D2 Runewords

[Kulze]

@Sol77

2a) Runes in D2 were great as trading currency for every price range, something we could use here to unlink gold from MG, but I wouldn’t know how with the current trading system.

Adjsuting the current whole gold-fiasco (which it is) instead of making a new mechanic besides it is actually easier even.
But for that nonetheless major efforts not to be put forth.

@Sol77

but we shouldn’t create too many items that most people can never get.

Exactly, both the existence of chase-items is a necessity but the overabundance a detriment. It’s a fine line to walk how much grinding effort is to be expected and the game needs to cater to that direction while leaving nonetheless options for more open.

@Sol77

Uniques should be just that, something different, not an ideal rare with a bonus.

Which currently - sadly - is the case. The base system is interesting but will cause major downsides in the future. It needs a rework sometime but that’s not due for a long long while yet.

@Sol77

It was fun because every single run had the chance to grant a Shako, like a slot machine. That’s a huge psychological difference.

Fully agreed, which is the major importance to not make fully deterministic outcomes the norm… but a side-mechanic. CoF can work in that direction (and actually friggin should rather then what we have).

[Sol77]

@Kulze

Which currently - sadly - is the case. The base system is interesting but will cause major downsides in the future. It needs a rework sometime but that’s not due for a long long while yet.

Why sadly? I consider this fine, we have uniques that do unique things. Many of them are useful and most aren’t in a meta sense. But for good loot to exist there needs to be bad loot too.

[Kulze]

It’s the legendary mechanic I’m talking about.

With following content it’ll include power-creep, with power-creep the need to drop higher valued items becomes a necessity.

Now it starts to diverge into 2 possible outcomes.
The first is that LP drop-chance doesn’t increase heavily over time with the new content, this leads to many - actually the majority - of uniques to become utterly useless.
The second is that LP drop-chance increases accordingly with new content, which means 3 and 4 LP will be vastly more prevalent, that leads to every item in your character being made into a unique item, you don’t use exalted items anymore as the amount of power provided with a 3 to 4 LP item is often higher then a perfected exalted item because of said unique modifiers for the respective slot.

So yes, it’ll need adjustements in the future, not yet and hence why I’m saying it’s a decent while off. For the current state of the game the mechanic is fantastic, for the long-term health of it? Not optimal.

[Sol77]

I see your point. When do you expect power-creep to arrive?

To me, power-creep during a major game version (any version starting with 1) could only occur as a side-effect of bad balance patches (like in D3 - Blizz would “fix” Forge Guard by quintupling it’s damage output - then other classes would feel bad, receive the same fixes, yadda yadda).

So for the foreseeable future I don’t expect to see power-creep in LE, rather the opposite of it. We can push corruption way higher than was intended, which makes the gameplay arguably worse. Many people complain that building corruption in another timeline or on another character feels boring and they have a point. Said point would vanish if the top builds would end around 300.

With a major content update (2.0) power-creep is kinda necessary (see any WoW expansion, where you would outgrow your previous gear quickly to bring everyone back to an even playground).

The aforementioned sockets would necessarily bring power-creep, no matter how they do it. If we get rubies that give + melee fire damage on top of what we already have, we grow stronger, obviously.

What you describe sounds like the need to get stronger due to the game getting harder, am I getting this right?

[SEQFTW]

Actually in D2, both unique and high rune could drop at any point during that 1000 mephisto run. It’s just after 1000 runs, if you didn’t get that rare unique or high rune, you could also trade all the lesser items you got for a higher rune, so whether you get it or not, you’ve made progress towards getting one. It’s not like you couldn’t get a BER rune at run one. It’s that if you didn’t get one by run 1000, you had enough items to trade for middle runes, and combine the runes and traded items you did get, you could make or exchange for a BER rune.

Further, you wouldn’t need to farm 1000 boss kills anyways, which I would find boring. You could instead farm for keys, farm for tokens, farm varying bosses, farm trash, you could basically do whatever you wanted, and could get a BER rune by trading for it, and also, it could drop at anytime. BER runes might as well not even exist, but the middle ones could be upgraded into higher runes, and those upgraded into higher runes, middle ones did exist, and even lower end high runes could be traded for sets of keys and tokens. The runewords you created, could be sold for more than their value if they rolled well, and less than their value if they rolled poorly, thus you could even just craft other runewords to get your BER. You could also sit in trade, find great deals, and resell items at a profit. So you could get your BER by trading, crafting, farming trash, farming keys, farming tokens, farming bosses, you could basically get it no matter what you did.

And the difference is that LE you have to wait for it to drop, while in D2 you didn’t have to, you could simply get it a little at a time. It would be if you get Shards from other LP items. 1 Shard from LP1, 3 shards from LP2, and 10 shards from LP3, 25 shards from LP4. It would cost 10 shards to place 1LP on a non-LP unique, 50 shards to place LP2 on a non-LP item, 200 shards to LP3 on an non-LP item, and 1000 shards to place LP4 on a non-LP item. That would make it similar to Runeword system.

But you have a secondary problem, in that LP2 still means 50% chance to fail to transfer desired affixes. Hence yes, really the entire system should change, as the current system just isn’t good. Rng on top of rng on top of rng is just not healthy, and for most not fun.

[Kulze]

@Sol77

I see your point. When do you expect power-creep to arrive?

First part? 1.1 since we get inspirational boss-content regarding to EHG.

Re-work of the end-game system, hence expanding it which will cause obviously power to scale up since more content is available and leads to a higher ceiling.

When will LP become an issue? Further down the line definitely, but it’s already a thing which can be seen that it’ll turn into ‘we only have uniques with exalted slapped on top’ in the current state. It’s better to solve such things before they become an actual issue which is detrimental.

@Sol77

We can push corruption way higher than was intended, which makes the gameplay arguably worse.

That’s a result from the power-creep of 1.0 compared to 0.9. So we already have that now.

@Sol77

What you describe sounds like the need to get stronger due to the game getting harder, am I getting this right?

Yes, which is the ‘healthy’ part of power-creep. The connotation of it usually is just a negative one for people… but that’s not the case.
It happens naturally with new content. Hence it is something which by design needs to be taken into consideration with all mechanics below.

There’s games which invalidate all the content which comes before the new one releases… we can see how that fares long-term, usually turns into the game slowly but surely dieing off since the actual amount of possible things you can do doesn’t increase… it diminishes actually and ever longer are you ‘held up’ with the things which bear no relevance to you in the ‘grand scheme of things’. Which is arguably a bad state.

Optimally games diversify their content and keep as much as possible relevant. For LE this can for example be achieved by allowing us to ‘empower’ campaign content, hence bringing it up to par to end-game level, making it a possible alternative farming option. Since CoF already ties into it this would also make that a lot better for the long term.
As an example of a game which currently masterfully does that… it’s actually Path of Exile with their 3.24 update. Formerly you had so called ‘Sextants’ which allowed you to adjust your end-game content, now it’s put into their ‘Scarab’ system, you can hence majorly adjust their end-game content to the way you enjoy to play it with the myriad of mechanics they offer, many of them providing unique rewards which can only be gotten this way.

Not only is it good for any form of economy to have that (since you can’t do everything on your own in a high-return manner at the same time) but it also allows people to adjust their play-style however they want. ‘Today I’m not in the mood for breaches, I’ll instead run temples… delve… harbinger… strongboxes… boss-focus…’ whichever you might wanna choose. This alleviates the issue of burnout for the game and increases retention times, especially since none of those mechanics are ‘bad’ actually, each one provides something ‘relevant’ and you can always go for the thing you want or need most at the current time.

In LE this is solely focused on bossing as well as the dungeons in the current state, it needs to branch out more to provide this… but we have options to alleviate the current state already there, a high-investment part even… which is the campaign. Together with 1.1 this would cause player retention to raise quite a bit I imagine since it allows for longer-term farming without it becoming boring since it’s pure 100% repetition while also allowing those which want exactly that to uphold that play-style.

@SEQFTW

And the difference is that LE you have to wait for it to drop, while in D2 you didn’t have to, you could simply get it a little at a time.

You had to get the respective unique or a good base item fitting for your runes, hence it’s a 2-tier itemization system simply. One part pure RNG the other partially deterministic.

I agree we need more deterministic aspects but the RNG part would still be there for how you complain about it, also currently we don’t have the content available to handle such a thing, 1.2 would be the absolute and utmost earliest it should happen… if not later.

[SEQFTW]

No need to stop with Shard on LP. To stop rng on top of rng, on top of rng model they have, and to use their current system of shards and forging potential, they should further make T6 and T7 affixes craftable, and LP system simply say how many affixes you can apply. It’d start 2LP would mean two open affixes. T6 on LP1 might cost 6 shards to place on it. T6 on LP4 might cost 24 shards to place on it. T7 on LP1 might cost 7 shards to place on it, but T7 on LP4 might cost 28 shards to place on it.

Then, make all shards tradable. LP shards, Affix shards, make them the currency. Suddenly their affix system would make sense in that affixes were now valuable. Further, keep the current system in place, where if you find your perfect unique you could save tons of shards by transferring it over. Add Forging Potential to uniques, allowing a poor smash a chance to change into better affixes just like uniques and glyph of chaos. or intentially leave a Low tier affix on the unique, and if the affix you want doesn’t transfer, you still have a chance to salvage the smash by despairing the T1 affix off the legendary, which would open up an affix slot.

All feedback are things I hope they change in the future, not demands, but suggestions for devs to make the game more fun.

Leaving the system in place but adding ability to trade affix and LP shards, adding LP shards by shattering LP1+ items, adding forging potential to uniques for poor smashes, and add ability to craft affixes onto open LP slots (with elevated affix cost but no forging potential cost), are all viable ways to incorporate rune system without runewords. However I think adding runewords ontop of the current system would be even better. Affixes would be the currency, all items would be valuable. Decrease blue and yellow drops, by like 95%. In their place, drop affix shards that auto pickup and auto place into forge. That decreases need to pick up every item and shatter it. Have an exchange, where you can covert 25 common shards into 1 rare shard, and can convert 5 rare shards, into a different rare shard. Now all shards are valuable.

Bug fixes and corruption ladder, and QOL changes in season 2, this shard change season 3, shardwords season 4, etc.

[Sol77]

@SEQFTW

So you could get your BER by trading, crafting, farming trash, farming keys, farming tokens, farming bosses, you could basically get it no matter what you did.

Like I said, you treat BER like a Tabula Rasa because dupers would hand them to you for a few measly pieces. Their natural drop rate wouldn’t allow for everyone and their dog to be using Enigma. That’s why we shouldn’t have these extreme rarities, at least not for items that people are supposed to have. No one is supposed to have a 3LP Red Ring.

Besides, I don’t like farming pennies to trade them up for something big. I know that’s the gameplay loop for trading-fans, but I’m not one of them.

@Kulze

Re-work of the end-game system, hence expanding it which will cause obviously power to scale up since more content is available and leads to a higher ceiling.

I think we should differentiate between content getting harder and players getting stronger. You have a point that we got the latter in 1.0. I only started near the end of 0.9 but sure, what we have in 1.0 is way stronger.

It’s true that we use a lot of uniques with 2-3 lp because whatever unique stats there are often tend to be better than an implicit and the least desirable affix. Maybe it would be better to have up to 6 affixes on rares and exalteds but keep the 4LP cap.

I’m with you that PoE remains the gold standard, though I didn’t find the time to play it for about 5 years by now. We can only hope that LE will at some point have that many avenues to pursue. Though they overdid it with all the hoops you had to jump through before starting a map.

[Sol77]

@SEQFTW

No need to stop with Shard on LP. To stop rng on top of rng, on top of rng model they have, and to use their current system of shards and forging potential, they should further make T6 and T7 affixes craftable, and LP system simply say how many affixes you can apply. It’d start 2LP would mean two open affixes. T6 on LP1 might cost 6 shards to place on it. T6 on LP4 might cost 24 shards to place on it. T7 on LP1 might cost 7 shards to place on it, but T7 on LP4 might cost 28 shards to place on it.

This doesn’t sound so bad. Requires some tuning, but I wouldn’t mind changing the Julra lottery.

[Kulze]

@SEQFTW

they should further make T6 and T7 affixes craftable

In the future sure… for now not even remotely.
They were implemented with the distinct function to not be craftable so it’s a drop-only aspect of the game.

This becomes only relevant when the game mechanics and sheer amount of content has progressed so far that it becomes a needed measure, which is quite far off still. We’re getting there - slowly - though.

@SEQFTW

Then, make all shards tradable. LP shards, Affix shards, make them the currency.

Yes, I have no idea why they didn’t implement affix shard trading… not itemizing them but instead offering those up for buying. They’re a prime method of allowing gold to be detached from trading which has inherently no value. The actual value currently is held with glyphs and sigils since they’re needed for crafting and hence have a inherent sink implemented, unlike the - quite shoddy - sink for gold as the lightless arbor.

@Sol77

I think we should differentiate between content getting harder and players getting stronger.

If new content gets implemented it means that new ways to scale towards it will be implemented… after all why try to kill a boss if nothing drops? So at least some uniques or specific drops will be a mandatory necessity from those, they’ll provide more power then before → power-creep.

You never can detach power-creep from extra content on the top range, it’s impossible, if it is done it’s by design a failed implementation.

@Sol77

Maybe it would be better to have up to 6 affixes on rares and exalteds

Yes, this would in the future be a viable way to handle it and differentiate between uniques and ‘normal’ items. It’s a great solution in time.

@Sol77

though I didn’t find the time to play it for about 5 years by now.

I recommend playing Standard in that case and simply trying it out with a single character. The league mechanics are obviously interesting… but if you haven’t played it for such a long time… well… it’s a totally different game by now. Everything has changed over the last 5 years. That was back when the conquerors were introduced… or just before. So given that you likely ended with uber-elder as the last possible progression… nowadays we got a main layer above that + aspirational content beyond there. So the power-creep has turned the game into a completely different experience, a good one nowadays though.

[Sol77]

@Kulze

If new content gets implemented it means that new ways to scale towards it will be implemented… after all why try to kill a boss if nothing drops? So at least some uniques or specific drops will be a mandatory necessity from those, they’ll provide more power then before → power-creep.

You never can detach power-creep from extra content on the top range, it’s impossible, if it is done it’s by design a failed implementation.

Agreed. While we could find a one-time-solution like shard-collecting pets as droppable rewards, new bosses usually need to have a real incentive that will make players stronger - and in that context power-creep is fine.

We just shouldn’t get it the D3 way by overbuffing every class in an endless loop without ever adding content.

@Kulze

I recommend playing Standard in that case and simply trying it out with a single character. The league mechanics are obviously interesting… but if you haven’t played it for such a long time… well… it’s a totally different game by now. Everything has changed over the last 5 years. That was back when the conquerors were introduced… or just before. So given that you likely ended with uber-elder as the last possible progression… nowadays we got a main layer above that + aspirational content beyond there. So the power-creep has turned the game into a completely different experience, a good one nowadays though.

Sounds about right, I still have an “Elder Ring” sheet from those days, long before that similar sounding game released. I intend to play it again at some point in time, for now I’m still happy spending my gaming time in LE. There isn’t that much left to do, but I just assembled my build and why would I do that if not to play it for a while.