As sayed.
The Problem is not if you have to do an Adjustment frome time to time.
but if you, as Shadout mentioned, hammer everything down as soon as a new Idea arises 
Pretty sure you can give the answer yourself.
As sayed.
Adjustments are needed from time to time 
But not permanently
No Players likes them and if you do them too often, they will just leave your Game.
Maybe I missed something but you were arguing against nerfs but are saying they are necessary. Nerfs are permanent unless the over nerf something to be under performing. So Iâm not sure what you meant by that.
Yep, Iâm not saying I love the combat style, but the deep customization and general approach to balance I dig.
Well, they can look at more than D2, for starters. Looking entirely backward at only your own companyâs games is a recipe for failure.
Grim Dawn does a very good job of allowing builds to work without specific items. Specific items are still made for builds, and theyâre still desirable, but the build can function just fine without it. For example, I can make a Primal Strike 2h Shaman/Warrior and do damn well even if I donât have the 2h Axe that gives +3 to Primal Strike. And while there are sets that enhance certain skills and such, itâs not like D3 where you might need the 6p set bonus before you even start using the skill that the set is based around. I can use Grim Dawnâs version of Magic Missile pretty much immediately, and itâll remain effective even if I donât see any of the set for a long time.
Even though PoE has problems, that game also avoids the reliance on sets⌠there arenât really any sets. Though many builds do rely on specific item combinations to get themselves off the ground. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you provide reasonable accessibility to the items in question (which is arguably where PoE drops the ball).
Actually, D3 is pretty good at breaking the mold. I mean, the basic premise of D3 is âpress button to use resource, press other button to gain resource back.â However, almost no endgame builds really follow that premise anymore. Most of them break the resource system by either providing unlimited resources via another method or bypassing the resource system entirely.
The problem is, of course, that items are doing that job entirely by themselves. Thereâs no other system that provides a thought process to reach that point. Nor are you really allowed to experiment with anything because all your item slots are locked up.
Tangentially, I will say Iâm disappointed by the amount of item slots in D4. I wanted more of them so that players have more room to experiment. D3âs system is entirely too rigid with 6-7 piece sets taking up half your available slots. D4âs sets arenât going to have that many slots, but still.
This is always going to be true. Thereâs always going to be a most efficient way to do something. Where D3 failed and where D4 needs to succeed is making it so that NOT using the META can be reasonably effective. in D3, not doing so may mean youâre cutting your damage by orders of magnitude. D4 needs to get builds to cluster much closer together in terms of performance. They can do that by actually setting a benchmark. D3 didnât have a benchmark, except for âoh, letâs raise the damage higher than it was with this new item/set/feature, and leave everything else behind.â
Doesnât that do the opposite of what you want? You wanted the skill system to make builds work, but if you can just stack skill rank on items, then itâs the items doing it. Especially if youâre providing bonuses for skill ranks that are otherwise unobtainable except by using +skill items.
Doesnât your +skill system suggestion do exactly this?
I donât see a problem with an affix like this as long as itâs limited. Say you can only equip one +40% damage modifier at a time. Besides, a mere damage increase like this shouldnât make or break the build, and if it does you can lower it and bring up the damage in other areas. A lot of the reliance on D3âs sets is because the sets usually change the way something works along with astronomic damage increases.
Yeah, I lean the other way on this. Make everything feel underpowered initially and slowly trickle power gains into the game to find the sweet spot. That would be my approach at least. I kind of think that was the D3 approach at launch, but they didnât trickle in power gain over time, they Niagra Falls it in there.
What do you define as the meta? Is it the top S tier builds only? Top 2 tiers? The builds/classes being used to farm paragon in groups? Iâd like to know what you define as the meta?
Indeed.
This I very much disagree with though. Balance is just as important in single player games. And when I speak about balance that is generally what I am talking about. As I donât really care about multiplayer and competition.
Honestly the issues of âBuffs onlyâ is in some ways a larger problem in single player PvE than in PvP or PcE competition.
If you buff all players in PvP the end result might be unchanged. But when you buff players in PvE the unmentioned part usually is that you didnât buff the monsters we are fighting. Which is what creates the problems.
Which is also the one issue with the video Kilometer linked. I agree with the video and it is very much making my argument, such as more balance being useless if it comes at the cost of less gameplay choices, but the video is also 100% focused on PvP, so while I agree with the guy, it is not entirely applicable to Diablo.
Yeah. And a game dev needs to be able to look past the guaranteed crying that comes from nerfs, and focus on what is better for the game, and the players, long term. (We might all disagree on what is better of course, so the point just is the devs should not be afraid of players crying about a nerf they feel is needed).
Only if those ideas are overpowered.
And again, nerfing them doesnât remove those new ideas. Merely brings them in line with the rest of the game. The new build would still exist.
Yeah. Grim Dawn is by no means perfect, but itâs itemization is among the best this genre has to offer.
Also they very much use the frequent small nerfs I mentioned earlier. Take a look on some of their patch notes. It is crazy. And awesome.
Yeah.
What Iâm alluding to there is the designers should have their items in mind when they create builds. There should be some builds that scale well off crit, some that scale well off attack speed, some that scale well off dot stacking, some that scale well off +projectiles, some that scale well off cooldown reduction ⌠that way not everyone is looking for the exact same stats on their gear. That gets boring. The same should be true of effective health. Some builds should really want life, others really want defense, others block, others dodge, etc⌠That kind of itemization diversity among the builds was completely lost in D3 because almost every build scaled the same way - CDR + CRIT + CRHD + AS, and you could reliably get most of those on a single piece in every slot.
If D4 could just fix that and interject more build diversity than D3 had it will be a really solid game.
I see that differently. You invest 20 points in a skill, the build that revolves around that skill will work decently well even if you donât pick good items to go with it, but if you then add good itemization to the mix you can really refine exactly what you want the skill to become. I also just really like the gameplay involved with itemization breakpoints and choosing which skills to super-invest into and I think the +skills rank system accomplishes that better than any other itemization style Iâve seen. I get super excited about the prospects of a skill rank system with their bonus stat thresholds theyâve announced. To me that is a perfect sweet spot of mad scientist itemization that I adore in these kinds of games.
I get the fear for that, but they are only designing bonuses and not the set items themselves so the development cost for designing the system is much lower. Also, because they are simply bonuses, they donât have to be outrageous. Iâm thinking they improve a build by 10% at most and the bonuses I would shoot for are heavily thematic and utility based.
You could also have set bonuses that are specific to in-game activities, so players might want to create a gear set for keyed dungeons with a certain set bonus on them and another one for garrison/siege style gameplay, and another one for PVP. I really think this system lessens the burden that is set items while retaining their fun. If balanced correctly so the bonuses werenât build defining I see it as a carrot to chase at endgame and because of how itâs designed there could be 50 to choose from rather than 5.
If you had a 4 piece set that did the following:
Cainâs Revenge
2 piece bonus: Every time the player identifies an item they receive a buff which stacks and last for a total of x seconds.
4 piece bonus: While above x stacks the player occasionally summons a tornado of books and tomes. Enemies hit by the tornado are rooted and silenced and must âstay a while and listen.â
Another one:
6 piece set:
Tal Rashaâs Indifference
2 piece bonus - Lightning damage is increased by your strength.
4 piece bonus - Cold damage is increased by your dexterity.
6 piece bonus - Fire damage is increased by your willpower.
This has nothing to do with defining a build but gives interesting gameplay - identifying items can help you maintain a buff. Do you keep a bunch of items on hand to increase uptime, or do you do a small item finding run before a bigger run where you care about having the buff. These sorts of interesting niche utility/flavor things are the space I see this system inhabiting. Fun to get and play with, can increase power a little, but in no way mandatory.
If you read the outcomes of unveiling an item there can be drawbacks. You could remove affixes or corrupt the item, but it is a proposal for an endgame crafting system, which I think should place items at risk - kind of like Last Epochâs instability and fracture system.
They are needed if something pops up.
Take the Monk as Exampel
Serenity was doing fine, for the longest Time.
Up until the Point, where we were able to have it up 100% of the Time.
So came the Nerf or the Restriction into play, that the Cooldown starts after the Effekt expired, instead upon activation 
Some Nerfs need to be done, to keep the Game itself playable.
That is a good thing.
As kinda bad Exampel - The Warrior in WoW for the longest Time
Do you remember the Joke about the Plate-Rogue ?
A Baby-Warrior, while lveling or someone who reched the max lvl, had always gigentic Rage-Issius.
Every Addon was the same.
You where the lowest in the Food-Chain ⌠Until the very End of the Expension and when you were able to gain exces to the highend raidgear.
It was not possible to get them back under control.
Warrior wearing Lether-Gear, wich was meant for Druids and Rogues, instead of Plate-Armor and after a specific Breakpoint, the once Rageless Warrior became the fearless Beast in total Fury with unlimeted âHeroic Striksâ
Speaking of which; every single skill with a duration should work like this in D4. Cooldown starting after the effect expires.
Would have solved a lot of D3s CDR issues.
There is no valid reason a temporary buff should have 100% uptime.
So kind of filtering through all the feedback so far on this thread - Iâve enjoyed the conversations so far - this is kind of where things stand for me in regards to the design space for each item type in the game. Feel free to critique it or suggest alternatives.
White Items - Make valuable at endgame by providing a hook into crafting where white items can roll with base sockets and can be used in an imbue type system.
Blue Items - Make valuable at endgame by having the highest possible affix rolls on any one affix, but limiting the total number of affix slots available to them. Can be unveiled for set bonuses. Can roll up to 3 affixes.
Rare Items - Make valuable at endgame by having the most ability to produce generally useful base affixes. Can be unveiled for set bonuses. Can roll up to six affixes, though six affix rares are very rare.
Legendary Items - Can roll 4 affixes and a legendary affix. Legendary affixes cannot stack and should not buff single skills for single classes. Legendary affixes are the only source of +all skills modifiers (except perhaps Uniques). Can be unveiled for set bonuses.
Unique Items - Go crazy. Make them build around items, but limit us to having only one equipped so that we have to make a choice about which unique we build around. They can break any and all itemization rules. Can be unveiled for set bonuses.
Set Items - No longer items but bonuses unveiled on items via the artificer artisan.
Potions - Two types of potions/flasks with mulitple charges. One for health recovery and one for resource recovery. Or better yet, add an alchemist artisan to the game that lets us use materials in the world to craft our own flasks with broad utility but no direct power so we donât have to focus on keeping up a buff.
Runes - Condition and Effect system with up to 4 sockets in an item so you have more space to explore creating custom on hit, on crit, on stun, etc⌠type of set ups.
Gems - Modify base stats only to help you more easily make certain stat point thresholds for skill rune unlocking.
Relics - Droppable lore items that have value if sold for gold, are collectible (so find a bunch of them to complete your collection), can be disenchanted for endgame artificer crafting.
Crafting Consumables - Can drop like in D3, but also can be obtained from salvaging / bounties /etc⌠- useful in crafting from blacksmith. Some uniques can be crafted via the blacksmith as can some legendary affixes, but the best will always be found in game.
Jewels - havenât found a design space for these yet, though if they come back just like they were in D2 I wouldnât mind it. I suppose they make sockets more controllable affixes for players, but compete against main stat from gems and on hit, crit setups from runes.
You could also make some wicked cube recipes from combinations of all these things. The more diversity in what drops in a loot game the better.
Iâd say no to crafting gear of any sort to begin with. Make whites salvageable for crafting mats, but crafting should be for pots, enhancements, and maybe runes and gems.
Agree with the other rarities other than allowing sets. Unless the set is a 2-3 item set that doesnât do much other than some flavor like run speed or something fun. No power.
Potions. 1 use and a CD. Looks like wee will be stacking pots but not spamming them. So you can have health that does the normal % of healing or a rejuv that does less but adds resource.
Iâd go up to 6 rune sockets on items and leave gem sockets for jewelery and weapons. Maybe 1 per ring and neck, and 3 for weapons. Back to runes, they can be 6 all linked, or 3 pairs of doubles, 2 pairs of triples, or a double and a quadruple. always at least one link.
No stats from gems. Make them all elemental?physical resistances or additives. Resistances on rings and necks, elemental damage on weapons. Can even have interesting combinations like if you combine a a fire gem and a frost gem you now can apply frost fire damage giving your attacks a chance to do a small amount of fire AoE or apply stacks of slow that could eventually freeze an enemy. a fire gem or an ice gem alone would only do a small amount of fire or ice damage alone.
I strongly disagree
Crafting can be fun and even with a low probability, it should be able to craft items, that are able to rival even the best gear possible to find in high-dungeons.
Unless they change their design for item sizes in the inventory theyâd need a separate socket interface for six socketed items. Even at 4 sockets, theyâd need to slightly widen their item icons and inventory slots. Iâm really in the dark on their plans for socketing because it seems so limited at this point.
Yeah, agree. While it seems logical to have attributes on gems, it kinda also takes away from the (stated by Blizzard, on which I agree) goal of attributes primarily coming from lvls and not gear.
And agreed on not crafting items, only enchancing them.
6 runes sounds like risking too much effect spam. Would not go above 4 links.
Joa.
I could live with this
Iâm assuming you mean crafting an item from scratch using consumables like in D3. I wouldnât be sorry to see it go personally, but I do like the artisan system. I wonder what everyone thinks about the blacksmith not being able to craft items, but fortify them ala item quality.
There are two ways to take item quality. You have the POE system of 1%-20% which in D4 terms would slightly increase the attack/defense of any item and that items implicits. So basically items drop in the real world with percent qualities and you can use consumables to max out an itemâs quality you really like at the blacksmith.
The other way to handle item quality is have item quality tied to the mods that item is allowed to roll. So you could take a white item you find in the world to the blacksmith and up the item quality on it, then imbue it so it rolls potentially higher stats. Or you could take a rare item that drops and up its quality and have the blacksmith be able to lock one affix and reroll all the others at a higher potential roll tier once youâve upped the item quality.
Iâm curious if either of those seems like a better crafting space for the blacksmith to inhabit.
And ther is a third options, even thought legendarys and sets wont get to show off in d4, as by now.
and thts by stacking same legendarys, to upgrade them.
given a normal set item in d3
this would mean. each time you find the same bracers, boots or what ever.
you could use a crafting method or recip, that you can merge them together.
alowing you curent item to gain a few more stats, armor or base weapon-dmg
the more you play, find and invest into the game, the stronger your charakter can become
How does a system like this work if the two legendaries have different affixes? Does one legendary stay static and the other gets absorbed? Iâm not sure Iâve seen this system in a game before, but I donât mind it. I just think if you canât craft items from scratch the blacksmith needs a niche and item quality enhancement would make sense as that niche.