Please note:

As I write this thread, please be aware I do not personally use Soulstone gear... at all, really. I will imply in greater detail why that is, and why I feel this is flawed behavior, but if I accidentally suggest something "over-powered" or "under-powered" as a result, be aware I only know what I'm talking about as far as the mechanics work, and not as far as the application works.

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What are Soulstones?

Soulstones are items that drop from various monsters in the Pentagram Quest. They are items that can be used on a variety of other items, particularly equipment, to imbue a random bonus. Flowers can be turned into potions, empty flasks can be filled, torches can be repaired, but the predominant factor I will discuss is "Soul Stone Gear" (or, SS Gear for short), in which a Soulstone is used on a piece of gear to give it random stat bonuses.

Soulstones, when dropped, have a predetermined "power" level, based on the exp of the mob that dropped it. Multiple Soulstones can be used on one another to combine their total EXP to increase the power of the Soulstone.

When a Soulstone is used on a piece of gear, it uses this power level to decide the random values imbued on the piece of gear. It first picks a random stat, increases it by a random value up to the power of the soul stone, then rolls an additional stat if there is any power remaining. A "Level 3 Soulstone" can roll a single +3, a +2 and +1, or three +1's. Depending on the value given, the required stat to use the gear increases as well. Because these stats are randomly chosen from ALL attributes and skills, it can become very difficult to obtain gear that gives you the stats you want, let alone stats that allow you to equip the gear to begin with.

There may be additional ways to modify SS Gear, such as a scroll in Damor's shop and perhaps some RD2 content, but I have not personally reached that point in the game (and it's hard to say if I ever will).

Soulstone Gear, when generated, is forced to use a specific durability value, and set as a 'SOULSTONE' item internally (flag: IF_SOULSTONE). Because of this 'SOULSTONE' status, you cannot repair SS Gear, making it last for a very short period of time.

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Flaws with Soulstone gear

There are two major flaws with the SS Gear 'system' that make it very difficult for me to personally invest my time into. I would say these flaws are subjective, but unfortunately they are built into the system itself.


1) SS Gear forces a durability change

This is the major issue, and a large point of the focus of this thread and discussion. I understand why this exists, and will discuss the issue with "fixing" it in the section below this, but for now I will explain the major problem in enforcing this behavior.

Because SS Gear forces a durability change to a smaller value, roughly similar to that of steel armor and regardless of what type of gear you use Soulstones on, it becomes very difficult to use Soulstone gear directly. Furthermore, it becomes a logical problem to use Soulstones on titanium gear to begin with, since a piece of gear you can't use, or even a piece of gear you CAN use, ends up being more expensive for the benefit of only a few points of extra Armor Value.

To circumvent this issue, a lot of players end up using SS Gear that only benefits stats that function from a distance and outside of combat. Since armor durability is only really a factor upon getting hit by an enemy, never actually getting hit by an enemy means your armor will never age, and you can keep the piece of SS Gear for much longer than you "should" be able to.

As a result of this discrepancy and "oversight", gear that focuses on spells are not only more desirable but far stronger and long-lasting than gear that might focus on direct combat skills such as weapon stats (Stun especially is more broken than usual). An additional issue arises with the need to constantly swap armor in and out of combat, adding a lot of overhead to the use of SS Gear to begin with. Spell casters can also choose to remain exclusively in "no-fight" mode, meaning their weapon slot will never take durability damage either.

You *must* be willing and able to constantly switch gear around to get the largest benefit to the piece of SS Gear, and this benefit will almost never be combat oriented. Melee characters in particular are worse off for this, because taking on many enemies at once very quickly chews through your weapon and armor durability, making the stat bonuses short lived unless they also focus on spell gear.


2) SS Gear is a bit TOO random

This can be considered a lesser issue that doesn't need to be evaluated, but it is a headache nonetheless.

SS Gear can roll any random stat value in the game. For each stat it rolls, you require 5 base per point to be able to equip that piece of SS Gear. As a result, it's possible to roll something that requires knowing Concentrate and Two-handed at the same time, or Assasinate and Axe, but more often than not you'll roll something only a Seyan'du can use.

Because of this, SS Gear becomes a very time consuming process of trashing items, which can become very expensive to maintain. It almost never feels worth using a Soulstone on an expensive piece of equipment such as a Titanium weapon or armor piece, when you can instead get the same result by using a cheaper alternative. And early on in the game, trying to use Soul Stones on existing gear typically renders the gear useless, or very quickly renders your small pocket of gold very empty.

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Issues with directly fixing these flaws

1a) SS Gear with infinite durability enforces WEAPON++ gear times 7 slots

On the other hand of the spectrum, durability has its function when it comes to SS Gear that particularly gives weapon skill points, such as Sword or Axe or Twohanded. This becomes a major problem when you consider there are seven possible gear pieces you can use a Soulstone on, of which each piece of gear can roll up to +20.

Infinite durability causes the problem where you get Seyans and Templars running around with up to 140 bonus to their weapon stat, effectively breaking the game in two.

A proposed solution to this dilemma would need to take this issue into account.


1b) Legacy SS Gear exists, some with powerful values

If SS Gear were hypothetically adjusted to account for these wacky numbers by simultaneously downscaling everything, a problem arises with existing Legacy gear that a handful of players likely have either in their inventories or in a Depot.

Fortunately, adjustments to future SS Gear will not affect existing Legacy gear. The durability change is applied when SS Gear is created and does not use any form of static internal value from the CGI table. The stat bonuses are also only applied when gear is generated, so any hypothetical +20 bless gear that already exists will not be altered.

The remaining issue is one of balancing legacy gear and old characters with new gear and new characters. Legacy gear would of course mean characters that have this gear will remain as strong as they already are, regardless of whether their legacy gear eventually expires or not.

This is a tricky issue that is difficult to entirely ignore, but will be factored into a proposed solution.


2) Making it too easy to gear up may make powerful gear too prevalent

If hypothetically SS Gear were made to be equip-able regardless of "impossible combinations" there's some fear that it may make it too easy to narrow down specific kinds of gear and makes it too easy to just settle on something 'passable'.

It may be possible to check for only skills the user of the Soulstone knows when generating SS Gear, making equipable gear 100% likely but the factors therein being unlikely. It's hard to say what effect this may have on the game at large, but it is something that could possibly be done as an alternative.

Whether or not "usable gear" is more prevalent at all seems like a flaw with SS Gear in the first place, however if the concern is "perfect gear" then perhaps only perfect gear should be made less likely.

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Proposed reworks given the above considerations

a) Remove the durability alteration produced by Soulstones

This will make SS Gear equipable without needing to constantly swap gear in and out. Moreover, it makes SS Gear using higher tier bases (such as titanium) far more viable, and much more desirable for classes that can use Titanium.

Longevity of the gear should be focused more on how powerful the gear itself is, and how often a player may want to upgrade their gear. Anything short of "perfect" is something a player can continue to try to overcome by pushing their build further with better gear and specialized sets of gear. This in turn can improve player retention and breathe new life into the Pentagram Quest since SS Gear becomes 'useful' and 'desirable' instead of 'niche' and 'unreliable'.


b) Change how SS Gear handles "power" when rolling gear

To circumvent gear rolls that cause the problems with indestructible gear, such as ++weapon gear or ++stun gear, individual stat bonuses can cost more than 1 "power" to equal +1 to the stat.

For example, weapon skills could individually require 10 points of SS "power" to generate +1 to the given weapon stat. A result of this would mean gear that gives +2 to a weapon stat is exceedingly rare, while +1 stat gear is still uncommon and kept in check in spite of the extended durability.

Keep in mind any power consumed means the remainder of the gear may be less powerful. A +1 weapon gear may be desirable, but is it better than something such as +10 enhance weapon?

This approach to specific stats may also prevent existing Legacy gear from being too powerful, as only Legacy gear with specific values may be stronger than the new approach, and only by a few points.


c) (OPTIONAL) Make SS Gear only roll stats that the user of the Soulstone actually knows

SS Gear, given the restriction to only roll skills a player knows, becomes much less of a taxing "journey" to accomplish, and much more commonplace to see players gear with.

The focus instead shifts from 'getting SS gear' to 'getting BETTER SS gear', which in turn means the hand-me-downs may be sold or redistributed. On the whole this may alter the meta in unpredictable ways, but it also breaks open the obscurity of using SS Gear at all. Personally I'd be much more inclined to use SS Gear while leveling, even if I never try to hunt for the best gear possible, which would lead me to want to experiment with new characters and play the game more.

This is not even necessarily that "broken", since players are unlikely to have raised a majority of their existing stat pool to begin with. A +10 bless sword is harder to use if it also requires 35 stealth to use, but it is no longer inside the realm of "trash", and can instead be seen as an opportunity cost.

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TL;DR

- Allow Soulstone Gear to retain its durability score so that it becomes less unreliable.
- Make high-power stat adjustments consume more Soulstone 'power' to avoid "broken" endgame gear.
- Change it so that Soulstones only pick from known skills to reduce the odds of trash gear, while also introducing a focus on opportunity costs.

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Ive been chasing them to add Karate to Soulstones (an additional skill)
Not all skills roll on Soulstone gear :/

Regarding the Ageing it depends on damage taken and the type.
Leather ages very quick compared to titanium.
Ive had a titanium set (+TH/+Resist) that i carry around for bosses etcc and fight in.
When starting UW Pents i had a +14resist titanium peice that lasts days of penting (this made me get over 100++ Soulstones to get a replacement).

Dont think the goal is to have everyone in soulstone gear forever, it needs to age.
Spellgear people make/swap out for every 10minutes (which sucks for inventory space) but makes fighters OP (if anything this sucks for mages as they max much faster and dont need this).

My Seyan can hit 300Mods with his +50/60 Bless/EW set (dont have prot, no one got room for prot gear!)
Upside for Casters is they can keep Shield/Wand forever.

Feel the 'Power' system for say weapon skills is quite high for a 10power? could only get +2TH on gear.
Like i said i have a fighting set i use for bosses (Dark Champ Barb King etcc), i dont need this in standard game content.
Most people use Rank 12-15 Soulstones (Rank 18 is 90base to equip if perfect).


In terms of point 2.
Damors sells a Soulstone Stat Removal scroll.
8k gold and u can remove +1 from any stat.

Have a +18Blast2 +1Harden Cape?
Pay 8k for 1 scroll, type /remove Harden

Have +8TH +2Conc Legs?
Buy two Scrolls (16k) and type /remove concentrate

I agree there might be a better way for Soulstone gear, but dont think it is to make them last forever.

Some have suggested on Discord to make SS gear be repairable, but perhaps make it harder to repair the gear. I can agree with this but a concern is accidentally making perfect gear too powerful for anyone to repair. Another concern is it seems like busywork to have to constantly stop to repair stuff, but I suppose it's something to use Endurance on for a change.

Something I misremembered: SS Gear does keep the existing durability of a piece of equipment, it only sets a static value for gear that doesn't already have durability (indestructible things like titanium). This is largely noticeable and flawed because indestructible gear doesn't have sprites for each state of decay, so it becomes difficult to keep track of how damaged something is without flooding the chat window with examination messages.

I think the "pure randomness" of Soulstones at present may be a larger contributor to their unreliability than durability, in retrospect. Durability is the pain from seeing active gear break while passive gear such as spells can stay in the inventory forever and last forever, so it's desirable to see titanium gear also last forever. But the randomness is the headache for having to hunt for soulstones to begin with -- every botched roll means having to find another soulstone, which consumes more time but does not ever guarantee a roll you can use.

It is also extremely difficult to bother using SS Gear while leveling, because even using a rank 1 soulstone on cloth armor can give you something like +1 harden, and I doubt characters using cloth armor will know harden or even know what that is supposed to be or do. More skills added to the pool of course make this harder to roll, so it's very easy to give up on the system entirely.

Given a Soulstone can only roll known skills, SS Gear becomes much easier to access while leveling since the odd +1 recall or something can easily be accomplished with a dozen exp or so.

Of course, the other factor to the equation that could also be evaluated is the ability to more easily spot which graves have soulstones in them to begin with. It should be feasible to make graves with nothing relevant in them have a faster expiration time, making graves with soulstones stand out and make themselves more desirable to gamble with.

Low accessibility and poor reliability are the two factors that make Soulstones feel difficult to use, at present. If better accessibility and better reliability wind up being too powerful, then perhaps the system is already broken...

This game is already such a niche thing. Why make it more difficult to do, well, anything? Maybe I'm missing the point.

As I have been trying to build some GC gear, my thoughts are is there a way to allow you to pick up more SS than the slots available? One gmoon in UW and I almost run out of space. With the randomness also it would be nicer to see more specific stat drops like in RD2. I’m not sure what is possible but in the short term my main option is just like SS lotto, I would like to carry more.

Maybe like the same concept as carrying greenling eyes in a case, and when you click on it, it puts everything back in inventory.