The case against Eternal Orbs and the benefits of removing them

Eternal Orbs were not a good addition to PoE. I propose that they be removed, for a number of reasons.

1) They cheapen rare items in general. Rares become less worthy of being picked up, or being identified. It's far less exciting to find a good/great rare item when you know somebody can trounce it by spending a few hundred eternals.

2) It makes using the main orbs on items feel like something only rich people can do. It becomes "do or die" -- make a perfect item, or go home. Eternal/exalt for the best modifiers, or don't bother. Yolo exalting is still done, but it has lost a huge amount of it's excitement and value.

Basically it makes feeling like tinkering with items beyond their color/sockets feel like something you can only do if you have hundreds or even thousands of exalts. I think players in general find this frustrating and boring.

3) They make it near-impossible for GGG to release higher level tiers of modifiers. The second they did this, within a few days or weeks at most, people would already be producing fresh 6x T1 items with maximum modifiers. All you need is a pile of eternals, and then the mirrors that drop will proliferate them.

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Upon removing eternals, you could immediately couple it with the release of higher level modifiers, knowing with confidence that it will take the player base many months, perhaps even years, to find or make items that are even close to perfect. It would drastically reduce the rate of power creep.

In addition to this, it would come with the return of the "almost good" rare items. These used to be exciting to find, and valuable. People used to pay a pretty big premium just for the opportunity to yolo-exalt them and hope for an important modifier. This is nearly gone now. The only ones that hold any value have to be "almost perfect" as opposed to "almost good."

This change would create huge excitement for farming, and finding rares.

The only downside I can think of to removing Eternals would that the economy would need a replacement sink for Exalts. I don't know what that would be. Maybe this thread can serve as some brainstorming in that direction.

I'm not sure what kind of wealth you've established in this game, but Eternals, Mirrors and "crafting" are all rich people problems. Your average player isn't doing it outside of base progression recipes. I feel like I'm playing an entirely different game, as I've never had, nor do I anticipate ever having "a couple hundred eternals" to throw at an item.

I also find it strange you would start with Eternals rather than Mirrors. Eternals seem like a band-aid concession to make up for the RNG-hell inspired gamble system. If they actually dropped more often, normal people might be tempted to craft. Mirrors, on the other hand, were the greatest boon to RMTers and their ilk.

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Taganov wrote:

I'm not sure what kind of wealth you've established in this game, but Eternals, Mirrors and "crafting" are all rich people problems.

Eternals did not always exist. The game was better off without them.

The "rich people problem" is addressed in point 2). Please read the original post. It's not long.

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Taganov wrote:

Your average player isn't doing it outside of base progression recipes. I feel like I'm playing an entirely different game, as I've never had, nor do I anticipate ever having "a couple hundred eternals" to throw at an item.

Again, this is addressed in point 2).

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Taganov wrote:

I also find it strange you would start with Eternals rather than Mirrors. Eternals seem like a band-aid concession to make up for the RNG-hell inspired gamble system. If they actually dropped more often, normal people might be tempted to craft. Mirrors, on the other hand, were the greatest boon to RMTers and their ilk.

Mirrors are fine. The thing with mirrors, although you will never find one, if you DID find one, you could make use of it, by mirroring somebody else's great item.

An eternal, on the other hand, is basically impossible to make use of, even if you find it. You need MINIMUM 10+ of them to even do anything with them, which I think is one of their biggest design flaws.

One of the rarest orbs only being useful in bulk, and goes against the entire nature of orbs and their usage. A generic "undo" orb.

Not sure I follow. Unless you plan on buying, mirroring, or making a perfect item, their inclusion has no effect on the way you use orbs.

Meaning, I don't care since all of those options are out of my price range anyways.

Edit: why exactly has a exalting lost any value? If you're using the orbs, you're doing it either because a) you find it fun. Or b) you don't personally trade.

3)GGG does want power creep anyways

GGG can never remove a currency from the economy. Its too late to fix mirrors and eternals.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Not sure I follow.

Please be much more specific, and I'll address it and edit the original post to be more clear so that people like you can understand it.

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Nephalim wrote:

3)GGG does want power creep anyways

See: unique items.

There's plenty of power creep in this game. I believe GGG seeks to limit power creep, but it's definitely happening.

I don't think you understood 3) that well. Please re-read the post. Removing eternals reduces power creep.

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Veruski wrote:

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Not sure I follow.

Please be much more specific, and I'll address it and edit the original post to be more clear so that people like you can understand it.

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Nephalim wrote:

3)GGG does want power creep anyways

See: unique items.

There's plenty of power creep in this game.

but not with regards to rare item affix tiers.

Unique creep (where it exists) is a result of their poor balancing choices and lack of foresight.

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Nephalim wrote:

but not with regards to rare item affix tiers.

Incorrect. See: eternal orbs, which made it possible to craft 6x T1 items, essentially drastically increasing the amount of power creep, and allowing people to hit the absolute hard cap of rare item power.

Removing eternal orbs would drastically reduce power creep, not increase it, even if higher tiers were released.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

Edit: why exactly has a exalting lost any value?

Yolo-exalting has lost a lot of value, because eternals exist and are much stronger, and a much more straightforward route to powerful items.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

If you're using the orbs, you're doing it either because a) you find it fun. Or b) you don't personally trade.

This is incorrect.

Generally speaking, it's worth it to yolo-exalt when a successful exalt will result in more value than the average amount of exalts it would take to achieve that result.



However, since eternals exist and allow the super-rich to proliferate ridiculous items, the amount of situations where this is the case is heavily reduced, thereby decreasing the amount of opportunities where it would be economically worth it to exalt something that you found.

Basically, it makes orbs less worth it to use for your average player, but more worth it to use if you are very very rich. It concentrates the power beyond what it was in the past...For as far as I can tell, literally no reason.

Also, pointing to the hypocrisy of Slayer, this quote taken from another thread:

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SL4Y3R wrote:

I agree with both premises. Eternal shouldn't exist, and unique power creep is too high.

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Veruski wrote:

Eternals did not always exist. The game was better off without them.

The "rich people problem" is addressed in point 2). Please read the original post. It's not long.

I read your post in its entirety; it does not address the rich people problem. With the exception of "perfect" items, trade obviates every form of crafting, especially in standard leagues. You can get what you're looking for on poe.xyz for far less than it would cost to create. This is why I asked what kind of wealth you amassed, because I can't imagine where you think the average player is finding the type of currency required to craft just decent gear.

Here's an example. All told, more than 2 exalts wasted to create (I know because 2 actual exalts were used). Not that I've bothered checking the value, but I'm fairly certain I could have picked up better for far less.

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Veruski wrote:

Mirrors are fine. The thing with mirrors, although you will never find one, if you DID find one, you could make use of it, by mirroring somebody else's great item.

An eternal, on the other hand, is basically impossible to make use of, even if you find it. You need MINIMUM 10+ of them to even do anything with them, which I think is one of their biggest design flaws.

One of the rarest orbs only being useful in bulk, and goes against the entire nature of orbs and their usage. A generic "undo" orb.

Mirroring items costs a mirror fee, which last I bothered checking, was around 200 exalts. The only "use" for a mirror to a normal player is to sell it to a rich player, and for rich players to finance other BiS crafts to mirror and RMT. To SL4YER's point, it's the same for eternals. Neither of these orbs have any use to normal players, but they can be sold.

BTW, every problem Eternals introduced to the game is exponentially magnified by Mirrors. If Mirrors didn't exist, BiS gear would only be in the hands of the rich crafters and the select few who could afford these one of a kind items. Because of Mirrors, anyone with a mirror and 200 exalts (hahahaha) can afford a BiS.

Ipso facto, Eternals are bad sure. Mirrors are worse. And neither of them matter at all to those without the wealth to use them.

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Taganov wrote:

trade obviates every form of crafting, especially in standard leagues. You can get what you're looking for on poe.xyz for far less than it would cost to create.

False. See stated example in previous post inside spoiler tag.

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Taganov wrote:

This is why I asked what kind of wealth you amassed, because I can't imagine where you think the average player is finding the type of currency required to craft just decent gear.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

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Taganov wrote:

Here's an example. All told, more than 2 exalts wasted to create (I know because 2 actual exalts were used). Not that I've bothered checking the value, but I'm fairly certain I could have picked up better for far less.

Spoiler

Yup, pretty crap result. But as long as you only exalt when it makes sense to, you should come out ahead in the long term. There is just far less opportunity to be the case because of eternals.

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Taganov wrote:

Mirroring items costs a mirror fee, which last I bothered checking, was around 200 exalts.

They were like 15 - 25 exalts to mirror items on Ambush. Hardly a sum that cannot be obtained.

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Taganov wrote:

Mirrors are worse. And neither of them matter at all to those without the wealth to use them.

Mirrors are not worse. I know this because I remember what the game was like before eternals, but still with mirrors. Mirrors were worth A LOT LESS. Why? Because there weren't dozens of different 6x T1 perfect rares that you could order up as if from McDonalds.

Mirroring was a far more personal act, because your end result was never "perfect" -- only "awesome."

Mirrors, and mirror fees, only exploded in price as a direct result of eternals.