But it still doesn’t benefit anyone even in MG is it never drops for anyone. If it’s so impossibly rare for it to drop that nobody ever sees one, how is that a benefit?
I won’t say it hurts anybody, but absolutely can’t benefit anybody if it can’t really drop no matter how theoretically possible it is.
I think we are using different kinds of “rare” here.
Again this whole discussion is skwed because different people use different standard to gauge certain things.
All of this gets even worse with the LP, because that gives “the sky is the limit” ceiling to some items.
There are no items in LE right now that are so rare that nobody every drops them, with the exception of some 3 or 4LP uniques from already pretty high effective LP lvl.
And these is just a sympton of how LP system works, but then again as I stated above, is there a reason to cut them from the pool? No there is not.
I also don’t think that EHG intends to introduce unqiues that are massively rarer than what we already have. The only thing that does add these giga ultra super rare items is high LP.
Yes, and these are the ones I believe are the center of this particular piece of the conversation. They are so rare that it’s pretty much understood that nobody will “ever” get one to drop.
I’m not saying “cut them from the pool”, just that it doesn’t benefit anybody by having them in the pool. If it actually had a negative impact on the game I would say they should be cut. But if they are in there already, well then just acknowledge that it’s not expected that anyone will ever see them.
Yes. My mental map for you, for instance, has the phrase, “enjoys lounging in a hairshirt while reading Joyce’s Ulysses”. (oh stop, you know I like to tease you, you magnificent Teutonic bastard you)
Whereas I’m on the other end of the spectrum. I like what D4 is doing, all the loot matters and I’m able to get to 90% geared with at least one Mythic by the time I’m completely burn out on a season (approximately one month). And I get that seems like “instant gratification” to you)
The following is not a threat, not a manifesto, it’s just me telling you what has happened in past with LE, PoE 1 and other ARPGs (PoE I just straight up refuse to ever play again for so many reasons. I think GGG is actively anti-player.).
If I give up due to frustration with the gearing process prior to being bored with character progression, build/tweaking than I’m going to remember that and it’s going to make me much less likely to return the next season unless there is something really exciting being added. If, when I do return, I have another unsatisfying season then I will likely abandon the game (really, just forget about it).
This has kind of snuck up on me. Great to see teasers of all the new stuff and excited to get back in, dreading Monolith Lagon still though, and no I have no interest is cheesing the fight. I also hope for EHG and the games sake that a vast majority of the instance crash issues are gone.
I guess gear progression is something the devs will never ever make it so that everybody enjoys it, it is just far to subjective.
I think LE has one of the best gear progressions (togehter with character progression like skills, passives etc). The pace of the first few 5-10 hours is perfect, you don’t get bombarded but yet enough to make constant progress towards you build. You also unlock all relevant abilities to have a fully funtional builds within that time frame and no reason to first play build X to then swap to build Y after 20 hours, when you have the right gear.
Once you are into higher monoliths I think the progression of T15-20 rares and exalted items with 1 good affix, but not so good other affixes and going into a couple of Uniques with LP and more perfected exalted items. All of this gives me regular upgrades that I also can target farm very effectively.
Honestly if EHG just adds a bit more variety to the top end and gives sets and possibly other rarities that might get added later somethign ot rivals legendaries I am very very happy with the current state. We just need more things to do on a moment by moment basis, liek the actualy in-echop experience.
Which it looks like it will be coming with the Weaver Faction and the Tombs.
It might not be enough yet, but it is certainly a step into the right direction.
I personally think the whole idea of the Legendary System was and still is brilliant and it also allows for a lot of fine tunign on a item by item basis. With how the system is set up the devs can fine tuning items individually without the need of an overacring overhaul.
Maybe some fien tuning and make dungeons more fun to make the actualy process a bit more engaging.
Exactly, there are no items that can’t drop apart from the items that can’t drop.
Yeah, it’s just not possible to make everyone happy. From those degerates on the “I’m happy that there are items that are rarer that 1 specific atom in the solar system” to the degenerates on the other end of the scale that want to be in max roll 4xt7 perfect affixes on the pergect bases by the time they hit the ruined era.
Actually, the theoretical perfect item used to be either 3xT7 + T5 + T4 sealed affix or 4xT7, but with Nemesis it’s now 4xT7 + T7 sealed affix.
Agree, hard stop.
This is where we diverge. Getting an exalt with two good affixes (or an implicit and a good compatible affix) and then bricking every chance to get the required affix just feels bad. And it happens again and again and again. And then I don’t feel like playing. Or coming back.
I don’t want to argue about what required is, but I will tell you what it means to me. Damage is required for progress, defense is required for safety. Unless you are going hard on glass cannon, both are required.
I’m confused. Isn’t your whole point just an iteration of it being subjective? You dislike current RNG, Heavy likes it. It’s subjective.
If EHG makes loot less RNG you will enjoy it more, Heavy will enjoy it less. It will remain subjective.
Much like some people like the D4 class exclusive drops, others dislike it.
Besides, he was talking about a progression, which you cut.
1-T15-20 rares
2-Exalts with 1 good affix but the rest are meh
3-Some uniques with LP
4-More perfected exalts
You’re disagreeing with step 2 while describing step 4.
I’m not criticizing you, I’m just confused about your meaning.
I’m collapsing 2 and 4 because I don’t think they are different and I don’t do the LP chase because I don’t like the system.
So we diverge on what we think item progression is/how we play/view the game.
This re-emphasizes, “subjective view makes it hard to please everyone”
I followed that with, “I get an ok drop in a sea of affixes, and I have crafting, but the sea of affixes makes crafting, largely, a false hope”, and that makes me stop playing.
Hope that helped.
Oh, on a side note, any word about performance improvements with the new patch? Because atm the game is embarrassing in this field, monoliths are nearly unplayable even at mid to low settings (and with the same PC I can run D4@ultra@120fps so it’s not my PC).
I am with @DJSamhein here.
What you describe is deep into the character progression already. I can see that this part can be frustrating at times, but I think LE has so many good target farmign avenues that I don#t get bothered bricking a coupel of exalted items.
An Exalted Item with 1 or 2 good affixes or a godo affix and a good base whic hthen you say oyu want “requried affixes on” is already almsot perfect exalted.
So as DJ said you are skipping step 2 on what he layed out.
When you start with monolith until late empwoered you will have suboptimal exalted items with either bad bases or 1 or 2 suboptimal affixes, which are still good at the current stage of progression.
To come to the point where every single affix is useful is already way deeper into your characters progression.
I don’t know if you are doing it, but I do knwo that a lot of peopel doing it, due to the nature of the relatively good deterministic crafting: People always shoot for the stars and then are disappointed.
Many people skip the steps of suboptimal gear, because they think they optimal gear is in reach, but in reality they are hamstrinign themsevles by only trying to craft almsot BiS gear, instead of going for the “saver” subotpimal route that woul still lead to a upgrade as an endresult in that moment.
Note: I’m trying really hard to not write War and Peace with every post. I can’t tease Kulze if I can’t be brief myself. 
From my perspective, what you are describing is actually for the first character in a season. And, to your point, up until step 4, it’s fine, and we agree. And maybe, because of you heavily leaning into the loot filter, it plays that way with every character.
The way I play, and the amount of stash space I have, means that every character after the first pretty much jumps right to 4. So on the first char I play until I get to 4, I get bored of no progress and roll an alt. By the time I’m on the third or fourth char, it’s not boredom, it’s frustration. And I’m getting showered with exalts for other characters I might want to create.
At this point someone will tell me that I’m playing it wrong or, “That’s a you problem”.
Is it? Are you sure? At what point does the “you” problem become an “us” problem, and the folks that like playing with blinders on (loot filter) are in the minority? Is this even a conversation worth having (because we have no data)?
Or, is the conversation, “is there something EHG can do to make step 4 more fun”? Yeah, for me, that’s the conversation I’d like to have.
Here’s the vid if you are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMTVOwBW3uc
Probably only way to know for sure is to look under the hood. I dunno why every Torment warlock skips those nodes then (even the maxroll guide and the one that reached 3K corruption skips it).
Depends how much flat damage you already have, whether the incremental benefit is worth the cost. It’s entirely possible that it’s either bugged or that “people” just don’t understand how it works, or they assume it’s working differently to how it actually is working (assuming it’s working correctly).
Quadruple T7 or Triple T7 + T5 + sealed T5.
Here you go, every single combination a ‘heat death of the universe’ kind of item. All in the potential drop-pool.
LP isn’t even close to specific core drops in rarity 
Yes, the system is badly implemented. Top-end Unique items shouldn’t have 4 LP even possible, that goes counter to the whole aspect of upheaval for low-end unique items.
Also as you mentioned ‘exalted+’ is a baaaad state overall. The whole system needs in the future a complete revamp to achieve what it was meant to do… without the nonsensical side-effects it shows in the current state.
But at least ‘it functions’ somewhat, but it’s a detrimental state long-term for the game. Many other things simply being more important right at the moment. Like getting exalted drop-rates properly handled, providing content for the longevity of the game, getting some baseline balance in the game finally. Those things.
Depends. Generally dropping any LP 3 item isn’t rare, but they major aspect is… even a low-level unique weapon won’t become usable with LP, the base damage is just useless. Unless you don’t even use base damage and only effects, which gives at least some exceptions.
And then we also have the issue that finding any unique specifically for your personal build with 3-4 LP personally is just a major investment of time, 4 LP especially so. It’s so heavily luck based that it comes close to the rarity of several highly sought after unique items back in D2, dropping less often then chase-uniques in PoE 1 and 2 even.
All in all it is weak all around but at least provides a way to improve the character by having non-optimal exalted items… because finding the ‘right’ exalted item (proper affixes, proper base) is substantially harder to do, pre LP system the progression was a lot slower, and people loved the LP system because it alleviated that.
In a good way? By no means… but that only showcases that the core drop situation is still a mess and should be handled first and foremost before looking at LP. Likely the need to disable LP for a cycle when that’s done might come up though.
It also causes exalted items to have basically no value.
A 4 LP ‘Urzil’s Pride’ outpaces many exalted top-tier items though. 4 full-fledged Afiixes + mana + lightning res + mana regen + strength (usually 10+)? That’s kinda massive.
Same with Elecoe’s Abandon’, ‘Woven Flesh’, ‘Kermode’s Cage’ and many many more.
I’m not looking for - as example - a ‘Champion’ Regalia with the right T7 mods and a decently fitting combination of Affixes on it… which I should look for. Instead I look for ‘any’ chest armor with the right T7 and decently fitting Affix combination on it. A ‘Ringmaul Hauberk’ shouldn’t have basically the same value as the top-end drop there if it rolls the right Affixes!
That’s not a good state of the system. Yes it does help the unique item situation… but at what cost? Nothing else matters as long as a decent unique with 4 LP is available… they simply outpace nigh every available base possible.
They can’t be rivaled. For that we would need respective access to the absolute top-tier bases of core drops with a reliable Affix spread (which would automatically make Legendaries more powerful) and a sealed affix of some kind picking up the slack. But… those don’t exist, and won’t even with the champion Affixes easily. 90% of those will simply be useless for us when they release and the other 10% baseline mandatory to make a build work. With few exceptions anywhere else positioned by lucky surprise.
So far behind us that we’ve lost track of it even
Gambler’s Fallacy. It’s literally a prime example of that at work. ‘I might be the one hitting the jackpot!’… no lottery in the world has worse chances then hitting that specific jackpot. Not a single one.
The chance that you personally get hit by a meteorite this year is higher then anyone getting that specific item… ever in the lifetime of the game.
Kinda bad odds don’t you agree?
The best returns for engagement are when results are visible overall, and can be worked towards with engagement. Since items can only be traded once, not copied and hence not spread over the course of time (Hence no free trade or something similar to the Mirror in PoE) games usually work towards allowing you to adjust items after a initial hurdle to allow progressing them to the top-end state via resource consumption (which is gradually acquired).
That’s done so players are not left ‘out dry’ without any feeling of success. Because you can either adjust the drop-rate of those items or you can create systems allowing you to build up towards them. LE is greedy on both ends currently. Not having any reasonable drop-range nor the means to increase those that actually drop to become those powerful items. They’re ‘a myth’ hence. It would be insanity to strive for the acquisition of one while in other games to acquire one of those items requires ‘excessive effort’ instead. But you’ll get it done before your grand-grand-grand-grand-grand…add a few more…-child shrivels up in their grave.
The current stage is roughly 30% of the complete drop-table being basically not something you acquire ever.
No individual has even the remote chance to ‘finish’ a single character in their lifetime. Hence it’s no reliable goal.
A madman can definitely ‘finish’ a character (besides corruption gambling, only baseline. No T5 sealed but ‘only’ 4 T7 :p) in PoE, it’s an impossibility in LE. You can also do it in D3, D4, D2, Tirchlight Infinite, even in GD when you get a large enough non-cheating group together to farm for specific items, as the affix range is limited and hence you’ll acquire those items with top-rolls after a while actually, few thousand drops for the highest variance ones.
And I’m only talking about ‘having the right affixes on it’ and not even roll-range for LE! Because then we’re beyond the range where numbers make even sense for baseline anything anymore.
No.
That’s a perception fallacy.
You can’t since those items are not freely tradeable, they can only exchange owners once.
So even if they come into existence then the drop-rate needs to be respectively high enough to make enough people think ‘I could acquire something equally powerful instead’ to exchange it rather then feel the sudden (quite surprising one /s) urge to make a character based around that powerful ‘once in a lifetime’ item. And unlike in other games you don’t have the means to replicate that item ever. It’s a one-off deal. No mirror, no crafting to it, no nothing.
And we’re not starting to speak about the technical limitation for Gold in MG which makes anyone putting such an item up for sale either desperate, lacking in knowledge or simply dumb.
Exactly, which is why that top-end shouldn’t even exist in the first place. It’s not the only item where it happens.
Uniques are the least offending part of the itemization system having this issue. It’s Exalted items mostly which are nonsensically designed for this regard.
100% agreed.
With leveling items (no level or something below 20) allowing 4 LP and the higher you go the less LP allowed.
‘More powerful items are more perfectly forged, hence their potential can’t exceed a certain threshold’ <— lore explanation even
As you progress through the game it’s a small aspect you would naturally pick up on over time anyway. Not doing it is rather a design error in my eyes then allowing 4 LP for every item available. It’s lazy as it doesn’t take balancing into account.
In end-game nothing besides build enabling uniques should outpace exalted items which are rolled well enough. Currently it’s the other way around, barely any exalted item can hold the candle to a high LP unique of even middling power… that’s just… not fitting.
Unless we see systems specifically designed to enforce the drop of high-end items and cutting off the possibility for low-end items substantially then ‘no’, we actually won’t.
The percentile rate is just so miniscule that we would need several ten thousand times the drop-rate we have now (have 10000 exalted items at once, hurray!) to even come close to that status. That’s obviously nothing the game could handle, the players would want or which would even make sense. So qualitative changes of the drops would need to happen… which would not change any sort of power progression rate though, you would still need the same time, just jump along the line further with each step.
Power creep is commonly happening by new mechanics, allowing an expansion of the possible options to acquire useful items. Like the champion affixes. Those are expanding the potential power limit through new combinations. It doesn’t change anything for the drop-rate of high-quality items.
Usually to counter the variance in drops hence the weighting of drops would be adjusted accordingly, or you get flooded with items like in PoE a while ago before they implemented qualitative changes through modifiers for drops. But those are solely to counter the new implementations by design.
So to allow a core drop-system to even drop those top-end items in a realistic way and still handle power creep we would hence see tons and tons of content for years without any mechanical additions, no champion affixes, no alternate bases on the top-end, no extra types of ‘influences’ (as PoE calls the unique affixes spawning on an item) besides experimental and champion. As each would immediately remove the option to get closer. Only new middling base-types for alternate builds, not empowering beyond, some uniques and sets. No mechanics to empower anything we have… just… better loot already present possible.
Sounds kinda awful, doesn’t it?
That’s factually wrong.
Around 30% of the theoretical item pool is not available.
Be it 4 LP items or exalted items with insane combinations.
At best we have 1 person dropping one… every few years, from the whole pool of 30% total available item combinations. Hence likely garbage in combination too so a nice worthless and powerless top-end item.
It actually does. The absolutely top of the top-end min-maxers (Equivalent of god-tier item crafters in PoE) won’t interact with the game since it’s not allowing them to get their enjoyment.
It also doesn’t provide anything for anyone else, since… dropping those items would actually make the character powerful beyond end and ruin any sort of comparison to others solely from that item. In a limited timeframe those nigh impossible outcomes are fine (inside Cycle) but they are not in Legacy.
Agreed!
But… why make it less enjoyable for more people without having any upside included? Not a single person has any sort of upside from items that’ll basically never drop. Not even basically… that they won’t have a chance in life to ever even think of possessing? It puts those off who strive for perfection. It doesn’t allow boasting rights for someone ‘having gotten the perfect thing’ while putting effort into it. At best they can provide ‘good’ or ‘great’ items, with 50 different variants of differently great items of the same type. But never ‘the peak’ at any given time.
It’s not even if it’s done in 100 hours… 500 hours… or 10k hours per item. That’s all stuff which can be adjusted. But 20 billion years+? Come on, that’s kinda a bit of a rough baseline
Easiest option is: Cut off the top-end of drops completely. Just gone. Who needs em?
Make 8 affixes per item baseline instead of 4. Adjust power level of affixes to be closer together in power per Tier. Adjust FP usage and availability. Make sealed affixes respectively stronger through a multiplicator.
Hurray, variety without top-end being nonsensical and more variance in item drops as well. Obviously only possible when new unique affixes get added but with a few more hybrid + base affixes I think that would all be possible.
There’s a reason why those long lists of effects on items in other games get people excited ‘the item does so much!’ while in LE the power level of an item is relatively easily discernable and also relatively ‘flat’ hand hard to vary.
Yes, but that’s an issue of the current crafting system. Not the drop-system per se.
It’s grating and demotivating to have that happen to ‘the only possible upgrade you dropped in 200 hours’ as it goes forward. Having the chance itself is important, regularly. The outcome isn’t so much as you personally rolling the dice. That part even existing is important, the finetuning is another topic.
Depends… are you a min-maxer?
For me personally a character isn’t deemed ‘finished’ before I don’t get at least close to perfect items. Because when I start min-maxing… I do min-max. Otherwise I play casually most of the time.
The distinction of the possibility is a magnitude of time investment given from my side.
Since I already tempered my expectations because of possibility something at the top end would hence be - for me - a top-tier base for my character… with a T7 rare affix… and a T6 hybrid health affix on a chest piece.
Good luck ever seeing one of those in a showcase… not to speak of the market. They’re just so unrealistic already that it’s baffling. But they are still in the range of possibilites. Both in T7? Pfff… forget it. A T6 on top? Never before seen likely. More ahead though! Much more. Feels simply demotivating. I’m playing games to feel the level of success I can’t realistically have in reality, and my amount of effort put into the game to achieve that should reliably be rewarded when I put in as much time as a workaholic does for their career.
And for me personally seen as the ‘minimum viable outfit’ for a character to even say ‘Now it starts fully’. I wear the stuff below but it doesn’t make me happy to have. It’s just a stepping stone to achieve the nice stuff.
I dunno… I felt accomplished acquiring a high LP item in LE… but never for an exalted item to date. But I did feel eccomplished for a ton of items in D2, D4, Poe 1, Poe 2 and even Torchlight Infinite. So there has to be a substantial difference of some kind which causes that.
Too late Though I’m helping you out here with giving this post!
Same, agreed here.
There are some cases like this, but many high levle base types have effects that are very had to come by and even a 4LP uniqeus with some bonus stats will not compete with them.
Also legendaries can’t have sealed affixes, which for some cases a simply T1 sealed affix on a exalted can elevate the item a lot.
Exalted Items have no value is a very extreme way to put it. it might be for soem specific buidls but that is not the generic truth applciable to every build in LE right now.
Of course they can and it was already happenign on small scale and with 1.2 it will be on a even bigger scale. There need to be mutally exclusive item rarites that are rivalign with legendaries.
The new champion affixes and set affixes will be mutally exclusive with legendaries.
So this is the first step into a better direct of having a spread out item rarity across your character, not all legendaries.
But these ultra super rare item drops are not meant to be the carrot you are chasing. These are a very rare and nice bonus on top fo the regular loot pool and the regular loot you farm.
If you finished your character that there is nothing else you can target farm or upgrade and chase a Ravenous Void with a few LP, your character is already deep into teh dozens and hundreds of horus playtime.
These items are not meant for your main focus for “visible results and keepign you engaged”, they are the rare drop that might randomly occur and surprise you, but if they don’t drop it doesn’t matter.
I think that LE has such a open top end is actually a positive and nto a negative. I like that it is basically impossibel to truely finish your character.
It is all about setting yourself realistic goals for your palystyle, playtime and investment into the game/character.
There are realistic goals for every type of player in LE that you can strive for. But just because they is even more beyond that doesn’t make it bad or frustrating. It onyl becomes bad or frustrating if you setyourself goals that you can’t achieve.
I couldn’t care less about MG and it surely has its issues, but those are MG issues that can be fixed. That doesn’t make my statement a “exception fallcay”…
Maybe right now MG is not in a good state where these type of items could beeffectively traded very well, but that might change in the future, I don’t know.
Don’t say I am “factually wrong” and then throw around with some arbitrary numbers you pull out from somewhere.
Also I was specifically talking about uniques not exalted items.
Even with some of the very low odds fo gettign some of these super rare uniques with 2, 3 or 4LP, with enough people playing there will always be someone dropping them.
Let me reverse this: Why should they NOT include them?
These kind of items do not hurt anybody, even if you never see them. But them existing gives some cool random odds to get a jackpot.
We are talkign about a small fraction of the total items available in the game.
It is ok, there are hudnmreds, thousands of other very accessable items.
In a loot driven game we need loot from all points of the spectrum. From Common to Ultra Rare.
I think as long as none of these super duber rare items are buidl enabling for a very specific build it is ok.
All of the items that are in the game right now and the ones they revealed for 1.2 from uber Abberoth are all very generic, but very powerful. Nobody needs them ever, but they are nice to have.
And then again, I am reapting myself. The base version of any uniques is very accessable and farmable, even a Ravenous Void, Red Ring or Orian’s Eye, you can totally target farm them successfulyl within a 2-3 month cycle…What makes them so super duber ultra rare is only the LP on top of it. And I still believe that the LP system works wonders. I love it and it is one of the best innovations for the genre.
Withotu the LP all of LE’s items are very accessable.
This is a terrible idea and wouldn’t work in LE at all without major changes to core stats and available affixes. Items do not need more stats. We just needs more variety and alternative optiosn within each slots/prefix/suffix.
I am, but based on my thousands of hours playtime and experience with LE I know what will be the realistic top-end that I can achieve and min-max. If you look at some of my most develoepd characteres, I usalyl have legendaries and exalted items i nevery slots with at least the BiS stat in T7 and the rest are all desired stats. Is there mroe possible? Yes of course. Is it realistic to achieve that? No, maybe with anotehr few hundred horus of playtime.
It is ok, if there is still room for improvement, even for a min-maxxer.
You just needs to settle for something at some poitn and eitehr you have fun playing mroe or not.
To be honest, I don’t know what playtiem and experience you have with LE, but this really does sound like a expection issues from yoru side. If oyu already know what you can or can’t get but you still want more, LE is either not the game for you or you need to adapt your expectations and goals.
Actually, I don’t think the point of LP is to make low level uniques to be useful (or at least, not just that).
One of the reasons EHG gave on the recent interview with Ziz/Rax for their set changes is that a set item (and, by extension, a unique) occupies a slot and it’s done. You don’t interact with that gear slot anymore. You might get better rolls, but that slot is effectively locked and done.
The LP system, while it certainly allows low level uniques to be more useful, also allows you to keep interacting with the unique. Rather than locked and done, you will keep improving it. You get a 1LP version or a 2LP version and you can keep improving it.
At an extreme, if you wear uniques in all slots, your build is closed. It’s done. There is nothing else you can improve. With LP system, you still have not only further progress but also personalization.
You might agree with it or not, but the system does what it’s intended to, which is always giving you something else to improve upon and continue interacting with that gear slot.
Actually, it seems like the set items changes will rival them.
Also the champion affixes, since they’re sealed and can’t go on uniques.
That is way over the top. The majority of uniques have a reasonable chance of getting 4LP. And 4xT7 is a small subset of the exalted drop table.
The “can’t be dropped ever” subset of gear on LE is probably closer to 1% (most likely below that) and certainly not 1 in every 3.
We already do. Nemesis is one such system. As you get to higher corruption, triple exalted drops are common and anything below double exalted drops becomes rare.
I quite disagree with this. The min-maxers should actually like this system, since they always have something they can improve.
First they take 10h to improve, then 100h to improve to the next level, then 1k hours if they want to keep grinding to improve them. Since you can’t actually reach the end, there’s always something to improve upon, even if it takes longer and longer.
As opposed to PoE where you grind for 100h and you get the BiS for that slot and there’s no way to improve it.
I guess it would depend on what you call min-maxers, though. If it’s just someone that likes to “finish” their character having the possible best gear in all slots, then no, they won’t like LE. But if it’s just someone that likes to keep tweaking and improving their build, then they’ll like it.
Again, I disagree. Namely with the “more people” part. For the majority of players in LE, gear is great. You get constant improvements on your gear and it’s pretty easy to find good enough gear to tackle endgame.
It’s the 1% that chase BiS gear and, like I pointed out in the previous point, not all of them dislike it.
In terms of PoE, we could say it’s the difference between being happy with having a headhunter/mageblood (which only the top 1% players will get) or only being happy with having a HH/MB with the perfect double corruption.
So this system is actually less enjoyable for less than 1%. All you can say is that it’s less enjoyable for most min-maxers, nothing more.
Yes, some bases (like belts) have exceptions, but to get a viable relevant sealed affix is already vastly beyond the scale of most of those top-tier items even. To get a T1 isn’t too hard, but on the right base together with the right Affixes, enough FP to make it happen to boot and the right base? That’s a dream-item. Available still… but we’re talking a ‘I got a Mageblood belt!’ equivalent from Path of Exile, which is the most sought after item in the game there.
Kinda unfitting given that LE doesn’t want to be as ‘sweaty’ as PoE is. I would imagine the general system meshing together in a way accordingly to make that a reality.
Yes, like not every build needing a unique and not every build even wearing a single exalted item in the end. It depends… but they’re generally outliers, not the norm.
The amount of ‘leftover exalted items worn’ is surprisingly low. The amount of exalted items with fitting sealed affixes worn is miniscule even as the baseline ‘good exalted’ is already darn hard to create in most cases.
I mean… just look at even the exceptions. ‘Eternal Gauntlets’ have the armor mitigation for DoT implicit, which is amazingly good. Viable to actually wear a exalted items! But… T7 experimental does a better job then those! And that’s the strongest affix available for Gloves in the game, besides Ward per missing health for Low-Life ward builds.
Getting 4LP Maehlin’s Hubris and some crappy base with one of the T7 experimental mods is vastly more likely to be acquired then it dropping on ‘Eternal Gauntlets’ and managing to seal something onto it.
It’s a magnitude of difference there in acquisition difficulty simply. But it hides extremely well just how utterly rare good exalted drops are as an end result.
What I wanna highlight with that is, in any other H&S I know you try to acquire the best item bases with the best stats on them… or craft them on. To then wear them in the end. The value of an item scales substantially the harder it is to acquire. But in LE it doesn’t hold up. Your Gloves are hence all worth equally much and basically only the Affixes count, bases being neglected even at times… because of the systems existing. And I personally think that acquisition of a top-rated base should mean something, rather then being able to be 100% neutralized with a single Affix randomly dropping on ‘Hide Gloves’ in a level 100 area. That feels fairly… ‘lackluster’ I would say.
Yes, and as mentioned without a substantially solid crafting system behind it those items are pure lottery tickets. ‘Build enabling garbage’. ‘Oh look, I can make my build work with that! But I now have Hide Gloves and T7 Health regeneration on it for my ward build’ is not really the way to go.
The existence of them? Amazing! Absolutely, 100%. So much potential for future development. But in 1.2 without substantial itemization changes? Same issue PoE had back in ‘Talisman League’. Yeah… could be good, 99,9% utter garbage and that destroys your enjoyment as you simply can’t count on them dropping during your playthrough. And given they are likely build enabling that means they take the same position as… T0 items in Torchlight Infinite… or delve/incursion affix drops in PoE. You want em… but nobody sane will go after them with their first character as it’s insanity, causing you only to get stuck. A newbie trap.
So when a great one drops then you make a character around it… not make a character to hope the right one will drop. Build enabling on the highest level, in the grand scheme of LEs state sadly though ‘clutter’… but ‘clutter with potential’.
What’s holding the game back is the crafting system currently. Since 1.0 actually, when I started mentioning it. LP was ‘ok’ back on 0.9 but already wonky. Crafting still functional. But with MG and CoF their implementation simply doesn’t ‘cut it’ anymore. It was never a system with longevity… and if I remember right I somewhere even wrote back when the ‘new’ crafting system came that it won’t solve the core issue of the game long-term.
And here we are again. Held up decent, outdated the moment the progression has gone beyond a certain point.
For a H&S min-maxer? They are what you’re chasing.
Not as a drop, but as something to own.
It doesn’t matter how you acquire them, you simply want them. You play to acquire them. So they need to exist.
It doesn’t matter if it’s through the market, drop or crafting.
But lets be realistic here.
Market can’t have it since they don’t drop.
They can’t drop since otherwise the whole drop-system will be utterly ravaged with massive repercussions.
And crafting doesn’t have the functions to allow them to exist even.
Out of the 3 options there the least worrying change to make is the crafting system. Because no drop-system can uphold providing the variance of drops existing in the game without managing what can even drop in specific content. Like enforcing bad bases to simply be phased out after exceeding a specific depth of content… or enforcing tier-ranges to drop with a minimum amount as a total to allow dropping them. Which would be a quite extreme change in core philosophy for item drops. Moving away from the ‘everything has potential value’ direction towards catering drops for your character in some way to minimize the available outcomes and upholding quantity nonetheless.
And the market is reliant on both the drops and crafting state, so it simply moves aligned with those systems, it can’t do anything on its own.
Crafting though? Crafting can upheave items from a low state to a high state, it solely depends on the methods given the player as well as the necessary time and resources provided to make it happen. A item can be a ‘rags to riches’ situation potentially, without enforcing a cauterization of drop-range.
Simply what I think would be the best direction to go.
I mean… you can always upgrade an item.
But target farming? Basically jack-shit can be target farmed in the game I can’t go out and say ‘I’m now searching for a T7 Summon Wraith Profane Regalia!’ and target it in any reliable way. With CoF you can put the odds slightly more in your favor… but getting one? Pure and utter RNG. Could be the first drop, could elude you for 500+ hours.
As an example… my Acolyte (Masteries are not a major thing anymore after all :p) is level 98… but I don’t have a single item which isn’t either legendary, exalted or rare with a T5 experimental affix sealed.
My current potential upgrades leftover are: Hybrid health instead of dodge on boots, Critical strike reduction on gloves/helmet (helmet is legendary, didn’t hit, sure, upgrade. Wraithlord though, hard for CoF to even get. Gloves? Only possible because of MG, CoF I would be screwed already)
Belt with a better minion damage affix (only non-T5 one since it has hybrid health + sealed experimental minion damage).
I can gamba on the acolyte weaver item currently, maybe a better ‘Death Rattle’ with 2 LP instead of 1, that’s easy. And a LP reach of the grave (Since I switched from Chronostasis with 3 LP. Too lazy to read shrines and they can kill me with it).
But that’s it, level 98, with a build switch at 96 and being lazy and not upgrading. I haven’t even reached the end of my level and my ‘target farming options’ are gone. I would say that’s not a good state overall. I have no clue how long I played that character… but can’t be more then 70 hours, probably 50% running in circles and messing around with the Bazaar.
Which makes me wonder:
After those 70 hours (40-50 for someone sane who can concentrate a bit) what do I have to do still? What should I ‘strife for’ then? My options are out already.
My current potential upgrades without taking my build switch into consideration are hence Twisted heart with 2 LP minimum (kinda hard to farm personally) for a try at upgrading. And Nihilis (Which I’m lacking since I suck at his fight, the main factor which makes me play still).
It’s not like I can go and say ‘Oh yeah, the Int roll on my minion damage ring is only T6 and not T7, let’s farm that!’… just not happening, that’s the ‘surprise’ there.
Surprises stop being fun when your success purely hinges on them happening.
I’m playing a game because I don’t want to have to manage those things. Plainly spoken… if I wanna have to manage realistic goals to get something handled in a specific timeframe with limited resources then I’ll go and make myself a new cupboard in my kitchen, since I’m a carpenter and my cupboard is shoddy. I can do all that there and get a feeling of success.
When I play a game I want to simply shut off, play my time without worrying for such things and be rewarded for putting effort into it. I don’t want my games to leave me high and dry for months on end before throwing be a miniscule breadcrump that might be rotten already (A base to potentially craft on or ruin). I’m fine with it providing me an option to progress which isn’t guaranteed… but which has a realistic chance to suceed at least.
Plainly spoken there… too bad. You have to. They’re 50% of the game you’re playing.
If you only talk about CoF then you’re in a unrealistic little bubble which doesn’t represent the game fully. And to be able to argue you need to at least be able to see the part outside of your bubble without shutting yourself off.
Otherwise your position tends to loose validity quite a lot, which is a shame since you got very good arguments overall.
Actually sadly no, they can’t be ‘fixed’.
The rate of acquisition is the downside of MG, To see the same items players drop in CoF the MG group would need to substantiate around 90% of the playerbase. But that’s not the case.
And even if all MG issues are 100% perfectly and flawlessly solved, providing the best economic environment the world has ever seen… you can’t sell what doesn’t exist. You can’t buy what doesn’t exist either.
2 T7 items are barely available through CoF. 2T7 + 1 T6 items are basically ‘wondrous’ in CoF.
Everything above is non-existent to 99,999% of the potential item pool.
That’s around 30% of the total item pool in the game.
It’s not arbitrary if has a basis.
Hence ‘factually wrong’.
For uniques it’s likely around 2% of unavailable items? But as stated, Uniques aren’t the core issue of itemization. LP is not a good system is my stance since it solves issues with the core drop-pool and hiding the underlying problems while causing a few on its own.
Because dangling a carrot in front of you without ever giving it to you is a prime psychological way of demotivating someone.
Games are supposed to provide a dopamine boost through relatively easy - in comparison - results in relation to the reality of life. With exceptions applying and the competitive top end being a outlier.
This goes counter to the baseline of what a video game is supposed to provide in general.
We’re talking in circles. Several reasons as to why it makes people demotivated have been mentioned by now. Take them into consideration, don’t throw em under the bus.
Unless you got something to argument against the mentioned points I’ll simply mention this as ‘wrong until proven otherwise’.
You can have realistic jackpots too. They make psychologically no difference. A jackpot has solely to be rare enough to make you feel substantially lucky. Beyond a certain point the rarity looses all meaning.
If you are the sole winner in a group of 10000 people or 50 sixtillion people is the complete same for your brain. The difference is that less people perceive the second outcome ‘possible’ and hence it’s detrimental for even trying.
Substantial, as mentioned above.
Several millions (or even billions? Too lazy to math it out) when we talk about combinations there. Not thousands. And even then not acceptable.
Ultra rare = yes.
Unavailable = no.
There’s still a difference.
That’s fine, but please take into consideration the arguments mentioned for the ‘why it’s not’ from other people and work with them in mind.
Yes, albeit the numerical adjustment would suffice with the provided solution. No change outside of the ranges on drops needed.
Your method is more complex to implement but also viable, defintiely so. But has also more long-term issues. Mine has more short-term issues, namely providing a proper balancing baseline once.
That argument goes kinda counter to ‘min-maxing’. Min-maxing is striving for perfection. That’s the point of it. Not being happy with the status quo but instead wanting the absolute maximum possible.
100%, not 99,9% complection of any segment. It’s fine if it’s parts that get finished, but min-maxing is a sub-group of completionists.
Then you’re literally not min-maxing
Umh… that’s what I’m talking about? That’s the whole point?
I mean… obviously so
But that doesn’t mean I’m the only one and it has no meaning there. It’s a perception thing but one which means ‘enjoyment or not’ long-term.
That’s a really good argument. And a good one to handle.
So it actually is about the ‘steps to the road of perfection’ argument there. There’s been a in-depth dev-talk with Chris Wilson actually a few years ago about that exact topic.
Providing players with more gradual ‘steps’ to take until their upper limit is reached causing people to engage more with the game, increasing retention time as the feeling of success of more often presented.
It’s a very good and important argument, and I’m glad EHG is aware of it at least somewhat.
Which is also why I’ve argued a good while ago (I think around 1.0?) about the disparity in item power from T5 to T6 and T7, as well as the scaling and what it means for providing those individual steps and when.
Also it plays into my argument about ‘4 vs 6 vs 8 Affixes’ on items. Given that more affixes with less variance between tiers and lower impact per affix would cause a higher variable drop-table and allow more gradual upgrades… hence more ‘steps to the road of perfection’, keeping players engaged.
Very fair and good argument… but… wouldn’t the rather ‘rigid’ core itemization system have a more grand impact there compared to uniques? The issue around ‘unobtainable’ 4LP uniques showcases that the top-end is problematic for perception of some people. So reducing that amount related to power level of the specific unique would actually increase - rather then reduce - the available options.
If your unique is already extremely hard to obtain… then allowing the top-end of the possible power range there to be lower would actually make ‘worse’ uniques be able to compete through ther higher amount of LP. Something which causes decision making for picking a good result being more meaningful and also allowing more interaction overall with the itemization system.
Or have I overlooked something there?
I mean… yeah… it does… but does it the job ‘well’ or just ‘baseline’? It kinda feels as if the first step was taken (great!) and then everyone brushed their hands and said ‘yep, we’re done’, dropped everything and left
It did increase the amount of interaction with uniques after all… but it massively reduced interaction with exalted items and their potential upgrade ranges. After all the scarcity factor is important there. If you got a single 4 LP unique with no chance to reliably acquire another one in any reasonable time… you’ll hence focus your mind on getting a item to put onto that, right? So anything ‘below’ at least a decent outcome for the affixes on a base item is now non-viable for you suddenly. You have the item which will stay with you… but now you need a base, and nothing but a good base will do since you can’t re-acquire the LP item.
So yes… it does definitely increase interacting around uniques, at the cost of the other items.
We only have a limited amount of item slots. So wouldn’t it be better to increase the range on how we can adjust each specific item rather then adding more variances limiting on what we perceive as ‘viable to even wear’ and put into that slot?
I mean… with the Set items I’m definitely curious.
The champion affixes though won’t. Since they have the underlying issue exalted drops suffer from (as the LP system hides them and makes up for the shortcomings) but nothing to allow them to get useful when not rolled directly in a a very lucky state.
Unless the acquisition rate of those is substantial, but given they’ll likely only drop from the ‘champions’ (hence champion affixes :p) they quantity of them will be comparatively miniscule to other items, especially exalted ones.
3 T7 is nigh impossible too. And all the combinations.
3T7 + T6
2T7 +T6
2T7 is barely seen, rarer versions being basically unicorns even in CoF.
Sealed affixes added increases the pool count, but can be removed since they’re ‘beyond’ baseline.
It’s actually a surprisingly substantial amount.
Let’s say 20% then to make it more reliable.
Because the reliably acquisitioned items end at 'Rare T7 + common T7) With even a combination of rare+uncommon being basically a top-tier drop similar to a chase unique in PoE and a Rare T7+ Rare T7 being beyond that, Mirror-tier direct drop. Kinda hefty basis from then onward.
Actually not, Nemesis is not ‘cutting off’ the baseline. It does so in a very miniscule way. Not only is the quantity related to it neglectible but they also underly the core drop-rate still. To get a good Nemesis item you would need to have a already extremely well rolled base there to then improve twice for it to reach the top-end, and since they are very rare in quantity it only represents the overall CoF quality of drops in comparison, doesn’t really go beyond. It just has a higher range available and can theoretically go beyond, but with the increased drop-pool of bases to boot it’s surprisingly unlikely to get a good result.
Sure, you get decent items from it… but you drop them at a rate which makes normal farming similarly good… unless you - once more - hit simply a ‘jackpot’ which given the time investment is actually more unlikely then dropping a great item the ‘normal’ way.
For a surprisingly large portion the potential to reach the top-end is important. If it’s not then it has no meaning to try.
Or differently said ‘No matter how much effort you put it in feels like you have nothing to show for it’. That’s demotivating.
1k improvement is fine for a min-maxer, 10k too… but they want a ‘end result at the top’ for it then. But that’s - as mentioned - not really a possibility in a realistic way, not even with 10k, or 100k hours. And 100k? Too much, for basically everyone.
If it’s solely that then they’ll also pick another game before LE, since they would go for the overall count of improvements, enjoying the simple outcome of ‘having improved’. But LE also does not allow it to happen often compared to other games. GD does worse as LE at the absolute end-game… but you got alternative stuff to unlock to pass the time. Recipes galore, farming for resources. Gradual progression rather then improving the gear right away directly.
With the power disaprity between T5, T6 and T7 the scarcity has to be respectively low after all, which we can see. So those min-maxers go through normal monoliths, come into empowered… get a few items to improve along the way to Aberroth… beat him… and well… by that time it’s likely they’ll only have a few items leftover. CoF? No target farming for specific drops. MG? They’ll likely have sold several T7 rare affix items by then which are sought after and acquired them as well… maybe gotten the crafts into a good result, maybe still struggling for the same item. But you’ve probably switched out 9-10 items in empowered monoliths, likely having 1-2 from Monoliths - non-empowered - even already. The progression in LE is very very frontloaded after all.
Means they’re already in the ‘50-100 hour’ progression position for a single item, but for those 100 hours nothing to keep you going. Even a min-maxer burns out when a potential only only drops at the rate of personally farmed uber-boss fights and then result in nothing several times. It’s fine to farm for items normally and build up towards it… but PoE 1, 2, Torchlight Infinite… heck… even D3 do a better job there, only D4 and LE are ‘progression starved’ end-game. And that has nothing to do with the content available but feeling like ‘nothing moves forward at all’. You can play a week and have achieved ‘nothing’, next week you can suddenly get 3 upgrades at the first day.
Reliability is important too.
And it would change what for them when that top-end is gone?
As mentioned, they can’t get it. Nobody gets it. So the argument already is ‘it doesn’t affect them’, right?
So what would change for them? Nothing.
So it only affects those where the perception of the ‘impossible’ is turning the experience sour. For the others it wouldn’t change anything.
Yeah, if the chase is even possible as mentioned. We’re turning in circles here.
Are we still talking about the ‘unobtainable parts of item drops’ or have me moved to something else? Because chaosing that BiS and getting one every cycle or 2… how does that de-value the hunt for it? Wouldn’t actually getting a part of it at times with massive time investment be a detriment to someone? I would argue that the amount of people perceiving ‘impossible items as important’ is less then those perceiving ‘unacquireable items be detrimental’.
Yeah… and if I wanna min-max I’ll go and do exactly that and I’ll also achieve it with enough effort.
Can I do that in LE?
That’s the whole argument.
Sure, I’ll need 10…50…100 Magebloods! I can do that! Gimme time, I’ll make it happen. Nice goals! Great min-maxing! On the way I’ll even exchange mine likely 2-3 times since the new one is maginally better then the old one.
The quantity of improvements is higher, the magnitude per improvement is lower. And it’s possible. Insane… but possible!
So lets go! Insanity never stopped a min-maxer. Impossibility did.