I am missing the rare/craft mechanism...

Hi all!
My name is caca i'm from France and i played D2 on Bnet for at least 10years, this game to me is THE game, and this server made me love again d2 with his content, and community so... Thank you game! :)
My goal with that post is not to get more powerful items to bring my char even more power full but to bring back the possibility to play with rare, crafted items.

i was wondering why i CAN'T put off the rare amys/ring/gloves/belt from my pickit even-though i know they are kind of useless compared to the new late game content of the game... still when i am MFing i have those items polluting my screen, without picking up any.
I realized then that it was nostalgia of the D2 we love, with its godly rare that make that game so unique. Remember when you were dueling in Bnet looking at other ppl stuff and seing those godly beautiful rares that could permit people builds. It wasnt 1build=1set of items, quite none had the same stuff for same build, because quite every build needed a rare to be efficient; circlet, ring, amy and some times belt or shoes (specially crafted for those one). Of course the chance to drop a potential godly rare ( i mean with really goo affixes and stats) is really nothing on our lovely server because we are few, none take them, and we have no botting machine that can drop one of those once a year or whatever.




First,i'll discuss about the affix range from the RARE ITEMS, that must be "balanced" with the unique's affixes.
It is clear that the +skill from amy and circlet must beat the same lvl then the most powerful uniques. If a Mara and new amy gives +4 all skill + fcr+ max life, it is impossible for any amy to to challenge it. In the same way, unique/cow shakos with their+3 and massive stats give no chance to circlet. So upgrade +2 to +3 on those rare items may give them a chance.
Plus, one thing that could make a circlet really godly was the 2sox affix, because there were no unique helm (or really few) with 2sox, so adding +3 sox on affixe could help to ( this goes for weapon too).


Another thing is that even if the FHR/FCR AFFIXES have been boosted, (up to 30%fhr and fcr), the affixes aren't anymore 10 20 30 fcr and 10 17 24Fhr but 10fhr to 24 and probably 10fcr to 30fcr. That means that the affixes have more variability and are even more rare to get with good stats.
Exemple: if i loot a circlet with 5 godly affixes + Fcr affix, this one has 1/21chance to be perf (30fcr) when it was 1/3chance on Bnet (considering you could have 30fcr on Bnet:p). In other word you have less then 5%chance to get perf FCR stats when affixs procs, compared to the 33% with old Bnet system.
This is why i think that the FHR affix should be only 10 17 24 30, and the FCR affix should be only 10 20 30 this way we could more easely find usable rare.

In the same way i am missing so much CRAFTED items, they are the rare boosted rare items, they were the godly massive life ring, the perfect manashieldboots, the godly Fcr amulet. i dont know either if you will be able to change crafted stats, but i think that boosting base craft stats could work like a charm.

For example:
Hit power:
-Attacker Takes Damage of (3-7) becomes (10-20), even if i know those are kind of useless...
-5% Chance To Cast Level 4 Frost Nova When Struck becomes... static field when struck? or something usefull but not too OP.
HP ring: + (1-5) To Dexterity becomes 5-20

Blood items:
-(1-3)% Life Stolen Per Hit becomes (3-6)% Life Stolen Per Hit
-+(10-20) To Life becomes +(20-40) To Life
-5-10% Deadly Strike/crushingblow/replife/openwound becomes 10-20% Deadly Strike
-Blood ring: + (1-5) To Strength becomes 5-20str

Safety Items:
-Magic Damage Reduced By (1-2) becomes (2-4)
-Damage Reduced By (2-6)
(this one is probly a bad idea because will make mana shield sorc even more unkillable :p)
safety ring+ (1-5) To Vitality becomes (10-20)
safety amulet + (1-10)% Increased Chance Of Blocking becomes 5-15%

I don't know wich number to use and how it will really change the power of crafted items, but for sure if we can implement them again, this will change the economy because it will make the blue jewels, low runes valuable:).

Another thing that could make possible to get godly rare is ... the REROLL RARE SCROLL (or similar). Yeah! why don't we make this scroll reroll rare's affixe value but keep the same affix? This way when we loot a rare with good affixes but not good stats, we coul reroll them again and again , like we do for uniques. The problem with the scrolls is that ppl that play since a long time will have a big amount of gold and will be able to craft perf rares in few time. I think a new cube recipe would be godly to reroll rare item, something not too cheap, not too expensive, so people wont be able to buy those recipe too fast.

So that's it, i know my english is poor but i hope you did understand at least the big lines, if you dont just ask me to be more specific or clear. Thanks for reading (i hope someone will:),
Cya in game !

Thanks for the long and thoughtout post! I definitely planned on visiting crafts and rares for 3.2, I am just not sure what route to take yet. Stay tuned!

WAAAAW ty, for fast feedback Game <3!
i have no programming skills, but if you need help like testing this in solo or whatever... touching this will be a big balance labour. =)

Yep I agree, I hope for a rework of this so bad.
Things need to be thought out quite a but though, because even if you buff their potential a fair bit, we still have a lot of new unique items that give something crucial like a new aura or massive stats along with 3 sox fix.

It's basically like you said, rare/crafted should be a considerable part of every build, else so much potential and item content, that d2 vanilla was living of, is lost.

Also the community is not as big and we don't use bots, so to get a even more rare roll will be hard, we need to hit the possibility for a useful item though, so people actually pick them up or craft them in the first place.

I was thinking about this topic today for some reason. I guess I should start by confessing to the fact that I've been playing Path of Exile heavily over the last couple months and my inspiration for this idea stems from that experience. I like the idea of having a scroll that would make it possible to re-roll rare items with new prefixes and affixes but I think we should take it a step further. Would it be possible to create Cube recipes that would accomplish the same thing using runes instead? Like, El rune + magic weapon = magic weapon with new stats. If this is something that can be done then the possibilities for crafting in Annihilus are endless. You could make specific runes do specific things to items. One rune could re-roll the stats, another could add a stat, yet another could upgrade the rarity allowing for further crafting and so on. Cubing with Divine gems could add unique properties to the item. A system like this could add a level of complexity never seen before in D2.

I know that many, if not all of us here, have tried Median XL at some point. We all know that the Median mod has turned D2 into a completely different game. Some would even call it an abomination. One thing that they did accomplish that I have to give them credit for is their crafting system. In that mod it is possible (and even necessary) through crafting and gambling to completely gear yourself for smooth leveling all the way up to endgame content. What I didn't like about that system was the absence of RNG. Nothing was random. If you wanted to add a specific stat you just bought the corresponding orb from the vendor and cubed it with your base item. The same was true with gambling. A specific item base when upgraded to a unique would always yield the corresponding unique. Then you could upgrade it with 4-5 tiers available. My purpose for bringing this into the conversation as an example is merely to say that I know that such a system is possible however difficult it may be to program:) I'm sorry if making a comparison between Median and Annihilus is offensive to some but I feel that the two mods are different enough that they really aren't the same game anymore. We are all here because we prefer Annihilus. Myself included.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LordManhammer

I was thinking about this topic today for some reason. I guess I should start by confessing to the fact that I've been playing Path of Exile heavily over the last couple months and my inspiration for this idea stems from that experience. I like the idea of having a scroll that would make it possible to re-roll rare items with new prefixes and affixes but I think we should take it a step further. Would it be possible to create Cube recipes that would accomplish the same thing using runes instead? Like, El rune + magic weapon = magic weapon with new stats. If this is something that can be done then the possibilities for crafting in Annihilus are endless. You could make specific runes do specific things to items. One rune could re-roll the stats, another could add a stat, yet another could upgrade the rarity allowing for further crafting and so on. Cubing with Divine gems could add unique properties to the item. A system like this could add a level of complexity never seen before in D2.

I know that many, if not all of us here, have tried Median XL at some point. We all know that the Median mod has turned D2 into a completely different game. Some would even call it an abomination. One thing that they did accomplish that I have to give them credit for is their crafting system. In that mod it is possible (and even necessary) through crafting and gambling to completely gear yourself for smooth leveling all the way up to endgame content. What I didn't like about that system was the absence of RNG. Nothing was random. If you wanted to add a specific stat you just bought the corresponding orb from the vendor and cubed it with your base item. The same was true with gambling. A specific item base when upgraded to a unique would always yield the corresponding unique. Then you could upgrade it with 4-5 tiers available. My purpose for bringing this into the conversation as an example is merely to say that I know that such a system is possible however difficult it may be to program:) I'm sorry if making a comparison between Median and Annihilus is offensive to some but I feel that the two mods are different enough that they really aren't the same game anymore. We are all here because we prefer Annihilus. Myself included.

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Thanks for posting! I had a similar mindset... but you see that is what created the Enchanting system :) It is pretty much exactly what you said with adding unique properties to items with Divine gems, runes, etc isnt it? As for making rares roll with specific affixes, I considered it but decided not to go that route. I really like the RNG of finding rares in Diablo 2, sure it is a little harder but when you hit that awesome roll the item is worth SO much more and much more satisfying. I like the idea of picking up rares and identifying them, call me old fashioned I guess! Having some crafting capability is always nice, but I don't think the game should revolve around it 100%. Rares that drop have a chance to be INSANE in 3.2, and there are ways to re-roll them, and they are definitely enchantable too. I think it's the perfect system!

I enjoy the RNG of finding super rare items as well. I remember back in the day having found a rare mace that ended up being the post powerful weapon that I had ever found in D2. I was proud of that thing:) If I hadn't let my account go inactive I would probably still have it.

This is why I loved classic D2. Everyone had a different gear set because rares were the best, teleport was unique only to sorc, and players were motivated to explore and mf in areas that aren't even touched anymore (flayer jungle/city of the damned ect). It was all about luck and the RNG. I applaud the steps that this community has taken to improve D2 xpac! I'm super excited to play classic ww barb in the next patch! :D

This sounds really nice Game. Exactly how it should be indeed. Really looking forward to see what you bring with 3.2 now :)