Endgame bad luck protection (slamming)

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1

First, let me just say that I very much appreciate now being able to guarantee 1 affix on Legendary slams. I almost think it’s too generous, in fact, given that it does not cost anything, but that’s not what this post is about. My feedback concerns 2-3 LP endgame slamming.

Overview/context: endgame grind. Once your build is online – you have your uniques and 1 LP legendaries – the endgame is about grinding more gear and minmaxing. Or maybe you’re the type of person who’d rather roll another character at that point, which is also fair. However, for many people, a big part of the endgame grind is finding 2-3 LP versions of the uniques you already have at 1 LP.

The problem 1 (cause): layers of RNG. The core of the problem is that there are three layers of RNG involved in the process of getting an endgame upgrade:

  1. Dropping the unique item at 2-3 LP. In some cases, this in and of itself takes a LONG time.
  2. Dropping/crafting a good exalted item to slam on it. The rarer the unique and the higher the LP, the more time this will likely take as you don’t want to “waste” the elusive, high LP item, and try to look for fodder with multiple T6-7 affixes.
  3. The slam.

Step 2 is technically just grinding. However, it can be frustrating to be bottlenecked by fodder as well while already having the item(s) waiting in the stash. Yet it just makes Step 3 a bigger problem.

Once you finally have the super rare 2-3 LP unique and a great base, you go to temporal sanctum, slam, close your eyes…

And you lose the 33/66% coinflip. Again. And again.

The problem 2 (effect): loot does not feel as rewarding as it should feel. The 2-3 LP drops themselves just do not feel rewarding, because the unique base is only 1/3 of the actual, finished item.

I used to be excited about dropping a good unique with 2-3 LP. After playing the game for almost 1k hours, I’m not. In some cases, it just fills me with dread. There’s no worse feeling than getting a 3 LP that’s like 1/2000 and then failing the slam, resulting in it being worse than your 2 LP that didn’t fail. The 1 guaranteed affix helps avoid the very worst case scenarios, sure, but it’s mostly a midgame thing that helps you get your initial gear together. The endgame slams are still RNG.

The solution: some kind of bad luck protection…? I don’t know what’s the best way to handle this. Maybe you could sacrifice two or more of the same 2 LP item to choose two affixes on 2-3 LP slams? The bottom line is that I don’t think I should get 2-3 LP guaranteed slams for free. But if I play enough to see multiple copies of the item at a certain LP, I think it would be fair to have some way of avoiding endless bad luck. Maybe recycling already failed slams of the same item for some kind of bad luck protection?

I’ve failed eight 1/3s this season with my 2 LP body armor and it’s starting to drive me up against the wall. In past seasons, I’ve quit because I failed a 3 LP slam on an item I know I’ll never see at 3 LP again. It’s just incredibly unfun.

And yes, I know these are incredibly powerful endgame items that you don’t “need” to play the game, but we all know that, past a certain point, these games are all about grinding gear. It should feel good to get an incredibly rare 2-3 LP drop. Now it doesn’t, because there’s lots of further RNG involved, and I consider that a problem.

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And this is why you can choose which affix if applied first (in the t2 & above dungeon). People have been complaining about the feeling of missing the 1 exalted affix you want frequently & the devs changed it.

If this just a slippery slope complaint that the slam needs to be easier/you can choose more affixes?

How is the game to know which affix you want? Maybe you don’t want both exalted affixes on a double exalted item?

And if this happened this season you’d have got the main affix you wanted & then had a 66% chance of getting a second.

3

I did literally elaborate what I mean.

TL;DR: it should be exciting to get a 2-3 LP unique because those are rare drops. Yet in practice it’s not because the item isn’t even good yet before you slam it, and you’ll likely fail the slam. One solution could be some way of eventually choosing more than 1 affix, using copies of the same item with the same LP or higher or something like this, so that you can’t just eternally get ****ed by RNG.

I’m again at the point in the season where I kinda still feel like playing but continuing feels pointless when it’s just failing slam after slam and getting to slam maybe once every 6 hours of grinding. Maybe it’s just me and you’re supposed to enjoy losing a 33% gamble 10 times? I’m not having fun but maybe other people are.

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4

Completely agree with this post , and that the ability to choose an affix is awesome.

Unfortunately I’m also starting to notice and realize that the crafting rng feels very, very bad when slamming LP2 and higher. 2 out of the 3 remaining affixes that are acceptable for my slam never seem to get picked ( for lp2 ) and I’m always getting the 1 affix i actually dont want. At first I thought it was just a chance thing that all my lp2 slams happen to get the 1/3rd affix i didnt want… until it kept happening again and again… and now im back to square one with grinding all my exhaults and LP uniques …

I love the game and all but I thought I was the only one who kept getting absolutely terrible rng. I’m hoping maybe , just maybe theres some weird bug or something because i’m getting screwed by crafting rng too consistently.

And to grind for all the runes, glyphs and favor just to be screwed by rng while crafting is a whole other topic … hopefully EHG buffs the rune/ glyph droprate ( for havoc and the one that seals the affix )

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no shade but this sounds like a complaint of the lazy tbth. its called grinding for a reason as you dont get what you want easily.

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6

True, but it is fair to say that it’s frustrating to not get you want. That said, we are more likely to remember the failures than the successes.

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7

This I agree. 100%

9

Having failed about 9 slams yesterday while prepping gear for a new char I feel your pain bro - some were LP2s and I even failed on a 3. I needed crit multi and crit and ended up with the guarentee multi I chose and fkn minion something but like Mr Llama said and I always agree with him even when he makes me cry it’s a slippery slope and if they did make a second choice easier than we’d all literally be gearing up top gear super quickly. There needs to be chance/luck and for me a lot of pure rage and key board punching.

Getting 1 guarentee will often increase your build by a shit ton. LP2s are pretty common for a lot of things until you start shopping for items like say world splitter, it’s rare yep but a WS with a T7 max roll void melee will still get you thru all game content, maybe a struggle with Uber but the ES lads are doing it.

Frustration at crafting like Crimson said for runes etc - people in CoF wonder what to spend money on? Take a run through Lightless Arbor, hit the chest rune, chose all the rune chests and then chose double up items and triple if you can, you can get 15-20 redemption runes ina run if you’re lucky. Havoc is more rare and it should be its a fkn elite rune but you’ll probably still get a few specially if by now you have 10s or 100s of millions to spare as it’ll cost a mill or 2 per run for this tatic. (you’re welcome)

Still the best crafting I’ve had in an ARPG despite how much I swear and rage when I fail an lp2 but holy shit the endorphines and quick spam in global when you hit one feels fkn epic!

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bro did you play when 1 lp slams were a 25%? consider better lp crafting to be a sort of powercreep we can have in the future. right now with 1 lp slams its made peoples builds wayyyy stronger then previous seasons. as more difficult content comes out and getting 2 lp slams on the reg might be required then maybe we can see some more deterministic way to get them. for now its not needed and we dont need all this power right now

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