(Helping GGG in) Creating a unique item: a breakdown of the breakdown

I imagine this was the initial reaction of many people when GGG introduced the first wave of Support packs, because that's a lot of money in just about anyone's language. My reaction was a little different: if I'd had the funds at the time and if I had the opportunity, would I have paid a thousand dollars to create a unique item for Diablo 2? To have that much potential impact on the game? Absolutely. As far as I was concerned, PoE was the new Diablo and this was my chance to really make my mark. I knew I'd not be alone in thinking that, but I was the first to act and that's my badge to wear, my cross to bear (depending on how you look at it). The fact that the game was free instilled in me a strange sense of noblesse oblige, although I won't pretend that I didn't enjoy the gratitude and attention. That's in the past now. Suffice to say, the early wave of Diamond supporters, and I spoke to many of them, held a similar attitude to me: a grand wasn't too much to ask to support this incredible game and to have a bit of fun creating an item for people to find/use/trade.

I was not the first supporter to implement an item, however: that honour goes to PremiumNoob and his axe, Reaper's Pursuit. I don't know what people think about this axe, because I rarely see it discussed. It's low to mid level, has some interesting mods and, notably, suffers no drawbacks. In the current metagame, I don't see it holding much of a place but when it was introduced, perhaps that was different. As I recall, melee struggled even more back then, especially two-handed. Remember: this is before spectral throw, before multistrike, before melee splash, before molten strike. Removing those variables alone shifts how one may look at this, and many other unique items.

My first attempt at a custom unique was a whalebone rapier, Tipua Kaikohuru. I knew I had no plans to play to high level, and wanted to make something heinously overpowered early on, something that would lose efficacy around level 35. Thematically the item would be a sword that granted buffs if you were using a roped armguard -- a now removed shield type that gave you IAS and evasion. It was a small step from there to change the drawback to 'no off-hand at all' and Erik himself provided the magnitude of the stats as a result. My jaw dropped at what he proposed, and I had absolutely no problems with any aspect of the sword: the mods, the art (which took several drafts), the flavour text, everything. I was incredibly happy.

From first email to implementation took around two months. These days, that'd be something like a miracle, but back then, when there were so few standards to play to, so much less to think about meta-game wise, it felt like forever.

The implementation itself wasn't quite so smooth. At this time, there were no rarity tiers for uniques, and there was/is no restriction on when an item can drop beyond its conforming to the area's level. This resulted in a LOT of people finding this level 7 sword at high level and having no idea what to do with it. *I* knew its purpose, its target audience, but the game was giving it to completely the wrong crowd. When Chris announced item rarity tiers for uniques, I was gratified to learn that Tipua Kaikohuru would be in the top.

As I said, I was very happy with my first unique. I still am, but only because I didn't really aim very high. In and of itself, Tipua Kaikohuru is a supremely inoffensive, innocuous item regarding balance. At worst, it'll make a race veryveryvery easy (if you're veryveryverylucky) or the already easy early levels, even easier. I imagine GGG were very happy with where Tipua Kaikohuru sat. I, in turn, knew it'd never be nerfed, and would remain a niche item. That was cool. Until...

About a month after Tipua Kaikohuru was introduced, I acquired at least one more Diamond pack and started brainstorming with Erik, who did such a brilliant job with my first item. It took over a year from that email to implementation, and I can say that while I was eventually satisfied with the result, the change in the process from the first item to this next one was a massive indication that the custom design-a-unique program was riddled with problems as the game grew.

My plan was a 'grown up' version of Tipua Kaikohuru. Erik actually suggested that we explore '% chance to cast a spell on hit'. Here's my response to that, and I am going to isolate it and bold it because it was entirely too prophetic for its own good, and I had no idea at the time:

"Oooh proccing. Oooh yeah. On the other hand, I'd feel bad if I did that and newer skills were introduced later."

I wish I'd remembered that response, because we just glossed over it and I soon forgot the importance of power creep and of the possible redundancy of items/skills resulting from an ever-evolving, ever-growing game.

Erik also suggested the vendor recipe, because I wanted it such that you couldn't equip this grown-up sword without having Tipua Kaikohuru on weapon switch. This would have provided a really cool 'on/off' effect, since even then I planned to have this new sword animated with fire.

These two suggestions by Erik illustrate how far the devs are/were willing to go to accommodate new ideas by custom supporters. When I asked if we could maybe add voicework (inspired wholesale by Reaper's Jack the Axe idea), Erik was still very much in my corner of the ring, so to speak.

At this point, I was pretty excited, and very confident.

Once actual design began, I asked GGG to rename Tipua Kaikohuru to 'The Goddess Bound', both to create the beginning of the sequence and to hint at something on the horizon. This is not something they could do today, not with the horror of legacy items. I'm not even sure how they did it back then -- manually, I suppose. That was rather nice of them.

But as the design document evolved, and I started to work more with other devs, it was clear that the joyous days of rampant designing were over.

Most notably, I now had to contend with unforeseen factors, things completely outside my realm of comprehension. I'd come up with a cool idea, suggest it, and it would be vetoed for any number of reasons. My least favourite was 'we aren't sure how this would interact with other things we're working on'. I understood that it's their job to balance the game and thus my item, but the limitations of 'designing' your own item to a set of guidelines that you can't actually see can be very discouraging. More than once, I pretty much threw up my hands and said 'well, fuck, how about you just design the item based around my vague ideas?'

Because I was aiming higher this time, I had to be much more conscious of how this item might interact with others, both in terms of gear and skills. Unfortunately, I'm not a dev and I don't really know enough about the game to do that effectively. Eventually, compromises were found for most of the issues, with Qarl being particularly stubborn about one of them. He wanted me to return to a simpler, less ambitious design -- to drop the 100% conversion of physical damage to fire. I can't recall all the proposals I made but I refused to give in. Days later, Qarl came up with a brilliant solution that is now a defining feature of the weapon, something thematically perfect that gives The Goddess Scorned an actual personality.

Another mod I wanted (and got to test, very briefly) was '30% increased movement speed when cursed', to carry on the 'movement speed when in trouble' motif started with Bound. This would have been fine except that GGG by this point were much more wary of movement speed on non-boot items, and, again, there was another unique in the works that would have interacted very dangerously with this idea, since it effectively has the ability to curse one's self. Just another example of frustrating conceptualisation based on limited knowledge.

The art was...okay. You can see their original draft in the game credits, actually. I tried to provide textual feedback but eventually had to just download it and play with it in Photoshop. The end result is definitely more effeminate and slender than their drafts. The 3D art looks very good, although the cross-moon symbol on the hilt is backwards. Not something I expect anyone to have noticed.

The vendor recipe itself proved to be a resounding success. I challenge anyone to find a thread as community-binding as that which was devoted to deciphering how to obtain The Goddess Scorned. The devs even changed my signature to provide hints. Also, it ensured that no one who didn't want this weapon would get it. One way or another, you had to actively hunt down and create this item. No one would bitch about it NOT being another unique when it dropped. This was still a niche item, very likely to avoid the nerf-hammer and there mostly to give Standard players another fun toy to mess with. At this point, the temporary leagues were still a bit of a novelty, and I was content to design fun, silly for Standard players.

One final thing to note: although it would be insane to try it, there is no way that The Goddess Scorned can touch the current 'super boss' Atziri, because she's immune to burning, not to mention every other status ailment out there. I've no real qualms with that sort of design but a) GGG had until that point maintained they'd be avoiding elemental immunities and b) this sort of 'innovation' is illustrative of how a post-implementation change can neuter a custom unique instantly. You see, I was thinking about making Unleashed also about burn damage -- but when I saw Atziri, I knew that was a stupid idea.

This is the first of two uniques I'm still working on. As the apparent apotheosis of the trilogy, Unleashed has to be very special, something I feel the design devs sometimes don't really consider. That may sound like me acting as though I'm more important than other custom designers (and I know I'm not, as I'll show in a bit!), but the truth is the devs themselves put a lot of work into making the Goddess swords a public event. They know it's costing more than one diamond pack to do, but I imagine that's pretty irrelevant by now -- most custom uniques probably cost more than their pricetag in work-hours anyway.

Because it would be such an expensive recipe, and because it would be a recipe again, I felt it okay to bend the rules a little, and aim for a greater level of complexity than is typical on other unique items. GGG are very conscious to keep the wording as clear as they can, and to limit uniques to 6-8 mods. I was allowed 9 to continue the pattern set by Bound/Scorned, but 10+ was totally out of the question, even if it would have meant a better item. I didn't mind too much -- limitations, at least those I know, can lead to greater creativity. Something about necessity and mothers and inventions.

The nine mod limitation resulted in over a year's worth of drafts. Concepts were picked up and dropped. One idea after another had to be scrapped because, lo and behold, another unique was doing something too similar, or there was something coming up that would interact poorly with it. I pushed on. I really cared about this design. I badgered the devs, pushed limits. Again, it was a game of proposal/rejection/counter-proposal/despair. For the first time, I was actually concerned with this item being desirable not just for collectors but for actual serious players.

Returning briefly to the idea of things outside one's hands affecting design, the sudden appearance of Oro's Sacrifice definitely forced me back to the drawing board. While there are fundamental differences between Oro's Sacrifice and what I had planned, there were enough similarities that I had to restrain myself from getting angry at the devs for not warning me that someone else had a bigass badass fire sword in the works.

More recently, my dislike for The Three Dragons is as well known as anything else I may have said in the past. Because The Three Dragons turns a fundamental RPG trinity on its head (fire burns, cold freezes, lightning shocks), any item that is built around the causality between an element and its ailment is going to immediately challenged. The devs dismissed my concerns because there are better helms to wear, but if there's one thing I've lost any sort of trust in, it's the devs' ability to foresee just how devious and brilliant the players can be when it comes to combos.

The problem is, although I didn't trust the devs to anticipate the interactions, I too was already woeful out of touch with the meta-game. In the end, I realised there was no chance in hell Unleashed was going to be anything more than another curio, another wasted Charan unique. Oh, it's going to be very collectible and I suspect very expensive to make -- probably well beyond my price-range, in fact. But whatever tiny hopes I harboured to make an actual competitive item flew right out the window when it became clear that 'Standard' and 'Competitive' are mutually-exclusive terms.

My recent understanding that the only way to really enjoy the ever-changing PoE of today is to embrace the four month leagues put the final nail in the coffin regarding this item's importance to me. I designed all three Goddess swords to be used in Standard -- the amount of effort (and luck) required to get all three in a four month league is simply not worth it. So in essence, I realise now that I've been designing items for a PoE that might not even exist anymore.

On top of that, the higher I aimed with this item, the more I ran the risk that it would either upset the metagame (resulting in nerfs) OR be made redundant by a shift in the metagame (which is almost as bad). I realise now how difficult it is to design items for a game that has no stability, no foundation upon which a designer can rely. I could make all sorts of analogies, but there's really no point. I am sure other custom designers get precisely what I'm talking about.

In short, The Goddess Unleashed has gone from what I hoped to be my greatest work to, well, the design equivalent of a licensed IP. It'll have my ideas, and probably most of the things I wanted, but I don't think I'll care much about it. Because...and I'll come back to this, it's not mine.

The second item I've got coming, and this will be my last (I gave a design chance away, because let's face it, I'm clearly wasting them). This will be a low level, hopefully common unique that functions much like Pillar of the Caged God -- you get bonuses (and drawbacks) for each attribute, or rather how much you have in each.

What this does is simulate item growth. Diablo 2 had some great items in this regard, and the 'bonus per character level' concept defined many of that game's finer unique offerings. Although there has been much discussion of it with PoE, the idea itself was rejected several times, because, and here I'm paraphrasing, the developers want unique items to be replaced as the character grows. That is to say, they wanted to promote their ever-precious trade mechanic to force players to acquire new gear. Big fucking surprise there, kids.

So I want you to imagine my dismay and anger at seeing this new item design by GGG dev NickK. I'd have been okay if they'd said no, we can't do that because of mechanical limitations, or no, we can't do that because it doesn't fit our design philosophy. But to be told no, we don't want to encourage item growth because it encourages players to trade less...and then to implement that very statistic on an item of their own is downright rude.

Still, and this is the significant bit, each time GGG has rejected a proposal, including item growth per character level, designers have come up with something much more interesting. I think Pillar of the Caged God is a brilliant item, all balance notwithstanding. I very humbly mimic that concept with Charan's Moderation, and implicitly spit on the laziness and hypocrisy of Nick's 'per character level' mod usage.

The first one that comes to mind is the much-maligned Infernal Mantle by NuclearRaven. Firstly, this is a VERY good item in and of itself. It does cool things, has a very manageable drawback and should, when it's done, have a very distinct 3D model. But just about everyone knows what went wrong here: GGG implemented a unique in precisely the same base item slot, an item that even now is considered one of the most powerful in the game. Of course, GGG assumed everyone would understand that this item's spawnrate had nothing to do with that of Infernal Mantle, but to this day plenty of players don't grasp that, and who could blame them? When they see that unique unidentified Occultist's Vestment, in that moment, that item could EASILY be the one they want. Never mind that the game has already decided before the player can even mouse-over the item to see.

The result of all this is that NuclearRaven's 1k design is reviled, called a 'troll item' and dismissed as shit even though that was entirely out of his hands. There are conflicting stories here: GGG claims to have contacted him and asked if he was okay with Infernal Mantle sharing the same base slot as another unique; Raven seemed adamant that hadn't happened but admits that he couldn't really remember either way. What's important is is that GGG definitely didn't impart upon the multi-diamond supporter NuclearRaven that their decision to force another unique into that base item slot would have dramatic repercussions. And surely they knew it was a possibility.

Another custom unique that has proven problematic is PrpnNightmare's helmet for bare-chested gladiators. When it was created, BoR attempted to restore some dignity and power to the ailing concept of straight melee play. Because Nightmare chose to emulate the same drawback as on my swords (disabling an item slot), the devs allowed him to impart the helm with insane mods, both in count and magnitude. It should be noted that this isn't even a top-tier rarity item, but for a long time, it dictated a great deal of melee-based play. To my knowledge, it introduced the concept of the '7L' due to all its inherent supports. It is an absolute beast of an item and I'd say we'll never see its like again -- GGG are very careful to limit the number and type of mods on custom designs now. BoR was most definitely a learning experience for them.

When it came time to nerf the item, Nightmare was not consulted. Wasn't contacted. He and I discussed this recently, and it's clear that this exclusion contributed to his waning faith and interest in the game. But we ultimately agreed: we do not own these items. We didn't pay for them. We paid for the chance to help the devs design them.

Another designer talked to me about their map idea. It sounded pretty cool, and I'm currently a very big fan of designer-made maps from a custom design perspective. But this designer then told me that due to the complexity of their idea, the dev with whom they were working had actually suggested that this designer collaborate with another designer. That this would result in a better item, or at least the item the designer wanted. I was...really disappointed when I heard that. Asking people to share their designs when the design pack was far from cheap to begin with? It's one thing to willingly team up and share a design, but if you paid for a custom design, I think you deserve to get that. Not half of one.

When I heard this, it really drove home just how backlogged and swamped GGG really are with this program. That they want to knock over multiple support packs' worth with one item is a clear indication that something has gone awry.

Yet another designer contacted me for advice regarding their item, which had them at wit's end because they had to design around the meta-game. I won't go into specifics, but it basically meant that in designing this item, the designer had to think about things like indirect damage sources and supports like 'trap' and 'cast on critical'. They were understandably frustrated because having to design around that sort of otherwise irrelevant crap takes up valuable mod slots, and can sometimes just flat-out change the item's direction.

This 'change in direction from the original vision' that I keep seeing in custom designs is an interesting representation of what's happened to the game overall, which makes me wonder if GGG sometimes feel as helpless about these necessary implementations and shifts as we custom designers do.

If only it were that easy to answer. The first thing I'd point my finger at would be the lack of limitation on the custom design packs. Any kickstarter with a perk as potent as this would be extremely limited in number, and probably more expensive. As with their choice to make the game free to play in the first place, GGG underestimated their own game and its appeal. They probably could have handled 50-100 designs. Maybe 150. Not several hundred. At first it seemed okay -- you had PremiumNoob, Zahndethus, myself, a few others, doing fairly unambitious things in a build of the game that was itself fairly unambitious and certainly much less caught in its own web of mechanics.

Had GGG limited the number of designs, they could have given each person purchasing one their due time and attention. I received more than my fair share for the design of Tipua Kaikohuru, and probably Goddess Scorned as well. But, and this is ironic since it's the most important, The Goddess Unleashed is getting far less time or attention because the enormity of the design-a-unique scheme has hit full stride with GGG. Coupled with a game that now has such outlandish things as cast-on-crit and spectral throw, designing a unique is that much more involved and taxing. So you have this interesting conundrum: supporters who got in early got more attention but ultimately made less enduring, ambitious items; supporters who came later (or simply submitted later) now get less attention but have to design much more intensively due to the game's mechanical bloat.

This would also have freed up the devs to work on other aspects of the game instead of being put on permanent item design duty.

That issue aside, I'd say the big remaining problem is the game is just moving too damned fast. They're planning a paradigm shift every four months, which means that every four months, one's approach to unique design has to change as well. My ideas for Scorned and Unleashed both had to be scrapped and adapted because I failed to implement the item before another game-changing patch. And I'm just one designer. I imagine there are dozens out there who feel the same way. It was easy to design a unique during Closed Beta because, somehow, Closed Beta was entirely more stable and reliable than what we have now. If you're really lucky, your custom item will be relevant for a few patches. It might be used in a build of the week, or found by a big streamer and abused to all hell and back. In which case it may be nerfed. Congratulations. You have done what you set out to do: paid a shitload of money to affect the game, get recognised, and then force GGG to improve their game by removing the spotlight from your item. You have won.

For the rest of us? Expect not to be happy. Hope for it, but don't expect it. Know that your original idea, even some of your drafts, are subject to change. Modify your idea of happiness to include 'a sense of exhausted relief that it's finally fucking over.' Designing an item now is just an exercise in futility, by and large, especially if you're thinking in terms of an item that will last.

But if you have to do it, here we go...

-- First and foremost, never, ever forget that you do not own this item. You are paying for the privilege to help the devs do their work. Your creativity and imagination is something they didn't have, and believe me when I say they're benefiting from it. So while I'm going to say a lot about getting your money's worth, you are not buying this item -- not even its existence. If they want to nerf it, they will. If they want to buff it, they will. Once the item is in-game, your part in the process is OVER.

-- But since you paid so much, for God's sake, don't back down when you know you have a great idea. Many, many ideas are rejected out of hand and most of the time, for good reason. But if you're at the design phase and you have an idea for a mod, and you believe in it, stick to it. Don't let the devs bully you or convince you that it might be easier to do something else UNLESS that something else is totally satisfactory. By sticking to your digs, you're making sure the devs are working for you. And that's what they should be doing -- you paid them, remember?

-- Do not design to the meta-game, because the meta-game is a chaotic beast that not even GGG can predict. Now and then, a custom unique will affect the meta-game; it might even define it. But most of the time, a custom unique will be niche, either thematically or by virtue of its power level. Come up with your idea based on what you'd like to see in the game, what you feel might improve the game.

-- Be super mindful of your base item. Don't let NuclearRaven's lesson go to waste.

-- Do a map if you can. This one's simple. Maps are much less subordinate to the meta-game, because they're optional content. A map will never be part of a killer build, but it might give someone with a killer build somewhere to have fun. My girlfriend designed a Map and it's wonderful. It was actually buffed recently, in fact. Virtually no custom design map goes unloved.

-- Accept that you're working in the dark. The biggest failure of the design-a-unique scheme is that it asks high-paying financial supporters to indulge their imaginations and their whims, but then forces them to be compatible with everyone else's imaginations and whims. It's great to be ambitious but you just don't have a clue what's really going on with the game development. As Rory (I believe it was) said in a recent-ish newsletter, be vague with your proposal. What this essentially means is 'give us an idea to work with, because you, o beloved Diaternal supporter, are simply not equipped to actually design the item itself.' This goes well beyond the proposal stage, however. Unless you're aiming very low or are incredibly lucky, you will encounter design issues based around things you couldn't have seen coming. Things that sometimes GGG didn't see coming either. Roll with it. Let them do their job, because all yours was was giving them the idea and providing some rudimentary feedback to ensure what they design fits (approximately) your original vision of the item.

-- Finally, don't be patient. The sooner you get the item done and into the game, the sooner you can forget the cramps and frustration of the design process and maybe even actually enjoy the item once you get it. Yes, GGG are swamped. They're overloaded. That's not your fault. Don't ever think you owe them anything. You were promised the chance to help design a unique item. Take it.