Remember gems? You know, those highly under-powered, easy-to-find sparkly things that made that pleasant PING sound when they dropped? In case you haven't been around for the last two years, gems are making a comeback in Diablo III, but with a major twist. Instead of the old set of five gem grades, Diablo III will feature a jaw-dropping fourteen grades of gems, not to say all the different kinds of gems that will be featured in the game.
Sounds impressive, eh? However, considering that only the first five grades can actually drop in the game, that leaves more than half of them just out of our button-mashing fingertips. A fan over at the official Diablo III forum board decided to do some simple calculations, and, if his math is anything better than his spelling ("monsereus"?), this is what he got:
Quote fromit takes 3 gems of each level to create one gem of the next level... that comes to 19,683 level 5 gems of the same type to make just one level 14 Gem, assuming you get all gems of the same type...
The concern that follows is not without merit, I'd say. He came up with a few answers to why we may not have to worry, or solutions to what may be a daunting system (paraphrased:
- Simply increasing the grade drop by one tier (from five to six) would decrease the number of required gems by more than half (19,683 to 6,561).
- Allow higher-end items to be salvaged for these higher-end gem grades.
- Combining gems of different levels could result in a higher-grade gem.
Official Blizzard Quote:
Yeah, that's about right. I mean keep in mind none of this has been proven through actual testing but the current design is that yeah, it's going to take a lot of lower level gems to reach the very highest high end.
The gem-to-gem upgrade intent is not to have these huge gaps where you feel like you're lame unless you have level 14 gems in every slot, but as a long term goal for the hardcore min/maxers and PvPers who are going to be playing for a long time and be able to work toward those goals. It's something you can put a little time into just by upgrading the gems you pick up during normal play, so you're constantly able to keep working toward the goal of crating a level 14 gem.
Also the trading game and millions of people playing for months is going to make them a lot more attainable than they may seem when throwing out numbers like 19,000.
It's possible it may feel crappy or we need to add something to help jump gaps, or, who knows. It's all very unproven at the moment, but we think provides a nice long term goal anyone can work toward just by killing monsters and picking up gems.
So, there you have it: the conundrum of the gems in a nutshell. What do you think could help alleviate the enormous gaps between lootable and unlootable gems? Is the system fine how it is? Other thoughts?
50,000 gold for highest end gem anyone? Anyone at all?
In the meantime, Im definitly open to the idea there might be other ways to get higher end gems (Lv 6+) if not found by them dropping. Perhaps side quests ? Or maybe combining weapons and/or other items ?
EDIT - in the meantime, perhaps we should all contribute to a list and come up with names for all 14 grades ??
Still coming up with the grades will be a handful.
Cracked ruby
Less cracked ruby
Even less cracked ruby
Finally ok ruby
A little more than ok ruby
normal ruby
Above average ruby
..... and so on and so forth.
I guess it will be easy in the end. 7 grades right there and they are clearly different and not confusing at all.
lol that's what I was thinking.
Ruby chip.
Ruby Fragment.
Ruby Shard
Ruby Portion
Ruby Chunk
Ruby Half
Ruby Tuesday
Ruby Weapon
Chipped Ruby
Flawed Ruby
Ruby
Flawless Ruby
Perfect Ruby
SOJ RUBY
Edit: I did one too many x2's, I think. It might just be 512. Still, that's a lot.
-saintchet
Official Blizzard Quote:
Gems do stack. Right now it's 10 but that could go up as we see fit. They have a good chance of being used in other ways aside from simply being socketed, something that would siphon them out of the economy. Maybe crafting. We like them remaining as something you have to visit the Jeweler artisan to combine. We don't want it to be annoying or take a lot of time though. We also don't anticipate someone visiting one with 19,000 gems looking to upgrade all the way to level 14.
They don't have a level requirement so we do intend to see them used as a way to twink new characters, or allow people to buy into gemming up a bit earlier on if they have the gold.
Our current anticipation is that it will take the hardcore players quite a while before they start maxing out their gems, long enough that they won't see level 14 gems in all slots for all of their gear before we throw something new at them.
Use in crafting and twinking seems like it makes sense and is a good way to keep their demand high, even years after release.
Do you actually think obtaining Legendary items, or a level 10-13 Gem is gonna be an easy task? That's like saying obtaining a Zod and Ber runes is simple and takes little time. If the drop rate of a level 10 Gem (drop rate being said for the sake of argument, since as I understand, they don't drop) is about 0.000013 %, and that of a Legendary item being about 0.0008%, that'd amount to 0.000000014 % chance that you're gonna obtain a level 14 Gem by seeking that route. It'd just be a route you can choose to take. Stop patronizing me, boy.
I'm just tossing ideas. Some cub recipes weren't all that logical, imo, yet were implemented regardless. I was just tossing a random idea, stop making it sound like I wrote it up on the white board, thought about it for eons, and came up with a wondrous solution. Do that again and I'll fucking Hartigan you. YOU BEING JUNIOR ROARK..PUNK.
Staying up so late everyday is fucking with my head..
Erp, I was thinking "more than half," but I got caught up getting ready for work and forgot to read back over it before I posted. Thanks for pointing that out
Did they say that gems won't have level requirements? I feel like I read that, but I can't find anything on that aspect of gems, now. Maybe it will just be like II when you had to be a certain level for different grades of gems. I do really like your idea, though, if we wanted to go with something completely different. That route also would encourage leveling, instead of just giving up at, say, 80-85.
LOLOL
You may have the wrong game series, then.
Ah, good. I knew when I said that I thought they did in that post that I wasn't pulling it out of my ass This will certainly make LLD more interesting. More viable.
In my defense, i was aiming for "monstrous" and for some reason i spelled "MONSEREUS"
But at least my ideas were simple and i think helpfull
P.S
im the bad speller who wrote the post in Blizz D3 forums