A request for item enchanting

I second your suggestion.  It was quite fun to custom-design your own weapons in MoM.

It is frustrating.  By that I mean these sorts of features never seem to make it into the product until the last "expansion".  Which means you don't get the real game unless you patiently wait for all the expansions to come out.  You'd might as well wait for them to be in a pack.  And by then the modders will begin to take the game seriously and put out some great mods too.  [Remember GC2 having no death stars until the last expansion?  What poppycock!]

It seems that expansions should be extra episodes to a single player campaign, and multiplayer some extra races (all stuff that decent modders can do for free too).  But that would mean you would actually get the complete game with expansions being 100% optional.

Groan.

I desperately want item enchanting.  I too am putting Elemental on the shelf for atleast 6 months to keep my frustration to a minimum.

meh, there are bigger priorities.

I would love item enchanting.  As for features coming in expansion packs well that is expected, in a perfect world everything would be able to be put in a game at start and never need anything added, but over time things get thought of that should have been added.  I would be pissed if a expansion only had campaign stuff and no new units/extra skilss/etc.

I believe it would be easy to make all those expandable features moddable, if the developers wanted to do that.  But it isn't good business sense, when they can release the package in tiers, which most people want to play crippled versions of the game as early as possible.

Lets say you just wanted to add a new unit.  Does the whole package need to be rebuilt and re-released to do this?  Or can units all be defined in XML files and be a moddable feature?  It isn't really a criticism - because this is how the world turns round.  But what you pay for in early releases is most likely intentionally crippled.  A space game with no death star?  Come on.  You think nobody thought "hey I wonder if we could add a death star?" until a year after release?  I would have to believe the whole release roadmap is mostly fleshed out in a functional spec at least a year before beta.  It will change over time, but not to the extent you seem to be implying.

"One of the most enjoyable MoM strategies, especially in single player but also in general, was the option to create incredibly powerful equipment and use it to make a one-champion army."        Absolutely.

I think the devs have already said item-enchanting would be added later, and I understand other things have to come first, but I still really want it.

This ties in with other threads where many complain that heroes are underpowered in late-game.  Good custom items might be one way to fix it, along with maybe changing the level-up bonuses, or reducing some high-end item-shop prices (like making the "Elementium Karrazan" cost less than $12,000).

I add my vote to this.

I also have another suggestions which I think may have been mentioned already. The equipping screens. I can't put my finger on it, but something just doesn't feel right about it. The items highlight in green to tell you they are in use. I think you definitely need set slots, as there is always a solid sense of satisfaction in placing the round peg in the round hole, and the square peg in the square hole, and hearing that reassuring 'equipped' sound effect.

I think the layout of the screen also needs to be reworked so that the equipment being worn by the unit is visually shown to be attached to that unit. Something along the lines of the first Neverwinter Nights inventory screen.

For example:

He = Helm          Am = Amulet

Cl = Cloak          RH = Right Hand (Weapon or Shield)

Ri = Ring            LH = Left Hand (Weapon or Shield)

Ar = Armor          Gl = Gloves/Gauntlets/Bracers (you really only need one slot for this, unless we can mix and match )

Be = Belt            Bo = Boots

        Am    He    Cl

RH    Ri      Ar     Ri    LH

        Gl      Be    Gl

                 Bo

And a view of the unit next to the above configuration, to show the changes as the equipment is being applied. It's just intuitive I think, especially to gamers.

I agree with the equipment being expanded. Would also love to see dual wield weapons. Tho by having only 1 amulet/2 ring slots u do limit the upgrades tho. I never understood that, I myself wear more than 1 ring on each hand and amulets.

Heh, this [item creaton & item enhancts] has been suggested many times already. [..in fact we've talked about this before the beta has been started] Hopefully the devs will add it in the first or second expansion.

Sign me up for this.  The game needs a paper-doll screen that is accessible 1. when equipping items and 2. when purchasing items (so you know what you are currently using).  Weapons, armor and items need some cost/benefit adjustments, too.  For instance - armor on a caster should cause some penalty to magic use.  Otherwise there is zero thought involved when equipping a character.

Magic item creation and item enchanting makes you feel like small things matter and increase value of heroes. For now is just massive armies that eat anything. I agree there is plenty of important aspects that have to be improved or redesigned in the game. I hope item enchanting is one of them.

Incredibly, I've readen posts of people bashing this idea because "Every other RPG out there has paper-dolls"  

I think it would make a great addition, both to organize your units and to add immersion. There's something about paperdolls inventory that has always made me feel more close to my units...

Yep, item forging was great feature of MoM. Hell, I'd be happy to have even Dom3's forging.

EWoM desperately needs EPIC gear for heroes.