Rune Breakdowns

Do you think it would be good for the economy if you could cube runes down like how you can cube them up? For example, maybe there would be a Horadric Cube recipe where you could break a Cham rune down into 1 or 2 Jah runes. Additional reagents may also be required for these recipes, like the high rune upgrading recipes that require a gem.

This could make popular runewords like Enigma or Last Wish more accessible to casual players, but it could cause elite players' fortunes of high runes like Jah and Ber to crash in value.

I don't know for runes, I think there would have to be a heavy cost for it to work, maybe 2 Cham makes one Jah for example. Not that I've ever seen anything higher than an Ohm anyway!

Would love to see this implemented for gems though, constantly require Chipped Gems for rune recipes but never have any because they rarely drop in CS, where I spend most of my time.

Since rune pricing is generally relative to other runes, this wouldn't cause a general crash in pricing of current top-end runes but rather it would cause a significant shift in the pricing of some of them, making them relatively much, MUCH more expensive.

If you could cube down 1:2 then a Jah would suddenly have a flat price of 2 Ber minimum, meaning it gets even more expensive. Ber on the other hand won't get any cheaper because getting there from the other side is the same it always has been. Sur would move up slightly to a flat 2 Lo+. And most significantly, it would become just about impossible to still get a Cham, let alone a Zod because a Cham would instantly move up to 2 Jah+ and a Zod would move up to 4 Jah. Basically, you're making Breath of the Dying suddenly be more expensive than Last Wish.

Cham and Zod have their uses. And they have expanded slightly. And the current pricing on them makes sense for that. But if a Cham is equal to 2 Jah and a Zod is equal to 4 Jah then their own use as compared to the use of the Jah/ Ber you could cube them down to becomes completely out of touch with their new pricing.

Paying an Ohm to get your merc some anti-freeze..works for me.
But paying 2 Jah just to get your merc that same anti-freeze? That's...kinda stupid.

Bottom line:
It may make some of the current top-end stuff slightly more accessible but in doing so it'll most likely make other stuff damn near impossible to ever still get as there won't be any Chams or Zods left.

Schnorki wrote: 4 years ago

Since rune pricing is generally relative to other runes, this wouldn't cause a general crash in pricing of current top-end runes but rather it would cause a significant shift in the pricing of some of them, making them relatively much, MUCH more expensive.

If you could cube down 1:2 then a Jah would suddenly have a flat price of 2 Ber minimum, meaning it gets even more expensive. Ber on the other hand won't get any cheaper because getting there from the other side is the same it always has been. Sur would move up slightly to a flat 2 Lo+. And most significantly, it would become just about impossible to still get a Cham, let alone a Zod because a Cham would instantly move up to 2 Jah+ and a Zod would move up to 4 Jah. Basically, you're making Breath of the Dying suddenly be more expensive than Last Wish.

Cham and Zod have their uses. And they have expanded slightly. And the current pricing on them makes sense for that. But if a Cham is equal to 2 Jah and a Zod is equal to 4 Jah then their own use as compared to the use of the Jah/ Ber you could cube them down to becomes completely out of touch with their new pricing.

Paying an Ohm to get your merc some anti-freeze..works for me.
But paying 2 Jah just to get your merc that same anti-freeze? That's...kinda stupid.

Bottom line:
It may make some of the current top-end stuff slightly more accessible but in doing so it'll most likely make other stuff damn near impossible to ever still get as there won't be any Chams or Zods left.

You have some very good points about a potential spike in Zod and Cham prices as a result of this change. My intention was to make the values of high runes relative to one another better match their drop rates, but not if that made some more inaccessible than current Jah. I would only want to see this done if current Jah and Ber were to drop in price enough to justify a lesser increase in Zod and Cham.

There seems to be a Jah shortage on non-ladder softcore right now, and some veteran players say that the same thing happened in post-endgame LOD back in the day. If you could get 1-2 Jah from a Cham and 2-4 Jah from a Zod, then the vast majority of Zod and Cham runes would be broken down.

Currently, the player who finds a Zod or Cham is the most mathematically lucky player, but the player who finds a Jah or Ber is more economically lucky. Some people even see a Zod or Cham drop as being "unlucky," because you could have rolled a Jah instead.

Zod, and especially Cham, do indeed have their uses. They're both unbelievably rare on paper, but fortunately the low demand for their associated runewords makes them very accessible. Having to pay 1-2+ Jah to socket some anti-freeze would be too expensive for all but the most elite players. People wouldn't even be able to afford it for their best character, let alone a hireling.

The poll has been up for around a half of a day at this point, and it looks like the community opinion is close to a 50:50 split right now. Players from all walks of life and all levels of progression surely use this site, so I'm not surprised that there isn't really a consensus on rune break formulas.

Lord-Jonty wrote: 4 years ago

I don't know for runes, I think there would have to be a heavy cost for it to work, maybe 2 Cham makes one Jah for example. Not that I've ever seen anything higher than an Ohm anyway!

Would love to see this implemented for gems though, constantly require Chipped Gems for rune recipes but never have any because they rarely drop in CS, where I spend most of my time.

This is a very good idea that people have wanted for a long time, but Blizz never implemented gem breakdown recipes yet for whatever reason. They would be far less consequential on the D2 economy than rune breakdowns, so there is a much weaker case against such a change.

An endgame character will be finding a lot of mid-runes that they would need chipped/flawed gems to cube up, but most of the gems that drop at that point will be flawless. It can be very hard to get the lower gems you need.

no for rune, but yes for gems.

Yes. It is asinine that rune demotion wasn't implemented from the beginning. The biggest flaw in the game by far.

There is a trend that seems to be that "the rarest drop should be the best one". But that's not a rule. Jah and Bers have more uses than Zod, and Tyrael's Might is not the most useful equipment in the game.

I actually tend to think it's rather well done that way. I played another game where there was a vote system to be Governor or Vice Governor, and if Governor arrivent first had a nice Power (could not be attacked!), vive governor held the economic Power, much better when at Peace (95% of time). And that caused a whole strategy to arrive 2nd, much more fun than targeting 1st spot.

Just to say that rare usually means expensive (and it'snot always the case@), but most rare is clearly not most expensive if not most useful.

Sean wrote: 4 years ago

Lord-Jonty wrote: 4 years ago

I don't know for runes, I think there would have to be a heavy cost for it to work, maybe 2 Cham makes one Jah for example. Not that I've ever seen anything higher than an Ohm anyway!

Would love to see this implemented for gems though, constantly require Chipped Gems for rune recipes but never have any because they rarely drop in CS, where I spend most of my time.

This is a very good idea that people have wanted for a long time, but Blizz never implemented gem breakdown recipes yet for whatever reason. They would be far less consequential on the D2 economy than rune breakdowns, so there is a much weaker case against such a change.

An endgame character will be finding a lot of mid-runes that they would need chipped/flawed gems to cube up, but most of the gems that drop at that point will be flawless. It can be very hard to get the lower gems you need.

I think Chipped Gems are the only ones that are kind of annoying to try to find late game when you are only in hell difficulty (though they still will drop occasionally). But those are almost never needed at that point because they don't really have any good uses and if you need a low level rune for a runeword it's faster to just farm for one off countess rather than upping lower runes for it. I find that flawed and normal gems still drop quite often in trav or cows or anywhere else, albeit slightly less often than flawless. I honestly never have to wait long to find the right flawed/normal gem if I need one for upping a rune.

But as you said, the argument against this is much weaker because it wouldn't alter the game or economy at all. Gems drop all the time and it's fairly easy to find the one you need in 1-2 hours of doing cow runs or whatever else. The rune question would vastly alter the economy.

No. Being able to split one rune into multiple lower ones is obviously out of question, as the lower ones would be exponentially more common.
Even downgrading into one lower rune would mean that I effectively own every other lower (but only one), with Zod being a "wildcard" rune. Runeword making would be much more bland (especially for SSF), if we just needed to find a few high runes and downgrade them to fit the runeword.
Maybe downgrading several steps at a time (for example 3: Zod -> Ber, Cham -> Sur and so on) or requiring additional ingredients (such as gems (not necessarily perfect), jewels or Standard of Heroes) would be OK.

I agree that it would flood the market with low runes. If I break down an Ohm rune in trade, the Ohm rune is still usable by the person and I get my Vex Ist Ist or whatever; using up some easier to find runes from the market. But if I just break down that Ohm to get 2 Vex (or 1 Vex however it would work) the only thing gained is I have a worse rune than I started with. Sure it may be useful for single player, as someone pointed out earlier, but online it is only a negative. And this is without realizing the price jump for the more rare runes. Big thumbs down. But I am enjoying how split this is!

Absolutely not

Bump to get new eyes (and hopefully votes)