Part of the problem (at least for me) is that there’s so much that we need to control; the affixes, the item levels, the affix levels; plus the RNG inherent in acquiring those things in the first place, like the crafting materials, the Embers, the good affixes; it can take hours of grinding to get all the necessary parts and pieces for a good build, and then more time to actually craft the build, and then there’s not always a lot left over after the build crafting is done to try again.
Oh boy… I think you’re approaching “build making” the wrong way.
Why do you feel the need to have every enhancement from your planned build present, fully maxed, and exalted on top of that? And on max tier gear? Just to test whether the build is viable? No wonder you’re frustrated.
To test a build concept, you only need a few things, in order of importance:
A weapon between tier 10–16.
1–2 key runes that are central to the build.
2–3 core enhancements that define how the build functions. Any percentage range is fine.
The rest of the gear doesn’t matter at this stage. Drip is irrelevant. Any set works as long as it matches the weight class you intend to use. Tier is also irrelevant here, it could even be tier 1.
Total cost:
One tier 10–16 weapon.
2–3 essence embers.
1–2 weapons to extract runes from.
Any gear matching your intended weight class.
A few coins to transfer runes.
That’s it. You’re testing a concept, not min-maxing a final showcase build.
It’s completely possible to fix a “bad build” on a max level character. As long as you’re not face tanking every hit, the only thing you really need to start farming items and resources for a new build is a weapon in your hands.
What ARPGs have you played that don’t heavily rely on casino level RNG and immense grind? That’s basically the core loop of the genre. Of course, I wouldn’t even consider NRFTW to be an ARPG. It’s much closer to a Souls-like.
I don’t know why so many people see my frustration with the current tedium of the system and jump to the conclusion that I must be talking about making a fully min/maxed build. It’s the system itself that I find frustrating, the actual nuts and bolts of creating a build.
But to your point: Yes, if I want to test a fire build, I want to include things like +Burn Damage, and +Fire Damage, and +Crit Against Burning Enemies, that’s what I think of when I think of a build, not just taking a single weapon with Fire Infusion and seeing if I like the weapon or not. It doesn’t need to be min/maxed, but yes, I want the pieces to test out the build, not just the weapon, not just one piece of armor.
My frustration isn’t about min/maxing, if it was I’d be even more frustrated than I already am; no, my frustration is with all the steps, time, materials, and decisions necessary to craft a build in the first place.
It might not be special, but it would be accessible. Putting time, effort, and thought into creating a build, only for that build to not work and leave me without materials for another one, that doesn’t feel special to me, that feels frustrating.
I would trade some specialness for more accessibility, ease of use, and repeatability.
In NRFTW, most builds are perfectly viable. Honestly, you’d have to screw up royally for a build to be truly “bad” - if that’s even possible.
And again, the cost of a minimal setup to test a concept is basically just a weapon, three essence embers, and your most important rune. If that’s too much for you, then you might want to reconsider the kinds of game genres you’re choosing to play. It’s nothing compared to actual ARPGs like Path of Exile.
is it?
I’m not even being sarcastic, but isn’t that part assumed?
it feels like games have sort of forgotten how incredibly valuable and varied goals can be even in the same type of game. I wouldn’t mind the end-game being like an insane type of crucible run, where you’re effectively bashing your head against the wall. So long as I know I can get better, know I can make progress, and know I’m not wasting my time trying it, I generally like having challenges I pick up at any time.
smash bros melee had events which were just custom challenges, but some of them were diabolical. Pros might not have a problem with event 51, but I spent maybe weeks on it.
I feel like designers have given up on tangential and supplementary goals.
Either a game is linear, and you beat the final boss and it’s over.
or it’s cyclical, and you beat enemies to get better gear to beat more enemies.
The thing is, it’s usually more meaningful if you put it in the right context. Like if this is about builds, how do you TEST your build? Crucible? That’s pretty flaccid.
If they had like a vampire survivor mode, you could measure it in kills. Or survival duration. Or even make the mode tweakable so it’s tougher enemies, and you measure damage total.
Atm, at best, you measure it in… how fast you do crucible? And you need to bring your own stop watch. And there’s no acknowledgement from the game. And especially no reward. And no reason to try to beat any record you set, either.
Viability of a build is irrelevant to the topic of how you go about making them. Not to mention optimize them. one of which is hell, and the other one, worse.
ok, again, how does that address the enchantment system? I don’t think he complained about gems. Ever. Nor do I know why you’d assume he didn’t consider it
Yep and you can sit on the gem gear while you slowly upgrade the pieces to fully enchanted. I think one issue is wanting to create a build all at once rather than over time.
I too love gems. Mostly because they make the game feel better due to most of the elements modifying everything that isn’t the two most boring vectors: damage dealt and received.
But why are we talking about this lol?
I get it. If it doesn’t directly fix the complaint, you don’t want to hear about it. My 7th character was a gem build. Was the first time I even considered trying it. I thought they would be weak, but it made leveling much easier (I only used gems I found while leveling) and still worked alright end game.
I said most builds are viable in the context of both the main post and the one I was directly responding to. The author mentioned multiple times that he crafted a build he believed was “bad.”
NRFTW is a Souls-like, there really aren’t “bad” builds.
The only real issues with the enhancement system right now are quality of life ones like no dedicated chest for extracted enhancements, no filters, etc. On top of that, the existence of essence embers heavily incentivizes hoarding items for future rune and enhancement extraction.
Aside from those points, it’s actually one of the least grindy systems out there. Go try creating a perfect mirror build in Path of Exile or Path of Exile 2. Good luck and see you in 4 years!
Being a souls like does not prevent bad builds. Lords of the fallen suffered from that pretty hard. A lot of weapons are trash, especially when it first came out.
I haven’t had the chance to play Lords of the Fallen yet, so I guess it depends on the specific game. But generally, Souls-likes are designed in a way where the only thing you truly need to beat the game is a weapon in your hands.
The same goes for Wicked. Your build is essentially your weapon, your runes, and your weight category. Everything else is just a scaling factor. Helpful, sure, but not required to finish the game.
Like putting +Ice Damage on a Fire Build, or +Crit Damage on a weapon that can’t Crit. I would contend that there definitely can be bad builds, like trying to melee with a Wand or face tank in Cloth.
Again, I’m still not talking about crafting perfect builds, that’s a straw man that doesn’t apply to my post. My frustration is with the process, not necessarily the results.
The reason I mentioned results is because the process leaves so few materials leftover after the a build is complete:
So just to recap: My frustrations are with the tedium of build crafting and that so few materials are left over after build crafting, not with the fact that some builds (Like a face tanking cloth build, or a melee based wand build, or putting Ice Enchants on a Fire build) don’t work well. Again, my problem is not one of min/maxing, my problem is the process.