Exalted randomizer feels awful

I’m new player here, just bought the game 2 weeks ago. I no-life the game and I’m on end game grinding now. I beat pestilence 4 and crucible echo knight with 100% win rate (except when I’m pushed down the cliff) so I think I have play enough to give a proper feedback.

I’ve seen people complain about the 50% nerf across the board and not like it or whatever for the patch before I started playing. I have no bias about that I’m gonna say now that the game is still a little too easy even with this nerf. Whoever complain before just want to play one shot build and I don’t think that’s a proper way to play the game. Good job on that part.

The map design and game overall are really good and addictive. I’m not gonna go in too much about this because it’s not related to what I’m about to complain lol. Just know that tl;dr; is good job the map design is really well done, shortcuts that connect back after the area is amazing and thoughtful. I have a blast playing this game.

Now getting to the part I want to complain :

  • I don’t know what it is before, but the current gear crafting system is BEAUTIFUL. I wish all the other games really give this much respect to the people who grind the game to craft a perfect gear of their selection. The embers that allow me to move property and also buff the weak rolls are god send. Please do not remove these things. Anyone who said you can grind until you got the right drop have too much time in their life and I’m not one of those. I wish I can manipulate facet too but what we have now is more than acceptable for me
  • And then here come the exalted part, after all the beautiful stuff above WHY the last part of it have to be randomized!? I know the argument is probably gonna be along the line of “oh, you don’t need this, we need something for you to grind end game”. No. statistically to have 4 exalted rolls into one same stats is nearly impossible. And if it roll wrong you have to start over from grey gear is just plain disgusting in term of time sink and investment.
  • My point is if I keep working towards something, I should continuously getting closer to it, I’m not saying it should be easy, it can take months to get there, but I should be able to get there without backward progression because exalted decide to randomly roll on the wrong stats.

Here are some suggestions (you can pick or mix and match any of these and I will be very happy) :

  • Right now the watch keeper (whatever his name is) and exalted ember do exactly the same thing. the ember is basically pointless coz I play for 2 weeks and I only have 5 of them total (no joke). it’s so rare it should have done something better than the watch tower guy. I can feed infinite Sinew to him.
  • So if you don’t want people to reach their dream gears too fast, that’s fine. Make the Exalted ember very rare (for example, time gate it like make it only drop in weekly quest and only once per week, I’m ok with that. I can wait 4 weeks for one dream piece), but it can TARGET which property it want to enhance. This way if I want a very specific gear I can save all these embers and use it on the piece I want. It guaranteed that If I play enough, I will get what I want, no RNG. And on the gear that RNG matter less I’ll use the watch tower guy.
  • Or if you want to keep the same system, it’s also fine. But you have to give a way to reroll the exalted rolls. May be I can pay Sinew revoke the last roll so I can do it again or just pay Sinew to clear all the exalted rolls and start rolling 4 times again. Considering how easy to get Sinew at this current state of the game, pay Sinew to wipe Exalted rolls and do it again is acceptable for me. Use the Void ember to start over from gem gear is NOT ok. It’s going back too far.
  • If you say “just take anything that randomized, don’t sweat it” then no. If every property is equally good then that is one thing. It is not. Some properties are way better than the other. But even if they are equally good, it’s still not a good argument. Some properties are more offensive/defensive than the other and whatever build people (me) theorycrafting want specific stat, so roll into other is still not ideal even if it’s equally good in value. Exalting a gear should make you feel “hell yesss” after pressing a button. My last exalted and I’m beyond disappointed my chest plate is currently useless (yes, you know which stat I’m trying to roll into) and now I’m stuck with that chest plate thinking “Should I reroll this back to gem gear or give up and stuck with this garbage that will never reach potential because I cannot fix this”. I feel no joy getting my gear exalted. And that should not be a feeling after I sink that much time and investment to craft a gear (I feel overjoyed when I see a durable chest plate drop and I know this thing gonna do something good for me. That should be a feeling when I exalted a gear).
  • And even if I decide to make a new one, I will still not get what I want because guess what, 4 randomized rolls into 1 stat. How many gear do you expect me to craft/redo until I get what I want? 1/256 ≈ 0.39% how you’re going to justify “keep trying until you get lucky with that”? to top that on each try I have to find 4 specific stats to feed into the gear first before I can even start rolling. It would be a massive difference if the chance is around 20% or more. like after 5 complete restart and may be I can get what I want, yea may be it is more justify. 0.39% is statistically impossible.

tl;dr; Please leave a way so we can guarantee to get a gear of our choice without hiding it behind RNG. I’m not asking for it to be easy, but I’m asking for it to be possible with zero luck involved.

IIRC, the exalted system is currently balanced around “You don’t actually need exalted gear, it’s mostly for fun and to push beyong limits”. Then the issue is that sometimes you will get a “poor” roll and just feel meh about your otherwise perfectly crafted piece of gear.

I’d argue that the overall inventory and gear upgrade system is in dire dire need of polishing, which is to be expected at this stage. An overall is likely already in the works.

I don’t think the system needs a rework at all. The Embers have a lot of potential. I can definitely imagine that in the future there will be new Embers that address exactly the kinds of requests being mentioned here. They will probably be even rarer, but offer more control.

That’s a good point, and it’s something I’d like to see as well. But at the moment, I don’t think that step is necessary.

You might also simply find the game too easy at this point, since your gear is already close to optimal. I haven’t even put together perfect gear yet — I’m still playing with mostly gray equipment, each with four gems, and I’ve been able to complete everything so far.

This doesn’t feel like the actual endgame yet — more like a preview of what’s to come.

the exalted system is currently balanced around “You don’t actually need exalted gear”

I can agree with that. and I really appreciate it that the exalted system is the “extra” that I don’t need.

But that does not change the part that I FEEL bad after finished my exalted session. Why would I feel worse about my gear AFTER UPGRADE it. This is also why one of my proposal say “pay to wipe the exalted part and so I can redo it again” because everything else before start exalting work perfectly fine. I have my perfectly handpicked properties on my cursed gear and I’m very happy about it, until exalted ruined it with RNGs. And you are right I don’t need the exalted part so wiping that part and start over is fine. But I need the gear to still be there so I can use it to keep farming materials I can’t afford to wipe my gear back to gem, find another 4 specific properties, then waste it again on another exalted RNGs because we all know it will not roll the way I want.

May be if they added “Use Void ember on exalted gear will only reset the exalted part of it” and not going back to gem gear. I’m ok with that too.

I have reached the “I can farm end game content with ease” with all gem equipments + a cursed chest plate. I’m also very appreciated that the gem gears, magic gears, and cursed gears balance are not clearly cut that “oh, you want all cursed gears as your end game equipments”. Many times I have to think that “Should I go cursed or should I stay magic, or even gem gear on this piece of armor” and that is a good sign. They really did gem gears justice unlike all the other games that gem gears are not even worth using after mid game progression. Good job on them for that one.

My current build optimal final gears are : 1 Cursed/Magic helmet (still debating), 1 Cursed plate armor, Gem gloves, and Gem pant. It just mean gems can offer something that even magic or cursed gears can’t offer so I choose to not to use them and again this is an amazing design choice that no gear tier is actually worthless.

Finally someone else that shares it with me. Besides all the things above. I wanna create mix/match and tryout so many builds but with the current system it does not let me to try them out cuz im stuck with the base enchs thanx to the rng so i cant even theorycraft next level things around desired perfect exalted builds. Put some good price behind it but make it possible to reset exalt option.