So far what we know from crafting seems pretty simple. So i think there is some room to fix itemization which is still very unbalanced and lacks variety.
Now i wanna start and say that i understand the idea of “progression”. Growing out of rarity types and changing loot behaviour. First being excited about magic items, then about rare items and eventually about legendary/unique items. However i still believe that in the long run we would benefit from being able to utilize more than 2 different item types in our endgame sets.
Magic items are so far not viable. They got the D2 light treatment of having “more powerful affixes” however that’s not nearly enough to compete now that legendary items are way above magic and rare items but even if this 4 affixes + 1 legendary wouldn’t be a thing they would still be way to weak. So i like the idea of how runewords are made in D2. That you start looking at normal items with slots in endgame and not just at shiny yellow and golden stuff. They make a comeback so to say. (Well actually from the moment you start getting runes) And i think that you could generate that same thing with magic items. So here’s the idea:
Give it some very rare and hard to get crafting materials. Drops from monsters, bosses, loot goblins, what ever. Just hard to get so it’s not something you can do all the time without investing time and effort. Give one of the crafting NPCs, the blacksmith or the occultist an option to upgrade a magic item to DOUBLE their affix power.
That would put it in a spot, still below the power of legendary items but make it a very extreme form of power where few specific stats would be increased heavily. That would allow people to give their builds an own specific character apart from just special effects but also with “invisible” power. Maybe they would change color to a more red’ish purple or something.
Even in D2, you shouldn’t be running endgame or anything level 70+ with blues. Yellows? That’s a different story. I have found that even the most mediocre of yellow items are far more unique than ‘unique’ items.
If there are ‘unique’ and ‘legendary’ items in D4, then a really good yellow should have the ability to be just as good or better. Blues should only be used for the leveling process.
Edit.
Unless of course the blue item offers something that a yellow doesn’t, say +? on (all or certain) skills, then it shouldn’t even be a consideration.
If I am rolling around in D4 at max level, I shouldn’t have any blues (basic magic items) at all UNLESS it is on my very first character and I haven’t found any upgrades yet or opted to make an alt w/out setting aside any goodies that I made or found on my alt.
Again, that is part of the leveling process. Of course, at max level, the process is now gear as opposed to levels. Same concept. Blues are stepping stones to yellows, uniques, and legendaries.
Maybe it’s lame, but that’s the way it ‘should’ be. Akin to a minimum wage job, IT SHOULD BE a stepping stone to a better job. However, some people prefer to play end game in blues.
Well, I speak for myself when I say “I don’t want to be in blues for end game.”
From level 1 to max level is one thing, end game is another. No thanks. If I want to play Diablo and stay in all blues, I’ll play D1 again. If I do that, it will be out of boredom only.
I agree D4 should be its own game, but some things should stay the same. The color progress of items should remain the same. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
You see it doesn’t matter how high you can roll the affixes on a blue, peoples attitude will ways be, the more number of affixes, the better, even if less gives us higher values. You can’t change that, unless you can put more affixes on blues than other rareity items, but then those will lose their over all value.
Well it wouldn’t matter i guess
Since the point of variety is that you don’t have to use it it’s just more variety so some people can have fun with it and aren’t bored of all the same looking and functioning items in their load out
Being able to enhance blue and yellow items more than legendaries and uniques is definitely a fine way to make them keep up in endgame.
Personally I think blues should be weaker than rares on paper, BUT their ability to have higher affix rolls might make them better for builds that desperately need a lot of a specific affix, like a character going 100% in on bleed dmg even at the cost of all other affixes, as well as characters that is lacking a certain affix to close a gap in their gear, like being low on fire resist.
You would lose out on affixes overall, but the trade off might be worth it. Doing less dmg, but being alive thanks to the fire resists for example, might be a very good tradeoff. You would theoretically be better off by replacing various yellow/legendary/unique items, to cover your lack of fire resist, but since you don’t have that, and finding them might take many hours, the blue item is worth it.
Indeed.
Hence why D4 itemization really need to change before release.
Nah, people generally are not that dumb, and those who are will probably just follow guides telling them what is better.
So if an item with 2 affixes beat one with 5 affixes, for some specific purpose, people will realize sooner or later, and not be blinded by the number of affixes.
Theres no good solution unless all rarities have something, like a unique property to offer that the others don’t by default. And they realy should be carefull, to don’t make another mistake like rune words also, where normal socketed normal items became more valueable, than uniques. In those item slots where you can choose, to have a unique or a RW item 90% of the time you choose RWs. So i don’t know just something poped into my mind: magick items could add another stat to your attributes, that you can increas as you put more points in them. For example Barb increases all res with intelligence, but a magic item could give cooldown reduction, on top of that to the barbs intelligence. It’s hard to make all items valueable from start to finish.
Offering higher affix ranges IS a unique property that other items don’t offer. The increase just need to be high enough to matter.
Completely agreed. Rune words didn’t have a unique role, they were just straight up better Uniques. And wildly unbalanced.
It is simply the truth.
D2, D3 etc also shows it.
Look at the popularity of guides, streamers etc telling people what they should do.
If a blue item beats a yellow item, it would not somehow stay a secret.
You’ll still won’t find many builds with 2H weapons for example, unless you are forced(or have a special ability like the sader), becasue you’ll miss a bunch of affixes from your off hand slot, not to mention missing an aditional lego power.
But the moment a two handed was actually better than 1hander + offhand people would switch to it. The power is what matters to people (like other because they can see it themselves or because they follow guides), not the number of affixes.
As you say, Crusader can be an example of this.
It was also only more true before the cube gave everyone a free slot to add a 2hander legendary affix to.
Only the power matters.
Correct. That is why i say just higher vaues on some stats on a magick item, is not enough, it has to be something more than that. More interesting, like what i wrote earlyer, or maybe if magick items could be the only ones to give you skills from other classes. But let’s say the problem of magic items are solved, now what about common items? Or we don’t want to do anything wirth them? Than why do anything with magic? We still have 3 rarities that give us power.
In my opinion no. Common items by design do not offer anything unique. Their entire concept is that they are the base item before adding anything.
Now you could certainly add a new class of items, such as grey items offering more sockets etc., but actual white items should not be viable to wear imo.
And for the same reason, if they don’t have any purpose, they should simply not drop in endgame at all. “Don’t drop useless items” should be a general rule of tbh.
I don’t care if blue items themselves are viable, but the thing they offer should be viable, as in doubles affixes.
As I have said before, blue items could easily be replaced by rare items where the same affix is rolled twice in the item. It serves the same purpose.
However, it is more player friendly to color code different item types differently, so you can see what dropped. As such I would argue it still makes sense to keep magic items as their own item type, even if rares technically could fully replace them.
Well based on a few of videos I watched, I’d speculate we will see the reintroduction of Green Set items and Runes and Rune words as a season mechanic. They will become permanent after seasons end.
The development team could not get them finished (reworked) for the June deadline, so they got “moved” to post launch.
This will increase the number of end game viable gearing methods.