A work in progress

[:1]We all know how annoying it is to find those "almost" items which are unfortunately Charsie food thanks to one wrong or lacking mod. Just look at the rare/crafted item thread in the statistics section of this forum to see what i mean. The problem is that no matter how hard you try its all just luck, investing more time isn't a guarantee to find something better or closer to what you are searching for. Sure, you can manipulate it somewhat, calculating the perfect character level and area and monster level and item level and whatnot to get the most optimal chances, but its still dependent upon luck whether you'll find anything or not. And that's the point where i sometimes said "sod it" and quit the game for months, because no matter how much hard work you put in there's a chance the best you find is "almost item number 15037".

Why not introduce a system where you feel like you're actually getting closer to your goal of having that particular rare item, in increments, every time you play. Isn't that better motivation then spending days upon days without any result or feel of progress?

I can already see some people fearing that i'm proposing to do away with what makes Diablo Diablo, namely the randomness of items. Let me put you at ease and tell you that is not my proposal at all. My proposal is a system to help the player in his quest to make an "almost" item (s)he found possibly less "almost", by hard work that is. I'm proposing expensive recipes to possibly inch the item closer to its potential. Its not a sure way to get the perfect item eventually, but it is a way to make the "almost" item likely better then it was when you're putting your mind at it. For example, if we introduce a recipe to randomly change a chosen mod, it might still turn out to be a crappy mod, or you might roll the mod you were hoping for. Either way if the chosen mod was utterly useless to begin with then it can't get much worse anyways, thus even if its marginally better you still feel like you made some progress. With time your "almost" and useless item will become at least a useful item and one you worked at and thus feel a more personal connection with then one completely random item you might find after 1000+ hours and 10000+ runs, if extremely lucky.

I hear you say "but with time you can create the most powerful perfect items then". Again, do not worry, its easy to give items you "tampered" with some "less" quality. Lets say that artificially messing with them made them lose some of their magical potential. Or to say it easier, these mods can't ever be perfect, only a natural item can have perfect mods. Thus if you find that 5 out of 6 perfect mod item and artificially reroll the one wrong mod until its the type you desire, then that mod can't possibly be as powerful as when it would've been naturally found on the item.

Read and comment if you will.|||It could work well as a system, but since we already have the option of selling items, scavenging items and trading with other players, this seems surplus to requirements to me.

In fact, the scavenging system seems to do already exactly what you want. Scavenging rare items will (as I see it) give you some kind of rare essence, which will get you that much closer to crafting the awesome item you want...|||Actually, according to the latest article with Jay crafting will turn out to be a "make something useful" beginning and mid game and a pure gambling money (essence) sink end game. So i'm afraid it won't be near as interesting.|||So, to use an "almost" as an example:



hmmm...gloves. +passive/+dex/10 IAS/PLR

Good gloves...kinda.



With this system, what's happening to the gloves? Are you selecting a mod (PLR) and rerolling that via some gold cost? Are you upgrading all mods a slight bit, but steep price?



Even degrading (maybe item level loss?) sounds reasonable. As a blacksmith tinkers, something's bound to wear and tear.|||Basically yes. Instead of say crafting rare gloves +passive/+dex/random mod/random mod

over and over again until those two random mods are beneficial, or rerolling items the way you did in D2 (basically only keeping the base item), with what i'm proposing you get to "lock" the mods you like (in this example the mods +passive/+dex/10 IAS) and reroll the one you don't like (or select the ones you want to reroll, whatever makes the most sense).

For balancing issues this would of course need to be very expensive (assuming items with 6 or maybe even more random mods can exist), the better quality of the item in question and the more specific you want to reroll the more expensive it will be. And to keep players from simply rerolling an item until its perfect you artificially force the quality or item level of whatever mod you rerolled to be (slightly) lower then if it would have naturally spawned on the item. (say a perfect +100 "of the whale" mod only to be possible on natural items and a maximum of +85 life mod on rerolled items)

Another useful recipe or job an artisan could do is artificially adding another mod to your item assuming this item doesn't already have the maximum amount of mods allowed, this added mod will be randomly chosen of course and again the process will come at a hefty price (and the added mod obviously takes into account the quality of the item in question, also again said mod could already be a "degraded" version of the natural mod as to not simply allow the creation of perfect items).

These are suggestions to give players a more personal relationship with a particular nice rare item they found, giving them the option to upgrade it without destroying it. And its another way to acquire nice gear without having to rely on 100% luck.|||I like the idea of developing an item and if it could be somewhere along the lines of a yellow/rare with a huge database of affixes(useful ones) Id be happy.

I dont think your idea cant be any worse than runewords(as in everyone having the same gear) as the affix combinations would be huge that it would allow for people to build up unusual items just like people build chars.

Thinking about it though D2 kinda had this with its jewels as you can have many affixes on a rare jewel and then put up to 6(Ideally 4 at the most in a jewellers) of them into an item.|||Interesting Idea|||Quote:








I like the idea of developing an item and if it could be somewhere along the lines of a yellow/rare with a huge database of affixes(useful ones) Id be happy.

I dont think your idea cant be any worse than runewords(as in everyone having the same gear) as the affix combinations would be huge that it would allow for people to build up unusual items just like people build chars.

Thinking about it though D2 kinda had this with its jewels as you can have many affixes on a rare jewel and then put up to 6(Ideally 4 at the most in a jewellers) of them into an item.




I loved doing that. Such an item felt so personal and special, sadly you couldn't make a distinction between the jewels after you put them in anymore. (hope you can make out such distinctions in D3, i love to see as much information as i can about items)

Incidently, i really hope Blizzard makes magic items more viable again.|||Quote:








I loved doing that. Such an item felt so personal and special, sadly you couldn't make a distinction between the jewels after you put them in anymore. (hope you can make out such distinctions in D3, i love to see as much information as i can about items)

Incidently, i really hope Blizzard makes magic items more viable again.




What do you mean by this section of your post Doppel?

Should magic items be the best in each and every slot? Only some slots? Only for some characters? Only for some builds? Only up to a certain level?|||I'd imagine it'd be like having a jeweler's plate of the whale or something.