First of all, I LOVE the idea!
Having stuff to grind for in endgame is amazing, even maybe upgrading uniques can be good (although dangerous for balance reasons)
But being able to put +1/2/3/4 full power affixes on a unique that often carries it’s own weight, is astronomical power creep and it will make balancing uniques super difficult going forward.
I don’t see any way where this can stay in the game long term and I’m a bit worried that we’ll have a “Harvest” moment (controversial powercreep league from PoE) if this gets pulled back after players had too much time to get used to it.
IMO although this is super exciting and fun short term I have major concerns for long term health of itemization if this goes through unchanged.
also remember that not all end game content is in right now. this will probably be a time they can gauge how hard to make other systems depending on how often legendaries are collected before the new systems become relevant to progression.
We are seeing a lot of concerns about this. getting a high power unique with 4 exalted affixes on it is almost impossible. While the top end potential is way higher, it’s not realistic to even talk about. We had similar concerns raised about T28 exalteds. I’ve still never seen a real one and don’t expect to any time soon.
It is not just concern about +4 legendaries…
+1/2 is already extremely crazy since most item slots depending on build has 1 or 2 really high value stats/slot.
Being able to get that on any unique of your choice is insanely strong, and removes a lot of interesting itemization choices.
A lot of unique items in LE already holds their own AND have unique affixes available to them.
Reasonably being able to get 1 or 2 rare affixes that is within your control is very very very strong as most builds only has 1 or 2 super high value affixes for each item.
Right now only certain items has stats like “armour shred, shock, frailty, +skills” the list goes on, any stat that has a limited number on slots they can be put on makes gearing and using uniques way more of a “choice”, since you’re always balancing what you’re giving up against what you are getting.
With this system most of these choices will be gone, because we can reasonably fit all of those stats across our item sets even just getting +1 or +2 legendaries.
Yes, everyone talk about the wet dream full 4 Pot Legendary like it’s already a thing.
But strong unique with 2 Pot is already really good. And it’s here that we need to gamble if we want 2 specific affixes. It’s a extra layer and i really like the design.
I don’t know what you are worry about. You itemize based on your build not the other way around. So you don’t have many itemization choices to begin with.
But, you don’t have the item right of the bat, you climb and update your item little by little. Legendary is just another layer. For the very Endgame, with -it seems- a very low chance to drop + having a chance the ‘fail’ the merge with the ‘wrong’ affixe.
The chance to “fail” is not high enough since we get the pick the stats and we only have 4 stats.
You can get the stats you want with that kind of odds reasonably easy.
+1 or +2 is waaaay stronger than it sounds at first glance…
Like i said yes +2 is really strong already but it seems the odd to have that on strong unique is really really low. Then, on that really rare unique you have a 1/6 (if my math are right) chance to have what you really want for a 2 Pot.
I’m just saying, most people will probably never achieve that on every slot even just at Pot 2. Yes it’s strong but it’s also very very rare and really rewarding when you get one.
I am biased, I’m a super high time investment gamer (#no life)
So my opinions will always lean towards more interesting choices and longer meaningful grinds.
In simple terms I like games more like PoE and less like D3.
This feels like a D3 change to me. (Removing choices/concequences of using uniques and huge powercreep all in one)
I don’t know about D3 but PoE have also a heavy focus on Unique. Not full Unique, but having 3-4 is not uncommon. I also know that they add others layer of itemization but i don’t know the detail but let’s not compare a game with many year of added content with a early access game.
But, having already that much, you need month for your ‘perfect’ gear, years for more casual player. ^^ And by that time, maybe something change and you need to update your ‘perfect’ gear.
And personally, if my endgame gear do not break the game i have a bad taste in my mouth.
I understand what you are saying and there is nothing wrong with having that opinion at all
I just wanted to voice some of my concerns with the system!
I don’t ever want to give off the impression that I am not super excited for LE or this patch at all though!
I want the game to succeed which is why I try to give the best feedback I can!
I feel like I made my point in the above posts already but just to give you an example of a “choice” I made on my most recent char to illustrate it again.
The last char I played I was running ~300 corruption in HC and due to using some very powerful uniques in other slots I ended up having to plob on “Stormtide” to have any access to shock at all - at a huge cost to surviveability stats - not something you’d normally do in HC.
This is not the best example but the one that was most recently in my mind - I feel like choices like this are interesting!
Now if I had been able to just +1 craft “chance to shock” on my weapon for example I wouldn’t have had to do that.
Before if you couldn’t fit it within your blessings/items/idols it was a very impactful not having access to.
But now stats that are more limited like the ones in my post earlier is not really something you ever have to make a choice to skip anymore.
It loses some depth from the game imo and make uniques super hard to balance.
Set Items are already hardly competitive, with some very few exceptions.
I totally get, that you don’t want to make sets too powerfull
But this will give the death blow to most of them and the very few that will still be used will be even more niche.
I would be ok with making it very hard to get 3 or 4 LP set items (even low lvl ones), but at least 1 or 2 LP should be realistic for them.
Oh don’t worry I don’t want you to say ‘i’m wrong and you are totally right’ especially when we don’t have the insight on them being live yet, only time will give us answer. ^^
Also don’t forget that we will get to have Exalted with 5 affixes (with the sealed mechanic) who will be more ‘accessible’ so more chance to have highter roll for them. You will have the dillema bacause they will tend to be on the ‘safer’ side having more affixe to stack defensive one.
I hear you!
I do however feel like getting a 5 affix rare with maxed out rolls crafted will be harder than hitting a legendary with +1/2.
And in many cases the legendary will be stronger.
I will stop the replies for now - I had a popup telling me I’m replying too many times to you and that I should take it to DM’s
Not so sure about that, you need the specific Unique with Pot (very rare), a good exalted of the same slot to merge with (rare but you will have it by the time you get your Unique i think) and then you only have a chance to have the perfect outcome.
But, with no proper number at how Leg Pot drop it’s impossible to be sure if it’s harder to have a really good 5 affixes Exalted or a +1/+2 Legendary of the Unique you want.
We’re not just talking about a “very good” 5 affix rare here… for it to be better it needs to be perfect!
Like ~T25 with the exact stats you want, if the new crafting system is anything close to what we had before, this will be a mythical item that you will pretty much never see.
That’s not even talking about exalted mods which would make it mythical^2
In end-game crafting you don’t want just “good” stats on your items, you want exact stats and would compromise on the tier rather than the stats.
With the legendary system just straight up beating these super hard to get items with just a simple +1/2 in a lot of cases.
Ok, I’m taking a break for real now to stop the spamming
Thank you for the discussion, I feel like I needed to talk about this change for a bit.
This is extremely exciting news. This makes builds that are unique heavy much better. I am totally going to aim for a bleed wolves build. Taste of Blood, Artor’s Legacy, The Fang, Doublet of Onos Tull, etc.
