Ok, so I am slowly getting the hang of the game and its characteristics, gameplay etc.
One of the problems I am having is that once I use a Shattering Stone, I don’t seem to have a message to explain what I actually received, just that the crafting gave a shard, but not what type?? If you have a log full of shards it is a bit of a bugger trying to find what you just received…
Crafting is a good idea however I am not 100% certain about all the functionalities.
Questions:
If I use a shattering stone on a previously ‘upgraded’ item, will the shards received be off the same level as on the item?
Why isn’t the % shown on the item transferred too? If I shatter a 25% to X item it would be nice to actually add that 25% to the next upgrade, it makes finding and collecting items a lot more fun and worthwhile.
Currently I am collecting ‘blanks’ or whites with good basic stats in the hopes of being able to craft a really good item and it would be good to know that if I can upgrade a particular trait, what % upgrade I might receive. As far as I can tell, a +8% of X is worth the same as a +20% of X shard when upgrading.
It would be nice to have something that says what you got.
No, you will get a random number of shards (but always at least one).
The % is based on a roll during crafting. Each affix has a range of potential values at each tier.
While whites are good for crafting freedom, especially if the affix you want to put on them is really rare, they have a higher chance of breaking (and thus being weaker) than building on an item that already has some of the stats that you want.
I agree that being able to know the potential strength of affix ranges is important.
Right now the wiki has a list of a lot of the ranges for affixes (Affixes - Official Last Epoch Wiki) however since the only way to find them in-game right now is by crafting and losing shards, the list is incomplete.
All the functionalities are not there yet.
Crafting is still only a demo of only one functionality.
That functionality will evolve and more will be added, so it’s not really possible to see how it will be or how to improve it yet.
It should be better for now to simply wait for more functionnalities to be added.
Something that could be nice would be to have a system tab in the chat to display some log outputs.
That way we would have access to the list of shards created (and some other info) without cluttering the screen.
I am a little late to the party, since I wasn’t here from the beginning and therefore haven’t had all the news , changes etc…
However, the Crafting principle is great but flawed. I have tried to upgrade several white items and have failed (had a fracture) just after two upgrades at 10% risk. This severely diminishes my desire to continue crafting, my initial impression was that it was there to help you craft your own unique item (over time) with the exact stats you desired, and not just to try to upgrade a piece that isn’t 100% useful due to an affix that you don’t need.
Also an upgrade from t1 to t2 with only a 3% increase isn’t really worth the effort , or risk of fracture at times.
My hope is that they decide on the White-> Best in Stat route and allow players to really craft and build ideal pieces, and not just simply upgrade a ‘found’ piece to be slightly better. Of course there has to be a cost-risk factor, and a certain degree of luck involved, but I would be expecting ‘fractures’ to become a real possibility from t3 or perhaps t4 onwards, currently I don’t see a real necessity to save items that could perhaps become useful.
The only thing I can think of that would make forging more reliable and less disappointing when bricking a piece in the first couple attempts at crafting, would be to maybe introduce a system that allows an item a certain amount of free forges before chances to fracture come into play, depending on the rarity. For example, white items would get 5 or 6 free forges before chances come in, blues would have 4, greens 3, and 4-affixed bright green items would get 1 or 2.
Or possibly a blacksmith NPC you can do quests for to level him/her up to increase your chances at forging. Or introducing another rare resource you can add to the process to help out.
It’s tough because you don’t want people to just be able to guarantee the exact item they want, but honestly, I don’t think that would necessarily break the game if everyone is able to do it. It still takes a lot of farming to get enough shards for the 4 exact mods you want, and even then there’s still a range of values for every tier 5 stat that means you won’t get a perfect roll everytime, but it will still be really good.
I’m gonna go with the latter here and say I’d love the forging system exactly as is if you take away the chances to fracture items. Thinking about the time it would take to find decently rolled implicit mods on every BIS piece of gear for your base items, then farming shards from the occasional item that drops with a mod or two that you want. It doesn’t seem like an unfair amount of time and effort to put into a game to get a piece of gear designed exactly for your character.
Plus, you’re making gear specifically for that ONE character and build you’re making. With hundreds of possible character builds between each class, that turns into thousands of different pieces of uniquely crafted gear that you want to make for each unique build.
It’s incredibly satisfying to make a piece of gear perfect for your character throughout the gameplay. It is not satisfying farming for hours upon hours and brick a piece you’ve invested heavily in.
