Artifact and General Item Balance Discussion

[morganp]

I have played offline for a long time, and finally registered expressly to mention my disbelief at how many items have hidden features. I never knew! Admittedly I play in a vacuum, but had tried, for instance, the Untouchable, wandered around with it for a bit, got something better, never noticed anything fancy. Skin of Many is something I would only use until I found Behemoth Hide (usually around the same time for a given run) and would never have thought about trying it on every race/class since it wasn't that great, other than making my rogues lousy. Have to agree strongly with Purequestion's point that, in a game that encourages informed decisions, I would not think to look for some of these features. The AM bonuses were some of the only ones I knew about since they are more heavily discussed on the forum and stated in-game fairly explicitly, and Vestments, since it's been in so long. Now I'm excited to try out some of these!

[SageAcrin]

Underpowered Artifacts that neither I nor Pure have hit yet/clarified details on, by the list;

Bill's Tree Trunk
Flamewrought
Moon
Star
Bolbum's Big Knocker

Suggestions:

Bill's Tree Trunk: Add a 6 CD L2 T_KNOCKBACK talent use. Knockback's a decent rushalike and does more damage than Rush, so it's an interesting niche.

Flamewrought: It's dropped by the Ritch Hivemother, who attacks more with Blight than Fire. Retool to Vilewrought; Add Blight damage bonuses and Blight damage affinity(5-10%), add detail about the scales looking diseased to the description.

Moon: Add a 10% chance to cast Circle of Shifting Shadows L2 on physical/spell hits.

Star: Add a 10% chance to cast Illuminate L3 on physical/spell hits.

Bolbum's Big Knocker: Increase Spellpower to 20. Add a 10% on_hit(spell) of Earthen Missiles L3(This synergizes with its physical game, humorously; Channel Staff gets on_hit(spells). [Edit: Actually, giving it a comparable level/rate of Channel Staff would be cooler, now that I think on it.]) Give an L1 Pulverizing Auger(10 power out of 15).

[Zonk]

Bump for something I just noticed: Thalore-Wood cuirass mentions in its description being 'low weight'..but it's massive. Couldn't it be just 'heavy'? Found out because I got it on a Brawler

[PureQuestion]

Brawlers can't really use Heavy either, can they?

[Zonk]

Brawlers can't really use Heavy either, can they?

They can. Sure, they get more fatigue than light, but they can use their talents with heavy armor. Massive disables them.

[Parcae2]

Whoops, just saw this thread and hope it isn't too late to add thoughts!

I think that the biggest problem on the "must have" items (and I would add the Arcane Supremacy set to them, on some classes) is twofold:

1. Swift Hands.
2. The lack of linked cooldowns on artifact items.

Taken together, this means that it becomes optimal to travel with an inventory of items you will never, ever use for their own sake, but need to carry around anyway. The nerf to Swift Hands in SVN is not adequate to counter this; it still makes items like Wanderer's Rest boring, since you can still carry them for use as needed without actually equipping them regularly. This defeats the entire purpose of the linked item cooldown that was introduce to counter precisely that strategy.

I would therefore suggest that linked cooldowns be added to artifacts and that Swift Hands' swapping-from-inventory effect, instead of being one-per-turn, be a 1-turn-duration instant-use effect that goes away when you do anything other than swap equipment (to counter global speed shenanigans), is Other (to counter Timeless shenanigans), and has a lengthy-ish cooldown. Then the prodigy becomes "you are able to alter all your equipment once in a while in order to counter a specific opponent" and not "you can carry around a whole bunch of stuff solely for their activations."

Note that this would actually make items like Wanderer's Rest interesting again. Sure, having an escape is great - but is it great enough to be willing to forfeit all other item activations in battles when you might need to use it, and also either wear it all the time or use your precious Swift Hands activation to equip it? Some "toolbox" items might still need to be nerfed, but a lot of them might not look so great when they actually have tradeoffs.

[SageAcrin]

Out of curiousity; If you remove that bonus, what *is* the point of Swift Hands?

Small statistical tweak bonuses every turn? Because that's not really worth it.

It may encourage carrying around a lot of utility items, but I think that is the role it is meant to play.

And those artifacts still have that action cost; You have to pay a Prodigy(which you don't even obtain until at least L30) to suspend that cost. The risk/reward is still there for the most part.

Meanwhile, allowing it to mass-alter your equipment (with a cooldown) is a combination of more abusive and more boring; You can use it to totally overhaul your statistics, but using it for utility effects-the things that require more skill than "I'm going to retool my entire setup to resist this enemy I see in front of me", and less time as well-becomes impossible. I don't think it's desirable.

Basically, on some level, Swift Hands is basically a skill designed to abuse item mechanics. Either way, it's abusing mechanics...just, abusing interesting activates is more interesting than swapping your entire equipset, as I see it. And less tedious.

[Doctornull]

What if Swift Hands just gave you an additional 5 item slots, which you could put stuff in, and that stuff would count as being equipped for the purpose of activations? No other "worn" bonuses, just for activations.

That's less abusive, less annoying, and you can fiddle with the number of slots to fine-tune the exact power level.

[AlexanderR]

What if Swift Hands just gave you an additional 5 item slots, which you could put stuff in, and that stuff would count as being equipped for the purpose of activations? No other "worn" bonuses, just for activations.

Are there really many "worn" bonuses worth wasting turns/equipment swaps? Amount of bonus damage/resistance pen./healmod form single item is rarely that extreme. Also there are some items (with spell cooldown reduction, some affinities etc.), that you don't really want to take off. Therefore the current situation is more balanced than your suggestion.

[Doctornull]

What if Swift Hands just gave you an additional 5 item slots, which you could put stuff in, and that stuff would count as being equipped for the purpose of activations? No other "worn" bonuses, just for activations.

Are there really many "worn" bonuses worth wasting turns/equipment swaps?

You do realize that we're talking about the situation where you don't waste turns, right?

The prodigy currently allows you to swap your whole equipment set without any turns wasted, and that's the problem under discussion.

Amount of bonus damage/resistance pen./healmod form single item is rarely that extreme.

We're talking about the ability to swap out your entire equipped item set.

Also there are some items (with spell cooldown reduction, some affinities etc.), that you don't really want to take off.

Great, under my proposed system that's a good thing to not take off.

[Goncyn]

Just want to chime in that it never would have occurred to me -- without reading this thread -- that in a game with such detailed tooltips, items might have hidden properties. Playing this game is a series decisions about what will or won't help you succeed. If an item property's not listed on the tooltip, it might as well not exist.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Items with special properties give a hint about said properties. The dwarf only axe, Robe of the conclave, untouchable... If you read the lore, there's almost always an indication. Hasn't been too hard to figure out.

[Doctornull]

Just want to chime in that it never would have occurred to me -- without reading this thread -- that in a game with such detailed tooltips, items might have hidden properties. Playing this game is a series decisions about what will or won't help you succeed. If an item property's not listed on the tooltip, it might as well not exist.

Same here.

Unfortunately, the only options are to experiment or to read spoilers, and in a Roguelike game "experiment" usually means "death".

[HousePet]

I think we have discussed the problems with hidden properties in this thread already.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I still don't see a huge deal. They always have hints, and experimenting to find out what those hints are is often fun. Or some variation thereof. You don't put on that unknown armor to look for a hidden property and then waltz into a dreadfell vault, but there are plenty of opportunities with lesser danger levels to test these things out on.

I still worry that Prothotipe's eye will havve a hidden property when I place it in my golem, but do you know what I'll do when I find it (finally) on my alchemist? Put it right in, and find out!

These unique properties are often what make the items what they are. If we MUST reveal them more blatantly (they are already fairly well hinted at) then can we at least keep WHAT they do secret? Just a tag that says 'This item has more powers then you are able to discern' or something like that. The hidden properties of some of these items are what make them FUN, and more importantly, make them what they are.

Edit: But I'm sure I'm probably in the minority here.