Time invested to reward gained

Feedback and Suggestions
86

Upgrading gear feels good yes if it happens in a pace where updates are meaningfull. When I played WoW for example I was happy when I got one item in ~3 Moths of raiding because there was so little rum left to improve. Farming Primals in D3… lol at some point this is more frustrating then missing a 25% success chance because i ccan have said chance frequently.

I already stated my fair share about this and how strange it is to find items with affixes on them and 100 Stability while you can’t get there from a white base and still have equal stability. Just like every weapon drop grew naturaly on a tree and as soon as a player touches it it breakes :D. Then again game systems not always makes sense. For you how could things be better? it’s easy to ramble about stuff that is frustrating but so far I seen no mentions how things could get better… just sayin.

I pretty much dislike to compare games that are in Beta with games that are on the market for a looong time and are developed by a whatever larger number of people over a whatever larger ammount of time. Back in PoE beta days the game was trash but promising and had a long way to go. Compared to this state LE is gold ^^.

87

This are all good points here.

The current crafting system is well balanced in terms of itemisation. You have critical success. The fracture mechanic is needed to prevent that 100% deterministic system from being op.

In my opinion the pure process and effort needed to craft a t20 item is ok. By that I mean the time you have to spend ingame to get such a high tier item.

But the truth is that on the way to a t20 item you encounter a lot of failures in form if fractures.

You know, that the low base item you find at lvl 10 won’t be your item of choice until endgame. That’s fine. But nevertheless it sucks if you fracture an item at t10 when it would be potentially a lot better.

You can shatter it to get some shards back. You will propably find another item to level with.

The true hurdles come with endgame when you have the highest base types, get a good crafting base and are unlucky by fracturing it.

Sometimes you have to leave gear behind that otherwise could have been your BIS item, just because you were unlucky.

This is all about how the process feels. Farming an item by doing bossruns is fine. He either drops that item or doesn’t. But if he does, the item is yours.

With crafting you already posses a good item and all of a sudden you get taken away the opportunity to progress with your gear.

EHG tweaked the fractures down. But fracturing an item doesn’t feel good for nobody. Some people take it more easy than others. In terms of balance, it is ok. In terms of player experience it is a negative one.

1 Like
88

So much this. I can’t like the post enough. lol
Items breaking feels like crap.

The current crafting system is also pretty much what you’d see in a Korean F2P online RPG, but without cash shop items preventing items from breaking. It’s interesting to see in an ARPG, but I’d rather have astronomically difficult success rates and crazy mat grinding than have items breaking.

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89

Which can be a problem. Yesterday I crafted boots and a critical success raised them to level 41… though I was level 38. So I had to put them aside and purchase temporary boots while waiting for level 41.
I know this is not supposed to happen, but until it is fixed I feel critical success as something potentialy negative.

90

What do you define as a tangible power increase? Just last night on my alt Necromancer, 6 out of 7 pieces of my gear that I hadn’t bothered forging in awhile were all successful with Glyphs of the Guardian up to about T13 (from T9-10). Admittedly, because they are not high base items and I’m in the mid game (level 60), I didn’t risk Stability rolls around T10-T13 like I would for an item I want to push to T20.

My character still plays the exactly same way and I’m still on the same Monolith, but I have +300 hps and all of my minions are stronger. Would that be a tangible power increase to you?

If what you’re talking about is hitting on T20 rolls with regularity every time you log in and play over the course of several hours, then I think your expectation is misaligned with how the system is set up. LE makes it very easy to acquire good gear with 2-3 affixes you want for the slot. But, it’s certainly a grind to reach top tier (T19-20) in every slot with affixes that balance out your offensive and defensive stats.

That’s unfortunate. I’m curious what would make you go “wow”, though.

91

This has now been removed.

92

Just move the entire crafting system to something that can be done one time for completing a monolith run.

93

I made the same point in another thread and someone countered that LE will be compared to PoE now, which is true. I still think it has some merit but it’s not that strong.

I would completely remove damaging fractures. Breaking an item from further crafting and reducing it’s power is just too much, breaking it is enough. Especially at the high chances of minor fracturing. You finally get a good T15-18 and instead of keeping that power it is reduced. If not removing then reworking it to feel more rewarding for the investment.

It’s possible to run monoliths for hours and gather a stash of good items, spend a lot of time sorting through them and picking out crafting options, figuring out the way they all fit together in your build and then have every single one fracture at less or equal power to current gear. Each time an item fractures you also have to reconfigure the crafts you were about to do to accommodate for it, potentially a few of the items you had set out are not able to be used because a different one fractured. On top of that you didn’t even get the blessing you wanted. That is far too much time invested for nothing back.

If people don’t think the chances are high I don’t think they really understand probability and percentages. It is common to be rolling a craft with a 75-80% chance of success (20-25% minor fracture). That is 1/4 - 1/5 times you press craft that it will fracture each time you press the craft button. So multiple times per item. Those are high odds.

The fact that you rolled those odds multiple times and won only to have it taken away by a damaging fracture is a terrible experience. I have repeatedly said that I think the balance between the time/risk and reward is out. Fundamentally it is a good system it’s just slightly off. I don’t think there needs to be a rework and redesign of everything, just some tweaks here and there.

Some other ideas -

  • Add a glyph that returns an item to before the fracture, like going back in time (fits in the story of the game). Possible side effects similar to vaal in PoE.
  • Currently instability on dropped items is based on the tiers of the affixes. Limit it to the T5 level of instability on T6/7 drops, so those items have more room for crafting before fracturing, making them truly special.
  • To really scale up over time invested and progress in the game there could be a crafting skill system. You start out inexperienced and fracturing chance is higher (at current levels) and as you level up and craft more you become better at understanding the crafts and the chance is reduced. It could be balanced by level so you can’t become a master crafter before level 100. It would still be rare to create top tier items but after investing multiple hours you are more likely to be rewarded.
    • I just thought of this idea right now but I think it could be a very good solution. The experience I’m talking about is not prevalent while levelling and progressing but at end game/max level is very sudden and at a stark contrast with the levelling experience.

End game is very important to ARPGs. Designing systems that reward you when the standard progression (levels, extreme gear improvement while levelling) are no longer available are key to success and keeping people playing the end game content. I say this even as someone who enjoys grinding arena for little reward, as to me gaining progress is a big reward. But in order to continue gaining progress I need to improve my power.

That definitely is an increase. If it wasn’t clear I am talking about being level 100 (or being close enough that it’s not important). I haven’t had what feels like a real gear upgrade for a long time, since probably early 80s. Almost everything has been a sidegrade or so minor it’s not worth recording as an increase.

A tangible power increase at this stage would be noticeable difference in running high echo MoF, or adding a few waves of arena onto my PB before it is difficult. I understand the room for increase at this point is lower but my gear is far from perfect T20 rolls, I have between T12-18 on all pieces, there is still decent room.

I’m definitely not talking about perfect T20 rolls with such frequency, as I think I’ve been clear about above and in my other posts. As for what makes me go “wow”, it’s hard to define. Not fracturing my only T7 drop with a relevant affix before it was better than what I had equipped would have given me that item.

3 Likes
94

History repeats itself :). There was another form of fracture ingame in the past that realy ruined items a lot, right now you experience an already improved crafting system and that’s maybe the reason why so many long time players are okay with the current system.
If they remove the damaging fracture things will be to easy and there needs to be another downside like different roll ranges or somethingelse arround this lines.

I can’t remember the last time when I had a stash of good items I want to craft with :slight_smile: then again I’ve no idea how many hours you talk about. Isn’t it a normal thing that at some point in a game the progression is more horizontal then anything else?
In the late game I only craft if I have two Items to craft with and still my old item on my toon. I don’t even start crafting on something I wear without an equal substitute. This removed almost all frustration for me.

What about changing the fracture percentages to 33% instead of 25%? Easier to implement ( At least me programming bonobo is thinking this) without drastic changes to begin with.

You keep in mind the 2 missing endgame related entrys that will rise and shine in the future? I realy hope Monolith isn’t part of THE endgame because if so it needs a ton of tweaking.

So the most important thing at last :D. Nice feedback! There is a lot of reasoning behind your words and you painted a good picture where you are coming from. I like it a lot, keep it up.

95

As I totally worked out by myself with no help from anyone else cough @boardman21, the chance to fracture is the total of the instability + 5 per tier of affix you’re crafting. The other affixes on the item are irrelevant to the calculation & since you can’t craft on t6/7 they are also irrelevant to the chance of fracture (though they will obviously push up the item level requirement, but that’s not the topic here).

Another option to fracturing would be that instead of removing the ability to craft, the game just consumes the crafting mats. Therefore as the instability increases successful crafting becomes RNG-based more expensive. At 50% chance to fracture, each successful craft would on average cost 2 affix shards, at 75% it would effectively increase the cost to 4 shards on average.

This way crafting becomes more expensive as you craft, but not impossible, there’s still RNG in the system as well as determinism (you choose what affixes go on the item in what order at what level) & it gets progressively harder to successfully get an item up to higher tiers.

2 Likes
96

I’m not sure exactly what you’re meaning, but I meant the instability that is already on an item that dropped. From looking over a few in my stash it seems to be based on total tier of affixes, although it is not exactly consistent. I’m saying, for example if an item with 2xT5 (total 10 affix level) drops with 12 instability then an item with 1xT6 and 1xT4 should drop with 10 instability, giving a bit more room for crafting extra on to it before chance of fracturing is too high.

I think your idea would need a bit of tweaking as that would practically guarantee a T20, albeit a very expensive one.

97

Ah, no, I was talking about the chance to fracture. I think @Tunk or someone similar worked out the formula for how much instability an item that dropped with affixes would have.

It would be closer to PoE’s method of crafting (where, unless you use a Vaal orb, you can’t brick an item by crafting) while still retaining the determinism & some form of RNG so crafting isn’t just a straight run up from t0 to t20.

98

I explained instability on dropped items here:

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99

So on drops, you get the first 5 tiers for free, and anything over 5 should drop with 2 instability per tier above 5. So a t15 item that dropped should have 20 instability (15 tiers - 5 free = 10 x 2 = 20)?

100

Yeah, though only first 3 tiers can be free.

So 2/2/2/2 (T8) would have 6 instability while 7/1/0/0 (also T8) would have 8 instability.

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101

But Harvest aside, mod acquisition on items in POE is random. So you cannot think about “bricking” an item the same way as LE. Having a random mod added which doesn’t synergise with the existing mods is effectively a brick (arguing you can scour the item and continue crafting the white base in POE is beside the point).

102

I think we’re also using terms differently then. I get that if you get a “bad” affix on an otherwise good item you could view that as bricked, but as you say, you can still scour it & have another go (or “just” chuck chaos at it & avail yourself to full RNG, though I thought you could also “just” chuck other currency at it to reroll that item). To me, an item is only bricked if you can’t carry on crafting on it (vaaling in PoE & fracturing in LE). YMMV.

103

I don’t suppose you could put that down in a formula/flow char/if/then statements could you? My brain is having difficulty getting to grips with it.

104

Just something to add to the discussion , yesterday they released a manifesto explaining why they are nerfing again deterministic crafting , and that they are not OK with the current system , they want more RNG.

About LE crafting , for me the worst part are those decent affixes combinations that drop in crappy bases.
I know this is a completely different game , but I would love a way to randomly reroll the affixes on a good base , trying to hunt a good affix combination to craft on.
Also with bettter loot filters (that let you hunt affixes tiers and combinations) I think it’ll feel better.

105

Wouldn’t happen to have a link to this manifesto would you? Dug around, but can’t seem to find it.

Hope it’s not the crappy kind of RNG…