#1 - Aug. 31, 2013, 4:18 p.m.
Reason I ask is because I'm sure that some people (myself included) have legendaries that they are very happy with the effects on but that we don't particularly want to have to re-hunt for new versions at level 70 (specifically skill cost reduction gear, cause -19 Meteor cost is hard to get). I realize that upgrading item levels does have its potential pitfalls, but I think the potential of being able to keep that legendary that you found early on in your adventures relevant to you character will add to the sense of connection to both that character and their gear (especially their legendaries). Also I'm pretty confident that with some careful planning most of the pitfalls can be avoided.
I've made a list of potential issues with item level upgrading and some possible solutions below.
Issue 1#: Price inflation of low level items on the AH
Comments: Currently, the prices of most low level legendaries are well outside the spending range of a character of a relevant level. Now, part of that is probably due to the fact that people expect that the only people buying those items are on secondary characters and hence have significant amounts of money saved up. The ability to upgrade item levels could potentially make this issue worse if not handled well.
This inflation causes two problems. First, it excessively limits access of low level characters to legendaries. I don't mean to say that low level characters should have lots (or even several) legendaries, but simply that if someone really wants to buy a specific legendary at low levels they should be able to save up for a bit and be able to afford it (it shouldn't take the deep pockets of a level 60+ character to buy). Given the upgrades coming in Loot 2.0 I imagine there will be more items that people may want to incorporate into their builds earlier and this inflation could make that unreasonably difficult. Second, it emphasizes selling the legendaries you get a low levels over using them, which, based on the Loot 2.0 presentation, seems to be something the Developers are trying to change.
Proposed Solution: If you can only upgrade items one level at a time and there is some cost associated with it, then there will be a natural reduction in the prices of lower level items (similar to how the crafting costs control and limit gem prices). Additionally, in terms of a crafting components, this could be another use for yellow items. The reason why I suggest yellow items is because they are both rarer (limits how frequently this can be done) and potentially more usable than the more common whites and blues (adds an intrinsic value to the upgrade/keeps the value of the upgrade high, but always relative to your level). It is also probably not a bad idea to limit the reagent used (yellow or not) to that of an equal or higher level than the item to be upgraded.
Potential Negative Consequences of the Proposed Solution: It may overvalue yellow items (hence leading to more "trash" loot), but the rest of the Mystic's abilities should help limit that.
Issue #2: How to upgrade stats when upgrading the item level.
Comments: If the stats of the item don't improve upon level increase then that means you not only have to upgrade the item level, but then you have to re-roll each the different affixes/abilities on your item to get any benefit from upgrading the level (and they may not roll worse).
Proposed Solution: Have the item keep its relative position in the range of each of its affixes. What I mean by this is the following:
Lets say I have an item with an affix that provides +85 Vit and based on its level the range it could have rolled in was 1-100 (totally hypothetical). Based on the bonus value and the range the affix is at the 85% level. When I upgrade the item level the new range of said affix is now 1-200 (once again, totally hypothetical). With this proposed solution the item should provide +170 Vit, which is still at the 85% level.
This type of upgrading allows the items to always improve when you upgrade the level, and keeps the effective rarity the same (same odds of rolling an equivalent item at the new level as finding the old item).
Potential Negative Consequences of the Proposed Solution: Really low level items that have a very small affix window could cause problems due to the relative ease with which these items roll max in any given affix (if propagated this could be an issue). This could be addressed by having having the items roll within a "rounding window", or by storing item rolls with lots of decimals.
Here is a very hypothetical and exaggerated example of a "rounding window":
Lets say I have an item with an affix that provides +4 Vit and based on its level the range it could have rolled in was 1-5 (totally hypothetical). Based on the bonus value and the range the affix is at the 80% level. When I upgrade the item level the new range of said affix is now 1-200 (once again, totally hypothetical). With the proposed solution and a "rounding window," the item should provide between 150-170 Vit, which is still centered on the 80% level, but includes a range of values that based on rounding, if reduced in level, would "round" to the original stat of +4. (Of course, it would be important to ensure that an item never rolls lower than it's current value, because that would defeat the point of upgrading it). This is a notably messier but keeps things a bit fairer.
Issue #3: Legacy items
Comments: Ah Legacy items. Both those from Loot 1.0, and the soon too be Legacy Loot 1.5 will need to be addressed in one way or another. However, honestly this is more of a question for the whole of their interactions with the Mystic. Would an upgraded Legacy Item, suddenly become no longer a Legacy item and updated to the new item stats? Or would it simply be upgraded to a new set of affix ranges? Is it possible to have a Legacy item re-roll its stats inside of its old stat window or will it roll in the Loot 2.0 window? What happens if its affix no longer exists?
Proposed Solution: Honestly, I don't really have much to suggest here. There is a lot to these issues and honestly so long as the Developers put some serious and genuine thought into this I'm pretty confident that it will work out well (also in time, I imagine almost everything will switch to the new Legendaries, so any issues with Legacy items should be transient).
Anyways, I hope people enjoyed my thoughts and suggestions (even though my post was a lot longer than I initially intended). I'm off to go hit some zombies with way too many Meteors.
