Late answer, but important one.
Crafting having a downside is natural and make the results valuable, but there’s a problem with the one we have right now, it’s just a terrible game of “close your eyes and SLAM IT”, and you probably know why i use this sentence.
In the case of LE, there’s only two real outcomes possible : fracture or not fracture, if whe avoid fracture, we have the right to flip the coin one more time. It makes crafting in its current form a game of farming bases, multiple of them, with at least several appropriated T4s or one T5 at least to have decent chances to reach a 4xT5 item (which isn’t by any means a min/max item), stacking shards andf glyphs.
Or we can just shrug at farming for once and decide to buy stuff to the gambler, but that NPC is imo an awkward feature and i do not really understand why we have this thing in an ARPG. Either the game provides enough decent bases or it doesn’t, if it doesn’t, then EHG should simply realize it and slightly increase the amount of base materiel we loot, or make them more “intelligent”, i only can see the current gambler as a way to create an artificial gold sinking system, which brings another question to my mind…
Why do we even have gold ? We could also discuss of that, i don’t really get it, there are plenty of ways to replace it, but… I don’t know, i’m not even sure gold will survive the release, but that’s what we get for now i guess.
To come back at crafting itself, basically it’s just coin flipping, and that’s the main thing i find annoying, or… Boring ? I know PoE is all about general knowledge about crafting of course, but also optimizing our own currency farming. There’s some kind of skill and knowledge involved in that, and that’s something important.
Nothing’s gratifying in LE’s craft. It’s just a question of luck, there’s no knowledge required, no mastery needed, it’s just… As i said, flip the coin, survive the fracture, keep going. And there’s not even any real glyph to counter that, nothing of extreme value and very rare to help crafting a really rare and good base we’d loot. No matters what we do, it’s all just more or less 50/50.
Spend one week finding the perfect base, break it instantly at 92% chance because bad luck bro.
I know LE wants to remain opened to all and easy to understand, but that deterministic feature of crafting isn’t really an advantage in my opinion, because determinism isn’t the problem in LE’s crafting, luck is the real thing, and the only one, determinism maybe makes the beginning of the adventure easier for casual players, “yeah, look at my T12 item on a white base, so good” but it doesn’t bring any value once you reach endgame, because you mostly want the best base possible, if not a perfect one where you only have to add a few tiers to affixes allready on the item. So at this point, there’s nothing deterministic or almost so. Alt spam, beast crafting and fossil crafting are just replaced by farming tons of bases that you’ll fracture for the most of them, it ends up the exact same than poe, but that’s also the part where PoE becomes more deterministic, while LE enters as i said its pure fracture syndrom.
For example, the last bow i’ve crafted in POE was an endgame one with perfect stats/rolls, and it wasn’t at all difficult for me to craft it, in facts it was just me knowing how to craft it, farming the base, farming the alts and few exalts i needed, going on through the correct steps one by one and ending with the mods i wanted, then min-maxing the affixes values. The end.
Here i LE, i have control on nothing at all. I literally spend my time farming tons of glyphs, shards and bases and continuously find myself flipping the coin. Luck determines the outcome, i have nothing to do in that. If a bot was crafting while i’m farming, that would just feel the same, i wouldn’t care, my actions, knowledge and decisions almost have no interest at all, the game decides, and there’s nothing i can do, his wishes, my fate.
Only thingi can do is push corruption at high values, farm empo monoliths at 300+ rarity, and then, flip the coin. Again, again and again.
I’m not sure that’s a good system. Friends of mine who loved it in the first days literally spit on it now. I really believe it currently lacks some kind of exalt/conqueror’s exalt-like glyphs that would be extremely rare, i don’t care of crafting two weeks to be able to get over tons of good base i’ve found one good result, i’d rather play two weeks and farm the stuff i need to be sure that when i’ll try to craft one good base, i’ve got what i need to make it a real great item.
This is exactly what a lot of people hate in POE’s craft, mostly because they do not understand it, do not want to and just want “deterministic” craft, but that’s also why POE’s craft is so rich, gratifying and unique, it’s a general feeling of value and good crafters easily get some kind of respect, here in LE, it’s just… It’s just not good imo.
Honestly, if crafting remains in this state, it will imo be more a downside than a +. I’m curious to see how it will evolve, because right now, it’s a dead end, and i can’t believe EHG will let it in this state, there’s no way, 100% sure we’ll have new and rarer glyphs and runes, if not a total rework at some point. Time will tell.