Enchanting Reworked, Vampire Survivors Inspired Enchanting

Wicked Feedback
1

Let’s talk enchanting.

I heavily dislike the current enchanting system as some of you might know. Randomly enchanting gear from the blacksmith feels like I am playing some type of gacha game where I am hoping for a good roll. And even with custom enchants there is a lot of risk.

My current issues:

  • Too much Randomization

  • Too little Customization

  • NOT incentivized to randomly enchant gear you like the appearance of due to scarcity

My proposal:

An enchanting system similar to how level ups work in Vampire Survivors.

For those who don’t know, Vampire Survivors is a roguelike survival game where every level up you pick an upgrade out of multiple choices.

How this would work:

This idea works off of refining ‘‘chipped gems’’ into ‘‘polished gems’’. Similar to wood to planks and ore to ingots.

Enchanting no longer costs gold but requires polished gems that are lost in the process.

Each type of weapon or armor would have 4 enchantment slots. Players can then chose an enchantment slot to be enchanted. The enchantment would then pull 3 random affixes from the relevant enchanting pool.

Players are able to influence the % chance of pulling certain affixes by sacrificing refined gems. For instance sacrificing a polished ruby will increase the odds of pulling ‘‘heat based enchantments’’. Multiple gems should be able to be sacrificed up to 3. Players can sacrifice multiple of the same polished gem to get increased odds. Players can also sacrifice multiple different gems to increase the odds of various enchantment types, whilst further reducing odds of the undesired effects.

Players can reroll the affixes up to 5x, but, this costs a polished diamond for each reroll.

Affixes will have different rarities:

Enchanting Table

Every piece of equipment will have a total allotment for affix costs which scales with gear tier. Tier 1 gear could have a total affix value of 0. Every time the piece of equipment is upgraded the total affix value increases by 2 up to 10 with tier 6 gear.

So a tier 3 piece of equipment can hold 4 total affixes with a total affix value of 4. This leads to the following options:

  • Common 4x

  • Uncommon 1x, common 2x

  • Uncommon 2x

Different rarities of affixes only roll on certain gear tier types. Gems would represent several types of rarities with their affixes. As an example ‘‘heat based enchantments’’ of polished rubies would have an affix for each rarity.

Affixes can be upgraded improving their affix value. As an example, deal X% Heat damage. Upgrading this affix will increase the X% Heat damage by a fair amount. And upgrade the current tier of the upgraded affix by 1.

Once the total affix value is exceeded, the item becomes cursed. Adding a negative affix to the piece of equipment. Every following instance of an affix upgrade makes the curse stronger or adds a new cursed effect. Rerolling a cursed affix is possible, the cursed affix is then replaced by another affix but by one which has a stronger value.

Affix values should also be able to be rerolled to counter low rolls. This is one of the issues with the current system, where you can have either 4% Heat damage or 14%. Rerolling the affix values costs a polished version of a gem relative to the type of enchantment and can be done up to 3x per affix.

Items can be disenchanted, removing all affixes/enchantments and destroying the item in the process. As a result players have an X% chance of getting gem parts relative to the affixes destroyed. Higher tier affixes have a higher chance of dropping gem parts. 10 gem parts can be combined into a chipped gem. After which it can be refined into a polished gem.

Enchanting example:

Enchanting Wicked
Enchanting Wicked1118×466 244 KB

Closing words

I think this Vampire Survivors inspired system is a happy & fun marriage between Customization and Randomization.

Building a customizable piece of equipment should be costly, take a fair amount of time, but, be interactive and fun.

Please let me know what you think in the comments below.

And if you like this idea please like the post and upvote.

Edit: forgot to add some things.

Edit 2: reworked tiers into rarities and added pictures.

3 Likes
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I like the idea of enchantments being presented as a few options per roll that you get to choose from like other roguelikes, and I also like the idea of being able to somewhat influence it through the use of gems.

Your proposal for allotting gear a total affix score is interesting too, seems like a good way to think about the balancing side of things

1 Like
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I really like the way roguelikes handle it as well. It’s such a good combination of randomization and customization.

Gems already exist in the game, so I felt they should serve a further purpose. Beyond chipped gems letting you pick the enchants.

The more I actually think about it I want to change some things about my suggestion though. Mainly tiers into rarities.

4

I like the idea, but personally I feel like it would fit more with the Hades-inspired rogue-lite endgame.

One thing that I would love to be implemented that is taken from Vampire Survivors is the evolution abilities. For example, some enchantments when combined together could bring new abilities/effects. This brings another dynamic to the combat and allowing for even more player freedom.

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I haven’t played Hades, so I don’t know what to imagine :joy:

I did see it was on sale though, so I might pick it up.

Also Thomas did mention something about chaining effects together in a tweet:

I think we have some good stuff to look forward to. The current system feels lso disconnected and barebones.

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6

I absolutely recommend to no end that you play Hades as an example of how the cerim crucible could look in ideal conditions

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7

+1.
I really think that your idea would make the whole system much more enjoyable!

I like to think about being able to have this amount of control over the development of our gear, almost like if it was a character leveling up, where we distribute points on the stats that we want, in order for this gear to become an extention of the character’s build :slightly_smiling_face::+1:t2:

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8

W post, not sure about rerolls though. they can become something annoying, and grant too many odds of getting the perfect weapon. which causes balance issues

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9

I had some issues with this myself for the exact same reasons you mentioned.

The counter argument I had to that in my mind was:

Then what is the purpose of blue’s and purple’s as is?

We need an option to make those more viable/useful. Unsure, if rerolling is the best way. Maybe saving and transferring affixes similar to runes. I really don’t know.

10

I agree with your sentiment.

I want to feel like I am working towards something with my gear. Make it feel more personal and add a sense of accomplishment.

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11

Overall, a solid concept. Players effectively have no control over the current system so improvements are needed.

I’m conflicted on the amount of control it provides. If I’m understanding this right, many players could actually achieve their “god rolls” in this system which is unheard of in ARPGs. There will be at most a handful of very dedicated players that obtain their god rolls but the average person does not.

To my knowledge, the systems are usually not balanced around players getting their BiS rolls because of how rare they are. I know we’re strong proponents of shaking things up on how they’re normally done with Wicked but this may be too good.

1 Like
12

This is something I was worried about. But, at the same time you need to validate blue’s and purple’s existing.

My idea was that if you find a blue or purple it can still be useful and you can reroll the stuff on them.

Maybe it is better if we can disenchant them for like gem dust? And then you can combine that gem dust to create new gems. Which you can then use to enchant.

Maybe removing this and adding disenchanting works? I still want some reroll option, it’s also tied to diamonds, which I envision will be hard to get.

Thoughts @DankMemeGod ?

13

I think I’m fine with breaking down gear that is useless now. You’re essentially recycling items to use for further enchanting.

Rerolling has usually been done on one affix or you have a limited number of rerolls. Either of these I think could work for what you have in mind. If you haven’t played Last Epoch, you may consider looking at their crafting system. You essentially have a limited number of tries at modifying gear and each modification also has a chance to not consumer the number of tries.

Maybe there’s something there worth adapting to Wicked?

1 Like
14

Yeah, I changed the OP to limit rerolling, and allow for disenchanting to yield enchantment materials.

I changed it to allow for 5 affix rerolls on the item and 3 rerolls for affix values per affix. It’s probably not perfect but better at least.

I generally don’t play ARPGs, so if you have ideas lemme know.