Feedback for Affix Shards

[TehGrief]

I wanted to leave some final thoughts and feedback before I go on hiatus.

With the future release of multiplayer and trade in some form or another, there should be some consideration for the way affix shards currently function.

Forge Storage

Once a player has sent affix shards to the forge they cannot be removed (unless I am mistaken, but I have looked extensively; if there is a way, it is not obvious).

The Forges affix storage should function closer to the stash where shards, glyphs, and runes can be freely taken in order to be sold or traded among other players. Once trading is implemented, I really do hope affix shards are made tradable.

Shard, Rune, and Glyph Auto-Collection

There are several great threads already proposing similar ideas:

Money and Crafting Ingredients should drop directly into stash

Its nothing but busy work for the player having to pick them all up. Just QoL it and have them drop straight to stash. Forge stash for the crafting ingredients.

Autopickup affixes and send them directly to forge

I do not grasp why these items have to exist as an inventory item. They drop, you pick them up, you send them to forge when there are no more room in inventory. The only thing they do as an inventory item is disrupt the flow going through maps. Save the graphic assets (they look cool) for some future mechanic, but please make affixes a non-inventory asset.

Auto Pickup shards

I would love to see a setting which you can toggle off and on which will allow you to auto-pickup shards. Since, me personally, i pick up every shard that drops, in case i need it later, however this really slows you down since they drop really often.

This post from @jonassz also highlights similar frustration:

I appreciate that we can collect all shards from the ground at once by clicking the mouse but there is literally no point sending them to inventory where we have to click another button. They just take up space for items.

It can sometimes feel awkward to select the dropped affix shard, have the other “nearby” shards collected, but then have some shards just out of range not collected. I am quite fond of the gold collection system, it has a decent range and feels enjoyable to quickly gather larger piles of gold.

Alongside being auto-looted, I have always been confused as to why the shards are not automatically deposited into the forge. It is often the case that I will have a full inventory when going to pick up an item, only to discover that my entire backpack has every space filled with crafting supplies which I then magically transport to the forge with a single button click - it feels really out of place and wrong. Auto-loot crafting supplies and add them directly to the forge. Allow players to sort through them once they are back in town - or by implementing a loot-filter to avoid unwanted affix shards.

Affix Shard Application Restriction Changes

There are several affixes that are unable to be applied to certain pieces of gear - or are restricted to a single gear type (mostly the “added skill level” affixes). Often times these feel like arbitrary or random decisions.

For example, “Thorns” can be applied to Shields and Body Armour - thematically representing that your enemies are taking damage when they hit you. However, there doesn’t seem to be any good reason why Thorns cannot be applied to ALL armour slots and shields; what happens when an opponent attacks your precious and soft ankles?

“Block Chance” and “Block Effectiveness” are two affixes that can only be applied to shields - implying that your armour does not offer an opportunity to block damage despite “Dodge Effectiveness” being rolled on ALL armour and even one-handed swords.

“Added skill level” affixes any many others should be applicable to several other gear slots.

This system is currently unnecessarily restrictive and inconsistent.

Affix Refinement System

With all of the excess shards (especially moving into late game), it would be nice to see a mechanic implemented that allows unused shards to be converted or consumed in other ways.

@g_o_o_f posted a fantastic thread providing a concept for a new system:

"Shard Conversion" / "Shard Forging"

This has probably been suggested somewhere before but I’ve not been able to find anything through searching, maybe I’m just bad at looking. And I know shards “feeling useless” was addressed in the upcoming crafting rework post but in what way they’ll be addressed I’m still not sure. Either way, I would love to see either a “Shard Converter” or “Shard Forge” added to the game with a simple functionality yet one that gives all loot more worth, even if you might find yourself cursed by the RNG god…

@Royals suggested yet another way to utilize our unused shards:

Shard Trader/Gambler - Additional Gold Sink Option

Chatting in game and I thought of a potential additional gold sink and something to do with the loads of super common affix shards we are accumulating. What if we had another gamble-master. One who would let you give him 1-2 (or 3 or 4, whatever balances it) of your Common affixes w/ some gold and that guaranteed a drop from a higher rarity pool of shards? Common to Uncommon Uncommon to Rare Rare to Super Rare This could be based on the % drop rate and would increases in cost as you moved …

@Darthelmet suggested a unique idea of merging like-shards together to form a stronger base affix shard:

Super Shards!

I had a thought recently after some discussions I had related to affix shards. It’s kind of inconvenient having to pick them up and some of the responses indicated that part of why is out of a desire to make them feel more like a reward to get excited about. Setting aside that I don’t think you want to use inconvenience as a design tool, the shards as they are currently implemented don’t really fit that design goal. You get a lot of them and past the early game where you’re trying to build out y…

Furthermore, the suggestion from @Physalia’s thread highlights a great alternative:

Please let me spend gold to increase my success rate.
Add a blacksmith that sells rare shards, glyphs, runes, and can offer to forge shards onto your armor for a 100% guaranteed success rate but for a high cost. This way, if you are impatient and poor, you can still risk the chance to fracture your armor, but if you are patient and grind a butt-load of gold, you can get some really nice armor. I.e. it rewards the player for playing the game.

Gold could be spent during the crafting process to further reduce the Forging Potential cost range window.

That being said, I personally like the idea of affix shards being broken down into a new resource that could enhance crafting chances and create specific affix shards (discussed further in @g_o_o_f’s thread - seen above).

I look forward to returning to this game in a few months to see any new changes.