POE loot vs Diablo 2 loot

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Mark_GGG wrote:

Given that the need for sockets seems to be a big part of the issues, how much of an impact do people think it will have when support gem balance is changed so that linking lots and lots of supports to a single skill is less desirable, and people only want one or two supports per active skill?

If quantity and quality supports do not add up to the 2 max limit it could work.

Else one or two supports are too few i think - 3 would be better.
Let´s say we are lucky socket and linkwise and only take the loot we currently have up to lvl 60 baseitems and 5 sockets max:

A torso with 5 linked sockets = 3 skills + 2 supports for them - if they need the same supports you have 3 skills "maxxed"
Same goes for a shield ... that´s 6 skills maxxed.
So you can get boots weapon head and gloves with a single skill and you easy up to 10 skills with 2 supports. With 5+3 "slots" all those slots will be filled easy for many classes with perfect combos. And we still miss some sockets here and there i guess ;)
So you will be able to use 8 "perfect" (2 time supportet) skills without much trouble - maybe you don´t even need the maximum sockets on all items with this system in "endgame" beside leveling up some gems in "unused" slots.

All would change if rarity and quantity does not add up manacost and does not count towards the "cap" of two support gems.


And for the jewelers ... maybe you could "aim" at the socket you want to change colors or get linked and the routine could in some way put a weight on those things while rolling for new sockets / links and colors.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

Given that the need for sockets seems to be a big part of the issues, how much of an impact do people think it will have when support gem balance is changed so that linking lots and lots of supports to a single skill is less desirable, and people only want one or two supports per active skill?

First off, as in my prior post, the drawback of the socket system is just HOW relevant they are to gameplay.

I'm only in my 30s with my highest character so far, but generally speaking, if it doesn't have 3 sockets, it isn't worth it unless it has OMGwunderful stats.
And if the stats on it were that good, it'd be worth blowing 20-40 Jeweler's Orbs to fix the one drawback it had.


Second, you're talking about making supports less amazing. But the hard fact is, due to the UI constraints, people likely won't ever have more than 7 skills (8 if they have one they can replace their auto-attack with). Any more than 8 active skills, and the player can't keep them all hot-keyed.
If you assume that an end-game character settles for 1 less than max slot in each gear, and using the numbers posted on the forum (not in-game numbers where 2h are gimped for sockets), here is a Marauder's skill slots: Main hand (4), Shield (5), Helm (3), Armor (5), Gloves (3), Boots (3) - that's 23 skill slots. Again, maximum skills is 6 more (29). But working with 23 skills, minus 8 (he's a marauder, let's assume he has a skill to replace auto-attack) for active skills bound to keys, and he still has 15 skill slots JUST for support skills.


Third, any change to the skill system will only have a ripple effect on what loot is worth picking up.
a) Magic items without amazing slots will remain worthless.
b) Rare items will still be far too often useless to someone with only one character.
c) White gear will be flooded with poor base stat versions of itself.


The result?
95% or more of blue items will still be ignored.
75% or more of rares will still get stashed/trashed.
75% or more of whites with "good sockets" will still be ignored due to being on gear that isn't high enough level.
Playing through the game will still feel very "boring" in terms of loot acquisition.

Yes, I'm all in favor of the supports being toned down in how needed they are.
But loot in general is in dire need of some love, at least pre-endgame.
a) Increase (dramatically) loot from bosses.
b) Throw in a small sub-script so that a solo player has better ratios of class-relevant gear (instead of 1/6 loot going towards each classes' gear types, ratio it 3/2/2/1/1/1, with the highest rate going to the players class (30% of drops), and the 20% rates belonging to the classes that share a stat.
c) Set rares (and maybe magic items) to have a better-weighted socket tendency on-drop (not on-reroll though).
d) Remove non-jewelry items with a required level more than 15 below the monster level from the loot table (this allows for "bad" loot, but by the time you reach level 30, it is removing 50% of the crap loot, which means 2x as many relevant whites).
e) Following D, decrease non-jewelry gear drops by 25%, and increase rarity drop rates by 33% (same number of magic items, 25% less whites).
f) Re-balance the drop rates so that trash mobs tend to drop (more) whites, while champions, rare spawns, and bosses tend to only drop currency, magic, jewelry, and so forth.

I think people over emphasize the importance of mod gems in the early game. They are important yes, but choosing to have +cold damage on your multi-shot over an obviously huge item upgrade is just a poor choice in my opinion.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

Given that the need for sockets seems to be a big part of the issues, how much of an impact do people think it will have when support gem balance is changed so that linking lots and lots of supports to a single skill is less desirable, and people only want one or two supports per active skill?

With the current passives, I would much rather have sockets be more available than supports more limited. Most of the supports are not particularly exciting right now. If all I can do is stick a fire damage support on my cleave and then I'm done...that's pretty unfun.

If the supports were extensively reworked to have really big impacts, having 1 or 2 per active skill would be fine (when I think big impact I think of the Runes in D3).

And also if you only have a couple supports per active skill, what the hell do you do when you have really good gear and you're running around with 20+ sockets? With current skills I think you'd have slots wasted, though of course more skills could help with that (and more supports. For example there's little reason for me to stick supports on my Curses right now. Faster cast actually does something, but on a non-INT character the impact is pretty tiny).

Ifthere realy is a limited number of support gems per skill then i do not see big problems.
Supporting 3 skills with 1-2 support gems should be no a problem. there are 5-6 Item slots and some of them will have linked slots.

Another thing you could add to the game are modified crafting items. Those items would be less random and guarantee you to get something usefull in low levels. However they need to have a drawback, they can't creat realy good items either.
For example a new jewelers orb that guarantees you 2 linked sockets but not more than that, you can't get 3 linked sockets. As there are enough currency items already in game i would prefere a way to craft those items using currency items.
For example:
2 jewelers orb
1 orb of transformation
1 something
-> gives you a new orb that creates the above metioned 2 linked sockets.

Random crafting is fun as an endgame concept. While leveling up you do not want to rely purely on luck to create new items. You want to spend those currency items and get something you can use right now.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

Given that the need for sockets seems to be a big part of the issues, how much of an impact do people think it will have when support gem balance is changed so that linking lots and lots of supports to a single skill is less desirable, and people only want one or two supports per active skill?

I dont see the point of passive active skill gems than any more...
Make a personal skill setup is the main difference from this game to all other. And the goal of the game at the moment.

-I search for gear with the right sockets.
-I search for orbs to make this gear better.
-I only set points in the skilltree to get stats for this gear
/the "skills" in the skilltree are only a little extra not really gamebreaking what you do there/
-I mass collect flask and "orb" them to have imba mana support

And all this only to say:
I have a ice pulse with 3 projectile + projectile speed + castrate + critical + lessmana + manaleech and 4 manaflask to support this...
Building up this skill with your passiv gear and gems.
Thats the goal for all 40+ char in the game!

If you change it its more like:
A) Oh you have pulse too? nice i have 20% higher cast rate.
You dont see it but its nice.
B) Yeah i have more critical so im able to get powercharges to get 20% more castrate....
c) yeah i have 20% magic find on it....
d) i have all this on my left ring....




EDIT:
Agree 100% with wyldmage

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Mark_GGG wrote:

Given that the need for sockets seems to be a big part of the issues, how much of an impact do people think it will have when support gem balance is changed so that linking lots and lots of supports to a single skill is less desirable, and people only want one or two supports per active skill?

i was hoping for a support gem system change that would allow us to use any kind of support gem with any skill gem regardless of socket color

i think more options is always better

The culprit of the socket issue is the jeweler orb, which is totally worthless. That's why the common way to get good gear at the moment is to loot the sockets you want then craft the rest, and this is because the other orbs are a lot more effective. I've made some suggestions for the jeweler orb, but I can't remember on which topic xD

Sockets and support gems are what make PoE (and is loot) unique, I think it's a bad idea to make it less important. While I agree that one support gem have to be more impactful, this won't remove my desire to stack a lot of support gems on one skill, or to use the same support gem for 3 skills or more.

I just don't care how easy it is to farm bosses, they are the ones that should drop good loot.

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wickedhood wrote:

I just don't care how easy it is to farm bosses, they are the ones that should drop good loot.

IMHO, a boss should drop a guaranteed minimum:

1 item with max socket count (not necessarily linked).
2 items that are better than white.
1 currency item better than scrolls.

And without item rarity, one of the two blue+ items should be rare or better 50% of the time.

Bosses *are* a big enough threat. They take a while to kill.

HOWEVER...

I think a good compromise (besides using the TQ "first time is better loot" option) can be found with the following logic.
Generally bosses get lumped into 3 categories:
1) Rare mobs at the end of optional dungeons, with a chest.
2) Quest bosses without chest loot.
3) Quest bosses with chest loot.

1) Flooded Depths, Weaver's Chambers, Dread Thicket, Chamber of Sins, Church Dungeon
2) Twilight Strand, Ship Graveyard, Broken Bridge, Alira's Camp, Pools and Streams
3) Upper Prison, Merveil's Lair, Waterfall Cave 2*
*: Once they finish the act

What this shows: There are 13 bosses and 8 large chests. Of the 8 chests, 5 are attached to optional bosses.

Next:
Hillock should never drop impressive loot. His location is too farmable.
You cannot similarly backtrack into Brutus' or Merveil's zones. Same with the upcoming end-of-act-2 boss.
Of the 5 "rare mob with chest" bosses, only 1 of them (Weaver) has a waypoint on the same level as the boss. However, Flooded Depths is also less work to farm due to waypoint layout.
Of the 4 remaining (already talked about Hillock) quest bosses with no chest, Ship Graveyard cannot be farmed. And the other 3 all have waypoints in their zone.

So, what should the loot setup be?
1) Ignore Hillock. He should get his own loot table. Normal rare monster drops plus 2 blue items.
2) Flooded Depths and Weaver's Chambers should have an additional level added to them without waypoints. All treasure chests will then require passing 2 stages to open.
3) Loot rate should be [+50% quantity and +50% rarity] on a chest versus a boss mob. This means that Brutus will drop 325% as much total loot quality as Alira.
4) Bosses should drop 200% as much item quality as a rare monsters, but no extra quantity. This means that Alira will drop 200% total loot quality (relative to a rare mob) and Weaver will drop 450% TLQ.
5) Bosses should always drop 1 orb (randomly chosen which) based on the typical ratios.

With this setup, the farming numbers:
Hillock: 2 blues. Woo.
Flooded Depths: 100% (one rare mob) + 225% (one chest) = 325%. Or as much loot quality as killing 3.25 rare mobs.
Alira: 200%. As much loot quality as killing 2 rare mobs. Also, one orb.
Brutus: 200% (one boss mob) + 225% (one chest) = 425%. As much loot quality as 4.25 rare mobs. Also, one orb.