Greetings Maestreans
Welcome to another Items Team announcement, this time with (hopefully) nothing that everyone won't enjoy.
The long awaited and much anticipated replacement for Book of Tomes and Forbidden Grimoires; The Runes and Scrolls Update (coming later this month).
Runes and Scrolls - Runes Introduction
So, what is this project and how is it going to impact my experience?
As some of you may know, Books of Tomes used to provide Enhancement scrolls that you could apply to your Weapons or Armor for special effects, like a burst of speed or a damaging effect in a radius. We thought to ourselves 'those seem a lot like things we could do with Custom Enchantments instead. Why not just change them?' and so we did.
We know the Enhancement scrolls were much appreciated because it allowed you to control what you put on your item, it allowed for significant personal customisation which we've been told (many times) is what players really love.
With them being converted to Custom Enchantments you would have to wait for us to release a new item with them applied and hope it's good, or you'd go for them in an Enchanting Table with incredibly poor odds to get it, right?
That was the case, but no more. This is where the Runes part of our Runes and Scrolls update comes into play.
Runes and Scrolls - Rune Details
Runes are a new way for you to apply Custom Enchantments to your items. You will now be able to decide exactly what you want your item to do by applying the Rune(s) that suit your needs the best.
Like Enhancement Scrolls did, each Rune you apply will take up a Socket on your item. So you won't be able to add unlimited levels of Excavation or Light Weight, much as you may want to. There is also a limit of 3 Sockets per item going forward, we have also made it so even if you have existing additional empty Sockets, the limit will still be three usable Sockets regardless. Each Rune also has a maximum Custom Enchantment level you can reach, we'll be publishing these on the Wiki closer to release so you'll easily be able to find this information.
To help counter these restrictions, we are releasing two types of Runes - Standard Runes and Greater Runes, with a method to upgrade the former to the latter. These will allow you to add either one or two levels of the Custom Enchantment per Socket (respecting the max levels), so you'll still be able to greatly increase the effectiveness of your item, whether you want to stack it all in damage or would rather spread it out over damage, defense and summoning, for example.
As we have a lot of Custom Enchantments, we decided it would be best to split them into coloured groups based on their general purpose. Not only does this allow clear visual separation and some nice variety, it will also allow you to use five Runic Compendiums (more info later) to get a Rune of a specific colour rather than gambling on one totally random Rune from a single Compendium.
The colours and their purposes are as follows:
- Gray Runes: Defense (Healing and tank Enchantments such as: Shield, Paladin's Cleansing and Lifesteal)
- Red Runes: Offense (Damaging Enchantments such as: Blaze, Area Withering and Molten)
- Green Runes: Working (Job related Enchantments such as: Angler, Drilling and Excavation)
- Golden Runes: Utility (Generally helpful Enchantments such as: Dash, Crystaline and Experienced)
- Violet Runes: Summoning (Summoning Enchantments such as: Necromancer, Werewolf and Guards)
- Blue Runes: Misc. Combat (Non-damaging combat Enchantments such as: Shatter, Slowness and Levitation)
- White Runes: Special (Strong or unique Enchantments such as: Lightweight, Fireworks and Well Fed)
One final note for this section: some Runes will be more or less common than others. As is the case now with enchanting, some of our stronger Custom Enchantments will be harder to get. The rarity of Runes will reflect their rarity when enchanting, this information is already readily available in this post if you would like to take a look at any time.
This information will also be copied over to the Wiki in the near future.
Runes and Scrolls - Catalysts
Just a short section here to put a name to some functionality I mentioned earlier. Catalysts will be the items you use to upgrade your Standard Rune to its Greater version to apply two levels of a Custom Enchantment rather than just one. Recipes will be made available for each colour Catalyst, so get ready to go rooting around your storage rooms for those ingredients.
Runes and Scrolls - Scroll Details
And now to the second part of this project, Scrolls. You may have already guessed what these will do. If not, think Runes but for Vanilla Enchantments instead.
There is a Scroll for each Vanilla Enchantment just as there is a Rune for each Custom Enchantment, so even more scope for personalising your items. These work in a very similar way to Runes in that each Scroll will take up a Socket on your item to increase an Enchantment by one level, though there is no Greater versions of these. So be sure to think carefully about what you want to improve on your item to make it the best it can be. Although, if you do change your mind later, you can always scrub your item clean and start fresh (more info on this in the next section).
Also, similarly to Runes, some Scrolls will be more or less common than others. As this information is brand new, it's not yet publicly available anywhere, but will be included in the Wiki updates coming soon.
Runes and Scrolls - Scrubbers
So what if you perfected an item with just the right combination of Runes and/or Scrolls, but then a new Enchantment comes out that you simply must have on your item instead? Then you turn to your old trusty pals, the Scrubbers. Each Scrubber is responsible for cleansing your item of either Runes (Infernal Scrubber) or Scrolls (Arcane Scrubber)
so depending on how you've kitted out your items you may need one, the other, or possibly both.
These Scrubbers will completely remove the Rune or Scroll from your item, so the Sockets become available again but you do lose the benefits (increased levels) as well. Can't have infinitely upgradable items now can we? As the name might imply, scrubbing will destroy the Runes and Scrolls so you won't get them back after removal, but as the items that drop these goodies shall be relatively common, it's not going to be a huge hit to your balance.
Runes and Scrolls - Runic Compendiums and Forbidden Grimoires
Speaking of "the items that drop these goodies", here they are.
Runic Compendiums are a straight up replacement for Book of Tomes as the new name is far more accurate considering the changes. We will be offering trade-ins, but not at a one for one as Runes have a lot more versatility and are overall considerably stronger than their previous Enhancement Scrolls counterparts. That being said, the trade-in rate won't be completely ruinous either: 16 Books of Tomes per 1 Runic Compendium.
Forbidden Grimoires are actually an existing item, the only change we've made is fixing it so you can actually stack them now. So, if you do happen to have a few Grimoires laying around, you'll be able to trade those in at a rate of one for one as they have never actually had a purpose until now.
Going forward, you will be able to attain both Runic Compendiums and Forbidden Grimoires from at least crates, voting and daily rewards.
Runes and Scrolls - Conclusion
So there you have it, our latest and greatest project to try and bring the fun and customisation back to Items. Hopefully you're feeling positive and excited about this change, I imagine the fact that nothing is being nerfed and this is a plain old buff should help with that. If not, let us know why, we're happy to have a civil and reasonable conversation about this, and any questions do feel free to post those and I'll respond as soon as I can.
And in closing... Woo! The replacement for Books of Tomes is finally here, it only took us... a while. Hope you all enjoy when release day rolls around later this month.
Welcome to another Items Team announcement, this time with (hopefully) nothing that everyone won't enjoy.
The long awaited and much anticipated replacement for Book of Tomes and Forbidden Grimoires; The Runes and Scrolls Update (coming later this month).
Runes and Scrolls - Runes Introduction
So, what is this project and how is it going to impact my experience?
As some of you may know, Books of Tomes used to provide Enhancement scrolls that you could apply to your Weapons or Armor for special effects, like a burst of speed or a damaging effect in a radius. We thought to ourselves 'those seem a lot like things we could do with Custom Enchantments instead. Why not just change them?' and so we did.
We know the Enhancement scrolls were much appreciated because it allowed you to control what you put on your item, it allowed for significant personal customisation which we've been told (many times) is what players really love.
With them being converted to Custom Enchantments you would have to wait for us to release a new item with them applied and hope it's good, or you'd go for them in an Enchanting Table with incredibly poor odds to get it, right?
That was the case, but no more. This is where the Runes part of our Runes and Scrolls update comes into play.
Runes and Scrolls - Rune Details
Runes are a new way for you to apply Custom Enchantments to your items. You will now be able to decide exactly what you want your item to do by applying the Rune(s) that suit your needs the best.
Like Enhancement Scrolls did, each Rune you apply will take up a Socket on your item. So you won't be able to add unlimited levels of Excavation or Light Weight, much as you may want to. There is also a limit of 3 Sockets per item going forward, we have also made it so even if you have existing additional empty Sockets, the limit will still be three usable Sockets regardless. Each Rune also has a maximum Custom Enchantment level you can reach, we'll be publishing these on the Wiki closer to release so you'll easily be able to find this information.
To help counter these restrictions, we are releasing two types of Runes - Standard Runes and Greater Runes, with a method to upgrade the former to the latter. These will allow you to add either one or two levels of the Custom Enchantment per Socket (respecting the max levels), so you'll still be able to greatly increase the effectiveness of your item, whether you want to stack it all in damage or would rather spread it out over damage, defense and summoning, for example.
As we have a lot of Custom Enchantments, we decided it would be best to split them into coloured groups based on their general purpose. Not only does this allow clear visual separation and some nice variety, it will also allow you to use five Runic Compendiums (more info later) to get a Rune of a specific colour rather than gambling on one totally random Rune from a single Compendium.
The colours and their purposes are as follows:
- Gray Runes: Defense (Healing and tank Enchantments such as: Shield, Paladin's Cleansing and Lifesteal)
- Red Runes: Offense (Damaging Enchantments such as: Blaze, Area Withering and Molten)
- Green Runes: Working (Job related Enchantments such as: Angler, Drilling and Excavation)
- Golden Runes: Utility (Generally helpful Enchantments such as: Dash, Crystaline and Experienced)
- Violet Runes: Summoning (Summoning Enchantments such as: Necromancer, Werewolf and Guards)
- Blue Runes: Misc. Combat (Non-damaging combat Enchantments such as: Shatter, Slowness and Levitation)
- White Runes: Special (Strong or unique Enchantments such as: Lightweight, Fireworks and Well Fed)
One final note for this section: some Runes will be more or less common than others. As is the case now with enchanting, some of our stronger Custom Enchantments will be harder to get. The rarity of Runes will reflect their rarity when enchanting, this information is already readily available in this post if you would like to take a look at any time.
This information will also be copied over to the Wiki in the near future.
Runes and Scrolls - Catalysts
Just a short section here to put a name to some functionality I mentioned earlier. Catalysts will be the items you use to upgrade your Standard Rune to its Greater version to apply two levels of a Custom Enchantment rather than just one. Recipes will be made available for each colour Catalyst, so get ready to go rooting around your storage rooms for those ingredients.
Runes and Scrolls - Scroll Details
And now to the second part of this project, Scrolls. You may have already guessed what these will do. If not, think Runes but for Vanilla Enchantments instead.
There is a Scroll for each Vanilla Enchantment just as there is a Rune for each Custom Enchantment, so even more scope for personalising your items. These work in a very similar way to Runes in that each Scroll will take up a Socket on your item to increase an Enchantment by one level, though there is no Greater versions of these. So be sure to think carefully about what you want to improve on your item to make it the best it can be. Although, if you do change your mind later, you can always scrub your item clean and start fresh (more info on this in the next section).
Also, similarly to Runes, some Scrolls will be more or less common than others. As this information is brand new, it's not yet publicly available anywhere, but will be included in the Wiki updates coming soon.
Runes and Scrolls - Scrubbers
So what if you perfected an item with just the right combination of Runes and/or Scrolls, but then a new Enchantment comes out that you simply must have on your item instead? Then you turn to your old trusty pals, the Scrubbers. Each Scrubber is responsible for cleansing your item of either Runes (Infernal Scrubber) or Scrolls (Arcane Scrubber)
so depending on how you've kitted out your items you may need one, the other, or possibly both.
These Scrubbers will completely remove the Rune or Scroll from your item, so the Sockets become available again but you do lose the benefits (increased levels) as well. Can't have infinitely upgradable items now can we? As the name might imply, scrubbing will destroy the Runes and Scrolls so you won't get them back after removal, but as the items that drop these goodies shall be relatively common, it's not going to be a huge hit to your balance.
Runes and Scrolls - Runic Compendiums and Forbidden Grimoires
Speaking of "the items that drop these goodies", here they are.
Runic Compendiums are a straight up replacement for Book of Tomes as the new name is far more accurate considering the changes. We will be offering trade-ins, but not at a one for one as Runes have a lot more versatility and are overall considerably stronger than their previous Enhancement Scrolls counterparts. That being said, the trade-in rate won't be completely ruinous either: 16 Books of Tomes per 1 Runic Compendium.
Forbidden Grimoires are actually an existing item, the only change we've made is fixing it so you can actually stack them now. So, if you do happen to have a few Grimoires laying around, you'll be able to trade those in at a rate of one for one as they have never actually had a purpose until now.
Going forward, you will be able to attain both Runic Compendiums and Forbidden Grimoires from at least crates, voting and daily rewards.
Runes and Scrolls - Conclusion
So there you have it, our latest and greatest project to try and bring the fun and customisation back to Items. Hopefully you're feeling positive and excited about this change, I imagine the fact that nothing is being nerfed and this is a plain old buff should help with that. If not, let us know why, we're happy to have a civil and reasonable conversation about this, and any questions do feel free to post those and I'll respond as soon as I can.
And in closing... Woo! The replacement for Books of Tomes is finally here, it only took us... a while. Hope you all enjoy when release day rolls around later this month.
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