New enchantment system

Wicked Experimental Branch
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I’m wondering: are people happy about the new enchantment system? Cause I looked a bit around, and in most of the comments I see they don’t seem too happy. I guess it’s a question of vision: people like myself want control: we like to test different things, combinations etc, but for that you need to have a minimum of control over your built. If things don’t match together, that’s not a built, it’s a bad receipe. Honestly all this RNG thing feels… kinda cheap to me, and reminds me of gatcha mobile games.

I understand the limitation on the number of rolls with the ambers, that was to be expected, but that doesn’t engage strategy or planning. Just pure mindless grind… and dumb luck. Even worse it’s actually punitive because you might end up with a worse enchantment than the one you had to begin with: You already grind to find the weapon you want either looting by luck, or with material to craft it, then you need to count on luck to have the type of enchantment you want: blue or red, then you need to count on luck to get the actual enchantment you want… in the end you might have to go through 10 or 15 copies of the same weapon before getting something close enough to what you were trying to get in the first place… and that’s not even mentioning the attribute restrictions. The game feels like you don’t want us to try thing out.

Not to mention that this will become one of these games where you keep 50 weapons of the exact same type because each one has a little variation that fits a specific built that you may or may not use/re-use: comparing and storing them become a chore not an excitement! And when you have 50 copies of it: the weapon stops feeling special. I‘d rather have one that I can personnalise at will depending on my needs, than micro managing an actual store of copies of the same weapon. The fun is in playing, not micro managing restrictions and mindless grind… If I need to have finished the game 10 times before I can get the playstyle I want… it’s kinda too late. And if by any chance i do get the one weapon I like, the whole shinanigan to craft a new one won’tbe appealing enough to try something new: hence you end up just using the one weapon that works for you and never try anything else.

If I may, I’d like to introduce an idea that you probably already considered but which I think would be much better:

Why not make enchantment scrolls? You’d have to grind to loot them, the better, the rarer, and you’d have to think twice before using it on your weapon of choice. No reroll, no RNG, just good old fashion personal built under control: you still need to grind to find the ones you want, it’s still up to luck to get it, but you DO have control over what you choose to apply or not. You could even have sidequests to find some unique ones!

It’s a question of forcing the player to adopt a gameplay depending on what the game allows even though we might not enjoy it and get frustrated, versus making the game fit your favorite play style.

I think that approach would feel more pleasing to many players. The game is extremely good and has a huge potential, but all that RNG/restrictions thing feels really cheap, crippleling, badly designed, and is absolutely putting the whole thing down in my opinion.

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I 100% agree, the limited reroll is not optimal. We need a path to keep perfecting our build.

The limited reroll doesn’t sit right with me, and I know I want the “perfect” build and will keep crafting and rerolling until I get it, and that’s not a great experience.

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I totally agree, You have pointed out the problems of the enchantment system well.

I thought the same thing, but then I realized that having scrolls or gems is essentially the same thing, so I wrote this topic: The RNG Problem, Enchantment System Vs Gem System (Refined) in this topic I try to see if it would be possible to replace enchantments with gems, and essentially it can be done.

My current opinion erp is that the same gem set I proposed should be impeltneo without eliminating the enchantments.

So whoever wants to use the RNG can do it but the gems are at the same level and have the same effects, only that in the early and mid game you don’t have all the gems yet and therefore the enchantments are a valid alternative, but in the late game when you have all the gems that interest you you can have fun creating all the builds you want without having to deal with the RNG.

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I checked your topic, and I think overall it sounds pretty good, there’s food for thoughts. The reason I proposed the enchantment scroll system is because I was trying to think of something that could fit with the dev’s original vision: something that comes down to luck and grind, but simply changes the final outcome by giving the player an actual control over what is being applied in the end: to me that’s the main concern. Nobody wants to reroll infinitly or stay stuck with something “meh” at best. It’s not perfect for sure, but that’s the closest I could think of so that they might actually give it some consideration.

Gem systems have already prooved being fairly good in other games. Maybe an evolutive gem system such as the materias in FF7 could be a good answer to the problem of people getting cheat built too early: by evolving along the character, they’d become more powerful following the progression of the player when he uses it, and if well made that would allow the devs to get control over the pace of progression.

Curses could also evolve progressively so that the difficulty that comes from it would go slowly crescendo as you go, instead of knocking you out straight away with a massive downside thus making the item being sent down right to trash. The more you use it, the more it evolves.

That’s something that I never really quite got about video games, the more you play, the easier it really gets, even though the mobs keep getting bigger, faster, stronger, there is a point where your evolution allow you to face them way more easily than the lvl 1 goblin you faced naked with a stick at the beginning. An evolutive system that grow with you with a curse that becomes heavier as time goes by would be an interesting idea to counter that effect, while giving you time to get used to it’s specific gameplay. Up to the point where it becomes so overwelmingly strong you might start thinking to go for another built. Plus by that logic you weapon would increse in value as it gets more powerful… unless the curse as become unmanagable…

But that’s an entirely different system, and I don’t know how far the devs are willing to change their current model. They do seem pretty set on their vision.

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Very well said. I totally agree with you. “The game feels like you don’t want us to try thing out.” is exactly what I said to some vets on discord. I don’t know if the vision of the game is to add MMORPG elements in an ARPG game, but I really don’t think that’ll work.

I’m actually thinking of just quitting and coming back when cheat tables and/mods are available to let me get everything I need to make builds. I hate to have to do that, but I don’t see any other choice. I don’t wanna spend mindless hours to make a single build which I may or may not like.

What I think might be the case - the planned world is too big and they don’t have enough weapons to spread around. so their solution is to artificially create this time sink.

But no matter the case, I’m completely against RNG. It’s a terrible experience.

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i just wanted to recommend a quality system that will shift the rng in a specific direction. use a new resource that will infuse the item with physical, ice , fire etc quality. you can even add a tainted quality that lets you determine the outcome of the corrupted modifier. this is a raw suggestion … if you like it then cook my chefs :slight_smile:

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Can’t agree more. Seeing the community give many interesting suggestion, I hope Dev cook it well

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I understand what the devs are after with limited re-roll. I’m not completely sold on it yet, personally. But if it sticks around, I would at least prefer to have a choice between keeping the existing stat & changing it on a re-roll, as a way to protect against a re-roll giving you an enchantment that bricks the item for your build.

Kind of feels like the worst of both worlds at the moment. Before, you could re-roll it again if it hits something that ruins your build. Now you can accidentally brick an item, even on the last re-roll. I think that’s going to push players into having items they are currently using use, and items they are trying to roll, instead of rolling the items they’re using. That doesn’t feel as good, IMO.

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I’m not. What I feel is they hates us. It’s making them sad when we are having a good equipment.

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:joy: :joy: HAhaha, nah I don’t think it makes them sad if we have good equipment.
I just think they want it to be meaningful.
But it can still be meaningful without being RNG.
We need a path to keep upgrading until “perfect”, and it’s fine it takes a lot of grind, just don’t lock us out.
Imagine you have this staff, it’s your favorite weapon you used it all game, now you use the last reroll and you get some enchantment that is counter-effective regarding you build, now you “bricked” your weapon! With no options or possibilities to fix it!

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That’s exactly the reason stopped me from keep playing.

Suppose that we are all taking red(purple, cursed) equipment, then it would be at least 8 ones. Each have 5 efforts, the re-roll always literally reroll, they roll it back. Then think about the odds.

They are always taking balances, giving you something, they have to take something away. That’s why the cursed equipment has to have some negative efforts.

I can still remember Thomas complaining about ppl tend to running around naked. Doesn’t he know why? As the foes are too powerful and equipment requires points to wear.

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It honestly felt impossible for the NRFTW community to ever agree on anything until now. The general feeling about the game’s RNG appears to be unanimous: trying out builds and combat styles is a headache, and getting the items a player would like to test with not even perfect, but merely decent stats, forces you to constantly farm the same items and pray that luck smiles you. This translates, as many of you are saying, into settling for whatever weapon we happened to get by chance. To put it simply, getting the specific gear you want to play with can mean a tedious grind that lasts longer than the main campaign itself.

As for the reasons behind this system, I don’t think it’s so much a strategy to increase the number of hours players spend in the game as it is a mismatch in the numbers. This is the third time I’ve come back to the game, and the only thing that this new system has really achieved is making it impossible to create the optimized builds that used to break the game. Months ago, on this forum, videos were shared showcasing a surprising variety of builds that completely broke the game: characters that destroyed anything in their path with no effort at all. In most cases, all you had to do was press the main skill the build was focused on. Clearly, the game’s balance was broken. And I think this is the core issue: Moon Studios has handled a lot of things in this game really well, but the way numbers stack through enchantments, runes, and rings is a mess.

On this matter, I’ve left a comment in this other topic: Exhalt rings no longer there - #7 by Bl.z

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If the thing they worry is us breaking the game with god mod equipment, maybe the best way to go about it would be to let us choose our enchantment, but locking the best/breaking ones for end game. Like I already said… either make them rare, or implement an evolutive system that make enchantment stronger as we use them, allowing them to keep up with the evolution of the character while avoiding being overpowered too early. The one thing we just really don’t want is ending up locked up with an ice weapon that has enchantments boosting fire or having to store a gazillion time the same weapon with tiny variations that may or may not be useful at some point.

Creating a system that allows loads is synergy, that in theory make great builts, then implementing a gazillion different RNG gatekeeping restriction systems to prevent you from ever making it happen is just… dumb at best, or really sadistic if I’m being honest. Many RPG let you choose and change your built freely constantly: it’s actually the whole point of the system: you try out different things and adapt it depending on the ennemy you’re about to face; the whole purpose is to find the one built that will work against that specific ennemy, not having to make it to despite a messed up built or being punished for wanting to try something new… The fun come from actually trying stuff out, not from the illusion that you might get to make it someday.

I really don’t know how PvP can work well: most built will likely grant you only 200 to 300 HP max in the current game, unless you go berserk on the vitality attribute. Some built actually push you to stay low on health. So any PvP fight might be quite short as any big skill attack will likely oneshot you. The thorn mechanic alone will be a problem, as some people already use what they call the AFK built: ennemies die by simply hitting you… How are we supposed to face such an opponent? Bows will also probably be unfair in some extend: if you’re built is made for close combat with a heavy load that can’t move around and you don’t have any range attack, that will probably cause some trouble on some level. I guess PvP is already a possibilty in the experimental version as from what I could see: players can already fight each other. The friendly fire reduction on damage might be the solution. But I honestly couldn’t try to co-op as none of my friends wanted to invest in an early access game. So I don’t really know to be fair.

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There shouldn’t be single enchantment which is clearly better than others; otherwise, everyone would use it.

The reason the game breaks is that different effects combined scale multiplicatively and or exponentially.

Ideally, the enchantments should work kinda like this: 2x2+2+2=8 or 2+2+2+2=8 or 2x2+2x2=8 Instead, something like 2x2x2x2=16 or (2+2)x2x2=16

A practical example:

(Less Rune Cost) x (Focus gain) x (Damage) x (Attack Speed) x (Stamina) = Each of these effects enhances the effectiveness of the other.

And it’s very simple to make such a build, the attributes that scale multiplicatively are many more than those that are not influenced by each other, in fact I have to concentrate on making a build that only has effects that don’t influence each other

A practical example: (Fire Infusion) + (Poise Damage) + (Lifesteal) + (Rune Damage) + (Regainable Health)

This combination is one of the most harmless combinations there is it’s basically 2+2+2+2+2= 10 look what happens if I change just one effect

Example: [(Fire Infusion) + (Poise Damage) + (Lifesteal) + (Rune Damage)] x (Attack Speed)

Becomes: (2+2+2+2)x2=16

and not just with Attack Speed

Example: [(Fire Infusion) + (Poise Damage) + (Lifesteal) + (Rune Damage)] x (Less Rune Cost) or (Focus gain)

Still Becomes: (2+2+2+2)x2=16

Example: (Poise Damage) + [(Fire Infusion) + (Lifesteal) + (Rune Damage)] x (Damage)

Becomes: 2+(2+2+2)x2=14

So I think that explained like this, the problem is clear.

Your idea that you have to “cultivate” your own build doesn’t solve much, it just delays the problem to the late game, and discourages experimentation.

A possible solution:

Enchantment must be taken into account by the “alive system” that determines the difficulty of the enemies, only in this way will the game be balanced for everyone.

Furthermore, enchantments must be designed trying to avoid these situations,

For example instead of: +10% damage

Something like: Every 2 seconds your next attack deals 20-70 (based on weapon or player level) more damage

If devs are really using RNG to hide balancing issues it’s ridiculous (and I hope that even if they did it they didn’t do it on purpose with the intent of hiding the balance problems under the carpet).

I hope they can balance the game, and that they solve RNG problems.

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End Games Too Easy
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Yes, I guess I did not understand the full complexity of the problem, thank you for clarifying that up.

But by locking the “best enchantments” though I was more thinking about things like “healing for each kill”, “ennemy explodes after diying”, “deals dmg back when getting hit”… this kind of stuff: the type of enchantment that really do change greatly the whole gameplay.

The one type of enchantment that really does bother me the most is “bonus on sneak attack “. That one keeps popping up almost systematically, and to be fair I do make sneak attacks when using gauntlets because that’s usually a light weight built, so I can manage to do it even mid fight, but for heavier built… that’s pretty much useless to me yet that one enchantment type just keeps popping up all the time. It’s not like the game is staged to have proper stealth moments so often, it’s really just mainly an opportunity thing. And heavy tanky built aren’t supposed to be sneaky.

As far as I know; most video games ends up letting you have a god mod built by the end game; I personally don’t see much of a problem there, if you can’t get it then, so when? In that case delaying the “problem” to the end game isn’t much of a problem anymore in my opinion: If you don’t want to do it, nobody forces you to, and those who wanna mess around with it still can.

The positive side I see from an evolutive system is that you’d still have to start from the beginning if you want to try a new built: you couldn’t get to that breaking god mod stage right away, but instead you’d have to cultivate it again. And if the curse grows in synergy with it, there is a point where it will render your built unusable, and therefor push you to try something new and restart again.

Or maybe, if god breaking built is to be avoided no matter what, the solution may be to get rid of all that enchantment thing altogether? And shoot for a system like elden ring? Each weapon would have it’s special thing, no more enchantment/bonuses other than those clearly pre-calibrated with rings/amulets. Even being maxed out in Elden Ring, the game is still quite punitive, it mostly just allows you to use any type of weapon without having to redo attributes. Maybe that’s the type of solution they should aim for?

As for the enchantment problem you presented: it seems indeed a problem of balancing. And that is part of the development: as you said, let’s hope all that RNG obcession isn’t a way to hide the problem under the rug.

I don’t know if it’s because they want to make some kind of roguelike-RPG, if it’s an actual casino addicted love for RNG, a secret plan to make it a gatcha mobile game, or if it’s because they are influenced by games that actually work like that… But I just think RNG is huge mistake that is ruining this game. Whatever solution we might think is better, it will clearly come up with it’s own flaws, and we are not professionals, all we can do is complain and try to think about it XD

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I also think there’s a numbers problem. Focusing solely on direct damage, things like +30% runic damage (ring), +20% damage (ring), plus the multiple percentages obtainable on each enchantment—which, I speculate, could yield another 40–100% damage—create a very large exponential increase. And this is considering only the damage indicator and leaving aside the rest of the related attributes.

As for solutions, I’m more straightforward and wouldn’t add anything new. I think with reducing the percentages, accompanied by greater ease and control for the player to optimize them, is sufficient. If +15% elemental damage is an enchantment that’s too powerful—and that is the reason it’s made almost impossible to obtain with the current enchanting system—wouldn’t it be easier to reduce the maximum percentages and allow player access? That, and reducing the number of trash enchantments (unbreakable, I’m looking at you). I’ll also take the opportunity to point out that the unbreakable–irreparable combination makes blue items a dead option. That combination means the purple item has no penalty at all regardless of your build, which in practice is the same as a buffed blue item.

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Precisely for this reason when I wrote the gem system I also said this thing and there isn’t a gem that has that effect because it doesn’t have much interest and bothered everyone, (now that you can backstab against all types of enemies at least it makes sense to exist)

I agree having some broken builds in an RPG is essentially unavoidable, but it doesn’t change that the game must be balanced anyway, in NRFTW any build can break the game even by accident.

but wouldn’t it be better to have an interesting and balanced build and switch when you feel like it to another interesting and balanced build instead of being forced to waste time with a weak build, before then protecting yourself from using a balanced blind for one and then end up with a broken build without being able to control this process.

This idea of ​​growth is nice for something like a weapon but running it all day like this doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

Also because each person has different patience, maybe I want to change build every three days, someone else every week, someone else every month, someone never and someone every day.

I think most players like enchantments as an idea but they want to have more control over their builds especially once they get to the endgame, the op builds will be there but it should be at the player’s discretion whether to use them or not. The current system is so unbalanced that if players could freely build their own builds every build would be broken and that’s obviously not good.

Elden ring is much more balanced than NRFTW but there are build ops there too, as long as you know the game well and start finding broken builds everywhere.

Unlike NRFTW it doesn’t happen to make an op build by accident as the game is balanced quite well (Elden Ring also has a problem with the fact that it has a lot of weapons that are too weak).

If that’s what they wanted, they succeeded, and if I play it with that mindset the game will be fun too.

But the problem arrives in the endgame when I want to test some builds but it’s not possible due to limitations that weren’t thought of well, random rerolls in late game stop making sense.

There’s a reason why at the end of a game in a rougelike you start over again.

From what I understand, Thomas hates (out of principle) that type of game with micro-transactions, so the answer is no, but it’s ironic that they’re getting close.

I have said it many times, the RNG is not evil, it is a tool with advantages and disadvantages that must be used correctly, the current system is not good because the player has no control and can make very few choices, customization is dead, and the RNG is out of control, but we must not make an overcorrection either.

The research table is proof that devs know how to create systems to keep the RNG under control, they have to do similar things to fix enchantments.

In my opinion the best way to do it is what I explained here: The RNG Problem, Enchantment System Vs Gem System (Refined) (obviously there must also be the new enchantments in the gems)

The fact that we are not professionals does not mean that our criticisms cease to be valid and are merely complaints, you don’t need to be a professional to give constructive criticism, based on critical thinking, you just need to be well informed.

Unbreakable is now a Facet bdw xD

This was fixed because the value of the effects of the purple items is the same as the same as the blue ones but now since unbreakable is now a Facet this combination is even stronger xD (because Facets do not occupy an enchantment slot (which is ok in any other case)).

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Just super skimmed, so I don’t know if this has been mentioned, but…

I think keeping the number of changes small would be ok IF there were some choice in what you got.

What I’d love to see is instead of the popcorn just going BOOP and replacing the random thing with another random thing, it goes BOOP, then a window pop-up comes up, maybe it has 3 options, and these 3 options are ones you PICK which you want to replace the thing with. That way it’s limited, but you do have some control.

Especially with purple negatives. I honestly think in probably 350+ played hours I’ve maybe only used less than half a dozen purples ever because it just feels like every negative option is really horrible. I think on one item when the reroll was first introduced I dropped like 30 popcorns to try and make it less bad, and it only felt slightly less bad. Still nowhere near less bad enough for me to be like ‘ok I’ll try this.’ (No, I was not going to drop 50+ to try for the indestructible / can’t be repaired combo.)

With such a system I may try throwing a few popcorns at it to reroll that negative to see if anything comes up I may feel is less bad and try it out. With the current system I’m just throwing away all the purples I find almost immediately.

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Not a big fan of the current system either, probably the weakest part of the whole game. I don’t think removing the re-roll cap would fix it either, it would still be unsatisfying as it’s just gambling until you get exactly what you need

One of my favorite enchant systems was one where you would find weapons with enchants, break them down to store the enchants and then you could put them on other weapons for a fee. Enchants had shapes and the weapons/armor had specific shape limitations (e.g. one diamond enchant and two triangles). The strength of the enchant was tied to gear level.

There’s still a level of RNG in the system because you have to find enchants in the world, plus you’d have to find gear with the right shapes - but being able to switch around your gear with intent is a good feeling

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