The Problem with Items and Cards

[hexed girder]

Items Lack Unique Value

Right now, you can swap cards in and out of your gear freely. This makes even the best items feel temporary. The item itself is just a shell, not a finished product.

Cards Are Cheap and Disposable

Cards are everywhere. You can hoard hundreds of them without a real reason. Because you can remove them at any time, most cards have very little value. They are not a real investment.

The Suggestion: Permanent Cards

How It Works

When you socket a card into an item, it is permanent. You cannot remove it. If you trade the item, you trade it with the cards inside.

Why This Improves the Game

It Makes Your Items Truly Valuable

An item with great stats and the perfect permanent cards becomes a unique and powerful piece of gear. You create something that has lasting worth.

It Forces You to Make Smart Choices

You have to think carefully before socketing a card. Your choices matter because they are permanent. This adds real depth to building your character.

How This Changes Trading

A New Market for Finished Items

Items with the best stats and the best cards become top tier gear. These finished items will be rare and highly sought after in the market.

A New Market for Blank Items

An item with great stats but no cards is also valuable. It gives another player a blank canvas to customize with their own permanent cards.

The Effect on Cards

All Cards Gain Value

This change makes every card important. Socketing a card removes it from the economy forever. This creates real scarcity. Even niche cards become useful for specific permanent builds, which makes the whole card market healthier.

Final Thoughts

Let's Discuss

This approach gives real weight to your items and the choices you make. What do you think about this change?

[upbeat river]

Chatgpt

[edgy fern]

Only problem I see is the confliction with the elemental wheel. This makes elements just a bad choice, you basically either farm a ton of perfect items to slot different elements into, or you opt to simply never make use of elements because locking your element means locking where and what you can farm.

Second, it hurts experimentation, and does not solve the problem of "how do we get people to try builds and experiment without punishing them"

This will drastically push the game into "metas" where people only will be willing to use meta cards because making a sub par item you cant fix/redo will feel really bad

So for me its a no, just making cards permanent does not feel like the answer, especially when it comes to boss cards, newer players will simply never use boss cards, its way to risky and never worth it. So boss cards will be owned/controlled by the wealthy and lots of neat little interactions will be turned off for players.

[subtle hare]

Basically what he said regarding elemental (especially boss cards) plus you would be needing BIS parts/set or close to it for EACH element to sustain MVP battles? in addition, trying to upgrade them as well. And I agree aswell on the experimentation aspect, this is what makes the game enjoyable, by trying multiple builds. Different builds for different aspects (leveling, farming, MVPing, PVPing, not to mention future achievements from PVE/PVP)

I think what needs to happen is to lower the drop rate of cards, I just thought that perhaps since it was playtest it was made easy for us to test things out but once EA comes out it would've been significantly lowered. We shouldn't be able to collect them that fast and easy in just a matter of days. Especially since we have spawn items so we can kill the boss we desire multiple times in a lot less time consumed.

we should also lessen boss spawn items drop chance, or better yet make the boss a variety version which has same stats and hp but lower drop rates compared to naturally spawned boss so the spamming of spawn items would have less impact

[primal mist]

You started with " This makes even the best items feel temporary " Then suggest "trade the item, you trade it with the cards inside"..... Now both ur card and weapon are temporary.... If I get a best item I want to keep it.. Modify it as needed but still keep my item.... The rest I didn't read coz it's too long..... Better have other sinkholes like card shards cost in additiin to gold to switch in between cards and or the gear dust/fragments for stats reroll.... Since the main issue is an excess of those material.... I think locking in cards with an equipment goes against the spirit of build diversity which this game has a lot of

[summer sail]

I totally agree there's a "easy mode" with card rn, and it can break the market. But, for now, I think it's better stay the way it is, because we are in a play test, and we really need to change gear, card, etc, to know if everything is working fine. I know that 98% of the players (not including you, Lani) just follow a build of someone who is soloing a boss.
My suggestion, when Phil launch the game, is lower the drop rate of cards, and raise the value for removing each card of the equipment