you can when you have enough corpse explosion. The amount of damage AND AoE for such a low investment is bonkers.
I have an entire MF math series on youtube. I know basically everything there is to know about how efficient a build is… look at the Diabloii.net forum leauges, no one runs with skellie mancer 
You are more efficient just killing unique and champion monsters, especially in p1 games…
But sure skelliemancer is a decent noob build, but sorc is just in her own leauge. She can MF Mephiosto and pop those LK chests like no other char even with basic crap gear.
Anyway, skelliemancer vs sorc is not even peripheral subject to the OP. We are sooo OT now
And grind I would if it wasn’t for the little 10-mile marathon from the rift to Alkamos. This is really tedious to repeat hundreds of times. Nothing ever happens on the way to SoT. If there was a rift right there in front of the SoT skeleton gate I wouldn’t say a thing.
No, I’d still have one more thing to say: there are two of those rings so why is the drop rate even lower than in the other purple MIs?
One more thing about Alkamos rings. Couldn’t the pierce to cold conversion be a constant 36% on set completion? There’s nothing more frustrating than dropping a lowroll Alkamos.
Yeah GD is where it’s at. I don’t think I could enjoy a game with abysmal drop rates. Luckily GD isn’t one of them, with a few exceptions like the last few missing blueprints and those damn cool Alkamos rings 
I agree, a riftgate would be helpful. Even on floor 1 or 2. That run thru Broken Hills may be short but it’s also quite boring after so many runs Sometimes I take the longer route and visit Lutra and the guardian but if I’m not in the mood or don’t have much time I just teleport right to the gate via Grim Internals and do a few runs in quick succession.
Here’s an idea: Add a secret passage from Staunton Mines to the 2nd or 3rd floor of SoT. To prevent shortcutting too early, it can only be opened with dynamite from the SoT side. Both areas are close together so a connection via tunnel would make sense and is imo a better solution than another riftgate. But it’s even less likely to happen I guess :undecided:
When I have all the items in GD, I will probably just stop playing. As I wrote, I feel like in a game where 80% is about items, 80% of the game should be about getting the items. In GD you get items so fast compared to the old classical ARPGs like D2 and TQ that it is almost ridiculous. I started playing GD since I wanted a more modern version of those games, but now I feel GD is just a loot pinata game ala Diablo 3… 
No idea if I will play GD in one year from now actually which is a shame since I have played freaking D2 for 17 years lol.
Look, I get it that we play GD for different reasons. Some items are easy as crap to find and some are harder. Why not have some of the items pretty hard to find for us old farts?
In addition, I do think that power of an item should be in proportion to its rarity and vice versa.
Your math stuff is quite interesting, but don’t you think you might be a little bit too obsessed over D2? :rolleyes: That game may have been the nonplusultra some 20 years ago but times change.
GD’s longevity comes from build diversity and not drop rates from hell. Not finding specific gear for a specific build after years of grind would be very frustrating to me, up to the point where I might as well stop bothering and either ditch that build or cheat the item.
If you really want absurdly rare items to grind for, greens with very specific rolls might keep you playing longer than a year
I am not obsessed, I do however have a very long experience playing it and am still involved in many communities. I also find it fascinating that even after 20y time there are still being things being discovered in that game. I have played ARPGs since Diablo 1 and I know what I like, that is not obsessive. I am a hardcore ARPG fan, just as the GD devs. So the correct label should probably be “Obsessed with grindy ARPGs”
And if you haven’t missed it, on my YT I have an entire series dedicated to show and explain GD to D2 players (its like 5 hours long lol). I also do alot of these beginner/budget builds to make new(er) players of GD take the step up to do end-game ultimate builds.
This year, I have probably made 15 people or even more buy and start playing GD within the D2 communities. So I do not think the label “too obsessed” with D2 is neither correct or fair considering the amount of time I spend to make GD accessible to fellow ARPG fans.
In GD: since there are so many builds to do, you should be able to make each archetype build just using what you already have in stash. Thus I think these games you should also play with your stash. And I also enjoy to drop new items since then I can think “shit now I can make build X even better nice!!”. If I already have all the items, the enjoyment of making my builds better is somewhat diluted.
There is like no difference in gameplay from doing a chaos ravenous earth build from a classic straight forward vitality ravenous earth… so for me, the build diversity is largely an illusion. So the “build diversity” as a longevity argument is somewhat illusional since there are only so many builds of type X you can do anyway.
Sure, double rare MI’s is fun, but if I post builds with such items people will just assume that I am another lazy GD-stasher that is not a fair treatment either. I guess I would just keep those builds to my self which is kinda sad in some regards.
Or, I will just restart and play each char 100% SSF blueprints included (I know one can make a mod that makes each char have their own formulas.gst file)
I just want GD to be as diverse ARPG as possible, and having some of the most powerful items pretty rare and grindy to get is one such aspect I would like to keep.
If you know math. Assume one SoT run takes 10 min, you will have both Alakmos rings within 25 hours with 95% certainty. 25 hours is nothing compared to the hundreds or thousands of hours a player that “need” those rings are gonna play this game if you know what I mean… so at the end of the day I think 25 hours for 95% CL is pretty decent, it is something casual an dedicated farmers should be able to pull off.
Sorry I didn’t mean to offend, and I wasn’t talking about you and your efforts in general. I only got that impression from your contribution to this thread, every post of yours is more about D2 than GD. I don’t think it helps the discussion much because that game is freaking old and only the most dedicated hardcore gamers play it nowadays. I don’t wanna compare GD to D2, not even to D3 or TQ or any other old ARPG. I feel that the drop rates in GD are fine overall, there’s just a few screws that might need a tiny bit of adjustment, like those pair of rings. I don’t wanna turn GD into a loot pinata either.
Well we have two kinds of D2 player archetypes: those that are Bnet oriented where trading was a big part of finding gear and single player oriented players where endless grinds are a big part of the day. I think GD should be a game for both of these archetypes.
(btw you have no idea how many new/returning D2 players there are, the last year our D2 communities have exploded with new/returning players that have been fed up with D3 and PoE bullshit. I see higher influx of new players in the D2 discords than on the official GD discord for instance).
The reason why I bring up D2 (and User_name often brings up TQ) in these kinds of discussions is that drops in GD is very generous as they are. And again, powerful items should be rare imo. A player that sinks in 1k hours should have much better loot accumulated than a player that sinks in 100 hours. There are no long term rewards in char progression in GD, so making new builds is your “only” option/incentive to keep playing. In addition, if some items besides double rare MI’s are “rare” you at least have some more targets to run.
The only thing that separates a dedicated player from a casual player now is that a dedicated player needs more knowledge about how to combine items to make good builds (that is something that is much better in GD, in D2/TQ itemization and gearing require less knowledge). But I also feel that there should be loot difference too. A player that has 1k hours should have both more knowledge AND loot compared to a player with 100 hours say.
I do not think that the Alkamos rings need drop adjustments, 25 hours for 95% CL is pretty good in the large scheme of things. Plus he can drop Soulrend and the blue rings and also have chests that gives 1-3 legs / run. So overall these Rougelike dungeons are pretty good farming spots if you dont wanna play Crucible. As I wrote, ppl that “need” alkamos rings are players with around 1k hours in GD anyway.
We are still only talking about a set with 2 items. Considerign that there are like 500 legendary items in GD, having say 10 or so of them pretty rare should be fine in the greater scheme of things.
I share this feeling. There are many builds on my list to try that interest me, but I usually get burned out on farming/praying for the items necessary long before I get to try them. Yes, I could use GDStash, but that’s a slippery slope that leads to less overall game satisfaction for me.
It’s obviously really difficult to balance, but having drop rates that are too obscure does very little for game longevity for anyone other than those that enjoy extreme grinds. Anecdotally, it feels like there are not that many people that love insane grinds in the non-Asian market.
But what are those builds you wanna do? Can you work around to get a temporary solution or make a very similar build in terms of play style? I have never felt “oh I cant make this build since I am missing too many items”
I think this puzzling and playing with what I have is more satisfactory than just looking in the build compendium and try to recreate build X.
Like the Alkamos rings, sure thy are great and BiS for most builds, but I played builds that “needed” them anyway and I had a great deal of fun doing so. When eventually the second ring dropped, I was soooo happy. But I can’t really tell the actual performance difference pre- and post alkamos ring set on those chars
Also we have the option to trade in GD. If you are against trading, then you should feel that “penalty”. And we will get option to transmute almost all other set items etc. Why can’t just some items be rare? As I wrote, a handful of 500 legendary items being rare is not that bad in the greater scheme of things.
If you are unlucky farming SoT for the rings, say you need 200 SoT runs (17 hours for a 5 min average time), and you get 2 legendaries on average per run, that is 400 legs in total. Pretty many if u ask me. Plus you have pretty high chance for blueprints at those chests at the end of dungeon.
Study the graph of (1-e^(-x/100))^2 for confidence level for at least one pair of Alkamos rings.
IDK perhaps I should just do like User_name: play TQ and do GD builds with 5 double rare MI’s so you other casual dudes can make all the builds you want in your loot pinata game 
I was speaking more generally than just about the rings. I’ve argued, many times, that I’m in favor of more simple transmuters in the skill tree that alter damage types via conversion rather than having them almost exclusively on sets. The reason I feel this way is because the development of builds has always been my favorite aspect of the game. It feels dumb to me that my character plays differently for 93 levels than it does for the last several. You could make a compelling argument that the farming process is part of the character development process, maybe the most important part, and I would probably agree. But I don’t think transmuter conversions eliminate that part of the game as you’d still want your character to have the most powerful gear. You’d also have incentive to shed the transmuter, eventually, because the skill point investments are useful elsewhere.
I also think the emphasis on sets for game-altering gameplay limits the rest of the game. The player ends up repeatedly farming the same area to maximize drops at the exclusion of the rest of the world. Personally, I love running around the broader world rather than slamming the same roguelite over and over, but I find myself doing the latter more often because of the aforementioned reasons. I’m not suggesting that all things should be equal, all the time, but I do think the disparity is fairly dramatic right now. Maybe the new “challenge areas” will remedy some of this in FG.
And, yes, I have over 1000 hours in the game. Granted, maybe half of that is from the game’s development cycle. Can’t remember when I started playing exactly. But the level cap was… 20? 25 Maybe? I don’t even know.
I agree, most class combos have a very defined “optimal” leveling path that often is very different compared to the build/playstyle you had in mind.
On the other hand, you will be able to play one char in many different ways during its “career” and that is worth something too for many players. I had a period when I saw my char as 4-5 chars in “one” so to say: 1 playstyle per difficulty and then one or two playstyles “end-game”
Perhaps “we” who post builds are more focused on presenting the end-result rather than the actual process and progress?
Also more “item independent” and “budget” builds needs to be published so that players that are low on gear have something to play against.
Well this thread has gone to some weird places.
You mean having a more gradual leveling and build making process than suddenly having options as soon as you hit level 94? Yes I get that and I’m behind that.
For alcoholist’s rings of pierce to cold, which IS the big “draw”, it makes sense to have the “epic” versions bring the same level of conversion, but lose out on %+cold+frostburn damages (like 50% as opposed to 100%) to make the gearing and progression more sensible.
Never mind that you could have the same conversion available on the lower level versions which all have 5% chance to drop per Alkamos. That way the important Alkamos-reliant builds would have their chances to get started early on, and not miss out on a big chunk of damage, and be able to use something OTHER than spectral longswords y’know, after all we’re talking about build diversity and nothing says build diversity like having literally one good option for most of the game for cold NB (that isn’t a haggarrad or auramancer infiltrator / caster) because everything else is sucky.
The epic rings are actually fine, I have 3 sets of them gathered in my pointless quest to find a legendary set. I use them on 2 builds, I like the OA and freeze resist. Not bad at all.
Nightscorn for epic pierce>cold
But yeah, having piece > cold on also the epic alkaline set rings could be good like 8-12% or something
God I sure hope devs don’t ever listen to the whacko’s asking for even lower drop rates. You know some people have a life right? I can’t spent every hour of my day grinding for a fictional item in a goddamn singleplayer game. Grinding is fucking boring and stupid and the less of it in a game (without undermining the difficulty of the game of course) the better.
Send here at least one thread where we tell Crate to lower the drops. You’re literally acting like this thread is about lowering the drop rates while we only talk that other games have way lower drop rates and GD’s are super high. You should learn to read before you say something.
For people that don’t like “low” drop rates, there are tools like GD stash where you can make any item in the game. It is a single player game so it is not cheating or anything.
And there are also ARPGs with higher drop rates that you can play instead.
There has to be a balance since there are some people like you who plays casual and some like me who play this game like crazy.
Like a casual player should have still enough chance to be able to find and get decent loot whereas a player like me should have something left to find/search for in order to “perfect” the builds.
If someone does have the patience to hunt for in this case the Purple Alkamos rings, you still have the blue ones that are pretty good (and there are more items that grants pierce>cold damage) and you always have the option to GD stash.