O. So I have to finish that though.
The idea was that we can influence the rolls at the enchantment stage, hopefully with the same items we already have for infusions - although probably an altered form. Maybe you can process those crystals down to a powder, etc etc… and maybe you get different amounts of this powder per crystal level (we only have chipped ATM). Then we craft recipes with the scribe table. Recipes would include item plus powders and the result would be an influenced enchanted item…
I’m not at all opposed to having different recipes for this crafting, one for blue, plague, and maybe even legendary affixes like @RomoloHero put the idea out. Splitting the system even further as you suggested.
So similar to the workflow we have now. You gather, grind, etc for resources. We craft bases… You decide what you want to go for, white, blue, plague and the resources you’ve accumulated directly help you progress the build. Then when you land on the thing you want, exalt slam it and you’re on your way.
You can constantly refine the stats you want by making new gear, looking for the idea stats each player has in mind based on play style, weapons, theme, etc.
So what would this do to gear we find in open world, is it useless. Nah. Still worth silver, still could be a dope drop, etc. But we could also salvage items in a system like this. The player has to weight the silver price vs the salvageable materials. And it’s already been tossed around the idea of recipes from deconstructed items. Hell yeah, let it happen.
Not only does this make build crafting much more streamlined but it also makes gearing and balancing considerably more straight forward when you know exactly what the limits are for players at each step in the campaign and various activities like the crucible.
It also lets the talent tree discussion go much smoother, imo. You can do things in the tree that give a twist on how builds play and you know the power level of these interactions because gearing has been made much more standardized.
Is end game gear free? No but you have directly obtainable progress that stays within the spirit of the initial design.
White most customizable
Blue, improved affixes (beyond standard infusion)
Plague, select affixes and some unique to this tier are at a higher % max than blue, and the trade off is a negative affix (which we still have no control over)
Yes that’s right, you still need to be able to brick items for a resource sync. Just not the extreme it is now as it’s purely RNG.
Overall I think it’d be a huge QoL change and would extend beyond that to be a unique crafting system befitting Wicked and the overall design.