Armour and Enchantment Optimization

Wicked Feedback
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1

After enjoying the co-op campaign for many hours i have run into a couple of issues with the way enchantments interact with armor and with themselves. The combat has a great flow and impact, with a degree of challenge that I enjoy. However, I believe this combat is suited to min-maxing your own play-style, and the way enchantments currently work is frustrating and does not allow any fun optimization.

There are several ways to gain, trade, or upgrade your enchantments using the “Embers” and I think this is interesting, but I don’t understand the restrictions. If I want to go into a focus-forward build as an archer, I am not allowed to stack several focus-boosting enchantments onto one item. Nor am I allowed to put certain enchantments onto different armors (ex. I can’t put +focus gain on my body armour or gloves). It is simply not possible to min-max how I see fit for my character. Even when I find an interesting enchantment on a helmet I want to attach to my current helmet, I was not allowed to do so since i “already had an enchantment of that type” equipped. Maybe this wouldn’t be an issue if the enchantments were strong by themselves, but they aren’t. Using an ember to improve it might only buff by 1-2% MAX (not fun) and trying to use a fallen ember to change it is random, so the chance of something decent for my build or good in general is low.

And why am I not finding any armor that scales with my character. I am level 25 using level 7 armor only because it has enchantments that kinda-sorta make sense, but I still have no armor values, so I just die quickly anyway. I am forced to level DEX to be able to use the equipment, meaning I can’t invest in health or equipload as much. This makes sense but I can barely upgrade the armor enough or put the correct enchantments together to counteract this. The difficulty of this game wants me to min-max but I’m frustrated that I can’t.

Suggestions:

  1. Allow multiple of the same-type enchantments on one item OR allow an enchantment to be placed once on ANY type of armour
  • if not this, then please add a tool-tip explaining what type of armour an enchantment can go on. (I disenchanted an item I was wearing since it had one strong enchantment on it, discovering afterwords that not a single one of my armours could take the enchantment. So I was left with no good armour to use)
  1. Buff the values for upgrading enchantments
  • Spending a radiant ember to buff an enchantment by 1% (OR EVEN LESS SOMETIMES) is LAUGHABLE. Some of these are not even that good; if I am only getting 3% bonus fire damage, is it that crazy for me to expect an upgrade to at least double that?? This enchantment is already a joke, but using an ember is such low value that it may not even go to 4%. Really??? Considering the radiant embers are the ones I have found the least of, this is disappointing
  1. Fallen embers could provide 2 or 3 random upgrades to choose from, rather than completely random.
  • I’m not sure if this is just supposed to force you to go and grind for more embers, but re-rolling these enchantments is usually disappointing. Rolling “bonus durability” on my item that is indestructible is NOT FUN. Rolling “reduced weight” on my cloth armour is NOT FUN. I understand getting unlucky, but redundancy is an issue.
  1. Make armour/weapon crafting stronger or different from looted armour/weapons
  • Crafting armour/weapons is not satisfying when I am subject to the same enchantment RNG as when I find loot. I have struggled finding any decent armour for my dex-bow character armour higher than required level 13. Aside from looking unique, I see no difference in crafting different armours within the same category. (ex. cloth body armours) Having crafted items be more customizable would be nice, or having found loot have stronger enchantments with more randomization seems balanced. Rings have felt like the only item to have good quality enchantments but you aren’t allowed to change these.

And PLEASE change the crucible death system for co-op. Spending echoes to revive an ally feels reasonable, even if only once per run. Either half-way through or before the boss. Having to sit and wait while not even being able to spectate my friend play is NOT FUN. Forcing me or my friend to die just to play together is NOT FUN. And if I purchase a boon to allow me to respawn on death, why does it not work in the boss battle??? That is the majority reason I buy this, idc if the boss is harder for this, but why does this just waste my echoes. And the UI for the echoes and boons is misleading. It looks like you can only hold 16 boons but you can get more. Not a big deal but a little strange.

2

I would look at these:

I put emphasis on the guide to embers because your feedback would suggest you are not using them optimally.

Enchantments are in groups for balancing. The headpiece is generally what you can use to improve focus - max focus, gain focus on status effect, increase focus gain by %, etc. There are also many gems which help here as well. Band of calmness ring is great maxed at 15% for gain and 50% max focus. Also keep facets in mind, like mystic armor and ritualistic weapons, but keep in mind you are generally having to make a trade off here between focus gain and stamina regen.

I personally don’t worry about min-maxing enchantments until end game. I have found that gems with common gear are really strong while leveling up and make up for the lack of stat points until you get closer to max level. It also helps a lot to keep your weapons and armor as upgraded as you can. Gems make this easier with common gear since you can move them around without destroying anything, allowing you to use any higher level items you find immediately.

2 Likes
3

Thanks for the links and advice. This is not a game genre I typically play so these restrictions are foreign and may come with background knowledge I wish I had or was supplied by the game. My skill level is low and I still wish I could optimize more one-dimensionally rather than having to balance this all out with 400 line-long spreadsheets. But if that’s what this game needs I’ll have to look. Having to wait until endgame to actually min-max just makes it less fun for me in the long run. It requires more time investment and its already a struggle trying to find time to play with my friend in the first place.

4

The spreadsheet is just a tool. You don’t have to use it, but it will answer which enchantments can go on what pieces. You don’t need to min max to beat and enjoy the game. It’s supposed to be hard, and min maxing is not going to make it easy (at least not until end game, and that’s been addressed a lot in together patch 1).