Siosa vendor is a mistake (skill gems rework?)

Ever since I started playing PoE it was obvious that trading is a big part of the game. The same goes for skill gems: stones of immence power, allowing heroes to change reality itself. As far as lore goes they should be not so easily obtained, but vendors ruin that feeling. You can just buy them from random NPCs for nothing.
Earlier there was a class division where you cant buy certain gems only with certain class even after completing the game, so you have to either buy them with other characters, or buy them from other players. Even this small of an obstacle made us trade with other people for gems as low as lvl1. After 2.6 update, it is now possible to buy EVERY gem (except those 3 drop-only ones) from Siosa, still for nothing. At first, it might seems like a good idea, and most people wont change their mind about it. But I still want to show you the opposite opinion.

Gems are powerfull tools for builds, allowing us to kill every living thing on Wraeclast. They are as important as gear and skills. So why should they be obtained so much easier than gear and currency?

I think that gems should not be obtained through vendors like they are now. It makes random gem drops obsolete. The only thing people pick up are leveled and qualityfied gems, which now became the only thing worth trading for among gems. Why not make a system simmilar to Masters shop where you, with each stock update, get a random gem with random quality? Might as well throw a random level in there and make them a bit pricey (up to the point of vendor currency convertion prices). This way, gems will become more important, it will increase their price a bit, quest rewards will become important, random drops will not be ignored. New metas might as well influence gem market this way.

It is possible to go even furhter: rework gem system. I can only think of two ways for now:

1) Create skill gem sink.
Every player wants to get the best gear in game. They throw thousands of exalts to craft it, and hundreds of divines to polish it to absolute perfection. Why not create a gem sink for obtaining better gems? Even quality system will do, but rather than throwing 20 GCPs for a gem it might be a better idea to create an 'overclocking' analog, where you try to make gem more powerfull risking to break it completely. Even 25% break chance will leave us with .3% (.4?) chance to get it to 20% quality. Even further: make it impossible to have quality higher than level. Such approach will ensure that top gems are rare and it will add GCP\gems sink (I shouldnt say that 'break' != 'reset', right?). Of course, 1GCP+lvl20 recipe should be removed.
This way, most people will be pleased with their lvl20 gems without need to gamble for additional 5% of DPS risking that hard earned gem exp. 20% gems (21\20 and 20\23 too, ofc) will be for the same people who spend 200 exalts to mirror one piece of top gear I guess.

2) Make vendor gems inferior to looted gems.
Even simple level restriction will do. For example: vendors sell "lesser" versions of gems, which cannot be leveled higher than lvl10 (same goes for quest reward gems). Looted gems, on the other hand, work the same way as they do now. This will allow build testers to test their ideas using lesser gems, while making other gems important for regular players.

Of course, there might be other ways, but I'm not a creative person.

People already...

1) Asked friends to buy them
2) Got them from guildmates
3) Bought them from other people, usually barely above cost
4) Made skillgem mules to buy the gems they wanted

This just saves people a bit of effort for something most of them already did anyway.

That's the point. Right now gems are trash, despite being core mechanics in the game. Why not make such important part of the game a bit more interesting?
And yes, I mentioned that the only valuable thing about gems is leveled\quality market, but even those are very cheap.

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Bokufag wrote:

That's the point. Right now gems are trash, despite being core mechanics in the game. Why not make such important part of the game a bit more interesting?
And yes, I mentioned that the only valuable thing about gems is leveled\quality market, but even those are very cheap.

Gems are such a huge part of the game that hiding them behind an artificial layer of RNG is pointless.

Players spend countless hours grinding for gear, at least let them use the skills they want while doing it.

Let's face it, gems trading ( apart from quality>15% and couple of vaal gems ) died a long time ago.


When a gem drops, we already know that it's most likely worthless, no excitement from a gem drop anymore, but that isn't new.

On a side note, I am really wondering why the hell GMP had been turned into a buyable gem, when all it does is grand more power, and not interesting gameplay advantage ( since we got LMP already of course ).

I wish that all gems were not available from merchants, or that they had an actual cost to be honest, the later being more reasonable in the current state of the game.

Thank fucking god you don't balance the game. This is the BEST ever fucking thing that has happen FUCK gem trading alright FUCK THAT SHIT it was FUCKING awful beyond dogshit awful and you should feel for EVEN reconsidering this thread.

I dont think so.

I think the reason Siosa sells gems is:

1. people are tired of asking another players to buy gems for them. its a waste of time for both players. many players (high level) dont even respond when we ask, just leave the town

2. poe.trade its not a good way to buy gems, too much AFK players and high level gems

3. uncluttered vendor stash: being able to buy any gem possible would confuse new players even more. a gem from another class have requirements of dexterity/intelligence/strength that newbies dont understand yet, at start of the game

4. location: Siosa is located at act 3. at this level, new players will be more skilled and will understand the requirements when buying gems

5. freedom of choice for players: if you dont want to waste time and need a gem with 0% quality, buy from Siosa. If you want more difficulty to obtain the gem, do maps and farm gems with higher quality.

of course, waiting for farm a gem, solo-self found like, will make your build vulnerable and less efficient when doing maps. you will struggle, stress yourself and buy from Siosa, so..

- Gem drops are usefull because you can get gems with higher quality. Leveling a char from level 1 to 80 will give you at least 3 or 4 gems that are the same you use in your build, but with higher quality.

- It is already difficult to augment the quality of a gem. A vendor recipe to one gemcutter's prism is: one gem with 20% quality or a bunch of gems that summ 40% quality. So, there is no need to make it harder to the player. these recipes turn gem drops usefull too.

And again, I'm not saying to completely remove them from vendors (I'm not sure I dont want such outcome tho). I want them to be a little more important, make them at least somehow valuable. I offered several solutions, which wont terribly affect new players and will make looted gems important. Even simple restriction that you cant add quality to vendored gems will do, but that's too basic.

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Bokufag wrote:

I think that gems should not be obtained through vendors like they are now.

Welcome to Path of Exile prior to the Ascendancy expansion. We had it like that for what, 4 years? Every single breathing human hated it passionately, I'm certain.

Prior to 2.0 there were no gem vendors. None. You got the sparse selection we get from quest rewards, but that was it. You had to find them as drops or trade with others.

You may think that sounds great, but it was annoying, cumbersome and just generally a waste of everyone's time. When the gem vendors appeared during the Ascendancy beta test, literally everyone was singing praises - it was like the best thing ever. Going back to the old ways now, that's pretty much unthinkable.

As for your other ideas: no offense but I hate them. I'd be really mad if something like that happened. That kind of oldschool crap where things break, become irreversably inferior and whatever - fuck that shit. Leave that in the 90s please. ;)