Crafting orbs or currency? A serious discussion of the game's direction

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Hovergame wrote:

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VTT wrote:

And that would 100%, absolutely be the case if the threshold for creating a "good" item wasn't so high.

And with more components, the good items will be so common that nobody will buy them, an you'll start to talk about how toe toptier mods are too almost impossible to get and how we should increase orb drops, how price are high for a small increase, .....

Holu hell, WHY DO YOU WANT GEAR ? To play the game ? The bext players are already level 80 withing a week. 1K characters are already almost 60. No, you DON'T NEED godtier items to play the game. All you're wanting is an easier game, face it.

Sorry sir but you are mistaken. Getting to high lvl is not a problem as you can party with better geared players. Also difficulty before Merc and Maps is laughable. But maps and merc are not that easy. I see many dyin just coz they didnt have good enough gear. What if it was Onslought or Hardcore ? Make them quit coz they cant progress ?

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farqueue wrote:

I started reading this thread completely against the idea of increasing orb drops, thinking it would inflate the price of great items...
I've now figured that's not such a bad thing because it then encourages people to craft/gamble their currency - something I do more than trading anyway.

Same here. The way currency/crafting works is the one thing that I am disappointed with, having started PoE with the notion that its currencies are its own sink. But it did not work out.
A synergical combination of rmt/botting, multiboxing, scams and "flipping" gear and currencies ruined the whole concept. And since this was to be expected the concept might not have been so good to begin with.

For me the dilemna - that the way currency works now it simply cannot be its own sink due to its rarity - became so much more obvious with the new leagues. So far I was lucky enough to find 3 alchs and 3 chaos, being halfway through normal act 3. But NO WAY IN HELL would I spend them on crafting gear, as much as I would want to.
I'm having fun - slightly hampered by my slow kill speed, wielding a rare weapon that in a couple of levels can be replaced by a white one:
But I know for sure that I would have much MORE FUN if I would be able to spend the occasional alch on a 4L or on a new tier weapon. Even when - or actually because - it would sometimes make not much sense. Just for the heck of it. And if I find a new-tier weapon I could just alch it and have a decent chance for it to become my new one.
As of now I can only hope for a good drop, which - if it weren't for the game itself, which I like very much - is a bit thin.

I do understand that 5L/6L or any other high(ish)-end gear should take time and effort to obtain. I just wish there was a way for the player to be able to be more ACTIVE when it comes to getting that which enables him to get by, i.e. mediocre to good gear. As opposed to the current state where he is a passive at the receiving end with little to no influence on how things work out, at least at the beginning.
But, as I said, this is just for fun's sake. I think the game is perfectly playable ("balanced") as it is.

So my "solution" would be:

- Increase the chances for orbs to drop
- Massively increase the chances for alchs and chaos to drop

and:

- Introduce a sink for exalteds

So as to give an incentive not to hoard them.
For example: Since another issue for many people seems to be the lack of maps/progression in high levels, using an exalted on a map could raise the chance for a map to drop by a certain amount. It could actually garantuee a map-drop +/- 2 levels of the current map from the boss.

I'm going to occasionally bump this thread to the front page, maybe garner some more discussion and a little attention from GGG.

How to fix the entire crafting/rng system overnight?

Affixes and prefixes on items roll -5 tiers under the ilvl at *most*.

This way you still get your crap rolls, your socket issues, stuff you dont need, need to get the currency to roll them, get the correct base item, get a high roll within the tier....

but at least you can be sure that you will roll 140+ accuracy on that helmet, instead of +14, even tho you needed +2 minions.


Layer on layer of RNG makes the drops crap. The only way to make drops not crap currently is to simulate several hundred drops of the base item on high itemlevel (ie. chaos orbs, or alts/regal/exa) so you will most certainly beat the RNG (like flipping a coin several thousand times to make it stand on the edge).

The issue right now is not that getting a good roll is too hard, its that its incredible inprobable to do so.

Let fusings be the currency sink/main trading currency for all i care, maps eat high orbs like candy allready.

I mean, either alternative brings the system into a little more balance. Either have more drops (and therefore more opportunities for rolling well) or make it so that good rolls are easier to get. I'd prefer the former over the latter because there's no point in making it too easy.

What kind of game are you guys trying to play though? I understand this argument and I have already contributed. But, the idea that RNG is bad is the worst shit I have ever heard. I don't want to play a game where I know that 1 in 10 of my rares will probably be good. I want the chance to pick up some boots and be blown away, or pick up 100 boots and vendor all of them. The random factor is what makes the game enjoyable. If there is no randomness, either A) Everyone become Godlike too quickly and the game is boring, or B) Drops have no meaning because you can expect what loot you are going to get and are never surprised.

You may say, "Hey, I don't want them to take out the randomness, just increase the chance I get a good item / decrease layers of RNG!" It's the same damn thing. ARPG's are based on the fact that being godlike and unstoppable only ever come after an insane amount of work because of the fact that the chance to get an insane item is such a low probability.

The diversity of effects you can have on items also contributes to the so called "layers" of RNG. How can you complain about getting +140 accuracy when you wanted +2 to minion gems? That's like saying "Well shit, I wanted a trifecta amulet in D3 but all I got was +life from health globes." If you can't handle the way ARPG's are made then please stop playing.

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cypherrage wrote:

What kind of game are you guys trying to play though? I understand this argument and I have already contributed. But, the idea that RNG is bad is the worst shit I have ever heard. I don't want to play a game where I know that 1 in 10 of my rares will probably be good. I want the chance to pick up some boots and be blown away, or pick up 100 boots and vendor all of them. The random factor is what makes the game enjoyable. If there is no randomness, either A) Everyone become Godlike too quickly and the game is boring, or B) Drops have no meaning because you can expect what loot you are going to get and are never surprised.

You may say, "Hey, I don't want them to take out the randomness, just increase the chance I get a good item / decrease layers of RNG!" It's the same damn thing. ARPG's are based on the fact that being godlike and unstoppable only ever come after an insane amount of work because of the fact that the chance to get an insane item is such a low probability.

The diversity of effects you can have on items also contributes to the so called "layers" of RNG. How can you complain about getting +140 accuracy when you wanted +2 to minion gems? That's like saying "Well shit, I wanted a trifecta amulet in D3 but all I got was +life from health globes." If you can't handle the way ARPG's are made then please stop playing.

Way to miss the point.

I was using the +2 minion example to show that there will still be enough randomness for it to not become a case of "every second rare is endgame gear and couldnt roll better".

A quick look in the affix base will show you that there are only a number of affixes that have 5+ tiers, and very few that have 21. All my suggestion does is, that it elimiates *some* rolls to become like level 13 items. Most rolls would still suck, but at least base evasion/ES/armor/whatever would roll level apropriate*ish*, if nothing else. In fact, you would probably not even see a difference, but new players would get more *usable* loot.

And while i agree that there needs to be a certain degree of RNG in this game, PoE overdid it, much like d3 did. I see many similarities in item drops, the general feeling of "why bother" crops up, while running maps on standard with some 100 iiq/200 iir, i just fill my inventory, kill the boss and dont bother coming back, while i could easily have filled another inventory full of rares. Because i allready know they will be alt shards, at most.

Crafting would be the only way to get upgrades for me now, and in general, the orbs i would use with that would be more expensive, than buying a similar item outright. That sounds like fun to you? Farming orbs and then farming the market? Be my guest, but dont complain when you stop playing once you reach a certain gear status.

How the fuck you could have taken that paragraph about the helmet mods as a complaint on the RNG is still totally beyond me.

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Cataca wrote:

Way to miss the point.

I was using the +2 minion example to show that there will still be enough randomness for it to not become a case of "every second rare is endgame gear and couldnt roll better".

A quick look in the affix base will show you that there are only a number of affixes that have 5+ tiers, and very few that have 21. All my suggestion does is, that it elimiates *some* rolls to become like level 13 items. Most rolls would still suck, but at least base evasion/ES/armor/whatever would roll level apropriate*ish*, if nothing else. In fact, you would probably not even see a difference, but new players would get more *usable* loot.

And while i agree that there needs to be a certain degree of RNG in this game, PoE overdid it, much like d3 did. I see many similarities in item drops, the general feeling of "why bother" crops up, while running maps on standard with some 100 iiq/200 iir, i just fill my inventory, kill the boss and dont bother coming back, while i could easily have filled another inventory full of rares. Because i allready know they will be alt shards, at most.

Crafting would be the only way to get upgrades for me now, and in general, the orbs i would use with that would be more expensive, than buying a similar item outright. That sounds like fun to you? Farming orbs and then farming the market? Be my guest, but dont complain when you stop playing once you reach a certain gear status.

How the fuck you could have taken that paragraph about the helmet mods as a complaint on the RNG is still totally beyond me.

1st of all, why no rares -> chaos recipe?

Well, we already discussed why the market is messed up, that's the whole point of this thread, because there isn't enough of this "currency" to ever merit using it over trading to other people.

The RNG factor is fine, and I wouldn't even go as far to say that in the current state of the game that increasing the number of drops of high end orbs would fix the situation permanently. But the fact remains that you'll never get enough orbs to craft your items in the way the currency is intended to be used.

As I've said before, new league, increased drop rate of orbs (10 fold), disable trading of currency, only items, keep RNG the same.

You aren't supposed to get the best possible rolls on all your gear pieces. I would even say that no matter how much time you put into this game (D3 included), you won't ever have the "perfect" set of gear, that's the whole point of the game. If you could "beat" these games, they would quickly lose meaning. It's like saying that the lottery is too RNG based and needs to have a better system so I can actually win.

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Mastro80 wrote:

I find it funny that everyone worries about the effect an increased drop rate will have on trading. Trading in this game is absolutely awful!! Why would you care if it makes it harder to trade? The whole thing that is awesome about PoE (in theory) is that the orbs allow you to create your own items or alter your items in hopes of improving them. Isn't that a lot more rewarding than playing 'trading simulator'?

This

I haven't read it all, and what I'm about to say will a bit too simplistic, but, honestly, people really care about the value of the orbs as currencies and stuff?

I mean, i'm here to play the game, kill mobs, find gear and craft gear in order to progress. I don't care about currency values or in how many gpcs could I exchange an exalt. I think someone from GGG said in the past that trade was not suposed to be easy and they did not want to make perm allocation because we are all suposed to be exiles fighting for survival and so. On that scenario I honestly don't think trade should be that important.

If the drops get increased things will worth less. Its simplistic, but whatever,I really don't care about it. We should be here to play and progress by ourselves using those currencies, not to play trading with our pseudo-gold exalteds.

Sorry for typos, english is not my first language :P

as far as im concerned this economy is already jacked beyond repair. unless you have tons of chaos gcp an exalts you already cant buy anything of any usefulness hell in just the last 2 days gcp to exalt have gone from 13 to 14 up to 15 and 17. really? i see people all the time post about how you can buy a 5L chest for 10 to 20 chaos. good tell me where at. every body ive whispered about a 5L with only 3 or 400 es....which as far as im concerend thats mid grade.........wants a minimum of 5 to 10 exalts. the rate of inflation of orbs is increasing so fast that i cant even farm enough to keep up with it any more. 2 weeks ago i could get 3 gcp for 180 alts this week i could only get 2gcp an 2 chaos. and ive already seen some people trying to charge 70 to 75 alts for 1 gcp. with low IIQ and IIR you dont get jack shit for item drops to turn into orbs. nor do you get orb drops often enough to do any thing with.

ideally a person should be able to farm enough orbs in 2 or 3 8 hour sessions that they'd feel comfortable enough to try and craft a new peice of gear.

so really id like to hear from the other people. what in the hell do you expect new players to do when they come to this game? what just up an quit? But i guess some will take that attitude of bugger off we dont need new people. and thats fine but i highly doubt the same people who take that attitude will be happy farming the same maps for the next 3 to 5 yrs do to GGG not having enough money to make new content and new maps because it cant grow its player base.

i havent found nor crafted an upgrade in over a week. and my gear is crap and when i say crap i mean absolutely crap! how i even manage to survive in zones that still give me 2.5% of a lvl per clear is beyond me at this point. its not like im dumb i fully understand that ARPG's are carrot on a stick games. thats nothing new to me. but after a while people get tired of being starved of the carrot and beaten with the stick.