Enchanté!

[Kusanagi]

Well i don't particularly like the idea of "losing" an item you spend hours and hours of grinding and farming, however i do agree that there must be a penalty for trying and not succeeding.

My problem with the idea is the "randomness" behind it, i mean, it's not part of the player skill or build or anything at all whether you fail or not, it's simply a number between "x" and "y" to obtain what you wish.

If a system can somehow be implemented where you can control whether you destroy your item because you failed at doing something then i agree, otherwise i wouldn't wish for the penalty to be so excessively harsh, because an NPC didn't want to give me a number (if some NPCs are better at enchanting than others that probably would be cool too), so let's say, losing only the money (which should be a considerable amount if you take into consideration you won't lose the base item) AND losing the enchanting material you were trying to imbue.

Also enchanting and upgrading cap depending on the item level would be ideal too; take Ragnarok Online for example, simple weapons can be safely upgraded to a higher point with a simple material (i don't remember very well but for level 1 weapon you can get +7 with a simple to find material without any risk at all), after that it's your own risk if you over upgrade and if you fail the item is broken, however for level 4 weapons you can only get it to +4 and a difficult to find item, same rule for over upgrading

[jiaco]

Makes me think of an idea, what if the enchanter was actually in front of a cave and you pay him, select the enchantment you are after and then can enter. Each enchantment comes from dipping your weapon in the blood of some nasty monster. If you kill the monster you get the enchantment, if not a death and nothing more. To retry, you have to spend more gold.

[Kusanagi]

@jiaco:

That's a good idea of adding "player skill" in the process, thanks for taking it in consideration.

Also "a death and nothing more" sounds too subtle, a death comes with some penalties too, normal games penalties applied to it sounds like a good idea.

Even better if the idea in the thread about random dungeons gets implemented, then there's no way to abuse you being overpowered and getting all enchantments almost freely, since it can change depending on what you're enchanting and your overall level

[jiaco]

I was being sarcastic, for some players, a death is worse than loosing the item. Actually, thinking about what I wrote, I wonder if it could work at all. The developers would have to create a number of monsters associated with enchantment types and, well, how could they be sure to make the monster hard enough to be really tough but not impossible. And then higher level players could just farm these enchanter/zookeepers with no fear of death.

[Kusanagi]

how could they be sure to make the monster hard enough to be really tough but not impossible. And then higher level players could just farm these enchanter/zookeepers with no fear of death.

Yes i wondered about the same, that's why i wrote this.

Even better if the idea in the thread about random dungeons gets implemented, then there's no way to abuse you being overpowered and getting all enchantments almost freely, since it can change depending on what you're enchanting and your overall level

Even if you're very powerful you're going to have a hard time getting the enchantment IF the dungeon, or mission is set up depending on the character.

Or even better, why not do this only for some sort of "Epic" enchantment? i don't know just bursting ideas out of my mind heh.

Also class dependant enchantments and class dependant dungeons or missions sounds like a good idea to me.

[yerkyerk]

Meh - there could also be a temporary enchanter. Gives a random bonus to your equipment for 10 minutes for a fixed price. Though that would probably be much like the unused scrolls, or perhaps like shrines.

Though I think I wouldn't mind running into random enchanters on the way, who offer to enchant your weapon in exchange for a fee. Dunno if I'd ever use it though. I guess, if the enchantments were interesting enough.

[medierra]

I'll have to think about this more but I'm not really in favor of an enchanter. I generally don't like redundant game systems because they often create balancing problems. By redundant, I mean two systems that essentially serve the same purpose - in this case providing magical loot. We already have vendors, chests, monsters, and quests as potential sources of magical items. Chests and monsters are basically the same thing and don't interfere too much with one another since chests exist primarily to supplement enemies that it doesn't make sense to drop a lot of loot from. More of a challenges come in when you try to figure out how to make vendors useful. Adding enchanters into the mix just seems like asking for problems. I haven't used enchanters in Torchlight enough to form my own impression but I've already had some people telling me they're overpowered at high levels.

What might be a better money-sink is an enchanter that can "charge-up" items or maybe even your character with temporary buffs that fade out after 5-10 minutes. The problem I see there is that it could make people feel like they have to keep constantly returning to town to get buffed.

Maybe a new purpose for scrolls? Make them fairly rare / expensive but have them all be long-term buffs.

[yerkyerk]

What might be a better money-sink is an enchanter that can "charge-up" items or maybe even your character with temporary buffs that fade out after 5-10 minutes. The problem I see there is that it could make people feel like they have to keep constantly returning to town to get buffed.

Yea, heh, didn't think of that.. but it seems very likely that's going to happen... not sure about the scrolls though; I don't think I'd use them. But'd hoard them up for a 'special' occasion, which I won't have encountered even after finishing the game.. like I said in the scroll thread, I think they'd only become interesting to me if they were permanent (and you'd only be able to use 1 scrollslot). Perhaps to keep the moneysink idea in effect - remove gold for each use? I dunno...

And the enchanter in Tl is definetely outbalanced and seems to be the best place to upgrade weapons, competing with other resourses. It's unfortunately not balanced properly. Still, it must be the most fun moneysink I've seen in such games.
Perhaps only allow a single enchant, only on whites, for a decent sum; the enchant could give a bunch of modifiers, generally more powerful than most magic affixes. Than it'd be like gambling though; with the requirement that you bring your own weapons. Ah well, gambling vendors are interesting too

[Rhadamante]

What about an Enchanter that can refine weapons ?
For exemple, you bring a weapon with 3 enchantments, 2 interesting for you and 1 useless. In exchange of money, he removes the enchantment you don't want and improves one of the other two enchantments. Depending on your level, on the item, and on the enchantment, the bonus could vary. It would work only with yellow and green weapons though.
It couldn't become overpowered if balanced a little enough, but could prove useful.