Open Letter to Qarl, regarding topics discussed in RMT thread
" This is actually a different, although highly stimulating topic. Intrinsically nobody will want to trade for something at a cost greater than the average cost to craft it (with some exception). This then is the crux of the currency use vs currency trade dilemma, again a different topic from currency hoard vs currency use - although absolutely related. I also wrote a topic on that subject, posted here. I describe the problem and what can be done to remedy it. I was partial to a certain solution but there are many alternatives, most of which involve some form or another of item death. Want to Fix the Economy, Bad Loot, Trade and Legacy PvP? pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/548056
Open Letter to Qarl on Crafting Value pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/805434 Biggest Problem with Mapping: Inconsistent Risk to Reward pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/612507 |
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@OP: Nice to see myself cited as a reference. :)
However, I believe it's vitally important to have some property of items be exclusive as map rewards, even for white items. Since the main draw for high-map-farmed items is their itemlevel, I believe this is the one property which should be unalterable by gambling. This, of course, does not preclude the ability to change base item type within the confines of itemlevel, so that part of your suggestion is acceptable. Actually, more than acceptable; actionable. "I feel I should take a moment to explain why I'm concerned with how players hoard orbs. I feel rather strongly that good game design is about offering depth in decision-making. By "depth" here, I specifically mean that choices are both meaningful and difficult, with a variety of factors; no choice should be meaningless, and no choice should be easy. And this is the primary concern I have when I see players hoarding orbs. My concern doesn't lie so much in their hoarding itself; it's their choice. What does bother me, however, is how I can easily see how their choice is probably correct. There isn't nearly enough doubt about what the proper choice is. This is a problem, because the key to giving players strong decision-making opportunities is to add so much science to decision-making that it becomes an art. A fantastic example of this is hold-em poker; although the choices themselves are very elegant, there is a large amount of depth — there are a large number of factors which can go into a particular decision, not all of which must be deemed relevant. The amount of calculation and uncertainty of calculation completion leads it to feel more like art than science. As a result of this "artness," it's very hard to definitively agree or disagree with a particular action when watching another competent poker player — at the very least, there is a lot of room for debate. The current decision-making process behind whether to use orbs, or not, is very far from this ideal at present. Determinations regarding orb use are simplistic to the point of no longer feeling like gameplay, but more like an automatic decision. Optimal strategies can be paraphrased with 95% accuracy into a single sentence. This is why all of the factors mentioned in the OP are important. It's not that hoarding orbs is inherently a bad thing, that GGG should be fighting to make sure every orb gets used. Emphatically, this is not the case; if it was simplicity itself to know you use every orb as you get it, and never stash it, then that would essentially be swinging the pendulum to the opposite extreme of the same problem. It's that knowing to hoard orbs is a inherently a bad thing; there should be doubt, and for engaging gameplay involving orb use, there must be doubt. As a final note, there are some things about orb use which do have depth. These are normally the cause of the various "do I exalt this?" threads. However, pay careful attention to the things which are never considered in these discussions; in general, low itemlevels, and especially low base item types... essentially, anything before low maps. It's also interesting to look at the things which are most debatable in such threads, and which are the most agreed upon. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on Feb 26, 2014, 10:13:02 PM
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" Do you believe hoarding and never using currency is the correct choice? If so, why? | |
So nice of you to join the discussion Scrotie. That is indeed the same attitude I approached the topic from. Perhaps I should have focused more on my motives than the particulars inherent to the solution. Nevertheless, it appears that erratum has been corrected by you and we can move on.
" In the first draft of the OP this was mentioned explicitly. In my proposed solution capacitated items could (re)roll higher ranges and base types but not necessarily item level. The intention being to prevent the traditional property modification on these enhanced items, thus keeping traditional modification exclusive. After some review I revised this to be instead a function of content-gated reagents i.e. requiring a superior base type and higher item level reagent that must be got in later content. Assuming some value sacrifice and RNG, this to me seemed suitable over unclear item level exclusivity. My intention, then, was to simplify for the sake of comprehension as I apprehended trouble in that regard. Overall, I'm not attached to any of the particulars mentioned as much as I want them to work and improve the game experience - that is creating meaningful (difficult) choices. Want to Fix the Economy, Bad Loot, Trade and Legacy PvP? pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/548056 Open Letter to Qarl on Crafting Value pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/805434 Biggest Problem with Mapping: Inconsistent Risk to Reward pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/612507 Last edited by Veta321#3815 on Feb 26, 2014, 10:53:47 PM
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"Not quite; there are two key exceptions: 1) rolling maps. Obviously. 2) items with the "good" bases, and of itemlevel 75 or higher. I imagine you can kind of toss in a #3, fun factor, but let's get real about that — it's playing suboptimally for a change of pace. So considering only the serious two, a great many players actually never reach the stage of gameplay where orb use is incentivized, helping to perpetuate the widely-believed myth that it's never correct to use orbs, ever; for these players, the myth may as well be true. For more on why I believe statement #2 is true, see the opening post. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
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Scrotie didn't say there's only one correct choice at all times, he was concerned there was only one correct choice at a given time.
Ex1. Level 5 character finds an Exalt. Hoarding is clearly better than using on a Rare Rusted Sword. Ex2. Level 70 mapping character finds an Exalt. Trading for better gear is clearly better than hoarding it or trying to craft a low map (ilvl 66-70) item. Ex3. Level 90 character finds an Exalt. He clearly uses it on his crafting target, and after he does, he goes back to trade chat to try and get more exalts/eternals. --- To tie this in with Veta's desired goal, the level 5 character could use it on that Rare Rusted Sword, and then use another orb on it later, and another, and so on, until he's level 90 with a sword that he's been crafting all game. To tie this in with Scrotie's suggestion from way back, the character finds 20 exalt dust. He can use 1 on that rare rusted sword, 5 on the sword he's using at level 70, or 20 on the sword he's using at level 90. Last edited by pneuma#0134 on Feb 26, 2014, 10:44:35 PM
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" Well this is easy to answer, because its better. Why ? Because you can then buy something through trade of which the outcome is certain. Lets face it , only after hoarding a certain amount of orbs ( ridiculous amounts ) does it become entice to use them. Because when you hoard thousands of alterations and exalts and other currency items does it become certain that you will be able to make a proper item. With the crafting in it's current state noone will use orbs to get a better item. With the exception of people that have so much orbs that they eliminate the chance/gamble side of things. Want to make a weapon with 3 top tiers ? You should have at least a few thousand alterations (100's chaos worth of alterarions) and many hundreds of regals added to that dozens of exalts and eternal orbs. Only then would you be able to make a BiS item. And if anyhitng everyone is triving to make a BiS item. It shouldn't be easy , but it shouldn't be this hard either. Thats why we hoard orbs. If we have enough we can buy a propper item or if we have insane amounts we can craft them. But only and only when you have lots of orb's. If currency drops were x10 what it is now it would end up that still only a select few can craft with it. I crafted this with about 200 alterations, I wanted one thing and one thing only , max crit roll. Took me 200 alterations to get there... Got the roll I wanted , regaled it and its a piece of crap. Should have bought something better , probably. Adding to the insults is that all the alterations a farmed myself. To farm this much alterations took hours on hours and I ended up with this. Mind you that of all the rare daggers that droped during that time I found one ( maybe two ) daggers with a crit roll higher then 20%. So how do people gear up? Well you hoard currency , then buy items that allow you to farm currency faster. No other way is possble with the exception of RMTing and no lifing. |
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Just to back up Scrotie and pneuma here, I thought Chris said something along the lines of GGG being dissatisfied with orbs/crafting because orbs were being using on too few pieces of gear, only the top-of-the-line stuff. Basically at the point that the eternal/exalt process comes into play. As it stands, it's irrational to use alchs/chaos to supplement your drops or hope for something good because the map rolling system sinks them and keeps their value too high to do so. Maybe alching a neck/ring every now and again when there's a recipe to return some of the cost, but by and large, those currencies can't really be used for what's implied in the item description. And the strictures only get tighter as you go up in currency rarity.
EDIT: Note that we're talking about affix rolling. Linking is effectively a separate system, and did see substantial improvements with 1.0. Last edited by Uvne#0425 on Feb 26, 2014, 11:01:34 PM
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With regards to Polla's grievance, that was less the case before the introduction of Eternal Orbs. Whose original intent of facilitating linking, while noble, proved secondary (even tertiary) to its value in property modification. Thus the Eternal Orb became the throttle of item modifying currency use. A most demoralizing development for those outside the highest economic echelons.
Want to Fix the Economy, Bad Loot, Trade and Legacy PvP? pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/548056 Open Letter to Qarl on Crafting Value pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/805434 Biggest Problem with Mapping: Inconsistent Risk to Reward pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/612507 Last edited by Veta321#3815 on Feb 26, 2014, 11:07:52 PM
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" Yes. Absolutely. I can tell you why in four simple reasons; 1. My odds of rolling what I want are nill. 2. I can let some other fool/rich folk blow all his orbs, and buy it. 3. It can potentially ruin my character if I run out of orbs before I return my items to 'usable'. 4. There is no loss in hoarding. I can even tell you the exact moment I broke; I tried to use chromatic orbs on the Aursize gauntlets, hoping for four blues. This is a four-socket item, and lower level, so I thought I had a chance. I spent over 200 chromatic orbs and did not get my roll. I have hoarded orbs and never crafted since. You're drop rate is good, I have good items, good unique items, etc, but I do not 'work' on them. For example: I will NEVER try to 6L this. I hoard all my fuse instead. They are worth more than me losing them all trying. I bet you dollars to donuts, that I could save up all my fuse, buy this item already 6L before I did it myself. It's absolutely no question it's better to hoard orbs. Last edited by gr00grams#5298 on Feb 26, 2014, 11:06:44 PM
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