I have griped about this before but this system is lazy as a design. They are essentially slot machines. In previous posts I always hear it’s ARPG and ARPG has RNG. Yes ARPG have RNG, many genre’s of games do. Yes, RNG is a great tool but it doesn’t work in every situation. RNG on the wrong feature makes that feature shallow. You wouldn’t use RNG on Paragon point assignment because it only purpose would be a road bump in your progress. Systems to impede progress without meaningful challenges. That is the sole issue, hurdles without challenge or purpose.
With RNG it only feels good the first few times when you have those lucky streaks. That ends when you realize how often you get bad streaks. It wears thin on people, faster for some. For me all I feel is relieved when I able to get lucky 7’s, not excited or happy. When I get a piece of gear that is an upgrade, I measure it against whether the upgrade is worth the trouble of going through the tempering, enchanting then master working phase. Every season that upgrade gap gets bigger and bigger. I’m forfeiting progression to avoid this system.
I understand the need to draw out the progression to increase players engagement. Collecting quarters for the slot machine like I’m bum outside the casino isn’t engaging. Get creative you have a massive world to draw from. Add some skill and power checks into the game, instead of luck checks. Like how the pits and glyphs work. For quick examples…
Add Master Working to Infernal Hordes. Add a forge at the end where you spend shards and gold to masterwork your gear without RNG. Making the final MW levels cost up to 800+ shards. Make Infernal keys tradable to create a market for them.
Have Helltides work with Tempering. Spend embers to roll your tempers, it can be random, but remove the limit and have an option to keep your previous temper, just like enchanting.
Essentially gives us reasons to out in the world. “Go out and touch grass” Your artists and world builders are talented without question and deserve praise. But the design and systems are your failure points. They do nothing to compliment the world. I want to be to critical without being insulting, but the gameplay systems feel really lazy.
Some interesting ideas. I’ve bricked more items this season than the previous 2 seasons combined.
I still don’t mind the RNG. I think it comes down to how determined (addicted) one is to min/max their gear.
What it comes down to is the sooner you min/max your gear the sooner you will leave and wait till next season and that means less exposure to the shop and those enticing cosmetics.
Agreed, I am definitely not on that side of the argument. I wouldn’t ask for the these exact systems without the RNG. I would be Maxed out too quickly. A more involved and interactive way of progression is what I would like to see rather than I collect quarters and run back to casino and see if I can the triple MW.
I sometimes wish maybe this is a good solution to those that wisht o argue that the RNG with Tempering is A-OK. There needs to be a limit, and in some sense the RNG is still there even if you could pick exactly the Affix you wanted as you will still need to gamble on what the % will be.
But I will reiterate for the millionth time, their Tempering & Masterworking is flawed to the core, the RNG is missing even that most important component; Random. I did try out this season, and of course the T&M has already drained me of fun. No, it is not fun to find a nice item as the T&M will come next, and I know it will be a frustrating experience.;
I do not use Frost Nova, yet I get Frost Nova selected 5 straight times=WTF. Now repeat this for EVERY #*#&$ ITEM I TEMPER. In the end I am just drained from the “Loot hunt”, drained from finding a good item for my toon, just drained.
Current “Crafting” system, and I do hate even calling it crafting is just for me at least a sign of just how unimaginative and lacking creative direction.
The argument I hear is “It’s an ARPG, ARPG are built on RNG”. ARPG at there core always have RNG Loot tables, Nearly all and reasonable people don’t want that to go away. ARPG’s crafting aren’t stuffed with RNG, except diablo IV. Everything about crafting and upgrading is RNG. It is a lazy attempt to prolong play time. Like modern RPG’s overloaded with side and fetch quests to inflat game length.
Yea it’s a bad design … even when your not worried about perfect stats. Had many items brick on me all because the stat I wanted just never rolled and that was even on 2 GA items so 14 rolls?
“I wouldn’t ask for the these exact systems without the RNG. I would be Maxed out too quickly”
“Have Helltides work with Tempering. Spend embers to roll your tempers, it can be random, but remove the limit and have an option to keep your previous temper, just like enchanting.”
You want to know why I am no longer a fan of this system?
Because if you happen to find an amazing item… you don’t feel any actual Joy.
Because you know that you have only just begun to scratch the RNG needed.
And if you do win the multiple RNG lotteries…
It’s not Joy that you end up feeling…
It’s Relief.
Relief that you had enough mats, gold, obductite, a scroll or luck to jump through all the hoops before you can call the piece your own.
And by that time… Joy or dopamine is the farthest thing from your mind.
Edit:
And yes, I still recall the previous system with the horrendous amount of useless affixes. Where you would have to sift through endless loot in hopes of finding an upgrade.
This current rework is an improvement over the old but it does not mean there should not be further improvements.
The way ive managed to make it work in previous seasons is to pick the meta build and play it, farm bosses, get good items and sell em for billions of gold just to fund what i actually want to play. Mind you, im not obtaining 5 to 10 billion just to buy items I want, no, thats just for the peace of mind that i get from not having to farm all the gold ill need on top of the mounds of obducite and raw mats needed to make a piece good. Its a slog and im done with it. Having to engage with trading just to save me time on crafting sickened me. This season i just did 1 character and beat the journey with like 2 or 3 pieces masterworked to tier 3. Theres no reason rerolls need to cost 5 mil just to not get what you need time and time again. This game is no longer fun, but a chore. If blizzard is only gonna do the bare minimum, i say we play the same way or not at all.
This issue I believe youre seeing isnt about RNG but accessibility. Tempering and mw has no friction in doing the action itself. Where all other arpgs have some type of rare resource or complex system.
RNG isnt shallow, creating everything around a toddler is.
Different Rarities will give you different set values.
Magic, Rare, Legendary and newly added Ancestral Rarities
Upon unlocking Tempering, you will have access to all Recipes at their Minimum Values.
You can freely select any Affix from a Recipe to Temper.
Scrolls can be used to Upgrade the Rarity of Recipes. More Scrolls will be required for each Upgrade.
Scrolls can also be used to Imprint a Temper from an item to place on another item. You can only do this to a Temper once.
Recipes would not accumulate in your inventory so you won’t have to worry about inventory bloat.
Tempering is now deterministic within the same system currently. Rarity means something and reflects the scarcity of drop. This does not exclude players from having the “right Tempers” but if you want the best values, you are going to have to grind.
Yeah you are right. I should be reiterate - the system is shallow.
I’m not blaming RNG in general. I’m blaming how this “mini-game” is played. It’s all about the dice roll and that is the how deep MW, tempering and enchanting is.
Considering I quite succently bullet-pointed and broke down everything, it is far from a wall of text.
Also, your summation is not accurate and leaves out a lot of crucial details. With Aspects, once you find one, it upgrades your Codex forever. A maximum Aspect only needs to be found once.
I just had 3 items in a row completely fail tempering not getting a 1/4 chance. On another topic I run into bugs every 5 mins, stutter all over the map. I was prepared to soldier through the bugs though that tempering with everything else just made me rage quit D4 for the rest of season. It honestly feels like they wanted me to quit.
Yep, pretty much. It’s the entire gameplay loop loot reborn introduced. Embark on an adventure to hunt down demons, smash them, periodically find possibly kewl loot pixels in the pile, return to town and… spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin… Spin the dials. At three distinct slot machines. It can make one dizzy.
Action rpg’s are supposed to emphasize action oriented gameplay. RNG mechanisms serve to enhance that element. They’re not supposed to dominate it. That would be a gambling simulator. Those are over there → somewhere else.
And even when we do successfully pass the slot machine gauntlet in town it’s a feeling of relief instead of excitement. A pretty good example of systems in a game self-sabotaging other systems preceding them.
I’d have to disagree here. The old system was fine. The issue was the affix design within the system. Too many generic, conditional and, in some cases, redundant options. Parity nowhere in sight. One would’ve thought the solution would be to improve those areas and remove the inadequacies.
Loot reborn made dropped items even more generic via slashing the affix pool, reintroduced “new” affixes via tempering with identical shortcomings and converted us to a gambling simulator. Translation, it made some problems worse, relocated others and introduced more. All the fixings of a well conceived solution. Queue the sarcastic eye roll.