Torchlight enchanting is stupid

[Thrybrid]

OMG LOOK THE GAME WONT GIMME A PERF STATS FFFFUUUU
OMGGGGG FIRE ALL RUNIC AND BAN ALL DISAGREE FREE PLZ
WHATEVER STUFF RANDOM BULLSHIT RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

As this guy said, he is and will always be only a customer
A customer is someone who likes to consume, without a fair critical sense and a strong ego, and who believes the modern fairytale of customers being kings
Saying that X should be fired in is just utter NONSENSE and discredit any of what you could be saying
I believe this type of individuals should have their rights of expression lowered, as insults and strong language is never accepted, but this comment is far more offensive than a random strong word

Also thx P for that long post, it was VERY interesting and actually explain 75% of the social mess people take pleasure in (I am right you're not, do what I say not what I do, I'm the best victim)

[mjkittredge]

I remember my first "WTF?!?!?" moment when experiencing a disenchant. I think I also got the "Bum Luck" achievement on Steam for getting the item disenchanted on the first try too, 2% or something chance.

Seeing as I valued the item I was a bit peeved, although not to the point the OP was. So I downloaded the mod that removes disenchant chance. Stacking mods on nice items made them enormously powerful even though the cost kept growing. So, aside from a few ice elementals one shotting me despite very high cold resistance, I blew through the rest of the game on very hard difficulty with little trouble, somewhat diminishing the experience.

Sounds like they've found the sweet spot for Torchlight 2, no horribly nasty penalties, no overpowered enchantment stacking.

Having said all that, i still liked the enchanting system, with it's huge pool of potential mods it could put on an item, never knowing what it would be, the excitement and relief of a successful enchant, the thrill of getting a really useful one. The chance of complete ruin did heighten the experience, much as I imagine playing on hardcore mode does when you take burst damage and see your HP spike down to near empty.

[ohias]

Enchanting actually made me to give up on this game. After telling me 5 times in a row "nothing happened" and then removing all my enchants leaving me without any money and weapon to continue the game.
I actually had no idea what it even does came here to check if my game is broken somehow.
Even wanted to ask refund.
Oh well, at least I got it on sale. No way I'm going to bother with the second game lol.

[Zidders]

Enchanting actually made me to give up on this game. After telling me 5 times in a row "nothing happened" and then removing all my enchants leaving me without any money and weapon to continue the game.
I actually had no idea what it even does came here to check if my game is broken somehow.
Even wanted to ask refund.
Oh well, at least I got it on sale. No way I'm going to bother with the second game lol.

You know enchantings optional...right? Why did you continue to enchant when it was obvious nothing was happening, instead of coming here to ask about it? You don't need to enchant to have a decent playthrough. Also, there are mods that fix enchanting to a large degree. Also, enchanting in Torchlight II works in a completely different manner. Totally fixed.

[ohias]

You know enchantings optional...right? Why did you continue to enchant when it was obvious nothing was happening, instead of coming here to ask about it? You don't need to enchant to have a decent playthrough. Also, there are mods that fix enchanting to a large degree. Also, enchanting in Torchlight II works in a completely different manner. Totally fixed.

Sure, killing monsters is also optional. You can play the game by standing in one place just as fine.
Continued because wanted to understand what enchanting does and how to make it "work". That's what people are supposed to do in videogames right?
Oh sorry I already forgot, gameplay is optional in this game.

As for II "fixing" enchanting, it doesn't really matter, I don't trust these guys to deliver non frustrating experience. This is just one of the reasons why.

[Zidders]

Sure, killing monsters is also optional. You can play the game by standing in one place just as fine.
Continued because wanted to understand what enchanting does and how to make it "work". That's what people are supposed to do in videogames right?
Oh sorry I already forgot, gameplay is optional in this game.

As for II "fixing" enchanting, it doesn't really matter, I don't trust these guys to deliver non frustrating experience. This is just one of the reasons why.

The first game was flawed. You'd know that if you'd spent any time reading any of the reviews about it before you bought the game. It's been known since the game released that enchanting was broken.Even if it is, how in the world does that ruin the rest of the game? That's like never eating any breakfast cereal again ever just because you had a bad bowl of fruit loops. You mean you don't trust them, when they've clearly made it obvious that they TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU about the enchanting being broken and needing fixed?

Whatever dude. Contant customerservice@runicgames.com and let em know how you feel.

[dreamrider]

Enchanting actually made me to give up on this game. After telling me 5 times in a row "nothing happened" and then removing all my enchants leaving me without any money and weapon to continue the game.
I actually had no idea what it even does came here to check if my game is broken somehow.
Even wanted to ask refund.
Oh well, at least I got it on sale. No way I'm going to bother with the second game lol.

Given that enchanting is frankly admitted in the game manual to carry risk, and to not succeed every time, why were you enchanting so much at such a low level, as to use up all your money in 5 attempts? For that matter, why were you even attempting to enchant at the inefficient Town enchanter so much? Had you not played the game enough to find any Shrines of Enchantment? Those are free, and less risky, though you have to space out your visits so the level will respawn and recharge the Shrine.

For the record, there is about a 1 in 6 chance on any enchantment attempt of "nothing", over a large number of enchants. However, they do tend to run in strings (particularly when nothing has changed in the game, something to do with seed parameters perhaps), so it is rare but believable that you would get 5 "nothings" in a row. I always view "nothing happened" as a hint that I should go adventure some more, or perhaps switch out the item I am trying to enchant.

dreamrider

[azshadowwalker]

Enchanting actually made me to give up on this game. After telling me 5 times in a row "nothing happened" and then removing all my enchants leaving me without any money and weapon to continue the game.
I actually had no idea what it even does came here to check if my game is broken somehow.
Even wanted to ask refund.
Oh well, at least I got it on sale. No way I'm going to bother with the second game lol.

You know enchantings optional...right? Why did you continue to enchant when it was obvious nothing was happening, instead of coming here to ask about it? You don't need to enchant to have a decent playthrough. Also, there are mods that fix enchanting to a large degree. Also, enchanting in Torchlight II works in a completely different manner. Totally fixed.

I don't use enchanting very often, but I'm not sure it really needed to be fixed. I've beaten the game multiple times on hard and very hard without it. I have had the misfortune of a disenchant, and I just thought, "That sucks." I no longer took so much risk with a weapon that I really liked. I don't gamble in Diablo 2, either, because I've never found it worthwhile. I also hate running back to town every 2 seconds in D2 (something you cannot avoid, if you want to gain gold and advance in the game), but I still play the game and think it's awesome. I'll probably still play Diablo 3, if I can find a sale at some point or another, because disliking one part of one game doesn't mean that I'll never play anything from Blizzard ever again. Not every part of a game must be used by every player; what makes the game an extra challenge and more interesting to one player is going to make the game really annoying to another. It's interesting to experiment with different parts of the game, but that's why I have multiple characters and don't experiment as much with my best ones.

[Dragonfly]

Shadowwalker has a good point (even if it was almost contrary to his/her main point, which was equally good) - everyone has their prerogative. I also am extremely experimental in some areas of games and stubbornly not so in others. If the particular part of the game that you want to experiment in works fundamentally different from how you personally want it to work, that can indeed be a frustrating experience - however, it's no excuse for being a d!ck. Methinks the OP may have had more they wanted to complain about than just enchanting, so to speak.

Anywho, i'll put in my 2c, as a new player to the game - personally i love the enchanting system. At first glance i was worried multiple enchants would be overpowered, and they sort of can be, but it balances out with other aspects, such as the possibility of disenchants. Of which i experienced my first today, in fact, and i still love the system just as much despite it.

Incase you're wondering what was lost:

Spoiler: show

[dreamrider]

Dragonfly,
A bit of advice on enchanting weapons. There are those who will argue that at as your levels go higher, you use mainly magical/Skills attacks, so the important factors are DPS and Cast Speed, almost to the exclusion of all else.

However, if you are a person who is not put off by the enchantment system and you are willing to risk heavy enchantment of your weapons, then the most important characteristic of the weapon is the original Attack Speed. This is both because of the repeatability of your attacks when dealing with multiples that you can one-shot if you get the strikes in, and because the Attack Speed is a multiplier for basic weapon damage in calculating DPS.

When you enchant a weapon a lot, the most common benefits are additional damage. Additional Attack Apeed comes more rarely, and in relatively small amounts. The DPS of the weapon seems to be increased according to the Attack Speed of the weapon at the time of the particular damage increasing enchantment, and not further increased by later weapon speed increases. So while it would be GREAT to have a weapon whose first 3 enchantments bumped the speed by 21%, and then followed by all damage increases, the more likely pattern is that you get several damage increases modified only by the native speed of the weapon, before you see any speed enhancement.

Also, speed increases from enchantments tend to be 1-7%, speed increases from the best +Atk Spd Chaos Gems (the only socketable speed enhancers) are +4%. The increments between original weapon speed factors are 9% to 20% or more, with the % difference being more pronounced at higher speeds. So it takes a lot of fortunate 'after-market' speed enhancements to improve a weapons speed as much a choosing a weapon one step faster in the first place. Not a reason to not go for those enhancements, but I'm just saying...

So bottom line. If you plan to enchant your weapon a lot to run the DPS up, choose the fastest weapon you can. By the time you have added +200 damage of various sorts to the piece, the original speed rating will count for a lot more toward the current DPS than the original damage values...and you will be striking with it more often when you are not Skill shooting.

FWIW, since you seem to be playing a Magic Vanquisher, the fastest staves in the game are Eyes of Etlich (19), Occulon's Vision (21), and Soul's Window (23). Soul's Window is the most powerful in pure combat factors/DPS, and probably has the nicest affixes for general purposes. Occulon's Vision, however, has a nice beginning Atk Speed Enchantment that makes it the absolute fastest staff and will give it icrementally the best DPS improvements from further enchantments...as long as you don't disenchant it.

Volbard's Prison (18) is hands down the fastest wand, and one of the most powerful in starting DPS, thanks to a big original damage enchantment. The Timeslip Prism (28) has an initial speed enchantment that make it just about as fast from the start, however, and a big +Cast Speed affix as well. You won't have a chance of finding it until considerably later, though.

Your Icy Brand is pretty natively speedy. It should re-enchant well. You might want to put any +Atk Speed Chaos Gems you have into the handle, though, before you start re-enchanting. And since your character is now almost certainly a higher level than the nominal item level of the wand, do all your re-enchanting at Shrines for the best results.

dreamrider,
certified rep for Isher Shoppes, Inc

[Dragonfly]

Wow, thankyou for that wealth of information! I will look out for those wands for sure. Probably skipping the staves for now, although i may explore a melee vanq in the future :)

I wasn't aware you could re-enchant things that had been disenchanted, did not think of that. Fortunately, i managed to find another fast speed wand with some bonus attack speed on it anyway, so all is not lost! I'm actually building my character around the fast wand speed as i've found mana (and health) leech to be hugely advantageous (i hate having to rely on potions). With that wand i was using (before i disenchanted it), it was not only killing things very quickly, but alternating spells with wand attacks was recharging my mana faster than i was spending it, which is awesome. Not to mention the faster speed allows for better kiting, even though i prefer to stand my ground >;)

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you enjoy the discussion) your answers have provoked some further questions (mostly for clarity)...

From what i understand, you mentioned that the DPS "statistic" attatched to an item (displayed when you hover on the item) is not increased when your enchantment happens to apply a faster attack speed increase - as opposed to a damage increase enchantment, which does update the DPS. Assuming i am not using any skills that draw from weapon DPS (so far i'm using lightning bomb and wind of justice, which don't seem to mention DPS in the tooltip at all), this would not be an issue? In other words, the actual damage per second achieved by the weapon when i use it to attack things does increase from attack speed enchantments, but the DPS statistic itself is not updated?

Secondly, my new wand lacks mana leech - i assume enchanting sockets and using gems are the best way to get this? Or should i be gambling a particular type of item? I seem to recall seeing mana leech on both gloves and boots previously..

Finally, i had noticed that enchantment shrines appear to have a lower chance to disenchant. However, you mentioned my character level - i assume you simply mean that in order for a lower level item to be viable, you would have to enchant it alot to bring it up to par, and thus enchantment shrines are the safer option, as to avoid disenchantment?

Apologies for the overly technical questions, i just enjoy knowing how things work... thanks again for your comments thus far :)

[dreamrider]

As far as can tell (empirical), if you increase damage affixes by enchantment, your DPS is re-calc'd. If you increase atk speed affix by enchantment, there is not a displayed DPS value change, so clearly the speed increase is not triggering a recalc. Its a bit hard to tell without rigorous game-copy and identical situation analysis (and what fun is that), but I THINK that the next time a DPS is re-calc'd, the speed increase does contribute. I am unsure if the speed increase is then applied to all damage, or just to damage values that have been added since the speed was upped.

I do not think that the actual damage per second of regular weapon attacks is affected in any way by the DPS statistic. Not logical. What's really going on there is that you are now shooting faster (and that clearly does happen), so that you are getting 2.5 hits or 3 hits per second instead of 2 hits. Each of those hits does the weapon's current damage. If you hit 3 times instead of 2 times in a second, the amount of gross damage generated over that time is 50% greater. Of course, each respective normal attack hit also has to get through blocking, armor, etc. DPS is just a convenient artificial summation of the gross 'mystical power presence' of the weapon, which can then be used as an convenient abstract power value to contribute to selected magical attacks.

mana leach might show up randomly from enchanting the weapon. You could add it by socketing...er...skulls?? or you may find other gear that will have the affix, in which case it will work on each hit regardless of the weapon used.

dreamrider

PS & BTW - one of the nice things about direct weapon Skills like Ricochet, Seeking Shot, and Explosive Shot is that they can be added as alternative F-button selections to swap onto your LEFT mouse button, replacing your standard attack. At higher c-levels, Ricochet at least costs so little mana that you can use it as a near permanent alternative attack mode. The downside of this is that health-leech and mana-leech do not happen when using magical weapon attacks, only on regular attacks. Also, for shooting, the line of sight is much more sensitive for magical weapon attacks and the shot will be blocked by objects and angles that would allow a regular shot to pass.

[Dragonfly]

Ah, yes, very well summarised. That does seem consistent with my experience and how i thought things must work.

Looks like it's time for more enchanting then (hooray!). Oh and eyeballs seem to give mana leech, skulls are health leech iirc :)

I have noticed the line of sight calculations to be a little funny in this game sometimes - especially when trying to shoot up ramps or stairs, or around small objects. But my main direct attack at the moment is the basic wand attack anyway which does seem to work pretty well, as you say.

[azshadowwalker]

Shadowwalker has a good point (even if it was almost contrary to his/her main point, which was equally good)

Her, just for the record.

As for the second part, how did you find it almost contrary? I'm not being confrontational. I'm just wondering if I didn't express exactly what was in my head when I posted that.

[Zidders]

Psssst....ya'll know Torchlight II is gonna be out soon, right? And that enchanting doesn't suck this time around? and mods? And and and why aren't you people playing D3 instead of constantly necro'ing a years-old thread based on an easily avoidable/moddable game mechanic in a game that is about to be relegated to the cold, dead past much the way the original Diablo has?

Torchlight II is going to blow Torchlight away. Even the folks from Runic have pretty much said they can't even stand playing the original because the sequel is so much better.

Now really, don't worry about who said what and how or why, go play Diablo III. Let this thread die already, lol.

[dreamrider]

Of course, I can't play Torchlight II yet, I'm still getting great joy and interest out of Torchlight, and everything I've heard (admittedly here) about D3 (which I also can't obtain yet) has pretty much convinced me that I don't particularly want to get involved in it. (Which is not the same thing as negative critcism, for those who do lust for it.)

Really, Zid, this is the most un-Zidders-like, narrow-minded fan-boy-sh post I have ever seen from you. Generally you are all, "Enjoy doing your own thing, sounds like you've found some more fun, and don't you other guys rain on their parade."

dreamrider

PS - It isn't as if this was a thread being hi-jacked from the TLII Forum.

PPS - And, yes, I do realize you ended with an LOL. So I will just end with a

[Zidders]

Sorry Dream, you're right. :/

Dunno what's gotten into me lately.

[dreamrider]

I put it down to roo flu. Go make 2 puns and call me in the morning.

dr

[Dragonfly]

Shadowwalker has a good point (even if it was almost contrary to his/her main point, which was equally good)

Her, just for the record.

As for the second part, how did you find it almost contrary? I'm not being confrontational. I'm just wondering if I didn't express exactly what was in my head when I posted that.

Ah, actually in hindsight i think i just read too far into what you said, heh. You made a good point that just because one part of the game isn't perfect doesn't mean the entire game is screwed, but then went on to mention how you like to experiment with different parts of the game, and i realised that there are some parts of the game i love to experiment with, and others that i'll stubbornly refuse to - i reasoned that if someone preferred to play a particular part of the game the same way all the time (eg. enchanting) and then that part of the game worked totally against the way they usually play it... the result is a rage post on the forums! Or something. Made sense at the time, anyway.

[Deadnoob]

Psssst....ya'll know Torchlight II is gonna be out soon, right? And that enchanting doesn't suck this time around? and mods? And and and why aren't you people playing D3 instead of constantly necro'ing a years-old thread based on an easily avoidable/moddable game mechanic in a game that is about to be relegated to the cold, dead past much the way the original Diablo has?

I, for one, only recently began playing Torchlight (despite having bought it many moons ago. I'm kinda silly like that). I'm still learning this game and it's getting me more excited to see the sequel.

go play Diablo III.

Can't do it. I've sworn off Blizzard due to my vehemently disagreeing with many of the decisions they've made regarding the direction they take their games over the past couple of years. Disagreeing to the point that I fought with Blizzard customer support for 3 months to get them to remove all of my information from their customer data base. It's unfortunate, as I was really looking forward to D3.