Same happened to me last night. I was in the camp of “it’s RNG / probability get over it” until i broke 8 Relics and 9 Gloves just trying to get starter T12-15 glove & relic for new char. About half of the items had a T5 roll to start with as well.
This just isn’t fun. Having farmed these items over weeks to keep in stash for a future char and see those weeks worth of farming go up in smoke in 10min definitely fits the bill of
Oh no, I learned early saving gear like that is just a debbie downer saved for later. I have a few that are rolled amazingly sitting in the bank, but I feel like Ill only start crafting them after 2-3 full bank slots are full of gear. Then… well, probably still a disappointment coming, but probability says I’ll have a higher chance of SOMETHING decent coming my way.
i am probably acting irrationally but it gets your blood boiling when one after the other good base items fracture and you are left with nothing at the end
Especially when getting a high end base is so damn difficult.
F
grammar police incoming “… base item fractures …” 
Maybe I am super lucky, but I don’t have these problems. I have even cleared an item to white and then crafted it up with 2 T5 and a T1 and a T2.
I pick the 2 affixes that are most important to me. I alternate crafting them on, choosing the one that has a higher chance of success. If I get to over 6% for a damaging fracture, I stop with that affix. You can usually get a T5 and a T4 before you get to that point. Then I switch over to add on a couple less important affixes.
The question is: What tier are the bases you start crafting on?
@grimlock9999 @Vatni @TheRealIronMan
Do you start with a white, blue or yellow item?
Grimlock, you mentioned you struggle creating t12-t15 gear. If you start at t10 at least it isn’t really hard to get t15 imho.
Yellow : almost never since impossible to find an item with 4 correct stats and rolling one or 2 stats off add too much instability and finding one with 3 correct stats is so rare to find (i think i have found maybe 10 of those in 1,000 hours of play)
Blue : i always try to use blue with c. T8-12 as base
White : only for starting gear to get to T10-12
The higher up the color tier, the better. I have long item names on and I keep an eye out for rare and targeted affix names. Its why I haven’t jumped on the loot filter wagon too much, just a lil dash here and there lol. Anyway, if its trash, but good affixes, Ill shatter. But if its good… like, even just kinda good, I usually craft on it a bit. It either fractures early, after a t5 or two, or… it may become a monster. I’m going to see what the highest instability item I have that isn’t fractured.
But to answer the question more directly, most of my crafts have started from 2 t5 blues, some on decent bases. I’ve had good luck (I’d say) with the purples though. I have a one or two on a few different toons. I really should link some of those in that other thread.
After all this looting, I have in my inventory
Since I play mostly minion DoT builds and read guides from people who do push to the limits of the game, regardless of the cost, it seems to me that the ‘end game mandatory’ affixes I have are:
Many of those come from using my 30 shattering runes.
I’ve tried to be clear separating facts from my subjective opinion. Of course we will all think differently after such a journey, but my summary is simple:
I enjoy the game, I enjoy the skill system.
The crafting system did not entice me to engage at all initially, now that I have tried it, and looked at the time spent vs the outcomes received, it just makes me angry.
There is actually a real life analogy here: Each ton of raw sewage has an estimated average of $200 worth of jewellery in it. You don’t know where it is, and you would have to start sifting through crap to find any. Are you rushing off to your local sewage plant anytime soon?
Probably not, but it doesn’t make you angry.
What is more irritating is if the sewage plant owner had full control over how much you had to sift through to find a ring, and decided that around 70,000 hours should do it, just to keep you at the sewage plant longer…
I haven’t played this game for long but how realistic is it to have a T10+ item with the base stats you want and the affixes you want? The probability already seems really low. Base stats + right affixes + high base tier all together happening at the same time is really really low. THEN you have to craft on it and hope it doesn’t go down the gutter.
I’m ok with low chances to get a good item. It should take a long time. ARPGs that give you top tier equipment easy don’t last long. What does matter is the process and the experience of getting there. Here are the steps needed (my opinion) to craft a top tier item:
Someone tell me how that is a good experience. You can get decent starter gear at T9-T12 at steps 1 and 2. Maybe easier or get a higher tiered item at step 3. You need to get to at least step 4 and even then, you’re praying it doesn’t fracture and end all progress. You already have all the steps (1-4) needed to make it hard enough as is with enough RNG. All we’re asking is to change 5-6 so that the item doesn’t permanently become trash with no hopes of progression.
Thanks guys for your very detailed answers! I just wanted to be sure that you do not try to bring a bad base item like a white to tier 20, because this doesn’t work.
So we all agree that the current “backwards” progression with damaging and destructive fractures is pain. Just the amount of pain and frustration that is being generated differs between you and I, it seems.
Maybe I’m a bit biased because of my Anthem history. In this game you also had a huge variety of different stats (inscriptions) that could roll on an item where. most of them were just filler stats with just the purpose to increase the rng and time to get a decent item. Also the ranges were from 1% damage increase to 250%. There is no crafting so if you are very lucky and find a weapon with an ok stat combination you mostly got a low roll on the damage like 1-20% so the item was trash.
This is one of the most frustrating game experiences I’ve ever made. I always raised my voice to get something like crafting implemented to deal with this issue (remove inscriptions from items and increase the rolls on others).
And now this exact system is implemented in LE.
Crafting is supposed to be used alongside the loot. You won’t get a t20 of your dreams by looting. And you won’t be able to craft a t20 item from the scratch.
You can improve or “finish” decent base items. But you rely on luck very much because the loot involves a lot of rng.
The crafting is very predictable and you have full control about what you get. The tier ranges if stat rolls don’t feel bad. Even the lowest rolls always are an improvement.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to talk the system “good” for you. Your experiences are as viable as mine. And if your opinions on the crafting system are common among the player base, the system needs changes.
The new changes address some points you raised. The damaging fractures become less of a punishment because they don’t make your item useless (if you’re lucky 
).
The critical success helps with getting your items to higher tiers (hopefully).
But still you have to find your base items that are worth crafting on.
Let’s see how this works out in the end. I feel it is a very good step into the right direction.
I think we need to get it out of the way that no one should expect to bring up a T0 item to T20. That is just unrealistic (and for good reason).
The fracture system being a pain is one part for me. The lack of interaction with the fracture system is another. I feel there is a lot of potential to unearth with fractures that can improve the crafting experience. I haven’t played Anthem, but perhaps the game system (the fights that depend on your stats) allowed for that variety. I don’t think LE allows for that. For the most part you need to craft to reasonably advance in this game. The loot system is pretty straightforward in ARPGs: hunt for better gear, better gear for better hunts, better hunt leads to better gear and it goes on. The variance in loot is too big in this game not to utilize the crafting system.
I agree the changes they are making to fractures is a step in the right direction. It doesn’t go far enough for me however. “Item can no longer be crafted on” is the core issue for me. Either remove that or give options to tackle that.
In the end I’m cognizant of the fact that we are in early access and beta. I wholly expect the system to look vastly different from what it is now. That’s why I’m so excited and giving a lot of feedback on the crafting system. I really like the foundation and excited to see how EHG will build on it.
I sincerely hope others keep this in mind when frustrated or find they dislike a specific aspect of this game.
This needs to not be used as an excuse for the current crafting system. No-one in their right mind thinks this should be realistic, and using this to decredit opponents of the current crafting system is arguing in bad faith (not accusing you of this, just putting this point out there).
Completely disagree with 100% of your statement.
Not being able to craft endgame gear from a white base is a design decision. Other way it would be way too easy to get high tier endgame gear.
This is way over the top. We are exchanging opinions here. No bad faith involved in any of the above statements. If you’re frustrated it’s ok to talk about it and point out the flaws you have. Accusing people and discrediting comments is bad behaviour. Please stop this.
Look, i won’t say that Last Epoch doesn’t need any kind of Tweaks & Polishing in regard of Crafting, Itemization and stuff. I mean for this exact reason they even created this topic for the upcoming changes to begin with, because they know it’s still not onspot. However in regard of “scrapping” Shattered Arguments and stuff, i’ve to point out:
This isn’t an MMORG, this isn’t an Crafter Game or a traditional RPG. We’re talking about a ARPG or specific talking: Hack’N’slay. This Genre started out for existing with one of it’s biggest major core-experiences, the loothunting. unlike MMORPGs and Stuff where you have like 100 different Items, which you mostly even can farm specifically for, and Crafting can be a huge way to enhance it even more, this is a Game where majority of it’s fans love it for wasting hundreds of hours to get ton of loot. Heck the very reason why we get lootfilters is because the amount of loot. And in general for Hack’N’Slay majority of the loot you pick up ends as trash (either because they aren’t good items to begin with or simply doesn’t fit your build). And look at majority of ARPG’s which offers Crafting, it’s only a small side-feature than a huge part of it, simply because it don’t want to shift the focus of people running around and trashing monster to get new neat loot to a crafting simulator, and i’d argue the same goes for most HnS Players as well.
And that’s where Last Epoch Crafting comes in. From all the HnS which i ever played, i’d argue this is one of the most potent Crafting-System which i’ve ever seen. It’s not “craft an item based on recipe” or “enhance it with a few gems and runes” where you have limited slots and only a few variation of gems / runes. You can freaking enchant weapons with affixes. That extremly op, and if you look at the very first hours of the game, where shattering is almost non-existent, it kinda shows how strong this whole concept ist. For my Characters i hardly swap out Items at this stage because the crafted gear is way better than almost anything you pick up, which gives you even more useless items than even before. Not to mention that if you might pick up a potent base-item, especially right after you’ve put into your thoughts and work into crafting and have made a pretty strong item, you might be frustratet over the fact that you wasted 5 minutes before a lot of enchants on an item only to get a bit better base item afterwards. I quite often decide against swaping this items out, because of that (which makes even more items useless) due especially while you level, you get better gear a few level laters anyway. And tbh that’s the issue.
For Last Epoch it still works, because we’re talking about the first few hours with low-tier items where you don’t have any much issue with fracture and stuff anyway, (but it’s a good way too see how f*** up crafting would be if they scrap it) but as you push forward it balances itself out. And that’s thanks to Fracture due it’s a vital part to keep them of shifting from a HnS with loothunting to a enhance-crafting simulator. If they do that, they can scrap 99% of the Items anyway and only offer base-items from now on, because it will makes the hunt for loot no fun anymore and basically useless. That’s why crafting like this needs a limit or better say, a Risk vs Reward concept, because than it becomes a additional way for min-maxing and progress(if you unlucky), which enhance the experience, but not completly replace hunting for loot with such an potent crafting concept. (Not to mention how the market will look once they added it in).
It’s great that they look into it, and tweak it, maybe the punishment was too hard so far, and i agree if there is a chance to fail, there also should be a chance to have a critical success. I also like the idea which people put out that a critical success should lower the stability, because that would also iron out the experience more without f*** over risk & reward. But there needs a chance to fail and a punishment for that, especially that you can’t craft on said item anymore. Otherwise it will shift the focus from loothunting to crafting, and while i still “love” crafting in this game, it’s also mostly thanks to the fact that i can fail and might need to hunt for fresh gear. It’s a risk which i willingly take to min-max my items. But if they would scrap that completly i will be most likely the one of the first many people who uninstall the game because i bought a hack’n’slay, not a mmo or crafting simulator.
yet its using MMO/Mobile enchanting system. the very thing you say you dont want its already doing with both the gambler and the crafting. endgame is heavily influenced by crafting so much that it almost overwhelms looting (the aspect ARPGs are known for)
I’m going to say it again: there are ways to lower success rate - it doesn’t have to be the fracture system as is. There are ways to encourage loot hunting and not turn it into a crafting game without the fracture system as is. The key point is the current fracture system is not a good experience. We can both have the cake and eat it too. Change the fracture system so it’s not as frustrating as it is now and still retain the hack and slash feeling we want. That’s why there’s exalted items introduced. There’s many ways to skin a cat. It doesn’t have to be the most painful way possible.
This
LE can have an affix crafting system that does not brick items and also requires large amounts of farming. PoE and Chronicon manage to do so, so why does this game fail at it?