WORLD FIRST USE of Vaal orb

Agreed that the currency and crafting system is a complete, utter, and abysmal failure. This goes beyond a system that may be simply worthless; no, crafting (i.e. gambling) in this game is actively bad.

It is always a mistake to attempt to craft an item. Yes, it's possible to have that one-in-a-million positive result, but the Expected Value of every crafting attempt is negative.

The proper choice is always to skip crafting and simply save up currency to trade for what you want. Crafting is an idiot-trap, punishing players for believing that GGG intends for them to craft.

The whole thing is hilariously bad from a designer standpoint, too. You never want to create Points of Failure for your game (mechanics that make players quit). GGG went ahead and based their entire game around Points of Failure! I quit for several months every time I blow hundreds of a currency and end up worse off than before. Each time I come back, I give Path of Exile proportionally less time until I'm back to 'screw this garbage'.

The crafting system can only be saved by changing orbs to 'do nothing or improve the item', not 'wreck the item or improve the item' as they are now. Vaal Orbs are fine, whatever, I'm talking Jeweller's Orbs that never reduce sockets, only do nothing or add sockets, for example.

That way we could ACTUALLY craft our items without risking our freaking build!