The main problem I see with the new tempering system is the possibility to brick your item really fast, going from hype to frustration within a few seconds.
Let say you finally find a legendary with Greater Affix III that could fit into your build. (I assume it’s pretty rare and only happen once every 10 hours, or even less) You feel really excited and run to the blacksmith, hopping to craft the BiS you’re dreaming at, and…. It miserably fails, you bricked your item with useless affixes and you feel devasted, going straight to “D4 bad”. (You know how fast people get to this point, right : )
In the other hand, they can’t just give people infinite try to get what they want via tempering. We already have reroll system via occultist and clicking till we have the perfect roll is not very fun. You must be able to fail your tempering in order to feel it rewarding when you succeed. And you also must feel that you can always find and forge an upgrade, even if it becomes harder every time.
So let’s try to find a balance between salvaging your GA III after 5 unlucky clicks and being able to do exactly what you want by infinite iterations. I actually see 3 propositions to solve this dilemma.
1 – Give legendary items with Greater Affix more tempering potential. Base is 5. Why not give 7 for GA I, 9 for GA II and 11 for GA III ? That’s basic solution and not very fun one, but it should prevent quick frustration.
2- Create a new unique material. Something you can only have by salvaging unique item. Once you have done 5 tempering attempts, you can still use tempering, consuming 1 unique material on every additional try. This system will force you to use carefully your mats and additionally reinforce the overall satisfaction to find unique items.
3- After using your 5 attempts, tempering potential is exhausted. You still can use tempering system, but you will always have Minimum roll. So you are not stuck with an affix that do nothing to your build on your GA III and can still hope for better luck next time. Now you have to decide if you value more the GA on the main affixes or if you prefer keeping your old gear with perfect tempering rolls.
I think solution 1 is the less exciting, but seems to be the easiest way to improve current system and avoid instant frustration. I like the second idea because I would really enjoy to have something to do with my low rolls unique or my 3rd Razorplate drop on Rogue, but maybe it will end up being too easy to have a lot of them. Last proposition seems to be a decent security net : You never waste a good loot, but you clearly feel that you will have to find another one and try again. In addition, you can also reuse this item if you want to try a completely different build.
Of course we could imagine having all 3 solutions working together, but I think it might be too easy to get exactly what you want then… As I said, you should be able to fail to keep tempering process exciting. Since I can’t decide between solution 2 and 3, I think I would like to have both!
What do you think about it ?
Thanks for reading !
PS : I’m not a natural English speaker so I hope it’s not too much painful to read. Sorry for those being hurt !!