[QoL] Charm Inventory

General Discussion
1

What does it do?
A charm inventory is an additional inventory solely for charms, and charms only work in that inventory, freeing up the normal inventory for actual loot. Of course the limitations for unique charms stay the same.

People seem to have two major concerns with a charm inventory:
Loss of choice between Power vs. Convenience
With the current inventory you have to choose: The more charms you equip, the more powerful you get, but the less convenient the item management becomes.
Power Creep
The current inventory is 4x10, so 40 slots. At the moment, most people leave room for the horadric cube, tomes etc., and fill the rest with charms, so on average, they might equip 4x8, so 32 slots with charms.
If a charm inventory simply had a size of 4x10, everyone would use all 40 slots, because there would be no downside.
From 32 to 40 is 25% increased space for charms → power creep.

Here is how I would adress those concerns:
Introduce a charm bag, that works very similar to the horadric cube. It can be put in the inventory, and as long as it is carried, all charms in the normal inventory are deactivated. But the charm inventory has only a size of 4x8.

As of now, most people do one of two things:
Either they fill their whole inventory with charms, usually for PvP, Uber Tristram etc. That option would remain with simply not using the charm bag.
Or they carry the horadric cube and the two tomes, and fill the remaining 4x8 with charms. That would exactly match using the charm bag.

So players would still have to choose between full power of 4x10 charms or convenience with only 4x8 charms, and it would keep the power creep in check, as it very closely emulates the current meta.

Tadaa!:tada:

But it makes the game too easy!!
I am all for making the game more challenging, but I want the option to make the combat more challenging. Also, I think the most efficient way to play the game should also be the most fun way to play the game.
And neither playing “Inventory Manager 2000” nor the choice of how many charms to use to not make the item management insufferable is fun or challenging.
But maybe that’s just me…

Potions and Gear Swapping
Now it is true that the extra available storage space allows to carry more potions and opens up more possibilities for gear swapping, and I can’t really think of a good solution to adress that, but I don’t think it is enough of a concern to justify keeping the status quo.

Were should the charm inventory be located?
I would make it unfold left to the normal inventory, so charms can directly be transfered between charm inventory and normal inventory or the stash, while also beeing able to see the character screen.

If the bag is being unequipped, what happens to the charms inside?
Same as the horadric cube, the charms are put in the normal inventory if possible, otherwise on the floor.

How to obtain the charm bag
The charm bag could be a quest reward, maybe for killing the The Summoner in the Arcane Sanctuary, providing a charm inventory of 4x4 in normal, 4x6 in nightmare, and 4x8 in hell.
Or it could be a dropped item granting 4x4-8.

What do you think?

8 Likes
2

The power balance is controlled by the limited space in the charm bag, there’s nothing of value gained by making the game annoying to play with tetris inventory

6 Likes
3

No. It would be exactly that same to just get rid of all charms and give all classes 8 extra free skill points. The whole point of charms is a trade off between inventory space and power.

4 Likes
4

are i people seriously arguing against a basic QOL feature to be able to pick up items after they just implemented sunder charms.

first off everyone already ran charms… the max balance it would change is allow 1-2 more skillers

2nd this benefits the weaker classes more as they NEED charms to be viable where as the op classes don’t.

and seriously we have past the point of no return… the balance impact of “adding more inventory space that charms don’t work in”, is like 1/100th of what sundering charms did.

your pathetic argument that " inventory space vs power" is just u being a jerk
they just gave INSANE amount of free power to all the casters.

you can not seriously try to use that argument now…

as for the op… i have no idea what this “charm bag” nonsense is…
if allow charms to still work in your current inventory and add a “charm bag” ( lol wtf) then you changed nothing except add more charm space for pointless power creep.
if u change the size of the charm space from 4x10 then again u drastically altered balance

you just make the inventory bigger… and the new spaces charms don’t work in.
why are people trying to make this complex or change the amount of space charms get.

charms are a 4x10 space… no bigger, no smaller
4x10.

if u want to add more space that charms dont work in fine… but that’s not a “charm inventory” the “charm inventory” is what we have always had since LOD

its the portion of the inventory “charms” work in.

1 Like
5

Why so angry and hostile?
I think you get worked up about semantics. It doesn’t matter if you call it charm bag, charm inventory or bag of holding. The mechanic is what counts.

Of course the charm bag would deactivate the charms in the current inventory, as I have written in my post, so it wouldn’t increase the maximum number of charms you can carry.

And making the charm bag slightly smaller tries to match the current meta, while making it vastly more convenient. It’s not a huge difference, but I see no downside. And just because you don’t like sunder charms, doesn’t mean that any power creep is now meaningless.

6

Name a build that does not work at all without charms? Or are you using the term “viable” instead of “overpowered”?

7

Many physical builds are depending “Fine” and other charms that add attack rating and damage. My barb has its inventory filled with these, not many skills charms there I can tell you.

8

Yes physical builds do use those charms, but they are not needed to beat the game. Again it’s confusing the words “viable” and “overpowered”. If you want to clear zones with speed in 8 player games then yes those charms are needed but they are not needed for any build to be “viable”.

9

How about a 3x10 loot inventory above the current inventory instead, charms do not work in that zone.

10

Can you stop with your weird ideas. there are items that are 4x2. I know it is some attempt to cope with people who don’t want a full charm inventory or whatever but a 3x 10 makes no sense. If you said 4x6 at least it would make a little sense, but there is no reason not to give a full 4x10 loot inventory if you were going to spend time implementing this type of mechanic.

11

No, that was not the idea. Just because that is how the mechanic turned out doesn’t mean it is a good mechanic. And if you think anyone ever thought of that and was like dang thats a good idea you should see a doctor.

12

Its called a trade off, you sac some power so you can pick up 4x2 items, simple.
If we are going to go 4x10, why not 8x10 then? No consequence to that… Lets go 16x10! Full screen of char inventory.

13

Because that would actually be fine if you went 8x10 or 16/10. Maybe not necesary, but it would be fine.

Meanwhile we’re trying to get rid of annoying/bad mechanics, not create new ones. Like you at least have a decent IQ you should know a 3x10 is trash. Same with a 3x10 charm inventory would be trash if you’re attempting to keep the current meta going. Though a 3x10 charm inventory actually makes 10x more sense than a 3x10 loot inventory lol.

14

But thats a nerf. Currently you have a 4x10 charm inventory that you need to sac some power, for loot space.
I am merely suggesting a middle ground option, Im good if they decided to break the dam and triple the size of the stash like the mods or Zax’s mod hes doing… But D2 has always been about that loot tetris and strategy. I still kind of like that mechanic, just could use a fresh dynamic to it, not taking it away entirely.

15

It’s how it was designed, it didn’t just happen to turn out that way, I’m pretty sure the devs knew that charms take up inventory space rofl.

2 Likes
16

I would keep the charm inventory system as close as possible to the current meta, and my suggestion of an optional 4x8 charm inventory is the closest I can think of.

1 Like
17

Right which means what we really want is a loot inventory!

18

I’m not saying it isn’t a nerf, still operates better than an inventory that can’t hold items that are able to be dropped in the game. Not saying I promote the idea. I still though know a 3x10 loot inventory is an awful idea. The game is in no way about loot tetris, it was an accidental coincidence that it wound up being that way and it is a trash mechanic. They made a game if you like making the most out of a little space it is called actual Tetris. Otherwise everyone should be able to easily pick up gear they need, there is nothing skillful or fun about cube looting and regardless of powercreep the charm inventory should be implemented. If they want to buff monsters or weaken heroes to counter that I’m all for it.

Who said they didn’t. They did not however have the min/maxing and space optimizations in mind. I’m sure they didn’t think oh hey, looting through a cube is a cool/skillful endeavor in our video game. Again if you like cube loooting, we get it, you have something wrong with you, and you don’t want a doctor to check your brain out. All good.

19

rabies, fireclaw, bear…, fire bowzon, cold bowzon, charged strike MA sin.

do i need to go on?

20

This problem really needs to be solved. Clogging inventory with charms does not add value to a game. It just makes you work around the UI and drop stuff in your cube manually.

The current way charms work is that you max out your character to kill stuff quickly, but cannot pick up a single item easily, so the guy who is leeching has a better chance to grab everything. Or you are playing single player and it’s just a inconvenience. There is no up side.

4 Likes