Crafting - Why it's broken and feedback on how to fix it.

The TLDR: In general, as a casual(ish) player I want to engage with the crafting mechanic and I want to feel more rewarded by getting good at crafting. In POE1, I went from a complete noob to someone who has been able to craft multiple pieces of gear for my character and defeat multiple uber bosses. In POE2 I feel locked out from the crafting mechanic because the time investment is so high, the RNG is absolutely punishing and I get no benefit from learning more about the mechanic because it is 100% RNG based.

Below. I'll break down what a good crafting and bad crafting system looks like. Then work through an example, and finally a list of recommendations for POE2 that would significantly improve the crafting experience for casual and non-hardcore players.

Firstly, I understand that POE2 is EA and more stuff is to come, but right now as a person trying to play the game the crafting system punishes me at every turn. This has dramatically reduced my enjoyment of the game.

So, what does bad and good crafting systems look like?

A good crafting system has a base level of RNG that can be manipulated through the use of crafting mechanics and player skill. The amount of influence RNG has on a craft should reduce the more a player invests currency, and the more the player knows about how to use the crafting mechanic. Crafting low level or simply items should be extremely accessible and the player should be allowed many attempts at trying to beat RNG.

A bad crafting system is one that is completely RNG based. The player must constantly feed currency, items and time in order to try and win the lottery. The amount of currency a player has is significantly restricted allowing for very limited engagement with the crafting mechanic.

I'll give a working example of how you could achieve the same craft in POE1 and POE2. Let's pretend we want gloves with T1 attack speed.

In POE1, we can use orbs of alteration until we get the attack speed modifier, then use orb of augmentation, regal orb and exalted orb to get a rare item with 4 modifiers. Then using a fracturing orb we can ensure a 25% chance of fracturing the attack speed. A key point to note here, only at the point of using the fracturing orb do we risk bricking the item we're crafting on, all other parts of this craft can be restarted only losing the currency investment, not the item.

In POE2, we can use orb of Transmutation with around a 0.007% chance of hitting it. If we hit it, we can use an orb of Augmentation and pray for a good outcome. Then a regal orb, then an exalted orb. If at any point we do not get a good outcome the item is bricked. If we craft an item that is comparable to our own but not as good because maybe the exalted didn't quite land, the item is bricked. POE2 requires investment of base items for crafting, and currency.

Comparing the two, POE2 has crafting odds that are many hundreds of times worse than POE1, with currency restrictions that require a constant supply of base items, very limited currency crops allowing very limited engagement with the crafting mechanic. Overall, POE2 relies on multiple layers of RNG each requiring a significant investment of time, with no way to reduce that investment by being better at the game.

When I consider a list of faults with POE2 crafting as it stands right now:
1. You need a new base item for every craft.
2. You cannot modify the implicit on the base item, therefore you need to find a GOOD implicit base item to try any decent craft.
3. Transmutations and Augmentations cannot be undone (annulments too expensive).
4. You cannot apply a specific craft to 'finish' an item reducing one step of RNG (i.e., crafting bench).
5. To get an item with N good affixes requires N RNG rolls to go your way, there is no ability to use skills/knowledge/expertise to influence this. Everything is RNG.

Here is a list of simple things I think would make POE2 instantly more enjoyable as a player.
1. Orbs of Alteration - You need a way to craft blue items without instantly bricking the item. I'd not implement blessed orbs, or any way to manipulate the implicit values allowing for better implicit rolls on base items to be better drops in the game, this ensures that item drops still hold significant value.
2. Orbs of Annulment - This should be as common as Orbs of Transmutation or Augmentation. This allows you to unbrick an item back to a state of no affixes but not as easily as scouring. You can use RNG here to try and save an item by playing the odds. It's less of an all-or-nothing you get with scouring.
3. Basic crafting bench - Firstly, this allows you to block affixes when using Orbs of Augmentation, Exalted Orbs, and to reduce RNG with the new Chaos orb.
4. Generally more low level crafting currency through the acts. My first 12 hours consisted of 1 exalted orb drop. This means that regardless of how good/bad crafting is, it's just not accessible to my character because despite my time investment I do not have currency to invest in crafting.

/rant

edit: swapped sacred orbs to blessed orbs.

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ZaitaNZ#1567 wrote:

In POE2, we can use orb of Transmutation with around a 0.007% chance of hitting it.

Where do you take that number from? I havent seen any information on affix weighting. If you have please do link it.
Also check out omens (you can go to the currency exchange and look at them),
they allow you to influence the crafting outcomes.
Now i`m also not certain that that is enough to make it feel like you have any meaningful control about what you are crafting and the constant need for new bases or more orbs of annulment (or scouring) seems bad, but as long as we dont know the affix weightings we cant say much about the crafting system (they said something about items being tiered and those excluding some of the lowest affix tiers for example, but i dont know if thats just for when you drop the item or if that influences the crafting on high ilvl bases as well).

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jersch_#2179 wrote:

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ZaitaNZ#1567 wrote:

In POE2, we can use orb of Transmutation with around a 0.007% chance of hitting it.

Where do you take that number from?

I am using the base value from POE1 for ilvl85 just to show the variance between the two approaches to crafting when all things are equal in terms of RNG.

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jersch_#2179 wrote:

Also check out omens (you can go to the currency exchange and look at them),
they allow you to influence the crafting outcomes.

Omens add a nice bit of flavour to crafting, but they're just reducing the RNG by half. You're still orders of magnitude worse off than in POE1.

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jersch_#2179 wrote:

but as long as we dont know the affix weightings we cant say much about the crafting system (they said something about items being tiered and those excluding some of the lowest affix tiers for example, but i dont know if thats just for when you drop the item or if that influences the crafting on high ilvl bases as well).

We do know the primary cost for crafting now is time. This cannot be reduced by having more skill at the game. IMO the fundamental issue POE2 has introduced is the same as Last Epoch. The game has completely taken away your ability to influence RNG predictably for a chance at a better outcome. If we consider how Last Epoch ruins this, they have forging potential (how much crafting you can do to an item before it's blocked). One bad RNG and your crafting potential is all used up. The base is dead, this is a bad player experience when my success is completely RNG.

Compare this to a game like X-Com. The ability to make a shot is an RNG value, but you can improve your RNG by having better unit placement, better cover, better weapons etc. As you know more about the game and have more skill you can influence the RNG to have better outcomes.

TLDR: A game should reward player skill, not ignore or punish it. The players time should be considered an investment that they can recoup on (i.e., getting currency). Having systems that brick items, block crafting or make crafting inaccessible just zeros out the players time investment. This is bad.

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ZaitaNZ#1567 wrote:

I am using the base value from POE1 for ilvl85 just to show the variance between the two approaches to crafting when all things are equal in terms of RNG.

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We do know the primary cost for crafting now is time.

Yea see it was a rhetorical question because you obviously just took the weightings from poe, when even more obviously those are not the same.

Crafting in poe was very time consuming as well, even though it was harder to brick your item (but it can still happen quite a lot).

My point still stands before we know how the crafting even really works in poe 2 its kinda mood to form an opinion about it.

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jersch_#2179 wrote:

Yea see it was a rhetorical question because you obviously just took the weightings from poe, when even more obviously those are not the same.

Agreed. But my having equal percentage values we can highlight other parts of the equation we know to be impactful.

POE1 - 1 base item, 168 alterations and you should get T1 attack speed.
POE2 - 168 base items, 168 transmutes and you should get T1 attack speed.

Using the same odds of success, we can immediately see the input cost for POE2 is significantly worse. Having just completed 2 full maps and not even getting a single wand drop, I can't even do 1 attempt let alone 168.

By fixing specific variables, we can highlight variances elsewhere more clearly.

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ZaitaNZ#1567 wrote:

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jersch_#2179 wrote:

Yea see it was a rhetorical question because you obviously just took the weightings from poe, when even more obviously those are not the same.

Agreed. But my having equal percentage values we can highlight other parts of the equation we know to be impactful.

POE1 - 1 base item, 168 alterations and you should get T1 attack speed.
POE2 - 168 base items, 168 transmutes and you should get T1 attack speed.

Using the same odds of success, we can immediately see the input cost for POE2 is significantly worse. Having just completed 2 full maps and not even getting a single wand drop, I can't even do 1 attempt let alone 168.

By fixing specific variables, we can highlight variances elsewhere more clearly.

But the variable you fix is the most important one....
Like look at this possible but highly unlikely scenario:


PoE1 - 1 base item, 168 alterations and you should get T1 attack speed.
PoE2 - 4 base items, 4 transmutes (up to 4 augmentations) and you should get T1 attack speed.


With the information given about weighting (which is none) this is as likely as your example...


Edit: And again i dont even think you are necessarily wrong and i`m worried about crafting myself, BUT without knowing the actual chances of getting the stats you want we just dont know.