Crucible is Fundamentally Flawed - Especially at endgame

I haven't seen many threads about this specifically (I've made a few posts in another thread on it), so I'm not sure if people realize how incredibly annoying the Crucible mechanic will be in maps for players.

Don't get me wrong, aside from the direct power creep, the passive skill trees on the weapons are pretty cool. It's interesting, provides some deep crafting possibilities, and if that isn't your thing, can also supplement currency and unique items via the "selling to vendor" nodes.

However, it seems as though GGG hasn't asked themselves the most basic question players will have once a weapon drops. "I wonder what the passive tree is on that?". It blows my mind that wasn't even thought of when it was being developed, considering the trees provide all the interest.

The truth is every weapon that drops has the potential for interesting powerful passives, useful currency, or depending on the base, valuable unique transformation. If you want to check what's on the tree, as it is now, you need to take it to an alter. With only 1 per instance, you can see the bottleneck that is created.

Are you really going to be spamming quarry (or insert favorite instance spam), with an inventory of weapons, in order to find out what trees you weapon has? Or will you decide to completely skip all the weapons while mapping, unless it's directly related to the base of your specific build?

This choice seems objectively terrible. Either skip the vast majority of drops, without knowing what's on them, or spend a ton of time figuring out whether they contain valuable nodes or not. If the opportunity cost is player time and frustration, I don't think that's a good way to go. It will drive people crazy very quickly imo. For those that say that's how PoE is now, skipping much of the loot, that's just disingenuous. In current PoE you can't turn rares into valuable currency, Tier 0 unique items, or potentially recombinate their passives into other weapons.

Basically, if you don't check every Siege Axe to see if it's a potential Soul Taker, if you don't check a weapon to see if it has multiple chaos orbs or divine orbs on them, if you don't check the passive nodes to see if there is a valuable level 5 node (you could use or trade), you are absolutely gimping yourself, or will have a feeling you did something wrong.

To be honest there is no great solution for this. If you make it so the trees are identified with wisdom scrolls, this really upsets the flow of mapping, having to ID everything. If you make the nodes reveal as you level (you cant see the whole tree), no one will pickup anything beyond what their build use because it so inefficient and time consuming.

We will see, but I think this is going to become a glaring issue, very quickly.

The Tress will not be random.
They will be tied to weapon bases and item level.

They already showed low level items getting absolute dogshit passive trees in the trailer (Which are okay for leveling but not for endgame).

Convoking wands will have minion stuff, other wands most likely will not and so on.
So why would you ever use a non optimal base with low item level?

Everyone will use the best base with highest item level and then just check the altars.
There is no way there will be a lot of actual randomness in these results, they might vary, but I dont think there will be 20+ skilltrees for every weapon base, there might even just be 1, we simply dont know.
Even if there is a lot of randomness, the amount of passive traits is limited and they are filtered by itemlevel/arealevel and therefore I dont think there is a point in putting 100 weapons to the forge.

But there will be a point of leveling and merging these weapons, essepcially since the merging is not random (you choose which weapon to sacrifice).

Once someone aquires a good weapon you can still keep looking for a even better one, you can still level weapons for currency/unique rewards or just for trade value.

"

KalHirol wrote:

The Tress will not be random.
They will be tied to weapon bases and item level.

They already showed low level items getting absolute dogshit passive trees in the trailer (Which are okay for leveling but not for endgame).

Convoking wands will have minion stuff, other wands most likely will not and so on.
So why would you ever use a non optimal base with low item level?

Everyone will use the best base with highest item level and then just check the altars.
There is no way there will be a lot of actual randomness in these results, they might vary, but I dont think there will be 20+ skilltrees for every weapon base, there might even just be 1, we simply dont know.
Even if there is a lot of randomness, the amount of passive traits is limited and they are filtered by itemlevel/arealevel and therefore I dont think there is a point in putting 100 weapons to the forge.

But there will be a point of leveling and merging these weapons, essepcially since the merging is not random (you choose which weapon to sacrifice).

Once someone aquires a good weapon you can still keep looking for a even better one, you can still level weapons for currency/unique rewards or just for trade value.

No one cares about low level, I'm talking endgame mapping.

Why would you not care if a weapon had 2 divine orbs in it's passive tree? I would level it (or trade it) if that was on there. No?

Why wouldn't you check a Siege Axe to see if it was actually worth a 20 or 30 Divine orb Soul Taker?

Why wouldn't you check a high ilvl weapon to see if it had a nice lvl5 passive option? (for recombination or trade)

Weapon trees bad, D4 gud

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

"

KalHirol wrote:

The Tress will not be random.
They will be tied to weapon bases and item level.

They already showed low level items getting absolute dogshit passive trees in the trailer (Which are okay for leveling but not for endgame).

Convoking wands will have minion stuff, other wands most likely will not and so on.
So why would you ever use a non optimal base with low item level?

Everyone will use the best base with highest item level and then just check the altars.
There is no way there will be a lot of actual randomness in these results, they might vary, but I dont think there will be 20+ skilltrees for every weapon base, there might even just be 1, we simply dont know.
Even if there is a lot of randomness, the amount of passive traits is limited and they are filtered by itemlevel/arealevel and therefore I dont think there is a point in putting 100 weapons to the forge.

But there will be a point of leveling and merging these weapons, essepcially since the merging is not random (you choose which weapon to sacrifice).

Once someone aquires a good weapon you can still keep looking for a even better one, you can still level weapons for currency/unique rewards or just for trade value.

No one cares about low level, I'm talking endgame mapping.

Why would you not care if a weapon had 2 divine orbs in it's passive tree? I would level it (or trade it) if that was on there. No?

Why wouldn't you check a Siege Axe to see if it was actually worth a 20 or 30 Divine orb Soul Taker?

Why wouldn't you check a high ilvl weapon to see if it had a nice lvl5 passive option? (for recombination or trade)

i dont think it works that way - weapons and shield dont inherently drop with skill trees but instead they get one the moment you put them on crucible mechanic.

"

feral_nature wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

"

KalHirol wrote:

The Tress will not be random.
They will be tied to weapon bases and item level.

They already showed low level items getting absolute dogshit passive trees in the trailer (Which are okay for leveling but not for endgame).

Convoking wands will have minion stuff, other wands most likely will not and so on.
So why would you ever use a non optimal base with low item level?

Everyone will use the best base with highest item level and then just check the altars.
There is no way there will be a lot of actual randomness in these results, they might vary, but I dont think there will be 20+ skilltrees for every weapon base, there might even just be 1, we simply dont know.
Even if there is a lot of randomness, the amount of passive traits is limited and they are filtered by itemlevel/arealevel and therefore I dont think there is a point in putting 100 weapons to the forge.

But there will be a point of leveling and merging these weapons, essepcially since the merging is not random (you choose which weapon to sacrifice).

Once someone aquires a good weapon you can still keep looking for a even better one, you can still level weapons for currency/unique rewards or just for trade value.

No one cares about low level, I'm talking endgame mapping.

Why would you not care if a weapon had 2 divine orbs in it's passive tree? I would level it (or trade it) if that was on there. No?

Why wouldn't you check a Siege Axe to see if it was actually worth a 20 or 30 Divine orb Soul Taker?

Why wouldn't you check a high ilvl weapon to see if it had a nice lvl5 passive option? (for recombination or trade)

i dont think it works that way - weapons and shield dont inherently drop with skill trees but instead they get one the moment you put them on crucible mechanic.

Exactly, so you have to take them to the mechanic to check what they are. That's the whole problem.

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

Exactly, so you have to take them to the mechanic to check what they are. That's the whole problem.

I don't see the problem with this - as long as they manage to make the trees searchable in their trade engine.

The game is full of different ways to progress and/or make currency. You have to go to Delve to do X, you have to go to Incursion do do Y and you have to play Breach to experience Z. Every player is capable of finding their preferred way to progress, focusing on what they deem fun for them. And if you need something from a mechanic you think is boring, you can trade for it.

"

Basically, if you don't check every Siege Axe to see if it's a potential Soul Taker, if you don't check a weapon to see if it has multiple chaos orbs or divine orbs on them, if you don't check the passive nodes to see if there is a valuable level 5 node (you could use or trade), you are absolutely gimping yourself, or will have a feeling you did something wrong.

Depending on the odds here, aren't you doing the same by not using an orb of chance on every Siege Axe? And are you really gimping yourself when you think about the time investment needed here? Maybe your time is better spent doing other things?

"

To be honest there is no great solution for this

Maybe they could make trees 'rerollable'? Should probably be some kind of drawback here, but...

"

Phrazz wrote:

Depending on the odds here, aren't you doing the same by not using an orb of chance on every Siege Axe? And are you really gimping yourself when you think about the time investment needed here? Maybe your time is better spent doing other things?

Sort of, but to a lesser degree. The possibilities in Crucible are 3-fold. Either a nice passive you can craft / recombine, high value currency, and then potentially, a 30 Div jackpot. (Edit: or nothing really I guess)

I mean honestly what people going to do in T14-16 maps when a Siege Axe (for this example) drops? Pick it up and check with later with the mechanic, or just skip it?

I don't think either feels great is what I'm saying. You are annoyed to have to check it, but feel dumb if you don't.

you ppl forget that you cant put weapon in altar if you dont have it equip.

so if you dont have int you cant use wand and cant put in the altar

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anti4z500 wrote:

you ppl forget that you cant put weapon in altar if you dont have it equip.

???? is that true? I don't recall seeing that?

That's even worse if so lol