Sneak Peek: Augment Slots!

[Entarus]

I think the concept is good. Anything that adds greater variety in ways that you can customize your build to be the way you want to play it is generally good. What is planned for the guild augment system bothers me.

I try to fit in a cannith crafted large guild slotted item to most of my character's end game gear. I like having that extra 20 hp or 80 sp. Take away the stacking nature of those mods and they become pointless. The other mod that I really take issue with is the stacking +4 intim. This is because in some raids that +4 intim is the difference between reliable tanking and a wiped raid group. I have a paladin tank that I worked hard to scrape together every possible source of intim so that I could be a reliable tank. Take away that +4 guild bonus and it will hurt a bit.

It would be nice if some of the small stacking bonuses are left in. It's not always about elitism in claiming to have big values in some stats. It can also be a matter of effectiveness sometimes when those stats need to be stupidly high.

[BossOfEarth]

New versions of these couldn't make it into the initial launch of the system, due to time constraints.
We wanted to remove anything that is temporary- as we've decided to change that aspect of the old system's design.

While these won't be in initially with Update 17, we do intend to add new versions of these augments in the future as named treasure, and without the temporary duration.

Bravo! I eschewed the guild slots because I dislike keeping track of the temporary timers.

[EllisDee37]

I would be a much bigger fan if this system wasn't such a nerf to cannith crafting, which is already teetering on the precipice of irrelevance.

Any chance of a cannith crafting pass for u18?

[BOgre]

New versions of these couldn't make it into the initial launch of the system, due to time constraints.
We wanted to remove anything that is temporary- as we've decided to change that aspect of the old system's design.

While these won't be in initially with Update 17, we do intend to add new versions of these augments in the future as named treasure, and without the temporary duration.

Looks good so far, however one very important thing was missed in this idea: The ability to upgrade already purchased BtC epic augment crystals into the new version, or back into epic tokens.

With the epic crafting system having been broken for awhile now, many of us purchased crystals with 20 or 30 epic tokens unaware of this, as both the vendor continued to sell and altar accepted items normally. Now a lot of us have these crystals that we are now notified will become worthless in our packs. I don't think that's very fair or reasonable to do to players who were waiting for a fix, a fix that was promised awhile ago and that players expected to occur from said promise. The term 'theft' does come to mind here..

Before you go off and overhaul things with a new system like this, you must tie up ALL loose ends including this one. I will thus expect either an exchange method implemented to revert my now obsolete crystal back to the epic tokens, or upgrade it to the new version.

I'm in this situation. I have a number of Devil Assault temp augments that I wasn't able to slot due to the system being broken, as well as a toughness xtal I intended to slot in a Cove item.
I'd like more clarification about what will happen to these. What if I slot them today now that the epic altar is 'fixed'? And what will happen to them post u17? What if I wait to slot them till after U17?

I'm also a little concerned generally about the enhancement level/crafting level/min level issues. I can't tell from the OP if this works out to be a good or a bad thing...

Overall, it looks good and I can already see a few really nice things I'll be able to do with my current setup, so thanks for the hard work and thought and time put in.

[HatsuharuZ]

So far, I like what I see. However, I hope that the actual list of available augments are a bit longer than what is presented here.

Might I suggest some healing amp? At least on named/rare augments?

Also, please make augments tradeable.

[oweieie]

Yellow is awful, and since yellow is the only thing you can get on accessories, gone are the cannith crafted accessories with +HP on them... Yuck.

[Yokido]

The -actual- list of possible Augments is infinite, all they need to do is add new named augments.. I'd much rather prefer named augments vs randomly generated or purchase-able ones..

Imagine a named augment from the following raids..

Titan Awakes
Shroud
VoD
HoX
ToD
MA
LoB
VoN
GH
Adq
Tempest
Abbot

This alone should be reason to rejoice my fellow comrades, Turbine has devised a very clever way to make us interested in older raids!.. No longer shall we obsess over the latest and greatest raids, but the skew will be much more evened out if you cannot find X in Y raid, or Y in X raid... Imagine the raid-specific abilities and how interesting some of them could be as compared to something we could buy right off the bat.

(Some of them could be possibly only granted on 20th completions as-well, or they could make 10th completions instead, or they could do whatever they want ^_^)

The advancement being presented to us has great possibilities and I give congratz to the TB/Wb team for thinking it up.

PSS:

As a tiny suggestion to you DDO, what if you could turn in several of a named item to get a special augment? That would make it so you can create potent augments that could scale depending on how many of the item you sacrifice.

EG: Trade 1 Thornlord for [Red Augment] +1d4 thorn damage on melee/ranged attacks.
Trade 2 Thornlords for +2d4 thorn damage on melee/ranged attacks.
Trade in 3 for +3d4 and so on..

[SealedInSong]

The -actual- list of possible Augments is infinite, all they need to do is add new named augments.. I'd much rather prefer named augments vs randomly generated or purchase-able ones..

Imagine a named augment from the following raids... (snip)

I agree that it would be truly wonderful to go seeking out rare and powerful augments in older raids and quest chains.

[SealedInSong]

I don't disagree with any of that, but I think you're over thinking it. There's a reason why you used an intimidate slot on an EE LoB tank as the example, it's literally the only significant end game use of a slot. Sure 20/80 HP/SP on a crafted item can be nice, but probably less useful than one of these slots most of the time, and really not a big deal anyway (particularly given how lackluster cannith crafting is compared to all the new epic stuff).

That said, personally I'd prefer they be removed also, I just don't think it's that big a deal, and it would cause so much bellyaching it probably wouldn't be worth it.

80 or 160 SP is a huge deal to a caster, in my opinion, as is 20 hp to any character. In a game of incremental gains, I make it a point to have a large guild augment HP item on every single character. It's not super overpowered either because they have to sacrifice an equipment slot in a climate where there are plenty of epic items with at least 3-4 other mods that are appealing over your basic Mobile LGA boots of Balance or Charismatic LGA helm of Persuasion that I put on my characters.

A feat-starved cleric can make great use of what amounts to an extra toughness or mental toughness, as can a paladin and so forth.

Also, "literally the only significant end game use of a slot" is quite a stretch. I use the slots for intimidate but I also have some for search/disable/open lock on some characters with artificer or rogue splashes that would otherwise have trouble with some high DCs (the planar conflux hidden chest in Trial By Fury in particular comes to mind).

I still think, as per my previous post, that guild augments should remain the same except that the augments should have an infinite duration.

[SealedInSong]

I think the concept is good. Anything that adds greater variety in ways that you can customize your build to be the way you want to play it is generally good. What is planned for the guild augment system bothers me.

I try to fit in a cannith crafted large guild slotted item to most of my character's end game gear. I like having that extra 20 hp or 80 sp. Take away the stacking nature of those mods and they become pointless. The other mod that I really take issue with is the stacking +4 intim. This is because in some raids that +4 intim is the difference between reliable tanking and a wiped raid group. I have a paladin tank that I worked hard to scrape together every possible source of intim so that I could be a reliable tank. Take away that +4 guild bonus and it will hurt a bit.

It would be nice if some of the small stacking bonuses are left in. It's not always about elitism in claiming to have big values in some stats. It can also be a matter of effectiveness sometimes when those stats need to be stupidly high.

This

[SealedInSong]

These changes look intuitive and exciting.

Question1: if we have slotted Toughness in the blue slot of, say, epic red dragonscale armor, and nothing in the colorless slot it has, does that mean that we can use the new augments in the colorless slot or will we have to convert the entire item (and lose the Toughness slotted) to be able to take advantage of the new system?

Question2: any chance one of you could weigh in on the feasibility of my suggestion to have guild augments function the way the new system does (without durations)? It seems that guild augments and the lack of compelling modifiers in the yellow slot are the biggest concern so far, and I think that continuing to have guild augments exist as they are but with no temporary duration seems like the best of both worlds.

[Deathdefy]

Just figured I'd say I like it. Looks fun. I'm super curious about what the other named-item augments, like the epic Globe of Imperial Blood, will be too.

Like many others, I'm concerned about the ability for existing players to have powerful guild augment slotted items that are completely unavailable to players who start after U17. My solution would be to nuke guild slots from orbit after a grace period to re-gear. Say U18 or 19.

[esheep]

All in all it looks like quite a bit of work went into the system.

Sadly, it looks like yet another crafting system, which is fine but doesn't excite me.

I can't remember if I suggested it already -- but everything that this new system accomplishes could have been achieved via use of the Cannith Crafting system, all while not expecting the player to grow accustomed to new interfaces and collect 80 bjillion new components*.

Divvy up the crafting potential via levels (+1 to +6) and apply to named items... tough part would be making like bonuses stack (but epic crafting does this already?), for example making the Carnifex +3 (with a +1 enhancement shard)...

Anyway, I'm sure the new system does all this more or less, but it's something new and at my current interest level odds aren't improving of me logging in anytime soon. Start talking about enhancements and that may change...

(* what I really mean is without having to collect any new components)

[Eme]

such a bland list of available augments

[Violith]

only thing I dont like is that the level of items that have a slot increase just by having a slot, so you get weaker gear and have to use the slot to make it worth while. it should be that you get gear at equal level but have a chance for a slot to be on it. I can see if you slot a higher lvl augment into it that it'd increase the level, but starting off at a 1-3 level difference compared to a similiar item without a slot is rather pointless.

another thing, what is going to happen to the temporary red augments from DA? That was one of the good reasons to run that raid to get a dual red augment to slot weapons with, hopefully they get transfered over to the new system and remain as drops.

[dTarkanan]

New versions of these couldn't make it into the initial launch of the system, due to time constraints.
We wanted to remove anything that is temporary- as we've decided to change that aspect of the old system's design.

While these won't be in initially with Update 17, we do intend to add new versions of these augments in the future as named treasure, and without the temporary duration.

What will happen to extant unused crystals?

[LordPiglet]

New versions of these couldn't make it into the initial launch of the system, due to time constraints.
We wanted to remove anything that is temporary- as we've decided to change that aspect of the old system's design.

While these won't be in initially with Update 17, we do intend to add new versions of these augments in the future as named treasure, and without the temporary duration.

Not really cool, you're forcing players who rely on these in certain weapons to stock pile them for the forseable future. The "this will be added/fixed in the future" line is really quite old.

Also, while I am glad you added striding to the yellow, what happened to toughness / greater false life. You don't seem to distinguish them any more are just added a max _35 hp in the blue slot. This is less then the 50 from the toughness + gfl combo.

[karl_k0ch]

Generally speaking, I find this change interesting.

I'm really interested to see some more named augments.

Specifically, I see that due to the shift of slots/augment bonuses, more specifically, the missions of GFL on yellow, and Toughness on blue can create some unpleasant regearing process on a number of toons who did not use, e.g. a belt which grants GFL, or a Helm which grants toughness.
This hurts particularily if you have your gear set complete, with the exception of, e.g. a belt of mroranon base, in whose yellow slot the GFL would have went.

Edit: The question below was answered by the OP, as I realized.
I'm curious how one can acquire augments - 5% drop chance for non-named augments, fine.
Does this mean that I can't spend a number of Epic Tokens to get my +6 Stat bonus, but I have to be lucky, or make a good trade?

Lahar the Epic Trader in the Twelve sells some augments. Their costs in Epic Dungeon and Epic Raid tokens are lower than their previous costs.

[Alternative]

what about epic items that currently don't have any slots? is the claw set and other fens items goin to get slots now? cove items do have slots, why not mabar items? similarly cannith challenge items have slot, could use them on evenigstar items too (though I'm still not running those until mats are changed to bta)

[darthhento]

Looks good.

Make HEAL AMP AUGMENT CRYSTALS though.