Enchantment Refining.

strykergaming · June 2022

I’m pretty sure the discussion on this topic was legendary. However, I was not here for it. Instead of searching through the data base for an hour and necro a similar topic I felt it advantageous to start a new one.

That said, after getting my feet back under me and relearning the new system, I started looking at refining the new enchantments. Imagine the shock when I discovered refining to the next level would require a mote, a mythic mote to be exact for 100%.

Oh sure, there’s green (1%) requiring 99, blue, rare, legendary all with their percentage change each requiring a vast number of them. However, finding any of those without the AH, I’ve only seen 2 green motes drop. And since I’m not at IL 70K plus (I'm at 59.7k now), I can’t get into any of the dungeons that have a remote chance to drop them.

That leaves me one alternative: Zen. 44,000 Zen to purchase the required 44 mythic motes to level these enhancements to mythic level. That’s $400 dollars purchasing 10k + 1K bonus for a total of 44k Zen. $400, that’s four hundred dollars? Really?

Whose bright idea was it to come up with this system? Is Arc / Cryptic hurting so bad monetarily that the designed the enhancement refining system to drain our bank accounts?

Then I get really frustrated when I look at the Combat & Companion enhancements, Main / Offhand weapons, and the relics. They require 2 at most, yet you can get by with that using the green protection stones (pray you have a few hundred of them) that you can protect all your required refining items to reach your goal.

You have 2 different systems in place, 1 is manageable and reasonable, the other, reeks of Pay to Win requiring 440 mythic stones to level up 10 enhancements to mythic because it has 0%, that’s ZERO percent chance to be refined. You call this fair and engaging mechanics? It’s egregious especially when you have the other refining system in place that allows you to level up what I previously mentioned.

However, I will note that with the newest weapons, their either rare, legendary or mythic now and not able to refine, save that of the artifact. And that uses the same refinement system as the others.

Look, I love playing this game. I spend my fair share of money to support the game; however, spending $400 dollars for 44k Zen is beyond the pale in my book.

The enhancement refining system must be changed to that of what the weapons, Combat enhancement, Companion enhancement, and main/offhand system are. Otherwise, I cannot afford to do that. I’ll never reach the REQUIRED IL 70K to do the higher dungeons.

@Nitocris83, I sincerely hope you can share this with the developers and make them see reason.

Sincerely,

StrykerGaming

plasticbat · June 2022

Food for thought:

1. current rank 1 is better than old rank 15. Ranking up from previous r14 to r15 was 1%. So, higher level with lower chance than 1% is 0%.
2. c-mote (and p-ward) can be farmed. It may take a long time, know how and dedication. That can be done and many did just that.
3. Every piece of requirement to upgrade enchantment to the highest can be farmed. No, you do not have to spend money or even AD but you will need to spend time.
4. Spending money is to speed it up. Allowing player who does not play often to move to BiS as quick as those who has played daily is not exactly fair.
5. I upgrade every piece of enchantment to the highest level (without paying Zen or AD) and none of my character has reached 70K. The current highest is 69535. That means I still have not played as hard as others.
6. In the new system, ward is more for upgrading artifact and artifact equipment.
7. Whenever you buy anything from Zen store, you should always buy it in discount. i.e. for the minimum, use a 20% off anything coupon.

pitshade · June 2022

Motes can drop in any queue chest, even skirmishes, and from overflow rewards. Coals can drop from invocation boxes, the 11 coin ones and from Juma bags, though these are very rare of course. Coals can be purchased from the Appointment event vendor, though there doesn't seem to be an event on the calendar.

None of these things are fast and easy but the enchants are intended as a long term goal. If you absolutely must have them now, yes you'll pay through the nose. That is the business model of the game. Grind it out slowly or open your wallet. The balance isn't always right, but it is possible to play for free.

bonbonfiend · June 2022

No content ‘requires’ 70k item level. None of it.

plasticbat · June 2022

bonbonfiend said:
No content ‘requires’ 70k item level. None of it.

rikitaki · June 2022

Contrary to the previous system, this time around there is no enchant that would bring you a net benefit. The best of them serve as an acceptable IL boost, but often they are just a hindrance to your performance.

In a way, the enchantments got significantly cheaper to what they originally were - for me, there is no longer any incentive to bother with them.

reg1981 · June 2022

Don't forget invoke boxes for coal wards! Invoke toons once a day for the coin, every 11 days each toon has a chance at a coal ward. I find on average I pull 4 coals from 100 invoke boxes. I do stack them to 100 before opening(Superstition).

Since the enchantment system changed, using only farmed stuff no money, I managed the following account wide unlocks. I should also note, I did 4 of these upgrades in the past few days after saving up a few coal wards. It took months to get these all done.

Companion Enchantment
Full set of all 6 weapon/armor enchants
Full set of 4 Utility enchants
5 Garnet Enchants
2 Jade Enchants
2 Cobalt Enchants
and 1 Awareness/CA enchant (Drawing a blank on the name atm)

Now there was some luck involved here as well. I pulled 2 coal wards in the same run of codg, I also managed a bunch from VT/Malabog/Cragmire and other older dungeons during dungeon delves.

I used Sybella for most of the mark of potency's.

I don't argue the fact that it's a daunting task to get there. When starting with nothing it may seem impossible, but it's doable! There are many who had full sets long before I did, and many who will completed theirs after!

mithmyrr · June 2022

rikitaki said:
Contrary to the previous system, this time around there is no enchant that would bring you a net benefit. The best of them serve as an acceptable IL boost, but often they are just a hindrance to your performance.

In a way, the enchantments got significantly cheaper to what they originally were - for me, there is no longer any incentive to bother with them.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The only enchants that were actually worth while in the old system were the weapon and armor enchants. Even rank 15 off/def/utility enchants were a joke. It is why they were next to last in list to improve, only beating out leveling up epic collars.

(edit: i hate having hamster show up)

rikitaki · June 2022

mithmyrr said:

rikitaki said:
Contrary to the previous system, this time around there is no enchant that would bring you a net benefit. The best of them serve as an acceptable IL boost, but often they are just a hindrance to your performance.

In a way, the enchantments got significantly cheaper to what they originally were - for me, there is no longer any incentive to bother with them.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The only enchants that were actually worth while in the old system were the weapon and armor enchants. Even rank 15 off/def/utility enchants were HAMSTER. It is why they were next to last in list to improve, only beating out leveling up epic collars.

Kinda old rank 13 Tenebrous was bringing bigger damage increase than any max rank now. While it is a nice touch, no-one is actually dependent on shifting a couple of thousand stats here and there. And remember, the quantity of them dropped, so the increase of redistributed stats is technically exactly one rank in the previous system - that is hardly a massive difference.

All weapon/armor enchants were significantly better to what is now - as the new system, as explicitly explained by the dev, has now IL set so any benefit is balanced by the loss in combined rating. And you could have had both of them at the same time.

Utility enchantment offered a significantly better variety, including Quartermaser, which dropped wards.

If your companion had a different role to DD, you could fit him with stats instead of the mandatory % damage bonus.

We moved from "pick what you think is good for you" to "you do not have a choice and it is pointless anyway".

strykergaming · June 2022

plasticbat said:

bonbonfiend said:
No content ‘requires’ 70k item level. None of it.

I appreciate you dropping this.

@bonbonfiend However, I was abandoned by the entire team for the standard 'Crown of Keldegonn' dungeon when I announced this was my first time. I notice all of them turned towards me as they were inspecting me. They all quit. One of my viewers informed me that in this one players require all participants to be il70k or higher. I just shook my head in disbelief. At the time I was il 56.7k. I guess they believed I was some unskilled player or whale. I've never ran into this problem doing the dungeons playing FFXIV.

At everyone else that responded, I appreciate it, very much so. However, my point of this regarded the asinine differences between the Relics/Main/Offhand/Combat & Companion enhancement refining. The smart and reasonable method for all should be the latter for refining.

I understand a grind and the need for it. However, after playing Blade & Soul and now done with SWTOR, is because of the requirement of a second job to obtain all endgame gear. B & S average, 3 to 6 months depending how you play. SWTOR, you can't get to endgame (Purple/Legendary) gear unless you're part of the 1% Nightmare raid groups. Where I'm told I have to use green static gear and enjoy using because I don't need nothing else if I don't do Master Mode or Nightmare Raids Operations. Before the new update, I had maxed legendary gear, after the new update...green static HAMSTER gear.

Because of my experience with those two games and my outstanding experience with FFXIV gearing systems; I have complete disdain for second job gear grinding. I'm fine with NW gearing and gear system. I can progress obtaining gear in half the time of B & S. It does not feel like I'm working a second job. I'm retired fully disabled US vet that works at streaming and playing games. However, the enhancement refining nearly breaks it for me. Especially if I have to spend the same amount of time required to do in B & S.

Enhancement refining mechanics should have followed the relics/Main/Offhand/Combat & Companion enhancement mechanics for continuity and enabling players to refine them equally without having to either spend $400 dollars for all the coal motes or spending months and months and months of tedious grinding or 11 weeks x (pick a #) to obtain the required 44 coal motes to refine each enhancement.

Hell, I could drop the money, I might do half of it split between four months; however, I'd rather see Cryptic make move to help the players out by changing the refining process of these enhancements to match the relics/Main/Offhand/Combat & Companion enhancement refining. Unless, of course, they still want to milk us for money and do nothing. This is my issue with the system in place. It forces tedious grinding hoping what we need will in fact drop...if we're lucky, RNGesus allows it, and we can win the roll for it when it drops.

plasticbat · June 2022

strykergaming#5011 said:

Hell, I could drop the money, I might do half of it split between four months; however, I'd rather see Cryptic make move to help the players out by changing the refining process of these enhancements to match the relics/Main/Offhand/Combat & Companion enhancement refining. Unless, of course, they still want to milk us for money and do nothing. This is my issue with the system in place. It forces tedious grinding hoping what we need will in fact drop...if we're lucky, RNGesus allows it, and we can win the roll for it when it drops.

The bottom line is Cryptic wants money like any other business. It gives you an option to do that without spending money. If the option is 'easy', nobody will spend money. So, it is either you spend time or spend money. Or, some combination of both. Or, adjust your goal toward this game. Or, play another game that fit your life style and something you can enjoy.

Another food for thought:
1. The current enchantment upgrade system is: once you upgrade the enchantment to max, that enchantment is available to all your characters in your account (*). It is account wide. That is if you make one set of max rank enchantment, all other characters in your account will have the same set. For some of us, it is way way cheaper than previous system.
2. Artifact, Artifact Equipment, Main, Offhand are not account wide.
3. combat enchantment and companion enchantment refining is the SAME as enchantment refining. They are also account wide when they are in the max rank.

(*) when you make a rank 5 enchantment, you can trade that rank 5 enchantment to an account wide rank 5 enchantment.

strykergaming · June 2022

plasticbat said:

The bottom line is Cryptic wants money like any other business. It gives you an option to do that without spending money. If the option is 'easy', nobody will spend money. So, it is either you spend time or spend money. Or, some combination of both. Or, adjust your goal toward this game. Or, play another game that fit your life style and something you can enjoy.

Prior to this statement, everyone was fine; however, this highlighted statement is not. How is this helpful to the discussion? Advocating quitting the game when an player(s) have an issue they'd love to see fixed helpful? How many players have been told this and they do just that costing Cryptic a player or players not to mention the loss of revenue. A statement like this should never be utter, ever. Driving away a customer because they have a legitimate issue that differs from the "goes with everything crowd" does not make for a good community interaction.

plasticbat said:
Another food for thought:
1. The current enchantment upgrade system is: once you upgrade the enchantment to max, that enchantment is available to all your characters in your account (*). It is account wide. That is if you make one set of max rank enchantment, all other characters in your account will have the same set. For some of us, it is way way cheaper than previous system.
2. Artifact, Artifact Equipment, Main, Offhand are not account wide.
3. combat enchantment and companion enchantment refining is the SAME as enchantment refining. They are also account wide when they are in the max rank.

(*) when you make a rank 5 enchantment, you can trade that rank 5 enchantment to an account wide rank 5 enchantment.

I waited for someone to say this. However, it does not address the issue that Companion or Combat enhancements refining mechanics are exactly like relics/main/offhand/neck/belt refining mechanics and the enhancements are not. This is the issue and so far, no one has given me, so far, Cryptic has ignored the original post, a satisfying answer. Just because doesn't float a boat or satisfy my question.

plasticbat · June 2022

strykergaming#5011 said:

I waited for someone to say this. However, it does not address the issue that Companion or Combat enhancements refining mechanics are exactly like relics/main/offhand/neck/belt refining mechanics and the enhancements are not.

I think you are missing something. Companion enchantment and combat enchantment upgrade process are exactly the same as regular enchantment's upgrade process.

Upgrade companion enchantment

Upgrade combat enchantment

Upgrade regular enchantment

Enchantment Refining.

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