the fact that everyone loses all their gold, shards, inventory and items.
also again the ideal system is not a one for one shard to affix level increase, the idea is to have a goal to work towards to prepare for late/endgame. Also quit looking at the crafting system in a vacuum, the system does not exist by itself, it is very much tied into the progression of the game, and an RNG progression system does not end up being enjoyable when you mean zero forward progress or worse you’re forced back
This is a discussion for the crafting system in general. The statement applies now or post launch. I try not to flame on these types of discussions, but are you really not getting the point?
And when did I advocate for “zero progress forward or forced back”? I even suggested the ability to repair and take away fractures from trashing items.
We are, and how
are terrible design rage-inducing.
But OK, let’s dissect your proposal a little further.
In other words, you allow for one failure (frustration) to expand into multiple failures (frustrations), each successive one of which is liable to result in comments like this.
On the other hand, pretty solid luck (or a decent base item) still enables players to “max out” an item to an end result without much frustration.
So I pose this question to you, then - what level of frustration is justifiable to differentiate between lucky players and unlucky ones, when the end result - under any system - is going to be identical?
The problem right now is that fractures trashes the item. If you can repair reasonably with farmed resources then how is that anywhere remotely the same as the current frustrating system?
And my response to your question: a level of frustration that can be rectified with time. Because currently it is not. Once an item fractures that item is done for.
I did not say you advocated for such, as I have stated in my post and a few of the ones before it: A progression system based on randomness for success is ultimately unenjoyable for the player when they fail for reasons beyond their control. I am also aware of your suggestion and it is better than the current system because anything is better than what exists now, because at current you cannot do anything other than farm up another item and more shards to repeat the process and potentially succeed, or fail. Again the idea I am advocating for is one that allows the player to always make forward progress with enough time invested.
If you’re talking about other genres of games I’m all for it. But I’m going to assume we’re both talking about ARPGs, which by it’s inherent nature has always been about RNG. If you take RNG out of the crafting system, then reasonably it shouldn’t be relied on as the primary way of gearing. People bring up Grim Dawn, but last I remembered most of the gearing effort is relied on farming and not crafting for that game.
Well there’s a nitpicky response here to point out that under your proposal as-is, there isn’t really any upper limit on the number of times a “repair” can fail, and therefore “repairing reasonably” isn’t really guaranteed.
But that’s neither here nor there and I’d rather have a more tangible, productive conversation, so just ignore the above. 
That (your proposal) is definitely, unquestionably better than the current system. I wouldn’t begin to think otherwise.
The problem point I have with your solution is in trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who gets a fracture under it. They’ll think, “Ugh, I gotta burn (or farm) another Glyph of Repair to undo this so I can get back to what I was doing.” A minor nuisance, but at least it’s better than just an immediate end to their progress. However, if it keeps happening/subsequent repair failures keep occurring, that minor nuisance is going to grow quite irritative and we may be right back to square one with complaints as seen above.
At the end of the day, I have fun in Last Epoch when I’m not crafting. That isn’t necessarily to say that crafting is inherently bad, but moreso that I find the game more fun when I’m happy with my build and I’m going about blowing enemies up. Crafting is a sideline thing to help me get there, and while - as an ARPG veteran (PoE/GD/D3/you name it) - I can respect the grind needed to reach that point of combative fluidity, I think it’s more satisfactory to get epic loot from enemies instead of tediously laboring over a submenu with no enemies in sight. So I’m all for minimizing the tedium and frustrations of crafting as a whole.
You are indeed correct, however, by it’s nature in many games, crafting is meant to ensure an item has the property/ies you want on it. Ultimately the crux of my argument away from the RNG of the current system is this: “why should I engage with this crafting system when it’s just easier to ignore it and roll with whatever drops?” While this might be an exaggeration to a large extent, a system a player does not use or engage with is ultimately wasted development time and money.
I think that’s fair. I’m all for crafting being guaranteed but under the premise that it’s not the primary way of gearing. I agree with your sentiment on farming as the primary way of getting top gear. The problem is the current item system encourages crafting over loot drops. Loot drops help by giving a good base item, but you need to finish it off by crafting (increase tiers, add desirable affixes).
When discussion what the crafting system can and can not, please understand that crafting system as of right now CAN NOT provide the actual maximum end game potential, which is, for me at least a 1x T7 + 3x T5+, ideally 4x T7.
So letting people getting a full 4x T5 a little bit easier will not break the game or making “end-game” any easier.
Actually, as of right now, how many end game set of 4x T5 does people have already?
Just to expand on what I am thinking here, I had some idea about how expanded crafting with glyphs and runes would play around with the addition/reduction of affixes and increase/decrease of instability.
What’s appealing to me about this concept is that a single piece of gear can be the subject of a long term project if we so choose, and if we’re prepared to put in the resources to perfect it. The biggest problem with my current thinking is I don’t have good ideas about how to make sure controlled decrease in instability is not abusable and make T20 (and/or future version of “perfect” gears) too easily craftable.
Is crafting going to be a key part of LE’s gearing? I think that’s a key question. If so (and we have every reason to believe so) then RNG has to be a factor. Whether that’s baked in to the materials (rare affix shards) or the process itself (fractures). What they can’t keep is the fracture trashing items. It’s just such a horrible feeling to have an item trashed. Let us keep working on an item and build around that.
Absolutely agree with you on this. The thing is even if it is more efficient for someone to start over from scratch or a new/better base, you want your players to have the option that they can keep working on a single base. I posted in your other crafting thread and I could see where you were going broadly and I immediately saw we had similar ideas.
i dont even have 1 item that is T20 across any of my 10 characters and they can all do end game content to last Mono quite fine
Hey Grimlock,
Although I’m just quoting your initial statement of your post, I’ve read through all of it.
It sounds that you are very biased towards crafting being unfun and tedious because of your experience with PoE.
TLDR:
Please make your peace with the LE crafting system. It’s less tedious as you think (in my opinion) and the results do matter. Without it you gimp your potential and will miss a lot of content that you can’t beat.
Now the long version for everybody that is interested and has a day off tomorrow 
I’ve played my first PoE league recently and also tried to figure out crafting aspects. The only thing I really used was the crafting bench in the hideout, but i still did not get why I was allowed to do some crafts but others not. But the whole crafting of PoE is soooooo different from LEs system.
In comparison the LE system doesn’t feel any kind of bulky to me.
Theres near to no RNG regarding the result. If you craft flat health, you get it. Not just a chance to “get something health related”. Just the range is rolled.
So I start crafting right away when I create a new character. As soon as I find a blue item with 1-2 stats on it that I could use I improve these stats to have them at maximum tier possible that my character level allows. This maybe stats that are week for endgame. But anything you put in your gear will improve your performance and make life easier.
I don’t share your feelings about steps 1-3. But this is your personal opinion about the gathering aspect needed for crafting. So I can’t make it fun for you by talking. Finding shards works in the fly. Lootfilter will improve finding bases hugely! Hope, it’s more fun for you, then.
This I want to dive into a bit.
When i started LE I wasn’t aware of all that different synergies of passives skills, skilltrees and gear. It took a while and some guides to get behind it. But I’m still not a theory crafting brain like some other members of the community. I’m more the look and feel guy. I can see the numbers, understand what it does mainly. But I can’t judge the strength of something by just seeing the numbers. So I have to try things to get the “feeling” wether an improvement was worth it or not.
I continuously underestimated the small numbers of skill improvements, passives and gear (and still do although knowing better now). The flat values protections add to your stats, the bit of %increases in the passive trees and so on. But they sum up and push each other. This is kind of complex and not obvious by just looking at the numbers (at least for me). It’s the result of all the synergies.
So the numbers of a t4 to t5 improvement on a single item may seem small. And you may also not notice a huge difference in performance after improving a single item like that. But the difference in having all gear at t20 (4x t5 affixes) and or t16 is big!
A very important aspect of gearing also is that without using the crafting system you won’t be able to really improve your gear in a reasonable amount of time. There’s so much RNG in finding base items with 4 stats and balance them. Theres no way to do it without crafting. The whole itemisation is based on it. You are supposed to shatter items for shards to improve your gear the way you want because the game doesn’t give you the exact items you want.
I highly recommend (ab)using the crafting system as soon as you can. That’s a tip I give every new player that asks for advice. Crafting is the mightiest tool in LE and it’s so easy to use. Also because of scrolling through all the loot without a filter currently IS tedious, I craft a lot.
By not using it you gimp yourself. I’d even would go that far and say that LE isn’t meant to be played without crafting.
The fracturing mechanic is just a mechanism to cap the potential of crafting otherwise it would be op.
With all this I just want to convince you to use the crafting to its limits.
Peace! 
This would make 99.9% of the loot useless.
True, but we don’t really go for 99.9% of the loot. We are going for the top of the top at end game because at that point it’s a game of inches where the vast majority of the gear you find is useless. You have to find the right base item with the right affixes. If you’re at T20, then you have to find something with T6 and start that process over again. If you’re at T21 then it’s a hunt for T7 items or multiple T6 and so on and so forth. And that’s across multiple item slots for one character. You can still have multiple classes with multiple variations of builds that require different affixes and base items.
The current system doesn’t allow you to easily get to T20, let alone T21+. Because as soon as you fail the item is trashed. Worse, it can even become unusable. I get anywhere near T13 and it introduces damaging/destructive fractures. Realistically it’ll take multiple base items with the right affixes to attempt to craft knowing that the item may become trashed.
You’re also in the fringest of the fringe with that way of playing. If crafting would be limited to T5 and all possible tiers were up to T10 then I’m sure more people would be in that boat but as of now players hardly care if their items are strictly T20 or not.
i would say most players want top end gear i.e. “top of the top” but this game is very punishing in trying to get to that point. I do agree with your statement that
and for me personally this is because when i get an item to T14-16 then the opportunity cost of risking 1 or 2 max additional tiers is too high i.e. the cost of me having to refarm or re-gamble a number of base items
As i stated in another forum topic on crafting i think a simple rework of “Rune of Removal” can greatly improve this. At moment 99.999% of items with 4 affixes (yellow or purple) are either shatter or leave on ground due to the instability introduced when rolling say 2 of 4 stats off the item.
If instability were removed from using this rune then at least if i found 12 belts with 2 of 4 affixes being ones i want, then on average 1/12 of them would become a base item to start crafting. This would make purples infinitely more valuable and attractive to farm
Not understanding your logic. How is arguing against fractured items being trashed somehow only limited to those going for T20? Damaging fractures stop most people from going for T13+ as it’s simply not worth it unless you’re crafting on a spare item. Are you being argumentative for no reason or is there a point you’re trying to make? Whether you’re going for T10 or T20, having a system in place that doesn’t halt progress is a better gaming experience for most people. You can have a system that makes you feel great for crafting a good item (rarity, difficulty) without artificially creating bottlenecks via fractures.
Even if you’re able to try nonstop on one item it doesn’t mean it makes 99.9% of items useless. Let’s get it out of the way and say 90% of items are pretty much useless (arbitrary number, but you get the point). If I find a good base item that has the stats I want and decent rolls I will still craft on it even if I still have a piece I’m working on. I will still save it and work on it as a back up depending on other factors (lower instability, better base roll, etc).