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Post by chirality on Sept 1, 2022 11:19:50 GMT
Compared to gear that requires actual slot arrangement to use, +5 is perfectly fine. +20 would be quite over the top.
I have yet to see a convincing argument for why the +5 skill motes aren't good enough, nor why any mote should provide more, let alone +20 (which would surpass much hell+ setloot, compete with exceptional gear, and be overpowering at the lower LLs).
I don't see anything wrong with motes, honestly. I'm not sure why something generally "free" for most of a toon's career demands analysis to be upgraded (XR motes being a bit of a unique case and for other reasons than purely "mote vs mote competition"). This somewhat reminds me of wanting to massively buff artifacts. Once pelor tag is acquired, any succeeding mote must be judged for value by the benchmark of solar mote, so anything "past" that does deserve comparison and balance consideration versus that mote. Similarly, in general abo motes are quite a bit more powerful than those that drop from "earlier" LL runs, but I don't think that toyshop motes should be buffed to compete with abo motes (or abo mote buffed to compete with solar mote).
Motes are not items that consume a meaningful gear slot. They generally provide a neat little perk or a nice little % boost. In some niche cases can help band-aid a critical thing that's missing. Solar mote is a one-of-a-kind piece of gear that sits well, and other than issues with it disappearing or not dropping...as I mentioned above, this is the first time I can recall anyone complaining about it or wishing it was more closely-tailored to their own specific desires. It is not something to judge other motes by, nor does it provide a good basis for buffing other motes, which for the most part are very situational or very-low level.
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Post by Yojimbo on Sept 1, 2022 14:31:07 GMT
I would say Abo Mote & Solar Mote are great and the low tier motes are great but I do feel that there is a gap between Toyshop and most other LL runs and Abo that could be filled in some way with something slightly more meaningful than skill points or elemental immunities. I could see spell slot motes being higher tier but probably more in line with Abo depending on what spell levels and how many slots.
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Post by simpetar on Sept 1, 2022 18:32:29 GMT
Wellspring of Power is a spell slot mote from Abo, and it used to be the default choice for gearing before Solar Mote came along. It's admittedly lost most of its appeal now (such is the nature of power creep), but it would be devalued even more if another mote from lesser run offered more.
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Post by desocupado on Sept 1, 2022 19:20:12 GMT
A inconsequential gear choice like a +5 bonus to a single skill isn't compelling. A game shouldn't have Complexity associated with a inconsequential skill bonus. And yet there are more than 10 different low bonus skill motes.
In hindsight maybe having the ability to collect skill mote and fuse them could work.
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Post by Yojimbo on Sept 1, 2022 19:30:31 GMT
So many items I have forgotten and wow just looked at wiki the XR motes cover most what I have mentioned.
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Post by simpetar on Sept 2, 2022 9:47:59 GMT
Funny that you mention them. They were too weak for XRs, too strong for lesser tiers, nobody would use them over Solar Mote (keep in mind: players are strongly encouraged to have at least 2x demi and 2 prince / Pelor wins, before they go to Limbo, unless they are being dragged / carried). The biggest complaint was that XR motes diluted the already dubious XR loot pool (featuring the Ring of Many Death Wishes, the Everbugged Girdle, and other pieces of art), until they were eventually removed altogether. Seems there is little room for the middle ground
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Post by chirality on Sept 2, 2022 11:32:41 GMT
A inconsequential gear choice like a +5 bonus to a single skill isn't compelling. This leads me to believe that perhaps we just have very different views of what the motes should be, conceptually. I don't find this line of reasoning to really be very suitable for application to motes in the first place. As I said before, motes are "free" by their nature. Indeed, there is really only inconsequential gear choice, until solar mote enters the picture. However, I don't see this as a flaw or problem: again, it is a quite unique item that doesn't have any other counterpart, as it is essentially a vestige/asmo arti that occupies the mote slot and therefore doesn't compete with any other piece of gear. Thus, the "trivial choice isn't compelling" angle doesn't match the fundamental design, in my opinion. In other words, there is no need for the choice to be either consequential or compelling. Again, it's just a free slot with a perk. The concept of "competition" doesn't really apply, in my understanding of what motes were designed for (again, XRs being a bit of a question mark and another unique edge case, like solar mote). It's not a gear slot, there's no "competition" except with other motes; it's inconsequential by nature; it doesn't need to be compelling. Aside from the mote-not-competitive-gear-slot thing, I see the analysis of skill motes being inconsequential and unable to compete with abo or solar mote as kind of like most URs being unable to compete with BURs--"so what?" A game shouldn't have Complexity associated with a inconsequential skill bonus. Not sure what you mean by complexity, in this case. And yet there are more than 10 different low bonus skill motes. Yeah...so what? They're low-level motes. That's all they're really supposed to do, I think. In hindsight maybe having the ability to collect skill mote and fuse them could work. Interesting idea. I wouldn't be opposed to something like this, I suppose. I would make the "drop" or access point that allows the fusing to be an endgame area, and require the tags of each low-LL skill-mote run to use. This could actually be a mechanic for encouraging more lowbie/newbie-friendly LL play and more varied area exploration (kind of similar to the vision of lowbie tags, and how I'd like to see a similar scheme for LLs). I think by the time you can use an abo mote (even before prince), a mote that combines a bunch of +5s wouldn't be too overpowering. It'd most likely be the de facto option until solar mote, unless you need a +14 or lack fear/poison imm or something like that (aside from the psionic% case as simp mentioned above), which in my experience is pretty much the only other real "competitive option" between motes once abo is unlocked, unless +5 to a critical skill is more valuable than what is also a largely-inconsequential 5% imm (and that said, there is a bit of room for arguing that this competition still exists--for example, +5 lore or disc can be quite good, with not all gear setups covering massive extra offset bonuses of those skills). In fact, the concept already immediately brings to mind lowbie tag skill bonuses. I'd probably conceptualize this somewhat similar to lowbie tags as well, except without the "all tags" bonus (I'd still like to see something largely trivial for all LL tags, however); in other words, you could pick and choose specific runs to get use the desired skill mote once you unlock the fuse-able option, and skip others that you don't want or need. It would be easy enough to do them all and just get all the +5s, but if you really don't care about some, you can skip those too if you can quickly get to the fuse-ing mechanic/drop fast as well. Actually, given that most of the motes are quite similar in power until abos, maybe abo would be a fine target for placing the fusing mechanism anyway.
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Post by Yojimbo on Sept 2, 2022 13:51:28 GMT
Funny that you mention them. They were too weak for XRs, too strong for lesser tiers, nobody would use them over Solar Mote (keep in mind: players are strongly encouraged to have at least 2x demi and 2 prince / Pelor wins, before they go to Limbo, unless they are being dragged / carried). The biggest complaint was that XR motes diluted the already dubious XR loot pool (featuring the Ring of Many Death Wishes, the Everbugged Girdle, and other pieces of art), until they were eventually removed altogether. Seems there is little room for the middle ground I could see some reasonable changes to the XR motes to make them fit better if they stats on them are unchanged dropping any typical XR requirement, ie no L70 maybe just L60, so you can use them on non-limbo ready toons or reduce some of their stats/effects and move them to drops from other runs. I could see the XR exotic immunity motes maybe going to Ely or something near that tier run as set loot from those runs.
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Post by jelricle on Sept 2, 2022 20:10:20 GMT
In hindsight maybe having the ability to collect skill mote and fuse them could work. :-D I think that is how I started the thread! Though I raised stacking as a possible method — imagine +1 motes that could stack up to 20 — Your fusion idea is also a good way to implement this. Maybe the mechanics of the souls canoptics could be leveraged
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Post by KnightErrant on Sept 3, 2022 1:17:30 GMT
A inconsequential gear choice like a +5 bonus to a single skill isn't compelling. This leads me to believe that perhaps we just have very different views of what the motes should be, conceptually. I don't find this line of reasoning to really be very suitable for application to motes in the first place. As I said before, motes are "free" by their nature. Indeed, there is really only inconsequential gear choice, until solar mote enters the picture. However, I don't see this as a flaw or problem: again, it is a quite unique item that doesn't have any other counterpart, as it is essentially a vestige/asmo arti that occupies the mote slot and therefore doesn't compete with any other piece of gear. Thus, the "trivial choice isn't compelling" angle doesn't match the fundamental design, in my opinion. In other words, there is no need for the choice to be either consequential or compelling. Again, it's just a free slot with a perk. The concept of "competition" doesn't really apply, in my understanding of what motes were designed for (again, XRs being a bit of a question mark and another unique edge case, like solar mote). It's not a gear slot, there's no "competition" except with other motes; it's inconsequential by nature; it doesn't need to be compelling. Aside from the mote-not-competitive-gear-slot thing, I see the analysis of skill motes being inconsequential and unable to compete with abo or solar mote as kind of like most URs being unable to compete with BURs--"so what?" A game shouldn't have Complexity associated with a inconsequential skill bonus. Not sure what you mean by complexity, in this case. And yet there are more than 10 different low bonus skill motes. Yeah...so what? They're low-level motes. That's all they're really supposed to do, I think. In hindsight maybe having the ability to collect skill mote and fuse them could work. Interesting idea. I wouldn't be opposed to something like this, I suppose. I would make the "drop" or access point that allows the fusing to be an endgame area, and require the tags of each low-LL skill-mote run to use. This could actually be a mechanic for encouraging more lowbie/newbie-friendly LL play and more varied area exploration (kind of similar to the vision of lowbie tags, and how I'd like to see a similar scheme for LLs). I think by the time you can use an abo mote (even before prince), a mote that combines a bunch of +5s wouldn't be too overpowering. It'd most likely be the de facto option until solar mote, unless you need a +14 or lack fear/poison imm or something like that (aside from the psionic% case as simp mentioned above), which in my experience is pretty much the only other real "competitive option" between motes once abo is unlocked, unless +5 to a critical skill is more valuable than what is also a largely-inconsequential 5% imm (and that said, there is a bit of room for arguing that this competition still exists--for example, +5 lore or disc can be quite good, with not all gear setups covering massive extra offset bonuses of those skills). In fact, the concept already immediately brings to mind lowbie tag skill bonuses. I'd probably conceptualize this somewhat similar to lowbie tags as well, except without the "all tags" bonus (I'd still like to see something largely trivial for all LL tags, however); in other words, you could pick and choose specific runs to get use the desired skill mote once you unlock the fuse-able option, and skip others that you don't want or need. It would be easy enough to do them all and just get all the +5s, but if you really don't care about some, you can skip those too if you can quickly get to the fuse-ing mechanic/drop fast as well. Actually, given that most of the motes are quite similar in power until abos, maybe abo would be a fine target for placing the fusing mechanism anyway.
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Post by desocupado on Sept 3, 2022 4:57:10 GMT
I thought about stacking bonuses of +5 to different skills, until it becomes a +5 to all. Maybe it could then (or also) be moliated to become +10 to all. That might not be worth the Zots, tough. Or the trouble of collecting them to replace them afterwards. Maybe each mote should have 4 skills.
What I meant by complexity was to have numerous +5 motes to drop randomly all over the place (been a long time since I cared about weak motes). Then having several decisions of why and where to farm them.
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Post by jelricle on Sept 3, 2022 19:08:23 GMT
I thought about stacking bonuses of +5 to different skills, until it becomes a +5 to all. Maybe it could then (or also) be moliated to become +10 to all. What I meant by complexity was to have numerous +5 motes to drop randomly all over the place (been a long time since I cared about weak motes). Then having several decisions of why and where to farm them. Oh, that is interesting, but not as compelling for my personal play style. I just need an better bump to one or two skills (Although, someday, I might actually manage to finish an abyss cycle for my first vestige and finally use up my limbo pt2 hard mode tuner so that I can reincarnate into my version of a picky shifter. Then, I might appreciate bumps to numerous skills)
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Post by Yojimbo on Sept 3, 2022 20:58:19 GMT
For the merge requirement encouraging lower run play perhaps requiring crafting items or specific consumables along with the tags from the runs to combine them. This does question how much does the merging get limited and in what ways.
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