Hello, travelers. First of all I’d like to explain my situation… I have a decent Aura of Decay Lich and I went up to 400% rarity in Echoes. It’s my first character and I have played 70 hours so far, really enjoying the game. I would really like to try a Void Knight build I found on the forum, however there is one piece I am missing: Omnividence (Very Rare unique drop rate Mirage Staff).
So I looked it up on the Wiki, found out what are the chances of gambling a unique and went to town on gold farming. I really love grinding in games (having about 6000 hours in PoE would suggest so). There is just something about being able to go from smashing angry crabs with a decrepit wood plank to annihilating gods and universal threats. My point being…
It is quite disincentivizing running Echoes to farm up that gold, going to a Gambler and having two full inventories of common, magic and rare Mirage staves - and this process being the only way to farm this staff. But hey, it’s all about luck and I know that I would/will eventually have it dropped or gambled. However I would like to point out in this exact situation, that some people might leave the game, just because of it being a very rare drop (translated to very unlikely to drop in an Echo farming scenario). Being stuck in a perpetual loop of farming the Monolith, going to Gambler with the 1:100 chances in mind, getting nothing - repeat. Having just that one elusive build enabling unique in mind and not wanting to try other things until they try the build they want.
Having another layer of RNG to be able to drop specific things would really help. Let’s have a look at the masterpiece Diablo II.
Do you want an Angelic Mantle to complete your Angelic set while leveling? Well, just bug Andariel in Nightmare or Hell and go nuts on her. You can still drop some other sweet loot, but you have that feeling, that it could drop at any time. You have a goal.
Or let’s take a look at what I think did itemization and the loot hunt best… Borderland 2.
Specific monsters have a higher chance of dropping certain things and most likely are thematically connected to that item. So let’s say you want an Unkempt Harold… You just go and grind Savage Lee for a few hours to get that Double Penetrating one.
Another example would of course be Path of Exile with the Divination Cards, but I never really liked the concept of it. Being able to have THE item drop as a whole always felt better than picking up parts of the item. Felt more rewarding in my opinion.
My suggestion would be to have uniques have a higher chance to drop in specific areas or from said areas’ bosses. For instance the Omnividence and other Void uniques (of course not specific boss drops) having a higher chance to drop in Echoes with void theme - the Black Sun and Last Ruin timelines. Then it wouldn’t be just astronomical luck of world dropping and 1:100 gambling, but another whole layer of target farming.
P.S.: I had quite the blast farming Last Steps of the Living (mostly and probably because of all I just said) and the concept of the Fractured Crown is genius. Also, also - great job on the item arts. I had a Dark Shroud of Cinders dropped and want to try and create a build utilizing it, just because the image looks so darn cool.
At some point you need some items to be less rare and some to be really rare in my opinion.
What would the point be of headhunter or a mirror in POE if the rarity wasnt high enough?
People have a long term goal to hunt items like that. In the hopes that one day it will drop.
At the other hand i think that the power of an item should reflect the rarity aswell.
I do like your idea of the specific monsters that have a higher chance of dropping it though. I wouldnt make the drop rate to high still so its get this extra hype and excitement around it.
I completely agree with you - some uniques should most certainly be more rare than others. Like the Headhunter you mentioned. I was only referring to another means of obtaining those items. For instance Headhunter can be chanced or Ancient Orbed in Zana’s Nemesis map, dropped in Zana’s Nemesis map, exchanged in Temple of Atzoatl, dropped through Beastcrafting and of course Doctor, Fiend and Nurse Divination Cards - so at least 8 ways to get this highly sought after item (the chances are abysmal, but the feeling of ‘maybe’ is still there) - whereas Omnividence has now only world drop and Gamble. So you might see where I’m getting at… Not necessarily making Omnividence (and other rarer uniques) more likely to drop or be gambled, but another means of obtaining it. To make it more fun hunting these uniques.
So does the guide say that your absolutely need that staff to have the build working?
When I look at the staffs stats, it has nothing that changes gameplay or some mechanics. It’s just a great boost for a Void Knight focusing on Spells.
The VK caster build is possible without that staff. Not that strong, but viable.
Sorry, this doesn’t solve your problem with obtaining that staff. I just wanted to let you know that you don’t need to wait till that specific item drops before starting a VK caster build.
Ah yes i understand what you mean then.
That would be nice indeed to have multiple options with some of them.
I just wouldnt do with every unique.
The reason why is that being able to kill a certain “Hard boss” should be rewarded well.
The people who cant kill that boss cannot get the item. This is a positive for the people that actually do kill it.
Its serves a multiple interest if you know what i mean:
You make a certain boss important. You want to kill that boss, or you just want that item.
You create something to push for, for players. Which is a problem already the moment i think in LE. Since its in early acces and does not has enough content yet (for the long term)
Its extremely important in my opinion that not every item is obtainable in different ways. POE does this aswell, so you create a skillgab and you keep the engagement.
I think the worth of certain items would drop aswell if they are to “easy” to obtain.
I would be carefull with the approach your describing.
There should be that natural itch of *&^% I CANT KILL THIS BOSS! But i do want that item so lets see whats wrong with my build.
Again at some “less” powerful items i would love to see an approach like you describe.
@meesterg Exactly. Bosses should be important in this matter. Like I said with the Last Steps of the Living - I seriously enjoyed the hunt for these boots and I can’t wait to get to level 100 and farm the empowered bosses.
I guess I know which build you want to play. I’m already playing it, but without the staff. I changed several nodes to max mana efficiency and it runs fine, but it struggles on single target. Precisely, I have not been able to defeat Lagon 75 because it takes too long and always happens a moment when I make an error and die. With the staff, the fight would be shorter and I’d do less errors. ^^
I understand and share your frustration. But I also think that all builds are not meant to be played by all players. Some require a huge amount of passive points, some require very specific items. That’s a kind of reward for players who can invest lots of time and have more chance to get theses items or to reach higher levels.
Again, I wasn’t talking about the Omividence in particular (I personally will put the time in to have this staff and min-max the build, because that’s what I like), but generally for a piece of gear to have “more soul” than just being tied to world drop or a gamble chance. But in the end, it is just my opinion.
Edit: For some uniques - leveling ones, I don’t really mind for them to be tied to world drop or gamble (and just that), because they will always be common and drop like gold. I had in mind the higher end loot - 70+. Just to clarify.
I personally don’t think having rare uniques and set items is a reason for people to stop playing a game.
If there is particular unique that is required for a certain build you have to plan without such item, until you get it.
And for unique items that are not build enabling, but really really strong it’s even less of an issue, since it would only give your build a power boost.
There needs to be common, less common, rare and very rare items. That’s how these games work.
Having the possibilty to gamble certain uniques is already incredibley strong.
How good or bad the gambler is at getting those uniques might be and entirely different discussion.
Side note: Be careful using the Wiki… While some things are valid, its pretty outdated and could give you old info - especially on things that have changed in recent patches. A quick check on recent changes only shows about a dozen or so valid updates in the last 120 days and there has obviously been far more than that in game changes over the same period.
I personally don’t think having rare uniques and set items is a reason for people to stop playing a game.
I actually disagree. I love the fact that certain unique are rare and are unobtainable with gambler unless for example you fight a monolith boss for a 10% chance to drop. That stuff makes getting those uniques or set items feel super rewarding and exclusive, especially if the boss is hard compared to dumping money into gambler. I really think this idea hits a exactly what loot based arpgs are aiming for, going out into the world and chasing super cool items. I think players being unhappy about this experience is a problem that should be addressed since I would argue it’s a big part of the game.
Gambler just feels bad and also necessary because of the limited ways there are to target farm uniques for certain builds. I think this is more to do with no updates yet to make unique items more accessible yet outside of gambler. I know the devs have hinted that they aren’t happy with gambler as one of these methods; most likely in the future we will have more options open to us to fix this issue or make it feel more rewarding to target farm uniques.
I thought your statement meant that you don’t think players would leave the game just because they can get items easily with gambler; I disagreed with that statement. I think it’s a very good reason to be disappointed enough to leave the game because it desensitizes the chase.
I don’t know how you could possibly come to that conclusion, with what i said in my whole post
I also do find the gambler way to strong. They could remove it entirely and i would not cry a tear.
Before 0.8.1 i even don’t wanted to use the gambler, because it felt like cheating almost.
With the increased prices the gambler somehow feels a bit more fair and good.
i actually wished for a system that you could BUILD a unique with stats /buffs needed for certain builds from pieces (similar to SOME velied mods in poe), I think making the items NOT Pidgeon holed into one build/class, making the pieces a BIT less rare, and flexibility to MAKE something actually ‘UNIQUE’ is a better approach
While i like the idea of some “craftable” game-changing affixes, your suggestion does sound like you want uniques to be just big stat sticks (similar to D3’s “legendary” rarity).
I really want uniques to be “pigeon hole-esq”.
I think a bit issue atm is, that there are just not enough uniques. But this will most certainly get less of an issue the longer the game lives.
Just the last 2 major patches brought so many crazy cool uniques, i can only imagine LE in 3-4 more major patches, having maybe another 40-60 unique items.
