The cube and upgrading

General Discussion
1

One thing I don’t understand about upgrading in the cube. If we are going to put in hours and hours of farming for Mats why would there be a recipe in the cube that could potentially lower the value of equipment? If an ancient is put in why would it ever become a legendary? Why would it not upgrade the stats or become even a primal.
And about primals, why can we only wear one crafted primal on one character. If we spend all that time chasing prime dust we should be able to make more prims.

it would be nice to be able to upgrade multiple stats on any item. D4 has a better system of salvaging aspects and adding them to other gear as that gear is changed. i like that ability. And D4 allows to upgrade stats on gear. If we are paying a lot of resources and put something in the cube the item should not lose value.
Anther thing about Primal s or Ancients . instead of them being completely random from hundreds of pieces of gear. make them more targeted for our Character in use at the time of the drop. it is really deflating to work that hard to get a primal and see its for another character or completely useless.
The odds of getting something useful is really low and if we get all the useless prims and salavage them we still can only use one per character?

2

The cube gives you a chance to change or upgrade something.

Think of a time before we had Kanai’s Cube. You’ll appreciate the options a little more now.

3 Likes
3

Yea just a chance, but a very expensive one

1 Like
4

Are you thinking of Reforge or Rare item “upgrade” in the Cube?

Why not? You take the risk and pushed the button and materials are seemingly unlimited for you to farm out there. Why would your progress ever be linear when your power peaks so high in an instant as you farm further? It supposed to slow down after a while after peaking so high and optimization comes into play to filter your patience.

Developers will not have to stand around whole day in town and play jackpot for that one brilliant item. You have to get out and put up a fight for diminishing the odds stacked against you and take a bigger risk. Negating action is against the flow of the game and you eventually go out there and have to farm, or decide that it’s enough and play for challenge. Elongated engagement time is the hook and sinker of all online games anyway.

Different games, different goal points. Your majority of power comes from your Set multipliers and paragon level, compared to that optimizing your gear is very limited but impactful progression. Instead of stat upgrades at D4, we have random refoll of affixes in Diablo 3, because drop rates are through the roof.
Developers need a sink for all these excess material, keys and gold you let lay around. You can blame the updates and instantaneous gratification route that D3 took years ago for this.

Have I told you that you can use the last recipe in the Cube? Even the penultimate one to cover any main stat gaps between a good Ancient and Primal? Because obviously whenever a Primal item drops it’ll be randomly rolled, and chances of it being useful or surpassing a good rolled Ancient item is very, very low.

The rates are, loot roughly have 85% chance to roll for your current class, where build may vary, combination might be lousy and 15% chance for another class. In the end, you’ll have better chances at finding a good Ancient quality item rather than a good Primal. The time it took you to find a Primal after burning through 1100-1500+ Legendary and Set items, the chances are that you encountered a really useful Ancient item up until that point, thanks to their 10% drop rate amongst unique bound items.
Some people become lucky, and see such opportunities as an excuse of linking their own profile full of Primals, but yeah. Unless you play for a whole decade, almost non-stop, you won’t be like them; nor find good items.

The point is not using one, at least not “one and done” but you can craft it all over again with guaranteed Primal quality until it’s perfect with excess Primordial Ashes. That’s why they’re only allowed single equip per character.
Are you digging at this subject for the sake of someone leaping and digressing the whole thread? Because I remember you picked at this subject before.

4 Likes
5

It’s not the first time the cost of souls for reforging has been brought up for discussion. The same goes for other things mentioned.
It’s not likely we’ll see any changes.

4 Likes
6

Cuz RNG. Blizz core design philosophy #2:
RNG = fun
more RNG = more fun
infinite RNG = infinite fun

I would actually have a recipe where you pay 10x the reforge cost, but the item always rolls ancient.

It can. The worse the item you put in, the better the chance the stats will improve.

This is the whole problem with the game. We shouldn’t be chasing primal dust. We should be killing monsters to find cool loot. Not killing monsters to get crafting materials to make cool loot. The cube/Kadala should be a secondary source of gearing to fill in where RNG is punishing you. The primary source of gearing in an rpg should be from killing monsters/doing objectives, not playing slot machines.

7 Likes
7

Gave you a like of course. But in a way you’re also wrong. There is RNG in the game and lots of it. But Blizzard has also made the game easier and easier over the years. The power creep, the cube recipes, the vendors, the artisans, the Altar, the visions and probably a few things more (echoing nightmares…) has made it a good deal easier to gear up and to get better versions of the stuff we want.

2 Likes
8

more RNG.

and more RNG.

and still more RNG.

and RNG wrapped in RNG in a big RNG salad.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like some of these features (Visions and Echoing Nightmares). While some of these should be RNG based, not all of them need to or should. Also, the gearing process should not be based around these gimmicky secondary mechanics. We should be killing monsters/doing objectives to find cool loot as the main gearing process. Again in Blizz’s mind, RNG = fun.

Ya, and most of those were needed to deal with the many layers or brutal RNG the game has. If the itemization was done right in the first place, we wouldn’t have to rely as heavy on secondary slot machines as we have to.

3 Likes
9

Taking a step back, the RNG issue is something we have brought upon ourselves. The main activity in the game is killing monsters and doing objectives. The game is basically the same whether we play at T1 or T 16 and at GR 1 or GR 150. Getting the Altar doesn’t require us going higher than GR 110. Doing the season journey not even going that high.
All this about getting the gear with the perfect affixes and the perfect stats is on ourselves. Blizzard made it easy to get the gear we need and even easy to get it in ancient versions. But that doesn’t satisfy us. Gloves that can’t roll crit/crit, amulets that can’t roll elemental, crit/crit aren’t good enough for us, and so on. And if the crit chance on gloves is a “measly” 45% we keep rerolling at the Mystic untill we get 50% or go bust in mats and need to farm more (because even 49% chance is an eyesore to us).
Of course the leaderboards are an incentive to go after better results whether it is about competing with oneself or with other players. But Blizzard isn’t actually forcing us to do that much. Blizzard just made an addictive game.

PS. Of course I agree that there is a gruesome amount of RNG in the game. For example if looking a possible affixes on offhand items and legendary power value ranges on different items.

2 Likes
10

The whole game has been like this since after the ROS add-on. No matter what you do in the game it is RNG!!! From Kadala, upgrade a Stats, Rares, & Reforge a item.

They gave us the altar & Visions just before the end of the real seasons. The Altar really doesn’t help the RNG. But the Vision in a way does. Yes the Visions gives you tons of mats. But the thing is they should fix the bounty mats and the soul.

If you fix the bounty & soul thing. I’m just saying it might help with chance to reforge a item. Kadala has always been a joke. What you get 1 or 2% chance of getting any thing good from her!!! Then you have what I call her the Fat Lady. She is really worse then any other thing in the game when changing Stats.

You spend hours, days, weeks, months & years fishing for stuff. What to spend it in like 10 seconds. Yes people can have wishful thinking, but sorry they are not going fix or change anything in the game at this point!!!

1 Like
11

I think the heart of the problem for me is that I want to spend most of the time killing demons, not mess around in town.

Whether time town is spent looking through loot, crafting or cubing doesn’t really matter, I just want to get back to fight. Same way, I don’t care if for example rerolls are always upgrades or random as they are now. I just have to spend a certain time in town, and I may or may not get the roll I want. I’m personally ok with RNG, because it’s nice to get lucky drops. And lucky drops requires the possibility of unlucky streaks! Maybe I don’t mind the RNG because I play more, and I know how to adapt to good/bad luck, so I’m less impacted by RNG. I know that many others regularly complain about all the RNG in diablo, but they also get excited by lucky drops. So I’m not sure everyone really would really enjoy a steady upgrade path, because you’d never get impactful lucky drops. Or I’m wrong and we just enjoy the game differently. :person_shrugging:

Either way, on the subject of town-time, with how we are showered in loot these days, from visions mostly, I think we’re spending a lot of town time salvaging, which isn’t that fun. Rerolling page 2 in the cube is wayyy faster. Like, you need about 400 legendaries (many vision runs) to get 10 rerolls, that you go through in a minute. We are really not spending a lot of time on page 2 in the cube. Page 3 is a bit more time consuming, but I started doing that during cooldown between nephalem rifts when farming keys, and that was enough to spend all the yellow/blue/white mats. Same with mystic, there will be a few long reroll sessions each season (chd on a trifecta ring, or skill damage on off-hands…), but averaged out over the entire season, it’s really not much. And we should be a bit smart on how much time we spend at the mystic. Unless you’re planning to spend 100s of keys pushing, you probably don’t want to roll your chd from 47% to 50%.

So I think the main time sink in town is just the sheer amount of loot we have to look at and salvage. I’m not sure how to fix that though. Targeted loot based on what we wear isn’t feasible, because most use different builds for visions and pushing. Maybe having some more auto-salvage options would be nice, like a button to salvage all non-ancient non-jewelry or something. Or maybe even customisable.

1 Like
12

I really like how aspects have changed since beta D4. It would be cool to have cube and cube powers etc.

13

Na, it is Blizz’s choice. If it was my choice, I would massively reduce the RNG, and make the game more fun and satisfying to play while not seriously reducing game time or making the game any much easier.

Right. Everyone plays the game for different reasons. I’ve done a GR150. No need to do another (I think fishing for the right conditions is stupid and find dragging monsters across the map for 15 minutes is boring). I’ve done all the achievements.

The only thing left for me in the game is to get 1 build with correctly rolled and perfect stats. I keep set builds for all 5 classes and the best LoD build. I can honestly say, in 12+ years of game play, I don’t have more than 6 pieces Primal and correctly rolled for 1 build.

And that is my point in all this. Blizz seriously thinks it makes the game better to keep heaping more and more layers of RNG into their games. You can make a great game without an insane amount of layers of RNG. As D3 has 100x more layers of RNG than D2, I assume D4 has 100x more layers of RNG than D3. Which is one of the many reasons I haven’t bought that game yet.

1 Like
14

Is that really so? Has there been added more layers of RNG since RoS? The system of primary and secondary affixes is still the same. Primal ancient legendaries have been added, but in a way they reduce the amount of RNG because they always have max stats. And then there are all the things added, that I have mentioned, that makes farming easier. I realize that Primals can be seen as an extra layer of RNG for sure.
What about Orek’s Dreams and the removal of some of the poorer GR maps and the adding some (not always) better GR maps? Some will feel that this is more RNG, but it can also be seen as less because the chances of getting a good map are improved.

… and then there are some of the season theme items, like soul shards and ethereals with lots of RNG for sure…

1 Like
15

Tons.
With ROS release we got:
Kadala- another layer of RNG.
Mystic- another layer of RNG.
bounties - more layers of RNG.
rifts- more layers of RNG.

3 months after ROS release we got:
cube 3 new layers of RNG.
GRs many new layers of RNG.
Urshi my least favorite layer of RNG.

As noted in your post, we got several Themes that added more layers of RNG.

Orek’s Dream was a layer of RNG that was added to reduce the effects of GR RNG.

Altar (which was a theme) brought many layers of RNG to simply complete it.

Primals reduced the effect of RNG of items by adding several more layers of RNG.

Don’t get me wrong, you need several layers of RNG to make a successful game. My point is, you don’t need layers of RNG jammed into every orifice to make a successful game.

Urshi, whats the point of having 90%-60% upgrade chance on gems that are 10 levels lower than the GR you completed?
If the gem level < GR level completed, 100% chance.
If gem level = GR level completed, 60% chance.
If gem level > GR level completed, same %'s as exists now.

Orek’s Dream is there to reduce 1 layer of RNG from GRs (crappy maps). When picking a GR, option to select an Orek’s Dream for whatever the random rate is now, i.e. 20 GR key cost to open a Orek’s Dream.

Mystic was put in to fix one affix in layers of affix RNG by adding another layer of RNG with the Mystic. Simply add costs for the affix you want, and you pay with corresponding amount of mats.

Primals should be rare and should be end game when you find them. Let them roll as they do, but each affix can be fixed at the Mystic, using the above costs and maybe add in a Primordial Ashe cost.

Pay 10x the reforge cost to have a legendary reforge as a random rolled ancient.
Pay 400x the reforge cost to have a legendary reforge as a random rolled Primal.

There are many other examples where layers of RNG can be removed and not hurt gameplay, but enhance it.

1 Like
16

I don’t remember me and the other people asking for this stuff??? What he posted!!!

Lets take a look at just the DH. When you go to the Mystic and try to change a stat. On all the gear you use on that DH. It will be from 8 stats to 26 stats to re-roll a stat on a item. Plus more than half those stats are useless too. But they are there.

Helm - 12 stats
Shoulder - 11 Stats
Glove - 9 stats
Chest - 11 Stats
Pants - 8 stats
Boots - 10 stats
Belt - 8 stats
Bracer - 8 stats
Weapon - 9 stats
Quiver - 26 stats
Amulet - 16 stats
Rings - 11 stats

Blizzard gave US Kadala, Mystic, & the Cube. So how does this issue is something we have brought upon ourselves our fault???

I have gone to the cube and sometimes gone 50 or more times without getting an ancient. That is 2500 soul & 250 Bounty cache. But wait we brought this upon ourselves.

1 Like
17

I’ll just quote myself. First:

And from the same post:

Of course my points are debatable and both you and Alexismad have valid points.
There are lots of players who are satisfied just doing the season journey and maybe the Altar and that don’t strive for the most optimized gear or the highest and fastest GR clears.

1 Like
18

To comment on that and add to my comment in the post above; reforging is a choice of our own (of course ancient versions of gear, especially weapons, are nice/almost mandatory to have). The RNG of reforging has been there since reforging became available, so it’s not an added layer of RNG. On the contrary the power creep along with Visions and other things have made it easier to get the mats needed for reforge. We just need to play the game and they are raining down on us. Also echoing nightmares have made augments much, much easier. “Oh but we have the RNG of petrified screams not dropping!!!”… and what about Ramaladni Gifts? They are guaranteed, and free sockets. “Oh but Ramaladnis are another, brutal layer or RNG!” :slightly_smiling_face:

I forgot to mention the Altar, though I mentioned it earlier, the Altar that also helps tremendously in combatting the RNG of the game (even though there is a lot of RNG in getting the Altar).

1 Like
19

Kadala, mystic and cube are all RNG, but they definitely decrease the impact of RNG, because it helps us getting near-perfect gear.

Because with those, we can consistently get almost all the pieces we want with the rolls we want by around 1.5k-2k paragon or so, if we focus on one build. Without them, it’d be a much larger variance in power at 2k paragon, depending on how lucky we’ve been with drops.

So while the path there is riddled with RNG, we can all consistently arrive at the gear we want relatively consistently.

1 Like
20

Here’s the thing, until you get to obliterating everything in t16, you really don’t need to worry about this.
Only once you start obliterating t16 does this actually matter, as content wise, the only real thing that’s left (that isn’t farming) is pushing higher rifts.
And what comes alongside pushing higher rifts?
character optimization.
And THAT is where these things come in handy.
THAT is where all of that farming for mats goes to.
Why?
Because in D3, there really isn’t much else to do at that point unless you are doing campaign or making another character. Player retention must be maintained somehow, making people optimize themselves once they reach highest difficulty is kind of the biggest way to do that.

1 Like