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Welcome aboard 
However, with the greatest of respect and not wanting to come across as inflammatory, youâve only been here a few days⌠Give it a little while and get accustomed to levelling a few characters & gearing them up.
A lot of players (myself included) would argue that thereâs no need to âoverhaulâ crafting in the first place. Tweaking is another thing entirely, which the devs already do. In fact, having only come here in May myself I have already seen one round of tweaks.
Personally I find crafting to be in a very good place. Certainly there can be some frustration trying to hit a T19/20 piece, and shattering is always frustrating,but thatâs part of the âfunâ of it all. If it were a simple no-risk matter of crafting perfect T20 pieces then you remove a large part of the game itself and enable âeasy modeâ. I donât know about you, but I like my games to have a little challenge to them. If theyâre too easy I get bored very quickly.
Presently, youâre more than capable of making T20 items, they just take some time & effort. I have found that using a base that already has at least a T3/4 on it makes life a lot simpler. Starting from a ânormalâ item with no affixes to get to a T20 is very, very tough. I think I have managed it once in my limited hours of play. However, itâs the pursuit of perfection and gear upgrading that makes up about 50% of the reason for playing for me at least. If I made a new toon, got to empowered, and already had T20âs then the game would lose a lot of its shine and appeal and simply become a total grindfest.
LEâs crafting system is way, way better than some other games. At least here it is mainly deterministic, with a small element of RNG. Other places it is mostly RNG with a small element of deterministic. Trust me, having spent years in the latter type of systems I know which I prefer.
The gist of your post seems to be aimed at Tiering items for upgradability, at lower levels which is only really relevant during levelling. Levelling only takes a tiny fraction of the time spent on a character, so changing a system based on that would be fundamentally flawed. As a non âspeed runnerâ I can go from 1-75 in a couple of days, and I am a slow player traditionally. Plus here in LE, there is no âiLevelâ of gear, which imho is great. A lot of times once you are making your final gear you can end up choosing what (during levelling) would seem to be a âstarterâ base because its base stats suit your endgame build more than some of the higher level gated gear provide. i.e you are looking for Ward gen rather than endurance etc
Also your item #4 already happens. Those items are called âexaltedâ items. You can get an item drop with a T7, T6, and a couple of other great tiers drop already. The trade off is that by trying to craft your own chosen affixes onto those using the remove option, you can sometimes bork those items completely but thatâs a chance you take.
Item 5. Sorry but imho that is simply making the game way too easy. LE already has a much lower amount of rng than other games, but to remove it to the point of choosing specific affixes to remove in my opinion would make the game a little childish in challenge terms. Weâd all be crafting T21+ items then, which are most certainly not needed as the game stands currently. The mobs are not overtuned, the density is not at mad levels, so thereâs really no need for âGod Tierâ weapons. Having T18+ gear on the right build will already see you breeze through empowered monos. The balancing in LE is just about the best I have found in an aprg at the moment.
I would honestly recommend sticking in some more hours enjoying yourself, playing monos at empowered levels, trying new builds, and in a few weeks you might find that your initial perspective here has changed somewhat.
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Yes, I understand your points in your above post and it was very well written. I donât disagree with anything you have stated in there. In fact, I agree with the underlying mind games that you state that most games use to encourage us to persist in playing them.
However, in that reply you completely miss what I was saying to you in my reply and fail to address it at all. I like to do people the courtesy of reading their replies to me thoroughly and carefully and I appreciate it when others do the same for me. You initially mention the word âoverhaulâ and are calling for said overhaul of a system that isnât broken, based upon very little personal experience of using said system. What I was asking is that you give using the current system a little more time and personal experience, and then revisit whether or not you would go for a complete overhaul. Itâs like me taking a car that took 2 years to design for a 10 minute test drive on a flat oval circuit and then requesting a complete redesign & overhaul of said car.
Your initial post calls in particular for several points in an âoverhaulâ when those things already exist in the current system anyway; just in a slightly different form. I did point this out in an obtuse fashion, but it appears that you did not read my reply thoroughly so I will try again in a clearer fashion.
Your #1: There is already a limit. It is max T5 in each of the 4 slots when crafting a new item from scratch making a total of T20. This is a global limit rather than an individual one. Why have a complicated system of individual limits per item when a global limit works just fine? You ask for change for changes sake. The global limit system works currently absolutely fine because of the overall nice balance in the game. Making it a âper itemâ limit would potentially ruin that balance and land this game in the same mess as many others. The only global exception to the limit is when you alter an exalted item, and then if you are lucky you can push the envelope slightly above T20, but at greater risk of shattering.
Items do not have a iLevel, as I pointed out. In LE, there is no need for an iLevel. ILvlâs are normally brought into games as a result of incorrect methods of balancing. In LE, the overall dps of a skill for example is not only determined by the weapon, but also the skill points assigned, and therefore by default the players level (you only max at 20 your skills in the 90âs). Also, due to the bases people use âlower level reqâ items at endgame (see my first reply para 6). Plus, during low level levelling their is an additional âsoft capâ system on the individual crafted Tier you can make which is lower than at end game (you mention this in your point 2.
Your #2: I do not understand the point in listing this point. You mention this as a change in your âoverhaulâ but it already exists. First sub point is already in the game, there is a âsoft capâ while levelling that is lower than the 4 x T5 end game cap. Second sub point is also already in the game. You then state to continue both sub points. Ok, agreed as they are both part of the system that most of us find fine anyway.
Your#3: You are proposing a âno failâ system of upgrading but with a sliding scale as a penalty instead of a potential fracture. I guess this is highly subjective. Personally I do not like the âno failâ system, but that is my personal opinion. Like most people I am not immune to getting frustrated by fractures, sometimes I yell at the screen. However, as you mention in your second post, that keeps my attention span alive and I keep on trying again & again, and incrementally improve my items slowly. Eventually I will get at least T20s in each slot, but by the time I get to that point I will probably have got bored with that build and be trying another one anyway.
The alternative to a âriskâ system is fraught with issues. You mention an increasing scale. How do you work that scale out? For example, you as a newer player may not have many shards, so say a 1.000 for a T5 affix might seem like a lot to you. I have only been playing since May, but I already have several thousand of some shards. Some players have been playing for months, so they may have tens of thousands. Some players have been playing for longer than that, they may have hundreds of thousands. So, you could say put a cap on the shards, there might even be one idk. Again though, aside from the lack of failure, this just seems like yet more change for changeâs sake and it also removes one of the âaddictiveâ parts of playing a build. Remove too many, and people lose interest.
Your#4: The second part of this already happens with Exalted items. The first part (random implicit) also already happens. Once again, I do not understand listing this as part of an âoverhaulâ when it already exists. I did already mention this in my first reply (para 7).
Your#5: I did reply to this in my first reply (para 8). Itâs subjective again, but I believe this is an indication of a desire for âeasy modeâ gaming.
In summary, I hope this reply is useful to you if you read it all (as I have done to your posts). Sadly, all too often people choose to leave one game after years of changes due to the level of changes and their effects overall, and go to play a different game of the same genre and enjoy it based on the hours they put in. They then spend most of their waking hours petitioning to change that game, and eventually it simply becomes a shadow of the very thing they were trying to escape in the first place. I am not saying that this is you, but this is a common thing amongst gamers.
I once again come back to my closing statement in my initial reply to you. My sentiment has not changed on this.
I hope you continue to enjoy the game as much as the rest of us do and wish you a happy weekend.
So, what you would like is a âno loseâ game? One where you never encounter any losses of any sort, be it gear, deaths, or anything else?
I really donât see that happening in any arpg. In fact, I donât know of any game in this genre Iâve encountered in my many years of playing that fits that particular bill.
The closest thing I can imagine that ticks that box is maybe âthe Simsâ series of games, or something based purely around progressive building.
Doubtful, as risk has been an element of arpg games since day one, unless you know of any particular examples where there is no risk of failure in either gear progression or deaths?
Good luck in your quest to bring this particular mentality into the arpg market. I donât personally see the appeal of a game where thereâs zero risk, but then again that is why I play games like this one and never have had any interest in construction simulators.
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Ok, I understand your position a little more clearly.
So, itâs more of a removing of the rng element of fracturing than removing all âfail scenariosâ.
I, too, personally hate RNG and the âslot machineâ scenario. I do understand though the reasons why LE have it for crafting. They donât want everyone to be able to have guaranteed T20 crafting abilities, they want some risk involved in that process to encourage another device for keeping players engaged a little longer in that particular build.
The massive problem they faced is how to introduce that risk. The option they have chosen is fracturing, the chance of which is in turn based on the index added to the item and increased by crafting actions. So, rather than making it a pure slot machine rng, it is a factored rng with a sliding scale.
Is there a better or alternative method to introducing that risk element? Maybe, but for the life of me I canât think of a better way than the current mechanic.
As weâve discovered from our posts, we are on opposite sides of the fence as to the gear breaking argument, but thatâs fine - everyone has their point of view. The one thing that the devs are able to do with the current system though is to tweak it as they see fit. If there are too many fractures for the liking of the players, they can simply adjust the algorithm or formulae used.
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Iâm also not a big fan of RNG factors but I have to say that so far the fracturing chance I donât experience as very annoying and high RNG so far. In my opinion the fracturing does the limiting the number of upgrades. You have a certain number of âfreeâ upgrades until your instability seriously affects your success chance.
I get the feeling that the game is designed to get drops and crafting/upgrade them. I fe have a helmet T13 with upgrades from crafting. It currently has 30 instability so an upgrade from T3 to 4 has a 70% chance of success. I also have a T13 item dropped which has 13 instability and there itâs 95% for the same upgrade (both with guardian glyph).
I do agree for a part with the 5th point. It would be nice if you can reroll a specific suffix/affix instead of it being random. You can max it to one per item, include added stability and the tier could be limited to this option but when you finally get that awesome drop with 3 of your top suffix/affixes with good tiers and one crappy to me itâs too much RNG (75%) of messing up the item with the random remove.
Shatter doesnât have to be free but either use one glyph for all options or give the option to buy it in higher quantities at a vendor could solve this.
My suggestion to the devs would be to include some sort of tutorial or quest to explain the forge when the game gets out of sandbox. I eventually watched a video someone posted which explained all variables which helped me understand and appreciate the system a lot better.
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Personally, I hate the idea of crafting T20âs and fracturing your gear. How this could be solved is not something I am willing to conquer here, but I think that the tougher the challenge, the better the drops (including T20 and higher-level of useable gear affixes).
To me, crafting should be a way to get some affixes you need of moderate means. It should never reach T20 capability â that should be reserved for gear drops IMHO.
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I think that the important thing to note here is that you get much lower instability on Tiered items that âdrop in the wildâ.
By setting your loot filter up to show you items that have the affixes you want above a certain tier, you have a much greater chance on crafting those items to make a T20 item.
Indeed, I have made several T20 items successfully, and 99% of those have started out as items with around a T11 or greater starting point.
It is extremely tough to make a T20 from a T0 item. It is a lot easier if you pick up an item that has T4/T4/T2 and an instability of around 11+. It seems even easier again if you find an item with all 4 affixes to start with of say T3 as an example.
I think the initial kneejerk reaction to crafting failures is often based upon peopleâs experiences trying to make a T20 from a white item. This isnât the best method. It seems to me that that particular process was more designed to be used for making some âstarterâ end game gear of around T12-16. By making & utilising an efficient loot filter, you can find lots of good bases while doing monos (especially empowered) for crafting those higher end game gear pieces.
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Well, the thing is, in my case anyway I keep on crafting away regardless of fractures. I take all as a natural part of the game and crafting process. It doesnât affect me any more today than it did the first day I started playing the game.
In comparison to the âcraftingâ in the game I most recently played for years, this is light years better. Almost to the point that I hesitate to even compare the 2. One was a pure spinning wheel of roulette, where as this as I see it is more âproperâ crafting. So, compared to my âcraftingâ elsewhere over the last 3+ years, this is heaven.
Also, at least with the fracturing system, chances are that on a lot of items even when it does fracture it is still an improvement from what you are wearing.
Almost every non unique I am wearing on my current player is fractured. This is because I push every crafting attempt to the max of T20. If it gets there without a fracture, brilliant, but itâs an extreme rarity. This is how I âupgradeâ my gear though, incrementally through crafting attempts.
Like I said, the current system works for me. I appreciate it doesnât work for you. This is the nature of mature gaming forums, we agree to disagree and maybe take little points from each otherâs perspective & thoughts.
This is the beauty of the current state & maturity of the LE forums. I sincerely hope it can long continue to be like that in the future as more people come here from other games.
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Another very well written expansion upon your previous points.
Sadly, I still hold to my opinions expressed previously which are not altogether inline with yours. Itâs good though that you expand upon your opinions in this level of detail and thought, and I am sure this provides some useful insight on that perspective for the devs to think about. Kudos for the post. I canât give you a âlikeâ tick sadly, as that would imply I agree, so take this âverbal tickâ instead 
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