Enchantment

[Jim151]

So what are people’s thought on enchanting items? I once invested 125 LCs on 50 shards, and in addition to the occasional free one, have managed to upgrade one set per bird, and one banner set to level 5. I currently have about 400 LCs, and can certainly afford more shards and go higher. I don’t really need the LCs for anything else. Most of my set items are max level. Or maybe it’s best to keep my powder dry, in case of another level upgrade. What are people doing?

Topic

[RedYoshi45]

I never spent LC’s on Enchantment Shards, I got enough in normal gameplay so far, for example through the Arena rewards. Whatever my strongest items (set items or not) for my birds are, I enchant them to either rank 2 or 3 since that seems like the most reasonable price for a decent item upgrade, although I’m planning on getting my Lv. 52 set items (as I slowly get more of them) to Rank 10 each, although I’m not sure if that’s worth the shard and snoutling (and especially material) cost.

[Sailus]

I’m trying to upgrade them all. I mean the sets. Not the banners yet. Just moved to diamond and waiting to get diamond league banners :-). For what I’m seeing it’s a huge help in pvm. Against pvp the more dmg the better. xD

[Jim151]

although I’m not sure if that’s worth the shard and snoutling (and especially material) cost.

I’ve been playing for almost 2 years, so the latter 2 are not an issue. For example, even after enchanting 6 sets to level 4 or 5, I currently have 6300 clamshells, 3800 seastars, 6000 stone, 2000 wood, 1000 rainbow shells, and even 1800 square wood. Plus 500-1000 of everything else. I’ve got quite a ways to go before materials become an issue. I assume most long time players are in the same boat.

[RedYoshi45]

That’s my issue, I didn’t play as much as you did, hence why I’m low on every material but the junky ones like wood or clamshells of which I have about 500-750 each.

[GrauGeist]

Enchanting isn’t a bad use of LCs, because it’s a guaranteed payoff. The trick is to only do this for excellent sets like Dragon or Valiant that you will constantly use, with minimal chance of becoming obsolete.

If you throw 125 LCs on 50 Shards, that’s enough to boost an item by 9.5 levels, worth +48% power increase. The same LCs spent on Rainbow Riot will get a lot of items, but are not especially likely to give what you need.

I have mostly been banking Shards, although I did raise my banner to 8/8, and I am enchanting “permanent” items like Beep! and Dragon to 8 as well.

[datguygamer]

I believe buying Enchantment Shards is the best option for spending Lucky Coins as it pretty much guarantees the bang for your buck. While using it on the Golden Pigs are okay, it’s based on RNG and unless it’s during a 5X Rainbow Riot, it’s not worth the trouble. Also shards are a necessity in the Arena.

[Jadedbacon]

Enchanting: Drop the +Dmg that trivializes PVE and makes it mandatory for PVP. Make it so it adds a different passive ability to the weapon/offhand it enchants(Crit/Chain/etc etc). Much more interesting and tactical. Make it 1 shard to swap the bonus to a different ability. The ranks would still be there, just increment the bonus until it matches the same as a Set item (Rank 10) or a non set item (Rank 6)

[GrauGeist]

Between the Golden Pig castle and 30 LCs on the calendar, I should gain +75 LCs in the next week.

I’m thinking to use ALL 75 LCs to buy Shards to Enchant the Set Items for my primary Arena Birds. The only question is whether I wait until I have 125 Shards banked to get 50 Shards all at once.

[angryde]

@jim151 Prior to around April-8… I’d enchanted nothing. But, in the last 20 days, I’ve boosted 6x sets and 1x area set to E-5. Certainly made a difference to my APS and win rate, that’s for sure! I still have 1715 LCs but am really hesitant to spend any more on enchantments… I just have a bad feeling (about the level cap).

[Bubbley]

Of course they will raise the level cap. Just as they did every time you got all the sets you wanted from the GP. We already know they have at least 30 more stars up their sleeve. It’s annoying but, like most who post in this forum, I would really like to see more content. Hopefully not just another cave.

[datguygamer]

@bubbley I would certainly like more Chronicle Caves myself.

[GrauGeist]

Right now, I am winning 95% against 1550+, so maybe I hold on enchants for a while.

[RedYoshi45]

They probably will raise the level cap but I kinda wish they wouldn’t.
Pigs could still have increasing levels while the birds stay at Level 50. (Comparable with Maelstrom for example. Very hard to beat at lower levels but certainly not impossible. I first cleared it at Level 25 or so.) That would be a real challenge and it would also encourage players to spend LC’s on enchanting their weapons and buying rolls for the GPC which would be a nice source of income for Rovio.

[GrauGeist]

Arena is already getting players to spend LCs on Enchants and GPC pins.

[datguygamer]

@smwforever45 Unfortunately that I cannot agree with since pigs in this game also level up with your birds. If they level up further while you don’t that is difficult even for older players as pigs already do more damage to you than you do to them. Not to mention newer players will be overwhelmed as the game will basically force you to enchant items and that includes wasting lots of LC on GPM and obtaining shards which also takes a lot of time. That is not a good game design. Inevitably that would diminish their income as it will instead make players to not play it anymore (kinda what happened to players for AB 2 and for me with Transformers). I understand the incentive but it’s gonna bite them back for all the wrong reasons. Also, that doesn’t necessarily mean players will start purchasing LCs. The game is heavy on IAPs but most players here haven’t spent a dime and yet stay on top spot. Whatever force the game exerts, there has to be a balance where it doesn’t let the players let loose too much and also not bind them back too strong. What you’re suggesting is binding them till they just leave the game out of frustration. This is not a good way to juice out money from them.

[RedYoshi45]

Yeah but bird levels in the Arena are capped at 50, so at some point your enchanted items and banners are strong enough to defeat 99% of all opponents. What if the final cave in PvE (let’s say, Cave 20) had a final boss at Level 60, though? That’d make PvE interesting again, and secondly, all those that are not as interested in the Arena would be more encouraged to spend LC’s, too.

[RedYoshi45]

@datguygamer
Pigs don’t get their items enchanted, though, which leaves the player a chance to win if they have highly enchanted weapons and high mastery ranks (which I’m pretty sure they do by the time they make it this far into the cave). I wouldn’t wanna make the final levels cheatingly difficult of course, but I’d find it boring if my opponents were always that little bit weaker than me. Cave 17 really wasn’t a challenge (leave the final boss out) and I’m not even a 50/12 player. I’m just that kind of player that likes a bit of difficulty to the regular storyline of video games – especially in RPG’s.

[datguygamer]

@smwforever45 Even though pigs don’t have enchantment, they get more attack power and health from leveling up than the players. Plus, most of their abilities come packed with chances and buffs that the birds never get. For the record, my Chuck has a max enchanted weapon and offset item and still he is weaker in terms of health and attack than the last pig I faced in the event which was a pig holding a lightstand. Giving the pigs more buffs will cripple the players than this.

As far as I see it, the game has that nice balance of difficulty. It is not too easy but not too punishing. Also, since this is a freemium RPG, there is a bonus difficulty of having to upgrade your stuff painstakingly for a long time. After you’ve got all your upgrades, then the game feels a bit relaxing and that’s how it should be. If the game is still just as difficult even after getting the upgrades, then why did I go through all that trouble for? If the game gets easier, then that makes the Mastery upgrades worth getting.

I like difficulty and challenge but not something that’s purposefully meant to be as annoying as possible in terms of how tough it is. The biggest examples are the cave bosses to say whether this game is easy or not to get 3 stars from a level. Just think what the boss of Cave 17 can do if he gets more than 100K health and over 4000 damage if he keeps leveling up. I’m all up for a difficult run but this is not how it should be done. Epic is not the kind of RPG to search for a good storyline or a good challenge. It’s a casual game and it should feel like such (the only exception being the cave bosses). If you want such a challenge, play the Dark Souls trilogy on Expert difficulty. You’ll get your bang for the buck.

[RedYoshi45]

@datguygamer
But in that case, adding the ability to level up to, say, level 60, wouldn’t really make much of a difference either would it? If the last cave has level 59 pigs they’d still be stronger than you even though you’re a higher level than them.

The thing is, after you got all the upgrades there’s just nothing left to do apart from playing the Arena. I’d like something in PvE that keeps you busy even after you got all the upgrades, like other games have levels or dungeons at the very end that provide a nice challenge and a “Thank you for playing” or “You are a true master” message or reward at the end of the level/dungeon. Think of the Special World in Super Mario World or increasingly better Game Over screens in Tetris. Of course, these are completely different games to ABE. But to me they’re positive examples how to make up for high levels of difficulty.

[datguygamer]

@smwforever45
Here’s the thing. Level ups in Epic is completely trivial. Basically whether you are Level 1 or Level 50, it doesn’t matter as the pigs always catch up with you so there’s that constant difference of power and even after enchanting and mastery, you don’t bridge that gap as they still remain stronger. This is because when you upgrade you class and enchant items, the game also upgrades the pigs in order to “balance” itself. This means that the attack power increase we get from level ups and whatnot are completely artificial. They just give that sense of strength to the players when they are really not getting that strong against the pigs. However, if you are against another player’s birds, then your upgrades do matter. But I think you may have misunderstood a bit as that statement of yours “If the last cave has level 59 pigs they’d still be stronger than you even though you’re a higher level than them”. The players can never get higher levels than the pigs. They are always the same level as you but the pigs are always stronger than you at that same level even with enchantments and mastery upgrades. I am not against the idea of level ups, I just don’t want that level up to be exclusive to the pigs like you wanted. If there has to be further level ups, it should be for both parties. You know what I mean? However, personally I would want more XP Levels because:

1. More XP levels means more Lucky Coins more me (whatever little bit helps).
2. Since I collect normal GPM items too, whatever items I may have missed, I can get them back if those certain items are offered again.

This is same reason I want more Chronicle Caves as well. You will get your challenge from the levels as they are the post game dungeons that you mentioned and for me I will get more exclusive blueprints for items I cannot get anywhere else otherwise.

Also as far as keeping yourself busy, that’s why we have constant events nowadays and since you are not maxed, you will get plenty of time before you get bored so that’s a different matter altogether. There are also the daily dungeons and for extreme challenge, try the Chronicle Caves with just two of your birds (which I did a number of times as I also impose challenges on myself occasionally). Even after being maxed, I find joy in playing it and do not get bored with it.

[angryde]

@bubbley You’re 100% correct, of course. Sigh. Somehow, always fearing the worst makes me feel somewhat (more) prepared to face it… Lol.

[RedYoshi45]

@datguygamer
Wait, wait. It’s not really completely trivial. The pig levels do rise with the bird levels in dungeons and event levels. But they don’t rise in any other regular level, including caves and the cave bosses. If I play South Beach the pigs are STILL level 1. If I play Cave 16 the pigs are STILL level 47. These are fixed values, the pigs can have higher levels than you if you’re fast progressing, or lower levels than you if you take your time or get stuck or grind to level 50 before clearing the final caves (like I did). And pig strength does not increase with the bird mastery and enchantment levels of weapons and off-hand. I only ever saw it increase whenever a level-up happened. If pig strength was to rise with every single action done in favour of the player then nobody would be able to auto-play SRC.

True, new XP levels give you more LC’s. But new XP levels also mean that my highly-enchanted set items just become obsolete at some point because they’re 10 levels lower than they could be.

Personally, I find blueprints from the cave pretty weak when at level 50, since when you craft the items they’ll always be the same level as the pigs you encounter in that cave when you get a 2-star item (more or less stars provide a better level). Ex. if you craft an item with a blueprint from cave 14, the item you get will be level 44 at 3 stars, 43 at 2 stars, 42 at 1 star and 41 at 0 stars.

You’re right about the events, but I saw people in the forums say they don’t even participate in the normal events or do the daily dungeons anymore because all they get is snoutlings, snoutlings, snoutlings.

[datguygamer]

@smwforever45 Actually since the pigs gain such a huge boost from level ups, your own mastery upgrades and enchantment sort of catch up to them (but still fail in some cases). So in a nutshell, you are paying for something that pigs get for free. And the levels where they don’t level up. Well, they do, but they have a cap for a fixed XP level. That’s why the first level always has the lowest level pig. Also the pigs do get a slight buff for player actions based on upgrades but not for every action, just at set intervals. Like the pigs’ get a small attack buff (like in my case a Shaman got a buff from 1280 damage to 1290 when I went from M10 to M12 for Red), so there’s that. Some bosses level up too and the reason cave bosses don’t, as again, their gain during level ups are huge compared to yours and other pigs and any more than that is suicidal at best.

Sadly that’s how freemiums work and this is an RPG game, getting stronger items is a part of the gems design which means of course you are going to scrap your older items. I still don’t mind more level ups as scrapping at least returns some shards. Not much but it’s what it is.

Also, as I said, I just collect them. I don’t care what power they are. I just make a growing collection in my inventory. More new blueprints mean more new items for me.

[RedYoshi45]

@datguygamer
Give me a single non-castle, non-dungeon, non-event level where pigs level up with you but have an XP cap, and I’ll start a new game on Bluestacks and verify if that’s actually true. Because I never ever saw a single level in Epic that did this. Whenever I enter a regular level, pigs have a fixed level. No matter if I enter with level 1 or level 50 birds. You can see that when unlocking the submarine – besides the levels needed to advance in the main story you also unlock some other levels in the southwest of Piggy Island. I think one of them has level 20 pigs which is quite a high level for the Island. These pigs will always be level 20… hence why I cleared the level at a later point in the game. Maelstrom’s pig is always level 40, too.

[Bubbley]

@angryde you have to smile for why on earth do we play it.