Reducing Minimum Level on Gear

[nibel]

Currently, the loot tables have two ways to give you an item that is lower level than expected. I made this list to work on them, and improve and expand their effects, while also bringing the return of an old friend ML reduction type.

Those reductions can stack with each other, but you can only have one of each tier. For effects of loot tables, those items are considered an enchantment equal to their reduction level. So if you are on a level 18 table you could loot a ML 18 weapon, or a ML 16 cursed weapon. You DO NOT get a ML 20 weapon that is actually ML 18.

An item ML can never be lower than 1 (if an heroic item) or 20 (if an epic item). If any item with one (or more) of those properties is disjunctioned in a cannith deconstruction station, it will be cleared of those effects as well.

EDIT: Epic Items only get half of the described level reducing effect, because epic gear advance at +1 ML per enchantment bonus, while heroic items advance at +2 ML per enchantment bonus.

Great Craftsmanship

An item specially crafted have more power than their level allow. This thing is just really good, and carries no drawback at all. For balance reasons, I propose that all chain reward lists have their non-named items with some level of great craftsmanship. Ideally, those would be tied with which difficulty you finished the chain, but I'll leave code problems with the devs and presume they will work like that.

• Masterful Craftsmanship will reduce the ML of the item by 2. Normal completion only award this tier.
• Wonderful Craftsmanship will reduce the ML of the item by 4. Low chance (~5%) on Hard completion. Average change (~20%) on Elite completion
• Legendary Craftsmanship will reduce the ML of the item by 6. Low chance (~5%) on Elite completion.

Special requirements

Those items were crafted specifically to serve some purpose. To wield more power, they have some restrictions on them, and you must fulfill those restrictions before you can equip the item. Those restrictions reduces the ML of the item by 2.

Old RR items could be bypassed with a UMD check, but it was a major source of lag in the game, so "bypassing" UMD checks should not return. If you do not match the item requirements, you simply can't wear it.

• An Alignment Required item requires you to be of a specific alignment. All six alignments (LG, NG, CG, LN, TN, CN) are possible choices. Partial fullfilment will allow you to wear the item while suffering a negative level (Eg, a Lawful Neutral Item can be worn like that by a Lawful Good, True Neutral, or Chaotic Neutral character).
• A Class Required item requires you to be of a specific class. The item will require a number of class levels equal the item enchantment level (So, a ML 15 ring will requires 8 levels of a specific class).
• A Race Required item requires you to be of a specific race. Human-required items can be worn by human, half-elves, half-orcs, shadar-kais and purple dragon knights. Elf-required items can be worn by elves, half-elves, drow elf, and sun elves. Warforged-required items can be worn by warforgeds and bladeforgeds.

Cursed Items

In real life, things are not fair. Sometimes you just get something from the bottom of the barrel, and sucks to be you. Fortunately, DDO is not real life. So, when you get an item with a major drawback, you will get a benefit from it. Cursed items are items with drawbacks. A cursed item reduces the ML of said item by 2. Every Cursed item is Bound to Character on Equip, and will only reveal their curse after you equip the item. The following curses are available:

• Feebleminded: This item will make your mind an open road for all types of enchantments. You have a -5 penalty to will saves and +10% SP cost in all spells.
• Infected: This item makes you sick. You have Filth Fever (variations for other diseases allowed) and can't be permanently cured until you remove the item.
• Lethargic: This item will make you sleepy and slow. You have a -5 penalty to Reflex saves and -3 Dodge.
• Magic Imperviouness: Your affinity with magic is lowered. You have a -30 penalty to Universal Spell Power, a -10 penalty to MRR, and a -3 penalty to Spell Resistance.
• Mummy Essence: This item was on the hands of a mummy for too long, and absorbed part of its curse. You have a -50 penalty to healing amplification (but not repair or negative energy).
• Open Guard: This cursed item will move your body in the direction of the enemy's blows. You have a -10 penalty to AC and PRR.
• Poisoned: This item was made to kill its owner. You are poisoned with Spider Poison (variations for other poisons allowed) and can't be permanently cured until you remove the item.
• Shattered: This item will drain the resilience of your own body. You have a -5 penalty to Fortitude saves and -5% HP.
• Time Curse: While wearing/wielding this item, every time you are hit, there is a 3% chance you will be affected by a Slow effect (no save)
• Weakened: The wielder of this item will have a -6 penalty to its Strength. (yes, it is higher than current -2. The intention is for it to be a problem)
  
  • Clumsy, Frail, Dull, Fool, Repulsive: Like Weakened, but for Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

Opinions?

[doubledge]

5% is NOT a "low" chance. Personally, it'd be much better if the chance was <1%.

A major problem with the system you're suggesting is that an item might spawn with legendary craftsmanship, neutral required, and repulsive, and all of a sudden your ml 19 weapon is ml 9.

Making them stack is a very, very bad idea.

There's also other problems...

Masterful craftsmanship is fine as is, but Wonderful and Legendary craftsmanship going to -6 ml is insane. I'd lower it to 3, and 4 levels each, making legendary weapons amazing for twinking, but not overpowering.

The special requirements are WAY too strict for the bonuses you're giving them. I'd instead reccomend you go with the old RR/Alignment required items that everyone loved so much. (-2 minimum level, umd check based on level of the item...) Only throw on negative levels when the item is OPPOSED to you... giving a neutral good character a minimum level because he's holding a weapon meant for a lawful good is just silly.

Lastly... the curses. The curses you suggest... are debilitating. I'd avoid any item with those curses like the plague. You state all of them are equally bad, and grant an equal ML reduction (-2), but some of the curses are laughable, and some are horrifying.

On the list of laughable curses, we have the filth fever and spider poison curses. Assuming you're not immune to them flat out (paladin... monk... druid... WARFORGED...), they're about the right power to grant -2 ML.

On the other hand, we have... cripplers. You wouldn't be able to PAY people to wear anything cursed with -50 heal amp, and, personally, i'd sell the **** thing as soon as i pulled it. Likewise, the save penalties are crazy, and the one that hurts fortitude saves actually causes more problems from the side effect than from the save penalty. -6 to stats is also way too high.

Even better: As you say, these "magical" items are BTCoE, and don't show their curses until you equip them? These things are going to be a scam. People are going to sell their booby trapped cursed gear to whoever's stupid enough to buy them.

TLDR: Good idea, but... horribly balanced.

/not signed

[nibel]

5% is NOT a "low" chance. Personally, it'd be much better if the chance was <1%.

Remember that craftsmanship gear is supposed to only appear in CHAIN end reward lists. It is not as easy and fast to farm as a single chest or quest end reward. Also, every third completion you get a full named item list and no random items with crafstmanship

But as every suggestion, sure, it can be tweaked.

A major problem with the system you're suggesting is that an item might spawn with legendary craftsmanship, neutral required, and repulsive, and all of a sudden your ml 19 weapon is ml 9.

Making them stack is a very, very bad idea.

That would be an amazing great twink item. And extremely rare (since you have to get all three bonus in a chain end reward list). And Bound to Character (since cursed items are BtC). And your character can't be Lawful Good (paladin) or Chaotic Good, or require charisma for something (ie, no sorcerer/bard).

Looks fine to me. That is a way to make randomly generated gear compete with named items.

Masterful craftsmanship is fine as is, but Wonderful and Legendary craftsmanship going to -6 ml is insane. I'd lower it to 3, and 4 levels each, making legendary weapons amazing for twinking, but not overpowering.

Wonderful Craftsmanship is already in the game and work as I wrote them. Legendary is the new tier, and is intended to be rare (Mythic levels of "rare"). I just forgot to add that the ML reductions are halved on epic gear because epic gear scales at +1 ML per enchantment bonus instead of +2 ML per enchantment bonus like heroic gear.

The special requirements are WAY too strict for the bonuses you're giving them. I'd instead reccomend you go with the old RR/Alignment required items that everyone loved so much. (-2 minimum level, umd check based on level of the item...) Only throw on negative levels when the item is OPPOSED to you... giving a neutral good character a minimum level because he's holding a weapon meant for a lawful good is just silly.

UMD bypass on RR items were a major source of lag. Everyone that played at the times when it existed remember the freezing lag you received on every UMD character with RR items when anything changed your skills, like receiving/ending Heroism, curses, charisma damage, skill boost, etc.

The alignment requirements all end up with a single alignment being perfectly ok with the item, three being able to use with a negative level, and two locked out.

On the list of laughable curses, we have the filth fever and spider poison curses. Assuming you're not immune to them flat out (paladin... monk... druid... WARFORGED...), they're about the right power to grant -2 ML.

Technically, that would be "any" disease or poison in the game. I put Filth Fever for being the first one in the list. But it can be Mummy Rot, Maggot Plague, Necrotic Touch, Blight Rot, etc.

Also, as a side effect, people with a good cursed item with those effects might value things like +10 disease saves, that are currently trash prefix/augments.

On the other hand, we have... cripplers. You wouldn't be able to PAY people to wear anything cursed with -50 heal amp, and, personally, i'd sell the **** thing as soon as i pulled it. Likewise, the save penalties are crazy, and the one that hurts fortitude saves actually causes more problems from the side effect than from the save penalty. -6 to stats is also way too high.

The intention is for every cursed item to be somewhat crippling. That's why they are cursed. Current "curses" are mostly a slap in the wrist than a debilitating curse.

Even better: As you say, these "magical" items are BTCoE, and don't show their curses until you equip them? These things are going to be a scam. People are going to sell their booby trapped cursed gear to whoever's stupid enough to buy them.

Just like the craftsmanship intention for them to be chain end reward tiered by chain completion difficulty levels, this probably will hit a wall on game code, but I don't care. It is a dev problem: The intention is for the curse to be clearly identified once the item is equipped once.

So, when you loot the item, it have a description like "Cursed: This item have an evil aura, and looks like it will not be a good idea to use it...", but once you equip it, the description change to the actual curse. So, if you want to sell an UNIDENTIFIED cursed item, you also don't know if the curse is actually debilitating for you (like a huge main stat penalty), just a minor inconvenience (like a fortitude penalty in a con-based barbarian) or a coincidental slap in the wrist (like a healing amp penalty in a pale master).

If it is not possible to code them to change descriptions on equip, then the most balanced is to identify the curse from the moment you get the item.

[bsquishwizzy]

Remember that craftsmanship gear is supposed to only appear in CHAIN end reward lists. It is not as easy and fast to farm as a single chest or quest end reward. Also, every third completion you get a full named item list and no random items with crafstmanship

But as every suggestion, sure, it can be tweaked.

You know, random loot sucks so bad these days that lowering the chance and making it appear everywhere would be a welcome benefit. I’m all for the <1% chance of pull criteria. I’d love to pull something useful with a -6 ML tag on it, especially if I wanted to crank out multiple lives.

All-in-all I think what you propose is not a bad idea. It would be nice, however, if this could also be somehow shoehorned into Cannith Crafting. Because, at present, I use Masterful Craftsmanship a lot when twinking toons. Problem is that from levels 1 – 18, I rarely use items with augment slots as blanks because the ML increase they impose is very prohibitive, even those with colorless augment slots (lowest ML increase of the bunch). So all of those special 2-augment, and oddball green / orange / purple augment items would now be worth using.

But, given the decisions being made with random loot these days, and the fact that Turbine has left Cannith Crafting to rot on the vine, I doubt that any of these proposals will be seriously looked into. It’s a shame, really…

[Astarii]

[*]A Class Required item requires you to be of a specific class. The item will require a number of class levels equal the item enchantment level (So, a ML 15 ring will requires 8 levels of a specific class).

I agree that what they should do is a Min Class lvl for items..... (where UMD can't be used)

[Faltout]

That would be an amazing great twink item. And extremely rare (since you have to get all three bonus in a chain end reward list). And Bound to Character (since cursed items are BtC). And your character can't be Lawful Good (paladin) or Chaotic Good, or require charisma for something (ie, no sorcerer/bard).

Looks fine to me. That is a way to make randomly generated gear compete with named items.

While extremely rare, it's bound to happen. When it happens, that item will make one character really overpowered. And while time passes, this is bound to happen again and again. And there are players that will make it happen by farming.

Also, I'd like to remind you that people BUILD characters around items. So if you have a powerful item and you can mitigate the negative consequences just by making the right choices, then it's a win win.

Wonderful Craftsmanship is already in the game and work as I wrote them. Legendary is the new tier, and is intended to be rare (Mythic levels of "rare"). I just forgot to add that the ML reductions are halved on epic gear because epic gear scales at +1 ML per enchantment bonus instead of +2 ML per enchantment bonus like heroic gear.

Except wondrous craftsmanship is only for epic gear where the ML reduction is halved.

Also, as a side effect, people with a good cursed item with those effects might value things like +10 disease saves, that are currently trash prefix/augments.

To have to wear a second item to counter the good item makes no sense. Why not simply wear 2 items giving different bonuses without the disease and get double efficiency? Because you are giving a mere +2 level efficiency in exchange for a gear slot.

The intention is for every cursed item to be somewhat crippling. That's why they are cursed. Current "curses" are mostly a slap in the wrist than a debilitating curse.

The current curses are exactly what you would get if you had a higher level item. If you are wearing a +3 INT item at level 5, then that's normal. But if you want to wear a +4 INT item at level 5, you need to trade that +1 you got in the ability score from another ability score.

My cleric today gave up heavy armor and a gear slot for fortification to get the medium armor that would complete the set of 3 items and give amanautor's blessing which provides -10% to spell costs. Are you saying that anyone in their right mind would trade something that important as spell costs to get a puny random item that has +1 to its real value?

You need to realize what exactly is minimum level reduction. It means that at level 5 I can wear a +4 INT item instead of a +3. Do I trade 6 from STR to add 1 to INT? HELL NO!

I agree that the idea is poorly balanced.