You can have your cake and eat it too: a different approach to solving socket issues - GGG pls read

You should definitely use Arvesius's edit. It is 500x more readable :)

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raics wrote:

I'd really like to see this implemented but I'm afraid it's just wishful thinking.

If I may, I'd like to suggest adding multicolored gems too, so all the gems that require more than one stat could be socketed in either color socket. For example ethereal knives could be fitted into green or blue socket, anger into red or blue, etc.

Well we are not sure why they are not implemented now. Is it because they don't want to or because it takes an art guy too much time to do. In anyways, for same reason I didn't mention this in my proposal. If they want multicolored gems in current game they would want it in this changed version.

Overall, fantastic suggestion. It seeks to remedy the core problem that is otherwise not discussed in the dime-a-dozen RNG threads, rather than bandaid fixing probabilities as those threads would seek to do.

Active skill use during all of progression, and simultaneously to a lesser and greater extend during end game (depending on the build's dependency on itemization at end game, and relative luck during the journey to get there) relies on five layers of RNG, with very little means for the players themselves to control how their characters are allowed to interact with the game. You have to 1) find the active skill and support gems (which is by itself a rewarding journey that merits having an itemized skill system), 2) find relatively suitable gear for the level of difficulty, 3) have enough sockets, 4) have the right color sockets, and 5) have the right links between the right colored sockets. All of this, just to use active skills, the most basic function of how a build interacts with the game environment. This distorts the balance between how itemization impacts how well a build performs, and in many cases instead leads to a build not performing at all until its gear check is passed.

Aside: This was, by the way, one of the first observations I made when joining CB last year ;)

Your idea not only finds a productive way to remove the gear check from active skills, but the implementation also finds a way to maintain and apply those five layers of RNG solely to itemization while also giving more control to the player during the item hunt. I don't think I need to go into details when I say that people enjoy having control over their characters' destinies, and that this is the reason why the massive skilldrasil impresses so many new players while also the reason for their disappointment after a few days of experience. Their characters' destinies are largely outside of their control.

I will admit, at first my impression was that your suggestion is too radical in how it changes otherwise well established core game mechanics, and is therefore too resource intensive to be made a reality. That still is my impression, but now I'm not sure I really care. It fundamentally changes the game in a way that would resolve many of the longevity issues I feel PoE is/will be facing, by opening the way for a much more complex experience that rewards a player's decisions as much as it does their luck. If I am right in this assessment, then I believe it is worth investing in, if not this, then something similar that would change the current environment which trivializes player interaction.

Cheers!
-The Pants

I have made a mistake in editing on #3, which currently reads: Character leveling allows the placement of a skill/support gem into an appropriate colored node on the new tree. At level 85 the final gem may be placed, for a maximum of 24 placed gems. This is so to keep balance similar to current system.

This can be interpreted as a very rigid system in which gems may only be placed upon leveling up, which I don't think was intended!

Recommend Change:

3) Character level determines the maximum number of skill/support gems which may be placed into appropriately colored nodes on the new Active Tree. At level 85 the maximum number of gems which may be placed reaches the limit of 24. This is so to keep balance similar to the current system.


I personally would want the free removal and placement of gems at any time. This could be done by only allowing the removal of the most recently placed gem, up to and including the character starting nodes. In this way there could be no 'hole' in your tree, much like the way respec points work on the passive tree.

Alternately, if one's aim was to simply replace say one green gem with another, this should obviously work by placing the new gem directly over the old gem. The old gem would be replaced on the tree and moved to your cursor, ready to be put in your inventory or storage.

Ok I promise I'll stop 'editing' now and hopefully offer feedback in the future :P

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CanHasPants wrote:

I don't think I need to go into details when I say that people enjoy having control over their characters' destinies, and that this is the reason why the massive skilldrasil impresses so many new players while also the reason for their disappointment after a few days of experience. Their characters' destinies are largely outside of their control.

Wow, this is by far the most perfectly I have heard it put so far. I didn't realize it but this is exactly what happened to me. I jumped into the game had a blast at first. Progression was spot on up until around lvl 50. The skill tree looked amazing, letting me build out in practically any way I choose.

Only later did I get hit by the massive gear check and realize the skill tree is largely little more than a visual representation of simple stat allocation. The idea of actual skills (abilities) replaced with gear drops (gems) seemed cool at first. But recently, like most people it seems, I've realized its a far worse system than just having a flat abilities tree, at least with how poorly its been implemented. Maybe they can make it work with tweaking, but I can't even tell if they want to try to make it work, or if the are actually happy with how it is, and that's a little depressing.

I thought this was the second coming of D2. Sadly, its not there, at least not yet anyway.

This is one of the best suggestion I have read so far. As above said, it removes the RNG factor at skill progression system, solving a lot of problems derivatived from it. Also, it introduce a lot of variance with the socketed runes to customize our gear, so not all looted items are trash for vendor/recipes (oh well, 99,9% at this moment, ok ok...).

Those runes also introduce a new item for trades, many of them would be valuable, and they can be divided into ilvl tiers, so we will have runes that give 3/5/8/10/15 strength, IIR, attack speed, and continue with all the properties an item can have. This maybe should be controlled, so some runes can only be applied to the gloves and boots, for example, so they can balance it.

Would be great if we continue with the community brainstorming, all the people should fully read it with open mind.

The 2 big problems I see are:

- First, this change the current system a bit, not a huge change because it still uses the socket system, but this implies a lot of rebalancing and testing time.

- Second, as far as I can think at the moment, because it can have other back draws, is the issue with the items already on the game. All saw what happened with the legacy silverbranch thing, but if the developers have to rework all the items to implement runes, they have to change the properties of them, making all the characters less powerful until they find the runes they need.

When people complain about balance or other issues, both devs and others claim it is a Beta. So since it is beta, implementing bigger changes should still be possible, as well as rebalancing items.

Torin, here's a bump to your thread.

there are some things I agree with and some I don't, but there is no doubt at least one member of the GGG staff should read this.

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Torin wrote:

When people complain about balance or other issues, both devs and others claim it is a Beta. So since it is beta, implementing bigger changes should still be possible, as well as rebalancing items.

You are correct, but your idea seems like an expensive change.

Think of it this way, POE cannot be in beta forever. It was in CB for 1.5 years. If big changes go through, they will need massive testing. And likely will result in the realization that this big set of changes has its own critical problems.

So while it's not wrong to suggest big changes, it isn't simple to just accept them. The current systems could still be fixed without overhauling things drastically. Large changes are expensive, buggy and slow.

The "active skill tree" and the "runes" ideas are, in my opinion, quite good ones.
I'm not sure if they can be properly balanced with the current system thou.
But I can see a nice increase of flexibility here.

However the above ideas do not solve the rnd problems of the game.
Especially the problem that if you want to upgrade your rare item you have to roll all of its features again loosing the ones you like it for.
This totally gambling semi-upgrade system is the main pain in the a$% for me in this game (apart from crappy loot and difficulty increase problems).
So I would rather see a change in how orbs work, or a new type of orbs which would rnd only ONE feature on an item and only one slot on a gear.

This would be my "first to do" issue.