So the BoM is totally random on the ability it multiplies? It is easily the most resource consuming gear piece of any build, on top of the fact that I've crafted 50+ of them and got no frost beam multiplier, but on arcane bolts I get 5 in a row ? WHY?! This is an extremely disappointing aspect of play.
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Crafting BoM for a specific Bonus can indeed be incredibly frustrating.
I will typically start out (in ANB) crafting Rare. Though it uses the same number of MoT as Epic, the number of Essences used is way more reasonable (and I can reforge one stat with Gold instead of Gems).
50+ crafts seems like a very high number without the desired bonus though.
UmbraDei I believe is the data expert in this community on the crafting stats and might better able to provide you an answer to the "WHY?!"
... ktb-
Light Bulb! If this has been suggested before I apologize, but I have not seen it. Why not make the BoM Bonus a Greater or Exotic Enchantment? You can craft a BoM the same way as it is done now, only the Bonus is in blue, a replaceable enchantment. You can take your chances as you do now, crafting and farming for days, hoping for that 77 with the desired bonus. Or you can craft your desired bonus as an enchantment. Just make this alternative absurdly expensive. For example, 200 Brilliant Gemstones, 1,000 Greater Essences, 25,000,000 in gold, etc. This way it is not an easy alternative, but is a reward that a player can look forward to as they advance and collect gold and materials. Just a suggestion, not perfect but better than the frustrating mechanism in place now.
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This seems like an appropriate place to insert a few thoughts on crafting, again. I agree completely with Felonious C, and the title of his post on BoM crafting says it all! Further, crafting outside of ANB events is incredibly frustrating, and outrageously wasteful of time, gold, and crafting materials, in addition to the mind-numbing boredom and repitition of farming for said materials which will be thrown away with no gear upgrades to show for it. In a recent crafting session, I spent 50,000,000 in gold and everything went to the salvage bins. During this Silver ANB, however, I crafted 4 77’s; 2 were CT’d, one was a 77 gold/exp item so I did not care that it was ephemeral, but the 4th item was a Cape that is on my list of needed items for my main. However, as I had already used both CTs, the Cape has to be lost. I know about the 1/74 supposed rate for crafting a 77, but many posts seem to suggest that this will be evenly distributed among crafts (i.e., craft 74 items and one will be 77). I do not believe this to be the case. I know my rate of crafting 77’s is much greater than 1/74 during ANBs. And much less during normal gameplay. One could conceivably craft 740 items during normal gameplay and, yes, get 10 77’s, but get all 10 during the last 40 crafts. I love Eternium - it is 95% great fun and really well designed in most ways. But it is a game, and that remaining 5% plays more like a job of stale content and futile head-banging until the next ANB comes around. I know some of you will tell me that if I don’t like it I can just quit. But listen, I don’t mind drinking the Kool-Aid with you all, but we don’t have to guzzle every drop! We need new content and more productive crafting outside of ANBs. Have at me…Comment
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There have been many pleas by the player community for having an option to select the bonus ability for a BoM. Thus far, they have fallen on deaf ears. I am guessing that is because the quest for crafting a "good" quality BoM is quite a cash cow for the developers. Plus, once you have the one you want, what else is there? You quickly plateau and then either bail from the game or sit around waiting for the next new thing like the rest of us.
If you have not tried the Antikythera BoM predictor, then you only have yourself to blame for not being able to snag the bonus ability that you are seeking. It is virtually fool proof. As Tin Man says, if you use it you only need to craft two BoMs. The first one that allows you to peek behind the curtains, and the second one that you actually want.
So chill man, and somebody pass me some more lotus petals...Comment
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I dare say there are many cash cows built into the world of Eternium, some obvious and others subtle. Isn’t there some sort of saying that if you want the milk you have to buy the cow? I have been playing steadily now for over a year. I actually started several years ago but quit at the Wailing Peaks. I kept dying and could not progress. At the time, however, I knew absolutely nothing about the game, the forums, crafting, etc. etc. etc. I returned to the game in April of 2021 and put the effort in to play in earnest. The only change of note (and very little) in the last year has been the revamping of the World 2 Story levels. But it’s still the same tired room under a fresh, and sometimes sloppy, coat of paint. We need new content in Story mode, perhaps a World 5 to further the Ragadam story line. There is too much repetition and little reward for enduring it. It seems that development has stagnated into a mode of maintenance without progression. Fun gameplay has morphed into workplace drudgery. Do we really look forward to the same daily quests with excitement and anticipation each and every day? Or is it more of let’s get this over with for the gems, and the paltry gold and experience. How many players only do the daily quests because they have plateaued on everything else and are sitting around waiting for the next new thing? Let me be clear, I do love the game and the community, I do recognize the intricate structure and software and applaud the developers for it. But it’s time for MORE!Comment
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Felonious C The binomial probability of not having FB in 50 mobilecrafts is 1/194... So while it's rare, it's not completely impossible...
If you do the same thing on Windows/Steam though all bets are off, there the chance for getting stuck in loops with little to no FB bracers are way too high.Comment
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I'm generally the last to jump on any gaming bandwagon, but I have to agree with Tin Man and Ozymandius. The Antikythera BoM predictor is a game changer. Last ANB I crafted dozens of BoMs, never getting my desired bonus and feeling frustrated like Felonious C. This ANB I used the predictor and got a high level BoM with a Frostbeam bonus on my 3rd attempt. I also got a Frostbeam on 2nd attempt but it was only an L72. I'll be using the predictor for every future ANB as long as it's available.
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Sorry, but I went to look at this predictor and had absolutely no clue how to use it or what it does. So many of you delve so deeply into the mechanics of this game, and you deserve credit since you apparently understand the secrets you are unraveling. If unwrapping the mummy is your thing… But for my part, most of the time playing Eternium repeatedly mirrors the drudgery of work, I’m not going to let the rest of it slide into some Bizzaro Universe of school. My favorite crafting strategy is to close my eyes and cross my fingers until the wheel stops… But I certainly don’t begrudge you any joy you can still squeeze out of this dried out husk of a corpse. Apologies for the Ancient Egypt metaphorical mode my mind seems to be in. But the Gold ANB going on now has been my best ever. #2 on the BH Master League Leaderboard for a brief shining moment, finished 110 2:55 in with both CTs and two 77 keepers. I really do enjoy and appreciate the insights you experts and veterans share, I have learned a lot and you always have my thanks for your willingness to help others. Now for some sleep. I guess I’ll use the remaing ANB time to farm for materials and gold that will never be wasted on non-ANB crafting. The few CPs that may transfer over are a plus, but getting to a high CL during Gold has always proven difficult for me. Keep sharing your wisdom, you make Alarion proud!
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+1 to Tolimar on the need to shake up the Daily quests. I am one of those players who mostly just runs daily quests and waits for the next event to start before really engaging in game play. I can't say that I really enjoy the daily quests, except for those few lucky ones like Currents of Ether or The Wall that can be finished in a matter of seconds.
If you just build and play only the current meta for one hero type, I can see how a player would quickly get bored. I have lasted for years as a player primarily because I still enjoy playing ANBs, and I play different classes and non-meta gear sets to keep things interesting. I played a Havoc BH for years before it morphed into a viable gear set. I my time, I have seen a lot of major changes in the game, such as the advent of the ability to craft a specific piece of gear and even identify which stats you want. We used to play for days to finally get the missing set piece to drop by pure random luck, now it is just a matter of running a few trials for salvage materials and gold, then you can easily pick out the exact gear piece that you want. It is easy to see how players get spoiled by the instant gratification of crafting exactly what you want, so that crafting the "right" BoM becomes a frustration.
One has to remember that wanting something is often much more fun that actually having it. Once you have everything, what else is there?
The oxen are slow, but the Earth is patient...Comment
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So true, I have found that once you finally obtain something you wanted, it leaves sort of a void until you find something else that you want which fills the void, and the cycle continues…
My favourite Daily Quest is Legacy of the Dragon, story level Dragon’s Crag. I am not a very skilled player and don’t place a lot of emphasis on how long I take to run levels (although I just ran The Descent in 49 seconds, missing the 45 second bonus). I just cannot bear the thought of starting a new character of a different class from the beginning. The mind-numbing repetition one has to endure is too daunting. I only do the Daily Quests and sigh when the same old quests turn up (if I have to pick another @#$& mushroom or run a level 2-3 times to kill enough toads…)! I wait for the next ANB just to obtain both CT’s and craft gear I need for the main character I am trying to push through more Trials. I know what you mean when you talk about how difficult things used to be and how much easier relatively new players have it. I played EverQuest from the beginning and dying, for example, in the early days of the game was a horrible, disheartening event that required ridiculous time and effort of gameplay to overcome, and your character sometimes never fully recovered, it was a one step forward two steps back thing. By the time I left the game some 16 years later, you basically had your own companion Cleric in your pocket and could resurrect yourself with the loss of only a small amount of experience. BTW, IMHO, Death is dealt with very poorly in Eternium. I finished a Trial but died a ridiculous number of times (166 or so, I think). After many years of playing many RPGs, I feel that there should be some penalty for dying. Suggestion: You are allowed 10 deaths per Story level or Trial. Your 11th death kicks you out and you have to start over. You keep the experience you earned prior to the 11th death, but lose all items and gold for failing to complete the level. You also lose the time you spent on that Trial if you are in an ANB event. The no penalty death in Eternium just seems wrong, or is there some hidden penalty I’m not seeing?Comment
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When I started playing the game there was a penalty for dying. You were dead for something like 10 seconds before you could continue playing. With that time penalty the apples and potions were literally life savers. About 2 years ago they eliminated the time penalty giving players instant life regeneration. This allowed players to die 100+ times and still beat a trial or story level with a good time. I believe this was done to make it easier for more players to advance to higher levels, thereby enticing players to stay and play. I think the loss of the time penalty has diminished the need to master defensive skills of staying alive since your life is instantly renewed. -
I have to agree with you on the whole death thing. I was stuck running lower trial levels for a long time, because I had this archaic notion that a run was not successful if your hero died even once during the trial. I am still embarrassed when a trial posts where my heroes deaths reach double digit territory. On Discord many BH players post strategies that essentially say stop wasting time trying to dodge every attack since the cost of death is inconsequential to the benefits of building stacks of molten armor/tracer ammo.
AFAIK, the only "penalty" for dying is that your enemies regain some of their life force back.
Though I do seem to remember the death clock countdown that RockDoc mentioned. -
Yes, I have seen some of those posts about dying repeatedly and just use the die-resurrect-attack cycle until you hammer the Boss down. It just seems like such a victory defeats the whole purpose of trying to develop a character with the necessary skills to survive and win, rather than just use brute force until you achieve a hollow victory. Any vestige of realism to the game is lost, and, let’s face it, in reality you don’t get up even once if you are killed in battle, let alone double or even triple digit deaths. In my case, I believe that I developed bad habits at lower Trial levels that I carried over to higher Trials. Like wading into groups and attacking, and having entire masses of enemies instantly shatter and rain down gold and gemstones. Very satisfying and effective when you are vastly more powerful than your enemies, but a recipe for disaster and instant death when the tables are turned. I finally began to realize that as a BH, my key to surviving was my ability to attack from a distance and MOVE OUT OF THE WAY! I am not a very skilled player, I still feel guilty when I die, but I am doing it far less often, and I enter every Trial with the goal of finishing it without dying. I think part of the problem is that the AI that runs Eternium is inherently faster than the LI (limited intelligence) that runs me. I have seen posts that indicate that PC performance is faster than mobile devices (I play on an iPad Air, the new one with the M1 chip). I think, believe, feel that my performance has improved over my old iPad but have no real data to back this up. But my Havoc/Demo BH, to my amazement, completed Trial 133 (I don’t recall how many deaths, but I was not displeased when I compared my death number to other players that also finished Trial 133). My Stalker BH completed Trial 128, barely, and suffers instant death immediately upon entering Trial 129. He is fully CT’d and may have just about reached his limit, but I am loathe to retire him and harvest his gear for the CTs. Not yet. And your enemies regaining life force when you die isn’t much of a penalty if they vastly overpower you from the start. I knew that the final Bosses regained HPs when you die (10%, something like that?) but I never really thought that it applied to all the Mobs. Well, sorry for the overlong commentary, but I appreciate the input from players more skilled than I, and Thank You all for helping me to become a better player. Now we need to get “The Developers” (play sinister sounding music here) to make some changes and add content for the benefit of all players. Peace.
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Precisely! I also think that some sort of “death penalty” will encourage players to develop skills and create better players. I’m not talking about anything catastrophic - dying in Dragon Warrior cost you 50% of your gold, for example. When I died 166 times yet finished a Trial and ranked higher than a player who may have died once or twice or not at all, I was embarrassed! I felt so cheap (blush). A little more challenge to some aspects of Eternium would not be a bad thing, but there are some places that are exceedingly difficult and require a lot of time, resources (gems, real money) and, yes, just plain skill, to overcome. Looks like we’re leading into the topic of Balance, always a difficult juggle. I like Eternium, it is fun, but sometimes an almost insurmountable struggle, and once you reach a certain level, the repitition is so agonizing that I think it actually discourages gameplay. Watch out, Eternium, Diablo: Immortal is weeks away. Oh, BTW, in Dragon Warrior you not only lost half your gold, you were immediately zapped back to the starting Castle where the King bemoaned your death and admonished you to be more careful in the future. Death in the early days of EverQuest was an event that could cost you hours of gameplay to recover from, plus you had a limited amount of time to recover your corpse before it poofed with all your inventory, and you were zapped back to your starting city, so you had to make the journey back to where you died. Many times players were repeatedly killed while on “corpse runs” and left literally dozens of corpses littering the ground. Ah, the good old days…Last edited by Tolimar; 05-18-2022, 09:52 PM.Comment
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I guess I was lucky to get a 98% deadly throw bracer to dropComment
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