Why I Believe RNG in Excess is Counter Productive

Hey Everyone,

It's hard to believe that the last post I made has over 26,000 views, all of you are great for looking at that one and contributing your thoughts and ideas towards the direction of the game. In this thread, I will try not to overlap with ideas in the last thread, but I would like to address where if things were improved, where they could possibly lead to.

Loot Tables: I think loot tables that have items that can only drop from a certain boss is a bad idea, I think that certain items that have an increased chance to drop from bosses, areas and difficult sections to be a good idea. There are a lot of items that aren't achievable to many players, Shavronne's Wrapping, Kaom's Heart etc. This idea would make it so you would at least have an area to go to to have a stronger chance to get these items, or at least farm them while actively seeking them on a trade chat. This also gives areas more value, many players don't stray far from farming Merveil for alts or Piety for chaos recipe. It makes it so players don't want to skip bosses instead of fight them and make people enjoy areas they might not have originally.

Resists: I think these need to be re-evaluated. I think either resist penalties should be removed or lessened for a few good reasons. Mostly, it isn't fun trying to get your gear to match up to the resist level, it's just busy work to make sure all your gear up to par. But the more important feature, is if it's easier to max out your resists. you gives you more creative freedom with the bosses. More players at full resists means that bosses can be more fierce, and you risk less one-shot forum posts of "I quit dis game and so did my friends." Having more players at full resists easier makes it so your bosses can be crazier while not doing so much damage it kills players faster than they can think, and in an unfair manner.

Linking gear: I would like to start by saying I am glad that there were changes to make 4 and 5 linking easier. This was a step in the right direction. I do think there should be a recipe for 5 linking an item however. Any serious end-game build will need a 5 link item. By making it as random and frustrating as the current system is, it can cause players to quit. I think my most rage inducing moments is spent trying to 5 link my items and wasting exalts worth of fusings. It's definitely not fun, and it's certainly too much of a gamble right now. With that said though, I think fusings are at a good place for getting a 6 link item. Those should truly be something to aspire for, and I don't think a recipe for them would be appropriate. This idea would make it so you could still chance using the fusings on an item for a 5 or 6 link item and have an alternative of getting a necessary 5 link by maybe vendoring a few stacks of fusings.

Mapping and End Game: I really like the thought of maps, it can create a nice varied experience, something new every time you go into a map. Actually with that said, the randomness of all the maps in the game, including the campaign ones are very fresh every time you enter them. However, there's undoubtedly a point where you will be going up tiers of maps and come up short, whether you're running that last level 70 map and not getting map drops to help you continue playing in them or you're selling certain maps to mitigate costs. I think a good way to counter this, while still making maps worth having and buying is to have the eternal laboratory let you go to maps in the same way waypoints let you travel across Wraeclast. This is a good idea because you can enter any map you'd like, but it'd be like going into a white one, thus making drop-able maps desirable as you can add affixes to them for greater reward. This makes it so you can come back more easily from bad map RNG.

Unique Breaking Down: This concept is something I think would be fun and useful for everyone. There's a certain excitement you get when a unique drops, but then there's also an equal disappointment when it's the same few poor uniques drop. I think a good way to promote everyone being happy for uniques to drop is give them a secondary use. If there was a way to break down uniques into shard or orb that could be used on an item to make a unique you wanted, it would help prices of uniques from reaching too high, give more control to a player. Let's try an example, say I want a Facebreaker, a build enabling unique without a doubt. Maybe I'm just having no luck with it dropping, with this theory I could take all the Karaui Wards, Blackheart Rings and so on and disenchant them or whatever name you'd want to give it, into a shard. Let's say it takes 5 shards to make an Orb of Legends and using this on a Strapped Leather would finally yield my facebreakers. A very broad example, but it's a better alternative to vendoring all those Heatshivers.

Pass Tree Imbalance: There's certain imbalances that are present in it, which I find counter productive. An easy example is that the new marauder tree has nodes that have 6% life and 6% armor, while the ranger has 4% life and 6% evasion. I think that 6% life should be good in both spots, as it creates a similar tree, while being very different in the other areas. The way it is now, the ranger is at disadvantage from a life build stand-point. Also, I think that the scion area is okay at 6% but only if other areas of the tree are buffed, for instance, the life node circle that is up by the traps, near the shadow tree are 8% life nodes with no variance, this doesn't promote you to want to get those, and to add value to them, I think at least the third node should be 12% or more, right now it's very difficult to build the right amount of life with the current tree because the value system of it is off in areas. There are concerns about some of the less used nodes, like energy shield recovery speed, and mana per kill, but without an entire overhaul, and admittedly no real suggestion on my end without further speculation, I can't comment on it. I think the best thing I can say, is I think there should be more consistency across the tree, making all classes relatively similar, but offering different types of damage being done, or life being gained.

Vendor Recipes: To me, this is crafting, this is how it should be. You can have variables that you have some control over, making it so you can get across tough times throughout the game. I think these should be expanded upon to armors that have life and resists, even if only a magic item, it would make it so it's possible to still progress in your game, while controlling how much power the player has. For instance, let's say you're in Act 2 cruel, that seems to be a stopping point where you need full resists. If you're having a really unlucky run with no currency drops, you could definitely get stuck here. If you could have a chest piece, a coral ring and a ruby ring, sold to a vendor, you might be able to have a Chest piece with Life and some fire resist. This is all easily farmable equipment, and would help you progress, while not cheapening gear's value.

Skill Gem Balance: Rather than nerfing the most popular gems, I think it would be a wise decision to focus on the weaker gems and increase their effectiveness. Right now the best options are very limited, or at least the alternatives are not looked at favorably due to the inflation of amazing skill gems. Moreso, I think any physical damage skill gems should have their quality bonuses changed to "% Damage increase" instead of "% Physical damage increase", other wise there's less incentive to go into elemental damage. Alternatively, I think "% Attack speed" would suffice.

Boss Balance: This issue was addressed in in 1.1.1, but I don't think it is as a whole. The bosses that can one shot, are hurting the game in spots. I think the panic a player will feel when going against bosses is great, but it should be delivered in a way that is fair. I know this is a popular example, so I apologize for using it, but Maker of Rain is a boss that's scary for the wrong reason. It does far too much physical damage that can't be mitigated due to the excessive attacks it has, and a lot of physical damage being dealt per shot. A way to make this a scary fight, in a good mechanic way would be to have it cast rain of tentacles, that slowly hits the player, doing 0.5% of their health per second, causing urgency, without being excessive, while still doing it's main attacks that would be toned down. It's hard to comment too much on this, as I know it's being looked at, especially right now for the new bosses, but there are various map bosses (Orchard boss comes to mind) where the bosses are incredibly over-turned and are nothing more than a gear check.

Reflect Mechanics: I actually like reflect as a mechanic, but not as an attribute. It's good to have so it makes you cautious, as long as it's not crazy enough to one shot you. I think it's in a pretty good spot, but I think a rare affix should be "Reflects 30% damage while in reflect mode." What is reflect mode? Let's say the enemy turns red, and while they are red, they will reflect that 30% more damage. This way you have to watch for the enemy to turn red and attack when it's not, or suffer consequences of your actions. I think it could make for a fun mechanic.

Lightning Thorns Mechanic: I believe this is one of the worst mechanics in the game. This is something that exists to punish fast attacks or spells, and is far too punishing. Anyone that attacks faster than 3 attacks per second will kill themselves on these in less than a second. I think what it should be changed to is that you do 1% of your life per attack as lightning damage. It makes it scary, but not punish towards fast casting or attacking builds. The game should focus on making all builds viable to an extent, not omitting some completely.

Auto-Sorting: I'm definitely trying to promote playing the game as oppose to spending time things that are less fun, and playing inventory tetris isn't very fun, it's never THAT time consuming, but it would be a Godsend to have it removed completely. Both Torchlight 2 and The Incredible Adventures of Van Hellsing use this feature, and what's nice about it is it frees up a lot of your time whilst playing. If we could get it in our stashes too, that'd be amazing. As a side note, I really like both game's Pet system where you can load up your pet and send them to town. It's a huge time saver and keep you in the action rather than being slowed down every time your inventory is full.

Control of Items: It's very apparent that RNG is rampart in this game's design. This can be viewed good on your end as a time sink, to keep casual and hardcore players alike interested and invested, but it's an issue when it affects the progression. Right now, most of the currency is too big of a gamble to be used too frequently, and often gets traded as currency, which is this game's gold, something this game promotes it doesn't have. Making these currency items have more favored rolls would cause more people to use currency and for it to be re-valued. If using an Orb of Alchemy on something had a higher chance of item rolling resists, that's good for any build or any character, making the orb a lot more desirable. I think we'd see more orbs being used as opposed to them being traded for items. It's a win-win, it's more fun to be rewarded than it is to be punished, and would help you progress through the game through a fun manner. You'll rarely get that perfect item, this system wouldn't change that, it would just help you enjoy the content presented, making trading still very much so viable and fun.

It's not that most of us don't enjoy the game, but we burn out when things waste our time. Things like having mask pieces be more rare than other mask pieces, which doesn't make any sense, it's just going to cause too many of the lower end pieces out there with no use. Moreso, gating content behind a wall of RNG is risky business, especially when it's promoting a race among people who can kill Atziri the fastest. If you're unlucky, you don't even have a chance at this content.

If you managed to get through everything, bravo, you have incredible patience, and I appreciate your reading. Please leave your thoughts, concerns and ideas towards what I said, and maybe add more, or go the other way and tell me if you respectfully disagree on certain things, these are all opinions after all! In the end I want to see this game improve, and I'm not seeing it in the current state of things.

Thank you for your time,

Jaxxxson

Agree completely with loot tables.

Resists are probably ok but not for their own sake but rather because everyone's simply gotten used to them.

In terms of linking gear I don't think it's the links themselves that are the issue but the colors. I don't know who said it, scrotie I think, but there shouldn't be a color restriction as there is now but rather a bonus to matching them this way gearing to new items doesn't make you want to punch your granmda in her stupid face.

I like your mapping idea though I doubt they'd ever do anything even close to that.

Uniques are in a good place considering their balance relative to the economy. That being said I do wish they at least made appropriate level uniques more likely to drop than lower level ones.

I would say the small variations in the passive tree you mentioned are thematically appropriate.

I personally hate vendor recipes as crafting and while that precedent has already been set I think GGG can one up that and make their own kick ass version of the mystic.

I agree with the skill gems.

I'd like to extend boss balance to balance as a whole and how it can be unfair to the player to get ganged up by 50 monsters and not be able to do anything about it. I offered an idea to fix this I'd like to reiterate in which there is a diminishing return to monster damage beyond a certain number. For example if there is a max damage limit of 100% to 3 carrion queens the 4th and 5th would only deal 25% of their damage so it gives the player a chance to not be insta-gibbed. This idea would extend logically as needed to other mobs.

I don't think having reflect turn off and on would limit dps as effectively as it does now.

Fuck lightning thorns.

In terms of too much rng and reducing it while not handing players D3 style easy wins look to Titan Quest for the perfect balance.


Good write up and I hope it generates a lot of productive discussion. :)

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

Agree completely with loot tables.

Resists are probably ok but not for their own sake but rather because everyone's simply gotten used to them.

In terms of linking gear I don't think it's the links themselves that are the issue but the colors. I don't know who said it, scrotie I think, but there shouldn't be a color restriction as there is now but rather a bonus to matching them this way gearing to new items doesn't make you want to punch your granmda in her stupid face.

I like your mapping idea though I doubt they'd ever do anything even close to that.

Uniques are in a good place considering their balance relative to the economy. That being said I do wish they at least made appropriate level uniques more likely to drop than lower level ones.

I would say the small variations in the passive tree you mentioned are thematically appropriate.

I personally hate vendor recipes as crafting and while that precedent has already been set I think GGG can one up that and make their own kick ass version of the mystic.

I agree with the skill gems.

I'd like to extend boss balance to balance as a whole and how it can be unfair to the player to get ganged up by 50 monsters and not be able to do anything about it. I offered an idea to fix this I'd like to reiterate in which there is a diminishing return to monster damage beyond a certain number. For example if there is a max damage limit of 100% to 3 carrion queens the 4th and 5th would only deal 25% of their damage so it gives the player a chance to not be insta-gibbed. This idea would extend logically as needed to other mobs.

I don't think having reflect turn off and on would limit dps as effectively as it does now.

Fuck lightning thorns.

In terms of too much rng and reducing it while not handing players D3 style easy wins look to Titan Quest for the perfect balance.


Good write up and I hope it generates a lot of productive discussion. :)

Thank you for posting!

For resists, they don't feel like an issue because Diablo II and beyond have kind of made them the way they are, but I feel like the system could be re-worked or made better, there's too much reliance on gear to have at least 2 resists, I'd like to see more fun itemization rather than having to rely on damage mitigation on all pieces of armor.

I can definitely see your point on linking and coloring, I think they're both in a difficult spot. It kinda goes with my "control" theme of my main post, but it's hard to work around both linking and coloring when all you want to do is play the game.

Good to hear on the mapping, I hate being limited to consumables. Uniques with the shards I made up and/or loot tables puts it in a weird spot, they should be rare, but something you can obtain eventually, especially when you're missing out on fun builds because you can't obtain a high end one. Moreso, the inflation on the super uniques are so disgustingly high that most players will never get one unless it drops.

Vendor recipes are just a method of controlling what you can have in items without a huge investment, or how I saw it. I hate having to learn them, but using them effectively is more fun than never finding an upgrade. Alternatively if we could rely on crafting, that'd work just fine too.

I like your idea with systematically changing damage outputs depending on what's around you, easier to make it so you can't get one shot, while still maintaining difficulty, that's a really awesome idea.

I too hope this generates views and comments, thanks for the well thought out comment and view.

Great ideas, especially the ones on loot and crafting.

However I don't like the suggestions on the passive tree. I think the nodes with core stats are basically forcing players into certain builds. I would say that GGG has to move forward on the route they've already chosen. Combining core stats with specialization nodes and spreading the core stats more around the tree to avoid the obvious OP routers and offer multiple viable routes instead

This is an excellent post with great feedback that ought to be taken into account. I'm at work on lunch break, so I have little time, but I just wanted to jump on one topic:

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jaxxxson wrote:

Lightning Thorns Mechanic: I believe this is one of the worst mechanics in the game. This is something that exists to punish fast attacks or spells, and is far too punishing. Anyone that attacks faster than 3 attacks per second will kill themselves on these in less than a second. I think what it should be changed to is that you do 1% of your life per attack as lightning damage. It makes it scary, but not punish towards fast casting or attacking builds. The game should focus on making all builds viable to an extent, not omitting some completely.

As a Quill Rain CoC Barrage character, Lightning Thorns is essentially broken. I crit once and my life automatically goes down to 0, with no chance to react, protect myself, or anything of the sort. This is even worse when you consider the fact that I sometimes crit and hit things off the screen that are affected by Lightning Thorns. In group maps I have to run around without attacking, and in solo situations, I simply have to quit the map (if I haven't killed myself in accident).

I feel that if a monster has a skill, it should be balanced to pose similar amounts of risk to each different type of build out there, or if not, that they don't cause immediate death. It's incredibly unbalanced that some builds (like my LA archer) will usually take no damage from Thorns, while if I'm on my CoC one I'll one-shot myself regardless of the situation.

I'm not going to say this mechanic should be removed, but it definitely needs to be changed to not deal back flat damage.

"

Startkabels wrote:

Great ideas, especially the ones on loot and crafting.

However I don't like the suggestions on the passive tree. I think the nodes with core stats are basically forcing players into certain builds. I would say that GGG has to move forward on the route they've already chosen. Combining core stats with specialization nodes and spreading the core stats more around the tree to avoid the obvious OP routers and offer multiple viable routes instead

I feel that both life and energy shield nodes should be spread out and properly balanced. The Scion area made a lot of areas feel weaker as they passed through those life nodes. With a little more life % on the other nodes spread throughout, it would incentive for you to spread out. Or at least how I see it, I don't have a big passive tree drawn, and I would argue that is my weakest point listed haha.

The best option in my opinion, but something that will never happen, is to take those core stats out of the passive tree completely..

"

Startkabels wrote:

The best option in my opinion, but something that will never happen, is to take those core stats out of the passive tree completely..

Could you provide an example? I think what you're saying is instead of having +10 strength a node would give 10% physical melee damage and 2% attack speed.

"

Lord_Kamster wrote:

This is an excellent post with great feedback that ought to be taken into account. I'm at work on lunch break, so I have little time, but I just wanted to jump on one topic:

"

jaxxxson wrote:

Lightning Thorns Mechanic: I believe this is one of the worst mechanics in the game. This is something that exists to punish fast attacks or spells, and is far too punishing. Anyone that attacks faster than 3 attacks per second will kill themselves on these in less than a second. I think what it should be changed to is that you do 1% of your life per attack as lightning damage. It makes it scary, but not punish towards fast casting or attacking builds. The game should focus on making all builds viable to an extent, not omitting some completely.

As a Quill Rain CoC Barrage character, Lightning Thorns is essentially broken. I crit once and my life automatically goes down to 0, with no chance to react, protect myself, or anything of the sort. This is even worse when you consider the fact that I sometimes crit and hit things off the screen that are affected by Lightning Thorns. In group maps I have to run around without attacking, and in solo situations, I simply have to quit the map (if I haven't killed myself in accident).

I feel that if a monster has a skill, it should be balanced to pose similar amounts of risk to each different type of build out there, or if not, that they don't cause immediate death. It's incredibly unbalanced that some builds (like my LA archer) will usually take no damage from Thorns, while if I'm on my CoC one I'll one-shot myself regardless of the situation.

I'm not going to say this mechanic should be removed, but it definitely needs to be changed to not deal back flat damage.

I remember in Nemesis I was going with a very fast attacking Ranger and ended up killing myself in less than a second on the Promenade map. Beyond the fact that it's frustrating, but it's like you said, there's no reaction time and it just limits you to using other builds rather than promoting these two kind of builds and having an alternative. Thanks for posting, every response makes for a happy Jaxxxson.

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Startkabels wrote:

The best option in my opinion, but something that will never happen, is to take those core stats out of the passive tree completely..

I actually feel the opposite, keep the stats on the tree but turn all hard requirements into scaling soft ones. So a sword normally requiring 100 str can be equipped at 10 str, but all its str based stats scale down, at 100 strength its stats are as normal and above 100 it gets stronger. Granularity, scaling, flexibility and balance all in one shot (as long as diminishing returns are understood)

edit - I had a lot more comments on what else has been said and numerous other changes I would love to see to this game to turn in into that ultra hardcore friendly arpg... but atm I just do not feel like writing a book on this forum.