When i first played Last Epoch the first time at beta launch i thought that the crafting system was cool and something new. But after playing PoE again for a while and now coming back to LE to check out the updates I think that the crafting system in LE is a bit too frustrating and boring. At least how it is at the moment.
In poe you can first target farm an Item base, then quality it to 28% or 30%, then 6 link it and then roll the mods. Everytime i completed one of those steps it felt good and like a success.
In LE you find a base and most of the time it fractures between 10% and 30% fracture chance and the item is useless. Even if i succeed a craft without fracturing, it doesnt feel rewarding to me. It feels more like i got what i wanted. But i dont have fun crafting in LE.
I also ended up mostly crafting between monolith runs and that disrupted my flow. I prefere grinding for a few hours and when i feel like it crafting for a bit. but the fact that you need so many attemps and a new item with each attempt makes this difficult.
I think what I am mainly missing in LEās crafting is the possibility to have multiple attampts to craft on a valuable base.
My suggestion would be to implement an item that can remove the fractured status and return only the base with no mods. (like the Rune of Cleansing but useable on fractured items) This item could of cause be very rare.
And more rare item bases that would make such an item worth useing would make the crafting more interesting. These bases could later drop only in special zones or from bosses when they are implemented.
Another thing that would fit LE really well in my oppinion would be blue or yellow items that drop from special zones or mobs with one unique affix (that cant be obtained through crafting). Depending on the other mods on that item you could then try to remove undesired mods with removal runes or just craft the rest of the wanted mods.
I believe the devs have stated interest in certain bases only appearing in specific areas/eras. Iām unsure if they feel the same about affixes, but that would be very cool considering the shattering system. Taking shards from one timeline and placing them onto bases from another would really go along with the time manipulation mechanic.
Anyway, Iām personally hoping the crafting doesnāt get super complicated, as building a great item in PoE is a pain in the ass. That said, crafting does seem a little easy right now, mostly because T5 mods seem to drop quite a bit late game and it takes a lot of risk out of making a good item and feeling accomplished.
The system we currently have is very basic. And Iām sure the devs would in time to come later on complexity and crafting modifier items and bases in time to come.
POE took many years before their crafting system reach a point where players have decent control over the outcomes (and itās still a very expensive process). LE is starting with a much better basic system and with refinements and complexity layered on, Iām confident it will be a superior system in the long run.
Though the Question is, if an complex Crafting-System would fit this Genre anyway?!
I know, alot of ARPGās thinks of themself as pretty Hardcore-Players and this Subgenre is meant for them, but if you look at the Originās why this Subgenre even exist, iād rather argue the whole Concept of āDiablo-esqueā Games is meant to be is easy accessable and ābasicā. If you look at as example, the whole Attribute-Concept of Diablo / Diablo-esque Games, itās pretty basic compared to proper cRPGās where attributes not only give you vast variety of different bonuses within combat, but also outside of combat. There is Attributes which mainly boosts damage and a bit of health and stuff like that not really complex but rather basic. Not saying that there arenāt Games which try though, and that compared to the classic Diablo 1 arenāt modern (good) ARPGs which are way more complexā¦ but iād argue there still needs a line to be drawn.
If it comes down to Last Epoch, i was kinda surprised how good the Crafting actually is, due it nailed it for an HNS perfectly, (and the only good alternative which i know was Grim Dawn). It doesnāt feel like itās thrown in and majority of time rather useless, but it also isnāt as impactfull as other Games where you can get good items only via crafting and would make an rng loothunt-system useless. It feels spot on by working with affixes. Not saying that it wouldnāt need some tewaking and polishment, and couldnāt add a bit more depth into it, but overall where it stands now, itās on a good spot.
/edit:
Bit offtopic towards basic / complexity of HnS ARPG's
Iām not arguing that the Genre itself never attracted Hardcore-Gameā¦ because sure it did as well. However my Point was rather that compared to the Genreās which Diablo-esque originally based on (Roguelike / Dungeoncrawlers), the whole Subgenre of HackānāSlash / HackānāSlay is pretty simplified compared to said Games, and even more compared to proper cRPGās. The Hardcore-Aspect for Core-Gamers comes rather from the longterms and endgame, plus for some Games theorycrafting on Build(variety) than from how accessable this Games / this Subgenre actually is. And the complexity of said games you often feel later on instead from the beginning, where min-maxing and meta-gaming comes more into the game, than mechanics or how fleshed out said mechanics are. Not saying there arenāt HnS with complex mechanics, but overall iād argue itās easy for everyone to get into Diablo, Grim Dawn or Path of Exileā¦ and if i look at Last Epoch, it can even be more easy accessable, while contain a certain dagree of complexity.
And for me personally ARPGās / HnS begin to fail if they try to be complex for the sake of being complex, instead of offering good mechanics / gameplay and the complexity comes from itself. And thatās why iām such an huge fan of Grim Dawn, but i really dislike PoE.
I like the system the way it is. Itās elegant in itās minimalism. The only thing that I find missing is a rune to reroll base stats.
Sure, itās frustrating to break a valuable base early, but itās just a part of the process. You have to assess the risks and accept that some attempts will inevitably fail. You need to learn to manage the risks, instead of mindlessly rerolling PoE-style.
If youāve ever vaal-orbed Tabula or anything else in PoE, you know it takes multiple bricked items to get the result you want. Same logic applies here.
If you just got a new base, craft safe. Start with affixes you absolutely need, max one, then another, and stop as soon as you get damaging fracture chance. A good base with two T5 affixes is better than a broken one. Now once you have your base needs covered with 1st item, you can start attempting more risky crafts.
Always resist the urge to craft your best items, if it involves risk of damaging fracture.
The item you want already exists in the game. Itās called āanother white item with the same baseā. What use an item that reverts fractured status to a white base would be, anyway? You want a blue/yellow item with some affxies already in place, for any hope of successfully crafting a 15-to-20-tiers item.
I agree, i like it when you can succeed step by step and not lose the previous step
Instead of fracturing and losing the whole item, i would prefer to just lose all the crafted improvements, maybe even all stats entirely. (I didnāt do the math if it is even possible to get an item from 0-0-0-0 to 5-5-5-5, but if it worked like this, the chances could be adjusted so that there is about a 0.1% chance of successfully reaching that for example)
In this i am inspired by a game i hope, for your sake, you have never played: Perfect world. It had a refinement system where you could refine your items to +12 refinements. To simplify matters: when you refine your items, you have a 50% chance to get it +1 and 50% chance to lose all refinements. I liked that system as indeed you still had that satisfactory and valuable base item and that would never be affected (they were items worth many 100s of $s in a pay to win game). And then you had the chance to get the satisfaction of reaching +12, which would add another ~500$ to the items value. When the game progressed, they added even more options to imrpove your item, but always without any risk of losing the item you have.
You want items to have a sort of emotional value and then expand on that. Recycling all the other stuff into shards is good, but you dont want to be recycling the base items all the time.
It is technically possible to go from 0-0-0-0 to 5-5-5-5, but chances are very low, on par with refinements in a typical Korean MMORPG. You get 5 instability per craft, so it will be close to 100, and then crafting higher tier affixes is more difficult than lower ones, this lessens your chances further. I expect last step to have about 5% success chance with Glyph of the Guardian.
of course if the item is not destroyed with a failed craft in LE, it would leave some room to actually make the base item more special. Like for example in addition to the range of the base stat, it could have a 10% chance to be superior/ancient or whatever name you want to give it, and even that could have a range itself. So that the base item is actually a bit more rare and becomes something to love.
I think āspecialā base items are a matter that developers will not look into until well after release. The system works fine at the moment, even if somewhat bland. For now their attention should be turned to other things, that are either broken or not even in the game yet.
The first thing Iām intrested in is: Any math pros arround wit h some spare time? I would realy like to know how good the chances are to get from a white item without any suffixes or affixes to a fully T5 built item.
I donāt know if I like the crafting system or not it looks to random for my taste even if the addables made it better. Maybe we need some kind of passive skilltrees for crafting and potions to ease things up a little because right now I think itās to hard to make crafting worthwhile without finding a already pretty good rolled base item.
how good the chances are to get from a white item without any suffixes or affixes to a fully T5 built item.
Exponentially less that if you start from an item that already has some affixes you need. This is all you relly need to know. This makes blue items as valuable as yelow ones. I love it.
Personally, I do like how POE & Diablo III DO let you re-roll items over and over. Thereās no guarantee that youāll even get the stat you want. Eventually, you either run out of mats or just say screw it and take what you have. The fact you find a piece of gear that is maybe missing one stat that you need and breaks a couple/few rolls in, honestly detours me from crafting at all. Maybe just doing 1 roll and hoping for the best. IMO, the fracture/breaking an item should just go away. Let us use up our mats, then go and farm for more as we need to.
I like the crafting just how it is thank you very much. I hate the super RNG of POE well just keep rolling it and maybe. No thank you at all on that. I want to be able to craft what I want, the ability to have it fail is great and makes it work. I would only want to see more runes and glyphs added the system its self is fantastic as is.
Agree, i like it too. Iād be happy to see more glyphs, runes, rare drops and wider affix pool tho.
Also i agree with adding special affixes to some items that can be dropped from bosses/areas, Grim Dawn has this system and it works really well. Actually, a farming of good rares with special affixes from Nemesis bosses in GD was my main endgame grind, hehe.
I agree that crafting system would deserve some rework/update later BUT! This is Alpha access? They need to focus on core and mechanics so they could build up on it later.
When i saw early PoE videos and stuff, it looked super trashy.
This game just needs some extra time and player support.
In my eyes itās gambling shrugs. Get enough mats, a weapon with some descent rolls on it, try to improve a modā¦ clonkā¦ brokenā¦ yeah thx for that. This is nothing different then a slot machine and itās only there to slow down the power creep. IF there was a crafting NPC and he messes up your weapon you would shove the broken parts of it where the sun never shines or take him to a travel to the end of times and throw the npc over the cliff.
Sure sure play more, grind more, throw more mats out of the window and youāll be a happy panda in the futureā¦ maybe. It shouldānt fracture early, like t3+ can fail up to t2 you are save or something like that.
