Aslai

FlameSama1 wrote: »

I really struggle to think what the powercreep of reforging adds that positive to gameplay for the average player. If this was back five years ago, where 15s were supposedly like 30 per server (a number I heard once upon a time), the distribution of average damage is pretty evenly spread, with a few super-super-dedicated people having high power. Otherwise you could run a raid with no-name randoms and expect the same result pretty much.

Compare that to today where there are names and there's everyone else. Where you're seriously obliged to sit and wait, ignoring people you don't recognize hosting in QB because there's a chance VellaGoddess or Hesvyr or someone is hosting the same raid, meaning you'll clear it in like a third of the time the PUG run would take. I can host boats just fine, but I quit trying because I can't hook whales into my raid and a Macha that would take VG or whoever 10/12 minutes to clear would take my party 30 minutes to clear.

If additional damage, counterforce, and attack cap removal all disappeared tomorrow, you wouldn't have that. They designed these raids around people having whale stats and then, to add insult to injury, recycle the same attack animations and even the same BOSSES from old raids, more often than not. It's downright insulting.

Reforging directly makes the gearing progression system more approachable for everyone, especially the average player. Before reforging was added, most people would get their gear to +12 or +13 and call it good enough since even getting that far required quite a bit of luck. Many players wouldn't even push it that far, especially for their armor.

Now sure, I'm not saying reforging is cheap or easy, as it's really not. In fact, it costs almost as much as mass enhancement costs for an equivalent item. However, the way it's presented to the user is way more approachable. Even if your gear blows up at +12, that item is not a paperweight if the goal was a +13 or higher. Yes it sucks, but at least you can continue to work on that one item. You're even guaranteed to eventually hit +15 given sufficient resources, which was definitely not the case in the mass enhance days.

An often ignored benefit of reforging is that since you can continue to enhance the same item, there's no major loss if you blow up an improved piece of equipment when it's not at the enhancement level you would like. In the old system, you would be a fool to throw the best scrolls on an item if it wasn't already at the enhancement level you desired, since the chances were very good that you would lose the item. In the current system, go right ahead and throw Heartless Capture on your pants, even if they're only +12. Throw those quality stars on your blown up +13 weapon. Go right on ahead and infuse it, too. Synth those untradeable mysterious shards. You can always reforge the gear.

Having said that... I do agree with your later points somewhat. While I do like the additional damage mechanic, the way it's implemented is backwards in my opinion. The difference in damage between +10 and +11 should be larger than the difference in damage between +19 and +20. Those high enhancement levels should be a cherry on top for people with a stroke of luck, but a skilled +13 user should still be able to be somewhat competitive with an average skilled +16 user, rather than a +16 w/ full ALR user doing literally double the damage of the +13 user.

As for the "names" argument, I totally agree. When I'm on a low damage character (like one that still only has a +10 freebie set of armor and +13 weapon) I definitely will wait for a boat that has at least one strong person on it because I really don't want to spend 20 minutes fighting Dullahan. That is a direct result of the way the gearing system is laid out, since they have to basically balance the game around everyone having an average additional damage stat of 4000. A boat full of 2500 ADD players is going to be a long run.

As one of those names myself, I find it way easier to host on my main than on my (very well geared) alt for what I believe to be that reason, and it can be quite irritating. As such I do try to join random boats rather than host, unless I'm running with a group of friends.

At least use a screenshot of someone who's actually untrustworthy smh

I put together this Google sheet to estimate the cost of enhancing your gear. The quoted figures are an average as to what you should expect to pay, however RNG will dictate the true cost. I'm sure we all know how cruel RNG can be.

In order to change the values, please go to File -> Make a copy.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KhE4IQSJ7OmjU0xGG03lOsDbm3PcBQ4xwJyknWDWSeo/edit?usp=sharing

I may upgrade this to a proper site at some point down the road.

Do be aware that the accessory enhancement rates are assumed to be the same as weapon rates. As far as I'm aware, nobody has discovered a definitive source of the accessory enhancement base rates.