This talk only convinces me more, than I already was, that most of this crafting stuff does not belong in A-RPGs.
Giving people more control over the process just leave them more frustrated.
Affix RNG should be in effect when the item drops, from the monster you just slayed. An item should drop with ALL of its affixes.
This is the tension Blizzard will need to balance!
With the system as it stands in PTR the drop rate of GAIII items will be the determining factor.
“If” you only see them once in a blue moon, your average player is going to dislike the system as more often than not tempering won’t give you want you want - statistically it’s designed that way.
“If” you are finding GAIII items at regular intervals, then it isn’t going to feel nearly as bad.
I think the PTR has drops rate that are 50-100% higher than what S4 will have so that should give an indication of how rare these GAIII items might be.
Easy fix, get rid of the ranges, make the affix a fixed amount then the rolls dont feel too much like las vegas.
Have you ever solo cleared GR150 in D3 in a few days in all primal gear?
I bet you have not.
The True Scotsman logical fallacy.
Blizzard could double the number of tempering chances. Even with this, some players still would not have the desired affixes.
That means a larger affix pool and far, far worse chances of getting what you want. Tempering is basically target farming affixes 4&5.
I also think that current system is a bit tough. Being able to add affixes you want is really cool, but it should not end up making your item useless if you fail. I see 3 different ideas that could make this new system less punitive :
1 – Having more than 5 attempts on items with Greater Affix
2- Having new mats that allow you 1 more roll
3- Rolling only min roll once the 5 attempts are exhausted
Here is more details about this ideas :
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/proposals-about-tempering-and-bricking-items/156851
That part of tempering I think needs to stay, 5 chances is enough and the item is not bricked just because you didn’t get exactly what you wanted.
It is not necessary, but it is unwise not to prepare for the consequences.
The problem is the situation in which it is NOT good enough. There are stats that are useless for a build, it is a “dead” or “neutral” stat that only uses space.
The first one is never a problem because it can’t get worse than it already is… but from that point on it is.
If the second is worse, discarded… if the third is worse, discarded… and so on.
That’s why 3. The first is equipped no matter what happens, the second is to see if I can have something decent, and the third is in case the second is garbage. And all this is thinking about a GA0 item.
I plan to masterworking the first object that has the correct stast, even if it is not GA.
Then will come the true terror of farming and disappointment… unless tempering has no limit.
OR, make the tempering more expensive.
Make the tempering more expensive.
It has it, but this reduce the number of attempts even if you don’t make a change.
I like the idea that it only takes one attempt if you make a change.
I agree. Just make it more expensive and remove the limit.
Please don’t make anything in this system more expensive. It’s already very bad for non-hardcore players. The systems are good, you just need to make them less annoying to deal with by adjusting drops and maybe making Rares have 3 affixes again so you find more items to re-roll.
I don’t know, there’s something really fun about the idea of a journey for an item after you find it. But it would be nice if the journey was more unique to the item. That is, once you’ve chosen the right tempers you are mostly going to stick to the same ones for the same slots. Every once in a while you might make a different choice based on the 3rd affix of a drop maybe or based on the other temper, but there’s not much branching choice there.
That isn’t a problem: if it isn’t good enough to use yet, the decision to temper again is easy.
Which temper you use could be even more interesting if there were some safer books (with many affixes you can use) and some less safe ones (with only one affix you want but it’s a really good one).
You don’t need 3. Just one at a time. If it is better than what you have, you got an upgrade. If it isn’t, keep farming. You literally lose nothing with the system, you just get a chance to gain something.
So you are worried that once you have successfully found a 3/3 item and gotten the two tempers you wanted and masterworked it the way you wanted, for every slot… that at that point it will be difficult to find upgrades? Umm, yes, it will. But you will get a lot of chances to try for it.
No, that won’t do anything. The point is to make drops interesting. Making it take longer to perfect them after they drop does nothing to make drops interesting.
That wouldn’t change the fact you can just perfect an item as if you were playing the item planner. It just means you have to farm more gold to do it. That isn’t fun. Fun is having surprise drops / rolls that ratchet you way up the ladder of possible items.
adding more cheese and pepperoni can cause heart burn and a bloated stomach.
It is a bit naive to think that tempering durability needs to be remove. You should land on a stat would matter (not guarantee all the time), but Diablo 4 is also about taking risks; even in min-maxing itemization. Sometimes i don’t even temper more of my items if I can still benefit from the stat it landed on… but that risk factor should exist.
I bet other would agree to not remove tempering durability.
Something definitely needs to be done, because there’s no worse feeling than bricking your new GG amazing drop because of bad Tempering RNG.
It feels like they tried to copy Last Epoch’s crafting system except instead of being able to cleverly manipulate your item, you have to just roll the dice and pray.
My idea to reset the tempering :
It’s an interesting idea… but how could a way to create branches be implemented?
When you have a build, or an idea in mind, you know more or less where you want to go and any branch that is not the one you want results in frustration.
Where the branches are interesting are in the RogueLikes, but only because you are very limited by what you find (and the limitations are not a problem since they are short games)
No, it is not a problem, but when you only have one item, one that you do not want to lose, one that you have earned after a lot of effort, it is a big problem if it is not good enough.
Yes and no.
I only require one for the upgrade. I require 3 so I don’t feel bad for failing the upgrade.
A 2/3 GA0 (0 Greater Affixes)* ( → 3/3 thanks to enchantments)
Obviously I want a 3/3 GA3 (you can’t get GA with enchantment), but even a 2/3 GA1 would be an improvement, and I don’t want that improvement to turn into garbage.
People say it would be too easy without Briking… I say do another more difficult part instead.
It’s more fun than seeing your object ruined forever.
You are being disingenuous.
That is the example of Masterworking to say that it is okay to even fail in Masterworking but not in tempering because it is adding something that you do not want in any situation and cannot be reverse.
That would be an interesting trade-off for resetting Tempering durability as they are very valuable and rare resources. You are giving up a degree of chance to choose an Uber Unique item as the trade-off.
However, its more fundamental than that and the ongoing debate in this sub; should a rest option exist?
I still think ‘no’ provided GAII/III items are of the appropriate rariety to keep people engaged. However, if it was done it would have to be something as rare as a Resplendent Spark.
I mean you are constantly finding items that aren’t upgrades. Finding an item worth tempering is exciting. Having the temper not work is a disappointment but it’s because that disappointment is possible that having it work is actually exciting. Otherwise, tempering is just a chore.
This just doesn’t make any sense. You need three useless items so that you don’t feel bad that one of them failed to become a useful item? Why do you feel that getting the perfect temper is the default outcome? What if you only got one shot at the tempering?
It is only an improvement if it gets the exact tempers you want? If so, then the dropped version is a crafting material you are hoping will turn into a useful item. If it is useful even with weaker tempered affixes, then making a choice to go with a higher-probability book (one where more of the affixes are useful) seems like a good idea. Either way, finding the chance to make something that upgrades your gear is cool.
Finding something that immediately upgrades your gear is also cool, but it means that the next upgrade is that much farther away. So adding more chances that feel interesting / exciting without adding more actual upgrades makes the game more exciting overall.
This is just an absurd way to think about it. It’s like buying a scratch off ticket and refusing to scratch it, or never looking at the numbers on a lottery ticket because doing so would ruin the object.
That might be an ok cost for a reset.
This is an interesting point, and actually is a huge problem with the modern landscape for ARPGs. People sit there playing the build planner and choosing everything down to the exact affixes they want and then anything other than that perfect setup is considered trash. But that isn’t how anyone should play these games. There should be a basket of affixes you want and if you get an item that has only affixes from the basket you are over the moon.
Anyway, an example of a branching choice would be if you are getting low on rerolls and choose to temper with a manual that has more affixes you want, to ensure you get a useful one, rather than taking a shot at a BIS one. Another example would be you temper your weapon and get a chance to double frost bolts, so you decide to use the other slot for something related to basic skills, but if you had gotten a chance to double frozen orb, you would have chosen to go for life on hit because it hits more targets.
There are some of these in the system as it is, and having more manuals with that trade off of safety vs value would help. It would be even better if there was a way for those outcomes to carry over into some set of choices you make for masterworking.
In general, I’m much more interested in how the system feels when you are playing it in the moment than in how it feels when you have some platonic ideal of an item you are chasing.
And it’s so disappointing that no matter how exciting it is, I don’t want to experience that disappointment.
Failing the roll is disappointing. Having minimal roll is disappointing.
Getting the right stat is exciting, a maximum roll is exciting. There is NO need for extra disappointments/excitements.
Has it ever happened to you that you stand up from a chair, look for something, then sit down and remember that you forgot something and it is very annoying?
It’s something like that.
I don’t want to fail and realize I have to do it all over again.
I prefer to collect enough before failing so I don’t have to get out of my chair again.
Something very different is my plan to approach the creation of my build. I first want to have the minimum to feel that my build is complete and then I look for greater affixes or maximum stats. (It’s like Diablo 3, first you look for the perfect non-primal item and then you look for the primal one)
As I said, I don’t mind farming. I like farming, but I don’t like losing my farming.
Some loss is acceptable, like materials, or gold… but the equipment: I wouldn’t let it go for anything. The difference is that spending materials brings me closer to the goal… while “that item” is my goal.
A material that does not feel like a material, but rather like the complete equipment itself.
Just so you understand: a car with a missing wheel is not the same as a wheel with a car missing.
Neither is complete without the other, and both can be considered incomplete materials of the final result: a car.
And yet they feel different.
(This is clearly an exaggeration to highlight the difference. I hope you understand)
Bad analogy because the ticket is single use. A piece of equipment It’s something that you will use constantly until you find something better.
It’s more like buying a car and not wanting to break it down just because you changed the wheels.
One way to make branches is to give affixes that are equivalent in power but different, such as x20% more damage vs. x20% more attack speed, or 10% more health vs. 10% less damage taken.
The problem with this type of branch is that it requires a lot of in-game testing, and briking an object is not good for testing these differences.
Right but this is exactly the problem with your view of it. You are treating the tempers as some common ingredient that is easy to add, like a wheel on a car. When in fact they are the key finishing ingredient that is difficult to pull off, like a good roux or a perfectly-whipped meringue. Or a perfect temper on a real sword. You are thinking about the base item as being the whole item, when all it is is a good base.
A car without a wheel is something you can fix. But a base item that hasn’t been tempered is just a scratch off ticket with a few promising spots revealed, a drawing of a tattoo you want, a piece of driftwood that suggests a cool carving, pair of Aces preflop in Texas Hold’em. There are many analogies, but the key feature is specifically that it is not a compete item, there is still a steps or steps that have to be taken for it to become complete and those steps are not guaranteed. It doesn’t make the item worthless and it doesn’t make the endeavor bad. In fact, I think it characteristic of the most exciting endeavors: risk taking and art.
You could easily test the branches on lesser items because the cost to temper is very low. Do it on some throwaway items, see which affixes perform best, then go for those when you find potential upgrades. But like I said, the trade offs along the way, like whether to play it safe or risk a step backwards, are part of the fun.
The reason why I put more value is because it is the visible face (everything else is “burned” and disappears in the improvement process), in addition to the fact that it’s the only “material” that made me excited when I found it.
The point is that it’s important, or at least it feels important.
That’s why I don’t want to see this item become garbage.
And that is why I would like another type of risk.
Having said that and after this whole thread, I can safely say that there is no argument that will make me change my mind about the importance of the items I find.
Although I do understand better those who do not see value in the item… they simply see it as just another replaceable and burnable material. The truth is that it is quite normal to think like this when these games do not give space to “collect” items. Since I’m a single-class and single-build player, I can afford that pleasure (and I always have my little “diamonds” that accompany me for years).
I hope the developers really create that “journey” for the items and revive that feeling of “being attached to your weapon” (and give us enough space in the stash so it doesn’t get forgotten again 
)
Maybe, although when you want to be meticulous you have to follow certain “guidelines”, such as: a good test item doesn’t have additional stats that can affect it. But I know what you’re saying, small-scale testing is definitely easy in that sense.
Large-scale testing (that is, testing a complete build on high difficulties) is what is really difficult. Although the truth is that it depends on the game.
The only thing I find difficult to test in Diablo 4 is the balance between damage stats… the math got very strange with the changes to vulnerable and critical.
(We need target dummies)