Have you ever had that one item you just really don't want to let go?

Have you ever had an item that fit your character so well, so perfectly, where all its stats bennefit you in a way that even when it is 20 levels under you, you still can't seem to get rid of it?



When new items with higher stats just don't have that synergy and the things you lose don't seem to compensate with the few higher stats that bennefit you?

One mechanic I feel lacking in PoE2, which would also fit the more craft-reliant style of gameplay it has is exactly something to address that.

The idea is simple:
Having a method, even if expensive or hard, to level up the level of a lower level item so that it better alligns with your characters current level, would perfectly fit the style of game Path of Exile 2 is turning out to be.


| Concept & Scene |

After fully finishing Act 1, after getting the tools and unlocking the workbench, defeating the final boss, everything, Renly tells you how he misses having an actual proper workshop and has the idea to build something, to teach some younger folk the craft and how one of the people in the camp shares this idea with him.

He comments that, with how the situation looks, not knowing tomorrow, if they were to die, things would get really hard for the rest of the camp, so they need some place where they can work and teach others how to do their work.

You get a quest to clear a nearby area so that they can gather the materials required to build.
Visitting this new map, you find a cave near where they will extract the materials where monsters keep coming out.
Classic quest, delve down, kill everything, kill a boss, all standard.

After finishing everything, Henly thanks you and says that they will work on it as fast as possible.
After finishing Act 2, revisitting the town of Act 1 would have a new conversation with Henly, showing a new, big building on the map.
An area with smelters, workbenches, anvils and all required materials to make anything.

Henly then introduces the apprentices and gets a new option in his dialogue, to help you better fit an item to you. To re-forge, maintain and adjust it for you.
He agrees to do so, but asks that you provide the materials, but that he will work on it with the best of his ability.


| Conditions & Costs |

To re-forge an item, the player would have to pay 1 exalted orb per modifier on the item + 1 regal orb.
If the item is a unique, the cost is doubled.

The player will also have to provide 5 items of the same type all with the same desired item level.
So if you want to re-forge a shield to item level 27, you have to provide 5 shields, even if common, all at item level 27.
This is meant for Henly to use "Spare parts" of these items to finish up your new item.

The item will be raised in item level re-randomizing its modifier values but keeping the same modifier types.
The higher tier of the 5 items sacrificed, the better the guaranteed values of the modifiers on your newly reforged item. And the higher the quality of the items used, the higher the quality of the resulting item.

So if you use 5 rare or unique shields at item level 27 all with quality 20% to re-forge an old shield you have, you will get your new shield to have its modifiers at minimum close to the highest possible values for those modifiers and a quality between 15 to 20%.

Reasoning: The better quality of the parts you provided, the better the result.


| Reasoning and Bennefits |

Itemization is definitely the most important thing in an ARPG and humans inherently make bonds with otherwise meaningless stuff, like a simple good virtual item in a game.

While playing with lower level friends, like when you are at the end of Act 3 and they just started playing at Act 1, you don't even look at items that fall on the ground, meaning the loot becomes boring since the area is so low level.

Being able to get an old good item to your level or finding a "diamond in the rough" low level item that if re-forged would perfectly fit you when playing with a lower level friend are both extremely good bennefits of having a system like that introduced.

The complexity of the system proposed isn't enough to make it unnusable or overly expensive, but just enough so that it isn't so trivial that players would do it to every single item they find or on their build, just those seriously good ones.

It would make every piece of loot that much more interesting or valluable, either due to the possibility of raising it to your level or to using it to raise the level of a good item of another lower area.


| Final Considerations |

Path of Exile 2 is definitely not meant to be an easy game or to make getting items something easy or trivial and this system doesn't change that, it only introduces a just complex enough crafting method to recycle a good item that already fits you, which is perfectly alligned with the crafting-oriented style
of PoE2.

I believe the bennefits of this system would be enough to make it meaningful and valluable even considering the amount of work that would be required to program it into the game considering how much impact it would have on how players approach items, specially when considering multiplayer and even when playing fully solo, meaning it would bennefit every single player in some way.

Was just thinking of this a bit again and thought to add.
Once unlocked, it would also be simple to add to any other city in the game, just like the workbench, by simply placing an NPC that can do it overthere.

The reasoning behind only unlocking it after Act 2 is mostly due to the level. Around after you finish Act 2 is when items you got and was using in Act 1 but were REALLY good for you will start feeling weak, but it around that time where you'd mostly wish that to be a thing.

You could even add that some NPC calls to the player to deliver a letter from Henly in order to call the player back to the Act 1 camp and unlock this feature.

Someone made a good point about this on Reddit which I'd also like to share over here.

There is a possibility of abuse of a mechanic like this if some stats are more easily found on lower levelled items pools, which would severely raise, but I also do have a counter argument in such case.

This impact could be mitigated or even completely voided by making the cost to reforge an item be based on the difference between the item's current level and the desired level.

Similarly, a limit of 1 reforge per item could also be placed, meaning you can't carry the same item from the start of the game all the way to the end game, which still keeps the value of such a mechanic but doesn't make it replace or remove the need to constantly check the loot and vendors in search of good items or craft new items.

With a high cost for crafting that grows the wider the level gap of the item and a limit of only 1 reforge per item, this would make this mechanic still pretty balanced but make all loot in general, even those in lower level areas, a bit more interesting and useful.