Upgrading Enchantments Costs broken down and discussed, (rune, sigil, etc.)

wesgar · March 2013

I have a video stream recording of me using 500,000 Astral Diamonds to upgrade an enchantment. I got it to level / Rank 5, (that included using the 'drops' that I'd picked up to about level 20.)

Eventually, I’ll try to work that vid, and this text into some sort of a tutorial n post it on U-tube, for now, here is the text.

Sooooo - if you are looking for a place that you could drop a ton of money, while 'enhancing' your character. I think I found it.

As I blew through 500K Astral Diamonds, visions of Perfect World 'whalers' circling the ocean seas above, filled my mind. (call me orca.)

For those interested, here is the break down:

a Level 1 enchantment was going for 2000 Astral Diamonds from the NPC Vendor (If I recall correctly,) when 4 enchantments of a rank are successfully 'fused' you create an enchantment of the next rank (or level), so the cost adds up fast.

Since a level 2 enchantments cost 10K at the vendor, and a level 3 cost 50K AD, at first glance, it is cheapest to buy Rank 1 Enchantments, to level up.

However, this does not take into consideration 'failed' fuse attempts, or the cost of using Wards. That would have to be something to consider were I to do this again... I think, personally, I'd probably go with buying 'Rank 2' Vendor enchantments, and using a Ward (to prevent destruction on failure,) for 10 zen ea., each time I 'fused' them.

Using wards, on all those level 1 'fuse' attempts ended up costing a lot of Zen. BUT, I also think that they were not working as intended. The text implied that a ward would be used only upon ‘Failure’ of a Fuse, instead of the destruction of an Enchantment. That was misleading, as a ‘ward’ was used every time you fused. Fail or not.

I talk more about the cost of ‘wards’ below.

Does anyone know what level is 'Max' level for the Sigils and Runes? I upgraded to rank 5, and it was ‘blue’ which makes me think that perhaps you could get a ‘purple’ at some higher rank. Perhaps Rank 6 is max? Any higher, just doesn’t seem to be even reasonable.

Here is the breakdown:

Rank | # of rank 1 items 'fused' / used. AD cost @ vendor.

Rank 1 = 1 or 2,000 AD
Rank 2 = 4 or 8,000 AD
Rank 3 = 16 or 32,000 AD
Rank 4 = 64 or 128,000 AD
Rank 5 = 256 or 512,000 AD

- I don't know if Higher Ranks are possible, if they are:

Rank 6 = 1,024 or 2,048,000 AD
Rank 7 = 4,096 or 8,192,000 AD
Rank 8 = 16,384 or 32,768,000 AD

The "Zen" rate is about a penny per Zen in US $'s.

You can convert Zen to Astral Diamonds in Game, in theory the exchange rate will be at least 'some what' set by what players are willing to exchange the currency for.

in the 'beta' I was able to exchange 1000 'Zen' ($10 worth,) at 500 Astral Diamonds each, or 500,000 Astral Diamonds.

But, I think that was just some one un-loading their 'free beta' Diamonds to test the market system in beta, it looked more like the exchange rate was 300 astral diamonds per Zen. with a 'bottom' cap of 50 AD per Zen, set by Cryptic or Perfect World.

Either way, at least in Beta, I spent $10 in real money on zen, converted that to AD at 500 AD per Zen, and then used the AD to buy Rank 1 Sigils at 2k a pop, then built a Rank 5 sigil.

I also used "Wards" each time I fused 4 together.

As you 'level up' your enchant ment, the 'chance of failure' increases. to go from Rank 1 to rank 2, there is a 90% chance of Success, (%10 chance to fail,)

to go from Rank 2 to Rank 3, it drops to an 80% chance of Success, (a %20 chance to fail.)

I should have 'tracked' that rate as I upgraded, but I didn't, though I did note that from Rank 4 to 5, it didn't seem like the %10 per rank ratio had held up.

Anyway, if you 'fail' on a fuse attempt, one of the 4 enchantments that you use, is destroyed. That's not as big of a deal when you are going from Rank 1 to 2, but at higher Ranks, losing 1 enchantment, represents an awful lot of Farming, or investment of Astral Diamonds.

You can purchase, 'Wards' in packs of 10. They were 100 Zen to buy, that's about ten pennies american cash.

if you used a 'Ward' every time you fused, from up to Rank 5, you would use 85 Wards. or 850 Zen / $8.50 Us dollars. So that is another thing to consider.

With each piece of gear having the potential of multiple 'slots' for enchantments, if a person really wanted to put a ton of money into tricking out his 'enchants' he certainly could do it.

Does this make the game to 'pay to win' for the average joe? I'm not sure. the system is behind a lot of 'conversions' and crafting - so it's not blatantly out there. AND, in theory, a person COULD just farm the 256 Rank 1 Enchantments he'd need to make a Rank 5 enchantment. So there is that to consider.

Either way it was fun to blow through all those diamonds, knowing that I'd get them back at Release. heh.

One question that I have, is regarding PvP, this is the one area, that concerns me – Will a person be able to drop Hundreds of Dollars on upgrading all of their Enchantments, then enter PvP and dominate?

I suppose that if they can, there is an argument to be made that a person ‘could’ farm for Enchantments, not spending cash and get the same thing. I’m on the ‘fence’ as to if that is alright or not.

I think I’m leaning towards the ‘it’s alright’ side of the fence, as long as there really is a conceivable ‘in game’ way for a player to get the same thing that someone who spends cash gets.

If some one wanted to ‘pay money’ in order to spend less ‘time’ to get something in game, I’m not as opposed, as I would be to having something available in a cash shop, that can’t be obtained any other way. That would cross the line for me.

The ‘best’ system might be just to turn off all Enchantments in PvP. I really don’t know how PvP is going to work, if it was in the Beta, I didn’t try it out.

Ok, enough typing. Thanks for reading, I hope the information was helpful, and food for thought at least.

Wesgar – out.

psixakiros951 · March 2013

Very well writen, looking forward for your vid.

A few comments i would like to add and also bump this for others to see.

Its pretty obvious that at max lvl enchants will be a must. The bonuses they give are nothing to sniff at and they will make your character stronger, period.
Even if they dont allow them in pvp, they already proving that in competitive/hard mode pve encounters you will need them.

A small example with made up numbers since you can inspect players: dps no enchants does 100dmg, dps with full enchants does 500dmg...who u want in your party?

Think about that, while at the same time you need minimum 11 peices of gear to enchant.

x0y1 · March 2013

Thanks for the data.

wesgar wrote: »

[...]
As I blew through 500K Astral Diamonds, visions of Perfect World 'whalers' circling the ocean seas above, filled my mind. (call me orca.)

Knowing the term whale for F2P game I almost spit out my drink. :rolleyes:

IMHO PW seems to get a bit greedy with this game but I need to see the final data, including how the astral diamonds only auction house works out for this game....................

dollahz · March 2013

I would have liked to see atleast the level 1 runes and sigils being offered for gold, but a simple change like that creates a market for gold sellers. As it stands PWE/Cryptic has designed their game in a way where it makes it hard for gold sellers to prosper in this game. In turn making all the whales go through PWE Zen instead.

Looking forward to how this plays out.

cnynridr2 · March 2013

Nice post! Just the info I was looking for.

For me then coming from Subscription based mmo's, I might consider spending 10-15 dollars a month on Zen as a subscription type of style and get everything I need as I go along with whatever AD I get in game added as a bonus.

zaphtastic · March 2013

Great post! I'm also interested to see how this shakes out.

warpet · March 2013

i hope lvl 5 is max

wesgar · March 2013

dollahz wrote: »

I would have liked to see atleast the level 1 runes and sigils being offered for gold, ...

Ya, in the 1st Beta Weekend, they sold them for gold, the thing is, if you sell level 1's for gold, since you can fuse 4 level one's to make a level 2, (and so on,) essentially, you'r selling 'all of them' for gold.

papi032 · March 2013

Only real question that remains is the amount of time needed to farm enchantments. If i have to farm 10 hours a day for a whole week to get 1 enchantement then i might aswell uninstall since i'm not spending money...

shaudius · March 2013

When I got to around L30 I was seeing a steady stream of level 2 runes, when I got higher around L35, I seem to recall a few L3s dropping, if that trend continues by L60 it seems reasonable to expect to see L4 or maybe even L5 runes dropping from various things, with that being the case, it seems much more effective to farm runes than buy them from the NPC vendors, but if you do drop the ADs on them, its paying for power only in so much as you can get there faster if you spend a lot of money, but that's the same as XP boosters and the like.

fotzik · March 2013

shaudius wrote: »

When I got to around L30 I was seeing a steady stream of level 2 runes, when I got higher around L35, I seem to recall a few L3s dropping, if that trend continues by L60 it seems reasonable to expect to see L4 or maybe even L5 runes dropping from various things, with that being the case, it seems much more effective to farm runes than buy them from the NPC vendors, but if you do drop the ADs on them, its paying for power only in so much as you can get there faster if you spend a lot of money, but that's the same as XP boosters and the like.

What he/she said. If you put the money down you get it faster, but I doubt people will level them up from rank 1 to rank 5 when you can just do heroic dungeons (yes they will be in the game, confirmed by dev) and maybe get 1-3 rank 4 or even 1 rank 5 in a couple of hours of farming.

wesgar · March 2013

fotzik wrote: »

What he/she said. If you put the money down you get it faster, but I doubt people will level them up from rank 1 to rank 5 when you can just do heroic dungeons (yes they will be in the game, confirmed by dev) and maybe get 1-3 rank 4 or even 1 rank 5 in a couple of hours of farming.

Right, I seem to recall having Rank 3 enchantment drop, though, I don't remember for absolute sure if it was a random 'drop' or if it was a quest reward.

It's entirely possible, that the 'intended' use of the vendor enchants is to 'augment' the normal drops that you get in the game. I.E. you have 3 Rank 3 enchants, and and 3 rank 2's, so you go buy that last rank 2 enchantment from a vendor, fuse them, making the 4th rank 3, that you then fuse with your other rank 3's to make a rank 4. That's plausible.

Also, the player market on the auction house - how will that play into it? I can see people making some great cash from selling the enchantments that they don't need on the Auction House. Then use the cash made, to buy the ones that you DO need.

I think as long as alternate ways of getting high level enchantments are in the game and healthy, that the fact someone 'could' buy their way to level 5 enchants saving some amount of 'in game' time, by doing so, that the community in general will be fine with that.

varkun · March 2013

I can confirm that rank 3 can come from random drops as I had several enough to fuse one level 4 enchantment. By the end of the beta weekend I would have had at least 60 to 70 enchants all drops and many of them fused to upgrade.
One other thing I did note on several occations was the same type of enchant dropping off the same mob types, it didnt seem to be just a random enchant each time. So I am wondering if enchants of a particular type may come from particular mobs/areas within the world it self.

fotzik · March 2013

Like wesgar said, the vendors are probably there to augment the normal drop rates. But of course, rich people can use the first method if they are to lazy to farm :P

warpet · March 2013

main problem still stays ppl who spend $ for power will have lot better enchants then f2p ,cosmetic items buyers players thx to that cs items for their fusion btw i think max lvl is lvl 7 so fusion of higher rank enchants will not be possible to f2p,cosmetic items buyer players even if they farm ad and exchange for zen they would still need 4-5k zen per enchant since u will need to use that item form cs for 1000 zen to not fail and u can have 3 enchant per gear atm and who knows how much slots will be on gear later ,so u would need 15k zen only to make last lvl enchants for one gear part and that is impossible even if u have few alts for ad farm we can only hope last lvl enchants wont give to much more then lvl 5 wich will be most likely max lvl which f2p ,and cosmetic item buyers player will have

elve · March 2013

So what bonuses do lvl 5 rune/sigil give?

hopeless2 · March 2013

I didn't try this in the beta but, can Enchantments be removed from items?

psixakiros951 · March 2013

hopeless2 wrote: »

I didn't try this in the beta but, can Enchantments be removed from items?

Yes, with AD's, the amount increases depending on the lvl of the enchant or gear, dont really remember but u can remove them.

No idea what happens to the item or the enchant though cause i didnt try it, the AD's required to remove tier 3 enchant from lvl 32 gear was 2k+

l1zardo1 · March 2013

Running collection events and keeping 'skill node' farming items nets you quite a few freebies. Some tougher mobs drop a specific type frequently (like the Pit Fiends), so foundry can be your friend there too.

I had zero issues making L3 runes/enchantments, never failed once. The AD to remove them is pretty crappy, like a day's worth lol, so I tend to lean towards keeping them than using ... Would prefer the ability to destroy the item to salvage the socket.

The scaling of stats is very poor right now, so I hardly doubt it will be 'pay to win' for pvp. I have been in many a PW game, and they usually have all high-end armor enchants, wep enchants going to the 'whales'

In those games it mattered alot. Skill could beat them in pvp, but it was a pretty large advantage.

The devs keep promising nothing super important will be in the CS ... I see a ton of overpriced pets and mounts mainly. ( and lockbox keys >< )

papi032 · March 2013

warpet wrote: »

main problem still stays ppl who spend $ for power will have lot better enchants then f2p ,cosmetic items buyers players thx to that cs items for their fusion btw i think max lvl is lvl 7 so fusion of higher rank enchants will not be possible to f2p,cosmetic items buyer players even if they farm ad and exchange for zen they would still need 4-5k zen per enchant since u will need to use that item form cs for 1000 zen to not fail and u can have 3 enchant per gear atm and who knows how much slots will be on gear later ,so u would need 15k zen only to make last lvl enchants for one gear part and that is impossible even if u have few alts for ad farm we can only hope last lvl enchants wont give to much more then lvl 5 wich will be most likely max lvl which f2p ,and cosmetic item buyers player will have

If the fact that you can't obtain max enchants on gear is true, and if there is a difference gap, then i have nothing to look for in here as a competitive pvp player since i can't spend any money on it

fotzik · March 2013

papi032 wrote: »

If the fact that you can't obtain max enchants on gear is true, and if there is a difference gap, then i have nothing to look for in here as a competitive pvp player since i can't spend any money on it

From what I understood and heard the enchants won't be active in pvp?

argantis · March 2013

I found it to be a different experience. I was finding so many sigils and runes just adventuring that they were cluttering my packs. I was a bit concerned that they would bombard my inventory at some point and force me to buy more. At one point I had a full pack of Rank one and 3 rank 2. All I ever did was quest and participate in zone events such as the relic hunt.

I think the zen model is holding up as stated in the Forbs article. Mainly zen is going to be used to provide account upgrades, services, convenience, and luxury items. Sure you can drop a ton of AD if you want to get rank 5 runes at level 20 but it is totally a waste of time IMO. You can drop about 90 silver of in game currency to upgrade to blue gear and blow away the item enchantments. I had no problem destroying people on meters in the adventures both in healing on my cleric or damage on my rogue with just rank 1 and 2 sigils and runes that I had found adventuring.

Edit: I did not see a single lock box type of item in this game that you will find in other PW titles. ID scrolls are about the closest thing to it and from what I have seen that is going to be adjusted. I don't think people realize the amount of zen you can generate for yourself off making a good foundry mission either. Nor the amount of AD that the auction house may generate.

In the end, the game economy IMO will be driven by the players who do sink cash into the game. Because 1 zen = 1 cent = 200-300 astral diamonds. Items in the game will go on the AH for lots of astral diamonds and that provides a means for players who cannot pay as much cash to supply services to those who do in exchange for astral diamonds. In doing this a lot of things will be available on the AH much more cheaply than you can buy them in the zen store. With the above example, identification scrolls, the astral diamond vendor was selling them for 800 a piece. Players were selling them for 400 a piece. Over time, with competition, if beta two is any indication there seems to be a lot of people that are jumpy about the in game costs.

It is understandable because there is a lot of uncertainty at this point in time. However the prdent course of action would be to see how things pan out when the game is released.

Upgrading Enchantments Costs broken down and discussed, (rune, sigil, etc.)

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