Thinking Outside the Box: What if we had dust instead of orbs?

like your ideas and articles, scrotie, it's always a pleasure to read. il also find charans arguments valid as the consequences would be that low level areas will be less rewarding eventually because high level players have a stronger voice in forums than low level players.

i've always argumented changing all orbs in a way that they have a chance to apply their intended effect.

wouldn't the problem of orbs being hoarded and traded rather than used for crafting in lower levels be partially solved if orbs had a higher chance to succeed the lower the itemlevel of the item is?

In order to fight of some of the psychological impacts feared, one could just try this rework around Orbs (nothing else!) and implement your suggested values on items as "Orb/Shard Usage" instead of an alien sounding "Dust System". Currently present Currency could be split up into shards and used for low-level crafting, global currency drop rates would not require any adjustments and people could change their trading behavior over time.

I can imagine this way player won't feel too much embarrassed out of the proposed changes.

Sorry if you already acknowledged this points, was just jumping in after reading the OP. Really awesome idea to center crafting/gambling changes around the items themselves instead of the currency. The potential is great. GGG could even increase the Orb/Shard Usage value on items in connection with already present mods on crafted item to ramp up the currency sink if needed.

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geradon wrote:

like your ideas and articles, scrotie, it's always a pleasure to read. il also find charans arguments valid as the consequences would be that low level areas will be less rewarding eventually because high level players have a stronger voice in forums than low level players.

i've always argumented changing all orbs in a way that they have a chance to apply their intended effect.

wouldn't the problem of orbs being hoarded and traded rather than used for crafting in lower levels be partially solved if orbs had a higher chance to succeed the lower the itemlevel of the item is?

1) While I can't comment on the general temperament of the forums there is nothing in Scrotie's post suggesting low lvl content becomes less rewarding. Charan suggested that but it was a misunderstanding.

2) I assume you mean something similar to PolarisOrbit's suggestion. The idea there being that currency has a better chance to roll desirable properties at lower ilvl. There's a couple problems with that. First you have to define desirable properties and then make them more likely. Second that might not even encourage low level crafting as you are still sacrificing full currency for temporary gain. The issue is that currency is significantly more valuable for permanent itemization and maps, which themselves drop end game items. Even cheap low lvl crafting has tremendous opportunity cost in the end game.

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geradon wrote:

wouldn't the problem of orbs being hoarded and traded rather than used for crafting in lower levels be partially solved if orbs had a higher chance to succeed the lower the itemlevel of the item is?

It won't be solved, and crafting already has a higher chance to achieve the wanted goal the lower the ilvl is.

If you want a top-tier bracket on a mid-level item, you only need to roll against about 3 other brackets.

If you want a top-tier bracket on a top-level item, you need to roll against 6 other brackets.

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Sonnac wrote:

I'm not a developer so I wouldn't actually know if this system is much less a bother to implement.

Could you elaborate more on what you mean by charges. Do you mean 10 charges = 10 uses? And then higher ilvl uses more charges? If so then players will be trading in charges instead of orbs. Why even have orbs? Orbs stack so how would you convey stacks of orbs with different charges?

What's nice about dust is that it's easy to understand, accumulate and trade.

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Nightmare90 wrote:

In order to fight of some of the psychological impacts feared, one could just try this rework around Orbs (nothing else!) and implement your suggested values on items as "Orb/Shard Usage" instead of an alien sounding "Dust System".

"Dust" is just a design name. Leave it to someone else to figure out what the proper name of such a system should be. ;p The reason I used the term was that it conveys the mechanical concepts quickly and clearly to other people... however, what the term "dust" doesn't necessarily do well is make the system sound cool, or have the appropriate Wraeclastian flavor, or make it feel like a joy to loot when monsters drop it.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Nightmare90 wrote:

In order to fight of some of the psychological impacts feared, one could just try this rework around Orbs (nothing else!) and implement your suggested values on items as "Orb/Shard Usage" instead of an alien sounding "Dust System".

"Dust" is just a design name. Leave it to someone else to figure out what the proper name of such a system should be. ;p

It's more relevant than simple naming -- centering the idea around shards eliminates the issue relating to "legacy orbs".

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ephetat wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Nightmare90 wrote:

In order to fight of some of the psychological impacts feared, one could just try this rework around Orbs (nothing else!) and implement your suggested values on items as "Orb/Shard Usage" instead of an alien sounding "Dust System".

"Dust" is just a design name. Leave it to someone else to figure out what the proper name of such a system should be. ;p

It's more relevant than simple naming -- centering the idea around shards eliminates the issue relating to "legacy orbs".

Well that I really disagree with. Shards (smaller unusable fragments of orbs, which make full orbs eventaully) and dust are actually completely different mechanics.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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ephetat wrote:

It's more relevant than simple naming -- centering the idea around shards eliminates the issue relating to "legacy orbs".

Well that I really disagree with. Shards (smaller unusable fragments of orbs, which make full orbs eventaully) and dust are actually completely different mechanics.

This way higher-level crafting could still resolve around Orbs and maintain their economy value and on the other hand make it a reasonable option to split Currency into shards for low-level crafting. One could argue that it should be only possible to split Orbs, not restructure them into full Orbs again. Orbs still drop as normal, one need to take into consideration if you want to give up on later on potential trading/crafting material for an easier early level experience.

Less work for GGG and pretty much the same effects. The most important part of your suggestion is, imo, the centering on the "Dust Usage" value on items. If we could just get a notion of that, it would be a betterment of the current gambling system.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Well that I really disagree with. Shards (smaller unusable fragments of orbs, which make full orbs eventaully) and dust are actually completely different mechanics.

That's the idea... why not give shards a use, instead of introducing something like dust? Granted, this would need the introduction of additional shard types, and the ability to shatter orbs into shards. And perhaps there would be a bonus for using the orb directly (leading to even less RNG whim)? But certainly it would avoid the legacy problem, and make the idea actually feasible to implement in some form. I support the idea and would like to see it go further than a well-made theorycraft.