Staff of Elemental Mastery - The Burning Lands Chase Loot

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Benito, Oct 10, 2018.

  1. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    I didn't want to squish the enthusiasm.
    Yes, there are "class only" things in the game on a consistent basis, but those have become "standard" and are really "template" items with insignificant specific work on them (Without the warrior weapon, I could skip making a new hate proc... but... I change 4 numbers, and a spreadsheet makes the numbers for all spells. So... it adds literally 2 to 3 seconds of work)

    The petclass earring, is actually the largest amount of work that the non-chest "standard" items take. It is even more work than the 3 classes (necro, mage, beastlord) worth of chest items. All 16 chest items do take more time on years when I make new things and not simply upgrade... on upgrade years, the petclass earring still takes more work.
    The work is creating and balancing the large number of NPCs that make up the pets, modifying their scripts, and creating the new spells they may have if they cast spells. On upgrade only expansions it's not too bad, though still significant... on level increase, expansions it's a large amount of work.

    Adding
    4 MORE NPC's * every level of pet focus that those pets might be focused by
    is a very large task. It also involves two devs, where I can do most of the item work myself (except the pet focus spells, which is done by the spell dev)

    So while the idea may sound exciting, it's not in the cards.

    Plus, I've already made the chase items.
    Arraden, eqgamer, snailish and 13 others like this.
  2. Lianeb Augur

    All I heard is there is new chase loot in TBL.
    eqgamer, Gana, svann and 6 others like this.
  3. Aurmoon Augur

    That was my takeaway from the post as well. Woo hoo!!
    eqgamer likes this.
  4. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    Let the krono farmers rejoice. Hopefully it’s a copy of RoS stuff and not TBL.
    Lianeb, Allayna and Sancus like this.
  5. Rickate Augur

    This explains so much.
    Pirlo likes this.
  6. Allayna Augur

    Agree with Sheex on this one. Chase or Rare tradeable gear should lag by 1 expansion.
  7. IblisTheMage Augur

    You could bring back the epic pet, as a relacement, then there would be 3 pets less in the future to worry about :). Then make new foci only work on current level pet plus previous level pet....
  8. Bigstomp Augur


    You could just use the rune from the knight weapon on the warrior weapon. Save you some time.
    Andarriel likes this.
  9. Smokezz The Bane Crew


    He posted a while back in another post that future chase items will almost for sure be one expansion back.
    Daedly likes this.
  10. Ngreth Thergn Developer


    Heh.
    And for some reason, I was only thinking about the PROC spells. These are SUPER easy since each expansion they are simply an upgrade in power, and all are based on a "base" value and a multiplier on that base value. Since it was a call out to something "class specific" which are realistically, weapons, my thoughts went that way.

    Not the focus spells, and certainly NOT the chest item spells (these take the longest)

    The focus spells take some mathing, then they aren't very difficult once I've found the numbers that "work"

    Chest item spells are pretty much "by hand", Though in an "upgrade only" expansion, it's mostly making a decision on how much to upgrade, then doing that math on each individual spell. Still "by hand" but not particularly difficult.
    Difficult there is when I decide to try and do something new for the chest item spells :)
    Barton and Verily Tjark like this.
  11. Verily Tjark Augur

    Mathing is the worst.
  12. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    I did use the fake word intentionally :)
    Arraden likes this.
  13. Tucoh Augur

    Any reason you don't just replace the Enhanced Minion focus effect with a clicky that gives a buff to your pet? I feel like a buff that stacked with everything and gave an ac/hp/dmg bonus would be totally fine for pet users. You'd have to decide how to disallow using that with the previous enhanced minion focus effects of course (or just replace them all with the new clicky!).
    snailish and Kinadorm like this.
  14. blood & gufts Augur

    If you think it is the earring itself that takes the time, you wrong, it is the effect that takes the time, and same problem would be with a clicky.

    The balancing is still there, in same degree.
  15. menown Augur

    The effect also works on swarm pets, so a clicky wouldn't be effective.
    Tucoh and Sancus like this.
  16. IblisTheMage Augur


    the single largest benefit of EM is that it makes my pet even con! :)
    Tucoh likes this.
  17. Brohg Augur

    I'm sad that the EM effect doesn't make necro specter into a lil' knight like it used to
    Spellfire, Thunderkiks and menown like this.
  18. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    What menown said

    AND there are things it does that buffs don't cover.
    Tucoh, menown and Sancus like this.
  19. snailish Augur

    The enhanced minion line, and the time that has been stated in the past that it takes to program in all the pet variations...

    I think that time could be used elsewhere. This design approach you have to make substandard pets to enhance via the focus, and a raid focus that is better than the group focus.

    If group has to be worse than raid (for a pet... it doesn't necessarily, but if that is a design must) then just make the raid pet scroll drop as a rank 3. At least this cuts out the substandard pet programming. You could even do the OP's idea in that the rank 3 pets get the bonus effects.

    Or just cover it with AA.
  20. smash Augur

    I doubt any of your solutions will lower the amount of work in balancing the things, and most will have disadvantes to present pet earring.

    1 get it from spell, you still need to balance the thing, and players are able to get the enhanced pet earlier compared to present where you need random on drop or currency. Also basestats on pet earring are worse than on other earrings.

    2 from aa: Need to make system for AA to become visible so people can buy it. However as soon you can see the aa you can buy the aa, which makes all people who done a thing able to get, no more "rare" drop.

    I think also you need to change old pet earrings as well, so now you multiply the work by 10 without any benefit.
    snailish likes this.