MedianXL wrote:The spike in character progress granted by the deterministic nature of both Tiered Uniques and the ability to farm shards makes it all more difficult to accomplish a difficulty curve that feels streamlined both in gameplay and number scaling. While we are brainstorming ideas to address this issue in the long term, we continue to notice certain skills underperforming in the pre-30 level range.
A simple solution to over-farming shards would be to increase the number of shards required to make each crystal and give some more crystals from quests since they aren't repeatable. And currently there's nothing difficult enough in the early game to require farming anything anyway.
I'd really like to see the deterministic nature of tiered uniques reduced though, because it feels far too much like just making shopping list and buying exactly what you want instead of feeling any excitement over random drops. Random loot should evoke a sense of excitement for the possibility of finding something better, which doesn't happen if you're already crafted the best items you could have throughout most of the game. It also overlaps with Runewords in that you get to choose exactly what you want.
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but I've almost never Shrine Crafted an item that I ended up using because they're usually worse than the T4 Uniques I'm guaranteed to already have by that point. No farming or trading or anything, just disenchanting the regular Unique drops I naturally get throughout the game gives me enough crystals to make the main Tiered Uniques I need to steamroll everything until I start seeing Sacred Uniques and Sets. So with that in mind, I think it would be far more interesting to remove Tiered Unique crafting (or make it much more expensive) and move Shrine Crafting down to Tiered items.
Then the game would have:
- Uniques and Sets - Require luck to get the right drops. Tiered stuff is a lucky boost while levelling and Sacred stuff is often best in slot end game gear.
- Shrine Crafting - Require luck to get good rolls, but not as hard to get good stuff as farming a specific Unique or Set. These would fill out most of your gear until you find better stuff.
- Runewords - Require multiple specific components to craft exactly what you want. These would sometimes fit a particular build well, but often be more of a fallback until you find something good.