bit of pushback against comments chris made recently regarding the ex/div switch

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Echothesis wrote:

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Cyzax wrote:

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Echothesis wrote:

While divining what you are going to wear is universal base necessity for all players.

And yet, I've never done it since I started in 2014... Even before Divines became the trading currency, it was still far better to trade them (for Exalt) to the few players who wanted to massively min-max, and then spend those Exalts on better gear.

Depends on build I guess. I wasn't there in 2014, but heard there were times when multiple builds could clear all content with trash gear. If you try to make attack build now, not divining at least your weapon is irrational.

Looking at your profile, you're probably a top-1% player... the ones that actually benefit from Divines because you can buy enough of them. The large majority of players are better off buying a better weapon instead.

With the amount of playing I do now (which is still at least a couple of hours a day on average), I don't get enough Divines for them to be useful on their own. However, they ARE useful for trading, and Exalts I find ARE useful in their own right. Before the switch, the Divines just languished in my currency tab as they were useless (unless I sold them for Exalts)...

+1

If GGG was being truthful in their stated goal of making the add-an-affix effect more common and the reroll-numeric-values effect more rare, they could've and should've simply swapped the effects of each orb without changing anything else. Divines would be used to add explicit affixes, exalts would be used to reroll numeric values of explicit affixes, the impact on the economy would be minimal, and the stated goal would be met.

+1

or just make new orb for uniqs reroll while keep cheap div for anyth els

Even though the change literally deleted almost 10 years of saving for a single item... I think the change was for the best going forward, it makes perfect sense the way it is now with how crafting progression works.

Also a comment on diversifying one's stuff in standard... That might be good advice going forward but the playerbase forces you to convert into those currencies to buy everything.

you're going to go sell a bunch of items moments before buying an item? Give me a break lol

No, You convert into the currency most likely to be accepted with the least amount of resistance.. Exalted orbs.

That's how it was, Even mirror tier cost items were often listed for Exalted because its more liquid.

Anyone trying to imply this wasn't the case is living in a literal fantasy land, Please provide me with a ticket to this place, thank you.

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AxiomOfAnarchy wrote:

If GGG was being truthful in their stated goal of making the add-an-affix effect more common and the reroll-numeric-values effect more rare, they could've and should've simply swapped the effects of each orb without changing anything else. Divines would be used to add explicit affixes, exalts would be used to reroll numeric values of explicit affixes, the impact on the economy would be minimal, and the stated goal would be met.

I think it is more likely they didn't even think of this as a possibility... I certainly didn't, and I've not seen anyone else on the forum suggest it as a possible alternate solution before you did...

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AxiomOfAnarchy wrote:

If GGG was being truthful in their stated goal of making the add-an-affix effect more common and the reroll-numeric-values effect more rare, they could've and should've simply swapped the effects of each orb without changing anything else. Divines would be used to add explicit affixes, exalts would be used to reroll numeric values of explicit affixes, the impact on the economy would be minimal, and the stated goal would be met.

well...yes and no. The true value of ex vs. divine was not in the way either orb was being used. The greatest form of value was in the meta crafts, along with their scarcity. Switching the role of each orb, while also changing the meta craft and removing the 6L vendor recipe would have resulted in exactly the same scenario: exalts would have plummeted in value to around where they are right now while divines would have skyrocketed. The effect would have not been as pronounced though, divines would not be nearly as high in value, and exalts would not be nearly as low in value which I guess would have been better? But the standard playerbase would have still had the same amount of outrage seeing a vast majority of wealth erased overnight.

The only thing they really needed to do to make a drastic change was...remove the 6L recipe. They did NOT need to also change the metacraft. This would have resulted in the least amount of economic change. Then maybe later on down the line, you can change ONE of the metacrafts. But to 1) change the metas, 2) remove the vendor, 3) offer no alternative use of exalts, and 4) do this with no warning is what caused the major mess. It also showed an extreme lack of understanding of their own game and the "value" assigned to items. Just like how there are still players that still think there is "value" in exalting an item...

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Just like how there are still players that still think there is "value" in exalting an item...

If you're one of the (large, probably majority) of players who can't afford any of the (more) deterministic crafting options, then there is value in exalting... It may not always give you a large return, more often not, but when it is what you have it is better than not having it.

Most players do not have 10's or 100's of Div/Ex... They have singular numbers, if even that.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

well...yes and no. The true value of ex vs. divine was not in the way either orb was being used. The greatest form of value was in the meta crafts, along with their scarcity.

The fix I suggested relies entirely upon this being the case; it wouldn't meet their stated goal otherwise.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Switching the role of each orb, while also changing the meta craft and removing the 6L vendor recipe

That's why I said they should've swapped the effects of each orb "without changing anything else". "(C)hanging the meta craft costs and removing the 6L vendor recipe" is definitely changing something else. Their stated goal was to make exalt slamming more common and rerolling affixes more rare, and the approach they took was market manipulation, which is something they should never do. Unless the orb effects are pure spaghetti code, the approach they should've taken, the approach I've suggested, ought to have been obvious to anyone who writes software for a living and doesn't suck at the job. For that matter, it should also have been the obvious fix to anyone who's ever been a tabletop GM and not sucked at it. Unless they've hardcoded the orb effects in a lot of different places throughout their code, it's the simplest, cleanest, least disruptive rule change they could've made to actually accomplish their stated goal.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

I sort of disagree with the main assessment.

"Exalts were not an investment, they WERE money"

But...money is technically an investment.

this was what i said

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

no, owning exalts was not like investing your money in bitcoin and then suddenly bitcoin goes down and something else goes up. owning exalts was like owning money

and its correct, exalts were money, they were our countries money. no not every currency is like a different countries currency. the game had dollars and cents and they were exalts and chaos, that was it, that was money for the country of wraeclast.


yes money goes up and down, yes money can tank. but stocks, shares, mad economic schemes etc go up and down all the time, and fail all the time. that happens daily. how often do countries absolutely tank their currency? how often do they turn around and say our currency is no longer our currency, were using something else you may or may not have and your current currency is now worth 1/10 of its previous value?

how often does that happen? daily like things you can invest that money into going tits up?


no. very very rarely and when it happens it is a catastrophic event that is put on the people who caused it in a very certain way. spoken of with absolute appreciation of how destructive and drastic it is.




so for them to come out and act like this is just daily movements of investments that everyone should expect and they have no responsibility for literally coming out saying saying we want exalts and divines to switch places and these are the changes we are making to facilitate that, didnt just make some changes, actually came out and directed the player base that they should be switching how they value these currencies, is a big deal. and its on them, they have done this, your country tanks its currency to 1/10 of its value and says hey, this is just normal every day economic fluctuations you should be aware of? no, its not, its your government making extremely drastic, unprecedented actions that have a huge effect on anyone who currently has money in their pocket. governments get thrown out for a tiny fraction of that sort of economic value shift in the currency of their country and are blasted as completely irresponsible and incompetent.



this thread isnt me saying the change in gameplay terms was good or bad, you lot are welcome to debate that, i think exalts were too pricey, i dont think you should let the interests of standard league super rich dictate what is good for game balance. its not about if the cost in the change in terms of hurting players was right or wrong, if people wanna offer an opinion there then go ahead. but thats not what ive said, its not why im making this thread.


what im saying is that the devs need to accept in their own minds what it was they did and take responsibility for it, not brush this off as just the normal ebb and flow of investments that everyone should expect and if anyone has harmed by it its their own fault.

no, no its not their fault, its YOUR fault devs, and people were hurt by it, and peoples confidence in this games item system and what they had played 10 years to accumulate was permanently destroyed and you need to own that because you did this and its on you as devs. if you didnt know that when you did it then you should have, and if u still dont know that you need a wake up call. if you wanna come out in a zig interview and spin it, hopefully the majority are a bit too braindead to see through the pr bullshit and it didnt effect them cause casual league players, they just say "yeah ok" and dont think too much about it then move on. ok, you spin your spin, god knows weve had enough pitchforks endlessly recently so if this gets you off the hook with the electorate then it is what it is. but dont for a moment believe that people who care about standard buy it, and you as devs definitely need to know better than to buy your own take on this because the day may come when u wanna do this again, and you need to know what it is you are doing.


thats what i have to say on it and why i made the post.

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Cyzax wrote:

If you're one of the (large, probably majority) of players who can't afford any of the (more) deterministic crafting options, then there is value in exalting... It may not always give you a large return, more often not, but when it is what you have it is better than not having it.

And this is wrong. The CRAFTING BENCH (100% deterministic crafting) which only costs a few augs or alts or things that are WAY cheaper that every single player has access to is 99.9999% better than an exalt slam (except with min/max jewels). You are thinking in terms of ultra ultra crafting which is not at all what I am saying. Even the poorest of the poor players should NEVER exalt an item because it removes possible bench crafting opportunities. If you are a less experienced player, your needs change on an almost area-to-area basis, even in mapping. The need to be flexible with your gear, without having to carry many different SETS of gear, is paramount. Bench craft has nearly everything a player might need, without any kind of randomness. Exalt slamming a t8 stat on an item when you can bench craft upwards of t3/t2 values with NO randomness is just a poor decision and not cost-effective for anyone in the game.

1) You have a 3-mod rare through regaling: you shouldn't exalt it ever because it removes the multi-mod possibility later down the road. bricks or freezes the item. Yes, multi-mod is expensive BUT removing even the possibility of it in the future is arguably more expensive as you might need a totally new item. Also ruins trade value of the item.

2) You have a 4-mod rare, you shouldn't exalt it because it may fill up suffixes or prefixes which you then can't benchcraft should you need. less flexibility

3) You have a 5-mod rare, you shouldn't exalt it because you will almost always get a totally useless mod, rather than a 100% deterministic bench craft mod which is cheaper than the exalt's trade value. Strictly a worse choice. Plus it bricks the item from the possibility of using a conqueror's exalt

4) You have a 3 mod jewel (non-cluster). Sure, exalting is fine. It will always yield something slightly better. But it may reduce the trade value of the item because when people see a totally useless or off-theme mod, they are less likely to buy it.

5) You have a cluster jewel and extra exalts: HERE is the niche use for exalts. It will very rarely brick the cluster, unless you roll a notable that screws up the placement of mods on a large cluster.

It is NOT dollars, cents, or anything like that. If it were than there would be a set rate from chaos to exalts (or other currencies) that NEVER changes. My dollar bill is ALWAYS worth 100 cents. Regardless of inflation, regardless of market shifts, regardless of rarity or anything else you can think of. 1 dollar is equal to 100 cents. There is nothing in PoE that works that way. This is false thinking and the cause of much of the frustration with economic and "currency" changes that GGG makes. People THINK that it is as simple as dollars and cents, but in reality it never was. Every single currency item is its own investment. By collecting exalts over the years you were "investing" in the value of ONLY exalts themselves, NOT chaos or divines or regals or anything. That's why CW said what he said: it was a very narrow investment in a single, regularly fluctuating, stock. It has NEVER been the case in the entire history of this game that exalts were consistently worth a certain amount of other currencies, it fluctuated day to day, week to week, league to league, based on the needs and scarcity (or lack of) of whatever currency was popular.

I wholeheartedly agree that this change was done poorly, and suddenly, BUT everything that was said is absolutely true in terms of economics and markets and how they work in PoE. I get that this change disproportionately affected standard, but think about league economy: the value of every single currency item in relation to other currency items changes on a minute by minute basis for almost the entire first month, if not also the second month. "How often does that happen?" (referring to wild swings), well it happens on a nearly constant basis. A divine you find in week 1, should you choose to trade it, will be worth 10x as much (in terms of chaos) if you wait a few weeks. In Standard these swings are felt much less because there is already a super-saturation of ALL currencies. But it IS felt at every league start even in standard, it just goes away pretty quickly. After heist league dumped a RIDICULOUS amount of exalts into the standard pool, the value of exalts plummeted for a time.


End of rant :)