10-27-2006, 10:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-27-2006, 10:44 PM by Hammerskjold.)
>That's an effect of the hyperinflated economy. The days are not long gone when I (and other folks I knew) were buying Cruel exceptionals and elites from Charsi to get by in Nightmare/Hell (playing untwinked).
I also play almost all of my chars (D2 classic & LoD) un-twinked. And maybe it's just my luck, but including LoD, I've only found one cruel elite once from a shopkeeper in all the time I've played. And I've played roughly since D2 classic first came out. Some players cubed a cruel weapon on their first tens of rolls. Let's just say that while there are parts of D2 classic I like, LoD at least gave some flexibility with runewords. Though I think the LoD rare upgrade recipe was a great addition and something that was much needed.
So while the 'economy' is a factor, drop factor \ luck imo plays a bigger part for something like solo\sp play.
>Still makes for good stuff in the beginning of the ladder. Since these two situations share the factor of not really being able to trade, I'd say that item saturation is at fault, not the quality of the gear the merchants offer.
So to say something like item saturation is a factor, I don't quite agree. I mean yes saturation is of course a factor online, but more important to me is it a saturation of real or counterfeit items? In online public D1 games I remembered there was quite a lot of players sporting triple Obsidian Zodiac jewelry. But it's not really true to say that D1 drops a glut of obs-zod.
>You want more controllable rerolls? Potentially abusive if they're cheap enough (IE, I'll just keep one charm and cube it with some Els until I get the resistance mod I want, and will thus save inventory (but not lockbox) space).
No, don't read it too literally. Something like a +1mana charm is close to meaningless. (I'm not sure what you mean by the Els rune, am I forgetting a charm re-roll recipe that uses EL in the standard game?. Unless you meant theoratically. Theoratically anything can be abused if the recipe is cheap and result is narrow enough.) Using it in a re-roll will probably turn out better results, because you might get something better for essentially nothing. The 3 perfect gems needed for the re-roll is imo the real price of the recipe.
But, it might be more interesting if that charm affix actually holds something of value. Maybe not in the immediate situation, but it does have its uses. Then the player might have to consider is it worth doing the re-roll. Don't think of it as a roll to get good<better< best. More like rolling to get either rock, paper, or scissor. (And there's no guarantee that you will get what you actually want, a rock charm might just re-roll into another rock.) Choosing whether or not to roll a junk charm into a useful one isn't really meaningful. Seriously, who would turn that down in a regular standard game?
Though really, if I wanted to really flesh it out I'd just say that I'd ease up on the durability issue on things like weapons and instead transfer it over to charms. It will be indestructible of course when you're just carrying it around. But the process of re-rolling will take it's toll, and will eventually break if too many re-rolls are done on the charm.
But here is where the idea might get hate mail. In the long run, (in my own hypothetical parallel universe where I own a gajillion dollar game company and also the world's strongest gajillionaire) this type of re-rolling is treated as more like a bonus and optional mini-game. Those who want to pursue the activity can do so. But it will never be absolutely required because the average player will nearly always have access to usable and useful gear.
But by this point, I think we're going into a wish list type of discussion or mod ideas.
>Agreed, but would you have waited another year and payed an extra fifty bucks for these (Gogo hyperbole!)?
For better and worse I think D2\LoD was always a work in progress until v 1.10. But what I'm talking about is things that should've been worked out in the design\in house testing stage. Yes we have the benefit of hindsight, but it's funny looking at bliz usual creed of 'it's done when it's done, and we make games that we want to play' compared to the patch txt. Yes bliz is a company and not some video game charity. It's always a level of compromise between getting things competently done and delivering it to the paying client who wants it done by yesterday. It's always a compromise between making the games they want to play and you the paying customer wants to play.
Looking at the bigger picture it's actually commendable that 1.10 even came out (and done by mostly one person iirc) at all. But would I wait another year for a better designed (read: not necessarily more content, but better.) yes. Would I pay an extra 50 for the effort? If it means better replay yes. If it means more meaningless filler hell no. Obviously I'm not advocating something like D3 to go into DukeNukem4ever mode, and bliz is a business after all. But personally no, I don't mind waiting a bit longer if it means they have more time devoted to quality.
I also play almost all of my chars (D2 classic & LoD) un-twinked. And maybe it's just my luck, but including LoD, I've only found one cruel elite once from a shopkeeper in all the time I've played. And I've played roughly since D2 classic first came out. Some players cubed a cruel weapon on their first tens of rolls. Let's just say that while there are parts of D2 classic I like, LoD at least gave some flexibility with runewords. Though I think the LoD rare upgrade recipe was a great addition and something that was much needed.
So while the 'economy' is a factor, drop factor \ luck imo plays a bigger part for something like solo\sp play.
>Still makes for good stuff in the beginning of the ladder. Since these two situations share the factor of not really being able to trade, I'd say that item saturation is at fault, not the quality of the gear the merchants offer.
So to say something like item saturation is a factor, I don't quite agree. I mean yes saturation is of course a factor online, but more important to me is it a saturation of real or counterfeit items? In online public D1 games I remembered there was quite a lot of players sporting triple Obsidian Zodiac jewelry. But it's not really true to say that D1 drops a glut of obs-zod.
>You want more controllable rerolls? Potentially abusive if they're cheap enough (IE, I'll just keep one charm and cube it with some Els until I get the resistance mod I want, and will thus save inventory (but not lockbox) space).
No, don't read it too literally. Something like a +1mana charm is close to meaningless. (I'm not sure what you mean by the Els rune, am I forgetting a charm re-roll recipe that uses EL in the standard game?. Unless you meant theoratically. Theoratically anything can be abused if the recipe is cheap and result is narrow enough.) Using it in a re-roll will probably turn out better results, because you might get something better for essentially nothing. The 3 perfect gems needed for the re-roll is imo the real price of the recipe.
But, it might be more interesting if that charm affix actually holds something of value. Maybe not in the immediate situation, but it does have its uses. Then the player might have to consider is it worth doing the re-roll. Don't think of it as a roll to get good<better< best. More like rolling to get either rock, paper, or scissor. (And there's no guarantee that you will get what you actually want, a rock charm might just re-roll into another rock.) Choosing whether or not to roll a junk charm into a useful one isn't really meaningful. Seriously, who would turn that down in a regular standard game?
Though really, if I wanted to really flesh it out I'd just say that I'd ease up on the durability issue on things like weapons and instead transfer it over to charms. It will be indestructible of course when you're just carrying it around. But the process of re-rolling will take it's toll, and will eventually break if too many re-rolls are done on the charm.
But here is where the idea might get hate mail. In the long run, (in my own hypothetical parallel universe where I own a gajillion dollar game company and also the world's strongest gajillionaire) this type of re-rolling is treated as more like a bonus and optional mini-game. Those who want to pursue the activity can do so. But it will never be absolutely required because the average player will nearly always have access to usable and useful gear.
But by this point, I think we're going into a wish list type of discussion or mod ideas.
>Agreed, but would you have waited another year and payed an extra fifty bucks for these (Gogo hyperbole!)?
For better and worse I think D2\LoD was always a work in progress until v 1.10. But what I'm talking about is things that should've been worked out in the design\in house testing stage. Yes we have the benefit of hindsight, but it's funny looking at bliz usual creed of 'it's done when it's done, and we make games that we want to play' compared to the patch txt. Yes bliz is a company and not some video game charity. It's always a level of compromise between getting things competently done and delivering it to the paying client who wants it done by yesterday. It's always a compromise between making the games they want to play and you the paying customer wants to play.
Looking at the bigger picture it's actually commendable that 1.10 even came out (and done by mostly one person iirc) at all. But would I wait another year for a better designed (read: not necessarily more content, but better.) yes. Would I pay an extra 50 for the effort? If it means better replay yes. If it means more meaningless filler hell no. Obviously I'm not advocating something like D3 to go into DukeNukem4ever mode, and bliz is a business after all. But personally no, I don't mind waiting a bit longer if it means they have more time devoted to quality.