Post 300 corruption a new rune of “redacted” can be dropped (similar drop rate to the glyph of despair):
The rune has a chance to upgrade the LP of a unique while also re-rolling all affixes (4LP items cannot be re-rolled):
0->1 (25%)
1->2 (20%)
2->3 (15%)
3->4 (10%)
With this kind of chance it would still take a lot of time (40-80 hours to upgrade a single 0LP unique to 4LP, worst case hundreds of hours).
Why would this be a good change:
Once you’ve nearly maxed all the blessings, the end game progress curve goes down by a lot. By splitting the unique drop RNG into a relatively low drop chance item and then adding a relatively low chance crafting on top would smooth out the spikes in the progress curve.
2-3 LP drops would still feel amazing because of time saving possibility
0LP drops wouldn’t feel so bad since they could be easily upgraded to 2LP for legendary fusing in order to boost a build potential while climbing for more corruption, a middle ground that wouldn’t require many materials but also wouldn’t spike the power too much since it’s another 50/50 RNG for the fusing.
Because of 300 corruption requirement, it wouldn’t make the early/mid game easier, you still need to work a balanced build to push.
Because of the re-rolling nature of the rune and not being able to use it on a 4LP, uniques would still remain a chase item in order to min-max and continue the treadmill upgrades with better and better exalted items.
Multi-exalted items would remain the only non deterministic upgrades, removing the “stars aligned” situations. This last one may be a bad point for some of you, but my suggestion here mostly improves the feelings of the little grind monkey in our brains, it doesn’t remove the time/work required to min-max a character.
Why would this be a bad change:
You can’t brag about your 4LP in chat anymore.
All builds would powerspike faster since 2LP would be much more available
Now that you’ve read all of the above, before you post an angry comment, allow me to propose an alternative solution:
Allow upgrades only to LP3. Leaving the “stars aligned” dream and the bragging rights for those who like it and keeping the progress alive past end game for those who don’t.
I think it would be cool if we could at least combine Uniques in some way or trade them in for currency so that LP can be earned instead of rolled for. That would make looting them worthwhile and shave thousands of hours off the endgame LP grind. It would also make the key dungeons and corruption bosses optional. The only question then is what would you use as rewards for those.
Personally I’ve never used LP or Temporal Sanctum, so it’s no skin off my nose. But it would be interesting to have an actual reason to do them other than T-Minus thousands of hours to having that 4 LP Unique I might think is cool.
A nice thing could be a new dungeon where you can clean a “bad” legendary item after killing the boss.you kill the boss you put a legendary item in the device and you have your unique with the same lp it has before
Smth similar has been proposed by the community recently and the devs (after talking about it during a meeting) said they don’t want that. They are afraid this type of mechanic will give too much power too fast.
Conceptually I have no problem with this except for 1 thing - I wouldnt agree that this “rune” could be used more than once on a unique item. I.e its a once off chance to improve a uniques LP. I would also probably change the percentage chances you suggest to be far less - 10% chance for a 4lp is ludicrous for chase items.
REASONING
This is a loot based game with chase items and BiS gear being the ONLY long term reason to play. Your proposal makes it deterministic to obtain the absolute best items possible in a game and this is not something I agree with. There has to be a level of chance for the highest possible items and there are already tiered items to take player chars through power levels through crafting & exalted items. I personally do not see gearing as a general problem in the game right now - especially before getting to ± lvl 80 chars and Legendary items arent really needed for 90% of players (perhaps even more and there are no legendary required builds that I know of). After lvl 80 you are already either rolling alts or the kind of person who plays to min/max either to ding 100 or push difficulty - in which case something like your suggestion lessens the value of the loot chase.
If you make it too easy to get 4lp - i.e. arguably the best possible pie in the sky items and gear, then whats the point. While I understand that deterministic gear progressions appeals to some, I am of the opinion that there HAS to be something in the game that is very very very hard to get - perhaps not statistically impossible as is the case for some things, but it shouldnt be easy to obtain.
I suppose it all depends on where you want the effort - do you want the effort in the RNG of getting the drops with LP, the RNG of getting a special upgrade rune to improve the LP, or the RNG in the crafting process etc… and this “effort” translates into time so how valuable that is to everyone is VERY subjective. If everyone wanted to spend 80h and walk around with 4LPs, then imho, this game would not be very appealing for very long and would just end up being like D3 where every meta walks around with the same sets gear.
Anyway… partially think a rune like this for once off gambling improvement could be another fun thing to find and use in the game, but not at the expense of the holy grail 4LP item that most builds would never need anyway.
That’s why I proposed an alternative solution of maxing out at 3LP at the end of my post.
The diablo 3 sets and leggendaries are a completely different type of beast, most epoch items provide some interesting stats and status/skill modifiers that change or improve some skills without boosting the damage to much.
80h is just for one item if you start from 0LP, realistically it would take 1000-1500h to gear up everything with good enough rolls, that’s 8-11 hours of grinding every day for 3 months. If a season/cycle lasts 3 to 4 months, I consider that quite a big time investment and there is nothing easy about it.
My proposal makes LP deterministic, the exalted items would still remain the main star of the show because of exponential stat gain at T6 and T7. To make a good legendary, you still need to farm yourself a good exalted.
There are some meme worthy uniques that don’t see the light of the day unless they drop with a 3LP, imagine how many different builds you could try in end game if you could boost them with some decent exalted items.
Thats sort of like the current town gambler then - limited to lvl 40 and can never get uniques - i.e. hamstrung as a concept. I’d say do it or not at all.
The issue I have with all of this is you dont NEED legendaries for any build to work in the game. Not one. Legendaries are 100% the purvue of the people who min/max and play for way longer than normal people. I also have zero problem getting exalted items and crafting them to be ideal for either play or legendary crafting. I dont see this as a problem or hinderance in making legendaries.
Look, I think your idea could be a fun addition for an uber lucky drop added to the game - those are always great in loot games and adds some “whoohoo spice” for someone to jump for joy at getting one. But beyond that I think its something that attempts to fix a problem I dont think exists - uniques not dropping with enough LP - imho, they do and while rates/chances could be tweaked, the game needs this kind of rarity to keep the loot chase alive and prevent everyone from having uber items and causing massive balance problems over time.
No, it doesn’t have to be very very very very very hard to obtain. The game doesn’t have the content to support that belief. No one, in their right mind, would farm monoliths and T4 dungeons for the amount of time required to get perfect/near perfect BiS gear. It’s just an impossible ask. Besides, the point of the genre isn’t to play 1 character for the entirety of the game… it’s to try different characters, builds, synergies, etc. That’s why we have a stash that can hold 1000s of items.
I’ll agree, characters shouldn’t be obtaining BiS in your hyperbolic short period of time. But, at the same time, it should be a realistic goal for a causal player… ESPECIALLY if you’re going to introduce seasons/cycles. Or, should those players just never realistically plan on obtaining BiS gear in any given season/cycle?
I’ve been playing LE since EARLY beta (or maybe it was even alpha)… I have 5 LP3+ items (none are rare bases) I would consider using and 1 near-perfect Exalted item. Now, I’m not a no-life/streamer-time player, but I think I would represent your average, casual LE player – maybe even a little moreso – in regards to time investment. Should those players just never plan on seeing a full BiS geared character as well?
Where’s your line between too easy and too hard/impossible? Because it seems to me you’re perfectly fine with players never getting BiS items. If you never let the donkey eat the carrot, eventually he will no longer chase after it.
Yeah, exactly what the game needs… more super-rare, “you’ll never see this item”, drops.
I’d probably land on the “casuals shouldn’t expect to be able to get BiS gear” side of things, ignoring trading. Just like casuals shouldn’t expect to be able to do the t4 dungeon bosses (& if they could then I’d argue that they weren’t casuals).
IMO, if someone is posting on a forum and has read 14.5k posts, I wouldn’t call them casual.
IMO, no. Though there’d be an argument as what be be a “casual” & how much time gearing up to BiS would take.
IMO, BiS gear is not a carrot for a casual donkey. They are chase carrots for the more harder core/non-casual end of the spectrum. Not every player has to be able to get/do everything.
If it’s not super rare, then the no-lifer end of the spectrum will be BiS geared very quickly.
Then I have to ask why the game is catered to only the hard-core player base? If the game requires 2k+ hours to obtain certain items, then what’s the point? Casual players like seeing their characters grow in power, they also like to get to the point they can demolish the hordes of evil. Why should that be a proprietary domain of the hard-core player?
I honestly want to hear this take on it, because I’ve played both sides of the coin – was a hard-core, cutting edge player in MMOs for years with EQ and WoW… even in my single player games. Now, with more of life’s responsibilities having taken over, I’m more casual. So I’d like to hear why I shouldn’t count on having, even a single character, decked out in BiS gear… and still be involved in my kid’s lives. :\
I only used 3 “very” and i did mention that some are perhaps too hard to get right now so no argument there. I do however think there should be things that even the most out of their mind basement dweller should be lucky to get - not many, but something at least.
I dont believe that someone should be able to get a fully decked out BiS character in a single cycle timeframe whatever that may end up being. For me there should be something still to aim for after a cycle is done, or the entire char has become useless after the cycle and no need to play again.
I am unfortunately out of my mind then. Thanks for confirming my family and friends suspicions. And yes, I usually have one char of every avaiable class in games like this so I am probably at least a dozen times out of my mind.
Wow. Ok. You dont say how much time specifically in-game but that is a monumental run of bad luck in my opinion. I have lost count of the number of LP items I have and have even started cycling certain LP2 uniques to throw away to make space. I have crafted so many T20+ items with build dependant BiS that its not really an issue for me. I have gone through stages of playing every day for a month or so, to a casual for a break to not playing for 2 or 3 months at a time and I was still able to amass so many great items that I dont see getting BiS or crafting or anything as a chore at all.
Nope. Never said that. In the context of this thread, I said that Legendaries are not needed for anything in the game beyond min/max difficulty pushing that casuals are unlikely to ever do and that there should always be something to strive for as part of the loot chase. Games that allow you to get BiS items relatively easily to the point where its not really anything to chase for tend to be very boring for me - like using a save editor in a game to give you gold to buy anything/everything you need, I challenge anyone to argue that it doesnt rapidly take away any enjoyment of looting.
Of course it does. Thats the whole point. I however never said that things should never drop - thats the trick of drop rates. I have argued exactly what you say before about things like a 4LP ravenous void - a potentially totally OP item - at the moment statistically its realistically impossible to drop which I dont agree with, but I argue that it should be possible to drop in a very very very rare chance, but still possible for someone to get one - right now its practically impossible odds which are not good.
Why do you think that the game is catered to the hard core player base if certain items are rare enough to require a lot of time to get? Virtually all arpgs are like this. I’ve never got a mirror or a Headhunter/Mageblood/whatever the PoE chase items are (with, I might add, many thousands of hours in the game over the years), should I expect to do all content/get all gear as a non-hard core player?
I’d suggest that the more casual end of the spectrum would be aiming for exalted items & maybe some legendaries, but not BiS gear.
And that’s before trading.
I’d assume that the devs have certain expectations for gear “quality levels” (t15, t20, 1 affix exalted, 2 affix exalted, 2, 3, 4 lp legendaries, etc) with certain amounts of time attached to those levels & given how things are set up, I’d be shocked if they were of the opinion that “casual” amounts of time requirements would be attached to anything considered BiS. But it’s probably best to let @EHG_Mike or @EHG_Kain give their (likely much better worded) reasoning rather than me pulling stuff out of my arse.
But IMO, I’m ok with them having things set up such that BiS is effectively out of my reach (& I’m not casual, but I do have a job & 3 kids).
I have also spent far too much of my life paying games hard-core and casually, however, depending on the game, the expectations have varied.
I do not believe that in the realm of Arpgs / MMO etc that a casual player should ever expect to complete all content and have BiS items. I do believe that they should have fun, experience all the content (at lower difficulty if possible) and be able to progress in a manner for gear and skills that meets their expectations and available playtime.
If you take the proverbial bell curve from hell, if the bulk of people can complete the bulk of the game and obtain the bulk of the best items then that should suffice to meet expectations and have fun.
Completing all the content at the highest level and obtaining the best possible items is for those way out on the end of the curve and most definitely not the casual majority.
Yup, that’s why there are usually varying difficulties, so that lower skilled players (an analogue to the lower time-invested players in this example) can still play the game without being brutalised by it (which is where the analogy falls apart).
Maybe they just shouldn’t play at all, nor provide money from their purchases to fund for the few who love the intense grind to get to the interesting items and build possibilities.
I wonder if drop rates of build-enabling LP0 uniques should not be vastly higher and rebalanced for a broader distriubution instead of continually getting the same useless garbage. Keep LP1-4 rare sure, or even lake LP1 more common and keep LP2+ ultra rare.
But at least allow people who have a life to get to at least try stuff out and access a mechanically complete build.
Who knows, may that might hook them in instead of what I am coming to suspect is the usual give up at around lvl 85-100 when they realize that they just cannot be bothered to do another unrewarding bunch of empowered monolith after discovered what they though was a decent setup is actually completely useless vs a bad combination of modifiers and changing the situation is probably going to need several hundred hours of failed crafting, failed grinding etc.
I appreciate that the try-hards dont want to see anything accessable as they can no longer feel elite or special or whatever. I use to feel the same about D3 when blizzard changed it, but over time I have come around to the opposite view (yes I was once one of those elite try-hards in the D3 world). I am not saying that D3 got thing right because I think they broke the game by endless super-escalation of damage output to the extent that any character that doesnt have the exact full set of items needed is now near useless relatively.
I do however like that I can try and aim for a build in D3 and mostly it will be mechanically complete in a relative short amount of time. I can also re-spec it on a whim to try something. (In this you can re-spec, but skill tree re-grinding is annoying and passive costs can be huge and time consuming if you just spent your gold on yet another stash tab).
There needs to be a better transition point than there is currently. The ideal would seem to me that everyone who can get to empowered should at least see a mechanically complete build with ideal uniques and maybe even some LP1 crafting before they give up when they realize that LP2+ is out of reach of the grind they are likely to tolerate.
Yes - you can still feel special with your LP2+ crafts. Just means you cant feel special anymore because of having mechanically complete builds.
I disagree. The try-hards are still under this draconic impression that games should require 1000s upon 1000s of hours of dedication. That’s not how things are anymore. The population of players with the time, or inclination, to put that kind of investment into a single game…much less a single character…are dwindling, fast. Especially with the amount of games on the market now days – hell, just look how fast the Twitch streamers jump ship every 1 or 2 weeks to cash in on the ‘next thing’.
No, everyone should have realistic access to the end-game, BiS gear. I’ve heard these gatekeepers rail on about how “it’s not required to play the end-game”. OK, then there’s no harm in handing it out then. If I can already complete the content, with out it, what harm is there in letting me enjoy that content even more, with it? That I might get bored with the game and stop playing? Well, sorry to say, but grinding out 10s, 100s, or 1000s of hours, without any semblance of progressing my character is going to burn me out much faster…not just of that one character, but of the game itself.
Shouldn’t a game be encouraging players to explore other options? To play alts, explore different builds and synergy combinations? Wouldn’t that be a better way to retain players? OOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRR, do you think having them grind, the same character, for 100s/1000s of hours, with nothing to show for it, will do a better job?
If you’re worried about people leaving a game, after getting their gear in a few 100s of hours, instead of many 1000s of hours. Then that game has bigger problems than how it hands out loot.
Yes, that is exactly what I said, that filthy casuals (I think that’s the polar opposite of “try-hards”) should either just stick to chapter 1 or other games (ideally with crayons) where they belong.
I can’t think of many build-enabling (as distinct from ones that make builds better) uniques, Exsanguinous/Last Steps for low life ward builds, Jelkhor’s for a melee Detonating Arrow, Bhuldur’s Wrath, Lament of the Lost Refuge, Reign of Winter, etc.
What’s that though? T20 gear? Any/every unique? How much LP? 2-3 T7 exalted gear?
Do you think that T4 dungeon bosses should just drop dead for any build that’s been thrown together?
and i did mention that some are perhaps too hard to get right now so no argument there. I do however think there should be things that even the most out of their mind basement dweller should be lucky to get - not many, but something at least.