ive seen comments similar before, and i keep wondering why people craft expensive components for their end build, if they either can’t “afford” it(farming v current stash), while it not actually being their final build item yet.
Or is budget kit → end itemization just a goofball mindset i have
just because a legend drops, you don’t have to use it/legend don’t mean default awesome, and even if you do, you don’t have toss the highest tier comps in it yet.
We usually enter ultimate to reach end there without spell scorched plating in every slot, because lower tier comps and augs are generally enough for beginner farm, until we are ready to transition (be it “cost” for crafting or high sr/celestial challenge)
Ah, so you are making new components when changing gear. Found your issue.
It’s how I do it as well. My stash is packed with aether crystals (and ugdenbloom also) because I tend to get more than I need for a final build by levelling the character. I can see how new components every time you change gear would get expensive though.
Well think of it this way. You have a Barrelsmith Sorcerer, but you’re getting bored of it and you wanna try a different Sorc build. So you make a meteor meme build and you have to switch around a lot of gear (and skills and devos). A lot of resistances get changed as do other stats, so you have to change components.
But what if you don’t wanna destroy all the gear that you had in your previous build, because you might wanna go back one day? So what do you do? You destroy the components and make new ones.
What’s the alternative? Well, you can use GDStash (I refuse), or you can just level a whole new Sorcerer, but I don’t see the point if you just wanna try out a different build. Unless you really like leveling, which is fine.
I know that’s not quite what Spraynerb meant, but it’s how I think about it anyway.
So I just went and tested it. On one of my weaker/slower level 100 characters, a Vitality Caster Ritualist. I made 35 crystals, 6 shards and 1 cluster in 3 minutes. I was getting an average of 1 aether crystal every 4.2 seconds by farming Warden’s Laboratory. That’s including loading times.
A Spellscorched Plating (one of the most Aether crystal heavy components that exists) needs 48 Aether Crystals, so 201 seconds. This is ~3.2 minutes. Even if you for some reason have a Spellscorched Plating on every slot it’s like… 30 minutes?
Why is this an issue that we’re trying to change the game for?
Because I would much rather do almost any other thing, than to break some angry lamps for their lamp-juice.
Because it feels like I’m having to do a walk of shame, whenever I want to try out new equipment.
Because if I play a character a lot in most content (not even SR), and have shortages on exactly one resource, that means that resources isn’t well distributed throughout the content.
Actually that has happened a couple of times where a good legendary drops for a leveled character and then after more farming the actual BIS I was looking for drops. Want to keep the original legendary for alts. Of course you need to rebuild the component. And if the component is not good for the item for the alt character then you need to rebuild that one as well.
Actually my eyes were awakened to the paucity of crystals when I did SSF and then specific crystal/bloom farming plus SR to get the 250000 milestone. I believe you said that that particular milestone is the most annoying to get and I agree. Well during my 250000 run I got what I thought were a LOT of crystals and blooms. I stopped going to Krieg Underground Transport and Gloomwald when I had 300 crystals - actually more like 350, and 200 blooms respectively and just concentrated on other totems and SR at that point.
Since I also had 2 Lokarr sets I speed leveled a few alts. I had the blueprints/items to equip them for end game once level 94. But after about a single alt fully equiped with end game components I was already running out of crystals. By the 2nd alt I was having to farm crystals - 10 Underground Transits at a time – looking to get 100 crystals. And it was amazing how quickly those crystals disappeared once component building commenced. The blooms lasted a little longer without having to specifically farm them. So - yes - it would be nice if crystals dropped more frequently or if items didn’t cost as many crystals. Or some combination of that like they did with the Seals of Binding.
I play all my characters SSF. It’s not the SSF that opened your eyes it was speed levelling those alts. It seems I was correct in my first post where I said
People are having Aether Crystal shortages because they’re crafting multiple sets of components per character, and speed levelling through the game, skipping the huge numbers of Aether Crystals that you get by just… playing the game.
My SSF characters are farming their entire end game build, self-crafting the components for it and then dumping 50-100 more each into my level 100 shared stash when I’m done with them. I probably do 1-3 runs of Warden’s Lab per character at the end of Act 1 in Veteran and then basically never again. Though I have had to go get small numbers of crystals in the middle of playthroughs occasionally.
I guess we just play the game differently. This is a complete non-issue for me. Perhaps it will change in Fangs.
Different strokes for different folks. But if you are going to have a speed run mechanic where experience and reputation are dramatically sped up for alts then it seems there should be a similar method of speeding up the other necessary ingredient to get a given alt up to end game capable – components. The level is covered by the experience increase from Malmouth pots/Lokarr set/Leovinas rings/Lore notes. The reputation is covered by the purchase of mandates from your original SSF character. The devotions are covered by the merits and porting to the various shrines. The gear is presumably covered by items found and stashed from the original SSF – especially if going for the 250000 milestone (lots of legendaries for alts WILL be found doing that as well as blueprints). The only thing missing (to me) is the component creation (crystals).
Again, Crate saw fit to change the Seals of Binding mechanic due to complaints. Why not here?
I thought the exact same thing when I brought it up in the thread that lead to the seal drop increase. Even in that thread there was the “seems fine” reply.
Between then and now, what’s changed? Well nothing game side, only player side.
(IMO) Rightfully so, if you run something that much you are bound to get burnt out. Some items that are crafted have upwards of (IIRC) over 40+ crystals…more so if memory serves. So running Valbury outskirts 3 times or wardens 6-8 times to craft one item (not to mention everything else that item takes)…yeah.
The thing of it is (and this is no insult to the game/crate) that after that may runs, say in those 2 above mentioned places, the only other point of interest is maybe one totem. Add in a few more things to spice the run up.
It’s hard to suggest changes without FoA info. I mean any suggestion might be moot because it might already exist to address this or other problems.
Don’t really have a horse in this race, or any others I suppose. The ceiling can only go up from this point (in terms of drop rate changes) and ultimately I just want to play with all the new stuff coming.
Because you want to cover your resists? Leaving gaps can hurt
For me it depends a lot on what I find/have in stash and whether that’ll cover my defenses.
Also sometimes I make a build and then later I figure out that another item is better, but then I need to shuffle around components (and augments) again to fix up the resists. This doesn’t happen too often, due to it resulting in having to farm a lot.
Even worse if you want to try if one item is better than the other… because you don’t want to destroy the original item, so you leave it with the component on and have to craft a new one (hopefully without having to shuffle a lot of other stuff).
I don’t do this very often, because it’s tedious and not really that much fun if you end up having to craft a lot and then farm a lot. (I can totally understand why end-game tweakers use gdstash).
So, even though you only craft components once you still have to farm crystals. Imagine if you make a mistake or change your mind about some equipment. It gets tedious really fast imho.
I have to respectfully disagee with OP. While I understand the point, its part of the game. You could argue, well its a part of the game that sucks, as lots of people seem to think, but its still a part of the game that the devs considered necessary. It isnt even that bad to farm the crystals for an hour amd you have more than enough. We are playing an ARPG where grinding is part of the game. Slap on some tunes, load up the ol Blitz warlord and get farming.
Choosing to do 1 quick run on a SSF character (that I’m not even sure I ever use) is very different to farming it so often I make a thread on the official forums asking for the game to be changed because I did it so often I got bored (though to be fair, for some people, that threshold would be once).
I’m 100% confident there are enough crystals in the campaign that you shouldn’t need to farm the lab at all. If you want to save 14 hours by speed levelling, you have to spend 20 minutes farming crystals instead. Oh no.
My point was that even you who says you should never have to farm it felt the need to farm it.
Either way I think it’s fair to say they drop less than other components compared to how much they are used in crafting.
Maybe some people enjoy mindless lab runs, but clearly there’s also people who don’t.
If you’re referring to just beating campaign, you’re absolutely right. More than enough crystals just going through campaign. If you are referring to completely finishing your build, that depends on the build.
I totally understand the argument against increasing the amount that drop. Some people enjoy the grind. Some people think it should take even longer to farm crafting. Some people simply think it’s fine. Different people like different things in different ways. No need to get contentious.
What I don’t understand is why anyone would advocate against bumping up some alternative routes + alternative methods, especially if the bump in crystals still is not comparable to the top route. Some extra crystals on cronley runs, what’s the harm? Maybe a few more areas in Ashes of Malmouth could use some extra aether crystals cluster spawns to enable new routes.
As for SR/Crucible, Let’s assume 12 crystals per minute from Lab as a benchmark. I’d gladly take 3 crystals per minute spent in higher SR because I could farm loot at the same time, and I enjoy SR as content more than resetting instances. I might even say bye bye to Lab at 2 per minute from SR. Heck, I’d prefer farming aether totems over lab or dead man’s if the rate was ok.
Also, that “20 minutes of farming” for aether crystals adds up if you’re going to make many characters. I made well over 150 characters in the past.
The rare components that used them in crafting, like Oleron’s Blood or Arcane Spark, used to require 12 (12!!!) Chthonic Seals of Binding [0]. For a crafting material that mostly dropped from only some human Bloodsworn / Cult of Chthon members, that couldn’t be built or bought, couldn’t be obtained through dynamiting items (I think?), couldn’t be gambled or exchanged at Participating Blacksmiths Near You [1] (cmon Egellon), and wasn’t in Treasure Troves (I think?), they were pretty expensive.
Believe me I am aware. Crafted many a Seal of Ancestry and that used to require 48(!) Seals of Binding. Much much better now. Crystals could use the same ‘enhancement’ in my humble opinion.
I agree with this, then we would complete the crystal → shard → cluster → crystal circle.
Although I have enough aether crystals at the moment, I recently did some farming for a Aetherial Vanguard warrant and now I am drowning in aether clusters. Other than the eventual super boss or long walk over damaging floors, I don’t even use them, so to be able to transform them into something useful would be nice.
