Deeper Look Into Enchantments

Wicked Feedback
1

General Thoughts

I’ve made a post in the past about Enchantment ideas and at the time I thought they could improved and they can be but only so much right now. It’s a little extra but I’ve been comparing and contrasting affixes from various ARPGs (Grim Dawn, Path of Exile, Last Epoch, etc.) and I’ve come to the conclusion there are not enough facets to gameplay to use in the Enchantments. To demonstrate here are some of the “levers” that can be pulled for variety in some of the other games.

ARPGs

Path of Exile

  • Ability Charges
  • Accuracy Rating
  • Critical Strikes
  • Elemental Damage
  • Elemental Resistances
  • Stats
  • Resource (i.e. Mana)
  • Projectile Count
  • Blocking
  • Enemy Piercing
  • Minion Count
  • Auras
  • Resource Reservation
  • Socketed Gems
  • Area Damage
  • Area of Effect Size
  • Fortified
  • Blind
  • Taunt
  • Attack Speed
  • Impale
  • Flask (Charges, Recovery Rate, Effects, Duration)
  • Status Effects
  • Cast Speed
  • Various Skills

There are more for Path of Exile but the list becomes quite long.

Diablo IV

  • Life
  • Thorns
  • Armor
  • Elemental Resistances
  • Increase to Skill Ranks
  • Stats
  • Resource
  • Healing
  • Attack Speed
  • Lucky Hit Effects
  • Critical Strikes
  • Damage Over Time (DoT)
  • Dodge
  • Elemental Damage
  • Evade
  • Vulnerable
  • Cooldown Reduction
  • Various Skills
  • Overpower
  • Fortify
  • Summons
  • Elites
  • Blocking

Regardless of one’s thoughts regarding Diablo IV it’s seen as the entry level into ARPGs so it’s good to have as a base for comparison as well.

No Rest for the Wicked

  • Health
  • Stamina
  • Focus
  • Armor
  • Armor Type (Cloth, Mesh, Plate, etc.)
  • Runes
  • Weapon Type
  • Charged Attacks
  • Normal Attacks
  • Elemental Damage
  • Elemental Resistances
  • Durability
  • Stats
  • Gems
  • Dashes
  • Parry

Consensus

The goal of this is to show that Wicked does not fall between the low of complexity and the high. Depth needs to be added which is possible when Moon Studios reworks the elements like they plan to but that’s only part of it. Truthfully I cannot say what they should add to the game for this depth, I don’t know what they have in mind for the future. In the same vein, there could be more complexity in the works they have not divulged yet to the public. All I can do is comment on how things are currently and Moon Studios can decide what to listen to.

Ultimately, this is the reason many builds devolve into Focus spam because there are few avenues to build into. Not only is it the strongest route to go but it’s one of the only few. The way games gain depth is usually through the idea of “keywords”. Some examples:

Health

  • Health per Second
  • Life on Kill
  • Maximum Health
  • Low / High Life

Resource

  • Resource per Second
  • Resource on Kill
  • Maximum Resource
  • Low / High Resource
  • Reservation (Path of Exile and Hades II)

Skills

  • Cooldown
  • Cost
  • Area of Effect
  • Specific Mechanics (i.e. More Projectiles)

Conditions

  • Chilled, Frozen, Stunned, Slowed, etc.
  • Duration
  • Stacks

It is through the use of keywords and additional systems (i.e. Flasks in Path of Exile, or Runewords in Diablo II) that create the required depth. I definitely could have downplayed or ever embellished in some areas of this post when making my comparisons which is part of the reason why I want to post this. I want to start some dialogue on this again because the game’s systems will ultimately what give this game longevity, especially if Wicked was advertised as revolutionizing the ARPG genre.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

5

Ideally this is how it works. Most will go into Wicked with the idea of a class they want to play like any other ARPG. The difference is it’s “classless” so the Talent Tree would have to do the heavy lifting and Enchantments would help fill in the gaps. And having more avenues for the Talent Tree to affect will make choices feel more impactful.

11

I don’t know about the Talent Tree but Thomas did say that the Crucible’s recent additions paved the way for future Enchantments.

14

off topic i know, but i really get anxiety when i see all these posts about enchantments. can we not summarize it all in one topic? every day there is a new post about enchantment suggestions and i feel the urge to summarize them all, but then again, my day has only 24 ours :sob:

16

I did make a mistake of having yet another thread. :sweat_smile: I would have preferred Enchantments and Crafting been a priority since the game is marketed as an ARPG and these are pivotal to its systems.

18

Sadly the only details for either we have are Enchantments 2.0 on the horizon and the eventual Scribe’s Table. We have little information beyond that.

19

honestly, when i work with some complex topics and i have 10 files with information it just drains all productivity out of me. i am sure it would help to at least try and keep it in one place, and not open 10000s of threads.

we are all human. what happens if your thread is on page 100 of the enchantment threads. yeah right, it gets overlooked. channeling our input is a win win situation. and should i have a bit more time within the next few weeks, i will try and consolidate things. but its almost impossible to gather all threads and summarize them. it might take days for just 1 topic.

so while i can see the point of getting the “confirmation kick”, i think the better kick would be for things to be actually summarized in a readable format, so it can be acknowledged and be put into production :slight_smile:

21

i think a “thread to rule them all” some sort of archive thread would be best. new posts could be merged to that and the OP edited respectively with links to all sub threads.