so with the new fencing and statues...

[Xoyv]

so let me make sure i've gotten everything straight

if you have the game of crone DLC, the best grave stuff you can make, requires 2 polished and 2 regular bricks for fence, and 3 polished bricks, 3 gold busts, and gold jewelry for the statue

but now with the saving soul, you can make a fence that's BETTER for HALF the cost, and the best statue requires COMPLEX PARTS instead of RARE AND EXPENSIVE jewelry?

[Shakuras]

yeah, i have no idea either how they decided the new stuff pricing.
( though to be honest, there's no reason whatsoever to craft GoC stuff since you can get them for some cash )

[bartekltg]

Yep. What's worse, you can get those great fences/markers much faster than the ones from the base game/ones from the undertaker from GoC.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/599140/discussions/4/4357790501739440416/
(in the link I made a crude table that sums up the cost)

[silver]

They were probably priced based on making a maximum grave.
With GoC, the max grave was 16 and cost:
2 marble, 5 polished marble, 3 carved marble, and a jewelry details.
with BSS, the max grave is 26 and costs:
2 marble, 4 polished marbled, 3 carved marble, a jewelry details, and 2 complex.

So basically a wash if you're going for max graves. It should be more expensive, of course, but oh well.

[CleverUsername]

Yeah.. it really breaks the progression. Again. They really need to rebalance. I'm not going to build the ones from BSS. Too broken and too easy to get.

[di eshor ribly]

I feel most of you are also overlooking the added cost in time and energy to prepare the bodies to reach the 26-skull rank.

The "mega" tier grave decorations are cheaper because you're also adding in the 40-60 ish Sin Shards* and the energy used to upgrade the body parts per corpse. Plus the added energy of dual autopsies (removing all the junk parts and adding the modified parts). * Sin shard cost varies based on the organ you're upgrading.

The embalming cost is meaningless since you're using the same set for the 16 or 26 skull corpses. Really the extra cost would be in the time spent preparing the modified organs, as well as the extra bodies you run through with the soul healing process. Don't forget to use your Prayer of Deep Healing!

[CleverUsername]

The best solution might be to introduce a new category of high level "optional crossover content". Not required to win the game, but cool techs that require more than one dlc to unlock. Move these grave items to crossover and have them require the grave items from GOC as a prerequisite. Then add in a handful of other new technologies as crossovers between other dlcs.

[silver]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

I feel most of you are also overlooking the added cost in time and energy to prepare the bodies to reach the 26-skull rank.

The "mega" tier grave decorations are cheaper because you're also adding in the 40-60 ish Sin Shards* and the energy used to upgrade the body parts per corpse. Plus the added energy of dual autopsies (removing all the junk parts and adding the modified parts). * Sin shard cost varies based on the organ you're upgrading.

The embalming cost is meaningless since you're using the same set for the 16 or 26 skull corpses. Really the extra cost would be in the time spent preparing the modified organs, as well as the extra bodies you run through with the soul healing process. Don't forget to use your Prayer of Deep Healing!

I would argue the grave decorations are not cheaper, as I said before:

With GoC, the max grave was 16 and cost:
2 marble, 5 polished marble, 3 carved marble, and a jewelry details.
with BSS, the max grave is 26 and costs:
2 marble, 4 polished marble, 3 carved marble, a jewelry details, and 2 complex.

so it's trading 1 polished for 2 complex, but otherwise the same cost.
if 1 polished is more expensive than 2 complex, it's not by much.

Otherwise you are absolutely correct.

Just a side note on the shard cost (does not change your argument in any way)

skin, flesh (7 each), fat, blood (9 each) = 32 to fix soft spares
12-27 shards to fix organs (4-9 per organ) = 44-59 total,
*Except* for one thing: 0 red,2 white organs are very common and are the cheapest to fix at only 4 shards. Since you get between 8 and 14 shards per soul (*with* the doubling prayer) you need to process 3-6 bodies to to get one ideal body - which means you will almost with a certainty get the cheapest organs to fix and might with great luck get some 0r3w organs which cost no shards to fix. So the point is, you will almost always pay 44 shards to fix a body. With some luck, some will only cost 40 shards, and you should never need to pay more than 53 because you can just toss any organs that have 0 white skulls (or, more to the point, leave them in the body which you're about to burn because you already got the sin shards you need from it to finish fixing a different body)

[bartekltg]

Originally posted by di eshor ribly:

I feel most of you are also overlooking the added cost in time and energy to prepare the bodies to reach the 26-skull rank.

That is not the point.
The problem is with the access to cheap and very strong decorations right away. 16 skull stone decorations for total of one carved stone, 2 polished stone and 2 complex part. I will use nothing else for the most of the game. And I unlocked it before the best base game stone sculptures and before the undertaker came.

For a long time I will not bother with 26 skull bodies. There is no reason in game and doing it I get to the 200mark much later.

The point is we get affordable endgame-ish decoration very early, skipping all the progression path.

My non-embalmed 6-skull bodies will get just just a fence ;)

[bartekltg]

Originally posted by silver:

I would argue the grave decorations are not cheaper, as I said before:

With GoC, the max grave was 16 and cost:

Do not look at the most expensive decorations. The new cheap one are the problem that skew the balance.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Wx88yioGZcCNHdjztzaRTotdif6PFEJkbqEV64zU-AA/edit?usp=sharing

Stone sculpture V (10) is more powerful than anything from the base game and GoC, and costs as much as stone plinth(4) or stone sculpture (5).
stone fenceVI (6) is weaker only than the best GoC fence. Add more stone and steel parts or used marble Fence VI and again, you get a decoration stronger than anything in the previous version.

This, IMHO, would not be bad on its own. The cost of fences was already essentially flat (only BSS introduced expensive fences), and the cost of markers used to warry (see the table).
The problem is we can get this technology before any other decent decorations. It flushed original marble decorations and all Undertaker recipes in the sink.


From the broader point of view. The addition of these items is OK if you already finished the game, bought DLC, and decided to, while making BSS quests, make some maxed-out graves. But in a new game, it breaks the tech progression.
The new system ate up the old system.

[silver]

Good analysis. So I would suggest that with BSS patch 1.403 (the new grave decorations weren't even in the initial BSS release) the better gravestones should not have been added to the spirit tree, but instead into new spots on the theology tree after the GoC expansions. And then also made to cost significant soul gratitude.

[bartekltg]

I would like that solution*), but people may have bought BSS, but not GoC. Theoretically. On the other hand, I think, in reality, almost anyone who has BSS has all DLCs.

The idea of the huge soul cost of the technology can be expanded a bit: let's set the price of the decoration tech so high (>=89), that only by having a fully upgraded souls room the player can collect enough souls. Soul container III requires carved wood and polished marble, two end tech from "building" tech tree.


*) Especially if implemented together with gating GoC decorations by the Undertaker requesting high-level sculptures from you before unlocking the recipes, more here

[CleverUsername]

Originally posted by silver:

Good analysis. So I would suggest that with BSS patch 1.403 (the new grave decorations weren't even in the initial BSS release) the better gravestones should not have been added to the spirit tree, but instead into new spots on the theology tree after the GoC expansions. And then also made to cost significant soul gratitude.

Yes. Totally agree. The concern is that some people will have BSS but not GoC which will keep people from using the new content and they will cry about it. So, you call the new content "optional bonus endgame content to reward people who own multiple dlcs". Then you sprinkle in a few more bonus techs as crossovers between other dlcs, and then people will see that crossovers are just a thing that happens in this game and will not complain as much.

[Wintermute]

Lol. People actually crafted the old max rank decorations? I just bought them in the camp. Considering amount of time it took to gather a max rating corpse, the money cost was trivial.

DLCs here have a habit of bricking old progressions anyway.

[T-Bone Biggins]

I feel like the latest DLC was designed to bring in quality of life features for older players. Meaning that it would be quicker, easier, and cheaper to max out corpses with lots of white skulls. Reduction of grind is a good thing and is optional for you to take advantage of. This is a singleplayer game so you can roleplay or enforce rules on yourself like a no-weapons sorcerer run in the original Diablo.

[CleverUsername]

Originally posted by T-Bone Biggins:

This is a singleplayer game so you can roleplay or enforce rules on yourself like a no-weapons sorcerer run in the original Diablo.

This sounds good in theory, but in practice, I want to be able to just play the game without having to look up whether doing a certain thing is going to break progression. I don't want to have to know a ton about what will happen in a game in order to play it.

Related: I just completed the undertaker quests for the first time. I really don't love those techs either. They should require the vanilla grave decoration tech as prereqs. That being said, the new ones are far more broken and far easier to get. I now have all of the high end decorations and still haven't had the blue points to spare to buy more than "stone gravestones" in the vanilla tech tree.