Yeah, I wouldnt rule out that it what they meant too.
Being totally free for all on all items just seems a bit crazy. And Blizzard are usually more control freaks than that 
Google to the rescue:
I donât mind it but in my opinion this makes their job much harder in designing uniques. If you can only wear a single one then you donât have to balance them against anything other than the effect they provide to the player. If you let players equip multiple uniques they have to be balanced against legendary affixes and against rares. It does introduce interesting design space though for a legacy of dreams/legacy of nightmares kind of mechanic, so Iâm torn. Either way their job is hard on this one.
And once again I think alot of people are going to read this and think, yay Iâll have a unique in every slot after 4 hours at endgame like you do in D3 with legendaries, but I imagine they are going to be very stingy with unique drops to make them a big deal.
Uniques are hopefully way rarer than legendaries and yellow items. But since they are static, they should be compared with equally rare well-rolled legendariers and yellows (calling them yellows in this post since speaking of rare rare items becomes confusing :P).
Yeah, I really prefer it this way though.
Both for
- It is more interesting when the different item types are balanced against each other. Where you might potentially find a super-rare well-rolled yellow item that beats out the unique you were using - and without having band-aid items like LoN/LoD.
- A big problem with the âcan only equip oneâ uniques/mythics, is that if you make those extremely powerful items you really risk repeating the Set item flaw of Diablo 3.
With items that completely defines which builds are viable because you must use those items.
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Yep, you are right. It just comes down to balance. I donât mind either direction on uniques. I even love the kiss-curse designed uniques, or uniques that fundamentally alter the way certain stats work. For example a unique that causes resists of a certain type to scale the damage of the element to which it corresponds. So say all lightning resists add +lightning damage now (Iâm assuming the D2 way of handling resists where you have a +75% capped resist with maybe a chance to push it up to +90%.). This might be too good honestly, but you get the idea. They change the itemization equation.
Honestly, thatâs the sweet spot - uniques change the itemization formula - because then having a bunch of them is never going to be optimal because youâve changed too many base things and canât possibly stack everything to compensate. Itâs like taking too many keystone notables in POE, it just doesnât work.
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Yeah, it was not unique items, rather legendary items (prior to the addition of unique items) that were one equipped per char. I believe legendary items are currently scrapped in favor of unique items now though, right?
And I agree with your assessment of tiering, though it is important to note that unique items while roughly equal in âpowerâ to a well rolled rare/legendary, should be different often times. Meaning unique items should feel unique. That does not mean it should be obviously for one build type, helping one skill, rather it should be items that have stats you would not normally see on that item type or with other stats. Such as a belt with increased attack speed or life steal. D2 does this right, making unique items feel interesting and special.
Mythic items was the name, one per character, and yeah scrapped (or at least not planned, as far as I recall they made it sound like the idea could return some day).
Agreed. Uniques should either be rule-breakers, having affixes not otherwise found on that item slot, and/or gameplay changers.
Legendaries should also have gameplay changers, but also have the more broad affixes imo, where you are merely getting to do more of what you would already do; like â10% lower resource cost on projectilesâ or âaoe skills have 20% higher radius but 30 % increased cost/cdâ. They mostly make you better at what you already do, rather than change how you do sutff.
Blizzards third unique on this picture is actually good imo, except it should work with more skills than 2. Again; make it a category of skills based on some keywords. And dont make it Druid only! 
But an item that makes you want to poison dot enemies, to instantly deal the dmg, that certainly sounds like a gameplay changer. And of course, make various classes able to use poison dots (through skills, items etc.), otherwise it would be kinda pointless.
1st one also seems like it could change things, and it is even entirely unrelated to specific skills (although they need to be poison dots of course). Makes you wonder if the two items would work together.
I really dont like the 2nd unique, it is doubly tied to a single class, and 2 skills. It isnât a catastrophe if such an item exists. Just dont make it the typical design.
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https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Heart_of_the_Oak_Rune_Word
Although a bit expensive, this is a very useful rune word for any caster class.
https://diablo.fandom.com/wiki/Chains_of_Honor_Rune_Word
Chains of Honor is an all-round excellent body armor, benefiting nearly every class with its +2 to all skills, damage reduction, and its large bonus to all resistances
Also, in case you donât know, my melee werewolf and werebear are using the same weapon and similar defensive gear slots despite that both builds are using different skills. The same goes for my two dual-elemental sorc.
Wasnât D2 and D3 have enough affixes yet in the best DPS-related affixes always won. Would you use staff with no FCR over staff with high FCR for a spell caster?
if +24 Hydra/Meteor perform better than pure Meteor build, everyone will switch to Hydra/Meteor build and making sure this build is optimized, and now you will be complaining that everyone is now focusing on the same Hydra/Meteor build and gear setup.
and the legendary power doesnât stack like D3 Kanai Cube + your equipped legendary item. Where do you get the idea it will stack? It just allow you to have more options when it comes to gearing.
For example:
in D3, if you want Meteor legendary power, you have to equip the staff, so you canât equip Furnace.
in D4, if you want to meteor legendary power, but you also want to equip Furnace, but it isnât a problem as now the helmet can roll meteor legendary power, so you are free to equip Furnace now. Problem solved.
Yes, you can only equip one for now in D4 rule. So whatâs the problem again as you are the one who brought it up in the first place?
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You are absolutely right, there will always be a best. My only hope is that whatâs best depends on the build you are going for. In D3 this wasnât the case for sure and in D2 it mostly wasnât the case as most builds used FCR, +all res, +life etc⌠If Iâm imagining the following affix pool,
- +1-2 all skills
- +1-4 in a specific skill
- +1 passive skill
- +stacks (increases the number of stacks any skill having the keyword dot (or stacks) can have on a give target)
- half freeze duration
- half poison duration
- half stun duration
- +duration on defensive skills
- +crit
- +crit dmg
- +attack speed
- +cooldown reduction
- +% elemental dmg
- +% physical dmg
- +all resist
- +resource regen
- +pierce
- +chain
- +projectiles
- +dmg reduction
- +life
- 2-4 sockets
- +% dmg to a specific skill
- +skill echo (chance to cast a second spell/skill with reduced dmg for free)
- +dodge
- +block
- +on hit effects
- +max resist
Do you think every class will be picking the same 4-5 stats on every item? If so, the system needs better balance or reworking. My hope is these will all find places in different builds. I think both D2 and D3 didnât have nearly enough interesting item affixes and I think having keyword tags on skills is one of the main reasons why.
We are talking about different things here. The affixes on legendaries in D3 are more like the uniques in D4, they will not stack. The legendary affixes currently proposed in D4 are more like specialty affixes and as far as I know they havenât said one way or another if they will stack. My assumption is they will based on how they are being built so far.
I donât mind things like that were you have to make choices. I think the miscommunication we are having here on a couple of things stem from what names things are called.
Legendary affixes in D4 â have no parallel system in D3 or D2
Uniques in D4 â Uniques in D2 â Legendaries in D3 with static affix rolls
Kanai cubable affixes in D3 â unique affixes that roll on uniques and do not stack
When you say performing better I assume you mean with GR clears? Thatâs one of the reasons I pray that system doesnât come back. Any infinite ceiling progression system will invalidate most of the builds in the game and it makes for a very stale game where the designers have to constantly chase their tail changing items/builds in the next season so it wasnât just like the previous system.
That is a failure in endgame design and shouldnât be placed at the feet of the itemization system being proposed here. I have no problem with the challenge rift design though because it doesnât place pressure on your normal build in game to be the same as everyone elseâs.
My bad. Mythic is what I was thinking of. I agree on the uniques.
My thoughts on those three are:
-
Do away with damage to elites (unless that is a rarely used stat only on certain uniques, which it isnât).
-
Stop targeting just specific skills (+1 rank to Hunt the Weak on item 1 and affecting only lacerate and thrash on item 2). Should be like you said, to a category of skills.
-
Not ever unique needs to affect skills. Just having a belt with IAS and life steal is very interesting and powerful.
Itemization is my biggest concern still I think. Hope they get it right.
Except for the spell that has a mini cooldown such as Meteor or Blizzard, pretty much all spellcasters that use spammable spells in D2 will be using FCR. The difference with or without FCR is gigantic.
Every build will be picking the same 4~5 stats every time for sure if you allow them to manually select. As I said in my previous post that if my build is focusing on high CDR to work, you can be damn sure that I will maximize/optimize the CDR stats for my gear slots, assuming there is no diminishing point.
And the legendary affixes in D4 look like D3 legendary power (even the color scheme looks similar), which I doubt it will stack. Until they said it can stack, it is pretty much safe to assume it wonât stack especially when they said that they wonât go bigger number this time.
Plus when is the last time you see an orange-colored affix stacked in the Diablo game?
It doesnât have to be GR clear. It can be against the boss raid or normal dungeon run. Players tend to flock on the better build regardless of what games they are playing.
There are many reasons why D2:LoD was so good, and the way I see it, a bit part of what made it so good was, that the characters felt complete even without the awesome itemization. The skill system, that allowed the player to have inherent strength in terms of damage without the items was a big part of that.
And you can do just fine⌠even if there are monsters immune to your attacks, thatâs completely irrelevant.
The point of the game was to optimize your farming route. If youâre⌠say a cold sorceress, youâre not going to farm the guy on the first wp at act5, because heâs always immune to cold.
Thatâs a completely idiotic argumentâŚ
The truth is, that the D2 devs would have never implemented something like GR150 precisely, because itâs mind-numbingly idiotic game design.
Why would you use something like D3 as a standard to judge and analyze what makes a good hack & slash ARPG is beyond meâŚ
Iâd rather take that, that the completely mandatory items in D3, so when Iâm missing a piece and Iâm completely useless, because my character has no inherent strength of his own.
Thatâs nonsense. Itâs different, because for a Bonemancer, there are multiple decent and viable options for a weapon⌠at the top of my head are White, Spirit and HotO. And all of them are really good and can be used to increase the damage of your Bone Spear, as well as help you fill gaps in your stats, be it all resistances, life and hit recovery and things like that.
The same cannot be said for D3, where if I wanna play with Multishot, I absolutely must use Youngâs Recurve, or Iâm severely gimping myselfâŚ
Bone Spear does Magic Damage. Amplify Damage is a curse, that removes physical immunity and increases physical damage. Also, more points into Amplify Damage only increase itâs range, not the damage increase.
The point youâre trying to make is utter nonsense. Itâs like youâve never played the game.
And your seems to be to make it into another D3âŚ
How many years must pass for people like you to admit, that D3 was crap and poorly conceived and implemented in so many ways itâs not even funny?
Oh Iâm sure thatâs the case, but what I want to avoid is CDR being the right stat for almost every build in the game the way +crit, +crit dmg, +attack speed are for D3 and to some extent like you said +FCR is for D2 caster builds.
I think its natural and normal for a given build to want the same 4-5 affixes on every item slot, just like I think its perfectly natural and desirable for the designers of the game to deny them that simply so they must give consideration to other choices.
This makes me wonder if it wouldnât better for the devs to have soft caps on certain modifiers to make them less desirable if stacked everywhere. For example if +crit wasnât percent based but a rating that converted to % with diminishing returns would it be so sought after in D3? Also, if once again, it wasnât available on every slot that would lead to some diversity among players using the same build.
This is only true if thereâs one single endgame activity that everyone does. As I wrote in another post Iâd like to see a variety of endgame activities where best in one is not best in another. Thatâs a tough ask, but itâs needed for players to feel like they can play what they want so long as its competitive in some area of the endgame. If they donât have leaderboards then that may cure some of that.
Both D2 and D3 got way too few affixes.
But you are right. Better balancing obviously matters too.
Maybe, but that wasnât the topic. If Meteor/Hydra is the top build then you would have use for the +hydra (or better, +summoning skills) that you argued would no be useful in a meteor build.
Hopefully they dont stack. But this is Blizzard. Who the heck knowsâŚ
That is even worse than D3 
No choices.
Exactly how it should be yeah.
Indeed 
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Again. Balancing. You then nerf FCR.
Note, I dont think FCR should exist, attack speed is fine. AS isnât a universal affix, since faster attack speed increases resource cost. As long as we have meaningful resource systems that is. So the opposite of D2 and D3.
Yeah. But if builds get close enough to each other, less so.
If build A clears dungeon 1 in 21:13, and another build B clears it in 20:45, then sure, one is better, but it wont matter to the majority of people.
Once again, balancing.
And not having crazy dmg numbers on gear, that scales out of control.
Worth remembering that Kilometer is mostly a troll that shows up to argue with everyone who dares saying even a mildly lukewarm things about D3, in some weird attempt to start a D2 vs. D3 fight.
CDR is a perfect affix in my opinion. Useful for some builds, useless for others. The problem in D3 was never CDR itself, it was 1) cooldown skills being too OP (seriously, all CDs should only start after the duration of the skill has run out, making perma buffs impossible), 2) Way too much CDR on some legendaries/sets.
Yeah, certainly one way to improve balance. But, imo, like with Resist, they should try to keep %s for as much as possible.
The whole crit balancing probably just comes down to drastically reducing the availability of Crit dmg.
Also, and I know it is a bit drastic, but to make crit have a more specialized role I would either do 1) AoE skills cant crit. or 2) AoE crit dmg is reduced by 50-75%
That would also help with another big issue in many A-RPGs. AoE dmg being too strong.
The game should encourage and even reward playing all the different end-game activities. But yeah, by having different activities, different builds can excel at each.
And have a significant respec cost, to make it inefficient to just respec for each activity.
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Just to make it clear what Iâm thinking on how affix balance is achievable by denying it on certain slots, consider the following breakdown.
Legendary Affixes (only roll on legendary items):
- +1-2 to select talent tree nodes (this includes both passives (roots) and skill rune nodes (branches) - essentially this gives you extra talent points)
- +1-2 stacking
- +duration on defensive skills
- +1-2 pierce
- +1-2 chains
- +1-2 projectiles
- +x% skill echo (chance to recast for free a 50% version of the spell cast)
- +1-2 split on hit or forking (split means a single fireball could split into two fireballs after hitting an enemy)
- +convert %phys to elemental
- +convert %elemental to phys
- +resource shield (uses your resource as a shield against your health)
- +aoe skill radius and duration
- +3-4 sockets (these should be rare because they make the rune system Iâve described potentially very potent)
- corrupted (adds +1-2 extra affixes) (I think there should be some legendaries that donât get the stronger legendary affixes above but can break the rules for how many affixes are on an item. This would be rare but would give the ability to basically have 6 or 7 affix legendaries. Corrupted items cannot be modified later through crafting so you are at the mercy of the roll.)
*Ethereal (increases all stats on the item by a %). These are the items that will be basically really rare well-rolled rares but could break the normal limits of what those rares could roll. Imagine you have a rare that have 5 awesome affixes that are all tier 1 or tier 2. An ethereal version of that item would be a legendary item that might have +35% to lightning res in a slot when usually the highest it can roll is +30%. This should be a rare legendary affix, but could potentially be best in slot endgame for some builds.
These legendary affixes can stack, so you could have +6 to projectiles if you really wanted that for a skill that supports it. Nothing on this list is class locked - we are leaving class specific itemization to the talent tree and some base affixes like +skills.
Base Affixes (on every slot):
- +str, +dex, +int, +willpower
- +life
- +resource
- life regen
- life steal
- +resource regen
- +resource steal
- life on hit
- life on kill
- resource on hit
- resource on kill
- +1-2 for a specific skill (like +2 meteor - need this to be a base affix to support the skill rank system Iâve described to have progression beyond +20 skill points really matter)
- +1-2 sockets
- +single damage type resists
- +max resists
- +gold find %
- +magic find %
- +radius to gold and consumable pickup
- +light radius
- +attack rating
- +defense rating
Can Only Roll on Weapons, Jewelry, Gloves
- +flat elemental dmg added
- +flat physical dmg added
- on hit effects
- +% attack speed
- +% dmg for a specific spell skill
- +% dmg for a specific attack skill
- +% crit
- +% crit dmg
Can Only Roll on Helm, Chest, Pants, Belt, Boots, Shields
- +all resist
- +% movement speed (not just on boots please)
- +% aliment duration decrease (freeze, stun, poison, etcâŚ)
- +% control duration bonus (makes your cc skills last longer)
- +cooldown reduction
- +reduce resource costs
- +% dodge
- +% block
- +% phasing
- +thorns
Iâm sure Iâm leaving out some obvious affixes, but this gives a better view of the system Iâm advocating for. One quick word about gems (we discussed runes earlier). Iâd like to see gems remain only for main stat to help you make stat thresholds for bonus effects in the talent tree like the showed in the December quarterly update. Skulls are the exception as they are a cheat death mechanic (the only one in the game).
Ruby +strength
Emerald +dex
Diamond +willpower
Topaz +int
Skull +% chance to res with full life upon death (low chance, like 1%)
Amethyst +str & +dex
Garnet +str & +willpower
Amber +str & +int
Opal +dex & +int
Sapphire +dex & +willpower
Quartz +int & +willpower
I disagree. In your example the difference of 30 secs makes those builds virtually the same. Both would most likely be in the same tier ranking. And both considered viable by the community.
However, if the faster one was top tier and the slightly slower one was the tier below, the majority wouldnât give it a shot, even though both are totally viable. We see this with D3 already, and Iâll guarantee the build diversity on the leaderboards in D2 is much less diverse than it was 10 years ago.
The majority arenât looking for creative ways to play. They want to copy whatâs considered the best, fastest, or most efficient for farming gold, exp, or something else.
The way I see it is 10% that are the bleeding edge of progression, tops on the boards, and generally best skilled players all around. They are usually doing the theory crafting sometimes are the ones pushing themselves with less efficient builds to test there mettle.
Then you have 10% that like making builds, finding skills and stuff that go good together, or making complex and weird builds. There some overlap with the first group.
Then we have the rest of the playerbase. The 80% who donât really want to do a lot of trial and error because they donât like it, they donât have time, or they just want to have fun and following somone elseâs template allows them to do it easier. They donât really care about leaderboards, they just want the best bang for their buck. These are the people that will see what could be two really good builds, but A is faster than B so they will take A. That is why it looks like there are less builds when in reality there are tons to be had. But only 20% or less play them.
Kilo is right. The majority flock to what is listed at the top. Not second tier or below, even though those are still totally viable. But weâve had about 200 different builds that stray from the norm in the CRs.
I blame the players. D3, and so far, D4 has plenty if opportunity for a wide variety of builds. Itâs the players that insist they have to use the top theory crafted builds and nothing else.
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You are right if there is only one viable way to play the endgame, but if the endgame for D4 is designed from the ground up to have various play modes where some builds excel in one thing but not in another, then this will help to alleviate the problem that like you said players often create for themselves. The developers should definitely be aware of us needing to be saved from ourselves on this particular front.
There is more than one way to play the end game in D3. But then personal preference is always overlooked in favor of fastest time in the highest GR mentality. I mean I finally crossed GR100 last or 2 seasons ago. I have never bothered to look at what a top tier build is, copy it, and what not.
I might have to challenge this assertion. You can do bounties, but the only reason to do that is crafting which is not endgame viable with the exception of Kanaiâs cube mats and that doesnât take very long to complete. Once Kanaiâs is mostly filled, I canât think of a single endgame activity in D3 that isnât rift pushing. What activities are there? - maybe seasonal challenges?
If D4 had a garrison/siege system at endgame which stresses your ability to defend multiple parts of your garrison that caters to builds with a ton of mobility. Keyed dungeons if not timed and made sufficiently hard with varying affixes would not have any single builds dominate if the affixes they design for the dungeon penalize builds in some way. Maybe one keyed dungeon slows all players by 40% - then all of a sudden the player whose build depends significantly on movement is at a big disadvantage. If D4 endgame had a rogue like dungeon with its own skill/build progression then it wouldnât matter what build you had for that and would be most attractive to that 80% you mentioned. If D4 endgame crafting was based on bounties and camps and endgame crafting was attractive your build wouldnât really matter there either since presumably alot of that is occurring in the shared world and world bosses which arenât solo and require specific builds to succeed. Itâs the preponderance of all these endagme activities that would make that 80% closer to 95% of the player base in that it closes the need for even high end players to have a specific build.
I know there is really only one activity. There are more than one way to approach them
I give no cares about being on the leader boards, finishing a GR150, or doing anything as fast as possible. Therefore all of my various 40 some builds for 3 classes are all viable.