Replacing Runes on Gear

Hey GGG,

incredible work on PoE2 so far. My feedback:

It's not very engaging having runes being unreplacable on gear.
Not only is it harder to sell runed items, but it's harder to accomodate potential upgrades on our own gear.

I would suggest you either:
1. Give us the option to remove socketed runes, or
2. Use some sort of currency to remove/destroy socketed runes (Gemcutter's Prism or a new type of currency), or
3. Give us an unsocket option on the crafting bench to remove/destroy socketed runes, or
4. Give us the option to replace runes with new runes by destroying previous runes.

Thank you for listening to our concerns!

EDIT1: Added more suggestions from the forum replies.
EDIT2: Fixed layout of proposals.

I agree that permanent runes are not great. I think it would be fair if we could remove them at the cost of destroying both the rune and the socket.

I agree. Absolutely no reason for runes to be permanent. They're supposed to replace bench crafting, so at least let as remove them, destroying them in the process.

I would say keep socket, since adding one back is just an issue of having the currency, so could be very annoying in the first acts, but very quickly just a trivial minor hinderance.

I don't remember in which game I saw another option (probably Last Epoch, not sure) : have the choice of either keeping the rune and destroying the item, or keeping the item and destroying the rune. I find that a "meaningful choice".

I think being able to pull the rune out, destroying it but leaving the rune socket on the armour is totally reasonable, and would make the game better. I don't care about getting runes back, but being able to socket a new resist as you need it would be such a game changer. I don't think it robs the game of any quality.

Thanks for the replies guys, I know more had the same issue.

As a result of the current system, I have not been using any runes at all! This is because of the fear that if I get a good upgrade and my current runes don't fit well with the upgrade I will essentially brick my good item.

"

TheModestManiac#1990 wrote:

I don't care about getting runes back, but being able to socket a new resist as you need it would be such a game changer. I don't think it robs the game of any quality.

I don't know, in early game you don't have that many runes but you want to be frequently upgrading your gear. Sucks to lose that res. In endgame may be there are or can be rare or even unique runes you want to keep (how about +# lvl to gems ?) but you're ok losing the item.

I guess it should probably come with a gold cost or something, but having the option would be good in my opinion

The whole rune system is also extremely boring compared to bench crafts. There is only 1 type of rune, and 99.99999999% of the time you are slotting RES or damage on a weapon that is of the same value it is at lvl 100 and level 1.

There no greater runes, there no like bane/buff runes or anything interesting.

Even if you could remove them, its just a game of musical resists that doesn't get any more in depth after act 1.

"

Maldosam#3663 wrote:

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TheModestManiac#1990 wrote:

I don't care about getting runes back, but being able to socket a new resist as you need it would be such a game changer. I don't think it robs the game of any quality.

I don't know, in early game you don't have that many runes but you want to be frequently upgrading your gear. Sucks to lose that res. In endgame may be there are or can be rare or even unique runes you want to keep (how about +# lvl to gems ?) but you're ok losing the item.

I guess it should probably come with a gold cost or something, but having the option would be good in my opinion

I hear you. I'd like what you propose, I just doubt we'd get that since rune droprate has been so high already with the understanding that they are consumables. if you switched the system to being able to remove them freely, the rune bloat would be massive.

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BossOfThisGym#2062 wrote:

The whole rune system is also extremely boring compared to bench crafts. There is only 1 type of rune, and 99.99999999% of the time you are slotting RES or damage on a weapon that is of the same value it is at lvl 100 and level 1.

There no greater runes, there no like bane/buff runes or anything interesting.

Even if you could remove them, its just a game of musical resists that doesn't get any more in depth after act 1.

I agree with this completely, that runes should be more interesting. They feel obligatory instead of rewarding.

Everything is in a so restrictive approach in this game just for the sake of being different to PoE1 it hurts. runes should literally just play the flexible benchcraft part. but nah. just another heavy commitment like everything else this clown gear system. SSF be damned