A lot of people find ascended items annoying, their very existence, the perceived grind, etc. But I think the biggest issue with them is the lack in the variety of the available items. The developers have said that they will add a greater variety of items in the future, however I don’t understand why this is even necessary when they already had a very well received and robust customization system in place with the Upgrade Slot of gear. The upgrade slot allowed extensive possible customization of gear without the necessity of introducing an excessive number of new in-game items.
To keep things simple, originally we had access to 8 different types of jewels from which to craft jewelry from. In November we got Passiflora, making 9 jewels. I suppose technically you should also count snowflakes, but I’ll ignore those here. With FotM, trinkets with non-craftable named stat sets started dropping as loot, and January gave these as karma purchases from the Orrian Temples (Cavalier, Rabid, Magi, Wayfarer, Solider).
At that point we had 14 possible base trinkets with 9 different possible jewels that could be placed within the upgrade slots = 126 possible stat combinations. That is 126 possible end results from the existence of only 23 in game items. Granted, not all 126 options would be generally considered useful, but the point is that they are all possible.
With ascended rings and amulets, the upgrade slot was inexplicably taken away (and I have yet to find an explanation for why this occurred). In order to replicate the preexisting variety of items, the developers would need to create 126 unique ascended items. Because of the way they implemented different types of infusion slots (offensive, defensive, utility) they actually would need to multiply that number by 3, resulting in the need to create 378 unique ascended items.
What we actually got were 10 ring versions with 2 infusion types each (a total of 20 of the possible 378) and 10 amulet versions with 3 infusion types each (a total of 30 of the possible 378). Also of note, in both cases, 1 of the available ascended options was a “celestial” variety
Reimplementing ascended items with the upgrade slot would allow the developers to successfully replicate the variety of current exotic gear by instead creating 14 ascended base items and 9 ascended versions of the jewels. Assuming they keep the 3 infusion slot types, this would require a maximum of 42 base items and 9 ascended upgrade items. 51 total new items seems like it would be easier to implement than 378.
It would also make it much easier to expand the available gear if new base stats or new jewels were to be offered (such as expanding the available jewels to include the soldiers, cavaliers, rabid, celestial, etc stats).
My suggestion:
- Re-design ascended items.
- Each ascended item can come in base versions consistent with each of the currently available named stat combinations.
- Each ascended item has an upgrade slot and an infusion slot.
- Do away with unique status of ascended items (unnecessary) and do away with the different types of infusion slots (also unnecessary).
- When the ascended item is purchased or dropped, the upgrade slot is pre-filled with the respective ascended jewel (will need to create new ascended jewel types for the named stat sets without jewel counterparts).
- Create mystic forge recipes to create ascended jewels from exotic exquisite jewels (as an example: 1 exquisite jewel, 1 ecto, 1 vial of condensed mist (should be purchasable at laurel vendors), 10 crystalline dust… or whatever, but be reasonable).
- Make ascended items salvageable. Make ascended jewels non-soulbound. This will allow for a market of ascended upgrades, and create a purpose for surplus dropped ascended rings from FotM.
- Existing Ascended items would simply be converted to their equivalent item, infusions intact (eg, a Bagh Nakh would be converted to a berserker base with beryl ascended jewel).
- Smile at a job well done, and enjoy the praise of happy gamers.
(edited by Vyral.4365)