"Horadric Cube" aka Magic Box

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Chris wrote:

Most of the functions it would perform can be done with our currency items or vendors.

are we going to get a sneak peak at how vendors work soon?

thanks chris

The cube was a mechanic for crafting. You cannot really replace 'crafting' per se with other functionality (items, gems, shops simply can't perform portable crafting)... so the question really is, should there be crafting in POE, and if so, how would it be implemented.

I seriously disliked the cube due to the implementation of random'ish recipes. I feel that a good crafting system is not esoteric and the recipes are not hidden from the community. At the very most, secret recipes should drop as loot and be required to perform the recipe.

That being said a thing that the cube did right:

The cube allowed crafting anywhere, not just in a town. Fixed location crafting is a terrible system.

So ultimately a good crafting system is simple, portable, and allows for unique production of items not elsewhere obtained without usurping power from other systems (ie. the best items aren't from recipes) A good crafting system also reuses a couple core ingredients so as to not burden the player with carrying multiple ingredients all the time. Crafting should be available on the fly as you get lucky and find appropriate ingredients... perhaps to refill flasks or provide temporary boosts or more powerful effects like temporary augmentation of items, or to combine items into some other item (item gambling)

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zeto wrote:

The cube was a mechanic for crafting. You cannot really replace 'crafting' per se with other functionality (items, gems, shops simply can't perform portable crafting)...

First of all i think your other thoughts on crafting are great and i agree with all of those.
But i don't get the point why it is so important that you can craft everywhere. And i don't understand why that isn't possible with items... I don't think that the currency items can be used in town only so you will be able to use them wherever you want... So just an example: If you found a good white item you can use your enchant currency item instantly (if you have it in your inventory) and the item will be enchanted. With the horadric cube it was more or less the same. You found an item and you wanted to upgrade it => Put it in your cube and press create => done. So seriously, i don't see the difference.

Please rethink the portability, humans are already going mad about picking up loot during fights, and crafting commonly takes more time.

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Rhesos wrote:

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zeto wrote:

The cube was a mechanic for crafting. You cannot really replace 'crafting' per se with other functionality (items, gems, shops simply can't perform portable crafting)...

First of all i think your other thoughts on crafting are great and i agree with all of those.
But i don't get the point why it is so important that you can craft everywhere. And i don't understand why that isn't possible with items... I don't think that the currency items can be used in town only so you will be able to use them wherever you want... So just an example: If you found a good white item you can use your enchant currency item instantly (if you have it in your inventory) and the item will be enchanted. With the horadric cube it was more or less the same. You found an item and you wanted to upgrade it => Put it in your cube and press create => done. So seriously, i don't see the difference.

The difference is simply in the partiality of the ingredients and the flexibility of recipes.

In the case of currency items, they represents an entire recipe. They are exactly the same as a single completed recipe.

In the case of ingredients items 1, 2, 3, 4... 1+2+3 could be one effect. 1+2+4 is another effect. 2+3+4 is another, and so on. Depending on what you want at the time, and the luck you have on your way, you might have access to only a small subset of crafting options at any given time. This flexibility is not possible with currency items.

To keep it simple, there should only be a few crafting buff ingredients that represent categories... the only thing that changes is the quality of the ingredients. So you'd get 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b, 2c, etc. So you could have 1+2+item = random positive buff. 2+3+flask = refill some charges.

Anyway point is that with completed recipes you have no choices, but in ingredients based recipes you have a choice which you'd like to complete.

@zeto: Are you suggesting ingredients that create currency items?

It might be useful to have a cube for gems, weapons, armor, and items one has no use for to transform them unless gold is hard to come by and everything has to sold.

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Kahoder wrote:

@zeto: Are you suggesting ingredients that create currency items?

To some degree yes, however only if currency items can cover all the possible functions of the cube.

The part that is not represented by currency items that is represented by ingredients is the tradeoff between currency items.

Example: currency items

you find item 1 and item 2. You now have 2 concrete recipes.

Example: ingredients

you find ingredient 1, 2, and 3. You now have 1 concrete recipe (either 1+2 XOR 2+3)

Currency items are indivisible and cannot offer this functionality.