaster force rolled or given Marks of Despair? No? Huh.
Addressed by someone whose better at posting then I.
Scurvy Cur wrote:It's purely fallacious to assert, completely absent support, that effort expended creates an interest in retaining artifacts that supersedes the interest the server has in both improved balance and removing the issue of OOC artifact passing.

The main reason characters with no-longer-available classes/subraces/triple stat gifts get grandfathered is that they cannot be passed on to subsequent players. These eventually have a shelf life, since, Roland Asen analogues aside, most people eventually retire their old characters.

When they do so with artifacts, however, they almost always pass those items along. Artis do get removed on occasion when they get accumulated by a character whose player gets hit by a permaban (players dodge these often, but doing so requires a new CD key, which leaves the old character and the artis limboed), but this is a pleasant exception, not a rule.
Additionally weave-masters do not make 13/10/7 or 20/7/3 a walking god like OP arties do. Dragon race might, I don't know how it interacts with some feats/levels but if it's bonkers good I'd vote for it to be removed as well.
Shadowy Reality wrote:
Ramza wrote:Huh, I gotta say seeing the same three to four people repeat how they want Artefacts gone while refusing any idea of this precedent not being present, and the fact removed items are still allowed to exist. Weavemasters were removed, was each Weavemaster force rolled or given Marks of Despair? No? Huh.
I was about to type the same. Just because you have 50% of the posts in this thread that doesn't make you right.
No, the math does though, and the examples of gear posted and final stat/save spreads do.