Wondrous Emporium…

[Delmuir]

I never do this in game. In the year or so that I've played, this has never produced anything of usefulness. So, I went into developer mode, gave myself tons of gold and went at it.

Results?

43 robes and only one was useful. Over 30 of them were heavily optimized to a non-mage and almost all of them focused on elemental damage that I had no need for.

One, had ridiculous (+36% to all damage types and +34 to spell power and 10% to spell crit) bonuses but also some not really useful ones. I was okay with that because that robe is obscene. Way, way too powerful.

I realize that the emporium is supposed to be a gamble… something to spend your pointless gold on. However, when you can only realistically make two purchases per game, it's pretty pointless.

So, I suggest either reducing the cost or adding some parameters to let you semi-influence what is made. I don't need or want a robe that over-powered but I wouldn't have minded finding a robe that gave a small boost to my preferred elemental damage seeing as how I was at lvl 46 and still hadn't found a single robe that did that. The variance is very, very high.

More so, based on my sampling, it looks as though it's deliberately trying to avoid giving me what I want as almost everything had light, blight, or mind damage. Maybe that was just the sample.

My suggestion is to have a follow-up question, listing some very common bonuses such as crit rate, etc. and have him ask to pick one that you prioritize. Then maybe ask about a damage type. What would be great is if it was still a gamble. Maybe you get two things you want but not really in the amounts you want… maybe you don't. Maybe asking for something specific reduces the odds of getting the other bonuses. Maybe there's an option to go pure gamble.

Still, I think giving a player more chances to get something useful would be nice. Maybe ten instead of two.

I don't know… I just know that there's no point to the emporium now and that's kind of a bummer. The difference in power between having that robe and not is essentially enough to put this character through nightmare or normal. That's a big, big difference from one item.

[Planetus]

I'll agree that a more specialized loot generation would be appropriate late-game. As it is, the Emporium is mostly useful for some good laughs or to build your next character around if you have the Vault.

I do think the prompts could still be fairly generic, though. Maybe it automatically looks at your class and bases a selection on that, though that would work against some of the odd class builds out there. Maybe it could be something vaguely akin to a divination (only a bit more directed) where he asks for an element and 'offensive or defensive' or something, and that pairs down the options. Not just to that elemental damage type and either power or armor, but maybe defensive fire could give movement speed while offensive ice could give slow-on-hit?

I don't know, something more than, 'Hey, I need a hat.'

[HousePet]

Maybe a different crafter somewhere could take an ego/rare item you supply and turn it into a randart by adding an extra ego and power?

[Radon26]

like adding another choice option
-----------------------------
[powered by arcane forces]
[psychic forces]
[infused with anti-magic forces]
[crafted by a master]
[either]
[another time]
------------------------------
to make sure that it is usable, at least.

so....
each rand art gets like 6 or more "modifiers"
so, when normally you get a modifier on an item, what is the chance of it not being anti-magic?
xx%^6, and you get a very tiny chance to NOT get an anti-magic item, when playing a magic user...

there is only one class that is anti-magic from birth, 13 that could, and 11 that can not.

[HousePet]

Antimagic egos are blocked for magic users, as are arcane egos for zigur followers.

[Radon26]

"as far as I know"(up to date) only undead cannot get anti-magic.

but if housepet says otherwise he probably knows what he is talking about. (just look at the difference in the number of posts)

also, i currently have 1.2.2, it might have been changed in 1.2.3

[HousePet]

There is also a bug, where it can roll the antimagic theme for spell users, rendering the final item useless.

[Zeyphor]

you're right OP
the emporium is supposed to be a gamble

but if you don't get what you like in the 3 gambles(more on insane+) per character you'll typically get, then thats too (%!&ing bad

[Delmuir]

you're right OP
the emporium is supposed to be a gamble

but if you don't get what you like in the 3 gambles(more on insane+) per character you'll typically get, then thats too (%!&ing bad

But that's my point… it's pointless. If you get an OP item then the game isn't really fun but odds are, you'll get nothing useful. Why not structure it such that you get something useful more often? It can still be a gamble but maybe not quite such an extreme one.

As I said, I don't even usually bother with it and that's not a good sign.

In fact, I just did on a Necro I just played and did get a useful item… so useful infact that, when combined with a few other lucky drops, I had a ridiculously OP character.

I'd don't like that variance. Either nothing or OP? That's not good design, balance, even a good gamble.

[Zeyphor]

just think of it this way, OP
you get 3 extra chances at boss loot with 12k gold... except you don't need to kill anything for it

usually when you kill a boss, he drops useless crap thats good for another class, and has a small chance to be good for your class
so this gambling is giving you 3 more chances to get something good that you can use

do you think its good design for a doomed to find an umbraphage crimson robe malslek the accursed's hat and guise of the hated all in one run by pure chance?

do you think its bad design for an aether archmage to find an aetherwalk staff of arcane supremacy hat of arcane understanding void orb and ethereal embrace all on one run by pure chance?

do you think its bad design for an antimagic brawler to find a spellhunt remnants and then find a t5 magical randart from a chest in the maze shortly afterwards by pure chance?

no
its just luck
thats what roguelikes are about, and this game is on the border of not bring roguelike anyway

making the gambling more likely to give stuff you can use just makes it that much less of a roguelike

if you care so much you can back up your save before getting an item from urthol

if the pot calls the kettle black, does that mean the kettle is automatically white?

[HousePet]

Yeah, the Artifact making, is the backup for not getting decent loot, it isn't the primary source.

[Delmuir]

That argument doesn't hold up very well… largely because so much effort has gone into ensuring that you don't get OP characters. So much discussion has been about not allowing for one item to make or break a build.

Well, that just did happen. I beat Atamathon on lvl 39!!! The first time I've ever beaten him.

My point isn't to take the gamble out of this game… rather, it's to make the gamble mean something. As it stands right now, it's so meaningless that I don't even bother doing it. It's literally not worth the time. The only reason I did it this time was because I happened to save in town so when I went back to the game, I remembered it and thought "why not?"

If the gamble isn't worth the effort the what's the point? Obviously, I'm making an anecdotal point but the validity of it is confirmed by your own example: it gives you three more chances at a good item.

The problem is that it doesn't really… it gives you three chances at nothing or possibly something ridiculous.

The number of unique artifacts is limited precisely such that players have a reasonable chance at getting helpful to them during the game. The logic of this runs counter to that.

If you have a reasonable chance of getting the gear you need to win during the game but, if you get unlucky, this is a backup option, then that would be fine. However, it's not really… precisely because it either provides nothing of value or something over-powered. It doesn't perform the function that you suggest it's for. If you wanted it to do that, then instead of providing a unique, he should provide a random unique artifact or something like that.

An easy fix is to just nerf it a little and then give you more chances at it. I'm not suggesting that players get more OP gear… rather, I'm suggesting they get less but have a better chance of getting something useful, without being OP.

[HousePet]

I don't know where you get the idea that is either provides something super or useless.
It does provide in between items too.

[donkatsu]

As long as we're just exchanging anecdotes, I get useful merchant artifacts about half the time, and when I do they're typically endgame pieces that don't get replaced but also aren't anywhere near gamebreaking. I usually get lanterns, pickaxes, gloves, boots, cloaks, and sometimes rings. I've never gone for a weapon or body armor, because those slots usually already have something good in them (Lost Staff of Archmage Tarelion/Black Robe/Untouchable). In other words, it functions pretty well for me as a way to fill in the gaps in loot. I figure random is random, and for every player who thinks it only outputs extremes, you have people like me who find that it's a reasonable spread.

Not saying that "random" can't be improved, but if you're polling then typically you'll only get extreme responses so this is just to counterbalance that bias a bit.

For the record, the robe that you described as "obscene" (+36% to all damage types and +34 to spell power and 10% to spell crit) sounds only "decent" to me. There are still a number of fixedart robes I would take over that.

[Delmuir]

I don't know where you get the idea that is either provides something super or useless.
It does provide in between items too.

I'm speaking in terms of a statistical distribution… it doesn't strike me as terribly difficult to change said distribution such that you're likely to get a decent (maybe useful, maybe not) item that is at least relevant to your build while still having a chance at getting something totally irrelevant and/or overpowered.

Like I said, I went into dev mode and (I did it again just to confirm… on a different build) and with over a hundred picks, I only managed to find four relevant items and three were ridiculously overpowered. That's a decent enough sample size to justify my criticism.