Should Sentient Weapons Also or Alternatively Be Level-Gated?

[Tilomere]

First, I should be clear that I am not advocating a nerf. The developers are reducing low epic power but also adjusting mobs in response. So the adjustments here aren't asking for nerfs, but instead adjustments to power curves that correspond with changes to mobs.

Right now there is a drive by developers to reduce the level ~20 previously ground power bump, and redistribute that power smoother over epic levels, while adjusting existing epic mobs. One of the most powerful bumps is the sentient weapon system, which delivers all 9 sentient slots at levels 18-20.

The redistribution of previously power is said to have several benefits including:

1) Reduction in difference between veterans and new players for superior grouping, better new player experience.

2) Smoother character power curves to better match content.

For these and other reasons, I wonder if it is also appropriate to level gate sentient weapon filigrees in the same way. Sentient weapons take enormous amounts of time to grind for their power. At an average of 100 SXP per legendary dungeon (or 1500 legendary dungeons to cap) and 100,000 xp per legendary dungeon, each weapon represents approximately 150 Million XP worth of ground power, and all by themselves are on par with the ground power of epic destinies.

I was thinking of a level gated mechanism similiar to epic destiny gating, of first two filigree slots at level 20, and one additional filigree slot per level becoming active starting at level 20. This also has some additional benefits:

3) As a newer system, players are less tied to them, so will accept nerfs to it more readily.

4) It fixes Bonecrusher. You will retain it as a sentient weapon, so will keep the voice and sentient xp, but it will no longer destroy upper heroic balance, but instead will unlock at appropriate levels.

5) It prevents weapon stagnation and allows gear set development in epics. By tying 150M Xp worth of legendary dungeons to a single level 20 weapon, it causes players to ignore base weapon upgrades and use the same weapon for all 20-29 leveling. Gear set upgrades are very important both for promoting dungeon diversity to farm gear and for smooth character growth. This also causes further balance issues between "haves" and "have-nots" of powerful rare level 20 weapons like Epic Storm or Epic Sword of Shadows.

6) Such level gating will have minimal impact on the weakest characters with the fewest filigree slot sentient gems.

7) You are going to level gate it anyways in the future to free up power to re-sell, but if you do it now rather than when it is entrenched fewer people will object.

8) Due to being 150M xp worth of grinding compared to 24M to fill out epic destinies, this presents a substantially larger barrier for new players than the epic destiny system.

9) This will allow the use of sentient gems on any named weapon in heroics, since they will not benefit from filigree until the character is epic.

10) You are already going to have to rebalance epic mobs with new ED pass, so if you rebalance sentient weapons at same time you can rebalance epic mobs only once for both, saving work.

11) Veteran players have ground out around a billion regular xp while doing legendary reaper, and have multiple maxed sentient gems. They arrived with RL years ago, so in a sense like the RL belts it is already time to start looking at nerfing them to make room for what comes next. Newer players are short a billion regular xp of legendary dungeons sentient progression compared to veterans.

Therefore my question is simple. Should sentient weapons also or alternatively be level-gated like epic destinies? Some example level 18-20 weapons for different archtypes are below:

https://i.postimg.cc/9Vz5GT7T/Sample-18-20-Sentient-Weapons.jpg

[Drwaz99]

So you want to take the already horrible idea of level-gating EDs and apply it to Sentient Weapons?

No. Hard stop. This, along with many of your other suggestions, would make the game exponentially worse. It's like you're trying to throw gasoline on the dumpster fire that the ED update currently is.

[Gljosh]

Technically they are already level gated. Compare the power of a level 20 Weapon with a level 29 Weapon.
Now if you suggestion is to have the X-damage based on character level to be changed to X-damage based on Weapon level (similar to the Ruby Eye Augments), that might get some traction.

[Tilomere]

No. Hard stop. This, along with many of your other suggestions, would make the game exponentially worse.

They are going to do it anyways, for the same reasons as Epic Destinies, and for other reasons. Think of this as the opportunity to give feedback before it appears on lammania in final form.

You had the opportunity to see sorcs were broken, and give feedback a year before final changes appeared on lammania. You had the opportunity to address nerfing and bug fixing dire charge before final changes appeared on lammania. You had the opportunity to see how launch warlocks were broken, and give feedback on how they should be nerfed before final changes appeared on lammania.

Don't nerf X, where X is clearly going to get nerfed in the future just waives your opportunity to give feedback on what appears.

[OfElectricMen]

That's a Hard NO.

Not only should sentient weapons NOT be level-gated, they shouldn't even have a Minimum Level to begin with.

The entire SW system is completely and utterly wrong in the design.

And for the record, Epic Destinies also should NOT be level gated. I looked at it on Lamm, and it's bad design.

[OfElectricMen]

Don't nerf X, where X is clearly going to get nerfed in the future just waives your opportunity to give feedback on what appears.

"Don't nerf x" IS feedback on what appears.

[Tilomere]

"Don't nerf x" IS feedback on what appears.

Sentient weapons have a shelf life. Just like EDs, or outdated gear from most content, or even dire charge as the universal melee fix-all. It is going to be nerfed, the question isn't if, but how and when.

You had the opportunity to see sorcs were broken, and give feedback a year before final changes appeared on lammania. You had the opportunity to address nerfing and bug fixing dire charge before final changes appeared on lammania. You had the opportunity to see how launch warlocks were broken, and give feedback on how they should be nerfed before final changes appeared on lammania.

If they are already going to be rebalancing low epic mobs and content and character progression for EDs, now seems like a good time to look at sentient filigree progression as well. Don't nerf X, where X is clearly going to get nerfed in the future just waives your opportunity to give feedback on what appears.

[Anuulified]

They are going to do it anyways, for the same reasons as Epic Destinies, and for other reasons. Think of this as the opportunity to give feedback before it appears on lammania in final form.

You had the opportunity to see sorcs were broken, and give feedback a year before final changes appeared on lammania. You had the opportunity to address nerfing and bug fixing dire charge before final changes appeared on lammania. You had the opportunity to see how launch warlocks were broken, and give feedback on how they should be nerfed before final changes appeared on lammania.

Don't nerf X, where X is clearly going to get nerfed in the future just waives your opportunity to give feedback on what appears.

They wont have to do this. Because when Forced Level Sync comes out, your Sentient Weapons, and all gear, will automatically scale back with your level reduction.

[Strider1963]

I say no to this. If the devs had done things right the first time, this would not even be a discussion. A sentinent weapon should start at level 1 and grow in power with your character. Nerfing the way they are currently really would be just yet another nerf. If you're going to take away sentinent slots according to level, how would that work? The slots would autmatically appear at the right level (with the augments in them)? The only way I would go for that, would be that the sentinent weapon would grow with you. (EG Bonecrusher), as you leveled from level 18-30, the stats would level with you. But the devs didnt want that back when they first introduced sentinent weapons, so they wouldnt do it now. A level 18 weapon with augments is powerful at level 18, and for 3 or 4 more levels, but after that it loses its luster. The same with any low level epic weapon people have put augments in. They dont rate up there with higher level stuff. Just leave it be. This epic destiny revamp is going to be enough of a (unwanted) mess as it is. As usual, the ubers really dont care because the only time they tr when they have 200 past lives, is when a new race or class is introduced. Yet they benefited from the way it used to be on the way up to those 200 past lives. Just look at the deal where you get 1 destiny point for every 3 fate points. Since there wont be any more twists or fate points, hows the people who havent maxed out their epic destinys supposed to catch up to the people who have them? Some people are newer here on DDO, some people actually have lives outside of DDO and are more casual players. Im sure they like getting dumped on.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Technically they are already level gated.

Indeed they are. They are not available at level 10. Didn't you notice ?





This all shows to me how much you are already detached from the role playing experience the original Dungeons And Dragons game was meant to be :

From a role playing perspective, anyone could "suddenly find" a sentient weapon. Anywhere. anytime.
Maybe stuck within a hard to notice hole in a cave. Maybe found within a secret room. Maybe given as a present from a mighty sorceror,. Maybe a gift from devas.

Anywhere, anytime.

At any level.


From a purely role playing perspective, it is imho simply horrible to limit the experiebnce of learning to fight with a sentient weapon to merely 10 levels. (20-30).
I would have preferred it vastly to have a sentient weapon at - let's say - level 5, and have it on my journey into a well-known person throughout the following 20-30 levels.
Aka : "The journey is the reward."
Plus, maybe a bit more varied vocal notes from the sentient weapon.

This would be a great role playing experience !


Long, long ago, I was one of several people writing a multi-author fantasy story in a form. (The story can be found as several books within the game with the weird title "Divine Divinity".) There, I came into contact with a speaking (nowadays I would say : sentient) weapon for the first time.
It was interesting for me, because i had never seen such a thing before. Not to mention someone write it.

From then on, I longed for having the experience to have a speaking, sentient, intelligent weapon as a companion.

I was so happy when I found that DDO had finally made my dream come true !!!
I was so disappointed when I found that i had to go through a FULL hero's life to finally have a companion like that at the END of the hero's life !!! (Aka "end game".)

From a pure role playing experience point of view, this is horrible.

And this is why sentient weapons never appealed to me in DDO as much as I wished.

Furthermore, they became nothing but "power tools" for end game,
and through this "we make them to be power tools", the whole role playing experience is ruined, imho.

Okay, you will now arguie : "But you are not forced to put any Filigree into the sentient weapon".
You are right with that, but the design decision, to have Filigree slots at all, doesn't speak to me as a true 2we want a role playing experience" to me.

But, alas, only a small minority is actually role playing DDO at all. Most are zergers and power players.

[Chacka_DDO]

In principle, I agree that you should not get a big power bump at LVL 20 (or another level) it is also wrong in my opinion that you get with LVL 29 access to so-called legendary items who give your character power far beyond the power normally level 30 items should have.

In my opinion, DDO should have items that scale with the character level in a way that a well-equipped character is never in the situation that he is underequipped (he has to use level 15 Sharn items at level 28) or he used OP items (level 42 or so "legendary" items in level 29).

For the sentient weapons, I can imagine that it might make sense in a scaling system to unlock the sentient slots with the character level, then it would be even possible to use a sentient weapon at level 1...
e.g. you have one active sentient slot at level 1 and each 4 character level another one unlocks until you have at level 29 all 8 slots unlocked.

[Lonnbeimnech]

they already are gated to the extent that level 20 weapons with 9 slots are weaker than level 29 weapons with 9 slots, and by no small margin

also the not-WAI double dose you get from minor artifacts, since the only lvl 20 minor artifact I can think of, only has one filigree slot max

[Tobril]

Sentience should never have been tied to an individual weapon.

That creates headaches for developers creating weapons and players who would like to occasionally swap what's in their hands for a variety of reasons.

(Let's not even get into lag when you try to quickly swap weapons with heavy sentience)


Something between the slots and/or enhancement tree system seems like a far better solution.


Sentience should also be available in lower heroics as well. A gated system would allow everyone to play with sentience while still preventing established players from completely outclassing newer players/alts from a perspective of character ability.


There's even precedence to support the role-play aspect because later versions of DnD introduced "weapon spirits" that operate similar to the DDO Holy Sword spell.

[AbyssalMage]

They are going to do it anyways, for the same reasons as Epic Destinies, and for other reasons. Think of this as the opportunity to give feedback before it appears on lammania in final form.
They don't want feedback from us. Had they wanted feedback they wouldn't do the things they have already done.


You had the opportunity to see sorcs were broken, and give feedback a year before final changes appeared on lammania. You had the opportunity to address nerfing and bug fixing dire charge before final changes appeared on lammania. You had the opportunity to see how launch warlocks were broken, and give feedback on how they should be nerfed before final changes appeared on lammania.
Sorcerers were not broken. Dire Charge isn't broken.

Warlocks were broken in heroics and feedback was given. They were not broken in Epic's but the developers made sure they were useless instead.

Human versatility wasn't broken but they decided it was. IPS wasn't broken but they decided it was. Paladin's were not broken but they decided they were. Pale Masters were not broken but they decided they were.

I can go on a long list of things the developers decided were broken over the last decade. And in (nearly) every case the problem was never the build but the developers. Quit being their cheerleader. They listen to those who want nerfs, the cheerleader's on the forums.


Don't nerf X, where X is clearly going to get nerfed in the future just waives your opportunity to give feedback on what appears.
Here's a hint: They are going to nerf anything you want them to nerf. Get enough forumites to say something is OP and they will find an excuse to nerf it.

Maybe you are trying to be a mediator? Personally I have been here long enough to know they don't listen to reason. Once the forumites demand a nerf I can promise you from past history they will take a chainsaw to the "problem" to find a "solution." Then the forumites will move onto their next perceived grievance. And people will say "It needed to happen" and they'll "listen next time." Or they are in denial and say the developers wont be so crass next time.

Back on subject, they are going to nerf sentient weapons. It may take them a few years to figure out how but it is clear that level 20 was "too low" in their eyes. And by "their eyes" I mean forumites and the developers.

[Tilomere]

Back on subject, they are going to nerf sentient weapons. It may take them a few years to figure out how but it is clear that level 20 was "too low" in their eyes. And by "their eyes" I mean forumites and the developers.

It is not necessarily even a nerf, since they are rebalancing epic mobs already. It is just good timing, and would actually be a buff to newer players.

Veteran players have ground out around a billion regular xp while doing legendary reaper, and have multiple maxed sentient gems as a result. They arrived with RL years ago, so in a sense like the RL belts it is already time to start looking at nerfing them to make room for what comes next.

[droid327]

No.

The game needs MORE monotonic progression, not less. At some point I want to feel like I actually get to keep the progress I earn, not that I'm just renting it till my next TR

And why for any gods sake would you want to see MORE gear Tetris and inventory management as you cycle through epic???

[droid327]

nerfing them to make room for what comes next.

Wait this whole post is just satirical commentary isn't it? Lol

A Modest Proposal for Sentient Weapons

[Chai]

Don't nerf X, where X is clearly going to get nerfed in the future just waives your opportunity to give feedback on what appears.

No it doesn't.

It literally is the feedback BEFORE it appears.

If they insist on the nerf after the feedback is provided, then players can still provide feedback WHEN it appears based on WHAT it looks like at that time.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Back on subject, they are going to nerf sentient weapons.

This view once again shows me that no-one here seems to want "roile-playing" here, but rather "power-playing".
Is this typical to RPGs only or is this a plague ALL RPGs have in common ?

I mean, in my point of view, PC gaming has degraded in diversity throughout the last 20 years so much : Everything has become a power game now.
Simple games like the old "Lemmings" or any other kind of not power related games are impossible these days, as no-one would buy them. Everyone wants power gaming.



Sentience should never have been tied to an individual weapon.

I have never seen Sentience in RPGs in other items than in weapons ... strange, that no-one has had this idea before ... A sentient cloak, for example ...

Even in the Eberron novel "Queen Of Stone", the sentient weapon is in fact a weapon (a dagger) ...

[Vish]

Of course tilo, of course

But the question is is the sentient system so hard coded,

That they would have to give us a new sentience system…

[Tobril]

I have never seen Sentience in RPGs in other items than in weapons ... strange, that no-one has had this idea before ... A sentient cloak, for example ...

Even in the Eberron novel "Queen Of Stone", the sentient weapon is in fact a weapon (a dagger) ...


I'd like to claim an original idea, but...

Some version of DnD or Pathfinder had an option where paladins had a sort of "Weapon Spirit" that gave bonuses you could change on a daily basis.

DnD Artifacts have often had varying levels of sentience.

Even the One Ring and its ilk had a certain level of awareness.

[slarden]

SSG is throwing alot of change at the community. I suggest SSG focus on their ED changes and rebalancing lower level epic content for now - they have enough on their plate and should focus on getting that right. They can revisit sentient weapons @ epic levels once the dust settles if it is making content too easy after all these other changes are introduced.