Might it be a good idea to add idol crafting as well? So you would shatter the idols that drop to get idol specific affixes (such as the shield throw damage conversion to void, % chance to proc smite on throwing attack, etc) & then you can craft them on bases (presumably still respecting the idol size restrictions we currently have).
You could potentially add blank idols as a purchase from either the vendors or the gambling guy, or shattering idols would work slightly differently in that it could have a % chance to return a blank idol in addition to the idol affix shards.
I would presume that when crafting affixes onto idols you always get the minimum roll on the first craft, then each subsequent craft would increase the value of the roll up to max (as currently all idol afixes are of a single tier, most of which have a range) while also adding instability as crafting currently does. Alternatively, the current affix ranges could be split into tiers to match the other item affixes.
The benefit of this is that it would allow the player to craft their ideal idols (in addition to finding them) with the usual crafting dangers.
My proposal wouldn’t make them stronger though (apologies if that wasn’t clear). The min/max ranges on the affixes would keep their current values, you’d just be able to craft on the specific affixes that you’re after.
For example, if an idol can currently give +5-20 life, either split that up into multiple tiers (5-8, 9-11, 12-14, 15-17, 18-20) to fit in with the current crafting schema, or have crafting on idols be a bit different (probably not the best idea as it’ll confuse people) have the first craft of the affix give a value of 5-8 health, the next time you craft the same affix on it you would get 9-11, etc until you’ve done ~5 crafts (with the usual increasing chance for the item bricking) and the affix gives around the max value.
I’d like Idol crafting like mending 2 Idols togheter to get the next bigger one for example. Right now I think Idols are something you realy want to grind for that makes repeteteive content more enjoyable. If you don’t have anything to care about anymore because you can craft it simply it might take away some fun time and the “I got nothing left to do!” feeling will hit earlier.
I actually agree that idol crafting should be implemented… but in future. Why? As it is, there are too few affixes available and many of them you dont care for rolls like some kind of 100 % conversion ( that can be changed) and it would be really easy to craft one good for you with the system they have. We are talking about 2 affixes per idol only. The rune of cleansing and removal by itself giving instability in this cases would solve some needed instability to limit success for this case, but i think it would only work when you have a really big range of possibilities and if they twink with a much higher RNG idol system for it to work on idols and to be a endgame thing. The suggestion you gave about tier division would be necessary to do also.
