{
"post": {
"title": "Skill Gems as Loot Items to be Excited About",
"selftext": "Hi,\n\nOne thing I've found both when I first began playing POE1 and when I consider how I felt with Lilly Roth in Part 2 of the POE1 campaign allowed for all skill gems to be unlocked is that there was a surprising lack of excitement for me around the acquisition of the actual skill gems themselves. I believe this was because\n\n1. at first I was overwhelmed with gem skill selection as a new player and\n2. by the time I started getting used to my skills, then I was overwhelmed again by having access to \"all\" (I know its not all of them as it excludes vaal and transfigured gems) of the skills in the game via an NPC.\n\nI always liked the feeling of adding quality to my gems to upgrade a specific aspect of their usage via gemcutter prisms.\n\nIt might be cool if they explored things like:\n\n* more gems being droppable as random items to discover (this could be very bad if implemented incorrectly as it could brick a build idea plans if its strict and you never find the item the entire league. Saved by trading though. But could really be exciting if one league you got fireball and another league you didn't, etc.). Was anyone here around before Act 6 in which Lilly was an NPC in the early days of POE1 and what was that like for you?\n* rarity of gem types, just like items (I think this was brought up in another post as well)\n* player customization of their own gems after acquisition (gem changes beyond quality)\n* Gem bench crafting (i.e. imagine if all aspects of gems for quality, vaal, transfigured and otherwise were governed similarly to how items work with bench crafting). This could be a huge benefit if done similarly to items as to help mitigate feelings of overwhelm if gems and items could be crafted similarly between each other in some ways--you could kind of think about this in how items and maps have modifiers. It would feel like I had more agency over the gems like this.\n * You could even go as extreme as saying that your support gems are simply reforges of a gem instead of them being gem + support gems. So think about how a gem has its associated support gems? Now the gem is benchcrafted with support modifiers to replicate what support gems did.\n * Reasoning for this might be that support gems only exists in POE1 because they were forced to be linked via item slots but now this has been done away with\n * I can feel the downvotes already pouring in with this idea <3 But it might be a cool thing to help free up some of the UI/UX space for skill gems now that it is its own UI gem inventory.\n\nI feel like having an existing skill that works for your build (that you can easily acquire) but then upgrade it into Vaal or Transfigured is a good compromise in the existing game of POE1, but gems as loot still feels like a slightly missed opportunity.\n\nI could imagine this is very difficult to balance because on the one hand, GGG might not want to gatekeep the ability to prevent players from creating builds that (using the magic of the internet) know exist and create as combos that are both powerful and something they want to try. However, it feels like a missed opportunity to have droppable uncut skill gems as being something that feels very underwhelming if they drop but very deterministically in which it feels expected and less like exciting loot.\n\nAll of this is to say there's a super fine line between mechanical balance of the game VS \"feel good\" gameplay that often can be undermined--and GGG has talked about this before.\n\nThis isn't really a post about a problem or solution but more so how I remember feeling about this aspect of the gam, and I'm interested to know what GGG will come up with. Let me know what you guys think and how you feel about all this!\n\n\\- just an excited guy who can't wait to play POE 2 ",
"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/comments/1c0arar/skill_gems_as_loot_items_to_be_excited_about/"
},
"comments": [
{
"body": "I do like some of your ideas, but I think it would be more complicated and overwhelming to craft your own gem. I do get why you want that, but Support gems are supposed to alter your skill to such an extent that it's basically craft your own gems. Support gems in PoE2 are not just damage multipliers with conditions but SHOULD just alter the skills to your liking. Something like chaos to physical support can now happen as you don't run into infinite loops like you would with the PoE1 system for example"
},
{
"body": "Right at the start when I played PoE1 in 2013, I remember having a build with Infernal Blow + Melee Splash and going around blowing up packs of Mobs. In those days playing part of random groups was more the 'standard' way of playing and I remember other players going pog seeing my 'unique' build. That happened because of random drops.\n\nAnd then players optimized the fun out of the game. Players realized what support gems are BiS for each skill and then everyone 'needed' the correct gems to play the meta build. This made randomly dropped gems frustrating instead of fun.\n\nThe path PoE2 is going with Uncut gems is the way to go. You still have gem drops, but you can choose a tiered skill. This allows experimentation, but more limited than PoE1. GGG could consider creating 6 types of uncut gems for each attribute alignment. Str, Int, Dex, Str/Dex, Dex/Int, Int/Str. This may allow some variety of drops and limit which skills you can get from uncut gems.\n\nTreating skill gems as base items upon which you can craft additional affixes is an intriguing thought, where affixes can be tailored for each individual skill. But if I am not mistaken, GGG has decided to reduce / remove damage mult mods on support gems to enhance variety of builds. This could mean that adding additional power to gems through customization goes against this principle, so I am not sure if this is the right way to go.\n\nWhile talking about experimentation, this is where I actually disagree with you. The idea of making support gems affixes of skill gems through bench-crafting is, as you said, too extreme. This will restrict experimentation where you can't freely swap between support gems. Skill gems and support gems must be kept separate to avoid frustration. Remember gems is your build and leaving that to chance is not a thing players want.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Is there a way in which they could allow easy access early on to basic skill gems, while also making late-game skill gem drops be meaningful?",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Probably, but it's difficult. You initially can choose ease of access OR exciting late game drops. If you go the ease of access route, like GGG did, just to have your build defining gem behind an RNG wall in late game chase gems it would feel bad, BUT if you could obtain lvl 21 and higher uncut gems that are drop only or superior support and meta gems that amplify their effect/reduce the drawbacks, that would bring (at least some) excitement back into gems in the late game",
"replies": [
{
"body": "Think this could be a very simple but effective way to solve the OP's problem here. Have lvl 21 / 22 / maybe even 23 level uncut gems drop at end game with increasing rarity, as well as the current enhance, empower exceptional gems be drop only.\n\nI have a feel awakened gems might be back just not in their same form. btu some kind of pinnacle gem drops could be great. Or better yet, what if every gem had an 'awakened version' but they weren't dropped as gems... \nInstead you had an item called something like a 'Gemcutter's Catalyst' that you coudl spend on a gem to turn it into an awakened version. This way you stop the feels bad RNG of dropping the wrong awakened gem but still have that end game gem progression chase."
}
]
},
{
"body": "In the POE1 world, transfigured gems (or the preceding system of alt-quality gems) could have been given to map bosses as uncommon or even quite rare drops. \n\nKinda has to be map bosses, otherwise high end juicers would just generate so many that they'd cease to be loot. Map boss drops can't really be juiced much in POE1.\n\nAlternatively, gems could have a prefix and suffix that's very hard to modify (no alteration orbs, but maybe a new much rarer orb). Base gems would be sold in town, but getting the mods you want would be an endgame goal, and getting mods you want AND gem level 21 simultaneously an aspirational goal."
}
]
},
{
"body": "Great feedback. Thanks!"
}
]
},
{
"body": "We can't really comment on these yet, as we havent tested them or seen the full system, so to suggest such extraneous and fine (yet vague) additions is out of our reach for now"
},
{
"body": "Gems are too important to have as random drops, unless they're only necessary fairly late in progression, like the exceptional gems which are still drop-only. Not having a gem that you need often means you're out of 30%+ DPS, or your build might not work at all.\n\n\nIn older versions of PoE with only quest rewards and random drops to get gems, you'd generally have to create mule characters to get gems via quest rewards (running a Witch to Brutus just to get Clarity etc), which was not fun. There were also a lot more drop-only gems at that time like Added Chaos Damage/Multistrike - if you needed one of those for your build to function in endgame, then you'd basically need to trade or get a lucky drop. \n\n\nThe current implementation in PoE1 where you get access to basically all gems in act 6 is alright since it doesn't overwhelm you with all of the gems immediately and makes leveling a little more varied between classes, while making sure that you have access to all the gems by the time your build is really coming together. It does have some issues as you mentioned though - it's too many gems in one screen and makes non-quality gem drops not worthwhile to pick up.\n\n\nPoE2's system with uncut gems seems like it'll be pretty good. You can't have all the gems, but you can have exactly the ones you need - each uncut gem you pick up should be very impactful while leveling. I'm not sure if GGG has discussed how gem linking will work exactly, but picking up a 6L gem should be pretty exciting too in late game.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "It depends which gems are drop only. \n\nImagine POE1 Bloodlust Support was improved and became a good gem because its numbers were boosted past those of Brutality Support. I think that's a perfect example of a gem that would be harmless to make drop-only and even quite rare - if you don't own it, you can just use Brutality Support in its place. But when you do get it - boom, it's an upgrade. \n\nWorst gems to have drop-only are the ones that unlock entirely new ways to use skills like trigger gems."
}
]
},
{
"body": "One of the issues with making support gems mods on a skill gem is that it makes it a lot harder to experiment with them. Every time you would want to alter the skill, you would have to go to the crafting table and go through a bunch of hoops to replace 1 of the mods. With support gems, you can easily swap them in and out of the skill gem."
},
{
"body": "If they decide to bring transfigured gems into PoE2, I hope they implement it in a way similar to how you describe. Also, a lot of which you describe is how Ruthless is. All support and aura gems are drops only. And you can only buy 3 gems total from getting uncut gems as quest rewards.",
"replies": [
{
"body": "I do think that crafting your own skill gem will be possible via the overhaul of the support gems. IF trans gems do return in PoE2 (I don't think it'll happen any time soon tho) I would also hope we could craft them with special resoruces in the endgame, but that is a LONG way ahead of us IMHO"
}
]
}
]
}