Kyle Horner: When the team began development on the artificer class, what was your goal?
Steve Muray: The artificer was always intended to be a hybrid class, but we also wanted one inherently good at non-spellcasting ranged combat. We also wanted the class to have competent DPS (damage per second). Of course, artificer DPS isn't as high as barbarian, but artificers make up for that with support spells and construct healing.
We pitched our thoughts on the directions we were considering to WotC and they sent back some fantastic concept art. There was one of an artificer with leather straps covered with magic scrolls and vials -- almost exactly what you see in the character generator now. Later on, the Rune Arm took form when they sent us a picture of an artificer charging up his magical bracer, getting ready to blast us with arcane power.
Kyle: It looks great, too. Good call.
Steve: Yeah, and the Rune Arm basically transformed this ranged class into a dual-wielding ranged class (which was kind of weird, at first). The combat became very run-and-gun, which as it turns out is a lot of fun, and at that point we decided to embrace it.
Kyle: Double the ranged! [Laughs]
Steve: [Laughs] If the monk is our "pushing lots of buttons" class that's similar to a lot of other MMOs, the artificer feels a little bit more "shoot-y".
Kyle: It's got more "pew pew".
Steve: Yeah, lots of "pew pew" and shoot-y-ness.
Kyle: So what were the challenges in realizing this double-shoot-y artificer from a game mechanics standpoint?
Steve: The first biggest demand that I had was that the Rune Arm would not interfere with other actions; normally in DDO you can only do one thing at a time. If you're attacking, you can't cast spells. If you're climbing a ladder you can't change armor … well, actually, you can probably do that if you’re not moving.
Kyle: You realize players are probably going to test that now.
Steve & Kyle: [Laughter]
Steve: The Rune Arm breaks that "only do one thing at a time" element. You can be shooting your crossbow and running around all while firing the Rune Arm; this was one of my demands because I didn't want the Rune Arm to be a solo action. Originally, we thought about having a longer charge-up time, but if we had an ability taking six seconds to fire in combat it would basically have to kill whatever it hit. With the ability to be doing other things while your Rune Arm is charging, the ability's strength can be reasonable.
Kyle: You didn't want charging and firing the Rune Arm to dominate a player's attention.
Steve: Yeah, because if it was like, "You can't shoot, heal, or run around. You must stand here and hold this button forever." That ability needs to hit like a nuclear bomb to feel worthwhile.
Kyle & Steve: [Laughter]
Kyle: It would also be devoid of the fun of run-and-gun combat.
Steve: Definitely. So the way the Rune Arm works now is: If you're running around, it can charge up to a point. If you stand still it can charge further, up to your maximum charge tier for that particular Rune Arm. We want players to have the tactical choice to either move around firing smaller charges or stand in place for a really powerful shot.
The control scheme for the Rune Arm also changed a couple times during development. When we first started, you had to hold the Shift key – while you held it down you'd be charging a shot and then when you let go of Shift you'd fire. The setup actually worked pretty well, except for the crazy hand contortions required if you were running around, casting spells or shooting while also charging the Rune Arm. Any ability that was on like, the 8 key on your hot bar-
Kyle: In DDO's combat, reaching across the keyboard a pretty hectic fight is, well, yeah…
Steve: You also got like, crab-hands after a while. [Makes crab-hands and says in a creepy witch-y voice], "I am constantly holding down shift!"
Kyle: [Makes crab-hands and says in a creepy witch-y voice] "I am an artificerrrr!"
Steve: You could tell someone played early artificer by their disjointed pinky. It wasn't a good thing.
Kyle & Steve: [Laughter]
Kyle: So the controls were a process of trial-and-error?
Steve: Basically, yes. From there, we switched to pressing the Caps Lock key to charge and fire your Rune Arm; we also added the auto-charge feat. The Caps Lock setup was great, except for one thing. Putting Rune Arm functionality on the Caps Lock key made artificers SHOUT A LOT BECAUSE THEY'RE CONSTANTLY TOGGLING THEIR CAPS LOCK. So, we ended up moving it to the Alt key. (That's about to hit Lamania.)
Kyle: That's a shame; it would've been a great ongoing joke in the community. "ARTIFICERS TALK LIKE THIS. HOW ARE YOU TODAY, FINE SIR?"
Steve: I was telling the content team to put an old artificer in House Cannith that shouted at the players.
Kyle: We could call him "Cappy".
Steve: Wow…
Steve & Kyle: [Laughter]
Kyle: So the Rune Arm is bound to the Alt key going forward?
Steve: Yeah, you tap it once to start and tap it again to fire. You can opt to grab the Rune Arm use feat, too, which auto-charges the Rune Arm so you just hit Alt to fire. Also, with that feat active, any time the cooldown hits zero your Rune Arm begins charging again.
Kyle: Nice. So how does a Rune Arm scale visually as players work their way through the levels?
Steve: There's a number of different Rune Arms. Right now we've got a couple different models and each model has different tiers. In Korthos you pick up one that has two little spinny-things then later on you'll get a better one that has three spinny-things, and then one that has four.
Kyle: It's the little things that count, like more spinny-things.
Steve: We want them to look more powerful as you gain levels, but the damage they do scales with your artificer level. The Artificer also gets a handful of enhancements they can take to make charging the Rune Arm more efficient, decrease cooldowns and increase their stable charge tier – that sort of thing. Spellcasting enhancements and normal potency effects also apply to your rune arm; you’re essentially treated as casting a spell through the bracer.
Kyle: The customization is pretty great, especially with the addition of the artificer's pet.
Steve: We've always wanted to make them into a pet class. Craft homunculus is generally a fairly minor ability in pen-and-paper due to some heavy restrictions on the ability, but we made the choice to fully embrace it. Artificer pets are hooked into the hireling system (as a lot of people can guess, since you get the hireling bar when you summon your dog) but we wanted the pet to level up with their player. We also wanted to have pet-focused customization so a player can choose to have a tank-y or rogue-y pet.
Kyle: It sounds like the goal in allowing players to train and customize their dog was to cultivate a sense of ownership. Is that about right?
Steve: Yeah, we wanted them to feel important to an artificer, as opposed to making it like a wizard casting summon monster and being like, "Hey, there's an air elemental." An artificer's dog is more than just an air elemental – he's "Fluffy," your loyal homunculus-hound.
Kyle: You can name and customize your artificer's dog pet, but there's more to it than that from what I understand.
Steve: Yeah, they also have a small inventory and can equip a docent – so, y'know, you can roll against warforged for those super-sweet named docents. They can also equip a pet module that modifies their attacks; you can find these in end-reward lists, or take randomly generated or crafted hand wraps and convert them into a pet module at a device workstation.
Kyle: Any plans to add additional layers of customization to pets in future updates?
Steve: I'd like to add a significantly large number of enhancements to the dog so players have a bigger variety of "dog builds". We're trying to create a situation where you can build the dog "tank-y" or "rogue-y," except it kind of ended up as, "I'm gonna build a 'tank-rogue' and ignore these enhancements over here." We definitely want to increase the number of useful options. We also definitely need to improve the pet's responsiveness, and we've got ideas; a nice bonus is that some improvements will spill over into hirelings.
Kyle: Beyond the pet element, how do you feel about where the artificer sits?
Steve: I'm extremely happy with how the artificer came out. It's a very fun class and a lot of the Lamannia feedback has been amazingly positive. There are some crafting aspects that a lot of people don't like.
Kyle: Let's talk about it.
Steve: Artificers are the best crafters in Eberron – they're the original crafters. So we felt that we had to give them some kind of bonus to crafting.
Kyle: I understand there's some contention with players who've already begun investing in the Crafting system. Should they be concerned?
Steve: Artificers cannot exceed the crafting levels all players can reach, but they do have an easier time reaching higher levels. Out of the 150 crafting levels currently in the game, level 20 artificers get 10 for free. That benefits them because the last ten levels are the hardest ones to get, and they don't have to get them. Artificers can reach Crafting level 140 and craft like they have 150. We also added a new Dragonmark line, so a level 20 human artificer can invest enhancement points for up to 20 bonus crafting levels; this investment allows a human artificer with Crafting 130 to craft like they were 150.
Currently, the bulk of Crafting recipes above 100 are the unbound variants – the tradable crystals. So there's really nothing that an artificer with the mark of making can do that other players can't. They have an edge in getting to those higher levels, yes, but they aren't making "better" crafted items because they're artificers. So if you're already at 120 or 140 crafting level you still have a head start over an artificer. They’ll catch up eventually, but they'll never exceed the crafting level cap because of their ability.
We're also adjusting the crafting XP chart, so leveling should be much nicer for all players regardless of race or class, and any pre-existing crafter will see a jump in their levels.
Kyle: Is there anything else you want to chat about regarding the artificer?
Steve: Pew pew pew!
Kyle & Steve: [Laughter]
Steve: Obviously, we want to add more prestige enhancements, and more tiers. Right now we've got Battle Engineer I, which I think is the coolest clicky in the game; for six seconds you don't have to reload your repeating crossbow.
Kyle: Oh, wow.
Steve: You whip out your great crossbow, flip it over and just- [makes automatic bolter sounds]. Uh, it was a lot of fun to make that enhancement.
Kyle: Thanks for the chat, Steve. Looking forward to getting my artificer to 20 even more than before!
Steve: No problem!
