Refreshing the "late" endgame loop

[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.

[Llama8]

@Kulze

If something costs 100 mil Gold… then why does nobody put in one for 95 mil?

Greed? Because it’s impossible to know how fast items are selling for a given price so people just YOLO an item up for a price.

@Kulze

@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.

Prove it, 'cause it’s not. Mike said that CoF was more time-efficient prior to min-maxing at which point MG was more time-efficient (assuming the items you want are actually available, which they may well not be on account of the lack of market participants). But yes to the rest of it.

[Kulze]

@Llama8

Greed?

Nope?
You obviously underprice slightly. After all otherwise your item won’t be sold.
And the lower the respective turnover rate the less likely is it to be sold at all.

Only a idiot puts items in significantly higher then those inside and expects them to sell in a swift manner. Or you’re very patient and it’s just ‘extra on the side’ as you don’t need any Gold in the next - extensive - timeframe for anything. And for every 1 of those… there’s 99 following the ‘normal’ route of slightly undercutting, as it’s the absolute norm and players have been trained on since quite a long time in nigh every game with a market.

@Llama8

Mike said that CoF was more time-efficient prior to min-maxing at which point MG was more time-efficient (assuming the items you want are actually available, which they may well not be on account of the lack of market participants). But yes to the rest of it.

Yes, and that is a wrong statement in practicality. Isn’t it?

Because MG is substantially more efficient early-game towards reaching the min-max range, or do you wanna say it is not?
Also CoF is overperforming compared to MG at the top-end for acquisition of the strongest exalteds for slamming onto gear.

This was said before 1.0 was released. Also the burden of proof is on your end in this case, not mine. You made a statement of ‘It was said’ and I say ‘that wasn’t the case at this timeframe’. So your part is to proof the timeframe here. I’ll be glad to backpedal though if it was mentioned at around 1.1 times still rather then pre 1.0 or early post-release.

[Llama8]

@Kulze

Only a idiot puts items in significantly higher then those inside and expects them to sell in a swift manner.

Only an idiot thinks it happens in that direction much of the time.

@Kulze

Yes, and that is a wrong statement in practicality. Isn’t it?

Not really, no. Why do you think that being able to pick the perfect item you want with the affixes you want (on the premis that that is available) isn’t more powerful than being showered in items that probably aren’t what you want?

@Kulze

Also the burden of proof is on your end in this case, not mine. You made a statement of ‘It was said’ and I say ‘that wasn’t the case at this timeframe’.

Just like you saying that the statement was misappropriated? Well, how about this, Mike saying it on stream:

- YouTube

He says that there’s always going to be a place where MG is more powerful than CoF & MG’s ability to turn a drop that isn’t useful to you into a thing that is is phenomenally powerful (which it is).

Do I particularly want to search Discord for Mike’s comment about MG being more powerful very-late game? No, not really, but you can if you wish.

@Kulze

Also CoF is overperforming compared to MG at the top-end for acquisition of the strongest exalteds for slamming onto gear.

Probably because there aren’t enough people playing (at all or playing MG).

[Kulze]

@Llama8

Why do you think that being able to pick the perfect item you want with the affixes you want (on the premis that that is available) isn’t more powerful than being showered in items that probably aren’t what you want?

Yeah, but when specifically does it happen?

The early-game clearly is for MG hence superior, isn’t it? Because the upgrades usually needed to be dropped are abundant and cheap, hence you can acquire them without investment of resources or effort.
Comparatively the scaling of CoF drops is ridiculous. Tier upgrades means for the same playtime we get a substantially higher amount of T7 items, which also goes over towards 2 T7 and 3T7. Heck… in CoF you can reasonably get lucky enough to find a 4 T7 item even with extreme investment. Comparatively in MG at the same time investment you’ll be basically ‘a tier lower’ related to those. Which goes into the market immediately. 2 T7 is a utter rarity, many bases don’t have a single listing. 3 T7 is a myth there.

So, early game MG is better and late-game CoF is better for exalteds. For uniques MG stays a lot more relevant… but even there at the more rare ones acquisition ability is basically non-existent as the amount listed is so low that it’s a miracle to see one there. Comparatively in CoF you cut acquisition rate in extreme amounts.
A good example is Ravenous Void there as not only is the acquisition rate itself very low (~990 RoA for a single one) but higher LP rolls are even more so. Means for example a 2 LP one isn’t existing on the market… hence 0% chance of acquisition through MG means. While the drop-rate for LP 2 in CoF is 1 in 1,931 instead of 1 in 3,772 (double LP chance). Together with a 150% drop-chance for specific loot it means instead of 4,5% from Gaspar it makes it a 11,25% chance to get one at max chance. This brings them absolutely into reach of long-term players to see, something a MG player basically has no chance of comparatively.

Combine that with the exalted droprate which causes 3 T7 and 4 T7 to actually be realistic drops (you can actively grind for 3 T7 drops and not deem it as a miracle with dedication) since we have 25% of all rares automatically upgraded to exalteds… and from those every single exalted Affix is 1,5 times as likely to be a T7 as well… which in combination means also a ridiculously substantial amount of exalteds to be high quality, to a degree the market simply is unable to follow.

Not to speak that also - as much as I know - imprints are affected by this as well.

MG is limited by items nigh universally useful which you’ll also not see twice in your playtime. Those types of items which are extra rare drops but over the course of time you’ll get 1-2 of em as a player simply don’t exist in the market hence as everyone able wants to have one.

Under normal circumstances we would be weeding out based on funds, with the absolutely filthy rich people being very very few… but we’re at the technical limit of Gold (and neither a compator-design like platinum coins and nor a exclusive currency option compressing the magnitude by 1000 ((2 listing limit instead of 2000 listing limit)) available) and hence everyone having reached that vie for the same individual item rather then the 5-10 most rich people having solely to opportunity… which means you cannot ‘reliably’ save up to those, it’s based on pure luck (which MG is supposed to remove, that’s what trading is for).

So I gotta heavily disagree with you on that point. I’ve repeated the same arguments with the same math and the same examples now since 1.0 and I’m sick of having this conversation with the same few people over and over which just have seemingly amnesia about it.

@Llama8

Well, how about this, Mike saying it on stream:

‘I don’t know if I agree with it… the premise of the topic.’ ‘I’ll not say it’s wrong, but I’ll not agree with it or not’
'There’ll always be a place where MG is stronger then CoF.**

Then he speaks about the power of it. Which yes… turning 400 potential useful items into a single ‘drop type’ (currency) is obviously extremely powerful.
Which I explained that there’s a turning point though when you got the limitations presented of the current system though, as I state in this post here above.

So no, the statement is not there.
There is no statement related to which is superior at which timeframe. There is only stated that MG ‘will always be superior in some area’ which… duh? Not the topic.

@Llama8

Probably because there aren’t enough people playing (at all or playing MG).

It only makes the cadence of item appearances better. It doesn’t change the ratio fundamentally.
Items beyond the limit of the market’s functionality were never available… and won’t ever be available. You could get solely lucky to see something being listed ‘just this moment’… or you don’t have that luck. The aspect which MG is supposed to remove, luck-based drops versus deterministic acquisition.

So also ‘no’, this is a fundamental misunderstanding on how playercount influences market behavior. All it does it smoothing the curve of time needed to make a sale. It gets more reliable and hence causes the reach of market-equilibrium to happen faster. The second thing it does is bringing the ‘problematic’ line of acquisition down as well, together with the ‘0’ equilibrium of value (abundance state) of gear. Meaning more items falls into the category of ‘we cannot acquire it without pure luck despite having the funds’ and less fall into ‘This item is worth absolutely nothing since 50 others have already listed it at minimum price possible’.

That’s all it does.

[Shathor]

I didn’t wan’t this to become a discussion between CoF vs. MG. I don’t play MG, so my thought was that getting multi T7 is (theoretically) easier because you can just buy it and saw this happening in streams. But of course if there’s not enough supply and high demand that theory doesn’t hold. MG scales with amount of players.
Even if it is or isn’t easier to get multi T7 in CoF, it doesn’t really feel that way to me. Maybe I’m doing this wrong, but it is just a frustrating chore to me. A wall I can’t or don’t want to overcome because it is a boring playstyle. I see there’s theoretically so much more room upwards in my characters progression - the whole game teases you about it - but it is not reasonably achievable with “regular” playtime.