I've been thinking about combos very differently, as features of the runic language, and like poetry. With the skill of the "speaker" as irrelevant to whether or not three words turn out to "rhyme". Using the patterns helps you find more of the same pattern, like using a haiku's pattern helps you make more haiku, but if you want to figure out how to predict what "rhymes" then you need to search for other patterns of poetry too, instead of sticking with only one or two patterns.
So the grudge weapon and the crushing fate hammer are both iterations on existing patterns, while I suspect the anti-daemon hammer has a new pattern to it, and you seem to suspect the same of the generalized axe. I more see the generalized axe runes as... synonyms, rather than proper "ryhmes". And now I'm wondering if I've stretched the metaphor too far.
Neither of us think the anti-dragon weapon will combo, though we won't fully dismiss the possibility, while I think it'd be effective even without a combo and thus is worth making anyway.
Anyway, I think combos raise the value and effectiveness of the item, all by itself. So the same skill and effort simply has better results on a runic combo.
This means that discovering new patterns for combos is super important because it expands the number and types of high-quality items we can more reliably make.
For example, if everything needed two Ancestors, or Might and Impact, our number of options would plummet.
Until we see a particular sort of potential pattern succeed or fail, we can't know if combos really work in that way, or if the percieved pattern was an illusion.
I was not saying that you need to be more skillful in order to make something Combo. We
know that isn't the case after Soulcake answered a question about it a while back IIRC. What I'm saying is that knowledge of runes, what Combos we have, and what research we've done and the traits gained from them are what carry about the ephemeral idea of skill. And I call it ephemeral because we players have no way to measure or manipulate it, but we
do have means to manipulate Combos, Effort, Rune Ingredients, and Structural Materials and those are what are brought up most specifically as Important for crafting something.
The synonym vs rhyme idea I've contextualized as effect stacking vs effect evolving. Personally I see the Generalist axe as more of an effect evolving thing because it is specifying stuff like mighty and fast mountain winds but eh. It might not be distinct enough! *Shrug*
I also think a Runic Combo raises the value and effectiveness of the Combo and Effort basically pulls out all of that Combo's possible potential and the Ingredients potential and what little potential the Structural Materials have, and that
that is what is happening when an Overflow goes from mechanical changes to narrative ones. I don't think this makes Effort the most important factor, that's Combos.
Myself I see each new Combo as a new pattern, if one that can be related to another so as to create a family of related Combos. It's leveraging similar principles in order say new things. A single lesser Rune has a meaning, that meaning can be modified by a second Rune, and a third Rune, and if they come together right there can be either an entirely new meaning or a meaning that is even more specific than the initial lesser Rune. This is how you get Master Runes from combinations of lesser Runes, and potentially more powerful Master Runes from a Master Rune and two lesser Runes (I am still somewhat dubious on that but it makes
some sense).
Making outright new Combos is super important, but my thinking is that we're always taking it into our own hands based off of a really good image. When making an entirely new combo we are by necessity of it being entirely new, not using another Combo as a direct basis, though we
are using principles learned from unrelated Combos.
You're right in that we can't know if a particular image is real or just an illusion until we poke it, but my point is that the failures don't
say very much that we can actually use when it comes to going forward. For me the buck kind of stops at "Yeah that pattern didn't work, and I can think of some reasons why based on context but I can't confirm any of them" as I've explained previously.
The problem with that is that we have no existing patterns that would do as you describe. To arrive at that point with a 'creative' combo for the T5, we'd need to experiment, and wouldn't it be so much better to experiment with what I'm suggesting rather than with a T5? The cost of failure is so much lower here and now.
Yeah. We have to take our efforts into our own hands and use only the principles we've learned so far.
Experimenting would help some, but frankly I've already described why its difficult to use for this kind of effects based thing. For this idea I've had I basically have to sit down and chew over what might work, and furthermore the thing might just crap out entirely if the Master Rune of Thungni doesn't do what I want it to when we finally figure it out. My main issue with experimenting with the kind of exclusionary form you're talking about is that we don't know which Rune or Runes caused a particular failure and iterating through single rune variations trying to seek one pattern will take a very long time.
I'm more interested in using experimentation to try and find Master Runes we know exist like the Master Rune of Everfrost. I've had a thought for a while to give Rudil (leader of our Huskarls) an axe with three Runes of Cold to see what happens and if it combos to compress that Combo to see if we get the Master Rune of Everfrost so we can finally finish Gloin's weapon. I.e I like experimentation when we basically have a goal to seek.
I'm not sure where the problem is exactly, because a 5 item batch does not exceed the scale we are given. The scale tops out at "a full set" which is 5 items: 2 weapons, armor, banner, talisman.
The only competitor for efficiency with a 5 item set would be a 3 item set if the AP cost was 2, and even then, 5 wins out.
We don't actually know if such "efficiency" actually dilutes the quality of the products. Snorri's whole thing is making a higher quantity in the same time with no drop in quality, and the way the scale works could be another reflection of that.
This would be a good way to test that. If it does fail, we'd know more about the mechanics and still have a number of T3's to work with, but if it succeeds then we're free to do stuff like making a whole set of arms and armor for a champion at once without worrying about quality loss.
So here is the scale:
Write in Equipment Action Costs:
1 Action - 1 standard piece of equipment.
2 Actions - Multiple pieces of equipment or Large individual items.
3 Actions - Very Large individual items or a full/near full set of items.
A near/full set of items, five items, has a very specific cost which is already specified as 3 actions. If we make five individual items, the number of items in a full set,
and it isn't 3 actions the scale is outright incorrect. See the problem? A set of five individual items
cannot cost more than three actions as a set or the entire scale just goes "lol what's reliability?"
The entire point of why we got it was when someone basically asked about "hey how do we know how much a Write In is going to cost for part 2?" and soulcake provided the guidance we now have.
Basically, the scale is set down, and write ins ending up with strange exceptions that cause them to exist off the scale means that every write in from that point if it has any kind of exception is completely unreliable to plan around using the scale. It might have 2 actions, it might have 3, or 4 or 5 or whatever. Scale is unusable for its original purpose.
As for sets diluting things, we know it changes how overflow works from this statement when sets were first introduced:
NOTE: Regarding the mechanical difference regarding the amulet as a combo vs the amulet on its own, itll mostly be narrative but also mean you have 3 different rune combos to make/theme to make/make me come up with instead of just two with a minor mechanical change regarding overflow and how much you can do before it becomes a waste. Not that I'll tell you what that limit is. :^V
A set necessarily means a splitting of focus, which means each item gets only a certain amount of attention and number of years put into it, and from all indications all of our T4+ works have taken more than six years if I remember the passage of years right. (Barak Azamar took six years). We know overflow works via a pretty straightforward logic from what Soulcake has said.
A splitting of focus means a splitting of effort, and effort is important to the tier at which a thing emerges. By those axioms we can conclude that if we for example, have two hammers with good Combos, Adamant, and good supporting ingredients then the deciding factor (Not the factor with the biggest value, that's combos) on where they end up after everything else is tallied up is effort. If we have them in a set and finish its part 2 with 3 actions, thus getting five actions total due to traits, then the effort represented by those five AP is the split between the items. Each hammer gets less total effort put into it. Whereas if you don't put them in a set you can hypothetically apply three actions to each of them and they each get 4 actions of overflow instead of like one and a half. Each hammer gets more total effort put into it because we focused solely on that.
My understanding is that Pyrestrike is high T3, and Hailmantle is low T4 because they both were right on the border, and while they both had combos, those combos were of basic runes, so their value wasn't very high. The extra boost to Hailmantle just pushed it over the edge.
That's super valuable information because now we know pretty much exactly where the threshold for T4 was back then.
I'm gambling that with this set of 5, any differences in overflow are going to be compensated for by the use of Master Runes in the combos, and our increased skill level since then.
I think it's a reasonable gamble to make, and if we get combos but still fail, that tells us that overflow and not working in sets is more important to the tier than Master Runes in the combo and the increase in skill level. It helps us adjust our expectations and plans going forward.
The thing is, I can't think of any other context in which this sort of experiment, where we must accept the possibility of failure, would be palatable.
It's not for commissions, it's not for gifts crafted with a recipient in mind, and it's not for high-value investments in infrastructure or gear we're locked in to using.
If we want to learn this sort of information, this sort of context where what is done with the results depends on what the results are is the best option, and I don't want to miss out on it.
Yeah, that is what my own understanding of Pyrestrike and Hailmantle was as well.
As for the experimental value of the set, yes? But I don't see the connection to our main workhorse weapon(s). We can do this after or before but it functionally has no real connection the main weapon. None of the information we might gain from this is all
that useful for the main workhorse weapon, unless one of them ends up being the Crushing Fate hammer. To raise a point, if we do end up making the Crushing Fate hammer as a main weapon like some folks want, since it seems pretty damn likely to combo, we can replace it in the set with something else.
But yes, fundamentally I have an issue with them being presented as things Snorri might seriously use. If they come out as T3s, which most of them likely will due to a combination of lacking Combos, and effort spread lightly, then I don't think they'd actually put to bed the discussion of Snorri's weapons. We'd still need to make a T4 for me to be satisfied, for example, and I think that's where a lot of other folks are as well. If you came forward with the proposal that they were experiments we'd hand off to other folks, I wouldn't have had a problem, that's T3s going out to the Throng to improve its Rune Weapons bonus.
