I was thinking about this a little bit further the other day and I do have a concern about the amount of yellows that will be dropping. Given that you’re increasing the value/power of yellows, I feel like I could be easily overwhelmed by trying to sort through them all of the time. It’s cool that their power is increased but at the current drop rate it’s a negative trade off in player time. I believe someone already pointed out this out earlier. I think it’s a valid concern.
I was thinking if it would be a good idea to counter balance this by decreasing yellow drop rate but increasing the vendor value of whites or just increasing Iron drop rates and amounts? It’s weird because I’m even a little ambivalent about this idea. I’m just thinking about how much time I could spend trying to sort through yellows at the end of a Warden run. In fact I was until I just got tired of doing it and I vendor everything unless it’s a green. On the flip side one of the big draws of the genre is the whole loot pinata effect. Messing with that loot reward explosion feel of the game is a dangerous thing and hard to get tuned into a sweet spot.
Personally I don’t understand all the concern about sorting through drops. Once you get to know what affixes best augment your character build you can tell pretty much straight away if there is something relevent or not.
For example with most of my caster builds I look for affixes like: Potency, the Owl, the Sea, Celerity, Haste, etc. With a cursory glance I can tell if there is something useful to my caster, simple. If i find something unknown or interesting, such as a prefix suffix combo, I take the time to check it out. However I do not feel like I am being overwhelmed by a mountain of information I have to sort through.
The hardest thing I find is the decision of what to keep and stash and what to let go and vendor. The limited stash space causes me to do some ruthless item culling. Being a natural horder this process is most painful
The greater concern with better stats on yellow items is that the early game will be too easy, thus conveying a false impression of Crates’ overall hardcore approach to the game.
If sunandsteel71 really cleared out the depraved sanctuary with a level 13 caster, wearing only yellows how much more OP is the new rebalancing going to make lower level characters?
Seems to me like the mobs are going to need some rebalancing also.
Yellow stats aren’t really changing. We’re mainly pacing out green / blue balance and drop rates so that they aren’t quite as prominent in the early game. So, for example, with greens, we split many of them into early and higher level versions, instead of just one version, which was often overpowering at lower levels.
Greens, even at lower level, will usually still be better than equivalent level yellows (depending on how a particular green affix suits your class), however, they shouldn’t be so good that they still outclass every yellow drop 5 levels later, which is often what’s happening now.
Also, while sunandsteel71’s HC run was impressive, I think it would have been more challenging without the ability to cast pox on enemies trapped behind doors. Although, really, a character who can fight completely from range can defeat almost anything given enough time and skill at maneuvering to avoid enemy attacks. So, I don’t think a feat like that means items need to be nerfed - it probably could be done naked with enough patience, skill and luck. Plus, those were only level 25 enemies on normal difficulty. If people are fighting through the end-game on legendary with level 13 chars in yellow gear, that might be a different story.
I think we should address the issue with pox though. Adding LOS dependency to the skill might be tough to do but it may be easier to allow certain enemies, once attacked, to break down doors.
Different mobs spawn in different areas based on your level. That was a big part of what was so awesome about the way the original level scaling worked (until it was ruined by a bunch of people prematurely b@#$%ing). Same thing applies to the depraved sanctuary. When you go in at such a low level, chthonian harbingers don’t spawn, which is really the biggest threat of the zone. I’ve cleared it with a couple different characters while leveling, it’s not as impressive as it could(should) be.
Thank you medierra for the acknowledgement, even though you rapidly diminish your praise in the following paragraph, haha i am glad you noticed the cheesey exploit with the bloody pox. The point that you make has been my contention all along, which i voiced in the alpha skill feedback thread: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9300
Yeah agreed. Though to do that naked would indeed require a prodigious serving of luck. Simply because a ranged build can quite easily be overwhelmed by the fast moving void fiends, and with the lower max health being hit by a Priest’s sigil is certain death at that level. But i agree it would be possible.
I dont think items need to be nerfed, but i think Grimace was making the point that if yellows were going to receive a buff then mobs should also receive a buff, otherwise early game build potency would would come across as OP, even though the overall game difficultly remained hardcore…
This lack of LOS mechanics with these spell type skills is abit concerning, because other skills like sigil and doom bolt can also be exploited this way by being able to cast them through walls and closed doors provided targets are in range. It would certainly be an improvement for monsters to break through the door once they register an attack inside the room. Still i don’t think that should be a final solution.
Is the lack of barrier relevance in this context a limitation of the game engine?
Typically, even the better gear you find early on has only so much armor value or only does so much damage or has a limited amount of some resist on it.
If you don’t find anything for a slot after awhile, you have to swap it out.
At least, a yellow will give you a resist you might need.
I don’t want too many of them but I want enough to have a choice. If it is a yellow, then it should be good enough to be worthwhile … I don’t want to have to filter through low value yellow items.
(…as we have seen with some games with magic find)
Personally, I like the choice of being to swap in with what I think I need.
What I would like a bit early on, is the ability to buy some stuff at the merchants that has a bit of elemental resist or poison resist, or a weapon that has some elemental damage that isn’t out of price range because it also has 30 health or +2% of some damage.
That depends on whether you’re shopping for just a caster or a set of casters. I’m usually running about two to three different class builds pseudo-simultaneously. My choice comes down to whether I’m interested in keeping an eye out for the other classes or I just say to hell with it and suffer some missed opportunities.
It mostly starts to affect me after I’ve done a couple of Warden runs and I’ve seen multiple copies of his item drops. It all starts to blur together quickly.
I have always thought that a loot filter would be a nice thing to have. Honestly though, there are higher priority issues that have a greater impact on the game than my laziness and there’s a lot of work that has to be put in just to handle the basics. Having played ARPGs and paid attention to things the developers say, the genre is one of the more difficult game types to make right.
i am glad you noticed the cheesey exploit with the bloody pox. The point that you make has been my contention all along, which i voiced in the alpha skill feedback thread: 