For a long time I’ve been ok with just 2 prefix and 2 suffix on items. It seems to have struck a good balance, but that was until I watch some path of diablo today and realized just how unsatisfying items are in Last Epoch.
Yes i understand that adding another prefix and suffix slot is a huge power creep, but my dear gawd seeing an item drop with 9 modifiers and hoping at least 5 or 6 are good or that they have high rolls is so satisfying in that quest to find good items. LE lacks this excitement endgame.
What i propose(and this is totally up for modificatin or other ideas) is that the current system stays in place but 1-4 random other modifiers that are uncraftable drop on an item as well. These modifiers can be things like
Added resistance
Added CA/Health/dodge/ or other things we have in game
New affixes such as: Damage against undead/bosses/rares
+1 Skill Points to specific skill
+1 maximum passive points
Things that would truely get you excited, be uncraftable, and keep the chase real.
Haven’t thought too deeply about this suggestion. But my first reaction is that I like it and could potentially solve the itemisation issue. I’ve been complaining about this for the longest time. Items in LE currently doesn’t feel very satisfying and they don’t get me excited.
That’s not true btw. I can’t remember for D2. But POE affixes definitely have tiers.
would definitely +1 for uncraftable random modifiers like the two above… Really specific affixes with niche appeal that would add to the wow factor of drops through pure luck but are unlikely to OP gear beyond a narrow situation or upgrade.
Could also be an interesting way to address the long term skills growth & passive syncronicity between sub classes that some people are concerned about… Have gear provide “virtual nodes” to skill trees - only active if you have the affix on something - or passive tree “link affixes” that allow a specific class to have access to a passive node that is usually only available in another subclass mastery.
In D2, they weren’t called tiers, but it did have higher level versions of affixes that had higher numbers (effectively tiers). Eg, Bronze/Iron/Steel/Silver/Gold/Platinum/Meteoric/Strange/Wierd for the +attack rating affixes.
im just going to go ahead and edit that part out of the OP. i seem to have been talking nonsense. But the main point of the OP still stands. Items need more modifiers or ways to add something extremely satisfying to them to create not only chase at endgame but more diversity and interest. I may have been playing for 18 months now so i know its different for new players, but compared to D2 and PoE items seems to become boring to hunt/loot/chase much quicker here.
I dont mind that actually. I feel that currently too much power is concentrated on the passives and the skills. Like my gears are mostly to address affix tax on defences, and with very little offensive gear investment, I’m tearing through level 100 monolith timelines already.
are you saying you think late game content already needs rebalancing? I think in my build i have 3x set elemental prefix with 2 gold rings and mage elemental passive resists, 4x set physical and void, 3x crit avoidance, 1x % health, 1x hybrid health, 3x poison res, 3x necrotic res . 1x vitality on chest. 3x mage specifix suffix, 2x mana to reach 300 mana for idols (2x dmg). 1x cdr 2x dmg leech, then the rest damage. Focused around not getting one shot in hardcore then having enough dmg leech to sustain.
It did feel too easy playing softcore but not hardcore i’m still afraid of dying with gear… last time was on empowered lagon but i did use my teleport for the quick beam instead of the long beam and then got stuck in a corner so was kind of a misplay i guess.
what about a new tier of empowered monoliths? lvl 125 or something? I feel like if the content got buffed too much now to suit the more advanced players the casual player base would be left behind. ( i still see people struggling with normal boss fights in chat)
Monolith 55 is good. Then it scales to slow and empowered timelines are definitely not as hard as they should be. But im more worried about items being exciting to find than content being harder. Theres no reason to look forward to harder content if the loots just gumna be the same uninteresting stuff
with my build I had no worries in lvl 55 monolith. Abomination couldn’t kill me. I prio crit avoidance and resists early in hardcore. Messing up boss fight mechanics (lagon/black sun mostly) or getting one shot while im looking at loot and have no ward or dmg going out (so no leech) is my main concern. (there’s a few mobs like light elementals or high dmg ones that could still get me early if i’m not paying attention and with certain monolith mods)
im not sure if your saying its to easy when you pay attention or if the content on HC is to where it should be, either way. Lets instead pump out some theories on what could be a way to make items interesting.
After some more thought id like to add that some more interesting things we could to items is adding in the whole “corruption” mode
Perhaps a new timeline is added and instead of another blessing as reward you can place an item in it and it will be corrupted so you only get 1 shot with it but the following effects could happen
25% chance to raise an affix on it by 1
25% chance to add a 5th random affix to the item
20% chance to change the base type of the item
20% chance to turn into a random unique
10% chance to take the lowest tier affix and make it tier 7
Notice 3 things about this.
there is no negative effect. the higher % chances give littier gain but they all add at least some possible useful. NOBODY wants to go through all the work without at least a little something something for their trouble
i did not add a chance to add sockets as i have no idea what EHG idea with these are
i did not add a chance to turn into a LEGENDARY as i have no idea what EHG ida with these are.
I had a similar thought. Gear in this game is boring. My idea was to create new tables of mods that can roll on items as implicits. These tables would be item type specific (Shields, Swords, Axes, 1H weapons, Body Armour, etc.). This should result in a needed rebalance of how current gear is done. My suggestion is to take away a craftable explicit slot. Items would look like this;
Item Name
Item Type
Static Implicit Mod (This is the current existing implicit that is on items)
Random Implicit Mod (This is the random implicit I suggested)
Random Implicit Mod #2 (This can happen at like a 10% chance and rolled on same table)
Prefix Explicit Mod (Works same as current)
Suffix Explicit Mod (Works same as current)
Wildcard Explicit Mod (This can be either a prefix or a suffix)
While as a whole, this only adds 1 more potential mod onto an item, I think the added item specific rolled mods would be more exciting and could even be build defining in a way.
I like the core idea alot. Personally I would change it slightly but also so would they probably if they take the idea. I think I would make them ranges.
25-50% raise random affix by one (doesn’t work for t5, chooses from 4 or under)
25-50% 5th random
20-40% to upgrade base type to next tier
20-40% chance to reroll unique affixes.
5-15% chance to make random affix t6 or 7 (25% chance for 7 if success)
just my take but great idea even with your preferences.
I meant I like hardcore because with the current state of the game (atleast for my build strength and skill) it feels comfortable to farm yet uncomfortable to go for the empowered blessings. (one mistake could still kill you) When playing softcore I got bored because I only died 1-3 times to 90. I don’t remember but it wasn’t much and what you lose 4 echoes? I was bored. I do plan to use him for experimenting with arena pushes though.
edit: to be clear it would be maybe a fight with a boss version of a forge god or something. When you approach the forge god after the fight you get to pick one of 3 of those options and choose which item to put in after you choose.
edit: I thought of another one. 25-50% reforge fractured item, affixes all go to tier 1-2 and instability reduced to 5-15
Yeah to change it up even a little more, perhaps all 7 timelines unempower are blessings and all 7 times lines have empowered and on the empowered runs thats when you get to corrupt your item, each timeline is for a different gear slot.
