Glyphs of Hope should be sold by vendors

Having leveled 6 characters up to 50+, the thing I’m always absolutely broke on is Glyphs of Hope. I’ll typically go 30+ levels with a character, struggling through with zero interaction with the crafting system and getting by on my pool of uniques and unupgraded items self-found. Then I’ll get to the point where they actually need more powerful gear to keep things rolling, and I’ll burn through the 25ish glyphs of hope they’ve found thus far to upgrade 3-5 items. I’ll continue finding roughly 1 glyph of hope per level which means that a given piece of gear, from 10 to 60, will often go 10 or 20 levels with no upgrades. Not because I have nothing I’m finding which could be used for upgrades but because it doesn’t have a reasonable chance to actually be upgraded enough to be better before running out of forging potential without glyphs of hope. And I don’t have enough glyphs of hope to justify their use outside major power spike upgrades.

This feels terrible.

The Glyph of Hope is a foundation of the crafting system; it’s the most basic, “default” glyph. Without one, given the extreme range and amount of forging potential used on affix upgrades combined with the number of tiers items typically need to be upgraded in order to reach a level appropriate power level, the crafting system is not worth engaging in. Which is tragic.

This could be addressed in a variety of ways, but the simplest, most logical, and easiest to implement is just to have vendors sell them. Just like Runes of Shattering, another foundational crafting component, they could carry 6 of them at a time, sold for 1k or 2k each. I’ve got 700k+ in the bank and nothing to spend it on other than runes of shattering, which will give me more shards I can’t use since I don’t have Glyphs of Hope, or Stash Tabs which I don’t currently need (I’m CoF not MG). Allow me to convert that into engagement in the crafting system. I have endless glyphs of chaos and other ‘advanced’ crafting components, but there’s absolutely zero reason to use them if I lack the glyphs of hope to have any hope of getting items worth using once the modifiers are rerolled etc.

I appreciate your time and consideration.

Glyphs of Hope become basically infinite if you play empowered monoliths and occasionally do Lightless Arbor dungeon… I never run out of them no matter how many alts I make and play … Because I have level 80s, level 90s, and a 100 … You need to just run monos and focus on the “glyph” echoes. Eventually you will never run out.

What I’m saying is that there doesn’t need to be any new way of getting Glyphs of Hope… You aren’t collecting them properly, and they are very easy to get.

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Yeah I figure this is a “non-issue” eventually, if I focus on a single character and take them to 90+ and run empowered monoliths. But two things with that:

  1. It doesn’t change the idea that the game could use a gold sink which promotes further engagement in the crafting system. Given they point out the forge not once but 3 times during the campaign and its side quests, they clearly want people to use it. But there is not enough of the resources required to really do so, and there’s an overabundance of gold you can’t use. Both “problems” can be solved at once, during the levelling phase, which is a positive for player retention.

  2. There shouldn’t be a “wrong” way to play. There’s 15 masteries, which promotes using alts. There’s solo self found itemization options, which promotes the idea they want characters to be self sufficient. The idea that you can get enough of the resource to support your alts with a high level character during that character’s farming for their own gear is nice, legitimately it’s better than nothing. But it’s certainly not a replacement for increased capability for characters to find the resources they need on their own, without reliance on a high level character farming it for them.

It already exists. It’s the lightless arbor. Among other things you can get buttloads of runes and glyphs.

There really isn’t one. But if you stop playing at level 50 all the time, you won’t get as many resources. For example, you won’t have as much gold. You won’t have enough runes of shattering. Faction progression will be really slow due to lower XPs.

The game is balanced around reaching empowered monos. If you stop before that, it’s not a “wrong” way to play, it’s just a “harder” way to play. If they balanced around end of the campaign instead, then endgame would become (even more) too easy.

It’s also balanced around the fact that you barely need to craft until you reach monos. Usually you just slap a few useful affixes to help leveling, but campaign doesn’t have enough difficulty to justify spending too many crafting materials, especially as you start finding uniques.

If you get a character to level 80ish in empowered monos, all those issues go away. You’ll have plenty of glyphs (I have over 500 atm) and runes of shattering (over 100), along with everything else.
And if you have enough gold, you can do lightless arbor and just go for runes/glyphs rewards.

There are 2 SSF options: character self found and account self found. The former is a challenge mode, so it will be harder. If you use account self found then you have a shared stash. It’s basically the same as normal mode, except you can’t trade or group with people.

So, like I said, the game is balanced around endgame. Crafting is somewhat useful for campaign but it’s an endgame system mostly. It can’t be balanced for early game. I would advise you to level one up to empowered monos and/or not focus so much on crafting at lower levels.

I also like to make multiple alts, but I usually bring them until empowered monos, even though most don’t even reach level 85+ before I switch and I don’t have any materials issue.

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Sure, but as you say you have over 100 runes of shattering at the moment, and no need to buy them from vendors, I presume, right? Yet they’re still sold by vendors. If the abundance of something is not an issue, and it can and does become effectively limitless in quantity, then it being sold by vendors does not impact end game difficulty as it would be available to them regardless.

The reason the Runes of Shattering are sold can only be because while an end game character with access to endless empowered mono and dungeon runs may have limitless access to that resource, a character without access to those things does not have limitless access, and presumptively they want such a character to still be able to use them and engage in the crafting system. There’s no reason why selling them would be any different from selling glyphs of hope, they’re counterparts in crafting.

And you can say that sure, you barely need to craft to reach empowered monos, and it’s certainly true. It’s not like I’m failing to progress due to only upgrading an item every 20 levels, as indicated the campaign is if anything far too easy which is a totally separate topic. It’s that their design goal demonstrated through the prompts, quest focus, and frequent reminders regarding the crafting system don’t align with the idea of barely crafting. The resource scarcity means whether you do or don’t need to craft (you don’t), you lack the resources to do much crafting regardless.

And it’s not about easy or hard; as indicated the campaign is too easy and were it not for the sale of runes of shattering and the frequent prompts to engage with the crafting system I could accept the idea they don’t want you crafting too much as it would be even easier. It’s about interesting. Frequent small upgrades and experimenting with a variety of gear is more interesting than wearing the same gear for 20 levels, and having access to the resources to do so makes for a more interesting levelling experience and better aligns with what seems to be their design goals as far as system utilization.

If it’s something which will lack scarcity eventually, it lacking scarcity can’t be considered a problem or unintended design state. If it’s something they want people to use, giving access to it better aligns with their design goals. And there’s simply no benefit to having half the crafting ‘base materials’ sold in stores but not the other half. Not everyone will do or want to do empowered monos or dungeon runs, and while I can certainly appreciate that those who do will not have any issues with obtaining the resource in question (and thus would be totally unaffected by the presence or absence of the resource via vendors), the game is simply not made better by glyphs being a scarce resource for those who do not.

Hmmm…my idea which I think it is worse than yours would be to have something like “Lesser glyph of hope” which you can purchase from vendors for quite a bit of gold and with a downside to it such as instead of 25% chance to not lose forging potential to like 5%.

Right now I don’t buy them much because I don’t shatter as many things. In the past, I’ve had to buy a few, although I never lacked glyphs of hope.
So it’s more because I learned what is important and what isn’t important to shatter over time.

Likewise, glyphs are more about learning when you need to craft and when you don’t. As you get more experienced with crafting you’ll tend to craft less in quantity and more in quality.
This applies to most resources, including gold.

As I mentioned in the last point, it’s not so much that we have access to limitless runes (although it does tend to increase in empowered monos) but more because by that point players have learned that you don’t need to shatter everything.
If I tried to shatter every single drop, I’d be out of them very quick.

Now, all this doesn’t mean that I don’t sort of agree with your original point. I’m just pointing out that it very quickly becomes a non-issue for endgame.

But, in principle, I’m not opposed to selling glyphs of hope in vendors. Or even other common runes/shards/glyphs. I don’t think it will have much impact in the game, except for outlier situations like yours, but it won’t hurt either, as long as it’s only the common ones.
It will be down the priority list, though.

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Yes, because unlike glyphs of hope the runes of shattering are mandatory to even craft given that rare affixes generally appear on gear and not randomly on the ground.

This means you can create a decent piece of gear without glyphs of hope but hardly ever if you don’t have runes of shattering. And given that people often stockpile affixes and hence don’t have access to shatterings when it matters the most the devs have implemented the ability to buy them.

I personally would say they should be removed from the vendors as well since there’s no actual need when someone isn’t a loot-goblin for affixes… adding another crafting material is counter to what I think would be good long-term for the game.

It does, it removes the need for a choice to shatter only specific items rather then creating a stockpile, hence forethought. That’s a distinct difficulty aspect, preparing and planning provides distinct upsides to you after all.

Even during the campaign unless I specifically focus on optimizing my character as it progresses… I actually haven’t seen the need to craft much at all.
Getting a decent item and improving on it or making up for a lacking stat are the reasons, and those are solved with 2-3 shatterings as well as 5-10 glyphs of hope every 2-3 acts. Which is definitely something you can get together in that timeframe.

Resource scarcity is a method to make something interesting. I agree though that the crafting functionality during the campaign is lackluster, but that’s not something which is quickly solved. EHG should definitely take a look into more in-depth reworks in the future for that to make it a more compelling mechanical aspect earlier on. It’s a necessity to use end-game and should be along the whole game actually, similar to how Grim Dawn nudges you to use their crafting mechanics, which is something you get provided regularly during your playthroughs there.

But to take it into perspective… it’s far out there in terms of importance, there’s so sooooo many higher priorities for things to fix/improve/implement currently that are a lot higher on the list. Adjusting the crafting itself is out there in a year… maybe 2. Until then UI fixes, Act 4-8 progression pace, end-game content, reworking dungeons, hopefully removing arena nodes from monoliths, faction adjustments, skill balancing, improving on archtype concepts and more is more important for the longevity of the game.

Yep agreed that it’s not a high priority item. But the reason this was proposed as compared to some other rework is that it’s narrow in scope (and thus unlikely to introduce other issues) and non-impactful for an end game state. Both of those mean that I expect it’s the sort of change which would take 30 minutes or less of total development effort, including coding, validation, peer review, and documentation. So it’s a pretty low hanging piece of fruit as it were.

And I absolutely agree I’m an edge case. I do have a reason behind it though, Lagon. When you beat Lagon you’re above 50 and you have a pretty well fleshed out character - all your specialization slots are unlocked, and if you’ve done side quests, all idol slots are unlocked, and you have the passives necessary to have all your mastery abilities unlocked. Granted they’re not even close to an “end game” state due to gearing and other considerations but nonetheless you have a pretty good feel for their character and how they play. And, with Lagon, you just tested them in areas with high mob density and against a large single target boss with mechanics. So you have a good feel on how they fare in their current state vs the kinds of things you can expect to see during end game.

This is such a good “checkpoint” that it was actually only during my 3rd character that I made it to the COF / MG unlock roughly an hour later. Imagine my chagrin at starting up the 4th shortly thereafter and finding them at the game start, realizing I’d cost myself two characters worth of levelling in favor. Not the biggest of deals in the long run the favor rewards accelerating the higher you are in level means it’s chump change from a long term perspective, still funny and painful at the time.

Remains to be seen if this 6th one will stick and I’ll push end game with one of them afterwards. It would make sense, get experienced with that content before the new cycle comes out. But it was and is also my goal to experience as many masteries as possible prior to the end of the 1st cycle, get a feel for how they play from a practical standpoint and have an effective comparison against each other (such as that which Lagon and the run up to him provide).

As a programmer, I can tell you that it never works like that. Not even counting their internal debate on whether this should be a thing or not (just because we might agree, doesn’t mean they have to), they would have to debate on how much should the gold cost be, in terms of balance.
And then actually implementing, with all the testing and whatnot, it always takes longer than that.

The only changes that are actually that fast are smaller projects (in terms of team members) where someone is intimately familiar with the code and where there aren’t so strict workflows you have to follow. And even then, something that seems simple can very often run out of control and take a longer time.
On top of that, there are plenty of fixes that need to be done that are “supposedly” simple/fast ones and that have higher priority.

Usually the most infuriating thing you can tell a programmer is “That’s an easy thing, you can do it in <insert timeframe>”. :laughing:

As a sidenote, it’s faster to level if you start doing monos around 25ish-35ish, depending on the build and your twink gear.
As soon as you reach the end of time, you can just go right and hit monos, you don’t need to finish the campaign.

I usually do this around level 25, but that’s because I have a bunch of twink uniques. I stay there until level 60ish and then I go back and just blast through the campaign until I finish it for the extra attribute points (you can also use dungeons as campaign skips at this point).

Why would you need a Glyph of Hope for every crafting action? Might as well have a default chance to not consume shards.

I don’t remember the leveling phase, but my Hopes only ran out when I was using them on every experimental item to improve the odds of getting that rare glyph.

I guess we should just upgrade without those glyphs as long as they scarce.

Nobody is saying you are playing wrong … I said “you aren’t collecting ‘glyphs of hope’ properly” … I craft a LOT, even on low level characters and alts… But the main thing I spend most of my time doing is empowered monoliths, that’s why I never run out, no matter how much I craft… I always have at least 250 glyphs of hope at any given time. I use them on every single craft action too… I just get that many per day to be able to afford it.

There is a default chance to not consume shards, as part of a crit success, which is roughly 5% I believe (thus the thing ArcticPotato is suggesting is already kinda a baseline). But let’s use a practical, real life example.

My 51 Sorc has a belt, a pyromancer’s chain belt of hope, giving 36% increased fire damage and a total of 44% resists (21 physical 23 void). It’s not that good, it’s req level 36, with 2 T4s and a T3 and missing an affix entirely. But getting it just to that point consumed most of the forging potential, it has 5 left, and that was using glyphs of hope for every affix upgrade.

I’ve got a belt I’d like to upgrade to use instead, it’s nothing special, a sash which would give some mana instead of ward threshold, and it has elemental resist (currently T3) instead of physical and void. But, with 25 forging potential and 1-18 forging potential used while crafting, going from T2 increased fire damage to T4 and from T3 elemental resist to T4 to even make it a side-grade, to say nothing of an upgrade, wipes it out as far as forging potential if glyphs of hope are not used (and indeed just did it to test and sure enough).

So why bother upgrading and consuming shards only for it to ‘stall out’ and cease being upgradeable when I’ve got it in an equivalent state to my current gear? I’m just better off sticking with my current gear and saving resources for when I do have glyphs of hope available, and I have a chance at forging potential being saved 3x in a row, which is the only way I’ll get gear which will actually be meaningfully better than current stuff.

It’s not that you can’t do crafting and upgrades without glyphs of hope. It’s just that the odds of making something useful while doing so are exceedingly low. Which is a much harder fix than just providing the baseline materials needed to have those odds favorable enough to encourage even rolling the dice in the first place.

I think you’re overestimating the 25% chance. Raise the bar for an item to invest into. While leveling, you get items that are better than what you’re wearing before you even craft it. Upgrade the items you do wear when you level up.

We could talk about the ranges being too large. 1-18 or even more feels really awkward. Sometimes you finish an item with 5 crafts from below 10 FP and then you have items with t7, 5, 5, 3 at 15 FP and boom 0 FP.

But that’s exactly it - I do operate with the bar raised, and as a result gear goes 20 levels without upgrading. Frequent small upgrades, or easy access to flexible gear options for side grades, makes for a more interesting levelling experience and greater engagement with the crafting system (which I generally consider a strong point for the game) vs rare, significant upgrades which result from having a very small percentage of items being worth upgrading into, as they need to already be as good as what you’ve already got to be worth considering.

I agree the ranges are too large, I think generally 5-10 would feel a lot better than 1-18 and glyph of hope halving the cost would be better than a 25% chance of it being free. Since a lower amount of variance means your gear is less likely to be comprised of an extreme high roll where it was free, free, 1, 3, 1, free on the first 6 upgrades. But again that whole setup is a far more difficult and impactful balancing act than just having glyphs of hope widely available as a gold sink.

During campaign that sounds more like an issue with the loot filter then with the crafting abilities there.

During campaign you’ll see very regular upgrades dropping for you, be it in base type or in the combination of possible craft. From chaos glyph crafts to hope glyph improvements to outright picking up a white item if the implicit is just much better compared to your gear at the moment (rare bit depends on the base).

This usually stays fairly similar until the end of campaign - if you don’t start monoliths early - and into the monoliths to a degree actually, constant upgrades, small and big.

I’m actually commonly running into roadblocks by having too little crafting materials if I solely take those picked up during that time into consideration then gear I can turn into something better, be it shatterings, hopes or chaos glyphs. That’s when you start to make decisions on what to upgrade which item and which to focus on. But outright having no option available? Usually I have 2-3 items in my stash ready to be improved… but not done until I think my materials will be enough since in the meanwhile I can after all drop a better one and I won’t use it until then.

I disagree with this, glyphs of hope are just as mandatory but in a different way 'cause glyphs of hope give you more crafts (on average). All of those rare shards you’ve shattered are irrelevant if the preceding craft consumes all (or most) of your remaining FP.

And it’ll be quite a bit rarer if you don’t have/use glyphs of hope.

Because you get better results & yes, that’s a fair point. They could be a not-quite-25% chance to not consume shards & not be in the game.

I agree with the general sentiment, but I don’t see an issue to be honest. I only started from scratch twice, shortly before 1.0 and after release. I suppose I didn’t use many Hopes during leveling and later on they became so overabundant, that I couldn’t ever go broke. But what I definitely remember is that I never had excess gold during leveling (my first char) to buy Shatters. So at which point in the game would you like to trade gold for Hopes? They are way less important than Shatters.

Whatever they do, I would hate a minimum cost of 5. None of my gear would exist if it wasn’t 1 :wink:

Also, halving the cost would lead to decimals and that would look weird.

What I’d really appreciate would be to remove the cost of Removals. It’s already a huge gamble to remove the right affix. If I succeed but lose 15 FP for it, the item is probably doomed anyway.

Yes, but for that you’ll need to at least have shards.
Especially for rare modifiers that’s an issue early on, the scaling for shattering rune drops doesn’t work well if you’re focusing on even only your own class and the rare modifiers there are, a surprising variety of them drops if you try to highlight every drop with one in a filter.

For a new player not sure what they’re going to do yet this is a bit of a mess, probably why they added the shattering rune to the vendor I imagine. Or at least the earlier progression is likely to have been a major reason for it to be done at all.

A lot! Agreed.
Early on they’re not as much needed though. The chance to find a upgrade right from the ground without even crafting is nigh 100% in Act 1 and then gradually falls off since variety increases, both in bases as well as available affix pool over time.

This means theoretically you start out without crafting, then move over to filling up empty affix slots (lower level requirement), then to increasing pre-existing affixes on your gear without glyphs and finally you move over to using glyphs to increase the amount you can improve the gear since the chance for the right combination having good tiers is miniscule as it progresses… with the added part that chaos glyphs are used to switch singular affixes to different ones to create the good spread of affixes in the first place.

I would say it gradually eases you into the system, though the campaign progression isn’t quite perfectly at the place where both drops + crafting are mandatory to progress through it, which in my eyes means that the overall progression needs some work still as the crafting mechanic is a fundamental aspect the player should be eased into properly by the time they reach monoliths, having the ins and outs down. Currently you can fairly easily ignore it until monoliths though and still reach there without issues.