Making Crafting Useful for Acquiring Endgame Gear

[Arionthe]

Simple idea, one more craftable orb called Refinement Orb.
What it does is this: enhance the attribute by taking the avg of the current attribute and the (max attribute-1).

For example current attribute is 80, max is 90. So when applying this attribute, you will see (80+90-1)/2= 84. This can be applied multiple times to multiple attributes like the current celestial orb.

The crafting cost of this orb should be between 1/8 to 1/3 of a c.orb. This way a crafted legendary set/unique has a non cost prohibitive way to make it endgame quality. Still not trivial thus the crafting material cost acting as a balancing tool.

If you want perfection, one still needs c.orb for that final finishing touch.

Comments?

[FendyBt2]

if it does the same thing like the current CO with an additional -1 max value, then it's better to cut the current CO cost than making another orb to do the same thing...

[Arionthe]

if it does the same thing like the current CO with an additional -1 max value, then it's better to cut the current CO cost than making another orb to do the same thing...

It is not the same thing. See my example. CO only improves an attribute by 1. But this new orb can improve it by a lot more while costing a lot less. However this orb can never get you to perfection.

Starting at 80, instead of 10 CO to get to 90, you just need 80-84-87-88-89-90. Where only the final one is CO. Huge difference.

[FendyBt2]

It is not the same thing. See my example. CO only improves an attribute by 1. But this new orb can improve it by a lot more while costing a lot less. However this orb can never get you to perfection.

Starting at 80, instead of 10 CO to get to 90, you just need 80-84-87-88-89-90. Where only the final one is CO. Huge difference.

yes... what you're saying is correct... and what I'm saying is... it's the same thing if we reduce the current CO cost and we'll get the same result as you suggested... let's make an example...

what you're suggesting is that you will only need 5 of the new orb to get to 90 and 1 current CO to make it perfect... correct?

so, for example... let's say the current CO cost 800k... and the new orb will cost 200k each... so you need 5 new orb = 1mil + 1 current CO = 800k... and a total of 1.8mil and you'll get to 90... correct?

and what I'm saying is to reduce the cost of the current CO from 800k to let's say 300k... and you need 10 CO = 3mil to get to 90... and what if we reduce the cost to 200k for 1 CO? then we only need 2mil to get to 90... you'll get the same result as the new orb you're suggesting...

that's why I said it's better to cut the current CO cost than making another orb to do the same thing... you don't have to make a new orb... just reduce the current CO cost to get the same result...

[Arionthe]

Then you make the gap between almost perfect and perfect too cheap to bridge. The cheaper orb is a way to make things endgame usable. But reserve the super expensive CO for the perfectionists. In other words, doing it your way is too much of a giveaway to the high end players. We want life easier for the up and coming players. High end players don’t need as much help as they already sit on millions of everything.

[narf]

This doesn't really help the one of the fundamental problems in the endgame. You can only get better gear. Besides lboxes and epecially cboxes come with close to perfect stats anyway. High trial levels drop gears with narrowed stat range and a high ML means you can easily craft gear with 1-2 perfect stats and the other two pretty high as bases. And ultimately you want everything celestial, which makes anything you do to maximize stats on legendary gear pointless anyway. And refinement orbs wouldn't work on celestials (88-90 range means they'd always roll 88, possibly even reducing stats).
And on top of that a few stat points aren't really worth it. I'd probably gain less than 1% damage, if all stats on my gear were perfect.

Although that gave me an idea: Introducing something akin to Vaal Orbs from Path of Exile. Those modify an item unpredictably and corrupt it(item can't be changed any more): Stats can be added or changed(to get stats, that'd otherwise be impossible to obtain in that slot), a bunch of other effects, no change or poof.
Possible effects for Eternium would be:
Adding a random enchantment, add a socket(2 enchants, enchant on for example helmet or 2(or 3) sockets would be possible that way), maximize all stats on that item, no change and - of course - poof.

Would make grinding legendaries worthwile again to get the right effect or replace a lost item.

[Arionthe]

This suggestion is my attempt to bridge the current gear gap using the crafting system that has very limited utility currently. To recap, the current crafting system is good at only three things: 1) Enchants for endgame quality gear 2)CO for perfectionist and big time grinders 3)missing set6 pieces during ANB. Notice none of them really offers much in the way of helping newer players get upto speed. Using the crafting system and expecting endgame quality items has almost nil chance of a happy outcome. One is far better off grinding TL90 and hoping for a good drop. But how to smooth the way for someone new to get to the "I can grind TL90 for drops".

Depending on your perspective, only equipment that can be considered endgame quality is Cbox. But supply of Cbox is limited and hard to acquire (time/effort/frequency of ANB). Only the top players can hope to outfit their char in full Cbox. So this tier is non-mainstream, not the target of my suggestion.

Next tier is Lbox. These are Good gear, and can get you to the grind TL90 stage. However the supply of LBox, while more plentiful, is still limited and not something one can acquire by playing normally. This suggestion is targeted squarely at this tier. How one can get Lbox quality gear through normal playing --> either craft the base set eq or a decent drop --> farm crafting material to create enough Refinement Orbs to get this gear to LBox quality. How much effort this should take determines the crafting cost of Refinement Orbs.

Now with the above explained, narf started this fork about what can we add to endgame play.

I'm all for adding more variety to the endgame. It's more a separate discussion though. My thoughts on that is this:

Vaal Orbs or Dark Scrolls (from maplestory), anything that can add impossible to get effects to an item while having the possibility of destroying the said item is good. The only caveat to this idea should be a non too grindy way to secure a supply of good enough gear for such experimentation. I for one will never subject my precious cbox gear to such throw of a dice. But Lbox quality items that I can make/craft without TOO much effort. Then that's fair game. So Narf's idea is a nice addition to the game and actually in someways requires my suggestion to be implemented in order to truly get utilized by the masses instead of being the province of a privileged few (I'm looking at Willy and Bart and Trouble etc.. the mega grinders)

[Coda]

narf glad to see you back (maybe you never left)

[FendyBt2]

Then you make the gap between almost perfect and perfect too cheap to bridge. The cheaper orb is a way to make things endgame usable. But reserve the super expensive CO for the perfectionists. In other words, doing it your way is too much of a giveaway to the high end players. We want life easier for the up and coming players. High end players don’t need as much help as they already sit on millions of everything.

I don't think you get my point... I'm not suggesting anything... you're the one that posted the suggestion and ask for comments... I'm just explaining with an example to make you understand my point... my point is simple... what you're suggesting is the same as asking to reduce the CO cost... that's all... if you still don't get that then it's pointless for me to keep explaining it over and over again to make you understand... LOL...

and I agree with narf...

[BAgate]

I don't think this is necessary. There should be some grinding required. Already high level gear is too easy to obtain (boxes, new crafting, etc.). I don't think it is too much to ask players to actually spend some time to acquire good gear.

[Arionthe]

I don't think this is necessary. There should be some grinding required. Already high level gear is too easy to obtain (boxes, new crafting, etc.). I don't think it is too much to ask players to actually spend some time to acquire good gear.

The question is one of ROI. Currently the ROI on crafting equipment is abysmally low. You are far better off farming TL90 for drops. This suggestion is about helping the newer players who want to grind easier contents (story) and have a pathway to gain near endgame quality gear through crafting.

As it stands, huge part of the new crafting system will be left unused due to this low ROI. Would be such a waste of a carefully crafted system (pun intended).

Let's say one believes that a player should put in a solid 15hrs of grinding time for one Lbox level gear. Or say that number is 20hrs. Recall you gain several Lbox quality gear from an ANB event with a total time investment of perhaps 30-50hrs. So I wouldn't put the value of a lbox gear at more than 15hrs of grind time. It takes perhaps 6-8 RO (refinement orb) to bump a crafted legendary set gear to Lbox quality. Then the math should be simple. How much crafting material can one farm for 15 solid hours? Divide that by 6-8 should be the crafting cost of such a refinement orb. Right now you probably need to farm 300+hrs to get enough CO to bump a crafted set gear to Lbox quality. Hence crafting offers no realistic path of getting lbox quality gear.

This then offers lbox quality through effort and time invested. But no longer tied to participation in any event.

Devs put time/effort to put together this crafting system. Let's actually make it useful to the non hardcore players.

I hope to have made the motivation behind this suggestion clear by now.

[lama75]

The utility of this idea is to help newer players, i think. People that have been grinding but only have had the opportunity for a few lboxes.

It's hard to overstate how far from endgame quality crafting results are currently, even at ml50. It's not unusual to roll 3 bad stats, low 80's bad, and even get below 80. Using co's to fix these is completely impractical. It's also impractical to simply grind more materials and keep crafting a particular piece over and over. MoT's are not plentiful and set pieces require a lot of resources.

This idea would allow someone to fix a crafted piece, so to speak. Perhaps we're talking about a newer player that plays alot, but hasn't been in an ANB, has about 1500CL. They know what they want for stats on a piece of gear so they craft it, but get terrible results. Instead of scrapping it, they keep it and grind more, for these intermediate orbs that allow them to fix the rolls.

Again, using co's to do this would be completely impractical - probably 10's of hours worth of grinding. Plus, there may be a limit in the number of times a co can be applied to an attribute. Also, lowering the costs of co's currently won't happen because the states purpose of them is to allow players to make gear perfect. That means adjusting an 89 to a 90. Not an 81 to even an 85.

[Arionthe]

Exactly what the poster above said. Almost read my mind. *applaud*

[Coda]

What FendyBt2 wrote is pretty much correct, except that the amount of benefit this proposed Refinement Orb would yield, as it is proposed, is variable. The lower the stat, the more benefit.

Example 1:
Stat = 72. Apply this orb you would get [(90-1)+72]÷2= 80.5 or plus 8.5. Which is 8.5 Celestial orbs worth of gain!

Example 2:
Stat = 80.5. Apply this orb you would get 84.75 or +4.25 which is "only" ~4 C.orbs worth. Still good.

Example 3:
Stat = 84.75. Apply this orb you would get 86.875 or +2.125, which is ~2 C.Orbs. Still ok.

Example 4:
Stat = 86.875. Apply this orb you would get 87.9375 or plus a little but more than 1, so still worth more than 1 C. orb. Still the better choice.

Only when the stat is greater than 87, would this orb be "worse" than using a C.orb. However, if the cost of this orb were 1/8 to 1/3 the cost of a C.Orb, now we have to take that into account as well.

If the cost were 1/4 (just an example) then using it for bumping a stat from 88.5 --> to 88.75 would be the equivalent of using one C.Orb for 1 point that cost 4X the resources. At that point, it would then make more sense to apply a C.Orb for the bump from 88.75 to 89.75.

You could accomplish this same thing, more or less, by making the C.Orb bump a stat by a variable but diminishing amount, but not less than a certain fixed minimum value (minimum = what the current C.orbs do), and the stat cannot exceed its respective max (also like it is currently).

[FendyBt2]

You could accomplish this same thing, more or less, by making the C.Orb bump a stat by a variable but diminishing amount, but not less than a certain fixed minimum value (minimum = what the current C.orbs do), and the stat cannot exceed its respective max (also like it is currently).

This... ^

Exactly my point... so, instead of suggesting to create a new orb which basically do the same thing and it will also increase the current workload for the Devs, why not ask for this new formula to be implemented into the currently already existed CO... that way we all get what we wanted and everybody will be happy...