A Concept to Improve 6-link Crafting

I've noticed a lot of people complaining on the forums about the process of acquiring a six-linked piece of gear and I think there are a few merits to some of these complaints. Now to be clear, I don't empathize with those who believe that crafting a six-link is "too difficult." I disagree with these people because the "best" gear should logically be difficult to attain. I also don't agree that there shouldn't be randomness in the crafting system.

However, I think there is a minor design flaw in the game when someone spends 1,000 orbs of fusing that took a week to farm and walk away with nothing to show for it. ARPG's are fun because of progression, and a person's competent actions (aka, successfully and efficiently farming fusings) should result in some kind of progression, while incompetent actions (charging into a group of 50 monsters and dying) should be dealt with punitively. Playing the game for a week and then having nothing to show for it because you didn't "click your orbs right" just doesn't make sense from a game design, fun factor standpoint.

So to remedy this situation, I think a simple element of progression should be added to gear-fusing. I suggest adding a "fuse quality" to gear, and this is how it might work:

Every time you use an orb of fusing on a piece of gear, it would increase the "fuse quality" of the gear regardless of whether you attained your desired effect of 4, 5, or 6 fused sockets. This "fuse quality" could be a lot like the quality gained on gear by armorers scraps, except that each increase in fuse quality on your gear would give you incrementally better results on your NEXT attempt to fuse your gear.

So for instance, let's say you have 500 orbs of fusing and want to get a six link on your godly, 6 gem bow. Each time you use an orb of fusing on that bow, the fuse quality ticks up by some amount. After 10 orbs of fusings have been used, it might give you a 100 percent better chance of getting a 4 link, a 20 percent better chance to get a 5 link, and a 3 percent better chance to get a 6 link. At 100 orbs used, you might have a 25 percent better chance of getting a 6 link on the next orb used. At 250 orbs, 50 percent, and so forth. What's more, gear could never lose its fuse quality, so every orb you use on it always makes it "better." So in essence, even if you use all 500 of your orbs and failed to get a 6 link, you have still progressed in the game and are numerically closer to your goal. Your competent actions have still bore fruit. The players reaction goes from being "wow, I just wasted a week of my life" to "well, at least I'm moving in the right direction."

So to summarize, this method still retains the intriguing and often times addictive element of random chance but also adds an element of progression.

Honestly, I'm not too concerned about the crafting system as stands now. I actually like it very much. But its attention to these little details, I think, that has made Path of Exile such an exceptional game so far.

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MaxTheLimit wrote:

As it is right now, adding %quality increases the chance of a good roll when socketing and fusing. The reason I like this system a bit better than the one you are suggesting is that you can easily manufacture armour scraps, and whetstones through picking up %quality gear. This can happen pretty quickly. It can take a long time to pick up jewelers orbs, fusing orbs, or the recipes to buy them.

I'm not sure that it would take 1000 orbs of fusing now, with the new %quality, unless you were REALLY unlucky.

I do have a question about your suggestion though. How would the number of fusings used on an item be discoverable? Like, if you traded the item to another player, would there be a stat on it saying it has had x amount of fusings put into it already? Or would the fusings used be wiped away? OR! would it be just a behind the scenes calculation the player would have to keep track of?

I think your response doesn't really address my point. Your making a point about difficulty. Yes, armor scraps and whetstones can be used to improve your odds of getting a 6 link, but I'm not making a case to make fusing easier. I'm making a point about progression. The system currently in place involving armor scraps and whetstones and the system I'm suggesting aren't exclussive. I like that you can use whetstone and armor scraps to improve your odds and I don't think that should change. My point is on the matter of progression. As it stands now with the current system, it is possible to toss 1000 fusings down the drain and have NOTHING to show for it, even though you didn't do anything to play poorly. That is the crux of the problem.

And yeah, the "fuse quality" stat would appear just like the current "quality" stat as soon as you use an orb of fusing on it. I would even recommend a tooltip that tells you what your chances are based on the "fuse quality" level when you right click an orb of fusing and hover over the piece of gear.

I think this is an amazing idea, this is how I expected the system to work back when I didn't know much about the game mechanics and, quite frankly, it's because it actually makes sense. This is how the system should work, in my opinion, because I think I should have some sort of guarantee that, if I want to make a 6-socket or 5-link item, based on the probabilities, I should get that with, say, 1000 fusings.

If this system were to be implemented, by the time the player used 1000 fusings\jewellers (or whatever number you think is reasonable), they should have something close to 100% chance of rolling the max amount of sockets\links.

The item level restrictions should still be kept, I'm only talking about rolling the max number of sockets\links on an item according to its lvl. If the player had a "guaranteed" number of fusings\jewellers for getting a 6-socket or 6-link, it would be motivational for one, as opposed to the "what if i farm non stop for a week and get nothing at the end?" kind of discouragement that Demiansky spoke of. I think it's an excellent idea. Just my two cents.

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CJBlack wrote:

I think this is an amazing idea, this is how I expected the system to work back when I didn't know much about the game mechanics and, quite frankly, it's because it actually makes sense. This is how the system should work, in my opinion, because I think I should have some sort of guarantee that, if I want to make a 6-socket or 5-link item, based on the probabilities, I should get that with, say, 1000 fusings.

If this system were to be implemented, by the time the player used 1000 fusings\jewellers (or whatever number you think is reasonable), they should have something close to 100% chance of rolling the max amount of sockets\links.

The item level restrictions should still be kept, I'm only talking about rolling the max number of sockets\links on an item according to its lvl. If the player had a "guaranteed" number of fusings\jewellers for getting a 6-socket or 6-link, it would be motivational for one, as opposed to the "what if i farm non stop for a week and get nothing at the end?" kind of discouragement that Demiansky spoke of. I think it's an excellent idea. Just my two cents.

Right, this perfectly captures what I was getting at. And really, when you get down to it, there aren't really any negative side effects with this kind of system. It's just as hard to actually GET a 5 or 6 link, but the player is no longer punished by arbitrary game mechanics.

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MaxTheLimit wrote:

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Demiansky wrote:

I think your response doesn't really address my point. Your making a point about difficulty. Yes, armor scraps and whetstones can be used to improve your odds of getting a 6 link, but I'm not making a case to make fusing easier. I'm making a point about progression. The system currently in place involving armor scraps and whetstones and the system I'm suggesting aren't exclussive. I like that you can use whetstone and armor scraps to improve your odds and I don't think that should change. My point is on the matter of progression. As it stands now with the current system, it is possible to toss 1000 fusings down the drain and have NOTHING to show for it, even though you didn't do anything to play poorly. That is the crux of the problem.

So you are suggesting that both systems remain in place, yes? How would you implement it in a way that DOESN'T make fusing 5 links to 6 sockets easier?

Not dumping on the idea, just wondering.

Further to question it, if you plan for the existing system and the fusing quality to remain, would they be stackable? Would you be able to increase your odds by adding fusing and setting the quality of an item to 20%? If so, is your idea to balance the difficulty of fusing 6 sockets, to scale back the bonus to fusing for quality, and shift this partially over to your 'fusing quality'?

Would this also create a 'jewelers quality'? Would the number of jewelers orbs spent go towards a higher quality result for sockets?

Thanks for being polite about your critique. Getting a 5 or 6 link would be just as hard as before with the new system, but the devs would just have to make a few minor tweaks. Let me illustrate.

Let's say that the average number of fusings it takes to get a 6 link is 500 with the current system. Each time you use a fusing, your chances are the same, irrelevant of how many fusings you've used before. With the new system, to keep the average number of fusings needed at 500, you would simply make it harder on the earlier fusings than the previous system and then progressively make things easier. At some equilibrium point like 300 or 350, you would have the SAME chance of getting a 6 link as you had in the previous system, and everything past that point would be easier than the old system. In both systems though, you would still need an average of 500 fusings to get a 6-link, though.

I suppose you could have a jewelers quality as well, though jewelers orbs aren't as painfully expensive as fusings.

As for armor scraps and whetstones, they could still retain their benefit to the process of fusing without actually influencing fuse quality (otherwise it will dramatically screw up the market value of these goods).

OP nailed this problem on the head --- with a brilliant and simple solution.

Nothing else needs to be said.
This game is of a genre whereby we play in order to progress - currently with PoE game design, progression is literally non-existant. It is non-existant because it is completely up to the sheer roll of an RNG. Which doesnt equal progression, it equals mass-exclusion and selective inclusion. Those that get lucky, progress --- those that dont, wont.

The only thing that keeps the majority of players who are severely wasted and unhappy with the non-progression aspect of this game is how good it is in so many other ways.
However, that will wane.

Progression is a crucial element to this genre of game, without which, the game will die. That is a fact. Look at any of the previous games in this genre as proof.

I +1 the OP's discussion and solution as they are both right on target.

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DirkAustin wrote:

Why are 6L even so important? It seems like they're mandatory for most players.

You just answered your own question.