Balance of artifacts and new crafting items

[Durandal]

Make artefacts like the new ore system. Keep them as powerful or crappy as they can spawn as well as the random chance of when they spawn. But remove the artifact chests from specific dungeons, have them spawn in entirely random places and change every few resets like ore. This keeps ppl from rushing the same dungeons before anyone else has a chance. It also gives chars who arent level 30 have a chance of finding a rare nice item or useless trophy.

[liver and bones]

I think artefacts spawn in lower tier dungeons, don't they? I found an artefact in a dungeon meant for around 13-16.

[cptcuddlepants]

I found an artefact in a level 7-9 dungeon. Still have it. We thought it was a glitch at the time

[Cerk Evermoore]

I'd love to see artifact chests in some more top level dungeons. Like Caustic caverns or Pandemonium.

[Hallibutthead]

Step 1. Uninstall real life.
Step 2. Raid all known dungeons with artefacts. Doable under 2 hours with a party of four. No friends? Tough luck.
Step 3. Repeat until you get your desired artefact.

You forgot step 4. Cry uncontrollably as you get either empty chests or useless "gnome only" artefacts for a month straight to the point where going to loot empty boxes becomes an ingame meme.

you must not have uninstalled real life all the way. If there's any left, it can cause a memory leak in Time.dll, which will cause Remorse.exe to do a full scan of your /life folder

[Wytchee]

Maybe have boss mobs drop slightly less potent artifacts so it's not a once-a-reset rush?

[gilescorey]

Best option: remove artefacts

[Aodh Lazuli]

Maybe have boss mobs drop slightly less potent artifacts so it's not a once-a-reset rush?

Isn't this the intention behind the "magical x" loot drops?

[Nitro]

Best option: remove artefacts

Memery aside, I actually like artefacts. If all the best gear was craftable, everyone would eventually be running around with copies of the same gear. With artefacts, there's at least some extraordinary magical items to quest for, something beyond what every bob and jim blacksmith can whip up on commission.

[Griefmaker]

Artifacts are great, because they bring back some of the excitement of adventuring like old school adventures where a party goes looking for some cool item of power and every once in a blue moon finds something.

That is fun and exciting.

So few are "overpowered" anyway, that I think there is nothing wrong with the system as it is. My characters since the start of artifacts appearing have found junk in each of the 6 items found (and that is not counting all of the times it was empty or destroyed).

Keep some magic in the world since much of it is being lost over time.

[gilescorey]

I'm not memeing. I believe artefacts should either be completely overhauled or removed entirely. They're an arbitrary, silly system that throws a gigantic wrench into the finer points of mechanical balancing.

And I say this as somebody who's played a character with enough artefacts to meet and exceed the +20 cap on saves. It's not fun to play against something like that.

[Durvayas]

I'm with giles on this. Some artefacts are straight up absurd. Yes, good ones are rare, but they're easily farmed.

I think the system needs to make them less farmable. Like ore, perhaps randomizing where and when they are found further, like the boons, and making them rarer, and for the love of the gods... let the one that finds it change its name and description...

We can turn artefacts into a greater RP tool.

[Baron Saturday]

I remember when artifacts were introduced, I made a suggestion that the chests be accessible only through randomly-spawning trapdoors in higher level dungeons, necessitating a spot or search check to even notice the door.

[Nour]

dude let's balance the rng

[Seekeepeek]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYsXxKCRfJw
Nice guide how to be a naked wizard with Abazuur, IIllII.

The new craft-able weapons are better compared to most Artifact weapons.
can even find +5 weapons in normal chests now. tho...

Armor and mics Artifacts are more powerful then what you can craft by miles still. if you find the right one. like +8 stat +4 ac or the +4 dodge ac, +4 dodge ac = +8 dodge stacked ac as mentioned. there is even one with +10 stats on it.

doesn't magical items turn up depending on how far it been since you found your last magical item?
if that's the case, then perhaps hook it on the artifacts to avoid farming.

[nobs3]

The original post was more about crafting might re-balance the effect of artifacts.
The question also was, if the new crafting items are equally distributed amongst different races and classes.

Side note: The goblin special light flail is missing in the forging menu!!

But it seems that there is an urge to talk about the power of artifacts.
There is the old rp idea of an adventurer finding a very special artifact that makes him/her unique…
But normally that should be one very special artifact and maybe one or two great tools – like a special powerful sword or bow and a healing ring and a glass to see invisible objects…
The problem are characters with too many artifacts to optimize their stats. (They are not so much fun to play with – in party or in rp-conflicts.) Artifacts in dangerous places make powerful characters even more powerful.

Maybe artifacts could be classified into minor / medium / great and a character can only possess endless / 3 / 1 of them?

That would help to trade / share artifacts.
(Also you would not be able to loot a greater artifact if you already own one – so it’s good to walk in a party.)

[Giftstoff]

The original post was more about crafting might re-balance the effect of artifacts.
The question also was, if the new crafting items are equally distributed amongst different races and classes.

Side note: The goblin special light flail is missing in the forging menu!!

But it seems that there is an urge to talk about the power of artifacts.
There is the old rp idea of an adventurer finding a very special artifact that makes him/her unique…
But normally that should be one very special artifact and maybe one or two great tools – like a special powerful sword or bow and a healing ring and a glass to see invisible objects…
The problem are characters with too many artifacts to optimize their stats. (They are not so much fun to play with – in party or in rp-conflicts.) Artifacts in dangerous places make powerful characters even more powerful.

Maybe artifacts could be classified into minor / medium / great and a character can only possess endless / 3 / 1 of them?

That would help to trade / share artifacts.
(Also you would not be able to loot a greater artifact if you already own one – so it’s good to walk in a party.)

This is a great suggestion.

[-XXX-]

I don't think that artefacts are ~that~ unballancing TBH.
Firstly, most artefacts tend to have a really awkward propetry spread. That means you can't really rely on them for stat spread optimization and your character will always need to have some crafted/enchanted gear equipped (srsly, I've found dozens of artes and my character still carries only about 3, nobs3's suggestion won't solve anything IMO)
Secondly, charcters are still limited by the +12 stat cap, so even if you had the perfect artefact combo equipped, ultimately the only thing that it does is freeing additional gear slots. What will you put there? Uni saving throw bonus items seem to be the best choice, so yeah, all things considered artefacts result in your character having higher saves, that's it.

That being said, artefacts tip the scale of balance in favor of melee characters when it comes to PvP encounters thanks to them having really high saves. On the other hand, spellcasters seem to have easier time doing PvE on Arelith and they can obtain artefacts with less effort and resource investment. This creates an interesting dynamic.

If anything, I'd probably reconsider and tweak the current artefact shrine locations (moving the shrine from Auril to Orcland Fortress would be my first choice for example). Also, making ALL the shrines unbashable would help a lot.

[nobs3]

Also, making ALL the shrines unbashable would help a lot.

So you can still just bash artifact chests and the item is not lost?
I hoped that was solved months ago...

[-XXX-]

Soo, looting the shrine and bashing it afterwards to give a colossal middle finger to whoever gets there next is OK? It's not unusual for a server to run for without a reset for a day. Most arte shrines are smashed whithin 3 hours after a reset.

[Dorkas]

If anything, I'd probably reconsider and tweak the current artefact shrine locations (moving the shrine from Auril to Orcland Fortress would be my first choice for example). Also, making ALL the shrines unbashable would help a lot.

Ironically, I heard the shrine that used to spawn in the orcland fort. got removed from repeated farming. (Which tbh, makes that place really not worth going to, because it's pretty challenging.) I do like what someone else said about making them spawn in entirely random dungeons.

[-XXX-]

Well, back then orclands offered much MUCH more favorable xp/loot/risk ratio, so it had been grinded to no end, which I don't think is the case anymore. Also the orclands Citadel is IMO an objectively more difficult dungeon than the Temple of Auril.

[Cerk Evermoore]

Temple and Blackfin both occupy a weird place when artifact chests are concerned.