Feedback and Suggestions (Path of Exile 1) - Introduce Normal Gems (in addition to Skill gems) - Forum

" Xendran wrote: Yep. Plus people would complain a lot less about Kaom's. This too. More sources of HP/ES outside the passive tree = more passive tree diversity.[/quote] Xendran. My issue wasn't the difficulty of balance, but the fact that balance for such a system would cause it to either be required or pretty much useless. It would be very difficult to find a balance point where it is in contention with actual skill gems. Give someone 10% MS, and that becomes a required gem to be running. Give someone +5 health, and it becomes pretty pointless. Perhaps if you can only have one gem of any type, then you wouldn't just have all health everywhere, or all dps everywhere that you aren't using your 6l skill or aura/curses.	Posted by Real_Wolf#6784 on Jun 18, 2013, 1:10:22 AM Quote this Post
It isn't that hard to get an idea on where to balance it. After that it's just crunching numbers. Exemplar from current times: EB character, 4L=Reduced Mana+Discipline+2 full auras, about 100% increased ES/mana Net buffs: about same unreserved mana before/after, +4.3 mana regenerated per second, 2 full auras We don't want to throw this guy under a bus, he took the time to grab EB, probably for the mana regen. So we'll give that to him free. Also the whole "effecting others" thing. Not counting that. 2 full auras divide by 4 gems = maximum 50% of a standard-cost full aura (scaling by level) However, there really aren't all that many auras. Let's look at them all and see how the compare to the more detailed gear affix system: L20 Anger (65 avg fire): About 2 perfect amulet/ring affixes L20 Wrath (78 avg lightning): About 2 perfect amulet/ring affixes About half of about 2 is about 1, so ring/ammy prefixes are a pretty good model for total power, especially for the single-stat version. Now for my suggested magic-not-rare affix-based version is a little trickier with power split three ways (prefix/suffix/intrinsic-mod), but that gives a rough approximation of where the total power level should be... Jewelery prefixes also scale with level, so you can get a good idea how the system would unfold. Maybe nerfing the "power prefixes" (like Life) out the gate, instead of copying old mistakes, is a good idea. But in general, just take a single prefix and that's total power level. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Jun 18, 2013, 2:20:19 AM	Posted by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Jun 18, 2013, 2:09:27 AM Quote this Post
" Real_Wolf wrote: Xendran. My issue wasn't the difficulty of balance, but the fact that balance for such a system would cause it to either be required or pretty much useless. It would be very difficult to find a balance point where it is in contention with actual skill gems. ...I don't even you just directly contradicted your orignal statement twice in one post. How the hell could you possibly know that it would either be "useless" or "mandatory"? Do you seriously think that there is no in-between point? Balance does not mean "not overpowered" or "not underpowered", nor is it just numbers. Balance is the fine balance of every element of a mechanic, alongside every mechanic with each other. Last edited by Xendran#1127 on Jun 18, 2013, 10:24:37 AM	Posted by Xendran#1127 on Jun 18, 2013, 10:24:17 AM Quote this Post
I agree with Real Wolf. Adding a new thing to balance is not so much trouble, however adding another axis on which to balance is worrisome. Skill gems are balanced against other skill gems. Support gems are balanced against other support gems. "Normal" gems causes both of them to be balanced not only amongst their own sphere, but also balanced against "normal" gems-- a separate sphere. It's not just another element of complexity, it's another layer of complexity. Complexity by itself is bad, so what does this offer in return? So far all I've seen is that it's either like an aura or a passive skill point. Both of which already exist and have a variety of options within their own sphere for players to choose. There needs to be more to it than just converting player choices from one sphere to another.	Posted by PolarisOrbit#5098 on Jun 18, 2013, 11:07:09 AM Quote this Post
" Ketosis wrote: Maybe have unique gems that roll a random passive node, you can 'wear' a passive. Maybe this would be OP and could make them insanely valuable. So maybe have some kind of limit like only 1 per character, or require some 'dead' gems linked to it for it to work. Or only have certain keystones available? You could just make it so that no keystones were available. There are still some notable passives which would be worth socketing without being too OP. Face it, all of your suggestions are worse than this idea: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/657756	Posted by dudiobugtron#4663 on Jun 18, 2013, 5:44:45 PM Quote this Post
" ScrotieMcB wrote: I think this is a great idea, and I've submitted an idea similar to this before. Three points: 1. Kaom's Heart. If you really think about it, this mechanic has already been explored; there is an item, and a very popular one at that, which is flavored entirely around the sacrifice of sockets for passive stats. While I don't feel that you should ever be able to match Kaom's by taking a +life six-link and tossing a ton of Life "normal gems" in it, players should be able to at least come somewhat close with their own items, also allowing a full degree of customization. 2. Oil and water. I think it's important to add a rule that an active skill gem and a "normal gem" cannot be linked; if you already have an active gem, you can't put a normal gem in linked sockets, and vice versa. This would lead to an interesting situation where a 5L 6S item is not quite strictly inferior to a 6L; one supports a normal gem, the other doesn't. This would help shrink the gap between the value of 5L and 6L. 3. Leveling is optional. There are many ways to design "normal gems," including not making them gems at all. Perhaps they should be designed as static, never gaining XP or levels, and instead, like flasks, be capable of prefixes and suffixes but incapable of being rare. Naturally you'd still need to color-code them for appropriate socket color (perhaps making some white so they can go anywhere), but that's really as far as the comparison needs to go. +1 upvote to the first 2 ideas, I'd rather retain the ability to level them up but maybe we can have tiers of the Gems like Vitality I, II, III, IV, V etc. with each being able to be leveled 5 times each or something? Would probably add too much diversity in gem drops though. Computer specifications: Windows 10 Pro x64 \| AMD Ryzen 5800X3D \| ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) Motherboard \| 32GB 3600MHz RAM \| MSI Geforce 1070Ti Gamer \| Corsair AX 760watt PSU \| Samsung 860 Pro 512GB SSD & Crucial MX 500 4TB SSD's Last edited by Nicholas_Steel#0509 on Jun 18, 2013, 5:52:23 PM	Posted by Nicholas_Steel#0509 on Jun 18, 2013, 5:51:59 PM Quote this Post