upgrading items seems completely not worth it in the early / mid game, due to the resource requirements.
The gold cost is ok, but it seems more likely to find a lvl7 weapon of the right type than to find the materials to upgrade a lvl4 weapon to lvl5 (let alone 7).
I’m not saying it should be super easy, but I think it’d make sense that it works something like this:
Lvl1-2-3-4 upgrades need 1 basic resource
Lvl4-5-6-7 upgrades need 2 basic resources
Lvl7-8-9-10 upgrades need 3 resources (1 that’s “upgraded” like ingots or planks)
That way, by the time you are finding lvl8-10 weapons from drops, you need to make sure you’re upgrading 1 vendor (the relevant one for your character’s weapon) if you want to keep your own weapon up to date.
The above numbers seem ballpark correct to me, but maybe just slightly too lenient.
Thanks in advance for considering
I don’t think any ARPG makes upgrading early worth your time… PoE2 kind of does if you’re speed running or understand the crafting system enough to know what’s wasteful and what isn’t. But the entire game loop is to get the best gear so moving your closer to that goal in the first 3-5 hours of the game isn’t something most ARPG’s are interested in.
PoE2 and the likes also don’t have the same gear system as Wicked. In Wicked, your starting weapon can be upped to max level, and it’ll have endgame damage numbers. That’s simply not the case for PoE style games.
In PoE you can augment etc your starting weapon, but it’ll always stay a terrible base weapon.
The closest middle ground between the two is Diablo 2, where you can upgrade your normal base to exceptional and elite versions, and then add a runeword in it. I agree that that’s not easy and would be completely unprofitable.
Btw, I think that with my suggestion it still will be easier to find an upgrade than to upgrade your gear at the vendor. But at least the gap is much narrower, which makes the player consider: do I just use this new piece I found, or do a bit more to upgrade my current piece which I like (nice moveset, nice looks, nice enchantments)
I think that would make the game much more interesting, without trivializing it