Why just not add charm inventory now

At the time of D2:R release, there were arguments that

  1. the few more slots of charms would cause power creep
  2. the additional space for items could cause some issues in PvP

But since You threw a grenade into PvP balance with the FHR change and proceeded do the same for PvM with these charms, I think the small difference with having aprox. 4-8 more charm slots in PvM (I assume people running with full inventory of charms except cube + maybe tomes) and more item swapping options in PvP will not change much now, while at least giving a big QoL improvement…

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I think the issues are :

  1. There are high bug (especially item duplication or item disappearance) risks.
  2. The time spent coding this isn’t spent on another feature.
  3. No matter the amount of space, part of the community is going to complain (less than 4x10 is going to give complaints about losing power in PvP, and more than 0x10 is going to give complaints about power creep, both by players confusing inventory space with power and by players that use less charms than the charm bag size).

The arguments usually fervently presented by part of the community is that it’s an interesting trade-off, and removing the trade-off part would be power-creep.

All that being said, I am still in favor for a charm bag. Inventory was designed with 4x10 in mind, and charms are a bad item design that traps players to fill their inventory to a point where grabbing the loot is a frustrating experience.
The question, in my mind isn’t whether a charm bag would be a good thing or not for the game (it is indubitably better for the loot system), but how big it should be. I am personally not convinced 4x10 is the best choice, I’d rather go with space for 2 of each size, 5 at most.

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Would you take a bit of a power nerf from charms if you got a 3x10 charm inventory?

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I’d be ok with a total of 12 squares.

I think the grenade threw into pvp was called balance. PVP was heavily unbalanced around stun.

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We dont need a separate charm inventory, we need a dedicare loot inventory. Charms are mandatory, loot is not.

Blizzard released a half job when they introduced charms without allocating space for looting for items which is one of the most important actions of d2.

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I think it’d be easy to eliminate power creep concerns by making the charm inventory a bit smaller than the main inventory. Endgame is always cube/tomes and then the charms, so just make the charm inventory 8 slots smaller and you’ve replicated the same amount of power. What we gain is quality of life (less futzing around with the cube and less trips to town), not power.

(Sure you could carry more potions/keys/tomes in your main inventory if charms were separated out… But I can’t imagine anyone calling that endgame power creep while keeping a straight face lol.)

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You don’t even need charms in pvm they are just extra

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Which is why I suggested a 3x10 charm inventory… If people want to run max skiller charms with torch+anni, they still can. But if they want to run 7smfcs, damage/AR and/or resist charms, they’ll have to sacrifice some of those skiller charms.

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Many builds can eventually beat the game naked and thus technically even gear is extra, but I think we’d all nonetheless agree that while that might be fun for a challenge run, it’s not the primary activity most D2 players engage in.

We’re here to grind for loot, regardless of whether our end goal is holy grail completion, or playing the trading game, or getting into pvp, or whatever else. Charms have, since their introduction, always been a fundamental aspect of D2’s itemization. Everyone uses them. The discussion here is about what’s the best way to balance power and quality of life, not whether charms should be used at all.

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The idea was space vs bonus power. However, Charms didn’t scale well after the 1.10 update, especially elemental damage ones. With many melee classes left behind in the balancing of damage numbers, gear choices became more dependent on Crushing Blow/Deadly Strike for weapons based skills for faster clearing speeds, thus requiring more resist, mf, and +max damage charms to be competitive. Charms no longer were a bonus, they were a compliment to even out the weaknesses in your gear choices.

While I could live with a 3x10, I feel reducing it below 4x10 removes an element of the inventory tetris, and removes large (double space) charms from being more used, which are already less desirable than Grand Charms (Skillers, All Res Charms, etc) and Small Charms (too many uses to describe).

I still feel the best limit to prevent swap abuse, is lock set charms in place when not in town. You can move in, just can’t move out or re-arrange for better space out in the field.

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If a 3x10 charm inventory did come, then afterwards they tweaked 2x1 large charms to more in-line between small and large charms, that would be interesting. :slight_smile:

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It would be. However, the likely outcome of them adding a Charm Inventory if they decided to do it, would just be copy/pasting the cells they already got, which is 4x10, which is less work/hassle to do for both new graphics and old.

I think a couple item specific slots instead would be good. 1 slot for anni, 1 slot for torch. Cannot be exchanged for other charms. A slot for regular keys, 2 Slots for tomes.

That clears your inventory of your mandatory items except your cube. Which is more inventory anyway.

Other charms can be allocated to inventory, and you have more space for your loot or a couple more charms.

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Both arguments are pretty weak.

It would not cause any power creep, like at all. It has nothing to do with making anything stronger. Charms would occupy new space. It only makes playing more comfortable.

It would not create any issues in pvp of course.

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I think charms could use a bit of a nerf when it comes to how many we can carry. Maybe it’s just me… IDK.

A 3x10 charm inventory would do that, plus give people what they want. Everyone would be in the same boat, so there’s that.

There’s no denying there are a lot of people that want a charm inventory…

An additional thought is to start with a 3x1 charm inventory at level 1, gain an additional 3x1 charm space per 6 levels, maxing out at 3x10 at level 55.

Or there’s the alternative… Just keep rolling with how it is now. :wink:

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It suck tho,i play offline with charm inventory and its infinitely better and more comfortable play.

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I try to play and keep at least a 2x4 area open with the cube. It’s restricted play, but typically by the time I’m at that point, the vast majority of time the things that drop are junk anyway.

I play with TP scrolls in a belt slot, just so I don’t have to carry around a TP tome.

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Honestly, I think I’d rather have them go for a 4x7 area than a 3x10.
I mean, it’s not like a lot of players use over 8 grand charms, if only because simply having the cube in the inventory makes it impossible, and it’s more elegant that way.

That’s a good thing though, if they spend time on other feature’s they ruin the game faster :stuck_out_tongue:

Complaining is likely, but inventory size itself cannot be placed under the topic power creep, so if the charm bag is smaller than managable now it should be fine.
PvP was kicked in the teeth in D2r, but losing a few charms affects everyone equally and PvP is about beating the other on equal terms so doesn’t matter much imo.
Just give them back the FHR and I think they will be happy with will gladly lose a few charms.

I’d think 2 of each would be somewhat low, I often decked out with 28 spaces taken by charms (8 left for pick-up and 4 for the 2 tomes), not doing the Cube as inventory and want tomes present, but would’ve gladly given up 1 skiller for more charms in total plus 28 additional space in my inventory, so 5 of each would be fine (though a small power creep) and 4 of each would even be better imo.
But I agree 5 of each should be the maximum.