This is a series of old posts regarding the development of Augmentation. Before the current rendition of Augmentation, players used oils to enhance gear--that's why we have things like fear oil, hatred oil and hope oil still in game. These are Citan's contributions to an old discussion, which might be historically interesting. There are three parts, from different threads.
An Analysis of Augment Brewing Oils 1 year 4 months ago
Citan's comments:
"Thanks for the feedback! I'm actually completely redoing the way augments work right now based on earlier feedback from other players. All the existing augment recipes will be going away. You'll instead be able to make augments by extracting them from other equipment, so you'll be able to get any treasure effect in an augment. (The process is still long and expensive and involves melting down tons of treasure for raw parts, but it will at least be free-form.)
On a related note, I should warn people in the game news screen that they should use their augments now, because any unused augment oils will disappear when the new update hits. (EDIT: hmm maybe I can keep them around for a bit, will have to look into it. Do people have a lot of oils in storage?)"
Last Edit: 1 year 4 months ago by Citan.
----------
"I'm adding a way to un-augment items with the new system. I was previously against any undo-able crafting because I didn't want the highest-quality items to be passed down among players forever, but I've decided to just attune the item to you when you augment it, and then there's not really much down side to letting you undo it and redo it. (You can still drop or trade it, but nobody else can wield it. And vendors won't buy attuned items.)
I'm also working up an entirely separate additional skill to alter items called Transmutation. It was intended to be a much higher level skill, but I think it will work okay as a skill you unlock in the desert."
Last Edit: 1 year 4 months ago by Citan.
----------
"You'll keep your existing skill level and the NPCs' favor levels. You'll just have to buy new recipes, of which there are only a few, since it's free-form.
I doubt the new system is too much cheaper to level than the old system, so I don't think you've wasted a lot of money. (You won't have to buy a lot of recipes anymore, but you have to grind up a LOT of magic items to get the materials for new augments.)
EDIT: and any un-used augment oils will disappear. Sorry, just can't keep both systems in place!
Before people go using up their stock of existing oils, though, you might be better off NOT applying the current oils to your really amazing gear. That's because the new recipes will be undo-able, meaning you'll be able to take the augment off the item (at a high expense, but at least it's possible.) Oils applied with the existing system can't be undone, because the necessary info wasn't stored on the item."
Last Edit: 1 year 4 months ago by Citan.
----------
"No, if you augment an item it's attuned to you forever, so if you don't want it anymore you'd melt it down. That's the whole point of attuning it, to get that stuff out of the economy once you've had fun with it. Otherwise that stuff will slowly become the norm and nobody will be excited to find loot anymore, they'll just use hand-me-down items from their guild forever. Overpowered stuff has to go away eventually!"