Ravenloft Expansion Preview #2 Sentient Weapons Feedback

[GeoffWatson]

One of the things that sets Legendary Greensteel apart from any other weapon system in the game is that tier one provides an "enhancement" bonus to spell power instead of the usual "equipment" bonus to spellpower. This is very difficult to ignore, and is fairly common knowledge.

Obviously an accidental bug (most item bonuses are "enhancement") but too late to fix it now, without huge amounts of crying and screaming.

If it had intended to be a stacking bonus it would be a lot smaller.

[Krelar]

Obviously an accidental bug (most item bonuses are "enhancement") but too late to fix it now, without huge amounts of crying and screaming.

When has that ever stopped them before?

[Silverleafeon]

Was organizing my mules yesterday and destroyed about a dozen pieces of named loot...

Runs to see if the buy back option is still there...

[Aelonwy]

*snip* Whether this is someone attempting to recycle another version of what was a bad idea back then, or this is another developer accidentally making the same mistake as a predecessor, it's just got to stop.
Thanks.

I had similar thoughts myself.

[Silverleafeon]

Obviously an accidental bug (most item bonuses are "enhancement") but too late to fix it now, without huge amounts of crying and screaming.

If it had intended to be a stacking bonus it would be a lot smaller.

Just bringing it up, because spellpower comes on rings and many other places (including slavers), so a spellcaster at level 26+ is pretty much forced into two handed greensteel (even if its tier one) to gain the:

Equipment Bonus on Slayers + Enhancement Bonus on Leg Greensteel = 150 spellpower more than any other combo in the game.
That is the same as handing out free Maximize.

I am quite sure the Devs are very aware of this situation?

Of course if want to weapon swap and focus on a particular element, you are fine most of the time.

If it is a longstanding bug, then it should be dealt with.
If it is not, then that is fine, leave it be.
Whatever...

If this nerfs spellcasters, better to do so before their upcoming class upgrade passes than afterwards.
Nerf now upgrade soon.

Either way, whatever will be will be, and I am sure this discussion has already happened with the Devs sometime...


...and yes I have many Leg Greensteel weapon augments, so it will impact me as much as any other player in the game...

[Equatis]

If i'm understanding this right, having the jewel be bound to account means you can feed items into it from multiple characters?

From what I observed on Lamannia, since you can't feed items to the sentient jewel until it's slotted on a weapon, it becomes bound depending on the named weapon's own binding type, so you'd have to pass the items to the toon with the weapon to feed them unless it's BTA and you place it in the shared bank while leveling it. But I don't see that last bit happening myself.

[blerkington]

I had similar thoughts myself.

Thanks, and since you were the first person to come up with the xp gem idea you should get full credit for it. Well done.

All I've done in this thread is try to flesh your idea out, argue to preserve loot sharing and wrap in a way to reward attempting harder content. I really hope these ideas are all taken into account.

Take care.

[Silverleafeon]

Assuming greed wins the day (which I doubt but whatever),
which is better:

More Raiding lfms up with less people passing loot?
or
No Raiding lfms up with more people passing loot?


Which would hurt the newbie more?
Not being able to raid at all, because they lack experience?
or
Having to get lucky or wait for their 20th run to get what they want.


Either way, all hail the Golden Guile of which thousands of players have vendored since MotU!

[Silverleafeon]

If one restricts the ability to use raid loot for sxp, then one removes a reason to go old school and run raid trains like we used to do...

Guilds are there to help newcomers and make friends...


..............................


Just bought back 17ish named items to feed the hungry Sentient Weapon of the future...
Bank clearing will be more interesting in the days to come...


.........


As far as running quests on lower difficulties, higher difficulties drop more named loot usually.

There is also pulling the extra:

Filigree will have their own rarity. Some sets will be less common than others. In addition, each Filigree has a rare chance to drop as with an upgraded bonus, which has an additional effect on it.

Which will also encourage higher difficulty.

And it has been finally proven that rxp has no limit cap on it...

[Fivetigers33]

Assuming greed wins the day (which I doubt but whatever),
which is better:

More Raiding lfms up with less people passing loot?
or
No Raiding lfms up with more people passing loot?

I don't think sentient weapons will increase raiding. To grind xp people will zerg short quests with high drop rates, and quests with multiple chests that can drop named items.

For instance, Lord's of Dust can be completed in about 10 minutes and has 4 chests that can drop named items.

I'm sure it won't take long for players to figure out which quests are best for sentient xp.

[Aelonwy]

Thanks, and since you were the first person to come up with the xp gem idea you should get full credit for it. Well done.

All I've done in this thread is try to flesh your idea out, argue to preserve loot sharing and wrap in a way to reward attempting harder content. I really hope these ideas are all taken into account.

Take care.

To be totally honest, the originator of the idea was a poster named Scuddy, he deserves the credit. Although I was the first to bring the issue up on the PC, I'm not sure I can say much more than that even though they seemed to have brought out everything to the public forums. Just in case.

I also brought up the issue of things needing to go in a bag, and that Augment bags were not searchable... but they fixed that up so fast I'm sure a dev must have already been thinking the same thing.

[Kza]

A good suggestion would be to preclude raid loot from feeding sentients and instead have a sentient XP snack gem appropriate to the level of the raid drop in raids.

+1 yes plz!

[die]

I would also like to say, the idea you get to pick what personality your Sentient weapon gets to have is total party kill to me. IF you just want to create another grindy crafting system look no further than the current one that are in place Cannith, Green steel, Thunder Forged

I'm still trying to get tier 3 on a couple Thunderforged weapons. We don't need another at end game.

I like the Idea that you find a sentient weapon in one of the new quests, and it will be what it is, to me that is the joy of dnd. To me this system as is, is a Epic fail. For me.

I know this game does not revolve around me, but for once I would like to see a little Old DnD fantasy put back into this game.

1) snarky dagger... If I pulled this on my pally I might be bummed but what if I was able to trade it? of give it to my rogue? Keep playing until I found that cool intelligent Dwarven axe with the personality of a bottled dwarven warpriest!! that would be cool.

That would keep me interested. But to just pick your weapon as if your at the Wal-mart ddo store is lame IMO

[Yamani]

A good suggestion would be to preclude raid loot from feeding sentients and instead have a sentient XP snack gem appropriate to the level of the raid drop in raids.

Well that xp gem has to have a much higher drop rate of gear then. Because as I see it, that xp gem not as common as the chance to get 1 raid item would void me out of running that raid and instead just hitting a few legendary quests which doesn't put me on a timer. This boils down to the lack of raid groups atm vs raid loot sharing. Which one is more important to you? Personally if someone states they need something early on from a raid, ill give it to them. But with this new system I wouldn't put anything up for roll anymore as ppl would roll just for the sentient xp. Id ask if anyone can actually use it and then if there is multiple (I don't accept those "for another life" players either) I'd allow them to roll on it(also not giving caster gear to melee's! vice versa).

And to those who suggested casual farming legendary quests!?! good luck with your decreased drop rates of next to nill?

[noinfo]

How do I add a Sentient Jewel to a Weapon that accepts Sentience?

There is now a red button on the right of the inventory panel which pulls open the Sentient Weapon menu. From here you can drag a weapon and then a Sentient Jewel to create a Sentient Weapon.

What is the deal with Binding Status?

• Sentient Weapons: As per the named item, so it varies.
• Sentient Jewels: Bound to Account
• Filigree: Varies depending on content, but probably unbound so players can trade and sell the ones they don't want.

The bonuses granted by each filigree are small but the set bonuses are large, is this intended?

The intent is that the juicy flavorful stuff should be in the set bonuses, not the bonuses of the base Sentient Filigree.

Can someone fighting with Two Weapons wield two sentient weapons?

Weapons with a Sentient Jewel slotted in them will reject being placed in your off hand.

How will we obtain Unslotters and Destroyers?

• Destroyer tools will probably be on vendors for plat.
• Unslotters will drop in loot and you can buy them in the store.

What weapons will accept Sentience?

A large portion of named weapons with Minimum levels higher than 21 will accept Sentience. There are exceptions to that including, most notably, named items that go through certain crafting or upgrading systems. This list includes, but is not limited to upgradable weapons from Temple of Elemental Evil, Legendary Green Steel, and Thunder-Forged Weapons.

Does adding a Sentient Jewel or a Filagree to a Weapon alter the weapons Minimum level?

None of this changes the item's minimum level. Making an item sentient, adding power to the Sentient Jewel, and then putting Filigree in slots all can be done without changing the minimum level. Might we have Filigree with a minimum level requirement someday? Maybe, but that doesn't exist in this iteration.

Do the Filigree go into any bags?

Yes. Filigree go into Augment bags. Also, Augment bags now have a search function!

This is a sentient Weapon, does it do anything but give me mechanical benefits?

Yes. While wielding a weapon with a sentient jewel slotted into it you will occasionally hear the personality within the weapon commenting on your current situation. The weapon will use voice and send text to chat, not DM text. Both options will have an option to be turned off. Each Sentient Jewel contains a different personality. (NOTE: This aspect is not yet implemented in this current Lamannia Preview)

Does the Personality of a Sentient Jewel have any impact on the mechanical benefits?

No. We do not want people to get stuck with personality they find annoying because they want the mechanical benefits of a certain filigree set.

What happens to the XP accumulated if you unslot a Sentient Jewel from a weapon?

All Sentient XP you have gained stays with the Sentient Jewel when you unslot it, and is applied to a new weapon when you slot that jewel into it.

Do the stats stack for example the wisdom +1 from one set with the wisdom +1 set of another?

[lyrecono]

This means that a character will need almost 70 named items at top level to reach 5 Filigree slots, and it gets expensive for slots 6 and 7.

so i'm sacrificing 70 items to open up 5 slots, are the filigree rare drops? is it the shard debacle all over again? where people are buying overpriced items with duped shards?

As a whole, the crafting seems lackluster, right after the racial past lives and reaper trees.

I'd just like to echo other people's concerns about the social effects this system will have on sharing named loot. It really is going to usher in a new age of selfishness and the people who will be hurt the most are less well established players. That is a very bad path to go down, in my opinion anyway.

Maybe what you could do instead is write a script that also generates a sentient weapon xp gem every time a named item drops. So if my loot has a named item, I can give that to someone else who needs it but keep the sentient weapon xp gem for myself.

Such a system could also be tied to difficulty, so the value of the sentient weapon xp gem is higher for doing quests on higher difficulties. This would address people's very justified concerns that your current proposal wrongly incentivises lower difficulties, and gives people more reason to run higher difficulties instead.

Thanks.

yeah, this is a likely scenario

Why ML 21? More specifically, why not 20? You could put some extra life back into old Epic items by letting them become sentient.

I wouldn't bother using a sentient level 21-30 weapon that would be a step down from the ML 20 endgame weapon I've typically used.

half a decade and a nerf down the line, they still fear the ESoS.

[Silverleafeon]

The biggest fear of a sxp gem from raids would be players duplicating thus.

After all, the xp gems from Sagas were very short lived, removed very quickly after their implementation.
Likely due to duplication issues.

[GeoffWatson]

Many of the high-level weapons are upgradeable (Thunderforged, Legendary Green Steel, CitW, ToEE, Slavelords Staff).

Will these be all unavailable for Sentient Weapons?

[Silverleafeon]

I don't think sentient weapons will increase raiding. To grind xp people will zerg short quests with high drop rates, and quests with multiple chests that can drop named items.

For instance, Lord's of Dust can be completed in about 10 minutes and has 4 chests that can drop named items.

I'm sure it won't take long for players to figure out which quests are best for sentient xp.

I respect your opinion.

Things may differ from server to sever and from guild to guild.

Just farming Wheloon for heroic reaper xp, I picked up half a dozen named items.

Suddenly I am worried my bank will overflow before the Expansion arrives...lol...

[blerkington]

The biggest fear of a sxp gem from raids would be players duplicating thus.

After all, the xp gems from Sagas were very short lived, removed very quickly after their implementation.
Likely due to duplication issues.

As far as I know, that problem has been solved. But let's say it hasn't been, or there's a chance for it to crop up again in the future for whatever reason. What they could do instead is make sentient weapon xp a currency that we cannot interact with in the same way we can as with objects in our backpack.

I would really hate to see a system that is potentially so destructive to altruistic behaviour and player cooperation be implemented because someone is frightened about Dupers Under The Bed.

I am not condoning duping, but there are other ways to deal with that problem than adding systems that will pit us against each other rather than encouraging sharing and helping.

Thanks.