D4 - Early game loot vs Late game loot, discussion

General Discussion
1

Hey everyone, long time Diablo and ARPG fan, has a thought and wanted to bring it up to the community if it’s something others may share.

So, in many games, not only ARPG’s, loot has various tiers, with Uncommon (gray) or Common (white) being at the bottom. In most ARPG’s, I typically avoid picking them up, unless to sell for quick buck or break down, and only equip the next tiers above which would end up lasting many more levels.

However, with that said, I feel Artists and devs put the time and effort in ALL items, whether they are level 1 or level 50. My thought is I’d like to be more excited about the small things and super excited for the rarest. Meaning, between levels 1-5 or even 10, I’d like us to be coming into the world finding and using those beat up items or common items more regularly, then maybe a small % chance of finding a Magic (Green) item so when you do, it’s like WHOA LOOK WHAT I GOT, since its rare at even those levels.

Then as we hit the next tier, say 10-20, we will see more Magic and might have a small chance to find a Rare (Blue) and we get pumped. That way going through it, finding small incremental gear upgrades is good and we use more things, then when we find something different, it’s a huge deal. I don’t like finding a unique or legendary in the opening stage and use it from like level 3 till 20 cause it’s the best things for those levels. I want to be finding and feeling like we are progressing and changing as we go. Once we hit last tier of leveling up or end game, then those things may become more common and at that time, we are now creating and completing our builds perse (min maxing with what we find).

Its only my thought and opinion but wanted to know what anyone else thought or could add on to it. Would you rather not have to pick up White or Grays for an incremental upgrade and have that 1 item take you 10 to 20 levels or would you rather see little things come up to get you excited about the next tier of loot?

And lastly, I’m not saying we CAN’T have a Magic or Rare, I just want it to be very rare at early game, more common in mid game, and then less common as we get more legendary or unique, etc. towards end game.

Hope you all have a great weekend and I’ll be around!

~TG

2

i mean the topic is pretty controvers considering that some people including me wouldn’t even want magic and rare items to become less “important” in later levels but i agree with you on the level to level upgrade pace. it’s common (hoho) in arpgs that you might want to keep some magic or rare on a slot while the white items you are finding are actually providing much more dps because of the level difference. and i think that’s already a funny trade off to struggle with. also common white items imo should play a role in late game, most likely as a base for crafting.

2 Likes
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im 90% sure that Diablo 4 will follow the Diablo 3 style of leveling. so, besides the legendary powers themselves, all items before the max level is useless.

and im fine with that. it was like that in diablo 2.

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I’ve posted about this extensively elsewhere. To me, a core principle is:

If you put it in the game, there should be a reason for the player to want to use it

Applied to item quality tiers, it would mean a shift away from the classic progression of power we see in D2 and D3 where you upgrade/progress from whites to blues, to rares, to legendaries, then never go back. With this system, once you’ve progressed to the next tier, you never ever go back. You wouldn’t even look at a lower tier because it’s useless. Entire classes of items just became useless ground clutter/litter for the player to ignore and hope not to pick up accidentally while clicking because it clogs up your precious inventory space. Eventually, more than 99% of all items the game generates you deliberately ignore as total trash. That’s bad design.

I think a better design is one in which each type has a specific purpose in the game:

  • White items - Base items and crafting templates, and that could be expanded
  • Blue items - Few affixes, multiplicatively scaling. Your multipliers like AS, CH, CHD, CDR, etc go here
  • Yellow items - Many affixes, linearly scaling, additive. These are your base stats, armor, resists, +mix/max elemental damage, etc
  • Set items - as the name implies
  • Legendary items - Effectively rare items with a “build-defining” legendary affix in the place of 1-2 “stat stick” affixes. You’d want maybe a handful of these with abilities specific to your particular build.

In this system, your optimized build with contain a couple of legendaries for the build-defining affixes your specific character needs, a handful of rares to give you the raw stats for both attack and defense, a handful of magic items with the specific multipliers your build requires. Each item quality would have a role and a specific reason why you’d want to put it on your character at any level of the game. And you’d pick up the white items to craft with as part of your second-chance gearing mechanics.

A note on set items in this system. Set items are a big trade-off from the flexibility of the rest of the system. In this case, the set items have to contain a mix of stats and multipliers, and the set bonuses end up being the “build-defining” affixes. These should be broadly applicable to accommodate a wide range of builds and even cross-class use. As an example, a “Phoenix” set would focus on fire damage, provide +%elemental dmg so that any fire skill on any class could benefit, and have a cheat death mechanic like the D3 Firebird set. A druid might use it to augment elemental attacks. A sorc might use it, and even combine with a “build-defining” legendary that gives a “frost-fire effect” adding cold damage and chill effects to fire skills which would create a really unique interaction and play style. The main point being that the set would compliment the different item tiers and offer a valid choice, but one that’s not an essential base component of every viable build.

Of course, we’ll see what the devs do with it, but that’s what I’d love to see.

5 Likes
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This.

In a well designed game, there should be no useless items. Everything should have it’s place and purpose.

My favorite example is Minecraft. Every single block can be used for something. Even dirt and gravel are important.

2 Likes
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yea but that’s kinda dangerous where you end up trashing every single item except for legendaries to throw them into the forge

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Imo, that’s okay in the endgame, but during the leveling process, there should be at least a time where each tier is useful. I think D3 is actually okay in that regard. The problem with D3 ends up being that there are useless legendaries. Useless primals in particular are an extremely frustrating thing.

1 Like
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well we have to agree to disagree there
sounds like boring itemization for an endgame

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:100:

Making all item tiers relevant in endgame has to be the goal.

As for whites, I dont think they need a purpose. Can be used as a crafting material, like make you can enhance your items by spending white base items of the same type. But crafting new items shouldnt be a thing imo. It takes away from finding items in the game world.
Anyway, if white items becomes pointless in endgame, just stop dropping them at all. Dont keep them around for no reason.

As for set items, I’d prefer not to have them at all, at least until Blizzard proved they could control things in D4 (so, maybe add them in expansions). And if added, make it mini-sets only. As in max 3 pieces per set. Completely agree with the part about sets offering wide range bonuses for lots of builds.

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i dont think turning a specific white item into something could be considered “crafting a new item”
it would work in various ways and basically a call back to rune words
find a perfect base and spend expensive materials to turn it into something awesome
not just “craft another 200 random legendaries”

1 Like
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No need to reinvent the wheel. They (d4 devs) should just take full d2 itemization (which is still the best so far among ALL arpgs) and adjust it to D4 skills/needs/mechanics.

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While I would agree that D2’s itemization is one of the greatest and easily the most impactful on the genre I’d have to argue that PoE’s itemization is superior. This is simply because it is the D2 formula with a modular format, which easily allows for progressive updates of new items, new types of items, new skills, new mechanics, etc… and with a compounding effect.

The old format with items having direct reference to skills is just incredibly inefficient in comparison. Adding a handful of skills to the game would mean having to also create all new itemization to support those skills and often just to replicate a similar augmentation or power that already exists on other items for other skills.

1 Like
13

This is certainly one solution to itemization. The downside to it is that players become 100% dependent on the luck of the drops. RNG becomes the overwhelming factor in whether they can get power and progress or not. And as we all know, RNG can give some nasty losing streaks.

Crafting systems, IMO, need to be there as a second-chance mechanic to offer guarantees when your ‘luck’ is bad. I also think a well-developed crafting system is fun and adds depth to the game. Exactly how is a discussion for a longer post. The key is that you still have to put in the time to farm the mats. Then, you can work in a directed way to get some decent gear specific to your build’s needs that’ll let you progress until you get ‘lucky’ and get the drops you really want.

Yeah, I’ll definitely want to see some examples of what they’re thinking. We won’t until much later though, because itemizing a set requires that they nail down most of their affixes, skills, etc before they start building sets on top of that. They’re still rapidly iterating right now, so we have to deal in broad principles.

D2 had some of these smaller sets and they certainly have merit. At least in the system I’m proposing, they absolutely would fit well. In fact, larger sets might even feel like an imposition because you have to give up so much of your flexibility to wear a 6-piece set. Totally support the idea of smaller sets. In fact, as I think about it, smaller sets could make great crafted leveling gear when you’re always in a chasing state with your gear.

This is a good point. D3 implemented crafting with the same variability as the rest of Smart Loot items. I think this works for end-game crafting when you’re chasing perfection through repetition and min-maxing.

But earlier in the game when you’re leveling or trying to settle into a build that feels good for your character, you need and want gear you can potentially throw away/replace. Crafting offers a good solution here. You don’t want to rely on randomness to just happen to hand you the items you need for an experiment. You want to work in a directed way to see if a concept works. You might chase perfection later, but not at this phase.

Setting up crafting of this type of item and giving narrower ranges/more guarantees lets it fill this need. RP-wise, when you commission work from an artisan or artist, you give them a description of what you want and they produce it. They don’t produce something wildly different from what they’re paid to produce. They’d produce something reliably good with the specs you need and you’d pay increasingly higher cost for tighter specs and higher quality.

Now, this is “poverty gear”, so your player won’t have accumulated a huge stock of resources at this point. You get what you pay for, quick access to the basic gear for a build to see if you like the play-style. If we’re brainstorming, we could have a tier for quality where you get better stats for higher cost, and we could have end-game recipes which are expensive and perhaps more variable.

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have to argue that PoE’s itemization is superior.

No because it is overly complicated. Actually as all POE. It completely lacks simple elegance of D2.

15

Grim Dawn got the best itemization imo. Diablos 2s is mediocre.
Plenty of room for improvement in all cases though.

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One desires, in a game structured as in Diablo, that improvements are made in both native ability of the character and the gear they acquire. Unless an item levels with you, growing as you do, what you got at level 1 should be different than what you get at level 100 (or whatever.) That does not mean the level 1 must be weaker, per se, but it should feel as if there is a natural changing evolution over time.

1 Like
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in my opinion, crafting should just make up for the shortfalls of RNG, but… you can only make rare items, and you still cant target for stats. basically, take D3’s crafting system, remove legendaries and sets (but keep one of the sets designed specifically for leveling) and that will be more than good enough.

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definitely not
i mean it’s all subjective but there doesn’t need to be another RNG item system
it already exists everywhere in the game: “loot”
crafting should be exciting and do something to make your stuff “cooler”
and not just “another try”

19

wrong. with crafting, you can make the top tier rares (six affixes) with only the cost of gold, and mats. it takes far, far, less time than going out and hunting for items. it would also help to outfit a new level 70 character to get you started, especially if you power leveled.

20

sry, sounds horrible
there shouldn’t be a system basically competing with the already established and game defining system of acquiring gear

1 Like