Angelic, Demonic and Ancestral stats are a bad design choice

Well your mistaken about this… D2 already has a good way of making strength useful to a sorc. You would need to invest a certain amount of points into it to use higher defense armors. Which also makes logical sense… I would need to be stronger to use a heavier piece of equipment. In D2 every stat is useful but not necessarily needed. For instance. My under geared Frenzy Barb didn’t have the items to increase my attack rating enough to land hits on Ubers. This caused the life tap that my friends Necromancer was putting on them to be useless. What did I do? Got another friend who had been farming essences and making reset tokens to give me one and I placed substantially more points than I would have otherwise into Dexterity which gave me enough of and increase to my attack rating to land hits about 75% of the time. After alot of deaths we managed to clear it…
Energy not good for barbs? Tell that to and MF barb who uses enigma and teleports.
Str Dex and Energy(Mana) work fine there’s no need to come up with another convoluted way of doing it. The chances of them coming up with and making a completely new way of doing these are slim to none. I’m sorry to say but whenever you try to reinvent the wheel it almost always fails. Stick to what works and add to it not change it completely. Blizzard constantly tries to add new and interesting systems to their games… How many of them have worked for WoW… Not many.

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There are several logical problems with what you are trying to say.

The first thing to point out is that if the powers are the same as main stat, why are you advocating for main stat instead? If they are the same, then their is no difference, and you should be happy. If it is ‘just as well served’, then you should be just as happy. Others have pointed out how they are not the same, and are actually better than strength, int, dex in terms of theme, complexity, and role in yoir gear decisions.

Second, main stats were also effected by RNG, as all affixes are, and a core component of the game is hunting the right pieces based on the affixes you want. A Diablo 2 item with bonuses to fireball and frost orb is bad RNG - better sell that item and move on! It will be the same thing here - if a particular skill is better served by angelic power, and you find a piece that buffs that skill if you have a lot of demonic power, it might be a bad item. Bad items need to exist. They have always existed in Diablo games.

Lastly, certain affixes are always better for certain builds than others. It is the nature of well designed affixes. If every combination of affixes was just as good as any other for every build, you might as well have a single affix called Effectiveness and be done with it.

Now, RNG and its role. An entitely RNG system is judt plain bad. Diablo 2 had uniques and runewords, which had pretty tight ranges for affixes, and usually had static affix allotment (same affixes on every drop, to varying degree). Some had variance, like Robes of Ormus which rolled a different skill every drop but was otherwise static. This created value for those items, a reason to hunt for them, and a protection against total RNG - and none of it was because of some cheesy legendary affix that was mandatory to make a build viable (except maybe Enigma, and Enigma was a mistake). They need to have less RNG involved in their legendary/crafted gear so that players can achieve goals without praying to RNGesus, which still leaves room for GG rare items to drop based on affix combinations. To be clear, legendaries/crafted gear should have some RNG, but mostly in how much they roll on certain affixes, not which affixes they roll.

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Except once you hit the point needed for your end game gear, it became useless. This was true for the hulking barbarian, too, so thematically D2 stats sort of sucked. They were flat and pretty uninteresting.

Sure, but you could say the same thing about the powers. You might not need demonic power, but its still useful. Someone else might value it a lot more.

You know this isn’t really true. Barbs gained a pitiful amount of mana from Energy and were much better served stacking +mana items and an infinity merc (or have it on swap). Coincidentally a ton of end game items granted massive boosts to mana, such that you were literally throwing stats in the garbage by putting them into energy on a barb.

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I don’t see the system as fundamentally flawed any more or less than any other system insomuch as RNG is an inescapable dynamic to the itemization processes. The problem with trying to hammer out the finer details this early in the development is a lot of it can and will be altered. Debating the concept is all we have to work with. They will always make adjustments to the finer details. The gameplay footage available doesn’t even have the concept of these new stats implemented yet.

Attributes as they are customizable insomuch as distribution of them, the how much and in what order you assign them should be a part of build customization in my opinion. In order to make this unique among players there needs to be usefulness for each attribute available to each person choosing what goes where. Otherwise you’ll have meta distribution that foregoes some all together. Case in point, in D2 you could level up your character without spending any stats. Literally you could save up 50 levels worth of attribute points before deciding to spend them. That is a fail in an attribute system that is customizable by the player. That is not to say that the system couldn’t be implemented better and should just be done away with entirely. Again that’s just in my opinion.

I don’t see where a person choosing to restrict themselves to only lightning thereby making fire enhancing items worthless to them as an issue to do something about.

Every attribute stat or every affix available on items? Making every attribute stat useful to every class is ok. It helps further build diversity when it is done correctly. Onto the distinction:

I don’t see this as fundamentally flawed mechanics. This is stubbornness of character if they refuse to adapt how they play given the cards they were dealt. You can’t bid nil in spades if you draw the ace. Insisting that you do so is not flawed game mechanic but ignorance of player. You certainly don’t want to remove the option of the player bidding nil when they draw the ace however.

We can come up with a list of stats and how they effect characters in a way that is conducive to a good stat system. That would be the type of feedback that I seek to inspire feedback for. Traditionally, these stats would be strength, intelligence, wisdom, constitution, dexterity and agility. We have already seen some of these in d2. Although they were not given enough significance as we saw them salvaged in d3.

I agree that it is a problem when any stat is generic. Much more so when every stat is such. I believe that it needs to be a part of character-build customization. As far as affixes are concerned, I believe that 100% RNG dictating itemization IS a fundamentally flawed system, but that is where we’re at with this franchise and that ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. So how can we embrace the inevitable and do so in a way that doesn’t squander the potential of this beloved genre?

This is quite a large logic leap. We have two screenshots of items that don’t exist yet as example pieces. There has been zero talk about each type of power being tied to particular elements, and I can very easily imagine spells and abilities of any element that could benefit from any of the powers.

Frost Armor: increase armor, deal frost damage and chance to freeze attackers for 3 seconds. Lasts for 30 seconds.

This single ability could benefit from all three powers, and took me 4 seconds to think up.

Angelic to increase duration and defense bonus of the ability, ancestral to increase freeze chance, and demonic to increase freeze duration.

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You sir are nominated. Congratulations on your promotion.

not fully
because its stated that some affixes, not the primary function of the powers but the affixes, they are unlocking, are bound exclusivlely to them
so yes, demonic would buff an ice sorc in a way, that the freeze would last longer
but you would not get any +freeze damage affixes, unlocked from demonic (when we go with these examples) because its exclusively bound to angelic

Yeah that’s the point though… Once u had your “end game” gear it was no longer necessary and you could pump vit or energy. They weren’t uninteresting they were the key to unlocking different builds for the characters.

My point isn’t that the new system they are concocting wont be similar in scope. It’s that when trying to reinvent something that already exists it opens totally new issues that are unforeseen and often add even more potential problems on top of the already existing ones. Sure you could hit the lotto and fix all of them or more likely you will only create more issues that need to be solved.

The same thing could be said about the example I gave I would be technically throwing stats in the garbage if I had the gear to give my barb more dex but I didn’t therefor the stats weren’t garbage for that specific situation.

Yes, fully.

The raw value of the powers will be in effect for every skill that can take advantage of that powers benefits (if its a buff, angelic will effect it, etc).

The items had affixes locked behind having a certain amount of a particular power, but nowhere has it been said that the potential affixes that can possibly be unlocked by each power are exclusive. Bonus ranks of Char to Ash and any resistance may be, and probably will be, unlockable by any of the powers. These were just example items.

I am not sure how many times Blizzard had to ask us not to read too much into examples given and systems described because its all under works, but apparently a few dozen more times was requires.

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“Each of the three Powers will have a list of affixes that are attuned to it”
it means exactly that

No, they were not the key to unlocking builds. Item affixes and skills were the key. You haf eniugh str to equip gear, enough dex to block, and everything else was Vit. You are romanticizing the role D2 stats played in the game.

This is too cynical and small minded to respond further to.

More examples of ways to waste stat points doesn’t change the fact that every point spent in Energy by qlmost every single build in the game was wasted. Your assertion that a MF barbarian valued points in Energy is a false one.

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I mean this is a ridiculous statement. If you need str to wear the gear that unlocks the affixes on the items that allow you to use the build how is that not the key?

You say cynical I say realistic. WoW has tried to do this many times and failed many times. New systems usually make new problems. Would I like this system to work. Yes I hope it does because its most likely what they are going to do.

Your missing the point. Your thinking about once you have all the gear needed to use everything optimally but there are times when you don’t have the gear you need… I’m talking about before you have all your optimal items. Are there problems with D2’s stat point system yes. Should it be discounted because of that… I don’t think so.

You shouldn’t be able to have everything your way with no trade-off. Trade-off is a good design. If you are going to somehow focus on one particular thing then you should suffer the consequences. It’s a good thing than if you pick one amulet with insane affixes but you still have to think about how to integrate it into your character. Not this “wow this is insane! Bam! equipped!”.

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Agreed but tbh this system just seems unnecessary and redundant why add affixes that change how skills act? why not just add that into the talent tree and make the choices there more robust.

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sure but the problem is the redefined builds

you can go super crazy op with uuh…lightning damage, crushing blow and…something else, whirlwind f.e.

but you cant go the same super crazy with fire damage, crushing blow and cleave

you are not really trading-off you are just choosing all affixes that are bound to 1 power by blizzard, to go full damage and thats simply predefined and nothing individual

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Because stats and itemisation are a separate method of customisation…

You require multiple layers of customisation to build complexity to a game and make it interesting for a long time, if everything was just talents you wouldn’t play for very long…

Easy to begin, hard to master.

One of the biggest problems with Diablo 3 is that it’s purely “items” that grant all power (with the exception of a few 1000 paragon levels) and there’s no complexity.

I think I replied to you in other thread. You just hit breakpoints and go get your desired affixes. You are also making the assumption that affixes that align on the same side will somehow make the most powerful builds. That’s up in the air.

If they had the skill tree like D2 did and the talent tree that would have alot of customization. And Tbh customization was a major part of D2 but the factor that kept everyone playing was hunting for items and the trading economy.

Ya know, I missed that quote when I read it the first time. You’re right, and that might suck, depending on if those power-only affixes are something that feels mandatory.

You are correct that the full power of each… power… tied to certain skills and abilities. Not necessarily as basic as Frost/Fire/Lightning, but at least in some fashion.

I think that needs to go.

its basically seperating the possible builds out of all affixes and skills into 3 pools
and not 1 big pool anymore
and thats sad

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