What if instead they had a concept like high rune fragments? So say if there were 8 players in the game it splits a jah rune or zod rune into fragments. Each of the players gets a fragment. The fragment number is determined by player count. It would certainly make acquiring high runes more of a possibility rather than dumb luck. Sure you could say the runes already have fragments by cubing lessers into a higher tier of rune, but it feels freakishly luck based. If only one player is in the game they get the entire rune. If 2 players each get 4, and if 3 maybe certain players awarded with extra fragment at random. Anyways after all this time it just seems very weird to be halfway toward enigma (self-found) but jah randomly drops for another person in the game. Maybe there's a better system possibility. Maybe the system would require being outside town to qualify so people can't afk farm fragments and active in combat in the last 30 seconds etc.

The counter argument I can think of is certain players clear far faster than others. And right now the herald system skews towards people who can teleport to champion packs for example.

A possible positive is it would also create a new type of currency, being those fragments and that they could eventually cube into a full rune. Getting the fragments would be far more likely than whole rune which some people go an entire season without seeing particular high runes. But the end game system is exclusively built on who can put together high runes into a set of armor and weapons. Which right now fundamentally relies on trading over jsp or other websites rather than ssf being a legitimate (ironically) option. Even with the choice to cube up into higher tier of runes it's still near impossible to cube your way up to an enigma unless we're talking single player lower kurast runs which are not a choice for multiplayer solo characters.

This post was edited by BlakeXeal on Mar 18 2026 02:35pm

I think POE was designed for people in the same gaming phase as you are writing these words

Well the reason I came to the conclusion is because I tried to brute farm the rest of my enigma once I had the first half (cubing up to the ber) yet the rune or rune alternative options never dropped. And at a certain point you start creating problems trying to farm things that are unreliable in terms of farming potential. Problems related to health like carpal tunnel start to be a strong possibility with repetitive motions on farming that requires hundreds even thousands of hours.

Regardless of the piece of rune, the medical condition exists, so that point is a bit null.

As for farming the rest of you enigma, not really sure the issue. SP has LK runs while online has trading which it is quite easy to farm up a bit to exchange for a rune. I get that not everyone has all day, but it is quite doable very quickly to trade up to a full well built character.

lol no

Farm with friends, split profits?

Otherwise just play single player.

There's a huge benefit to online play, even farming in p1 games you can easily farm 1highrune worth of garbage to sell and trade up to your enigma.

didnt read but I disagree

I've certain done it in previous seasons fully self found but not all seasons have the same luck.

While I understand your point of view, I strongly disagree as this totally kills the essence of D2 which is based on trading.

You don't find a Ber rune yourself, but you find a Shako early ladder that you can trade for a lot, a Maras, several ists.. and you trade your way up to that Enigma that will ultimately change your char.

Cheers!

This post was edited by Gwda on Mar 18 2026 03:10pm

pretty convinced this game is meant to be played solo or with people you trust/know