Stormwaltz on Thaumaturgic Plate

Cooking

Fletching

Magic

Quests

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Before we start, I'm going to lay one ground rule.

As with most major quest items, these have already elicited heated responses on both the Game Issues and AC Discussions boards. I've digested a number of reasonable and well-considered posts, and I've seen a few people who posted only to tell me that I suck.

The former type of posts are both desired and encouraged. The latter... well, you've a right to your opinion, but please keep it out of this thread. If you post a well-considered analysis of the armor's merits vs. drawbacks and why my reasoning is faulty, I'll appreciate it. If you post just to make a personal attack, I'll ask a CoD mod delete your post from this thread.

So. The ground rule is: let's all be professional. Usually this forum is. Let's keep it that way.

As some of you know, the Thau Plate grew out of a thread started by Sturm on the "old" CoD Dev Board last December. The question was, "what type of quest item would be really useful to mages?" The list I got could be boiled down to the following.

• Items with very low Arcane (~50) and very high magic skill reqs (~300), for use by the specialized peeps.
• Items with War Magic skill checks, for use by "real" mages. Prevailing theory holds that hybrids don't usually take War. This also "buffs" War.
• Orbs with unique Recall or Summon locations that use all their mana with each use. I tried this with an item called the Aerlinthe Cynosure. This was an orb that would allow its wielder to recall to Aerlinthe. The problem is that spells attached to a wand/staff/orb can only come in two flavors with our current tech. You can cast a spell on someone else, or have an enchantment cast a spell on you when you wield it. I tried it as an enchantment, but it broke PvP like Recall Gems do - there was no casting delay. Instant escape. So that was nixed. The Cynosure was pulled out of January at the last minute and reworked into the Aerlinthe Recall scroll for February.
• More orbs, wands, and staves with unique, unresearchable spells.
• Orbs, wands, and staves that have normal spells, but look unique (like the Healer's Heart in Ithaenc).
• Anything useful with low weight. Mages are perpetually overburdened with comps. Burden was a woe mentioned again and again, and I took it to heart.
• Quest items with special Item spells that can lower other magic items skill checks or Arcane difficulty. These would have to be tightly controlled, for obvious reasons.
• One-time magic caster assembly quest like SoCS. One final object for Item, War, Life, Creature. Final object skill checks its school at high level.
  Possible spell combinations include War Mastery 5 / Lightning Bolt 5, Life Mastery 5 / Heal Other 5, Creature Mastery 5 / Magic Yield Other 5, Item Mastery 5 / Portal Recall. These wand/staves would cast with a spellcraft equal to a Level 6 spell.
• As above, but the final item provides "Dispell All Negative Other" spell that sucks all 500 or so mana out of the thing.
• An SoCS style one-time quest that requires a player to pick his buffs (like the the rubies on the axe).
• Smouldering / Sparking / Stinging / Shivering Orbs. Converted Atlan stones that cast bolts and prots. For example, the Smouldering Orb might cast Flame Bolt V and Fire Protection VI. I didn't like this idea, because IMO the stones are already one of the most overused/overcollected items in the game.
  The "Atlan Wand" idea is very popular, though, so the concept may see light one day in one form or another.
• Mage armor, because aside from robes, most armor is too heavy for mages.

Out of these, you can guess which one I found the most intriguing. Now I'll go through the stats one by one.

One of the first decisions I made was that the Plate would come in three pieces - girth, leggings, and coat. Unlike robes, in which one piece covers just about everything, I wanted to construct a "real" suit of armor, based on the model of postpatch Celdon GSA. Off the shelf robes, in my mind, make it too simple for mages to equip themselves for tanking. One set of item buffs can set you up to go toe-to-toe with Coral Golems. You can tank just as well in with Thau Plate, but you have to do a little extra work for it. The low / medium / high Nephol Golem test scheme grew out of the three-piece decision.

Appearance:
Nothing much to say here. I wanted it to look unique, I wanted to see a Yalain Imperial Seal (design based on Hokusai's painting "The Wave"), and, on a whim, I added the choice of three colors. In case the rumor is still out there, the color of the Kindling Stone you use only effects the color of the resulting armor. The spells &c. remain the same between all the color variants.

Appraisal Resistance: 280
Short Description: An iridescent crystalline coat, covering the torso and arms.
Long Description: A heavily enchanted crystalline coat, of the type once worn into battle by the Exarchs of the Yalaini Order of Hieromancers. The seal of the Yalaini Seaborne Empire is embossed on its chest.

This is a rather poor example, but someone had posted that they appreciated the "extra lore" you got from successfully appraising the Staff of the Nomads. They thought it was "Appraisal Skill love." Truthfully, the extra lore on the Staff and the other Ithaenc quest items were because I'd written inscriptions for the items that were too big to fit in the inscription box (I'm a garrulous SOB). But it was a good stopgap approach to the Appraisal problem, so I added "extra lore" in the long desc strings for many of the Plate quest items. You might have noticed that the emblem of the Hieromancers is only described in the long appraisal strings of the KindlingStones, Strange Humming Crystal, Puzzle Box, &c.

Armor Level: 0
Protections:
Acid: 0.0
Fire: 0.0
Frost: 0.0
Lightning: 0.0
Bludgeon: 0.0
Pierce: 0.0
Slash: 0.0

Here's where we start dipping into controversial territory.

There were two main reasons I chose not to give the armor any base defenses. The first was that this was supposed to be, well, mage armor. I wanted to create an item that would be totally useless to non-mages. The only sure way to do that is with spell activation requirements. Other than an enchantment's "You must have Skill X at Level Y" check, there's no way to limit an item's utility to members of a particular group.

The second reason was the availability of Jesse's craft name stamping code. This is, as he puts it, the "Your name must be Billy to use this item's magic" feature. This nifty little trick makes any spell-based item useless for twinking and almost valueless on the Ebay market. If you want it, you have to earn it yourself - or buy a whole character. This also had the bonus of allowing me to make the item dropable/giveable. Going somewhere the Thau Plate will be useless (like the Chorizite mines)? Mule it and put something else on.

Spells:
Hieromancer's Ward (adds 170 AL, can be "stacked" on)

The idea of stackable spells was first put forward by Jesse. It seemed like a good idea for the Plate. A good piece of armor could be made great with your r33+ magic ski11z. This left the problem of deciding on an AL for the Ward. Again, I hearkened back to the use of Postpatch Celdon GSA as a guide.

Greater Decay Durance (as Acid Bane 5, but can be "stacked" on)
Greater Consumption Durance (as Flame Bane 5, but can be "stacked" on)
Greater Stasis Durance (as Frost Bane 5, but can be "stacked" on)
Greater Stimulation Durance (as Lightning Bane 5, but can be "stacked" on)
Lesser Bludgeoning Durance (as Bludgeon Bane 2, but can be "stacked" on)
Lesser Piercing Durance (as Piercing Bane 2, but can be "stacked" on)
Lesser Slashing Durance (as Slashing Bane 2, but can be "stacked" on)

My first thought was to give the armor no defense at all against the "melee" damage types - bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing. The principle behind the decision was that the armor was to be used by mages in combat against magic creatures and characters. Melee was supposed to trump it.

I'm really gunshy about trying to balance items for PvP - I've learned that it's very difficult to avoid f**king things up badly. The problem is that most of the time PvP balance requires an item to be less "uber." If you can tank Corals in a store-bought Faran, no one cares (except those who wish they could too). If you can tank swordsmen in a Faran, there's a problem. I wanted to make a cool, powerful item, so I was content to let it remain fairly useless in PvP.

Azeraphel emphatically said that if the armor had no defense against three damage types, it was a POS he would never use. So I gave them 25% protection "lesser" Durances. Hollow weapons trump that anyway. People have brought up the fact that the armor is useless against hollow monsters. To which I say, "stay away from where the hollow monsters are, or wear different armor if you go there." Hollow critters are always placed on fixed spawns. Mule the Thau Plate and wear something else.

I've seen some complaints about the poor base pierce/bludgeon/slash protections. I expected some. But to be honest and fair with you, I'm not inclined to give them any more than a cursory listen. Here's why.

This armor is specifically for mages. It's designed with spell protections you can cast "over" and enhance. You can give a piece Unparalled protection in all four elements with level 5 banes. That's mighty. That's better than postpatch GSA, which, being non-enchantable, grants Unparalleled in only one element at the expense of having no protection in its opposite. Let's compare PP Flame GSA to Thau Plate, both the base version and with Impen and Banes of levels IV-VII (minus any favorable spell economy bonuses).

 
Check out that far right column! Boss. Each piece of armor was given one additional spell.

Magic Resistance 6 (Girth)
Strength 6 (Leggings)
Mana Conversion 6 (Coat)

In Sturm's thread, someone had said, "Anything with Mana Conversion is good." Makes sense to me - mage armor should allow you to be a more efficient mage. Strength spells are the perpetually reagent-burdened mage's friend. When they get up in levels, many don't go anywhere without a piece of Strength jewelry. That was an obvious enough choice. Magic Resistance 6 just seemed like a good idea. It fit the armor's concept of armor for a mage to fight other mages in.

Max Mana: 8000
Mana Rate: 1 every 2 seconds

The concept underlying this was to have an item whose mana reserve would last a long time, but required a lot for upkeep to balance that. There's only one item in the game (Focusing Stone) with a higher max mana. I chose 8000 based on the cost (~50,000p) I wanted to be paid for the mana charges necessary to gas up the armor. Then, I played with the burn rate until it would churn through that amount in about ~4.5 hours. That's the average length of a play session across player profiles - from the casual player's two-hour kibbitzing session to the hardcore powerlever's eight hour shift. The thought of people having to stop in mid-quest to recharge three pieces of armor made me squirm. With long-lasting level VII Impen and Banes available, I hoped downtime would be quite low.

The problem is, while the endurance mark is good for mages, the refueling cost I chose is far too high. Mages can't afford 132,000p worth of Mana Charges a night in addition to their reagent upkeep. The long-lasting but expensive recharge approach might be a good idea, but for a mage-specific item, it's terrible. In the future, it may be attempted with items for meleers, who aren't crippled by reagent or ammo resupply costs.

Difficulty (Arcane Lore req): 50

As noted in my list at the top, mages hate items with high Lore. They don't like paying to train and develop it in addition to their other high-cost skills. Makes perfect sense to me. In my mind, Lore has been recast as a requirement for anything to a requirement for specifically melee and archer items.

Encumbrance:
Mages hate encumbrance. I took the encumbrance of PPGSA, divided by two, and rounded down. Simple as that.

Spell Checks:
Thau Plate must have War Magic skill of 270
Exarch Plate must have War Magic specialized
Must have character name (stamped when Kindling Stone is applied)

I've been over my reasons for the character name check already. It's the best anti-Ebay weapon we've ever had. Only those with the skill to make their own piece of Thau Plate can use it. If you want to buy a set of Plate, you've got to buy a whole character.

My original plan was to make Thau Plate for specialized mages only. In the first spec draft, there was no such thing as Exarch Plate. The thought of making a spec-only quest came up against a lot of opposition. Charlie, one of our producers, pointed out that it excluded all but one or two of the high level mages he knew in the game. There's no sense in taking a month to make a quest only a handful can use, and p1551ng everyone else off. Adding a second tier of armor could be done quickly and easily. Making it cue of the addition of a second Kindling Stone meant I only had to add a few craft tables to what I'd already done, rather than more items, new places for them, and so on.

This did bring up the issue of how the Exarch Plate should be unique. I didn't want to boost its existing spells - that would bring an outcry of haves versus have-nots. Ditto if I gave it something truly and directly useful to all mages, like a Wizard's Intellect (max mana boosting) spell. So instead of improving it, I made it different. I lowered the encumbrance even further, asked Huxter to give it some decorative frills, and gave it a few additional spells. Leadership 5 was an obvious choice for something intended to be officer's armor. Sprint 5 was an okay idea, but not spectacular.

I was stumped for a third spell idea. Az suggested a spell that added "a stupid amount" to you Assess Monster skill, "more than a level seven would." Story-wise, it would have made sense for this to be an Assess Person spell. The Yalain did a lot of fighting against other Empyrean peoples, but not much against golems and feral wildlife. From a game perspective, though, adding such a spell was dumb. Assess Person is really only useful in PvP, and the armor was useless in PvP thanks to hollow weapons. I went with Az's idea.

Value:
I didn't want this to be another riskless item. Risk is vital. It's what makes you sweat when you're fighting and crow when you win. However, it's also what leaving you punching your monitor and screaming when you lose. Thau Plate couldn't be something dropped as a matter of course. The armor should be something you worry about, but not something you're always running after.

When I made the Staff of the Nomads, Jesse and I ended up haggling over its value to get something dropped reasonably often, but could be protected by Master Robes and other death items. We finally settled on 11,508. Thau Plate was supposed to be more useful than that. I settled on 10,000 as the value for the biggest piece, the coat, and worked my way down from there on instinct. It looks to me, though, that the values are still a bit too high.

The skill checks for the craft bonuses were simple to determine. I asked around the office what mages of around level 70 had in War. The average answer was 270. I added 40 to that to compensate for the anticipated effect of War Mastery 7, and 310 became the check for making Thau Plate. I asked if it was likely for non-specialized mages to get their War up to 300. Consensus was no. So 340 became the check for Exarch. Now that isn't foolproof - our craft system skill check stat sets the level of skill at which you'd have a 50% chance of success. That goes up and down on a fixed scale. So it's possible, though unlikely, to "accidentally" make Exarch when you're trying to dekindle and recolor your Thau Plate. To be safe - don't buff when dekindling. To be really safe, get yourself a War Inep from a passing Creature Mage or D-Gol.

The Hieromancer's Orb and Globe of Auberean were uncontroversial "cool toys" I wanted to get in. They don't do anything special, but they look great, and they're useful tools for any mage. No one can complain about the effects of fashion on game balance. The Globe is, IMO, the best item in the game. It's just neat. Huxter did a great job on it. Someday we'll put his full-detail Mercator projection of Auberean on a wall somewhere in the game. It's amazing - like looking at a satellite image (he actually photomanipulated a compiled satellite image of Earth to fit the scheme of the continents). The method we used to keep this "easter egg" item out of the hands of portal.dat hackers was pretty cool too. The land masses only appear when you palette-shift the item in the game's rendering engine.

When stocking Hieromancers' Halls, I asked the office, "What do high level mages like to eat? What's easy for them to kill and hard for melee or archers?" The replies were pretty much unanimous. Umbris, Dires Banderlings, and most golems. So that's what I used. There were some qualms from the team about mages camping this dungeon full of "SIK chests on legs." I've been watching the flow of things in the Halls. So far, I've seen no camping, plenty of corpses, and lots of people having fun. It's a hard fight, but appropriately rewarding. That's a good thing in my book.

The guardian spirit was an idea I'm particularly proud of. It has no physics. Therefore, melee and archery cannot hit it. Ever. It also has a slew of nasty spells for use against the non-mage: Leaden Feet 5, Exhaustion 5, Vulnerability 4, Clumsiness 4, Mace Ineptitude 4, Unarmed Combat Ineptitude 4, Crossbow Ineptitude 4, Sword Ineptitude 4, Bow Ineptitude 4, Staff Ineptitude 4, and Axe Ineptitude 4. The crowning touch of its spellbook is Healing Ineptitude 6. Now melee can fully understand the pain of a D-Gol casting Life Ineptitude 6. ^_^

The wandering vendors (Spertat &c.) were an idea that had been nibbling my ear for a couple of months. Being able to wrap them into the quest was quite satisfying. If you haven't noticed yet, I made them a good place to unload your loot in the field. Although they only sell a one class of materials (bow, smith, mage), they can all purchase damn near any type of item in the game.

What's going to change about Thau Plate next month? Well, first understand that I, personally, can guarantee nothing. What's done is entirely subject to the review and approval process. It's not just my decision, it's the design team's and MS'. Here's what I'd like to do, though:

The "bludgeoning dagger"
Bad news first. This was intended to be an unenchantable joke item. As you probably know, it's enchantable, and with a buffed version, you can mow through golems. Well, that's a bug, and it's going away. Dagger users having access to a previously unavailable damage type upsets interclass balance. I asked around to make sure the effects were really that bad. Maybe we could maybe get by with lowering its damage variance and speed. Consensus was that the effects were serious enough that that wouldn't be enough. The dagger will be unenchantable next month - it's a high priority bug. In the meantime, enjoy it.

Max Mana of all pieces lowered to 2000, Mana Burn of all pieces lowered to 1 point every 8 seconds. This gives you the same 4.44 hour endurance, and is much cheaper to refuel.

Value of all Pieces lowered 20%.
Girth 2400
Leggings 4800
Coat 8000

Current Vial of Organic Acid drop is 1% on Harrower Grievvers, 3% on Bane Grievvers. This is far too rare. I'm pretty sure there will be no hindrance to my changing this to 1% on Virulent Grievvers, 3% on Harrower Grievvers, and 3% on Bane Grievvers.

Anyway, it's getting late. Since the T1 line is going down early tomorrow morning, I wanted to get this out tonight. I promised I would earlier in the week. This is the last quest I'll ever be do in AC. My thanks to everyone who's enjoyed Frore, the SoCS, Aerlinthe, Xarabydun, Ithaenc and the Shard of the Herald, and Thaumaturgic Plate.

** In no way is Turbine to be held responsible for anything I say or do. So don't even go there, pancake.

Stormwaltz
 

For a look at the old stats, click here.

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