Just to preface, I know this could fit in the Ideas category as well, but I’m aiming for this to be more of an open-ended discussion with the suggestion here being more of a way to kick things off.

It would be hard not to notice the glaring absence of the Alchemist for the past several months, and with his recent removal from the latest Nexus, it seems clearer than ever that this feature won’t be coming back very soon. Though he is missed by many, there may be good reason for him to have taken his leave.

#The Irrelevance of his Current Form

Though I’m sure most of you don’t need a refresher, the gist of the Alchemist is as follows. You complete the third quest from the old, linear Tinkerer format and get a fortune token. That token (or 51 gold) can be exchanged for a spin with the Alchemist’s magic orbs. Through an admittedly cool animation, three random items are chosen from a vast prize pool and spun around. The player can then choose one of these items in hopes of getting the prize he most desires from the selection. You can also pay an additional gold fee for a second spin, narrowing down your odds to 50/50.

However, once you look past the flashy presentation, the Alchemist is really just a second mystery box with the illusion of choice and an occasional opportunity at a free spin. He is set up in such a manner to be quite addicting, especially with the enticingly low gold fee and option to spin a selection twice. To his credit, his rates were considerably more generous than most mystery boxes even after Kabam nerfed the generosity. But when you boil it all down, his functionality is still just a mystery box in disguise.

The most appealing part of him—and perhaps the primary reason people mourn his loss so much—was the daily chance of a free spin. This was indeed a nice gesture, but it certainly doesn’t warrant a whole separate mechanic and NPC. Tarot cards probably wouldn’t work well in the current Tinkerer as a way of getting fortune tokens due to their tradeable nature, vast quantities amassed over time, and obsolete status against marks. Additionally, since the Tinkerer quests are no longer linear and can always be accessed immediately, the player would never need to work towards the opportunity every day. They could just get a tarot card to instantly obtain a token. In my opinion, tarot cards should get a simple quest where a random card can be traded in for a small reward like a mystery potion or loot potion so that the existing supply can be burned away, but that’s beside the point.

A much more elegant way of implementing an identical system would be to simply create a “Mystery Ticket” item that allows the player a single free spin on a mystery box. It could be a quest reward on its own or be an uncommon drop from quest chests to avoid disrupting the current setup at all. This would eliminate the need for the Alchemist to be separate at all, not that he ever had a very good reason to exist in this form.

#A Possible Alternative Function

So all this begs the question, how can the Alchemist be remade into a wholly new feature that is distinguished from the mystery box, a complete departure from his old form, brings something new to the table and game as a whole, and would be capable of having some sort of monetization method that isn’t grossly intrusive. My suggestion for this rework stems from a very old dungeon idea on the WildShadow forums: The Gauntlet. To be clear, I don’t actually like the dungeon idea at all, but it did flesh out an interesting suggestion for an enchantment feature, a mechanic that would grant a small, random bonus to a selected item from a vast pool of enchantment possibilities. Below is a mock-up from the old idea.

(Disclaimer: I don’t personally agree with the Coral Bow example of having a percentage change of inflicting a status effect from a weapon.)

Equipment enchantments could be all sorts of things. The fame bonus of an item could be increased by anywhere from 1-3%, damage minimum or maximum could get a slight increase, projectile speed (and thus range) could receive a minor bump, stat bonuses could be added/increased, and more. Armors and rings could also get stat bonus additions and amplifications. Like the fame bonus example, each type of enchantment would have multiple types, so even if you already have the type you want (damage, stats, etc.), you could still try to seek out slightly higher numbers. UTs could be even more unique based on their individual niches. Enchanting an item that has already been enchanted will overwrite the previous one, not add on top of it.

Ability enchantments would open the door to even more exotic possibilities. There are the obvious possibilities like range increases, status effect duration increases, MP cost decreases, fame bonus increases, stat bonuses, and other modifications where applicable per ability. But abilities could also be capable of more unique effects, such as giving prisms a small percentage chance to briefly make a player invisible after teleportation, or spell projectiles becoming capable of inflicting Curse at a low chance per shot. Nothing game-breaking of course, but small bonuses that would add tons of variety to gameplay. Even armors and rings could get more unique effects, such as increasing fame gain when worn or increasing the effect of restorative consumables, though this could be a lot more tricky to make work and probably isn’t very feasible.

A valid concern here would be the balancing of tiered items. Since the difference between each item tier is so incremental and minor, an enchanted item could surpass an unedited version of the tier above it. This would be especially worrisome if WC tops became better than the far more prestigious and rare LH tops.









The first step of cutting back on this concern is to make any item below old tops (old tops by WC standards) incapable of being enchanted. This could be explained away in the game by something along the lines of, “This item is too weak to harness the great magic of my enchantments! Come back with a stronger vessel!” Furthermore, it would save a ton of tedium creating loads of individual versions of items for low tiered equipment that nobody would ever enchant. From there, simply have higher tiered items be capable of much greater damage-based enchantments. T11 weapons would only be capable of boosting the minimum/maximum by 5 (pretty meaningless), T12 weapons would be capable of going to 10 (slightly surpassing LH top equivalent in damage, but still lacking some other characteristics) and T13 weapons could go to 15 or even 20 at a low chance. Still nothing that would completely destroy the game with power creep, but enough to make a difference that can be valued. The same principal would apply to other equipment types. The exactly values would probably still need some tinkering to ensure balance, but it’s definitely possible to keep things in line.

To prevent massive complications in the economy, enchanting an item would come with the small sacrifice of making it soulbound. Not only will this prevent seeing a bunch of incoherently specific offers like “SELLING STAFF OF THE COSMIC WHOLE WITH ENCHANTMENT 5 EXTRA MAX DAMAGE,” but it also gives people a reason to briefly consider their decision before enchanting an item that isn’t already UT, since you’re essentially forfeiting any future trade with it.

Fortune tokens could still exist as a way to cash in an enchantment, but it would instead be a physical item like marks or the mystery ticket mentioned earlier. These could come from epic quest chests or have their own difficult quests to complete. Maybe treasures could even come into play, hmmm?

If montetization were still a necessary factor into this, it could be done in several different ways without becoming P2W (not that the differences are so major that they would create a huge divide between a paying and non-paying player in the first place). One option would be to allow people to pay a gold fee for an enchantment, but tops beyond WC tier and higher-end UTs (like LH or Shatters items) would not be allowed, so you can only pay for enchantments on lesser items. This would ensure that the best enchantments still belong to the players who truly earned it.

Alternatively, a system could be implemented similar to the second spin option in the current Alchemist, but with types of enchantments instead. So for example, let’s say you enchant a Staff of the Cosmic Whole and get +5 minimum damage. You’re glad you got a damage increase, but you know it has the potential for a +10 increase instead. For a gold fee, you can “lock in” the type of enchantment for this spin (in this case, additional minimum damage) and roll the odds again, except this time it’s limited to just a minimum damage increase. You get another shot at having a higher bonus, but still the same type.

If we were to expand on that in a different direction, a third possibility would be to allow people to exchange a fortune token (so they still have to earn the enchantment) but then pay gold up front on an item to choose what type of enchantment they want. Higher fame bonus, stat increases, more damage, better range, longer status effect duration, whatever may apply to the item. They can then narrow down what they want, but they still need to earn a fortune token first and the strength of the enchantment still varies.

I know this is a pretty ambitious idea and is certainly a radical departure from his rather redundant current form. Perhaps it’s just a pipe dream, but I do believe that this would be possible and open up a ton of possibilities without damaging game balance. What are your thoughts? Do you have any ideas for how the Alchemist could be reworked? Maybe you just want the existing version to be brought back? Thanks for reading!