Thanks a lot for this feedback. As you have a lot of opportunity to craft I found that if you failed an attempt you can still try again later.
Your feedback is interesting, and I will consider adding more but weaker, predictable outcomes, like some craft that prevent some type of statistic to roll or get removed.
As a PoE player, the crafting system is very interesting to me. But I agree with Gamersword, it just doesn't feel like a good fit for the genre. In this roguelite format with permadeath runs and a limited number of encounters before enemies grow stronger, each failed craft is a missed opportunity to strengthen your character. While some RNG is good, having to go several battles without an upgrade because of sheer bad luck feels really frustrating.
I found that the most common crafting options available was the "Remove One Stat to Add 1 to 3" and "Remove One Stat to Enhance Another". There is an obvious synergy between the two options, where one generates random stats and another consumes them to improve stats. However, after your first or second upgrade from the default items, you're left with very bad odds for any upgrades. Using those two might grant you 1 or 2 powerful stats (pray they are what you need), but there's no common option to increase the number of stats, meaning you're stuck with 5 bad stats or 1-2 good stats. I have encountered the conditional unlock stat and the "Add 1 attribute stat", but they're either too restrictive, uncommon, or ineffectual.
Drawing an example from PoE, crafting orbs tend to "add" rather than risk what you already have. The natural progression is to roll your magic prefix/suffix until you have stats you want, then regal and exalt for another chance at getting good mods. Regals and exalts do not consume the mods you spent an hour rolling for. PoE is also not a roguelite, so the cost of failure is merely more time spent grinding, and not the permanent death of your character.
Aside from the crafting, I wish spells could be cast more frequently. I know you can invest in mana from gear, but with the above problems to crafting it takes a lot of luck to gather the correct stats required for a spell build.
Critique aside, I love the unusual aesthetics of the game! It feels like it has a lot of potential, so kudos for making me log in to post this reply.
Thanks a lot for this lengthy feedback !
I tried to solve the problem with "having only 1 or 2 powerful stat on an item" with the Astral crafting tools, which can shuffle your equipped item. As you can either keep your item or equip the result, you have a lot of chance to merge the stats that interest you on both.
But this is a common feedback to feel at the mercy of RNG. I will probably add something along the line of "increase value of stats by 0.2x on the item" or something like that.
Moreover, some stats are planned that, if removed, grant a bonus stat. This will help mitigate the negative aspect of some craft too.
And lastly "metacraft" will come too, that add for example "regeneration statistics cannot be removed or upgraded".
For now, a major visual work is in the work, with proper animations and landscape mode.
Thanks again for that feedback, it really helps.
