A very subtle bug was effectively capping the charges for Constellation Jewelry at a whopping one. I was wrong, you who posted were right.
This is fixed now. There IS a cap on how many charges a Constellation item can have, but it wasn't supposed to be one.
Enjoy.
Rigby
DR-RIGBY
DR-RIGBY
Constellation Jewelry Update
01/18/2002 10:48 AM CST
Greets,
I just made a change to constellation amulets to fix a small bug. Previously, it was possible to make a useful bonus item, use it down to one or two charges, scribe a sigil on top of it to make it a non-useful bonus item, rub it to clear the sigil combination, and then rescribe the item to make a new, fully charged item while retaining some elements of the previous item's bonus.
This will no longer be possible, as items that are rescribed in this manner will always be of the minimum possible bonus, and cap at a single use. Thus, enchanters can still continue to use this tactic to find useful sigil combinations, but they will not be getting undue bonuses from doing so.
While I was at it, I added more messaging to the power levels, allowing more precision in determining the capability of such an item. Much of the existing messaging was shuffled down some to make room (for example, "hazy" is now a subdivision of the range where "mostly obscured" was).
Enjoy,
Rigby
I just made a change to constellation amulets to fix a small bug. Previously, it was possible to make a useful bonus item, use it down to one or two charges, scribe a sigil on top of it to make it a non-useful bonus item, rub it to clear the sigil combination, and then rescribe the item to make a new, fully charged item while retaining some elements of the previous item's bonus.
This will no longer be possible, as items that are rescribed in this manner will always be of the minimum possible bonus, and cap at a single use. Thus, enchanters can still continue to use this tactic to find useful sigil combinations, but they will not be getting undue bonuses from doing so.
While I was at it, I added more messaging to the power levels, allowing more precision in determining the capability of such an item. Much of the existing messaging was shuffled down some to make room (for example, "hazy" is now a subdivision of the range where "mostly obscured" was).
Enjoy,
Rigby
DR-RIGBY
Constellation Jewelry Shuffle
01/20/2002 12:20 PM CST
Greetings,
I've just made live a change to Constellation Jewelry. Essentially what I did was swap out the caps -- previously, the "per rub" cap was relatively low, and the "stacking" cap was generous. Now, the "stacking cap" has been tightened up quite a bit, but the "per rub" cap has been doubled.
This should actually help sales in the sense that individual items will be worth more.
Additionally, there was a scenario where someone could bypass the stacking cap. I doubt it was intentional on the part of players, since there was no way to know exactly what you were doing without GM eyes. I happened to catch it watching the museum last night.
Since the "per rub" cap has been extended, I also extended the appropriate messaging. I apologize for the shuffle so shortly after the last one, but the levels of detail should be much more useful.
Rigby
I've just made live a change to Constellation Jewelry. Essentially what I did was swap out the caps -- previously, the "per rub" cap was relatively low, and the "stacking" cap was generous. Now, the "stacking cap" has been tightened up quite a bit, but the "per rub" cap has been doubled.
This should actually help sales in the sense that individual items will be worth more.
Additionally, there was a scenario where someone could bypass the stacking cap. I doubt it was intentional on the part of players, since there was no way to know exactly what you were doing without GM eyes. I happened to catch it watching the museum last night.
Since the "per rub" cap has been extended, I also extended the appropriate messaging. I apologize for the shuffle so shortly after the last one, but the levels of detail should be much more useful.
Rigby
DR-RIGBY
Constellation Jewelry: Does it Ever End?
01/31/2002 03:28 PM CST
Greets,
After much monitoring and discussion with Maelona and Tribanin, I've decided to cut out the ability to stack the bonuses from Constellation Jewelry with any other bonus, regardless of source. This includes repeat rubs from Constellation Jewelry. <smirk>
On their own, the bonuses from Constellation Jewelry items are well within an acceptable bonus range, particularly when based on the difficulty of their creation. The problem arises when used with other bonus abilities, skills, spells or items with similar-sized bonuses -- there's many spells and abilities that do this as well as a "cookie." Even though the Constellation Jewelry has always capped itself, it doesn't take into account bonuses from non-enchanted sources. Again, either on their own is fine, but together is just too much.
Additionally, since this is an active magical device, I've decided to add in a "soft" magical devices requirement as follows:
* If you have ZERO magical devices skill, then activating a piece of Constellation Jewelry will use up all the charges and you will not get a bonus.
* If you don't have enough magical devices skill as appropriate for the bonus one would give, then activating such an item will grant you the bonus, but all the charges will be used up. If you have enough magical devices skill, only one or some of the charges will be used up. If you have an excess of enough magical devices skill, then you'll notice no change. How much magical devices skill you will need is dependant on the bonus of the item -- thus those items with smaller bonuses will be easier to use one charge at a time.
I also took it upon myself to fix the broken roundtime for rubbing that was always supposed to be there but never worked, and that I didn't care enough about to actually fix before now. <g>
A clarification on Constellation Jewelry in general (because I'm getting sick of getting bug reports on this thing that isn't a bugs):
* There has always been a chance that the item would burn out after one rub. Always. This chance is probably going to get removed now that there's no stacking and a MD requirement.
This change will go live within the next two days, so you've been warned. ;)
Rigby
After much monitoring and discussion with Maelona and Tribanin, I've decided to cut out the ability to stack the bonuses from Constellation Jewelry with any other bonus, regardless of source. This includes repeat rubs from Constellation Jewelry. <smirk>
On their own, the bonuses from Constellation Jewelry items are well within an acceptable bonus range, particularly when based on the difficulty of their creation. The problem arises when used with other bonus abilities, skills, spells or items with similar-sized bonuses -- there's many spells and abilities that do this as well as a "cookie." Even though the Constellation Jewelry has always capped itself, it doesn't take into account bonuses from non-enchanted sources. Again, either on their own is fine, but together is just too much.
Additionally, since this is an active magical device, I've decided to add in a "soft" magical devices requirement as follows:
* If you have ZERO magical devices skill, then activating a piece of Constellation Jewelry will use up all the charges and you will not get a bonus.
* If you don't have enough magical devices skill as appropriate for the bonus one would give, then activating such an item will grant you the bonus, but all the charges will be used up. If you have enough magical devices skill, only one or some of the charges will be used up. If you have an excess of enough magical devices skill, then you'll notice no change. How much magical devices skill you will need is dependant on the bonus of the item -- thus those items with smaller bonuses will be easier to use one charge at a time.
I also took it upon myself to fix the broken roundtime for rubbing that was always supposed to be there but never worked, and that I didn't care enough about to actually fix before now. <g>
A clarification on Constellation Jewelry in general (because I'm getting sick of getting bug reports on this thing that isn't a bugs):
* There has always been a chance that the item would burn out after one rub. Always. This chance is probably going to get removed now that there's no stacking and a MD requirement.
This change will go live within the next two days, so you've been warned. ;)
Rigby
DR-RIGBY
Re: Constellation Jewelry: Does it Ever End?
01/31/2002 03:31 PM CST
One last note regarding the active magical device change... Expect other magical items to follow a similar course. :)
And just in case someone starts screaming, we have no plans to exclude non-magical guilds from learning magical device skill.
Rigby
And just in case someone starts screaming, we have no plans to exclude non-magical guilds from learning magical device skill.
Rigby
DR-RIGBY
Constellation Jewelry Stuff
02/04/2002 10:17 AM CST
Greets,
The aformentioned changes to Constellation Jewelry are obviously on hold until Maelona and I have a chance to discuss the suggestions that players are putting forth. I do, of course, have some comments to add.
Some of you are guessing obscene amounts of rank bonuses due to Constellation Jewelry; just a note -- no Constellation Jewelry device was ever capable of giving 4-digit ranks as some claim. It was always far, far, far below that.
Bonuses are not just a Constellation Jewelry issue. Things discussed here have ramifications across the board. In fact, the highest bonus possible that I know of isn't even a Moon Mage one -- no, I won't mention what it is, but it far exceeds what CJs are capable of doing. ;)
Magical devices skill will have some impact on the usage of Constellation Jewelry, and in fact should have all along. You should consider this an aspect of the Magic v2.1 changes as much as anything, since all active magical devices in game are going to eventually be revised. So whatever your suggestions, bear in mind that some sort of Magical Devices check IS going to be installed.
Speaking of Magic v2.1, one of the revisions that will come during that release will be some changes to Imbue. Crossbow bolts and tree leaves will stop working with Imbue, and in fact, you'll likely get a penalty for using such items if they were left over from before that change. At that time, I'll consider removing the pre-Imbued copper ring from the shop.
And speaking of getting supplies, there are plans for at least two other ways to gain gwethstones. Both are somewhat low priority since I'm busy with Magic v2.1. I want to do some things with mining the gwethstones as well (probably requiring help from a Trader and/or War Mage), but I'm not counting that as one of the two planned ways until Fial is closer to having such a mining system working.
Rigby
The aformentioned changes to Constellation Jewelry are obviously on hold until Maelona and I have a chance to discuss the suggestions that players are putting forth. I do, of course, have some comments to add.
Some of you are guessing obscene amounts of rank bonuses due to Constellation Jewelry; just a note -- no Constellation Jewelry device was ever capable of giving 4-digit ranks as some claim. It was always far, far, far below that.
Bonuses are not just a Constellation Jewelry issue. Things discussed here have ramifications across the board. In fact, the highest bonus possible that I know of isn't even a Moon Mage one -- no, I won't mention what it is, but it far exceeds what CJs are capable of doing. ;)
Magical devices skill will have some impact on the usage of Constellation Jewelry, and in fact should have all along. You should consider this an aspect of the Magic v2.1 changes as much as anything, since all active magical devices in game are going to eventually be revised. So whatever your suggestions, bear in mind that some sort of Magical Devices check IS going to be installed.
Speaking of Magic v2.1, one of the revisions that will come during that release will be some changes to Imbue. Crossbow bolts and tree leaves will stop working with Imbue, and in fact, you'll likely get a penalty for using such items if they were left over from before that change. At that time, I'll consider removing the pre-Imbued copper ring from the shop.
And speaking of getting supplies, there are plans for at least two other ways to gain gwethstones. Both are somewhat low priority since I'm busy with Magic v2.1. I want to do some things with mining the gwethstones as well (probably requiring help from a Trader and/or War Mage), but I'm not counting that as one of the two planned ways until Fial is closer to having such a mining system working.
Rigby
DR-RIGBY
Constellation Jewelry Changes and New Cantrips
02/24/2002 10:40 PM CST
Greets,
This a time of change in many directions. First, the long awaited changes to the Constellation Jewelry is now live. After much discussion between myself, Maelona and Tribanin, and with an ear to ideas and discussion of players, the results are as follows:
1) Charges now cap at five(5).
2) Bonus is significantly lowered. The focus messaging, if your skill is high enough, you will actually be able to tell with more accuracy what the bonus is like.
3) Difficulty for making these has been increased.
4) Stacking with other Constellation Jewelry now no longer works. These CAN be stacked with other types of bonuses, however.
5) Duration has seen a decrease.
6) There is a small roundtime for activation as well as a magical devices skillcheck to use these items. It is possible to use up all the charges if you're not skilled enough to handle the activation.
7) Constellation Jewelry now slowly "decays," measured in real life days. In other words, the bonus decreases as time goes on until it becomes nothing. This sounds a lot more menacing than it really is; this will hopefully ensure that a steady stream of 'fresh' CJs are always needed by the populace.
8) Actual jewelry items and items of a particular value or greater will now be best for making CJs; other items may result in lower bonuses. Experimentation is your friend.
As you can see, there are a number of restrictions on these items now. After rereading the original documentation for these items, I decided it would be best to relegate them back to the status they were always intended to serve -- that of a relatively minor enchantment. However, they are still quite potent if correctly made and used.
These changes are also at the forefront of greater scrutiny for bonuses of all kinds, as Maelona has mentioned in previous posts. It's safe to expect further changes in many types of bonus abilities of all the guilds. Beyond that, it's up to her to discuss further.
Now, in more plesant news...
Four new Cantrips have been released for Moon Mages:
* Lyodin Albir or "reimage" for Fortune's Path.
* Maren Alshabi or "disclose" for G'nar Pethians.
* Narmor Feas or "choose" for Nomads of the Arid Steppe.
* Scorch or "label" for generic Moon Mages (sected or not). You may have seen Lasarhhtha demonstrate this one.
All of these cantrips can be found in the same location, and honestly are not very hard to learn if you meet the appropriate requirements. Getting to them is another matter entirely...
But here's a hint: Rumours have it that they're located in a notorious person's home near Leth Deriel.
So what do these do? I'll leave that to you to find out. :)
As always, report any bugs or problems via BUG or the message boards. We will be monitoring the changes for CJs and the release of the cantrips.
Enjoy,
Rigby
PS -- These changes are live in Plat as well.
This a time of change in many directions. First, the long awaited changes to the Constellation Jewelry is now live. After much discussion between myself, Maelona and Tribanin, and with an ear to ideas and discussion of players, the results are as follows:
1) Charges now cap at five(5).
2) Bonus is significantly lowered. The focus messaging, if your skill is high enough, you will actually be able to tell with more accuracy what the bonus is like.
3) Difficulty for making these has been increased.
4) Stacking with other Constellation Jewelry now no longer works. These CAN be stacked with other types of bonuses, however.
5) Duration has seen a decrease.
6) There is a small roundtime for activation as well as a magical devices skillcheck to use these items. It is possible to use up all the charges if you're not skilled enough to handle the activation.
7) Constellation Jewelry now slowly "decays," measured in real life days. In other words, the bonus decreases as time goes on until it becomes nothing. This sounds a lot more menacing than it really is; this will hopefully ensure that a steady stream of 'fresh' CJs are always needed by the populace.
8) Actual jewelry items and items of a particular value or greater will now be best for making CJs; other items may result in lower bonuses. Experimentation is your friend.
As you can see, there are a number of restrictions on these items now. After rereading the original documentation for these items, I decided it would be best to relegate them back to the status they were always intended to serve -- that of a relatively minor enchantment. However, they are still quite potent if correctly made and used.
These changes are also at the forefront of greater scrutiny for bonuses of all kinds, as Maelona has mentioned in previous posts. It's safe to expect further changes in many types of bonus abilities of all the guilds. Beyond that, it's up to her to discuss further.
Now, in more plesant news...
Four new Cantrips have been released for Moon Mages:
* Lyodin Albir or "reimage" for Fortune's Path.
* Maren Alshabi or "disclose" for G'nar Pethians.
* Narmor Feas or "choose" for Nomads of the Arid Steppe.
* Scorch or "label" for generic Moon Mages (sected or not). You may have seen Lasarhhtha demonstrate this one.
All of these cantrips can be found in the same location, and honestly are not very hard to learn if you meet the appropriate requirements. Getting to them is another matter entirely...
But here's a hint: Rumours have it that they're located in a notorious person's home near Leth Deriel.
So what do these do? I'll leave that to you to find out. :)
As always, report any bugs or problems via BUG or the message boards. We will be monitoring the changes for CJs and the release of the cantrips.
Enjoy,
Rigby
PS -- These changes are live in Plat as well.
DR-MAELONA
Constellation Jewelry "fine tuning"
03/01/2002 03:11 PM CST
The pre-Imbued ring has been removed from the shop.
Maelona
Maelona
