D4 Feedback - It All Seems to Come Back to Items

[Eigen9-1345]

I had spent the last week or so trying to catch up on all the Diablo 4 news I missed over the last year and condense it down into feedback. I tried to focus on Endgame, Skill System, Build Diversity, and Difficulty scaling thinking those were the major challenges that D4 faced, but almost every thread ended up focusing on itemization, so it seems the community is much more worried about that. I sort of understand that though because if itemization isn’t correct all the other systems in the game suffer. But, as I was reading through their feedback it feels like the community is trying to put too much emphasis on items to prop up every other system in the game. Let me explain…

Items should not be what make builds work. That’s the skill system.
Items should not be what make builds diverse. That’s the passive/talent system.

To make items bear the brunt of the goals of those two systems is what’s causing crazy pendulum swings in itemization feedback. So what should items be?

In my opinion items in a Diablo game are meant to help you unlock hidden potential in both of those systems by refining a build to meet specific challenges the game presents and to help players feel like a bit of a mad genius tinkering with break points or just flat out trying to break the mold the designers have created for you in some way.

What gets in the way of this feeling are two things: (1) lack of choice in how to accomplish a player’s goal, (2) there is always a correct answer and that answer is the same across most of the items. The reason that D2 is beloved by many is because it’s itemization didn’t restrict player choice in refining builds and didn’t have a single correct itemization answer that was identical across most items, because not every affix could roll on every item slot. This is also precisely why, in my opinion, D3 failed in many cases - there simply weren’t enough interesting affixes and the correct choice was always stacking the same 3-4 affixes (crit, crit dmg, attack speed, main stat) that occurred on (most) every item slot.

So how can the D4 devs improve on the D2 formula and avoid the pitfalls above?

• Bring back skill ranks and +skills on items. Introduce break points on skills depending on their rank. A 5 point meteor is just a meteor as we know it, but a 10 point meteor has a larger AOE hit radius, a 20 point meteor has a fire patch that it leaves behind. Skills are maxed at 20 points of manual investment but can be pushed beyond 20 points by +skills which give interesting effects. For example for every +2 points into meteor above 20 maybe an additional meteor is summoned. If every skill in the game scaled this way it would make for very interesting decisions about how to spend skill points and make +skills very attractive affixes to search for on gear. Give the player enough skill points to manually max out maybe 3-4 of their six active skills with a smattering of points put into other supporting skills and allow skill points to be respecced at a cost. If a player wants to have 10 skills, let them, and let them change their skill loadout with those they have skill pointed into. +skills on items cannot give a player a skill they haven’t specced into with a manual skill point investment. (I mentioned something like this in a previous thread but included it here for reference since it does impact itemization.)
• Introduce talent points in addition to skill points. Skill points are used on the skills directly in the skill window and talent points are used on skill upgrade nodes in the skill and passive tree showed off in the september quarterly update. Remove skills from the skill tree and only have passives and upgrades in that tree. To further promote build diversity a lot of the options in the tree should be choose this or that like we saw in the original 2019 reveal.
• Not every item slot can have every affix roll on it. Maybe attack speed can only roll on gloves and weapons. Maybe crit can only roll on weapons and jewelry. And crit damage can only roll on weapons and jewelry so they are kept in check. (too much crit and crit dmg is really bad in terms of scaling and often becomes the only choice mathematically).
• Uniques are the only items in the game that can break these itemization rules and so they become highly valued for that purpose.
• Legendary affixes should not be skill specific, but can be aspect specific. For example, give all skills in the game keywords and legendary affixes should modify those keywords. A few example legendary affixes.
  • Skills chain 1 additional time. (only viable if the skill has the chains keyword). If you’ve played POE you are likely familiar with this concept.
  • Projectile skills pierce 1 additional time. (only viable if the skill has the projectile keyword)
  • Defense skills last x seconds longer (Saw this one was already added and I like it a lot. Once again it only applies to skills with the defense tag.).
  • Physical damage can be converted into elemental damage at some ratio.
  • Elemental damage can be converted into a different elemental damage at some ratio.
  • Life on hit can add a barrier to health when health is full.
  • Chance to cast skills from other classes on hit.
  • On hit effects
  • On cast effects
• I do not want to see +40% damage to meteor as a legendary affix for example, because it becomes an item that must be taken if you are planning a meteor build and so you will look for it on every slot and if it can roll on every slot it is doubly bad.
• Limit health recovery sources on gear and bake them more into the potion system where they can be controlled. It has detrimental affects on the ability for monsters to actually pose a threat at end game and results in monster damage and player damage having to scale too high relative to one another. If monsters aren’t threatening from an attrition point of view then they have to threaten the player with multiple potential one-shot mechanics. This is not fun to play against and leads to players forgoing a lot of defensive itemization since it becomes less desirable than just killing the monster before it kills you. This is what I call the monster/player arms race at endgame and the culprit is almost always health recovery scaling (or possibly absurd player damage scaling).
• Do allow players more ways to itemize for effective health beyond +life and +resist. +dodge, +block, +phasing (chance for temporary invulnerability to a damage type) should all be options with caps of some type so no one option is stackable to absurdity. I would also recommend introducing options for using mana shield-like mechanics for players that want to itemize for +resource builds. If you are always tied to +life and +resist to survive then you’ve significantly narrowed down build refinement choices (and always be wary of life recovery - battles of attrition should be possible).
• Allow items to have up to 4 sockets and allow runewords to have one condition rune with three effect runes triggering off that condition in the same item. This would making creating cast on crit, cast on block, cast on potion use, cast on dodge, cast when stunned, cast on low life, etc… type builds possible.

The elements I’ve talked about above replicate the diversity of the POE system for build refinement with far less complexity. White items are viable as bases for crafting interesting runeword set ups. Blue items are viable because they have the highest ability to stack - say crit on gloves - than any other source in the game and if gloves are one of the only reliable sources of crit on gear then blue items might be viable for that slot for some builds. Legendary affixes would refine builds further without feeling mandatory for damage scaling. Go crazy with uniques. If we can only equip one it can break any and all of the rules outlined above.

Edit: Introduced an Endgame Crafting System Proposal Later in the Thread and Reworked Original Design of Set Bonus Crafting

Returning to the item discussion, endgame crafting is a huge part of items in an ARPG. PoE has really pushed the bar on what ARPG players expect out of crafting systems and endgame progress systems and though I love PoE its crafting systems - that are constantly changing with new league mechanics - are a bit overboard for me. D3 has Kanai’s cube and that’s about it. To me, both miss the mark and there is design space for an intuitive and deep system that explores the space in between.

There are bits and pieces of my feedback in this area in other threads and in the beginning post of this thread, but I wanted to put the full system in front of the community for feedback about what they want in an endgame crafting system. As we’ve discussed various issues some of the feedback here already has given rise to some really good ideas which I’ve tried to incorporate below

Endgame Crafting Proposal

Bring back the blacksmith, mystic, and jeweler. Add two new artisans: the alchemist and artificer.

The blacksmith

• handles salvaging (breaking down items for components),
• is the only source for crafting a new endgame itemization slot - the talisman (more below),
• can add item quality to items (think PoE whetstones and armourer’s scrap).

The mystic

• handles transmog for both you and your follower,
• rerolls one non-legendary affix on an item (though doing so causes instability),
• allows you to roll a legendary affix on a rare (or magic) item through a found in-game consumable (Blizzard has previously said they were developing such a thing). This consumable grants a random legendary affix and can be overwritten, but each time you try to craft a random legendary affix on an item it causes instability.

The jeweler

• lets you upgrade gems. This isn’t simply upgrading the levels of the gems anymore, it is allowing you to combine strength and dexterity gems for example to create hybrids that don’t drop naturally in game. All stats gems can be created if you combine all of the primary stat gems.
• allows creation of higher level gems, but it is a 2 for 1 increase and gems drop much more rarely than they do in D3. It should be a really big deal to find a gem in the game. This makes upgrading all stat gems very difficult and will require significant investment from the player.
• can add sockets to items. Sockets exist outside the normal item affixes that items drop with and can only be added by the jeweler. Adding a socket to an item increases that item’s instability.
• is the only source of jewels in game. Jewels are created by taking two magic or rare items and destroying them to create the jewel. The jewel will have one affix from each item but at half strength. You cannot target which item affixes are incorporated into the jewel when it’s created. So for example it might pull an +8% attack speed from one item and a +10% crit from one item to create a +4% attack speed, +5% crit jewel. Jewels compete with runes and gems for socketing slots. This would also give magic items a much needed niche in that they would have fewer affixes (and stronger affixes) to pull from so the best jewels will come more reliably from two magic items.

The alchemist

• lets you create potions. There are two potion types - resource potions and health potions. You can find recipes throughout the world that can change the functionality of the base health and resource potions that drop by default in the game world. Potions have a cooldown and cannot be spammed. They are strategic use items that you must be judicious in using (unless you are happy using the base ones that drop in game) because they will not be trivial to craft.

The artificer

• is basically a Deckard Cain replacement for the game. (I’m kind of hoping it would be the guy in the gameplay reveal trailer with the jug.) Artificers know all about the hidden properties of items and are gameworld historians who can identify even the rarest of items.
• will identify skill tomes. Skill tomes are unique drops from some boss monsters that give players access to spells that are used by bosses/monsters. These spells have charges, but can be recharged by the artificer at a great cost. You cannot obtain skills from other classes by using a skill tome. Skill tomes do not take up a skill slot but have their own unique user interface and can interact with runes in items which can use skill tome charges under certain conditions.
• will identify relics. Relics are ancient items. They belong in museums. Many of them when identified will share history about the world of sanctuary. They can be collected, but they can also be sold (for a lot of gold), or the artificer can disenchant special crafting consumables from them, destroying the relic in the process.
• introduces the player to the cube. The cube has many recipes associated with it and is the primary tool in the game for unveiling set powers on items.

Set Bonus System (feedback from others has helped me tweak the design of this)

The artificer tasks the player with recovering recipes for ancient sets of power that are tied to runes the player has been finding. Players will combine a series of runes with an item creating a set runeword bonus on the item (some of these runes will be rare and you’ll have to find multiple ones to complete sets that require them, not zod rare though, that’s crazy). Some set runewords will require 2, 4, or 6 items with the set runeword to unlock their full set bonuses. This is basically sets as we know them, but not tied to specific item slots, and not as super over the top powerful as sets were in D3. A set bonus runeword does not count toward the affix total for an item but exists outside them. If you collect all the set bonuses needed to complete a runeword set you will gain the transmog or cosmetics associated with the set.

Instability System:

Endgame crafting needs to have the potential to brick your items (by destroying the item or randomly removing an affix) or else it will be abused and artificially shorten the item hunt. Each time you perform a crafting alteration on your items - adding sockets, rerolling an affix, adding a legendary affix, transmuting a rune word, the item incurs an instability penalty. There will be balancing needed to determine what feels best, but the point of this system is to balance risk versus reward in continuing to try and fine tune the same item. There is something similar to this in Last Epoch, but I’m not advocating for the complexity that system has.

Talisman System:

Several of you pointed out that you find the Grim Dawn relic slot very interesting. I do as well and I think crafting that slot via the blacksmith from recipes that drop in the game world could be very interesting especially when we think about PVP. Talismans would be the only items in the game that can roll PVP only affixes. Certain talisman recipes will not have PVP implications and are perfectly viable PVE items. The talisman slot is only unlocked upon completing the campaign and you are awarded your first talisman for doing so, but it is the only talisman that drops in the game. The others will need to be crafted and are very consumable heavy crafts. Legends tell of mythic rarity talismans that use the very essence of the demon lords to craft. The highest level of talisman crafting will require claiming badges worn by the highest members of the pantheons of hell and serves as the boss running crafting path in endgame.

The Demon Smith:

Occasionally when you go through keyed dungeons or in other appropriately high level areas, you will encounter the demon smith. The demon smith once served under Hephaestus but is willing to peddle his wares for anyone who can pay the cost. The demon smith is the replacement for previous incarnations of the Diablo gambling system. A currency like blood shards drops in the game and is the primary resource for employing the demon smith. The player must offer up an item and a certain amount of blood shards. The demon smith attempts to upgrade the item, but as we know from gambling, he will often fail. When he fails to upgrade the item’s quality the item is destroyed, but if he can upgrade the item it will be returned to the player. Magic items upgrade to rares and above, rares upgrade to legendaries and above, and legendaries can only upgrade to uniques. The chance of a gambling upgrade occurring is more likely the closer the item quality offered up is to the item quality desired. That is a legendary has a much better chance of being gambled into a unique (though still far from certain) than does a magic item (which should be very rare). This makes you have to think about a specific slot you want a unique for and occasionally pick up items of that type to unload on the demon smith.

Angelic, Demonic, and Ancestral Power

I loved the idea behind these affixes when they were first introduced and I wanted to find a way to incorporate the original spirit of these powers into an endgame crafting/progression system. Occasionally (pretty rare) when you salvage items or disenchant relics you will obtain orbs of angelic, demonic and ancestral power. These orbs can be applied to gear to grant that gear a certain amount of each of these powers. Angelic, demonic, and ancestral power on items do not take up an item affix slot (think of them like an enchant from wow).

The endgame progression system tied to this idea will be a tree of some type (perhaps like the Diablo Immortal system) and certain nodes within that tree will require angelic, demonic, or ancestral power totals to activate fully. So, you will have to plan for which endgame progression tree you want to specialize in and work toward enchanting your gear with the correct powers to fully unlock the functionality of that tree.

I feel like all of these system can be expanded upon in the future without having to introduce new systems to prop them up. I also think they are sufficiently deep to have players search for best in slot crafts for the life of the game.

Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear your thoughts. As was suggested by another forum member, keep it simple and I’ve tried to do that here.

[Hawkeye-1335]

Itemisation, or simply having interesting items to find and use, is what made D2/LOD so good, and the lack of it is why D3 has always been, and probably always will be ultimately a bland, boring sort of ARPG.

D3 has very little that compares to an Enigma or a BOTD or any of dozens of other interesting pieces of loot that D2/LOD has, and I hope if the Devs of D4 think of anything, that they think of making the items be more than boring, pointless stat sticks as D3 made them into.

[Kilometer-11340]

@Eigen9-1345

The reason that D2 is beloved by many is because it’s itemization didn’t restrict player choice in refining builds and didn’t have a single correct itemization answer

Try to play Lightning sorc without Infinity or Poison Nova Necromancer without DeathWeb and Bramble.

and when you saw D2 players are using X item instead of Y item for their build, it is not because X and Y are equal levels. It is just that D2 players don’t have Y item so they have to compromise a bit to use X item for a time being until they find Y item (or never).

and D2 is lack of endgame content that forces the players to optimize their character as D3 did. If D2 has something like GR150, you will be seeing people come out with an optimized build order.

@Eigen9-1345

Items should not be what make builds work. That’s the skill system.
Items should not be what make builds diverse. That’s the passive/talent system.

So you want the item to be a glorified stat stick?

@Eigen9-1345

I do not want to see +40% damage to meteor as a legendary affix for example, because it becomes an item that must be taken if you are planning a meteor build and so you will look for it on every slot and if it can roll on every slot it is doubly bad.

How is that different from than +X skill in D2? I am still trying my best to stack +1 bone spears for my bonespear necromancer. I have zero intention of gimping myself stacking +3 Amplified Curse over +3 Bonespear for my bonespear necromancer. The same goes for meteor build.

@Eigen9-1345

because not every affix could roll on every item slot.

It changes nothing. Players will just find the specific gear that can rolls that affix for their build.

If I want to play a build that needs a high CDR affix and only specific Armor, Boot and Gloves have CDR affix, you can ensure that I will only be equipping these 3 gears for my build.

To me, in the very end, your intention is making D4 into D2.5 HD instead of D4.

[Eigen9-1345]

@Kilometer-11340

Try to play Lightning sorc without Infinity or Poison Nova Necromancer without DeathWeb and Bramble.

I would argue those items are much closer to results of endgame crafting (which I don’t address here) and function closer to uniques. I would also argue that the goal of endgame crafting should be to bend itemization a bit to really squeeze out the last little bit of performance you can without guaranteeing the player gets exactly what they want.

@Kilometer-11340

So you want the item to be a glorified stat stick?

No, I don’t think that at all. I think you should be able to through skill points alone have a build that is workable and doesn’t rely on items to do enough damage to clear things. You take off your items in D3 it doesn’t matter what your skills are you can’t kill stuff at max level. That’s items propping up the skill system. If you just have skills though and you and I run the same skills then that puts too big a burden on items to make our builds different. That’s where a passive system comes into play that forces players to pick between options. That way, even if we run the same skills if we make different talent tree choices our builds function differently.

Items serve to refine those builds. Say we both went cold skills with a freeze focus and chose blizzard and glacial spike to build around. We pick the same passives. Well I can choose to focus on hard hitting spells that crit a bunch and you can choose to focus on faster casting spells that chain a bunch and have larger aoe coverage. That’s refining the build.

@Kilometer-11340

How is that different from than +X skill in D2? I am still trying my best to stack +1 bone spears for my bonespear necromancer. I have zero intention of gimping myself stacking +3 Amplified Curse over +3 Bonespear for my bonespear necromancer. The same goes for meteor build.

+40% to meteor damage as a legendary affix is bad because it locks you out of choice among the other legendary affixes. It’s different from +x skills because I think +skills should be a basic affix that can roll on several slots and allow you to create interesting build variety with skill point thresholds. +40% meteor damage only does one thing, for one skill. That’s way too narrow to be an affix in my opinion. Leave that stuff in the talent tree or skill ranks.

@Kilometer-11340

To me, in the very end, your intention is making D4 into D2.5 HD instead of D4.

Perhaps that’s true and I’m not thinking enough outside the box, but I’d argue that D2 had nothing like the legendary affixes I’m proposing, and nothing like the runeword possibilities to create cast on crit, cast on stun, etc… kinds of interactions. D2 also didn’t have a passive/skill upgrade talent tree with either/or choices. Only the skill ranks and +skills mechanics are really D2ish and I think they are one the best things about D2 so why wouldn’t I want to bring them forward?

Is this itemization system perfect? Absolutely not. I’m not sure such a thing is possible, but I’d like to think it takes the best of things from D2, PoE, and D3 and packages them in a nice easy to understand way without deviating a ton from what the D4 developers have already shown us. D3 did a lot of things right - but I just don’t think items were one of them and that’s why it’s hard for me to bring things from that system forward.

[naksiloth-1354]

@Eigen9-1345

Skills are maxed at 20 points of manual investment but can be pushed beyond 20 points by +skills which give interesting effects. For example for every +2 points into meteor above 20 maybe an additional meteor is summoned.

You’re making it mandatory and make power creep accessible from the start. Diablo 2 kept it simple; up to natural 20, your direct point allocations benefit synergy, magically increased beyond 20 has no synergy benefit. It’s too early to say anything, considering there are only 40 levels and we have no clue about excess skill points.

@Eigen9-1345

Remove skills from the skill tree and only have passives and upgrades in that tree.

I’m not sure I got this part. I think they supposed to go with what shown on previous reports. Bonus nodes only unlock when you reach certain stat thresholds so this doesn’t emphasize the “better legendary/unique” with higher multiplier but makes stats matter.

@Eigen9-1345

(too much crit and crit dmg is really bad in terms of scaling and often becomes the only choice mathematically).

They’re the only choice whenever they’re introduced unless hard capped as you see on Follower characters of Diablo 3.

Do you know any Barbarian or Assassiner build in Diablo 2 that hard skips on Claw Mastery or Axe/Mace/Sword Masteries and other weapon mastery skills? I doubt it. Also Diablo 2 has very abundant items for Deadly Strike which is just a critical hit for 2.0x multiplier. It’s inevitable crit rating skill or any item with such bonus will take over.
They’re trying to offset this by introducing embedded standard stats such as programmed random crowd control occurances or increased damage on certain weapons.

@Eigen9-1345

Uniques are the only items in the game that can break these itemization rules and so they become highly valued for that purpose.

Agreed.

@Eigen9-1345

I do not want to see +40% damage to meteor as a legendary affix for example,

When you consider difficulty scale the scaling up of numbers has to come into play but such bonuses ain’t supposed to roll into every slot for each legendary. Legendary items are more of a generic bonus, instead of class specific synergies offered in uniques.

@Eigen9-1345

If monsters aren’t threatening from an attrition point of view then they have to threaten the player with multiple potential one-shot mechanics.

I doubt this will be the case even if it applies. High-damage bursts are avoidable as they would be telegraphed, if not they get mitigated by certain abilities or debuff; if they fail this then they failed one of the design pillars. This ensures faster paced combat only, if health recovery gets limited then the reward-punishment stakes between melee-caster-ranged options had to be evaluated.

@Eigen9-1345

Allow items to have up to 4 sockets and allow runewords

I wish. Diablo 2 wasn’t a good example with sort of game breaking runes and wide range accessibility to those via trading; but why not?

That was a good read. I’m heading to playing some video games if you excuse me.

[Eigen9-1345]

@naksiloth-1354

You’re making it mandatory and make power creep accessible from the start. Diablo 2 kept it simple; up to natural 20, your direct point allocations benefit synergy, magically increased beyond 20 has no synergy benefit. It’s too early to say anything, considering there are only 40 levels and we have no clue about excess skill points.

Perhaps. I could make an argument that the bonus +skill effects I’m talking about belong in the passive/talent trees instead, but I just really like the fantasy of the +skill system so I kept it this way. If every skill has a +20 progression system that you want (knowing you can’t have it all), then it puts real tension on how you manually invest skill points and hunt for +skill modifiers.

@naksiloth-1354

I’m not sure I got this part. I think they supposed to go with what shown on previous reports. Bonus nodes only unlock when you reach certain stat thresholds so this doesn’t emphasize the “better legendary/unique” with higher multiplier but makes stats matter.

From what I understand their skill tree has the skill itself as one of the nodes you have to buy and they no longer have ranks. I’m arguing that they remove the skills themselves from that tree and go back to their original design of the skills in the skill book that you can put points into.

@naksiloth-1354

@Eigen9-1345

Uniques are the only items in the game that can break these itemization rules and so they become highly valued for that purpose.

Agreed.

And I didn’t stress it before but as I understand the system the devs have proposed you can only have one unique item on your character at any one time. They referred to them as build around items and I completely agree that should be the function of uniques - to break the rules of itemization that I put forth in the post in a really interesting way, but you only get one. A common theme of my feedback here as been a lot of either or choices. You get to super progress one or maybe two skills (beyond +20 points), but you won’t ever have enough skill points to progress them all, so you have to choose skills to build around. You get a finite number of talent points, so you can’t get every passive or skill rune node you want and some are exclusive choices. You can’t get every unique item you want, only one, so you have to make a choice. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[Kilometer-11340]

@Eigen9-1345

I would argue those items are much closer to results of endgame crafting (which I don’t address here) and function closer to uniques. I would also argue that the goal of endgame crafting should be to bend itemization a bit to really squeeze out the last little bit of performance you can without guaranteeing the player gets exactly what they want.

It still doesn’t change the fact that a lot of powerful builds are unusable or effective to play without specific gearing.

@Eigen9-1345

I think you should be able to through skill points alone have a build that is workable and doesn’t rely on items to do enough damage to clear things. You take off your items in D3 it doesn’t matter what your skills are you can’t kill stuff at max level.

Your claim only works on spellcaster in D2. Any D2 melee character without items is bound to struggle or fail at Hell Mode like D3 characters at high level difficulty. If anything, it is not D2 itemization is amazing. It is more like D2 skill tree favoring spellcaster way too much to the point a decent spellcaster can clear everything in hell without a decent gear.

@Eigen9-1345

If you just have skills though and you and I run the same skills then that puts too big a burden on items to make our builds different.

Good design. Never a fan that my summon necromancer is better than your summon necromancer because my skeleton hit harder than yours, but my summon necro can actually TELEPORT!

@Eigen9-1345

Items serve to refine those builds. Say we both went cold skills with a freeze focus and chose blizzard and glacial spike to build around. We pick the same passives. Well I can choose to focus on hard hitting spells that crit a bunch and you can choose to focus on faster casting spells that chain a bunch and have larger aoe coverage. That’s refining the build.

Sound like a D3 skill rune. I hope you are not under the impression that D3 players don’t switch their passive, gear, and skill runes when they are partying with another player or the same class.

@Eigen9-1345

+40% to meteor damage as a legendary affix is bad because it locks you out of choice among the other legendary affixes.

So you want a legendary item like old Furnace (or D2 HoTO) that will be useful for any build and class? So much for item diversity.

@Eigen9-1345

It’s different from +x skills because I think +skills should be a basic affix that can roll on several slots and allow you to create interesting build variety with skill point thresholds.

You just described D3. The very thing you hate. I hope you don’t forget that you can roll +15% skill damage in a few D3 gears, and it doesn’t create an interesting build variety because people will be making sure that every available gear rolled with +x meteor for their meteor build.

@Eigen9-1345

+40% meteor damage only does one thing, for one skill. That’s way too narrow to be an affix in my opinion.

Still better than one item that rules all builds IMO.

@Eigen9-1345

Only the skill ranks and +skills mechanics are really D2ish and I think they are one the best things about D2 so why wouldn’t I want to bring them forward?

+skill mechanic is not D2 exclusive as D3 also has +15% to X skill for their basic affix though. And Skill Rank from skill tree is a flawed concept that D2 devs have to fix it by introducing the Synergy feature so the players have valid reasons to invest in them, especially low-level skills.

[Eigen9-1345]

@Kilometer-11340

Sound like a D3 skill rune. I hope you are not under the impression that D3 players don’t switch their passive, gear, and skill runes when they are partying with another player or the same class.

Yep, like I said D3 did some things right and I think skill runes and passives were a good thing they did. That D3 system seems to be incorporated into their new skill/talent trees.

@Kilometer-11340

Good design. Never a fan that my summon necromancer is better than your summon necromancer because my skeleton hit harder than yours, but my summon necro can actually TELEPORT!

We agree. That’s why skill runes and passive talents are important and once again something D3 got right. There needs to be more difference between our Necromancers than you have an enigma and I don’t. I’m not saying items don’t differentiate builds, or have the potential to complete builds, that would be boring if they didn’t, but they also shouldn’t bear the entire weight of differentiating characters that play similar builds.

@Kilometer-11340

So you want a legendary item like old Furnace (or D2 HoTO) that will be useful for any build and class? So much for item diversity.

I don’t understand this comment. Yes, that’s exactly what I want for all the non-unique items in the game. That is exactly what item diversity means. Items are diverse in their potential use across classes. If there are 30 useful legendary affixes that have broad appeal to classes that will result in more diversity in which ones are sought.

@Kilometer-11340

You just described D3. The very thing you hate. I hope you don’t forget that you can roll +15% skill damage in a few D3 gears, and it doesn’t create an interesting build variety because people will be making sure that every available gear rolled with +x meteor for their meteor build.

Maybe that’s the case, but if you do that then you miss out on the chance to also +hydra on gear to make it progress beyond 20 points as well, for example. There’s a tradeoff there that isn’t just about increasing damage is my point. Also, I don’t hate D3 - I actually quite enjoy many aspects of it over D2, just not items.

@Kilometer-11340

Still better than one item that rules all builds IMO.

This is a strawman argument as I’ve never advocated for or suggested there be such an item. I’ve suggested there be legendary affixes that work for a variety of builds. Not sure where this came from. Look in the end if they want to put +40% meteor damage on a legendary affix then it needs to compete against a whole host of other legendary affixes that do something to significantly boost meteor’s damage or else you feel locked into finding just that affix. That’s ok design for a unique item (of which you can only have one), but I don’t find it compelling when talking about an affix that could potentially be on every slot. Once again big difference between +skills (does more than one thing, especially +all skills, and is a base affix) and +40% meteor damage as a legendary. If they want to return the D3 affixes of +5-15% to a specific skill as a base affix (so long as it’s balanced against other affixes), I’m ok with that. I just don’t want it as a legendary affix is all.

@Kilometer-11340

And Skill Rank from skill tree is a flawed concept that D2 devs have to fix it by introducing the Synergy feature so the players have valid reasons to invest in them, especially low-level skills.

We agree that’s why I had skill rank thresholds in from the start and we have a talent tree to go along to provide those synergies to skill ranks which themselves have some synergy. This is not just a copy of the D2 system. It uses things from D3 (skill runes and passives) to complement things from D2 (skill ranks, syngergies, limited roll affixes, etc…) with things from POE (cast on crit, skill tags, etc…).

I appreciate the feedback here as it made me think about some things and you are right that +x% to damage of a specific skill might be ok as a base affix if it has to compete against +2 meteor, or +1 all skills, or +1 passive skills, +crit, +crit damage. As long as the game is hard enough you need to have defensive stats as well, then a bunch of nuanced offensive stats is good, just watch crit and crit dmg like I said as they scale too well together for most builds. Another thing that D3 did really well was introduce +cooldown reduction and +resource reduction. I’d like to see those affixes come forward. It is interesting itemization to try to refine a build by breaking the cooldown of a particular skill.

[Gilthas-1277]

@Eigen9-1345

Items should not be what make builds work. That’s the skill system.
Items should not be what make builds diverse. That’s the passive/talent system.

Só basically items shouldn’t be interesting.

[Eigen9-1345]

@Gilthas-1277

Só basically items shouldn’t be interesting.

Not saying that. I’m saying items should not bear the full weight of making builds both work and be diverse. If you want the game to be approachable to a casual audience (easy to learn) then you need a skill system that makes a character viable regardless of bad choices they might make in items or talent choices. If you want to make a game more beloved by the advanced audience (difficult to master) then you need them to be able to feel like they can take the skill setup provided by the developers and break it or mold it to their wishes somehow and that’s the role I think items should fulfill.

[Shadout-2849]

@Eigen9-1345

Items should not be what make builds work. That’s the skill system.
Items should not be what make builds diverse. That’s the passive/talent system.

It can be both. In an A-RPG it definitely should be both.

@Eigen9-1345

In my opinion items in a Diablo game are meant to help you unlock hidden potential in both of those systems by refining a build to meet specific challenges the game presents and to help players feel like a bit of a mad genius tinkering with break points or just flat out trying to break the mold the designers have created for you in some way.

Which is also what you conclude here, as I read it.

@Eigen9-1345

and didn’t have a single correct itemization answer that was identical across most items

Eh, +All skills basically ruled supreme.
D2 itemization was not very good tbh. It was merely okay imo. Endlessly better than the complete train wreck that is Diablo 3 itemization. But being better than one of the worst itemizations in the history of A-RPGs is not something to brag about
I’d rather look at Grim Dawn for inspiration. That isnt perfect either of course. In the end, Diablo 4 should learn from all kinds of sources, including both D2 and D3, as well as all the other A-RPGs out there.

@Eigen9-1345

Not every item slot can have every affix roll on it. Maybe attack speed can only roll on gloves and weapons. Maybe crit can only roll on weapons and jewelry. And crit damage can only roll on weapons and jewelry so they are kept in check. (too much crit and crit dmg is really bad in terms of scaling and often becomes the only choice mathematically).

Never a fan of this solution in general. It doesn’t try to balance things, it merely tries to hide the imbalance.
If crit and crit dmg is too strong (which they are), then nerf them. If you put an overpowered affix on only one item slot, you are not making choices more meaningful. Rather, you have made sure that everyone need that affix on that specific item slot.

@Eigen9-1345

Legendary affixes should not be skill specific, but can be aspect specific. For example, give all skills in the game keywords and legendary affixes should modify those keywords.

Yeah. I agree with this so much. Been one of my pet peeves for years. Keywords, keywords everywhere! Allows for all the different game systems to interact with each other.

@Eigen9-1345

I do not want to see +40% damage to meteor as a legendary affix for example, because it becomes an item that must be taken if you are planning a meteor build and so you will look for it on every slot and if it can roll on every slot it is doubly bad.

And this indeed.

@Eigen9-1345

Limit health recovery sources on gear and bake them more into the potion system where they can be controlled. It has detrimental affects on the ability for monsters to actually pose a threat at end game and results in monster damage and player damage having to scale too high relative to one another.

Yep. Healing sources should be severely limited, so the game can feel dangerous even when killing the player slowly. We need to get far away from “oneshot balancing”.

@Eigen9-1345

Allow items to have up to 4 sockets and allow runewords to have one condition rune with three effect runes triggering off that condition in the same item. This would making creating cast on crit, cast on block, cast on potion use, cast on dodge, cast when stunned, cast on low life, etc… type builds possible.

I would say it would be okay to have 3 condition runes and 1 effect too.
Also, imo, add a Power rune type, that allows you to scale up the Effect runes power. Would allow for more meaningful choices on whether you focus on a lot of different rune triggers, or fewer more powerful ones.

@Eigen9-1345

Give the player enough skill points to manually max out maybe 3-4 of their six active skills

Yeah. Should definitely not be possible to max out all your skills soft cap through skill points.

@Eigen9-1345

If a player wants to have 10 skills, let them, and let them change their skill loadout with those they have skill pointed into. +skills on items cannot give a player a skill they haven’t specced into with a manual skill point investment.

While I very much think we should have more than 6 skill slots, we also should be somewhat careful about 1 point wonders. A bad aspect of D2.
So I would still have limited skill slots. Maybe 8-10. BUT, each skill slot above 6 should themselves have a skill cost. Like 3 skill points to unlock slot 7, 5 to unlock slot 8. 10 to unlock slot 9, and 15 to unlock slot 10.
That way you have an increased cost in your potential power, if you choose to go for more skill slots. Hopefully making the benefits of having more stuff in your toolbox (through more skills) better balanced than we see in some A-RPGs.
And yeah, allow us to have all our skills on the skill bar. Having to switch them in and out would be meaningless and annoying gameplay.

@Eigen9-1345

Introduce talent points in addition to skill points. Skill points are used on the skills directly in the skill window and talent points are used on skill upgrade nodes in the skill and passive tree showed off in the september quarterly update. Remove skills from the skill tree and only have passives and upgrades in that tree.

Yeah, I think this would be a more sensible approach. Either with the skill upgrades being a separate tree for each skill, or keep it as one big skill tree (doesn’t make any gameplay difference, separate trees just seem more user friendly, although it comes at a depth/customization loss of being able to “jump” between the branches of different skills).

@Eigen9-1345

For example for every +2 points into meteor above 20 maybe an additional meteor is summoned.

I get it is just an example, but that would be crazy power scaling and should not happen.
I wouldnt mind having some additional skill effects added through skill points. But when we have a skill upgrade system on its own, there wouldnt really be any need to also have it in the skill lvls.
Actually, here is an idea I just had while writing this… what if any skill point above the soft cap (lvl 20 in your post) automatically gave you 1 upgrade point for that skill too.
So if your Meteor is at lvl 20, and you equip two items with +1 Meteor each, you get 2 skill upgrade points that can only be spend on Meteor upgrades in the skill tree.
(to clarify, you would also still get generic upgrade points from lvling, which could be spent on all skill upgrades, this would just be an additional source from items - and mostly for end-game since it only worked when a skill was maxed)

@naksiloth-1354

This ensures faster paced combat only, if health recovery gets limited then the reward-punishment stakes between melee-caster-ranged options had to be evaluated.

I dont see why what would be the result. Note, a melee build should likely have access to more health regen than a ranged build (skill upgrades can do that perfectly fine).
But, also just make enemies better at hurting ranged characters!
Limited healing is essential though.
Taking 70% of your health in dmg over 10 seconds, and only being able to heal back 20% of your health in that same time, just leads to more engaging combat scenarios.

@Kilometer-11340

It still doesn’t change the fact that a lot of powerful builds are unusable or effective to play without specific gearing.

It is okay if some builds require very rare and specific items to work. It is just important those builds are not stronger than other builds.

@Kilometer-11340

So you want a legendary item like old Furnace (or D2 HoTO) that will be useful for any build and class? So much for item diversity.

No, the goal here should be the middle road.
Neither universal nor specialized.
Specialized: +% meteor dmg
Universal: +% dmg
In between: +% fire dmg, or +% projectile dmg, etc.

Also, 40% dmg increase from a single legendary effect is just too much. At least for any dmg that stacks multiplicatively.

@Kilometer-11340

You just described D3. The very thing you hate. I hope you don’t forget that you can roll +15% skill damage in a few D3 gears, and it doesn’t create an interesting build variety because people will be making sure that every available gear rolled with +x meteor for their meteor build.

Not the same…
Dmg is narrow. Not all skills deal dmg. +skill lvls works for defensive, utility skills etc. too.
Even some of the skills that deals dmg, is not used for their dmg - that is even true in Diablo 3 as well.

@Kilometer-11340

Still better than one item that rules all builds IMO.

Yes, that should never ever happen. Neither should happen.
Strawman however.

@Kilometer-11340

+skill mechanic is not D2 exclusive as D3 also has +15% to X skill for their basic affix though

Again, not the same.

@Kilometer-11340

the Synergy feature so the players have valid reasons to invest in them, especially low-level skills.

Synergy was a horrible system in D2. A bandaid for one-point wonders and low lvl skills. But it honestly broke more than it solved.
Having low lvl and high lvl skills is also a bad idea.
Just have skills. All available at lvl 1 with similar power scaling.
That would also make lvling new characters much more enjoyable and less linear than in D2 and D3.

@Eigen9-1345

We agree. That’s why skill runes and passive talents are important and once again something D3 got right. There needs to be more difference between our Necromancers than you have an enigma and I don’t. I’m not saying items don’t differentiate builds, or have the potential to complete builds, that would be boring if they didn’t, but they also shouldn’t bear the entire weight of differentiating characters that play similar builds.

Indeed.

[Eigen9-1345]

@Shadout-2849

If crit and crit dmg is too strong (which they are), then nerf them. If you put an overpowered affix on only one item, you are not making choices more meaningful. Rather, you have made sure that everyone need that affix on that specific item slot.

I get that, I’m just concerned that if it’s opened up to most of the item slots then it becomes very hard to balance as you can get it from so many sources. At the end of the day this is a balance problem not a design problem, so I’m happy with the solution they design so long as it works.

@Shadout-2849

So I would still have limited skill slots. Maybe 8-10. BUT, each skill slot above 6 should themselves have a skill cost. Like 3 skill points to unlock slot 7, 5 to unlock slot 8. 10 to unlock slot 9, and 15 to unlock slot 10.
That way you have an increased cost in your potential power, if you choose to go for more skill slots. Hopefully making the benefits of having more stuff in your toolbox (through more skills) better balanced than we see in some A-RPGs.
And yeah, allow us to have all our skills on the skill bar. Having to switch them in and out would be meaningless and annoying gameplay.

This is very good feedback on this and potentially very interesting. Might be a headache for the UI folks though, but I like it in spirit.

@Shadout-2849

I get it is just an example, but that would be crazy power scaling and should not happen.
I wouldnt mind having some additional skill effects added through skill points. But when we have a skill upgrade system on its own, there wouldnt really be any need to also have it in the skill lvls.

This is true for sure. The +20 progression path could be baked into the talent tree and removed, but I like the idea of super investing in a skill through itemization beyond just flat damage increase.

@Shadout-2849

Having low lvl and high lvl skills is also a bad idea.
Just have skills. All available at lvl 1 with similar power scaling.
That would also make lvling new characters much more enjoyable and less linear than in D2 and D3.

If I could upvote this sentiment more I would. There is nothing special to me about unlocking skills as you level up and it puts enormous pressure on the developers to balance those ultimate skills against the expectation of the player that unlocked them as the pinnacle of their leveling experience.

[naksiloth-1354]

@Shadout-2849

I dont see why what would be the result.

What I mean was, one damage spiking attacks are essential to keep the combat tempo and two, close combat supposedly keen on enduring more damage spikes while ranged or casters keep safe distance to see such thing coming their way.
Quick health recovery supposed to compliment some unreliable mechanics such as dodge chance (Dexterity based characters, glasscannons), so any attempt to limit it must be discreet like a diminishing return of sorts.

[Shadout-2849]

@naksiloth-1354

one damage spiking attacks are essential to keep the combat tempo

Combat tempo can be kept without spike dmg. Heck, even more so than with oneshot dmg.
With danger coming from taking dmg repeatedly, and trying to survive even though you might be getting low on health and are running out of healing options.
Combat tempo in Souls games are fine. And they generally stay away from oneshotting, and have very limited healing. A-RPGs should not have that limited healing, but then it also shouldnt be possible to avoid all dmg, so that matches fine. Your character would be expected to take x dmg over time pretty much no matter how well you play, and would need some recovery/mitigation to survive that “background” dmg. The dmg above that is what you would need to worry about. Like taking a “large” hit which maybe take 20% of your health, pushing you to using some of your heal recovery, making the background dmg a real threat for a while.

@naksiloth-1354

some unreliable mechanics such as dodge chance

Dodge can be a problematic defensive mechanism in general, due to being unreliable. Could be an argument for removing dodge. On the other hand, people can just choose not to use it, so there isnt much harm in it existing, for those who are okay with dmg taken being more random. It should not really matter for incoming healing though. If anything, less spiky dmg will make dodge feel better.

[Eigen9-1345]

@Shadout-2849

Your character would be expected to take x dmg over time pretty much no matter how well you play, and would need some recovery/mitigation to survive that “background” dmg. The dmg above that is what you would need to worry about. Like taking a “large” hit which maybe take 20% of your health, pushing you to using some of your heal recovery, making the background dmg a real threat for a while.

Yeah this is what I imagine is the sweet spot for D4. A limited use potion system providing 50% or so of a player’s expected life recovery ability and another 50% coming from gear. The 50% coming from gear is just enough to keep you moving from pack to pack relatively well if you are playing well and avoiding mechanics. If you take a big hit then a potion can make up for it, but rely on that too much and you run out of charges. I think what I’m arguing for is a single POE style flask that has limited charges. They could be itemized like POE flasks and if there’s only one, then you don’t end up in a piano keys kind of situation where constantly pressing them is the right playstyle. I could be talked into 2 flasks with one being resource and the other being health, but no more than that.

[Kilometer-11340]

@Eigen9-1345

Yep, like I said D3 did some things right and I think skill runes and passives were a good thing they did. That D3 system seems to be incorporated into their new skill/talent trees.

@Eigen9-1345

We agree. That’s why skill runes and passive talents are important and once again something D3 got right. There needs to be more difference between our Necromancers than you have an enigma and I don’t. I’m not saying items don’t differentiate builds, or have the potential to complete builds, that would be boring if they didn’t, but they also shouldn’t bear the entire weight of differentiating characters that play similar builds.

I don’t see why it needs to have more difference between your necromancer and mine. What made Enigma sought by many because it allows you to teleport, which can be a game-changer for many builds. If you remove the teleport part and give the ability to Necromancer as a part of the skill tree or passive, Enigma will be another glorified stat stick.

@Eigen9-1345

I don’t understand this comment. Yes, that’s exactly what I want for all the non-unique items in the game. That is exactly what item diversity means. Items are diverse in their potential use across classes. If there are 30 useful legendary affixes that have broad appeal to classes that will result in more diversity in which ones are sought.

@Eigen9-1345

I’ve suggested there be legendary affixes that work for a variety of builds.

I am saying that you just want one item that can be used for all or most builds and classes regardless of what their builds are.

Like the old D3 Furnace where it can crushing blow to the enemies, so every build will be using it. It won’t increase the item diversity because players will just use the best affix among the pool of affixes for their build.

@Eigen9-1345

Maybe that’s the case, but if you do that then you miss out on the chance to also +hydra on gear to make it progress beyond 20 points as well, for example. There’s a tradeoff there that isn’t just about increasing damage is my point. Also, I don’t hate D3 - I actually quite enjoy many aspects of it over D2, just not items.

Not really. If my build is focusing on Meteor, I don’t care about Hydra. Sure it is neat that your meteor build character can cast hydra out of sudden but able to deal double damage with your meteor is still a superior option. I am not going to trade my meteor damage for the ability to cast hydra…unless the math showed that meteor + hydra deals more damage than full-powered meteor build.

@Eigen9-1345

ook in the end if they want to put +40% meteor damage on a legendary affix then it needs to compete against a whole host of other legendary affixes that do something to significantly boost meteor’s damage or else you feel locked into finding just that affix.

I see nothing wrong with it. Why should I want to find a +40% Hydra damage item when I am using Meteor build. If anything, an item that gives +40% damage to all skills is just boring because, in the end, any item that doesn’t give +40% skill damage or higher will be ignored automatically and I can see Blizzard doesn’t want a general item that works for most builds and situation.

Even if they removed +40% meteor damage and went for the general affixes route, the 2nd best affix for meteor build will still be picked. For example, reduce mana cost by 50% for all skills affix will still beating the 5% chance to stun enemy for a 1-second affix for meteor build, and you will be seeing every meteor build went for that affix.

@Eigen9-1345

That’s ok design for a unique item (of which you can only have one), but I don’t find it compelling when talking about an affix that could potentially be on every slot.

If you are actually paying attention in D3, legendary items that buff X skill usually only limited to 1 or 2 slots, and the rest of the gear slot tends to be geared to defensive or utility. You are worried about something that never happened.

@Eigen9-1345

Once again big difference between +skills (does more than one thing, especially +all skills, and is a base affix) and +40% meteor damage as a legendary. If they want to return the D3 affixes of +5-15% to a specific skill as a base affix (so long as it’s balanced against other affixes), I’m ok with that. I just don’t want it as a legendary affix is all.

You are forgetting that many legendary items that give 40% X damage tend to come with another secondary legendary affix. In D3, The Grand Vizier, a meteor item comes with damage increment and mana cost reduction for meteor.

@Eigen9-1345

We agree that’s why I had skill rank thresholds in from the start and we have a talent tree to go along to provide those synergies to skill ranks which themselves have some synergy. This is not just a copy of the D2 system. It uses things from D3 (skill runes and passives) to complement things from D2 (skill ranks, syngergies, limited roll affixes, etc…) with things from POE (cast on crit, skill tags, etc…).

I don’t know about PoE thing but it does sound like a D2 system where you will level up the passive and talent tree-like D2 skill tree.

@Eigen9-1345

As long as the game is hard enough you need to have defensive stats as well, then a bunch of nuanced offensive stats is good, just watch crit and crit dmg like I said as they scale too well together for most builds.

I am pretty sure defensive stat is always important for D2 and D3 though.

[Shadout-2849]

@Kilometer-11340

I am saying that you just want one item that can be used for all or most builds and classes regardless of what their builds are.

@Kilometer-11340

If you remove the teleport part and give the ability to Necromancer as a part of the skill tree or passive, Enigma will be another glorified stat stick.

Enigma is a pretty good example of one item that is too good for everyone.

@Kilometer-11340

Not really. If my build is focusing on Meteor, I don’t care about Hydra.

That is only true in D3 due to how shallow it is. Wanting to improve multiple skills is a normal thing in normal A-RPGs.

@Kilometer-11340

For example, reduce mana cost by 50% for all skills affix will still beating the 5% chance to stun enemy for a 1-second affix for meteor build, and you will be seeing every meteor build went for that affix.

1. There should exactly not be a “reduce resource cost for all skills” legendary affix. Too generic. (note; reduce resource cost as a normal affix is fine, since by definition not all builds benefit from resource cost reduction, since some builds might not be resource spenders.)
2. This is also just balance issue. If 50% resource cos reduction is stronger than 1 second stun, then you make it 10% RCR vs 2 stun, and so on.

[Eigen9-1345]

@Kilometer-11340

I am saying that you just want one item that can be used for all or most builds and classes regardless of what their builds are.

The +pierce, +chain, +projectile type affixes are very build specific legendary affixes. They wouldn’t work for every build nor would +skill for a given skill if it’s the wrong skill for you. I mean how many times in D2 did you get an almost awesome item that rolled +rabies, +lycanthropy and then +vine creeper (ugh). There are some +skill that aren’t as valuable but they are in the affix pool now. And I believe that not every affix in the item hunt should be great for every build. I want there to be +light radius and +monster flee that aren’t super useful to anyone but expand the affix pool so that you don’t always hit perfect quad rolls on useful stuff.

@Kilometer-11340

It won’t increase the item diversity because players will just use the best affix among the pool of affixes for their build.

If there are enough different best affixes depending on build and those affixes don’t occur in every slot then I would imagine there would be a great deal of item diversity.

@Kilometer-11340

Not really. If my build is focusing on Meteor, I don’t care about Hydra. Sure it is neat that your meteor build character can cast hydra out of sudden but able to deal double damage with your meteor is still a superior option. I am not going to trade my meteor damage for the ability to cast hydra…unless the math showed that meteor + hydra deals more damage than full-powered meteor build.

I think this thinking is too 1 dimensional. What if my cold hydra past level 20 can freeze and that synergizes really well with my meteor that does insane damage if I can get the enemies to stay still? If you invest heavily in meteor, and get say meteor +28, yeah your meteor might be better than mine, but say i have +24 hydra and +24 meteor, then maybe my combination is better and plays differently than yours. I don’t see why this can’t exist. It gives options for how to build around skills and at the end of the day that’s what items should do in my opinion.

@Kilometer-11340

If you are actually paying attention in D3, legendary items that buff X skill usually only limited to 1 or 2 slots

To my understanding in D4 that’s not the case. Legendary affixes as presented can roll on any slot. It’s still pre-alpha though so it could already be different.

@Kilometer-11340

You are forgetting that many legendary items that give 40% X damage tend to come with another secondary legendary affix. In D3, The Grand Vizier, a meteor item comes with damage increment and mana cost reduction for meteor.

These would be uniques in D4 terms and I’m fine with uniques being crazy. You can only equip one.

[Shadout-2849]

@Eigen9-1345

Legendary affixes as presented can roll on any slot.

I really hope that changes, if it is what Blizzard meant. I think having legendary affixes that can roll in multiple slots is quite interesting. But in all slots? That is a balance and design nightmare. It seems like a big misstep.
Part of selecting items (and selecting everything else in an RPG) to use is the idea of making a choice that excludes you from making another choice. “If I pick these boots and this belt, then there are other affixes I cant get”. When all legendary affixes can spawn everywhere, there will a lot less of such choices to make.

Each legendary affix should have a few items they can roll on.
Like Legendary affix A might roll on belt and boots.
Legendary affix A might roll on helm, weapon and amulet.
Etc.

@Eigen9-1345

These would be uniques in D4 terms and I’m fine with uniques being crazy. You can only equip one.

This was Blizzard wording their blog post really badly. They have since clarified that you can equip as many uniques as you want.
As such, uniques should not be stronger than legendaries or rares overall. But since Uniques are non-random (and more specialized), they do ned to be fairly powerful. To compensate for the inability to get all the exact affixes you might preferably want.

Should probably be around:

Unique = Very well rolled rare = Very well rolled legendary > average legendary >> average rare

[Eigen9-1345]

@Shadout-2849

Each legendary affix should have a few items they can roll on.
Like Legendary affix A might roll on belt and boots.
Legendary affix A might roll on helm, weapon and amulet.
Etc.

Honestly this may be the way it works. It’s the way I’d design it, but they haven’t been super specific about this point so I’m just guessing.

@Shadout-2849

This was Blizzard wording their blog post really badly. They have since clarified that you can equip as many uniques as you want.

I missed where they made that clarification. I’ve kind of seen them talk out of both sides of their mouth on this one, but I had taken uniques to fill the mythic slot previously. If that’s not the case, then every thing I said about legendary affixes in this post also applies to unique affixes with the caveat they can have different combinations of affixes not found on other items, but in general aren’t stronger.

If uniques are also super rare it is kind of balanced by the drop rate in a way so I don’t mind it a ton. Always keep players hoping for that next god-like item.