Suggestion: Speed up crafting

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HechtHeftig
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Grasshopper wrote:
HechtHeftig wrote:+skills isn‘t a prefix from shrines, it‘s an affix on items. Change that to a static max +skills and there won‘t be the need to craft for many builds.

I think you are misunderstanding my meaning. I did not suggest that +skills is from shrines. What I suggested is that the desirable mods (which are known) appear more often so the crafting time is reduced. Not only the mods from the shrine but all the desirable mods. And I also suggested to offset that by reducing the drop rate of shrines so that the the current overall balance is maintained.


HechtHeftig wrote:They are fine the way they are.
That's an opinion rather than a fact. My view is different.


HechtHeftig wrote:The crafting system in general is something out of the ordinary in mxl. It‘s so great because you can get nearly any item (except SU‘s) from a magical item. It‘s one of the 2 features I like the most in this game. Crafting is a heavy part of the game. If you don‘t like it, move over to some shitty Asian mmorpg, where your item is destroyed if it fails to upgrade.
Or - I could stay. And propose changes.


I think I kinda wrote that wrong since I didn‘t have much time when I wrote that comment. Let‘s say you have a staff. Those can usually roll with +1-13 to sorc skills. Your suggestion would be: remove +1-6 and leave +7-13 as a possible spawn. That would theoretically halve the time you craft. Right? Wrong.

Despite the fact that I „removed“ 6 of 13 possible rolls from the affix pool (so basically half of it) the chance to get another roll is different.

Let‘s say you say „nah. I can settle with +10 skills only“ then you have a chance of 4/7 to get a roll you want, whereas you previously had a chance of 4/13. (30% chance compare to -57% chance.

Now let‘s take an affix from a shrine. If it was 4-15 to cold spell damage and you cut it to 9-15. and you say I can settle with +12%. That‘s enough for me. Your previous chance to get a good roll was 4/11 and now it‘s 4/6. the chances are 36,36% and 66,66% to get a desired roll.

Bis let‘s see what happens when we look at the total chance.

4/13 x 4/11 = 11,18% chance to get a desired roll.

This was from before but now after doubling the chances you get
4/7 x 4/6 = 38,09% chance to get a desired roll.

As you can see the chance is more than tripled. And the more affixes you want on that staff, the exponentially higher the chance to get a desired roll is.

I know that this example is just that- an example that simply ignored that +skills isn‘t a prefix, but rather an affix. But you Get what I mean, right? Balancing this whole process would not make sense because the chance for getting a good roll is exponentially higher the less the range of the stats are. Let‘s say you want to cut the time of crafting in half. Where do you start? Where do you end? Cut the time in half for whom? For those who want at least 4 specific affixes on a staff of for the one who thinks „I just need +skills“?

This is impossible to balance out. You can’t just say cutting the ranges in half means you need half the shrines. Depending on the amount of good affixes you want, you need exponentially less shrines. That would definitely effect the game. That way at the start of a ladder every build will farm for shrines only and the realm gets flooded with godly shrine crafted items.

That‘s why I have the opinion that everything is fine as it is. Changing anything about crafting would affect the game on a much larger scale than I think you realize.
Grasshopper
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@Hecht
You seem to believe that my original post was meant to be a precisely-defined solution. I think it should be clear it is only trying to get across the basic idea - which is to reduce the craft time and increase the play time required to get crafting materials (so that the overall time is the same but we get to play the game more).

From the original post - the basic concept in the first 3 lines:

I just spent hours crafting items. I would rather be playing the game. So my suggestion is this:

1. Reduce shrine drop rates and
2. Change effect of shrines to give good stats more often.



Then the clarification below using some rough examples (words such as "say" mean "roughly" or "for example"):
So if a shrine gives 4-15% of X, make it, say, 12-15%. If it gives +(3-5) barb skills then make it give +5 and have that occur more frequently.
That way we get the right roll sooner when crafting, but we need to spend more time finding shrines to do the crafting.


I'm afraid I don't accept your belief that this is impossible or even difficult to do. It's software - you can make it do anything you want.
If the examples I rolled off the top of my head don't add up to the desired effect then... adjust the numbers until they do. Make 12-15% into 13-15% or whatever works.

As I say - the suggestion was simple: move some of the craft time into play time. Keep total elapsed time about the same.
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HechtHeftig
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Tbh the basic concept is already strived towards by the devs. That was one reason why mystic orbs were completely reworked. Now you can‘t have 15 mo‘s of the same type but instead only 5.

12-15% is just too bad of a range. It‘s basically always perfect. If I had a 12% roll secure You‘d only need 1 shrine to get 1 good item on average. Some shrines are only good when nearly perfect, so I‘d welcome a nearly perfect roll for minion life on every magical shrine roll. Doesn‘t make the whole concept more appealing though, because farming is what makes Diablo 2 what it is.

And I‘m not saying it‘s difficult to do. I have no idea what the effort is, so you need to ask whist how difficult it is to program. But the rebalancing is what makes it a tedious kind of work.
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shnurr214
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i like the crafting system..

i actually feel like this game is one of the few arpgs i play where crafting your own gear is very much worth your time. Sure it can be a bit tedious but arpg games by their nature are inherently a bit tedious. The kind of players that like to juggle stats, read through spreadsheets of affixes ,figure out the best combination of mods and finding ways to perfectly hit various breakpoints i think are the kind of community that would be okay with the crafting system as is. Whists implementation of qol things like ctrl clicking items is really all i personally want because this game has a seriously fucked effect on your hand after long play sessions with all the manual movement of items between inventory.
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Solfege
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@Grasshopper
Remember though, Shrine bonuses already got a big boost a few patches ago.

Don't get me wrong, I hate grinding (XP grinding, farming, hours spent in the Cube crafting or prepping bases for RWs, etc.). It's tedious and boring and there's something seriously wrong with people who actually enjoy that. But I think the Shrine bonuses vs. drop rates are in a fairly good place right now (though some Shrines could use a little tweaking to make them actually relevant). And while I agree that less time spent in the Cube and more time playing the game would be better (as long as it doesn't reduce crafting options), I'm with shnurr on this. Let's wait to see how Whist's QoL changes affect the process first before jumping into tweaking Shrine bonuses and drop rates again.
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HechtHeftig wrote:Tbh the basic concept is already strived towards by the devs. That was one reason why mystic orbs were completely reworked. Now you can‘t have 15 mo‘s of the same type but instead only 5.

12-15% is just too bad of a range. It‘s basically always perfect. If I had a 12% roll secure You‘d only need 1 shrine to get 1 good item on average. Some shrines are only good when nearly perfect, so I‘d welcome a nearly perfect roll for minion life on every magical shrine roll. Doesn‘t make the whole concept more appealing though, because farming is what makes Diablo 2 what it is.

And I‘m not saying it‘s difficult to do. I have no idea what the effort is, so you need to ask whist how difficult it is to program. But the rebalancing is what makes it a tedious kind of work.

I really do not wish to appear confrontational but I genuinely do not feel that this part of the discussion is really going anywhere. Now you seem to be agreeing with me, while mentioning that (you believe) the devs are already going towards what I put forward - if that is the case, then why did you not just say in your first response "I believe they may already be doing that"?


Regarding whether 12-15% works or not - once again, it was just an example of a way to do it - and the exact numbers can be adjusted to achieve the desired effect. You may be right that this example is not good because all the rolls are something acceptable, so perhaps the numbers are adjusted to allow for a few poor options... 10-15% on Minion Resists while keeping Minion Life high. Or something - as I say, it can be adjusted.

The whole point of my proposal is that the rolling is not intended to be the time-consuming part - it's getting the ingredients to roll in the first place, so when you say this:
Doesn‘t make the whole concept more appealing though, because farming is what makes Diablo 2 what it is.
Sorry, but did you not see that the whole basis of what I suggested is that there's MORE farming and less crafting time??

What makes the crafting system good is that you can create great items. Everyone seems to agree on that, which is good. What people don't seem to see is that I am NOT proposing anything to change that!!! What I AM saying is that spending a long time standing in town pressing the Transmute button is not a good feature of the system - spending the time farming instead would be more fun. So make each roll better, but make it harder to get the items to roll in the first place = more farming, less time in town.

And... I'm afraid you did say it was difficult to do. Please re-read your posts. You wrote a long section of your previous post saying why you believe it would be difficult which at one point said "This is impossible to balance out".

As I say, this doesn't feel like a constructive part of the discussion, no offence intended, so if you agree with the basic premise, as it seems you do, then let's just agree to agree violently! :)
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One other point I might have added in original post. Some of the possible solutions could include extra ingredients in the cube. I did not mention it because I understand cube recipes are limited by D2 code (is that the case?). But what COULD be done (restrictions aside) is to have an extra ingredient in the cube which directs a specific modifier to appear (the exact roll could still be random - perhaps).

So for example (I stress, just an example):

    Item + Shrine + mana potion --> Normal Shrine effect PLUS +skills modifier being guaranteed .

    Item + Shrine + health potion --> Normal Shrine effect PLUS %ED modifier guaranteed

What the exact range of +skills or %ED might be are decisions to be made in adjusting for balance - same as shrine drop rate - those can be adjusted to decide how long you spend in town crafting versus time spent farming the shrines.

The potions direct a specific modifier to appear on the output item. Other potions / scrolls etc could have different effects.

It's just one way to do it. I'm sure there are many more. The human mind is quite inventive :)

But I'm not really concerned about the possible solutions - more in the concept that I would like to spend more time farming than crafting (while keeping up the existing high quality of crafted items).
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I haven't used the tools ryunp/krys made so can't speak on their behalf but D2Clicker is awesome. It makes shrine crafting a breeze. Once a guy figures out how to use it, its a matter of inputting one or more parameters and pressing alt+y while feeding shrines into the cube each time they disappear. The program literally reads the affixes (freaky fast) for you and it can't screw up.

These tools should be more than enough until sigma arrives. Having to modify the affixes and balance shrine drops accordingly sounds like a time consuming task. Then cue several months of complaints from players cause its not "quite right". I think we can expect changes to crafting in Sigma so two overhauls probably doesn't sound very appealing to the devs.

One last thing to consider. Shrine blessings now work 100% of the time. It wasn't always like that but it is a huge improvement. I' myself have been frustrated with crafting from time to time (tantrum + knife on bows, +3barb/kraken/spikenova on barb helms etc) so I understand the struggle. I hope you consider trying some of these tools. They should save quite a bit of time.
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HechtHeftig
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Grasshopper wrote:I really do not wish to appear confrontational but I genuinely do not feel that this part of the discussion is really going anywhere. Now you seem to be agreeing with me, while mentioning that (you believe) the devs are already going towards what I put forward - if that is the case, then why did you not just say in your first response "I believe they may already be doing that"?


Be confrontational. Only that way you can make a change. ;)

And tbh, it didn't phase my mind at that point. As I mentioned, I didn't have much time when I wrote that first post.

Grasshopper wrote:Regarding whether 12-15% works or not - once again, it was just an example of a way to do it - and the exact numbers can be adjusted to achieve the desired effect. You may be right that this example is not good because all the rolls are something acceptable, so perhaps the numbers are adjusted to allow for a few poor options... 10-15% on Minion Resists while keeping Minion Life high. Or something - as I say, it can be adjusted.

The whole point of my proposal is that the rolling is not intended to be the time-consuming part - it's getting the ingredients to roll in the first place, so when you say this:
Doesn‘t make the whole concept more appealing though, because farming is what makes Diablo 2 what it is.
Sorry, but did you not see that the whole basis of what I suggested is that there's MORE farming and less crafting time??


That wasn't the point I was trying to make. Your concept is: less shrines and better rolls. I showed you in my 2nd post that increasing the chance of affixes will exponentially increase the chance of getting near perfect rolls. Cutting the ranges of the affixes in half doesn't mean you have a 100% higher chance to get the desired stats, but instead it's much higher. So if you wanted to decrease shrine drops by half, you'd need to adjust the ranges of the affixes in such a detailed manner that the effort put into it simply isn't worth it.

And please don't take my sentences out of context.

Grasshopper wrote:What makes the crafting system good is that you can create great items. Everyone seems to agree on that, which is good. What people don't seem to see is that I am NOT proposing anything to change that!!! What I AM saying is that spending a long time standing in town pressing the Transmute button is not a good feature of the system - spending the time farming instead would be more fun. So make each roll better, but make it harder to get the items to roll in the first place = more farming, less time in town.

And... I'm afraid you did say it was difficult to do. Please re-read your posts. You wrote a long section of your previous post saying why you believe it would be difficult which at one point said "This is impossible to balance out".

As I say, this doesn't feel like a constructive part of the discussion, no offence intended, so if you agree with the basic premise, as it seems you do, then let's just agree to agree violently! :)


The issue is not that you don't intend to change the part about being able to create great items. The issue is, that it will inevitably change because of math and stochastics even if you don't intend to do so.

In order to make crafted items roll better, there are 2 possible approaches:
1) You get rid of undesired affixes, so the chance for desired affixes increases. That creates 3 issues:
1. Who says which affix is desired and which isn't? Which affixes do you cut? Which affix won't be missed once it's gone? Will any niche builds suffer from that? To answer the last question at least: Probably yes
2. The mod will turn more and more into Diablo 3, where you only have 4 stats you need to watch out for (yes, this is exaggerated. But you get what I mean. The wide range of affixes is what makes this game so exciting.)
3. If everything is near perfect, nothing is extraordinary.

2) You decrease the range of affixes as you proposed. That creates 2 issues:
1. As proven in my previous post, it will dramatically increase the chance of good or fine rolls. So trying to change something without changing the end result is impossible to make because of stochastics.This is especially true if you're not only talking about the affixes of shrines, but also include prefixes like +X to skills as you mentioned in your first post.
2. If the range is too small, you won't say to yourself: "OH MA GEWD! PERFEXT ROLLZ! OP!" but instead you'll be like "Oh, another perfect roll? meh."
Especially since you can get that item blessed and thus can get another perfect roll on that as well.
Ripping through hundrets of meh rolls is what makes good crafts shine and makes you feel satisfied when you finally get a good one. If everything is near perfect, then nothing is extraordinary and your fun/satisfaction will be reduced to ashes (see Diablo 3).

I do agree that the time you spend in town can be reduced. But it's still better than playing Diablo 3 on a couch with 2 friends, where you play half an hour and then stay in town half an hour because everyone needs to sell their shit and you can only do that 1 by 1.
Grasshopper
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shnurr214 wrote:i like the crafting system..

i actually feel like this game is one of the few arpgs i play where crafting your own gear is very much worth your time.


Yes and I have not suggested changing that. Only the balance of time spent crafting in town versus time farming items - the end result should be the same.

shnurr214 wrote:because this game has a seriously fucked effect on your hand after long play sessions with all the manual movement of items between inventory.

I agree with that totally. I too hope the QoL changes will modernise that aspect. However I don't really want to spend time programming or configuring an external tool either, but it may be better than the as-is.