Refreshing the "late" endgame loop for CoF

[Shathor]

There’s a steep wall in character progression when playing CoF and min-maxing.
The wall is getting good 2+ T7 exalted items. In my opinion we are hitting this wall fairly quick and up until that point the endgame play is still enjoyable, because it is more diverse. However once the character are decked out with fairly good uniques with the guaranteed 1 T7 affix and accetable T5, the “endgame loop” becomes increadibly repetitive, stale and frustrating:

1. Farm Memory Amber
2. Run Nemesis Towers, banishing them until there’s an interesting 2+ T7 → Imprint
3. Run Unclaimed Trove to trigger imprint.
4. Craft item, turning it into garbage 99.99%.
5. Occasionally farm Rune of Havoc by using gold in Lightless Arbor, run prophecies or Rampant Coast, …
6. Rinse and repeat for days/weeks/months for one item slot.

The problems:

1. CoF has no prophecies to “farm” 2+ T7.
2. Nemesis are the best way to acquire 2+ T7 ? Still requires killing lots and lots of Nemesis and banishing.
3. Imprint rules are arcane and not documented. You want the T7 affixes on the opposite side (prefix/suffix) of what you actually want?
4. CoF has no prophecies to directly farm Rune of Havoc.
5. The probability to hit required 2+ T7 using Rune of Redemption is so low, it doesn’t exist. It’s a trap.
6. The problems are compounding if your build requires an Primordial Exalted Item. Oh boy, is this not happening. Builds for which there’s no good Primordial Unique just got the short end of the stick.

It seems like these problems will not be addressed in Season 4 either, despite changes being requested for a long time: Rune of Corruption adds another layer to fail crafting miserably. Echo Chains have no use if you can’t chain specific echos like Nemesis Tower or Unclaimed Trove into long chains. If they are just the last echo of a (3-way?) chain, then they are a greater waist of time than returning to the reward platform and selecting the next echo to run.
(Though my argument is that requiring us to run long chains of Nemesis Tower and Unlaimed Trove is the main source of the problem)

[Kulze]

@Shathor

There’s a steep wall in character progression when playing CoF and min-maxing.

Has nothing to do with CoF, that’s a general issue of the game.

Hence it needs to be solved at the root and not at the faction level.

@Shathor

Nemesis are the best way to acquire 2+ T7 ? Still requires killing lots and lots of Nemesis and banishing.

High corruption (700+) is better then Nemesis for the exalted grinds, especially in CoF, there it happens even earlier because of the multiplicative way how the trigger for extra exalteds dropping happens.

@Shathor

Imprint rules are arcane and not documented. You want the T7 affixes on the opposite side (prefix/suffix) of what you actually want?

The imprint system is a nice base system… but the functionality of it is plainly spoken shit. Yeah.
It needs simplification or proper documentation in-game with a whole player help dedicated to that alone. It’s the core progression mechanic for end-game equipment after all and it’s a disaster.

@Shathor

The probability to hit required 2+ T7 using Rune of Redemption is so low, it doesn’t exist. It’s a trap.

I’ve already stated that Rune of Redemption is garbage before it even came out. The teaser came and I simply scratched my head for ‘what does this actually solve?’. Since it uses FP and the weight plays a role it’s borderline useless. Yep.

Rune of Redemption should plainly spoken be 1) more rare 2) without FP cost.

Hence it would act as a pure re-roll for the respective base, treating it as a ‘item type + 2 T7’ base for crafting, only being walled by time investment this way rather then non-stop fail-states.
The whole crafting system has no ‘stability’ at all, it’s all pure gambling which feels great at the beginning and turns into a detriment the further along you go.

@Shathor

It seems like these problems will not be addressed in Season 4 either,

Or likely 5… or 6… or 7 plainly spoken.

I don’t see EHG tackling the core issues of the game foundation in a very long time.

Especially as you state:

@Shathor

Rune of Corruption adds another layer to fail crafting miserably.

Which goes actively counter to the regular ask of me and several others to ‘Make crafting less of a RNG hell’.

People always think ‘but without the rampant RNG people would get the results too quickly!’.
Which is not the case, you can reduce acquisition rate without fail-states of gambling. And that’s missing simply.

[Shathor]

@Kulze

Has nothing to do with CoF, that’s a general issue of the game.
Hence it needs to be solved at the root and not at the faction level.

In MG you just shop for them, no? What I mean is, in MG there’s a direct, deterministic path to aquire the multi T7 if they are available. Even in the correct base. (Glyph of Envy is another trap). You can direct your “farming efforts” with a goal in sight or as a “side-mission” whilst doing the same stuff as you usually do. Nothing like that exists for CoF players.

@Kulze

High corruption (700+) is better then Nemesis for the exalted grinds, especially in CoF, there it happens even earlier because of the multiplicative way how the trigger for extra exalteds dropping happens.

I hardly get any multi T7 at 1000 corruption. I got a loot filter rule that shows any multi T7, no matter what base or affix.

@Kulze

It needs simplification or proper documentation in-game with a whole player help dedicated to that alone. It’s the core progression mechanic for end-game equipment after all and it’s a disaster.

I would be content if the imprint gives similar items than the one you imprinted. Not this weird reverse prefix-suffix rule to optimize for what you actually require.

@Kulze

Rune of Redemption should plainly spoken be 1) more rare 2) without FP cost.

Hence it would act as a pure re-roll for the respective base, treating it as a ‘item type + 2 T7’ base for crafting, only being walled by time investment this way rather then non-stop fail-states.
The whole crafting system has no ‘stability’ at all, it’s all pure gambling which feels great at the beginning and turns into a detriment the further along you go.

I fully agree. That would be a nice idea.

@Kulze

I don’t see EHG tackling the core issues of the game foundation in a very long time.

It’s a shame.

@Kulze

Which goes actively counter to the regular ask of me and several others to ‘Make crafting less of a RNG hell’.

People always think ‘but without the rampant RNG people would get the results too quickly!’.
Which is not the case, you can reduce acquisition rate without fail-states of gambling. And that’s missing simply.

Rune of Corruption also adds a layer of fear. Once you finally crafted a good multi T7 item, after all the effort and luck, should you really corrupt the item and potentially turn it into garbage?

This is good and bad because you could truly craft godly items, but I’m personally to risk averse.

[Kulze]

@Shathor

In MG you just shop for them, no?

Yeah… but someone has to drop it, right so you can buy it, right? And since MG has vastly less drops (but you also don’t need a chunk of what is usable for other builds, which makes it partially up again) you still don’t get it in the end, the prices are so extreme for decent bases to try and craft them that you’ll play for a much longer time in most 2 T7 cases… if even a single item for a single try is available in the first place.

That ‘direct deterministic path’ is only as deterministic as the base system supports. Which it really doesn’t do well

@Shathor

(Glyph of Envy is another trap).

Glyph of Envy only has the stability function, the other stuff is worthless… I don’t know why EHG didn’t give us a item to increase stability directly rather then this piece of garbage. Would’ve made more sense as the crafting function is non-existent basically.

@Shathor

Nothing like that exists for CoF players.

Unless I got it wrong (which I might, since it’s hard to find out precisely unless you specifically test for it longer-term) then imprints of ‘base items’ (non uniques) are affected by CoF Ranks. Which means upgrades happen there, which is why the imprint system prefers CoF players so heavily.

@Shathor

I would be content if the imprint gives similar items than the one you imprinted. Not this weird reverse prefix-suffix rule to optimize for what you actually require.

Yep, simplification. EHG tried to be fancy and fancy made it worse

@Shathor

Once you finally crafted a good multi T7 item, after all the effort and luck, should you really corrupt the item and potentially turn it into garbage?

Yeah, but that’s plainly spoken fine.
It is meant as a direct gambling mechanic. It doesn’t blindside you with it. It’s expected and hence treated accordingly.
Presentation makes up a lot of how any mechanic fits… which is why crafting gets so much flak.
It presents itself as a ‘deterministic approach to crafting’ but in the background it’s designed as a pure slot-machine type of mechanic. Sure… we can say that other games have the same, like PoE or Torchlight, but the difference there is that the system hides the RNG so well that people don’t mind it and don’t see it as gambling. They lack the ‘fail-state’ simply.

Every system can have 3 potential states: Success - Equilibrium - Failure.
In PoE and Torchlight we got most systems set up as Success - Equilibrium.
Hence you either win… or nothing happened. You don’t loose ‘already achieved results’.

That’s the baseline crafting mechanics there. They also have the ‘Failure’ state. Be it with Corruption, be it with specific crafts, be it with the plasticity usage mechanics and so on… but they’re not the ‘lowermost crafting layer’, they’re those beyond that, a ‘extra’.

LE doesn’t have that sadly, the crafting system starts right off with the slot pulls.

@Shathor

This is good and bad because you could truly craft godly items, but I’m personally to risk averse.

Yeah, and a healthy system causes you to create 2 similar items first to then risk 1 of those to progress. Which we already have.

But that’s the top-end way to handle things, and when it gets overbearing people loose interest. Which… sadly we also have ongoing.

So putting another layer on top doesn’t make sense. You first gotta ease on the problems below to then allow proper usage of those after.

[Shathor]

@Kulze

Yeah… but someone has to drop it, right so you can buy it, right? And since MG has vastly less drops (but you also don’t need a chunk of what is usable for other builds, which makes it partially up again) you still don’t get it in the end, the prices are so extreme for decent bases to try and craft them that you’ll play for a much longer time in most 2 T7 cases… if even a single item for a single try is available in the first place.

That ‘direct deterministic path’ is only as deterministic as the base system supports. Which it really doesn’t do well

Honestly I don’t care what MG can and does, as long as the system doesn’t unsidedly favors it (because I hate the idea of that). Like how MG favors Lightless Arbor for Havoc farm or Mastery respec. MG will always be stronger than CoF anyway, it doesn’t need extra favoritism.

@Kulze

Glyph of Envy only has the stability function, the other stuff is worthless… I don’t know why EHG didn’t give us a item to increase stability directly rather then this piece of garbage. Would’ve made more sense as the crafting function is non-existent basically.

I mean now that it changes the base item since S3. It uses FP, so it is useless. The stability function is now with the Temporal Keystones.

@Kulze

But that’s the top-end way to handle things, and when it gets overbearing people loose interest. Which… sadly we also have ongoing.

So putting another layer on top doesn’t make sense. You first gotta ease on the problems below to then allow proper usage of those after.

Exactly. The top end is so far out of reach that I don’t even want to try.

[Kulze]

@Shathor

I mean now that it changes the base item since S3.

True, forgot about that. And yes, still useless because of the FP usage. The only applicable situation is when the item is already finished but the base wrong… which… why would you even try to create this situation? And if it’s not there the success rate drops to basically zero right away.
So yes, absolutely useless, a fringe-use case which is absolutely wasted effort to put into the game with how rarely it happens.

Top-end development… not basics which the game struggles with still.

[Llama8]

@Shathor

In MG you just shop for them, no? What I mean is, in MG there’s a direct, deterministic path to aquire the multi T7 if they are available. Even in the correct base. (Glyph of Envy is another trap).

That’s the intent behind MG, yes, but that doesn’t mean that that’s how it works in practice due to lack of market participation & the ones that do deciding that 50 trillion gold is a perfectly reasonable price for a 2x t7 item.

@Shathor

Nothing like that exists for CoF players.

That is, to be fair, the entire point if CoF, it’s supposed to be for people that luke the RNG of drops. The devs have even said that it’s less time-efficient than MG at the highest end (getting specific bases with specific affixes at a good roll at high tier & specific rare/powerful uniques with good rolls & high LP).

[Kulze]

@Llama8

due to lack of market participation & the ones that do deciding that 50 trillion gold is a perfectly reasonable price for a 2x t7 item.

The first is true, issues become more pronounced because of it as it drops.
The second part isn’t quite true though.
If something costs 100 mil Gold… then why does nobody put in one for 95 mil?
Means that even despite this potential value there is nobody listing it. Hence that means supply is low and the price won’t drop.

The prices we see are fitting prices for their respective environment and engagement actually, and it show directly the issues the game has and where work needs to be put in.
1 LP worthless but 2 LP impossible to get as none are listed? Well, then that means 2 LP isn’t able to be acquired easily enough according to its power.
It also shows that the respective item has ample demand… but no supply. And since the same is available in a lower variant it means that the game lacks a method of upgrading low LP into high LP items reasonably enough, otherwise the gulf wouldn’t be that massive.

So either re-rolling LP needs to allow reselling and/or better methods for re-rolling need to be introduced. The turtle sucks plainly spoken, should’ve been a specific crafting UI and the unlock solely happening through the turtle, in-echo crafting sucks overall.

@Llama8

That is, to be fair, the entire point if CoF, it’s supposed to be for people that luke the RNG of drops.

Yeah, but there’s a limit to how much is acceptable or even good. And we’re not at that position for the end-game grind at all.

@Llama8

The devs have even said that it’s less time-efficient than MG at the highest end

Oh… nono, that’s a bit misapproriated. The devs said that it’s likely less efficient as a proper trading system puts extreme power into the hands of the community.

But the practical situation is that neither is the system set up properly to allow this to happen, nor is the extreme difference in drop-rate balanced to make this a reality and neither is the participation rate high enough to push it towards that.

We know high market participation rate counters it to a decent degree but doesn’t make it catch up (as inflation tends to ruin the state before the equilibrium between them is reached, it’s more like a slingshot, first overtaking then suddenly snapping back hard. All in a short timeframe). We also know that the UI is clunky and doesn’t allow ‘mass-listings’ which makes it a extreme tedium to keep your ‘shop’ going properly. And it also doesn’t allow proper management of listed items, like swift re-pricing or even proper search of listed items.
Ultimately we always need to fix at least 2 out of those 3 situations.

Inflation.
Functionality.
Base drop-rate.

The issue is that every action is literal baby-steps. A measly tax working against inflation… but no gold-sink which is the important part.
Compare function but no quick-list from there, no preset price for mass-dumping items at it (instead individual multi-click process with loading times).
Extremely reduced drop-quality comparatively to CoF, beyond what the equilibrium point would make up.

Obviously there’s a mess then, and CoF still lacks a few distinct easing methods to reduce their progression issues as well… which the crafting specifically would be able to allow handling for both, as it’s a system both access.
But once again… we need something to support it, which would be adjustments of drop-rates. Cannot craft a item which you got nothing in your posession which could even become that in the end.