Crafting is officially garbage in POE

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trav_dawg escribió:

I agree with all these points, but I do feel it should be hard, actually REALLY hard to roll a 100% 6 top tier mod perfect item. But I feel that one not-perfect top tier roll should NOT be THIS HARD. 3600 tries and still no? I would be happy with the lowest end of the range, I just want to see that it can actually happen. Also, I have the "good items" on standard (legacy 6L Shav, Legacy Soul taker etc.), from trading of course. I decided this time, in domination, I wanted to craft an item. Just one good one to see if I can do it. What I'm finding however is that there's no "persistence pays off" here I can't do it, because the game won't let me. It just won't roll it. 3600 wasted, what's another 3600 gonna do? NOTHING

I ran the following code. It simulates a random roll that has a probability of 1/1000 of succeeding, and counts how many trials are necessary until a success happens. You can think of that as the # of alts needed to roll a mod that happens one in 1000 times.

http://pastebin.com/igA8qsi8

This is the table of results:

http://pastebin.com/yf09Qned

See that 7128? That's you. See the 1s? (Shockingly, there are multiple!) Those are very lucky people that received the blessing of RNGesus.

Low probability events inevitably screw over a large number of players. Just because it has taken you 3600 tries, doesn't mean that's the norm.

(EDIT: I have a stupid off-by-one error in the code, which I don't care to fix because it's mostly irrelevant -- add 1 to all the results in the table to determine the number of trials that were necessary.)

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CliveHowlitzer escribió:

You know, I just thought I'd throw this out there also. Everyone bitches about crafting in PoE but let me just say that I have played a LOT of games over the years. In every online game I've played where it is possible to trade with another player, it is almost always a better option to sell your trading items and buy the finished goods instead of crafting it yourself.
It is usually faster, and a better use of your money. This isn't a new thing to PoE. Crafting is mostly for the hardcore of the hardcore, who really want to invest a ton of wealth and time into something. It is not for the faint of heart in any game.

I played Atlantica Online for 4 years, and I think it is still going on. ALL economy is based on crafting and trading, starting from lvl 2 (max lvl 160).

So NO crafting is shit especially IN PoE. Designed to be shit actually. Current system is made like that;

Orb drop frequency = N worth orbs in Y time
X item ingame cost based on rarity = Y time investment worth orbs
amount of orbs needed to craft an item similar to X = 10*N

Now imagine you could farm 10*N orbs in Y time.
Item X still would worth Y time investment worth orbs
So crafting an item similar to X would worth same amount as buying it.

Balance achieved. But it would be too softcore if anyone found more than 1 exalt per 3 months of course. Anyway it is not something GGG considers broken at all so dont expect any improvements in craft.

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Item X still would worth Y time investment worth orbs

This does not follow. Here is why: let us modify the argument slightly:

Now imagine you could farm 20 * N orbs in Y time.
Item X would still be worth Y time investment in orbs.

But now, item X is worth double the cost needed to craft it.

Or, instead of 20 * N, use 100 * N. Now item X is worth 10 times the cost
needed to craft it -- or really whichever multiplier I wish to put there.

This is clearly absurd.

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syrioforel escribió:

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Item X still would worth Y time investment worth orbs

This does not follow. Here is why: let us modify the argument slightly:

Now imagine you could farm 20 * N orbs in Y time.
Item X would still be worth Y time investment in orbs.

But now, item X is worth double the cost needed to craft it.

Or, instead of 20 * N, use 100 * N. Now item X is worth 10 times the cost
needed to craft it -- or really whichever multiplier I wish to put there.

This is clearly absurd.

Sorry but what are you 5 years old? Prices are always set to minimum cost of achieving mentioned item.

In PoE you can achieve by grind or craft. Craft value is way > grind value, so it sells for its grind value. If it was opposite then it would sell for craft value. If they were same, it would have a balanced price regardless of source. Not rocket science.

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symban escribió:

Sorry but what are you 5 years old? Prices are always set to minimum cost of achieving mentioned item.

In PoE you can achieve by grind or craft. Craft value is way > grind value, so it sells for its grind value. If it was opposite then it would sell for craft value. If they were same, it would have a balanced price regardless of source. Not rocket science.

Your argument was wrong. I pointed out the flaw. Go fix it.

Okay so the issue is trading versus crafting balance, right?

So the supply of items available for trade is dictated by the following:

• the rate at which people farm items which they can't use
• the rate at which people farm upgrades for their items, converting their old equipment to a hand-me-down
• the rate at which people craft upgrades for their items, converting their old equipment to a hand-me-down

Meanwhile, the supply of crafting materials is dictated by the following:

• the scarcity of crafting materials
• the viability of vendor formulas with crafting materials as output

Because we're contrasting crafting viability with trading viability, a plus for one is a minus for the other. Which means we have a feedback loop: the more viable crafting becomes, the more people craft upgrades for their items, the more old equipment becomes hand-me-downs, the less viable crafting becomes.

The best way to attack the problem is to reduce the rate at which people farm items which they can't use, and/or upgrades for themselves. Reduce gear drop rates, increase orb drop rates in compensation.

However, due to the feedback loop and the general principle of hand-me-downs, I think Clive is essentially correct: you're never going to achieve a situation where crafting an item is better than trading for it, with the sole exception of situations where you can't trade for it, because such items aren't on the market.

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ScrotieMcB escribió:

Okay so the issue is trading versus crafting balance, right?

So the supply of items available for trade is dictated by the following:

• the rate at which people farm items which they can't use
• the rate at which people farm upgrades for their items, converting their old equipment to a hand-me-down
• the rate at which people craft upgrades for their items, converting their old equipment to a hand-me-down

Meanwhile, the supply of crafting materials is dictated by the following:

• the scarcity of crafting materials
• the viability of vendor formulas with crafting materials as output

Because we're contrasting crafting viability with trading viability, a plus for one is a minus for the other. Which means we have a feedback loop: the more viable crafting becomes, the more people craft upgrades for their items, the more old equipment becomes hand-me-downs, the less viable crafting becomes.

The best way to attack the problem is to reduce the rate at which people farm items which they can't use, and/or upgrades for themselves. Reduce gear drop rates, increase orb drop rates in compensation.

However, due to the feedback loop and the general principle of hand-me-downs, I think Clive is essentially correct: you're never going to achieve a situation where crafting an item is better than trading for it, with the sole exception of situations where you can't trade for it, because such items aren't on the market.

These are good points. One of the biggest factors is the hand me down system. If there were an item sync it would shift the balance a noticeable amount. This could be something like incentivising people to bind items to themselves, or some other more awesome idea to remove rares from the market.

I do like with they did with the flask recipe. If players are able to craft via vendor recipes items that are 90% as good as rng crafting this may satisfy solo, self found, and crafting complaints.

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ScrotieMcB escribió:

However, due to the feedback loop and the general principle of hand-me-downs, I think Clive is essentially correct: you're never going to achieve a situation where crafting an item is better than trading for it, with the sole exception of situations where you can't trade for it, because such items aren't on the market.

Exactly. Why would I buy an item for more than I would expect to spend crafting it?

There are some reasons I can think of:

1) I am risk averse, and willing to overpay to not risk burning through extra currency. For example, if it takes ~900 orbs on average to 6L a piece of gear, I might gladly pay 920 fusings, all at once, to guarantee a 6L. (I know 6L is a loaded topic, I am just using it to illustrate what is meant by "risk averse.")

2) The cost of trading (time spent finding a seller) is high. This "transaction cost" could be folded in to the price I am spending to trade. Likewise, the amount of time I would spend actually crafting the item could be folded in to the cost of crafting.

3) The orbs currently in my possession are not properly distributed. I may have exalts instead of a large pool of fusings, so to craft a 6L I may have to first convert currency. This adds more cost to the crafting.

Note 2 and 3 above can just be handled by adjusting "prices" accordingly.

So, really, reason 1 is the only one I can think of. I think that, in practice, the community as a whole isn't sufficiently risk averse to justify a significant risk premium. In fact, it's quite possibly the contrary (lotteries are prevalent).

(Please, give other reasons you might overpay for a trade. I'm curious. The above are the only reasons that I might have.)

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Saffell escribió:

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ScrotieMcB escribió:

Spoiler

Okay so the issue is trading versus crafting balance, right?

So the supply of items available for trade is dictated by the following:

• the rate at which people farm items which they can't use
• the rate at which people farm upgrades for their items, converting their old equipment to a hand-me-down
• the rate at which people craft upgrades for their items, converting their old equipment to a hand-me-down

Meanwhile, the supply of crafting materials is dictated by the following:

• the scarcity of crafting materials
• the viability of vendor formulas with crafting materials as output

Because we're contrasting crafting viability with trading viability, a plus for one is a minus for the other. Which means we have a feedback loop: the more viable crafting becomes, the more people craft upgrades for their items, the more old equipment becomes hand-me-downs, the less viable crafting becomes.

The best way to attack the problem is to reduce the rate at which people farm items which they can't use, and/or upgrades for themselves. Reduce gear drop rates, increase orb drop rates in compensation.

However, due to the feedback loop and the general principle of hand-me-downs, I think Clive is essentially correct: you're never going to achieve a situation where crafting an item is better than trading for it, with the sole exception of situations where you can't trade for it, because such items aren't on the market.

These are good points. One of the biggest factors is the hand me down system. If there were an item sync it would shift the balance a noticeable amount. This could be something like incentivising people to bind items to themselves, or some other more awesome idea to remove rares from the market.

I do like with they did with the flask recipe. If players are able to craft via vendor recipes items that are 90% as good as rng crafting this may satisfy solo, self found, and crafting complaints.

You're correct that item sinks help the situation greatly (there's no "y" in sink, the original/archaic term for something which adds items to the game was a "faucet"). Hardcore leagues have less issues with craft vs trade balance than softcore leagues because death causes potential hand-me-downs to leave the economy while crafting materials tend to survive. It's not perfect, and as the league matures you'll still see trading take over, but it's always significantly better than a softcore league of the same age in the trade vs craft balance.

Softcore leagues, in contrast, have no gear sink while having functional currency sinks; as the league matures, craft vs trade balance becomes laughable.

Time and time again I've proposed that the XP penalty be removed from softcore leagues, and replaced with an irreparable durability system. This would mean that each death would remove 1 durability from each piece of gear you're wearing, there would be no way of restoring it, and after a certain amount of deaths it would simply disappear. By adjusting the original durability of gear, this death penalty could be made harsher or weaker, so it's not necessarily true that it would be harsher than the current penalty. It would even make it so many hand-me-downs could be seen as inferior to newly crafted gear (reduced durability versus brand spanking new). Naturally, such an item sink would be weaker than the Hardcore sink, but at least there would be one.

And time and time again, I've been met with opposition, because apparently the softcore crowd deeply represent even the slimmest, most trivial chance that their Kaom's might turn to dust.

Regarding vendor recipes, a recent suggestion of mine can be found here.

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ScrotieMcB escribió:

Time and time again I've proposed that the XP penalty be removed from softcore leagues, and replaced with an irreparable durability system. This would mean that each death would remove 1 durability from each piece of gear you're wearing, there would be no way of restoring it, and after a certain amount of deaths it would simply disappear. By adjusting the original durability of gear, this death penalty could be made harsher or weaker, so it's not necessarily true that it would be harsher than the current penalty. It would even make it so many hand-me-downs could be seen as inferior to newly crafted gear (reduced durability versus brand spanking new). Naturally, such an item sink would be weaker than the Hardcore sink, but at least there would be one.

I hadn't seen that durability suggestion, but I think it is awesome.