Suggestion: Way to skew set drop probability

[monkeyfeet228]

So other people have complained about this, to the point that the most recent patch notes included a passive buff to the odds of getting repeat set items. I think having something with more player agency would feel better though, similar to how keepsakes in Hades allow you to force specific blessings to show up.

I propose a new type of shopkeeper that sells a new type of artifact and charges reroll dice instead of money. The items they sell skew probability in favor of specific sets, e.g.

Lonely Stone
Increases chance for Companion artifacts by 0 / 5 / 10 / 15 / 25%

Having it work with the same enhancement mechanics that the other artifacts use presents a value proposition of trading power (you're enhancing this instead of another artifact) for control and consistency. Paying for it with dice is novel and makes sense if you think of it as sort of "preemptive rerolling". The items it offers are still random, and there's only say 3 or 4, so you're not always guaranteed to get the skewer item you want.

Now that I just turned "skew" into an adjective, it'd be funny if all the items were literally skewers, like an ember on a stick to enhance #ember odds. I doubt that pun works in Korean tho.

[Bone_Reaper]

Personally I'm not entirely on board with this particular idea, but I would think that paying with sapphire would fill out the game more then dice, as sapphire are currently worthless after you go to post game for a bit, and would fit with you using your previous runs earnings to help the next.

Another interesting thing to play around with a sapphire shop is to have the pricing be dictated by your previous run. Something like winning in the last run would make this shop more expensive since you now got 20+ sapphire from said run, the cheapest would be to die at or around the 3rd boss, since that would prevent people just throwing a run at the start to get the shop price down artificially, and 1st are deaths have as high of a price as winning, as the shop could be something that appears in a secret room that is guaranteed each run on some floor of the game. This means if you put effort in to a run but fail, then this shop would help the next run, and throwing runs wouldn't be a viable option, and it still keeps it's value as stockpiling sapphire from a previous win will scale the shop.

[Paw]

There's already a work in-progress experimental feature implemented for this... They are testing it out though. You are in fact less likely to be offered junk when you have less of something and more likely to be offered stuff that matches your build.

[Zidolos]

Currently it just feels like you're punished for progressing. For the first 10ish runs I was able to sort of build towards an idea I wanted like a lightning run, fire run or planets run, now that I have 80% of the destiny stuff unlocked it feels like a horrendous crap shoot that if you don't choose fire you don't win. Like planets felt like a viable option, now 3 runs in a row have failed at difficulty 12 because I didn't want to do fire again, but planets or lighting just refuse to show up. I can't speak for the people that are 100 runs in (like what are you doing? after 3-4 clears even the game tells you you're done for now) but the RNG is a little too frustrating to be fun here at the moment, even with 20 points in luck on the skill tree.

[JJBLIN]

Maybe it could be influenced by the roots? Certain roots could raise they probabilities of there item archetypes appearing?

[Bone_Reaper]

Originally posted by Zidolos:

Currently it just feels like you're punished for progressing. For the first 10ish runs I was able to sort of build towards an idea I wanted like a lightning run, fire run or planets run, now that I have 80% of the destiny stuff unlocked it feels like a horrendous crap shoot that if you don't choose fire you don't win. Like planets felt like a viable option, now 3 runs in a row have failed at difficulty 12 because I didn't want to do fire again, but planets or lighting just refuse to show up. I can't speak for the people that are 100 runs in (like what are you doing? after 3-4 clears even the game tells you you're done for now) but the RNG is a little too frustrating to be fun here at the moment, even with 20 points in luck on the skill tree.

that luck might very much be screwing you over, as planets and a lot of other build's building blocs are in lower tier none unique items, so having high luck means you see less o them, and more of the ones you would want after getting the foundation for the build done.

i personally often run with the tablet inscription cap stone instead, as this still has more then enough inventory space for a full run, considering you only lose 9 slot total, which in runs is payed back bu inscribing 9 ore more tablets, thus actually saving inventory space, and letting you be more free with where you put what and how, as you don't need to play around tablets anymore.

[bigm17]

Originally posted by Bone_Reaper:

Originally posted by Zidolos:

Currently it just feels like you're punished for progressing. For the first 10ish runs I was able to sort of build towards an idea I wanted like a lightning run, fire run or planets run, now that I have 80% of the destiny stuff unlocked it feels like a horrendous crap shoot that if you don't choose fire you don't win. Like planets felt like a viable option, now 3 runs in a row have failed at difficulty 12 because I didn't want to do fire again, but planets or lighting just refuse to show up. I can't speak for the people that are 100 runs in (like what are you doing? after 3-4 clears even the game tells you you're done for now) but the RNG is a little too frustrating to be fun here at the moment, even with 20 points in luck on the skill tree.

that luck might very much be screwing you over, as planets and a lot of other build's building blocs are in lower tier none unique items, so having high luck means you see less o them, and more of the ones you would want after getting the foundation for the build done.

i personally often run with the tablet inscription cap stone instead, as this still has more then enough inventory space for a full run, considering you only lose 9 slot total, which in runs is payed back bu inscribing 9 ore more tablets, thus actually saving inventory space, and letting you be more free with where you put what and how, as you don't need to play around tablets anymore.

I too mainly use the tablet imprint feature on runs. Makes inventory management so much easier, you can take more artifacts and you can actually get those really high level artifacts maxed out, instead of spending 20 minutes trying to find the right spot for everything. All my top builds were using this feature cause the artifacts I got were so much stronger maxed out, especially frost relics and planets.

[monkeyfeet228]

Originally posted by Bone_Reaper:

Personally I'm not entirely on board with this particular idea, but I would think that paying with sapphire would fill out the game more then dice, as sapphire are currently worthless after you go to post game for a bit, and would fit with you using your previous runs earnings to help the next.

Another interesting thing to play around with a sapphire shop is to have the pricing be dictated by your previous run. Something like winning in the last run would make this shop more expensive since you now got 20+ sapphire from said run, the cheapest would be to die at or around the 3rd boss, since that would prevent people just throwing a run at the start to get the shop price down artificially, and 1st are deaths have as high of a price as winning, as the shop could be something that appears in a secret room that is guaranteed each run on some floor of the game. This means if you put effort in to a run but fail, then this shop would help the next run, and throwing runs wouldn't be a viable option, and it still keeps it's value as stockpiling sapphire from a previous win will scale the shop.

Tbh I immediately regretted giving an example implementation for the idea because I knew it was going to distract from the point. The core of the idea is giving a lever to players to adjust probability. How that happens, shop with money, rerolls, or sapphires; making it part of roots; maybe even using talent points, is sort of besides the point. Not to say it's not interesting, just that the goal was not "reroll dice need another use", but rather "in a game where builds matter this much, it would make sense for players to have a modicum of control over what builds are possible".

As for the problem of sapphires not having a sink, I don't have strong opinions. The game is incomplete, and I'm sure other opportunities for spending metaprogression currency will make themselves known as more content gets added. Using them to skew odds on builds feels bad tho because it suggests to new players that if they want to do metaprogression they have to completely forgo one of the game's systems. The subspace shop is already like this and feels bad because it either incentivizes you to not unlock cool new powers or if you already have everything unlocked, isn't something you're making decisions around because you'll just have the sapphires.

Originally posted by Paw:

There's already a work in-progress experimental feature implemented for this... They are testing it out though. You are in fact less likely to be offered junk when you have less of something and more likely to be offered stuff that matches your build.

Right that's what I'm referencing at the beginning of the post. It just doesn't seem great as a solution. It technically satisfies the prompt, but not in a way that you can see or that gives you any control over it. So when you get unlucky, it's the same kind of frustrating, just happening (unknown)% less often.

[hydra]

Magine getting Astronomer root and never get a planet in a whole run