The RNG Problem, Enchantment System Vs Gem System (Major Edits)

[StivenHunt]

@Lombix_4

Yes, but I don’t have access to the drop rate data so I don’t know how to propose the change, but ultimately it’s the kind of thing that needs to be tested empirically to be balanced.

You don’t have to write everything in such detail. I even think it is actually worse than writing just the outliers of the idea. For example detailed list of gems and their effects you wrote is unimportant implementation detail in the grand scheme of gem system as a whole.

I simply wanted to highlight that if this system was to be implemented in the current game version, then it should have some guardrails to prevent gem inflation, because items with 3-5 mods drop quite often.

@Lombix_4

My intention is that in the early game the player has to do the best he can with what he has, in the mid game the player has access to many builds, in the late game he has access to almost all builds, in the post game he has access to all builds

Yes, that’s exactly how i thought about it too.

@Lombix_4

It depends on the amount of gems found, if they can be removed without destroying the item then there should be less gems in the items found around, and if the item is destroyed then there should be more gem drops.

I think it is better to drop items with higher number of gems slotted and let player extract just one, than to drop items with 1-2 gems slotted and allow extraction of all gems. This way players have bigger pool of gems to choose from and the choice itself is more important if there are 2 or more good gems slotted in some item and players can extract just one.

@Lombix_4

If you look at the values of the gem system and the values of the current enchantments, you see that they are very similar, currently it is easy to find a good weapon by changing one or two enchantments and using the armor not based on the appearance but based on the enchantments and have a very strong build for the mid game, the problem is that the player is not encouraged to try new builds, this system may seem easier to you since I suppose you are the type of player who decides not to use an armor set because you do not like the drip (I do it too) but all the players who ignore the aesthetic aspect until the post game will find that the systems have the same level of difficulty, obviously the system needs to be tested and balanced since I also added some new effects.

What i meant mostly is that during mid game most players would have a good chunk of powerful mods on every item, like reduced damage taken. Im not sure if this is the case in current game version. I would assume that the campaign was balanced on players not having such amount of good mods.

And remember guys, drip is always more important than stats

@Lombix_4

The system I wrote is heavily inspired by the current system and I decided to hold back on making some variations. These are some of those variations I considered.

The old system I wrote used them but I decided not to include them to stay more in line with what the devs have done so far. However, I made sure that curses are always something the player must keep in mind and not something to ignore or counterbalance with the opposite effect.

I quickly went through the gems you proposed, but didn’t analyze them much, because it’s unimportant implementation detail and im more concentrated on the idea itself.

The most important thing for me is to make cursed gems really worth slotting in. Curses should be paired with interesting good positive mods to make players consider using the gem primarily based on positive mod. With currently implemented system and one you proposed (+2 gem slots), players are only making choice based on negative mods - “I don’t want this curse, and that curse, so i’ll pick this one instead”. So naturally they go with curse they either can completely ignore or somewhat easily play around. It would be better if they choose cursed gems based on positive mod instead - “Oh, i really want this positive mod, but can i handle the negative?”.

@Lombix_4

Everyone wants this feature XD, Sublimation could be improved, and this is a way to do it within the framework of the gem system I proposed, and I like the idea. But I won’t work on it because this post is already long and complicated. If the devs incorporate the gem system into the game then I will definitely try to develop this idea, But I’m against variable values. If I added the terars, I wouldn’t make values that vary from 5% to 20% like they are in the game now. I’d rather have the values always be the same for each terar, so they’re easier to balance and not based on RNG. In fact, the gems I’ve indicated always have the value on the left, and I get the one on the right with sublimation. There are no intermediate values, and you can’t get lucky and immediately find the sublimated value.

In current game version and the gem idea you proposed players add mods they want to an item and are essentially done with it for the rest of the game. If they are extremely lucky this could happen even in the first zone. The tier system is simply to add another layer of progression between each zone.

Variable values serve the same purpose as gem tiers, but on micro scale. It is meant to add a small progression opportunity within each zone. It would create a limited sink for duplicated gems.

Example:
A player drops five first-tier gems in Marin Keep. These gems grant increased health, with a randomized effect ranging from 2% to 5%. The player slots one gem into their body armor. The game rolls a random value within the range, and they receive a +3% health bonus. To improve this effect, the player uses more of the same gem to randomly increase value of socketed gem. For example the second slam could increase the effect to +4%, and the third slam to +5% reaching the maximum value for this gem tier. Or maybe the player was lucky and second slam increased the effect straight to +5%.

Later, the player progresses to the next zone and begins finding second-tier health gems, which provide 6% to 10% increased health. When the player slots a second-tier gem into their armor, regardless of whether they previously had a first-tier gem in that slot the effect is rerolled randomly within the new tier’s range. For instance, they might now get +7% health.

This ensures that duplicate gems within each zone remain useful not only when player wants to change his build or change items for fashion purposes.