An Idea to Make Masterworking Crits More Targetable

PC General Discussion
1

A thought here - for those really trying to min/max (or just make sure an “upgrade” really is an “upgrade,”) it would be nice to add a bit of determinism to MW crits - as I’m sure Blizzard is never going to just let us pick the ones we want.

How would you feel if you could exclude affixes from criticals? For instance, on a 5-affix item you can exclude up to 2, on a 4-affix item you can exclude up to one. I imagine the interface would have them listed next to checkboxes so you could pick ahead of time, to help with the many many re-rolls you’d still need to hit what you want go by as quickly as possible.

This would set the (unweighted) chance at getting the 3 crits you want as low as 1/27 instead of the absurd 1/64 and 1/125 it is currently.

Thoughts?

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No. I don’t support it.

There reason I don’t is because players keep messing the whole game up by continuously driving down item value. It’s frustrating to say the least. Here’s the deal:

A masterworked item gives 5% to all affixes at least 9 times. On top of this at least 3 stats will receive an additional 25% increase meaning that three affixes at “worst” outcome have a minimum benefit of 70%.

This is stupidly forgiving. FFS let it go; the fact that you want to max out should not be their problem. At some point, in some version of the world, there must be a stop and I think is it. This should be their hill to die on. Either that or make it deterministic but also remove the +5% for everything else.

Too much cake spoils the children.

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You lost me at that point, Gordon Gekko.
Apparently most people quit playing a Season 2-4 weeks in. Longevity not really being a thing it becomes would you rather people leave satisfied or frustrated?
Btw for the record, I’m entirely fine with failing at games if it comes down to a skill thing and not get rng and my insistence on not trading.

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@Japhasca

Here’s how to MW properly.

1 - MW all the way to rank 12 and keep what you get.
2 - Play the game more, as somethings is better than nothing.
3 - Come back occasional, when you have more mats, and try again.
4 - Play the game more, repeat.

Basically, don’t stress over it.

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Let’s say I get a one-star item. I temper it and masterwork it, get results I can live with. Yay.

Later on I get a two star or three star item. The tempers are overall likely to be more important to my build than the GA’s, so for this to be an actual upgrade, more than likely:

  1. Both tempers need to hit right around or higher than the values on the current item.
  2. The same or better stats need to MW crit.

The odds of this happening is infinitesimal in most cases. The fact that you think this is “stupidly forgiving” means at least one of the following:

  1. You think grinding time + RNG = “challenge.”
  2. You are not interested in pushing content.
  3. You do not interact with this system enough to have a coherent opinion.
  4. You are a no-lifer with D4 and have no concept of the middle ground where this system breaks down entirely.

In any case, it is clear that this discussion does not pertain to you and you are excused from it.

Happy gaming.

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The presumptions are bad.

First, to be an “actual upgrade” doesn’t require the temper to be better, or even around the same, because if the GA is worth it it’s the GA driving the difference. Most temper ranges are very small and additive meaning that the maximized value and the minimized value when truly applied do not create a gulf between builds so if the GAs are valuable then the temper just being aligned is often sufficient.

Second, if you’re taking the 2GA over the 1GA the base of the increase is better regardless of the crit. The reason is that addition and multiplication are commutative. Let’s say you get three desirable GA hits; whether one is multiplicative or additive as long as they interact you have no mathematical preference where the crit lands. Your odds of getting “what you want” actually just go up. The only time it matters if they do not interact.

To be clearer, if you get a 3 GA item with damage, crit strike damage and fire damage and you’re a fire mage all three of these just interact so it doesn’t matter which receives the MW crit as you just move the numbers around and they intertwine to a singular value but if you get that item and it’s damage, health and fire damage now you have a problem because health doesn’t interact with the other two (presuming no skills that make them interact).

So to clear it up and keep it simple the way people even approach this is just mathematically bad thinking. Your premises are just not good or practical in application in really any ARPG let alone this one. So let’s go to the slander:

  1. You think grinding time + RNG = “challenge.”

No. Opposite. You think it’s challenge. And that’s why you’re against it; you see the challenge as getting the odds to line up which to me makes no sense. I prefer adaptation in my games so this whole conversation is more about how you can’t get what you want than how I interact with the randomness presented. I prefer to not min-max and generate bleeds in my brain about how I can’t get what I want.

  1. You are not interested in pushing content.

Just wrong. The problem is that in order for your position to work you have to make up things about me. Which is weird. This is usually a sign that the person can’t defend their points and is just whining. There’s a stark difference between, “I want something!” and “This is a problem!” and you’re on the wrong side of that difference clearly.

  1. You do not interact with this system enough to have a coherent opinion.

I do more spreadsheets than you do.

  1. You are a no-lifer with D4 and have no concept of the middle ground where this system breaks down entirely.

So, basically, self-reflection. I do welcome you to try therapy. I mean you are on a video-game forum complaining that a video game doesn’t have a system you want as you want it which isn’t custom built for you. Like, read your own aura?

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Remember when it was originally a pass/fail system and people complained? Many of us warned everyone.

This system is working as intended. Triple crit is supposed to be extremely rare.

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Btw for the record, I’m entirely fine with failing at games if it comes down to a skill thing and not get rng and my insistence on not trading.

So let’s talk about this for a moment.

The mix of outcomes is thus:

+120% to one stat and +45% to the rest
+95% to one stat, +70% to another and +45% to the rest
+70% to 3 stats and +45% to the rest

The last is the worst you can do.

I’ve played so many games where you can actually break the item you’re working on, you can get negative numbers in the RNG, you can get offsetting values in the RNG, etc. and the worst that you can do on a 5 affix item is guarantee that 3 of them have +70%. The worst you can do. The laziest you can do.

So yeah:

Apparently most people quit playing a Season 2-4 weeks in.

How could this not be true? Of course. The only people who have any vested interest in playing a game that gives you such boosts for just showing up are those who push content to the point where their eyes bleed and thus the only people who have anything to gain from this are people who push content until their eyes bleed and are in absolute competition with other people.

But that’s not who the game was designed for. And it should not be redesigned for them. But yeah, if you are fine with the whole prospect of skill being the game for you then I can’t see how any ARPG fits that bill. No matter how you mark them up they’re numbers games. They’re not skill games with numbers in them.

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9

They will probably eventually make a lock level 4 scroll that allows you to keep your level 4 roll. Basically it locks in the first four levels of your masterwork so when you reset you start at level 5.

It will probably be a special drop for the Karza multiplayer or at the end of seasonal reputation run. It’s inevitable.

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I know you’re right but that brings bad those nightmare flashbacks of cash shops where you could pay to “protect” your upgraded gear.

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11

I hate this behavior in every game. Someone wants somthing that doesnt hurt your gaming experience. And you are just trying that it wont happen? What is the reason behind this? To try stopping ppl for having fun in a game? Is it jealousy? Is it a bad personality? Seriously stop this nonsence. If his idea doesnt do some negativity against your gameplay then why should it not be improved?
Sure there are ppl that dont care about their time and want a grind that take years.

Arent you having something on a wishlist that you really want in life? Imagine someone is countering that from you getting that. Feels bad right? Just go play your own game. If its not pvp then its not a problem.

I already quit the game because of bad rng.

In another game i asked for something for years. And now its a feature in the game. But my hate grew already too much because their community and i dont play the game anymore for 95% of the time.

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I hate this behavior in every game. Someone wants somthing that doesnt hurt your gaming experience.

It does impact my gaming experience. Trust me, if this was an add-on or a plug-in that you could just do on your own that would be totally fine with me as I’ve no interest on impinging on what anyone does on their own, but that isn’t the case.

This is exactly why I am not a fan of the MMO model here and almost didn’t buy the game.

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Simple fix:
Increase the cost to “Re-Roll” the Master Work.

Each Master Work Re-Roll only un-does one Master Work Level.

That 3rd Masterwork is pretty expensive, but I would certainly be more eager to re-roll if I could re-roll one at a time. I already know that luck dictates that 2 out of 3 are good enough, so I rarely try to re-roll just for the 3rd. I would certainly try and refine to perfect if I did not have a 95% chance of making my gear worse.

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I don’t have a problem with MW as it is… it’s RNG just like everything else. Sometimes luck is good… sometimes not.

I bricked an item last night fishing for the +2… then got a Shako and hit the triple crit on the max life affix on the first try.

RNG is RNG.

15

You know what. I think this is a good idea if it were reversed. Reduce the cost of mastrworking as the player tries. Actually thank you for that; I hadn’t been thinking of this correctly because I was so focused on the outputs but if one wants to continue to play the cost of attempts should go down over time towards a minimum where a floor is reached.

So let’s say that the first 20 attempts are 100% but after that each 20 attempts goes down in price by 5% until you hit a minimum of 10% of the cost. This framework allows the game to not be changed in a way that shifts randomness out of the game but also allows for those who want to maximize to continue without the pain of attempting repeatedly at the same price.

Will let that gestate in the back of my brain. I think you’re on the right track though; if a counter was added to items that tracked this and reduced the burden with every attempt you would a lot happier players because attempts equate time and there should be a reasonable maximum for time allocation to this kind of activity.

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If its seasonal its bad. Imagine trying weeeeeeks for the right stats. And then the season is over. Also if i didnt misunderstood you, i saw that those MW doesnt change much. So then its not a huge problem for you.