Seasonal Mech Penalizing

With the monoliths grind, the steep learning curve to understand the monolith endgame, adding the seasonal mechanics that we get through woven drops that all have a relative gameplay loop interaction; it feels penalizing to have to use the woven legendary potential and lose 100% of every item you put in. These drops are already low, the grind is already a lot. Yes, it keeps us playing longer but this is a terrible burnout just to craft gear. Meanwhile we have to circle back to find nemesis, get that LP or crappy stats; farm that and go back to the LP potential and lose it all again. We can do all this with our regular gameplay when we grind corruption, but it feels like an extra step to take us out of our way with zero reward. The drops are already low. As convoluted a statement made, only reflects the gameplay loop that penalizes us. There’s enough RNG and bricking of items as is; maybe seasonal mechs should be more rewarding cause that monolith grind burnout hits quick; now with added frustration

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Well, obviously you cannot.

You’re just hoping for a drop, that’s not the same as filling up the window and getting 50 tries for that ring to become 2LP or higher.

1LP uniques were always a pain, to the point where people filter them out in loot filters and never pick them up. Now with guaranteed slam they have a use, and now with LP reroll they have a purpose even after you got your 1LP gear.

If this is just an extra step and the reward is zero for you, why are you doing it? :wink: Just go grind your regular corruption. Meanwhile I’ll enjoy my upgraded LP gear.

I’m probably being stupid, but what’s “seasonal mech”? What mechs? I’m pretty sure LE doesn’t have any mechs (ie, robots) & there are no seasonal mechanics yet.

Merchendise maybe? :wink:

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Given what he’s written on his post, I assume he means mechanic and just wanted to save 0.5s of his life by not writing the whole word (even though he later wrote the whole thing, so maybe 0.5s was all he needed?).

I’ve upgraded around 20 LP2 items to LP3 using this mechanic. Tho I did gamble most of them trying to get 4LP items since I only kept the best 1 of each

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Play Legacy then, no loss there, no difference currently either.

I don’t quite get what you mean there as the explanation is a bit convoluted.

But I imagine you mean that acquisition of items? Well… do you target those specific items or are you simply hoping that Lootius is with you and you drop them randomly? There’s a big difference. Targeted farming is nigh non-existent.

As for the LP upgrade mechanic itself… it’s… ok? If you need a specific unique you just collect a bunch and then throw them in, but you don’t hope to get something reliably out of it. It’s a nice little gimmick.

And that’s the proper way of using it, keeping one, using the base ones in nemesis and trying to get LP back on and that’s basically it, rinse repeat.

It’s a nicely designed loop but should in the future be provided as a single-step process, otherwise the same multi-step menace which PoE has will happen… so when more gameplay content comes in changing up the mechanic after a while to allow non-LP uniques to be put in, at the risk of destruction in return for possible LP outcomes that can be gambled upwards further.

seasonal mechanics. mech is used as short form.

its not a nicely designed loop; its just a loop to keep us engaged longer. And I specifically stated I farmed uniques for this. Crafting for a seasonal mechanic shoudlnt be a gamble, one thats already using the games low drop rates for these. Its my suggestion, thats all. I know a gameplay loop for engagement when I see it.

.5 faster >>>

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That’s because it’s tacked on top of a pre-existing system to solve an issue stemming from another pre-existing system created by implementing another system that was meant to solve an issue in conjunction with one more implemented system because the core system on which it all falls back towards wasn’t fully fleshed out with longevity in mind.

Sounds like a mouthful, right? But sadly that’s how many steps we are in right now.

And to explain what I said above:

The LP recrafting mechanic was implemented since the acquisition from Nemesis is extremely tedious, so it’s solving that aspect and making more fodder for potential outcomes in that mechanic.

The Nemesis mechanic was implemented to allow upgrading otherwise useless uniques - non LP ones - into ones which have more of a usage, reducing the ‘empty drops’ hence which players wouldn’t interact with otherwise.

That leads to the LP mechanic, which was implemented together with (if I remember right) Exalted affixes, to solve the issue that core item progression was too little and extremely swiftly over, leading to characters being ‘perfected’ too fast.

Which hence leads to the crafting mechanic that’s introduced so it counteracts the RNG happening by so many possible variable combinations from core items, as is usual in those systems and mandatory. But already introduced the first major mistake… chance of perfection is too high but otherwise unrewarding to engage with.

Which leads to the core item drop system, namely how that’s set up. With Tiers getting more power disparity the higher in tiers it goes (contrary to other games in the genre which have higher tiers causing less and less significant upgrades for each tier) and only 4 affixes on them, enforcing each of them to have substantial power behind them as the less affixes the more they need to do to be viable as you can’t have as many multiples on items existing at the same time (limited space).

That’s how that all happens :stuck_out_tongue:

That wasn’t the sole reason for LP being added, it gave some purpose to low level low power uniques. I’m curious how you feel about the various crafting additions in PoE over the years as they feel like they’re similar “systems added on to systems added on to systems” to mitigate the RNG pain that is PoE’s crafting.

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Reworking them does give them purpose too, that’s usually the way to deal with it, not tacking a system on.

Well, the situation’s kinda different there, isn’t it?

They got a very well functioning base system that has clear-cut rules which have been chosen very well.
It had issues related to overly massive RNG very early on, but that was a fault of overall drop-rate of currency and hence progression towards the end-point of their system.
New additions in the form of Essences or Fossils reduced the RNG which was going rampant through new additions, like the elder/shaper influence. Initially that was solely a choice by using Eternal orbs, which took care of a good chunk of that but were removed a little prematurely.

Overall additions to the crafting system in PoE were generally good, much like the addition of Havoc and Demise are… generally good.
The major difference simply is that LE has a fundamental core issue present which needs to be solved, then causing all their mechanics to ‘snap into place’ by having a vastly better feeling, before that it can’t happen. But until then the issue persist.

Mind you, I’ve complained at several times in PoE about crafting as well. The removal of Delve specific affixes which reduces their unique point in the game. Yes, they were relatively strong… but they fitted as well, enforcing to choose between a variety of crafting ways since Fossil crafting ignored meta-mods.
Also unlike in LE there is the crafting bench present which alleviates a massive amount of shortcomings by letting you fix up your equipment to a decent state at least. That was even too powerful in the early days, with 5 crafted Affixes + the modifier to be allowed to craft multiples on an item being prevalent, which was… really bad for crafting.

But overall the PoE system nowadays (there were different states as mentioned) is in a very very good position. Currency is plentiful allowing a large variety of different crafts to happen. Target-farming high amounts of fossils, essences, Bestiary crafts, fracturing orbs and harvest crafts allows to direct your personal choice of focus.

The major currently existing issues there are that they’re ‘fractured’ with each other, a unified UI has become ever and ever more a mandatory aspect. While the functionality is there the QoL is beyond atrocious, unacceptable levels by now.
Besides that a functionality to counteract repetitive clicks as they’ve always been unacceptable, the sheer amount actively causes RSI even, which obviously isn’t good.

As for the lowermost baseline if we take identifying scrolls as a part of the crafting system even then well… they simply are a faded out non-functional mechanic that serves no purpose, removing them is a better option by now. Given the amount of rares left on the ground though because of tedium related to identify it means a overall reduction in drop-rate by 30-40% though, but that’s doable since the time lost sifting through items as well as a part to counteract market floodage through better designed loot filters hence would be counteracted.

So overall:
PoE’s core crafting system is made with extreme longevity in mind. LE’s isn’t. Primary difference.
PoE’s crafting system was in bad states and good states, but currently it is in a great state. LE’s was in a bad state at 1.0 and is going to a worse one with new additions and no fixes for it as time goes on. PoE has introduced several ways to fix the shortcomings they had, either directly by introducing ‘Universal RNG reducers’ (Fossils, Essences, Harvest crafts- originally - and Fracturing Orbs are the big ones, they always work in any situation) or indirectly by adjusting drop-rates to align with their high variance. They simply missed the balancing along the way several times.
LE in comparison has a fundamental functinality issue, not a balancing one.

Does it?
How many uniques in PoE are used only for leveling, never to be used again?
How many uniques aren’t even used at all?

Unless you make all low level uniques build enabling ones, they will always get obsolete for endgame. Because if you make them relevant for endgame, then they are way way way too strong for early game.
With LP, however, you can keep them relevant in endgame while not broken in early game (and it also allows twink gear for alts).

If the intended functionality (of the base system, not any of the additions) is to weed out the weak willed (either through them stopping playing, or them gouging their eyes out at the unrelenting pain of the rng) then yes, but that’s like saying they have an awesome trade system (if you’re in the top few %) and not a cancerous mess for the bottom half(/whatever) of the economy.

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So they have a function, right?

Very few actually, surprisingly so. There’s a ton of underused ones, sure… but unused? Few.
And they tend to get reworks after a few leagues to re-use the content which has fallen away from potential for their usage.

The core part is perception here, if we solely take the first unique amulets of the unique list we got ‘Araku Tiki’, ‘Sidhebreath’, ‘Blood of Corruption’ and ‘Karui Ward’.
None of them is generally used by a large amount of people.
Araku Tiki is used though for dedicated delve farmers (not specifically deep delvers) with a low life build to have permanent phasing and hence counteract the body block of enemies there.
Sidhebreath is simply not used because the supported build mechanic currently is weaker then an alternative build mechanic, which can chance with balance shifts, so that’s an item which simply is there to allow potential build count increase.
Blood of Corruption is used by some people specifically for boss counts with one-shot mechanics that are based on elemental damage, as it causes to nullify them.
Karui Ward is a great item for a speed farmer bow-character as you change projectile speed into damage and got the movement speed.

The part is that most of them only become valuable when having distinct corruptions on them, for amulets usually item rarity for farmers, otherwise improvement of specific auras or defensive measures like max res.

Some others are only used during progression, but that also means they got a place. Not everything needs to be a end-game item… because do you want to tell me that a ‘The Kestrel’ is used for any end-game build? :stuck_out_tongue: No, It’s a nice leveling item though!

What are you even talking about there?
The base system is generic currency, nothing more nothing else. Everything else are top-layer supporting mechanics… like Nemesis, the LP re-roll, the set-shattering and so on in LE.
We’re only talking base for that part there.

And that is a well designed system. You get a good base? Alchemy orb on it, could become good! It’s liek dropping the same base as a rare! Nice.
Not good? Chaos orb, it’s like dropping a rare of the same base without having to throw it away after it’s ‘failed’ from using an alchemy orb.
If you need something specific the core method was using magic items, alterations orbs until you get a good outcome, then regal orb to make it into a rare and then multi-mod to allow 2 deterministically guaranteed (but lightly weaker) affixes on it to finish the craft.

That’s the base system much like in LE the FP mechanic and increasing the Tiers of the affixes is base, also glyphs are base as well. Runes on the other hand are the first supporting mechanic… and outside of ‘Discovery’ and ‘Removal’ nothing existed before exalted affixes were introduced.

If we’re talking about base then we’re talking about base, not about arbitrary other crap, especially since it makes no sense what you wrote there as it doesn’t even apply. Because in LE you got the excakt same unrelenting pain to gauge your eyes out existing right now. So that’s just nonsense sadly.

The same one they have in LE. Except that in LE they have that purpose and even some possible endgame use on top of that.
That was what Llama was pointing out.

Every league it’s used in some builds. Not many (1.1%), but some.
So LP does fulfill the intended objective, which is to give low level uniques some relevance in endgame.

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Honestly if you dont care too much about the armor on your base, a 4lp one is pure gas. Haste effect, some dodge, +1 dex skills, and a source of haste itself. Id love even a 3lp one with just health stats on it. pure gas zoomer chest.

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Theres a lot of strawman here and the point going over people’s heads, but this isn’t about the crafting; nor is it about the rare drops. Yes, those are a thing but penalizing players for using seasonal endgame mechanics is just a bad idea overall; there’s no dopamine hit in another arbitrary loop. We have enough RNG already, and the seasonal mechanic is stripping away at our already spent time trying to get items just to force us into another gameplay loop. This isn’t done for the sake of gaming mechanics, it’s done to trap us in game; keeping us playing longer so it looks better in metrics. Its shitty practice and doesn’t add anything. The seasonal LP crafting not only uses the normal in game rarity drops, but it STRIPS you of the LP on an item already. So whats the point of putting in a 2 or 3 LP for teh rare chance at a 4 LP when the risk means 0 LP. That is a penalizing gamble; and that doesnt add fun to the game; it adds a layer of frustration. ARPGs have always been about the excitement of loot and power fantasy, you’d think the seasonal stuff would just be an added chance to go upwards; not knock us down.

It’s not. If you’re rerolling a bunch of 2LP uniques in the hopes of getting a 3LP, that means that the 2LP uniques are useless to you.
This way, you can place the newly clean 0LP uniques in the Nemesis and get yet another chance of getting the LP you want.

Because the alternative is being left with 2LP uniques that can’t be used again to reroll and you can’t use for anything else, because what you want is a 3LP and everything below that is automatic Charsi food.