(This message is also available as a Google Document at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D9pIV2K-elAv1TUMurqUdqTRjyjcnTxxoMSt7xgHTBA )

DISCLAIMER: This is just a design proposal. Any or all changes referenced in this post can and are likely to change as the mechanics are implemented and tested. Do not make any drastic decisions (such as training choices or purchases at events) for your characters based upon what is listed in this proposal. You will not be compensated or refunded for any adjustments made to this design after the fact.

We are considering simplifying enhancive items to convert Stat Bonus boosts to be Stat Base instead, and Skill Bonus boosts to be Skill Ranks instead.

Thus, an item with these enhancements:
It provides a boost of 2 to Strength Bonus.
It provides a boost of 3 to Two-Handed Weapons Bonus.

Will be converted to have these enhancements:
It provides a boost of 4 to Strength.
It provides a boost of 3 to Two-Handed Weapons Ranks.

Our goal is to condense the system and make it easier to understand, reducing confusion. These changes would retroactively apply to all existing enhancive items as well as newly created items going forward.

The development team is interested in comments, concerns, and other feedback you may have regarding this change. Here’s a few things we’ve already noted, and how we plan to address them:

RECHARGING COSTS:

This change will affect the cost per charge of enhancive items that currently provide boosts to Stat Bonuses. In the majority of cases this change will be negligible; in many cases the converted items will cost less per charge than they do now. In some relatively extreme examples, the cost may increase. A hypothetical 20 Strength Base enhancive currently costs about 11% more per charge than an equivalent 10 Strength Bonus enhancive.

Skill Ranks will be adjusted to use the same costs Skill Bonuses previously did, resulting in a reduction of those recharge costs by around 90%.

ADVENTURER’S GUILD BADGES:

Enhancive costs also factor into how strong of enhancives can be applied to your Adventurer’s Guild Badge. Since our proposed changes may make these items slightly more expensive in some cases, it’s possible (though very unlikely) you may be unable to enhance an adventurer’s guild to match the enhancements it currently has.

Your existing adventurer guild badges will continue to function, even if they are stronger than the new math says they are supposed to be.

FUSION ARMOR

Fusion armor currently limits you to one orb per type, but it has previously been possible to combine e.g. both a Strength Bonus orb and a Strength Base orb together.

To allow these setups to continue to be possible, fusion armor will be changed to allow a limit of two orbs of the same type in the cases of stats and skills.

Existing fusion orbs will also be converted to the new system. To avoid making them hard to tell apart, their appearance will not be changing. If you are remembering which orb is Strength Bonus and which is Dexterity Base by their color, you will continue to be able to do so.

All of this sounds really good in terms of quality of life and will make it easier for ALL players to use enhancives. I also like the consideration for the 2 same orb fusion part. Although, if you meant to say that ALL existing fusion orbs in the game will be converted to new style fusion orbs then I am sure some people will not like that. I would suggest maybe a method to refill/create fusion orbs that is atleast twice per year.... once per year is rough especially if people had planned for and paid a premium for old style fusion orbs.

I do not even need to read the document to give this entire idea +100! Enhancives confused me so much. THEN I learned there were BONUS and RANKS ... and I was even more confused.

Thank you ever so much!

~L.

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P.S. Help Wanted, Inquire Within

I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

Sweet is the sound of the pouring rain,
And the stream that falls from the hill to plain.
Better than rain or rippling brook,
Is a mug of beer inside this Took.

>>The only yellow flag here to me is the AG badge thing - i.e. that some badges might get weaker. Are there specific cases that you can mention?

Per the OP, and based on our research of the adventurer's guild badge. The amount of upgrades give a total potential recharge cost you can allocate towards stats/skills/attributes.

In this change, we are looking at bonuses being converted to stats. For AUR, LOG, STR, INT, WIS, and INF, this will increase the costs associated with these stats. While these marginal changes are <5%, it is possible that you're pushing the absolute upper bounds of how much your badge can hold. Therefore, it's possible that if your badge only enhances those stats, when converting 1:2 from bonus to stat, it will push the evaluation over your current badge threshold.

Based on looking into the examples for advguild badge costs, I think that the risk is very overstated, but good that it was comprehensively provided as a possibility for fringe cases.

>or maybe there's opportunity to align ascension into being +1 rank rather than +1 skill for more consistency and ease.

I'm not really sure there's any great reason we shouldn't just do this as well. +1 rank is pretty easy to understand. It's always just the same as training. The rank -> bonus formula is complicated sure, but that's the same whether you're looking at training, enhancive, or (ideally) ascension.

I don't really see any balance concerns with switching ascension, given that the vast vast majority of usage would be to train above normal limits when you're well past any advantages of ranks vs bonus. Maybe the first milestone ascension point would get a bit more powerful for a few levels. Think that's okay. Would also remove the slightly confusing math of having to balance your training in lores, for example, so that you have to have 40 ranks of each lore before adding on ascension points to get the best benefit. I guess there might be some advantage to using ranks there (ie you could max out one lore more, while still getting a full 50 ranks of the other lores).

Will all the special mechanics thingies that use bonus instead of stat/base value be adjusted, too?

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Athias, if "everything goes by Ranks" (as Yusri posted), then Ascension is completely easy: you put +4 into it, you get +4 Ranks.
(As opposed to currently, if you have 9 or fewer Ranks trained, you get +4 skill == <1 rank. Or if you have 30 ranks trained, you get +4 skill == +2 ranks. New version? You Get +4 Ranks... whether you're at 9 or 30.)

Who are the people who are actually confused by enhancives that are being used to justify these changes? Shouldn't messaging be the first fix?

This is a pointless and unnecessary change.

Work on something that matters, like capped hunting grounds.

Enhancive costs also factor into how strong of enhancives can be applied to your Adventurer’s Guild Badge. Since our proposed changes may make these items slightly more expensive in some cases, it’s possible (though very unlikely) you may be unable to enhance an adventurer’s guild to match the enhancements it currently has.

If I'm understanding this correctly, I will still be able to eventually get my +10/+10/+10 bonus (or +20 for stat), even though it might not currently be able to do so because of the math. If this is the case, then I'd have no problem with the change. Where I would be concerned is if I'm misunderstanding the above and now I'll never be able to achieve the +10/+10/+10 bonus equivalent, while those who managed to complete their badger before are grandfathered in.

I feel similar as Veythorne on this. I'm not convinced the current system is confusing, and I'm also not convinced the new proposed system will be any less confusing.

This also very much feels like one of those things where most people are all-in on the concept. But the very fact it is being vetted here tells me there will be trade-offs. This isn't an all benefit, no down-side situation. The second these changes affect peoples' current items negatively (either in the ways we are discussing here, or other yet to be discovered ways), they will come with the pitchforks and torches.

So it appears to be the unpopular opinion, but I'd say leave everything as-is. If people can figure out 30 pages of PSM Phase 3 updates, they can figure out the differences between stat base and stat bonus, and skill ranks and skill bonus.

+Ranks are useful for things like MOC (on a spellcaster) to get you up to that magic "10 total" and offset the first creature.

Or "someone with a lot of mana (in one realm) trying to send to someone (in a different one)."
Getting 3 Rank of MC:Spirit in each of two or three items is pretty easy, and that gives you 9 total/45 skill; sending mana that you don't need right now to someone who is well trained has a big payoff.
50 ranks == 150% == 100 mana sent @ 45 (from your enhancive items) comes through as 67 mana less wastage; if they happen to have even more ranks it really pays off more heavily.

Or the Monk who wants Just That One Rank of Two-Weapon, for the DS bump.

Or "just about anything having to do with Lore."

.

If "more than one for the same stat" are now going to allowed--used to be achieved by having one be Stat and one be Bonus, or one be Skill and one be Ranks on that side of things--then I don't really have any complaint one way or the other. I made sure to get "+Aura stat" and "+Aura bonus" orbs to use on my Elemental caster, and it sounds like they will (both) continue to work at the same time...
...and in fact, BOTH will be able to be improved with HESS certificates, at this point. (As long as they remain orbs; if I de-Fusion it, then the item just provides two different boosts to the same thing, and I can only use a total of two certs on it at a single event.)

HESS is easy: anything that "could possibly, ever, equal 'more than +1' to anything" cannot be done with the HESS cert.
- Ranks can possibly be more than +1 apiece; no-go.
- Stat bonus by definition == more than +1 to the stat; no-go.

+ So you can add a +1 to a skill Enhancive/point recovery (non-Spirit).
+ Or you can add a +1 to a stat.

.

And I will take this opportunity to repeat my point that using the word "bonus" twice made things needlessly difficult, and a simple wording change would have offset that.
http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/General%20GemStone%20IV%20Discussion/Game%20Design%20Questions%20and%20Concerns/view/4523

If this proposed change does NOT go through... at least consider changing the word from "bonus" to "skill" for anything which is trainable, as indicated in that post.

I believe the armor would actually become +14 Dex base & +14 Dex base & +14 Agility base; this will help you because it means that your charging fee will be based on "three bonuses of +14" rather than "a bonus of +28". You will also be able to use HESS certificates on EACH of them.
(Again, IF I have interpreted the design document accurately.)

Likewise with the shield: +12 Dex base & +12 Agility base & +14 Agility base; three distinct Enhancives, smaller charging fee, three targets for HESS certs.

Badge only allows +5 bonus at the moment, so +10 stat. That's the max.

Mine is +10 blunt, +10 stamina recovery, +5 strength bonus, for example.

~Player of Fulmen Soulforge, Hammer of Eonak.

Son of a gun, you're right! Items only... so having 30 ranks, you (still!) need to use 4 Ascension points to get +2 ranks out of it.

Thanks for catching that!

(And I agree with adding Ascension to the conversion, so +1 vote on that.)

Uncap the maximum enhancive allowed and let's talk... This would give people a reason to keep accumulating/improving their badge.

There is currently no difference between someone with a 2.5m bounty badge upgrade vs someone with 5m bounty badge upgrade. Change that.

Let me get up to +50 skill and +40 stat via my badge, even if it costs a whole lot.

The complexity of the enhancive system is not a problem of mine. Like most systems in gemstone, if you put in the time to learn about it, you can figure it out, and adjust your plans accordingly.

My biggest issue is the constant changes to everything (and especially changes that nerf things). Changes to the fusion system (orbs) and haste drove me off once. Also, you guys seem to create a group of haves and a group of have nots (just look at the people with 50m+ silver logic daggers and t3 orbs). If you make a change, it should apply to everyone and everything imo.

The issues I see with enhancives are that items with ranks cost too much to recharge and that you cannot tell how many times an enhancive can be charged (say an item is empty...I can get a cost from the guy at the AG to recharge it but not how many charges it will hold). I have a neat little wand belt (a sun-bleached canvas wand belt) that I bought from a player shop a couple of weeks ago. I charged it (it only holds one charge) and it is already empty again. A little more consistency in number of charges and/or length of charge would be nice for things. It's not like my wand belt is game breaking.

Thx

A change this far reaching (most everyone owns enhancives and has for a long time) deserves a chance at feedback. Thank you for allowing us to share our input.

I'll echo the sentiments expressed here on the need of the change. I'm not sure I see the confusion removed being very impactful, especially when you consider the confusion that will be created with such a change.

I do like two of the QOL updates mentioned here, and think that they could be beneficial tweaks with minimal confusion.

1) Reduce Rank charging costs.
2) An update to make # of charges remaining/possible easier to understand/track.

>I haven't decided yet how I feel in total about the proposal itself - which means I'm on the fence. I understand the goals (I think?) and see how the goals can be realized - but it would appear that it is a 'maintenance' change, not necessarily a 'game' change. No 'boohoo', but also no 'yeehaw' here.

I think this is a good observation. If there's no 'yeehaw', was it worth devoting dev time toward it?