Suggestion Recommended Methods for Crafting 2.0

So the idiot developers decided to listen to a bunch of hypothetical whining as opposed to hard fact and statistical analysis and they nerfed the system before it was even released. The information below is interesting and useful for comparing the original design of this system to their newest version, but not much more. I'll update this thread with a redirect link when I make another thread looking at this system.

So, we've covered the math of Crafting 2.0. We've covered some of the monster items that can be made. In the math thread, we've sort of covered some of the methods that should be used to produce desired results, but now I'd like to condense that all here and cover the easiest way to make an uber item. This guide will focus on LVL 50 because, until that time, it is more expensive than is worth it unless you are a twink.

Too Long, Didn't Read:
What Am I (DrHorrible) Going to Do?
While I encourage you all to read the entire lengthy post, I know that many of you will not because of the length and complexity. So, as the most basic guide, this is what I recommend, based on my plan.

I will farm 6 green/blue items with the stats I want. If one is a green item, I'll craft it with three otherwise worthless 4 slot greens that I've opened the 5th slot with the goal of crafting a 5 slot blue with one good stat. I will then use 3x blues, with one desirable stat each, and one 5 slot blue with nothing I care about to attempt to craft a 5 slot exo with two desirable stats on it. From here, I'll use two of these crafted exos with 2 good stats and two farmed exos with one good stat each and attempt to make a legendary with three good stats. I'll stop at this point. By now, I can expect to have spend just shy of 2500 gold, 6 good green/blue items, and 2 farmed exos with one good stat and I will have crafted an item that is likely superior to almost any found in the game up to R166. I will then move on to my other items that I want to drastically improve until all my items are either uniques that I'm using for their special set bonuses or special stats, or legendaries with 3 good stats. In my case, I have 5 items that I want to replace, so this process will likely cost me close to 12.5k gold and likely 2-4 months. From here, I will begin creating more legendaries with three good lines as items become available. Then, when I've crafted thee such legendaries (including the one I'm using), I'll put them on the bench with a farmed legendary with one good stat line and craft until I reach a legendary with four ideal stat line. I'll then repeat this process for all 5 of the items I intend to replace. This will likely cost me about 47.5k gold and take about a year of farming.

Now, if you want to understand the logic of these choices and where the costs come from, keep reading and enjoy

-----------------------------------------------​

First, Here are the costs for crafting at each rarity at LVL 50:
Improved-->Magic: 3 Gold, 84 Silver, 80 Copper
Premium 2g/88s/60c, Deluxe 2g/50s/12c
Magic-->Extraordinary: 14 Gold, 80 Silver
Premium 11g/10s, Deluxe 9g/62s
Extraordinary-->Legendary: 118 Gold, 40 Silver
Premium 88g/80s, Deluxe 76g/96s
Legendary-->Legendary: 222 Gold
Premium 166g/50s, Deluxe 144g/30s

Second, Lets cover the cost to add gem slots to items:
Improved: 20 / 60 / 180 / 540 / 1620 Andermant.
Magic: 100 / 300 / 600 / 1200 / 3600 Andermant.
Extraordinary: 400 / 1200 / 3600 / 10800 / 32400 Andermant.
Legendary: 1600 / 4800 / 14400 / 43200 / 129600 Andermant.

Now, there are a couple different ways you can approach the actual crafting process depending on how much gold you have to spend or how many items you've farmed. I'll do my best to cover the 2-3 best options.

Improved to Magic:
There is only one way that makes sense with this. You can only pass one inherited stat from one of the greens to the resulting blue, and each stat has a 25% chance. Given how inexpensive it is to craft (3.8 gold each) it only makes sense to craft and revert 1x 1/1 green with 3x 0/1 greens until you get a 1/2 blue. Math says that it will likely take you 4 tries on average. Some times you will get lucky and get it on your first try. Other times it will take 10, but on average it will be about 4. That comes out to 15g93s20c, and it is easier to get 15 gold than it is to find a green item with the stat you want.

Regarding slots, the fact that you are only using one specific item and the other three can be anything (so long as they are the same type) means that you ought to pick those other three items based on the total number of slots. Look for 3 items (of the same type) with 4 slots each. It will take time, but likely less than the time it takes to get a gold line Improved item. You can then upgrade each of the 4 slot items to 5 slots for a total of 60 andermant. Then, you will have 15 slots going into the crafting bench. Then, so long as the item with the gold slot has at least 3 slots, the resulting blue will have 5 slots too. Getting 3 slots on the gold line Improved will take no more than 260, making the total cost of getting a 5 slot Magic item no more than 320 andermant. Compare this to what would happen if you didn't add slots before hand: 0/4/4/4 slots going in --> 3 slots come out, you then pay 100+300=400 andermant to upgrade the resulting blue to 4 slots. That is 25% more than you'd pay if you added them while the items were still green.

Magic to Extraordinary:
Here is where things get interesting and trade offs start to occur. You want a 2/3 exo to make building legendaries better/easier. The average cost to craft will be based on Armando's math of the probabilities of various outcomes. The price is also based on non premium, so multiply by 0.75 or 0.65 for Premium/Deluxe. Also, I assume that you followed my advice above regarding making 5 slot blues from greens, but say you found a blue item with a gold stat line that had 0 slots, I'll address what you might end up paying. Good deals are highlighted green, bad deals are highlighted red.

To get a 2/3 Exo Out:

Type of Item	2x 1/2 Magic	3x 1/2 Magic	4x 1/2 Magic
Average Cost of Craft	28*14.8=414g40s	10*14.8=148g	5*14.8=74g
Total Number of Blue/Green (Based on crafting Blues from Greens, cost 16g each)	2 (32 gold)	3 (48 gold)	4 (64 gold)
Total Cost (assuming all Blues crafted from Greens)	446.4	196	138
Potential Cost of Slots	5/5/4/4=0 ander 5/0/4/4=900 Ander makes 5/3/5/5 As opposed to: 1600 Ander 0/0/4/4=2000 Ander makes 4/3/5/5 As opposed to: 5200 Ander	5/5/5/4=0 Ander 5/5/0/4=1100 Ander makes 5/5/3/5 As opposed to: 400 5/0/0/4= 4500 makes 5/4/4/5 As opposed to: 5200 Ander 0/0/0/4= 8100 makes 4/4/5/5 As opposed to: 16000	5/5/5/5=0 Ander 5/5/5/0=1000 Ander makes 5/5/5/3 As opposed to: 400 Ander 5/5/0/0=4400 Ander makes 5/5/4/4 As opposed to: 1600 5/0/0/0= 10200 makes 5/5/4/4 As opposed to: 16000 0/0/0/0=16000 makes 5/5/4/4 As opposed to: 48400

So, we see that it is much cheaper when it comes to andermant for slots if you use 5 slot magic items made from green items. But there is also the gold cost to consider. Personally, I think the best balance for gold vs number of items to farm exists in crafting 3x 1/2 magic items, but it means careful selection of your other items. I didn't cover every possible combination of slots and their cost, but this would give you the idea and the means to calculate this for your self. Before going to the crafting bench, always add up the total slots and divide by 4 and round to the nearest whole number. Then figure out the cost that it would take to get to the next slot vs what the cost would be if you crafted first and then added the slot. Also consider that a 2/3 Exo item might actually be good enough to replace some legendaries, so the number of slots becomes really important here. For example, if I crafted a torso with 19.5% damage and 550 armor (total), then I'll likely replace my existing torso and I'll need all 5 slots to keep using the gems I have in my current torso. This is one of those things that I can only give you the tools, but you need to do the hard thinking for yourself.

Extraordinary to Legendary:
Part 1:
The goal here should be to use the 2/3 exos crafted in the previous step to craft 3/4 legendaries. Maybe, if the legendary is good enough and you need a significant improvement over what you have currently, a 2/4 legendary may be acceptable, but that wastes the potential of 2/3 exos. Also, the probability of getting a 2/3 exo with the gold stats that you want as a random drop is low, so considering 1, 2, 3, or 4 slot random items with 2/3 is negligible.

Type of Items	2x 2/3 Exos	3x 2/3 Exos	4x 2/3 Exos
Average Cost to Craft	55*118.4=6512g	11*118.4=1302g	4*118.4=473.6g
Number of Green/Blue (Based on 3x Blues/Greens per 2/3 Exo, cost 196g each)	6 (1176 gold)	9 (1764 gold)	12 (2352 gold)
Total cost	7688 Gold	3066 Gold	2826 Gold
Potential Cost of Slots	Coming soon	Coming Soon	Coming Soon

In my opinion, the 2x 2/3 Exos is too expensive to warrant the craft, even though it only takes 6 good items be found. Simply by finding 3 more good blue or green items you can cut that in half. That being said, I don't think that the 4x 2/3 exos is worth it. You find and use 3 more blue/green items, but you only save 240 gold. In my opinion, it is easier to farm 240 gold than 3 items with the enchantments that I want.

Extraordinary to Legendary:
Part 2:
So part one covered the use of 2/3 Exos to make 3/4 legendaries, but many of the good items you find are 1/3 exos. While they are obviously not as useful as 1/1 improved items or 1/2 magic items, they are still important due to their stats. The issue is, even with 4x 1/3 Exos, you are looking at a 1.82% chance of getting a 3/4 legendary. This is the same odds as getting a 3/4 legendary from 2x 2/3 Exos, meaning that you'd have to spend 6512 gold to get a 3/4 legendary. However, they can be used to build 2/4 legendaries rather easily and those can then be used to build better legendaries. I'll cover that later in one of the parts of Legendary to Legendary crafting. So, here is the table for 1/3 exos to make 2/4 legendaries.

Type of Items	2x 1/3 Exos	3x 1/3 Exos	4x 1/3 Exos
Average Cost to Craft	22*118.4=2605g	8*118.4=947g	5*118.4=592g
Number of Green/Blue (Based on 3x Blues/Greens per 2/3 Exo, cost 196g each)	N/A	N/A	N/A
Potential Cost of Slots	Coming soon	Coming Soon	Coming Soon

I'd say that the 3x 1/3 is reasonable to craft a 2/4 legendary. It is 355 gold more expensive than the 4x 1/3, but the question is this. Which is easier: farming a exo with the stat you need, or farming 355 gold.

Legendary to Legendary:
Part 1:
This will cover crafting 2/4 legendaries out of 1/4 legendaries. Unfortunatly, 1/4 legendaries are not any use for crafting 4/4 legendaries. While it is theoretically possible, with the 1:1820 chance, you could be looking at spending 404040 gold and still never get a 4/4 legendary from 1/4 legendaries. Crafting 3/4 legendaries are a little better at 1:141 (31302 gold for 3x 1/4s) or 1:38 (8436 gold for 4x 1/4s), but still too expansive to depend on these. Sure, if you get lucky while aiming for a 2/4 legendary, you'd be crazy not to accept it, but this guide is looking at the long game and overall statistic, not random bits of luck. Here is the cost for crafting 2/4s into 3/4s.

Type of Items	2x 1/4 Legendary	3x 1/4 Legendary	4x 1/4 Legendary
Average Cost to Craft	20*222=4440g	8*222=1776g	5*222=1110g
Number of Green/Blue (Based on 3x Blues/Greens per 2/3 Exo, cost 196g each)	N/A	N/A	N/A
Potential Cost of Slots	Coming soon	Coming Soon	Coming Soon

I'd aim for the 4x 1/4 Legendaries. They are rather easy to farm in Fatal bosses and saving 666 gold is significant.

Legendary to Legendary:
Part 2:
This part will cover crafting 3/4 legendaries out 2/4 legendaries. These 2/4 legendaries could have come from "Exos to Legendary, Part 2" or "Legendary to Legendary, Part 1." Here the goal is to get 3/4 legendaries. Getting a 4/4 legendary is possible with a 0.82% chance or 3.85% chance for 3x 2/4 legendaries or 4x 2/4 legendaries respectively. Again, this is low enough that it isn't reasonable to attempt for your end goal when the odds of getting a 3/4 range from 2.64%/10.99%/24.62% for 2x, 3x, or 4x 2/4 legendaries. The table is below.

Type of Items	2x 2/4 Legendary	3x 2/4 Legendary	4x 2/4 Legendary
Average Cost to Craft	38*222=8436g	9*222=1998g	4*222=888g
Number of 1/3 Exos (Based on 3x 1/3 Exos per 2/4 Leg, cost 947g each Leg) or Number of 1/4 Legs (Based on 4x 1/4 Legs per 2/4 Leg, cost 1110g each)	6 (1894+8436=10330) 8 (2220+8436=10656)	9 (2841+1998=4839) 12 (3330+1998=5328)	12 (3788+888=4676) 16 (4440+888=5328)
Potential Cost of Slots	Coming soon	Coming Soon	Coming Soon

So, you can see from the costs in the third row, in gold cost, using 12x 1/4 legendaries is roughly the same cost as using 16x 1/4 legendaries, but you have to find an aditional 4 making it much worse. For this reason, I'd recommend the 12x 1/4 legendaries. If you are building the 3/4 legendary out of 1/3 exos, I'd recommend the 9x 1/3 legendaries to make the 2/4 legendaries used to make the 3/4 legendaries. Sure, it is about 163 gold more expensive, but as I've asked before, which is easier, making 163 gold, or finding 3 exos with good lines?

I'd also like to point out the costs at this point. Using 1/3 exos or 1/4 legendaries to craft a 3/4 legendary costs in the 4900-5400 gold range. Compare that to the cost of crafting one from green/blue items where you make 1/2 blues, 2/3 purples, and then 3/4 legendaries. While finding the parts may take a little longer, the cost is only from 2900-3100 gold... about 2000 gold cheaper than crafting 3/4 legendaries out of 1/3 exos or 1/4 legendaries.

Legendary to Legendary:
Part 3:
This will cover crafting a 4/4 legendary out of 3/4 legendaries. This is the end goal of this process. It is not easy to get here and it is not cheap. Personally, after having run the numbers to this point, I plan to get all of my legendaries to 3/4 before attempting this step, with the possible exception of my weapon, if I get those parts faster than expected. Without further ado, lets see the table.

Type of Items	2x 3/4 Legendary	3x 3/4 Legendary	4x 3/4 Legendary
Average Cost to Craft	122*222=27048g	15*222=3300g	4*222=888g
Number of Green/Blues (based on 9x Green/Blues per 3/4, cost 3066 per 3/4) OR Number of 1/3 Exos (Based on 9x 1/3 Exos per 3/4 Leg, cost 4839g per 3/4) OR Number of 1/4 Legs (Based on 12x 1/4 Legs per 3/4 Leg, cost 5328g per 3/4)	18 (6132+27048=33180) 18 (9678+27048=36726) 24 (10656+27048=37704)	27 (9198+3300=12498) 27 (14517+3300=17817) 36 (15984+3300=19284)	36 (12246+888=13152) 36 (19356+888=20244) 16 (21312+888=22200)
Potential Cost of Slots	Coming soon	Coming Soon	Coming Soon

WOW, those are some BIG numbers! The best one up there is using 27 greens/blues via the methods outlined above and slowly condensing them down to a 4/4 legendary at the average expense of 12498 gold. This also goes to show how worthless 1/3 and 1/4 legendaries are for trying to craft 4/4 legendaries from just those types of items. But does that make those items truly worthless? Should you just melt them because they will end up costing you 50%-75% more gold to craft your ultimate legendaries? No, but you shouldn't use them for crafting directly to a 4/4 either. Lets look closer to what I mean.


What to do with 1/3 Exos and 1/4 Legendaries
Go back and look at "Extraordinary to Legendary: Part 1." See that price to craft 3x 2/3 to a 3/4 legendary? Its about 3066. That was the number used above when calculating the 3/4 -->4/4. But, what happens to that price if you put a 1/3 into that 4th slot as opposed to a 4 slot junk item? Sure, you lose the increased control of the outcome item's slots, but you substantially increase your odds of getting a 3/4 legendary out. How substantial you ask? Instead of 6 desierable stats going in, 7 desierable stats go in. If you look that up on Armando's chart, your odds go from 9.09% (1:11) to 15.91% (1:6) That means that the chart can be revamped to look like this:

Type of Items	2x 2/3, 2x 1/3 Exos	3x 2/3, 1x1/3 Exos	4x 2/3 Exos
Average Cost to Craft	11*118.4=1302g	6*118.4=710.4g	4*118.4=473.6g
Number of Green/Blue (Based on 3x Blues/Greens per 2/3 Exo, cost 196g each Offset with 1/3 Exos)	6 (1176 gold)	9 (1764 gold)	12 (2352 gold)
Total cost	2478 Gold	2474 Gold	2826 Gold

The difference is HUGE! Now, if you have a large enough supply of 1/3 exos you can you can knock about 20% off the price of crafting a 3/4 legendary and bring the cost down to about 2475 gold. Also, since the price for 2x 2/3+ 2x 1/3 is about the same as the price for each (4 gold is not really significant), you can get away with only using 6 green/blue items per 3/4 legendary and 2 1/3 exos. Providing you've found enough good exos (say from saving up tons of cubes and getting a couple of lucky lines), you can save a significant amount of gold and farming time. Lets apply these changed prices to the 3/4 legendary to 4/4 legendary table and see what it looks like now. I've removed the costs of the 1/3 and 1/4 crafting methods since you already know that it is a bad idea (I hope).

Type of Items	2x 3/4 Legendary	3x 3/4 Legendary	4x 3/4 Legendary
Average Cost to Craft	122*222=27048g	15*222=3300g	4*222=888g
Number of Green/Blues (based on 6x Green/Blues per 3/4, cost 2478 per 3/4)	12 G/B, 4x 1/3 Exo (4956+27048=32004)	18 G/B, 6x 1/3 Exo (7434+3300=10734)	24 G/B, 8x 1/3 Exo (9912+888=10800)

That is a savings of about 14%. Not insignificant when we are talking in the tens of thousands of gold. That being said, if you've been following along so far and you are still hanging in with me, then you probably know where I'm going next. You want to know what happens if we augment the 3/4 to 4/4 legendary crafts with some 1/4s in the junk spots, the same as we did with the exos to legendary craft. What a great idea! I wish I thought of that!

Type of Items	2x 3/4, 2x 1/4 Leg's	3x 3/4, 1x 1/4 Leg's	4x 3/4 Leg's
Average Cost to Craft	26*222=5772g	9*222=1998g	4*222=888g
Number of Green/Blues (based on 6x Green/Blues and 2 1/3 exos per 3/4, cost 2478 per 3/4)	12 G/B, 4x 1/3 Exo (4956+5772=10728)	18 G/B, 6x 1/3 Exo (7434+1998=9432)	24 G/B, 8x 1/3 Exo (9912+888=10800)

How about that?!? We broke the 10k barrier for a 4/4 Legendary. And it was not as simple or straight forward as using all blues/greens with good lines, or as simple as hoarding a bunch of 1/4 legendaries. That is why a carefully thought out systematic approach is infintly better than going with your gut feeling. Your gut would likely have you paying 50%-150% more to get the same item that I'll be crafting.

Still, the down side of this augmentation method is that it will likely cost you a little more andermant in the process, but as long as your 2/3 exos are 5 slots (you followed my directions above), then your legendaries will always come out with a minimum of 3 slots because a farmed exo always comes with at least 1 slot (5/5/1/1=12, 12/4=3). And if you add one slots to each of those 1 slot exos, you should be able to get 4 slot 3/4 legendaries (5/5/2/2=14, 14/4=3.5~4). Then, when crafting your 3/4s into a 4/4, you would again get a minimum of 3 slots on your 4/4 legendary because the farmed legendaries have a minimum of 2 slots each (4/4/2/2=12, 12/4=3). Add one slot to two of the items before crafting and you'll bump the result up to a 4 slot legendary (4/4/3/3=14, 14/4=3.5~4) and then only have to pay for one more slot. Total, going from the exos to the final 5 slot 4/4 legendary should cost 2*400+2*1600+2*1600=5600 anderman max, as opposed to 6400 if you crafted straight through and got a 3 slot 4/4 legendary. That being said, if you remember when I first did the "# of slots" number crunching above, I said that this is complicated and needs to be evaluated against what you actually have. For example, if one of your 1/4 legendaries is a 4 slot legendary, maybe it will be less expensive to wait until the end to add slots... or maybe not. I'm giving you the tools, but you'll need to figure out your specific situation when the time comes.

 

@_Baragain_

You did a really good job.
One think I did that does cost less and takes an extremely long time to farm. I have the minimum value I want for an item so I farmed 3 of them and then used a junk Green for gem slots. I kept crafting til the blue has both stats I needed. i.e. >= 60% Wepon damage. I know there are multiple ways to get to your destination and I know finding 12 items like this is going to be hard and I think that might be the turn off. Just wondered what you thought.

 

That can work and be really helpful, but I am picky. My threshold is the gold lines and from my testing on test server, the chances of getting a gold line, especially one that you need (% damage, % crit damage, that sort of thing) from the random line was very low. That would mean that you would be spending tons of gold on getting your ingredients for your Exos and you may even end up paying more gold for a lower quality item. This process is so expensive, I only want to do it once when I can. For this reason, I'll be even more picky when it comes time to create a pure % item like a legendary belt with pure % crit damage. The reason behind this is because once you have a 60%-65% crit damage belt, you will never need to upgrade it with glyphs (even if LVVL 55+ is released) and it will stay as good as it is, unless they change the stats that you can get on items. It is a constant trade off between the final stats, the gold you spend, and the time it will take and that is a personal choice that everyone will need to make for themselves.

 

Great work again, @_Baragain_ !
I totally agree with most of, if not all, your estimates and preferences.

I wouldn't put TOO much effort into it right now, though, as the revert option is still intensely debated, at least in the German forum.
Many people (also including me) fear it is too powerful, at least together with legendary-to-legendary crafting, and will lead to players quickly paying for Uber-Items and then soon leaving the game out of boredom. Personally, I don't have any problems if some people decide to ruin their own fun by spending too much money... But I doubt if this would be economically sustainable in the long term.

So, I kinda expect some more changes to this. What we saw so far, with regard to unlimited reverting, may not be final yet...

 

This is one of those times when I really hope the develops ignore some feedback. Without the revert function giving back 100%, we go back to my previous estimate of about 2700 green/blue items from my other thread.

If anything, hopefully something like this will show people that it is not as OP as they think given the cost in gold, andermant, items, and time.

 

The problem is that it takes only legendaries with 1 good stat line each as an initial input, and andermant/gold, which can be obtained for real money.
IMHO the dangerous thing is the full revert function IN COMBINATION with unlimited legendary-to-legendary crafting.

The question is how to modify the system to effectively bring it from pay-to-win to farm-to-win.
My current suggestion would be a scaling revert function:
For improved to magic, get 3-4 inputs back when reverting.
For magic to extraordinary, get 2-3 inputs back when reverting.
For extraordinary to legendary, get 1-2 inputs back when reverting.
For legendary to legendary, get 1 input back when reverting.

This would a) account for the increased influence of luck by the additional random enchantment on the lower rarity levels, and b) make it more important to start crafting from the scratch and not with legendary drops from fatal bosses.
But I will post a link to this thread in the German discussion in order to make your coontribution available for everone there to consider.

 

But you are forgetting the 400k+ gold that it would statistically require to craft 4x 1/4 legendaries. If you take 1820 people, statistically, only one of them will get lucky. That is no difference than someone getting lucky with a drop from a Fatal boss, and everyone else will just be disappointed.

 

I am not talking about directly crafting a 4/4 of 4 * 1/4, but consecutively from up to 64 (1/4) legendaries.
The both good and bad thing is that unlimited legendary crafting allows us to "distill" legendaries further and further whenever we feel up to it (i.e. once we have gold an inputs ready). Together with the unlimited reverting, that's OP in my p.o.v.

 

If I'm understanding you correctly, the problem isn't so much with the crafting itself, but how the affects will ripple through pvp. Mess it up even more than it is now.

Limiting what we can revert will have a minor effect on the heavy farmers/payers, but completely kill those who don't.

When you don't have the ability to find lots of gear with decent lines losing some in the crafting process will take away most of the reason to do it, then we're forced to go back to relying on something nice to drop.

There are a ton of people who talk about "fair", but they are only referring to themselves.

Now I do not know how big and bad your character is, so I'll use Baragain's Dk as an example.

Even though he and I play the same character, they are nowhere near the same.
He plays more than I do.
He farms better maps than I do.
He has bigger gems than I do.
He is (maybe) more lucky than I am.
He has used his superior math skills.
He has been luckier with the jesters.
He has played in more events.

So should he be punished simply because my dk isn't as good as his? Of course not. He worked hard to get where he is.

On the other side of that, should I be punished because his dk is better than mine? Of course not. I've worked hard to get where I am.

By using your method, Baragain will be punished a little, but I'll be punished severely. Is that fair?

I truly wish that there was a simple solution (that would make everyone happy) to bring balance to pvp without punishing everyone on a sliding scale. Those of us with characters from the middle point down get hammered.

So when you want to talk about "fair", take a minute to think about those of us that still put in time and effort and maybe money but haven't reach the upper echelons of the game.

Now if you can make a legitimate argument as to why my time/effort/money needs to be nerfed when I'm not even close to being OP, I'm all ears.

 

Same character or same class?

 

I don't know about that. I have some pretty awful luck. Ever since they changed the gem drops so that polished and radiant gems could drop, I haven't seen a single one despite farming in almost exclusively PWs, where as I know people who have gotten multiple radiant drops. Best I've gotten is a Diamond.

And that is just one example of many. I could go on and on about my lack of luck in this game.

 

No, the problem from my p.o.v. is not PvP, that is broken anyway. And I don't mind if my opponents have 7000 or 9000 base damage, or 25k or 30k HP, I will lose either way.
The problem, as many people describe it, is that too many people will get OP stats in too short time, then will get bored (and the rest will be annoyed by their OP-ness), and all will quit the game, and the game will die.
I do not KNOW if this is true, I do not KNOW the consequences of another big Pay2Win mechanism. But it MAY be true.

So, if you want to continue to enjoy this game for a while, it may be also in your interest that this doesn't happen.

I have 3 lvl 50 chars that I usually call "middle class". They are all marshals, thanks to mentor Bonus, and with a good group I can do any Boss i want - but they are far from being really strong.
So, I think I am totally in the same "player category" with you.

What I personally WANT is a mechanism that rewards farming green and blue items with good stats, and then crafting them with a high probability to good legendary items.
What I think has to be PREVENTED is that OP players farm fatal bosses for legendary items with amazing single stat lines and then use MASSIVE amounts of gold to unite those lines in single items, not even caring about bad odds, but just compensating with more money.

I didn't use the word fair. I just used the term "OP". And I don't care about any single person who becomes VERY OP instead of just quite OP. What I'm worried about is that too many players will invest too much money just for crafting, and that many players will get frustrated for several reasons, which is not good for the game as a whole.
Crafting 2.0 will give middle-class chars (as mine) a chance to develop faster; and they have more room for improvement with better items than those who are already OP. For me, even 2-3 80% quality (non-golden) stat lines on one legendary may mean a significant improvement. Most players who can afford some tens of thousands of gold would not profit any more from this.

So, again, my personal goal is to make farming and crafting of green items as attractive and rewarding as possible, while I see some demand and reason for not allowing unlimite"destillation" of legendary items.

 

Armando ... don't worry I am pretty sure they (devs) have something in their sleeve and they are not telling us.
But then again ... so do I.
However it won't be that easy to get your equipment to perfection very fast ... by the time it will start happening they will change something in the game ... already seen. Remember the times when level 40 was a cap level? In that time we all had similar equipment ... minor details were the difference. Yet the game was good ... only the heavy spenders were bouncing in front ... but that was due to a better gems not better equipment.

 

If I can suggest a solution to the 0/4/4/4 to make them 1/5/5/5 for 80 ander and blue 100 for 5th slot. 180 total needed.

 

Here's something to consider:
Every time there is a level expansion, everything that isn't pure % based, like a crit damage amulet, needs to be remade to account for the new level, unless their intent is to level the old item up (which if the past has taught is anything will be crazy expensive). Furthermore, if % stats started to drop when your XP level was higher than the the item level, that could force people to recraft everything after an expansion. Then, if they can maintain a 1-1.5 year release cycle, it week barely give people time to make their full set of new gear before having to start over. They could also introduce an even more difficult version of the PWs that require you to be in groups of 3 or more. This could keep things interesting and renew some of the social aspect of the game. Or they could introduce "Raid Dungeons" like some other well know MMOs where multiple groups have to work together to take on even tougher challenges with even better rewards.

On the PVP side, they could introduce special modes where you need a minimum CV to participate, with rewards of more than just honor. 100k CV could be a good threshold. It would take time to build a large enough population of eligible players, but if this mode were made to work cross server, the pool could be much larger. Sure, CV is broke at the moment, but there is no question that a player with these potential uber stats would have no trouble making the cut off.

My point is, there is a lot of things that they can do/make to interest players with these potential top shelf stats. It is BP's job to give players a reason to stay, even if/when they obtain stratospheric stats.

 

You know what I meant.

Very good explanation, thank you for not only thinking of yourself. I now understand your concern. I do wish that there were a more simple solution.

If I lost 3 exo weapons on every craft, I may never see a good one.

Personally I don't ever expect to get powerful enough to get bored of beating every monster. Certain error messages make me wanna quit more than anything else.

We should have a "bad" drop thread instead of the lucky drop one, then I would have a spot to show off all the crappy stuff that I get.

Radiant gems can drop? I thought that was just an urban myth.

 

Analysis (mostly) complete. I can still add some more about the andermant cost of slots at each stage, but the gold costs and item farming requirements are finished.

Now that I've finished my math, someone would have to be uninformed (didn't read my guide) or a total noob to try to craft 64 1/4 legendaries together. It would cost them over 20k, maybe as much as 30k, to do it that method. If people think that is "OP," then I laugh at them. I've shown, rather exhaustively, that the most balanced method of getting a 4/4 legendary will be through the use of 18 green/blues, 6x 1/3 exos, your pick of a 1/4 legendary, and about 9500 gold... And that is just one item. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule. For example, if you have two near perfect lines, but they are on legendaries, you can craft those legendaries together to try and get a 2/4 legendary to use later, but this is done at the expense of a fair amount of gold.

This is why I said that my first goal will be to get 3/4 legendaries for my weapon (3x75%+ % weapon damage axe), torso (~28%+ damage), amulet (~45% crit damage), belt (3x230 Crit lines), and decoration (crit or crit damage, or a mix). Then, once I've outfitted myself like that, for about 12k gold, then I'll begin the long quest of getting them all to 4/4s for about 47.5k gold. Between the farming for the items and the farming for the gold, I don't see many people reaching the "Full Unique or 4/4 Legendary" point anytime soon, and certainly not fast enough to make people quit the game due to lack of anything to do. 47.5k gold alone will take most normal people a year to farm. At 100 gold an hour (which is fast and involves selling a bunch of potential melt), you are still talking about 475 hours of heavy farming. That is almost 120 4-hour days of pure gold farming. Please feel free to share this with all the naysayers in the German forums who somehow thing the ability to revert is somehow going to end this game... if anything, it is the only thing that makes crafting 2.0 practical.

 

But if you chose to use only 2/3 exos, your chance of crafting a 3/4 legendary would be above 25%, and for another almost 51% you would get a 2/4 result.
That means you'ld have a 76% chance of getting a result potentially worth keeping.

This is what I am aiming at with my suggestion: giving less input items back for reverting at higher rarity levels would give a much higher importance to true "craftsmenship", i.e. working with very good inputs on every level in order to minimize the odds of bad results.

No manufacturer in real life can afford high amounts of waste during production; there is no "undo" in real life crafting - only SOME recycling maybe.

(btw., one might get the glyphs of the lost inputs back, but not the inputs themselves... - good amendment )

Hmmm... do you want to take a bet on that within 2 weeks after the release of crafting 2.0, first people will have "perfect" weapons with 4 golden stat lines?

You are perfectly right, but I don't think BP can keep that innovation pace.
How long did it take to develop Lor'Tac? - and people were done with it after 3 days to one month. How long did it take them to renew the PW? And who would have thought that just 6 months later the fatal bosses are nothing but daily (and rather boring) farm business for many players...
I am usually not so pessimistic, and I do think that crafting 2.0 has the potential to keep non-payers like me busy and motivated for quite a while. But I don't trust in BP any more to bring lots of new content very soon.
EDIT:
Actually, some people fear crafting 2.0 might be BP's "exit strategy", in order to make a lot of money once more (via andermant and premium sales), before they stop further investment in the game (and try to push us towards their new Game of Thrones, maybe...).

*********************************

It's a pity I can't give you a second (or actually 5-10) like for your initial posting.

However, I have seen too many people spending a hell lot of money just to buy gems and/or glyphs in order to create a monster twink.
The same kind of people will, without doubt, spend some hundreds of bucks for a nearly perfect (lvl 50) equipment.
20k to 30k gold is just about double as much as your "reasonable" approach; and compared to the 400k you mentioned first, it's a sweet little nothing...
AFAIK, the Andermant cost for crafting is roughly 8x-10x the gold cost. 160k-300k Andermant, that's "only" some 50-150 Euros for one perfect item. When you see how many people are spending 40 Euros for a new exclusive mount... that's really nothing.
And farming legendaries with 1 golden enchantment is probably way easier than farming green items with a golden line.

And I suppose that reaching the 3/4 legendaries as you described for yourself may be enough already to get people bored with this game, fully 4/4 is not required for that.

Well, I don't want to argue with you any further, we are on the same side here, I totally share your p.o.v. and would, personally, follow your useful instructions (they're better than any "recipe book" that BP is going to provide, for sure...).
It's just that it is a fact for me that there are enough "stupid" people in this game willing to pay lots of money to accelerate their progress up to a point that it kills the game for them AND others. Sad but true.

 

Hi all.
I tryed crafting 2.0 in TS with some pink items, the result mostly was:

1) the item with more gem slot was "deleted" from enhanchements given to crafte item;
2) the item that was crafted, took the better stats from each starting item (except the one with more gem slot;
3) gem solts were calculated as normal ---->(n+n'+n"+n"')/4


Maybe all 10 times i tryed, i had same relusts :\


Ps: another player (from my country) had the same relults

 

I've actually been waiting do see that game for over 2 years. Them making that game might be my exit strategy from DSO.