Remove Prefix and Remove Suffix Runes Would Improve Crafting

Feedback and Suggestions
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The rune of removal is useful, but the chance of removing the wrong affix is very high on anything with more than two affixes. Runes that would target only prefixes or suffixes would lower RNG to a more acceptable range, and make crafting on yellow drops, where removing an affix has the worst RNG with the current system, more viable.

One worry might be that they would be too OP, since an item with only one prefix or suffix would be a guaranteed removal. This could be balanced by creating higher instability when using a prefix or suffix rune as opposed to a rune of removal. Another option might be to require that there are two of the appropriate affix types on the item in order to use the rune (i.e. must be two prefixes in order to use rune of prefix removal)

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Imo that’d make crafting too easy and could shorten the endgame loot hunt by quite a bit. Rune of removal already has a 25% chance to remove the affix you desire, as long as there is no inherent/hidden rolls. I’ve noticed that it might tend to target lower tier affixes but that is probably observational bias.

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Right now it’s really difficult to even get an item with 2+ good affixes plus a strong base, since the gambler no longer shows the base before hand. I can see the worry, but it’s hard to imagine that what we have is the best option. When players get an item with 2 or 3 good affixes and one bad one, it feels bad knowing there is a much greater chance that they’ll break the item than make it useful when using rune of removal. There should definitely be risk, but a 75% chance to fail (which may be much more than that depending on how affix tiers function with the rune) seems awfully high when the fail will effectively render the item worthless most of the time, and the chance of even getting an item worth using a removal rune on is pretty low.

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I think it’s better to think of it as less of a “75% chance to ruin a potentially good item” and more of a “25% chance to salvage an otherwise bad item if we had no rune of removal whatsoever”.

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Crafting is already way too easy IMO. Don’t forget that loot filters + trade are still in the pipeline. When implemented the loot hunt would presumably be even easier than it is currently.

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How about borrowing a concept from PoE?

In PoE there are meta mods like “Suffixes can’t be changed” and “Prefixes can’t be changed”. We can implement it easily here.

This will need you to craft this meta affix first, so most of the time you will still need to annul an affix first to make room for that, and then use Rune of Cleansing.

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That would be just adding a bunch of instability in the long run, which is no different from adding the remove prefix/suffix glyphs.

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Rune of Cleansing removes all instability on an item.

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Oh, I misread what you said. My bad.

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While seeing it this way is a good approach to not get frustrated it’s not changing the fact, that the gamble is very risky.

I suggested the following several times before:
Implement the Glyph of Success (a more stupid name didn’t come into my mind :grimacing:). You can use this glyph to choose exactly the affix that you want to remove or you wanna craft (it guarantees a 100% success with crafting).

Make this glyph be the reward for completing a certain achievement. It could be tied to a weekly or bi-weekly quest. So its guaranteed you cannot farm it and keep it very rate. It should also not be tradable.

Early to midgame the crafting system works awesome. Even so good that you don’t need to collect any new item during the story when you have 2 affixed each item that you progress with.

Lategame it’s very unreliable.

But I also agree that with multiplayer it may not be that kind of an issue. Perhaps we should wait till multiplayer before making things easier.

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Your “Glyph of Success” may not be a bad idea. It’d absolutely have to be hard time-gated and non-tradeable. Would also have to bind whatever item it’s used on to the character so it cannot be traded either.

I disagree, however, with you when you imply the late-game crafting should follow the same difficulty curve as early/mid-game. Progression curves in rpg’s and especially arpg’s should never be linear in my opinion.

I just don’t understand the mentality of wanting to reduce the effort/time it takes to build a fully geared character. The grind is the whole point in these games :frowning:

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So I don’t understand at what point if my comment I showed this intention. Also mentioning the difference of effectiveness of the crafting system at certain points of character progression does not automatically imply, that I want the system to give me god tier items when I reach lvl 80. I like these kind of games as Action RPG not RNG. Loot based game does not mean gamble simulator.

The problem with an rng based itemisation system is just that it may feel unfair. And it’s a lot of luck necessary to get BiS equip. It’s not just 4 good rolls on an item. These 4 affixes have to match the rest of your gear. A T5 set glancing blow roll is nice. But if you are already glancing blow capped, it’s not that nice.

If you give me a progression bar and say "do this, then that, and so on, to keep me busy for 10 hours of gameplay and the reward is the glyph so I can be sure to have a gear improvement in the end, I’ll be happy. If you give me nothing and say “just play and maybe you are lucky some day” is not that nice.

We already had some discussions here about layers of rng especially within the crafting system. And whenever the discussion comes up again I raise these points. It’s not about “I want everything, now!” I love a good grind. But I want to see what I am grinding for.

Of course you could gate everything behind rng and say “It’s just that you are not finished too fast.” But this would not be fun. Not for me personally.

To be clear, this is not a complaint about LEs gearing or crafting system in general. It’s fun most of the time. Just the finetuning of gear is to reliant on luck, imho.

Some people like the gamble factor of loot games, I am more friend of target farming. I need to chase the carrot to be happy. Not always, but sometimes.

Motivation of players to stay with the game is key. To keep motivation level high the game has to drop some rewards. The majority of players will not play to get a gear improvement possibly every 40 hours of gameplay. Give me 4 rewards every 10 hours and I will play 40 hours without a doubt. Give me 4 rewards after 40 hours and I will propably have quit at hour 35 because of frustration.

So my plea is not to lengthen the time it needs to acquire endgame gear with RNG. Give people some control and let them grind for it. No problem.

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That was the part that led me to believe you were implying progression should be linear/easier/guarenteed.

I can understand your view point, no doubt. RNG can be a filthy mother. But when you finally get that drop, or that craft success, or whatever you’re hunting - it’s the rush that drives me to farm without being drip-fed progression. Such drip-feeding often removes that endorphine explosion for me.

We’re just two different types of players. Problem is it’s hard to find a solution that works for both of these player types without compromising one or the other. The good thing is though, that once trading comes into play and if the market is decent, there is your visible/reasonably predictable carrot to chase.

I would support your Glyph of Success though as long as it was introduced in such a way that the average end result for overall gear progression times between standard farming and the proposed glyph reward were comparable. However, I honestly think you may be playing the wrong type of game if you don’t enjoy the layers of RNG - especially at the very top end, the fine tuning.

What if using said glyph on an item reduced the top end values of max tier affixes? That way it’d be impossible to make a truly perfect item using the glyph but you’d still gain quite a bit by using it.

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I think the conversation has changed a bit. Some of the argument is centered around the idea that the game should stay exactly as it is RNG wise. This isn’t going to happen. As Mike stated in the ask-the-devs channel on Disc, “More runes are coming. Can’t say what they do yet.”. As far as gambling, Mike stated on June 6, “We do have plans for more large scale gambling systems that aren’t quite what you might expect but I think it’s going to be really cool.” The game was never meant to have quite this level of RNG in its systems. It’s been stated in this discussion that crafting is too easy, but in late game getting the right base with high rolls, then also getting the four tier 5 affixes you actually want is exceptionally difficult and usually extremely expensive, even for dedicated players. And that’s on one item. Maybe some players fear that if changes are made then the game is going to become very little RNG and way too easy, but that isn’t going to happen either. The devs are trying to find a balance where there is still enough RNG to keep a strong late game gear chase while also making the player feel like they have some control in the process and aren’t getting excessively punished.

As @nayR has pointed out, loot filters and trade will eventually be implemented and need to be considered. Trade is important to balance around, but it won’t help everyone (SSF players) so that needs to be taken into account. The loot filter should make it easier to find useful items, but it won’t change how deflating it can be to use the rune of removal when a potentially great crafting item is ruined 75% of the time. There are also new affixes added this patch that are very difficult to obtain. Even with a loot filter, a player may not see these drop for several hours or longer. Rune of removal risks destroying that affix after an already long gear grind, and it’s probably not even a tier 5 so more grinding is still necessary (rune of shattering also risks destroying all of the shards, so the solution isn’t simply shatter the item and craft something else). We should expect that rarity on items and affixes is going to be further adjusted, and we still have legendaries coming, so the gear chase is probably going to increase in late game. We can gain a bit of control in crafting if the loot table is larger and some of the best affixes are hard to get without seeing a major difference in late game gear progression.

The Glyph of Success @XLVI_carpo suggested is really interesting, but because of the power level they suggest it being only obtainable about once a week. That doesn’t really resolve the underlying problem, and feels more like a band-aid solution. The vast majority of time, we would still be dealing with the Rune of Removal in our crafting. Why not take the general idea of rarity and apply it to something like prefix and suffix removal runes? They could be much harder to come by than regular removal glyphs, and require 2 of the appropriate affix type to use. You’ve still got RNG (only 50% success rate) and the rarity means you can’t use it on every piece of potentially good gear you can find. It maintains scarcity and relatively high RNG risk while still giving the player a bit more control than they have now.

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That’s pretty much how PoE handles their crafting mats but it works I suppose if that’s what they’re going for. I could see that ending up like the SoJ as currency situation D2 had though and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it makes flat gold pointless to even have in the game.

Btw, I wasn’t arguing to keep the game’s systems exactly as they are now. I’m aware many changes/additions will come down the pipeline before release. I’m not on discord much and I just started using the forums so my understanding of the dev’s mindset and plans is somewhat lacking. I’m just concerned, as you mentioned, that removing too much RNG may result in the loot hunt degrading.

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