[L20 Skill Gems] earn Quality with XP

Keep the L20 Gem+GCP recipe. However, this can be clumsy for the crux gems of a build.

Gems that continue to earn XP toward their Quality would give an alternative method to maxing a gem for players. The choice becomes:

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1. Spend several GCP to max quality instantly?
2. Spend 1 GCP and all 20 gem levels to max quality, but must re-level the gem to 20?
3. *NEW* Continue playing the game normally and earn max quality over time?

Quality would become akin to a second layer of levels, but with options to bypass. Pick the one that best suits the gem and your build strategy.


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Would have to be ridiculously long time to "level" each quality. GCP would devalue tremendously if not. The other thing is that you are ignoring that a lot of players do the other rational thing and find 16+ qual and find the 4-1 gcp's to max it out once level 20 well worth the value.

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PleiadesBlackstar wrote:

Would have to be ridiculously long time to "level" each quality. GCP would devalue tremendously if not.

Naturally, it'd take a suitable amount of time. At least slightly longer than it takes to level a gem to 20 again, to offset the cost avoidance of 1 GCP.

As for "tremendously devaluing" GCP, let's not lose our heads. Walk into a convenience store sometime and compare their prices to the grocery store next door. There will always be people willing to pay more for time saved.

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PleiadesBlackstar wrote:

The other thing is that you are ignoring that a lot of players do the other rational thing and find 16+ qual and find the 4-1 gcp's to max it out once level 20 well worth the value.

How did I ignore that? Read option #1 again.

I flubbed up there. Making it generic like that made me think of using around 10 gcp's where it typically is not worth it.

As for the time you suggested, the reason it is only 1 gcp for the recipe is convenience trading in with time. If it is say the exp necessary to relevel to 21 to get 20 quality many would see it be worth the grind if they are at a lvl 20 gem anyway and don't have to forfeit their high damage/version.

I'm not sure if I am explaining efficiently but essentially, if people are willing to grind to lvl 20 twice, I think it would need to be something like grinding to lvl 25 or something worth of exp to allow this method to make the other options more appealing. We also have to consider the combination of your idea and number 1. Somebody could grind to like 15 quality then use 5 GCP's at potentially a much lower time to max out.

The only way i can see this happening is if they keep the Exp curve you begin to see at 19-20!

And if thats what i have to do to get 1%Q i mean yes that would be cool i even like that idea but im just afraid they would have to take something away to do this! Like 20%Q from vendor with GCP recipe or The drop rate on the cards for GCP which is perfect combined with the drop rate if random Quality gems and GCP drops themselves.. its really helping me to honestly rethink what gems i have to lvl twice over that exponential Exp curve at lvl 18-19 and 19-20 Because i can actually get enough GCP though out just playing to actually Quality some of my gems without leveling them Twice and saving that much more time on that gem being perfect!

I mean i found a like 12% or 14% Enlighten that i took to 20% and 2 other gems on my build each with 10% and around 13% or 14% respectively took to 20%Q as well before my main gems were 18! This was my second build so i had some worked up from my Witch too that helped! And i think im sitting on about 12 or so right now.. more if i vendor some of my Quality Gems! So what they got working is pretty good right now! Atleast compaired to before! Before you vendor+GCP or you bought it or you COULD drop 2Ex on GCPs but screw that thats too much ill just invest the time to lvl twice everytime! Now i can farm Mines for a while while leveling builds and do Quarry maps! I cant do ALL my gems so ofcourse im still going to use the vendor GCP but this helps with really important gems such as your main attack or leech gem!

But still non the less if they could work this in WITHOUT taking ANY of that away i have right now already then sure! But i cant see that happening and i would hate to think what would have to be adjusted to do such a thing! But i mean i dont see why any of that would have to be changed anyway if they did like i said and made the Exp needed for each lvl to 1%Q on a steep Exp curve so if you want to.. you can but it might be better another way! But we already have multiple ways to get GCP especially now to give us an option so thats the only reason i think they would have to drop something because they dont want to have TOO many ways to do something like Quality your gems!
Then it will become too easy across the board because of so many ways to do it going at the same time!

While I would prefer to leave the finer details of numbers and balance to GGG, but if pressed I would say:

The XP requirement for each quality level should be normalized, rather than exponential.

For example, Raise Zombie needs 70 XP to go from level one to two, 308 XP to go from level two to three, and 147 million XP to go from level nineteen to twenty. This is an exponential growth. In practice, after using the quality recipe, it doesn't take much time to re-level a gem to ~15, making the final ~five levels the real fight.

The total XP a Raise Zombie gem needs to go from level one to twenty is 332,412,208. This means level twenty's XP requirement is 44% of the total XP, level nineteen's is 27%, and level eighteen's is 15%. If my idea were implemented and raising Quality to 20 also took 332,412,208 XP, then normalizing the XP cost would split the total XP between the twenty levels evenly. Every quality level would cost 5% of the total XP. Going from 0% Quality to 1% would require 16,620,610 XP, and going from 19% Quality to 20% would require 16,620,610 XP. This would mean using a GCP to raise quality would save the same amount of time regardless of the gem's current quality level. Raising a single quality level through XP would take a little less than the time it took to go from level sixteen to seventeen.

Now, just how much XP should Quality cost? I don't think it should be too outrageous, like double or triple of what it takes to get to level twenty, because each option needs to have ideal cases of benefit or there won't be much point. For example, there are many support gems in builds where level matters less than its quality, so the 1 GCP recipe will always be better because it instantly gets you all 20% quality. However, on gems that depend heavily on their level, like Raise Zombie, you would never want to de-level it without a backup, so having the option to earn quality naturally over time would be a far more streamlined experience. In either case, though, you must first get the gem to level 20. Using pure GCP is an option that can get you max quality at any time, so it's the most convenient option, but also the most expensive. Thus, all three options have ideal cases.